3X14 Grotesque

Agent Nemhauser: Ahh! God! He bit me! The son of a bitch bit me like a dog!

Officer: You okay?

Agent Nemhauser: Yeah yeah...

---

Mulder: John Mostow. Unemployed house painter, divorced, no children. He came to the US from Uzbekistan during prerystroyka. He failed to mention on his INS application that he spent the better part of his 20s in an insane asylum.

Scully: He was arrested last week for the serial murders of at least seven men.

Mulder: You thought all they produced were great hockey players.

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Scully: The level of violence and overkill here would suggest the work of a very angry individual.

Mulder: Or individuals. If you count the spirit Mostow says possessed him during the murders.

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John Mostow: Leave me alone.

Scully: You have a nice soft bunk, sir. Why aren't you using it?

Mulder: Cause he's been working. Haven't you, John?

[A gargoyle has been drawn on the floor]

---

Agent Patterson: So what is it Mulder? Little green men? Evil spirits? Hounds of Hell?

Mulder: Scully, this is Bill Patterson. He runs the investigative support unit out of Quantico.

Scully: Yes, I know. Behavioural Science, you wrote the book. It's an honour, sir.

Agent Patterson: Is that what you think too? [Scully gives Patterson a questioning look] That the suspect is possessed by some dark spirit?

Scully: No, not at all, sir.

Agent Patterson: Strange company you keep, then.

Mulder: That's what always amazed me about you, Bill. How you never fit your own profile. No one would ever guess how really mean-spirited you are.

---

Scully: So you're not going to tell me when your love affair with Patterson ended?

Mulder: Patterson never liked me.

Scully: I thought you were considered the fair-haired boy when you joined the bureau.

Mulder: Not by Patterson.

Scully: Why not?

Mulder: Didn't want to get my knees dirty. Couldn't quite cast myself in the role of the dutiful student.

Scully: You mean you couldn't worship him.

Mulder: Something like that, yeah.

---

Mulder: Patterson had this saying about tracking a killer. If you wanted, uh, to know an artist, you have to look at his art. What he really meant was if you wanted to catch a monster you had to become one yourself.

---

[A cat leaps out, startling Scully]

Mulder: It's just a cat.

Scully: I thought it was one of these pictures coming to life. Now our guys must have locked it in here.

[Mulder looks under the bed after the cat and sees it vanish through a hole in the wall]

Mulder: No. He's obviously got his own key to the place.

---

Agent Nemhauser: What's Agent Mulder think?

Scully: He thinks our finding Mostow's secret gallery isn't going to do him any favours with Patterson.

Agent Nemhauser: You know, between you and me, I think Patterson secretly went to Skinner and requested Mulder on this case.

Scully: He requested him?

Agent Nemhauser: I've been working with Patterson for three years on this case, and this just about killed him until we finally got break and arrested Mostow. But the first copycat murder, you know, really threw him for a loss.

Scully: Mulder's under the impression that Patterson never thought too highly of him.

Agent Nemhauser: That's just Patterson. Late night, couple of beers in him, he starts telling me Mulder stories. How he's some kind of crack genius.

---

Mulder: I've got a few theories, I'm just trying to stitch them together right now.

Agent Patterson: With your face stuck in a library book!

Mulder: You said it yourself, Bill. If you want to know the artist look at the art. I'm finally agreeing with you.

---

Agent Patterson: I have to tell you... I am really disappointed in you.

Mulder: Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint you by not disappointing you.

Agent Patterson: After all this time I thought maybe you'd finally put your feet back on the ground. Clearly I was mistaken.

---

Scully: You weren't home, in your office. I was scared, Mulder. I didn't know where you were. I kept trying your cell phone, but you didn't answer.

Mulder: It was turned off.

Scully: You turned your phone off? Why do you even bother carrying it?

---

Scully: Look, when I couldn't reach you I went to your apartment. I saw your new wallpaper. [Mulder's collection of Mostow's gargoyle drawings] Don't you realise what is happening here, Mulder? He is testing you. He IS the reason you were brought on this case in the first place.

Mulder: Patterson?

Scully: He requested your involvement through Skinner's office. I checked the 302 myself. Mulder, where are you going? [Mulder drives off]

---

Agent Patterson: I asked for Mulder because... I'm going to close the book on this god forsaken case once and for all.

Scully: And you knew that he could help you solve it.

Agent Patterson: My advice to you Scully... Let Mulder do what he has to do. Don't get in his way and don't try to hold him back... because you won't be able to.

---

Mulder: Why didn't it kill me, like it killed the others? Why did it let me live?

John Mostow: Even if I could tell you why, you would not understand.

Mulder: Help me to understand, John.

John Mostow: Please go away.

Mulder: No.. You have to help me go deeper. You have to help me get inside its head like it got inside yours. So I can understand what it wants.

---

Skinner: Are you worried about him, Agent Scully? [Mulder]

Scully: No sir.

Skinner: Off the record. [Scully keeps her silence] So am I.

---

[Mulder indicates the clay sculpture that he has just torn apart to discover a human body underneath]

Mulder: It's Nemhauser. But you already knew that, didn't you?

Agent Patterson: What is this?

Mulder: You killed him, Bill. [Points gun at Patterson] When he suspected it was you. You killed him.

Agent Patterson: Are you out of your mind?

Mulder: Not me. Not now.

---

Mulder: We work in the dark. We do what we can to battle with the evil that would otherwise destroy us. But if a man's character is his fate, this fight is not a choice but a calling. Yet sometimes the weight of this burden causes us to falter, breaching the fragile fortress of our mind, allowing the monsters without to turn within and we are left alone, staring into the abyss... into the laughing face of madness.