Sunshine Days



WARNING! SPOILERS BELOW! If you don't want to know what happens in the 9th season, go back.


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Episode: 9X18
Airdate: 05/12/02
Written and Directed by: Vince Gilligan
Starring: Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, Robert Patrick as John Doggett, Annabeth Gish as Monica Reyes, and Mitch Pileggi as A.D. Skinner


IMAGES FROM "SUNSHINE DAYS" COMING SOON!

TEASER
VAN NUYS, CALIFORNIA
11:52 PM

Two young men, Blake McCormick and Mike Daley, sit on the hood of a car. Blake whistles the Brady Bunch theme song.

Blake tells Mike that the house across the street from them is the Brady Bunch house, where they shot the Brady Bunch.

Mike questions why he thinks that it is, because it doesn't look like it. He tells him that the inside does. He tells him that he was there delivering a pizza the previous night, and the man who lives there was trying to crowd the door so he couldn't see inside. However, the man dropped his crazy bread and bent down, and then he could see inside the house. He tells Mike that he will prove it.

Blake goes over to the house and starts banging on the door. Mike yells at him because it's midnight, but he ignores him.

Mike tells him that nobody is home and to leave. Still, Blake ignores him.

Blake finds a door that is unlocked and sneaks inside. Mike follows him, still complaining.

Once inside, the two look around, and Mike realizes that Blake was telling the truth.

Blake is excited. He finds the "weird horse sculpture" and the "vase that Peter broke" from the show.

Mike is confused.

Suddenly, a football comes tumbling down the stairs. Mike and Blake look at each other.

Mike calls out to whoever is there, but there is no answer.

Meanwhile, Blake babbles on about when Martha got hit with a football and broke her nose.

Mike is weirded out and tells Blake that he's leaving.

Mike runs out of the door.

Suddenly, Blake hears a girls laugh from upstairs. He goes up to check it out.

Standing in the hallway are Cindy and Bobby.

Meanwhile, Mike sits in the car outside waiting for his friend.

Suddenly, something crashes onto the roof of the car.

Mike climbs out through the window and sees Blake lying dead on the roof.

ACT ONE
Doggett and Reyes stand looking up at sky. Doggett is trying to explain what happened. He thinks that maybe Blake fell from a helicopter or something, but Reyes tells him that supposedly he was breaking into the house at the time. Doggett just says, "details."

While inspecting the car, Doggett finds something on the roof.

Michael Daley walks up to Doggett and Reyes and asks them if someone is going to arrest "that freak." Doggett tells him to tell them what happened first. He tells them that his friend was murdered. He questions who would have thought that that could happen in the Brady Bunch house.

Reyes tells him that it's not the Brady Bunch house. He tells her that the inside is. It's where the show was shot.

REYES: No, they shot the show on a soundstage in Hollywood. They house they used for the exteriors is a split-level in Studio City. I took a picture of it once.

Doggett looks at her strangely.

Mike tells her that it's like a creepy Brady Bunch museum in there. He told the cops to search it, but they wouldn't. Whatever happened to his friend happened inside the house.

Doggett, Reyes, and Mike go to the door of the house. A man, Oliver Martin, answers the door. He tells them that he already talked to the police. He didn't see anything. He wasn't even home.

Reyes asks him to let them have five minutes. Doggett tells him that they can wait if he would prefer them to get a warrant, but then they could be there for hours.

Before Oliver can even answer, Mike pushes into the house. It is different than before. He tells Doggett and Reyes that that is not what he saw.

Oliver tells them that he is not following.

Reyes tells him that Mike thought that his house was where they filmed the Brady Bunch. He tells her that it isn't.

Doggett looks up, appearing to be staring at something.

The three of them exit the house.

Mike tells them that he knows what he saw.

Mike leaves.

Reyes goes to leave as well, but Doggett tells her that he wants to check something else out first.

Doggett opens Oliver's garbage can. He pulls a roof shingle out of it. It matches what he found on the roof of the car. He says "A-ha!" He hands it to Reyes.

Doggett stands on the garbage can and pulls himself up so he can see over the house. He says "A-ha!" again. The roof is different in the middle.

He gets down and tells Reyes that the roof has been patched. He knew that he smelled plaster in the house.

Reyes asks him what his "A-has" are about. He tells her that, A. Their eyewitness places the deceased inside the house just prior to his time of demise, and B. They found a fragment of a roofing shingle at the scene of impact that matches the discarded piece that she is holding. He then says that, C. There was a hole in the roof that was recently patched. He shows her how big around the hole was--it's about the size of a baseball. He says that he connected A to B to C.

Jokingly, Reyes says:

REYES: Much in the fashion of, say, Daffy Duck or Wile E. Coyote, the deceased shot straight up through the roof, flew high into the air, and landed on his buddy's car.
DOGGETT smiles and nods
REYES: You're serious?
DOGGETT: A to B to C. What can I tell you? I think I'm finally getting the hang of this job.

FBI ACADEMY
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA

Scully is ready to perform an autopsy on Blake McCormick. Starting with the external exam, she walks over to the piece of roof that is imbedded in his head, which she says is a likely place to start.

Suddenly she hears a rattling sort of sound.

She walks over to her tray. The scalpel is shaking. She goes to pick it up and she gets an electrical shock.

FBI FIELD OFFICE
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
7:08 PM

Doggett and Reyes talk to Scully over computer video cameras.

DOGGET: Help me out here, Agent Scully. Monica thinks I'm losing my marbles.

Scully tells them that Blake was dead before he landed on the car. His skull was pulverized from a previous accident, and judging by the roofing material that she found in the wound, she would say that Doggett's theory holds water.

Doggett gives Reyes a look.

Reyes asks Scully how that can be. Scully tells her that it's because of electricity, or electricity may only be a byproduct, she's not sure. She tells them that she had an odd experience today that made her think to try something unusual. She wired Blake up to an EEG machine. For the last few hours, he has been putting off a faint reading.

Reyes questions that he is alive. Scully tells her that he's as dead as a hammer. The reading is some sort of residual electricity, like a battery draining its charge. She tells them that it's fascinating--she's never seen anything like it before.

Reyes asks her what it means.

Scully tells her that if Mulder were there, she would think that he would be linking electromagnetic fluctuations to levitation, poltergeist activity, and ghost sightings.

Doggett questions that that is what he would say. Scully tells him that at the end of the day, she wouldn't have any better of a theory, and she doesn't now.

Mike stands outside where he had been with Blake. It appears that he is urinating in the grass, but then the camera pans up to show that he is pouring beer out of a can. He says that it is to his buddy. He then throws the can.

Mike walks up to the side of the house and looks in the window. Inside, he sees the Brady family eating dinner.

He walks around to the door, which is unlocked again, and sneaks in.

Oliver confronts him and asks him to leave.

Mike looks around at the empty dinner table and the rest of the Brady Bunch house. He tells Oliver that he saw them all.

Oliver tells him to leave before it's too late.

Mike doesn't leave.

After a few seconds, Mike begins to levitate off of the ground. Suddenly, he shoots up through the roof.

ACT TWO
A sheet is lifted from Mike's body. He is facedown, sunken into the ground from the impact.

The news crew watch Doggett and Reyes as they look at the body.

Doggett and Reyes walk over to Oliver's house again.

He answers the door and tells them that he has said all that he is going to saw, and if they don't like it to go get a warrant. He then slams the door.

Reyes says that Oliver called his bluff, but maybe they can get a warrant. Of course, Doggett knows that they can't do that.

DOGGETT: "Judge, I want to toss the house of a man who makes people magically zoom into the sky. It has something to do with electricity and poltergeists and whatnot." Yeah, that'll fly.

Doggett smiles at Reyes.

Suddenly Doggett's cell phone rings. It's Scully. She guesses that the owner won't talk to them. He is confused until she tells him that they should smile, because they are on TV.

The scene changes to show Scully watching them on a television. She tells them that she's in Los Angeles in the field office. She called in someone that she thinks that they both will want to meet.

Scully shows Doggett and Reyes footage of a young boy with blocks from April 4, 1970. John Rietz is narrating it. The boy is Anthony Fogelman, and he is eight years old.

Dr. Rietz asks the boy if he is ready to begin. He then tells Anthony to relax and focus. He narrates what is happening. The EEG machine shows rising beta activity in Anthony.

Suddenly the blocks start to move. Just as suddenly, the screen goes blank.

Rietz is sitting at the table with the three agents. He tells them that all of the blocks rose and spiraled half way the ceiling before they fell.

Reyes says something about him not getting it on film, and he tells her that that is an understatement. He tells them that he believes that what caused the blocks to move radiated an electromagnetic field strong enough to fog the image.

He tells them to call him crazy if they want--everyone else does.

DOGGETT: I believe you.

Doggett tells them that the kid is their suspect Oliver. Scully tells him that she went through Mulder's reference books. In Van Nuys, California in 1970, there was one of the best--documented cases initially thought to be of poltergeist activity. She also adds that Anthony changed his name.

Scully tells them that Rietz is the parapsychologist who investigated him.

Rietz tells them that he saw objects fly and felt rooms get cold. He also heard strange voices. Anthony's mother was at the end of her rope. He spent six months with Anthony and his mother. Anthony was just as bewildered as everyone else, but was responsible for everything.

Scully says that Anthony was psychokinetic. Rietz tells them that he was the Mozart of psycho kinesis.

Reyes asks why in his line of work he would fall out of touch with the Mozart of psycho kinesis.

He tells her that over time his abilities faded. Before he left there were no manifestations at all. He lost his power.

Doggett tells Rietz that they are looking at Oliver for two murders, and asks him what he can give them that they can take to the judge.

Oliver tells him that he doesn't know what Anthony grew up to be. He hasn't spoken to him in forty years. He was just a lonely little boy.

Oliver stands on a latter in his house replastering his ceiling. His house is not like that of the Brady Bunch.

He finishes and then walks over to the window and looks out. He then closes the blinds and turns around.

Oliver closes his eyes in thought and then reopens them. When he does his house looks like the Brady Bunch house once again.

Suddenly, the Brady kids come running down the stairs. They run past him and tell him goodbye. He smiles.

The phone rings and the answering machine picks it up. It is Rietz. He tells Oliver/Anthony that he would like to talk to him again. Oliver looks at the machine like he does want to talk to him.

Suddenly things start to shake. The tool that he was using to put the plaster up with suddenly flies across the room and knocks the phone down and apart.

Rietz tells the agents that Oliver must not be home. They know that he is.

Reyes is looking on the computer when she says, "A-ha!" She tells them that she was wondering why a man with no criminal record would change his name. She thought about the name and it sounded familiar, so she ran it.

Doggett questions that she ran it through the NCIC database. She tells him that she didn't. She ran it through a Brady Bunch website, and the name popped right up.

Oliver Martin was Carol Brady's nephew. He came to live with them during the last season of the show.

Doggett asks her what the case has to do with the show.

Reyes asks him if he remembers what Mike said that he saw in the house. She tells him that Mike was sure that he saw the Brady Bunch house. Now this name pops up. She tells him that she is connecting A to B to C.

Doggett smiles at Reyes and then asks Rietz if it makes sense to him.

He tells Doggett that they watched the show together.

Reyes questions why he would choose the name that he did. No one really liked the character--he was a pest.

Scully tells them that the character was a jinx. Doggett and Reyes look at her funny, and she tells them that maybe she watched an episode or two.

Scully tells them that his choice speaks to his own character--it's how he views himself--unlucky, star-crossed, and a danger.

Doggett asks her how this will help them bust him.

Scully tells him that she hopes that it doesn't come to that. The power that he seemingly possesses is extraordinary and needs to be studied.

Rietz adds that it could expand the scope of human knowledge and change everything.

Scully tells them that she has been working the unit for nine years now, and has investigated nearly 200 paranormal cases. She tells them that they are due for some incontrovertible truth. She wants vindication--for Mulder and for all of them.

Back at Oliver's house, Doggett knocks again. No one answers. Rietz knocks too, but again, no answer.

Doggett walks around to the other door and picks the lock with his government issued lock pick. He tells Rietz to wait there.

Doggett walks inside. The house looks like that of the Brady Bunch again.

He hears something upstairs, so he goes up the stairs.

He finds Oliver standing in the hallway.

Oliver tells Doggett to get out.

Doggett tells him that someone wants to talk to him--Rietz.

Oliver just tells him to leave him alone. He tells him again to leave.

Doggett doesn't leave.

Suddenly Doggett starts to levitate like Mike did. He grabs a hold of the doorknob. He tries to hold on, but he can't, and he goes flying through the ceiling.

The camera pans down to Oliver's face. He looks like he didn't want it to happen.

ACT THREE
Doggett comes to and looks around.

DOGGETT: Oh crap.

He is stuck to the ceiling of the attic. He gets up and walks around but he's still on the ceiling. He even tries jumping.

He calls to Oliver but gets no response. Then he sees Oliver down below. He calls to him again but he doesn't do anything.

Rietz walks in the house and calls to Oliver. Doggett hears him and tries to yell to him.

Rietz walks over to him and tells him to let him go. Oliver tells him that he can't. Rietz tells him that he knows that he can. He tells him that he doesn't know how.

Rietz tells him that he was a good person and he knows that that hasn't changed. He then instructs him to relax and focus.

Rietz is upset. He focuses though, and finally Doggett falls to the ground.

Doggett sits holding a bag of ice on his head. (It's in an evidence bag!)

Scully and Reyes come in.

Reyes is surprised and excited about the house. She starts talking about it and stops in the middle for a split second to ask Doggett if he is okay.

Scully checks him and says that he only has minor bruising.

Doggett introduces Scully to Oliver. Scully tells him that it's a great pleasure to meet him.

Reyes is amazed. She asks him how he made it come to be. He tells her that he thinks about it and it's there.

Scully asks him if he can think about other things. He doesn't answer her. She asks him what happens if he thinks about another place--a nice place.

Rietz asks him if he can do that, and that it's important to him.

Oliver concentrates, and suddenly their surroundings change. They are now outside on a clear day, sitting on the furniture.

Everyone is amazed, especially Scully.

The scenery changes back to the Brady Bunch house. He tells them that he mainly likes to be there.

Scully tells him that with his help they could learn so much. She tells him that she would love to take him back with them to Washington.

Rietz tells him that it would mean so much to him. Oliver could show the whole world.

Oliver nods.

Rietz helps him to go pack.

Once they leave the room, Doggett tells Scully and Reyes that they have a tiger by the tail.

Reyes questions that he really believes that Oliver wanted to kill him.

He tells her that he wanted him out of his house. The way he went was involuntary like a sneeze. He asks her what difference it makes. It means that he is out of control with his powers.

Scully tells them that he needs to learn how to control it. There is no end to what he could accomplish. Doggett tells her that there is no end to the harm he could cause if he goes off the deep end, which isn't very far away, in case they haven't noticed. He's not so sure about the Brady Bunch thing.

Reyes tells him that they can't keep him there. Two people are dead. It clearly isn't working.

Scully tells them that as grand as it may sound, they owe it to the world.

Doggett says that maybe she's right, but he can't shake the feeling that the other shoe's going to drop--that there is something that he's not telling them.

Meanwhile, Oliver is holding the football from the teaser. Rietz calls to him, and suddenly he is shocked by the ball and drops it.

ACT FOUR
Skinner has a very strange look on his face. He nervously looks around the room.

The camera pans to show the agents faces. Doggett looks baffled. Reyes has a smile on her face, and Scully has an even bigger one. Rietz is also smiling. Oliver is focusing. There is another man in the room who also looks confused and surprised.

The man stands up. The scene zooms out and we see that Skinner is suspended in mid air. The man walks around Skinner and then looks under his feet--proving to himself that it is real.

Skinner suddenly tips back and does a complete flip in the air. Scully laughs.

Skinner finally is let down to the ground. He is amazed.

Oliver is sweating and asks for a glass of water.

Skinner's secretary Arlene pours Oliver some water. Skinner tells Oliver that he will be a couple minutes, and that if he wants anything, to ask Arlene.

Skinner walks back into his office. Scully is still smiling. She asks the man what he thinks. He tells them that he thinks that a lot of physics books are due for rewriting. He also thinks that a year from now Scully and Rietz will be in Stockholm accepting the Nobel Prize.

Everyone is smiling except for Doggett, who still seems a little unsure.

The man asks to use Skinner's phone. The rest of them continue the conversation.

DOGGETT (to Skinner): So, you're on board with this?
REYES: What happens next?
SKINNER: I want Kersh to see this. I want the director himself in here. I mean, do you realize what this means? This kind of proof? <SKINNER smiles> It insures that they can't shut you down. It means the X-Files will go on forever.

Suddenly, Arlene calls for Agent Scully and they all go into the other room. Oliver is having a seizure. Arlene tells them that she saw a big spark, and then he collapsed.

At the hospital, standing over Oliver's hospital bed, Rietz tells Doggett and Scully that it is just all the excitement, and bed rest will help. Then they can all get back on schedule.

Scully enters the room and gets Doggett and Reyes to talk to her outside of the room.

Scully tells them that Oliver's electrolytes are imbalanced--that's what sent him into shock. They have stabilized his fluids.

Rietz asks her when they will release him. Scully tells him that there are other problems. His thyroid level is elevated and his glucose is low. His CPK, liver enzymes, and BUN are all elevated. It points to a multisystem organ failure. His body is gradually consuming itself. It has been going on for months, maybe years.

Reyes asks her what's causing it. She tells her that his doctors don't know, but she thinks that she does.

Doggett explains it for her. He says that Oliver's power is eating him alive. Scully says that if so, that follows that the more he uses it, the more his health will decline.

Suddenly Reyes sees something. They all look up and see the Brady family in Oliver's hospital room.

They rush into his room, but when they get there, they are all gone.

Reyes asks Oliver if it was really them, and he nods.

Doggett asks Oliver why they were there. He tells him that they were there to say goodbye, because he's dying.

FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.

Doggett is watching the footage of Oliver in 1970 again when Scully, Reyes, and Rietz come in.

Doggett asks them if there is a change in Oliver's condition.

Scully tells him that the doctors have tried everything.

Doggett has a realization, and tells her that none of it will work. They are treating the symptoms and not the cause.

Doggett tells them that he has one big question, "Why the Brady Bunch?" He says that the two of them (Scully and Reyes) are fans, and asks them why people are still watching a thirty-year-old television show.

Reyes tells him that it is because they are the perfect family that everyone wishes that they had.

Scully adds that since Oliver didn't have one as a child, he created one.

Doggett asks the same question again, though, "Why the Brady Bunch?" What he wants to know is why it wasn't the Partridge Family or Eight is Enough. He asks Rietz if Oliver first saw the show with him.

Rietz tells him that Oliver always insisted that they watch it together.

Doggett tells him that the more that we were together, the more Oliver's psychokinetic power faded, until it finally went away completely. He asks Rietz why he thinks that is.

RIETZ (realizing): Because for the first time in his life, he was happy.

Doggett tells him it is because Oliver was with him.

Scully asks Doggett what their course of action should be. He tells her that, A. Oliver will die if he continues to use his power, B. His power goes away when he's happy, and C. Rietz is the father that he never had and he loves him. A to B to C. Scully and Reyes agree.

Back at the hospital, a nurse is trying to get Oliver to eat some jello when Rietz walks in.

The nurse leaves and hands him the food.

Rietz tells Oliver that he has to understand that his life's work, the vindication of it, is very important to him. However, he let it blind him and treated him like a lab rat and not a man. He tells him that he left thirty years ago with barely a goodbye, and he is sorry for that. He then tells him that he can't use his powers ever again--he forbids it.

OLIVER: I can't be alone.
RIETZ: You won't be. You've got me…Can you forgive me, Oliver?
OLIVER: Anthony.

They both smile.

Scully, Doggett, and Reyes are watching through the window of the room.

Doggett looks to Scully and tells her that they were so close, and that he is sorry that they didn't get the proof. She tells him that she is sorry too. Then she thinks of something.

SCULLY: But maybe I've had it these past nine years. If not proof of the paranormal, then of more important things.

After a few moments, Scully walks away.

DOGGETT: Well, here's hoping the TV stays off and he learns how to love the real world.
DOGGETT looks to REYES. REYES takes his hand. DOGGETT looks down at their hands
REYES: I think you *are* getting the hang of this job.

Doggett smiles and Reyes smiles back.

And we fade to THE END


JAMIE'S PHILOSOPHICAL EPIPHANY FOR "SUNSHINE DAYS"

After watching "Sunshine Days" for the second time as I wrote my The X-Files review, I realized something.

Most people have been wondering why they decided to show this episode before the finale. Some people thought that they would have chosen a different one. Well, I think I figured out why they chose it and why it is so important. However, this is only my opinion.

I think that the whole episode is actually a metaphor for the show and its fans. In the episode, people are obsessed with the Brady Bunch, just as we are obsessed with The X-Files.

The first instance that shows the relationships is when they figure out how Blake and Mike were killed. Them breaking through the roof could symbolize how the fans feel right now about the show going to end.

Scully, Doggett, Reyes, and Skinner want this proof of the paranormal-for vindication for Mulder and everyone. Kind of like how we want the proof-the truth and everything in between-for the show.

When they seemingly have the proof, Skinner says that it means that they can't shut them down, and that the X-Files will go on forever. But then Oliver almost dies and they lose some of the proof that they had (at least enough to prove to others). This is kind of like how we want the show to go on forever, yet all good things must come to an end. Oliver tells Rietz that he can't be alone, and he says that he won't have to because he's got him. This shows that even though there will be no more pretend or The X-Files, it will still live on forever in our hearts.

Just how Rietz was like a father to Oliver, Chris Carter and The X-Files are kind of the same way related to us. It's just how Doggett talked about people watching the Brady Bunch thirty years after it has ended-we will probably do the same thing with The X-Files.

Near the end of the episode, Doggett tells Scully that he is sorry that they didn't get the proof that she wanted, kind of like how we are all sad that the show is ending. But she said that she has had it all along, at least of the important things. Similarly, we will all always have our memories.

Then, Doggett talks about the TV being off and hoping that Oliver will love the real world. That could be a final injoke about how The X-Files has become such a big part of our lives.

An lastly, when Reyes takes Doggett's hand and says that he is getting the hang of the job, I kind of take that to mean the same sort of thing in the real world. These characters, Reyes and Doggett, came to the show, uncomfortable at first. Many fans didn't accept them. However, the characters have adapted just as the fans have. They may not be Mulder and Scully, but we still love them in their own right. Just how everyone in this episode (Scully, Doggett, Reyes, and Skinner) finally accepted something paranormal, we've accepted them. This actually can be applied to the whole show as well. It started off with a small fan base of a new kind of show on television, but it grew to a phenomenon, and we all love it.

All in all, I think that this episode is kind of a big thank you and a goodbye.

And we will always remember our happy "Sunshine Days" of The X-Files.

 

 

IMAGES FROM "SUNSHINE DAYS" COMING SOON!


Overall Rating : 10
*Shippy Rating: 4
*MR/JD Shippy Rating: 7.5
*Note: OK a new note. Ratings will be completely different now because of the absence of Mulder, and therefore most likely of most of the shippiness. The ratings for this season are not equally comparable to that of previous seasons, so they will more or less be rated on their own scale, with me (trying to) disregard the fact that DD is not in it as a component in the rating. Shippiness still (if any) will ALWAYS be based on MULDER and SCULLY (unless I decide to do MR/JD or something later). The shippy scale is still based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, All Things being an 11.5, and Millennium being a 12, and Requiem a 12.5 all above the scale])*


If you have any more information, spoilers, or questions for me, feel free to email me. If you give me a tip, I don't have to reveal my source, unless you want me too.


Spoilers"Sunshine Days" Images Coming Soon!

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