The X-Files Best One-Off Villain Never Explains Their Powers
You’ve got the mythology episodes of The X-Files that deal with UFOs and aliens, you’ve got the monster-of-the-week episodes dealing with phenomena that have nothing do with extra terrestrials, and then you have the rare example of episodes blurring the lines. The fan-favorite Season 4 X-Files episode “Paper Hearts” is an example of this latter type of episode. In spite of how well regarded it is, it is the absolute weakest in one area: it never even comes close to explaining the supernatural abilities of its villain.
John Lee Roche, Diet Freddy Krueger
In the X-Files episode “Paper Hearts,” Mulder is briefly convinced that it wasn’t aliens who kidnapped his sister Samantha, but instead it was imprisoned serial killer John Lee Roche—played to creepy perfection by Tom Noonan.
The X-Files hero comes to this conclusion because of a series of dreams he has in “Paper Hearts,” one of which leads him to the precise location of one of Roche’s undiscovered victims.
One of these dreams has the events of Samantha’s abduction replay before Mulder, but instead of aliens or a UFO, it’s Roche who breaks into his childhood home to take Samantha.
We eventually learn that Roche is manipulating Mulder. The serial killer has discovered a way to, like Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame, to enter Mulder’s mind and reshape his dreams.
The only thing is that we never get any explanation of how Roche manages to get this supernatural ability or how he learned to use it.
Paper Hearts
In the X-Files episode “Paper Hearts” we are reminded that before he was chasing aliens, FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder was the golden boy of the Violent Crimes Division. The agent has a strange dream that reminds him of an old case and convinces him of the location of an undiscovered body.
Mulder orders a dig of the location and, what do you know? He finds the remains of a young girl murdered by Roche. Roche was known for cutting heart-shaped designs out of the clothing of his victims, hence the title of the X-Files episode, “Paper Hearts.”
Counting The Hearts
Pulling Scully into the case, Mulder tells her that Roche confessed to murdering 13 girls, but the agent always suspected there were more. He also admits he was never able to find the heart-shaped mementos Roche kept to confirm they added up to 13.
Another detail from Mulder’s dream helps lead the X-Files hero to the location of Roche’s paper hearts, which add up to 16 instead of 13. One of the new hearts belongs to Annie Sparks—the girl Mulder finds early in the story—meaning there are two hearts belonging to still unidentified victims.
The Somehow, Palpatine Returned Moment Of The X-Files
The X-Files hero Mulder is his usual obsessive self in “Paper Hearts,” and at first he seems completely fooled by Roche’s manipulations. He goes so far as to get Roche released to his custody so he can confirm he was the one who abducted Samantha.
But Mulder isn’t as convinced as he seems. He tricks Roche into giving away his con, but in the process the X-Files agent never gets close to any solid explanation as to how the Paper Hearts killer did what he did.
“I think I know what happened,” Mulder tells Roche. “Somehow, you got inside my dreams… I profiled you. I got inside your head. Maybe you got inside mine. Maybe some nexus or connection was formed between us and through that, you got access to my memories of my sister Samantha. And you used them against me for this.”
It is the single weakest, flimsiest attempt at even trying to maybe make a drive-by close to something next to another thing that maybe resembles an explanation.
Star Wars has “Somehow, Palpatine returned,” and The X-Files has “Paper Hearts,” and yet somehow it didn’t hurt fan reaction to the episode at all.
Fans Love Paper Hearts
As weak as an explanation as The X-Files gives us for the monster-of-the-week aspect of “Paper Hearts,” it does not seem to have hurt its reception by fans.
“Paper Hearts” enjoys an 8.7/10 ranking on IMDb. In the site’s ranking of the entire X-Files series, the episode is sitting pretty at #21 (out of 217 episodes).
Why does it rank so high? I would guess part of it is because Roche is without a doubt one of the creepiest villains to ever show up in The X-Files. I’d also guess that to a larger extent it’s because of the novelty of having Mulder question whether it was something other than aliens explaining his sister’s abduction, and how heartbreaking it is to watch him go through the episode’s ups and downs.
