X-Files S1E12: Let me stand next to your demon

Editors' Note: On the rewatch of The X-Files, Lorrie plays the part of Sestra Amateur and Paige serves as the resident "expert," aka Sestra Professional.
 
Sestra Amateur: 

Episode 8 was titled "Ice." Well, this one is called "Fire." Combined, they remind me of one of Pat Benatar’s best songs. Separately, they stand on their own as decent X-Files bottle eps (aka Monster of the Week episodes). 

This one opens in England, where we watch some old codger say goodbye to his wife and then promptly burst into flames in front of her and the help. The gardener, Cecil, is played by the future King of Hell, Mark Sheppard. Before Supernatural snapped him up, he did a lot of episodic work on different Fox shows. I didn’t realize before how much he resembled Robert Downey Jr. back then. Cecil is the only one watching who does not look surprised or terrified. How did he do it? We will learn that and more on this week’s episode of X-Files: The Scotland Yard Edition.

Back in D.C., Mulder is occupied with something spooky himself: His car doors were unlocked and he does not know how. Scully, of course, teases him about it. Funny how many of my sarcastic lines get voiced by Scully. Guess that means I’m more like Scully than Mulder, even though my pop culture cracks do rival Mulder’s. Inside Mulder’s car, he sees a cassette tape resting on the dashboard. For you millennials, a cassette tape is how we listened to music after long-playing albums but before compact discs. Fortunately, cassette decks were standard in 1990s automobiles, so Mulder is able to play it. 

Turns out, it’s a combination of information related to the British case and a practical joke by Mulder’s former Oxford classmate, Inspector Phoebe Green (Amanda Pays). She is best known to comic book geeks like me for playing Dr. Tina McGee in both TV versions of The Flash. Green explains how Scotland Yard is investigating three fire-related murders of important people in England’s government. Green came to the United States to protect Lord and Lady Marsden and their two sons, who are vacationing on Cape Cod. Mulder agrees to assist Green by reaching out to FBI resources. He later confides to Scully that he is afraid of fire. Wonder if Mulder’s stove is hooked up to gas or electric utilities.

Cecil has followed the Marsden family to Massachusetts, killed their caretaker and taken his place. He's obsessed with Lady Marsden and booby-trapped the house by mixing diluted rocket fuel with house paint. Now known as Bob, he agrees to pick up cold medicine for the family’s sick bodyguard/driver. While in town, Bob stops by a bar. A drunk snaggle-toothed chick tries to pick him up. He freaks her out with self-immolation, then proceeds to burn down the bar.

The next morning Mulder and Green interview Snaggletooth at the hospital and she agrees to help with a composite of the arsonist. Meanwhile, the bodyguard is getting sicker, probably because Bob added some rocket fuel to the medicine. What a dick. Scully, who is not officially helping Mulder but getting more done than he is since Phoebe is distracting him, starts working on a profile of the suspect which matches up to Cecil/Bob very well. 

Back on Cape Cod, Bob is performing fire-related magic tricks for the boys.
He’s also getting creepier – if that’s possible – by trying to get them to keep secrets and start smoking. What a predatory dick. Fortunately, Lady Marsden comes to check on them. Unfortunately, she asks Bob to be their driver for the night to their party in Boston since their regular driver is sick. Of course, Bob agrees.

Green books a room at the same hotel where the Marsdens’ party is taking place. Mulder's not happy about it and Scully heads to Boston to give him information about the case. Phoebe had checked up on "Bob," but she obviously doesn’t know the squeaky-clean real Bob is dead and Cecil took his place. Scully arrives and rolls her eyes when she sees Mulder and Green dancing together. Bob makes eye contact with her, then disappears. 

Now Mulder and Phoebe are kissing, and Scully gets to cut that short when fire alarms start ringing on the floor where the Marsden boys are sleeping. Mulder runs upstairs to save them. We can hear the boys yelling, “Let us out!” It’s a suspenseful moment nearly ruined for me because I, of course, flashed to the scene in the movie Clue when Mr. Green is yelling, “Let us in, let us in!” and Miss Scarlet and Colonel Mustard are screaming, “Let us out, let us out!” Mulder’s pyrophobia gets the better of him and he can’t save the boys. You can be the hero next time, Fox. Good thing Bob is there to rescue them and get all of the accolades, especially from Lady Marsden. What a scheming, predatory dick. 

As Mulder recovers from smoke inhalation, Scully tells him about Cecil L’ively, who was the gardener for two previous victims and entered the United States through Boston two weeks earlier. Will someone please give me a logical reason why Scully didn’t just tell Mulder on the phone and instead chose to travel 400 miles while sitting on that information?!?! It’s not like she brought a picture of Cecil to show Mulder. Maybe Scully was acting on jealousy? Mulder and Green take the Marsdens back to Cape Cod while Scully waits for a fax of the bar arsonist composite. When it arrives she sees it is clearly Cecil/Bob. Of course, now, she can’t reach Mulder on the phone at all. 

Mulder has his hands full; he just saw Lord Marsden and Phoebe embracing. Oops. When Scully arrives, they find the real caretaker burned to a crisp. Then the house starts to go up in flames. Cecil, with a snap of his fingers that even The Fonz would envy, sets the upstairs hallway on fire. Mulder dives away from the flames and saves the boys. Scully holds Cecil at gunpoint. Green splashes accelerant on Cecil, who burns and burns and but doesn’t die. What an overcooked, scheming, predatory dick. No more X-Files for Sheppard, but we’ll next you week on Supernatural, Crowley. 

Sestra Professional:

Spoiler alert, yes, Mark Sheppard is going to be my Guest Star of the Week. This is a great test run for his eventual run as the King of Hell on Supernatural -- the show that's about an angel (Castiel) and a demon (Crowley) in which two brothers do Sculder-like things. I'm Team Crowley and Team Castiel. Sestra Am is Team Castiel and Team Crowley. Don't worry, the brothers Winchester are taken care of by millions of adoring fans.

And now back to our regularly scheduled episode of The X-Files and the latest reason to flash back to Season 1's Gag Reel. That would be Mark Sheppard on sound check "singing" the Wedding March about as maniacally as demonically possible (at about 1:04). https://youtu.be/qr6y562XZuY?t=1m4s

My biggest problem with this episode is the half-baked nature of the Phoebe plotline. She's described as a master game player. I didn't really see anything that seemed that masterful. Oooooh, she got a cassette into his car. She got him to work a case for which he and Scully are uniquely qualified. Yeah, she got to snog with Mulder again, and later, Cold Lips is caught with the lord of the manor, so I guess she's still up to her old tricks. But even with a lot of fire in this episode, this crumpet doesn't generate enough heat to warm a Pop-Tart.

And then that has a cumulative effect on the episode itself. If we're not sure about her, don't really feel any threat from her, than Scully's differing reactions -- from making the 400-mile trek instead of the phone call as Sestra Am pointed out -- to the rolling of the eyes come off as meaningless and perhaps even petty. So both lead characters have both been diminished by someone appearing in a one-off ep. Not really what we're looking for in the early running.

Luckily that's mitigated by poor Cecil. You're so unempathetic to him, Sestra Am. So he's an overcooked, scheming, predatory dick? As a child, he was roasted to death in a ritual sacrifice in England in 1963. They never quite explain how that turned him into Ultimate Pyromaniac, but at least this guy has some semblance of motivation for "taking a certain delight in his work." 

It's kind of tickling to see Sheppard's character continuously referred to as a "demon." The FBI expert says he "exhibits a certain demon poetry." And then Mulder later spouts, "Sooner or later, a man's got to face his demons." Everything's coming up Crowley. Now there's an X-File for you, references made before the show was even a glint in the eyes of the WB and/or the CW networks.

Here's a bit of meta on Mulder: David Duchovny was pretty hacked off at Mulder's previously unaddressed fear of fire. He cited the fact that Mulder wasn't the least bit affected when his motel went up in flames in the show's pilot, but all of a sudden, he's powerless against it here.

All props to Scully for nailing the profile on the "clever and elaborately planned crimes" and the fact that the bad guy followed his quarry to the States: "The arsonist is usually unmarried and prone to obsessive fantasies are women or men who are inaccessible to him. Often the setting of fires results from his cowardice and inability to develop a natural relationship." 

And nice work from the behind-the-scenes crew on the lion's share of special effects. Cecil's fingertip and arm tricks at the bar are pretty nifty. Massive amounts of the episode's sets catch fire with one small drawback -- the Official Episode Guide says Duchovny reportedly suffered a burn severe enough to leave a scar on his hand during filming of this episode.

Guest star of the week: Sheppard! (Told ya so.) His Cecil is really quite 'Lively and more than makes up for the DOA nature of Phoebe. He also proves quite adept with a quip -- which will serve him very well in the future indeed.
Greatly enjoyed his take on an American accent as the faux caretaker, frankly that sounded more genuine than Pays' natural British one. (Even Gillian Anderson's Phoebe impression at the end was delivered well, but then again, she has spent half her life in England.)