Paper Hearts

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PLOT: Troubled by eerie prophetic dreams, Mulder reopens a case of a convicted child killer he helped put away. But Mulder becomes emotionally involved as the murderer claims he knows something about Samantha's abduction.

With all the fourth season episodes involving alien-human hybrids, generational incest, alien oil and musings of a cigarette smoking man, "Paper Hearts", written by Vince Gilligan, takes the viewer back to the very heart of Mulder's quest: What happened to Samantha?

The teaser was clever and instantly set the tone for the rest of the episode. Mulder's dream leads him to the body of a victim from an old case that he thought was long solved. The fact that another victim was found irks Mulder, who realizes that there was no closure to the old case as it slowly eats away his insides. David Duchovny's Mulder wears his heart on his sleeve and the bad guy uses it to his advantage. The bad guy in this case is convicted child killer, John Lee Roche, brilliantly played by Tom Noonan.

Roche, a seemingly "harmless" vacuum salesman, has just the right amount of creepiness that you never forget. He acts coy and charming. I could understand how children would have seen this "gentle giant" as nice and friendly. Even when Mulder first interrogates him, he had to admit that Roche must have been "one hell of a salesman." That's because Roche hides his true nature behind a charming facade. It is this deception that makes him appear harmless in people's eyes. But we certainly won't ever forget those "normal"-looking types like Danny Pfaster or Eugene Tooms.

When Mulder realizes that Roche might still have more victims, he obsesses about the old case. His partner, Scully, who has learned to follow Mulder's instincts even if it goes against every logical explanation, lets him try to solve it as he only knows how, through his dreams. It is there that lies the answer to the nagging question that has brought Mulder to almost professional ruin: Who took Samantha?

Roche, like most serial killers, kept "trophies" of his victims. In his case, he cut out heart-shaped remnants from the victims' clothing which Mulder termed "paper hearts." Through his recollection of his dreams, Mulder finds Roche's paper hearts, all sixteen of them. That means there were three more victims than the 13 that Roche originally confessed to killing. One was already found. Is one of the last two paper hearts Samantha?

Roche doesn't have to be a genius to figure out how Mulder appears very close to this case. He has made Mulder doubt his own memories of the night Samantha was taken. A dream sequence even suggests that Roche was the actual abductor, but watch the scene again. Roche is never shown as actually *taking* Samantha. It is implied, just like Mulder's original version of that night with aliens.

He leads Mulder and Scully to one of the two bodies, but is it Samantha? Scully's findings show it isn't, but you can see Mulder is still sad that it was another child, another victim. The scene with the two of them facing Roche about the final heart is incredibly tense-ridden as you can see the restraint by both Mulder and Scully. Mulder had hit Roche in his earlier interrogation, but this time, Scully, ever loyal and protective towards Mulder, looks as though she wants to rip Roche's heart out herself.

As usual, Mulder decides it upon himself to let Roche out of prison so that Roche can prove to him that he was behind Samantha's abduction. Roche seems to know all the details except one: Mulder took them to the wrong house. Mulder surmises that he got into Roche's head to solve the case. In some twisted way, they shared a type of "nexus" that allowed Roche to do the same to Mulder. This seems a bit far-fetched to me, but how else to explain Roche's intimate details of Mulder's memories?

The very next scene seems to support it as Roche finds a way to escape through Mulder's dreams. By then, Mulder's single-minded objective of finding Samantha is no longer of concern as he realizes what his impulsiveness has done. This is evident when Scully asks him if Roche took Samantha, and Mulder replies, "None of that really matters now, does it?" Roche took another child, and Mulder takes on the responsibility of her kidnapping and of Roche's escape. In the end, Mulder had to do what he did to save the child, but he also closed the door to finding Roche's final victim or possibly, Samantha.

It is nice that someone was willing to challenge the overall structure of the X-Files mythology by pointing out that Samantha may have been taken because of nefarious, but very terrestrial, reasons. All we have to go on in regards to Samantha's abduction is Mulder's repressed memories, but are they truly accurate? At this point, we are not really sure, but Gilligan definitely put a great spin to a fantastically well-written episode.

Also, the acting throughout this episode was brilliant. Duchovny brought more angst in Mulder than we have seen in a long while. Gillian Anderson has Scully's watchful eye and protective instincts down to a routine, but skillfully steps out of Duchovny's way when the scene needed it. Mitch Pileggi's Skinner was his old strict self, but instead of suspending Mulder on the spot, he relied on his uncanny instinct in finding the escaped Roche. Tim Noonan was totally and believeably creepy as Roche. His mundane appearance truly makes any parent paranoid of *any* person with their child after viewing this episode. Mark Snow's music throughout made the episode from just being good to a near classic. All in all, Gilligan and crew did a great job in making this an unforgettable episode.

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