"Tooms" is the twenty-first episode of the
first season of the American
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
television series ''
The X-Files
''The X-Files'' is an American science fiction on television, science fiction drama (film and television), drama television series created by Chris Carter (screenwriter), Chris Carter. The series revolves around Federal Bureau of Investigation ...
'', premiering on the
Fox network
The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations an ...
on April 22, 1994. It was written by
Glen Morgan
Glen Morgan (born July 12, 1961) is an American television producer, writer and director. He is best known for co-writing episodes of the Fox science fiction supernatural drama series ''The X-Files'' with his partner, James Wong. He served as ...
and
James Wong, and directed by
David Nutter
David Nutter (born 1960) is an American television and film director and television producer. He is best known for directing pilot episodes for television. In 2015, he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series ...
. The episode featured
Mitch Pileggi
Mitch Pileggi (born April 5, 1952) is an American actor. He played Horace Pinker in '' Shocker'', Walter Skinner on ''The X-Files'', Colonel Steven Caldwell on ''Stargate Atlantis'', Ernest Darby in ''Sons of Anarchy'', and Harris Ryland in th ...
's first appearance as
Assistant Director
The role of an assistant director on a film includes tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, and maintaining order on the set. They also have to tak ...
Walter Skinner
FBI Assistant Director Walter Sergei Skinner is a fictional character portrayed by American actor Mitch Pileggi on ''The X-Files'' and its short-lived spin-off ''The Lone Gunmen'', both broadcast on Fox.
In the science fiction-supernatural se ...
and saw
Doug Hutchison
Doug Anthony Hutchison (born May 26, 1960) is an American character actor, known for playing disturbing and antagonistic characters. Such characters include Obie Jameson in the 1988 film '' The Chocolate War'', Sproles in the 1988 film '' Fresh H ...
and
William B. Davis
William Bruce Davis (born January 13, 1938) is a Canadian actor, best known for his role as the Cigarette Smoking Man on ''The X-Files''. Besides appearing in many TV programs and movies, he founded his own acting school, the William Davis Ce ...
reprise their roles as Eugene Victor Tooms and the
Cigarette Smoking Man
The Cigarette Smoking Man (abbreviated CSM or C-Man; sometimes referred to as Cancer Man or the Smoking Man) is a fictional character and one of the primary antagonists of the American science fiction drama television series ''The X-Files''. He ...
, respectively. "Tooms" earned a Nielsen household rating of 8.6, being watched by 8.1 million households in its initial broadcast; and received positive reviews from critics.
The show centers on
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
agents
Fox Mulder
Fox William Mulder () is a fictional FBI Special Agent and one of the two protagonists of the Fox science fiction-supernatural television series ''The X-Files'', played by David Duchovny. Mulder's peers dismiss his many theories on extraterrest ...
(
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny ( ; born ) is an American actor, writer, producer, director, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He is known for portraying FBI agent Fox Mulder on the television series ''The X-Files'' (1993–2002, 2016-2018) and as write ...
) and
Dana Scully
Dana Katherine Scully, MD, is a fictional character and one of the two Protagonist, protagonists in the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox science-fiction, supernatural fiction, supernatural television series ''The X-Files'', played by Gillian Anders ...
(
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson ( ; born August 9, 1968) is an American actress. Her credits include the roles of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the series ''The X-Files'', ill-fated socialite Lily Bart in Terence Davies's film ''The House of Mirth'' ...
) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called
X-Files. When mutant
serial killer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
*
* with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
Eugene Tooms, last seen in "
Squeeze", is released from prison, Mulder and Scully try to stop him from resuming his killing spree. Tooms, however, sets out to frame Mulder for
assault
An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...
before the agent can apprehend him.
After seeing men working on an open
escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizo ...
in a mall around
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
time, Morgan decided to revisit the character of Tooms. "Tooms" introduced the character of Walter Skinner, although this would be his only appearance in the first season. That character was conceived as playing against the stereotypical bureaucratic "paper-pusher", being instead someone more "quietly dynamic".
Plot
After the events of "
Squeeze", Eugene Victor Tooms has been placed in a
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
sanatorium
A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal, make healthy'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, are antiquated names for specialised hospitals, for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often ...
. He attempts to escape by squeezing his arm through the food slot of his cell door but is forced to abort when he is visited by his
psychologist
A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...
, Dr. Aaron Monte, who tells him that he is ready to be released into society.
Dana Scully
Dana Katherine Scully, MD, is a fictional character and one of the two Protagonist, protagonists in the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox science-fiction, supernatural fiction, supernatural television series ''The X-Files'', played by Gillian Anders ...
is called before
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
Assistant Director
The role of an assistant director on a film includes tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, and maintaining order on the set. They also have to tak ...
Walter Skinner
FBI Assistant Director Walter Sergei Skinner is a fictional character portrayed by American actor Mitch Pileggi on ''The X-Files'' and its short-lived spin-off ''The Lone Gunmen'', both broadcast on Fox.
In the science fiction-supernatural se ...
, who is accompanied by
The Smoking Man
The Cigarette Smoking Man (abbreviated CSM or C-Man; sometimes referred to as Cancer Man or the Smoking Man) is a fictional character and one of the primary antagonists of the American science fiction drama television series ''The X-Files''. He s ...
. Despite the success of the
X-File
In the fictional universe of the television series ''The X-Files'', an "X-File" is a case that has been deemed unsolvable or given minimal-priority status by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; these files are transferred to the X-Files unit. The ...
s investigations, Skinner criticizes their unconventionalism and wants both Scully and
Fox Mulder
Fox William Mulder () is a fictional FBI Special Agent and one of the two protagonists of the Fox science fiction-supernatural television series ''The X-Files'', played by David Duchovny. Mulder's peers dismiss his many theories on extraterrest ...
to do by-the-book work. Later, the agents attend a release hearing for Tooms, where Monte claims that Tooms' attack on Scully was due to being falsely accused of murder. Mulder tries to point out the evidence of Tooms' crimes and unusual
physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
but is ignored by the hearing's panel. Tooms is released into the care of an elderly couple and is ordered to continue his treatment with Dr. Monte.
Scully meets with Frank Briggs, the retired detective who investigated Tooms' 1933 murders. Briggs claims that the body of one of the victims from that spree was never discovered. He and Scully visit a chemical plant where a piece of the victim's
liver
The liver is a major Organ (anatomy), organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the Protein biosynthesis, synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for ...
was found, ultimately discovering a skeleton encased in concrete. A researcher examining the skeleton identifies it as the missing victim from 1933. However, there seems to be no substantial evidence proving that Tooms was the murderer.
Meanwhile, Mulder harasses Tooms at work as he
stalks a would-be victim. Later that night, Mulder follows him when he tries to break into a man's house. Tooms flees without attacking anyone. Scully relieves Mulder, who is watching Tooms' new residence; they are unaware that Tooms is hiding in the trunk of Mulder's car. He manages to break into Mulder's apartment, where he injures himself and imprints Mulder's shoe print on his face. Tooms'
frameup
__NOTOC__
In the United States criminal law, a frame-up (frameup) or setup is the act of framing someone, that is, providing false evidence or false testimony in order to falsely prove someone guilty of a crime. While incriminating those who a ...
leads the police to question Mulder and Skinner to forbid him from contacting Tooms.
Further research on the skeleton reveals bite marks matching Tooms' teeth. When the old couple watching Tooms leave their home, he is visited by Monte. Tooms kills him and consumes the final liver he needs to begin his thirty-year
hibernation
Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression undergone by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most ...
. After discovering Monte's body and defying Skinner's orders, Mulder and Scully head to the site of Tooms' former apartment building, which has been demolished and replaced with a shopping mall. Inside, Mulder crawls below an
escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizo ...
and finds Tooms' nest. Tooms bursts out, covered in
bile
Bile (from Latin ''bilis''), or gall, is a dark-green-to-yellowish-brown fluid produced by the liver of most vertebrates that aids the digestion of lipids in the small intestine. In humans, bile is produced continuously by the liver (liver bile ...
, and pursues Mulder, who makes it to the surface and activates the escalator, trapping and killing Tooms.
Skinner reads Scully's final report on the Tooms case and asks the Smoking Man if he believes it, to which he replies, "Of course I do." Outside, Scully finds Mulder, who is observing a caterpillar's
cocoon. Mulder predicts that change is coming to the X-Files.
Production
![David Nutter by Gage Skidmore](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/David_Nutter_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg)
Devising a sequel to "Squeeze" posed a challenge for writers
Glen Morgan
Glen Morgan (born July 12, 1961) is an American television producer, writer and director. He is best known for co-writing episodes of the Fox science fiction supernatural drama series ''The X-Files'' with his partner, James Wong. He served as ...
and
James Wong, who had never written a follow-up to any of their work previously. Morgan felt that the primary difficulty was in moving the story forward while still leaving room to recap what had happened previously for the benefit of viewers who had not seen the first episode; this led to the use of the courtroom scene as a means to repeat any necessary information. Morgan also felt that Harry Longstreet, the initial director for "Squeeze", had been "a problem" and a second episode allowed for the use of scenes which Longstreet had failed to film for the earlier episode. To this end, the episode was helmed by
David Nutter
David Nutter (born 1960) is an American television and film director and television producer. He is best known for directing pilot episodes for television. In 2015, he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series ...
, who series creator
Chris Carter considered the "best" director working on the series.
Morgan was inspired to write this episode after seeing men working on an open escalator in a mall around Christmas time. He thought of the scare factor from a creature living underneath the escalator and felt Tooms would be the perfect choice for the creature. Tooms was the first villain in the show's history to make an appearance in a second episode. It was actor
Doug Hutchison
Doug Anthony Hutchison (born May 26, 1960) is an American character actor, known for playing disturbing and antagonistic characters. Such characters include Obie Jameson in the 1988 film '' The Chocolate War'', Sproles in the 1988 film '' Fresh H ...
's idea to play Tooms nude during the escalator sequence, a decision which Carter felt "caused a little discomfort", but that "actually added to the scene".
The bile-like substance coating Tooms and his nest was actually a yellow piping gel, which the cast found would stick to their skin and pull out hair upon removal.
Tooms framing Mulder for assault seems to have been inspired by a similar plot point in the film ''
Dirty Harry
''Dirty Harry'' is a 1971 American neo-noir
Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates ...
'' (1971).
"Tooms" introduced the character of Walter Skinner, although this would be his only appearance in the first season. The character had been conceived as playing against the stereotypical bureaucratic "paper-pusher", being instead someone more "quietly dynamic". Actor
Mitch Pileggi
Mitch Pileggi (born April 5, 1952) is an American actor. He played Horace Pinker in '' Shocker'', Walter Skinner on ''The X-Files'', Colonel Steven Caldwell on ''Stargate Atlantis'', Ernest Darby in ''Sons of Anarchy'', and Harris Ryland in th ...
had auditioned unsuccessfully for several other parts on the series before being cast as Skinner. At first, the fact that he was asked back to audition for the role had puzzled him, until he discovered the reason he had not been cast for the previous parts: Carter had been unable to imagine Pileggi as any of those characters, due to the fact that the actor had been shaving his head. When Pileggi attended the audition for Skinner, he had been in a grumpy mood and had allowed his small amount of hair to grow back. Pileggi's attitude fit well with the character of Skinner, causing Carter to assume that the actor was only pretending to be grumpy. After successfully auditioning for the role, Pileggi thought he had been lucky that he had not been cast in one of the earlier roles, as he believed he would have appeared in only a single episode and would have missed the opportunity to play the recurring role of Skinner.
The episode's climactic scene in the shopping mall where Tooms had made his nest was filmed in
City Square Shopping Centre
City Square Shopping Centre is a mall across the street from City Hall in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is located in the heart of the heritage district of central Vancouver, on the northwest corner of 12th Avenue and Cambie Street.
...
,
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
. Shooting at the location required the permission of every store owner on the premises, and care was taken to ensure that the stage blood used for the escalator scene did not seep into the escalator's motor to avoid possible damage. "Tooms" includes the Smoking Man's first line of dialogue in the series, and his only lines of the first season. Carter was initially unsure that the character would ever receive any dialogue, feeling that he would seem "more forbidding" if he remained silent. However, he described actor
William B. Davis
William Bruce Davis (born January 13, 1938) is a Canadian actor, best known for his role as the Cigarette Smoking Man on ''The X-Files''. Besides appearing in many TV programs and movies, he founded his own acting school, the William Davis Ce ...
as "an extremely competent actor", noting the character's increasing popularity.
Reception
"Tooms" premiered on the
Fox network
The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations an ...
on April 22, 1994, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...
on February 16, 1995.
This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 8.6, with a 15 share, meaning that roughly 8.6 percent of all television-equipped households, and 15 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 8.1 million households.
In a retrospective of the first season in ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'', "Tooms" was rated an A, with Hutchison's appearance being noted as "another sublimely slimy performance", whilst Pileggi's performance was said to have an "engagingly steely presence".
Zack Handlen, writing for ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'', called the episode "a richly rewarding one", finding the interaction between the characters of Mulder and Scully to have been a highlight of the episode.
However, Handlen felt that some of the episode's plot development was ultimately needless, and found the motives of several characters to have been unexplained and baffling.
Matt Haigh, writing for Den of Geek, felt that the plot thread of Tooms framing Mulder for assault "never really amounts to much", though he felt that the episode showed Tooms to be a creepier villain than his previous appearance in "Squeeze".
Robert Shearman
Robert Charles Shearman, sometimes credited as Rob Shearman, is an English television, radio, stage play and short story writer. He is known for his World Fantasy Award-winning short stories, as well as his work for ''Doctor Who'', and his asso ...
and
Lars Pearson
Lars Pearson (born 1973, in Iowa) is an American writer, high school teacher, editor, and journalist. He is the owner/publisher of Mad Norwegian Press, a publishing company specializing in reference guides to television shows including ''Buffy th ...
, in their book ''Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen'', rated the episode four-and-a-half stars out of five, finding it to be a better instalment than "Squeeze". Shearman felt that the episode featured very little plotting, consisting simply of "a series of set pieces", but considered its wit and character development to adequately compensate for this.
The character of Eugene Tooms has also attracted positive criticism. Author
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...
listed Tooms as one of his favourite monsters in a guest column for ''Entertainment Weekly''s 1,000th issue;
whilst
UGO Networks
UGO Entertainment, Inc. was a website that provided coverage of online media in entertainment, targeting males aged 18–34. The company was based in New York, New York, United States.
History
The company started in 1997 as Unified Gamers Online ...
listed the character as one of their "Best TV Serial Killers", describing Hutchison's acting as "uber-creepy".
Writing for Den of Geek, John Moore listed Eugene Tooms as his "Top 10 X-Files Baddies", noting that the popularity of both "Squeeze" and "Tooms" proved to be "largely responsible for shifting the emphasis of the show" away from dwelling solely on alien conspiracy-based mythology episodes.
Footnotes
References
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External links
"Tooms"on ''The X-Files'' official website
*
{{The X-Files episodes, 1
1994 American television episodes
Television episodes directed by David Nutter
Television episodes set in Baltimore
The X-Files (season 1) episodes
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