“Pusher” is episode seventeen of season three of The X-Files.
A man is shopping in the Mt. Foodmore Supermarket in Loudon, Virginia. He sees a can of something and nearly fills his basket with it. Another man enters the aisle and seems to be watching him. The shopper joins a queue and picks up a copy of the World Informer, which has an image of the Flukeman from “The Host” on the front. He sees a police car arriving outside and the man from the aisle joins the queue behind him. The man mutters to get this show on the road, then reaches out and pulls down a tag on the jacket of the man in front of him in the queue (Roger Cross), revealing the word ‘FBI’ underneath. More agents rush in and the man greets one, saying he must be Frank Burst.
The man, known as ‘Pusher,’ is put into a police car holding Burst and a deputy (D. Neil Mark), one of a fairly large number of police cars. Pusher starts talking about the colour of the deputy’s top, calling it cerulean blue. He keeps talking about cerulean blue and an oncoming, blue, truck disappears from the deputy’s vision and he pulls out in front of it.
Burst is telling Mulder and Scully that he was knocked out when the truck hit. Deputy Scott Kerber was mortally injured but, before he died, freed Pusher, who escaped on foot. Pusher cold called them a month ago and confessed to a series of contract killings done over the past two years. The thing is, nobody considered them to be murders, but suicides. Pusher knew too much about them, though, including details only on the police reports. He had no apparent connection to the deputy, who was a good cop. Burst shows them a photo of the truck, which is blue and has the word ‘cerulean’ on it. He mentions how Pusher kept going on about cerulean blue. Mulder suggests Pusher willed Kerber into doing it. He also takes a slide of the police car and turns it around. What looked to be meaningless now looks like ‘RONIN.’ A masterless samurai, according to Mulder.
They look at copies of American Ronin magazine; Scully briefly speaks to the woman bringing them, who has a mark on her face from being mugged. Mulder thinks ronin have to advertise and that Pusher uses the same mechanism as hypnosis, only stronger. He pushes others. Scully asks why he would cause an accident in a car he was in. Mulder suggests that maybe Pusher really didn’t want to go to jail. Which is a good reason. Mulder has also found an advert, saying ‘I SOLVE PROBLEMS’ and ‘OSU.’ The ad is in every issue for the time space of the murders. ‘OSU’ is actually ‘osu’; Japanese meaning ‘to push’
Following up on the phone number leads them to staking out a payphone in a car park. Nobody answers the payphone, though Mulder has been repeatedly ringing, then it rings from someone else calling it. Pusher. He’s playing a game and says there’s a trail of breadcrumbs. The previous number called was to a driving range.
Pusher is at the range and hits a golf ball. It flies a long way and lands in front of a sniper just outside the range. More police appear and one corners him. That one is Collins, from the original bust, as Pusher talks him into removing his balaclava. He wants Collins to do something for him. Mulder, Scully and burst see Collins covered in gasoline and trying to light a lighter, begging them to stop him. When he does, Scully hits him with a fire extinguisher and Mulder overs him with his coat, but he’s been extensively burnt. Pusher is still around, though, in a car, seemingly exhausted.
The preliminary hearing isn’t going that well. Mulder is testifying, and telling the truth – which doesn’t always work well – but that’s not the biggest problem. Pusher – Robert Patrick Modell – uses his ability on the judge and gets freed. Afterwards, he says Mulder owes him $5. Mulder tells Modell his shoe is untied. Then tells him he made him look. How does Modell do it?
With Modell’s name now known, his background has been dug into. He was perennially average, joined the military but failed at any of the special forces, tried to join the FBI but didn’t come close to passing the psychological exam. A little man who is suspicious of authority but wants to be in authority. Mulder suggests that Pusher didn’t always have this ability; perhaps he gained it two years ago. Scully believes Modell is guilty of murder; she just wants a more mundane explanation. Modell himself manages to get into the FBI by writing ‘PASS’ on a piece of paper and tucking it into his pocket. Modell seems to be fixated on Mulder, and Burst is fixated on Modell. Modell is definitely playing a game, and one in which people die.