Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose

In Saint Paul, Minnesota, Clyde Bruckman (Peter Boyle), an insurance salesman, buys scotch, a tabloid and a lottery ticket from a liquor store. Outside, he narrowly avoids colliding with an inconspicuous man (Stuart Charno), who heads to palm reader Madame Zelma (Karin Konoval). After seeking his fortune, the man then kills Zelma. Days later, the eyes and entrails of a tea leaf reader are discovered in her apartment. FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are called in to assist the local police, who are also aided by an eccentric psychic: the Stupendous Yappi (Jaap Broeker). While the police are impressed by the psychic's supposed abilities, Mulder and Scully remain skeptical. Meanwhile, Bruckman finds Zelma's body in his neighbor's dumpster. When interviewed by Mulder and Scully, he reveals details about the crime that he could not have known from the media accounts, which causes Mulder to believe that Bruckman has a psychic ability. Mulder insists that Bruckman help them find the tea leaf reader's body, whereupon her corpse is found in a nearby lake. After a series of psychic tests, Mulder concludes that Bruckman's only power is to see the details of people's deaths. After examining the tea reader's body, Scully discovers a key chain that she manages to link to an investment company owned by Claude Dukenfield. Bruckman, coincidentally, sold him an insurance policy and tells them that he was murdered. Bruckman guides Mulder and Scully to a nearby forest where he believes Dukenfield's corpse to be buried; as they tromp through the woods, Bruckman explains that following the deaths of Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper in a plane crash, he began obsessively thinking of the chain of events that led to the crash, which resulted in his developing psychic abilities. The trio soon find Dukenfield's body, upon which they discover traces of silk fiber, linking Dukenfield's murder to the previous victims. At Bruckman's residence, he receives a note from the killer, predicting their first meeting. Intriguingly, the postmark predates Bruckman's involvement in the investigation, hinting at the killer's psychic capabilities. Bruckman describes Mulder's death as the killer sees it: getting his throat slit by the killer after stepping in a pie in a kitchen. Since the killer knows Bruckman's home address, Mulder and Scully bring him to a hotel where they take turns guarding him. While Scully does not believe in Bruckman's power, the two develop a fast friendship. Scully asks Bruckman if he can see his own end. He replies that he can see their end—that they will end up in bed together. This reinforces her skepticism. Bruckman then asks Scully why she is not interested in knowing how she will die. Scully finally asks him to tell her, to which Bruckman replies, "You don't." Mulder and Scully are soon called to investigate the murder of another tarot card reader (Alex Diakun), and so a detective named Havez (Dwight McFee) takes over as Bruckman's guard. As the agents leave the hotel, they bump into a bellhop who is delivering food to Bruckman's room. The bellhop is actually the killer, and when he enters the room (while Havez is in the bathroom), he is delighted to discover that Bruckman has been brought to the place where he works. As he is about to kill Bruckman, Havez exits the bathroom, only to be killed by the bellhop. Meanwhile, Scully finds the same silk fiber at the new crime scene and, realizing that the bellhop had it on his tray, deduces that he is the murderer. The agents rush back to the hotel, with Mulder chasing the killer into a basement kitchen. After stepping in a pie, Mulder remembers Bruckman's premonition and narrowly dodges the bellhop. Scully arrives in the nick of time and shoots the bellhop; it turns out that what Bruckman had seen was the dying killer's last thoughts, not Mulder's. Mulder and Scully return to Bruckman's apartment to find that Bruckman has died by suicide; Scully sits on Bruckman's bed holding his hand, deeply moved, just as he had predicted. ==Production==

Conception and writing , making it his second writing credit for the series This episode was the second of four episodes written for the series by Darin Morgan during its initial run. Morgan had previously written the second season episode "Humbug", which was a stylistic break from the series' norm, being more overtly humorous. After working on said episode, Morgan worried that he had written the script the "wrong" way, and so he decided to write a more traditional X-Files story the next time he wrote an episode. To get inspiration, Morgan watched the first-season episode "Beyond the Sea", which features an unreliable criminal who claims to have psychic powers. Morgan was struck by the story and its tone, and sought to write a script that emulated its overall feel. Initially, Morgan was leery about focusing too much on humor, so he decided to make his episode very dark; in the end, however, he decided to lighten some of the mood by adding in some jokes. The tone of the episode was also affected by Morgan suffering from depression, which led to him developing a plot in which the main character kills himself in the end. Frank Spotnitz later argued that this sub-plot was bookended by the sixth-season episode "Tithonus," which showed Scully starting to die, only to have her come back, fulfilling Bruckman's prophecy. Spotnitz later called this ending "very satisfying." However, in 2011, Spotnitz seemed to suggest that Scully was, in fact, immortal. This interpretation was seemingly verified by series creator Chris Carter in a 2014 reddit AMA. Bruckman's quip about Fox Mulder dying by autoerotic asphyxiation was inspired both by the previous references in the series to Mulder's enjoyment of pornography, Casting and filming The titular character—who was based on Morgan's "depressive" father—was originally written with Bob Newhart in mind, but Peter Boyle was later cast. The character later appeared again in the episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space". Stuart Charno—credited as Stu Charno in the episode—played the killer in this episode; he is the husband of former series writer Sara Charno. Visual effects producer Mat Beck and Toby Lindala created the elaborate dream sequence in which Bruckman's body decomposes. To create the effect, the design team rigged up a dummy with skeleton made out of copper wiring. The team then covered this frame with gelatinous skin and heated the wiring; this melted the skin, creating the illusion that the body was disintegrating. The entire sequence comprised eight discrete segments, some of which featured Boyle in makeup, some the dummy, and some a CGI skeleton. Because episode director David Nutter was working under a number of constraints, Morgan was effectively allowed to serve "as a producer", and after filming for the episode was completed, Morgan worked closely with the series' editor to produce the final cut. This version was originally 10 minutes over the time limit, resulting in multiple scenes featuring Bruckman and Scully being excised from the episode. ==Reception==

"Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" originally aired on the Fox network on October 13, 1995. The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.2, with an 18 share, meaning that roughly 10.2 percent of all television-equipped households, and 18 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. The episode was watched by 15.38 million viewers. The success of the episode led to it earning two Primetime Emmy Awards—writer Darin Morgan won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, while Peter Boyle won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" has been critically lauded. Robert Shearman, in his book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, gave the episode a full five stars and called it "a little slice of genius". Shearman concluded that "the troubled questions Morgan poses here" about free will and death "are best answered by the writing of the episode itself … an episode like this isn't random—it's finely wrought, and thoughtful, and compassionate, and is a triumph of individualism." Both Paul Cornell and Keith Topping, in the book Extreme Possibilities, applauded the episode; Cornell called it "an extraordinary piece of work" and altogether gorgeous", whereas Topping labelled it a "little gem". Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode four stars out of four and called it "one of those rare episodes where everything comes together—funny, bizarre, absurd, ironic, and sad." Entertainment Weekly gave the episode a rare "A+", writing, "Boyle gets lots of help from another superlative, laugh-a-minute script [which] nicely captures one of the overarching themes of the show: fate and man's isolation." Reviewer Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode an "A" and wrote positively of the ending, writing that, "for an episode that ends with a likable character killing himself, 'Bruckman' isn't what I'd call a downer." He called the entry his "favorite episode of The X-Files because it's funny, suspenseful, does well by Scully and Mulder, and creates some indelible characters." TV Guide called it the tenth greatest episode in television history. Review website IGN named it the best standalone X-Files episode of the entire series, writing that the episode " is a distinctive episode of the series, mixing a healthy amount of humor [...] with some very nasty business [...] In just 44 minutes, Boyle creates a fully formed character who makes a big impact in his one and only appearance." Topless Robot named it the ninth-funniest episode of the series. Starpulse listed it as the third-best X-Files episode. Charlie Jane Anders and Javier Grillo-Marxuach of io9 included it on the list of "10 TV Episodes that Changed Television". Tom Kessenich, in Examination: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files, named the episode the seventh-best installment of the series, noting that it features "a wonderful blend of humor, drama, and pathos, something The X-Files did better than just about any other show this past decade." The cast and crew of the series have expressed their enjoyment of the installment. Duchovny considers "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" to be one of his favorite episodes of the third season. In 2016, Ira Madison of Vulture.com named it the best episode of the series and "one of the best episodes of television ever", stating that the episode "takes every element that made the series so iconic and throws them all into one heartbreaking installment". ==Footnotes==