Unruhe

"Unruhe"
The X-Files episode

A psychic photograph
Episode no. Season 4
Episode 4
Directed by Rob Bowman
Written by Vince Gilligan
Production code 4X02
Original air date October 27, 1996
Guest stars
  • Pruitt Taylor Vince as Gerry Schnauz
  • Sharon Alexander as Mary Lefante
  • Scott Heindl as Boyfriend
  • Walter Marsh as Druggist
  • Angela Donahue as Alice Brandt
  • William MacDonald as Officer Trott
  • Ron Chartier as Postal Inspector Puett
  • Bob Dawson as Iskenderian
  • Michael Cram as Officer Corning
  • Christopher Royal as Photo Tech
  • Michele Melland as ER Doctor
  • John D. Sampson as Second Cop
Episode chronology
โ† Previous
"Teliko"
Next โ†’
"The Field Where I Died"
List of season 4 episodes
List of The X-Files episodes

"Unruhe" is the fourth episode of the fourth season of The X-Files television series. It was the first episode to air on Sunday night when the show was moved from Fridays to Sundays. "Unruhe" features a man who kidnaps women and lobotomizes them. The agents' only clues to catching him are distorted photos of the victims taken just before their kidnapping.

Contents

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Plot

In Traverse City, Michigan, a young woman, Mary Lefante, goes to a local pharmacy to get her passport photo taken. While waiting for it to develop, she returns to her car and finds that her boyfriend has been murdered. The hooded killer renders Lefante unconscious with a hypodermic needle, then kidnaps her. Meanwhile, in the pharmacy, the elderly clerk discovers Lefante's developed photo, showing her screaming amidst a distorted background.

FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully join the case. The boyfriend was found to have died by having something long and sharp pushed into his ear. When discussing the photograph, Mulder tells Scully about Ted Serios, who was famous for taking "thoughtographs", photos which showed what was in his mind. Mulder takes pictures using a camera found in Lefante's apartment, and they all appear the same as the one from the pharmacy. Mulder thinks whoever kidnapped Lefante has been stalking her nearby.

Lefante turns up alive, but appears to have been given an improperly-performed transorbital lobotomy through the eyes. Another woman, Alice Brandt, is kidnapped. She wakes up bound in a dentist's chair with her kidnapper brandishing an ice pick and speaking in German. Mulder returns to Washington, D.C. to examine the photos and finds no evidence that they were doctored. By closely examining the photos, he finds the face of an old man as well as the shadow of the kidnapper.

Scully, finding a construction company referenced at both crime scenes, investigates the possible lead. She meets a man named Gerry Schnauz, who worked near both scenes of the kidnapping. When Mulder calls Scully, telling her that the kidnapper's legs were out of proportion in the photo, Schnauz, who is on stilts, runs. Scully pursues Schauz and captures him. The agents interrogate Schnauz, who was once institutionalized for beating his fatherโ€”the old man in the photoโ€”with an axe handle. Schnauz initially denies committing any crimes. However, when questioned on the location of Brandt, Schnauz claims she is safe from the "howlers". Brandt is soon found in the woods, lobotomized. Mulder believes that Schnauz thinks he is rescuing his victims from howlers and that the photos show his nightmares.

A police officer takes Schnauz's mugshot. However, when it develops, it shows the officer shot through the head. Schnauz manages to kill the officer seconds later and escapes, although the death is completely different than that shown in the photo. Schnauz robs a nearby drug store, taking cameras, film, and an assortment of drug-related materials. When Scully leaves, she passes out after being pricked by a needle by Schnauz, who is hiding beneath her car. Examining a photo of Scully taken in the drug store, Mulder finds it distorted like the other photos.

Mulder heads to the office where Schnauz's father used to work as a dentist, and finds the chair missing. Scully awakens bound to the chair with Schnauz claiming he's going to kill the howlers in her head, and attempts to reason with him and explain that the howlers are products of his mental illness. Schnauz takes a photo of himself, then prepares to lobotomize Scully. Mulder, having found a clue in the photo of Scully from the drugstore, finds a trailer in a cemetery and realizes it belongs to Schnauz. He manages to break in and shoot Schnauz in the nick of time. Mulder looks at the photo Schnauz took, in which he is lying dead on the floor.[1]

Production

Writer Vince Gilligan was inspired to write the episode based on Time-Life mail order books he read as a child discussing the lives of serial killers.[2] One of the books featured Howard Unruh, the first modern mass murderer.[2] The episode was also inspired by Ted Serios, whose thought-photographs were mentioned by Fox Mulder in the episode.[2] The use of the dentist chair where Schnauz sat his victims was included considering people's common fear of the dentist.[2] Gilligan had written the role of Schnauz with Pruitt Taylor Vince in mind when he saw him in the Adrian Lyne film Jacob's Ladder.[2] Vince had been approached to be a guest star on the show in the first season but declined the role due to it being too small.[2] Most of the scenes featuring Schnauz on plasterer's stilts were shot using stuntmen.[2] In the scene where Scully meets Schnauz using them a safety cable was attached to Vince to keep him upright that was edited out in post-production.[2] Ken Hawryliw created the lobotomy instrument Schnauz used from scratch when he was unsuccessful with his attempts to borrow one from a doctor or hospital.[2]

This episode was the first episode in the series that was broadcast out of order in the series' production schedule. Once the producers of the show knew that they would be moving to Sundays starting with the fourth episode of the season, they decided to push this episode back, feeling that it would be an excellent representative of the show for its first Sunday night episode and a better representative than the fourth episode of the season filmed, "Teliko".[2]

The title of the episode, "Unruhe", is the German word for "unrest" or "anxiety". When Scully talks in German to Schnauz, she says "Ich habe keine Unruhe" (literally "I do not have anxiety").

Reception

This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 11.7, with a 18 share. It was viewed by 19.10 million people.[3]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Meisler,Andy (1998). I Want to Believe: The Official Guide to the X-Files Volume 3. Harper Prism. pp. 29โ€“36. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Meisler,Andy (1998). I Want to Believe: The Official Guide to the X-Files Volume 3. Harper Prism. pp. 36โ€“37. 
  3. ^ Meisler,Andy (1998). I Want to Believe: The Official Guide to the X-Files Volume 3. Harper Prism. p. 298. 

External links