Line #10 Recap/TheXFilesS03E23Wetwired


1	[[WMG:[[center:[-'''RECAP:'''\
2	[[Recap/TheXFiles Index]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E01TheBlessingWay 1]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E02PaperClip 2]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E03DPO 3]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E04ClydeBruckmansFinalRepose 4]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E05TheList 5]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E06TwoShy 6]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E07TheWalk 7]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E08Oubliette 8]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E09Nisei 9]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E10SevenThreeOne 10]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E11Revelations 11]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E12WarOfTheCoprophages 12]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E13Syzygy 13]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E14Grotesque 14]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E15PiperMaru 15]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E16Apocrypha 16]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E17Pusher 17]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E18TesoDosBichos 18]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E19HellMoney 19]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E20JoseChungsFromOuterSpace 20]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E21Avatar 21]] \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E22Quagmire 22]] \| '''23''' \| [[Recap/TheXFilesS03E24TalithaCumi 24]]]]-]]]
3	'''Season 3, Episode 23:'''
4	!Wetwired
5	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfileswetwired.png]]
6	[[caption-width-right:350:Seeing isn't believing.]]
7	->Written by Mat Beck\
8	Directed by Rob Bowman
9
10	->''"You may have been right, Scully, at least partly. I think there is a foreign signal being introduced into these people's homes through the television set."''
11	-->-- '''Fox Mulder'''
12
13	While investigating a series of murders committed by ordinary people suffering sudden fits of paranoia, Scully begins to suspect that Mulder is working with the Conspiracy against her.
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15	!!Tropes:
16	* ColorBlindConfusion: Inverted, Mulder's red-green color blindness turns into an unexpected asset, as TheGovernment's [[SubliminalSeduction subliminal messages]] operate primarily in that spectrum, and he is thus the only one [[DisabilityImmunity immune to them]].
17	* DisabilityImmunity: Again, Mulder's color-blindness, which leaves him unaffected by the brainwashing signal.
18	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: X apparently kills the Plain-Clothed Man offscreen.
19	* GoThroughMe: Maggie Scully steps between Scully and Mulder while Dana threatens to shoot him, talking her down from her paranoia.
20	* {{Hallucinations}}: Of your worst fears, like being cheated on and abandoned, or facing a sadistic dictator who caused genocide.
21	* HatePlague: The murders are basically paranoia-fueled.
22	* HauntedTechnology: The plot explores a device planted in a TV set sending subliminal signals and inciting the worst fears in viewers. A subversion since it's clear that TheConspiracy placed it there.
23	* IKnowWhatYouFear: It's revealed that people are controlled by SubliminalSeduction transferred through TV broadcasting. It caused them very vivid hallucinations of their worst fears which compelled them to murder, in one case even their loved ones. Scully thought that Mulder is collaborating with TheConspiracy and he helped them to abduct her.
24	* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: Oh noes! Is Scully dead?!
25	* MistakenForCheating: One of the victims of the HatePlague is a man who was shot by his wife because she caught him having an affair with "a blonde" in the backyard hammock. Except, plot twist: the "blonde" in question was the guy's Golden retriever. Plot twist ''again,'' he isn't the shooter's wife and he was in his ''own'' backyard. Her husband is a trucker who had been out of town for a week. But this was apparently one of her fears, which came out thanks to the SubliminalSeduction.
26	* MysteriousInformant: Mr X steers Mulder into investigating the case. He uses a middle man in this episode, whom Mulder openly distrusts.
27	* MythArc: Subverted. It doesn't directly feature elements of the MythArc, but it features almost all the characters such as X, The Cigarette Smoking Man, The Lone Gunmen and even Scully's mom.
28	* OminousVisualGlitch: Distortions of the picture implied that a person is under influence of subliminal transmission that triggered the person's worst fears and compelled them to kill.
29	* TheOnlyOneITrust: Mulder says this to Scully, word for word, as she holds a gun on him in her mother's home, convinced he has betrayed her.
30	* PercussiveTherapy[=/=]PunchAWall: Mulder gets utterly frustrated and kicks the hell out of a car which belongs to a wacko of TheAdjectivalMan. Plain-clothed man.
31	* SerialNumbersFiledOff: Lladislov Miliskovich, used on the cable TV news for the first murder's rampage, is a fictionalized version of real war criminal Slobodan Milosevic.
32	* ShoutOut: Mulder's reference to "[[Creator/{{NBC}} Must-See TV]]".
33	* SubliminalSeduction: Transferred through TV signal. Induces your worst fears.
34	* UnreliableNarrator: A subtle example. Much of the first half of the episode takes place mainly through Scully's perspective, in which it appears that Mulder has betrayed her and the X-Files to the Cigarette Smoking Man. About halfway through, the episode switches to Mulder's viewpoint, where it becomes clear (if it wasn't already) that Scully has fallen victim to the brainwashing and is acting completely erratic.
35	* WrittenInAbsence: The subplot with X's substitute, the Plain Clothed Man, was added because the actor who plays X had a scheduling conflict and was unable to appear in the full episode.
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Context Recap / TheXFilesS03E23Wetwired