“Mulder and Scully join forces with an inspector from Scotland Yard when a man with pyrokinetic powers stalks members of the British aristocracy.“
How about that for a premise? Crazy stuff! Isn’t London outside of the jurisdiction of the American FBI? Why is this happening?
70 MILES SOUTHWEST OF LONDON in BOSHAM, ENGLAND, a regular snooty snoot walks to his chauffeured car and passes by a bunch of his house staff. One in particular looks kind of like Satan, and he stares with a smirk as this snooty snoot’s arm suddenly catches fire. The flames engulf him pretty much like this: fails to snap fingers very well. Spontaneous human combustion. I look forward to the tall tales Mulder has up his sleeve and/or in his pants.
After a busy day of sitting court, Mulder and Scully return to their car and find a cassette tape sitting on his dashboard waiting for him. It’s a hilarious prank where a British voice tells them their car will blow up if they try to open the door! It’s an old friend named Phoebe from Oxford School of Hard Knocks and British Talks. They kiss and Scully rolls her eyes, wishing she could get a piece of the action.
Move over, Scully. Someone is here to compete, and she’s fuckin’ BRITISH! Hoo boy!
Phoebe brings gruesome photos of charred bodies. It seems that — hold on, let me check the description — a man with pyrokinetic powers is stalking members of the British aristocracy! He likes to set fire to his victims, the most recent victim a member of parliament. Phoebe thought of Fox Mulder immediately because he’s into some really weird shit.
Scully makes a note, after Phoebe leaves the room, that she pretty much slobbered Mulder’s knob in front of her. Jealous much? Do you want your knob slobbered, Scully?
“I was merely extending her a professional courtesy?” Mulder defends himself.
“Is that what you were extending?”
Later, Mulder and Phoebe take their case to the forensics lab where the scientist fondles the projection screen. A work of art, these fires! 1400 – 1500 degrees Fahrenheit! Hot stuff, baby. “People don’t normally catch on fire,” he comments astutely. Surely there should be something to serve as a flammable source? Gasoline? Acetone? Mulder’s sexual energy? This scientist guy continues to get fully erect at the thought of fire, describing it’s beautiful properties. As if it has a mind of its own, hmmmm, oh yes. And, honestly, only rocket fuel can get hot enough to burn away any evidence of itself and leave no residue.
You see, my research has shown me that fire can get hot when it burns.
Elsewhere, Cape Cod to be exact, the Fire Man has killed the caretaker of a house and greets a rich-ass family to the abode. He’s painting the house with rocket fuel, which isn’t like paint at all and I wouldn’t advise using it to… oh… OHHH… ok, I see what he’s doing! Sneaky sneaky!
Mulder talks to Scully later and allows her to remove herself from the case if she wishes. He admits that he’s terrified of fire and that Phoebe popped up after ten years to play a mind game with him. Why this means he doesn’t want Scully on the case, I have no idea. Perhaps he doesn’t want her to see him go “NNNGGGHH!! NAAAGGHHH!! NNNNNAAAAGGGHHHH!!” whenever he sees a lit match. I think she would like to see that. I’d like to see that.
Fire Man goes to a bar, where he’s a complete creep to a woman trying to hit on him. Then he sets the bar on fire for no readily apparent reason, driving the clientele out. 100,000,000 people were killed in the flames!
♫ ♬ Burn, Baby, Burn ♫ ♪ ♫
Mulder visits the woman in the hospital, who comments on the Fire Man’s “magic trick” of lighting his finger. Like out of thin air! Like pyrokinetics! Like someone who will burn a motherfucker alive just to watch him scream and die! And he was English! We have a lead! Mulder and Phoebe take a few minutes to dredge up old baggage, and I’ll skip that shit because not even God cares about that nonsense.
The Cape Cod family’s driver, who started off slightly sick, keeps getting sicker and sicker. Fire Man poisoned his cough syrup. This may be important later (no).
Scully tap tap taps on her computer about the current suspect’s profile. Arsonists tend to light fires to quell latent sexual urges! I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather fuck than set fires. I know some of you don’t, but if you’re reading my blog, then thank you. I don’t discriminate!
Fire Man is painting a swing set with delicious rocket fuel, then takes a quick break by calling the family’s kids over to show them his “magic trick”. After zipping his pants back up, he performs tricks with a cigarette that really sends these kids into a giggling frenzy! It’s actually quite nice. He has a way with kids and this show has officially endeared me to him.
Oi, I’m knackered I am, but the fire man has really rousted me, he has! Bollocks!
Scully visits the forensics scientist and tries to get more information out of him. She wonders if any of this rocket fuel may have been added into a lotion or a cream, perhaps a balm or an ointment? Or, um, paint? The sweaty and horny pyrotechnics expert claims that it is possible. Especially the part about the paint; Scully may want to look into that.
After trying to get the kids to smoke his cigarettes, their mother shows up to ask Fire Man to drive them into Boston for a lavish, aristocratic event. It seems their driver has become incapacitated from too much poisoned cough syrup, the rascal! Fire Man accepts. Antics will surely ensue.
Phoebe catches wind of this lavish, aristocratic event. She and Mulder intend to fly to Boston to attend this party and, as Mulder says, “set a trap”. I’m imagining a giant mousetrap. I hope this guy really likes his cheese.
Scully calls Mulder in Boston with more info about the arsonist. She wants to meet him up there, but Mulder is like “ahem, cough cough, uhh…I’d rather you wouldn’t, I’m with a lady I want to bone, please.” Mulder dresses in a tuxedo that’s way too big for him. He looks at the sexy Phoebe with hunger in his sex-addict eyeballs. No sign of the arsonist yet, but a fire’s a-brewin’ anyway in the loins of various parties at the event tonight.
Guess who shows up to the hotel after all? Why, it’s none other than Special Agent Dana Scully who catches these two lovebirds totally macking on each other in the middle of a hallway. Less than tubular.
I call this one the Jitterbug.
Scully’s jealous, but he attention is quickly taken away from them by a blinking smoke alarm light for the 14th floor. Time to boogie, that’s where the children are! Those kids and their damned cigarettes!
The 14th floor is already loaded with smoke and flames, and Mulder is coughing and crying like a scared little baby. All collapsing to the floor, crawling around and hyperventilating. Very undignified from a man in an oversized tux. Instead of putting out the fire and helping the children, the firefighters have to save his decrepit ass. They even give him an oxygen tank. It’s embarrassing.
I LOST MY CONTACT LENS
Mulder rests shirtless in his hotel bed. Scully, with scorn, asks him what happened up on the 14th floor? He says he panicked. I don’t know what he was doing up there if he knew he couldn’t handle it. Stick with aliens, sir.
Phoebe enters the hotel room to tell Mulder and Scully that the Cape Cod family have made arrangements to return to England. She’s going to return to England too; she knows when she’s not wanted anymore. After she leaves, Scully takes this opportunity to finally tell Mulder her info, which includes a page of flammable materials that anyone can find on Google in three seconds, a full list of staff that had been or ever were working with the any of the snooty snoots that the arsonist had killed, plus a recipe for five-alarm chili.
Not a single repeat name in the staff list…except one: Cecil L’Ively. A model citizen… until his death in 1971 in a fire. Scully looked this name up further and discovered the name among a list of children sacrificed by fire in a Satanic cult in 1963. The name also popped up on a passport stamped by officials at the Boston airport. WE HAVE A WINNER. Mulder forgets that he inhaled a roomful of smoke and starts cavorting around the room. The driver! The driver!
This is the part of the episode where Mulder has to frantically save the day before it’s too late and before Scully shows up. He finds Phoebe and tells him to find Cecil L’Ively, the driver, and get the family out of Boston ASAP. Mulder finds a a paint can of argotypoline at the house, which isn’t even a real substance! I’m guessing the X-Files producers didn’t want any prospective arsonists to get any funny ideas from their show.
L’Ively has taken the kids upstairs. When Mulder goes up to try and capture L’Ively, he sets fire to the hallways and Mulder begins a whole new round of smoke inhalation and scaredy-pants flailing.
These Holiday Inns suck. They’re always on fire.
Now it’s Scully’s turn to stop him. In what is now a trademark, Scully pulls out a gun and aims. Phoebe throws the contents of the argotypoline can at L’Ively while he’s distracted and he runs out of the house coughing and sputtering. Mulder ends up saving the children and running out of the house before anything bad happens. The house is suddenly not on fire anymore, and L’Ively suddenly burns to a crisp out on the lawn in what I like to call a “fucking plot hole”. Case closed!
In the aftermath, Phoebe has fled town knowing that Mulder is sick of her games. Plus, she probably feels bad for endangering his life. Oh well.
L’Ively was admitted to the hospital covered in fifth and sixth degree burns. He remains alive, which is a medical marvel. Healing very fast, like he thrives on burns and heat. In the burn ward, looking all fucked up, he smiles and asks the orderly for a cigarette.
Dude looks like a TV dinner.
Next Time on the X-Files
Season 1, Episode 13 — “Beyond the Sea”
Mulder puts on a child’s mermaid costume and playfully leaps around the beach. Scully tries to stop him with her gun and then throws a can of argotypoline at his face.
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