205 DUANE BARRY

"Don't try to BS Duane Barry!"
Duane Barry

"I was feelin' so bad, I asked my family doctor just what I had, I said, "Doctor, Mr. M.D., can you tell me, What's ailin' me?"
Good Lovin'
Young Rascals

"They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!"
Napoleon XIV
Lyrics by Jerry Samuels

PULASKI, VIRGINIA; JUNE 3, 1985
Duane Barry is seen in his house in the middle of renovations being visited by aliens in the classic form that we know them as, short greys with big eyes. Is this the truth, or stereotypical alien abduction in Barry's memory?
DAVIS CORRECTIONAL TREATMENT CENTER; MARION, VIRGINIA
WASHINGTON, D.C.; AUGUST 7, 1994
DOWNTOWN RICHMOND, VA.
TRAVEL TIME TRAVEL AGENCY
JEFFERSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL; RICHMOND, VA
FBI HEADQUARTERS
SUPERMARKET
MULDER'S APARTMENT
A former FBI agent, Duane Barry, who claims he was abducted by aliens, breaks out of a mental hospital and takes several people hostage in a travel agency. He is convinced he will be abducted again and will not be taken this time. Mulder is called in as negotiator to get the hostages out. When one of them is accidently wounded, Mulder and another agent, Agent Janus, go in clothed as EMT workers with the real McCoy to see what's going on in that office first hand.

SCULLYVISION

As soon as Scully finds out what hot water Mulder is in, even though they are still assigned to different areas and the X Files are closed, she rushes to help, or more precisely, she barges in and takes over. She is on a mission to save Mulder. As Mulder is trying to 'talk down' Duane Barry to release the hostages, she is trying to 'talk down' Mulder. He needs to get as far away from Barry and the situation as possible. He is not what he seems.

It is Scully who finds out that Duane Barry was injured in the line of duty as an FBI agent by a bullet to the head, and dredges up the 100 year old Gage incident as an example. Gage had a blasting rod pierce his brain and it had affected the 'moral core center' of his brain. All of this, of course, is absolutely vital information that the hostage negotiators didn't have. Thank heavens for Heads-UpScully.

While Krycek, Mulder's current partner, is treated as an annoyance for some reason (John: are we in KrycekVision already?), Scully is given every advantage, even getting to speak to Mulder directly by phone. Scully also takes the bit of evidence, 'shrapnel' from Barry, and gets it analyzed. She finds out that there are markings on it, that could not be done with earthly technology.

Scully is skeptical of the abduction scenario, yet despite the evidence that points to Duane Barry's instability, she still remains open to Mulder's theories and continues to be gentle regarding his emotions. Could anyone ask for a better partner? Or a better friend?

Not being able to leave a case at the office, she uses her off time to find out what the 'bar code' might mean, and scans it in a supermarket, making it go wacky. Just when she's giving the information to Mulder over the phone, leaving it all on his answering machine, she is abducted.

MULDERVISION

Mulder is in a terrible predicament. I'm sure his mood hasn't gotten any better since his moment of hopelessness to find out the truth just after his one link to it, Deep Throat, was killed at the end of The Erlenmeyer Flask. He doesn't have the X Files, he doesn't have Scully, he thinks, and he's saddled with a new, green partner in the form of the hunky Alex Krycek.

A case comes along that he's brought in to help solve as a negotiator. Not knowing why, he tries, then realizes that he was used only when something 'out there' is needed. They couldn't even tell Mulder the specifics of the man he was supposed to 'talk down' before they had him begin. He can't get respect in normal, everyday FBI cases.

With the loss of his sister and needing to find the truth about aliens and abductions though, he's hit the jackpot in the form of Duane Barry. Barry is convinced that he has been abducted and experimented on, the classic UFO case personified right there in front of him. Mulder immediately takes Barry 'under his wing' by yelling at Kazdin on his behalf. They need to find out why Barry did this before they can try to stop him to save lives.

When he talks with Barry face to face, you can see the pain and hopefulness in his face and voice as he's trying to get Barry to believe him and tell him about what had happened to him. When he tells Barry about his sister's abduction, Mulder's heart is on his sleeve. When Barry tells Mulder that he had seen children on the ships, and that they were in pain, Mulder is crushed. He still can't control his emotions when it comes to that night of Mulder's young life.

Then he gets to talking with his ex-partner Scully, who tells him that Barry could very well be the nut case the other agents were convinced him to be. Trusting Scully and her beliefs as he does, he starts to look at Barry in another way, not as the believer he walked into the travel agency as. When Mulder makes the decision to have the authorities take Barry down, it's a hard one. He's scared for his life and the doctor who was also a hostage when Barry goes off on a tangent. He also doesn't want Barry killed, which could be a possibility.

One telling line of Mulder's is when Kazdin, after the dust had settled, was that Barry lost his wife, kids, home... Mulder calls them the thin line of sanity.

KRYCEKVISION

If people don't trust Alex Krycek, they treat him like a waiter. Got to hand it to him, he knows how to play upon people's first reaction to him. Aside from how Kazdan so wrongly sized him up upon first laying eyes on him, as she handled Mulder like a needed professional, he didn't make waves or become flippant or annoyed as Mulder would have. That's the big difference between the two agents. Mulder searches for and demands respect as he searches for the truth, but Krycek accepts how people underestimate him to his advantage, obviously trying to keep the truth a secret. His demeanor and cordial or overwhelmed reactions are perfect assets for this agenda. But, what exactly is that agenda?

OH COME ON!

Kazdin and her team want Mulder to negotiate with a hostage taker and they don't even give him the specifics, such as Barry was once an FBI Agent?

FBI Special Agent Alex Krycek is treated by other agents as a buffoon. How come? Kazdin treats Mulder with kid gloves at times while she thinks he's flipped his lid. Why does she treat Krycek as if he's five years old and could never be helpful? Scully being short with him is understandable as she's jealous that he has the job she wants, Mulder's partner, but she's still professional. The others? What's their excuse?

Duane Barry, ex FBI agent and man with a mission, pats down Mulder and doesn't find his wire or his bulletproof vest, an item Duane may have wanted for himself?

Scully must have taken the Lear Jet from Quantico to Richmond to get there in about five minutes.

When a cashier of a supermarket has a customer at her counter, would she walk away?

Scully has heard Mulder say all along that they can't work openly with each other, but she leaves a message such as the one outlining everything about Barry's implant on his answering machine?

Who gave Duane Barry Scully's address? ... Oh yeah, that had to be Mulder's handsome new partner.

How could a man who was shot in the chest by SWAT guys walk out of the hospital and overtake a young, healthy woman to take her hostage just a few hours later?

THINGS LEARNED
or All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From the X Files

Honesty, containment, conciliation and resolution are the big four when it comes to hostage negotiation.

When aliens read your thoughts, it's called a mindscan.

SFX

Cool abduction of Barry in the beginning. The 'alien presence' in the middle of the episode was ho hum. The drilling of Barry's teeth was spine-tinglingly gross for all who dread the dentist.

RECURRING CHARACTERS

Krycek, Duane Barry, Cigarette-Smoking Man, the alien bed where they drilled Barry's teeth will be seen again in other episodes

WRITER
Chris Carter

Mr. Carter has written a completely riveting character, Duane Barry. He can snap and backhand people at a second's notice, but is still likeable, childish, wronged, troubled. He is also completely selfish, refers to himself in the third person and wants someone else to be abducted in his place.

Putting Mulder in the forefront of the man's psychosis makes Mulder reexamine his own thoughts and beliefs.

Krycek is nothing more than comic relief here, which was probably the only mistake of the episode. Well, the other mistake is the big 'what happened' black out and bright white light while Barry was in the travel agency and Scully was on the phone to Mulder. Was it an alien ship, government helicopters, natural phenomena, just a cool thing to happen before commercial? Since Mulder mentioned missed time, it had to be aliens... then why didn't anything happen? What did they do in those lost minutes? No idea. Not sure Carter if knows what happened there either.

DIRECTOR
Chris Carter

Deftly handled direction in this episode. Lights and shadows were major characters. Particularly well in showing the faces, therefore the motivations and current feelings of the characters.

CARTERVISION

Aliens implant things in their guinea pigs. There are also repeat abductees. These aliens that Barry remembers and describes are greys, or reticulan. The bar code on the implant from Barry could be the way the aliens, or government, to catalogue that again will be seen in future episodes.

RUNNING TALLIES
Guns
Scully wears glasses
Scully's white clunky cordless phone
Necklace
Bathroom
Scully is kidnapped
Mulder says, "It's me."
Scully says, "Mulder, it's me.", twice!

SCORECARD FOR SAVING EACH OTHER'S ASS
Scully 5 Mulder 3

Mulder loses one for 1) not figuring out the depth of his partner who probably got Duane out of the hospital, 2) gave Scully's address to Barry, and 3) being in cahoots with the Smoking Man, also 4) for not being there for Scully when she is kidnapped. I don't want to know what Mulder was actually doing at the time.

Side note: Scully buys pickles and ice cream -- an inside reference to Gillian Anderson's pregnancy.

The date of the infamous "speedo scene" is August 7th, which is Duchovny's birthday. A 'gift' to the ladies in the audience? <g>

Steve Railsback, who brought the character of Duane Barry to life, is magnificent. He took what very well have been a carbon copy of every other thought to be wronged wacko into a man who was at once seemingly crazy, but also endearing. When he mentions his injuries, he uses the term "belly button". He's totally apologetic about the situation he's brought others into one minute and ranting wildly the next. He can be totally psychotic one moment and very smart and knowing the next. A perfect blend for this important character in this story arc.

SAMANTHAVISION

In this episode, Mulder essentially goes public about the apparent abduction of his sister. He tells Duane Barry, and all the eavesdropping hostage negotiators, that he's had personal experience with alien abduction. Mulder manages to maintain some objectivity in getting the hostages released while thoughts of Samantha torment him. When Duane tells him that he sees kids sometimes, Mulder demands to know what is being done to them. When Duane tells him that they are being harmed Mulder all but begs Duane to take him to the abduction site. Saving Samantha is uppermost in his mind.

After Duane is shot, Scully handles Mulder very gently as she has done before. "You did the right thing," she tells him but doesn't add, "as I knew you would." Scully has concerns about Mulder's objectivity and confronts him by acknowledging that sometimes when we want to believe so badly we look too hard.

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

Agent Lucy Kazdin is in her office when there is a knock on the door and it opens:

KRYCEK: Um, Agent Kazdin? You busy?
KAZDIN: Agent Krycek. What can I do for you?
KRYCEK: You can explain to me why you treated me so badly.
KAZDIN: Badly?
KRYCEK: You were very smarmy when you so callously made me get you coffee. You didn't even ask. I'm an agent, I had every right to be there as you or Mulder. I have ways to make things happen. You don't know what you were dealing with.
KAZDIN: I've been called lots of things, Agent Krycek, but never smarmy. I didn't know what I was dealing with regarding Duane Barry, so why do you expect me to know what I'm dealing with regarding you?
KRYCEK: Obviously you don't.
KAZDIN: Well, Mr. Krycek, I'm rather busy right now. I have to find a reason for a body being filled with little pieces of etched metal that doesn't involve alien abduction.
KRYCEK: An apology would be nice.
KAZDIN: A grande two percent cappuccino with vanilla would be nice also, Mr. Krycek.

ATHENAEUM

Scully took the elevator to the third floor of the medical library. She was going to the Neurology section to try and find head injury cases similar to Duane Barry's. When she stepped off the elevator, however, she found herself in the musty old Athenaeum.

"May I help you?" asked the Curator.

By now, Scully wouldn't have given him another thought. She was used to him appearing as other people, and in a most peculiar manner, but this time she gasped in surprise. Coming out of the Curator's skull was a three foot, seven inch tamping iron. He nonchalantly set a book he had been reading, Dr. Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," down on the counter.

"You're Phineas this time?" whispered a startled Scully.

"Phineas Gage at your service, ma'am." Phineas slid the iron rod out of his skull. "I only put it back in for shock effect," he confessed.

"Well... uh... Phineas, is it true that after the accident you changed completely?"

"I went from a nice guy to a vulgar vagrant, or so they say. No one could figure it out. Neurology back then wasn't exactly a science. They know more now, but I'll tell you one thing Agent Scully, Star Trek was wrong. The brain, not space, is the final frontier."

Scully couldn't argue with that. "So, what was ever decided about your, uh, case."

"I lived for about twelve years after the accident and finally had a fit, or seizure as you call it, and croaked," Phineas said as if he was reading a Teleprompter. "Then, in 1867 they dug me up and sent my skull to the Warren Medical Museum at Harvard. Hey, I finally got ahead in life! Hardy har har... Anyway, they still had no clue about what had gone wrong. Finally around 1994, 130 years after the fact, scientists took a close look at my battered skull. Hanna Damasio at the University of Iowa, used mumbo jumbo, or "computer modeling and neural imaging techniques" as you call it, to figure out that the rod spared the parts of my brain necessary for language and motor function. Sadly, I had major damage to other parts of my noggin, or "ventromedial region of my frontal lobes" as you call it. Nevertheless, the loss of that grey matter made me one mean SOB, or an antisocial personality as you call it."

When Agent Scully left, Phineas inserted the tamping iron back in to his skull. He used it as an antennae whenever the greys were sending signals to him. He had lied to the pretty agent, but hey, that's what pathological liars do.

QUOTES

DUANE BARRY No, no! Not again!

DUANE BARRY I'm not crazy, Doc. Duane Barry's not like these other guys.

LUCY KAZDIN He's bent on taking the Doctor with him to an alien abduction site, only he can't quite remember where the site is so he stopped at a travel agency.

LUCY KAZDIN You really believe in this stuff, Agent Mulder?
MULDER Is that a problem?

LUCY KAZDIN Look, Agent Mulder. The guy's a psycho. Your object is to keep him on the phone. The longer you do, the more chance he's not going to kill anybody. We stop to do a Freudian analysis, next thing we know, we've got four dead hostages. So whatever crap you got to make up about space men or UFOs, just keep him on the phone.

DUANE BARRY Well... we're just sitting here, waiting for, uh... travel plans.

MULDER Who is this guy? He's FBI, isn't he?
LUCY KAZDIN Former FBI.
MULDER And you didn't think to mention that?

MULDER That man is afraid. And the only way you're going to win his trust is by trying to understand what he's afraid of.

KRYCEK Is there anything I can do?
LUCY KAZDIN Yeah, what's your name again?
KRYCEK Krycek.
LUCY KAZDIN Krycek, have you got your notepad? Grande, two percent cappuccino with vanilla.

DUANE BARRY Don't try and BS Duane Barry.

DUANE BARRY They say it's all inside my head. All they want to do is just give me more drugs.
MULDER I hear you, Duane.
DUANE BARRY You hear me cuz I got a gun.

DUANE BARRY They drilled holes in my damn teeth!

SCULLY You've got to get him out of there now or he's going to be killed!
KRYCEK How can you be sure?
SCULLY Because Duane Barry is not what Mulder thinks he is.

DUANE BARRY Oh... they heard you talking like that, they're going to have your ass.

SCULLY Don't tell me to calm down, I'm not going to calm down until I can talk to someone who will listen to what I'm saying!

SCULLY In 1982, Duane Barry was shot in the line of duty, the bullet piercing his bilateral frontal lobes.

DUANE BARRY Ascending... ascending to the stars. I'm not going again.

KIMBERLY I'm... I just want to say that I believe you.

MULDER I believed him.
SCULLY Sometimes when you want to believe so badly, you end up... looking too hard.

LUCY KAZDIN In the X-rays, the surgeon found several pieces of metal. In his gums, in his sinus cavity, and one in the abdomen. I had them checked, I felt you'd want to know... and there were tiny drill holes in his left and right rear molars. A dentist who examined them said they could not have been done with any of the current equipment in use... not without chipping or damaging the tooth. Anyway... I thought you ought to know.

BALLISTICS EXPERT These small markings. See them here?
SCULLY Looks like some kind of a stamp.

SCULLY Mulder, it's me. I just had something incredibly strange happen. This piece of metal that they took out of Duane Barry, it has some kind of a code on it.

SCULLY What the hell is this thing, Mulder? It's almost as if... it's almost as if somebody was using it to catalogue him.

SCULLY I need your help! Mulder!