The episode begins with Mulder’s voice-over explaining the history of Voyager – no, not the Star Trek show. That wouldn’t appear on the UPN channel for another four months. The spacecraft, launched in 1977, contained proof that earthlings weren’t just a bunch of Neanderthals – at least not by our definition. So in this episode, which aired in 1994, the episode’s teases that someone out there may have responded.
Since the X-Files unit was disbanded, our heroes have been assigned to separate divisions. Mulder is listening to wiretap conversations related to white-collar crime – zzzzzzz – and Scully is dissecting bodies at the FBI academy. One of her students says she sounds "spooky." Guess now we’re supposed to see Scully on the same level as Mulder? Scully later sees her former partner in the hallway, but he ignores her. What the hell, Spooky? They have a clandestine meeting in the Watergate Hotel parking lot and Mulder said he thinks he’s being watched. But based on history and reputation, isn’t Watergate the worst place to go? Mulder tells Scully about Deep Throat’s funeral – sort of. That should mean Deep Throat’s identity is now known, at least to Sculder, but neither mentions his role in the government war. Neither Assistant Director Skinner or Cigarette Smoking Man mention Deep Throat either. Maybe his identity is an X-File. Mulder is clearly frustrated because he’s seen so much, but still does not have any tangible proof. Hey, Spooky, Scully had tangible proof in the last episode, but she gave it up to save your ass.
Let’s flash back to November 1973 for a moment. Fox is playing Stratego with his younger sister, Samantha. He’s acting like a typical big brother, which is probably why he feels guilty after it appears she’s abducted by aliens. The scene itself is slightly reminiscent of young Barry’s abduction in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I’m not sure whether Sestra Pro is going to argue with me on that one since those aliens ended up being benevolent and later returned Barry. But from the perspective of Barry’s mother, Jillian, it was the scariest moment of her life. Back in the present, Mulder goes to see Senator Richard Matheson – that one has to be a shoutout to the author. Matheson wrote one of my favorite novels, Bid Time Return, which most people know as the movie, Somewhere in Time. Senator Matheson is clearly a Mulder supporter and he gives Mulder the heads-up to recover information from Voyager before the government arrives and destroys the evidence.
So Mulder heads to the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center in Puerto Rico. Funny how the power is off, but the control panel still has working lights. That’s one hell of a battery backup. The next morning Scully learns from Skinner that Mulder is missing. Mulder really should have just burned a sick day so it wouldn’t seem suspicious. But maybe he wanted someone – Scully – to follow him. Being inside Mulder's head can be confusing.
Back in Puerto Rico, a terrified man in the bathroom of the abandoned facility scares the crap out of Mulder. Not literally, I hope. My Spanish may be a little rusty, but Jorge seems to tell a typical tale of alien abduction. Mulder doesn’t really speak Spanish, but Jorge’s simple alien drawing tells Mulder everything he wanted to hear. Scully seeks assistance from expert Dr. Troisky, who analyzes Mulder’s Voyager printout and helps her narrow down the search. Scully realizes she’s being followed so she sends the agents on a wild-goose chase while she heads to Puerto Rico. Good girl.
In Puerto Rico, there’s a storm raging outside the facility. Jorge panics and runs away. Mulder finds his body. It looks like Jorge was scared to death, cue sinister dun dun duuuuuun music here. There’s an interesting dynamic to this episode. While Scully is running around acting like Mulder (rightly paranoid and overly cautious), he is starting to act like her as he tries to determine the cause of Jorge’s death in true pathologist fashion. It’s very interesting to see Mulder’s heartfelt evolution of trust toward Scully while he’s talking into his tape recorder. Too bad Scully isn’t there to witness it. But let’s put a pin in that for now. Something is happening at the facility – bright lights, ground shaking, distorted recordings. Have the aliens arrived? Mulder seems to think so, but he loses consciousness. Scully wakes Mulder the next morning – the rainstorm is clearly over and it’s a beautiful day. Mulder tries to convince her “they” made contact. But the government is there to destroy the evidence, so he grabs what he can. Sculder take off, but the soldiers shoot at them. Of course, they miss.
Sestra Professional:
This episode is sooooo Contact, which probably explains why I like that Jodie Foster movie. But in The Complete X-Files, co-writer Glen Morgan explained he had previously written a script on his own about a man's journey to a telescope in Chile called Little Green Men that he and writing partner "cannabilized" for the season opener of the same name.
I love the Wow Signal story, in both content and as a real-life occurrence that carries so much weight in terms of our ongoing plot. As the guest expert explains in the show, in August 1977, an astronomer at Ohio State got so excited about an extraterrestrial signal that he wrote "Wow!" in the margin of his computer printout. It's also great to tap another source besides the tried-and-true mention of Roswell.
They closed Sculder's eyes at the end of the first season. And as the second one starts, we see they've opened Mulder's ears. Really, I'm not sure what his problem is, listening to a strip-club story as part of his FBI duties. That kind of thing will seem to be right up his alley in the not-too-distant future.Now we're actually meeting in the Watergate Hotel? So All the President's Men, minus Deep Throat, of course. I can buy Samantha's abduction as Close Encounters-esque. The suspension in mid-air part is new, thought, and very well done. Sometimes we might forget we're watching a TV show made in a mere week's time. On the other hand, I just can't stand when a password is figured that easily. They couldn't spare the two seconds for Scully to try "TRUSTNOONE" before "TRUSTNO1"? By the way, was that a recent password change for Mulder? He definitely seems the type to change it on a regular basis.
Noho on the rojo: In the early days, X-Philes ran around saying "noho on the rojo," referring to how Mulder tried to keep non-English-speaking Jorge from touching the red button at the observatory. That should have had its own T-shirt. But back to the plot. That Jorge guy could never be Roy Neary from Close Encounters. He's really, really afraid of the aliens. (How did this man get his job with that kind of debilitating fear?) He's also terrified of lightning, and therefore, of alien lightning. He'd probably still be alive had he not run out into the storm. It's hard ... suspecting everyone ... everything. It wears you down. I agree wholeheartedly on how powerful it was to hear Mulder pouring out his heart while trying to work out things in his head on the tape recorder. What he says really helps set the stage for Season 2, particularly with Sculder -- as Sestra Am pointed out -- in role reversal for this episode.
Among the crucial plot points Mulder discusses was the need to find out what happened to his sister and to see the entities that took her from him. "What would I do if they really came?" he asks, and he gets a quick answer to that previously rhetorical question. Mulder tries to block the door, he takes out his gun, he tries to fire -- he's reacting similarly to the way young Fox did on the night his sister was taken. And the coup de grace in the final scene as Mulder tells Scully, "I may not have the X-Files, Scully, but I still have my work. And I still have you ... and I still have myself." The look Gillian Anderson gives him in the pregnant pause -- hee hee -- after the bond is referred to might be her finest moment since Season 1 episode "Beyond the Sea." So much lodged into a second in which she doesn't respond with dialogue, and made me mentally write "Wow" in the margin.
We're loaded with meta in this episode. Raymond Barry plays Senator Richard Matheson very well, but executive producer Chris Carter wanted Darren McGavin for the role. McGavin played the lead role in Kolchak: The Night Stalker, the 1974 series that probably was the biggest of all the show's various influences. But don't fret, he eventually will become a tangible part of X-Files lure.
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