X-Files Episode Guide: Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose

Written by Darin Morgan

Directed by David Nutter

When this episode first premiered in October of 1995, the critical response was overwhelming, as it very quickly became recognized as one of the greatest episodes the X-Files ever did. It would earn Darin Morgan an Emmy for Best Dramatic Teleplay and Peter Boyle one for Best Guest Actor in a Drama. And the acclaim for it has only grown with the passage of time. When TV Guide published its first List of the 100 greatest episodes of all time, it was at number 19. When it published its update to it in 2009, it was still listed as the series only entry. What I find particularly remarkable is that, for all the brilliance, slyness, and comic invention on display, this may actually be the least of the four episodes Morgan wrote for this series. Which should tell you something about the man who wrote it.

It's hard to know which makes Clyde Bruckman such a memorable character: Boyle's brilliant acting or Morgan's superb writing. Whichever way you see it, it is pretty clear that he is one of the greatest characters in the entire history of the show. Bruckman is an insurance salesman, who has been given the gift of foresight. As Mulder puts it, it's one that most people would be envious of, and Bruckman disdains it, because to him, it's one that he has done nothing to earn.

 One of the more weighty issues that the series would deal with is in the argument of fate versus free will, and the first shot across the bow in favor of determinism. Both Bruckman and the killer believe that the future is predetermined and that there's nothing they or anybody else can do to change this, and it effects everything they do. The killer has been murdering fortune tellers left and right, slashing out their entrails and gouging out their eyes, always asking them for a simple request. Why do I do the things I do. When he finally meets up with Bruckman, the chat they have is almost pleasant considering what they do, and the relief on the killer's fate when he learns why he commits these crime is palpable. He kills people because he's a homicidal maniac. A stereotype who Morgan doesn't think is even worthy of a name.

Bruckman doesn't seem any more able to live with his gift anymore than the killer does., mainly because it only seems to give him the ability to see death and nothing but it. He loses at the lotto because he's always one number away on every pick. Every night he dreams about his body after death and rotting away. It's the only time in the entire episode that we see him at peace. And because he can only see one thing, he is always focused on the details of everything, from the reasons why a murdered woman only collected dolls to the kind of pie he says Mulder will step in when he's being chased by the killer. He even says it itself, he can't see the forest for the trees.

My this episode sounds incredibly dark and foreboding, when in actuality it's one of the funniest things in TV history. Morgan is perhaps better suited than any other writer for the show at seeing how to subvert the foundation the X-Files has spent the last two years building. The man that all the detectives are talking about at a crime scene as being 'spooky' is not Mulder (and thank you Mark Snow for making your musical score a fake out) but a fake psychic named the Stupendous Yappi. The source of the negative energy coming from the room is coming from Mulder, to whom Yappi says "Skeptics like you make me sick."  And then there are all the little throwaways  from the way Bruckman says how Mulder's going to die to the way a real psychic makes a guess on something that referenced a fake psychic till Bruckman sees Mulder's badge, and say "I'm supposed to believe that's  a real name?" This episode could certainly have gotten very dark but Morgan gently undercut every time it gets too serious. (Of course, there was the one reference that never got explained: when Scully asks Bruckman how she dies, he smiles and says "You don't." Is this a reference to something that's going to come in the future? We'll never know. My guess is she turned to it a lot in Season 4.)

Peter Boyle is utterly charming as the morose Bruckman. Though he is now known mostly for his comic roles, it is worth remembering that he was a great dramatic actor in his youth. this mix of drama and comedy made him arguably the perfect choice as he delivers arguably, his greatest performance. There is something utterly charming about this man, who always seems to bring a trace of humor with all of the darkness. (His Carson impersonation's pretty good too.) He is such a charmer that even Scully sympathizes with him even though she doesn't take stock in his predictions--- until the end, when she finds herself fulfilling it, though not in a way she could have expected..

And that brings us to one of the deeper and more philosophical questions about this episode: Why does Bruckman take his own life? Some suggest the weight of the visions finally became too much for him. But perhaps the truest answer is the simplest one: He killed himself because he knew that he did. "If the future didn't exist, how can  I see it?" The fact that Miss Lowe gave him a cigarette lighter seemed to convince him that everything that happened was preordained. Yet this episode gives a cry out for free will in the end. Bruckman never learns that Mulder's death wasn't written in stone.  And one could see that the other psychic was shocked by it too, if his last words were any indication.  Some things may be inevitable, but there is the possibility of changing fate.

All of this is heavy talk, and may make you think the episode is ponderous. So let me just reassure you that Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose is a true jewel, not merely in the world of The X-Files but in all of scripted TV. From this point on,  you can see the writers, even Morgan himself, trying to top what he did. It is a measure of the great talent of the show that they would get there every so often.

My score: 5 stars.