Episode Summary
An X-File becomes the plot of a Hollywood movie, but Mulder and Scully find their case — and themselves — distorted on the big screen.
Episode Details
- Writer: David Duchovny
- Director: David Duchovny
- Original Broadcast: AU: 26.07.2000 US: 30.04.2000
Cast
- Scully Gillian Anderson
- Mulder David Duchovny
Guest Cast
- Tina Tina M Ameduri
- Smoking Pontiff Tony Amendola
- Chris Carter Chris Carter
- Production Assistant Kevin Cooper
- Man on Doughnut Bicycle Rick Deats
- Dr Charles Burks Bill Dow
- Minnie Driver Minnie Driver
- Director Daniel Duchovny
- Wayne Federman Wayne Federman
- David Alan Grier David Alan Grier
- David Duchovny Steve Kiziak
- Téa Leoni Téa Leoni
- Micah Hoffman Paul Lieber
- Director Bill Millar
- Assistant Director Walter Skinner Mitch Pileggi
- Zombie Tim Roe
- Garry Shandling Garry Shandling
- Sugar Bear Barry K Thomas
- Cardinal Augustine O'Fallon Harris Yulin
Quotes
[Mulder is running through a dark graveyard, he dives over a headstone — the name on the headstone is Alan Smithee — and returns fire on his pursuers]
Smoking Pontiff: Give it up, Mulder! You've got no chance!
Garry Shandling/Mulder: Damn it.
[He's out of ammunition an frantically searching for another clip]
Smoking Pontiff: My sniper zombies are everywhere. I'll offer you a deal. You give me the Lazarus bowl, and I'll give you Scully.
Téa Leoni/Scully: Mulder!
Garry Shandling/Mulder: How about this deal? You give me Scully, I don't smash the Lazarus bowl and shove the pieces where the Son of God don't shine, you Cigarette-Smoking Mackerel Snapper. I break the Lazarus Bowl and all your sniper zombies go back to being good, little, well-behaved corpses.
Smoking Pontiff: You don't fool me, Mulder. That bowl is your Holy Grail. Encoded in its ancient ceramic grooves are the words Jesus spake when he raised Lazarus from the dead — still capable of raising the dead 2,000 years later. Proof positive of the paranormal. You could no sooner destroy that, than let the redhead die.
Zombie: Come on, man. Don't break the bowl. We don't want to go back to being dead. There's no food, no women, no dancing. Save the bowl, and we'll dump that Ciggy-Smoking Stooge for you, and you'll be the new King of the Dead.
Garry Shandling/Mulder: I'd rather serve in Heaven than rule in Hell.
[Mulder throws the Lazarus Bowl high in the air and runs towards Scully. The Smoking Pontiff and the zombies try to save the bowl. Mulder grabs Scully and they roll down the hill and fall into an open grave, the coffin lid slams shut]
Téa Leoni/Scully: Is that your flashlight, Mulder, or... you just happy to be lying on top of me?
Garry Shandling/Mulder: My flashlight. Oh, that. You know, seven long years I've been waiting for just the right moment, Scully.
Téa Leoni/Scully: Oh, you're a sick man, Mulder. Go on.
Garry Shandling/Mulder: I love you, Scully. No ifs, ands or...
Téa Leoni/Scully: Bees.
[The film audience is watching the screen kiss in rapt attention, Scully and Mulder look mortified, while Skinner thinks the whole thing is hilarious]
[Mulder and Scully are in Skinner's office being briefed. Wayne Federman is sitting behind them, listening intending and taking notes on a hand-held tape recorder]
Skinner: Yesterday, a small pipe bomb ripped through the crypt of Christ's Church here in DC. There were no casualties, no thefts, no note making any demand.
Scully: Who's taking credit for it?
Skinner: Nobody.
Wayne Federman: [to recorder] She: Jodie Foster's foster child on a Payless budget. He's like a... Jehovah's Witness meets Harrison Ford's "Witness".
Scully: Uh, Christ's Church. Isn't that, uh, Cardinal O'Fallon's church?
Skinner: Yes. O'Fallon's residence is adjacent to the crypt.
Mulder: Who's Cardinal O'Fallon?
Wayne Federman: [to recorder] Cardinal
[His mobile rings]Oh-fallen
, perhaps.
Scully: Um... He's one of the most powerful men in the church today. His name often comes up as a possibility for the first American pope.
Mulder: Oh. I don't want to be myopic here, sir, but this looks like a straight up terrorist act for the ATF.
Wayne Federman: [to recorder] Myopic
.
Skinner: Yes, it does.
Mulder: [to Wayne Federman] Are you going to answer your phone?
Wayne Federman: Me?
Mulder: Yeah.
Wayne Federman: I didn't want to be rude.
Mulder: Sir, who the hell is this guy?
Wayne Federman: [answering phone] Hello?
Skinner: This is Wayne Federman. He's an old buddy of mine from college. He's a writer out in Hollywood now and he's working on an FBI-based movie. He's asked me to give him access.
Scully: A screenwriter?
Wayne Federman: It's actually... It's a writer-slash-producer.
Mulder: Well, that's actually just a hindrance-slash-pain in the neck.
Wayne Federman: Yo, yo, yo. Agent Mulder, I don't want to eat your lunch. I'm just here for some procedural flavour — just a taste.
Mulder: I've no idea what you just said.
Wayne Federman: Well, the Skinman's filled me in on your particular bent. He said that you come at things maybe a little fahkatke, a little Star Trekky, which is the exact vibe I'm looking for for this thing I'm doing. It's a
Silence of the Lambs
meets Greatest Story Ever Told
type thing. It's... beautiful, and I will not be in your way. I'll be strictly Heisenbergian — a hologram.
Skinner: Agent Mulder, Mr Federman will accompany you today to Christ's Church where he will act as an observer on this case. You will extend to him every courtesy and protection you would a friend of mine and a friend of the Bureau's. Agent Scully, I require your services here for the morning.
Mulder: Sir, have I pissed you off in a way that's more than normal?
Wayne Federman: Just curious if she's more than your partner.
Mulder: Enough, Wayne.
Wayne Federman: Hey, whatever.
Mulder: Cardinal O'Fallon can you think of anyone who might make an attempt on your life?
Cardinal O'Fallon: The church always has enemies, Agent Mulder.
Mulder: The size of the bomb would have limited its destruction to just the crypt itself. Is there anything down there worth targeting?
Cardinal O'Fallon: Not really. Just some old bones, artefacts, relics... documents that we store down there in the cold. We like to think of it as God's Refrigerator.
Wayne Federman: That's a great line.
Cardinal O'Fallon: Thank you.
Wayne Federman: [to recorder] God's Refrigerator
.
Mulder: Wayne, shut up.
Cardinal O'Fallon: No treasures to the outside world. Things of negligible monetary value... but great spiritual value to the church — ancient devotional texts... and medieval relics.
Wayne Federman: How about the Shroud of Turin?
Cardinal O'Fallon: No, afraid not, but we do have the Bathrobe of St Peter.
Wayne Federman: You're kidding?
Cardinal O'Fallon: Yes, I am.
Wayne Federman: That's a good line.
Cardinal O'Fallon: Thank you.
Mulder: Wayne... Shut up. Who comes down to the crypt here?
Cardinal O'Fallon: Only myself. There are a half a mile of catacombs here. I like to walk here during lunch. That's where the bomb went off.
Mulder: Well, my instinct, Cardinal, is to see this desecration of the dead less as a murder attempt and more as a terrorist act — a message...
[A mobile rings, Mulder glares at Wayne Federman, who then checks his phone]
Wayne Federman: Uh, this isn't me. I think it's you.
Mulder: Excuse me.
[Checks his mobile] That's, uh, that's not me.
Cardinal O'Fallon: Let me check.
[Checks his mobile] Not me, either. Can never get reception here.
[The phone continues to ring. Mulder kneels beside one of the damaged crypts, removes rubble, and retrieves a mobile from the recently dead corpse]
Wayne Federman: Would that be St Jude's cell phone, Cardinal?
Mulder: No. That's Micah Hoffman.
Mulder: Micah Hoffman, Willie Mays, and Frank Serpico. That's my
Holy Trinity, Scully.
Scully: Of course, I'm too young to remember but, uh, wasn't he some kind of a '60s campus radical, like a Jerry Rubin or Mario Savio?
Mulder: Yeah. Name a '60s counterculture movement and Micah Hoffman was at or near the centre of it. He was one of the original Weathermen. He was the first Yippie. He was a better poet than Ginsburg and he was also the starting shortstop for his Columbia baseball team.
Wayne Federman: Then in the '70s, didn't he go real low profile?
Mulder: Yeah, right after Altamont. He was never really heard from again.
Wayne Federman: Aw, the Stones get blamed for everything. I don't get it.
Mulder: This should be it here.
[to Scully] What did Skinner want you for this morning?
Scully: Just paperwork.
Wayne Federman: Hmm...
[Watching Mulder pick the lock]
Scully: Mulder, we should have a warrant.
Wayne Federman: Hey, it's only the Constitution. No big deal.
[The enter apartment to find an odd assortment of furniture, art and bomb-making equipment]
Mulder: Wow.
Wayne Federman: Dis-feng shui.
Scully: Mulder, sorry to denigrate a third of your Trinity, but, uh, looks like Hoffman was killed by one of his own bombs.
Wayne Federman: Well, from Dharma bum to Dharma bomb.
Mulder: I knew, uh, Hoffman was a master potter...
Scully: Yeah, well, it appears he was a master calligrapher as well. Look, Mulder, they've got gum arabic and sodium hydroxide here. Whoo, these would be used to, uh, to age the ink and the paper prematurely. It's a... it's a forger's trick.
Wayne Federman: Well, from counterculture to counterfeiter.
Mulder: All right, one more pun and I pull out my gun. Scully, look at that.
[A parchment] Christos. Looks like a religious text. Can you read Greek at all?
Scully: Well, it's pretty rusty, but it looks like some kind of lost Gospel. A gospel of Mary Magdalene, and, uh, an account of Christ's
life on Earth after the Resurrection.
Mulder: After?
Scully: Yeah. It's a heretical text, Mulder — mythical, I should say, but long rumoured to be in existence.
Mulder: Well, what would Micah Hoffman be doing with heretical religious texts?
Scully: I think the question is: What would Hoffman be doing forging them?
Wayne Federman: I think the real question,
[Mulder glares at him] Agents
, is: What might O'Fallon be doing with Hoffman's forgeries? You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.Don't shoot!
Wayne Federman: I like the way you guys work — no warrants, no permission, no research. You're like studio executives with guns. Should I call you Agent Mulder or Mr Mulder, or, like do you have a nickname or something like that?
Mulder: Shh, shh, shh, shh.
Wayne Federman: Like Skinman? Just ignore me.
Mulder: What's that?
[Another parchment] Looks like the same gospel of Mary, Scully IDed over at Hoffman's place.
Wayne Federman: So, is this a forgery, or is this the real thing?
Mulder: Well, there is no "real" Gospel of Mary, Federman. The, uh, original would be a fake.
Wayne Federman: All right, so is this a real fake or a fake fake or...?
[A mobile rings, they both jump] That's me.
[A human skull jumps out of his way as he answers his mobile] Yes...? No, no, no. No, I can hear you. It's just your voice is... There's like a crackly sound and then I hear a syllab... Stop yelling. Yelling isn't helping the situation...
Mulder: Hmm...
Wayne Federman: Just talk. You're breaking up. No, let me call you back. Okay. Yeah, I'm telling you... I'm going through a crypt.
[He gasps and drops his flashlight at the sight of a pair of leg bones running across his path. A skull chatters its teeth and skeletal hands dance. One of the hands picks up the dropped flashlight and runs away with it] Wow!
[The bones appear to be rebuilding a bowl] Oh, my... God.
Scully: Now, Wayne, I'm sure that it was dark in there and that your eyes were playing tricks on you and you've been influenced by ghost stories and horror movies that take place in crypts and graveyards and you hallucinated this vision of these dancing bones trying to reconstruct this bowl.
Wayne Federman: No, I didn't hallucinate. That was mechanical or CGI.
Mulder: Federman, that wasn't a movie. That was real life.
Wayne Federman: The difference being? Well, I have got my flavour here, so I appreciate all your help. I've got a movie to write.
Mulder: You're leaving? You don't want to get to the bottom of this?
Wayne Federman: Not especially.
Mulder: Well, you know, sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction.
Wayne Federman: Well, fiction is quicker than truth and cheaper. You want my advice? You're both crazy.
Mulder: Well, why do you say that?
Wayne Federman: [to Mulder] Well, you're crazy for believing what you believe.
[to Scully] And you're crazy for not believing what he believes. I'll leave you with that. Thank you.
[He leaves]
Mulder: I miss him already.
Scully: You know, Mulder, I... I know that Federman's BSing you, so I'm really hesitant to mention this, but, um... his story reminds me of the Lazarus Bowl.
Mulder: The Lazarus bowl?
Scully: We had this wacky nun in Catholic school — Sister Callahan — we used to call her
Sister Spooky
'cause she would tell us scary stories all the time.
Mulder: Twisted sisters, my kind of nun, you know?
Scully: Well, she would hold up an old piece of wood with a rusty nail in it, and she would say "this is an actual piece of the cross that Christ's wrist was nailed to". Or she'd show us a vial of red liquid and say that it was John the Baptist's blood, or something.
Mulder: She'd be in prison today. You realise that.
Scully: Well, she would tell this story of when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and she said that there was this old woman who was Lazarus's aunt or something...
Mulder: Lazarus's aunt?
Scully: ...who was spinning a clay bowl on a wheel nearby and that Christ's words — the actual incantation to raise the dead — were recorded in the clay grooves of the pottery just like the way music is recorded into vinyl.
Mulder: You see? It's just not true that you can't get good science at Catholic school. It's a lie.
Scully: Well, Sister Spooky says that, uh... that these words in the clay still have the power to raise the dead, just like Jesus raised Lazarus.
Mulder: That is a very cool story coming from you, Scully. I'll have Chuck Burks meet you over at my office see if this clay has
Christ's Greatest Hits
on it and I'm going... I'm going to go have another audience with Cardinal O'Fallon.
Dr Burks: There's music in the air, Agent Scully. See, everything that exists vibrates and therefore sings. The street, uh, your internal organs, electricity, everything. Here, I'll show you. You see, this is my voice bouncing around in the red here. And all this yellow is ambient sound that we habitually tune out. It's the hum of my hardware, Mulder's porn tapes on pause, the sounds from the street — everything we hear but we don't know we hear. I can hear it with this machine. Oh...
Scully: What is it?
[Scully listens to the sound] Wow.
Dr Burks: Who made this?
Scully: We're not sure. Either a forger by the name of Micah Hoffman or, uh, someone else in the vicinity of Jesus Christ.
Dr Burks: Oh... Bazingo — whoever did it is some kind of musical genius. This clay is vibrating in all the keys at once. It's heavenly.
Mulder: Can you translate what it says there for me, please?
Cardinal O'Fallon: Did you recover them from the crypt?
Mulder: Yes.
Cardinal O'Fallon: [reading] And then Jesus took his beloved Mary Magdalene in an embrace, an embrace not of God and woman but of man and woman. And Jesus said to Mary, 'love the body, for it is all of the soul that our senses can perceive'.
Mulder: And how about these?
Cardinal O'Fallon: These appear to be copies of the original.
Mulder: Or rough drafts.
Cardinal O'Fallon: How?
Mulder: They're all forgeries, sir. Did you buy these from Micah Hoffman?
Cardinal O'Fallon: I thought they were real.
Mulder: I can understand that. Hoffman was a master. My partner had them analysed and they're virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. The paper is authentic, the ink, the hand, the diction — everything. Hoffman was also an explosives expert. Do you have any idea what he might have been doing with a bomb in the crypt? Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to kill Micah Hoffman?
Cardinal O'Fallon: No.
Mulder: Why were you hiding the documents, sir?
Cardinal O'Fallon: When Micah came to me... with these, as I then thought, ancient texts, and our experts verified them — he exploded a bomb in my heart. The Christ that I'd loved was not the Christ in these
texts.
Mulder: So you bought them in order to hide them?
Cardinal O'Fallon: To keep others from feeling the despair... and the anger that I felt. To protect people from what I can now see they needed no protection from.
Mulder: Why didn't you just destroy the documents yourself?
Cardinal O'Fallon: I thought they were real. I hated them, I despised them. I would have liked to destroy them, but I couldn't. Is being made a fool of a crime, Agent Mulder?
Mulder: I'd be doing life if it were, sir.
Scully: [answering phone] Scully.
Mulder: Hey, uh, Scully, it's me. Can you horn in on the Hoffman autopsy for me?
Scully: Why?
Mulder: I got a feeling Hoffman was dead before he died. He was blackmailing O'Fallon with those forgeries. Maybe O'Fallon retaliated.
Scully: Oh, Mulder, this bowl. Your buddy Chuck Burks says that it has properties he's never seen before.
Mulder: Oh, hold on a second. That's my other line.
[He switches lines to talk to Wayne Federman] Yeah, Mulder.
Wayne Federman: Agent Mulder? It's Wayne Slash Federman out in LA.
Mulder: I can't really talk about the case, you know.
Wayne Federman: That's all right — Skinman's keeping me in the loop. Listen, who do you see playing you in the movie?
Mulder: I'm in the movie?
Wayne Federman: Well, it's a character loosely based on you. It's more of an amalgamation.
Mulder: Yeah, hold on a second, Wayne.
[He switches lines to talk to Scully] Hey, Sister Spooky, I've got to take this.
Scully: I'll call you after the autopsy.
Mulder: Thanks.
[He switches lines to talk to Wayne Federman] How about Richard Gere?
Wayne Federman: [laughing] Yeah, okay. Uh, seriously. What if I said to you the name "Garry Shandling"?
Mulder: Wayne, you're breaking up. It sounded like you said "Garry Shandling".
Wayne Federman: Garry Shandling signed on to play the amalgamation loosely based on you and Tea Leoni's playing the amalgamation loosely based on your partner, you stud. The movie's called the Lazarus bowl.
Mulder: How do you know about the Lazarus bowl?
Wayne Federman: The Skinman. Listen, Shandling and Leoni want to meet you guys... get your flavour — it's an actor type thing. Come on out to the studio on our dime. We'll make it nice.
Mulder: Hey, who's... well, then who's going to play Skinner in the movie?
Wayne Federman: Richard Gere.
Mulder: Ri... Ri...
Scully: Fracturing of skull and surface abrasions initially consistent with concussive force injuries. I am, uh, now weighing the heart which is relatively normal, although somewhat large.
[Behind her the corpse sits up]
Micah Hoffman: I'm going to need that when you're done with it.
Scully: Oh, my God. Who are you?
Micah Hoffman: I am who I am.
[Scully reaches out to touch him tentatively with the scalpel, Micah Hoffman stops her and she drops it] Ah-ah... Noli me tangere [Touch me not], baby.
Scully: Ow! Damn it!
[She picks up the scalpel and accidentally cuts herself, when she looks up, Micah Hoffman is once again a corpse on the autopsy table]
Mulder: What'd you find, Scully?
Scully: In Micah Hoffman's stomach there were traces of red wine and strychnine.
Mulder: Man, oh, manischevitz — communion wine, I bet.
Scully: Mmm.
Mulder: I bet O'Fallon poisoned Hoffman then placed his body near the explosion to cover his tracks.
Scully: It's possible, Mulder.
Mulder: I could get a warrant for O'Fallon.
Mulder: Augustine O'Fallon, you're under arrest for the murder of Micah Hoffman. You have the right to remain silent.
Scully: Oh, my God.
Mulder: Anything you say can and will be used against you...
Scully: Mulder... Do you see what I see?
Mulder: Yes, I do.
Scully: Is that Micah Hoffman?
Cardinal O'Fallon: Yes, it is.
Skinner: Misidentification of a corpse and subsequent unrequested
autopsy...
Scully: Sir, the dead man looked very much like Micah Hoffman. He had Hoffman's ID on him...
Skinner: Agent Scully... if I'm carrying Marilyn Monroe's purse, do you assume that I slept with JFK? Agent Mulder, the FBI has always prided itself on the speedy expedition of its cases but this is the first time — and I hope you're as proud of this as I am — that we've ever attempted to pursue a murder case where the victim was still alive and healthy.
Mulder: A bomb went off, a crime's been committed. There's a dead
body nobody seems to give a damn about, O'Fallon's been less than forthcoming, and Hoffman, at the very least is guilty of forgery and extortion.
Skinner: Agent Mulder, you will leave O'Fallon alone. You will leave Hoffman alone and Agent Scully, you'll put your trigger-happy scalpel away. Best case scenario... you get to keep your jobs. Worst case, O'Fallon and the church bring a huge, embarrassing lawsuit against the Bureau which will feature you two as its sacrificial lambs. As of right now... I am forcing you to take a four-week leave effective immediately pending review.
Mulder: I think this whole Richard Gere thing is going to Skinner's head.
Scully: We're off this case, Mulder.
Dr Burks: Compadres. I teased out something very fabulous from your pottery there. Layered in under the ambience there. Guess what language that is.
Mulder: Chuck, I've had a bad day.
Dr Burks: It's a dead language. I had a linguist in here to listen to the recording. It's Aramaic.
Scully: That's the language that Christ spoke. Did your linguist happen to translate it?
Dr Burks: Yes, he did. It's in two parts. The first part here roughly translates as;
I am the walrus. I am the walrus. Paul is dead. Coo-coo-ca-choo.
Although there is no Aramaic word for walrus
. So it literally says I am the bearded cow-like sea beast
.
Mulder: What's the second part?
Dr Burks: Second part's a little freakier. Here.
Scully: What is it?
Dr Burks: It appears to be one man commanding another to rise from the dead.
Scully: Lazarus?
Micah Hoffman: I am become Jesus Christ.
Mulder: I am become sceptical.
Micah Hoffman: There I was totally bumming after Altamont, and I
thought throw in the towel and go to law school or continue to fight and
become a forger of scandalous religious documents.
Mulder: Well, I suppose that's a choice every young gifted American male is faced with.
Micah Hoffman: I knew O'Fallon from college. He was a divinity professor of mine.
Mulder: At Columbia.
Micah Hoffman: Yeah. And he's a decent man, but with an overweening pride and sense of responsibility borne of a fundamental lack of respect for the human animal. He believes in God, but not in man, in man's ability to choose, to live in freedom. He has Christ in his brain, but not in his heart.
Scully: So, uh... you created a Christ in these forgeries that was more suited to your particular world view?
Micah Hoffman: Yeah. But before I could write like Christ I had to become him, in much the same way I imagine an actor who plays a part becomes that part. So I immersed myself in Jesus Christ. Not just the church and teachings, but the man, the custom of his time, the language, the vibe, the feeling of Christ.
Scully: So why didn't O'Fallon and the Elders go outside the church for authentification?
Micah Hoffman: Because the forgeries were too damning of the church. They couldn't risk the exposure. But then, something truly weird came over me.
Scully: Remorse?
Micah Hoffman: Conversion, Agent Scully. The lightning bolt that transformed Saul to Paul on the road to Damascus. One day I was not just impersonating Jesus Christ, I had become him. That's why I blew up the crypt. The forgeries were blasphemous and needed to be destroyed.
Mulder: How did your cell phone get on the dead man in the crypt?
Micah Hoffman: God works in mysterious ways.
Mulder: Couldn't sleep either, huh?
Scully: Plan 9 From Outer Space?
Mulder: Yeah. It's the Ed Wood investigative method. This movie is so profoundly bad in such a childlike way that it hypnotises my conscious critical mind and frees up my right brain to make associo-poetic leaps and I started flashing on Hoffman and O'Fallon. How there's this archetypal relationship, like Hoffman's Jesus to O'Fallon's Judas, or Hoffman's Jesus to O'Fallon's Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor, or Hoffman's Jesus to O'Fallon's St Paul.
Scully: How about Hoffman's Roadrunner to O'Fallon's Wile E Coyote? Mulder...
Mulder: Yeah?
Scully: Do you think it's at all possible that Hoffman is really Jesus Christ?
Mulder: Are you making fun of me?
Scully: No.
Mulder: Well, no, I don't. But crazy people can be very persuasive.
Scully: Well, yes, I know that. Maybe true faith is really a form of insanity.
Mulder: Are you directing that at me?
Scully: No. I'm directing it at myself and at Ed Wood.
Mulder: Well, you know, even a broken clock is right 730 times a year.
Scully: How...?
Mulder: 42.
Scully: You've seen this movie 42 times?
Mulder: Yes.
Scully: Doesn't that make you sad? It makes me sad.
Mulder: You know, Scully, we've got four weeks probation vacation and nothing to do and Wayne Federman's invited us out to LA to watch his movie being filmed and God knows I could use a little sunshine. Scully...
Scully: California, here we come.
Wayne Federman: Agents! I'm so glad you could hang.
[He kisses Mulder and shakes Scully's hand] Come on, I want you to meet the people that are going to play you. Garry Shandling, Téa Leoni, this is Agents Mulder and Scully.
Mulder: Nice to meet you.
Scully: Hi.
Garry Shandling: Nice to meet you.
Téa Leoni: It's a pleasure.
Mulder: Big fan. Fox Mulder.
Téa Leoni: No kidding. Huh. Well, you know, while I've got you here maybe, uh, maybe you could show me how to run in these things. Right over here, I was thinking 'cause, I tell you, I'm having a hell of a time with these heels. What, are they government issue or something?" [She takes Scully aside for running lessons]
Garry Shandling: Hey, uh... Uh...
Mulder: Hi.
Garry Shandling: How are you? Seriously, listen could I ask you
something?
Mulder: Sure.
Garry Shandling: Uh, do you dress to the left or to the right?
[In the background, Scully runs back and forth in her heels]
Mulder: What do you... What do you mean?
Garry Shandling: Look, when I play a character I need to find his
centre, his, sort of, rudder, so to say and then everything comes from that.
Mulder: Uh... I guess mostly to the left.
Garry Shandling: "Mostly"?
Mulder: Most of the time.
Garry Shandling: Most of the time. To the left.
Mulder: Mm-hmm.
Garry Shandling: Wardrobe!
Woman: Rolling!
Sugar Bear: And rollando! Come on, now, kick it in the ass and action, zombies!
[The scene starts. Téa Leoni screams as one of them bites her shoulder, but the zombie pauses with his mouth full]
Zombie: What is this?
Sugar Bear: Cut! Go ahead, ruin my career.
Production Assistant: What seems to be the problem, Mr. Zombie,
sir?
Zombie: What the hell is this? What the hell's in my mouth? What's Téa Leoni's shoulder made out of?
Production Assistant: Uh, craft service, what is Téa Leoni's shoulder made of?
Tina: Turkey, just like you asked for.
Production Assistant: Turkey. Ms Leoni's shoulder's made of turkey.
Zombie: Tofurkey! I asked for tofurkey! I'm a vegetarian! Half the zombies are vegetarian! Oh, my God! The people are made out of turkey!
Mulder: [answering phone] Hello?
Scully: Hey, Mulder, it's me. What are you doing?
Mulder: I'm, uh, working at the, uh, computer. What are you
doing?
Scully: I'm, uh, packing. Just, you know, getting ready for our trip back to DC tomorrow.
Mulder: You know, Scully, I was just thinking about Lazarus, Ed Wood, and those tofurkey-eating zombies. How come when people come back from the dead they always want to hurt the living?
Scully: Well, that's because people can't really come back from the dead, Mulder. I mean, ghosts and zombies are just projections of our own repressed cannibalistic and sexual fears and desires. They are who we fear that we are at heart — just mindless automatons who can only kill and
eat.
Mulder: Party pooper. Well, I got a new theory. I say that when zombies try to eat people, that's just the first stage. You see, they've just come back from being dead so they're going to do all the things they miss from when they were alive. So, first, they're going to eat, then
they're going to drink, then they're going to dance and make love.
Scully: Oh, I see. So it's just that we never get to stay with them long enough to see the gentler side of the undead.
Mulder: Exactly. Hold on a second, that's my other line.
[He switches lines to talk to Skinner] Hello?
Skinner: Agent Mulder, it's Assistant Director Skinner. I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time.
Mulder: No, sir, I'm just at the, uh, computer.
Skinner: Listen, I just wanted to apologise for coming down so hard on you during the Hoffman slash O'Fallon case.
Mulder: Oh. I appreciate that, Skinman.
Skinner: Don't call me that.
Mulder: Yes, sir. Um... Uh, where are you now?
Skinner: I'm right underneath you. I'm in LA, at the same hotel as you. Right below you and Agent Scully. Federman got me an Associate Producer credit on the movie.
Mulder: AP Skinner, huh? Uh... So what are you up to right now, sir?
Skinner: I'm taking a bubble bath.
Mulder: Uh, hold on just one second, sir.
[He switches lines to talk to Scully] Hey, Scully, Skinman is calling me from a bubble bath.
Skinner: It's still me, Mulder.
Mulder: Uh, sir, well, hold on one second, sir.
[He switches lines to talk to Skinner] Scully?
Scully: Yeah.
Mulder: Yeah, Skinner is calling me from a bubble bath.
Scully: Wow, he's really gone Hollywood.
Mulder: Totally.
Scully: You know, Mulder, speaking of Hollywood, I think that Téa Leoni has a little crush on you.
Mulder: Oh, yeah, right. Like Téa Leoni's ever going to
have a crush on me.
Scully: I think that Shandling likes you a bit, too.
Mulder: Really?
Garry Shandling/Mulder: I love you, Scully. No ifs, ands or...
Téa Leoni/Scully: Bees.
[They kiss] Wait, wait, Mulder... I can't.
Garry Shandling/Mulder: I know this feels wrong because we're friends and we treat each other as equals, but...
Téa Leoni/Scully: No, no, it's not that. It's not that.
Garry Shandling/Mulder: Well, what then?
Téa Leoni/Scully: I'm in love with Assistant Director Walter Skinner.
Mulder: That's it, Scully, I can't take it any more.
Scully: Shh, Mulder, sit down.
Garry Shandling/Mulder: What does he have that I don't have?
Téa Leoni/Scully: A bigger flashlight.
Scully: Been looking all over for you.
Mulder: They got it so wrong, Scully.
Scully: I got a page from the Washington Bureau. Micah Hoffman was murdered tonight. Murdered in his own home by Cardinal O'Fallon who then hanged himself. A murder-suicide.
Mulder: It's Jesus and Judas, Scully.
Scully: Wow... It's all over now.
Mulder: No, no, it's just beginning. Hoffman and O'Fallon were these complicated, flawed, beautiful people and now they'll just be remembered as jokes because of this movie. The character based on O'Fallon is listed in the credits as "Cigarette-Smoking Pontiff". How silly is that?
Scully: Pretty silly.
Mulder: Yeah, what about us? How are we going to be remembered
now 'cause of this movie?
Scully: Well, hopefully, the movie will tank.
Mulder: What about all the dead people who are forever silent and can't tell their stories any more? They're all going to have to rely on Hollywood to show the future how we lived and it'll all become... oversimplified and trivialised and Cigarette-Smoking Pontificised and become as plastic and meaningless as this stupid plastic Lazarus Bowl.
Scully: I think the dead are beyond caring what people think about them. Hopefully we can adopt the same attitude. You do know that there aren't real dead people out there, right? That this is a movie set?
Mulder: The dead are everywhere, Scully.
Scully: Well... We're alive. And we're relatively young and Skinner was so tickled by the movie...
Mulder: I bet he was...
Scully: That he has given us a Bureau credit card to use for the evening. Come on. Mulder, I have something to confess.
Mulder: What's that?
Scully: I'm in love with Associate Producer Walter Skinner.
Mulder: Ah... Me, too.