Plot
In a store Clyde Bruckman purchases a paper and a lottery ticket and leaves. In the street he almost bumps into an inconspicuous man, who heads to a fortune teller. The fortune teller is a palmist who dresses and speaks like a gypsy. After seeking his fortune, the inconspicuous man attacks and kills her.
A few days later, a different fortune teller has been found with her eyes and entrails removed. Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully arrive at the scene of that murder to help the local cops, who have recruited the help of a psychic, the eccentric "Stupendous Yappi." Although the psychic delivers extremely vague clues, the cops are thoroughly impressed. However, both Scully and Mulder are skeptical, especially after Yappi diagnoses that Mulder, not Scully, is the skeptic in the room who is "interfering with his psychic energy".
Meanwhile, after Bruckman takes the trash out for his neighbor, he discovers the body of the fortune teller outside in his dumpster. When interviewed by Mulder and Scully, he reveals details about the crime that he could not have known from the media accounts, which causes Mulder to believe that Bruckman has the psychic ability to predict death. Mulder insists that Bruckman join them in a visit to the other crime scene. Thanks to information from Bruckman, another body is soon found.
Mulder, Scully, and Bruckman go to the woods, where they discover another corpse. Bruckman explains how he gained his ability following the death of the Big Bopper in a plane crash. Bruckman foresees Mulder's death, telling him that he will have his throat slit by the killer after stepping in a pie. While Scully does not believe in Bruckman's power, the two develop a fast friendship. Bruckman asks Scully why she is not interested in knowing how she will die. Scully finally breaks down and lets him tell her, to which Bruckman, joyfully but cryptically, replies, "You don't." Bruckman later tells Scully that they will end up in bed together, in a very special moment neither of them will forget. This reinforces her skepticism.
Bruckman gets a note from the killer saying he is going to die. In response, the agents bring Bruckman to a hotel where a detective named Havez guards him. As the agents leave, they bump into a bellhop who is delivering food to Bruckman's room. It turns out that the bellhop is actually the murderer. He kills Havez and prepares to do the same to Bruckman. Meanwhile, Scully realizes that the bellhop is the murderer and they rush back to the hotel. Mulder chases the killer to the basement and the scene plays out as described in Bruckman's earlier premonition, but when the killer attacks him, Scully arrives and shoots him—what Bruckman had seen was the dying killer's last thoughts, not Mulder's death.
Mulder and Scully return to Bruckman's apartment to find that Bruckman has committed suicide by tying a plastic bag around his head. Scully sits on Bruckman's bed holding his hand, deeply moved, just as he had predicted. That night Scully sees a commercial for the Stupendous Yappi on TV, causing her to throw her phone at it.
Read more about this topic: Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose
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“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
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The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
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—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
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And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)