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First Person Shopper Spoilers: First Person Shooter Scully is summoned by three of her women pals, her own "Ya-Ya Sisterhood," which is analogous to the Lone Gunmen, but who 1013 has never let us see. They need her help through an all too familiar female right of passage gone very awry: shopping for bridesmaid gowns. While shopping and getting measured for said gowns, using a new state-of-the-art body-scanning imaging system called "FPS" (for First Person Shopper), one woman, always a perfect size 5, is mysteriously stricken after registering as a size 7 by the body-scanner. She's found crumpled up and lifeless on the dressing room floor, with the zippered back of the mauve dress only halfway closed. There are no obvious entry wounds or other signs of foul play. Yvonne, the bride, is a female version of the emotionally stunted Ivan the Game Boy. She's crying and carrying on about how Miss Size 5's Demise is going to ruin her wedding, since she had painstakingly chosen her bridal party by height and size gradient to be aesthetically pleasing. In her own words, "How am I ever going to find a new almost very best friend that's exactly 5' 5" and a perfect size 5 NOW, a week before my carefully planned wedding?" Enter Mulder and Scully. Scully does little to hide the fact that she finds the state-of-the-art measuring system very cool, and she, like, totally identifies with the stricken and tearful bridal party, so much so that she sheds real estrogen tainted empathy tears of her own. Mulder wonders out loud about why women regress to become moody, hormonal adolescents whenever they go shopping, especially for bridesmaid gowns. He goes so far as to suggest that the whole scenario is based on estrogen overload, even though Scully takes time out in between sympathy sobs to say, "Well, isn't THAT a little sexist?" The only clue as to the dead bridesmaid's cause of death is that her partner in the wedding party, who looks suspiciously like Fabio, the romance novel cover boy, is only 5' 5" himself, and he has never, ever, appeared publicly with a woman that's any taller than 5' 4". Fortunately, the LA Sheriff's department puts out an A.P.B. on Pseudo Fabio, and much to the Lady Sheriff's delight, he's brought to the station for questioning. He's read his rights about 500 times by drooling women deputies, and each time he gives his name as Fabby O. Forrpleigh. Scully says something about feeling the need to "blast the crap out of something." Or maybe she says "dress the crap out of something," it's hard to tell because she's salivating so much. Obviously, Scully knows what she has to do. She volunteers to take the stricken bridesmaid's place in the wedding party, even though we all know she's not 5' 5" but this is Hollywood, and with special effects and very high heeled, dyed-to-match shoes, no one will even care. She enters the high tech bridal gown salon and subjects herself to the body scanner. Mulder rolls his eyes in that "girls will be girls" kind of way. Something's not right in the body scanner, because Scully's vitals are wiggy and she hasn't even been measured for the headpiece yet. The moody bride-to-be starts whining and crying about Scully now ruining her wedding, and Mulder threatens to knock out her teeth. Finally, Mulder knows what he has to do. Mulder enters the dressing room in a very well-fitting mauve bridesmaids gown. He'd be the perfect bridesmaid if mauve was his color and he'd shave his legs once in a while, and despite his five o'clock shadow and rather deep and sultry voice, the other bridesmaids don't notice that he's a he. After sharing some raspberry herbal tea and bemoaning the arcane tradition of catching the bridal bouquet with the other bridesmaids, he slips into the body scanning room and finds Scully shaken but not stirred while an impressive, anatomically correct animated version of Fabby O. Forrpleigh tries to compress Scully's legs so she'll be shorter than him. The irony that she already IS shorter than him is not lost on Mulder, who, despite the slit to the thigh design of his mauve dress, manages to kick the devil out of Animated Fabby O.'s shins until the bride-to-be gets the body scanning program to shut down with a kill command: "jelly doughnuts," for those of you who are interested in the details. Yvonne admits that her compulsive obsession with arranging her bridal party by height is really the neurosis of her fiance, who's worn elevator shoes since the ninth grade. Animated Fabby O. Forrpleigh is HIS creation, but he created him because he felt powerless amidst all the hoopla of the wedding planning. He turns to Mulder, who nods his head knowingly. It's the type of thing that only another man could understand. Anyway, the bride finds a new friend to fit the extra mauve dress and the dyed to match shoes, Scully enjoys the estrogen rush, and Mulder gets his Armani suit back. As Yvonne flips through a computer program of grooms with changeable color cummerbunds, her last image is that of Mulder's head on Fabby O.'s body. Yvonne smiles contentedly, adjusts her matching garter, and prepares to walk down the aisle. END |
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