Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose

Season 3, Episode 4, Aired
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Episode Summary

In the midst of a psychic sideshow while on a murder case, Mulder and Scully enlist the help of a man who may have a true psychic ability to foresee how people will die to help the agents catch a man killing fortune tellers.
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Fan Episode Reviews (20)

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  • A quality episode, but not, in this reviewer's opinion, deserving of the amount of praise it has received.

    8.0
    "Great"
    By AmeliaCaine, Dec 06, 2011 Report Abuse
    I saw that this episode made TV Guide's Best Television Episodes Ever at #10. I was shocked. Don't get me wrong, it's a great episode. It has solid writing, an exciting plot, and it is well paced. However, there was nothing about the episode that screamed "best episode ever' to me.

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  • There are hits, and there are misses, and then there are hits. This one is destined for immortality.

    10
    "Perfect"
    By MattMTRUSTNO1, Oct 15, 2011 Report Abuse


    Superbly embodied veteran character actor the late Peter Boyle, Clyde Bruckman is surely one of the more tragic and courageous figures to ever cross the X-Files screen. Even Fox Mulder, who says he envies Bruckman's gift, does not have the courage to face the knowledge of his own death. Bruckman himself fears and loathes his power. Unable to tame his own wild talent, he gives in to despair, denying all hope of change. Of course, by retreating to this passivity, he guarantees that his visions will come true. He fails, for example, to warn Mrs. Lowe of her impending fate, fails to warn Detective Havez of his imminent murder. Left in ignorance, of course, these individuals cannot make the choices that might avert their ends, and events fall out as Bruckman foresaw. This moral cowardice in an otherwise appealing character was unsettling, but entirely believable, and served to delineate Bruckman even more clearly as a living, breathing, flawed human being.
    The setting for this morality play is simple: Mulder and Scully are called in to consult with St. Paul cops who are trying to find a serial killer preying on fortune tellers. Gruesome as the murders are, even more grotesque is the performance of "The Stupendous Yappi", a TV- prophet fakir of such obvious shallowness that he makes last season's "Dr. Blockhead" look like a pillar of rectitude. When a body is discovered by Clyde Bruckman, a reluctant oracle, Mulder is delighted to find an actual, genuine psychic involved in the case. His eager-beaver questioning ("Pinch me!"), in which he treats Bruckman like a lab rat to be poked and prodded for answers, reveals the insatiable curiosity behind Mulder's "obsession" with the supernatural. Clearly an expert in various forms of divination, from anthropomancy to tea-leaf reading, Mulder is overjoyed to find a real psychic on whom to test his theories. Scully, who does not believe in psychic ability, is free to treat Bruckman as a real human being, and the relationship between them moves from strained tolerance to a warm understanding. Perhaps unconsciously, Bruckman reacts to this treatment by telling Scully that she will not die, and then turns around and keeps the pesky Agent Mulder up all night by telling him horror stories.
    Throughout "Clyde Bruckman" the tension between Mulder, pressing for more information, and Bruckman, reluctant to exercise a talent which has never made any difference in people's lives anyway, drives the show through deeper and deeper layers of angst and dread. Mulder, clearly in the free- will camp, demands information which will let him act. Bruckman, convinced all action is unavailing because the future has already been written, sees the engagement of his powers only as a painful exercise in futility. Both men's points of view are borne out, as the incidents foretold by Bruckman come to pass--but with a different twist. Bruckman accurately foretells Mulder's assault in the kitchen--which permits Mulder to defend himself effectively.
    Morgan plays diabolically clever jokes on us. Scully plays poker with a clairvoyant--not a bright idea--who holds the infamous "Aces and Eights" Dead Man's Hand that Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he died. But Morgan, typically, goes Wild Bill one better--Bruckman is holding a full house whereas Hickok was only holding a measly two pair. The in-joke is doubled in value and we get twice the kick out of it. At the end of the episode, we see a clip from a Laurel and Hardy film, with excellent special effects that make the duo look like skeletons. We are reminded simultaneously of the skeleton that Clyde Bruckman dreamed of, and for those movie fanatics among us, of the "real" Clyde Bruckman, the scriptwriter who worked for Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Laurel and Hardy, who committed suicide. This level of subtlety is almost fiendish.
    Director David Nutter rings in with some truly wonderful moments: the wordless instant of horrified recognition between the killer and Clyde Bruckman, the infinitely gentle look of pity on Scully's face as she sits beside Bruckman's body, the stark terror in Mulder's face as his throat is cut in the fantasy sequence. The pacing of the opening sequences--almost cartoonish in their garish light and sprightly movement--contrast very energetically with the brooding, somber displays of Bruckman's despair and resignation. Scully standing like an avenging Valkyrie in the service elevator, shooting down the killer without blinking an eye, drew outright applause from me. The scene in the forest where the team is hunting a body, which ends with Scully, Mulder and Bruckman dwarfed by the huge trees and thick ferns, lent balance to the scenes where we are so intently focused on a grimace, a blink, a smile.
    Morgan resists the temptation to make the nameless killer of this episode more important than he is. In a whodunit like this, for example, there is no point in looking for a motive. The motives of psychotic killers are beyond our comprehension anyway, and to have elaborate psychological profiles of them may well be a waste of time. Bruckman explains the killer to himself at the end: "Don't you get it? You do the things you do because you're a homicidal maniac!" While this is like explaining that someone is fat because they are obese, it is still true. There is no point in seeking a deeper motive than disconnected psychosis.
    Bruckman's sly tease to Mulder, wherein he hints that Mulder will die of autoerotic asphyxiation, made me laugh until I cried. Mulder's quote from "Chantilly Lace" alone--"you know what I like" stole the scene. The joke of having Scully park on the body they are looking for, the slyness of having the frustrated Clyde Bruckman identifying Mulder's own Knicks' T- shirt from "Beyond the Sea" (and then having Mulder deny it!), and the sheer silliness of The Stupendous Yappi's scene-stealing eyebrows are examples of black humor at its finest.
    I cannot close without adding that the relationship between Mulder and Scully *has* definitely changed in this episode, and for the better. The teasing is back--you would have to kill Mulder to stop him from teasing--and the teamwork is back, even better. Scully and Mulder back one another to the hilt. Mulder drops his gun, naturally, but finally Scully does not. And Morgan's skill is echoed by Duchovny and Anderson, who manage to show us Mulder's skeptical side and Scully's nascent "believer" side without distorting either character. It is tough to do that, and they did it very, very well.
    moreless

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  • The Best Episode Period.

    10
    "Perfect"
    By PaulMcDrizzle, Apr 28, 2011 Report Abuse
    Darin Morgan wrote this beautifiul episode that aired in the show's best season. Morgan's writing is beautifully nuanced and is some of the shows best, if not the best. And Peter Boyle's performance is award worthy (He infact won an Emmy for this performance. This episode and Beyond The Sea are by far my favorite episodes of one of the greatest shows ever on telivision. Gillian Anderson's acting performance in both episodes are amazing. Morgan infact wrote this episode after viewing Beyond The Sea several times. This episode is so beautiful that the episodes surronding it are almost unwatchable in comparison. -Paul McDonaldmoreless

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  • Mulder and Scully look after a guy killing psychics, tea leaf readers and other similar people

    8.8
    "Great"
    By JaCkKbAuEr2424, Dec 10, 2010 Report Abuse
    For a stand-alone episode, this was pretty fantastic. Peter Boyle guest-stars as an insurance salesman who also reluctantly deals with having psychic powers. Mulder and Scully begin using him to try and find this serial killer who's killing off people who read crystal balls or read Tarot Cards and other similar things. However, they soon learn that he isn't necessarily psychic. Instead, he can see how people will die and uses that power to infer certain things. Clyde Bruckman ends up being a very strange guy but compelling as hell to watch. Peter Boyle may have delivered the best guest-star performance of the show here... it's subtle but excellent.

    It also had its fair share of humor mixed in with the eerieness and sadness; the psychic at the beginning that calls out Mulder's negative energy is hilarious, and for a show that's so dark at times, they can really bring out the laughs.

    The episode was written by Darin Morgan, who also did the Humbug episode with the circus freaks. Darin Morgan seems to be really good at combining the dark/macabre and the humor. Hopefully he writes more episodes in the future.

    This was a pretty great episode, and along with the previous few episodes, it's a good sign that Season 3 of The X-Files may be even better than the rest of them so far.moreless

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  • Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose in Season Three is by far the best episode since the beginning of the X-files, in my opinion. I just wish that there'd be more episodes like it. It's funny, exciting, dramatic, and creepy, which basically makes it a perfect Xmoreless

    10
    "Perfect"
    By gruffies, Sep 02, 2010 Report Abuse
    Long story short, Mulder and Scully are investigating a case in which the help of a so-called psychic is used. This psychic, The Stupendous Yappi, does not establish an impression of real telepathy. Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully stumble upon a real clairvoyant. Clyde Bruckman can see exactly now everyone is going to die. He helps Mulder and Scully with little hints showing the future, and almost all of them turn out to be true. I'm not putting the following as a spoiler, but rather as a way to increase your anxiety and convince you to watch this phenomenal episode: among Clyde's predictions, Bruckman sees Mulder die. He is doing a building search of a kitchen when the killer comes up from behind and slashes his throat. And now, I shall leave you all at a cliffhanger, and I do sincerely hope that if you watch any of the x-files, you watch Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose.moreless

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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  • Trivia

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    • Principal Setting: St. Paul, Minnesota Edit
    • Goof: Clyde Bruckman tells Fox that the death of The Big Bopper was what caused him to become a psychic. He claimed that the Big Bopper had won a coin toss to get a seat on Buddy Holly's plane. This is not factually correct as it was Ritchie Valens who won a coin toss, and subsequently died with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper in the crash. Edit
    • Place Name: Le Damfino Hotel The hotel where Scully and Mulder put Clyde Bruckman up is Le Damfino. This is a one-word spelling of the phrase damn if I know. Edit

  • Notes

    ADD NOTES
    • A common misconception when it comes to tarot-readings is that Death in fact means death, when the card Death actually means change. When it comes to fatalities the card The Tower is more of a harbinger of death than the card Death. This could be applied to almost every show ever involving tarot cards. Edit
    • In this episode, Clyde Bruckman says to Scully that she won't die, and gives no further explanations. In a later episode of the show, Scully sees the Reaper in the eyes of a dying person, so this could mean that she is actually immortal. Edit
    • The actor who plays 'The Stupendous Yappi' is actually Jaap (pronounced Yapp) Broeker - David Duchovny's stand-in. Apparently, Darin Morgan saw Broeker on the set waggling his eyebrows and wrote a scene for him. Edit

  • Quotes

    ADD QUOTES
    • Detective Cline: Look, all I know is that so far, Yappi has provided more solid, concrete leads on this case than you have. Now if you don't mind, I have to get an APB out on a -(checks notebook) white male, aged 17 - 34 with or without a beard and maybe a tattoo, who's impotent. Scully: Might as well go home Mulder. This case is as good as solved. Edit
    • Clyde: I'd like to see both of your badges again. Right now? (Mulder and Scully take out their badges) Scully: I don't blame you, Mr. Bruckman. Clyde: (scoffs at Mulder's badge): I'm supposed to believe that's a real name? ... What is this all about? I found a dead body in my dumpster and I reported it to the police. Now suddenly I'm accused of doing things or being able to do things I couldn't possibly-- (Breaks off and walks slowly over to table, which is spattered with blood. Runs for the bathroom and vomits.) Mulder: (To Scully) Pinch me. Edit
    • Clyde: What is this? Mulder: The only evidence recovered from Claude Duckenfield's body. That fiber may have come from something the killer was wearing at the time of the crime. Clyde: Don't you have crime labs that could analyze these things for you? Scully: (meaningful look at Mulder) Yes! Yes, we do. Clyde: Look, I've got my own work to do. I'm not a crime fighter by trade. Mulder: Mr. Bruckman. I can't speak for my partner. But I'm desperate. For some insurance. Clyde: General Mutual has some very comprehensive coverage... (Mulder waves the evidence bag in front of Clyde's face) Clyde: Oh I can't tell you where this is from, but the killer is going to kill more people before you catch him. Scully: Can you see him physically yet? Clyde: No. No, just more insight into his character which I know you hate. Edit

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