S4E4 · Unruhe

In Traverse City, Michigan, Mary Lefante goes to a local pharmacy to get her passport photo taken. Realizing she has forgotten her wallet, she returns to her car and finds that her boyfriend has been murdered. The killer, clad in a hooded raincoat, renders Lefante unconscious with a hypodermic needle, then kidnaps her. Meanwhile, in the pharmacy, the elderly clerk peels open the Polaroid photo, which shows her screaming amidst a distorted background.

Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are assigned to the case. Discussing the photograph, Mulder tells Scully about Ted Serios, a psychic photographer who was famous for making photos which showed what was in his mind. He takes pictures of his gloved hand using a Polaroid camera found in Lefante's apartment, and they all appear the same as the one from the pharmacy. Mulder deduces that the kidnapper has been stalking his victims and is capable of psychic photography.

Lefante is found wandering on a roadside, but appears to have been given an improperly-performed lobotomy. Another woman, Alice Brandt, is later kidnapped. She wakes up bound to a dentist's chair, with her kidnapper brandishing an ice pick and speaking in German. Mulder returns to Washington, D.C., to digitally analyze the photos and finds no evidence that they were doctored. By closely examining the photos, he finds the face of an old man as well as the shadow of the kidnapper, who appears to be extremely tall or have abnormally long legs.

Scully investigates a possible lead and meets Gerry Schnauz (Pruitt Taylor Vince), a sheetrock installer who worked near both crime scenes. She fields a call from Mulder and, after hearing what he found in the photos, realizes Schnauz, who is wearing plasterer's stilts that make him tall, is the suspect. Schnauz attempts to flee while wearing the stilts, but Scully pursues and arrests him. The agents interrogate Schnauz, who was once institutionalized for beating his abusive father with an axe handle. When questioned about Brandt's location, Schnauz claims she is safe from the "howlers", supposedly malicious spirits inhabiting the frontal lobe of people and force them to lie or otherwise deny their existence. Brandt is soon found in the woods, lobotomized. Mulder believes that Schnauz thinks he is rescuing his victims from howlers and that the photos show his nightmares.

Schnauz escapes police custody by killing an officer and then robs the pharmacy from the opening, taking the passport photo camera, film and an assortment of drug-related materials. While investigating the robbery, Scully is rendered unconscious and kidnapped by Schnauz. Mulder heads to the office where Schnauz's father used to work as a dentist, finding the exam chair missing. Scully awakens bound to the chair with Schnauz claiming he's going to kill the howlers in her head. Schnauz takes a photo of himself, the results of which greatly disturb him, then prepares to lobotomize Scully.

Mulder, having found a clue in a photo of Scully from the drugstore's photo booth, finds a construction site near Schnauz's father's grave and realizes the RV parked there belongs to the younger Schnauz. He manages to break in and shoot Schnauz before he can attack Scully. Mulder looks at the photo Schnauz took of himself, in which he is lying dead on the floor. A diary is then discovered among Schnauz's things, and it includes a list of the women he intended to save: Mary Lefante, Alice Brandt, and Agent Scully.