Interesting episode, started out funny (after the initial killings) and became very serious.

I take it with the head guy getting killed that since he summoned the 'monster' that once he died it did too?

Why didn't mulder have his gun when he went to arrest the guy, I know it did not affect the monster, but he could have at least tried.

Great Episode.

Very Funny.

Nice X angle too.

Best Line: "Aaah!" -Mulder or "Fix Me a Sandwitch woman." -Mulder

Cute.

ANP

Hi! This is my first post, so I'm being a little tentative. I have a tiny nit. When Mulder checked his watch for the time, the date first read the 7th, then the 9th. However, when Scully started filming the house at the beginning of the episode, she said it was February 24th. Hmmm.

I noticed that the package the first dead couple received had the new H-class stamps on it. Nice touch, considering it's been only two months since they came out, and keeping in mind TV production schedules. However, I don't think two stamps would have been enough to mail that little wooden knickknack, unless it was made of balsa wood.

And instead of screaming in bed, why didn't the first dead wife try calling 911?

When filming insidd the house, Scully gives the date as February 24, despite Mulder's watch a moment before having show the date as the 7th(and two days later, as the 9th).

Might it not have been more professional if, before going undercover, Scully and Mulder had gotten their names hashed out, as well as decent cover bios?

When Mulder made that little invitation to Scully to join him in bed, I couldn't help thinking that the original Rob and Laura Petrie had separate beds. :-)

Does Mulder always bring along a pink flamingo lawn ornament on his assignments? I found it unusually convenient that he happened to have one along to plant when first starting to tempt fate.

When Scully returns 'home' from the lab at the start of Act 3, she enters an empty house, hears a creak, and calls "Mulder?" Nice way to blow her cover if it happens to be one of the neighbors.

Supposedly, Arcadia is built on a landfill, lying just beneath the topsoil. When Mulder has the front lawn dug up to a depth of several feet, though, we don't see any remnants of trash except for the wooden knickknack.

Not a bad episode, especially in comparison to the other stand-alones this season. I don't have much in the way of nits, just an observation:

During the scene where the ugly little dog crawlwed into the stormdrain---was anyone else expecting Tim Curry in a clownsuit to jump out screaming "We all float down here, Scully!"?

As for Fox network reruning Dreamland--wasn't once enough?

It's on right now where I am. So far, pretty good. Kinda strange concept, but very X-files-ish. I think it's funny so far. Mulder's efforts to find out what is going on were hilarious.

Had quite a laugh on this episode. :-) Mulder is really taking his "husband" role to heart ... wanting to carry Scully over the threshhold, inviting her to bed and several times putting his arm around her.

I really loved the look on Scully's face whenever Mulder cozies up. Esp. when she shrugs his hand when they were alone.

It would seem that everyone has to be indoors by 6pm but when the Schroeder wife and Scully go walk the dog, it's past that. Wouldn't they meet goo-man in the dark parts of the path?

It's not clear whether the goo-man is called forth by the broken bulb or Gogolak's power of the mind.

Above, someone mentioned that the couple had the new H-Stamps on their package . And added it was a nice touch, sense they came out a couple months ago.
Big problem!
On screen text show us that the teaser took place seven months ago (July, last year as indicated by Scully's dialogue). Care to guess what they didn't have seven months ago ;-)

I want to ad though, I love the parody on the Home-Owners Association. They're bad enough where I live, and I'm sure they're much worse in Califronia.

I do wonder what the problem was with Mulder's basketball hoop. I could undertand if it was a stationary one, built in the ground. But it was a mobile on... is it really a big deal if he takes out when he wants to use it, and puts it away when done?

Even though the Feb.th date didn't fit with Mulder's watch, telling us (the viewers) that it was the 7th or the 9th, the Omega watch he was wearing was a different model then the one he wore last week. On that one, the day was shown to us (the viewers) as 'Monday' so we could see that the day kept repeating itself. Go figure...

Scully notes in her closing narration that the Falls had won another "Best Community" award. Whoever hands those out must have low standards; the Falls has had three mysterious disapperances and one very public murder.

Why did Gogolok mail the woodchopper windmill to the soon-to-be dead couple? It couldn't be as a lure for the Trashbeast; it was lured by breaking the lamp bulb.

Incidentally, nice Biblical reference. In Exodus, the Plague of the Death of the Firstborn was visited on the houses whose lintelposts (front doors) were not marked with blood.

Who cleaned the dead peoples house, and how? Scully said the material from the sample had mercurochrome in it. Have you ever tried to remove that from carpet? It's nearly impossible.

I didn't understand Gogolok's motive. Why was he so all-fired concerned with rules? An odd behaivor for a man interested in the Himalayas (home of Buddhisism).

How did Big Mike survive in the sewers for so long? And why didn't the beast kill him right away?

Who took the flamingo and fixed Mulder's mailbox? At first I thought it was the Trashbeast, but it only comes out at night. Then I thought it was Big Mike, but the way the mailbox was fixed indicated that the pole was reset (i.e. new dirt or concrete poured in), and there just wasn't enough time for that.

Bad news for people that want M&S to get together; they may love each other, but they'd make terrible roommates/spouses. They reminded me of another TV couple: The Odd Couple.

Now that Gogolok is dead, I'll bet those homeowner rules are going right out the window.

Okay, so a LUXURY development was built on top of a landfill. A bit of a stretch, but for the sake of arguement, let's accept it. The only problem is we see Mulder lifting up the sod and finding landfill material right under the surface. That's not how it works. A suitable hole is found or dug, then filled with a mix of decomposable/nondegradable material. After most of the hole has been filled, it's topped off with clay, sand, and clean dirt. This effectively stops 99% of the decay, so there shouldn't be too much problem with settling (although I'd like to wait a decade or two before building my house there).

This was an episode with a lot of funny dialogue, but a very skinny plot. Did anyone ever think, for one moment, that something was going to harm M&S?

A fairly good episode, aside from the campy monster, which resembled nothing so much as a man with a garbage bag over his head.

Cheap-shot nit: Mulder used the fake name of Rob Petrie from The Dick Van Dyke Show. Yet, both shows exist in the same fictional reality! XF to Homicide to St. Elsewhere to Cheers to Frasier to Caroline in the City to Friends to Mad About You to The Dick Van Dyke Show! So, this is a nit eight times removed! Check out "Crossover Madness" under The Kitchen Sink for a fuller explanation.

Mike, perhaps Mulder is familiar with Rob Petrie's work from "The Alan Brady Show", an old '60s program that he enjoyed. Mulder does enjoy campy television.

The episode had the feeling of a Dick Van Dyke episode, "The Vigilante Ripped My Sports Jacket", or something like that, in which Rob's neighbors gang up to destroy a neighbor's crabgrass. The dark side of suburban life.

It also reminded me of "Night of the Fire Demon", in which people are marked to die by a parchment. Also, all victims get a wood cutting of the monster that will kill them.

THEORIES
1. The monster didn't fully kill Big Mike because it probably stopped after realizing he had fixed the light.

2. The broken light is incidental, it's just broken as a quick way for the monster to come out. The monster can be lured many ways. That is what Mike means when he yells "I fixed the light!"

3. Perhaps Winn or his wife were the ones that were "helping the Petries".

QUESTIONS
1. Since the monster does not hesitate to attack Gogolek, despite the fact he did not do anything, it's obvious the monster does not care who it kills. So what does Big Mike mean by "It only wants your husband, Laura"?

2. Doesn't Gogolek even think to give his residents a copy of the rules?

3. Truthfully, would you think that there would be a lot more murders? And what person would even bother to stay in this surburbia? Unless it's a rule not to move.

4. Mulder says that the pool goes along with the rules. So why does the monster try to kill him? Unless it's not really the rules, just people Gogolek hates.

5. Why was Winn's streetlight broken? The obvious theory was that it was to call the monster--but wouldn't the basketball hoop be enough? Unless our good friend Winn has broken a few rules.

Thanks guys for pointing out where S&M's names came from, I figured it was a nod to something, but I couldn't figure it out. Now I know why, it was a reference to before my time.

ANP

This episode reminded me of a couple of other eps: The golem episode and the one about the satinist school board.

Bob: It reminded me too of "Kaddish". I was also reminded of "Our Town" (chicken processing plant, CJD, cannibalism, Scully nearly becoming stew).

Let me get this right: Mulder has seen Scully prematurely wrinkled (Dod Kalm), covered with bug bites (Darkness Falls), suspended in liquid (the movie), covered in dung ("War of the Coprophages"), and other ugly moments, without freaking out. But the sight of his partner with her face covered in beauty cream makes him scream?!

I think the beauty cream is a reference to an ep. of Boy Meets World, where some one freaks out when Topenga is wearing similar beauty cream.

I watched the episode again and noticed something very strange. After Mulder does some "redecorating" to his front yard, he watches to see what will happen. He finishes a carton of juice. And he is so dedicated to keeping watch, that he actually... tries to rig the empty carton as a portable toilet. Fortunately for sensitive viewers, he desists and visits the 'loo.

J. Goettsche: e-mail me. I have some information about the movie you requested, and I don't have your address.

I remember I was watching the one scene with Winn, Gogolak, and the rest at Gogolak's home, dicussing what to do. At around this time, I realized what was going on, but I hoped that it would be something more creative. I especially didn't want a mud monster. It would be a lot more frightening if it was truly people killing people over rules.

Apparently, for all that they are back on the X-Files, Mulder and Scully are still on a leash. Before, Mulder just went were he wanted and did what he wanted. I believe this is the first time Skinner assigned him an X-File. (Not counting all their assignments when the X-Files were closed, of course).

So, why did Gogolak send the first family a windmill, with his *company name* on it, if all you have to do is break a lightbulb to get the beastie to come? The only reason that windmill was there was to give Mulder the link to Gogolak. A broken lightbulb is untraceable.

About the mercurochrome (sp?): Scully said she found it in the storm brain sample (brought up by the yipdog--buy a real dog, dagnabit!). There was equally uncleanable motor oil in the house sample, though.

It's Feb 24th at 6:01pm and it is a tad bit too lit outside. At 6:00 the other day the sun had already set.

Mulder has awoken Scully many a time at her apartment and she has never had beauty cream on. Maybe Scully is realizing the toils of time (and what she will look like in her elder years - see "Dod Kalm")

Mark, I think Gogolak sent the windmill as a test to see if the guy would actually break the rules. He probably got a sense the guy was trouble, but hadn't done anything so he tempted him with the package. Wasn't too smart leave the company name on it.

It seems like the monster is summoned if a rule is broken during the night. That's why Winn wanted Mulder to put his hoop away. He could probably play all he wanted to during the daytime. That would really suck if your outdoor light blew on it's own while you were sleeping!

When Winn said to Scully that the monster only wants 'her husband' I think it's because he's seen as deviant, not her. Yet the Kleins were both killed, yet the wife was just as undeviant! Also I found it hard to believe that the Kleins were suspected as deviant, because outside their home, they really didn't do anything. I thought they could do anything inside their homes. The head guy kind of implied that himself. If the Kliens were spied on then, the 'Petries' would of been hacked away along time ago, for they called each other 'Mulder and Scully' inside the house.
By the way, I found this episode extremely funny.

IMHO, I think the humor saved this episode. I thought the storyline was a little weak, and the explanation of the existence of the beast was kind of breezed over. Usually Mulder gives us a little more time to mull over his theories. In this one he comes up with an idea and before you know it it's all over.

There were several points in this episode where I was shouting, "You are FBI agents on a case! Where are your guns?"

Here's a parallel no one else has mentioned: "Poltergeist." Pleasantville built over an undesirable piece of real estate. A spirit gets upset over the circumstances, and the neighborhood is never quite the same.

I didn't quite understand what had happened to Mike and why he survived or if he was in the process of being "absorbed" by the monster. It never really explained if the monster killed them or just drug them away. Regardless, from where Scully found Mike's neckless he wouldn't have fit down that storm drain and survived.

So far we've had "Wolfman," "Flukeman," "Forestman," "Treeman," "Circusfreakman," "Cancereatingman," "Jewishmudman," "Seamonsterman" ... we now give you the misguided misadventures of our Villan of the Week: "Garbageman!"

Don't forget LightningBoy, StretchyMan, and JustMean'OlMan.

I think the monster killed the boss because he was an "unauthorized addition" to the mailbox. >:-)

Also, I believe that anything that causes lots of blood to jet at least 15 feet is enough to kill someone.

That's why I'm very surprized Winn survived that first time!!

Deuce, your estimation about why Gogolak was killed has me LOL!!!!
I was wondering how the monster sprayed big mike's blood all over the porch and somehow Mike survived long enough to lose his necklace (which might have been washed down the drain when the porch was hosed off), live in the sewer (?) for a day or so,
fix Mulder's little acts of experimental rebellion, then break in to the Petrie house, go upstairs and lurk around (WHY?!! what fer?!) just
in time to save Scully? poo-poo man could tell where his targets were from underneath the sod, but put a latticed closet door and Big Mike in the way, and, well, poo-poo man suddenly lost his motivation. (the reason I call him "Poo-poo Man" is because every time I saw this monster, I heard in my mind, "Poo-poo man lives!" from a website called "the Lunatic lounge", subtopic "stupid human noises", a page of insane wavs.

During the teaser, while the guy was driving down the street to his house, he passed by a mailbox which holds 12 addresses, each with their own seperate compartment for receiving mail. However, the actual house that Mulder & Scully live in has the type of mailbox that sits in front of each individual house with their name on it. It may be possible that the neighborhood uses both types.

My "nit-picks" regarding this particular episode are as numerically proceeds:
1) Not really a nit but rather an explanation. The shattered lightbulb signifies that the monster, which is conceived mentally by Mr. Gogolak, would attack the resident to whose house that shattered lightbulb pertains. The same way the Mafia breaks your legs prior to returning and "finishing the job."
2) The waste material located on the fan was an awfully large portion. One would think the cleanup crew would have noticed it situated on the fan.
3) Was it my imagination or did Special Agent Dana Scully enter the bathroom and consequently emerge with a bathrobe on and beauty cream applied to her face rather quickly? Superman, eat your heart out!

Perhaps she is really from Krypton, and her skeptical routine is just a front to keep Mulder in the dark. It also explains why she won't die. (In the comic books, Superman is alive and well in Novemberof the year 85,271 AD.) Also, wasn't the interior of the UFO from the movie Kryptonite Green?

Probably Scully read the recipe in Cosmo yesterday, explaining why she'd never
used it before. Or maybe she just wanted to freak out Mulder. As to her speed: we
already know my heroine is immortal. Perhaps TPTB knew that she had just been
infected with a deadly new form of snoofalopolus, and the only cure laid in her new
beauty cream. Therefore, they gave her back some of that missing time to apply
her cream, thereby saving her life and keeping things from getting out of balance.
(Which is my private pet theory as to why 'Something was not right' in that ep
with the magic exploding bank. Scully couldn't die, so the closed timelike curve
had to keep repeating until she was saved. I'm sure someone here has already come
up with this , to which I say , "Blub. Blub, blb bilp, blblilbeb."

lin

And if anyone wonders why I'm not posting on the latested ep, I heroically let my
mom watch an extended Touched By An Angel instead. I'll tape it this
summer...sigh..

I enjoy lemurs.

When Mulder introduces Scully and himself as Rob & Laura Petrie, no one reacts--no one says, "Hey, that's just like the old Dick Van Dyke Show." It would also be really •••••• for two FBI agents to use such an obviously phoney alias. Okay, so The X-Files occurs in a universe where the DVDshow never happened. So did "Mad About You." I can buy that. The Petrie reference was simply an inside joke from the writers to the TV audience.

Except for one thing: Pusher once refered to Skinner as "Mel Cooley." So how could he know about Cooley if there was no Dick van Dyke show in his universe?

This is a nitpick in every sense of the word. :-)

Never one for vulgarity, the edited word above was, with minor spelling differences, "stooopid."

I was just wondering why Scully was upset that Mulder did not put the toilet seat down or squeeze the tube of toothpaste correctly. I mean how many years have they been working and travelling together? I believe that in "The Rain King" M&S even had to end up sharing a motel room. Mulder's bad habits never seemed to bother her before.

Pusher knows about Mel Cooley because he's a big TV nut. While researching his favorite program "The Alan Brady Show", he saw a picture of producer Mel Cooley. Laughing at loud at the site of Mel's big bald head, he began using it as an insult against bald people. This is why Skinner does not get the joke.

I don't think the "blood" that spurted was Big Mike's. Remember that when they found the gunk in the house, M&S thought it was blood. So maybe Mike just punched the thing really hard....I know, long shot, but still....

Right after Mulder and Scully move in, Scully starts her recording to get the exposition done. However, she doesn't check for any bugs. If they suspect foul play and are undercover, shouldn't they check first whether they are unobserved before using their real names?

I guess most of the "intimate moments" between Mulder and Scully are done for laughs - Scully brushing Mulder's hand off so quickly, Mulder screaming at the beauty cream - because usually, I'd expect them to stay in cover the whole time, to lessen the risk of discovery.

When Mulder's lounging on the bed and Scully has her beauty mask on, first Mulder wears his shoes, then he slides off in his socks. He muast have taken the shoes off while we weren't looking, but still talking to Scully...

Good thing that Scully doesn't carry her gun when Mulder comes into the house, and she almost bashes his head in.

I, too, wonder why neither Scully or Mulder carry guns, given that it's legal for every American citizen to have one.

Considering that Big Mike lived in sthe stormdrain, and therefore, should know the monster consists of earth and garbage, why does he try to shoot it? Possible anti-nit: He didn't know what else to do?

It's not clear whether the goo-man is called forth by the broken bulb or Gogolak's power of the mind.

As far as I understood it, the Tulpa was created by Gogolak's power of mind, but comes forth in specific instances whenever a rule is broken.

Scully notes in her closing narration that the Falls had won another "Best Community" award. Whoever hands those out must have low standards; the Falls has had three mysterious disapperances and one very public murder.

A matter of priorities? Their lawns are clean, no loud rap music, no foreign people running around... those people who move into these gilded prisons in the first place think security and order are more important then other things. Was the murder even public, that is, in the newspapers? After all, if the neighbors don't talk about the disappearances, the voters won't know about them.

Why did Gogolok mail the woodchopper windmill to the soon-to-be dead couple? It couldn't be as a lure for the Trashbeast; it was lured by breaking the lamp bulb.

That confused me a bit, too.

Who cleaned the dead peoples house, and how?

Scully suspected that the neighbors cleaned up to hide evidence.

I didn't understand Gogolok's motive. Why was he so all-fired concerned with rules? An odd behaivor for a man interested in the Himalayas (home of Buddhisism).

Because he thought that without rules, there's anarchy. Why are so many people in the real world ready to live in gated communities with rules very similar to Arcadia? Because they're afraid of the dangers, and so prefer rules.
Learning Buddhist techniques of concentration with an already warped mind (and we don't know if he had a master to educate him, or only picked up an isolated part of the whole) won't turn a man into a saint.

Who took the flamingo and fixed Mulder's mailbox? At first I thought it was the Trashbeast, but it only comes out at night. Then I thought it was Big Mike, but the way the mailbox was fixed indicated that the pole was reset (i.e. new dirt or concrete poured in), and there just wasn't enough time for that.

I think it was Big Mike to protect them. As for the post... probably another Tuiti award.

Now that Gogolok is dead, I'll bet those homeowner rules are going right out the window.

I don't think so - these people all agreed with the rules with majority. They could have moved out any time.

1. Since the monster does not hesitate to attack Gogolek, despite the fact he did not do anything, it's obvious the monster does not care who it kills. So what does Big Mike mean by "It only wants your husband, Laura"?

I understood that the monster only killed the rule-breakers. So if the husband did wrong, the wife wouldn't be killed automatically. (That doesn't explain the teaser couple, but they probably suffered from Tuiti death.)

Though it may be that the monster has gotten out of control by now, and that's why it kills the wife, and not only the husbands. Since it was created by pschic energy, maybe the dark emotions of Gogolek's subconcious influenced it, and in the end, all humans are potential rule-breakers and aesthically unpleasing, making a mess? (Like in Forbbidden Planet?)

2. Doesn't Gogolek even think to give his residents a copy of the rules?

Good question. It can't be because Googolek makes updates too often, since it's bound in leather. Maybe he wants to have control by being the only one who can look the rules up and interpret them?

3. Truthfully, would you think that there would be a lot more murders? And what person would even bother to stay in this surburbia? Unless it's a rule not to move.

I think the people who want to move into a community like this already agree on a lot of the rules. After they live there for some time, the peer pressure and getting used to things probably does the rest. And they know they are safe as long as they obey the rules - out in the real world, they are afraid their house might be burgled by dope addicts or similar. (How real that scenario is isn't important, if the fear is big enough to make the monster acceptable.)

4. Mulder says that the pool goes along with the rules. So why does the monster try to kill him? Unless it's not really the rules, just people Gogolek hates.

I think Gogolek says that Mulder is digging his own grave because he sees that Mulder is far too rebellious to keep to the rules. Digging with heav equipment without asking or telling your neighbours about it beforehand isn't neighborly behaviour, after all.
Besides, Mulder was digging after sundown...

Let me get this right: Mulder has seen Scully prematurely wrinkled (Dod Kalm), covered with bug bites (Darkness Falls), suspended in liquid (the movie), covered in dung ("War of the Coprophages"), and other ugly moments, without freaking out. But the sight of his partner with her face covered in beauty cream makes him scream?!

Because all these other things were alien (and therefore his field) and Scully his partner who kept her cool, but in the home, when he's not expecting it, to see Scully's female side freaks him out? (And he only gives a short shriek, not a loud scream!) Maybe similar to little boys who don't mind spiders and bugs but freak out when a little girl kisses them? *Bleagh*

I was just wondering why Scully was upset that Mulder did not put the toilet seat down or squeeze the tube of toothpaste correctly. I mean how many years have they been working and travelling together? I believe that in "The Rain King" M&S even had to end up sharing a motel room. Mulder's bad habits never seemed to bother her before.

She was teasing him by going along with the "wife" role in their "house"playing? As Mulder earlier demanding his sandwiches, or that she sleep in his bed weren't meant totally serious...

I remember I was watching the one scene with Winn, Gogolak, and the rest at Gogolak's home, dicussing what to do. At around this time, I realized what was going on, but I hoped that it would be something more creative. I especially didn't want a mud monster. It would be a lot more frightening if it was truly people killing people over rules.

I quite agree. Ep.s like this make me regret that Chris Carter changed the original premise about the X-files, where the Unexplained cases would sometimes have natural explanations, and the skeptic part of the Duo (Scully) would be proven right about half of the time. Instead, he decided to always have a supernatural element, even if it's shoehorned in, when the ep.s would often be scarier simply showing normal people.

E.g. Donny Pfaster in "Obsession" is scary enough without needing a demon face added digitally. "Hell money" is also scary enough - people selling parts of their body for money - without needing anything paranormal. Or "Grotesque" - how far can a profiler venture into the mind of a psychopath without getting lost?
In "Arcadia", the residents already stick close together and deny the murders. After M&S find the truth, they blame everything on Gogolak, and pretend their wonderful world is whole again. A mud monster wasn't necessary - it would've been even more disturbing to see ordinary people turn into a lynch mob because somebody painted their mailbox the wrong shade of color. (Like in "Edward Scissorhands", where the normal people can't cope with Edward looking different, despite his gentle nature, ignoring the hate of their own children.)
And what a mob does, people don't feel responsible for, since "nobody" = no individual did it, so it would be easy to forget the memory.

The plot of th

Ups? What's that? Disregard the last sentence.