TEASER

SAN DIEGO COUNTY CALIFORNIA
The episode starts out showing a sign on a gate that says: "The Falls at Arcadia". A man, Dave Kline is entering his home. At the driveway, his neighbor, Win Shroeder, has painted his mailbox for him because it wasn’t the right color. Dave talks to his wife, Nancy, about what happened. He has bought a whirligig, and is going to put it up even if it is against the rules.

That night, the man is killed.

ACT ONE

SEVEN MONTHS LATER
Mulder and Scully are undercover as a married couple, Rob and Laura Petrie. They arrive at a house in the community posing as buyers.

MULDER: Wow. Take a look at this. Honey, what do you think? Is this place us, or what?

A woman, Pat Verlander, welcomes Mulder and Scully. With his arm around Scully, Mulder introduces Scully as his lovely wife. When Pat mispronounces their last name, Scully corrects her:

SCULLY: We pronounce it "Pee-trie," actually.
PAT: Oh.
MULDER: Like the dish.

The woman tells them that she doesn’t think they will be able to make the 6:00 deadline of moving in. All new residents must be moved in by then according to the CC&Rs.

All the neighbors come over to help. Upon removing stuff from the moving van, Mike Raskub goes to pick up a box marked "China" and Scully tries to stop him. The box ends up on the ground with a breaking sound.

Mulder tells one of them to put his basketball hoop in the driveway but gets told otherwise by a neighbor, Win. He tells Mulder that it’s against the rules, that it is not aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. He says that if Mulder wants the hoop he will have to take it up with the president of the Homeowner’s Association, Gene Gogolak.

Cami, Win’s wife, introduces herself to Scully.

Mulder and Scully head into the house and Pat follows. She asks Mulder what he does for a living. He replies:

MULDER: Ah, I, ah, I work mostly at home, which is, which is great for Laura, because she gets me all to herself.

Once inside, Scully pushes Mulder’s arm off from around her and walks through the house.

MULDER: Hey, ooh, wait a minute! You didn’t let me carry you over the threshold!

Scully takes off her coat.

SCULLY: You ready?
MULDER: Let’s get it on, honey.
SCULLY: All right, then.

Scully throws rubber gloves at him. Time to work, not play. (Shipper’s Note: Damn!)

Scully opens the box that was marked "China." The fluorescein bloodstain enhancement is broken. After taking out equipment, Scully starts videotaping around the house, using a voiceover, and telling about the Klines’ lives. She says the time and date: 6:01 P.M., February 24^th. She says that the Klines were the third couple to disappear. Scully goes onto say that they were assigned the case by Assistant Director Skinner, who had them go undercover as prospective homebuyers. Mulder comes up in front of the video camera.

MULDER (leering) : You wanna make that honeymoon video now?
SCULLY turns off the recorder.
SCULLY: Rob and Laura Petrie?
MULDER: "Pee-trie."
SCULLY: Mulder, if we ever go undercover again, I get to chose the names, OK?

Mulder tells her that is fine. He wants to know why they were assigned this case. It’s their first catch back on the X-Files J and this isn’t an X-File.

SCULLY: Sure it is, it’s unexplained. What do you want, aliens, tractor beams?
MULDER: Wow. Admit it: You just want to play house.
Doorbell rings. SCULLY goes to answer it.
MULDER: Woman, get back in here and make me a sandwich!
SCULLY gives him "the look," throws the rubber gloves at him, and walks away.
MULDER: Did I not make myself clear?!

"Big Mike (Raskub)" is at the door with a box of China that he gives to Scully. She notices that he has on a caduceus and asks if he is a doctor. He tells her he is a vet, and that if they want to get a pet of some kind (but it would have to be under 16 lbs) that he’s be happy to look at it for them for free. Scully then tries to ask him about the Klines’, but he tells her he has to leave.

Back inside, Mulder has found something on the fan. It looks like blood and hair. Scully will take it to be analyzed.

GOGOLAK RESIDENCE
7:49 P.M.
Some of the neighbors of the community sit around a table talking about "Rob" and "Laura." It seems everyone likes them, and thinks they are a "very cute couple." Mike tells them that they should tell Rob and Laura what happens if they don’t follow the rules – it’s the neighborly thing to do.

When Mike leaves the room, Gogolak tells Win that Mike isn’t following the rules, and basically that he must go.

That night, Mike is watching TV when hears something and goes to check outside. He sees that his light isn’t on, the bulb is broken. He fixes it but the garbage monster still attacks him. He screams that he fixed it, but the monster keeps attacking him anyway. The camera pans away to show his welcome mat that says: "Welcome to Mike’s Place."

ACT TWO

Looking sad, Win is outside Mike’s cleaning up the blood when Mulder and Scully approach him. He ends up squirting them with the hose. They are there to give Mike back his china.

WIN: So how was your first night? Peaceful?
MULDER: Oh, it was wonderful. We just spooned up and fell asleep like little baby cats. Isn’t that right, honeybunch?
SCULLY: That’s right, Poopyhead.

Win invites them to have dinner with Cami and himself. They accept the invitation. Mulder ask Win who he had told him to ask about the basketball hoop.

Mulder goes to see Gogolak to ask him about putting up a basketball hoop.

When talking to him, Mulder sits with his arm around Scully and she takes his hand. When she realizes she is doing this, she kind of pulls away surprised and embarrassed, but her hand ends up back on his again:)

Mulder asks Gogolak about the decorations in the room, and he says that they are from Tibet and the Far East. He travels there because he works for "Pier 9."

Mulder’s request for the basketball hoop is denied. Mulder tells him it is an anarchy, but Gogolak tells him that it is for the community, that they are one of the top planned communities in California.

SHROEDER RESIDENCE
6:37 P.M.
At dinner Win asks Rob and Laura how they met.

WIT: So, where’d you two meet?
SCULLY starts to answer, but MULDER interrupts her.
MULDER: Actually, it was at a UFO conference.
WIT: Flying saucers. Interesting. Wouldn’t have thought you folks would have, uh, been into that.
MULDER: Well, it’s not me so much as Laura. (MULDER puts his arm around SCULLY) She’s quite the new-ager. I mean, she’s into those magnetic bracelets, and crystals, and mood rings, what have you. I mean, she’s, God bless her, she’s a sucker for that stuff.

Mulder and Scully try to get more answers about the Klines' out of the Shroeders, but they won't tell them anything.

On the way out to join the man's wife for a walk, Scully kind of blows a kiss to Mulder. (It's really sweet, but not a kiss like we were expecting!!!!!:( )

Outside the dog, Scruffy (this is the name of my dog!:), gets under a sewer drain. While reaching for Scruffy, Scully finds Mike’s necklace under there. The dog comes back out, but he has what looks like blood on his head.

After Scully and Cami walk away, someone looks out from the sewer.

Back at the house, Mulder and Scully are getting ready for bed as they talk about the case. They have found nothing out about Mike, so they presume he is dead.

Mulder lies down on the bed and Scully goes into the bathroom. Mulder wondering why Win was cleaning up something at Mike’s.

SCULLY: Mulder, speaking of cleaning up, who ever taught you how to squeeze a tube of toothpaste?

Scully sticks her arm out of the bathroom door to show him the toothpaste. A second later at the flush of a toilet:

SCULLY: Third warning. Toilet seat.

Scully comes out of the bathroom with green (for lack of a better word) guck all over her face. Curled up, Mulder pats the bed beside him for her to lie down and wiggles his eyebrows at her.

MULDER: Come on, Laura, you know, we’re married now.
SCULLY: "Scully," Mulder. Good night.
MULDER gets off the bed and goes over to the couch.
MULDER: The thrill is gone.

The next day, Mulder puts a pink plastic flamingo in the center of the yard to see what happens.

MULDER: Bring it on!

Mulder goes into the kitchen and gets some orange juice. When he comes back, the flamingo is gone. He goes out into the yard and kicks at the mailbox until it is really crooked, and then pours juice on it. He goes back inside to wait.

Time passes, but nothing happens. Finally Mulder has to go to the bathroom because he drank so much. A toilet flushes, and when he comes back, the mailbox is fixed, but the flag is up. Inside is a note that tells him to "Be like the others…before it gets dark."

10:37 P.M.
Mulder is playing basketball with his hoop that he now has up. Win comes over and yells at him trying to take it down. When Mulder asks what will happen if he doesn’t, Win tells him that he tried, and that he warned him.

Suddenly, Cami screams. Mulder rushes over just as the creature runs away. The light bulb in the Shroeder’s yard is broken.

ACT THREE

Someone drags Mulder’s basketball hoop into the garage.

Coming back from getting the lab results, Scully goes into the house. She hears a noise and grabs a poker from the fireplace, following it up the stairs – someone is in the house.

Outside, Mulder is looking around when he steps in a hole. Upon closer inspection, he finds it to be a strip of grass that he lifts up. Underneath there is a big hole.

Meanwhile, Scully sees someone move and follows them back down the stairs. As they appear she swings the poker, but it’s Mulder, who thankfully catches it. He tells her that he saw the monster, and that he takes it back, it is an X-File.

Win is asking Gogolak what he and his wife did wrong – why he broke there light bulb like he had made him do to Mike’s. Gogolak tells him not to blame him for it. He tells Win that it isn’t him, it’s his neighbors.

Mulder is in the yard with Scully showing her the hole. He tells her that he thinks it’s probably in every yard. That it’s where the creature lives and travels.

SCULLY: Look, Mulder. Huge creatures aside, you care to hear what I think?
MULDER (sarcastically): Always.

Scully walks away.

In the house, Scully shows Mulder the lab results on what they found on the fan, and what she found on the Shroeder’s dog, Scruffy. It wasn’t blood; it is pieces of different things – of garbage. She says that it isn’t surprising, because the community was built over a landfill.

Mulder thinks that the Klines are buried under the ground in their yard. Scully tells him that having a forensic escavation would blow their cover.

The next day, in order to be able to dig up the yard, Mulder calls a bulldozer. He tells Pat and the neighbors that they’re getting a pool. Pat tells him that they are not allowed, that it is against the rules. Mulder tells her that they are not getting a swimming pool, but rather a reflecting pool, which it says nothing about in the rules.

Nearby, Win is talking to Gogolak about saying something to Mulder. Gogolak says to let him dig his own grave.

That night, Scully goes outside to find Mulder in the big hole that was dug, looking for evidence. Mulder finds Dave Kline’s whirligig. It was made at "Pier 9." Mulder tells Scully to call in an excavation, that they need to dig deeper.

SCULLY: Where are you going?
MULDER: To price some rattan furniture.

When they leave, mud from in the hole moves as if someone is underneath it.

ACT FOUR

Scully goes into the house and calls for an excavation team when she hears something. She goes to get her gun, but it is gone. Before she can react, something clamps its hand over her mouth.

It’s Mike – covered in garbage. Scully asks him who did this to him, and he says that the "Ubermenscher" did. He hid in the sewers to stay alive. He tells her that it’s (meaning the monster) is coming for her and her husband because they didn’t follow the rules. He had tried to warn Mulder.

The monster starts to get through, so Mike blocks the door to the room and shoves Scully in the closet.

Shots are fired, but it does not kill the monster. Scully can here Mike screaming.

Outside, Mulder is handcuffing Gogolak, telling him that he’s responsible for the Klines. He tells him that he knows what is going on, what he summoned.

MULDER: A tulpa. It’s a Tibetan thought-form. It’s a living, breathing, creature, willed into existence by someone who possesses that ability – an ability I think you picked up on your whirligig buying excursions to the Far East. Why’d you do it? I mean, is it so damn important for everybody to have the same color mailbox?
GOGOLAK: It’s important that people fit in.
MULDER: But you didn’t know exactly what you were getting into, did you? I mean, you can summon it, you can give it life, but you can’t control it. The best you can hope for is to stay out of its way.

Mulder leaves Gogolak handcuffed and goes into the house. He sees the blood/mud everywhere. He follows it and yells for Scully until he hears banging coming from the closet. He starts ripping away pieces of the wood to help her out.

Outside, the creature is coming, and Win and Cami have found Gogolak who is asking them to help him. Win starts to until Cami tells him that "He deserves what he gets."

Mulder, who had heard the screaming, comes outside. The monster is attacking Gogolak. The garbage monster turns towards Mulder, but before it can go after him, it falls apart into dirt onto the ground.

Scully’s Voice Over as she and Mulder are leaving:

IMAGES FROM ARCADIA



Overall Rating : 10
*Shippy Rating: 9.5
*Based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, above the scale])*

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