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Reviews
The X Files: Paper Hearts (1996)
Step in Closer and View the Episode On its Own Terms
To my mind "Paper Hearts" is one of the better episodes in the series, with great performances, great original music, and a genuinely uncanny psychic connection between two characters, Mulder and the serial killer John, not to mention a great display of empathy between Mulder and Scully. It also has what looks like an inconsistency: despite three and a half seasons that have made it a virtual certainty that Mulder is correct in believing that his sister was the victim of an alien abduction, in this episode he adopts a contrary view, namely that John murdered Mulder's sister. Consider the facts. First, John has been sentenced to prison for life without possibility of parole, a horrific sentence for anyone, serial killer or not. Second, Mulder's gift for profiling involved "getting inside" the minds of serial killers, and here's where the uncanny or sci-fi aspect of the series kicks in. Mulder's vivid dreams establish the psychic "nexus," which John tries to downplay but which is plainly at work. What happens is that John manipulates Mulder's dream to achieve his goal in this episode, which is to terminate his incarceration in a way that will give him maximum satisfaction. Like most of us, John is much smaller in real life than in his self-image.