“Wetwired” is episode twenty-three of season three of The X-Files.
The episode opens at night in Braddock Heights, Maryland, and a man is burying the body of another in the woods, lit only by his car’s headlights. He tells the dead man that his killing days are over. At the man’s home, he is washing blood and dirt from his hands when the man he buried comes in, and the first man swings the shovel at his head. As he’s putting the new body into the boot of his car, a police car drives up; they’ve had a call. Both officers are the man he’s killed twice, and he attacks. The man is tasered and falls to the ground. The officer’s face flickers like a television screen and changes. The second officer tells the first to look in the boot. There’s a woman inside, dead. Her killer recognises her and calls her Sarah.
Mulder is in a car in Washington when a man gets in. Mulder had been waiting for him for two hours. The man hands Mulder a copy of a paper; there’s a picture of the man from earlier with a headline saying he killed his wife and four others. Mulder should follow it up. Mulder doesn’t know who the man is. The man has no desire to explain. Mulder asks how he knows he isn’t being played. He doesn’t. If Mulder doesn’t look into it, more people will die.
Mulder is looking at the killer through a door at the Frederick County Psychiatric Hospital when Scully joins him. Mulder explains that the man, Joseph Patnik, murdered five people. Only he claims he was killing the same man over and over and would not die. He has no history of mental illness. Mulder only found about this last night, but two weeks ago, a babysitter attacked the two children she was watching, claiming they were wolves.
Dr Stroman approaches and introduces himself. He was sent from DC to get a clear diagnosis. He hasn’t got one, though he suspects meth use. Patnik is dosed with Thorazine, but he’s prone to outposts. Which Patnik demonstrates when he starts screaming and going off on one. Patnik was watching a news article about a Lladoslav Miriskovic, a man responsible for genocide. The same man Patnik had killed.
As they arrive at Patnik’s home, Scully asks about the case. Mulder tells her it came from an outside source and he doesn’t know much else. Isn’t he suspicious they are being used? Maybe; but there are dead bodies and murderers. If they are being used, it’s to find out a connection. Inside the house there’s a scream; however, that turns out to be two kids playing truant and watching a film on the television. When they leave, the television turns to snow and Mulder notices a cable guy working on the pole outside. Scully calls him; she’s found hundreds of videos, recordings of cable news, in chronological order. Cable news was what Patnik was watching at the hospital. Is there a connection?
Mulder is watching the videos at a motel, then goes to Scully’s room. After watching 36 hours of video, he’s ready to kill someone too. Scully has three tapes, and on each date, he killed someone. On each there was a one-hour special report on Lladoslav Miriskovic, a war criminal, and Scully thinks there will be another one on the night Patnik killed his wife. Scully talks about the connection between violence on television and violence in real life. Mulder considers the studies to be pseudoscience; considering Mulder’s diverse interests, that’s saying something. Scully thinks the violent images combined with amphetamine abuse could have pushed Patnik over the edge. Mulder doesn’t agree, but has no alternative. Scully is going to watch the rest of the tapes.
Later, as Scully is watching them, she hears a phone go and Mulder answer it. He mentions something about ‘she’ not knowing. When Scully goes to get some ice and a drink, she sees Mulder in a car. With the Cigarette Smoking Man. To whom he hands a tape. Now, that’s rather odd. Suspiciously odd.
The next day, a woman is washing dishes in the sink with the television on when the sink fuzzes like a television set, as does the rest of the house. She sees a man in a hammock outside with a blonde woman and seems upset. She goes to get a gun.
Mulder gets Scully up and she, before he gets in, checks his car for cigarette ash. She wants to know if Mulder moved his car last night. No; but he did this morning. At the scene, the dead man in the hammock is not the one the woman saw. She apparently saw her husband with a blonde. The blonde is a dog. The man was taking a nap. No, she didn’t kill her j=husband because she thought he was cheating. That’s not her husband, as he’s away on a trip. That’s her next-door neighbour. And this isn’t her back yard.
The woman also has a large pile of tapes and Mulder still doesn’t think television equals violence. Unless bad taste equals violence; the woman appears to have been a sucker for shopping channels. Mulder sees a cable guy working on the pole, but he drives off before Mulder can get to him. When Scully looks out the window, she sees Mulder climbing the pole. In the box are three silver devices, and one that is gold. He removes it. Scully suggests they take it to Pendrell to be analysed. Mulder will take it himself; he suggests Scully interviews the woman.
The Lone Gunmen say the device looks like a standard video trap to block premium cable channels, only it doesn’t seem to block anything. It i9s, however, sending out another signal. One that fills the space between the pictures normally broadcast.
Scully is starting to get increasingly paranoid – it seems too much television can be bad for you. Mulder, however, is not being affected. Scully is convinced he’s conspiring against her.