Sunday, August 16, 2009

Season 4, Episode 10: Paper Hearts

Synopsis

Mulder has a recurring dream where a red dot that forms words (including "Mad Hat" on the side of an El Camino) leads him to where a young girl has been buried in Virginia. Mulder eventually calls in a forensic team that finds a body there, and realizes it is the 14th victim of John Lee Roche, a former traveling salesman/serial killer who killed 13 young girls and took heart-shaped trophies from their clothing. Mulder says the hearts were never found. The agents ID the victim as a girl who went missing in 1975 (earlier than Mulder thought Roche started killing), and her father questions whether there were other victims the agents didn't know about. The question leads them to search the Roche's Camino, and find 16 hearts in a copy of Alice in Wonderland in the camper shell.

Mulder and Scully visit Roche in prison, who says he'll tell them about the last two victims if they bring him the hearts. In another dream, Mulder recalls Samantha's abduction, but this time sees Roche taking her away. Roche says he sold a vacuum to Mulder's father on Martha's Vineyard in 1973, the date of Samantha's abduction, but refuses to talk about Muler's sister. Scully thinks Roche is just messing with Mulder's emotional vulnerability and has gotten information on Mulder online. On a second victim, Roche gives some details about the night of Samantha's abduction, saying he was watching the two of them that night. He gives the location of another victim in West Virginia, but it isn't Samantha.

Mulder gets a removal order on Roche; Skinner's none too pleased, and orders Scully to help him track them down. Mulder takes Roche to his father's house in Martha's Vineyard, Roche tells how he abducted Samantha, but Mulder says he's lying because it's not the house where Samantha was abducted. Roche insists he's telling the truth, but Mulder says he thinks Roche is somehow getting into his dreams. In another dream, Mulder rescues Samantha from a Camino, before both disappear. Roche has apparently convinced Mulder to let him go while sleeping and takes Mulder's badge, phone, and gun.

Mulder finds that Roche has used the credentials to abduct a girl he saw on the flight to Boston. The agents find Roche and the girl in a bus graveyard and get into a standoff, where Roche tries to play on Mulder's emotions by saying he'll never know where Samantha is if he is killed. Mulder blows him away regardless. Scully says there's little the lab can find from an analysis of the last heart, but assures Mulder that they'll find whoever it belongs to; Mulder stashes away the evidence in his desk.

Episode Body Count

13 girls: Mulder said John Lee Roche has strangled 13 girls, aged 8 to 10, and taken a piece of cloth in the shape of a heart from their clothing.


Addie Sparks: went missing in 1975, found buried in Bosher's Run Park in Manassas, Virginia.

Karen Ann Philiponte: abducted in 1974 and found buried in the Forks of Cacapon in West Virginia.

Sixteenth victim: presumed dead after the trophy heart is found, but never found.


John Lee Roche: shot and killed by Mulder in an abandoned bus.

Humans: 17
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (83/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,007
Creatures: 59
Aliens: 48

Grand Total: 1,114

Human deaths exceed 1,000. Thanks, Roche.

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