Comments: plaidder@mindspring.com
All of these reviews contain spoilers. To avoid being spoiled it's best just to click on the links below and go to the episode you want rather than scrolling through the whole page. Also, I never am able to find out what the actual titles are, so I make up my own. Just so you know there isn't an episode called "Big Blue Meets Nathanial Teeger." However, the made up titles usually have something to do with the plot. If the title makes no sense whatsoever, that means you probably haven't seen that episode and if you read it you will probably be spoiled.
These reviews were all originally sent to the STWTTF, which explains the format (to some extent). They start with the second week of the 97-98 season (I lost my review of the premiere, which basically said, "That was it?" followed by "It stinks!"). I have skipped a couple weeks, but aside from that they go in chronological order:
Second Half of the
Season Premiere
Lone Gunmen
X-Travaganza
A
Christmas Carol
Emily
Return of the
Pusher
Revenge
of the Lorax
Demon Dolly
Kill Switch
I Was An FBI
Vampire
Close
Encounters Of The Very Bad Kind
Close Encounters, Part
Two
Folie a
Deux
The
End
OK, *now* the wait is over.
I see why last week's episode was so lame. They were saving up for this one.
Whooooo doggie! We got lots more to worry about now besides whether Skinner's sold his soul to the Dark Side. And how could you ask for more drama? *This* is what a premiere is all about. And in fact, it beats many of their others, because instead of just sweeping everything under the rug until the end of next season they've made changes that they've just gotta deal with. I mean, c'mon...no Cancer Man, Blevins is a mole, Scully's in remission, Samantha's resurfaced, and things must be gettin' a mite trepidacious out Consortium Way.
YOU'RE ONE SORRY SONOFABITCH: OK, everyone who thinks Scully's navy brother is Up To No Good raise your hand. Yeah, I thought so. I can see why you'd be mad at Mulder, if you were a member of Scully's family, but he just bugs the shit out of me and I hope he's going to end up being a Rousch plant just so I can see Scully tear his head off when she finds out.
SORRY SONOFABITCH SPEAKING: Well, after this episode I almost like Mulder again. He was acting like a total asshole toward the end of last season, but this one really tenderized him, and I hope they'll have him remember this in future episodes. I was glad that they had him realize his own responsibility for what's happened to Scully. However, I was equally glad that this didn't drive him into the arms of the smoking man...poor smoking man.
SAMANTHA?: Say it with me, Mulder: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. No matter how many times one of the baddies trots a woman about his age out and says, "Hey Fox, this is Samantha! Aren't you happy now? Think you can give up the chase?" he believes them. What's to say she's not another clone, or some actress they hired for the purpose? I dunno, but I don't really buy this woman as Samantha--nor do I buy the idea that she's really his daughter. Nope, I stick with the "Luke, I Am Your Father" explanation and I think the whole Samantha thing was trumped up to confuse him.
I WILL ANSWER THE QUESTION: Now *that's* how to run a hearing. Everyone yelling at once, dramatic accusations, and a swift execution-style slaying to round it all off. Helluva lot more interesting than most department meetings I've been to. WHo *did* shoot Blevins anyway, and where did it happen? That part all went by mighty fast. And while we're at ti--how come Krichgow is still alive? I mean, I guess they might have kept him around in hopes that they could use him against Mulder, but I assumed when the two military guys came up to apprehend him that his time on earth was growing short.
WE'LL NEVER KNOW: So you could spot this early--they introduced two possible alternative explanations for Scully's remission just so it would remain open-ended. We got the chip, we got the super-invasive treatment, and we got the power of prayer. Personally, I'm putting my money on the chip, implausible as it seems. I guess they could find out by taking it out and seeing if she relapses...but probably nobody wants to do that. Anyhow, I'm glad she'll be able to go back to work soon, even though next week's trailer went by so fast I couldn't tell what she was going to be doing.
I'M SURE SHE'D LOVE TO SEE YOU: Well, I guess Mulder explained to her about Blevins before he went in there...otherwise I'd think he'd've thought twice about stepping in there. But I'm glad he's not a Very Bad Man like we thought he was. Just goes to show you, you can always trust bald emotionally repressed men...
X-FILES POETRY CONTEST: Enter in one of two categories:
1) Write the text (in English or in Latin) to the "Hail Mulder," which Mulder
asks SCully to put into the rosary for him. "Hail Mulder! Full of obsession, the
truth is with thee..."
2) A virtual cashbag to whoever comes up with the
best text (in English or in Latin) for "REquiem for a Cigarette-Smoking Man."
Poor guy. He gave us so much pleasure, he deserves a requiem mass. I'm sad to
see him go, but from the consortium's point of view I think this assassination
was long overdue--CM's been fucking up too often and for too long. But now he's
gone--who's gonna keep Mulder from ending up in a body bag? SRSG woman? I don't
think so.
There was one big problem with this episode, and that was the lack of Scully. Otherwise, I had a great time with it. I liked the different backstories for the different Gunmen, and it was fun to play Hindsight Foreshadowing (it's Mr. X!). It's also interesting in that it functions (if you read it straight) as confirmation of Krichgow's theory. The coverup is for a standard military-type biological warfare escapade, but because of the effects of the gas and the aliens-have-landed display booth Mulder was looking at, Mulder looks at the cleanup team and sees aliens. And since Mr. X heard his demented ravings, maybe that was where the government got the idea of using alien abduction to cover for more frightening stories like Suzanne Modeski's. Of course, this episode has the same "problem" as "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man"--we have to rely on the Lone Gunmen as the narrative authority, since Byers tells the story to the detective and then again to Mulder at the end of the episode.
It also offers explanations for some of Mulder's history--not only more proof that he's CM's son (since Mr. X is protecting him even before he becomes an anti-conspiracy fighter) but an explanation for his paranoia (since he seems to be fairly normal before he gets all that nasty biohazard crap dumped all over him). Poor Mulder--first this, and then NAC (Nasty Alien Crap, i.e. that black stuff they bunged into him in "Tunguska.") It's a wonder he's still alive, walking around with all that crap in him.
WHY WOULD YOUR THREE YEAR OLD HAVE AN ENCRYPTED FILE?: Good @#$! question, Byers. Man you are stupid. It's believable stupidity, given the way they developed his character in this episode ("it's our way of saying, 'Communication is all about sharing...'") but it's still pretty amazing. And how about Frohicke offering to go kick Mulder's ass...I'd have really liked to see him and Langley give it a try.
TELL HIM ABOUT THE BIBLES: This is where I think we see the Gunmen's own paranoiac bent taking over--when Suzanne was talking about the hotel bibles I had the feeling the episode had switched into Jose Chung mode and we were now inside a paranoid LG fantasy. The fact that all three of them are portrayed as totally uninterested in conspiracies or anything else is another bit of narrative doctoring on their part, I think--or maybe not, but that's how I read it. You figure they must have had a paranoid streak to be so receptive to her story when nobody else believed it.
BAG HIM?: OK, so nobody touches Mulder...but why are the Lone Gunmen still alive? Well, my partner suggested it was because he expected them to lead him to Modeski, and there is the question of whether Mr. X was already trying to undercut the conspiracy.
I'M NOT GOING TO ASK YOU AGAIN: It was neat to see Mulder in Just Another Agent mode, although I'm not sure I buy that version of his pre-paranoia-juice personality--they've been playing him so far as if his obsessions go back much further, and his biography, what with the PhD in psychology and all, reinforces that. But it was still funny.
ANOTHER X-FILES CONTEST: We were thinking it'd have been funny if they stuck Scully in as a cameo. Liza suggested she could have been a customer for Frohicke's bootleg cable services. "Yeah, I want 33 crystal-clear channels. Would I be able to get the Discovery Channel?" Let's see if we can get a list going of the Top Ten Scully Cameo Opportunities!
Next week: What, *another* invisible assailant? Didn't we do this already?
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
I'm gettin' out the rubber chicken right now and thwacking myself upside the head with it for not having seen the denouement coming. I knew Scully's eggs got harvested. I knew those guys in the car were probably conspiracy people. And yet, somehow, I failed to draw the obvious conclusion that Emily was grown from one of Scully's eggs. Shame on me.
I see they put all the moody reflective stuff in this half and they're saving all the action for the second half. I liked this episode pretty well, although I found the flashbacks occasionally tedious (and I've *always* found Melissa annoying as all get-out). But overall, thumbs up because:
I LEFT TEA LEONI'S BEDSIDE FOR THIS?: Does David Duchovny have some kind of contract whereby he has to appear at least once in each episode even if it's just to answer the phone and say, "Hello? Hello?" And can we give him the Minnie Pearl Memorial Where In God's Name Did You Get That Hat Award for his seasonally appropriate and yet heinously stupid-looking knitted chapeau? Anyhow, while I missed Scully in the Lone Gunmen episode, I hardly missed the boy in this one.
I'LL FIND THAT RABBIT: Eeeeeeeeech. Well, this proves my theory that Scully's brother Bill is a Bad Seed. OK, it doesn't *prove* it exactly, but I believe the writers are setting him up as a villain. Mark me:
1) Forcing her to conceal her bunny until it dies and becomes food for
worms.
2) Giving her this "you're just getting hysterical and delusional
because you can't have children which is of course your natural function so no
wonder you're getting loopy you unnatural career woman you" crap.
3)
Constantly trying to get her to stop investigating suspicious activities.
They're gonna toy with us for a long time, but I'd put money on it right now: he's Up To No Good.
I'M HAPPY FOR BILL AND KATHY: Well, I ain't. "I just feel like my life was...less full, up until now." Yeah, thanks babe, as a single woman I'm sure Scully really enjoys sitting there while you tell her she's an incomplete person. It does seem like this desire to have a child came out of nowhere, and was even one might say fabricated for this episode, but on the other hand you can see where almost dying would cause one to have thoughts like that. Then again, we didn't see Mulder sighing nostalgically for the little Mulderlings that were not to be during his brushes with death. But then maybe that's Mulder.
THEY SAID THEY WERE HIS LAWYERS: As my partner the lawyer said, "Didn't they ask to see their bar cards?" And call me nuts, but if a jailer had to let them into that cell, didn't a jailer have to let them out? Oh well...
Special bonus acting points for Scully's speech to the adoption agency woman, although it struck me as odd that she was unburdening herself to that extent to this particular audience. But I'll buy a little improbability if you deliver the goods, and that scene did.
Next week: Mulder gets to prove his devotion by throwing people against walls and yelling a lot. Can't wait!
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
Promising start, somewhat lackluster finish, although still fairly entertaining, but with some very weird gender stuff written into Scully's part.
IT ENDS AS IT BEGINS: Whoever directed must have read that opening monologue and shouted, "GET ME REWRITE!! Oh--wait--Chris Carter wrote this episode. Well, crap." As far as I'm concerned, that was the cheesiest, lamest excuse to put Gillian Anderson in front of a wind machine that the X-Files has perpetrated yet. Not that flowing draperies and bare feet isn't a good look for her, but PLEASE. The hackneyed cliche feel of the dialogue was outdone only by the visuals, which irresistibly reminded me of that dream sequence with Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly in *Singin' in the Rain,* where Cyd is wearing a white scarf about 30 feet long. This man MUST be stopped. Or at the very least, could we just have a moratorium on the voiceovers?
SHE WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE: Well, I'm glad they gave Mulder that speech about not feeling like anyone could stand in Scully's way, but you gotta hope that the writers were conscious of the fact that this entire episode was about a bunch of guys in suits and ties trying to make sure Scully couldn't be in charge or stay in charge of "her" kid. And of the fact that what happens, as soon as Scully finds out she's Emily's mother, is that she gets stuck by the kid's bedside keeping death watch while Mulder gets to do all the action stuff--trailing people, beating them up, finding embryos, etc. Hmmm.
DR. CALDERON?: Now I'm takin' the rubber chicken and thwacking both Mulder *and* Scully upside the head with it. OK, they know the kid has that green stuff in her that the shapeshifting aliens have. Then, Calderon is sighted simultaneously in two locations. HELLOOO! It's the Cluephone calling! Why does it take them so long to get the hang of this?
On a first viewing, I thought Mulder didn't figure out about the shapeshifting until Kresgy opened the jeep thingy with the auto-lock. On the second try I realized that he must have known when he went back into the house because he tells Kresgy not to use his gun, so maybe he figures it out as soon as Scully tells him Calderon came to the hospital. OK. However, there is *no* excuse for him not realizing that the shapeshifter guy was disguised as Kresgy, *especially* since he knows that Kresgy shot him and that therefore he must be overpowered with the poison blood. He shouldn't have needed the little auto-lock clue, neat as it was. Meanwhile, when Scully chases "Dr. Calderon" down the hall, and finds a very similar-looking guy with a different face, she oughta know what's going on. I suppose you could read her look of perplexment not as "But where did he go?" but rather as "Crap, now how do I explain to people that this is really the same guy?" but I think that would be pushing it.
And here's another question: what was the point of the other shifty people killing the "real" Dr. Calderon? It wasn't to keep people from pumping him for information, since they replaced him anyhow and Mulder would presumably have kept badgering the new one as much as the old one. And if they're worried about the fact that Mulder has connected the "real" Dr. Calderon to the conspiracy and the old folks' home, how will killing the "real" one and replacing him with an exact duplicate solve this problem? The connection is still there.
ANNA FUGAZZI?: OK, neat as this whole thing with the old mothers and the beauty sleep is, I just have to ask:
1) How come on Calderon's first trip to the old folks' home (hereinafter
referred to as OFH) that main area appears to be completely deserted, and then
when Mulder comes back it's being used as the major common room/meeting area/TV
parlor by the old folks? Where were they when the bad guy swere ice-picking
Calderon--watching *Grumpy Old Men V* at the Multiplex?
2) How come there is
*absolutely no one* supervising any one or any thing at this OFH when Mulder
goes back at night? Sure, "Calderon" has just run out, but if this is really an
old peoples' home there's gotta be *someone* on duty, if only to keep them from
wandering out of the OFH and into neighboring yards. And whose idea was it to
leave the Beauty Sleep room *completely* unattended for long periods of time?
3) Where do they get all these old people? Sure, I know we neglect our
elderly, but how can you gamble on a patient's family not wanting to see or talk
to them at any point during a 9-month period? Unless they're all hip to the
conspiracy, which you'd figure they couldn't be.
OK, I feel better now. I figured out, again only on the second viewing, that those bottles of green stuff that Mulder swiped were the same thing Calderon injected into Emily--i.e., the "cure," which allows Emily's body to continue to function even though her alien half is destroying it. At first, I thought the bottles had other fertilized Scully embryos in them.
ARE YOU TWO THE PARENTS?: I dunno, they make an interesting alternative family...it would have been neat if they could have kept EMily alive for a few episodes to see how this would affect the Mulder/SCully dyad. But no...
FADE TO MADONNA AND CHILD: OK, I *really* disliked that whole Scully/Madonna parallel. Something about it just sets me off. So Scully has a kid now, this makes her the Virgin Mother? This is how gender stereotyping gets started, friends...
THEY DIDN'T INTEND TO LOVE HER: What about Emily's adoptive mother? She loved her for 3 years--or doesn't that count? Sure, she was a pawn of Calderon, but she probably didn't realize what was going on until it was too late. But I guess she doesn't count because she's not a biological parent...
Next week: rerun of the "Sweetheart Killer" episode, which I haven't seen yet. Woohoo.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, wanna go home.
FOXHUNT: Anyone know whether they even have foxes in Japan? Anyone care? Personally, I don't see how any of this episode makes any sense. Fox's big brainstorm is that Linda is the one who killed Nathan. He believes this because Modell tells him not to play the game. Well, I might ask, what is Modell doing telling Mulder that if he's trying to protect Linda? The whole plot was pretty muddled, as far as I'm concerned--if it works, it only works after a lot of unraveling and making up reasons and motivations where none are provided, and frankly, the episode didn't make me care enough to want to fill in the blanks.
HE HAD TO GO: Exactly how is Modell "going," at this point? They never explained the fact that he went from pushing a round plastic wheel with great difficulty to zipping about from location to location without being spotted. CarboBoost alone cannot explain this, to my mind.
WHY IS NO ONE ANSWERING AT THE SAFE HOUSE?: More to the point, what kind of safe house is this? I don't know whether it's that they're getting lazy or that the scales have finally fallen from my eyes, but I'm starting to notice some continuity problems with the sets on these episodes. First we have the old folks' home that's bustling with old folks in one scene and apparently deserted in another; now we have a safe house that looks like a house from the outside, and like a house in the actual rooms, but appears to have hospital-style corridors. C'mon, folks, if you're going to reuse the same sound stage for every episode at least build yourself a hallway that looks like something you might find in an actual house.
YOUR MOTHER IS TINA: She is, huh? I don't think I knew that before. Everyone and their dog knows Mulder's sister is Samantha, so that's not much help. I haven't had much success so far with the top 10 lists, but here's one maybe people will get into:
Top Ten Things You Could Tell Mulder To Convince Him You're Really Scully
10. "Look, my name's inscribed on this microchip."
9. "It's your fault my
sister's dead."
8. "It's your fault I have nasal cancer."
7. "It's your
fault they extracted all my ova."
6. "I use Red Dye No. 53."
5. "OK, two
words: Dwayne Barry."
And so forth. Well, I have to say that while during the first "pusher" episode I was very affected by the whole Mulder-almost-shoots-Scully denoument, I found this one a real yawn. YOU CAN ONLY DO IT ONCE, GUYS!
But then I guess if Chris Carter believed that, he wouldn't be in the fix he's in.
Next week: people eating dirt. Or is it dirt eating people?
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
The short story: fairly watchable, but nothing special, with the added detraction of some murky and unfortunate attempts to comment on America's alleged culture of victimization.
HOW DID ALL THIS GET INTO HIS STOMACH?: Well, we never really did get an answer for that, except I suppose we're meant to assume that the roots somehow shoved it down there. But I like it that Mulder got to be skeptical of her explanation this time instead of the other way around. Otherwise, the method of execution in this episode was even harder to figure out than usual. I imagine the idea is that the trees are doing it, with the help of the friendly mud; but if they're dying of blight anyhow it's kind of surprising that they're up to these sorts of hijinks.
I TAKE CARE OF THE TREES: So is anyone going to hold the Lorax for questioning? (You remember the Lorax, right? "I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees"? Never mind...) I assumed, at first, that this guy was meant to be a ghost, which Scully seemed to think for a while too, despite the fact that she talked about what "the orchard man said" as if it was perfectly normal for people to be appearing out of nowhere with axes and delivering cryptic messages from the forest world about bad men and the blights they cause. I guess maybe to her it is, at this point. But then he whacks Karen Matthews good, which indicates that he has some kind of material existence, and just walks away into the night. Admittedly Mulder was kind of stuck in the mud at that point, but...
TAKE A LOOK AT THIS, SCULLY: It'd be easier if you'd turn a *light* on, Mulder. I know atmosphere is important, but in some of these episodes it just pisses me off not to be able to see a damn thing 50% of the time. If you're chasing a subject through an abandoned warehouse or looking through files in a secret government holding area, well, there's some justification for that. But when you're in someone's kitchen, why not find the lightswitch and save us all some aggravation?
I WORK WITH THE VICTIMS ONLY: OK, here's my major problem with this episode: Karen Matthews, Demon Therapist. The episode does cover its butt by admitting that abuse happens, since Mulder's voiceover confirms that Karen was abused as a child. But otherwise, the plot feeds the anti-abuse-awareness backlash, seeing as its basic premise is that one woman who couldn't get over her childhood trauma is reproducing it in other children through mind control, tree murder, and what have you. Way to give empowerment a bad name. And I guess you might probably say some stupid things when you're about to be sucked into a mudhole and force-fed dirt till you die, but Mulder screaming at Karen to "stand up to him" and tell him "what you should have told him 20 years ago" betrays the kind of non-understanding of abuse that you'd think a guy with a degree in psychology wouldn't have. I dunno--in that position, I might've just picked a fight with Karen's dead dad, then maybe he'd have come on down into the mudhole after me and at least we could have all gone down together...
IT'S FINISHED NOW: OK, so here's my question: baby Karen somehow convinces the trees to kill her dad. Then the trees start killing other parents who don't treat their kids nice. At this point we can assume, I suppose, that Karen is motivating the murders somehow, either through Bobby and Lisa's own rage or through her own super-tree-movin' telepathic powers. Then she turns on the kids, which apparently is the result of the introject of her dad taking over her personality. Yet, she still has the power to motivate the trees to kill people. If the trees killed her dad, why should they now turn around and work for him? Are they stupid? And what is it that's blighting the trees? Guilt for the murder, or Karen's rage, or what?
IS THIS DISPLAY OF BOYISH AGILITY TURNING YOU ON AT ALL?: So they're planting the seeds, evidently. That or just taunting people. Mulder does seem to have some of that boyish charm back, which is nice. On the other hand...
YOU STAY WITH HER: And then we never hear from Scully again. In general, she was sadly underused in this episode, being more or less a prop for Mulder's exposition of the plot. I thought that it would turn out that only she could see Lorax man, or that the girl would turn out to have been possessed by Karen's dad and she and Scully would have to fight it out back at the house, but alas, they really were just getting her out of the way so Mulder could save Bobby from the Michigan Death Mud. Mulder got to do all of the interrogating, except for one with the girl that you don't actually see and one with Bobby that you only see the very end of, and Mulder got to break Bobby on the stand, so to speak. Fine, whatever, only in the next new one I better get to see Scully make some deductions, come up with some one-liners and kick some butt.
LITERARY ALLUSION WATCH: In J.M. Synge's classic play "The Playboy of the Western World," Christy--a spindly and wimpy young lad not unlike Bobby with an uncongenial and verbally abusive father not unlike Bill--takes a swing at his dad with a shovel and then flees, fearing he's killed him. He fetches up in a different village where he gets shown all kinds of respect for having supposedly been man enough to kill his dad. Much the way Bobby tries to whack his stepdad with the shovel but can't do it and then brags about it anyway to his classmates. Just so you can savor the parallels.
POP CULTURE ALLUSION WATCH: "Honestly, officer, I was just driving along when this tree jumped out and bit my car." --Bill Cosby in one of his standup routines, relating an accident that sounds not unlike what happened to Mulder.
Next week: "Memoirs of a Cigarette-Smoking Man" becomes "Requiem for a Cigarette-Smoking Man." Yeee ha.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
Short story: it was funny for the Sculder/Mully interaction, but in terms of scary...the demon doll thing just doesn't work for me.
I'M ON VACATION: Poor Mulder, so at a loss. The best thing about this episode was watching him goofing off while she was gone. Poor bastard can't keep himself from going into work, since he has no life, but without her all he can do is sharpen pencils, watch porn videos about bees, and dance around on the furniture. And him trying to come up with scientific theories was priceless. Medical science obviously makes precisely the same amount of sense to him as occultiana does to Scully--he knows enough to bullshit about it but not enough to be any use. Except apparently she's working on those occult chops because...
MARRY ME: I saw it coming, but it was still funny. I expect we'll hear from folks about wicca being included in the pantheon of wacky witchy stuff, but it was still great to watch her go down the list and see his jaw hanging open. You could see it hanging open even when they weren't cutting to his reaction. And I especially like how she read the list of stuff in that dead-tired tone of voice while the cop looks at her. So now her life is at the point where witchcraft is her job, and she's pissed at having to deal with it on her day off.
OUR GRANDFATHERS KNEW HOW TO DEAL WITH WITCHES: Well, I know things change slowly up there in Maine, but that woman was just a little too much of a throwback. When someone at the end of the twentieth century uses the word "slattern," that's a sign that we've left the world of verisimilitude. And so what if she's descended from the Hawthornes? Nat's great-uncle was one of the *judges,* not one of the witches. You'd think Steve would have his Salem (Massachusetts) history straight.
TOYS IN THE ATTIC: I didn't see any evidence that Polly was actually autistic. Spooky in that way possessed kids tend to be, yes, but aside from an apparently infinite tolerance for the Hokey Pokey (which is common to many a normal child anyhow) she didn't show any symptoms I recognized. Bratty, yes, but otherwise she seemed to function pretty well.
YOU MEAN LIKE CHUCKY?: Well, so at least they're aware they're mining a fairly exhausted vein. I dunno...is it me, or is a possessed toy just not as scary as horror writers think it is? I don't like watching people stick sharp objects into themselves any more than the next person, so we had plenty of gross, but as for scare...I mean, how much can you do with a possessed doll? Kid gets pissed, doll starts talking, people get stabbed. Lather, rinse, repeat. So the only good thing about the doll was that Mulder got to make fun of Scully. "What I'd suggest is that you look for a little plastic ring, it's usually attached to a string..." The only part that worked was the mother; she really gave one a sense for how horrible it would be to live with this kind of scourge. But otherwise, the whole "toy runs amok" thing just doesn't pack the punch it used to. Last time it worked for me, anyhow, was when that clown jumped out from behind the bed in *Poltergeist.*
MICROWAVE ON HIGH FOR TWO MINUTES: Go Scully. Now this was a good Scully episode. She got good one-liners, got to help the cop bash the door open, *and* she got to nuke the dolly. It does make one wonder why the dolly didn't go for her, but I guess it knew better than to try that shit on Scully. This is a woman who knows that when a doll is the only common factor in a number of bizarre unexplained murders, the thing to do is just grab the doll and cook it on high. No wonder Mulder wants to marry her. Melissa would have been a damn sight better off if *she'd* married her. I can't, of course, marry her, but if I'm ever terrorized by a possessed doll, I hope she's vacationing in my town. In fact, I was so psyched by the job they did writing for her that I'm willing to forgive them for that gratuitous bubble-bath shot.
WHERE'D YOU GET THAT POSTER?: I thought her point was going to be that the poster was working its will on Mulder and creating that whole quest. ("I want to find an alien. Let's have fun!") Instead it was just a lame joke about sending it to Maine for the cop guy. But you can't have everything. And I loved the whole pencil-sharpening thing.
CATCH OF THE DAY: Why does Stephen King *always* have to do the "oh no! It's not dead after all!" ending? Like we can't see it coming at this point? C'MON! At least have the lobster fisherman bring up, like, a possessed Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger or something, for variety. Plus, someone should tell the producers that the bigger a lobster is the tougher it gets, and the thing Jack was tearing into in that restauraunt had to be at least 4 pounds.
So all in all, it was a good X-Files, but it wasn't much of a horror show. Next week: Batgirl in cyberspace. Yeee ha.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
Short story: implausible, but an enjoyable ride, with some pretty funny moments.
YOU BELIEVE THIS LOAD OF CRAP?: Well, I can't blame Scully for being a tad skeptical about the whole AI thing. There was precious little explanation of how any of it worked, from the whole "targeting the weapons platform" thing to the phone tips that got the drug dealers there (damn, that thing has some convincing voice synthesizing software) to the fact that somehow it built itself a new trailer after the old one got blown up. (The first trailer I'll buy, as having been constructed by Markham for the purpose of doing that upload thing. Although there's no explanation of why he decided to upload himself on his own without inviting Invisigoth.) Clearly Gibson decided we didn't need to know how or why it was happening, since we had credible witnesses to explain it all (vis., the Lone Gunmen and Invisitgoth). There was more technobabble flying through the air during this hour of TV than in 10 TNG episodes--and it sounded just about as meaningful.
HE'S JUST A BAG OF BONES: Yeah, it would seem that overinvolvement in the world of artificial intelligence is bad for your health. They never explained why Gelman was so obviously unwell, or why Invisigoth was running around with a pound and a half of bruise makeup on her eyes. (Which ran when she started crying, so I guess this was part of her chosen cyberguerilla esthetic.) Markham, however, wins the prize for Most Inefficient Body, and gets to be the poster boy for CyberAddicts Anonymous. Yeeeeeeeeech. I suppose we're not meant to need an explanation--stands to reason people interested in computers are sallow, sickly geek types who use their minds to compensate for physical shortcomings, right? I was glad that Scully was able to tackle Invisigoth so easily since it showed that at least they were being consistent; she was too out of shape to outrun her...
OR DO I HAVE TO USE MY TONGUE?: Poor old Lone Gunmen...you could almost see the drool. In general, I liked the characterization in this episode--it made sense to me that Scully would have little use for Esther until she started showing some cracks in the attitude, and that she would be the LG's ultimate turn-on, bruise makeup, lack of personal hygiene and all. And that Mulder would swallow the story, since he'll swallow anything...get your minds out of the gutter.
CALL DR. SCULLY: OK, Mulder, I know that after you've been trapped and electrified by a malignant artificial lifeform you might get a little disoriented. However, there's still no excuse for your failing to recognize such an obviously virtual reality until the kickboxing scene. Gratifying and hilarious as it was to watch Scully suddenly become a martial arts expert, you should've been tipped off way earlier. So let's review:
Ten Tipoffs That This Is Not A Real Hospital
1. All nurses have long, wavy, uncontained hair.
2. Your doctor treats a
burn injury to the wrist by amputating your entire limb.
3. All nurses wear
heavy makeup and have long, sharp, ruby-red nails.
4. Medical personnel lay
out the large cutting implements and rev up the bone saw *before* giving you the
general anaesthetic.
5. All nurses wear those little square white hats that
went out in 1942.
6. You have your own room.
7. Nobody asks to see your
insurance card.
8. All nurses are female.
9. You don't notice your arm has
been amputated until someone else points it out to you.
10. One of your
caregivers refers to herself as "Nurse Nancy."
Now, I do give him credit for realizing that the "Scully" who burst in, impersonated Bruce Lee, and clearly didn't know things Scully would have known was a figment of the AI's imagination. However, much as I enjoyed that scene, I have to make at least a 5-tenths deduction for not catching on before then.
BLAM!: Yeah, I got your kill switch right here, pal. In a brilliant display of the same hardheaded practicality that enabled her to bring matters with the Demon Dolly to a successful conclusion, Scully shows us that in some situations a well-placed slug is worth a thousand lines of code. This is always the Achilles heel of virtual reality scenarios--things would be so much simpler if people were willing to just *unplug* the @#$! thing instead of trying to destroy it from within. OK, it hurts the pride, but at some point efficiency has got to become more important.
DON'T COME KNOCKIN' IF THAT MICROCHIP'S ROCKIN': So we're supposed to believe that Esther and David somehow managed to build themselves a trailer of their own somewhere? From cyberspace? I don't think so. I mean, it was a cute ending, but please. Who bought the trailer? Who put in the electrical hookups? Who moved the trailer into the park? I could go on, but I will forbear.
Next week: vampires. Looks like fun.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
Now THIS is comedy.
OH, SH--: GREAT opening. You notice how that black trenchcoat of Mulder's flapped in the breeze like a vampire cape, and all that. It is true that I was thinking, "Chaney, Texas my ass. Those are British Columbia trees, and don't you try to tell me different." The whole set was just too humid to be in Texas. I mean, I dunno what the woodlands north of Dallas are like, but...anyhow, my question is, if Ronnie wanted fangs, why didn't he just get on a bus and go down to Austin, where any one of a number of body art establishments will install a couple for a modest price?
AND THAT'S HOW IT HAPPENED?: Well, I know they used it before in *Jose Chung's From Outer Space,* but it was still funny to have the duelling versions--which, true to form, were much closer when it mattered than the disparate versions from JCFOS; they may have some attitudinal disparities, but they remember the important things right, because they train for that. Personally, I liked Scully's version better because Scully's perception of Mulder, while a tad hyper and annoying, was at least fun to watch, whereas Mulder's perception of Scully was sort of a whiny bitch with no sense of humor. Which is another strike against Mulder, but what can you do. And the editing Mulder did on his version was classic--"poor me, here I am just trying to make sure the truth is known, working hard and keeping an open mind, and Scully just won't give me any credit."
The best part was the autopsy sequence. Call me meta, but I saw it as a commentary on X-Files writing conventions--in any other episode, the only part of the autopsy you see is the part where Scully finds the important thing. However, if it were real life, poor Scully would have to spend several hours recording totally useless crap while she waited for this epiphany. I loved it when the large intestine started falling out of the scale, and when she had her little Homer Simpsonesque "mmm...pizza" moment during the first autopsy. How can you tell you've been desensitized to death and all its horrors? When you can look at the partially digested contents of a dead guy's stomach and think, "I wish *I* had a pizza."
Other favorite Rashomon Moments:
* Mulder remembering having spewed ten solid minutes' worth of vampire lore at the sherriff, and having the sherriff watch spellbound while Scully made "yakity yakity yak" faces behind his back
* Mulder coming in from having been dragged around by an RV and listening to Scully bitch at him--you could practically hear that Charlie Brown trombone in the background (WAAH wah-waaah wah, waaaah...).
* Scully having the world's stagiest epiphany over the exposed stomach contents of Victim #2. ("Pizza...the chloral hydrate's in the pizza...oh no! MUlder!")
* Mulder not remembering having sung "Theme from Shaft" to Scully in his drugged state.
* and, of course, the buck teeth.
I JUST PUT MONEY IN THE MAGIC FINGERS: Well, you've been waiting four years to see Scully and Mulder vibrate, now you got your wish. Hope you're happy.
YOUR CELLMATE WILL BE LARGE MARGE, SHE'LL READ A LOT OF GERTRUDE STEIN: OK, folks, prison rape humor is one area of American life where we can do without gender parity. Enough said.
EROTIC. RIGHT.: I liked the fact that Ronnie, our first vampire, was about as un-erotic as you can get. Him, I could not see as the protagonist of an Anne Rice novel. However, they went and ruined it by having the sherriff turn out to be a vampire. And what did he do to poor Scully after he doped her with the chloral hydrate? We can only hope that he was a vampire and a gentleman. I suppose he must have been, or Scully would probably have reported it. Y'know, just once I'd like for one of them to have the hots for someone who *didn't* turn out to be intent on murdering them in some kind of heinous way...
YOU MAKE DO WITH WHAT YOU HAVE: Sunflower seeds. THey're delicious...*and* handy to have around in case you have to tangle with an obsessive-compulsive vampire. If only Scully had had a bag handy, she might have been able to fend off that sherriff guy. I can see the makings of a really bizarre endorsement here..."Nine out of ten federal investigators choose Little Debbie Sunflower Seeds as their anti-vampirical agent of choice."
Interesting play with the "authenticity" of folklore and popular culture versions of vampires; Mulder realized it was the real thing when he saw the shoelaces untied, since this is the kind of thing that someone who was just imitating a vampire movie wouldn't remember to do. So all that memorizing of encyclopedias of occultiana comes in handy, for once. However, he still tried to fend off the circling vamps with a cross made out of breadsticks, so he gets marked down for not knowing that had to be a piece of Stoker-inspired hokum. I was just waiting for someone to show up with a canister full of consecrated communion wafers. Liza was yelling at him to "use the little garlic packets that come with the pizza!" during his version of the Ronnie Attacks scene. It would have been worth a try, I suppose...meanwhile, Scully gets a mandatory four-tenths deduction for not suspecting that her coffee might have chloral hydrate in it. In a town with a population of 361, if one guy's a vampire, you've got to have met a few others...
I WAS DRUGGED: That little scene right before they go in to meet with Skinner was priceless, especially the way she tried to straighten his tie. And the way he leapt to his feet and shouted, "I was drugged!" Woohoo on the characterization in this one. Anyone know who wrote it?
So now I suppose we're meant to wonder if they're both vampires? I guess neither of them had the puncture wounds, but that doesn't mean much; obviously the tourists they were draining didn't become vampires themselves, so there must be more to it than just the biting. If they are vampires, I just hope they didn't become the kind that only eats manure.
Next week: Close Encounters of the X kind. If I see Scully making Devil's Tower out of mashed potatoes, I'm gonna throw something.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
Short story: good conspiracy stuff, bad characterization.
MULDER'S FIELD GUIDE TO THE CONSTELLATIONS: I've complained before about those cheesy voiceovers. I know I'm in the minority on this, but I've had it. This one, at least, had a narrative purpose, which was to make sure we'd recognize Cassiopeia's Chair once Cassandra and Scully started getting obsessed with it. But otherwise...call the cheese police, we have a moving violation in sector 7-G.
DENY EVERYTHING: Here's my major problem: I don't buy Mulder's total conversion. I mean, OK, he's got kind of an extreme personality, but it doesn't make sense to me that he should be so won over by the Krichgow Theory that he's performing public apostasies at MIT. I know the whole point was to have the role reversal whereby Mulder is pooh-poohing Scully's abduction scenario, but it seemed forced to me. And I hope they're not going to keep playing him this way, because he's a damn sight more annoying as a skeptic than he is as a believer.
I think this is because switching their roles brings them more in line with traditional gender roles--Scully is trying to argue for the importance of her subjective, personal experience of her own body, and Mulder is rejecting it because it doesn't meet his newly-acquired standards of objective scientific proof. YOu notice that most of his disgust seemed to be focused on Cassandra's "feelgood" qualities--her vagueness, her New Age spiritual cheerfulness, her soft 'n' nurturing persona--which are all also traditionally feminized qualities, just as the hysteria and delusionality htey were attributing to her are also stereotypically associated with women. Hmmmmmm.
THAT WACKY NAC IS BACK, JACK! We just can't get enough of that nasty black stuff. And we also get another look at Krychek, who's back on the scene fresh as a daisy. You'd never know that a short year ago he was having his arm hacked off by a bunch of untrained Sibeian one-armed teenagers armed with nothing but a hot knife and some vodka. Still, for a one-armed man he throws a good punch; he didn't seem to have any trouble beating the snot out of the poor nac guy, or stitching him shut. He must have one hell of a sophisticated prosthetic arm to be doing facial surgery without an assistant. Can I see a show of hands here: How many of you think they did that to the poor Russian kid just because they had a few extra sets of sewn-up-face makeup left from the premiere episode of *Millennium?*
KISS ME, STUMPY: So, are we supposed to think that Krychek and Kovarubias have been getting it on all along, or was that just the world's fastest seduction? I know you all must have been very excited to see Krychek get some action, even if it wasn't Mulder. At least now we know why the Consortium keeps her around. I can't see Well-Manicured Man in this situation. Either way, AK is one stupid sonofabitch when his hormones are firing. Then again, the Unablonder has much to learn about NAC. (NAC, for the non-Terrorists, stands for "Nasty Alien Crap.")
THEY'RE HERE: So, all we needed was a big mashed-potato sculpture of Skyland Mountain and this *would* have been a copyright infringement. *Close Encounters* is everywhere in this episode, especially that final scene. Of course, the flaming holocaust that then follows, that's kind of a departure from the model. Providentially they had this one take place on a bridge, so Scully can dive for safety. Alas, I fear Cassandra is toast. Or, more accurately, charcoal.
Next week: Ugly Guy returns, and Krychek and Mulder have another one of those "are we fighting, or are we flirting?" encounters. Yeee ha.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
YOUR LOVING FATHER: Well, we both pegged Cancerman as the author of that letter at the beginning (even though it wasn't until the second viewing that Liza caught the reference to "twin war gods" asking their father for magic weapons and realized how very appropriate it was. Personally, I wanna know how he survived being executed and how, having survived that, he made it all the way up to snowy Quebec. Guess you can't keep a good villain down. Anyhow, we didn't figure out he was Spender's dad until much later (Liza called it 30 seconds before it was revealed, about the time Skinner started talking about Spender's "patron.") So CM was married to Cassandra while screwing around with Mulder's mom--or maybe afterwards, since Spender seems younger than Mulder--and abandoned her to go become a nameless, faceless goon. Meanwhile, Cassandra, like Samantha, becomes a test subject because she was fool enough to get close to Cancer Man.
I think this is another example of CC's fatal tendency toward plot duplication, if you ask me--I don't see why CM needs *another* son in the Bureau, from a narrative perspective. But nobody's askin' me. ANyhow, we now know his last name is Spender. I guess that's something.
OH MY GOD: I know it shouldn't, but Mulder's role reversal thing continues to bore me. You know, I know, and everyone else knows he's coming around eventually, so why make him into this skeptic/asshole for a few short weeks? I mean think about it--even the Krichgow Theory can't explain the NAC, or the shape-shifty aliens. No matter what kind of biochemical weaponry we've got, we don't have anything that would allow people to alter their physiology at will, do we? He's nuttier to have done a 180 at this point than he was to believe in abduction in the first place. And Scully's hypnotherapy could have been confabulation, sure, like his--but the people with no eyes? That's a departure, isn't it? Since all the other aliens have big ol' glowin' ones?
RESISTANCE IS POSSIBLE: OK, can we have a reality check on this--the point of a vaccine is that you administer it *before* the subject is infected, right? Which means Kovarrubias should by rights be dead meat, right? NOt that I'd be shedding any tears...just felt like I had to get that off my chest. Sorry.
I like what they're doing with Well-Manicured Man--it makes the consortium stuff more interesting to have him starting to shake things up. And to give Krychek the patron he needs. I think an intra-Consortium fight could make for some good plottin'. And a lot of good "Can we trust him? Do we have a choice? Whose side are you on, anyhow?" stuff. So a big thumbs-up on that decision.
ISN'T THAT HOW YOU BEAT YOURSELF?: I swear to whatever the gods may be that someone on the writing staff is reading Brenda's slash. They're just givin' it to you guys on a platter these days. You hardly even need to write the stuff.
I was also highly amused by the "ruse" by which Mulder allowed himself to be cold-cocked--this is a cowardly, lying assassin with a sense of humor, at least. If I were Scully, I have to say, I'd be sort of annoyed. "Oh, sure, when I tell you aliens abduct people you think it's confabulation, but when *Krychek* says it..." I'm glad they brought him in, since hopefully this will at least cure Mulder of thinking he's got thsi whole thing taped and doesn't need to be open to other interpretations any more.
WHAT HAPPENED?: Well, Mulder doesn't know, and we don't either. Here are a few unanswered questions raised by that final scene:
1) Who the hell did Mulder think he was gonna shoot? He knows Spike-Wielding Guy has poison blood and can't be stopped without an ice pick. He also knows SWG is *bad,* and has come to kill Faceless Guy. So why would he want to shoot FG? Or was he firing at the alien spaceship?
2) Why was he screaming, "NOOOOOOOO!" Just because he hasn't done it much lately?
3) There was blood and a single gunshot...but just who shot who? FG apparently didn't carbonize SWG, but neither did SWG ice-pick FG, since in either case ther ewould be some kind of physical remains left behind. So it'll be a while before we know what happened with that.
4) How does eyeless, mouthless, noseless guy *see* anything? Or indeed eat?
So, CC's starting to pull out the answers: we have an alien race and a rebel/rival race, one wanting to colonize earth and the other wanting to stop that. The implants are somehow supposed to facilitate this, obviously by controlling the hosts they're implanted in; and the rebels must somehow have access to this homing technology, since they're decoying them all there and then carbonizing them. The NAC is some kind of alien biological weapon, and perhaps not an alien lifeforce itself as we thought it kinda might be for a while. OK, so far so good. Now let's talk about the bees.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
Short Story: You know, even though this involved a giant bug, the walking dead, and many implausibilities, I actually liked it.
IT'S HERE: In this episode, they finally remembered one of the cardinal rules of horror: the monster works a lot better when you can't *really* see it. The suspense worked very well, I thought, at least well enough that I had to narrate some of the more stalky parts to Liza, who wasn't looking. They showed you enough to give you a sense for this thing as extremely unpleasant (antennae, wing noises, bity jaws...) but not so much that it became a giant latex fly being manipulated by puppeteers. So big points for the monster team.
I'M MONSTER BOY: For once, I found Mulder's newfound irritation with the paranormal amusing, especially his little rant about the Virgin Mary. Of course, maybe the reason it didn't bother me was that in this one, he snaps right back into believing with the kind of speed and eagerness one would attribute to the old Mulder. Either they wrote this before the role reversal, or they just don't care any more about maintaining it. I don't care, because I like Monster Boy better than Skeptic Boy.
Not to say that Scully wasn't right to think Mulder was nuts for believing Gary's theory. For one thing, Pinkus must be a hell of a mind-cloudin' machine to be able to work his magic on peoples' minds not only in person but over TV. And if these people had really been zombified, wouldn't their co-workers notice the stench? Or does Pinkus send out a memo requiring the mandatory installation of air freshner in every cubicle as soon as he moves to a new VinylRight location? And when these zombies go home to their families after work is over, and Pinkus isn't around, doesn't little Johnny notice that mommy is looking kind of peaked?
HE WANTS TO SUCK OUT OUR HUMANITY AND TURN US INTO INSECTS!: Well, he could do that just by running a telemarketing company...that actually was what I liked about this episode. If you were a zombie, telemarketing would be the perfect job for you, and conversely, I bet zombies are a lot more effective at this than "actual people." See, this is what makes the X-Files interesting, is using all this old folktale stuff as commentary on us, bunch of little techno-head cyber-driven post-post-everything twits that we are. Could be capitalism draining the lifeblood out of these people...or it could be a giant insect injecting zombifying toxin into its victims. Either one.
YOU MUST HAVE SEEN THIS COMING: I am surprised, now I think of it, that it took Mulder this long to see the inside of a locked ward. I liked the way Scully reacted to Mulder's delusions--it seemed like she was finally in character, rejecting them as long as they seemed obviously ridiculous and then gradually starting to give him more credence as the physical evidence mounted up. And covering for his sorry ass no matter how sane she thought he was. The little scene where he's begging her to believe him was very affecting, and you know I'm gonna like having her bust into his room and blast away at the insect guy while Mulder lies there helplessly emitting girly screams. *That's* what I watch this show for.
Of course, I suppose we're going to see those restraints turning up in fanfiction any day now, with or without Scully, the zombie nurse, and the giant bug.
FOLIE A DEUX: When they were on the elevator, I was starting to wonder if maybe the bug had zombified Mulder after all--he seemed more than usually wooden. But I suppose not. After all, he can't be both a zombie *and* a vampire, right? Anyhow, I think I've figured out why I liked this one--it was a return not just to the old plots but to the old Scully and Mulder, pre-Role Reversal. I like Mulder a lot better when he's trying to figure out whether he's nuts or not and chasing zombies across lawns, and I like Scully better when she's trying to come up with rational explanations. So there.
Next week: A small chess-playing child is the source of all paranormal activity everywhere? This looks bad. Also, Liza pointed out that in every "child genius" movie she can remember, the child genius is always a boy. Anyone know of any exceptions?
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
Short story: It was OK, but it wasn't a hold-your-breath thrill ride of suspense, intrigue, and cunning plot twists, by any stretch.
CHECKMATE: I *hate* stories about chess geniuses. Hate 'em. I dunno, maybe it's just that I think it's ridiculous to hail someone as some kind of intellectual superpower just because he's real good at a board game. Or maybe it's because chess is so...male. Or maybe it's because I never had the patience to learn enough about strategy to be very good at it. Anyhow, the child chess whiz got this episode off to an unpromising start, and the whole chess metaphor that ran through the episode worked only marginally better than that Madonna/child stuff in *Emily.* A few points:
* It strikes me that being able to read your opponent's mind would not necessarily, by itself, allow you to become a chess master. I don't think, for instance, that telepathy would make me a better chess player--9 out of 10 times if I knew what move my opponent was going to make before he made it, I'd still do what I was planning anyway and fall right into his trap. You would have to be both very good at mind-reading and pretty good at chess to be able not only to get enough information, but to know what to do with it.
* The one thing about the chess metaphor that did work is the "moves ahead" thing. This was always my biggest drawback as a chess player; I was too focused on the short-term picture. This is also Mulder's problem, in that he was unable to see CM's long-term strategy, which was to get Gibson into Consortium custody while simultaneously putting the kaibash on the X-Files. Here, as I understand it, is the Consortium's strategy:
they send the shooter out to Vancouver. Maybe they know he's going to blow it; he never got Saddam, and they know the kid's telepathic. As Liza pointed out, it would make more sense (if they really wanted to kill him) to do it via car bomb or some other remote-control booby-trap device that would not require the assassin to be within mindreading range. So they make an attempt that's designed to fail (although the shooter doesn't know this.)
Anyhow, Mulder fails to realize that their ultimate plan is to 86 him while nabbing the boy from his "safe" house, and so he falls for their clever trap instead of castling at the last minute. So that *does* work. However...
WHO ARE YOU?: I've figured out who Cancer Man is. He's Chris Carter. Someone leaned on him about the voiceovers and he decided it would be easier to insert the cheese into Cancer Man's dialogue. "It's all a game...you just take their pieces one by one..." Which is actually a bad way to approach chess; it leads to a long and messy war of attrition that risks ending in stalemate. But anyway...so we know, for sure, that CM spawned Spender; and I still think he also spawned Mulder. Hell, maybe he's Samantha's dad too, since he stole her file. CM fathered everyone. Why not. Maybe he's Scully's dad too, and Skinner's...he looks like he could be old enough.
HE DOESN'T WANT ME TO TELL YOU: OK, so we now know Scully has a crush on Mulder, at least. Mulder, meanwhile, is ambivalent about Diana, who we both took an instant dislike to. Maybe it's just because she was getting in Scully's grill, but we just decided she was evil. I mean, she's been working on anti-Terrorism stuff in the middle east--how much more tool-of-the-state can you get? I guess her being shot argues against that theory, as does her being right about why it was a bad idea to go to the AG's office with this...but we still don't like her. "How can you quantify spirituality?" "Hey, quantify this, babe."
HE'S HERE TO KILL YOU: Thanks for telling her *after* she went over to the window, kid. Nice goin'. I like Gibson all right, but he really shortchanged her on that one. Maybe he knew she was evil...or maybe he wants to see Scully and Mulder get together too.
I WISH THEY HAD THESE PROGRAMS WHERE I LIVE: I am just going to hope that the writers were being self-consciously ironic by making this episode a 1-hour commercial for Fox's Sunday night lineup.
So, all in all, it was all right, and it had its moments--Gibson telling Mulder he had a dirty mind; Mulder and Scully staring at the blackened remnants of his office (c'mon, Mulder, you never thought to have this stuff microfilmed?); Scully's rendezvous with the Lone Gunmen, and Krychek parachuting into Canada. But it was no Anasazi.
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