The episode really has two separate storylines going on, and I wanted to touch on this one because I thought it was very strong, and I felt bad for neglecting it. Sleepless is so interesting because not only do you have a conspiracy of government experiments, but also some related supernatural ability in Augustus Cole (Preacher).
Preacher was part of a military squad selected to undergo sleep eradication experiments. As a result, he's managed to tap into a part of his brain that allows him to trick people (and their bodies!) into believing the images he projects are real. That how he goes about killing all of the people involved, including the doctors, and the soldiers.
Preacher is concerned about punishment, damnation, and salvation. He always said that they would have to pay for what they'd done, as a particularly deadly team. Without the burden of fatigue, they were free to massacre.
NURSE: This patient’s night terrors prevent him from cycling out REM sleep into the more restful slow wave sleep. It’s still experimental, but what we’re trying to do is modify his brain wave patterns externally.
M: How do you do that?
NURSE: Electrical stimulation of the occipital lobe creates simply visual and auditory hallucinations.
M So it’s actually possibly to alter somebody’s dreams?
NURSE: In theory, yes.
In this episode, Preacher creates dreams so real, they can kill. That's why this doctor believed he was burning.
And why this ex-soldier believes the ghosts of a war time massacre have come back as a firing squad.
It even works on Mulder, making him believe a Doctor has shown up at a train station, when he hadn't. Mulder fired his weapon at what he believed was Preacher, but was only in his head.
What's interesting, is the burn victim showed secondary, but no primary signs of burning. Same with the firing squad; the body showed evidence of being shot, but no punctures were found on the outside of the body.
M: Spleen or pancreas?
S: Stomach. I was just about to start on it.
Don't know how I missed this cap the first time around. So worth including.
Preacher's final act is a powerful scene that has always stuck with me. He has captured the last Doctor involved in the experiments, and they are in a dark warehouse. As Cole begins speaking, he lays out scalpels on his Bible and 'ghosts' of every soldier experimented on picks one up.
COLE: The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance.
GERARDI: Who is it? Who’s there.
COLE: He shall wash his feet in the wicked
GERARDI: Who is it? I can’t see without my glasses.
COLE: You don’t need to see to know who it is. You know who it is!
Preacher's delivery of these lines gives me chills!
COLE: You shall pay as the judge has determined. We shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn. Wound for wound, strike for strike. As he has disfigured a man, so shall he be disfigured. And he who kills a man shall be put to death.
Mulder and Krycek arrive on the scene. Preacher is exhausted, and looks like he's about to jump from the building. Instead he turns around and reaches out with his hand, holding out his Bible. He makes Krycek believe it is a gun, and so Krycek fires on him.
He is bewildered to find no gun.
Few things are as chilling as people who quote the Bible but twist and mangle it. Consider Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction, who continually quotes Ezekial 25:16 (I think), even calling it that, but has it wrong. He's twisted it, maybe subconsciously, to better suit him.
ReplyDeletePreacher is similar. The other members of his team refer to his quoting the Bible, but when he actually talks ("an eye for an eye," etc.) that's not actually the Bible, but the Code of Hammurabi. Of course "turn the other cheek" and "anyone can find salvation" hardly suit what he really wants to do, which is kill everyone responsible for the massacre. So he finds justification in the Bible, or tries to, and moulds it to suit him.
- I think the scene at the end plays on two levels. On the surface, it's as you describe. But consider, Krycek needed Preacher dead (or silenced, but death was the only sure fix there.)
It stands to reason Preacher figured that out, being quasi-psychic. I think that's why he smiled at the end. He knew he was going to die regardless, and Krycek was going to kill him.