Humbug

Season 2, Episode 20, Aired
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Episode Summary

Mulder and Scully travel to Gibsonton, Florida, a town built and populated by circus and sideshow performers to investigate the death of Jerald Glazebrook, The Alligator Man. While searching for leads on the killer, the agents come across many bizarre characters including the local sheriff who was once known as Jim Jim, the Dog-Faced Boy.moreless
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Fan Episode Reviews (23)

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  • Mulder gets lost in a maze full of dead ends--what a perfect metaphor for "The X-Files".

    9.5
    "Superb"
    By MattMTRUSTNO1, Aug 12, 2011 Report Abuse

    "Humbug" was flawlessly written and executed. The timing, on which comedy depends, was perfect. It was well-paced, haunting, exciting and hilarious. "The X-Files" stays just this side of absurd only because it adheres so strictly to the straight and narrow in Mulder and Scully. So long as they are straight faced about it all, we can suspend our disbelief in beastwomen and giant flukes. Their stoic and familiar figures against a background of the fantastic and the bizarre keep us anchored and intrigued. But in "Humbug", figure and ground are reversed. We like to think of Mulder as the "outsider", but against the backdrop of this strange locale, we see him instead as representative of our entire society.
    We expect to be repulsed and thrilled by sideshow freaks, but here we find them not only normal but downright banal. The "normal" people in this episode, Scully and Mulder, lose their moorings completely against this background. Scully even attempts to handcuff a professional escape artist. Mulder gets lost in a maze full of dead ends--what a perfect metaphor for "The X-Files". The intellectual Scully pays extra money for "proof" of an extreme possibility: and gets taken in, in the oldest sideshow scam of all. Clearly, these two are out of their element. But not out of character: Mulder, confronted with a belligerent and defensive dwarf retains his wit. "You'd be surprised at how many women find my size intriguingly alluring," the little man boasts. Deadpan, Mulder responds, "And you'd be surprised at how many men do, as well." The dwarf's dismayed reaction to this innuendo nearly killed me.
    There are many digs at David Duchovny's in this episode, such as the use of him as an example of how bland and boring the future will be after genetic engineering smoothes out all our distinctive wrinkles. Even Gillian Anderson comes in for some gentle teasing, in one scene where she shows off a little decolletage: Dana Scully is as embarrassed to be caught staring at Lennie's (Vincent Schiavelli) bulges as he is to be caught staring at hers.
    In our world, an unskilled, bizarrely deformed alcoholic who had lost his job would most likely wind up homeless on the streets. In Gibsonton, Lennie has a job, a community, a place, and people (like the sympathetic sheriff) to care for him. This is village life as it once was, among folk who care for their own. The town full of freaks shows up the profound alienation at the heart of American culture. Scully, in her ignorance, calls the performers "isolated" and speculates that they may have developed psychoses as a result of this "isolation". Far from it: rather, we find a warm- hearted small-town atmosphere where one's neighbors are one's friends and co-workers, possibly the only place on earth where one will not be judged by his or her appearance. Contrast this to the stark isolation in the "real" world of Fox Mulder, whose co-workers spy on him, whose society rejects his ideas, who lives alone in a building full of strangers. By the end of the story, my pity was reserved for Mulder and Scully, clueless outsiders in this sunny neighborhood.
    And I loved the ending. Morgan's set-up and payoff were superbly done and caught me absolutely flat- footed. It caught Mulder and Scully by surprise, too: their double take in the last scene, as they stare at one another in dawning, horrified realization, is priceless.
    The warmth and wit of "Humbug" makes this an outstanding episode.moreless

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  • Comedy hour on X-Files

    8.5
    "Great"
    By JaCkKbAuEr2424, Dec 02, 2010 Report Abuse
    It took me awhile to figure out how I felt about this episode. One hand, it's easily the funniest, goofiest and darkest hour that the show has done to date. On the other hand, it's borderline parody, and it's difficult to figure out what the writers were going for here. I ended up rating it a bit higher, if only because I was laughing so much (whether it was intentional or not).

    Whether it was Mulder awkwardly telling the Sheriff that they were exhuming his potato or the way the short man kept chastising Mulder for not thinking of him as a normal human, or even the way both Scully and the man with the ingrown twin hid their bodies with their robes at the same time, awkward and embarrassed, the episode was filled with dozens of little moments that were more comedy than drama or horror. The premise is that there's a large number of "freaks," or strange people, that are being killed, which piques Mulder's curiosity.

    From here, we meet the Conundrum, a man tattooed with puzzle pieces who runs around shirtless and eats ANYthing, a man who has mastered (supposedly) the control of pain and a man with his twin growing out of his stomach like a tumor. All together, with Mulder and Scully's help, they try to solve the case of what's happening in the town.

    To say the episode is bizarre is an understatement; as I said before, I had no idea what to think about the episode. It was funny, but after so many serious episodes, how are you supposed to take this? I rated it higher if only because it did something that the show had never done before, and I laud it for that. Let's hope the show doesn't get into that habit too often now.moreless

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  • Mulder & Scully investigate the murder of several former circus performers in a small town in Florida.

    2.0
    "Terrible"
    By brothalove1987, Jul 02, 2010 Report Abuse
    This one just flat out sucked! And I think it is about now the show is starting to enter the silly episodes. I'm sure there are alot more ahead as I venture through every season. I am a fan of the X-Files episodes that have to deal with serious matters and investigations. This one just wasn't for me. Although I think the little creature eating the circus people's insides was entertaining. What the hell was that thing? A human being, E.T. or some sort of animal? I don't know but I sure wouldn't want it crawling around in my body.moreless

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    0 8

  • Strange episode

    9.0
    "Superb"
    By OnePerCentClub, Sep 07, 2009 Report Abuse
    Strange because of all the circus people (or special people) that make Mulder and Scully have different suspects until they finally come to a conclussion.

    What was the deal with Mulder asking everyone if they've ever worked in a circus? It was funny how the hotel manager defended himself with all those comments. The conjoined twin was somewhat disgusting and I think its fate was even more disgusting. But well, the whole episode was filled with peculiar characters that give the plot funny moments.

    I agree with Scully on how awful must be for someone to live like that, looking like a freak.

    In the end, Mulder and Scully didn't really solve the case but at least they had an idea of what happened.moreless

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  • Hilarious...

    8.9
    "Great"
    By CaptainHarkness, Jul 25, 2008 Report Abuse
    Wow this episode in my opinon was the strangest and also the funniest one that I have seen so far. The chemistry between Mulder and Scully has always been good even in the pilot when they hardly knew eachother but in this episode it was at it's peek. They bothhae to go and ivstigate theathof a freak circus performer. This leads them in many weird and different directions. I don't think there will ever be another episode like this one. Mulder and Scully have investigated alot of weird stuff in the past two years but a twin that can disconjoin itself from his brother? now that's weird even for the X-Files.moreless

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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  • Trivia

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    • Goof: When Mulder and Scully are "exhuming" the Sheriff's potato, Mulder uses a shovel to dig up what sounds like hardened earth. However, the Sheriff buried the potato in a rather shallow hole and simply threw loose dirt over it. Edit
    • The situation with Lanny and his brother is known as asymmetric conjoined twins or parasitic twinning. In some cases both twins survive, in other cases the lesser twin is absorbed.by the other (inclusion twinning). In real life, there are no recorded cases of a parasitic twin able to leave the host twin. Scully's reference to Chang and Eng Bunker is evidently meant to also allude to Lanny's condition. Another parallel is the fact that both Chang and Lanny drank heavily, which was a contributing factor in both their deaths. Chang's drinking is a matter of historical record, and Lanny's is alluded to by Scully's mention of cirrhosis of the liver contributing to his death. Edit
    • Jerald Glazebrook's condition, "Ichthyosis", was described briefly but accurately by Mulder. Literally "fish skin", it is usually hereditary but in very rare instances can be acquired late in life. Edit

  • Notes

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  • Quotes

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    • Scully: You must be one of those rare individuals whose nerve endings don't register pain. Dr Blockhead: That's right - just keep telling yourself that. Edit
    • Lanny: Occasionally, I'd say, 'ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet my brother Leonard... Excuse him - he's shy'. Big laughs, I tell you. Big laughs. Edit
    • Blockhead: Twenty-first century genetic engineering will not only eradicate the Siamese twins and the alligator-skinned people, but you're gonna be hard-pressed to find a slight overbite or a not-so-high cheekbone. You see, I've seen the future, and the future looks just like him! (Points to Mulder who is standing a distance away, posing like a Greek God statue... inadvertently) Blockhead: Imagine going through your whole life looking like that. Edit

  • Allusions

    ADD ALLUSIONS
    • Scully (to Dr. Blockhead): you must be one of those rare individuals whose nerve endings don't respond to pain. She is referring to Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis (CIPA) a rare inherited disorder that prevents people from feeling pain, heat, or cold. Edit
    • Scully: Do you recall what Barnum used to say about suckers? Scully is referring to a saying attributed to showman Phineas Taylor Barnum (5 July 1810 – 7 April 1891): "There's a sucker born every minute" (the full version is, "There's a sucker born every minute...and two to take 'em"). However, biographers of Barnum and circus historians have been unable to verify that he actually originated the saying. It has been variously attributed to con-man Joseph ("Paper Collar" Joe) Bessimer, banker David Hannum, circus owner Adam Forepaugh (all business rivals of Barnum at one time or another) and Chicago gambler Michael Cassius McDonald. Barnum himself never denied having coined the phrase, realizing that it gave him a great deal of free publicity. Edit
    • Scully: I was just reading about the fascinating life of Chang and Eng and wondering if their death was just as fascinating. Chang and Eng were the twin brothers whose condition and birthplace was the basis for the term Siamese twins. They were born in Siam and were joined at the sternum. The curator was essentially correct, but failed to mention that Chang was a heavy drinker and died of pneumonia. Eng effectively bled to death because the link between him and his dead twin was not torniqued, so his living blood was pumped by his heart into his dead twin which naturally was unable to recirculate it. Edit

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