| "Fearful Symmetry" | |||
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| The X-Files episode | |||
Ganesha on the loose. |
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| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 18 |
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| Directed by | James Whitmore, Jr. | ||
| Written by | Steve De Jarnatt | ||
| Production code | 2X18 | ||
| Original air date | February 24, 1995 | ||
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of season 2 episodes List of The X-Files episodes |
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"Fearful Symmetry" is the eighteenth episode of the second season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It aired on Fox on February 24, 1995. The episode won an EMA Award for its environmental message.[1]
Contents |
In Fairfield, Idaho, two janitors witness an invisible force storm down a city street, shattering windows and crushing cars. A road worker is later killed by the force on the highway. The next day, an elephant suddenly materializes in front of an oncoming big rig. The driver manages to stop in time, but the elephant soon collapses and dies, over forty miles away from where it disappeared the night before, at the Fairfield Zoo.
Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate, surveying the damage in the city, which appears to have been caused by an elephant, though none was seen. They speak to Ed Meecham, an animal handler at the zoo, who recounts how he came to the elephant's locked cage to find it empty. His boss, Willa Ambrose, tells the agents that the zoo is in danger of closing due to other animal disappearances. She blames the zoo's decline on an animal rights group called the Wild Again Organization, which is known to free captive animals. The agents visit WAO leader Kyle Lang, who denies that his group set the elephant free. Lang tells them that Ambrose is being sued by the Malawi government over a lowland gorilla she took from their country ten years prior.
Mulder speaks with Frohike and Byers via satellite. They say that Fairfield is known for its animal disappearances and UFO sightings. They also mention Ambrose's gorilla, who is known to communicate using American Sign Language. Meanwhile, Scully follows a WAO activist as he sneaks into the zoo, running into Meecham inside. The activist attempts to free a tiger, but after a flash of light, the tiger has seemingly disappeared. The activist is promptly mauled to death, with the killing captured on his night vision camera. When questioned, Lang denies any involvement with the death. Ambrose introduces the agents to the gorilla, named Sophie, who has been cowering in her cage and expresses an apparent fear of light.
Scully performs a necropsy on the elephant, revealing it to be pregnant -- which is impossible, since Ambrose would have known about any attempt to impregnate her, and no animal at the Fairfield Zoo has ever brought a pregnancy to term. The tiger reappears at a Boise construction site, and is shot dead by Meecham when it charges at Ambrose; the zoo is shut down the next day over the incident. Mulder tells Ambrose that the tiger was also pregnant, and explains his theory that aliens are impregnating endangered animals as part of "their own Noah's Ark". Mulder thinks that Sophie is pregnant and afraid of her baby's abduction. Sophie confirms Mulder's suspicions when she makes signs for "baby go fly light".
Sheriff's deputies order Ambrose to release Sophie into protective custody, causing Ambrose to seek help from Lang -- revealed to be her old boyfriend -- but he says Sophie should be released into the wild. Lang later goes to the see Ambrose at the warehouse where Sophie is being prepped for shipping, but finds her cage empty. He is then mysteriously killed by a falling crate. Scully finds that Lang was struck with a cattle prod and suspects Ambrose of murdering him, but she claims that Meecham did it when Lang surprised him. Mulder goes to arrest Meecham, who is keeping an angered Sophie at another warehouse near Boise. Meecham claims to have been following Ambrose's orders when he murdered Lang.
Meecham suddenly locks Mulder in Sophie's room, where the enraged gorilla attacks and injures him. A bright light appears and causes Sophie to vanish, but not before she gives Mulder a message in sign language. When Mulder shows the message to Ambrose the next day, she says it means "man save man". Ambrose and the agents are then called to the highway, where Sophie has been struck by a car and killed. Ambrose and Meecham are charged with manslaughter for Lang's death. As the agents leave Idaho, Mulder says through narration that he believes alien conservationists were behind the events in Fairfield.[2][3]
Co-Producer J.P. Finn claimed the hardest part of the episode was getting the elephant, which required a permit to pass the border into Vancouver.[4] He claims the elephant used for the episode, named "Bubbles" was fantastic to work with.[4] There was initially concern from the producers that the elephant wouldn't run towards the truck for the episode's teaser, but the elephant instead loved the truck and the producers had difficulty getting it away from it.[5]
The episode's title comes from a line in the William Blake poem "The Tyger".[5] The fictional construction site where the tiger appears, "Blake Towers", is named after the poet.[5] The elephant's name, "Ganesha" is named after the Hindu God.[3]
This episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.1, with a 17 share and was viewed by 9.6 million households.[6] Author William Gibson, who later wrote two episodes for the show, called the episode one of his favorites of the series.[7]