10.3 Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster Quiz

Answer: A human-sized lizard

The creature was first seen in the woods where it appeared to be attacking an animal control officer. The attack was witnessed by a couple who were spending their evening in the forest, inhaling spray paint. Mulder was skeptical of their story because the couple hadn't taken a photo of the beast; all Mulder and Scully had to go on was the sketch drawn from the couple's memories, and it looked like a spiny creature with several horns on its head (and one or three eyes). A working girl who later saw the monster told Mulder and Scully that it did look like the drawing but it had two eyes (and was wearing white underwear).

This episode was filled with plenty of Easter eggs for "X-Files" fans, and it started with the stoner couple. They were portrayed by Tyler Labine and Nicole Parker Smith, who had played similar characters in earlier episodes of the series, "War of the Coprophages" and "Quagmire" from 1996.

Answer: A portable toilet

The creature had knocked Mulder to the ground and as Scully kneeled next to him, they saw the creature running on the other side of a truck. When they came around the corner of the vehicle, they saw the door close on the portable toilet and headed that way. Mulder opened the door and immediately snapped a photo. But instead of the monster, they found Guy Mann (Rhys Darby) inside using the facilities: "A bit of privacy, please!". They left, but when Guy came out of the toilet, horns were visible on the back of his head (before they were absorbed into his hair).

At least one reviewer of the show believed that the portable toilet in this scene was an Easter egg for fans because in the 1994 episode, "The Host", the monster-of-the-week hid in a portable toilet. The monster in that episode was called the Flukeman and he was played by Darin Morgan.

Answer: Cell phone camera

Mulder had a new camera app and was having trouble getting it to work correctly. When they first heard the monster while they were at the truck stop, Mulder whipped out the camera and started taking continuous photos, to Scully's annoyance. As Scully stopped to check on a body they found, Mulder spotted the creature running away and chased after it, snapping endless pictures in the hopes of getting a good shot.

He ran into the animal control officer, who like Scully asked, "WHAT is up with your phone?" The guy tried to help Mulder, "Go to settings..." but they were interrupted by the monster who ran right between them while Mulder snapped away.

He told Scully that he got a picture, and he later showed her several out of focus shots and a video, which showed him screaming. "Mulder, you've got the lens pointed the wrong way", Scully lamented.

Answer: Animal heads on the wall

Mulder was resting on his bed when he heard a man screaming "Monster! Help me!" When Mulder went to investigate, the motel manager claimed it was a guest who was yelling about his bill. Mulder didn't buy it, and when he left the office, he went into the guest's room, which was open and slightly ransacked. He noticed the animal head lying on the floor, and when he picked it up, he saw that the eyes had been cut out and there was a hole on the wall where the head had been mounted. When he pulled on the hole, a door opened into a hallway that ran between the rooms. He was able to look through various animal heads into the rooms of the guests. When he looked into Scully's room, Fox Mulder was looking through the eyes of a fox - nice touch! The motel owner claimed that the hallway was a "security feature", but after Mulder said he wasn't going to report the man to the authorities, the man told him what he had seen. Mulder showed him the drawing of the monster and the photo of the man from the portable toilet, and the motel owner confirmed that they were the same being. Mulder then went to Scully's room to excitedly share the news about the monster with her. "Yeah, this is how I like my Mulder", responded Scully before calling him crazy.

The motel owner was played by Alex Diakun, who had appeared in other "X-Files" episodes written by Darin Morgan ("Humbug", "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'"). He was also in the second "X-Files" film in 2008. Another Easter egg for fans was the scene of Mulder sleeping in a red Speedo; Mulder had appeared in the same attire in the 1994 episode, "Duane Barry".

Answer: Cell phone store

Mulder had found a cell phone bag in Guy Mann's hotel room but didn't realize that Guy worked at the store, "Smart Phones is Us". Mulder found out when Scully called him as she was standing outside the store window: "I think I just found your horny toad lizard-man". Scully didn't wait for Mulder to get there; she went into the store and asked Guy if she could ask him some questions.

When Mulder arrived, he found Scully standing in a ransacked store. Scully said that after she asked the man if she could ask him some questions, he said that he quit, ransacked the store and fled out the back door. Scully tried to explain that she had received the lab results from the earlier attacks, but Mulder took off to find Guy Mann.

Answer: Cemetery

Mulder had found a pill bottle in Guy's hotel room, and when he talked to the psychiatrist that prescribed it, the doctor told Mulder that he had recommended that Guy "go for a quiet stroll in the local cemetery" the next time he felt an episode coming on. So Mulder took a chance that Guy might have gone to the cemetery after he ran away from Scully. He did find Guy there and convinced him to tell his story, and what a story it was! It turned out that Guy wasn't a man who turned into a lizard but rather a lizard who turned into a man after being bit by a human. He explained that the next morning, he awoke as a naked man, so he put on the clothes of one of the victims and became obsessed with doing human things, like getting a job, being miserable at his job and lying about his sex life.

The gravestones that Mulder and Guy Mann were standing by were special. Mulder was standing next to a gravestone with the name of Kim Manners, who directed over fifty "X-Files" episodes. Guy was standing next to a tombstone with the name of Jack Hardy, who was the assistant director of the second "X-Files" film and Chris Carter's series "Millennium" and "The Lone Gunmen".

Answer: The X-Files Theme

When Mulder first approached Guy Mann in the cemetery, Guy was drinking out of a bottle in a paper bag. He offered it to Mulder, but Mulder declined. That bottle ended up getting smashed against a gravestone when Guy tried to use it to trick Mulder into killing him. After Mulder talked Guy into telling his story, Guy offered him another bottle, saying that he would need it, but it turned out that Mulder had brought his own bottle in his coat. After Guy left, Mulder sat down and started drinking. He ended up nearly drinking both bottles and was passed out in the graveyard when his phone started ringing with the familiar song!

Guy's outfit may have been familiar to anyone who watched the 1970s series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker". Darrin McGavin's character wore a similar ensemble in the show, and Chris Carter claimed that show was one of the inspirations for "The X-Files". Darin Morgan also worked on the 2005 version of "The Night Stalker".

Answer: The animal control officer

Scully called Mulder from the animal shelter and told him she was waiting to see the animal control officer. Mulder was scanning the pictures on his phone while he talked to her, and when he got to the picture of the creature, he saw that it had a bite mark on it. This matched the story that Guy Mann had told him; Guy claimed he was resting in the forest when he was attacked and bitten. Mulder realized that the animal control officer wasn't the victim in the forest but the attacker. While they were talking on the phone, the animal control officer attacked Scully so Mulder called for backup while he headed to the shelter. When Mulder arrived with the police, he found that Scully had the man in custody. It turned out that she knew the animal control officer was the killer; she had discovered that the victims had been strangled and had checked his animal restraint pole that he had left at the truck stop for DNA residue. Mulder reprimanded Scully: "That is the second time you've approached a dangerous suspect without backup". "You forget, I'm immortal", Scully reminded him.

The animal control officer was played by "X-Files" fan Kumail Nanjiani (from the show "Silicon Valley") who began hosting a weekly "The X-Files Files" podcast in 2014. An Easter egg for fans was Scully's "I'm immortal" quote. This referred back to the 1995 episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" in which an insurance salesman was able to see how people die. When Scully asked him how she died, he said that she didn't.

Answer: A dog

When Guy Mann was telling Mulder his story at the cemetery, he said that he did something insane - he got a puppy and named him Daggoo: "I quickly realized that the only way to be happy as a human was to spend all of your time in the company of non-humans". But the puppy got out of the hotel room, and it was when Guy was out looking for the dog that he ran into Mulder and Scully at the truck stop. Daggoo ended up at the animal shelter, and while Scully was talking on the phone to Mulder, the dog bit her. This didn't put her off though; when Mulder ran off to find Guy, Scully looked at the puppy in the cage and said, "Hey buddy, you want to come home with me?"

The name "Daggoo" came from the book "Moby Dick", as did the name "Queequeg" which was the name of the dog that Scully adopted in the 1995 episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and lost in the 1996 episode "Quagmire".

Answer: He returned to the forest to hibernate.

After leaving the animal shelter, Mulder somehow managed to find Guy in the middle of the forest, where he was walking along, removing his clothes. He explained to Mulder that it was time for "his kind" to go into hibernation, and when Mulder said that he didn't think reptiles hibernated, Guy responded, "Whoa! I'm not a reptile - that's racist!" Guy told Mulder that he would be hibernating for 10,000 years, which Mulder said wasn't possible. Guy then complained that Mulder didn't believe him, and Mulder responded, "I want to believe!" But when Guy shook Mulder's hand, he morphed back into a lizard and ran off into the woods, leaving Mulder with a smile on his face.