“Grotesque” is episode fourteen of season three of The X-Files.
At an extension programme of George Washington University in Washington, DC, a class is drawing a life model. One of the attendees looks rather twitchy, and he’s not drawing the model, but something far more grotesque. He accidentally slices his finger open with a craft knife, but continues anyway. When the class is finished, he packs up and leaves quicker than anyone else.
The model walks to his car, which is down an alley, only to find the lock has been jammed. He looks up and sees a strange face reflected in the car window and turns around, to be attacked by someone with a craft knife.
The twitchy artist is awoken by his alarm. Then an FBI team crashes through his door and arrests him for murder. He bites one of the agents and another looks at the pictures on the walls and finds a bloody craft knife.
Mulder is showing slides of the artist, John Mostow, an unemployed house painter who came to the U.S. from Uzbekistan. He failed to mention that he spent the best part of his 20s in an institution for the insane. Mostow was arrested last week for the serial murders of at least 7 men over a 3-year period. Each died from massive blood loss due to facial mutilations, all with the identical wound pattern. Mostow claims he was possessed. Scully notes that such claims are common in criminals with dissociative disorders, Last night, a 19-year-old male was killed in the same way. According to Skinner, the details of the mutilations were never released and Mostow has been in custody for the past five days.
They head to see Mostow, who has drawn the same face on his floor. He says he has no accomplice, and he didn’t kill those men. It did. Scully says it won’t be tried for the murders; Mostow well. That makes it laugh at fools like them. Regarding a new victim, Mostow says it found someone, just like it found him.
At this point they are interrupted by the lead agent from the crime scene, Bill Patterson (Kurtwood Smith), of the investigative support unit at Quantico. He and Mulder have history together Mulder points out that Patterson’s own profile says Mostow was working alone. And, according to Patterson, the other killer is also working alone. Mulder says that the drawings – gargoyles – make sense as such were created to ward off evil spirits. If Patterson has a problem with Mulder being on the case, speak to Skinner – he’s the one who requested Mulder work on it.
Mulder and Scully head to Mostow’s place; it seems, according to Mulder, Patterson’s problem with Mulder was Mulder wouldn’t worship him. And that to catch a monster, you have to become a monster. In Mostow’s place, a cat leads to a hole in the wall, which leads to a hidden room full of clay gargoyles. Mulder removes the clay from one, finding a head.
Elsewhere, a glassblower is working when something enters his workshop and attacks him with a knife.
Scully arrives at George Washington University and speaks to Agent Greg Nemhauser, Patterson’s assistant who was bitten by Mostow. She tells him that five dismembered bodies have been found, all with the same facial mutilations. As does the previous night’s victim, only he’s still alive. Nemhauser believes that Patterson is the one who requested Mulder, as he has a higher opinion of Mulder than he makes out. Patterson arrives, wanting to know where Mulder is. Looking for the second killer, according to Scully.
Mulder is looking in the library, reading up on gargoyles. He falls asleep to be woken by Patterson. Mulder says he’s trying to know the artist by looking at the art; he’s finally agreeing with Patterson. Patterson is not impressed.
Scully heads to Mulder’s apartment, to find it empty. Apart from the room full of crazy. Mulder is at Mostow’s, being rather weird with one of the drawings, then using the clay before falling asleep. He wakes to find a figure over him; the figure, glimpsed briefly, looks wrong, like the reflection seen by the model. It runs off.
Mulder’s behaviour is strange enough that Scully starts getting concerned that he has become too deeply enmeshed in the case. Nemhauser, too, seems a bit odd. Has one of them been possessed by the gargoyle?