In Missouri, at a
self-storage business, Jay Gilmore drives a golf cart among
the storage garages, calling Anson on the radio. He
eventually finds Anson sitting in an empty storage garage,
reading a magazine about pleasure yachts. Jay berates Anson
for not cleaning garage 407. Anson opens the overhead door
of 407 and finds plastic covered furniture. Inside a rolled
up Persian rug, something moves. Anson unrolls the rug and
inside finds a woman. Jay is again calling for Anson on the
radio. He drives up to 407 calls out more critical comments.
All of a sudden he has no mouth, just unbroken skin where
his lips should be.
In the X-Files
office, Mulder is talking with Jay when Scully enters. A
mouth has been surgically opened for him, but it is gruesome
to look at. Jay is convinced that Anson Stokes did this.
Later, Scully gives some possible explanations for Jay.
There is a disease what's called "small mouth" that causes
the person's mouth to shrink to only a small hole. Mulder
tells her that that would take months, what happened to
Gilmore was instantaneous. She tells him that some people
are born without noses. Mulder tells her that it’s Gilmore’s
mouth, not nose.
Anson resurfaced
several days later but refused to talk with police. The
agents go to the Mark Twain Trailer Court, where Anson lives
with his brother, Leslie. Anson now has a huge yacht by his
mobile home. Anson is afraid that Mulder and Scully are IRS
agents, investigating how Anson could afford the yacht.
Anson hides and Leslie tells the agents that they are just
taking care of the yacht for somebody. Mulder sees the women
from the rug inside the mobile home. Leslie claims that Jay
stored chemicals that caused "the mouth thing."
Mulder and Scully
visit 407 but find odd chemical smells. A calendar is dated
1978. The furniture is expensive and high quality. Might
Anson have taken something and sold it to pay for the yacht?
They find a picture of the woman Mulder saw at the trailer.
Anson talks to
the woman - she gave him the yacht because he asked for it.
He's upset that it's not in water, but she just tells him he
didn't specify. He makes clear that he has wasted two wishes
and only has one left. He doesn't want to wish it until he
is completely ready. Leslie suggests a wish for money.
Leslie cannot walk and rides in a motorized chair - but is
doesn't occur to the brothers to wish for him to be able to
walk. Anson finally wishes that he can turn invisible at
will. The woman says it's unoriginal, but grants the wish.
Anson tests it and fades out however he forgets to wish that
his clothes would become invisible as well. He strips and
runs around the trailer court. Then he approaches a couple
of pretty girls, but while crossing the street even when the
sign says "Walk", he is hit by a truck and is killed as the
driver could not see him. On the side of the road is an
indentation of a body in the dirt. A boy on a bicycle rides
towards it, not knowing anything is there, until he hits it
and is thrown off his bike.
Scully waits in
an autopsy room as the invisible body is brought in. She is
astounded. She uses yellow fingerprint powder to outline the
face, then the entire body. Mulder arrives. (Mulder: "I
think you missed a spot here. I can see straight through to
his ass") Dental records identify the body as Anson Stokes.
This is the most amazing thing Scully has ever seen. Mulder
agrees that it is amazing but says it probably has nothing
to do with science.
The previous
owner of the items stored in 407 become successful literally
overnight, in 1977 his net worth was $36,000 & in 1978
it was $30,000,000. But he died in a very unusual way - he
wished for a big hoo-hoo. Mulder
thinks that the mystery woman is the link, but he can find
out nothing about her. Scully stays to guard the body while
Mulder goes to the mobile home.
Leslie says the
woman is gone. Mulder thinks she is a Jinniyah (Feminine for
Genie), a spirit from Middle Eastern folklore. They live in
inanimate objects and grant wishes for the people who find
them. Leslie agrees to hand over the object and gives Mulder
an ornamental box. Later, however, Leslie goes to 407 for
the rug.
Mulder goes back
to Scully at the autopsy room and tells her he wants her to
check something out. She doesn't want to leave the body, but
finally she closes the body in a drawer. Before leaving she
whispers "Bye" to it! At the office, Scully tells Mulder
that she has a group of researchers flying in from Harvard
medical and she can’t wait to see their faces.
Mulder shows her
the box, but it obviously has no Jinniyah in it - just
marijuana. Mulder, meanwhile, has found pictures of the
mystery woman using FBI software that matches faces in
photograph databases. She is seen in pictures of Benito
Mussolini and Richard Nixon, men who got all the power they
wished for, then lost it.
Leslie talks with
the woman. He wants Anson back and she grants the wish.
Scully leads a team of scientific experts into the autopsy
room, but Anson's body is gone, making her very embarrassed.
Leslie's wish backfired, because Anson is back, but still
with a decayed body and unable to talk - He didn't specify
that he wanted a "normal" Anson back. Leslie wishes Anson
can talk, and Anson begins scream. Mulder and Scully can't
find Anson's body anywhere in the lab. Scully now doesn't
know what she saw. Mulder thinks the body disappeared
because of a wish being granted.
Anson finally
stops screaming. Anson can't feel his hear or his blood and
he's cold. As Leslie struggles to think of his last wish,
Anson fumbles to light the gas oven, to warm the mobile
home. As Mulder and Scully pull up and the mobile home
explodes from the ignited gas. The carpet falls to earth
near the agents.
The woman is
taken into custody. Mulder calls her Jenn, short for Jinniah. The fire department recovers two bodies, including
Anson, now visible. Mulder's conclusion is that Jennis evil,
or the victim of a curse, but Gen says the only thing people
are cursed with is stupidity. In 500 years people have not
changed a bit. Greed still reigns. She used to be human,
born in 15th century France. A genie offered her three
wishes. Her first two were inconsequential. Her third was to
wish for great power and long life, which made her a genie.
It is forever, like a prison tattoo, and it is clear that
she regrets her wish, so many years ago. Scully can't come
up with any reason to hold her, but she will not leave.
Mulder unrolled the carpet so he gets three wishes.
Mulder and Jenn
are back at Mulder's apartment. Scully left the airport
quickly. Mulder asks what Jenn would wish for and she
answers that she would wish that she had never heard the
word "wish," and that she could live day to day, relaxing
over coffee, and watch the world go by. But, she's not him.
Mulder theorizes
that in order to avoid problems, his wishes should be
totally altruistic, for everyone. He wishes for peace on
Earth. She grants the wish, but when Mulder looks outside,
he finds that he is the last man on Earth. At FBI
headquarters he walks into Skinner's office and calls Jenn.
She explains that it is what he wanted - he wasn't specific
about how world peace should be established, He didn't
specify "Goodwill toward men". She accuses him of having a
huge ego, to want her to change the hearts of six billion
people in his name. He wishes to undo his first wish, and
Skinner and a staff meeting appears in the room, causing
Mulder much embarrassment.
He goes to his
office and begins typing a wish, in intricate detail, so
that he can get all of the specifics and details correct.
Scully enters. She doesn't remembering disappearing of the
face of the Earth.
Scully tells
Mulder that it has got to be hypnotism, or mesmerism, or
something. He tells her that it is what it is. She examined
an invisible body. She tells him that she thought she did.
She says that even if he’s right, what he’s doing is
extraordinarily dangerous, he even said it himself. He tells
her that the trick is to be specific and make the wish
perfect, that way everyone will benefit and it will be a
safer, happier world – food for everyone, freedom, no
tyranny, etc. Scully tells him that that sounds wonderful.
He asks her then what the problem is. She says that maybe
that’s the point of their lives, to achieve that. Maybe it’s
a process that one man shouldn’t try to circumvent with a
single wish. Scully leaves
and Mulder wipes the screen. Jenn comes back and asks Mulder
if he's ready to make his third wish. He tells her that he
is.
Back in Mulder's
apartment, Mulder and Scully are watching "Caddie Shack" - a
classic American movie which according to Scully is a guy's
movie. He tells her when she invites him over to her place,
they can watch “Steel Magnolias.” Mulder tells Scully that
he made the world a happier place. Scully asks him what his
final wish was and Mulder just smiles. Somewhere, Jenn sits
drinking coffee and smiling, watching the world go by.
