Elegy

"Elegy "is the twenty – second episode of the fourth season of the X-Files. The episode belongs to the "monster of the week" type and is not related to the main "mythology" of the series.

Angie Pintero, the owner of the bowling alley, tells one of her employees, a man with autism named Harold Spuller, to go home. Soon after, Angie sees a severely injured blonde trapped inside an automatic pinsetter. The girl tries to say something, but the words don't come out of her mouth. Angie spots the police in a nearby parking lot and runs out for help. He realizes that the crowd has gathered around the dead body of the same girl he saw just a few minutes ago at the bowling alley. Angie tells her bizarre story to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Mulder suspects that Angie has encountered the ghost of a dead girl. Three similar sightings and three similar murders have been reported in the area in recent weeks. The agents discover the words "She is me" scrawled on the bowling alley where Angie saw the ghost, but their meaning remains a mystery.

Detective Hudak tells Mulder and Scully that an anonymous caller called 911 and relayed a message about Penny Timmons, one of the killer's victims. The caller claimed that Timmons 'last words were," She is me." However, Hudak notes that the victim's larynx was cut, which made it impossible for her to utter the dying words. Agents trace the source of the emergency call to a pay phone at the New Horizon Psychiatric Center. Mulder notices that one of the patients, Harold Spuller, is avoiding his gaze. After reviewing the photos of the victims, Scully comes to the conclusion that Spoeller fits the profile of the killer: a compulsive man, consumed with the desire to organize, clean up and change the order. Scully notices a nosebleed and goes to the bathroom. There, she sees the ghost of another blonde. A few moments later, Mulder comes in and says that a new body has been found.

Later, Mulder discovers Harold in a room that can be accessed from the bowling alley. The walls of the room are covered with game protocols, including those filled with victims. Mulder realizes that Harold met each of the murdered women at the bowling alley. Harold goes into a strange fit and sees Angie's ghost standing behind Mulder. He runs out of the room and goes to the bowling alley, where Angie is lying, dead of a heart attack. Mulder tells Scully that everyone who has seen the ghosts is near death, implying that Harold may be next. Scully, who also saw the victim's ghost, is struck by this suggestion.

Harold is escorted back to the psychiatric center, where he is tortured by nurse Innes. Later, Mulder finds Innes lying on the floor in a semi-conscious state. Innes claims that Harold went berserk and attacked her. One of the other patients, Chuck Forsch, tells Scully that Nurse Innes tried to poison Harold. Scully realizes that Innes, not Harold, was responsible for the murders. When Innes attacks Scully with a scalpel, Scully draws her weapon and fires, wounding the nurse in the shoulder. Discussing the case with Mulder, Scully explains that Innes took Harold's medication, which provoked aggressive and unpredictable behavior. Scully suggests that Innes, furious that her husband left her for a younger woman, committed the murders of the girls in order to torment Harold, who was in love with them.

In a nearby alley, Harold's body is found, a victim of respiratory failure. Scully, however, suspects that Harold died because Innes wouldn't let him take his medication. Scully confesses to Mulder that she saw the ghost of the fourth victim shortly after her murder. At the end of the episode, Scully sees the ghost of Harold sitting in the back seat of her car.

The characters in the series see the ghosts of people who have recently died nearby (perhaps even at the time of their death). They are only seen by people who are themselves on the verge of death – for example, those affected by a deadly disease. One of the characters, who is mentally ill, is visited by ghosts more often than others, and even by whole groups.

The ghosts try to say something, move their mouths, but they can't hear the words. The appearance of the ghost is sometimes accompanied by the inscription "She is me", which usually (but not always) disappears with the ghost.