Original Airdate: November 30, 1997
Episode: 5.05
Written By: Chris Carter
Directed By: Chris Carter
Guest Stars: John O'Hurley (Dr. Pollidori), Pattie Tierce (Shaineh), Stewart Gale (Izzy), Chris Giacoletti (Booger), Miriam Smith (Elizabeth Pollidori), Vitaliy Kravchenko (JJ), Jerry Springer (Himself), Lloyd Berry (Old Man), Xantha Radley (Waitress), Jean-Yves Hammel (Goat Boy), Jonathan Palis (Postal Worker), Dana Grahame (Newspaper Reporter), C. Ernst Harth (Huge Man), Andrew Laurenson (Nerdy Student), Tracey Bell (Cher), Chris Owens (Mutato)
Brief Description
Mulder and Scully investigate the mysterious pregnancy of a woman in a small town obsessed with Jerry Springer and tabloid culture. They find that certain residents claim to have seen a monster called The Great Mutato, and their search for the monster leads them to a genetic researcher and his farmer father.
Summary
The episode opens with a shot of a comic book called The Great Mutato. The cover opens, and we see the black and white first page: a drawing of a house and some trees. The image switches to live action and we see some teenage boys, one of whom is Izzy Berkowitz, trying to get a car to start outside a house. Izzy's mother Shaineh comes out of the house and yells at her son, but then lets the boys leave, shaking her head at the condition of the car.
Later that day, Mrs. Berkowitz is inside watching Jerry Springer when material resembling a circus tent begins to roll down the outside of the house, covering the windows, without her notice. An intruder enters the house. The intruder places something in a frying pan on the stove, and the house begins to fill with smoke. The Cher song, "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)" begins to play. Mrs. Berkowitz mutes the TV and calls out to see if someone's there, but no one answers. She looks up and sees a monstrous face peeking through the door. We see the outside of the house, completely covered with the circus tent material.
Sometime later, we join Mulder and Scully in their car, driving towards the town where Mrs. Berkowitz lives. Scully is reading aloud the letter that Shaineh Berkowitz sent to Mulder asking for help. She claims that after the monster invaded her home, she ended up pregnant; not only that, her older son Izzy was the result of a similar attack 18 years earlier. She also mentions that she got Mulder's name after seeing a woman with a werewolf baby on the Jerry Springer show mention that he visited her house -- at this, Scully looks at Mulder incredulously, and Mulder looks a bit guilty. Mulder jokingly asks if maybe he should get his own 1-900 number, and Scully rolls her eyes.
In the Berkowitz house, Shaineh first asks about the werewolf baby, and then goes over her story for Mulder and Scully, telling them about the previous attack that resulted in Izzy as well as the new attack. Mulder tells Scully that Mrs. Berkowitz had had a tubal ligation two years earlier and therefore her pregnancy shouldn't even be possible. Mrs. Berkowitz then shows the agents some of the evidence of foul play that she's found in the house: a skillet that took two days of scrubbing to clean because of whatever substance was left on it; a completely empty jar of peanut butter; and a ring on her table where someone set a glass down without using a coaster. Scully goes to investigate Izzy's room while Shaineh talks to Mulder. She speculates that what happened to her may have been somehow related to alien abduction, which she says she knows Mulder is an expert on, but Mulder says he doesn't even really think he believes in that anymore. Scully returns from Izzy's room with The Great Mutato comic book, and Shaineh says that Izzy created the character. Just then Izzy arrives home, and the agents ask him how it is that his mother's attacker looks just like this character he created. He says he's seen the monster, too.
Later, after dark, Mulder and Scully go out with Izzy and some of his friends to try and lure the monster out. Izzy uses peanut butter sandwiches as bait. Scully asks Mulder why he's humouring the people, and says she thinks this whole thing is just an example of people who watch too much Jerry Springer and are desperate to get the spotlight for themselves. She says that people make up monsters such as these to personify their shared fears and create a scapegoat to blame bad things on, and that common sense dictates that these stories of monsters can't be true. But Mulder says that the stories are true in the sense that they are believed to be true. Exasperated, Scully asks if there's nothing he won't believe in. Unbeknownst to the agents, this entire exchange is recorded by Izzy Berkowitz.
Suddenly, they hear the noise of a creature moaning. Izzy says it's The Great Mutato, and in the distance they can see a figure taking one of the peanut butter sandwiches. Seeing that he's been spotted, the creature runs away, and everyone chases him. Scully pauses to examine the peanut butter sandwich which the creature left behind and finds a bit mark that does look as though they may have been left by a creature with two mouths. The chase stops when they lose sight of the monster. Mulder spots something up on top of a hill, and everyone looks up only to see an angry old man standing there. The man tells them to get off his property. Scully explains that they were chasing a monster, and the man says he'll tell them where to find a monster.
Switch to a shot of a newspaper with the headline "Professor creates own monsters." Mulder and Scully are now interviewing Dr. Pollidori, the son of the farmer whose land they were on, at his lab. Pollidori tells the agents that he's been working on a breakthrough in genetics. He has discovered that he can alter the development of the fruit fly, resulting in a creation of his own. He shows Mulder and Scully an image of his creation: a fruit fly with legs growing out of its mouth. When Mulder asks if such a mutation could be done on a human, Pollidori says that it could in theory. When Pollidori leaves the lab, Mulder calls him Dr. Frankenstein, but Scully says that a mutation like the one Pollidori described could not be attempted on a human, and even if it could, no scientist would dare to try it. She says that in the morning she will verify Mrs. Berkowitz's pregnancy.
At Pollidori's home, the doctor and his wife Elizabeth are arguing over having a baby. The wife wants one but the husband asks her which she would rather have: a baby or a Nobel Prize. After the doctor leaves for his trip to the University of Ingolstadt, where he is giving a lecture, Elizabeth collapses in tears on the bed. We see the circus tent material rolling down over the window.
The next morning, Mulder enters the town diner for breakfast. All the locals seem extremely pleased to see him, which, Scully reveals when she enters, is because the fact that the F.B.I. is in town searching for the monster has been published in the local newspaper. At this point Mulder and Scully realize that their conversation was recorded, so they go to the Berkowitz house, where Izzy is revealed to have taped them. While listening to the tape, they hear part of an earlier recording of a Cher song, which Mrs. Berkowitz says is the song that played when she was attacked. They hear moans over the music, which they recognize as being the same voice they heard in the woods: the voice of The Great Mutato.
Back at Dr. Pollidori's house, a man dances, singing along with Cher.
Mulder and Scully leave the Berkowitz house. Scully says this whole thing is just a hoax, but Mulder says he's going to send the tape with the monster's voice on it to the Bureau to be analysed. The neighbours watch the agents' entire conversation.
In the car, Scully reads the test results for Mrs. Berkowitz and says that yes, she really did have her tubes tied, and yes, she is pregnant. Mulder stops the car suddenly and then reverses. Scully is confused but then she sees what Mulder has seen: a house covered in a circus tent. They drive up to the house and get out of the car. Mulder goes into the house through the front door while Scully takes the back. Both agents enter with guns drawn. The house is filled with a heavy smoke. We see Scully enter Mrs. Pollidori's bedroom. She sees the woman lying unconscious on the bed, and Mulder crouched on the ground beside the bed, coughing. Scully tries to help Mulder get out of the room, but they both pass out and collapse to the floor. We see the old man, wearing a gas mask, standing over them.
Days later, Mulder and Scully are awake (though looking not very alert), sitting in the Pollidoris' kitchen with Dr. Pollidori, his wife, a newspaper reporter, and a police officer. Mrs. Pollidori describes her attacker, and Mulder says that Mrs. Pollidori may have been impregnated. At this, Mrs. Pollidori looks thrilled, and Dr. Pollidori seems outraged both at the idea of his wife being impregnated and the implication that he may have had something to do with it. Scully tells the doctor that she believes this is all part of a hoax. Looking around the kitchen, Mulder discovers a very dirty frying pan and, in the garbage can, an empty jar of peanut butter.
At the old man's house in the storm cellar, the creature, hidden in shadows, is watching the movie Mask. The old man brings him a peanut butter sandwich, then returns to the main house and starts looking at a photo album filled with photos of the creature. Dr. Pollidori enters and confronts his father about what he did to his wife. The two men struggle.
The next morning Mulder returns to the diner, but to a very different greeting now that the townspeople have seen the newspaper article in which a story called "F.B.I. Agents Say Monster a Hoax" appeared. Someone shoots a spoonful of oatmeal at Mulder's neck, and the waitress pours coffee in his lap. A commotion starts up outside. People are rushing past the diner, and soon everyone in the diner, including Mulder, is outside as well. It turns out that the local post office manager is claiming he's found the monster: Izzy Berkowitz, in a Great Mutato mask. Mrs. Berkowitz arrives and defends Izzy. Scully arrives and tells Mulder that the substance left on the frying pan they found at the Pollidori residence was a product used by farmers to anaesthetize herds of animals. Farmers have to register to buy it, and the old man is registered.
At the old man's house, the Great Mutato finds the old man's dead body in the kitchen. Crying, he carries him out to the barn and buries him. A while later, Mulder and Scully arrive. They find the fresh grave in the barn, along with the reporter, who tells them that the old man was murdered. Switch to the main house, where Mulder and Scully are looking at the old man's photo album. The reporter tells them that she saw the monster in the barn burying the old man. They hear noise outside, and go out to find a mob of the townspeople carrying torches and pitchforks approaching the house. Mulder tells them to stop, but Pollidori says they've come for the murderer and they demand justice. They go off to hunt for the monster in the barn. Mulder and Scully stay behind, and Scully says that the only way Pollidori could have seen the monster is if he was there himself. She looks behind her and sees the creature peeking out from the storm cellar. The agents enter the cellar and look around. They find the creature's TV and his collection of Cher pictures, and then they see the creature himself huddled in a corner.
Outside, the townspeople have set the barn on fire and are fleeing. Mulder and Scully emerge from the storm cellar to see what's going on, and the creature comes up for a moment with them. The reporter sees the creature, and all the townspeople head to the storm cellar. Mulder and Scully stand in front of the creature, and they back away from the mob. But the creature shows his face to the crowd, and Pollidori claims that the monster was created by his father, but Mutato says no. He says that he has never harmed another human, and that Dr. Pollidori was actually his creator, but the old man took him in when he found out about the experiments his son had been conducting. He says that the old man had been trying to create a mate for him using animal DNA. But the old man's attempts failed because he did not understand the science well enough; however, it seems that several of the townspeople are the products of these human/animal unions. Mrs. Berkowitz realizes that her son Izzy is one. Mutato asks Dr. Pollidori if he can create a mate for him, and says that he will take the blame as a murderer if he can do so. Pollidori says that Mutato was a horrible mistake and he cannot create another such being. Mutato admits that what he and his father did was wrong, but says that he learned of the world, and of the love of a mother, through his visits to the townspeople's homes. Izzy says that Mutato is no monster. Mutato tells the agents to arrest him if they want, but Mulder and Scully look around, contemplating what they should do next, now that the situation is resolved.
We see a shot of Dr. Pollidori being taken away in a police car. Mutato is in Mulder and Scully's car. Mulder is back in the old man's house looking at the photo album. Scully comes in and says it's time to go now that they have their prisoner, but Mulder says that this ending is all wrong: the monster should find his bride. Scully says that she doesn't think that's going to happen, and Mulder demands to speak to the writer. Izzy enters.
Cher's song "Walking in Memphis" plays. Mutato is in the back of Mulder and Scully's car, which is part of a convoy driving along the highway. Switch to a shot of a nightclub where Cher is performing the song. In the front row, Mutato, clearly having the time of his life, sits at a table with Mulder and Scully, who are smiling as they watch Mutato dance. Mutato gives Mulder a high five. The music continues to play over a shot of Shaineh Berkowitz and Elizabeth Pollidori with their baby Mutatos on the Jerry Springer show. Springer asks the women if it's difficult to love these deformed babies, and Mrs. Berkowitz replies "What's not to love?" The Springer crowd goes wild with applause. Back at the concert, Cher comes into the crowd and takes Mutato by the hand. Looking totally awed, Mutato gets up to dance with her while Mulder and Scully look on. Mulder gets up and holds his hand out to Scully, who takes it. They dance, first looking at each other, then up at the stage, smiling widely. The picture gradually changes and becomes a comic book drawing of the two agents dancing and smiling. A hand comes into the frame and closes the comic book.
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