Fuchs

Fuchs
Background information
Appearances	The Thing
Notable facts	Dr. Blair's Assistant
Portrayed by	Joel Polis
Character information
Gender	Male
Role	Assistant Biologist
Group	U.S. Outpost 31 crew
Fate	Deceased, believed to have commited suicide by self-immolation

Fuchs was Blair's Assistant while he was stationed at the U.S. Outpost 31. He is portrayed by Joel Polis.

History

During the winter of 1982, the Norwegians were chasing an Alaskan Malamute around the outpost, the pilot was killed when he accidentally dropped a grenade and the passenger was killed by Garry thinking that he was hostile, the crew adopted the dog. R.J. MacReady and Copper found evidence that the Norwegians had dug something out of the ice, the pair return to the station with the partially-burned remains of a hideous creature which bears some human features. An autopsy of the cadaver by Blair is inconclusive, save to find that the creature had what appeared to be a normal set of human internal organs. During the night, he was woken up by the fire alarm that was turned on by MacReady, he saw an unknown creature assimilating the dogs, MacReady ordered Childs to bring the flamethrower and ordered him to incinerate it. A subsequent autopsy by Blair reveals that the stray dog was an alien capable of absorbing and perfectly imitating other life-forms. Fuchs continued Blair's research after he mysteriously withdraw himself from the rest of the crew, he later had a discussion about the possibility of the crew members already infected. Suddenly, Windows came to them panicking about Bennings being assimilated by the remains of the creature, they went to the storage only to find both Bennings and the creature's remains missing, they spotted the Bennings replica and MacReady incinerates it. Blair later suffers a total mental breakdown, he destroyed the helicopters, tractor and radio with an axe, and killed the remaining sled dogs, containing further contamination. The team overpowers him and locks him in the tool shed. With all contact to civilization cut off, the crew wonders how to determine who is still human. A torn shirt is found, confirming that the alien has indeed already assimilated at least one other person in the camp beside Bennings, but the name tag is torn out and the shirt cannot be matched to any one individual because they all wear the same size. Paranoia quickly sets in as the first attempt to develop a test using uncontaminated blood samples is sabotaged by an unknown party. While still continuing Blair's research, a power failure occurs, Fuchs went outside and saw an unknown individual lurking around the area, his body is found severely burned. MacReady speculates that Fuchs used a flare to burn himself before the Thing could get to him.

Trivia

• There are existing stills of an alternate death for Fuchs. Like in the film, exactly what happened would be ambiguous and open to interpretation, but rather than finding his corpse being found burned in the snow, he would have been found in a greenhouse impaled by a shovel.

Fuchs impaled by shovel.