The X-Files Drive: why does Patrick Crump's head explode?

Drive, the second episode of The X-Files season 6, is, I think, one of the top five episodes of the whole series. It's also one of the first that springs to mind when I think about the show.

The X-Files, starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, began its sixth season on the 8th of November 1998, coming straight off the show's first feature film. The season ran into the new year and became the final season of the millennium. It pushed the episode count back above 20, with 22 episodes in total.

Why The X-Files season 6 is seen as the start of a decline, and why I liked it

Season 6 was the first TV box set I ever bought. I didn't usually buy TV box sets, so this was the season I rewatched over and over.

Many people consider it the point where things started to decline. This is where the ratings started to go down, and they kept falling until the final season of this run. But I liked it. Most of the criticism was that the standalone episodes leaned more toward humor and stopped going for the scares that dominated so much of the earlier seasons.

Drive is where Bryan Cranston and Vince Gilligan teamed up before Walter White

Drive stars Bryan Cranston, and I believe this is the first time he and Vince Gilligan worked together. It's the performance credited with landing him the role of Walter White, and as they say, the rest is history.

According to the casting director, Cranston was due to audition for a completely different role. He was given the wrong name when he received the script, so he ended up studying for the character he plays here. He apparently even showed up to the audition with his facial hair exactly as it appears in the episode, and he was so good they had no option but to cast him in the role he'd prepared for.

Throughout the episode, you can see why Gilligan noticed him. It's one of those seminal side character performances in the show. I can't think of any other actor who came into a standalone episode and stood out as much as Cranston did. Maybe Eugene Tooms or Pusher, but they were terrifying bad guys, whereas Cranston is memorable for other reasons.

Patrick Crump's police chase and a head that explodes

Cranston plays Patrick Crump, and the episode opens on a high speed police chase with his wife in the back seat. It clearly echoes the police camera action shows that were popular at the time, and the world had images like this immortalized by the OJ trial.

Eventually the police stop and arrest him, and his wife is escorted to safety. She's put in the back seat of a police car, and her head explodes from what seems similar to a gunshot wound.

Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully are doing busy work, investigating domestic terrorism suspicions. This was before 9/11, but the Oklahoma bombing had happened, and people were ordering a lot of manure, which the FBI worried could be used to make explosives. So the FBI went door to door on farmland asking people a lot of pointless questions. Mulder does look cool in those sunglasses, but to the agents it's just big piles of manure that ultimately don't go anywhere.

Mulder is taken hostage and has to keep driving west

During a call, Mulder notices the news report and decides to take a detour. That leads to him being taken hostage by Crump, and we get an episode in which he has to drive, drive, drive. Gilligan said he was inspired by the film Speed and the idea that if you slow down, you die.

The episode is split into two halves. The first follows Mulder. The second centers on Scully, who's trying to work out what happened to Crump's wife. Examining the body, she finds no entry wound, but blood bursting out from pressure built up in the inner ear.

Crump begins to suffer the same thing, and Mulder must drive west to ease the symptoms. He has to go faster and faster, with less and less time spent stopping. That leads to an intense moment where Mulder tries to fill his tank at a garage named after Gilligan's wife. Mulder then has to steal a car, and things get more intense as Crump needs to go faster.

Scully suspects the Navy's Project Seafarer tests are behind the deaths

Scully investigates Crump's home and finds a dog going wild before its head also explodes. However, she finds a deaf woman completely fine, along with a government owned hatch warning that it's illegal to tamper with it.

Throughout the episode, Crump talks about noticing people sneaking around his home and thinks it was connected to the feds. That makes things tense with Mulder, but he's a genuinely good guy. He wins Crump round over the course of the episode while he and Scully try to get to the bottom of it.

That leads Scully to the Navy, who say they ran tests involving ELF under the name Project Seafarer. This is normally used for long wavelength communications, but Scully suspects the surge built up the pressure in the inner ear. The Navy denies all responsibility, but the story builds on many different government experiments.

The real fears about radio frequencies behind Drive

There's always been a worry around certain radio frequencies, and I remember it from childhood. My parents wouldn't buy a house because it was built next to a pylon. I also had a friend who lived next to one whose mother died of a brain tumor, which certainly didn't help quell my family's suspicions. It was very sad. After that, I wouldn't even let my mobile phone touch my leg for about three years because I was sure it would give me cancer. So, thank you, X-Files, and real life.

You'll often see conspiracy theories about things like Bluetooth, and even 5G supposedly causing COVID. Here, though, the episode builds on things like HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. The US military has poured countless dollars into researching these waves and frequencies.

Project Seafarer was real, and so was the controversy

Project Seafarer was a real thing. It was preceded by Project Sanguine, developed in 1968, which had cables buried under the country running for miles and miles. That was abandoned in the 1970s, but then President Reagan reordered it, and it became Seafarer.

It didn't go down well. ELF waves were questioned, and there were many protests about the environmental impact of building such a project. A judge halted its construction, but things continued. According to the wiki, the Navy spent $25 million studying the environmental impact and concluded it was about the same as regular power cables. That wasn't enough to settle things, and people believed the study was a government coverup.

Nowadays we don't need ELF to communicate, because I can call someone in America from a device in my pocket. The project was abandoned in 2004. With all that history, it was perfect for an X-File.

The ending of Drive explained: Mulder drives right past Scully

Once Scully knows what's going on, she has a way to potentially save Crump. It involves sticking a huge needle directly into his ear, with no anesthetic, and it will probably leave him deaf. Crump accepts it, then asks: "Mr. Mulder, could you go a little faster, please? Just a little more is all I need."

This is what makes the episode so devastating. Scully waits with the gigantic needle, and Mulder drives right past her. I remember the first time I saw it, watching Scully do a little jog and thinking, "Mate, park next to her. Park next to her." Then the grim reality is revealed: Crump is already dead in the back seat. Going a little faster didn't help, and he died before Mulder could get him to Scully.

Mulder gets out and goes to look at the sea. I remember seeing this as a kid and being shocked that we didn't get a happy ending, because that's the way the story seemed to be heading. All Mulder can do is keep walking west. He's clearly in shock, and I think his reaction sums up the audience's as well.

The X-Files often doesn't provide solace. The pair are then reprimanded by Alvin Kersh, who reads out the costs, including $346 in car rental penalties and $500 in compensation for the unauthorized use of a 1968 Capri station wagon. Their first new assignment hasn't gone well, and they're back to investigating big piles of manure. What a devastating way to end a story.