Irresistible

In Minneapolis , Minnesota, preparations are underway for the funeral of a young girl. The ceremony is overseen by Donnie Faster, a gloomy assistant manager of the funeral home. Later that night, when the girl’s body was prepared for tomorrow’s burial, Faster’s boss caught Donnie cutting the hair of a corpse. Donnie is immediately kicked out of work.

A little later, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were summoned to Minneapolis by FBI field agent Mo Box, who is investigating the exhumation and desecration of the body in a local cemetery. Mulder is skeptical of Boxing's version, who believes that the crime was committed by aliens with the goal of experimenting on people. Mulder believes that looking for the culprit is among the people. Scully is confused by the sight of the mutilated corpse. Two more exhumed bodies were found, both had their hair cut off and their nails torn out. Mulder develops a psychological portrait of the criminal, where he predicts that in order to satisfy his growing need for new trophies, the fetishist could soon go on a murder. Scully, suffering from post-traumatic disorder after her abduction by Dwayne Barry , is struggling to hide her discomfort from work. Mulder is sympathetic to her problems and invites her not to work on this case, but Scully refuses.

Fester brings a prostitute to his apartment, and when she discovers a “funeral collection” in his bedroom, he kills the woman and cuts off her fingers. Faster attends college evening courses, and once makes an unsuccessful attempt to attack a classmate. Toya manages to fight back, and Fester gets into the prison cell, being in front of the camera of the murdered prostitute whom Fester killed. Seeing Scully in prison when she interrogates the suspect, Fester finds out her name. He was released that evening, as his classmate refused to apply.

Scully is experiencing big problems with the Faster case: she has anxious hallucinations on this score. In Washington, she is being examined by a social worker, during which she shares her concerns about the investigation. After the examination, Scully discovers that someone from Minnesota was looking for her. When she contacts Mulder, it turns out that neither he nor Boxing called her.

The FBI finds a partial fingerprint on the prostitute’s body, which matches Faster’s data available in the database after his arrest. Mulder and Boxing, with the capture group, burst into Faster's apartment, where they find victims' hair and a prostitute's cut-off finger in the fridge, but Faster is not at home. Scully arrives in Minneapolis, but on the way from the airport, Fester pushes her car into a ditch on a deserted road and takes the agent to the abandoned house of her dead mother, where, after binding, throws her gag in the closet.

In the wake of the paint on a discovered car, Scully, Mulder and Box find out the address of Faster’s mother’s house. Scully escapes from Faster while he is preparing a bath for her, but he rushes in pursuit. As a result of a short struggle, they slide down the stairs to the front door, through which Mulder bursts into the capture group at that moment, arresting Faster. Scully initially claims that she is okay, but then falls into Mulder's arms and cries. In the narration, Mulder suggests that Faster’s pathology is rooted in his childhood: Donnie grew up in a family with four older sisters ^{[3] [4]} .

The original scenario, where Fester was a necrophilic , was rejected by the FOX channel due to "mismatch with broadcast standards" ^[2] . The creator of the series Chris Carter said: “When I brought the initial script, it had real necrophilic episodes, it didn’t work. It is impossible to combine sex and death on public television ” ^[5] . Carter was forced to reduce the degree of extravagance of the series, turning Faster from a necrophilia into a “funeral fetishist” and reducing his sexual obsession ^[2] . Carter implied that the sexual subtext “would be so easily read by the viewer,” and Fester, despite the demands of censorship, still turned out to be a frightening character ^[6] . The original title of the episode was “Fascination”, which can be translated as “Charm” or “Charm” ^[7] .

This series is one of the few where paranormal storylines are lacking ^[2] . Regarding the concept of the episode, Carter put it this way: “This is my first opportunity to work with David Nutter in a long time, and I wanted to give him something that he could dig into with his teeth. There are no paranormal stories, perhaps, except for Scully's feelings about her deep fears. I thought I should bring to the surface what she is most afraid of. And she is afraid of absolutely the same thing that most of us are afraid of. The thought of death from someone else's hands - aliens or humans - plunges her into powerless horror and the inability to do anything. It seemed to me that this is a very good opportunity to reveal Scully’s character ” ^[8] . The scene where Scully presents Faster's appearance as a devil was based on real events that Chris Carter described: “I read articles about people influenced by Jeffrey Damer , they claimed that Damer changed his appearance during the hours that he held them as hostages; that his image really changed ” ^[5] . According to Nutter, Carter “in any way wanted to advance the idea that not everything bad in life happens only for paranormal reasons. Even a neighbor can be a villain. ” ^[8]

Regarding Nick Chinland’s casting for the role of Faster, Chris Carter said: “I believe that an excellent creepy villain came out of him. Casting was very difficult. We watched a lot of actors, but I kept looking for something in them that I could not define. In the end, I realized what it was when Nick came to the test: he has some special form of androgyny, which is amazing. It seemed to me that he looks like a freshman student, while he manages to scare you to death ” ^[8] . According to Nutter: “I liked working with Nick Chinland. The guy was in my hands, like plasticine. He was just great! If you are looking for someone to emphasize the strangeness of the character, he will do it brilliantly! ” ^[8] .

Nutter spoke of the episode as follows: “I really tried to make this episode special, because I thought it was special. Due to the post - traumatic stress of the heroine Gillian Anderson: she still did not have the opportunity to express her feelings about her abduction ” ^[8] . Carter especially liked the scene in which Scully, clearly shocked, hugs Mulder. The creator of the series called it a “moment of tenderness” between characters who had not shown each other much affection ^[6] . Gillian Anderson herself considers the whole episode to be one of her favorite ^[9] .

The premiere of “Irresistible” took place on January 13, 1995 on the FOX television channel ^[10] . On a Nielsen scale, the episode received a rating of 9.2 points with a 15 percent share, which means that of all televisions in US households, 9.2 percent worked on the night of the premiere, and 15 percent of them were set to watch The X-Files. The total number of US households seeing the premiere is estimated at 8.8 million ^[11] .

Irresistible received predominantly positive reviews from critics. Entertainment Weekly rated the episode “B +” (three and a half points on a four-point scale), saying that the series was originally based on “a monstrous concept”, the effect of which was reinforced by the “thrilling theater of one actor - Chinland” ^[12] . Todd van der Werff, a columnist for The AV Club magazine, rated the episode “A” (highest mark), especially praising Chinland’s work, which he described as “really scary” and “a sign of the series moving in a new and interesting direction.” His only criticism was the hallucination of Scully with the devil Faster, which the journalist described as “a rather stupid, almost seeming attempt to include something remotely paranormal in the episode so that the audience would not get bored of what is truly a very good episode” ^[13] . Jessica Morgan ( Television Without Pity ) rated the episode "B +" ^[14] . In an article for Den of Geek, Nina Sordi put “Irresistible” in sixth place on the list of the best episodes of The X-Files, saying that “with the exception of the Smoker and his homies , Fester is probably the worst villain our beloved agents had to face " ^[15] . Sordi’s colleague Den of Geek , writer Juliet Harrison, called the episode “the best” episode of the second season, describing it as a “truly creepy 45-minute horror movie” ^[16] . Connie Ougle, a columnist for Popmatters , included Faster on the list of best "monsters of the week" ^[17] , and Christine Segers of IGN put Chinland in seventh place in the list of best invited actors of the series. According to Segers, what Fester makes even more intimidating is “how passive and polite he is until the moment he is about to kill; the perfect camouflage for a modern monster ” ^[18] . TV Guide magazine included Faster in the list of the scariest monsters of the series, calling the character "the embodiment of evil" ^[19] .

• Ted Edwards. X-Files Confidential. - Little, Brown and Company, 1996. - ISBN 0-316-21808-1 .
• Matt Hurwitz, Chris Knowles. The Complete X-Files. - Insight Editions, 2008. - ISBN 1-933784-80-6 .
• Frank Lovece. The X-Files Declassified. - Citadel Press, 1996. - ISBN 0-8065-1745-X .
• Brian Lowry. The Truth is Out There: The Official Guide to the X-Files. - Harper Prism, 1995 .-- ISBN 0-06-105330-9 .

• Orison is episode 7 of the seventh season, a sequel to the Irresistible episode.