“You know, there are worse ways to go, but I can’t think of a more undignified way than auto-erotic asphyxiation.” – Clyde Bruckman.
CLYDE BRUCKMAN’S FINAL REPOSE [Standalone] Aired October 13, 1995
Episode: 3×04 / 53 Overall
Director: David Nutter • Writer: Darin Morgan
A man with psychic powers assists the agents with the hunt for a killer.
Widely regarded as one of the best and certainly most popular standalone episodes, Darin Morgan’s Emmy Award winning script was selected as the fourth entry in the X-Files Essentials collection. Returning for the second time since penning the first true comedy episode Humbug, Morgan weaves his unique brand of comedy through a tale of murder and psychics. The genre switching nature of the The X-Files, from comedy to horror to dramatic thriller, was one of it’s selling points and likely contributed a great deal to the series staying power. Though it was never more effective than when utilised within a single episode. Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose is indeed an essential episode as it perfectly captures the series best efforts at seamlessly moving between genres and style to effectively present a show that is able to explore the nature of death in a way that is both playful and horrific. No doubt a great deal of the episodes success can be attributed to the performance of the late Peter Boyle, whose show stealing depiction of the troubled Clyde Bruckman won him an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.
Bruckman is such a well written character, it’s truly outstanding how fully developed he appears and how quickly we, as an audience, connect with him. Much like Brad Duorif in Beyond the Sea, Boyle commits to the truth of the character. He plays it with real honesty and despite being a gifted comedic actor he never pushes for a laugh, almost throwing away his humorous observations about death which are of course funny yet deeply poignant at the same time. We meet this man during the final days of his life, though we get a sense of the way this psychic ability has weighed him down over the decades to an apathetic acceptance at the futility of both his own and others existence. Unable to effect any real change or positively impact those around him he presents now as man worn down by the passing of time. However in his closing days he seems to form a connection with Scully and his death, though tragic in its nature is also cathartic for both himself and the agent. Morgan also started the notorious fan theory that Scully is immortal by having Bruckman remark that she does not die, when she inquires about her own death.
Morgan seems to have vented most of his more outlandish humour in to the character of The Stupendous Yappi which was written specifically for Jaap Broeker, David Duchovny’s stand-in. Broeker is undoubtedly chewing the scenery with his outrageously flamboyant portrayal of a TV psychic and if over used he could have easily become overbearing however Morgan has the good sense to use him sparingly, as the comic relief in a way, and to this end the character works quite well. Among every else that Morgan delivers with this memorable episode is the introduction of Scully’s dog, Queequeg, who will hang around for most of the season.
There is a great moment when Bruckman is forecasting Mulder’s death yet keeps getting distracted by which flavour pie is in the vision, Coconut or Banana cream? We can see that visions of murder have become so mundane to him that he’s more interested in what we would consider the trivialities of the circumstance. During the final act the killer queries Bruckman about why he does the things that he does and in a brilliantly simple explanation he states, “You do the things you do because you’re a homicidal maniac.” There is no further explanation required, some people just are the way they are, a revelation to both the killer and the audience.
★★★★★
The X-Files Retrospective Project 