Drinking Game Points:

• Langly can't hack something, needs help from Yves: cracking into the Hobbes Institute Network (1)
• Meaningful Glance between Yves and Jimmy: at the wedding (1)
• Scatological humor - the bathroom farce in the opening scene (1)
• Byers has that cute, little-boy-lost expression on his face: When Adam gets violent in the jail cell. (1)
• The gunmen are wearing their all-black sneakster-suits (1 drink)

Total Points: 5

The Lone Gunmen

Episode #1AEB06
Madam I'm Adam

First aired: March 30, 2001

The episode opens on a peaceful suburb in Surf City, Maryland. It's a perfect little white-picket-fence suburb, where the mailboxes look like houses. A man in a suit comes home (we later discover the address is 43 Deck Street), discovers he's lost his key to get inside, but finds the key stashed under the flower pot and lets himself inside. He turns on the television, flipping through the channels before finally coming to rest on Police Videos, then heads into the kitchen. Just as he leaves the room, the front door opens again, and this time another man walks in, removes his coat and hat, and changes the channel to home shopping, sitting down in the chair. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the first man home pulls some orange juice out of the fridge, takes a swig, decides it's not for him and grabs a beer, heading out of the kitchen for the bathroom, where he sits down to do some reading, as the second man now inspects the same carton of O.J. and grabs a beer for himself. The first man leaves the bathroom and the second one enters, noticing an unpleasant smell. The first man is sitting in the easy chair, removing his shoes as the second one leaves the bathroom, but, tired, he takes off while the second one returns to the living room, noticing the first one's beer, he becomes a bit suspicious. But, the first one has already climbed into bed and thrown his arms affectionately around the woman in the bed, but now the second one proceeds to do the same thing, and the first one, thinking his wife is getting a bit frisky, asks her what she's doing with her hand. The second one, not used to hearing another man's voice in his bed--at least not while he's in it, turns on the light and the woman and the second man, upon seeing the first man, leap out of bed. While the second man, apparently the actual owner of the home is enraged, the first man is only confused, the only thing he can come up with is "who are you people and what are you doing in my bed?"

It's 9:43 P.M. in downtown Washington D.C., at the Breakfast "Best in Town" diner, Jimmy and Byers enter and scan the place. Jimmy points to a lone patron, sitting at the other end of the diner. Byers reminds Jimmy that he is only coming along to observe, but Jimmy reminds Byers that since he took the call, his name gets to appear on the story's byline--if it's published. They introduce themselves to the man, Adam Burgiss, who's acting a little neurotic. Byers begins by asking the man about his situation, confirming that his story of identity theft is accurate. Adam replies that his whole life is gone, and Byers wants to know what was stolen--bank accounts, credit cards, etc...? But Adam is imagining a different kind of identity theft, the theft of an entire life. How else could he account for the fact that strangers are living in his house, he doesn't know where his wife Lois is, and none of his neighbors know him. But, the night prior, as he was sleeping in the dumpster, he discovered a discarded Lone Gunmen issue, (Headline: Airport Toilets: Is Your DNA Safe?) and he knew that only the Gunmen would believe him--that he is actually from a parallel reality and that aliens brought him here--Jimmy believes him, but Byers is a bit skeptical--until Adam pulls out his proof--an unidentified substance that Adam found all over his body, and that it is alien goo--Byers finally moves from skepticism to out-and-out disbelief. As he brings Jimmy away against Adam's impassioned protests, he explains that he doubts "alien goo" should smell like lavender hand lotion. Jimmy, while giving one last frustratied look at Adam before leaving, calls Byers back over--pointing to a small implant in the neck.

Byers and Jimmy bring Adam back to the Gunmen H.Q. for Frohike and Langly to have a look at this strange neck-thing. Adam is very convinced that the device is an alien implant, but he's not sure how it fits into the larger government conspiracy. Commiserating alone, Frohike expresses his doubts that this was an alien abuction case, thinking the man might be more into self-mutilation. Meanwhile, Langly has determined that the goo is nothing more than udder cream used for milking cows (poor Langly just can't escape that farm!) Byers is the only one who wants to know more about that neck implant, which leads Frohike to breakout the homemade MRI machine (named Bessie), which they use to scan Adam's brain. It turns out that the thing in the back of Adam's neck is an electrical contact, connected to wiring that is running all through his cerebral cortex.

In order to get more answers, they head to 43 Deck Street. Adam describes the morning routines of his neighbors in order to prove that this is in fact where he lives. He explains how every morning at about that time, Frank Langdon goes to work and how his wife Suzy always kisses him goodbye. Jimmy Gaganza is a jogger with a smoking habit, and "Nosy Rosy" down the street is the neighborhood snoop--in 15 minutes Karen the college student will pass by, she wears no underwear. This man is absolutely convinced that he knows his neighborhood, but any possible documentation proving that Adam Burgiss is alive is no where to be found. The Gunmen are still a bit skeptical. Byers thinks that maybe Adam has become so familiar with the area because he has been fed images of the area in such a way that he feels that he has come to know the neighborhood as reality. Frohike cuts the power to the house, and the rest of the Gunmen head for the front door. Byers is convinced that hidden cameras in the house videotaped the surroundings and the resulting stream was fed into Adam's brain via the electrical connector to his brain. Langly goes to check the bedroom, while Byers hands Jimmy a metal detector. Outside, Frohike keeps watch over the area to make sure there's no trouble--but alas, a curious kid on a bike comes by to check things out. Inside, Jimmy and Adam have discovered something behind the wall. As Frohike tries to assure the kid that they're with the city--checking the ground water for high levels of magnesium, Jimmy and Adam find more hot spots on the wall, and things are quickly going downhill outside--Frohike is now outright threatening the kid. Adam breaks out the jigsaw, preparing to open up the wall, which brings Jimmy out of a certain comfort zone. Meanwhile, in an effort to keep things from getting out of hand, Frohike attempts to bribe the kid with five bucks, but ends up getting his foot stomped on. The kid runs away, and starts throwing mud at him. Meanwhile inside, the Gunmen watch in impotent horror as Adam has almost completed cutting through the wall of the house. Outside, Frohike grabs the kid and throws him down, just as the cops pull up. Frohike, caught like a deer in the headlights, can't really redeem himself as a large part of the front of the house falls into the yard, revealing the stupefied Gunmen in the background. In a lab somewhere, one of the computers emits an iritating buzzing noise, and one of the technicians calls over one Dr. DiVico to alert her that they have a message P1 - VR Media Offline -- a connection has been lost. DiVico instructs the technician to put the subjects in sleep mode and send someone out to the area, as "it could be him." Panning away from the computers, rows of tubs glowing pale-blue are seen, each holding a quaking man inside.

Frohike's had a rough night in jail, Jimmy just thinks of Frohike as a big cuddly teddy bear. However, Langly is a little miffed--and it's Adam's fault. He is not convinced that Adam just vandalized his own house--and Adam gets... more than a little upset. In fact, he explodes, and threatens Langly with such ferocity, I think it's safe to assume that Langly might need a change of pants after they get out of jail. However, as quickly as he explodes, his anger switches off, and he backs down from Langly, not knowing where the erruption came from. But then, he's back at it again, screaming at the guards. Yves arrives to bail them out, and they all head off to the Gunmen HQ to figure out what the hell is going on. Langly parks Adam in front of the television and, as Langly nervously watches over him, the other four show Yves the MRI scan. Yves seems to think that the electrical circuits were some sort of behavior modification hardware. Meanwhile, back at the television set, a commercial for Maniac Marvin's Electronic Warehouse flicks on. Langly, enjoying the commercial's star's capers, makes an offhand comment, and before he knows it, he's been delivered a left cross by Adam, who then tackles him and begins to shake him most vigorously. As the others do a half-assed job of pulling Adam off of Langly, Byers wonders if maybe Maniac Marvin knows something about Adam.

They head off to Maniac Marvin's, with Adam in tow, in order to ask the man himself if he knows who Adam is. Langly insists that Adam stay outside with him, since it could be costly if Adam went berzerk in an electronics store--even with Jimmy footing the bill.

Meanwhile, back at HQ, Frohike and Yves answers the door, and Dr. DiVico enters, asking about Adam Burgess. She needs to know where she can find him, since he "needs" her. She introduces herself as Lois, his wife. Frohike and Yves don't know what to do.

Back at Maniac Marvin's, the Gunmen meet with the man himself--he actually only has one eye--to ask him about Adam Burgess. He doesn't recognize him, but, as an employee places a standup of Maniac Marvin in the store window--poor Langly is once again under attack. As Byers and Jimmy run off to rescue him, Maniac Marvin removes a picture of Adam and a strange blonde midget from the countertop and gives it a good, long stare.

They all return to Gunmen HQ and Langly is nursing his wounds. Yves shows Adam a screen grab of Dr. DiVico from the security camera, to ask him if he knows her. He gets very excited, that's Lois, his wife! He wants to know where she is, but Frohike and Yves explain that she isn't his wife--they believe he is her lab-rat prisoner. She claimed that Adam was undergoing some sort of therapy, and that while being transported to another location there was an accident and Adam "wandered off." Adam isn't particularly happy with this turn of events, but he manages to not attack Yves (which was probably a very safe move on his part), but he does want to know where she is, but Frohike and Yves don't know--she left thinking that they didn't know where Adam was. Yves is convinced he's someone else, because there is no record of Adam Burgess. He takes this in a less than dignified manner--halucinating that Frohike is in fact a masked midget wrestler, Adam then tackles Frohike and begins to treat him in much the same way as he treated Langly earlier. At this point, Byers is trying to keep Jimmy between Adam and himself as much as possible.

The midget wrestler in question is none other than "The Dwarf Santini," a heavy hitter in the midget wrestling circuit. Adam is having a harder time controlling his little outbursts of rage, destroying the video tape of the Dwarf Santini as soon as it pops out of the VCR. Fortunately for Mr. Santini, he's already dead--but Yves informs the boys that he does have a daughter.

The daughter in question goes to answer the doorbell, where Maniac Marvin has come to woo her with flowers. She's not particularly thrilled to see him, but lets him in. He wants to be a permanent fixture in her life, but she reminds him--she's still married. He doesn't care, he wants her to get a divorce, seeing as how she hasn't seen her husband in a year. She's not interested in getting married, since she knows he's only interested in her for the sex. But, well, she's not much better herself, and the two of them head off to the bedroom.

The Gunmen arrive at the Muckle residence--Muckle being Sadie Santini's married name. Rounding the corner into the driveway, Adam spots the white cadillac with the vanity plate "Maniac M" and, as his heartrate increases, he grabs a trowel and heads for the door. The Gunmen, seeming taken off guard by his totally unexpected mood swing (why didn't they just put him on a leash or something?) run in after. Adam heads for the bedroom, to discover Maniac Marvin and Sadie in bed together. He then threatens to take Marvin's other eye. Jimmy grabs ahold of him and hauls him out the room, and they all retire to the sitting room to discuss matters.

Sadie addresses Adam as Charlie, and wants to know where he's been. The name seems to ring a bell with Adam, who suddenly remembers everything--his name isn't Adam Burgess, it's Charlie Muckle. Just then, Lois DiVico walks into the room, and insists that they talk. In a much tamer setting, Charlie confesses that among other things, he is an alchoholic, violent shoplifter, who steals gas, social security checks, and moonlights by exposing himself to women on the street. He's also quite a little stud, getting his wife's best friend pregnant. However, after making the staggering realization that he's not the nicest guy in the world, he sought out the help of Dr. DiVico, who could transform him from the disgusting Charlie Muckle into the upstanding Adam Burgess through virtual reality simulations. Well, he didn't exactly seek out her help. It was more of an ultimatum between going into therapy and going to jail for 2 years for the assault that led to the loss of Maniac Marvin's eye. Sadie is a bit angry with Marvin--seems he told her that he dropped the charges and Charlie disappeared on his own. Marvin can't really defend himself, but he makes a lame attempt. Sadie is a bit distraught when she learns that part of the therapy includes Lois convincing Charlie that she is his wife, but Lois explains that it's better that Charlie not be married to Sadie, since his life was so disasterous with her (bitch). Since Sadie was daddy's little girl, Charlie was having trouble measuring up. Lois convinces Adam to come back to therapy, although Sadie is very distraught, she tries to act tough, and watches him walk out of the house. Marvin tries to convince her that it will be for the best, with a horrified Jimmy watching in the background, but Sadie is still a bit distressed.

Back at Gunmen HQ, the boys are putting the finishing touches on the next issue (Headline: "Therapy or Thought Control?") But Jimmy doesn't want his name on the story, because it doesn't have a happy ending. He would rather go back and make sure that the story has a happy ending than have his name associated with something depressing, like the breakup of a marriage. After some speechifying, Jimmy convinces them that the right thing to do is to go back help Sadie and Charlie get back together.It's 9:07 A.M. at the Hobbes Research Institute, and Charlie is getting himself re-aquainted with the lavender udder-lotion tub. They get him hooked back up, and then they send him back into the tank and seal the top, to Lois's delight. For she also has a little connector on the back of her neck, and now she can get a little virtual-reality lovin'.

Sadie isn't a very happy bride. It might have something to do with the fact that her future husband to be is a total jackass. He storms in on her as she prepares for the wedding to announce that her divorce to Charlie came through, and it should be smooth sailing. She's really pissed at him, but doesn't seem to make the mental connection that she doesn't have to marry the guy.

"Adam" and Lois are in bed, but as Lois starts to put the moves on him, Charlie seems to have his reservations. In the mean, back at 43 Deck Street, Frohike has checked the telephone pole to confirm Byers's suspicion that there are in fact hidden cameras monitoring the neighborhood and sending live feeds back to the Hobbes Institute. The interior was probably scanned in separately, but as long as they stay outside, Adam should be able to see and hear them perfectly, especially since Yve has hacked into the Hobbes Network from the van. They only have a short period of time before Nosy Rosie calls the police. So, they head to the house that was recently butchered by Adam, with plywood tacked up on the front. They start shouting Charlie's name, and inside the program, Adam tears himself away from his wife, wondering what's going on outside. Charlie is able to see them in the front yard, and they explain that he is in fact back at the Hobbes Institute, submerged in blue goo, and that he isn't really at 43 Deck Street. Charlie doesn't care, his life is good--his life is designed to be perfect, and he's happy. Eventually, he'll forget it's not real. But, Jimmy reminds him, he'll also forget Sadie. Charlie also tries to play it tough, figuring that they're better off without one another. However, Frohike gives him a little tough love, and Langly tries to make reality sound better than virtual reality (and kind of fails, but hey, he tried), but, just as Jimmy makes a cogent point, the cops show up, and the boys have to beat a hasty retreat.

In what must be the most bizarre non-reality Fox television wedding I have ever seen, Maniac Marvin is going to be married to Sadie in a wrestling ring by an announcer who sounds suspiciously like Vince McMahonn. As soon as the announcer finishes introducing the couple, Charlie runs up the stage and objects to the wedding. Sadie welcomes him back gleefully, and everyone is happy, except, or course, Maniac Marvin. But he's a jerk and deserves what he gets.

Hardware: The MRI software Langly uses to scan Adam/Charlie's brain looks to be of Unix extraction. Likewise the communication software back at the laboratory (I can only assume this because they do not adhere to the standards for either Windows or Mac screen construction, and they're too hi-res for a DOS-based program). When Yves is using the screen grab from the security camera outside, she is using a Mac platform. The computer they were using to publish the newspaper was also a Macintosh, running Adobe PageMaker.

Media: In the opening scene, after Charlie leaves the bathroom, Snow created a variation of "The Montegues and the Capulets" from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet. This is the second time he's done Prokofiev. My kind of guy. Also, "Blame the Condition" by King Pleasure is heard in the episode.

Pop-Culture Points: The episode name doesn't necessarily derive from a pop-culture source, but it should be noted that "Madam I'm Adam" is a palindrome (the same word read backwards and forwards, and there is an ongoing joke regarding Jimmy's confusing the words "Palindrome" with "Anagram") I don't need to tell most of you that this episode was a big spoof of the X-Files--including the line "Did the Aliens do this, or the Government? Or Aliens working for the Government?"--classic X-Files. The V.R. laboratory containing the human subjects was a spoof of the alien-human hybrids breeding lab in the popular X-Files episode "Momento Mori."

The fact that Adam/Charlie "wandered off" during a transportation accident does not account for the fact that he shows up at his house fully clothed--in a suit no less.

Langly shouldn't have been beat up--not once. Given the near blowup in the jail, and the fact that Jimmy is a complete dolt, they would have had Jimmy watch Adam/Charlie back at HQ as Langly, Byers, and Frohike showed the MRI scan to Yves. Allowing that, after being so roundly trounced (and seeing as how at that point, Langly was the only one of them Adam was threatening), Langly would not have assented, much less volunteered, to watching over Adam while the others went to see Maniac Marvin.

On a similar vein, why they would have hauled Adam off to meet Sadie Santini is completely beyond me. Given the fact that the mere sight of her father was enough to send Adam/Charlie into violent fits, it would not make sense to drag him off to meet the man's daughter. Fortunately for the Gunmen, Adam/Charlie did not attack Sadie, but there was know way of knowing that he wouldn't, given his history of behavior.

The wedding scene was pretty tacked-on, and had a lot of holes in it. First--when Charlie interrupts the wedding, Sadie calls him Adam (this is a plot device so that he can re-affirm that his identity is Charlie)--but she wouldn't have called him Adam. She would have called him Charlie. Second, when Charlie basically ruins the wedding, everyone in the audience cheers and claps. Now, maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but if I were at a wedding that was interrupted by someone I didn't know coming in and sweeping the bride away from the groom, I probably wouldn't be clapping. I would be horrified. Of course, that could just be me, and wrestling fans could be of a completely different psychology, but it just doesn't make sense that some plaid-wearing bozo can ruin a wedding and be applauded for it--even if the groom was a jerk.