“Je Souhaite” is episode twenty-one of season seven of The X-Files.
In a storage facility in Creve Couer, the owner is looking for an employee, Anson. Anson is sitting inside a unit looking at a boat magazine. The owner spots him and has a go at him, telling Anson to clean out locker 407. Anson opens it and finds furniture covered in plastic. He starts dragging a rug outside, but it twitches. Anson unrolls it to find a woman inside. A live one. His boss comes looking for Anson again; Anson and the woman don’t appear to be there. The boss is yelling and then he stops. Because his mouth has vanished.
At the FBI, Mulder is interviewing the boss, Jay Gilmore, when Scully arrives. She’s startled when she sees his face; it’s been cut open and a new mouth constructed. Gilmore says that Anson Stokes did this. But he doesn’t know how. He told Gilmore to shut up. And he did. Anson was nowhere to be found but resurfaced a few days later. The police wanted to question Anson, but he refused. The police told Gilmore they had nothing on him. Which Mulder agrees is true.
Mulder and Scully arrive at the trailer park where Anson lives. Scully tells Mulder there’s a disease that can reduce a mouth to a tiny opening. Yes, but that takes months. And there’s one that results in the complete absence of a nose. This isn’t a nose, though. Scully thinks this is medical or physiological, not criminal. Perhaps. As they arrive at the trailer, there is a rather large boat next to it.
Inside, Anson is telling his wheelchair-bound brother, Leslie, that it must be IRS agents. Leslie is the one who answers the door and talks about the boat. Sounding extremely suspicious. The woman from the rug is behind him. Mulder tells him they are there about Gilmore, not the boat. Leslie says it could have been chemicals.
In locker 407, Mulder has found a 1978 calendar. Scully says the furniture is wonderful. As in very expensive. A lot of money’s worth. Maybe something is missing, something used to buy the boat. The crime is theft. Yes, but what about Gilmore? Mulder has found a photo of the locker’s former owner. He’s with two women who clearly outclass him. In the car behind them is the woman from the Stokes’ trailer. The same age.
Anson is currently complaining about having wasted two wishes. Yes, he has the boat, but it’s… the woman uses the term white elephant, then has to explain it. She gave Anson it because he asked for it. He didn’t specify it be in water. The two are trying to think of things the last wish could be used for. No, an infinite number of wishes isn’t allowed. The woman tries to make a suggestion, gesturing at Leslie’s wheelchair. They don’t get it. Anson decides to go invisible at will. That’s going to go wrong. Anson didn’t specify his clothes be invisible.
The woman is gone and a now-invisible Anson heads outside. And discovers that invisibility and roads don’t mix well. Later, a cyclist crashes into his invisible corpse.
Scully is waiting for an apparently empty trolley be brought in. She prods it. Yes, there’s a body. She starts dusting it with powder, getting entertained by this. When Mulder arrives, Anson has been revealed. He was probably hit by a car or a truck. And he’s invisible. Scully thinks this is amazing; it could change the boundaries of science. Mulder thinks science has nothing to do with it. Mulder has identified the man in the photo. He went from having $30K in 1977 to $30 million in 1978. He died from chronic morbid tumescence. Yes, that does mean what it sounds like. Mulder thinks the mystery woman is the key and wants to talk to Leslie. Scully wants to stay with the body.
Mulder asks Leslie where the woman is and says he thinks the woman is a jinniyah. Means nothing. A female jinni. Still means nothing. Mulder starts with the I Dream of Jeannie theme. Leslie gets it. He claims he doesn’t know where the woman is. Leslie proves no better at wishing than his brother. In fact, according to the jinniyah, no-one, in 500 years, has proved remotely competent at wishing. Especially when the wishes take the path of least resistance and are extremely literal.
Despite everything, one of the more humorous episodes.