I'm Helen, and I'm Liz, and we're sisters, scientists, and lifelong X-Files fans.
And this is We Want to Believe.
Alright, welcome back.
Welcome back.
As we said previously, this episode of the X-Files 3 has a reputation for being one of
the worst episodes they ever made.
And was it?
Yes.
Oh, no.
Yes.
It was real bad.
Really?
Yeah, but I can't wait to talk about it.
Is there any updates or announcements or anything we need to say before we dive into the episode,
before I give you your quiz slash game?
Ooh.
I've been giving people quizzes all day, so it seems only fair.
Fair.
Yeah.
I think so, right?
You said you have a story, a listener's story, or no?
Nope.
Oh, must have dreamt that.
Yeah.
I had a creepy dream about aliens.
You had a creepy dream about an alien?
Yeah.
I don't remember.
I just had a creepy dream.
Aliens were in it, and then I woke up and went to the bathroom in the middle of the night
and was afraid of aliens, which never happens to me.
I'm never afraid of aliens, so that's not one of my things.
Yeah.
I remember when we were little and we lived closer to corn.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
After signs came out, yeah.
Yeah.
Big time.
Something was terrifying.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
I remember watching it with friends in high school and them getting mad because one or
two of them hadn't seen it before, and some of us would start to tense up before scary
would happen because we knew what was coming.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I don't think so.
So, I'm ready to dig into some bad vampire stuff.
Yeah.
And I mean, as a vampire aficionado, I have some extra vampire stuff to share.
Cool.
The only other thing I was going to say is I got scared last night by something I was
writing, which is just the stupidest thing.
I'm not doing like full nano-rymo, but I decided I'm going to write a little bit each day and
like, like, that's it.
Like, because nano-rymo to achieve 50,000, oh, if anyone doesn't know that's national
novel writing month, and the idea is you write 50,000 words in a month, which breaks down
to just over 1600 words a day, which is a lot.
That's a lot.
Especially if it's on average, like, you know, yeah, trying to do 500 words a day, which
is really doesn't take 15, 20 minutes.
It's not a big deal.
Yeah.
But I'm writing something kind of scary.
Ooh.
I got scared when I had to get up and go to the bathroom.
Ooh.
Man, that's a sign of talent.
I feel like that's good.
It's a sign of something.
We'll say talent.
Yeah.
Generalized anxiety disorder.
Yeah.
A little from Colombe, a little from Colombe.
And I'm realizing I actually did have more to say.
I am dedicated to the idea of a spooky November because I don't really dig the vibe of November.
Okay.
And I like Halloween.
I like spooky October.
Yeah.
And so my goal is to start making the spookiness bleed into November.
Sure.
How?
Well, I'm listening to Ghost Story, the podcast that Helen recommended previously.
Isn't it good?
Oh my God.
Have you heard all of it yet?
Because I haven't heard all of it, but I've heard most of it.
No, no, I haven't.
I'm on episode three, I think.
Okay.
Have you heard the Dorothy Sayers stuff in episode three?
The crime fiction writer from the 30s?
No.
Uh-uh.
No.
Oh my God.
Okay.
Scary?
What was that?
It was just insane.
Just insane.
Like, yeah, I can't.
I was like, by myself listening to this, just like, I need to talk to someone about this.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
It's too bad because my, well, I mean, too bad is perhaps too strong of a word.
But when I was commuting all the time, it was nice.
That's when I would listen to scary stuff because when I'm like in my car, I feel very
safe and secure.
But when I'm like at home and the kids are asleep and I'm like cleaning and Zach is playing
guitar, I like, or embroidering or like, you know, whatever it is I'm doing by myself.
Broitering seemed like a scary task.
Not the act of it, but just like, that's the task you'd be doing when a ghost visits
you.
And so I don't want to listen.
So yeah, so my time to listen to spooky stuff has been compromised.
Because then when I'm at work, it like is then also too much.
So I listened to like the professor is in and inside higher ed and the dream.
I am.
I just finished listening to season three of the dream.
Oh, how'd you get it all right away?
I think it's done.
I think it just came out this week.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I think it's finished now.
I think it's done.
Like nine episodes.
Oh, oh, I didn't realize.
Okay.
Well, I have one more to listen to that.
I guess.
Yeah.
I think it just came out yesterday.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Um, but those other ones do not sound like my scene.
I don't want to listen to inside higher ed.
I was listening to some travel agent podcasts and I still do sometimes, but often I'm just
like, no, I can't have more things that I'm supposed to think about for money.
I don't know.
Yeah.
No, the difference I think is that I listened to episodes.
That are about like why everyone is quitting academia and, um, you know, I don't know,
kind of like more social topics.
Okay.
Got it.
Yeah.
Then like, out and give a professor or something.
Right.
Yeah.
They have those, but I'm, I'm, yeah, those don't interest me quite as much.
Um, so spooky November though.
Yeah.
So I am listening to that ghost story podcast.
Cool.
I'm writing something spooky.
Cool.
And then I just wanted there to be a third thing, but I don't know what it is yet.
I'll, I'll work on that.
Maybe I'll have one next week.
Okay.
So yeah, uh, that's, that's what's new with me.
And I encourage anyone else who feels kind of blah about November's vibe, be like, make
it, I mean, look, time change happens, more darkness.
Ooh.
Yeah.
It just makes me want to drink hot chocolate and embroider.
I was just saying, I've left the part of the season where I drink apple cider and I'm
now moving into hot chocolate mode.
Yeah.
With the time change comes the hot chocolate.
Yeah.
Um, cool.
I think those are my updates.
Yeah.
Let's go ahead and we're going to do a quiz.
Okay.
I'm excited.
I'm ready.
Um, have you seen basic instinct?
Is it open?
That's just a question.
No, but you know what?
I want to, because I just read an article right before Halloween.
I was, um, looking at some sort of, I think it was probably a rink or article about like
scary movies or something.
It's with Harrison Ford, right?
And Michelle Pfeiffer.
No, no, neither of those people.
No.
Okay.
Who is the, what?
Um, Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone.
Yes.
Okay.
I like the vibes and the era.
Like they're not wrong.
Yeah.
So I have not, but I want to hit it.
I didn't see it till I was an adult and it, it is.
It is batshit and saying like it is wild.
Like cool.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just, it's so it's like kind of the first of those like early 90s erotic
thrillers and, um, and probably also the most famous, you know, but so I'm fairly, I've
seen it multiple times.
I know it pretty well.
And I watched this episode of the act of the devil.
I mean, I didn't know that.
I didn't know that I was a little bit of a villain.
And I watched this episode of the X-Files 3,
and I thought that is kind of the vibe they're
kind of sort of going with here.
Is that early 90s?
Well, it is early 90s.
Erotic thriller, which is not a vibe the X-Files usually does.
No.
Maybe that's because they're real bad at it.
I don't know.
So I'm going to read you some statements.
And your question will be, is this true about basic instinct?
The episode 3, both or neither?
Ooh, OK.
OK.
All right.
I'm ready.
OK.
We'll start with something very straightforward and not
that exciting.
Takes place in California.
Both.
Yes.
That is correct.
OK.
Three takes place in LA.
And basic instinct takes place in San Francisco.
OK.
In this piece of fiction, a man with a sort of tortured
upsetting event in his past who works in law enforcement
suspects a woman of murder but sleeps with her anyway
and then falls for her and tries to protect her.
Ooh, I can't.
I was just reading a synopsis of basic instinct, like I said.
But clearly, I got the two main characters awfully wrong.
So I don't know that I retained much.
I'm going to say both.
That is correct.
Both.
Yes.
OK.
The female lead stabs someone.
Ooh, both.
That is correct.
It has a fun, exciting twist ending.
Basic instinct.
Very good.
Definitely not three.
Nothing's more exciting about three.
Oh, no.
The male lead mentions leprechauns.
Three.
Neither.
I just wanted to follow.
It's neither.
I was going to say, how would you have gone, like,
you rewatched Basic and Saint with like a leprechaun shelter?
Leprechauns.
Yeah.
So I guess I should say definitely not three.
I think I should say three.
Definitely not three.
And I don't think it happens in Basic and Saint,
but please let me know if I'm wrong, listeners.
Yeah.
I forgot the pivotal leprechaun scene.
Opens with a sex scene between an older man and a younger woman
whose face we don't see and the man gets murdered.
Both?
During that.
Both.
Yes.
Ooh.
Yes.
Is Basic and Saint the one with the ice pick?
Is there an ice pick?
Yes.
Oh, that's why I was reading about it.
OK.
And finally, vampires.
Three.
Yes.
Very good.
You got all of them right except for the leprechaun question, which is fine.
Yeah.
So I really got this vibe like that's what it was aiming for.
And it sucks.
Because Basic Instinct is it's kind of trashy, but in an incredibly compelling way.
OK.
This is trashy in like a really irritating way.
Like, OK.
So again, we open with an older man.
He's drinking a glass of red wine and he's looking out at the hills and he's talking
about the fires in Malibu Canyon, which I guess there were some really bad fires in
Malibu in 1993, which is the year before this would have been filmed, but I guess still
possible.
And and there's a woman inside and he's kind of talking to her and being like, oh, I can
almost see the fires from here and it's very moody and whatever.
And he's he's older and you can tell she's younger, but you can't see her face that well.
She's a brunette.
And and at first I was like, oh, he's hired a prostitute.
But then he says, I don't usually do this.
But when I met you at that corporate party or something like that, I'm like, oh, so she's
like his co-worker.
I don't know.
So they start making out in a hot tub and see there's a dude inside.
I'm going to call that guy the father for reasons that will be revealed later.
I don't know if he's someone's father.
I don't actually know the reason that's going to be revealed.
It's not.
Okay.
There is no fun to extending.
So but it's I need to call him by some name and for a little bit later, I'm going to call
him the father.
Okay.
He's like, imagine how my hair looks on its worst day.
Like if I'd been sleeping and then I just woke up and went somewhere like long brown
hair that's like real ratty and messy.
And he's, I don't know, middle age and kind of has a crazy look in his eyes and he's
getting out of syringe.
Oh, and then the woman making out with the older guy in the hot tub bites him and the
father rushes in, grabs him and they kill the guy.
Okay.
And so I just want to point out which one of us has the phobia of blood and needles?
Me.
Which one of us has to put the episode blood and this episode?
Me.
Oh, no.
Was there a lot of like so much?
Oh, no, really?
I thought it would just be like vampiric.
Me too.
And I was just like, are you kidding me?
Why am I, no, no more needles.
It's okay.
I didn't, I mean, you know, I cannot look and I can't really think there's any X file.
I don't think there's any X files all about vomiting.
Yeah, I don't think so.
No, although I'm sure there's episodes that contain vomit.
Yeah.
Not so much like a trend that they're gonna like zoom in on over and over.
I hope not.
So there's okay.
All right.
Yeah, I know nothing about this episode.
And I have a feeling you're going to have questions for me that I do not have answers
for.
Okay.
So, okay.
Theme song happens and then a little bit of a slightly compelling scene.
Mulders in the X files office and as you told me, right in the last episode, the X
files are being opened once again.
Right.
So Mulders taking down the plastic sheeting and you can kind of see, you know, around
the office, there's like a trashy calendar with women posing with enormous power tools
and he's changing it from May to November.
And so it's got to be like November 94 now.
We get, and then you see that he's got like an X file about Scully and it has some stuff
in it and it's got her badge and he's very sad and he takes her cross necklace out and
he puts it on.
Oh, okay.
And then the phone rings.
New scene.
Don't know.
Okay.
And then Mulder is now at a crime scene in LA and it's the crime scene of the old guy's
nice house with the hot tub and all that.
Right.
And LAPD is there and they're a little hostile and they're like, nobody called the bureau.
And I don't think I delivered that line that well.
I said, I'm going to try that again.
I don't think I have it.
How would you say that?
I don't know.
No one called the bureau though.
So he's like, okay.
And so in Mulder's like, well, they should have.
Okay.
So I assume at this point we're going to find out who that phone call was from when I'm
thinking maybe it's X because I haven't gotten an episode with X in it yet.
Right.
They never address it.
No idea.
No, no idea.
So no one called the bureau and there's no follow up to that or how Mulder found the
case.
Nope.
Okay.
All right.
He's there.
He's looking very moody and it's like, it's clear he's feeling really, really upset about
Scully being abducted.
Like you can see how that's haunting him and everything.
Now Mulder does say, so maybe, maybe this is kind of an answer.
He's like, oh, there's six people dead in similar ways in two other states and Mulder's
been waiting for them to strike again.
So maybe the phone ringing was incidental and Mulder just heard about this.
Okay.
I don't know.
It wasn't the greatest writing.
So they kind of look around the house and all the mirrors are shattered and written in
blood is John 52 54.
And so I'm like, right?
One of them, what'd you say?
Bible.
And so I was, you know, I watched this a couple of days ago and then I was kind of reviewing
things today and I'm like, what exactly was it?
Cause somebody either Mulder or somebody else kind of quotes it and it's something about,
oh, if you drink of my blood, you will be have everlasting life or something like that.
But I Googled it to get it exactly right.
And the first thing that comes up when you search John 52 54 is a summary of this episode,
which I thought was odd.
That's because there is no John 52 54.
That quote is actually John 6 54.
John 52 54 does not exist.
It is not a Bible thing.
They couldn't have done some.
That seems like a pretty easy one to like, I mean, they got out, right?
Right?
Like what?
I mean, it's not like they're going to be like, it's not like God is going to be like,
Hey, copyright, you can't, you know, you have to make it a fake Bible verse.
Like when they have, you know, a restaurant that's clearly meant to be McDonald's, but
isn't or a social media that's meant to look like Facebook or something.
Yeah.
Oh, that is so weird.
Weird.
So, so yeah, we're, we're getting a vibe here that there's something kind of biblical
ish going on maybe.
And Mulder is saying how like in Omaha and in one other city, I'll have, I'll be reminded
later.
They've killed three people in each city and Mulder finds a needle in the poll filter,
like a like a syringe.
And then the LAPD guys being kind of nice and wants to help and Mulder's just like,
I work alone and is very hostile and it's, it's clearly upset about Scully.
And then he says, I only need one thing from you.
Would you like to guess what he needs from them?
It is a actual object.
It is a physical thing.
A guy's body?
No.
Uh, no, that's all I got.
A phone book.
I know it's the 90s.
I know he can't just Google this stuff.
But again, it just seems like, so he just met up with them and everything and all he
needs is a phone book.
Like, yeah.
Okay.
And because, because here's the thing, it's not like he's looking up something that he
just gained this info with the crime scene.
What he's doing is he's calling all the blood banks in LA.
Okay.
Because he expects that whoever is doing this thinks they're a vampire and probably they'd
work at a blood bank.
I guess.
Huh.
Okay.
And, and so he's like, oh, I'm from HR.
I have a question about your new hires, W4.
We need some more info.
And kind of like leading them into like finding out who has hired someone recently.
And they're like, oh, you must mean John the Night Watchman.
Ha, that must be him.
So he sneaks in at night to the rather well-secured giant blood bank facility.
Um, and indeed finds a dude.
He's drinking blood from a plastic pouch.
Like it's a caprice sun.
Oh God, gross.
That is just like exactly what it was like was like a clear caprice sun full of blood.
Oh, gross.
I'm so nasty.
So, so gross.
Oh, geez.
It was somewhere around here that I'm like, wait, this is 1994.
What are they not mentioned?
Right.
Yeah, I'm like, nothing about the AIDS crisis?
Yeah.
Um, and they do mention it in a little bit, but not as much as I would think.
Yeah.
So, so, you know, Mulder catches a guy, puts him in police custody and he's screaming for
the lights to be turned off.
Oh, you're killing me.
You're killing me.
And it's, you might think, oh, this must be the guy Liz described as the father.
Right.
It is the same sort of look with like longish brown hair, like, and, you know, and then
vaguely goth ish.
I'm at ease.
Younger, he's maybe in like his twenties.
Um, longish brown hair, vaguely goth.
Are these like Vlad Tepes wannabes?
Like is that the long hair?
Is that where we're going?
Yeah, I've never thought about it like that, but Vlad Tepes is going to get brought up
in a way and a little bit.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Interesting.
So the police are very dismissive and I want to be like, well, LAPD early nineties.
I feel like ignoring this guy's cries for turning off the lights.
I feel like that's the least of things, bad things they do.
Right.
Yeah.
Like years after the king.
So, um, how many after that was 91, right?
Yeah.
Like three years.
Um, and yeah, again, I just kept like feeling like, is there going to be any sort of reference
to LAPD in the nineties?
I don't know.
Um, so Malder though turns on like a red light or like a light with like a red filter
on it.
And now the guy can relax and now he trusts Malder and he's like, oh, you know what we
are.
The episode never actually uses the word vampire.
That's clearly a choice.
Oh, I don't know why they make it though.
Why they make that choice.
I don't know.
As I say about Archer, why you do this?
Why so stupid?
Um, like, like as if, I mean, yeah, I don't know, but they never use the word vampire,
but it's clearly there.
Okay.
And so, um, at this point, this guy, his name is John.
He says, I don't know, I propose nothing.
He is the father.
I am the son and she is the unholy spirit.
Uh, so that's why I'm calling that one dude the father.
But because I know it, um, and also I just feel so unamused by John's whole shtick.
Like I don't know, people who take themselves very seriously and goth.
I'm not into.
I'm not into people taking themselves seriously anyhow, but he seems like the kind of guy
that would like have some sort of snake or lizard in his apartment and think that was
cool.
Yeah, absolutely.
That is the vibe.
Absolutely.
He's like, he's like a snake apartment man.
Yeah.
Um, and to be clear to any of our listeners who are gothish, that's cool.
It's more the, uh, the, I take myself so seriously and I say important, pretentious things that
sound deep.
Right.
And I also love snakes.
Um, but, uh, yeah, it's that certain.
Did we see some guys apartment?
Look who had a snake?
The sort of person that would have like swords on his walls and black lights or lava.
Yeah.
You're absolutely right.
And I feel like, I don't know, did I date him?
I don't think so.
No, not exactly.
No, but I mean like, or hang out with like, it just sounds like somebody I would have
ended up in their apartment in my early twenties or late teens and been like, God, this guy
sucks.
Yeah.
Anything.
Yeah.
Like, yeah.
So that's John.
I think you've basically got his number.
Um, and so, um, she is the unholy spirit.
Um, and so he openly admits that he murdered this dude and he's like, well, when a snake
eats a fly, it's not murder.
And Mulder says frogs eat flies and it, I think it was meant to be funny and I liked
that.
There was one other line that I really liked.
Um, but it was, yeah, it was bizarre.
Um, but yeah, you'd think the man clearly owns a snake and yet he doesn't know that.
Yeah.
I mean, for real, you should know that if he's a snake owner.
Yeah.
Um, so he's very much like, you know, oh, I'm going to live forever.
Um, you know, he's saying some things that don't make sense.
He's like, I got to live forever when I'm killing people.
I see the horror in their eyes as they realize there's no afterlife.
And I would suggest that maybe you see horror in their eyes because they're being murdered.
Um, yeah.
That sounds like a reason.
That's brought up.
But okay, so his whole deal is there's no afterlife.
What's the deal with all the Bible ish references then?
Huh?
I'm asking you.
I don't know.
Oh.
Um, so Mulder can clearly see this guy in a mirror.
He's got a little mirror thing, but the guy's like, you can't, you can't see me.
And it doesn't seem like Mulder actually thinks the guy is a vampire, but he's humoring him
like even more.
Okay.
I don't believe.
Um, and he's trying to get him to reveal the names of these other two killers.
Okay.
The guy won't do it.
Some Mulder's like, the guy's in a cell where there's some like small windows with like
bars and he's like, look, the sun's going to come through there soon.
I'm going to leave the detectives with some tinfoil and they can cover it up if you tell
us the names.
Otherwise the sun's going to get you.
You know, I know what he says something like, you know, I know what you are and I know how
to kill you or something like that.
No, that's not quite the line.
I don't know.
But yeah, he's like, if he wants to talk, cover the windows.
So it's like a threat and Mulder's like, he's delusional.
I'm just trying to humor him.
And uh, and the cops are like, okay, go to a hotel and get some sleep.
Yeah.
And oh, what is happening?
I just, uh, oh, what have I done?
Oh, you weren't, I wasn't talking to you, Google.
My phone is trying to find me hotels.
I have a coworker friend named Gokul, you know, sometimes when he comes in my office,
I say, Hey, Gokul.
And then my phone is like, yes.
So so the cop tells Mulder to go get some sleep and Mulder says, I don't have a hotel.
I don't sleep anymore, which I get that they're trying to show that he is being.
Self-destructive because of Scully being gone.
Yeah.
And I also feel like, haven't we seen what happens when you don't sleep?
In that other episode, it's very bad.
Um, like no hotel, just a chillin.
Yeah.
And also like, I don't know, that's so unnecessarily dramatic.
I feel like Mulder is not that sort of person.
Like not that like he wouldn't be not getting sleep, but it's just, I don't know.
Yeah.
Everyone in this episode is being their like best dramatic 14 year old, I think.
Yeah.
Um, then to my surprise, the sun burns that man alive.
Oh, no kidding.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
That was neat.
Um, I was not expecting that.
I was not either.
I thought they're going to show him like maybe his finger gets a little red and there's like
a plausible deniability or something and he decides to talk, but no, he's burned alive.
And so, um, so the doctor and Mulder are like looking at him and his body is super gross
and red and horrible blisters.
And the doctor says it could be congenital, erythropoetic, proto porphyria.
Okay.
And porphyria is referenced in, you know, one of my, one of both of ours absolute favorite
X files episodes, bad blood.
Oh, oh, is that I didn't remember that.
It's this line where Scully is listing off all the things it could be instead of vampires.
And she mentioned.
Yeah.
Um, I just feel like bad blood is the vampire episode we deserve after having had to watch
three.
Yeah.
It's too bad because like vampires can be so great, you know, absolutely.
I mean, the amount of vampire based fiction that I have read and very much enjoyed.
I mean, many, many, many books on my Kindle.
Uh, but yeah.
Yeah.
Not always.
Yeah.
No.
So, uh, so I'm going to do a little bit of science and a little bit of background talk
here because I was looking up porphyria, trying to find out how to spell it.
And um, and, and either mother that I think the doctor is like, look, people with it's
a porphyria.
You have photosynth sensitivity.
Um, and they're like, yeah, you get small second degree burns.
You don't get fourth degree burns that kill you.
Right.
They don't get set on fire.
Right.
Yeah.
And it can cause a hema deficiency.
Okay.
Do you know what is or he or something?
H M E.
He.
Yeah.
I know it's related to like, oh shoot, you know, that word that starts with him.
I can't think of it now.
Hemoglobin.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
He is like the, the active part of hemoglobin.
Hemoglobin is the whole protein complex scheme is, um, the part where the binding of oxygen
actually occurs.
And it's in blood?
Yeah.
Yep.
Red blood cells.
Okay.
And erythro that refers to red blood cells.
And what about poetic because I checked this, it is actually, yeah, that's hard.
And I was like, surely not.
Yeah.
It's, um, uh, erythro, I think it said more like, uh, poetic, like, yeah, it is spelled
with an I in there and I mean, I was writing fast.
So, yeah, yeah.
Erythropoietic or erythropoises.
So erythropoietin is a hormone that stimulates red blood cell development.
So like erythrocytes are red blood cells.
Erythropoietin is what, uh, tells our body to make them.
Okay.
So hormone.
Very good.
Um, yeah, real words.
Um, so the doctor also says, and yeah, the heme deficiency can be helped with small injections
of blood.
And I was like, no.
Oh, and indeed no.
Um, yeah, it does sound like, so I looked it up and it said like the treatments are like,
avoid the sun, don't drink and get injections of heme.
Right.
Yeah.
And they just kind of made that jump, but the guy can, you know, it may sound like,
you know, like you're just getting somebody else's blood like as an injection.
I don't know.
Well, I mean, I mean, it's not that difference than a blood transfusion.
So why is, why does that not weird me out?
The difference is that there's, as far as I'm aware, no reason to inject small amounts
of blood.
And if you're injecting heme, you're injecting the component that the red blood cells need,
if you're getting whole blood, then you're supplementing what they have because they
have some sort of deficiency.
Um, but there would never be any reason to inject small amounts of whole blood.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's not a thing is, as far as I am aware.
Cool.
Good.
Yeah.
So I think that's why I'm here.
I'm here for a different type of porphyria involves that you have to eat a lot of carbs
and a high calorie diet.
And I was like, that wouldn't be the worst news in the world.
I mean, no, I don't want, I meant, if I were to have that, I'd be like, well, that is a
treatment I can get behind.
Right.
One of the treatments I saw for this though did say there, there can be therapeutic blood
and the iron in the liver I was on the Cleveland clinic.org or whatever.
Like it seemed like a real site, but it sounded like the middle ages.
Interesting.
Yeah.
I don't know anything about that.
I do want to say though, um, porphyria is that what the children are or the girl is
theoretically supposed to have in the movie, the others?
Oh, I bet she is.
Yeah.
Oh, I thought about that.
Yeah.
It is more common in children, I read.
So interesting.
No.
Um, so, uh, Mulder or maybe the, no, the doctor says, porphyria is what led to the vampire
myths in Asia in the middle ages.
Um, that's possible.
Yeah.
I mean, the thing is it's extremely uncommon.
So it's hard to imagine that that would create any sort of widespread myth.
It's more or more likely that tuberculosis contributed to it.
Um,
What about this?
Because I have some vampire, so I spoke to a historian who studied vampires.
Um,
Doc, it is my husband.
Oh, what did you say?
I said Jacques.
Oh, God.
No, like a real one.
Um,
Jacques is our vampire man in Paris that is crazy.
Um, he's not a vampire man anymore.
He's been, he's our former vampire man.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
I don't recommend having museums in your apartment as a, as a speaking statement.
I think people are making.
Yeah.
Or like, I don't know.
I feel like maybe we'll save the stories about Jacques for some sort of bonus episode.
Yeah.
Oh, that's a good idea.
They are numerous.
Yeah.
So, um, yeah.
But tuberculosis, um, yeah, there's some thought because it would cause, um, bloody
sputum.
And so people would end up with blood around their mouths.
It also causes, um, rapid weight loss and night sweats and, um, are vampires known to
be sweaty at night?
No, I was just listening to work.
I started reading your thing and it was really good, but I have to read more of it.
I've only read like three pages.
Oh, okay.
Thank you.
Back to the podcast.
Um, I, I studied tuberculosis for those who aren't aware.
Um, so, uh, oh, so it can cause bloody sputum so it can make like, um, you have blood around
your lips.
Um, but a lot of times, uh, if there was a, an outbreak of tuberculosis, it could be
thought that there was a vampire in the vicinity because, um, it causes extreme pallor.
So, um, it makes people super super pale and we, and lose weight.
Um, so this would be associated with it.
A lot would have, like what happens to Lucy in Dracula.
Yeah.
So, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
This also is all like the right time period, um, was me and the, the historian I was speaking
to, um, uh, so Adam, my husband, yeah, yeah.
They're not, not Jacques, the crazy guy.
Um, uh, he did some research on vampires and did a presentation on it at the university
last year.
And there's a lot of talk of how like the like modern concept of vampire really didn't
come about until the mid 1700s when the Austro-Hungarian Empire expanded and they sent out
more people into Eastern Europe.
And then it was around the time of like scientific revolution was over.
It's the age of enlightenment.
And they were like, we're getting a lot of firsthand eyewitness reports, which is like
data that these things are real.
These walking dead, maybe it is.
And bring those stories back to like Vienna and discuss them and be like, can we solve
this with science and explain it?
Or is it real?
Um, so the idea kind of spread from there.
And like the first like vampire fiction and stuff starts coming out about like between
50 and 100 years after that.
Oh, cool.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Neat.
What I really was like trying to like drill down on and like understand as I was like,
okay, but how do all these Eastern Europeans have these legends?
Where are those coming from?
And I feel like TV or whatever.
What I really wanted, what I was trying to force Adam into saying was maybe they're real.
I didn't even say it and didn't even seem to notice that that's what I really want to
happen.
So, so yeah, so I don't know about vampires in the middle ages and I really don't think
it makes any sense for Porphyria and I'm glad you agree with me.
Yeah.
Mulder says to the doctor, can they be real?
Oh my God, what's wrong with me?
He mentions the word vampire right then.
Oh, otherwise.
Okay.
Mulder says, can they be real?
And then this was my favorite quote of the episode.
The doctor is in this one scene and he says, you are really upsetting me on several levels.
And then they discover that there's an ink stamp burned onto the skin of the dead guy
burned by the heat and they can't quite make it out.
And so the doctor brings over like a lamp and holds a lamp to it and that makes it sort
of appear.
And the guy says, it's an old coroner's trick to make stamps appear.
I don't know.
I'm trying with some some coroners.
I'm going to have to ask them.
And if they don't know it, it's probably because they're not old coroners.
That's true.
Yeah.
So Mulder is able to read the stamp, figure out what club it went to and go to that night
club and it's Club Tepeche.
Oh, God.
And there is a big picture of Vlad Tepeche on the wall.
It's like on the cover of the historian, you know, like the fur and the mustache and the
long brown hair.
Yeah.
So that is interesting that they all have the same hair because we're about to meet
another character with the same hair.
No kidding.
Yes.
Although I remember correctly, Vlad Tepeche's hair is more similar to mine than yours.
Like I remember, I think he's got some curl to it.
Right.
Yeah, I think he did.
Yeah.
Straight hair.
Speaking of your hair and my hair, I had a very frustrating conversation with some
people last week in which two out of the three of them claim I have black hair.
Oh, that's so annoying.
It's just wrong.
Yeah.
Now, one of them was Adam.
Oh, no.
Yes.
He has long maintained that my hair is black and I've said, no, no, my sister's hair is
black.
Well, technically Helen's hair is almost black.
Yeah.
And you know, I'm like, but Helen's is basically black.
Mine is brown.
And he'll be like, no, yours is black.
hers is black.
I'm like, but they're not the same color you acknowledge that.
And he said, yes, yours is light black.
So I tried to say that's gray.
Yeah.
That's what light black means.
I actually have something to say scientifically about this.
So he's wrong.
No, it's, it's frustrating because we, when we talk when we, when I teach my students
about like our sensory organs, so our eyes, ears, nose, you know, we talk about like our
senses and sensory information, but how that's different from perception, that perception
like the way that we perceive ours, the information coming through our sensory organs is coming
from a different part of our brain.
And so it's going to be different than what is what the sense is.
So we can, that's how like some people can see like that, you know, the classic white
and gold dress.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So I wanted to ask if this idea I had if this is an example of it or not.
Yeah.
I don't know about how one time I don't remember where I was, but I smelled a smell that was
like kind of like urine, but also like air freshener.
It wasn't a good smell.
I'm happy.
And so I took it in as like, this is a good smell.
And I realized it's the smell of an airplane bathroom.
And I, it made me feel like I was on my way to Europe.
Sure.
Uh huh.
Is that the same idea of like the sense and then the perception of the sense or is that
too many steps removed?
No, that's different.
So that's more how we have a lot of our olfactory.
So smelling, nose stuff, being tied into our memory.
So there's, there's a lot of connections between memory and smell.
So like, like your example, or like when I smell this orange smell from Bath & Body
Works, it makes me feel like I'm in the dorm showers, like that sort of thing.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Like, it's great.
What I'm talking about is exactly this, that, or like how, you know, I'll see a skirt and
be like, oh, that's a nice brown skirt.
And someone else would be like, oh, it's, it's army green.
And I'll be like, you know, that's clearly brown.
And someone else will be like, no, that, you know, like those sorts of things.
Is it kind of like, okay, and maybe I should just be like, no, it's just like the example
you gave.
I don't need to.
And would it be like, okay, let's imagine I'm at a park and there's some dogs and there's
a dog near me and then it's a lab and then there's another lab farther away.
My eyes go large lab, small lab and my brain goes close lab, far lab.
Is it the being able to interpret the like visual data of knowing that dog is far away?
I don't know.
I don't, I don't know if that is regulated in the same manner or not.
Okay.
I'm trying to think of another example.
Like other than sight.
Yeah.
I mean, I've had like their songs where I clearly the lyrics is one thing and somebody
else hears the lyrics of something else.
Kind of.
Yeah.
Those sorts of things.
Or just, I mean, that seems more like just being able to tell what someone is saying.
But like smells, I think it can happen to like, oh, like, okay, here's a story that
doesn't make me look good.
If we want one of those.
There's this weird implication that I've already told stories that don't make me look good.
And I don't think I have, but no, that's not what I meant.
All right, Liz, I'll trade.
I don't know what I meant.
All right.
So anyway, go on with the you not sounding good though.
Yeah.
When I was in junior high or high school, I got home from school and walked in the house
and I smell tuna.
I don't know where this is going.
I don't know where it's going.
Vegetarian since she was four or five by the way.
Yeah, I think I was five.
And I am very not chill about the smell of tuna.
It is one of my least favorite smells.
And so I came in and again, I'd like to stress that I was young.
Yes.
When you're young, you can't smell things properly.
No, no, no.
I mean, the fact that I ran upstairs crying.
And I said, is that tuna?
And our stepdad, Barrett, was at home and he has a very typically Dutch dry sarcastic
sense of humor and just went, yes.
And that's when I ran upstairs crying.
It was popcorn though.
It was just popcorn.
Your third example of this.
Yep.
Yeah.
So most people would have walked in and recognized the smell of popcorn.
I smell tuna.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's okay.
Yeah.
So this frustrates you with respect to the hair.
But to me, it's like an argument that maybe we're just interpreting hair colors differently
and neither one of us is right.
And me and Adam, and I don't like that conclusion.
I want to be right.
Yeah.
Obviously.
Same.
I mean, yeah.
I mean, I'm not right.
What?
How do we prove that I'm right?
I don't know.
I mean, like, there's no way with science to prove me.
No, I don't think, I mean, we could do some sort of, I don't know, I'm sure there's some
way to measure values of color using some sort of machine, but I don't know.
I mean, I don't know.
The problem is like, what color things are in different light also changes.
And my hair is black in the dark.
Like, I mean, he's, he's flat out wrong about this.
He's wrong.
Yeah.
Your hair is not black.
Maybe we can have people vote.
You know, it's the same thing too.
I call people blonde a lot because I do have such dark hair.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I would call Adam blonde.
Would he agree?
Yes.
Yes, he is blonde.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Well, there we go.
But, you know, I have called people blonde and have them been like brown hair.
And me, my hair is so dark.
I see someone.
Oh, maybe that's why he's confused is because he's that any darker than like medium brown
looks black to him.
Yeah.
So far, so much darker than his own.
Yeah.
I just want to be like, look at the rich mahogany tones.
I don't know.
Anyway, I'm really glad we're talking about your appearance because it's about to be very
relevant.
Oh, okay.
President love tepish and he sees a woman looking like putting on makeup using a compact
with no mirror in it, which is just, I don't know, intolerable.
I just I have such a low tolerance for self serious goss.
I mean, I know that's partially my own background.
Yeah.
Not just my own high school experiences, but also I guess I should the boyfriend of
a dear friend of mine in college.
Oh, I was thinking of your ex boyfriend.
Oh, I mean, sure.
Obviously him.
But again, I was like 15.
I don't know.
But it left me with a strong anti dating goss.
Serious goss, serious, serious goss.
Well, I don't think I could date anyone who wears black velvet.
I mean, I think that's fair.
Yeah.
You know, especially because you're like, you know, 41.
So like, and I mean, and thank God that like, okay, Adam doesn't care about clothes at all.
And sometimes it'd be like, oh, you know, I want to like dress up and he's like, I want
to wear a t-shirt and you know, it's like, oh, that's cool.
That's your way.
It'd be neat if you wear more clothes.
Nope.
Not if it meant he might be in the black velvet.
The only person who should be wearing black velvet is Prince, in my opinion, the only man.
And he died.
So there were no, so yeah, no one else.
I don't actually mean that rock stars.
Sure.
Do what you will.
No, just friends.
I disagree.
Okay.
Or styles.
Very styles can do it.
Okay.
What about Steven Tyler?
I'd accept that.
Okay.
All right.
So there's a few exceptions.
Look at apply for exceptions, maybe.
Yes.
Yeah.
I'd like to mention leprechauns.
When I was 15, dating this guy, he wore a top hat a lot.
It wasn't a good look.
I'm also a top hat.
And what about leprechauns?
Well, we talked about Helen.
Do you remember this plan?
Because Helen is six and a half years.
So you would have been 10, nine or 10?
Something like that.
Yeah.
And we discussed a plan not actually going to be implemented in which Helen would be
dressed like a leprechaun and would dart out of the bushes and grab his top hat and
run away with it.
And now that I'm thinking of this now, I think the best plan would have been to do that.
And then for me to throw a bright green top hat back to pretend I turned it bright green
and now he is only left with a happy color top hat.
That's what I'd want to do now if I were to do this.
I think he lives in California.
I don't know if he still wears a top hat though.
I'm probably too busy.
I like the idea that that's what would be stopping us doing this is just our schedules.
Yeah.
I've got some meetings lately.
Yeah.
So.
Okay.
So she looks like you basically.
She's very pale with black hair.
That's maybe about your length or a little longer.
Oh, mine.
She looks like you.
I mean, not to a creepy degree, but similar features.
And she's kind of dressed, I don't know, normalish.
And she's like, oh, are you going to ask what a normal person like me is doing in a place
like this?
And I, well, I hate her.
Yeah.
I would never say that.
No, you wouldn't.
Because, I mean, you might say that you yourself are asking yourself that.
So why am I here?
I mean, because it was very, I don't know, you know how clubs on TV shows are always not
very full?
Like you can just tell like this is, it was, it was one of those vibes, but with a big
giant picture of Vlad Tepes.
I would not go to that bar now.
No.
So she orders two red wines and she says to Mulder, you've lost someone, not a lover,
a friend, because she has, I don't know, vampirist intuition.
Yeah, that's weird.
Yeah.
And I also feel like, I don't know, it's one of those like psychic trickery things where
you think if you say something vague enough, it'll apply to anyone.
Yeah.
And you can't be like, you know, think of someone who would match that, right?
Yeah.
Like there's like, yeah, I can, you know, like immediately, right?
Yeah.
Right.
And, and Mulder kind of glances in her purse and sees she's got a syringe in there.
And he starts that John 52, 58, whatever, fake Bible verse 50, whatever it was, doesn't
matter.
52, 54.
Yeah.
Mulder starts it and she finishes it.
And then she's like, you're afraid of me.
I take the life of others.
So she's acting like a vampire, I guess.
And then we see the father.
Okay.
He's watching them from across the bar.
And she's just like, I don't know, saying a lot of really pretentious things and it's
supposedly like a sexually charged sort of conversation, but it wasn't, it was boring
and dumb.
Yeah.
And then she uses a syringe to prick her finger, which I am not happy about having seen.
Okay.
And then tries to get Mulder to lick it.
And finally, there's a reference to AIDS and he's like, AIDS, aren't you afraid?
And she says, I wish I could die.
And I wrote, I hate her.
I wish he could too.
Likewise, lady.
Her name is Kristen.
So I shall be referring to her as Kristen because that it's her name.
So she goes and she finds some other guy to lick the blood off her finger.
That's so dumb.
Dumb.
It's so dumb and gross and not, I mean, not in America at all either.
Like, no, it's kind of the opposite.
Yeah.
Well, Anne Rice vampires, in order to become a vampire, you have to drink from a vampire.
If they have to bite you, you have to almost die and then you have to drink a bunch of
their blood and kind of like blood seesaw.
Yeah.
I'm nodding like, like, well, sure, that's how that's how they're made.
Of course.
That is exactly how you were nodding.
Yeah.
That is in other books too.
Okay.
Was nodding.
Yeah.
Okay, gotcha.
I think honestly, I think that Anne Rice, I read, I mean, I read Twilight.
Twilight was awful.
That doesn't belong in this conversation.
No.
Thank you.
Yeah.
But I read, yeah.
And then I read most of, I read all the 90s Anne Rice books and then I read the historian
and I've read Dracula.
And so I feel like the ones that had the most actually making someone into a vampire are
the Anne Rice books.
Did you never read the Southern vampire mystery, the Suki Stackhouse True Blood books?
I actually did.
I never did.
Oh.
I mean, I could read a certain number of them.
Yeah.
Oh, you should start at, I can't remember if it's book three or four.
Okay.
Or maybe just book two.
I'm gonna have to ask my friend Molly.
Okay.
Excuse me.
No.
So I've read a lot of vampire fiction.
Yeah.
I mean, it's good stuff.
It's good.
I mean, vampires are my favorite monster.
And I mean, I want to make it clear like when I talk about, oh, we're gonna do a vampire
based trip or we're gonna, you know, whatever.
I always picture I'm gonna hunt vampires because I don't want to like, like, if they're a little
seductive, that's fine, whatever.
But I really mostly want them to be scary.
I don't want Twilight vampire who can only be in darkness because he's too sparkly.
Yeah.
No.
I feel like, no, I maintain what I said before.
Twilight should not even be a part of the discussion because it does a whole back.
Yeah.
But yeah, I think I like the idea of hunting them.
Yeah.
But which is weird to say because I'm pretty anti hunting.
Yeah.
Well, it's different.
It is a little different.
Yeah.
Get my camo.
Oh, it's the first day of the season.
I'm heading to Eastern Europe.
So then they go to Mulder follows as Kristen goes with this dude who sucked a lot off her
finger, Mulder follows behind them in a car and they go to 8428 Millrose Avenue and I
don't know why they shared that address, but I wrote it down because it turns out it is
in the same neighborhood that me and Adam just stayed in when we were in LA recently.
Oh, no kidding.
We can walk quiet.
Whoa.
It's a nice neighborhood.
It's like near like partially like Beverly Hills.
Like it's nice.
But there's like on the show, it looks kind of desolate and there's a restaurant called
Ra, like RA and it shows the Egyptian God.
Sure.
And Mulder says the father, the son.
And at this point right now in real time, I'm realizing I'm spending so much time talking
about this terrible episode.
I just feel like I have so much to say and I really want everyone listening to understand
how bad it was.
So I mean, we've taken a lot of tangents as well.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, that's a terrible episode, but we didn't have to discuss sensory perception
and my hair color.
But yeah, right.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, but it didn't count.
Yeah, that's fair.
So so Mulder's watching her and the guy and they're like making out and it seems like
there might be blood involved like all over and then you see another car pull up and it's
kind of going to be clear that it's the father.
And then the dude that she's with comes outside and shouts and punches Mulder and says, I don't
know who you are a freak, but we are two consenting adults, which was an awesome line.
And so Mulder is inside and he's like, oh, no, no, I'm sorry, Mulder's Mulder's been
punched.
She's outside the dude who said that goes back in and he's looking for Kristen and he
can't find her.
And then the father comes in and kills him.
Okay.
And so Mulder then is on the seats like the next day.
He's on the scene with like forensics and he sees, oh, broken mirrors.
Oh, there's the stupid contact or compact with no mirror.
And he sees a big giant like industrial sized can of raspberry sauce dripping and realizes
that's actually what they were doing was licking enormous amounts of raspberry sauce off each
other.
Not blood.
Huh.
We're two consenting adults.
We can lick raspberry sauce.
Yeah.
In, you know, alarming like a pink gallon sort of size.
Well, I guess that's any gallon.
It's the same size.
And so Mulder has like a forensic dentist, which sounded like sort of seen.
Yeah.
The bites on him were done by three different people, which was curious to me because I'm
like, all right, John is dead.
Right.
And I'm like, is it then Kristen and the father and I'm confused.
So then we got like Mulder doing research and he finds out that Kristen, her last name
is killar.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
And so she lived in both Portland and Memphis, which is the towns where the other two killings
happened.
So he's like, she's the unholy spirit.
Right.
Like, yeah, obviously.
Okay.
So he goes to her fancy apartment and they have a warrant and he finds a huge box of veterinary
needles and a snake bite kit thing to extract poison, but it's all bloody.
Yeah.
And oh God.
Yeah.
I forgot about this part.
This I, he looks in her oven and sees like a.
It looks like a hoagie roll with like something inside it like raspberry sauce, maybe.
Okay.
And he immediately knows what's going on and he says to the cops, she's gone.
She's not coming back.
And I'm like, did I just see a sandwich?
What is happening?
And so then it's like 2am and Mulder is in her apartment and she comes back and he's
like, they're after you, aren't they?
I'm, you know, special agent Fox Mulder.
And he's, so he says that biting bread filled with blood is an Eastern Europe peon tradition
for protection.
Oh, yeah.
I did only the most cursory amount of research on this, but I feel confident it's not true.
I, I, and maybe it is.
Maybe I'll look up more and it is.
I was just like, I'm at so, so what I believe what we saw in the oven was bread filled with
blood that she just had waiting around.
Uh huh.
And she could eat it.
Sure.
Yeah.
Like you do.
I mean, being partially Eastern European ourselves, I feel like that's wrong.
Look, we've heard about like the scary traditions of our people, like the supernces, you know,
which is a slug with your eyes and it's a type of witch and you have to cross your fingers
and toes so it doesn't get you in the night.
Yes.
Um, and, uh, I've, my kids have been watching a lot of Vampirina.
Like, is there any blood pogies?
No, you know what?
This morning they were watching it and, uh, there, there's no blood at all.
And like, yes, it's a children's cartoon, but why are they vampires?
They have sharp teeth.
They like, but, but why?
What are they using?
They never show them eating.
Yeah.
They eat like weird, like spooky stuff, like eyeball soup and stuff.
Um, they never discuss where those eyeballs come from.
Um, and also there, I have sent my friend Melanie.
Too many texts about the fact that, um, their chef is a skeleton and as an osteologist, I
just have a lot of questions about how he's standing and why his bones are shaped the
way they are.
Um, and I realized these are unanswerable questions, but I have a lot of thoughts about
Vampirina.
Vampirina lore.
I bet there's a community.
Well, like, okay, I'm sorry, I have to, but in the theme song, um, she said something
about like, and maybe blue with pointy teeth.
Um, and like she is blue, her and her family are, but then it's like, I always took until
I realized what she was saying in the theme song, your hair looks nice, by the way.
Good.
That's what we're going for.
Um, in the theme song, or I always thought like the blue was like just signified.
I helped pale.
They were, you know, yeah.
Um, but she mentions being blue.
And so it's like what the people of Pennsylvania are so stupid that they can't tell that you're
blue and have pointy teeth.
And we also have relative sailing from Pennsylvania and they're not that stupid.
I know.
And I am, I am offended on behalf of both Pennsylvanians and Eastern Europeans that they
have gotten so many things wrong.
This, you should write in.
I should write in.
Podcasts should start a letter writing campaign.
Yeah.
I think it could make a real difference.
More blood drinking in this children's program, please.
Yeah.
I mean, do they sleep in coffins?
No, they have beds and they can be out in the daytime.
Like there's nothing.
At what point is it, is a vampire, even a vampire at that point, you know?
Exactly.
Yeah.
These are the philosophical questions.
Yeah.
I'm looking for answers to.
Yeah.
Have you watched what we do in the shadows?
No, but people keep telling me to.
Right.
It's really good.
Okay.
It's really good.
Okay.
What's it on?
Hulu?
Hulu.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
No, it's okay.
So let's wrap this up.
Let's wrap this up because it's going to get real stupid.
So Mulder is like, she's protecting herself with this red blood.
And so he's like, they're going to try to kill you.
And they're kind of, you know, dancing around the vampire word and, you know, not really
saying it.
And it's all very meant to be sexual again, but really stupid.
He brings up Memphis in Portland and like, you lived there.
So like, I kind of get this lady.
I don't understand why he was like, she must be the killer.
This is where she lived.
Oh, but she's got bread filled with blood.
So actually I need to protect her.
Right.
Yeah.
So she was very bad childhood, she was beaten by her dad and then her mouth was filled with
blood and she realized she was alive.
And then she met John and the son and he also beat her or he beat her and then they like
got into blood stuff.
And then she lost him.
Unclear what that means.
I don't know, maybe in like a Walmart.
And so she moved around the country to avoid him.
And he followed her to Memphis in Portland.
So the implication is the murders happened there by John.
She didn't do it.
Yeah.
To the protection from him.
Yes.
Yeah.
So Mulder says, you know, John's dead.
Yeah.
Burned him up.
And she's like, oh, well, I'm not, I'm not going to go into protective custody and find
them without John.
They're not going to come for me.
Then Mulder is shaving.
Okay.
So like you do when you're staying at a person's new place and you have real good priorities.
Oh, he's staying at her apartment?
Yes.
It's like the middle of the night and he's going to shave.
He's with her in her apartment.
Huh.
And there's no mirror.
So she shaves him with a straight razor and it's like, oh, is she going to cut his neck?
Oh my God.
I don't know.
It was really dumb.
And then they sleep together.
Mulder.
Your voice is doing that thing minded where you got too high and indignation when you
told me that I might commit mass murder under the right circumstances.
I can be indignant.
Yeah.
I mean, listen, I get that Scully is kidnapped or whatever and he might be feeling self-destructive,
but like you got to have some standards, right?
Like, come on, man.
Right.
I mean, like, like even sleeping with that awful British woman who is his friend and
they also would be better than this.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yes.
So who's looking in through the window while they have sex?
The father.
No, John, he's alive.
No kidding.
Yeah.
Um, so Kristen like gets up in the night while Mulder is sleeping and John is in the house
and he's like grabbed her and he's like, we come back.
It worked.
Um, there is no explanation of like, how do you get out of the morgue in the little drawer
or whatever?
I don't know.
And, uh, and so he gets a knife and he really wants Kristen to kill Mulder because let me
see if I'm saying this right.
Mulder believes in them being vampires.
So she needs to drink the blood of a believer in order to become a vampire herself because
she isn't one.
Huh.
Okay.
She doesn't want to kill Mulder, but well, we're not sure.
And so she goes in and she's got a big old knife, like a big butcher knife and she's
like, Mulder, you got to go and she's got it behind her back.
And then Mulder's like getting up to go and she gets at the knife and she suddenly is
like stab, stab, stab of this guy standing in the shadows and the father was there all
along and you couldn't see him.
And so she stabs him a bunch.
Okay.
And he's like, that I guess.
And then John comes in and John attacks and Mulder and John fight and Mulder restrains
him and Mulder has some blood on him, I guess.
Maybe got hurt in the fight.
Kristen's all out of it.
They get in the car.
They're going to leave.
Another woman jumps onto the roof of the car and drags Mulder out of the car.
Who is this?
I guess she's the Holy Spirit, the unholy spirit.
She's got the same hair as everyone else in this episode.
And we've never seen her before.
It does not feel like a big reveal.
It feels like, oh, there's some lady here now.
And Kristen hits the woman with her car and there's a wooden stick pointing out of the
wall that as she hits the woman, the woman gets impaled on the wooden stick.
And so Mulder's like, we got to go.
The Malibu fires are coming.
And so Kristen's like, well, I won't leave without John.
We can't leave him here to die in the fires.
Why?
Ironic because the next move is, OK, I don't look.
I just watched this and I watched it multiple times.
So I'm telling you, this is all I've got.
Sure.
Mulder goes in the house to get John.
Yeah.
Kristen drives away in the car.
Next scene.
Mulder, because his car, he left somewhere else down the road.
Mulder is down at his own car.
Kristen is in the house, she goes back into the house and she's pouring gasoline all over
and she's going to light it on fire and kill them all.
And John's like, you can't kill us.
You're not one of us.
And she's like, well, I'm going to become one of you.
I tasted the blood of a believer of Mulder.
And he's like, yeah, but you haven't taken a life.
And she's like, well, I'm going to take my own and all of ours.
And so she throws down a match.
Okay, a little bit of science or maybe just thinking about science as a field that we
know exists.
Yeah.
She's pouring gasoline on the floor.
Uh-huh.
She drops a match.
Mulder is a block away at the car and he sees the biggest fucking fireball.
This enormous explosion, like an oil tanker exploded or something, like this huge massive
explosion that completely destroys the house.
And Mulder sees it from a distance and then we go, and I should mention what Mulder's
been wearing for all of this.
It is black pants, a white button down, unbuttoned most of the way and Scully's cross.
And so, um, oh my gosh, and he talks to the firefighter and he says, you know, did you
find bodies?
And they're like, yeah, there were four bodies, but they were, you know, burned beyond recognition.
And Mulder kind of looks at the cross and that's the end of the episode.
Oh my God, that's so bad.
I thought, oh, we're going to see a reveal that they're not really dead.
Yeah.
Or something.
I mean, I thought about things.
It was terrible.
It was so self serious.
It was like, oh, it was like trying to be a 90s erotic thriller with really irritating
pretentious vampires.
Oh man, that's awful.
Well thank you for taking one for the team.
Yeah, watching that.
Literally.
Yeah.
Um, what's next?
Up next is One Breath when they find Scully.
Yeah.
Sorry.
His face shows the right expression, which is, oh, I'm going to get a really good episode
again.
Yeah.
Three.
What's after that?
Oh, that's a good question.
What is next after One Breath is Firewalker, which, that sounds familiar, but I don't remember
what that is.
Yeah.
I feel like I think, I mean, it's like another active and moldy and Scully-go-man-somewhere
one.
Yeah, yeah.
It doesn't, I don't remember anything terrible.
No, I think, I mean, I'm sure it'll be better than what I just watched.
Yeah.
I think it would have to be.
I think literally any other episode would be.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Well, thank you for your service.
You're welcome.
It was, I mean, it was a treat to spend a lot of time talking about how much I hated
it.
And like I said, there was a little bit of good stuff with Maltry being sad and like
two lines that I didn't hate.
Wow.
Man.
Did we get like some like, shirtless stated to Cogni?
Not entirely.
Oh yeah, maybe.
I mean, like, I think he was shirtless while she was shaving him.
So it's like, I can't even, I can't appreciate him.
I'm so annoyed.
You know, it's just like, yeah.
I felt so irritated by the reveal that it's like surprise other brunette lady.
You know, like, but yeah, you should watch Basic Instinct because it's, I mean, it's
it's quality trash.
Like it's just, yeah.
I don't say that as a novelist, I really enjoy it because one of the ideas is that the way
these murders happen are things that she wrote about in her books.
And so could she be, she couldn't be stupid enough to murder someone in the way she wrote
about in her books.
But what if she's doing that because she knows that's what people will think.
And so, I mean, that's, it's just bananas.
I love it.
So yeah, that's awesome.
Well, yeah.
Well, rate, review, subscribe, send us your spooky stories.
We want to believe pod at gmail.com and we want to believe pod on Instagram.
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And until next week.
Okay.
That part is over.