Paper Hearts
Encyclopedia
"Paper Hearts" is the tenth episode of the fourth season
of the American science fiction
television series The X-Files
. It premiered on the Fox network
on December 15, 1996. It was written by Vince Gilligan
, directed by Rob Bowman, and featured guest appearances by Tom Noonan
, Rebecca Toolan
and Vanessa Morley
. The episode was a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology
. "Paper Hearts" was viewed by 16.59 million people in its initial broadcast, and received positive reviews, with critics praising Noonan's guest role.
FBI
agents Fox Mulder
(David Duchovny
) and Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) find that a child killer who Mulder had helped to apprehend several years earlier had claimed more victims than he had confessed to; and in the resulting investigation, learn that the killer (Tom Noonan) is now claiming to have killed Mulder's sister Samantha
.
(David Duchovny
) awakens he heads to the park and finds the girl's skeleton. The girl was determined to have been murdered by John Lee Roche, a serial killer who murdered 13 girls between 1979 and 1989 and cut a heart out of the clothes of each of them. Mulder explains to partner Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) how in 1990 he helped catch Roche by deducing that he was a vacuum cleaner salesman who traveled along the East Coast where the girls' bodies were found. The cloth hearts were never found, although he confessed to all of the murders.
By performing an autopsy on the girl's body Scully finds that the girl died in 1975, meaning Roche started his murders before the FBI thought he did. The agents search Roche's old car, and discover 16 cloth hearts within it. The agents visit Roche in the prison hoping to determine the identities of the remaining two victims, with him only playing mind games with Mulder. That night Mulder dreams of the night of Samantha's abduction, but instead of aliens taking her, Roche does. The next day Mulder asks Roche where he was the night Samantha was abducted. Roche tells him he was on Martha's Vineyard and had sold a vacuum cleaner to Mulder's father. Mulder later finds the vacuum he was talking about in his mother's house.
After convincing Skinner to permit them further access to Roche, the agents talk to him, who reveals the location of one of his remaining victims after revealing that he knows exactly what happened the night of Samantha's abduction. An autopsy of the body reveals it to not be Samantha Mulder
. Roche tells Mulder the final body is Samantha's but he'll reveal where it is only if Mulder takes him to the scene of the abduction. Mulder secretly releases Roche from prison and brings him to his family's old house on Martha's Vineyard. Roche explains exactly what happened the night of Samantha's abduction, but Mulder tells him the house they are in was bought by his father after Samantha's abduction, convincing him that Roche is not telling the truth. Mulder tells Roche that he'll be bringing him back to prison the next day but that night after another dream of Roche taking Samantha, Mulder awakens to find Roche gone, stealing his badge, gun and phone.
Using Mulder's credentials, Roche kidnaps a girl whom he met on the plane to Boston. Scully and Skinner arrive the next day and the agents head to the site of Roche's old apartment in Boston. They find him with the girl in an abandoned trolley bus nearby. Roche holds the gun on the girl and tells Mulder that he'll never know for sure whether the last victim is Samantha or not if he kills him. Mulder is then forced to shoot Roche, as he starts to pull on the trigger of the stolen gun. In his office Mulder stares at the final cloth heart and puts it away, unsure of whether it belonged to Samantha or not.
came up with the concept for the episode when thinking about the series' longest running storyline, the abduction of Samantha Mulder
. Gilligan came up with a story questioning whether Samantha had not been abducted by aliens
, but was rather murdered by a child killer instead. He decided to help convince Fox Mulder
of this through a series of prophetic dreams. The laser lights in Mulder's dreams were influenced by Gilligan's experience with laser holograms while he was a film student. The laser was supposed to be the color blue, but was changed to red in production to reduce costs. Wanting to include some kind of fetish for the killer, Gilligan settled on having Roche cut heart shaped fragments from his victim's clothing, thinking that having him mutilate his victims bodies would be going too far.
Guest actor Tom Noonan
, who played the killer John Lee Roche, recalled filming the scene in which his character is introduced, playing basketball in prison. Noonan, a capable basketball player, was asked to "downplay" how well he could play; although he regretted not being able to play against David Duchovny, who had played basketball for Princeton University
. Episode writer Vince Gilligan
and director Rob Bowman assert that Duchovny's successful basketball shot in this scene was filmed in just one take, without special effects. While the episode was the eighth produced in the season, it was the tenth aired, having been delayed to free up production resources for the two part episodes "Tunguska
" and "Terma". The episode's climactic scene was filmed in a "bus graveyard" in Surrey, British Columbia
, a location which had been scouted months previously with the intention of eventually including it in an episode of the series; although filming at the location did not even last a full day despite the long wait to use it.
on December 15, 1996, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom
on BBC Two
on November 12, 1997. The episode's initial broadcast was viewed by approximately 16.59 million people, which represented 16% of the viewing audience during that time.
Both Gillian Anderson
and David Duchovny
consider this among the best episodes of the fourth season
. Composer
Mark Snow
was nominated for an Emmy award
for the music he produced for this episode. He said of the episode's music, "It was a different kind of texture for the show. Light, magic, nothing terribly threatening. Snow received many requests for a recording of the music used at the end of the episode.
Website IGN
named "Paper Hearts" their sixth favourite "standalone" episode of the show, calling it "creepy and unsettling", and claiming Noonan's character was "one of the most disturbing villains to make an appearance in the series". Noonan's acting has also been praised by Vince Gilligan, who says the "understated" manner in which Roche is portrayed "sends chills down [his] spine every time". The A.V. Club
's Todd VanDerWerff reviewed the episode positively, rating it an A. He felt that Noonan's performance was "terrific", noting that the actor "makes Roche into one of the series' great human monsters"; and believed that the episode's premise was important to developing the character of Mulder further.
The X-Files (season 4)
-Episodes:Episodes marked with an asterisk are broadly part of the series' mytharc. Episodes with a double asterisk are primary episodes in the series' Alien Mythology arc....
of the American science fiction
Science fiction on television
Science fiction first appeared on a television program during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary world not limited by the constraints of reality; this makes television an excellent medium...
television series The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
. It premiered on the Fox network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
on December 15, 1996. It was written by Vince Gilligan
Vince Gilligan
Vince Gilligan is an American writer, director and producer. He is the creator of the highly acclaimed television series Breaking Bad. Gilligan has also worked on the hit series The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen. He is a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University...
, directed by Rob Bowman, and featured guest appearances by Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan is an American actor and film writer-director.-Early life:Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively...
, Rebecca Toolan
Rebecca Toolan
Rebecca Toolan is an American television actress best known for playing Teena Mulder, Fox Mulder's mother, on The X-Files.Although she has lived and worked in Canada for years, Toolan was actually born in USA and raised in Iowa...
and Vanessa Morley
Vanessa Morley
Vanessa Morley is a Canadian actress and is the younger sister of another actress, Natasha Morley.-TV and movie roles:* The X-Files: I Want To Believe as random FBI Agent * The Engagement Ring as Young Alicia...
. The episode was a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology
Mythology of The X-Files
The mythology of The X-Files, sometimes referred to as its mytharc by the show's staff and fans, follows the quest of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder , a believer in supernatural phenomena, and Dana Scully , his skeptical partner. Their boss, FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner was also often...
. "Paper Hearts" was viewed by 16.59 million people in its initial broadcast, and received positive reviews, with critics praising Noonan's guest role.
FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
agents Fox Mulder
Fox Mulder
FBI Special Agent Fox William Mulder is a fictional character and protagonist in the American Fox television shows The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, two science fiction shows about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence. Mulder's peers consider his theories on...
(David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
) and Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
(Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
) find that a child killer who Mulder had helped to apprehend several years earlier had claimed more victims than he had confessed to; and in the resulting investigation, learn that the killer (Tom Noonan) is now claiming to have killed Mulder's sister Samantha
Samantha Mulder
Samantha Ann Mulder is a fictional character in the television series The X-Files. She is the sister of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder and the daughter of Teena and Bill Mulder. As a child, Samantha was abducted, ostensibly by aliens, and was never recovered...
.
Plot
Mulder dreams of a red light that leads him to the corpse of a young girl buried in a park. When Fox MulderFox Mulder
FBI Special Agent Fox William Mulder is a fictional character and protagonist in the American Fox television shows The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, two science fiction shows about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence. Mulder's peers consider his theories on...
(David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
) awakens he heads to the park and finds the girl's skeleton. The girl was determined to have been murdered by John Lee Roche, a serial killer who murdered 13 girls between 1979 and 1989 and cut a heart out of the clothes of each of them. Mulder explains to partner Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
(Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
) how in 1990 he helped catch Roche by deducing that he was a vacuum cleaner salesman who traveled along the East Coast where the girls' bodies were found. The cloth hearts were never found, although he confessed to all of the murders.
By performing an autopsy on the girl's body Scully finds that the girl died in 1975, meaning Roche started his murders before the FBI thought he did. The agents search Roche's old car, and discover 16 cloth hearts within it. The agents visit Roche in the prison hoping to determine the identities of the remaining two victims, with him only playing mind games with Mulder. That night Mulder dreams of the night of Samantha's abduction, but instead of aliens taking her, Roche does. The next day Mulder asks Roche where he was the night Samantha was abducted. Roche tells him he was on Martha's Vineyard and had sold a vacuum cleaner to Mulder's father. Mulder later finds the vacuum he was talking about in his mother's house.
After convincing Skinner to permit them further access to Roche, the agents talk to him, who reveals the location of one of his remaining victims after revealing that he knows exactly what happened the night of Samantha's abduction. An autopsy of the body reveals it to not be Samantha Mulder
Samantha Mulder
Samantha Ann Mulder is a fictional character in the television series The X-Files. She is the sister of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder and the daughter of Teena and Bill Mulder. As a child, Samantha was abducted, ostensibly by aliens, and was never recovered...
. Roche tells Mulder the final body is Samantha's but he'll reveal where it is only if Mulder takes him to the scene of the abduction. Mulder secretly releases Roche from prison and brings him to his family's old house on Martha's Vineyard. Roche explains exactly what happened the night of Samantha's abduction, but Mulder tells him the house they are in was bought by his father after Samantha's abduction, convincing him that Roche is not telling the truth. Mulder tells Roche that he'll be bringing him back to prison the next day but that night after another dream of Roche taking Samantha, Mulder awakens to find Roche gone, stealing his badge, gun and phone.
Using Mulder's credentials, Roche kidnaps a girl whom he met on the plane to Boston. Scully and Skinner arrive the next day and the agents head to the site of Roche's old apartment in Boston. They find him with the girl in an abandoned trolley bus nearby. Roche holds the gun on the girl and tells Mulder that he'll never know for sure whether the last victim is Samantha or not if he kills him. Mulder is then forced to shoot Roche, as he starts to pull on the trigger of the stolen gun. In his office Mulder stares at the final cloth heart and puts it away, unsure of whether it belonged to Samantha or not.
Production
"Paper Hearts" was written specifically with Tom Noonan in mind for the role of Roche, and was amongst the first television work the actor had done. Writer Vince GilliganVince Gilligan
Vince Gilligan is an American writer, director and producer. He is the creator of the highly acclaimed television series Breaking Bad. Gilligan has also worked on the hit series The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen. He is a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University...
came up with the concept for the episode when thinking about the series' longest running storyline, the abduction of Samantha Mulder
Samantha Mulder
Samantha Ann Mulder is a fictional character in the television series The X-Files. She is the sister of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder and the daughter of Teena and Bill Mulder. As a child, Samantha was abducted, ostensibly by aliens, and was never recovered...
. Gilligan came up with a story questioning whether Samantha had not been abducted by aliens
Colonist (The X-Files)
The Colonists are an extraterrestrial species in the science fiction television show, The X-Files, as well as the first X-Files feature film. The mystery revolving around their identity and purpose is revealed across the course of the series...
, but was rather murdered by a child killer instead. He decided to help convince Fox Mulder
Fox Mulder
FBI Special Agent Fox William Mulder is a fictional character and protagonist in the American Fox television shows The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, two science fiction shows about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence. Mulder's peers consider his theories on...
of this through a series of prophetic dreams. The laser lights in Mulder's dreams were influenced by Gilligan's experience with laser holograms while he was a film student. The laser was supposed to be the color blue, but was changed to red in production to reduce costs. Wanting to include some kind of fetish for the killer, Gilligan settled on having Roche cut heart shaped fragments from his victim's clothing, thinking that having him mutilate his victims bodies would be going too far.
Guest actor Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan is an American actor and film writer-director.-Early life:Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively...
, who played the killer John Lee Roche, recalled filming the scene in which his character is introduced, playing basketball in prison. Noonan, a capable basketball player, was asked to "downplay" how well he could play; although he regretted not being able to play against David Duchovny, who had played basketball for Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. Episode writer Vince Gilligan
Vince Gilligan
Vince Gilligan is an American writer, director and producer. He is the creator of the highly acclaimed television series Breaking Bad. Gilligan has also worked on the hit series The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen. He is a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University...
and director Rob Bowman assert that Duchovny's successful basketball shot in this scene was filmed in just one take, without special effects. While the episode was the eighth produced in the season, it was the tenth aired, having been delayed to free up production resources for the two part episodes "Tunguska
Tunguska (The X-Files)
"Tunguska" is a 1996 episode of The X-Files television series. It was the eighth episode broadcast in the show's fourth season. "Tunguska" was the first of a two part episode featuring the return of Alex Krycek and the agents coming into possession of a Martian rock containing alien life...
" and "Terma". The episode's climactic scene was filmed in a "bus graveyard" in Surrey, British Columbia
Surrey, British Columbia
Surrey is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of Metro Vancouver, the governing body of the Greater Vancouver Regional District...
, a location which had been scouted months previously with the intention of eventually including it in an episode of the series; although filming at the location did not even last a full day despite the long wait to use it.
Broadcast and reception
"Paper Hearts" premiered on the Fox networkFox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
on December 15, 1996, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
on November 12, 1997. The episode's initial broadcast was viewed by approximately 16.59 million people, which represented 16% of the viewing audience during that time.
Both Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
and David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
consider this among the best episodes of the fourth season
The X-Files (season 4)
-Episodes:Episodes marked with an asterisk are broadly part of the series' mytharc. Episodes with a double asterisk are primary episodes in the series' Alien Mythology arc....
. Composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Mark Snow
Mark Snow
Mark Snow is an American composer for film and television.Born in New York, he grew up in Brooklyn, graduating from the High School of Music and Art and, afterwards, the Juilliard School of Music...
was nominated for an Emmy award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for the music he produced for this episode. He said of the episode's music, "It was a different kind of texture for the show. Light, magic, nothing terribly threatening. Snow received many requests for a recording of the music used at the end of the episode.
Website IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
named "Paper Hearts" their sixth favourite "standalone" episode of the show, calling it "creepy and unsettling", and claiming Noonan's character was "one of the most disturbing villains to make an appearance in the series". Noonan's acting has also been praised by Vince Gilligan, who says the "understated" manner in which Roche is portrayed "sends chills down [his] spine every time". The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
's Todd VanDerWerff reviewed the episode positively, rating it an A. He felt that Noonan's performance was "terrific", noting that the actor "makes Roche into one of the series' great human monsters"; and believed that the episode's premise was important to developing the character of Mulder further.