Original Air Date: November 10, 1995
Episode Grade: C
“The Walk,” despite some excellent makeup effects and a couple of badass moments from Scully, isn’t exactly classic X-Files material.
Recap:
A doctor chats with a patient about his repeated suicide attempts, which he describes as cries for help. The patient insists that “He won’t let me die.” As soon as the doctor leaves to get a sedative, the patient rushes to the hydrotherapy room, where he cranks up a tub to boiling and fills his pockets with weights.
A voice tells him to stand down, but the man jumps into the vat of boiling water anyway. We see the door unlock itself and then the fire alarm get pulled by an unseen force. When the nurses and firefighters pull his parboiled body out of the tub, he opens his eyes and says “See, he won’t let me die.”
Cue the credits!
Mulder and Scully interview the horribly burned man. He says that the presence that won’t let him die looks like a soldier. It took away his wife and children by burning them alive and prolongs his suffering by not letting the man die.
Scully thinks it’s PTSD, but before they get to question him further, they’re pulled out of the room by a low-ranking officer. Scully expertly shuts her down and demands to speak to her commanding officer after they finish their interview.
We follow a squirrely looking guy played by Willie Garson, who would go on to be Mozzie on White Collar. We follow him to a support group for vets in wheelchairs. A man talks about his dream, which he calls “The Walk” about running with his kids. A quadruple amputee laughs bitterly and then mocks his fellow group members. He’s got some anger issues, mostly because he doesn’t have any arms or legs.
He calls over the orderly, who is named Roach, to wheel him out of the room. Apparently they served together, and the amputee orders Roach to ignore the FBI poking around.
The officer in charge of the VA hospital tries to threaten our intrepid heroes, but Scully is having none of it. She wants to know why the house fire in which the patient’s family died was not in his file and why it was never investigated. Furthermore, they also want to know why the general doesn’t think it’s suspicious that another patient also lost his family in a house fire and then threw himself into a wood chipper, insisting that “he” wouldn’t let him die.
The general tells them that it’s just a coincidence. Scully insists that they be allowed to do their own investigation. Team FBI chats at the scene of the recent parboiling. Scully thinks that the general is protecting his men from prosecution after murdering their own families, possibly because of PTSD and Gulf War Syndrome. Mulder just wants to know why the patient left the door unlocked when he tried to kill himself.
The pretty captain apologizes to the general for putting him on the spot with the FBI. He orders her to go home and relax. He then takes his own advice and goes to pour himself a scotch. Then he hears a voice: “Your time has come.” His answering machine—remember when we had those, with the little tapes?—starts playing scary whispering voices.
The pretty captain goes for a swim instead of returning home. We see the shadow of someone—or something—in the water with her. She tries to get out, but the unseen force springs on her and drags her down.
Scully notices bruising on the dead captain’s throat. It looks a lot like fingers. Mulder tells the general that he and his family may be in danger. Scully is busy being skeptical, but the general interrupts to describe the incident of the night before. He says he’s received strange phone calls like that before.
We travel to the general’s well-appointed home, where his little boy starts screaming when he sees a shadowy figure steal their mail. While his mom looks out of the mysteriously open door, we see that it’s the squirrely orderly, Roach.
The general plays the scary tape for Mulder and Scully. If this was Supernatural, I’d say there was EVP on that tape. Scully glances out of the window and sees Roach running through the backyard. Mulder advises the general to call the police.
We return to the hospital, where Roach delivers the mail to the amputee. He says that he’s not going to do it anymore, and the amputee insists that they have to finish their work. The poor burned bastard from earlier sees the amputee and recoils as if in fear.
Back at the general’s house, Scully announces that they found fingerprints. A SWAT team arrives as Roach’s less-than-well-appointed home to arrest him. There’s stolen mail everywhere addressed to the victims, some of it covered in ants. Scully seems to think that it’s over, but Mulder makes a concerned face.
At the General’s home, his little boy plays in the sandbox. A passing solider tells him to “watch his flank.” The man turns his back for a moment, and when he turns around, the little boy has been buried beneath the sand by an invisible force.
Mulder and Scully interrogate Roach who insists that he’s just the mailman. Rappo, the quadruple amputee, is really in charge. Scully is pissed, assuming that Roach lied to them, but Mulder isn’t so sure. He watches Rappo sleep; the man is twitching like a kitten dreaming about chasing mice.
Roach is panicking, screaming that he’s going to be killed. The guard on duty walks away as Roach screams, “He’s here!” When Scully returns, they find Roach dead. A bedsheet was stuffed down his throat. Mulder thinks that it was Rappo. Mulder’s been carrying around dental x-rays, which he says have been exposed to some kind of radiation at the hospital and the scenes of the crimes.
Mulder has decided that Rappo can use astral projection to attack his victims but needs something tangible from the scene—like a piece of mail—to do it.
Team FBI questions Rappo. Mulder wants to know why Rappo blames his commanding officers for what happened to him and his buddies. It’s a pretty heavy-handed scene, but the upshot is that Rappo still doesn’t admit that he’s the killer. Mulder is uncomfortably close to Rappo, leaning over him in bed, just inches from making out.
At the general’s house, his wife is tearfully putting away their dead son’s toys. While she sobs in another room, he starts drinking alone. He sees Rappo, standing tall and whole in the mirror behind him, and then follows bloody boot prints to his wife’s body.
The general pulls a gun from his desk and goes to the VA hospital. He tells the original patient that he was right, that “he won’t let us die.” The patient says that he knows who the man is that’s doing this to them. The general, looking dazed and broken, marches down the linoleum hallways to Rappo’s room.
Rappo says that he did indeed kill the general’s wife and son. He’s totally unrepentant and tells the general to go ahead and fire at will. Instead of shooting him, he fires at the wall and says that Rappo will suffer like the rest of them.
When Team FBI arrives, the general says that Rappo wanted him to shoot but that he stood down instead. The general says that he’s done there and walks away. In Rappo’s room, he’s having some extreme REM sleep. Mulder gets it and starts running, but it’s too late.
The general gets in the elevator, which takes him to the basement. Hey look, it’s a poorly lit industrial space! The steam pipes start bursting and he lurches through the fog, looking for an exit. “Your time has come,” says Rappo. The general goes into the same hydrotherapy room, where more pipes burst. Mulder finds him on the floor, but before he can help, a spectral figure attacks.
The burned patient struggles up the stairs. Scully and the nurse leave Rappo’s room for a moment, and while they’re turned around, the burned man locks himself inside. He smothers Rappo with a pillow before he can murder Mulder and finish off the general. Too bad about the general’s entire family, though.
The burned man looks at Scully through the tiny window of the room with a look that clearly said he did what he had to do.
A final voiceover by Mulder states that Rappo’s family requested he be buried in Arlington was denied. He babbles about phantom limbs and phantom souls while we see the burned man hand a folder to the general. He’s taken over Roach’s mailroom duties…which means that he’s a good person? Or not? Honestly, I have no idea what I’m supposed to take away from this episode, other than “War is bad.”
Nostalgia Vision 