John Lee Roche makes for a compelling serial child killer, with his calm, charismatic demeanour and unnervingly creepy voice.
However, the episode hits a problem straight away. The plot centres on the murder of several children and revisits Mulder’s search for his long-lost sister, exploring the possibility of this serial killer being her murderer. However, in previous episodes we had already established that Mulder’s sister was not kidnapped by a serial killer. Also, the idea that Mulder, as the detective in the killings, would believe a serial killer’s sudden claim is preposterous and cuts down the credibility of the episode.
Mulder is having realistic psychic dreams enabling him to find the victims, dreams which are never really explained and comes out of nowhere. Mulder is not established as a psychic by the show.
It is cool the way the episode plays with the idea that Mulder is not sure what is and what isn’t true. Given the good performances, this episodes works well if you consider is as a standalone short movie.