Weekly Written Analysis " A Scanner Darkly"

Bob Arctor (Reeves) is an undercover agent assigned to infiltrate the drug supply chain. Arctor and his housemates live in a poor Anaheim, California neighborhood. They are heavy drug users. When Arctor is at the police station, he is codenamed Fred, and hides his identity from his fellow police officers by wearing a high-tech scramble suit, that changes every aspect of the wearer's appearance. While posing as a drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to Substance D. Arctor befriends an attractive young woman named Donna Hawthorne (Ryder), a user of cocaine, Arctor's supplier of Substance D, and part of the drug scene. Arctor hopes to buy so much Substance D from Hawthorne that she is forced to introduce him to her supplier. Hank orders Fred to step up surveillance on the members of the Arctor household. Hank assumes Fred is one of the drug users in the Arctor household, but does not know which one, and actually orders Fred to focus the surveillance on Arctor. Meanwhile, Arctor's housemate Barris (Downey Jr.) secretly contacts the police and tells them he suspects Hawthorne and Arctor are part of a terrorist organization. Barris unknowingly tells this to Arctor himself at the police station while Arctor is wearing his scramble suit. Arctor is no longer able to distinguish between his roles as a drug user and undercover policeman, which makes him incapable of performing his job. Hank reveals to Fred that he has figured out, through the process of elimination, his true identity, and that his identity is indeed Arctor. Hank phones Donna, and asks her to take Arctor to New Path, Arctor is renamed Bruce and put through psychological reconditioning treatments. Arctor has serious brain damage from his withdrawal from Substance D. New Path is responsible for the manufacture and distribution of Substance D. Donna was part of a greater police operation to infiltrate New Path, and Arctor had been selected, without his knowledge or consent, to carry out the sting. It is revealed that the police had intended for Arctor to become addicted to Substance D; his well-being was sacrificed so that he might enter a rehabilitation center unnoticed as a real addict in order to find conclusive proof of New Path's crimes. New Path sends Arctor to work at an isolated New Path corn farming prison. Arctor spots rows of blue flowers hidden between rows of corn. These flowers, are the source of Substance D. Arctor hides one of the blue flowers in his boot, so that when he returns to the New Path clinic during Thanksgiving he can give it to his "friends" undercover police agents.