01X05: Jersey Devil

I hate this episode. Though something tells me when I get to season 8 and 9 I’ll look back wanting episodes of this caliber. But of the classic episodes this is one of the worst.

The episode starts off in New Jersey in 1947 with a family on a road trip singing “Bingo was his name-o” when they get a flat tire. Dad goes out to fix the flat (who I will point out is the same actor I believe who plays the father at the very end of the episode. Clever touch? Or laziness…)

Anyway he’s dragged off by an unseen monster. The next day police find a body with its leg “eaten off” and soon they are shooting at a monster “as tall as a house”. And here where we, the viewers, are misled. The monster at the end of the episode (spoilers) is just some woman not as tall as house. Much less scary.

The majority of the episode takes place during an unspecified weekend in September of 1993, so I chose 9/10/93-9/14/93. This works with the episodes around this one and it doesn’t fall on Labor Day Weekend.

We open the episode with Mulder reading dirty magazines in his office (a waste of taxpayer money, $4.99) when Scully tells him there’s a man who was found in Atlantic City with his right arm and leg eaten off by a human. She thinks they should investigate.

They then drive to Atlantic City New Jersey from DC, a 193 mile drive which translates to $97.89 in today’s money. One might argue the pair is investigating this case on their own accord on their weekend off. That the money spent on this case would come from their own pockets, that we shouldn’t ask for this money back from the government. But, I would say, due to entanglement with local law enforcement and interference in their investigation, I would assume the federal government would pick up the bill.

Scully leaves Mulder in AC by himself while she goes back to DC for a birthday party for her godson.

While Mulder is in AC he plays some slots, then takes a ride with the local park service to visit the nearby state park.

Later he goes back to AC and investigates the homeless population of AC since the man murdered, Roger Crockett, was homeless.

We learn this homeless population has a fear of the police; so one would think Mulder would attempt to blend in with the population and do some undercover work. Perhaps knowledge he’s an FBI agent might scare them off. This is the opposite of what he does. Instead he strolls around in suit and tie and asks around about Roger Crockett.

Mulder meets a homeless man who tells Mulder that he can show him a sketch of the monster that ate Roger Crockett’s leg. This man shows Mulder what is little more than a chicken scratch drawing of a stick figure woman. Mulder and the homeless guy decide that this sketch is of the Jersey Devil; which looks nothing like the Jersey Devil I’ve heard about. This sketch looks like what a 4 year old would draw if you told them to draw an adult woman.

In true idiotic fashion, Mulder pays the homeless man $20 for this sketch and gives him his room key to the Galaxy Gateway Hotel and tells him to stay there for the weekend!

I hate this episode

Mulder is detained by the police for being a complete moron (obstructing justice they claim) and is in jail until Monday.

So here the government must front the bill of a 3 night stay ($600) for the homeless man Mulder gave his hotel key to. I used the rates from the Sheraton in AC since to me this would be a comparable hotel.

It makes no sense why Mulder waited until Monday to call Scully for help. Among other plot developments here.

On Monday Mulder calls Scully on a payphone in the prison ($5.90) to get her to pick him up and take him back to DC. This was inevitable though right? How was he going to get home when he told Scully to leave him there in the first place? So, Scully drives up to AC on Monday to pick up Mulder ($97.89 trip based on mileage reimbursement).

She then takes him to a diner for food, a meal that consists of 2 coffees at $2.25 each, and what looks like a meal of French toast and sides ($11.50) which I got prices from Maria’s Luncheonette in Atlantic City.

They then drive back to DC ($97.89) to visit a Dr. Diamond, a professor of anthropology, to talk about the Jersey Devil and evolution. Now, again, the only “evidence” we have that the culprit of Roger Crockett’s murder is a Neanderthal is the stupid sketch Mulder got from the homeless man in AC and word on the street.

Anyway. So after talking to Dr. Diamond Mulder is kept up at night another stupid sketch of a primate.

Now this is the best part of the episode, Scully is on a date in some peculiar attire. I mean, where are they eating? So her date is interrupted when Mulder pages her beeper; Mulder tells Scully they must go to AC because the park service found another dead body in the park Mulder visited earlier. What a convenient coincidence!!!

Mulder, Scully, and Dr. Diamond go to Atlantic City immediately, presumably in two cars ($195.79 for the trip based on 1993 mileage reimbursement rate).

Also, since this trip was overnight, the three have to stay in a hotel until the morning which would run a total of $600 for the trio.

They search downtown AC for the Jersey Devil and somehow they find her. Mulder gets pinned down by a dirty naked woman and she rips his suit jacket ($129.50 JC Penny Suit Jacket) and ruins his dress shirt ($37.50 JC Penny dress shirt).

After some running around in downtown AC, Mulder, Scully, a park ranger, and Dr. Diamond end up in a forest by some cliffs (yeah, definitely doesn’t exist within walking distance from AC) chasing down the naked woman. The park ranger tries to tranquilize her ($25.00 for the dart according to answers.com).

Mulder and Scully rush down to the woman only to find that the police have shot and killed her because she tried to attack one of their own after she was hit by the tranquilizer dart.

It turns out at the end of the episode the “Jersey Devil” they found was in fact just a cannibalistic woman and not some genetic anomaly Mulder was hoping for.

1 week later, Mulder asks for a requisition of a car to go to the Smithsonian to talk with a specialist about the Jersey Devil (the Smithsonian would be 2 miles from FBI headquarters resulting in a $1.01 reimbursement for the trip). I can’t understand, Mulder stayed 3 nights in prison in AC without doing any kind of proper documentation, but when he wants to go to the Smithsonian which is walkable distance from his office he’ll do the paperwork?!

So what did we learn here? Mulder and Scully wasted $2223.05 obstructing justice and trying to prove that a woman who was cannibalizing people in AC was really a mythological beast called the Jersey Devil. Mulder gave a homeless man a room key to a $200 / night hotel room because that man gave Mulder a chicken scratch sketch of… a person?