Throwback Thursday: The X Files Squeeze

So I'm watching The X Files again and I wanted to do a deep dive into every episode... but that might take forever... so instead I'm going to go over all my favorite episodes... the first of which is Squeeze!

Squeeze is our first real Monster-of- the Week episode of the show... and it's one of the best and most memorable ones in my opinion. So here we have a series of murders that have been happening every 30 years, dating back to the 1930s where there have been mysterious murders in basically empty buildings- no evidence of how someone could have broken in... but the livers are extracted from each body.

Scully and Mulder are not originally on the case- but Scully's friend from the academy invites her to investigate it... and he thinks Mulder is crazy and that Scully should join them instead of working on The X Files. Scully kind of doesn't really give them anything- but... it's pretty clear that she knows Mulder is smarter than this agent... so it doesn't seem like Scully is just looking for a career boost.

So even though Scully's friend from the academy doesn't want Mulder on the case- he goes with Scully... and he immediately wants to investigate and has some theories. He finds the X Files from the 60s and the reports from the 30s... so he knows its an X File and that he and Scully should be on the case... as it appears to have been an X File before the case Scully's friend was on.

Mulder finds a fingerprint near the air duct at the murder- where no one else appears to look. It matches exactly with the fingerprints from the murders 30 years ago. They find it matches a man named Eugene Victor Tooms, and I forget exactly what happens... but there's a fingerprint that doesn't match so they check to see what the print looks like when they're stretched out.... and it matched perfectly! So it appears the reason Mulder found the fingerprint on the air duct was that the killer squeezed through the air duct and killed people... and ate their livers. Which is creepy!

So they do a Polygraph test for Tooms and Mulder asks questions like "Are you 100 years old" and "were you at this location in 1933?" And Scully's friends get mad. He passed the polygraph except a couple questions... and it seems inconclusive but yeah.

This has some cool quotes and moments. This is the first time we find out that Aliens are Grey and not green. Mulder,upon getting Bile on his hands says "Is there anyway I can get this off my hands without betraying my cool exterior." Or something along those lines... and then Scully tells off the guy from the academy and she says "So this is how you climb the ladder," and then the friend says "All the way to the top" and she replies "Then I can't wait to see you fall down on your ass." And it's awesome. Dana Scully is the best.

There is a follow up to this episode with the trial of Tooms- which is called Tooms. And that might be the more exciting episode... but this one is definitely the firsr episode where it's like "Ohh... this is fun and creepy."

Also the actor that plays Eugene Victor Tooms is an actual creep in real life. Doug Hutchinson- you may know him better as the man that married 16 year old Courtney Stodden. Hutchinson and Stodden have since divorced and Stodden has come out as Non Binary. Stodden was also the subject of some bullying from Chrissy Teigan... and that makes me mad. I'm a fan of Teigan but... why'd she bully a 16 year old and NO ONE really said anything about the (at the time) 50ish year old man that married them. It made me mad.

Gillian Anderson also mentioned that in the episode Tooms he insisted on being naked on the set and he wouldn't wear underwear or anything... and she felt uncomfortable. I think the general consensus was that Hutchinson creeped everyone out... but Chris Carter hired him again to be on the show Millenium so... that kind of sucks too. I don't know. I'm not a fan of the man... but it does make this creepy episode creepier.