Fresh Bones
Encyclopedia
"Fresh Bones" is the fifteenth episode of the second season
of the science fiction
television series The X-Files
. It premiered on the Fox network
on February 3, 1995. It was written by Howard Gordon
, directed by Rob Bowman, and featured guest appearances by Kevin Conway, Daniel Benzali
, and Matt Hill
. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology
. "Fresh Bones" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.3, being watched by 10.8 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics.
After Private Jack McAlpin crashes his car into a tree after two separate hallucinatory incidents, a voodoo symbol drawn on it. This leads FBI
special agents Fox Mulder
(David Duchovny
) and Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) to a processing center for Haitians refugees where suspicion falls on one of the Haitians identified by the colonel in charge.
, an agitated United States Marine Corps
private, Jack McAlpin, hallucinates about seeing maggots in his breakfast cereal. As he speeds away from his home, he sees himself as a corpse in the rear-view mirror
. McAlpin drives his car into a tree and is apparently killed. On the tree is a veve
, a drawn voodoo religious symbol.
Fox Mulder
and Dana Scully
head to North Carolina to investigate. McAlpin is the second purported suicide among troops stationed at an INS
compound processing refugees from Haiti
. McAlpin's wife believes voodoo was involved, having discovered a shell with the veve in her backyard. The agents head to the INS compound where they meet a young boy, Chester Bonaparte, who sells Mulder a good luck charm. After meeting with Colonel Wharton, head of the compound, Mulder meets with an imprisoned refugee, Pierre Bauvais.
Scully attempts to see McAlpin's corpse, but finds a dog corpse in his place in the morgue. The agents later come across McAlpin, alive, while driving down the road. McAlpin doesn't remember what happened. Tetrodotoxin
, a chemical Mulder believes is part of Haitian zombification rituals, is found in his blood. The agents go to the graveyard to investigate the corpse of the other dead soldier, but find the grave robbed. They find Chester there collecting frogs and bring him to a local restaurant where he tells them he sells the frogs to Bauvais. Scully believes the frogs contain the chemical found in McAlpin. They find Dunham outside, who tells Mulder that Wharton has been beating the refugees after Bauvais threatened to take the souls of his men if the Haitians weren't repatriated. Chester runs off and Mulder is unable to catch up with him, only finding a cat.
Wharton denies the allegations, but sees blood coming out of his ham. He has Bauvais beat to death. Scully cuts herself on the hand with a piece of barbed wire left in her car, it is then shown that the voodoo symbol is daubed under her car. Mulder meets with X, who tells him the base will be sealed off within 24 hours. Based on his meeting with X, Mulder believes Wharton is getting his revenge on Haiti after the suicide of some of his soldiers during a previous trip there. Scully finds Dunham dead in a bathtub, and Mulder catches McAlpin with a knife nearby. Albeit having no recollection of the event, McAlpin confesses to the murder, under the influence of Wharton. Wharton tells the agents that Bauvais committed suicide and that their investigation is over. Mrs. McAlpin provides the agents with a photo of Wharton with Bauvais in Haiti, causing the agents to go through his office, finding that both Dunham and the other dead soldier were going to testify against him.
The agents head to the cemetery, where Wharton is performing a voodoo rite over Bauvais's coffin. When Mulder confronts him, Wharton harms him through sympathetic magic by thrusting a knife into an object he had placed on the ground. Meanwhile, in a hallucinatory episode, a man emerges out of the small cut in Scully's hand and strangles her, but by grabbing the charm Mulder had bought from Chester earlier, the illusion disappears. Bauvais then appears and stops Wharton. The next day the agents say goodbye to McAlpin, who reveals that Chester was a boy who had died in the riot 6 weeks earlier. The episode ends with Wharton being unwittingly buried alive by the graveyard watchman.
. While he didn't look like a military man, the producers felt he had the quality they were looking for in the role. The sequence where a man came out of Scully's hand and strangled her came about by using a mechanical hand which the actor stuffed his gelatine covered fingers through.
on February 3, 1995. The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 11.3, with a 19 share, meaning that roughly 11.3 percent of all television-equipped households, and 19 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 10.9 million households. The episode was the highest rated episode of the first two seasons.
The episode received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. Writer Gordon stated that director Bowman did a great job in mining his script for chills. In their book, X-Treme possibility, authors Keith Topping and Paul Cornell praised the episode, including Benzali's performance and the sequence in the graveyard at the end of the episode. Series creator Chris Carter called the episode one of the ones he was most proud of from the second season, stating that Gordon did a good job with the script and Bowman did a great job with the directing.
Not all of the reviews were glowing. Entertainment Weekly
gave the episode a B- and a more mixed reviewing, writing that the episode was "Not one for the ages, despite some jarring moments (car meets tree, Scully's hoodoo hallucinations, and that final shot — whoa)." Reviewer Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club
gave the episode an C and wrote that "the biggest problems here are the lack of focus and the chaotic pacing. The episode rumbles along in first gear for about three-quarters of its running time and then abruptly shifts into high gear at the end, moving toward an apocalyptic finish that doesn't feel wholly earned. There's good stuff in "Fresh Bones," but the bulk of the episode disappoints."
The X-Files (season 2)
The second season of the science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing on Fox in the United States on September 16, 1994, concluded on the same channel on May 19, 1995, and contained 25 episodes.- Production :...
of the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
. It premiered on the Fox network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
on February 3, 1995. It was written by Howard Gordon
Howard Gordon
Howard Gordon is an American screenwriter and producer.-Life and career:Gordon was born in Queens, New York, New York. After graduating from Princeton in 1984, Gordon came to Los Angeles with fellow filmmaker Alex Gansa to pursue a career in writing for television. Both broke into the industry...
, directed by Rob Bowman, and featured guest appearances by Kevin Conway, Daniel Benzali
Daniel Benzali
Daniel Benzali is a Brazilian-American stage, television and film actor.-Biography:Benzali was born in Rio de Janeiro to Brazilian Jewish parents...
, and Matt Hill
Matt Hill
Matthew "Matt" Hill is a Canadian voice actor. He is known for several roles, including Kevin Keene/Captain N in Captain N: The Game Master, Kira Yamato in Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny, Ed in Ed, Edd n Eddy, Raphael in Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, Ryo Sanada in Ronin Warriors and Artha...
. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology
Mythology of The X-Files
The mythology of The X-Files, sometimes referred to as its mytharc by the show's staff and fans, follows the quest of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder , a believer in supernatural phenomena, and Dana Scully , his skeptical partner. Their boss, FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner was also often...
. "Fresh Bones" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.3, being watched by 10.8 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics.
After Private Jack McAlpin crashes his car into a tree after two separate hallucinatory incidents, a voodoo symbol drawn on it. This leads FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
special agents Fox Mulder
Fox Mulder
FBI Special Agent Fox William Mulder is a fictional character and protagonist in the American Fox television shows The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, two science fiction shows about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence. Mulder's peers consider his theories on...
(David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
) and Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
(Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
) to a processing center for Haitians refugees where suspicion falls on one of the Haitians identified by the colonel in charge.
Plot
In North CarolinaNorth Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, an agitated United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
private, Jack McAlpin, hallucinates about seeing maggots in his breakfast cereal. As he speeds away from his home, he sees himself as a corpse in the rear-view mirror
Rear-view mirror
A rear-view mirror is a mirror in automobiles and other vehicles, designed to allow the driver to see rearward through the vehicle's backlight ....
. McAlpin drives his car into a tree and is apparently killed. On the tree is a veve
Veve
A Veve or Vévé is a religious symbol commonly used in Haitian Vodou. It acts as a "beacon" for the loa - a type of spirit, and will serve as a loa's representation during rituals...
, a drawn voodoo religious symbol.
Fox Mulder
Fox Mulder
FBI Special Agent Fox William Mulder is a fictional character and protagonist in the American Fox television shows The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, two science fiction shows about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence. Mulder's peers consider his theories on...
and Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
head to North Carolina to investigate. McAlpin is the second purported suicide among troops stationed at an INS
Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service , now referred to as Legacy INS, ceased to exist under that name on March 1, 2003, when most of its functions were transferred from the Department of Justice to three new components within the newly created Department of Homeland Security, as...
compound processing refugees from Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
. McAlpin's wife believes voodoo was involved, having discovered a shell with the veve in her backyard. The agents head to the INS compound where they meet a young boy, Chester Bonaparte, who sells Mulder a good luck charm. After meeting with Colonel Wharton, head of the compound, Mulder meets with an imprisoned refugee, Pierre Bauvais.
Scully attempts to see McAlpin's corpse, but finds a dog corpse in his place in the morgue. The agents later come across McAlpin, alive, while driving down the road. McAlpin doesn't remember what happened. Tetrodotoxin
Tetrodotoxin
Tetrodotoxin, also known as "tetrodox" and frequently abbreviated as TTX, sometimes colloquially referred to as "zombie powder" by those who practice Vodou, is a potent neurotoxin with no known antidote. There have been successful tests of a possible antidote in mice, but further tests must be...
, a chemical Mulder believes is part of Haitian zombification rituals, is found in his blood. The agents go to the graveyard to investigate the corpse of the other dead soldier, but find the grave robbed. They find Chester there collecting frogs and bring him to a local restaurant where he tells them he sells the frogs to Bauvais. Scully believes the frogs contain the chemical found in McAlpin. They find Dunham outside, who tells Mulder that Wharton has been beating the refugees after Bauvais threatened to take the souls of his men if the Haitians weren't repatriated. Chester runs off and Mulder is unable to catch up with him, only finding a cat.
Wharton denies the allegations, but sees blood coming out of his ham. He has Bauvais beat to death. Scully cuts herself on the hand with a piece of barbed wire left in her car, it is then shown that the voodoo symbol is daubed under her car. Mulder meets with X, who tells him the base will be sealed off within 24 hours. Based on his meeting with X, Mulder believes Wharton is getting his revenge on Haiti after the suicide of some of his soldiers during a previous trip there. Scully finds Dunham dead in a bathtub, and Mulder catches McAlpin with a knife nearby. Albeit having no recollection of the event, McAlpin confesses to the murder, under the influence of Wharton. Wharton tells the agents that Bauvais committed suicide and that their investigation is over. Mrs. McAlpin provides the agents with a photo of Wharton with Bauvais in Haiti, causing the agents to go through his office, finding that both Dunham and the other dead soldier were going to testify against him.
The agents head to the cemetery, where Wharton is performing a voodoo rite over Bauvais's coffin. When Mulder confronts him, Wharton harms him through sympathetic magic by thrusting a knife into an object he had placed on the ground. Meanwhile, in a hallucinatory episode, a man emerges out of the small cut in Scully's hand and strangles her, but by grabbing the charm Mulder had bought from Chester earlier, the illusion disappears. Bauvais then appears and stops Wharton. The next day the agents say goodbye to McAlpin, who reveals that Chester was a boy who had died in the riot 6 weeks earlier. The episode ends with Wharton being unwittingly buried alive by the graveyard watchman.
Production
Writer Howard Gordon was inspired to write the episode after reading two articles involving suicides of servicemen in Haiti. The refugee plot was used due to the producers being unable to film in Haiti. Colonel Wharton was portrayed by Daniel Benzali, who later went on to star in the ABC series Murder OneMurder One (TV series)
Murder One is an American legal drama series that first aired on the ABC network in the United States in 1995. The series was created by Steven Bochco, Charles H. Eglee, and Channing Gibson.-Premise:...
. While he didn't look like a military man, the producers felt he had the quality they were looking for in the role. The sequence where a man came out of Scully's hand and strangled her came about by using a mechanical hand which the actor stuffed his gelatine covered fingers through.
Broadcast and reception
"Fresh Bones" premiered on the Fox networkFox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
on February 3, 1995. The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 11.3, with a 19 share, meaning that roughly 11.3 percent of all television-equipped households, and 19 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 10.9 million households. The episode was the highest rated episode of the first two seasons.
The episode received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. Writer Gordon stated that director Bowman did a great job in mining his script for chills. In their book, X-Treme possibility, authors Keith Topping and Paul Cornell praised the episode, including Benzali's performance and the sequence in the graveyard at the end of the episode. Series creator Chris Carter called the episode one of the ones he was most proud of from the second season, stating that Gordon did a good job with the script and Bowman did a great job with the directing.
Not all of the reviews were glowing. Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the episode a B- and a more mixed reviewing, writing that the episode was "Not one for the ages, despite some jarring moments (car meets tree, Scully's hoodoo hallucinations, and that final shot — whoa)." Reviewer Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
gave the episode an C and wrote that "the biggest problems here are the lack of focus and the chaotic pacing. The episode rumbles along in first gear for about three-quarters of its running time and then abruptly shifts into high gear at the end, moving toward an apocalyptic finish that doesn't feel wholly earned. There's good stuff in "Fresh Bones," but the bulk of the episode disappoints."