[[WMG:[[center:[-'''RECAP:'''\\
[[Recap/TheXFiles Index]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E01LittleGreenMen 1]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E02TheHost 2]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E03Blood 3]] | '''4''' | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E05DuaneBarry 5]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E06Ascension 6]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E07Three 7]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E08OneBreath 8]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E09Firewalker 9]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E10RedMuseum 10]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E11ExcelsisDei 11]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E12Aubrey 12]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E13Irresistible 13]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E14DieHandDieVerletzt 14]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E15FreshBones 15]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E16Colony 16]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E17EndGame 17]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E18FearfulSymmetry 18]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E19DodKalm 19]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E20Humbug 20]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E21TheCalusari 21]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E22FEmasculata 22]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E23SoftLight 23]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E24OurTown 24]] | [[Recap/TheXFilesS02E25Anasazi 25]]]]-]]]
'''Season 2, Episode 04:'''
!Sleepless
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thexfilessleepless.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I keep seeing the faces. Every day I see... ah, what’s the difference? We’re all going to Hell, right?"'']]
->Written by Howard Gordon\\
Directed by Rob Bowman

->'''Mulder:''' What if Cole has somehow developed the ability to project his unconscious?\\
'''Scully:''' Are you suggesting that Cole killed those people with telepathic images?

When Mulder's [[MysteriousInformant mysterious source]] gives him a tip on a case, Mulder is nonplussed to discover that it is already being investigated by another agent, one Alex Krycek. The case involves a noted sleep scientist who shows every sign of having burned to death—except without any fire. Mulder and his new partner must work together to uncover a government atrocity 24 years in the making—but is Krycek really all that he appears to be?
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!!Tropes:
* AntiVillain: Preacher has been left with a decidedly skewed idea of retribution by the experiments that were performed on him against his will, removing his ability to sleep but not his exhaustion from sleeplessness.
* DoWithHimAsYouWill: Preacher lets the ghosts/apparitions of the Vietnamese civilians whom he and his unit killed during the War and who follow him around kill his former squad-mates and superiors.
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Surprisingly subverted. The climax scene starts out as Cole stares at a jagged pipe below him and contemplates suicide by jumping for it. When he is shot by Krycek, he doesn't lose his balance and fall over backwards to be impaled by the pipe, despite what the lingering shot of the pipe heavily suggested, but he collapses sideways and bleeds out on the floor.
* TheInsomniac: The sleep deprivation soldiers had their brain stems altered to the point where they could never sleep at all. This extends to Preacher, who was a member of that batallion.
* IWorkAlone: Mulder says the exact words to Krycek.
* JustFollowingOrders: Dr. Girardi says that of his participation in the experiments. Cole doesn't buy it.
* MysteriousInformant: We meet X in the flesh for the first time this episode
* TheReveal: Krycek is [[TheMole a mole]] for the Cigarette Smoking Man.
* ScaryBlackMan: Creator/TonyTodd, no less. Averted with X, however.
* ScienceIsBad: Lampshaded by X:
-->'''X''': Science had just put a man on the moon. So they looked to science to help win a losing war.\\
'''Mulder''': And Willig and Cole were the lab rats.\\
'''X''': Lab rats with the highest kill ratio in the Marine Corps.
* ShootHimHeHasAWallet: Done [[SuicideByCop intentionally by the victim]] with a bible.
* TheSleepless: The "cannot sleep" variant.
* TheVietnamVet: The experiments to remove the ability to sleep happened to the men during their time serving in Vietnam.
* YourMindMakesItReal: Mulder describes Preacher's dream powers as such.
-->'''Mulder:''' In all those years without REM sleep, maybe Cole built a bridge between the waking world and the dream world. A collective unconscious. And what if, by existing consciously in the unconscious world, he developed the ability to externalise his dreams and effectively alter reality.
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->''"Good... night."''