Fearful Symmetry (The X-Files)
Encyclopedia
"Fearful Symmetry" is the eighteenth episode of the second season
The X-Files (season 2)
The second season of the science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing on Fox in the United States on September 16, 1994, concluded on the same channel on May 19, 1995, and contained 25 episodes.- Production :...

 of the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 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 aired on Fox
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 February 24, 1995. The episode won an EMA Award
Environmental Media Awards
The Environmental Media Awards have been awarded by the Environmental Media Association since 1991 to the best television episode or film with an environmental message....

 for its environmental message.

Plot

In Fairfield, Idaho
Fairfield, Idaho
Fairfield is the county seat of and the only city in Camas County, Idaho, United States. The population was 395 at the 2000 census, nearly half of the rural county's population.-Geography:...

, two janitors witness an invisible force storm down a city street, shattering windows and crushing cars. A road worker is later killed by the force on the highway. The next day, an elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

 suddenly materializes in front of an oncoming big rig
Big Rig
Big Rig was a punk band from the San Francisco Bay Area fronted by singer/songwriter Jesse Michaels. Michaels performed with the group after the breakup of his previous project, Operation Ivy, and before forming the band Common Rider....

. The driver manages to stop in time, but the elephant soon collapses and dies, over forty miles away from where it disappeared the night before, at the Fairfield Zoo.

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...

 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...

 investigate, surveying the damage in the city, which appears to have been caused by an elephant, though none was seen. They speak to Ed Meecham, an animal handler at the zoo, who recounts how he came to the elephant's locked cage to find it empty. His boss, Willa Ambrose, tells the agents that the zoo is in danger of closing due to other animal disappearances. She blames the zoo's decline on an animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...

 group called the Wild Again Organization, which is known to free captive animals. The agents visit WAO leader Kyle Lang, who denies that his group set the elephant free. Lang tells them that Ambrose is being sued by the Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...

 government over a lowland gorilla she took from their country ten years prior.

Mulder speaks with Frohike and Byers
The Lone Gunmen
The Lone Gunmen are a trio of fictional characters, Richard "Ringo" Langly, Melvin Frohike and John Fitzgerald Byers, who have recurring roles on the American television series The X-Files. They also starred in a short-lived spin-off, also called The Lone Gunmen. The name was derived from the lone...

 via satellite. They say that Fairfield is known for its animal disappearances and UFO sightings. They also mention Ambrose's gorilla, who is known to communicate using American Sign Language
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...

. Meanwhile, Scully follows a WAO activist as he sneaks into the zoo, running into Meecham inside. The activist attempts to free a tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...

, but after a flash of light, the tiger has seemingly disappeared. The activist is promptly mauled to death, with the killing captured on his night vision
Night vision
Night vision is the ability to see in low light conditions. Whether by biological or technological means, night vision is made possible by a combination of two approaches: sufficient spectral range, and sufficient intensity range...

 camera. When questioned, Lang denies any involvement with the death. Ambrose introduces the agents to the gorilla, named Sophie, who has been cowering in her cage and expresses an apparent fear of light.

Scully performs a necropsy on the elephant, revealing it to be pregnant -- which is impossible, since Ambrose would have known about any attempt to impregnate her, and no animal at the Fairfield Zoo has ever bought a pregnancy to term. The tiger reappears at a Boise construction site, and is shot dead by Meecham when it charges at Ambrose; the zoo is shut down the next day over the incident. Mulder tells Ambrose that the tiger was also pregnant, and explains his theory that aliens are impregnating endangered animals as part of "their own Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...

". Mulder thinks that Sophie is pregnant and afraid of her baby's abduction. Sophie confirms Mulder's suspicions when she makes signs for "baby go fly light".

Sheriff's deputies order Ambrose to release Sophie into protective custody, causing Ambrose to seek help from Lang -- revealed to be her old boyfriend -- but he says Sophie should be released into the wild. Lang later goes to the see Ambrose at the warehouse
Warehouse
A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...

 where Sophie is being prepped for shipping, but finds her cage empty. He is then mysteriously killed by a falling crate
Crate
A crate is a large shipping container, often made of wood, typically used to transport large, heavy or awkward items. A crate has a self-supporting structure, with or without sheathing. For a wooden container to be a crate, all six of its sides must be put in place to result in the rated strength...

. Scully finds that Lang was struck with a cattle prod
Cattle prod
A cattle prod, also called a stock prod, is a handheld device commonly used to make cattle or other livestock move by striking or poking them, or in the case of a Hot-Shot-type prod, through a relatively high-voltage, low-current electric shock...

 and suspects Ambrose of murdering him, but she claims that Meecham did it when Lang surprised him. Mulder goes to arrest Meecham, who is keeping an angered Sophie at another warehouse near Boise. Meecham claims to have been following Ambrose's orders when he murdered Lang.

Meecham suddenly locks Mulder in Sophie's room, where the enraged gorilla attacks and injures him. A bright light appears and causes Sophie to vanish, but not before she gives Mulder a message in sign language. When Mulder shows the message to Ambrose the next day, she says it means "man save man". Ambrose and the agents are then called to the highway, where Sophie has been struck by a car and killed. Ambrose and Meecham are charged with manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...

 for Lang's death. As the agents leave Idaho, Mulder says through narration that he believes alien conservationists were behind the events in Fairfield.

Production

Co-Producer J.P. Finn claimed the hardest part of the episode was getting the elephant, which required a permit to pass the border into Vancouver. He claims the elephant used for the episode, named "Bubbles" was fantastic to work with. There was initially concern from the producers that the elephant wouldn't run towards the truck for the episode's teaser, but the elephant instead loved the truck and the producers had difficulty getting it away from it.

The episode's title comes from a line in the William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

 poem "The Tyger
The Tyger
"The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794 . It is one of Blake's best-known and most analyzed poems...

". The fictional construction site where the tiger appears, "Blake Towers", is named after the poet. The elephant's name, "Ganesha" is named after the Hindu God
Ganesha
Ganesha , also spelled Ganesa or Ganesh, also known as Ganapati , Vinayaka , and Pillaiyar , is one of the deities best-known and most widely worshipped in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations...

.

Reception

This episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.1, with a 17 share and was viewed by 9.6 million households. Author William Gibson
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...

, who later wrote two episodes for the show, called the episode one of his favorites of the series.
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