Two men ride bicycles in Kansas City. They are
making religious calls. They call on a woman who says she is
just moving in and brushes them off. Outside her house is a
red car with the license plate "Betty." At another house, a
few blocks away, they call on another woman, who has a car
with the license plate "Lulu," and who looks just like
Betty. They tell her this, but she closes the door on them
and the two men begin to fight, which they continue until
police arrive.
One day later, Mulder (Steve Kiziak with Mulder's
voice) and Scully (Arlene Pileggi with Scully's voice) call
on Betty Tempelton - they are investigating a possible hate
crime. But they are not Mulder and Scully - just look-alike
FBI agents. As they talk, Lulu drives by and the two agents
begin fighting. The Scully look-alike runs over to their
car, gets in and pulls away. The Mulder look-alike runs
after the car and grabs onto her window.
The real Mulder
and Scully talk about the case -- it is as if they
temporarily lost control of their minds. Scully bristles at
the game of Mulder dropping clues but holding things back.
She keeps guessing, throwing out wild ideas that could have
come from Mulder, eventually hitting on the "right"
solution. She figures out that the agents were investigating
something similar to what they themselves were almost killed
by, and that it involves doubles.
In downtown
Kansas City, Lulu Pfeiffer enters a Koko's Copy store, where
she has applied for a sales job. She has had 17 jobs in 17
states in 3 years, which raises a red flag. But Lulu tells
him that she's in Kansas City to stay, so the manager gives
her the job. Suddenly, Betty drives up and all the copy
machines begin malfunctioning. Betty has applied for a
similar job at another Koko's Copy and her resume lists a
similar number of jobs. The manager asks her how he knows
she isn't going to quit, and she tells him that she's in
Kansas City to stay.
In a hotel, a
man, Burt Zupaneck, is packing money into a small suitcase.
Mulder & Scully arrive at his door, looking for Betty
Templeton. They have a newspaper clipping of him with Betty
in last year's Fourth of July parade. He denies
knowing Betty, but mentions that he thinks she used to live
in a pink house on Morton Bay. Scully says it was in
Alderwood in a blue house. In the hallway, Scully guesses
that Mulder thinks that Zupaneck knows where Betty is and
what she’s hiding, and that she should go check out the
house on Morton Bay that he mentioned, while he finds out
what Zupaneck is hiding. Mulder tells her that he really
doesn’t think Zupaneck knows Betty. Scully steps into the
elevator and Mulder stays behind to see Burt
leaving.
At Fogy's bar,
Burt meets Betty and is surprised that she doesn't seem to
know him. Lulu also arrives - she is the one who is Burt's
girlfriend. The bar begins to shake when they see each
other, with glasses and bottles exploding.
At Pat Devine's Kansas City Auditorium, Scully
arrives to find Mulder sitting with an older man, Saperstein, who we learn is a fight promoter and Burt is a
wrestler. Scully tells about Lulu and the path of
destruction that has followed her. The two women have
trailed each other across 18 states for the past twelve
years with things like fights, house fires, explosions, and
riots everywhere they go.
When the agents
leave, the Saperstein calls Burt asking for his money and
Burt tells him not to worry and that he'll bring it to him.
Betty is in bed with him. She goes into the bathroom to
dress and Lulu comes to the door, asking where Burt was last
night and if he is two-timing her. He calms her down and
eases her out the door as Betty comes out of the bathroom.
Suddenly shots pierce the ceiling from above.
Burt goes to a
bar to deliver money to the promoter but both Betty and Lulu
walk in and another series of explosions racks the bar.
Flying glass knocks out Burt and the promoter walks off with
his suitcase of money. When he wakes up, Mulder and Scully
are there. He realizes he’s missing the money. Mulder
asks if he’s lost something, and he tells him he’s lost his
good luck. Scully asks him if that would be Betty or Lulu.
Scully says Betty and Lulu caused this and they'll do it
again if they don't find them.
Mulder tracks
down Betty at her copy shop job and she says it's Lulu's
fault. She follows her around but "it's her or me this time.
I don't want to leave Kansas." Scully has just talked with
Lulu, who also works in a copy shop and says the same thing
about Betty. There is some kind of a psychic connection
between them. Outside Betty's work place, Lulu drives up
and in the mayhem, a manhole cover blows off and Mulder is
sucked into the open manhole. Betty and Lulu pull away in
their red and blue cars respectively as the manhole cover
flies back on.
Scully drives up
and enters Koko's Copy, looking for Mulder. Scully uses the
copy shop Internet access, then goes to the Kansas State
Penitentiary to talk to Mr. Damphus.
Scully:
Mr. Damphus, I’m Special Agent Dana Scully with the
FBI.
Damphus: What’s so special about you?!
Scully: It’s an FBI title, Sir.
Damphus:
I know this! I’m not stupid!
Scully tells him
that he appears to be the father of Betty and Lulu, via a
sperm bank. (Damphus: "I yankee Doodled into a
plastic club!") She wants to collect information about his
family tree. He is angry and insulting.
Betty goes to
Burt's - he tells her about the money he owes Saperstein, but his money disappeared when he was
unconscious. She says maybe she can help, and leaves. A
moment later, Lulu comes to his door and they hold the same
conversation. Betty breaks
into the copy shop and makes color copies of money. Lulu
does the same thing at her shop. Mulder finally manages to
get the manhole cover off and escape the storm drain.
Scully is still
at the penitentiary when Mulder calls her. Scully says the
father is the angriest man in the world. Mulder explains
that both Betty and Lulu love Burt and don't want to leave.
The agents agree that they have to get to the fight and keep
the two women apart. Suddenly Scully notices that there's a man who looks just
like Burt in a cell at the penitentiary.
Burt is at the auditorium in a
WWF-type wrestling
costume, complete with cape. He is known as "The Titanic."
Betty delivers the fake money, which Burt uses to pay for
the fight, and the fight begins. Mulder approaches Betty in
the audience when Lulu walks up. She asks Betty what she's
doing there. She asks her the same, and they both realise
that they are both after Burt and they start fighting.
Mulder tries to drag Betty off, but she grabs hold of the
ring and tries to talk to Burt. Lulu appears on the other
side and tells him that she brought the money. Suddenly, the
entire audience begins fighting.
Scully arrives
with the other Burt. The two women are astounded, and
everyone stops fighting. Scully grins but when the two Burts
see each other, the fighting resumes.
The fighting
fades out and we find Mulder, Scully, and Saperstein in the office looking at slides. Bert Zupaneck
and his double were non paternal biological siblings. Scully
is telling Mulder and Saperstein that the doubles had many
idiosyncratic behaviors. There was a 27 million to 1 chance
that the doubles would ever meet, but they did. The women
chanced to meet twelve years ago, and couldn’t seem to avoid
each other’s identical mannerisms, that were attributed to
their angry father.
Saperstein asks
what it all means. Scully says that she would like to say
that it has something to do with balance in the universe –
the attraction of opposites and the repulsion of
equivalents, or that over time, nature can only produce so
many originals, and that when two original copies meet, that
the result is often unpredictable.
We see that both
Mulder and Scully have extensive wounds and stitches from
the fight at the arena.
By Michael Marek
and Jamie Ruby
