AIR DATE:  September 30, 1994
Written by Glen Morgan & James Wong
Directed by David Nutter

	"Blood" is one of those X-Files episodes where Scully and Mulder
don't do much throughout the episode and nothing much happens in the
episode. These type of episodes either work or they don't, and "Blood"
does work.  While "Blood" is a decent X-Files episode it does serve as a
good transition between "The Host" where we are introduced to Mr. X and
"Sleepless" where we are introduced to Krycek.  "Blood" doesn't have the
interaction between Scully and Mulder as in the two previous episodes and
this ends up weakening it, and the whole so-called conspiracy behind why
these people go on a killing spree is unbelievable. 

	Hence, there isn't really much to write about this episode. 
Actually that isn't true because at the heart of this episode is what
happens when people let their fear of things go too far and the only way
they feel they can escape this fear is to act upon it. Bonnie McRoberts'
fear of being raped and being alone in a darkened garage with the
repairman only heightens it while Ed Funsch's fear of blood and the blood
drive going on only heightens his fear of blood.  Fear is the one thing
that can paralyze a person or make one do things they never would have
done under normal circumstances.  Maybe this episode should have been
called "Fear" since that is what it is basically dealing with and how that
fear can be used against people.  This could be especially true if the
government was behind having this chemical spray to see how it can be used
in warfare or whatever evil deeds. 

	Now if we are to believe that somehow someone was feeding into
these fears by sublimally transmitting messages though digital electronic
equipment then we can see how a person's fears can be used against them. 
I can believe that the chemical being sprayed to kill insects can have an
affect on the people in spray areas, and that someone could be studying
this area to see how these chemicals effect people.  But what I can't
believe is that someone has the ability to know where someone is and what
digital equipment is being used so they can transmit these sublimal
messages.  I'm one of those people who doesn't believe the government or
private sector is that efficient and able to pull off something this
secret or complicated.  So if I can go with the premise these people
imagine the digital readout was talking to them then "Blood" is a good
episode on people's fears going out of control. 

	Other than touching upon people's fear there really wasn't much
else in the episode.  There wasn't much interaction between Scully and
Mulder so we didn't even get that though they did seem to be working
easily with each other with no outside interference.  The episode might
have worked better if it had touched upon the fears of Scully and Mulder
but instead we are left with some rather unengaging supporting characters.
We never really did get to know Ed Funsch other than that he's afraid of
blood. 

	Some miscellaneous comments:

- I guess the postal center Ed Funsch worked for only accepted letters
that are typed since not one single handwritten one came across his table. 
Of course, this could be how it works at postal centers, but it sure would
have been nice to see him go postal over a handwritten envelope he
couldn't read.  It is funny how they had Ed as the person who goes nuts
with a gun after losing his job work for the Post Office. 

- The scene where Sheriff Spencer is blabbing on and on to Mulder about
how glad he is the F.B.I. sent someone up while Mulder just walked around
saying nothing was funny.  Also, it was nice for a change to have a
Sheriff who respected and trusted Mulder's opinion on the case.  This was
shown when after Mulder goes off about how someone is making these people
act on their fears by giving them messages via digital electronic
equipment and the Sheriff storms off as if he can't believe what Mulder's
saying. He comes back saying he's got the County Supervisor to agree not
to spray anymore and do tests on people in the affected area.  The Sheriff
also comes to Mulder's defense when the County Supervisor starts with the
old Spooky Mulder bit to Mulder.  A nice change of pace. 

- One of Scully's best lines came out in this scene in the hospital room
after the Sheriff left the room.  Scully says to Mulder, "I was wrong. 
Exposure to insecticide does induce paranoia."  This is after she tells
him he is proof that LSDN doesn't have an affect on people.  I don't
really see how Mulder is proof because maybe there has to be long term
exposure, he needed more of it sprayed on him or it takes a little bit
longer to affect him.

- The Sheriff going on about how the second murderer never seemed to be
the type to go nuts and murder 4 people with his bare hands, and how he
played softball with the murderer and he didn't mind playing right field.
Mulder whispers to himself that you need to have a good arm to play right
field and he plays right field.  Now I found this really funny because I
remember in my days of playing softball as a kid how we would always put
the people who weren't great players in right field.  I guess putting the
mediocre players in right field is universal. 

- Scully reading Mulder's field report on the murders and waiting for
Mulder to make some reference to alien abductions was so true as to how
much Scully knows Mulder that she would be waiting for the reference.

- Boy, they really got those commericials out fast about the blood test. 
It seemed as if the next day the ads were out.  Not only that, but they
sure seem to have organized the testing procedure fairly quickly too.

- They sure have some agressive blood drive people in Pennsylvania.  First
they bug you at the local department store to sign up for the blood drive
then they come to your house and ring the doorbell until it drives you
nuts.  I'm glad to see they use those same ugly hard blue chairs they use
at the blood drives here at the University of New Hampshire.

- Cool murder weapon of this episode was Mrs. McRoberts using the oil
funnel to murder the repairman.  Gets extra points for showing the blood
dripping from it.

- Byers going on about rival South American agricultural interests
pretending to be Franklin County workers dumping flies on the city to
destroy their crops was amusing especially when he was proven wrong and
Mulder goes "nice try."  These guys can find conspiracies anywhere and
anyplace.  Lucky for Mulder the Lone Gunmen had just done a piece on
illegal government experiments.  We get our porn reference in this episode
when Mulder says his copy of Celebrity Skin came the same day as his issue
of The Lone Gunmen. 

- Here is a first:  Mulder draws his gun and doesn't lose it, and he wins
a fight and gets his man. Good job, Mulder.

- Funniest line comes at the end as we hear Scully saying into Mulder's
phone "Mulder, where are you?" twice as we fade into the credits.  Ahh,
couldn't have an X-Files episode without Scully saying that to him.

- The best part of rewatching this episode was I taped it before they
started to shrink the credits so small you couldn't read who did what on
the show instead the weatherman did a voiceover during the credits. Boy,
the good old days. 

	As I stated earlier nothing really much happened in this episode. 
Mulder investigates some spree killings where there could be some
government experiments going on.  The episode does try to get into
people's fears and how these fears can control one's life, but the
supporting characters just weren't interesting enough to make up for the
lack of Scully and Mulder's interaction with each other.  In the end
"Blood" just provided filler until we got to the meatier episodes to
follow and it doesn't help any that it came after the fantastic episode
"The Host".
  
Claudia
E-Mail:  Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

9/8/97

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