X-Files S1E22: Stranger things have happened

Sestra Amateur: 

My go-to reincarnation picture is Chances Are with Robert Downey Jr. and Cybill Shepherd. It’s a cute, sweet, awkward and funny movie from the '80s. But "Born Again" doesn’t model itself after Chances Are; it’s more like Audrey Rose meets Identity. 

This episode takes place in Buffalo, New York, which looks suspiciously like Vancouver. Even having Maggie Wheeler, who’s been cast in more New York-based comedies than I can count, can’t give it an authentic feel. Wheeler, as Detective Lazard, meets 8-year-old Michelle Bishop outside the police station, but Michelle won't talk to her. Detective Barbala gives it a shot and ends up flying out a window to his death. Lazard reaches out to Mulder because she heard about his work with the Tooms case (see Episode 3 – "Squeeze" or last week's – "Tooms"). Since Lazard is already  open-minded, maybe this could have been the start of a spinoff show: The X-Files: New York.

When Sculder arrive in “Buffalo,” the precinct is still an active crime scene. Since D.C. is about 400 miles from Buffalo, I hope Sculder were in the vicinity. Otherwise, Buffalo cops work verrrrrrry slowly. Mulder tries to get a suspect description of the man who “attacked” Barbala from Michelle, while Scully talks with her mama, who admits she is scared of her own child. Judy Bishop drops the little detail that Michelle is terrified of their swimming pool. Michelle creates an origami falcon for Mulder, and her parent said she doesn't know where her daughter picked up the traditional Japanese art of folding paper. 

Mulder’s already considering pyrokinesis and tells Scully to look for evidence on Barbala’s body to support his theory. Michelle’s psychiatrist, Dr. Braun, shows Mulder a group of dolls that Michelle ruined during therapy sessions. They are all missing a left arm and right eye. Mulder recommends deep regression hypnosis, the procedure that helped him recall details of his own sister’s disappearance. Dr. Braun pooh-poohs his theories of psychic ability and telekinesis, then gives Mulder the move along. 

Scully finds a lesion on Barbala’s body consistent with Mulder’s pyrokinetic theory. Lazard learns Michelle's description of the suspect matches Detective Charlie Morris, who died nine years earlier. Scully assumes Michelle saw the memorial plaque of Morris in the precinct and it influenced her account. Mulder learns Morris suffered injuries similar to the ones Michelle inflicted on her therapy dolls. 

Sculder interview Morris’ former partner, Tony Fiore, who claims Morris was murdered as payback from a Chinatown gang. Fiore stops talking when his wife, Anita, checks on them. Fiore later meets with insurance agent – and former cop – Leon Felder. Apparently, the case hinges on crooked cops and a lot of money. After telling Fiore to chill out, Felder takes a deadly bus ride, on the outside of the bus. Michelle is there when Felder dies. Sculder make the connection between Morris, Barbala, Felder and Fiore, so they return to the latter's house for answers. His wife hasn't seen him. Turns out she has a nearly complete collection of origami animals made for her by her previous husband – Charlie Morris – before he was killed. 

Mulder suggests reincarnation and arranges a regression hypnosis for Michelle. During the procedure, “24-year-old” Michelle starts to panic when talking about her death, so her shrink stops the session. Scully gets the best line of the episode when she tells Mulder Judy won’t let them try hypnosis again, “not in this lifetime, anyway,” I disagree with Scully’s argument that they should not pursue Mulder’s reincarnation theory just because it is not “actionable” -- that’s Episode 21-Skinner talking. In the X-Files world, if reincarnation is a reality or even a possibility, then it should only matter they get answers to the unexplained. Mulder reviews the video from Michelle’s last session and sees an electronic disturbance. Anita receives an origami animal; now her collection is complete. 

Scully learns Morris drowned – no wonder Michelle is scared of the pool. The clues help Mulder realize Morris was killed in his own aquarium, the same one now in Anita and Tony Fiore’s house. Tony tries to convince Anita to run away with him, but Michelle shows up and stalks Fiore. Sculder arrive at the house while Tony talks to the pint-sized "Charlie." Fiore confesses and Michelle thrashes Tony and trashes the place. She doesn't kill him, and Fiore has his/Charlie's wife to thank for that. Fiore goes to prison for his crimes and Morris seemingly leaves Michelle in peace so she can learn how to swim. Now how about some uplifting, lighthearted entertainment? Chances Are, it is.  

Sestra Professional:

The Audrey Rose/Identity mashup is an interesting concept, but this premise made me think of another Downey Jr. film, Heart and Souls. In that comedy, he helps five souls who died prematurely get the chance to fix something in their lives. This would be a much more lethal and cynical variation on that theme. Or maybe it's Poltergeist meets Firestarter.

Jumpers tend to open the window before they jump: Speaking of mashups, this one kind also seems like The X-Files run through the NYPD Blue meat grinder, minus the nudity, of course. It's definitely 75 percent procedural, except for that pesky supernatural element in which an 8-year-old girl seems to be connected to a murder that happened a year before she was born and deaths that are occurring years later.

I wonder how long Michelle's been acting like that. She's had four nannies since April, she's had a dozen sessions to dismember dolls in. So Charlie Morris, in his quest for revenge, has been torturing a little girl? The guy who wouldn't take a payoff and wound up murdered by his friends? This psychokinesis thing is so hurtful, and not just to the intended victims.

As Sestra Am pointed out, they've got Scully so far rooted in the practical, she's not really doing her job. We understand you believe the crime to be non-actionable, but the case is still to delve into the mystery. If Scully had her way, we never would have found out. Then again, she did point out the scintillating clue that the supposedly asleep wife had baking powder on her hands. She glosses over the evidence she found during the initial autopsy backing up Mulder's theory that the first dead body would show signs of an electrical charge. And she did figure out that sea water thing. OK, she can stay. 

You think he's back like Peter Proud to avenge his murder? Scully is not exactly on board with Mulder's supposition that the agents are a "short step away from proving the pre-existence of the human soul." Guess she didn't like the movie or the book version of The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. And Mulder's not happy that she isn't following his lead -- "Short of her growing a mustache, how much more apparent does it have to become for you to accept it?" I know I'm on his side this week, but she ain't a puppy, Fox. 

Mulder's much more on his game when discovering the image of the fish tank diver on Michelle's regression tape -- even though that one was kind of a stretch. He cites a case in which someone created shapes in a film negative with his mind. Save that explanation for Season 4, Mulder, a whole episode will be built around that concept.

Meanwhile, Fiore really seems to be getting everything he wants and then some. The only people who know about his crimes are dead, he has his ex-partner's wife and he's got all the loot. But he's thrown (well, not physically thrown, more like discombobulated) by Michelle. "All you had to do was take the money," says the guy who took the money and his former partner's wife? So he confesses, and now the badge bunny has everything ... plus a complete origami set! OK, she doesn't have either of the husbands any more, but it doesn't seem like a big loss. Mulder makes out like a bandit too. Not only is he right on just about every subject, he also gets to write the agents' field journal instead of Scully for the first time in the series run. 

In the official show episode guide, co-writer Howard Gordon (who scripted this with usual partner Alex Ganza) deemed it to be "a little too cop show-y." And it is, but it plays fairly well. Probably not as well as what I'm going to check out now -- the 1975 reincarnation flick with Michael Sarrazin and Jennifer O'Neill. 
 
Guest Star of the Week: Andrea Libman's filmography is replete with multiple characterizations of My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Dino Babies and Care Bears. Obviously, Michelle Bishop bears no resemblance to any of those. Just the latest of example at how great The X-Files was at casting episodes in which eerie kids were at the center of complex and bizarre occurrences.