WRITTEN BY
Vince Gilligan
DIRECTED BY
Vince Gilligan
AIRED ON
May 14, 2000
RUNTIME
44 minutes
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451
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2024-09-30 18:28:48
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Version 9
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SUMMARY
Mulder and Scully investigate a series of bizarre events linked to an ancient jinn, or genie, who grants wishes with a dark twist. The genie, a cynical and world-weary figure, is discovered by two brothers who use her powers with disastrous results, leading to unexpected and often tragic consequences. Mulder, intrigued by the possibilities, eventually makes his own wish, but learns that the cost of bending reality is far greater than anticipated. The episode explores themes of desire, the unintended consequences of wishes, and the complexity of human nature.
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REVIEWS
4
Written by
Pike on 2017-09-10
★
★
★
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4
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Funny but clever
Written by
DuaneB on 2018-09-06
★
★
★
★
★
Finally a comical episode that is really funny, but at the same time that raises a little level. There is really a hug job and it feels! 1, It is a wonderful idea to take up the legend of Aladdin and exploit the paranormal phenomena that derive from, and 2 to exploit the misery of man when to his selfishness or false altruism. This episode is VERY philosophical. In my opinion much more than the 11x04. Here, Gilligan does not need to sink into the headache to give us reflexions, it's all very clear. No need for big cynical blums and clichés. The genius is simply monstrous lucidity.
I think that x files was absolutly not a funny show. However, if it's well done, build, with a real message clearly translated despite the characters, it works very well.
Every time I watch this episode it is a hug pleasure. An amazing work wich slat from the others humoristics ones of this season. The best quality being hte fact that Gilligan succeded in holding our tow main character while cleverly introducing the so funny Genie.
I give it a 10/10!
DVD/BLU-RAY COMMENTARY
This is the complete transcript of "Je Souhaite" DVD audio commentary. Please do not copy this text, which has been transcripted by the XFU team:
Vince Gilligan: "Hi, this is Vince Gilligan, executive producer of The X-Files, and your are watching "Je Souhaite, my directorial debut, my first episode I directed for the show."
About the episode's name: "Je souhaite in French means "I wish", or so they tell me. I don't speak French myself."
About the direction: "But this show is one that I wrote and directed, the first one I ever got the privilege to direct, and I was nervous as hell going into this. I directed stuff in college and directed short films as a teenager, but this was the first time I had 300 people, all my responsibility. And it was pretty nerve-racking, but I was very lucky to get to do it."
About the story: "The story came about, as most do, in a very sort of roundabout way. I had an idea originally about a self-storage place, which is what you're seeing here. This one, in fact, I think was shot down in Carson, an area just south of Los Angeles. And the original idea was, I had this weird image of this long-locked-up self-storage locker, and it gets cut open and rolled up and the person looking into it finds a person standing inside among all these cobwebs and dust, someone wide awake and just sort of standing there. And the original version, that original idea, was not in any way comedic. It was gonna be something... I can't remember. Something weird. It was gonna be somebody'd built some sort of android or robot. That's what the person standing there would have been. Then that went by the wayside cos I didn't feel an android seemed like X-Files. It seemed more to me like Star Trek or something. And then I had some even weirder idea where inside the storage facility there was this... like a black hole or something, some weird kind of maelstrom that separated our world from some other world. And I had this weird image in my head of human teeth falling through it. That gives you an insight into how we come up with these things, cos where the hell did human teeth come from? I didn't know what to do with that, so with the help of Frank Spotnitz and John Shiban, some of these ideas I had wound up being what you see here, and woud up being comedic. The idea of a genie rolled up in a rug came later than these other ideas I just mentioned. But that's sort of the roundabout way we come up with these things."
About the actor Paul Hayes (the guy without a mouth!): "This actor, Paul Hayes... a real trouper. Coming up here you'll see why. We put a little makeup on him to make it look like he had no mouth. Our makeup guys did a really great job with this. I think it took a couple of hours to do this makeup effect on him, during which time he couldn't open his mouth, and luckily he breathed well out of his nose. That would have been problematic if he couldn't do that."
About the opening credits: "Here's the title sequence, which I also directed. No, I'm just kidding. That's not true. I didn't do this, obviously."
"The episode is set in Missouri. That was the teaser you just saw, in Creve Coeur, Missouri. I'm not sure why, except that I knew at this point we'd set a lot of episodes in California. Because of course, at this point, season seven, we were shooting the series in Southern California, here in the beautiful city of Los Angeles. And it just seemed like we should mix it up a bit, so I thought Missouri would be a good place to set something."
"I loved Gillian Anderson's reaction, by the way, in that bit with the mouth. That mouth was so nauseating to look at. Again, Paul Hayes put up with a long makeup ordeal to get into that. And Gillian's reaction when she first sees that mouth was... I got a chuckle out of it on the set."
"So this was my first opportunity directing David and Gillian, of course, being my first episode as director, and it was a real treat. They're both troupers and they both are excellent actors, and I'm very fortunate not only that I got to direct, but that I got to direct an episode before David left the show, because he was a lot of fun to work with.
It goes without saying that David and Gillian know their characters better than any other people, having played them for nine years - seven when this episode was made. So they were a dream to direct as well because they don't need to be told how to play their characters. They know full well how to do that."
"So now we're in a real mobile home park. This was shot in Carson, which is a little suburb south of Los Angeles, maybe about 35, 40 miles south of LA. I have to say the people in this mobile home park were so nice. The actual residents of the place were really a sweet bunch of people, and they would come out to watch us shoot. They particularly came out in droves the day we blew up the trailer, which is a scene coming up later in the episode."
"Here you see how grey and cloudy it looks. I think it was actually raining on and off that day, and we had to stop a little for the rain. The thing about rain, though, is that it doesn't actually read on film, so it might have been sprinkling in this shot. You can't tell, because unless you light rain, specifically backlight it, you won't see it. Now we're on stage. The magic of film, huh? It looks like we're in a trailer, but that inside stuff is on a sound stage at the Fox lot, in Los Angeles. And this shot's on location, this shot's on a stage. It's really neat how it marries together. I'm always surprised. I mean, even having directed this, you know, it's easy to forget that these are two different physical locations, one indoors and one outdoors, and we're bridging them together, just cutting back and forth between 'em."
About the actor in the wheel-chair: "This actor I was so happy to get to work with. His name is Will Sasso, the guy in the motorised scooter, and you'll probably recognise him if you watch the TV show MAD TV on Fox. He has been on it for several years now, four or five years. Very funny guy, as is everybody on that show. We wound up reading just about every cast member, current and former, from the TV show MAD TV, cos I'm a big fan of it, and we read a bunch of folks from it - everybody was great. But Will in particular was a guy I had in mind for this part. I wrote the part with him in mind, and luckily he was available. His schedule permitted him to do this role, and he was funny as hell. I just enjoyed working with him. And I think David and Gillian liked him a lot, too."
About the actress playing the genie: "And that was Paula Sorge you just saw, briefly, the genie in our episode. I can't say enough good things about her. She was wonderful to work with. To be honest, I wrote the part, originally, for Janeane Garofalo. I had her in mind. I thought "Gee, maybe we can get her." And it turns out she was unavailable. She was locked up doing some HBO stuff. And as wonderful as Janeane is, I am very fortunate to have been able to work with Paula Sorge. Paula was a pleasure to work with. Everybody was. I sound like I'm just blowing smoke here, but this was a wonderful experience because everybody made it easy - all the actors. Kevin Weisman, who you also saw in that previous scene, plays the part of Anson. He's the other brother. He and Leslie, the two brothers. Everybody was a lot of fun to work with."
"So now we're back in... This is, again, location work. We actually shut down this U-Store-It place. It's really neat to work on a show with as big a reputation as The X-Files, because everyone sort of knows when you come in what the show is, and most of them are fans or at least friendly toward the idea of you shooting there. And this was a working operation that closed down for us, which was nice."
"That boat, by the way, was a big hassle to get loaded into that trailer park, the boat outside. It was a big deal to get that trucked in, and we had to shift a few trailers around and sort of shoehorn it in there."
About the awesome remote control ;): "Check out the remote control, by the way, that Paula's holding in her hand. It's a girl in a bikini kind of a thing. I was surprised our broadcast standards people let us get it on the air. It's a little bit erm... Kind of thing you pick up at Spencer Gifts, I guess. A little risqué, but I don't guess they noticed.
About the scene where the younger brother chooses his final whish: "Directing-wise this was a tricky scene for me, being a neophyte, because this is, again, on the sound stage of the Fox lot. This is not an actual trailer interior, but it is about the size of a real mobile home, maybe just wider - we fudged a few feet here and there. We raised the ceiling a bit, and we made it a bit wider than a single wide mobile home. But it was tight inside, and this scene, with three characters talking for a prolonged period, logistically was a bit tricky because when you shoot a scene like this, you want coverage, which is to say you want different shot sizes and compositions on each actor in the scene. And so a scene like this with three people, it probably... It probably took three, four hours to shoot this scene. It probably took a good half a day and wound up being a bunch of angles on every single actor. It wound up being four or five different shots on each actor, so four times three... 12, plus a master. It was probably 13, 14 setups, individual camera positions.
There's also something in directing I don't want to get into, delve into too deeply, called "the line", which is... For instance, in this shot Kevin is looking basically screen right. Everyone else is looking screen left to him, except now, just then, he crossed the line. I'm confusing myself trying to explain this! You want everybody looking in a soncistent direction throughout a scene. Now they're looking left, he's looking right. If suddenly you were to pop on the other side of the line dividing Kevin from Paula and Will, you could confuse the audience cos suddenly he's looking left and they'd be looking right, and a better director than I would know how to make that work. But I stuck to it pretty religiously, cos I didn't wanna confuse myself, and lest of all the audience. I didn't want to confuse them, either.
This was fun to shoot, this scene. These guys were real troupers."
About the scene where the younger brother get naked and invisible: "This shot originally was going to be a very fancy, very expensive special effect with Kevin fading away and his clothes still being on him walking around à la the Invisible Man, his empty clothers walking around still on his invisible body. We learned pretty quickly that would be exorbitantly expensive and hard to shoot, so I went back and changed the script and made him get naked. We changed the line so he says "Wait. Are my chlothers going to go invisible too?" And actually it worked out better. It's one of those nice moments where it's better not to shoot what you originally had planned, that what you changed for logistics and to save money actually makes for a better story. So I'm glad that worked out the way it did."
About a special shot just after the invisible scene: "I think we shot here with a 10mm lens, stuck way up in the corner of the set, very wide."
"This was a fun day. This take here I think took something like 10 or 11 tries to get it just perfect."
About the final invisible scene: "And then this scene here... I think this was about my last day of shooting. Of course, we shoot out of chronological order, and this was I think the last day, on the schedule of about 11 days - eight days first unit, three days second. This shot here was fun, coming up. Boom. That was done... I wish I'd made that go a little bit longer, but that was done with that actual truck hitting a giant mirror. We set up a mirror in the street and drove a truck through it at 50 miles an hour and just obliterated this giant tempered glass mirror. And there's a cut hiddne, from the girl, on the other side of the street. When we pan the camera to the right, there's a cut hidden in there. So we panned off her and then edited to panning onto this mirror with a truck just about to hit it. That was fun to do. We did two takes on that, did 3 or 4,000 dollars worth of damage to the front of the truck. It wound up leaking radiator fluid by the time we did the second take cos hitting that heavy mirror was definitely not what GM designed it for, or whoever built it."
"That's a piece of glass Scully just touched, to make it look like she's touching the invisible guy's head. You probably already figured that out. But I tell you, the old-time tricks that they've been doing since time began are often the most effective and, of course, it helps to have a great actress. We had one with Gillian Anderson. She did a wonderful job in this scene. I think we did this in one take, and she just nailed it. We had two cameras going, two or three cameras, and when you have two or three cameras, what we call A and B camera, you can shoot things much quicker because you're gettin two different shot sizes on the same performance, and you know it's gonna cut togher, you know you're not gonna have a problem editing from one shot to the other. I think this was the A camera and then... then a B... No, this is a whole different deal. This was a big-deal special-effect thing. The way this is done is our makeup guys cast Kevin Weisman's head in plaster, and then painted it blue. So what Gillian Anderson in real life was doing was spreading yellow makeup dust onto a blue plaster head of Kevin Weisman. And then Bill Millar, our special-effects wizard, basically erased out all the blue... There's probably a better technical word for it, but that's essentially what he did. And in place of the blue he put in Scully's coat and the background behind it to make it look like he's invisible. That was a very effective trick. By the way, Kevin Weisman, on day two of our shooting, had to get into his makeup for the first time and we ran into a snag early on that day when he had an allergic reaction to the yellow makeup that you see on him there. That was kind of a bummer that put us back, knocked us off schedule by a few hours. But he was a trouper, and he wound up just sort of cowboying up, and I don't think we, at the end of the day, changed the makeup. We were using pretty gentle stuff, but unforunately he was having a reaction. But he was a trouper and sort of dealt with it, which I appreciate him doing."
"Also, these kind of scenes you see a lot in The X-Files, where there's a dead guy lying on a table, and I wanted him to be completely nude - not the actor, but I wanted the scene to play like he didn't have a sheet on him, because often we have a sheet on top and there's nothing wrong with that. But in real life, when someone is doing an autopsy, there's not sheet on the body. It's just basically a nude cadaver lying there, and I wanted to stick to reality. So I think we had him in a pair of bicycle pants, and I placed Scully around his midsection so we could frame out the "naughty bits", as Monty Pyhton says."
"But in these scenes, it's always tough for the actor to have to lie there for a long time and hold his breath. And Kevin, again, was a trouper. I think it's a lot harder than it seems, because these takes go on for minutes, and you can't stop breathing for a minute straight, so you have to breathe carefully so we can't see you breathing."
"The 'You suck' on the boat here... I don't know why I put that on. I just thought it'd be funny. I figured the neighbours would get a bit jealous of some guy suddenly having a giant yacht, and maybe the neighbour kids put that on there."
"This was a fun scene to shoot, particularly the part coming up here when Agent Mulder does the 'I Dream of Jeannie' bit. He does the theme song from 'I Dream of Jeannie'. That was fun to shoot. The 'I Dream of Jeannie' bit that Mulder does, that was fun to shoot. And, by the way, whenever you have your actor even so much as hum a few bars from a published song, in this case the 'I Dream of Jeannie' theme song, you have to pay, sometimes through the nose. It's a good deal for the music publishing people and the folks who wrote the original song. They get paid, sometimes thousands of dollars. I think in this case several thousand dollars exchanged hands, maybe way more than that. But that's as it should be. As a writer, I don't write music, I write screenplays and TV teleplays, and I think it's good when someone who works their butt off gets paid for what they do. But it's always interesting to me how much it is just for a guy humming a few bars."
"The T-shirt Leslie is wearing, by the way, is one of my favourite bands, Lynyrd Skynyrd. In every scene... He has several costume changes in the episode, but in nearly every one it's a different incarnation of the Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt. There's different versions. I felt, character-wise, it'd be something he'd be into. And I like it myself a lot. Actually, I wound up keeping a bunch of the shirts, I got five or six of 'em."
"This scene coming up here... brings back somewhat sad memories for me, and I'll tell you why. This episode, when it was first cut together, I had it to my liking, and yet it was 11 minutes long, as in overlong. As in The X-Files, without credits and title sequence, needs to be something like 42 minutes 56 seconds long. And this was... I can't do the math on the fly here. 53 minutes long and change, and that can't be. TV is sort of a Procrustean bed. Procrustes being the old king in mythology who'd strap you to a bed six feet long, and if you were too short, he'd strech you, and if you were too long, he'd lop you off at the ankles. TV is sort of like that. I think it was Harlan Ellison, the science fiction writer, who first called TV that, and to me it is that way, because if you're too short in an episode you gotta pad it out. Luckily on The X-Files, we're never too short, we're always long but then that's where the heartbrak comes in of having to cut scenes that you like, and that last one was a prime example. In it, originally, Mulder showed three examples of the genie being in past lives, Mussolini and Nixon, and then a fun one with her standing next to old newsreel footage of this guy taking a cannonball shot to the stomach, and that had to get cut. A lot of little bits like that throughout this episode had to get cut. My favourite one of all, and the hardest one to cut, is coming up, which was a scene where Leslie here winds up sitting on the couch watching TV, next to his deceased brother, and watching 'The Dukes of Hazzard', one of my all-time favourite TV shows. And that had to get cut. That was the act-out that you just saw. The original act-out was he makes the wish, and then the dead body comes to his house and they sit and watch 'The Dukes of Hazzard' together, in a very brotherly sort of a way."
"The guy standing on the right of the fram in the bow tie and glasses in Harry Bring, one of the producers on The X-Files, and a wonderful guy. We call him Uncle Harry, and he is a real character. He and Michelle MacLaren run the production end of our show and do a great job. He's a wonderful guy, and I was so glad to get to give him a little cameo in the episode."
"The fly buzzing around that you see in this scene is completely computer-animated."
"This kitchen scene, by the way, is again on the sound stage, and the way these sets are built... Our wonderful production designer, Corey Kaplan, and Duke Tomasick, our construction coordinator, do a wonderful job designing and building them. And that trailer set is built with what we call "wild walls", or "Wildable walls", which is to say you can yank out a wall... Our grip crew can grab a wall and yank it out and get it out within minutes so that we have room to get the camera in there. And that last scene was a scene where we had to shoot them in a fairly wide shot at the breakfast table, the dead yellow brother and his brother who's just brought him back to life. And I was nervous that we were wide enough... Here it is again. ..wide enough that we could tell we were outside of the set, because at that point we were. We had pulled the wall immediately to... For instance, Leslie's left shoulder, we had pulled the wall out. But I guess it plays when you watch it. There was some concern when we shot it that the audience would feel like we were outside of the trailer. But hopefully no one's paying attention to that stuff at this point in the story anyway."
"As far as coming up with these shots goes, there was a little bit of storyboarding done, early on, mainly for the action scenes. For scenes like the one you just saw with three people talking there's sort of a... I don't wanna say a standard way, but there is a time-established way of shooting them. There's only so many places you can put the camera, so scenes like that I didn't storyboard. But other scenes with action in them, for instance what's coming up, the trailer blowing up, that kind of stuff got storyboarded. I had a wonderful storyboard artist who helped me visualise what was in my head and wound up helping me put it into paper."
"There's a shot coming up here I was so proud of when we shot it. I don't know how well it reads on camera, but I wanted to have heat going in the foreground. It's a shot through the back of the stove. I wanted all this ripply sort of heat haze coming up past Anson's yellow knees. Here it is. You can see a bit of it there. And, man, that was hard to get right. I think our special-effects guys wound up burning big casserole pans full of alcohol, right underneath the lens, to get that heat haze rising. Here, finally, Leslie gets it. Coming up here, he finally realises... Legs."
About the explosion sequence: "Ka-boom. This was so much fun to be on the set for. We had eight cameras going, one inside that car. They had something called a false knee underneath the car, a little hydraulic joint that popped out and made the car fall, to make it look like some big concussion hit the car. Those were a stunt man and woman doubling for Mulder and Scully. There's no way we would put our two stars of our show that close to an actual explosion. And I have to say, I was there on the set probably 60, 70 feet back, with the special-effects guys behind a Plexiglas screen, and I could feel the heat off that explosion. It felt like opening up a giant pizza oven, right in your face. It was pretty impressive. Although oddly enough, I will say, as impressive as it was, those kind of things almost always look better on film. They're impressive in real life but look 10 times bigger on film, especially when you shoot them in slow motion and whatnot."
"This scene was shot on location and I was very happy we got to do that. Out the windows, at the top of the scene especially, behind Paula Sorge, you can see the trailer park, and that's exactly where that is. It was some abandoned building. I'm still not sure what it was. But it was some sort of small tower, sort of two- or three-storey office building. And that room we were shooting in was so tiny that we shot with nothing but wide lenses, because we were jammed in like sardines. Obviously it's meant to play like there's just three people in there, but in reality, shooting it, it was probably about 15, 16 people, jammed in so tight that I was sitting back by the monitor, watching. There's a video monitor, by the way, that the director gets to watch. It's hooked to the IP, to the cameraman's Panavision camera, and it shows exactly on a video, called a video tap, what the camera operator is seeing. So I'm sitting back, watching on the monitor, and I either had to yell to the actors... I was just around the corner in another room. ..ask them to do things differently, faster, slower or whatever, or another take, because I couldn't actually step over all the huddled bodies of our crew to get in there to talk to people. It was that tight. But very, very fun, nonetheless."
About the crew: "There's a fun sort of camaraderie that I felt. I gotta say, this crew... Again, it sounds like I'm blowing smoke, but the best damn crew working. We had a wonderful crew in Vancouver, and now we have a wonderful crew in Los Angeles, and these guys take the cake, they're just fantastic. Everybody from Bill Roe, the director of photography, on down just gave 110 per cent, and made this directorial debut of mine such a pleasure, and also made me realise from day one through day 11 that I knew basically nothing. I say that in the sense that I was always aware just how little I knew and how much I was being helped along, being carried on the shoulders of all these wonderful actors and crew people who knew their jobs inside and out, and I feel proud of this, the job I did on this. There's many things I'd like to have done differently, but I realise this thing moves like a freight train or a supertanker. And even if the director's not all there, you know, mentally, the train moves on without him, and the shots get set up and the show goes on. And it takes a strong director to stay on top of it, because something will get shot one way or the other, and it'll most likely be good. But when you're directing you have to sort of stay ahead of the supertanker. Which is what Kim Manners does, and Rob Bowman and David Nutter before them. All our great directors, and I just tried to learn from those guys and do a job I thought they would be proud of. But, boy, there's a lot to know directing, and there's so much more I need to learn, but this episode was a great start for me."
"So now we're in Agent Mulder's apartment, and as I recall, that aquarium shot at the top of the act was one that took a bit of setting up, and I wanted to show more of it. But again, this was one of the scenes, as with just about every scene... 11 minutes we had to cut out of this thing, and that is a lot of time. What is that? Again, I'm not a math whiz, but that's, like, one fifh of the running time, between one quarter and one fifth, we had to chop off this thing. And as great an experience as direction this episode was, that was one of my least favourite experiences, editing it. Not because I didn't have a wonderful editor helping me through the process, but just because we sat there trying to figure out, day in and day out, what we could lose, and still tell the story we needed to tell. Louise Innes, my editor, really helped me there, helped make the story make sense. Because there's so much we had to lose - that Procrustean bed of TV has to be adhered to, and we had no choice but to chop stuff right and left to make it fit on between the Coca-Cola commercials and whatnot."
"This was one of my favourite scenes of Paula's, this scene coming up. I'm glad we could keep it nearly in its entirety. She is so funny, and sh'es got a lot of charisma. I haven't seen her in anything since this episode. I hope she's working and doing great things, cos she deserves to. She's a wonderful actress - she's funny, and yet in this scene, at the tail end of the scen, she... I'm sorry, it's not this scene. But you'll see coming up, she can turn on a dime and play nice emotion."
About the great shot of Mulder alone in the streets: "This shot, I gotta say, you don't see stuff like this on TV every day. This was shot on a Sunday morning. That's pretty amazing, because The X-Files shoots Monday through Friday. David Duchovny and our crew, and Michelle MacLaren, our coexecutive producer who runs our production, were all nice enough to figure out a way to make us able to shoot this on a Sunday. And this is downtown Los Angeles and that one shot you just saw, that oner, that one camera shot, cost well over $50,000 to shoot because we had off-duty police officers, we had 20 or 30 production assistants, all blocking off downtown Los Angeles to make it look like there was nobody down there. And if you've seen 'Vanilla Sky' since then... I haven't, but I understand there's a great opening sequence where it's Tom Cruise running around Times Square, with nobody in sight. And my hat's off to those guys, cos I know just that one little shot we got for this show was a logistical nightmare, and I can't imagine how they did that in Time Square. Sunday morning, by the way, is of course the best time for downtown Los Angeles because the fewest people are there at, like, 7.30 in the morning on a Sunday. There's not that many people you have to ask to step out of the shot to begin with."
About the sequence when Mulder talks to the genie in Skinner's office: "There was a little hand-off in this scene that I was sort of proud of. A hand-off meaning Mulder walks in and Skinner's chair is empty, and then the camera swings around and Paula's sitting in Mitch Pileggi's chair. Here's another hand-off. In the background of the previous shot there's nodoby there, and then the camera cranes up a bit, and then you see AD Skinner and all his staff in the background. I sort of wanted that to be a theme throughout the show. I didn't wanna see anybody magically... There's another one. Now Paula's gone. I didn't wanna see anybody magically appear or disappear on camera, certainly not the genie herself. I wanted to do it with cuts and make it more subtle. There's another one coming up here."
"As I do this commentary by the way, I'm putting finishing touches on the second X-Files episode I've written and directed. It's called 'Sunshine Days', and it will be the last one-hour episode of The X-Files ever. As I'm recording this, we're deep into season nine, what we now know to be the last season of The X-Files. And 'Sunshine Days' is really the last stand-alone episode, and I had a great time directing it too. It's funny. I think just pure enjoyment-wise I enjoyed direction this one, 'Je Souhaite', even more, mainly because I was not as aware on this one of the tightness of the schedule. I was much more painfully aware of how tight the shooting schedule is, this time around. And I had a hard time making my days, as we say. In other words, I had a hard time getting everything shot in a day on 'Sunshine Days' than I did on 'Je Souhaite'. So I guess the first time is always the most fun, and then it becomes a real job from there. But I hope you guys like that one when you see it. Probably by the time this is on DVD, you probably already will have."
About his work on The X-Files: "But it's been a great run, The X-Files. It's been the best job I've ever had. It's been like going to film school, except getting paid to be in attendance. And I feel very fortunate to have been able to direct two episodes, and to have written... Gees, I counted it up the other day. I can't even remember now. Something like 30-some episodes have my name on 'em as a writer or cowriter. It's been an honour and a privilege to work with people like Frank Spotnitz and John Shiban and Kim Manners, Michell MacLaren, Harry Bring, Bill Roe - the list goes on and on. Hope I'm not leaving anybody out. But of course, Chris Carter, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, not to leave out Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish, who are just absolutely wonderful, whom I wish could've gotten a longer run at it, because they are great folks, great to work with, do a wonderful job. But this has been a great job. I've learned so much, and I'll never forget it."
"This is Mulder's big decision, this scene here, where he decides to do the right thing and try... to not save the world and potentially screw it up. He decides to make a very simple wish instead."
About the final scene with Mulder and Scully on Mulder's couch: "This scene was fun to shoot. I will say, though, as fun as this scene was to shoot, this was second unit. We have two different crews, a first unit, main unit, and then we have a second unit crew. They're basically two completely staffed crews, both run by a bunch of people who really know their jobs inside and out. But here on second unit, we had to get this scene in very short order because Kim Manners, with first unit, was literally standing by... It was, like, 100 people standing by with their arms folded, waiting to get onto the stage we were on, Mulder's apartment. They needed to shoot in Mulder's apartment that day for a whole other episode. And that was a little taste of pressure that was, for me, a good learning experience, in that when you shoot a television show or a movie, or a commercial or anything, I guess, but especially TV with its supertight schedules, you have to learn to get what you need to get first and foremost. But you need to do it in a very timely manner, and with a minimum of BS and fuss, and you need to not shoot any more than you absolutely have to."
About the last sequence of the episode: "This is the last show of the show. This was done in Westwood Village, right around the outskirts of the UCLA campus. This was in a little French bakery called Elysée. And this was actually shot the first day of production. And, of course, it's the last shot, and as I said, fun to do. Thank you very much."
TRANSCRIPT
SCENE 1
CREVE COEUR, MISSOURI
(Self-storage facility. JAY GILMORE, a large balding man of about 40, is driving around the complex in a covered golf cart, something he probably does all day. He seems to be impressed with his power as the owner of this very important business. He speaks into a radio loudly and incessantly.)
JAY GILMORE: Anson? Anson, where are you, Anson? Anson, come back, Anson. Anson. Calling Anson. Where are you, Anson? Anson! Anson, calling Anson. Where are you, Anson? Anson! Where are you, Anson?
(ANSON STOKES, mid-twenties, is sitting in the shade of an empty storage unit looking through a catalogue of luxury yachts. He ignores the squawking radio beside him. The golf cart passes, then reverses and stops.)
JAY GILMORE: Anson! Get out here.
(ANSON STOKES reluctantly walks over to the golf cart.)
JAY GILMORE: I warned you about your attitude. Did you clean out 407? No... of course you haven't cleaned out 407. You've only had all damn morning. You think you're ever going to own any of those boats in that magazine the way you're going, huh? Do you think you're ever going to amount to anything? You can't even finish a simple job.
ANSON STOKES: A monkey could do this job, right, Jay?
JAY GILMORE: Well, you can't, so what's that say about you?
ANSON STOKES: (muttering under his breath) Oh, shut up.
JAY GILMORE: Excuse me? I didn't catch that. You clean out 407. You move out that deadbeat's stuff, and you do it now. And when I come back in an hour, it better be done.
(JAY GILMORE drives off in his little cart. ANSON STOKES, glares at him. He cuts the lock off of the storage unit 407 and opens the roll-up door. The unit is full of dusty and spiderweb covered furniture. He reluctantly starts to move a rolled up carpet. It moves and a sound comes from inside it. Surprised, he drops it, and grabs the lockcutters for protection. He cautiously unrolls the carpet. A dark-haired woman, thirties, dressed all in black is inside the rug. There is a small glittering jewel type thing at the corner of her right eyes. She lies still a moment, then her eyes pop open.)
(Later, JAY GILMORE arrives back at 407 on his golf cart. ANSON STOKES' radio is lying on the pavement.)
JAY GILMORE: Anson... Anson? Son of a... Anson. Anson!
(The storage unit is still full of furniture.)
JAY GILMORE: Aw, that's it, Anson. Do you hear me, Anson?
(JAY GILMORE is standing at the entrance to the storage unit, his back to us. With a muffled gasp, he raises his hands to his mouth in horror and turns around. Where his mouth once was is now just smooth, unbroken skin. He whimpers pitifully.)
[OPENING CREDITS] [OPENING CREDITS] [OPENING CREDITS] [OPENING CREDITS] [OPENING CREDITS]
SCENE 2
FBI HEADQUARTERS
9:22 AM
(X-Files office. MULDER is sitting at his desk looking through a file. JAY GILMORE is sitting across from him, his back to us.)
MULDER: Can I get you some coffee? Water? Anything?
(JAY GILMORE shakes his head. SCULLY enters the office.)
SCULLY: Morning.
(MULDER nods at her in a sort of ? warning ? way.)
MULDER: Morning.
(SCULLY mouths "Who's that?" to MULDER as she comes over to the desk.)
MULDER: Special Agent Dana Scully, this is, uh, this is Jay Gilmore.
(SCULLY stifles a scream, recovering quickly from the sight of JAY GILMORE's face. His "mouth" consists of raw flesh held together by stitches. It's really nasty. She forces a pleasant smile.)
SCULLY: Nice to meet you.
JAY GILMORE: Nice to meet...
(He can't make his mouth say "you.")
JAY GILMORE: Likewise.
(SCULLY crosses around the desk to stand beside MULDER.)
MULDER: Mr. Gilmore came all the way to see us from Missouri, the "Show Me" state.
JAY GILMORE: They told me you were the people to best understand my situ... My sit...
(He can't pronounce the "oo" sound.)
MULDER: It's okay. Uh, this is Mr. Gilmore's... situation. This condition came on very suddenly about a month ago.
(MULDER shows SCULLY the file with pictures of JAY GILMORE's mouthless face.)
JAY GILMORE: Anson Stokes-- he did this to me. I don't know how, I just... I know it was him.
MULDER: Anson Stokes is a former employee at the, uh, self-storage yard that Mr. Gilmore owns. Uh, apparently, there was some bad blood between you two.
JAY GILMORE: He told me to shut up! (points at his "lips") Huh?!
MULDER: Yeah. And then Mr. Gilmore was, uh... stricken...
(JAY GILMORE nods affirmatively.)
MULDER: Stricken... stricken, and Anson Stokes was nowhere to be found. He resurfaced several days later and the police wanted to question him. But he refused.
JAY GILMORE: Do you know what he said? He said they had nothing on him.
MULDER: Well, and to be fair, sir, they didn't-- they don't.
JAY GILMORE: They had to make me a whole new mouth. Do you think Blue Cross is going to pay for this? Uh-uh.
(He is so upset, he is stretching his new lips farther than he should.)
JAY GILMORE: I demand justice!
(He groans in pain, and presses a handkerchief to his weeping mouth.)
SCENE 3
MARK TWAIN TRAILER COURT
OLIVETTE, MISSOURI
(MULDER and SCULLY pull up in a beige car in front of a trailer park. As they get out of the car, they continue a "conversation.")
SCULLY: Look, Mulder, all I'm saying is...
MULDER: I know-- this may not be a crime and this guy Stokes may not know anything about it.
SCULLY: But there is a condition called microstomia-- "small mouth"-- which is, uh, it's brought on by the disease scleroderma and it's the overproduction of collagen and it can actually reduce a person's mouth to a tiny little opening.
(She indicates said little opening with her hands.)
MULDER: Yeah, but that takes months to develop, right? It doesn't just happen in the blink of an eye. (puts his hand on her shoulder steering her toward the sidewalk) Gilmore's surgeons are stumped. They're writing it up in the New England Journal of Medicine.
SCULLY: (small grin) Well, there's always nasal aplasia-- the complete absence of a nose.
MULDER: That's a nose, Scully; we're talking mouth here.
SCULLY: Yeah, but what we're talking, Mulder, is medical-- physiological-- not criminal. Not as far as I can see.
MULDER: Well, maybe, but I still want to know why Anson Stokes doesn't want to talk to the police.
SCULLY: Mulder...
(They stop walking, and stare at the very large yacht sitting on the ground next to one of the trailers. Its flags flap in the breeze.)
SCULLY: That's a little... out of place, wouldn't you say?
MULDER: A little bit.
(Inside the trailer, ANSON STOKES is peeping out the window. He sees MULDER and SCULLY approaching.)
ANSON STOKES: (whisper) Aw, damn it. Leslie!
(LESLIE STOKES is his brother, a round faced gentle man in a motorized wheelchair with a little red flag sticking up out of the back of it.)
LESLIE STOKES: What? What is it?
ANSON STOKES: They're I.R.S. agents. They got to be. Listen, get rid of them, all right?
(With the yacht in the background, SCULLY knocks at the door of the trailer. It opens. No one is there. Then LESLIE STOKES reverses into the doorway.)
SCULLY: Hi. We're looking for a Mr. Anson Stokes.
LESLIE STOKES: He's not here.
SCULLY: Well, do you happen to know when he's coming back?
(He shakes his head. She pulls out her badge.)
SCULLY: Well, we are, uh, Agents Mulder and Scully from the FBI.
LESLIE STOKES: (nervous) Oh, the boat's... the boat's not ours. The boat ? I'm... we're just holding it for someone, and, you know-- they pay the taxes on it.
SCULLY: (yeah, buddy, whatever tone) Okay...
LESLIE STOKES: Anson's not here.
(He starts to close the door. MULDER holds it open.)
MULDER: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's your name?
LESLIE STOKES: Leslie Stokes.
MULDER: Oh, you're Anson's brother?
(MULDER looks in the house. The DARK-HAIRED WOMAN who was rolled up in the rug is standing near the kitchen looking bored idly playing with some kind of food canister. She is wearing sunglasses.)
MULDER: Hi, there.
(SCULLY leans in under MULDER's chin to see the WOMAN. Very cute.)
MULDER: We're not here to talk about the boat, Leslie. We want to talk to your brother about his former employer. Mr. Gilmore?
SCULLY: And the, uh... unfortunate condition that he's found himself in. Would you happen to know anything about that?
LESLIE STOKES: What, the mouth thing? Yeah, well, that-- you know, that's-that's just, uh, that's, like... chemicals.
SCULLY: Chemicals?
LESLIE STOKES: Yeah, you know, like, people store weird chemicals, well like... my brother one time, he smelled this weird smell? You know, he's just a guy with a meth lab, like in one of the storage units, so you know, that's actually probably something you guys should look into-- take a look into that... you know, I'm going to get going, so I'm going to go, okay?
(LESLIE STOKES closes the door quickly. MULDER and SCULLY turn away. MULDER nods his head thoughtfully.)
SCULLY: Okay.
MULDER: Now I see what's going on here.
(SCULLY stares at him. He smiles as his nod turns into a slow negative shake of the head. She gives a little laugh.)
SCENE 4
(MULDER and SCULLY open storage unit 407. They stand in the doorway.)
SCULLY: Well, according to Gilmore he was standing right where I am when it happened.
MULDER: Well, I don't smell any weird chemical smells. (looks at SCULLY's mouth) You still have both your lips.
SCULLY: Apparently, everything is left as it was.
(They take out their flashlights as they look around.)
MULDER: Hey... 1978. (he holds up an old calendar) It's been a long time since any of this stuff has seen the light of day.
SCULLY: Well, it's too bad, Mulder. Underneath all this dust, this furniture is really wonderful.
MULDER: Oh, well, you want to hit some yard sales while we're out here?
SCULLY: Mulder, this furniture is expensive, very expensive.
MULDER: What's your point?
SCULLY: My point is that, uh... there's a lot of money sitting around here and maybe something's missing.
MULDER: Like what?
SCULLY: I don't know-- jewelry. I mean, Anson Stokes opened up this storage unit and then he just disappeared.
MULDER: And winds up with the Titanic in his driveway?
SCULLY: Mm-hmm. There's your crime: Theft.
MULDER: That still doesn't explain what happened to Gilmore.
SCULLY: Well...
MULDER: Hey, Scully, check this out.
(He shows her a picture of a balding, overweight Seventies playboy with a scantily clad girl on each arm.)
SCULLY: Ouch.
(A DARK-HAIRED woman is also in the picture. She looks bored.)
MULDER: This woman look familiar to you?
SCULLY: That's the woman from the trailer.
MULDER: That's the ?young- woman from the trailer. How many centuries now has disco been dead?
SCENE 5
(In the STOKES' trailer. LESLIE STOKES watches as his brother paces nervously. The DARK-HAIRED WOMAN takes off her glasses and channel surfs the TV. She handles the remote with some slight disgust. It is a cheap plastic replica of a well-endowed woman, sans head and legs. The up and down channel switches are on the nipples. What prop person found that thing?!)
ANSON STOKES: Two down. Two down, I got nothing to show for it.
LESLIE STOKES: You got the boat.
ANSON STOKES: And what the hell good is that? Huh? That thing is like a big... you know, big...
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: White elephant?
ANSON STOKES: What? I'm sorry. What does that mean?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: (patiently) It's a big expensive item that serves no purpose and is ultimately more trouble than it's worth.
ANSON STOKES: So what the hell did you give it to me for?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Because you asked for it.
ANSON STOKES: Fine. You know what? I can appreciate that. That's... but don't you think maybe you could've found some frickin' water to put it in?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: You didn't specify water.
ANSON STOKES: I got to specify that you put a boat in the frickin' water? That is a given. Frickin' white elephant. I can't even pay the taxes on it.
LESLIE STOKES: Why don't you just, uh, use your last wish to get rid of it?
ANSON STOKES: You want me to put you in a home or something, maybe, right now? Because I just told you, Leslie, that I wasted two wishes, okay? And I am not... are you listening? I am not going to waste the third. All right? Come on. Come on. (He hits the TV power button, turning it off.) We got to concentrate here. Now, let me figure this out. Let me figure this out. Third wish, third wish, third wish, final wish. Hey, I'm just spit-balling here, all right? If I happen to say, "I wish," by accident, that does not count, not until I am absolutely ready, okay?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: You could always give that guy his mouth back.
ANSON STOKES: Hey, all I said was that I wish Jay would shut the hell up. If you feel bad about what you did to him fix it on your own dime, okay?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: (sighs) It doesn't work like that.
ANSON STOKES: Whatever. Leslie, would you help me out here?
LESLIE STOKES: (sudden thought) Uh... Money. Wish for money.
ANSON STOKES: Yeah, okay, that's not bad. That's not bad, that's not bad, but don't you think maybe we should think of something that would, generate money instead of the, actually the money itself?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Brains? Talent? Hard work?
(ANSON STOKES looks at her with disgust.)
LESLIE STOKES: Uh... A money machine. Huh?
ANSON STOKES: That's not... but something better. Something better. Okay, but...
LESLIE STOKES: An infinite number of wishes?
ANSON STOKES: (looking hopefully to the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN) Okay.
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Just three boys. Settle down.
ANSON STOKES: Damn it, this is hard.
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: You know, I have a thought. Granted, it's pretty obvious.
(She dramatically indicates LESLIE STOKES sitting in his wheel chair.)
ANSON STOKES: What? What, what, what?
(She indicates LESLIE STOKES' legs.)
ANSON STOKES: What?
LESLIE STOKES: What?
(She indicates LESLIE STOKES' legs again.)
ANSON STOKES: Seriously, what?
(In disgust, the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN gives up.)
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Oh, forget it.
(ANSON STOKES has a revelation.)
ANSON STOKES: I got it.
LESLIE STOKES: Yeah?
ANSON STOKES: I got it. I got it, I got it, I got it. Okay. Okay. Are you ready? Because I am ready. I am absolutely ready. Okay, here goes. I wish that I could turn invisible ? at will.
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: (dryly) You're kidding.
ANSON STOKES: No, no. This is perfect. Yeah, I could have an advantage that nobody else on earth can have. I can, um, you know, spy and learn secret information, pick up stock tips.
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Sneak into a women's locker room.
ANSON STOKES: Not just that, okay? I'm talking about James Bond type stuff. You know?
(He holds up his hand like a gun. He is giggling excitedly.)
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Your wish is breathtaking in its un-originality.
ANSON STOKES: You don't have to like it, all right? You just have to do it. Right?
(Pause.)
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Done.
ANSON STOKES: My clothes are going to turn invisible, too, right?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: You didn't specify clothes.
ANSON STOKES: I know, but... screw it.
(Very excited, he begins stripping off his clothes. He and LESLIE STOKES are laughing. When he gets to his pants, the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN turns her head.)
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Oh, God. Turn invisible please.
(ANSON STOKES does turn invisible, and apparently begins running around the room. LESLIE STOKES is delighted by what his brother can do.)
ANSON STOKES: (voice) Yes! Oh, man, this is awesome! Hey. Hey, brother. Hey, Leslie? I'm over here. Oop, I'm over here. Can you see me?
(He "Whoops" with glee and runs out the front door and down the wheelchair ramp, then crashes into the trashcans at the base.)
ANSON STOKES: (voice) Oof. Ow! Damn it.
(LESLIE STOKES rolls out onto the landing and sees the overturned trashcans.)
LESLIE STOKES: Anson, you all right?
ANSON STOKES: Yeah, I am. I can't see my damn feet. Look out, world! Here I come! Whoo-hoo!
(One of the cans is dented by ANSON as he gets up and runs down the sidewalk, tipping over other cans as he goes.)
ANSON STOKES: (voice) I'm invisible! Invisible, baby! Whoo!
LESLIE STOKES: Whoo-oo!
(Inside, the DARK-HARIED WOMAN puts on her sunglasses.)
ANSON STOKES: (voice) Yes! You can't see me, can you!
LESLIE STOKES: I...
(LESLIE STOKES laughs and cheers his brother on from the landing in front of the trailer. He wheels back into the trailer. The DARK-HAIRED WOMAN has disappeared.)
LESLIE STOKES: Hey, uh...?
(We now go to AnsonCam as he runs happily through the neighborhood. He tips several flowerpots over onto a car as he climbs over a wall, tips over a bicycle, then splashes through a mud puddle. A small group of pigeons are feeding on the ground. They scatter as ANSON STOKES runs through them.)
ANSON STOKES: (voice) Hey, out of my way, birds.
(Across a busy street, he sees two attractive young women trying to replace the chain on a bicycle.)
ANSON STOKES: (voice) Hello, ladies.
(He giggles and presses the "walk" button for the crosswalk.)
ANSON STOKES: (voice, lecherously) Yeah, here comes Anson. That's right. Come on, come on, come on. Change, change.
(The "walk" signal lights up and ANSON STOKES starts across the street. One of the girls stands up. She is wearing a very tight shirt.)
ANSON STOKES: (voice) All right, here we go. Need a little roadside assistance, do ya? (he chuckles) Well, not to worry. Here comes Anson.
(There is the sound of a very large engine. AnsonCam turns to the right just in time to see the truck ignoring the signal to stop, because obviously there is no one in the crosswalk. ANSON STOKES yells briefly, then splat. AnsonCam is no more.)
SCENE 6
4:36 PM
(Same street, later. A KID is riding his bicycle on the dirt along the side of the road. He suddenly hits an invisible "speed bump," and flips head over heels off the bike and out of frame.)
KID: Whooooaaa!!!
(SCULLY stands waiting in an autopsy bay. She has a rather pained look on her face. Two MORGUE ATTENDANTS wheel an "empty" stainless steel gurney into the room. They both look very uncomfortable.)
MORGUE ATTENDANT: Can we go now?
SCULLY: Mm-hmm.
(The two men leave. SCULLY looks skeptically at the neck prop on the gurney. She leans close and gingerly reaches out with a finger. It makes contact. SCULLY stares as she follow the line of what looks like a shoulder. Without standing up, she turns and runs to the desk in the corner of the room and finds a jar of yellow powder and a brush. She dips the brush into the powder and taps it where a face would be. The powder begins to define a closed eye. SCULLY taps the brush again and continues to cover the face. She gets a silly cute grin of excitement as more of the face is revealed. She is amazed.)
(Later, SCULLY has almost completely covered the body with the yellow powder. It is ANSON STOKES. MULDER has joined her. He is looking intently at the shoulder of the body.)
MULDER: I think you missed a spot here. I can see straight through to his ass.
(She comes over and dabs a bit of powder on the spot.)
MULDER: This is Anson Stokes, huh?
SCULLY: It is. His dental records are a match. He was found about half a mile from his house. He was probably hit by a car or a truck or... something.
MULDER: And he's invisible.
SCULLY: Yes, he is.
(MULDER and SCULLY beam down at the corpse. They look like two parents gazing upon the first artwork that their four-year-old brings home from pre-school.)
SCULLY: You know, Mulder, in the seven years that we've been working together I have seen some amazing things, but this? This takes the cake. It's... it's going to change the boundaries of science.
MULDER: It is amazing, but I don't think it has anything to do with science. Remember Mr. Saturday Night Fever?
(He holds up the picture that they found in the storage unit.)
SCULLY: Yeah.
MULDER: I did a little background checking. His real name is Henry Flanken. He redefined the term "overnight success." In 1977, his net worth was $36,000, and in 1978 it was $30 million. Then there is the interesting way in which Mr. Flanken died.
SCULLY: How's that?
MULDER: Chronic morbid tumescence.
SCULLY: You don't mean what I think you mean?
MULDER: Sch-wing. On April 4, 1978, he was admitted to Gateway Memorial Hospital with an extreme priapic condition. Apparently, he was quite the specimen. They had to raise the doorframe in order to wheel him into his hospital room.
(SCULLY winces.)
SCULLY: Well, what does any of that have to do with this?
(He holds up a blown-up image of the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN.)
MULDER: Well, I think our mystery woman is the link. About whom I can find no information whatsoever. I think she's responsible for all of this.
SCULLY: But how?
MULDER: I... I don't know. But... we need to talk to her.
SCULLY: Uh, I think that I should stay here with the body. I mean, I... you know, I don't think it's a good idea to leave him unguarded. You know, this is truly amazing.
(MULDER smiles at her, understanding.)
MULDER: Okay.
(He leaves, and SCULLY smiles and happily looks down at the body.)
SCENE 7
(Night. In the STOKES' trailer. MULDER is talking to a sad LESLIE STOKES. The yacht is still outside.)
MULDER: I'm very sorry for your loss.
LESLIE STOKES: Anson didn't suffer, did he?
MULDER: No, I don't think he suffered. The part about him being invisible-- that doesn't, uh, catch you off guard just a little bit?
LESLIE STOKES: Uh...
MULDER: Leslie, there was a woman here earlier. Where is she now?
LESLIE STOKES: She's, uh... she's gone.
MULDER: Uh, let me tell you where I'm going with this. I think that woman is a jinniyah. Are you familiar with that term?
LESLIE STOKES: No.
MULDER: It's the feminine for jinni-- as in a demon or spirit from Middle Eastern folklore.
(LESLIE STOKES doesn't get it. MULDER starts humming the theme song to "I Dream of Jeannie." LESLIE STOKES joins in, grinning. He gets it now.)
MULDER: Yeah, except Barbara Eden never killed anybody. All right, now in Arabic mythology they speak of these beings that are composed of flame or air but take human form. They can perform certain tasks or grant certain wishes. They live in inanimate objects like a lamp or a ring. Is this beginning to sound familiar?
(LESLIE STOKES shakes his head.)
MULDER: Leslie, I believe your brother found just such an object in the storage facility, didn't he? He took possession of the jinniyah and he made some pretty outrageous requests, like Jay Gilmore's mouth and the yacht in the driveway.
LESLIE STOKES: Oh, wait, wait. You believe all that?
MULDER: I do. And, Leslie, for your own safety-- so that what happened to your brother doesn't happen to you-- I think you should hand over that object to me right now.
(LESLIE STOKES sighs, then moves his wheelchair over to a table. He hands MULDER a hexagonal metal canister with an ornate top. MULDER looks at it possessively.)
MULDER: (reassuringly) You're doing the right thing.
SCENE 8
(Short time later, LESLIE STOKES opens the door to the storage unit 407. He turns on a flashlight and sees the once again rolled up carpet.)
(Morgue. SCULLY is taking pictures of the yellow powder covered body with her Very Big Camera. MULDER enters.)
MULDER: Hey, Scully, come check this out.
(SCULLY does not want to leave.)
MULDER: Come on, he's not going anywhere. Come on.
(MULDER waves at her to follow him out of the room. SCULLY pushes the body tray back into the wall.)
SCULLY: (happy whisper to the body as she closes the door) Bye.
(SCULLY {presumably} locks the cabinet door and joins MULDER at a computer terminal in another room. She is adorably excited, trying to be modest, yet already deciding which outfit she is going to wear when she graces the cover of next months issue of "Pathology Today.")
SCULLY: I have a group of researchers flying in from Harvard Medical. Can't wait to see their faces.
(MULDER smiles tolerantly and hands her the container that LESLIE STOKES gave him.)
SCULLY: What's this?
MULDER: It's not what I hoped it would be. Judging from the odor coming inside, I think it's where the Stokes brothers keep their weed.
(SCULLY sniffs the container and MULDER shuts the lid and brings up a screen on the computer.)
MULDER: But that's not what I wanted to show you. Recognize him?
(He shows her a black and white image of Mussolini on a speech platform.)
SCULLY: Benito Mussolini.
MULDER: How about her?
(The DARK-HAIRED WOMAN is also in the image. She looks bored.)
SCULLY: Your mystery woman. Or someone who looks a lot like her.
MULDER: Well, the computer says it is her. I ran her through Quantico's facial recognition software and couldn't come up with a match in the known felon database. Then I took a flier and checked with the image bank at the national archives. Voila.
SCULLY: Well, even if it is her, Mulder, what would she be doing with Mussolini?
MULDER: Or Richard Nixon, for that matter.
(He shows a video of Richard Nixon also on a platform. The DARK-HAIRED WOMAN stands behind him, looking bored.)
MULDER: I don't know. Except that they're both men who got all the power they ever wished for and then lost it.
SCENE 9
(Same night. STOKES' trailer. With a kick, the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN finishes spreading out her rug in the middle of the floor. She looks less than delighted to be back in this room.)
LESLIE STOKES: See? I told you it'd look good in here. Nice rug. How do you breathe in that thing, huh?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Can we just get this over with, please? Three wishes. Go.
LESLIE STOKES: Okay. Don't rush me, all right? I want to do this right. Got to be smarter than Anson was.
(He looks wistfully at a framed picture.) LESLIE STOKES: Damn it, Anson.
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Then, can I once again offer you a suggestion?
LESLIE STOKES: Hmm?
(She indicates his legs.)
LESLIE STOKES: What?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: This. Your disability? There was some tragedy involved here, I assume.
LESLIE STOKES: Yeah, well, yeah, it was pretty tragic, I guess. Me and Anson were playing mailbox baseball. (he chuckles) God, I miss that. And Anson's driving. I was leaning pretty far out the window there. Oh. (he laughs and indicates his wheelchair) You mean this?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Mm-hmm.
LESLIE STOKES: (realization) Yeah, you're right. I could wish for a solid gold wheelchair. Man, that'd be sweet.
(The DARK-HAIRED WOMAN is over it all.)
LESLIE STOKES: I see what you're saying but you know what? There's something I want more than that.
(He gazes at his brother's picture. It appears to be a prom photo of ANSON STOKES.)
SCENE 10
(Next morning. Morgue. SCULLY proudly leads the three MEMBERS OF THE HARVARD REASEARCH TEAM to the locked door in the morgue. She is delighted. This is her defining moment. This discovery is going to make her remembered as one of the most famous pathologists of all time. Even her father would have been proud of her at this moment.) SCULLY: You're not going to believe your eyes. I certainly didn't. You ready?
(SCULLY has unlocked the door. She opens it, and pulls out the tray. It is empty. She stares at it for a second, then nervously glances at the team behind her who are looking skeptically at each other.)
SCULLY: Uh, he's, uh... he's invisible... after all... Um...
(She laughs weakly, and puts out her hand to touch ? nothing.)
SCULLY: He's in there.
(She reaches back further into the drawer. Nothing. Poor Scully.)
SCENE 11
(Trailer. LESLIE STOKES and ANSON STOKES, still covered in yellow powder, sit across form each other at the table. The DARK-HAIRED WOMAN is also in the room, bored as usual. Each of the men has a bowl of corn flakes, but only LESLIE STOKES is eating his. Flies buss around the merely animated dead body of ANSON STOKES. LESLIE STOKES stares at him, then turns to the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN.)
LESLIE STOKES: Okay. You know what? He's creeping me out. This isn't what I asked for. He's all weird and messed up.
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: He's been hit by a truck. What did you expect?
LESLIE STOKES: I asked you to bring him back to normal.
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: You asked me to bring him back.
LESLIE STOKES: Okay, you know, the...
(LESLIE STOKES smells his bowl of cereal, then looks at ANSON STOKES.)
LESLIE STOKES: Now, he's starting to smell bad! Come on-- this isn't what I wanted! Look, he's got to at least be able to talk. Okay... You know what? That's my next wish. WISH NUMBER TWO: I wish Anson could talk.
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: No, you don't.
LESLIE STOKES: Yes, I do and that's final. I wish Anson could talk.
(The DARK-HAIRED WOMAN sighs in exasperation.)
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Done.
(ANSON STOKES opens his mouth and begins one long, piercing scream, LESLIE STOKES and the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN both cover their ears.)
SCENE 12
(Morgue. The Harvard team is long gone. As MULDER looks inside the empty drawer, SCULLY sits despondently, her head in her hands.)
SCULLY: Oh, I should just shoot myself. Oh... I was so happy. I was so excited. What was I thinking? An invisible man?
MULDER: (her moral support ? he's been here) You saw it. It was real.
SCULLY: I don't know what I saw, Mulder. I do know that having that kind of proof in my hands it was just too good to be true.
MULDER: I don't think that's why the body disappeared.
SCULLY: Why did the body disappear?
MULDER: I think it was the result of a wish being granted.
SCULLY: A wish? Whose wish?
MULDER: Well, who would want Anson Stokes back? I mean, really, really back.
SCULLY: His brother, Leslie.
SCENE 13
(In the trailer, ANSON STOKES is still screaming in horror. Finally it tapers off into a weak gurgle.)
LESLIE STOKES: Well, this is no good.
ANSON STOKES: (trembling, accusing) What did you do to me?
LESLIE STOKES: What? You're back from the dead, man. What kind of gratitude is that?
ANSON STOKES: What did you do to me?
LESLIE STOKES: I wasted two wishes on you. That's what I did.
ANSON STOKES: I can't feel my heart.
(LESLIE STOKES looks at the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN who smiles and shrugs.)
ANSON STOKES: I-I can't feel my blood. (coughs) I am yellow! I'm cold.
LESLIE STOKES: Screw this!
(ANSON STOKES shivers miserably.)
ANSON STOKES: I'm cold. I'm cold.
LESLIE STOKES: I wasted two wishes on you. And a perfectly good bowl of corn flakes.
(LESLIE STOKES rolls over to the thermostat and angrily adjusts it.)
LESLIE STOKES: There, I turned the heat up. Are you happy now? Huh? Are you happy? Is there anything else I can do for you there, buddy?
(In the kitchen, hands shaking, ANSON STOKES turns on the gas stove and breaks off the controller. He begins weakly trying to start kitchen matches.)
LESLIE STOKES: (yelling) What do you say? Maybe wipe your little yellow butt? Thanks for nothing.
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: You want to make your third wish, champ? I'd like to get out of here before the blowflies hatch.
LESLIE STOKES: Yeah, I tell you what-- my last wish is going to be for me, okay? It's going to be for me, you hear that, Anson? (yelling) I wasted two wishes on you and you don't even give a damn about that! All right... third wish. Uh... let's see, I could wish for, uh... I could wish for money. Not everybody wishes for money.
ANSON STOKES: (feebly trying to strike matches) It's so cold.
LESLIE STOKES: No, um... or there's the invisibility thing. (yelling) I guess that turned out pretty stupid huh? Anson? To be invisible! That was real smart, huh?
(Outside, MULDER and SCULLY arrive and start walking toward the trailer.)
LESLIE STOKES: Uh... X-ray eyes, maybe? No, that would be... hmm, like you said, solid gold wheelchair.
(The DARK-HAIRED WOMAN looks over at ANSON STOKES who keeps trying to strike a match. She looks a little concerned.)
LESLIE STOKES: Uh... wait, I got it-- legs!
(LESLIE STOKES beams. ANSON STOKES succeeds in lighting a match. At just that moment, MULDER and SCULLY are walking up to the trailer. It explodes violently. MULDER and SCULLY fall to the ground as debris rains around them. The last thing to fall is a rolled up rug. As it falls, we here a muffled "Ow" as it lands behind MULDER and SCULLY. They stare at it, then back at the destroyed trailer.)
SCENE 14
(An office in the trailer park. Out the window, we see fire trucks and other emergency personnel. Inside, MULDER is interviewing the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN.)
MULDER: Would you mind removing your eyewear, ma'am?
(She takes off her sunglasses revealing the small jewel-thing at the corner of her eye.)
MULDER: Ah. Do you have a name?
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: Not for a long time now.
(MULDER looks at her intently.)
MULDER: How about if I call you Jenn? That's short for "jinniyah."
(SCULLY enters the room.)
SCULLY: The, uh... the fire department just recovered two bodies.
MULDER: Leslie Stokes and his brother, Anson.
SCULLY: Looks like it. And, uh, Anson Stokes is visible now. (disappointed) Of course.
(SCULLY turns to the DARK-HAIRED WOMAN, JENN.)
SCULLY: But what I'd really love an explanation for is how his corpse got from my locked morgue all the way across town to the Mark Twain Trailer Park.
JENN: Ask him. He's got it all figured out.
SCULLY: I know what he'd say. He'd say that you're some kind of a jinni from 1,001 Nights or something like that and that you grant people wishes.
JENN: Well, there you have it.
MULDER: Well, one thing I haven't been able to figure out is whether you're a good jinni or an evil one. Everybody you come in contact with seems to meet a bad end.
JENN: That's the conclusion you've drawn? That I'm evil?
MULDER: Well, possibly evil. Possibly cursed. A curse to others.
JENN: The only thing you people are cursed with is stupidity. All of you. Everybody. Mankind. Everyone I have ever come into contact with without fail. Always asking for the wrong thing.
MULDER: You mean making the wrong wishes.
JENN: Yeah, it's always: "Give me money. Give me big boobs. " (indicates her crotch region) "Give me a big hoo-hoo. Make me cool like the Fonz." Or whoever's the big name now.
MULDER: You been out of circulation a long time.
JENN: So what? In 500 years, people have not changed a bit.
SCULLY: 500 years.
JENN: Granted, they smell better now generally speaking but human greed still reigns... shallowness... a propensity for self-destruction.
SCULLY: You're saying that you have been a firsthand witness to 500 years of human history.
JENN: I used to be human. I was born in 15th century France and then, one day, an old Moor came to my village peddling rugs and I unrolled one that an Ifrit had taken residence in.
SCULLY: (not believing a word) "An Ifrit."
JENN: A very... powerful class of jinni. He offered me three wishes. For the first I asked for a stouthearted mule. For the second, a magic sack that was always full of turnips...
(MULDER and SCULLY stare at her.)
JENN: Did I mention this was 15th century France?
MULDER: What was your third wish?
JENN: My third... I pondered for a great while. I didn't want to waste it. So, finally, feeling very intelligent I spoke up and I said "Je souhaite un grand pouvoir et une longue vie." "I wish for great power and long life."
MULDER: And thus became a jinni yourself.
JENN: Gave me the mark of the jinn... (points at the corner of her eye) ? right there. It's forever. Sort of like a prison tattoo.
(SCULLY rubs her temples.)
JENN: I should've been more specific. So, am I under arrest?
SCULLY: I can't think of anything we have to hold you on. And, not surprisingly we don't have any evidence of any of this, so, uh... I think she's free to go.
JENN: No, I'm not. He unrolled me.
(Both women look at MULDER. His face slowly registers elation as he realizes what this means. Close up on his face.)
MULDER: I get three wishes.
SCENE 15
(MULDER's apartment. JENN is looking at the fish in the tank. He watches her, arms crossed.)
JENN: So your partner left the airport rather quickly. And I don't think she likes me very much.
MULDER: I don't think she knows what to make of you. I don't think I do either, really.
JENN: Well, you could always give up your three wishes. I'll disappear-- no hard feelings.
(She looks at him. He gives a little smile.)
MULDER: Mmmm.
JENN: I didn't think so. So, what's your first wish?
MULDER: Well...
(He thinks, then laughs.)
MULDER: What would your wish be if you were in my place?
JENN: I'm not you. It doesn't matter.
MULDER: But, I just... you know, I'd like to know.
JENN: I'd... wish that I'd never heard the word "wish" before. I'd wish that I could live my life moment by moment... enjoying it for what it is instead of... instead of worrying about what it isn't.
(MULDER smiles. Sounds of traffic outside.)
JENN: I'd... sit down somewhere with a great cup of coffee and I'd watch the world go by. But then again, I'm not you. So I doubt that's your wish.
MULDER: You know, I think I'm beginning to see the problem here. You say that most people make the wrong wishes, right?
JENN: Without fail. It's like giving a chimpanzee a revolver.
MULDER: This is because they make their wishes solely for personal gain.
JENN: Could be.
MULDER: So the trick would be to make a wish that's totally altruistic. That's for everyone. So, um... I wish for peace on earth.
JENN: Peace on earth. That's it?
(MULDER is now concerned.)
MULDER: What the hell's wrong with that? You can't do it?
JENN: No. I can.
(Pause.)
JENN: It's done.
(MULDER is beaming happily. Then he realizes that all traffic sounds outside have disappeared. His face falls.)
MULDER: Oh, crap.
(He goes to the window and looks out the blinds. He runs outside. The street is full of empty cars and buses. He looks in a bus stopped at the corner of Market Street.)
MULDER: I guess I should have seen this coming! (concerned) Scully.
(He makes his way on foot to the FBI building and goes to his office.)
MULDER: Scully?
(No answer. He walks through the deserted hall in the building. Scattered files on the floor indicate where people may have been walking.)
MULDER: Hello? Hello?
(He goes to SKINNER's office. Also empty.)
MULDER: (applauding sarcastically) Very good. Jinni? Jinni, whatever the hell your name is...
(She is sitting in SKINNER's chair.)
JENN: Yes?
MULDER: What the hell is this?
JENN: It's what you asked for. Peace on earth. Listen.
(She exaggeratedly listens to the lack of sound.)
MULDER: You know damn well that's not what I meant.
JENN: You didn't specify.
MULDER: This has nothing to do with specificity. You don't have to wipe out the entire population of the whole planet just to effect a little peace on earth and goodwill towards men.
JENN: You didn't say goodwill towards men. So you expect me to change the hearts of six billion people? No religion in history has been able to pull that off. Not Allah or Buddha or Christ. But you'd like me to do that in your name? So... what? You can feel real good about yourself?
MULDER: (defensively) Did I say that? I didn't say that.
JENN: (clicking her tongue) Mm, how grotesquely egotistical of you. I bet you wish you hadn't made your first wish.
MULDER: Yes, I do, since you butchered the intent of that wish so completely. And another thing-- I think you've got a really horrible attitude. I guess that comes from being rolled up in a rug for the last 500 years.
(As MULDER rails at JENN we see SKINNER and several other agents now sitting in the conference area.)
MULDER: But we're not all that stupid. We're not all chimpanzees with revolvers. I think there's another possibility here and that's just that you're a bitch.
(JENN indicates that MULDER should look behind him. He does. JENN disappears.)
SKINNER: Agent Mulder?
MULDER: Sir.
SKINNER: How did you get in here?
MULDER: (extremely embarrassed) Uh...
SCENE 16
(MULDER's office. MULDER is typing on the computer. JENN reads over his shoulder.)
(THE WISH: "Whereas, I have one wish left and desire to use it most effectively for the good of all mankind, and whereas this wish contains great potential for the betterment of life as we know it, and that equal potential for grave danger, chaos, and mayhem, let effect, a world run amok, and whereas, I must cover all bases?"
JENN: (reading) "Whereas, I have one wish left and desire to use it most effectively for the good of all mankind" yadda, yadda, yadda... "Here on this plane of existence..." Hmm... Hmm-hmm. What, are you a lawyer?
MULDER: Well, I have to be with you. I'm going to get this last wish perfect. I'm not going to leave you any loopholes. I'm not going to let you interpret this as an edict to bring back the Third Reich or to make everyone's eyes grow on stalks.
JENN: (sarcastically) Oh, geez. And I was so looking forward to that.
(SCULLY enters the office. She looks at him with concern.)
SCULLY: Skinner called me, Mulder. Is everything all right?
MULDER: You don't remember disappearing off the face of the earth for about an hour this morning?
SCULLY: No.
MULDER: Well, I guess everything's okay.
(SCULLY sighs and starts walking toward MULDER.)
SCULLY: Mul...
(She turns and looks at JENN antagonistically.)
SCULLY: Could you give us a minute, please?
JENN: Sure.
(JENN doesn't move from where she is leaning against the glass partition. SCULLY takes a few more steps toward MULDER, then not hearing anything else from JENN turns back around.)
SCULLY: Like today?
(JENN has disappeared.)
SCULLY: Wh ? Where the hell did she go?
(MULDER does the "I Dream of Jeannie" arm cross and head boink.)
MULDER: Boink!
SCULLY: No... It's got to be hypnotism or mesmerism or ? something.
MULDER: Scully, it is what it is. You examined an invisible body, remember?
SCULLY: I thought I did.
MULDER: (rolling his head in frustrated disgust) Oh!
SCULLY: Mulder, all right, say... say that you're right. Say this is what it is. Then what you're doing is extraordinarily dangerous. I mean, you even said that yourself.
MULDER: The trick is to be specific. To make the wish perfect. That way, everyone is going to benefit. It's going to be a safer world, a happier world. There's going to be food for everyone, freedom for everyone, the end of the tyranny of the powerful over the weak. Am I leaving anything out?
SCULLY: (wistfully) It sounds wonderful.
MULDER: Then what's the problem?
SCULLY: Maybe it's the whole point of our lives here, Mulder-- to achieve that. Maybe it's a process that one man shouldn't try and circumvent with a single wish.
(SCULLY hesitates a moment, then sighs and leaves the office. MULDER goes back to the computer and types. JENN appears behind him.)
JENN: You ready?
MULDER: Yeah, I'm ready.
(MULDER closes the program and turns off the monitor, then turns to face JENN. She smiles.)
SCENE 17
(MULDER's apartment. MULDER puts a videotape in his machine. The screen displays the FBI warning as he picks up a bowl of popcorn and crosses to sit beside SCULLY on the couch.)
MULDER: I can't believe you don't want butter on your popcorn. Uggh. It's un- American.
(SCULLY looks at the video tape case.)
SCULLY: Caddyshack," Mulder?
MULDER: It's a classic American movie.
(SCULLY slumps back against the couch and opens her Shiner Bock beer.)
SCULLY: That's what every guy says. It's a guy movie.
MULDER: Okay, when you invite me over to your place we can watch Steel Magnolias.
(SCULLY tosses her beer cap across the room and with a "clink" it lands in what ever it was she was aiming for. MULDER, having also opened a beer, tosses his cap in the same direction. SCULLY giggles into her beer as we hear the cap thud to the ground.)
SCULLY: So, uh... What's the occasion?
MULDER: I don't know. Just felt like the thing to do. Cheers.
SCULLY: Cheers.
(They tap bottles and take a sip of beer.)
MULDER: I don't know if you noticed but, um, I never made the world a happier place.
SCULLY: Well, I'm fairly happy. That's something.
(They smile at each other.)
ANNOUNCER MAN ON VIDEO TAPE WITH NO PREVIEWS: And now, our feature presentation.
SCULLY: So what was your final wish, anyway?
(MULDER looks at her for a long moment. All of her. Then he smiles happily and takes another swig of his beer as the Kenny Loggins movie theme starts: )
KENNY LOGGINS SINGING CADDYSHACK THEME:
Dup-dup-dup-dup-dup-dup-dup-dup-dup
I'm all right...
CUT TO:
SCENE 18
(JENN is sitting in a coffee shop on a Washington, DC street. The jewel is missing from the corner of her eye. She watches people walking by the window. A WAITRESS sets a round coffee cup in front of her.)
WAITRESS: Here you go.
(JENN takes a sip. She looks very happy.)
[Fade to black]
[THE END]
2024-09-30 18:28:48 -
Pike:
Added some actors.
