User Reviews

Only the 'X-Files' could take subliminal messages appearing on electronic devices and connect them to crop dusting gone bad and make it sound credible. I've been thinking about this since the episode ended and don't see how you can make that leap of scientific reasoning, but what the heck? If Scully and Mulder think there's something to it, well who am I to question it?

I got the biggest kick out of seeing William Sanderson in his role here as Edward Funsch, the poor schlep let go from his job at the beginning of the story due to a cut back. I became a fan ever since catching him in the Eighties TV sit-com 'Newhart', where he played a hick named Larry with a brother Daryl and another brother Daryl. No, I'm not confused, you just have to see it.

So along with my self described flashback, there's also that blinking television display in which Funsch experiences repeated glimpses of Charles Manson, the O.J. Bronco chase, and scenes from the Watts riots, along with good, old healthy reminders to 'Kill 'em all' while he's at it. Oh yeah, did I mention the way the writers came up with the name 'lysergic dimethrin' to account for the two hundred times normal dose of adrenalin found in the bodies of the folks who went haywire? Very cool the way they came up with that. It's starting to look like Assistant Director Skinner's advice from the prior episode 'The Host' comes into play once more - "This should have been an X-File".

P.S. - Can we assume Mulder gave Frohike Scully's phone number in exchange for the night vision lenses?

This aired on Danish TV late last night, and for the first time that I remember of my adult life, I was filled with anxiety, by the time I turned off the TV.

The citizens of a small town are exposed to some kind of chemical, that originally was meant to relieve the towns corn fields from an annoying bug. The side effect of the chemical though sends some of the people into paranoid rage attacks, that are consistently triggered by any kind of digital device, they lay their eyes on.

Blood is incredibly effective and simple, and the episode is blessed with the guest performance of William Sanderson, who is excellent as always in the role of the unstable loser Edward - the one citizen who is almost able to fight the demonic digital manipulation. Almost.

Blood the Limerick:

Whenever faced with a fear

Subliminal messages appear

A blood test is done

And a man with a gun

Goes on a spree shooting down from the air.

Sometimes I don't quite understand Morgan and Wong. For the most part their episodes and shows I have enjoyed immensely but every once in a while its like they get a little overconfident and think they can just put any crap they want into an episode and we will just overlook it. This episode is almost one of those for me. It's nowhere near as bad as say "The Field Where I Died" or anything like that and it is almost a really good episode but a few elements bring it down to just decent for me.

The episode is based on the idea that the government is performing secret experiments on the subjects of a small town through chemical spraying which is actually happening in secret in the form of crop dusting. A number of people, normal and nice people, are randomly going on spree killings without any apparent motive at all. Mulder notices a connection to seemingly unconnected occurrences in that electronic displays are damaged at each of the scenes. It appears that phobia is triggering hallucinations in the victims and they see messages in the displays that play to their fears and encourage them to kill. The man in the elevator becomes claustrophobic, the woman at the mechanic is afraid of being raped, and finally the main character Edward Funsch is afraid of blood.

The character of Edward Funsch gives us a whole new take of the phrase "going postal". He is fired from his job at the mail sorting factory. Now this is a job that would drive most people insane, he sits staring at a display and types in zip codes all day long as fast as he can. His boss is a very nice man who is forced by bureaucracy to fire Mr. Funsch despite his good work. Now if he weren't seeing messages telling him to kill everyone I honestly think the poor guy would still be pretty normal, but just very depressed. But on top of all his stress the messages keep telling him to kill them all and the pushy blood drive people are coming to his house and pushing the doorbell over and over again and he finally snaps. He goes to the top of a clock tower which reminded me a lot of the bell tower from Vertigo, another show about phobias, and begins shooting into the blood drive crowd.

Long story short, Mulder catches him but the messages are never explained. My main problem with this episode is them trying to pin the subliminal messages on the government conspiracy. First of all, how in the world does the government send subliminal messages to your microwave or even worse your wrist watch? Second of all, what is the government's purpose/motive in making a bunch of small town folk go on spree killings? What practical information is learned from this? Nothing. If the government were involved then there would have been some clear motive other than trying to get its own citizens to go crazy and kill each other. Other than this I thought the episode and story were very intriguing and fun to watch. Take the government conspiracy out and the episode is at least a 9 out of 10 but with the conspiracy it gets bumped down to 7.

Blood is about the investigation into a series of violent killings in a small town, linked to a banned pesticide being sprayed causing psychoses.

An interesting and engaging episode, though not top tier. Everyone's a victim here, there's no malice. Though the electronic device thing's flawed, it's just a means to show the character's state. I can't see a message on a screen driving someones actions. Excellent guest performances, especially Ashlyn Gere. The Lone Gunmen have a strong presence as well, bridging the plot with some historical reality. A slight bit of humour in the episode too.

This episode, "Blood", has an amazing Plot, where the writers have been able to link people seeing strange writing on electric devices, with a chemical in pesticide that makes people very scared and full of adrenaline.

The first 15 minutes or so seem like a copy of the episode "Ghost in the Machine" from season one, but eventually starts spiralling off in a whole different direction. The episode starts off with a man working in a postal service getting fired, and he starts seeing strange messages on a machine, telling him to kill all of the people in the building. He appears to be terrified of Blood, but does not do anything yet. We see him at different points in the episode, and instead of seeming like a homicidal maniac, The writers of "The X-Files" have portrayed him in such a way that you feel sorry for him, as you see his decent into insanity. Meanwhile Mulder investigates other murders related to the machines, and we learn the murders are because of the Chemical LSDM, which is in pesticide which is secretly being dumped on farms to kill microscopic sized bees, capable if riding on the back of a fly.

The episode ends with the man from the start climbing to the top of a clock tower, during the middle of a blood drive, and trying to scare of all of the people by shooting towards them. Mulder climbs to the top of the tower, and the men have a stand off, in which we see how mad the man has become

Another great example of the X-Files episodes that doesn't include either aliens or some kind of monster. This episode defines the atmosphere of such X-Files episodes.

A bunch of people from a small town start seeing messages in electronic devices, like cellphones, TV's and computer screens that says stuff like: kill 'em, Do it, he will rape you. A very disturbing thing that turns people into running out on murderous rampages. it's a very simple story so I wont tell any more or spoil any more.

This episode has an creepy atmosphere, great music and very good cinematography, I give it a 10/10. Simple but very effective.

Blood is quite an interesting episode and nothing anyone has seen before. It involves computerised systems telling people what to do, when that person phobia comes out. To be honest, I enjoyed this episode more first time round, but second time round, I still enjoyed it. Anyway, I will now tell you what is bad and good about this episode,

The Good: That 'Kill 'Em All' thing. x]

How the guy who's phobia was blood, resisted until the very ended. It kind of showed, in away, he was stronger than the others

The bit when that guy is firing the gun from the top of the tower. Class.

The Bad: Why did he get fired from his job?

Conclusion: Interesting concept, yet not as good the second time. 7/10

It was nice to see scully and mulder together, officially again.

First time i think i saw, they could not solve who was sending those messages - or did i miss?

Because those messages were not hallucination. Even, mulder was seeing.

The sheriff was nice, the young one. He helped well and with the intelligence of mulder, they figured out why people were murdering.

Every time an episode starts out with a blatant stupidity, such as a cop saying that they've taken all different kinds of physical evidence - except fingerprints, in case the agents want to collect "more" evidence... Nothing could be stupider. My estimation of an episode plummets immediately thereafter, and I have very rarely found reason to adjust it upwards.

Frankly, this is a show created by and for the embarrassingly credulous. If it weren't for watching a young Gillian Anderson, I could not find any reason to even have it on in the background and then not even always. Every aspect of this show is intellectually contemptible, which doesn't mean you have to be an "intellectual" to despise it - you just have to have a mind and at least a modicum of reason.

Hell, my local OTA channel rerunning the series just committed suicide - turn to that channel and everything starts fading to black. Died of shame, that's my guess.

"Fear. It's the oldest tool of power. If you're distracted by the fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above." – Fox Mulder.

Episode 3, 'Blood', original air date September 30th, 1994. Written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, based on a story by Darin Morgan, directed by David Nutter. Monster of the week episode count, 20. After his successful turn as the fluke-man monster in previous episode 'The Host', Darin Morgan conceived the story of 'Blood', which Morgan & Wong adapted in to a screenplay. David Nutter once again sits in the director's chair and delivers a taught, finely tuned thriller with an intriguing and original concept. The story does become a little convoluted and is typically unresolved in it's conclusion, though it overcomes these obstacles thanks to it's imaginative script writing. The Long Gunmen make their second appearance in the series since their introduction in season 1 and although it's brief, they're always a welcome addition that in this case provides a much needed reprieve from the sinister overtones that permeate this episode. There's quite a high body count here, despite most of the murders taking place off screen. It's a wise choice to use the insinuation of violence as opposed to unnecessary gore which would have cheapened the effect. Gillian Anderson's pregnancy caused her to have less screen time in the early episodes of season 2 and her minimal appearance in this episode is felt.

The plot is a little convoluted, though I feel this is more interesting that being overly simplistic. Well respected, inconspicuous members of a small town community are suddenly committing horrendous acts of violence and this prompts the ill-equipped local sheriff to contact the F.B.I for assistance. People are seeing subliminal messages in digital displays that urge them to kill. It eventually becomes clear that all the perpetrators of the violence had a phobia of some sort which is the catalyst for their outburst. Thanks to the help of The Long Gunmen Mulder deduces that the psychosis is being brought on by exposure to a government banned pesticide that causes extreme paranoia, among other unknown side effects. In what feels like an unnecessary and unresolved addition to the plot, Mulder speculates that the government are sending these subliminal messages in order to cause chaos so that attention is shifted from the real threat, presumably some form of governmental conspiracies. The episode is book-ended by the character of Edward Funsch (William Sanderson), who resists the impulse to commit murder due to his irrational fear of blood. This is a nice way to tie the episode together, since there are several unconnected murderers, it would have been easy to lose the audience in a sea of unfamiliar faces. The recurrence of the Funsch character helps to anchor the story and his climactic scene in the clock tower is a highlight of the episode that features some heart pounding direction from Nutter as well as some visually engaging cinematography.

As entertaining as this episode is, it feels like the explanation for the murders is a little forced. The attempt to tie in the government with the crop dusting of an illegal chemical is believable enough. This aspect rings true for the most part and as an audience we buy the concept of the government testing potentially life threatening chemicals on it's citizens. However the explanation, or lack thereof, for the messages appearing in digital readouts is severely lacking. It's perhaps easy enough to overlook since the majority of the episode is sufficiently engaging but for the sake of nitpicking it's a fairly large plot hole. For instance, how could the government control the readout on a digital watch or a gas pump, or even a microwave for that matter? The only one that is passable is the elevator, as it could be hooked up to a computer system that is hackable. For entertainments sake I feel like I would have preferred this to remain an unsolved mystery as for how the messages appeared. It's even more believable to argue that the messages were not there at all and that the psychotropic drug simply caused the victims to think they were seeing a message. It's a frustrating misstep in an otherwise well written standalone story that holds it back from being a particularly noteworthy addition to season 2.

There's a lot that I enjoyed about "Blood" the second time around. For one, this episode brings a lot of new ideas to the storytelling of the show so far by essentially building up suspense by having the "main" character seen in the cold open stretch throughout the episode, resulting in a ticking time bomb sort of "will he and/or when" suspense.

There are two central ideas in this episode that are of immense interest and association to a young conspiracy theory enthusiast such as myself and that is subliminal messaging and spraying of unknown chemical compounds. The way they are integrated into the story and executed onto the screen did not disappoint.

This is the first episode in which fan-favourite Darin Morgan, who would go onto have his first teleplay credit later this season with "Humbug" makes his debut and receives story credit. The teleplay is written by brother Glen Morgan and his partner in crime, James Wong, the two of whom have written some of the show's classic episodes like "Home", "Ice" and "Squeeze" to name but a few.

This episode takes place during the phase where Mulder and Scully have been reassigned to different sectors following the closing of The X-Files. As such, some of Mulder's endearing and amusing quirks are lacking but make sense within the design of the show. Scully is less present throughout the episode, an unfortunate circumstance of Gillian Anderson's pregnancy, and so some of the dynamic is lost. But the episode works its way around it by building great suspense, telling a fascinating story and having an incredibly memorable second appearance of the fan favourite Lone Gunmen. In that scene is, in a nutshell, the episode's sense of humour and it's a hilariously riveting scene that enforces some of the personality traits we love about Mulder. A number of his lines to Frohike, in particular "She's afraid of her love for you" and "You know Frohike, it's men like you that give perversion a bad name" are absolutely classic examples of Mulder's sharp, dry wit.

David Nutter brings a growing and palpable sense of paranoia and suspense to the screen, key ingredients that make this episode successful. The episode builds and builds in its suspense and paranoia, despite multiple points where the suspense is released in bloodshed, and ultimately reaches an apex whereby the explosive climax occurs. It's a well acted and well edited scene (that makes effective use of jump cutting) to create a sense of disconnect and hysteria.

Overall, "Blood" was such an entertaining experience on this second viewing for me. It is part of the slightly awkward pre-"Duane Barry" phase of Season two for me but it's one of the stronger outings in a nevertheless solid patch. For Darin Morgan's first creative input into the show and the second appearance of The Lone Gunmen alone, this episode is worth watching. Morgan, whose existence in the first nine seasons is short lived will go onto write four episodes that rank as high as any when it comes to fan favourites and The Lone Gunmen, needless to say, are loved additions to the show. The ideas in the episode are fun and integrated seamlessly for a suspenseful ride.

Great episode that shows you just how fear can be used to control people! Would have loved to see who was behind the messages through the screens! Perhaps this was this was the one way the subjects mind could communicate with them.

Scullys new role as mulders personal autopsy pathologist is brilliant. It's as if they haven't been really split up. I think in future episodes this will come to an end.

This episode made me think about the un heard off effects of spraying things in our atmosphere and the naivety of local government for letting these things happen.

LSDm is one hell of a drug. Don't kill em all :)

Themes of paranoia and psychotic behaviour, which make the viewer have to think and attempt to piece it together. Some storytelling shows the cards to the viewer but the character's don't see them, in this the cards are given from everyone, making it more interesting.

Not sure why it's rated a 7.5, it's not a boring episode for a monster of the week, as it keeps the viewer engaged and thinking. It's at least an 8/10.

I thought I was going to like this episode more than I remembered, but not that I was going to like it a LOT more than I remembered.

It used to be my least favorite of the Season for exact one reason... it's SO annoying. No matter what, the sound, the filming, it's very annoying and almost gives you a headache. But at the same time, it's why the episode is special and so well done. It makes you experience the fear the characters are experiencing.

The guest acting is another reason why it works well. William Sanderson is the best guest actor yet (besides Brad Dourig) and both appeared later on Deadwood (which I recommend everyone to watch). This episode takes Phobia and Paranoia to the max.

I'm gonna give it THREE stars, even though it probably deserves more.

This vies for some of the worst, most useless X-file storytelling. What were they thinking?

We get covert pesticide spraying, chemically induced paranoia, and get this, remote controlled insertion of subliminal messages in electronic devices, apparently timed to perfection. Mulder himself gets a taste of it, but typical for X-file norms, we're meant to read some ambiguity on whether or not 'truth' is really out there or just a state of mind.

What the X-files won't acknowledge but really gives it some power is that Mulder is the viewer, the paranormal fan who pursues all sorts of stories that feed and induce hallucination. This can and should be taken in many directions, but instead we have it reduced to shenanigans.