How Homicide: Life on the Street Sparked The X-Files Conspiracy Canon
A single cover-up converted Baltimore Detective John Munch, FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder, and the Lone Gunmen into conspiracy fanatics.
Viewers discovering Homicide: Life on the Street, now streaming on Peacock, will note Det. John Munch’s (Richard Belzer) penchant for conspiracy theories. This may not have always been the case. The Baltimore murder cop may have gotten the bug while on duty at The X-Files for season 5’s “Unusual Suspects.” The flashback episode to the creation of the Lone Gunmen supplies origin stories to much of the science fiction series’ canon, including how Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) was initially infected with his unique brand of governmental paranoia.
Homicide: Life on the Street, based on the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, who would go on to create The Wire, ran on NBC until May 21, 1999, concluding with Homicide: The Movie (2000). After the finale, Det. Munch became a main character on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The X-Files aired until May 2002 on Fox, spawned two feature films, and returned for an abbreviated tenth season in 2016. Both shows began in 1993.
Written by Vince Gilligan and directed by Kim Manners, “Unusual Suspects” is set in May, 1989. Agent Scully (Gillian Anderson) isn’t in the episode, and no other Homicide characters appear. The X-Files began production on season 5 in the last week of August 1999 in Vancouver. Duchovny and Anderson were still filming The X-Files movie in Los Angeles. Series creator Chris Carter came up with the idea to show how the Lone Gunmen met.
“Unusual Suspects” begins with a SWAT team response to a break-in and shooting at a warehouse in Maryland’s Fells Point Industrial Park. Mulder is found hiding under a cardboard box. He is naked and disoriented. John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood), Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood), and Richard Langly (Dean Haglund) are arrested at the scene.
The trio are jailed in Baltimore. Lieutenant John Munch is the interrogating officer. “Special Agent Mulder is currently being held in five-point restraints, jabbering like a monkey,” Munch informs Byers at the beginning of questioning. “The FBI’s not talking either. So, what I’m looking at here is a warehouse break-in with nothing stolen, a shootout but no guns, lots of blood but no bodies, and an FBI agent who likes to take off all his clothes and talk about space aliens. Fill me in.”
Byers tells Munch he works for the government, “at the moment.” He is an FCC employee handing out buttons at an electronics convention, and a warrior against pirated cable. Competitors seated at adjoining booths, Frohike and Langly sell stolen cable. Byers helps Susanne Modeski (Signy Coleman), who is trying to get her daughter back from an abusive ex-boyfriend.
The seemingly classic noir femme fatale lies about her identity, convincing Byers to hack into the Department of Defense’s computer network, and draws three strangers into committing federal crimes. She fingers Mulder as the psychotic ex-boyfriend. Seeing the clumsy Special Agent in the distance, it appears comically improbable.
When Byers and Frohike encounter Mulder, he identifies himself as an FBI agent, and asks if they can identify a suspect in a photo. They recognize the mysterious woman, but deny seeing her. Hacking into the FBI mainframe, Langly confirms Susanne is wanted for murder, sabotage, and terrorism at an Army Advanced Weapon Facility. The document says Dr. Susanne Modeski killed four people on her research team, and the MP who tried to detain her. Considered armed and extremely dangerous, with warnings not to approach, Modeski is labeled psychologically unstable, and her interactions with the Lone Gunmen appear to back up the diagnosis. At one point, Susanne pulls out a hotel Bible, explaining how they are used to surveil the movement of citizens. She also yanks out a tooth, which has a very visible tracking device.
Dr. Modeski explains she is a top organic chemist who worked on the team which developed ergotamine (EH), a gaseous weapon that induces anxiety and paranoia. The decrypted file proves she was framed after quitting over government plans to secretly test it on civilians in Baltimore. The file also provides an address where the gas is being stored. They locate the delivery agent, asthma inhalers, at the warehouse. Mulder arrests Susanne, but two men attempt to capture her. They fire on Mulder, hitting the gas, leaving the agent writhing. Susanne shoots her would-be kidnappers, and escapes in Mulder’s car. Syndicate member X (Steven Williams) arrives, bags the men who were shot, one not yet dead, and orders a cleanup just before proper law enforcement arrives. One of the side effects of the chemical agent is hallucinations, and Mulder sees the Syndicate crew as aliens.
The events and the coverup occur to a pre-X-Files “Spooky” Mulder, not yet assigned a sub-basement office. Frohike reads the hacked 1989 FBI dossier on Fox William Mulder, who graduated at top of his class at Quantico, accrued commendations out the ying yang, and is now in Violent Crimes. He is single, so Fox is quite a catch. The wedding ring he’s wearing in the shootout must be part of a deep cover. The X-Files’ canon says Mulder became a federal cop because his sister, Samantha, was abducted by extraterrestrials while young Fox was frozen in place. As of the flashback in “Unusual Suspects,” he doesn’t entertain notions of a sinister terrestrial collusion.
At the warehouse, Mulder is immersed in a gas designed to induce acute paranoia. The exercise is a covert government mission. The experiment will be covered up. The Violent Crimes specialist has no experience in this kind of operation. He believes in the Bureau and institutions like it. Further confounding official procedure, Mulder learns the case is immediately closed, and Dr. Modeski is no longer wanted by the FBI.
Mulder has no clue what the Lone Gunmen stumbled on until they explain the events as the credits roll. Byers opens the discussion by saying the government wants to “control every aspect of our lives, from the cradle to the grave.” Frohike adds, “tell him about the Bibles.” Agent Mulder is virtually speechless in disbelief, yet open to all evidence. The event, and its cover-up, could be read as leading to the epiphany of shadow government involvement in the disappearance of Fox’s sister.
Paranoid and suspicious, the Lone Gunman are not yet conspiracy theorists at the beginning of “Unusual Suspects.” They initially can’t stand each other. Langly calls Frohike “Doohickey,” they both call Byers a “narc,” but they agree on one thing: The government would never knowingly experiment on civilians. John Fitzgerald Byers, who was born on 11/22/63, tells Munch he would have been named Bertram if JFK hadn’t been assassinated. He is flabbergasted when Susanne suggests darker elements at play. “Dallas? 1963? Hello?”
Susanne goes to “The Baltimore Guardian,” but the press does not believe the story. She tells the three men to spread the truth, which gives them the idea for their newspaper, “The Lone Gunmen,” occasionally known as “The Magic Bullet Newsletter.”
The episode also serves as an “introduction” to Mulder’s inside connection, X. When the operation is contaminated, X orders the cleanup. He spares the infected Mulder, commanding “nobody touches this man” to his troops. This could be an early indication of how the behind-the-scenes fixer will use the agent in the future.
X also intimidates Byers, Frohike, and Langly. Byers is unfazed because he is too shocked by his new reality, almost mocking X with a heartfelt question about the Kennedy assassination. X supplies the trio with the name of the magazine they will publish. “I heard it was a lone gunman,” X grins dismissively.
From the very first episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, Detective Munch says he can “sniff out a conspiracy at a five-year-old’s lemonade stand.” It is an integral part of the character. Belzer himself wrote books on conspiracies, including UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don’t Have to Be Crazy to Believe.
“Unusual Suspects” could be Munch’s first fall down a conspiracy rabbit hole. He interrogates Byers as a cynic, ending the questioning with “Do I look like Geraldo to you? Don’t lie to me like Geraldo, I’m not Geraldo.” When Munch releases the Lone Gunmen, he advises them “aluminum foil makes a lovely hat and it blocks out the government’s mind control rays.” Munch leaves their cell a cynic, but hearing the story may be his conversion point.
Detective Munch could be a conspiracy. At least an X-File. His character crossed into several shows, in different genres. Belzer aimed his dark glasses at crime scenes in The Beat, Arrested Development: Exit Strategy, The Wire, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, American Dad, and had a special “Law & Order: Special Letters Unit” Muppet casing Sesame Street. Det. Munch even staked out 30 Rock. By extension, the homicide detectives of Law & Order can take Dr. Spaceman in for questioning, and drop him off with Agent Mulder.
Homicide: Life on the Street is streaming on Peacock.
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Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. He contributed to Altvariety, Chiseler, Smashpipe, and other magazines. He is the TV Editor at Entertainment…