Irresistible (The X-Files)
Encyclopedia
"Irresistible" is the thirteenth episode of the second season of The X-Files
television series
. The episode featured the first of two guest appearances by Nick Chinlund
as the death fetishist killer Donnie Pfaster, who was eventually brought back in the season seven
episode "Orison". "Irresistible" features the agent's investigation of a death fetishist who begins kidnapping and killing women to satisfy his obsession. The episode was viewed by 8.8 million people upon its first broadcast, and received positive reviews, with much praise to Chinlund's performance as the antagonist.
, a funeral
is held for a young girl. The ceremony is observed by Donnie Pfaster, the eerie assistant director for the funeral home
. Later that night, as the girl's body is being stored for burial the following day, Donnie's boss finds him cutting off the corpse's hair. Donnie is promptly fired.
Some time later, Fox Mulder
and Dana Scully
are summoned to Minneapolis by Moe Bocks, an FBI
field agent who is investigating the exhumation and desecration of a body in a local cemetery
. Mulder discounts Bocks' theory that this act is a variation of extraterrestrial cattle mutilation
, and suggests they search for a human culprit. Scully is disturbed at the sight of the disheveled corpse. Two more bodies are found exhumed, with their hair cut and fingernails removed. Mulder develops a psychological profile
of the criminal, believing him to be an escalating "death fetishist" who may resort to murder to satisfy his desires. Scully keeps her discomfort with the case to herself, and writes up a field report on necrophilia
.
Pfaster, who was behind the exhumations, proves Mulder's prediction correct when he brings a prostitute to his apartment. When the prostitute discovers a collection of funerary wreaths in Pfaster's bedroom, he kills her and removes her fingers. Later, Pfaster—having been hired as a frozen food
delivery man—meets an appointment at a house, where he steals cut hair from the bathroom. Pfaster attends a night class at a community college
, where a female classmate defends herself after he makes threatening advances. He is arrested and is placed in a jail cell across from a suspect being interrogated
by Mulder, Scully, and Bocks. Pfaster learns Scully's name from the suspect after they leave. He is later released.
Scully is deeply troubled by Pfaster's crimes, and has unsettling hallucination
s about the case. In Washington, she has a counseling session with a social worker, during which shares her anxiety about the investigation. After the session, Scully learns that someone from Minnesota had called for her. When she contacts Mulder, she learns that neither he nor Bocks made the call. Tracing a fingerprint
to Pfaster from his arrest, Bocks and Mulder raid his apartment, finding one of the prostitute's fingers in his refrigerator
. Meanwhile, after Scully arrives in Minneapolis, Pfaster forces her car off the road. He kidnaps Scully and brings her to his mother's abandoned house, where she is tied and gagged in a closet
.
Mulder and Bocks discover that Pfaster's late mother owned a car which matches paint found on Scully's, tracking down her former residence. Meanwhile, Scully escapes from Pfaster as he prepares a bath for her, resulting in a pursuit through the house. Scully and Pfaster have a struggle that sends them falling down a staircase onto the foyer
, where a task force
led by Mulder and Bocks breaks in moments later and apprehends Pfaster. Scully initially insists that she is okay, but then breaks down and cries in Mulder's arms. In a voice-over narration, Mulder traces Pfaster's pathology
to his childhood, when he was raised in a family of four older sisters. Mulder also reflects on Pfaster's nature and the nature of evil
in general.
for being "unacceptable for broadcast standards". As Chris Carter
described it, "When I handed the script in, it was really for a necrophiliac episode, and that just didn't fly. You cannot do the combination of sex and death on network television." Carter was forced to tone down the script by changing Pfaster from a necrophiliac to a death fetishist and diminishing Pfaster's sexual obsession. He considered that the sexual content was "implied and understood by audiences", and that Pfaster still resulted in a creepy character, particularly his "creepy arrogance" in using shampoo on the hair of his victims. The episode's original title was "Fascination".
The episode is one of the few in the series that has no paranormal
elements to it. Carter said of the episode's conception, "My first chance to work with David Nutter
in a long time, and I wanted to give him something he could sink his teeth into. It's a little bit different for us. It doesn't really have a paranormal aspect, except for Scully's perceptions of her deepest fears. I felt that I had to figure out what she is most afraid of, and she is most afraid of those things that most of us are afraid of. The idea of dying at the hands of someone - creature or not - and she is helpless to do anything about it. I thought it was a very good way to explore Scully's character." The scene where Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) imagines Pfaster appearing as a devil was influenced by real-life accounts, as described by Carter: "There are reports of people who had been under the spell of Jeffrey Dahmer
, who actually claimed that he shape-shifted during those hours when they were held hostage; that his image actually changed." Nutter said "In many ways, Chris wanted to sell the idea that, as established in Mulder's closing dialogue in the show, not all terror comes from the paranormal. It could come from the person next door."
Carter said of the casting of Nick Chinlund
as Pfaster, "I thought it was a wonderfully creepy villain. The casting of that show was very difficult. We saw many actors, but there was a quality I was looking for and I couldn't put a name on that quality. I finally figured out what it was when Nick came in and he had a kind of androgynous quality that worked. I thought he looked like Joe College, but he could scare the hell out of you." Producer Glen Morgan said Chinlund's performance was outstanding. Nutter stated "Nick Chinlund was wonderful to work with. The guy was like putty in my hands. He was great. If you're looking for someone to underline the weirdness and strangeness of the character, he did that."
Nutter said of the episode "I really worked hard to make it a special show, because I thought it was special. It was Gillian's post-traumatic stress episode, because she had not really had the opportunity to vent her feelings about the whole Duane Barry situation. This was an opportunity to sit back and let all that happen." Carter particularly liked the scene where a clearly disturbed Scully hugs Mulder, claiming it was a "tender moment" between two characters that had not shown that much affection for each other.
later. This episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.2, with a 15 share and was viewed by 8.8 million households. Entertainment Weekly
rated "Irresistible" a B+, saying it was based on "an unsettling concept to begin with" that was reinforced by "Chinlund's skin-crawling one-man show". Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club
rated the episode A, praising the acting, particularly of Nick Chinlund as Donny Pfaster, and describing it as "legitimately scary, a sign of a show that was pushing itself in new and interesting directions". The only criticsm was for the scenes where Scully hallucinates Pfaster shapeshifting as "pretty silly, almost feeling like an attempt to make sure something vaguely paranormal is in the episode so the fans don't get bored with what is ultimately a very good episode". Writing for Den of Geek, Nina Sordi ranked "Irresistible" the sixth best X-Files episodes, saying that "excluding CSM and his cronies
, Pfaster has got to be the most disturbing villain that our favorite agents have encountered", and Juliette Harrisson listed "Irresistible" among the best standalone episodes, describing it as "a genuinely creepy 45-minute horror movie". Connie Ogle of Popmatters
listed Pfaster among the best monster-of-the-week characters of the series, and IGN
's Christine Seghers ranked Chinlund the seventh best guest star in the history of the show, considering that "what makes him all the more frightening is how downright passive and polite he is up until the moment he's going to kill; the perfect camouflage for a modern-day monster."
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...
television series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
. The episode featured the first of two guest appearances by Nick Chinlund
Nick Chinlund
Zareh Nicholas "Nick" Chinlund is an American actor.-Early life:Chinlund was born in New York City. He attended the Friends Seminary in Lower Manhattan, later moving to Albany, NY in order to participate in Albany High School's varsity basketball program...
as the death fetishist killer Donnie Pfaster, who was eventually brought back in the season seven
The X-Files (season 7)
The seventh season of The X-Files commenced airing in the United States on November 7, 1999, concluded on May 21, 2000, and consists of twenty-two episodes. The X-Files is an American serial science fiction-horror-thriller television series. Season seven took place after the destruction of the...
episode "Orison". "Irresistible" features the agent's investigation of a death fetishist who begins kidnapping and killing women to satisfy his obsession. The episode was viewed by 8.8 million people upon its first broadcast, and received positive reviews, with much praise to Chinlund's performance as the antagonist.
Plot
In Minneapolis, MinnesotaMinneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
, a funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
is held for a young girl. The ceremony is observed by Donnie Pfaster, the eerie assistant director for the funeral home
Funeral home
A funeral home, funeral parlor or mortuary, is a business that provides burial and funeral services for the deceased and their families. These services may include aprepared wake and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for the funeral....
. Later that night, as the girl's body is being stored for burial the following day, Donnie's boss finds him cutting off the corpse's hair. Donnie is promptly fired.
Some time later, 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...
are summoned to Minneapolis by Moe Bocks, an 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...
field agent who is investigating the exhumation and desecration of a body in a local cemetery
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...
. Mulder discounts Bocks' theory that this act is a variation of extraterrestrial cattle mutilation
Cattle mutilation
Cattle mutilation is the apparent killing and mutilation of cattle under unusual or anomalous circumstances...
, and suggests they search for a human culprit. Scully is disturbed at the sight of the disheveled corpse. Two more bodies are found exhumed, with their hair cut and fingernails removed. Mulder develops a psychological profile
Offender profiling
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is a behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators to profile unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Offender profiling is also known as criminal profiling, criminal personality profiling, criminological profiling,...
of the criminal, believing him to be an escalating "death fetishist" who may resort to murder to satisfy his desires. Scully keeps her discomfort with the case to herself, and writes up a field report on necrophilia
Necrophilia
Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...
.
Pfaster, who was behind the exhumations, proves Mulder's prediction correct when he brings a prostitute to his apartment. When the prostitute discovers a collection of funerary wreaths in Pfaster's bedroom, he kills her and removes her fingers. Later, Pfaster—having been hired as a frozen food
Frozen food
Freezing food preserves it from the time it is prepared to the time it is eaten. Since early times, farmers, fishermen, and trappers have preserved their game and produce in unheated buildings during the winter season. Freezing food slows down decomposition by turning water to ice, making it...
delivery man—meets an appointment at a house, where he steals cut hair from the bathroom. Pfaster attends a night class at a community college
Community college
A community college is a type of educational institution. The term can have different meanings in different countries.-Australia:Community colleges carry on the tradition of adult education, which was established in Australia around mid 19th century when evening classes were held to help adults...
, where a female classmate defends herself after he makes threatening advances. He is arrested and is placed in a jail cell across from a suspect being interrogated
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
by Mulder, Scully, and Bocks. Pfaster learns Scully's name from the suspect after they leave. He is later released.
Scully is deeply troubled by Pfaster's crimes, and has unsettling hallucination
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
s about the case. In Washington, she has a counseling session with a social worker, during which shares her anxiety about the investigation. After the session, Scully learns that someone from Minnesota had called for her. When she contacts Mulder, she learns that neither he nor Bocks made the call. Tracing a fingerprint
Fingerprint
A fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. In a wider use of the term, fingerprints are the traces of an impression from the friction ridges of any part of a human hand. A print from the foot can also leave an impression of friction ridges...
to Pfaster from his arrest, Bocks and Mulder raid his apartment, finding one of the prostitute's fingers in his refrigerator
Refrigerator
A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...
. Meanwhile, after Scully arrives in Minneapolis, Pfaster forces her car off the road. He kidnaps Scully and brings her to his mother's abandoned house, where she is tied and gagged in a closet
Closet
A closet is a small and enclosed space, a cabinet, or a cupboard in a house or building used for general storage or hanging clothes. A closet for food storage is usually referred to as a pantry...
.
Mulder and Bocks discover that Pfaster's late mother owned a car which matches paint found on Scully's, tracking down her former residence. Meanwhile, Scully escapes from Pfaster as he prepares a bath for her, resulting in a pursuit through the house. Scully and Pfaster have a struggle that sends them falling down a staircase onto the foyer
Foyer
A foyer or lobby is a large, vast room or complex of rooms adjacent to the auditorium...
, where a task force
Task force
A task force is a unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity. Originally introduced by the United States Navy, the term has now caught on for general usage and is a standard part of NATO terminology...
led by Mulder and Bocks breaks in moments later and apprehends Pfaster. Scully initially insists that she is okay, but then breaks down and cries in Mulder's arms. In a voice-over narration, Mulder traces Pfaster's pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
to his childhood, when he was raised in a family of four older sisters. Mulder also reflects on Pfaster's nature and the nature of evil
Evil
Evil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. Evil is usually seen as the dualistic opposite of good. Definitions of evil vary along with analysis of its root motive causes, however general actions commonly considered evil include: conscious and deliberate wrongdoing,...
in general.
Production
The episode's initial script where Pfaster was a necrophiliac was rejected by the Fox Broadcasting CompanyFox 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...
for being "unacceptable for broadcast standards". As Chris Carter
Chris Carter (screenwriter)
Christopher Carl Carter is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He is the creator of The X-Files and Millennium.- Ten Thirteen Productions :...
described it, "When I handed the script in, it was really for a necrophiliac episode, and that just didn't fly. You cannot do the combination of sex and death on network television." Carter was forced to tone down the script by changing Pfaster from a necrophiliac to a death fetishist and diminishing Pfaster's sexual obsession. He considered that the sexual content was "implied and understood by audiences", and that Pfaster still resulted in a creepy character, particularly his "creepy arrogance" in using shampoo on the hair of his victims. The episode's original title was "Fascination".
The episode is one of the few in the series that has no paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
elements to it. Carter said of the episode's conception, "My first chance to work with David Nutter
David Nutter
David Nutter is an American television and film director and television producer. He is best known for directing pilot episodes for television series, being known as "the pilot whisperer."-Career:...
in a long time, and I wanted to give him something he could sink his teeth into. It's a little bit different for us. It doesn't really have a paranormal aspect, except for Scully's perceptions of her deepest fears. I felt that I had to figure out what she is most afraid of, and she is most afraid of those things that most of us are afraid of. The idea of dying at the hands of someone - creature or not - and she is helpless to do anything about it. I thought it was a very good way to explore Scully's character." The scene where 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...
) imagines Pfaster appearing as a devil was influenced by real-life accounts, as described by Carter: "There are reports of people who had been under the spell of Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1987 and 1991. His murders involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism...
, who actually claimed that he shape-shifted during those hours when they were held hostage; that his image actually changed." Nutter said "In many ways, Chris wanted to sell the idea that, as established in Mulder's closing dialogue in the show, not all terror comes from the paranormal. It could come from the person next door."
Carter said of the casting of Nick Chinlund
Nick Chinlund
Zareh Nicholas "Nick" Chinlund is an American actor.-Early life:Chinlund was born in New York City. He attended the Friends Seminary in Lower Manhattan, later moving to Albany, NY in order to participate in Albany High School's varsity basketball program...
as Pfaster, "I thought it was a wonderfully creepy villain. The casting of that show was very difficult. We saw many actors, but there was a quality I was looking for and I couldn't put a name on that quality. I finally figured out what it was when Nick came in and he had a kind of androgynous quality that worked. I thought he looked like Joe College, but he could scare the hell out of you." Producer Glen Morgan said Chinlund's performance was outstanding. Nutter stated "Nick Chinlund was wonderful to work with. The guy was like putty in my hands. He was great. If you're looking for someone to underline the weirdness and strangeness of the character, he did that."
Nutter said of the episode "I really worked hard to make it a special show, because I thought it was special. It was Gillian's post-traumatic stress episode, because she had not really had the opportunity to vent her feelings about the whole Duane Barry situation. This was an opportunity to sit back and let all that happen." Carter particularly liked the scene where a clearly disturbed Scully hugs Mulder, claiming it was a "tender moment" between two characters that had not shown that much affection for each other.
Reception
Chris Carter said "Irresistible" was effective for "being really scary", and that not only it was one of his favorites but inspired him to create MillenniumMillennium (TV series)
Millennium is an American television series created by Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files. Millennium aired on the Fox Network from 1996 to 1999. The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, though most episodes were ostensibly set in or around Seattle, Washington...
later. This episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.2, with a 15 share and was viewed by 8.8 million households. 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...
rated "Irresistible" a B+, saying it was based on "an unsettling concept to begin with" that was reinforced by "Chinlund's skin-crawling one-man show". 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...
rated the episode A, praising the acting, particularly of Nick Chinlund as Donny Pfaster, and describing it as "legitimately scary, a sign of a show that was pushing itself in new and interesting directions". The only criticsm was for the scenes where Scully hallucinates Pfaster shapeshifting as "pretty silly, almost feeling like an attempt to make sure something vaguely paranormal is in the episode so the fans don't get bored with what is ultimately a very good episode". Writing for Den of Geek, Nina Sordi ranked "Irresistible" the sixth best X-Files episodes, saying that "excluding CSM and his cronies
Syndicate (The X-Files)
The Syndicate is a fictional "shadow government" group featured in The X-Files television show and feature film created by Chris Carter. They were also known as The Elders, The Consortium, and The Group...
, Pfaster has got to be the most disturbing villain that our favorite agents have encountered", and Juliette Harrisson listed "Irresistible" among the best standalone episodes, describing it as "a genuinely creepy 45-minute horror movie". Connie Ogle of Popmatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
listed Pfaster among the best monster-of-the-week characters of the series, and IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
's Christine Seghers ranked Chinlund the seventh best guest star in the history of the show, considering that "what makes him all the more frightening is how downright passive and polite he is up until the moment he's going to kill; the perfect camouflage for a modern-day monster."