X-Files S2E17: More Samanthas than answers

Sestra Amateur: 

Remember last week when Scully was on the phone with Mulder at the same time he showed up at her hotel room? Hold that thought. This episode begins on a submarine north of Alaska. The crew has encountered a UFO -- Underwater Flying Object -- and attempting contact made the sub lose power. Can you imagine being trapped on a sub under sheets of ice? Chilling … literally. 

Back in Maryland, Dana plays the “wrong number” card so in-person Fox won’t get suspicious. She grabs her gun but not-Mulder punches her and throws her into a coffee table. At least, we hope it’s not Mulder. He morphs back into Brian Thompson, bounty-hunter form. The Terminator comparisons don’t work as well in this episode as the previous one, so I’ll be revert to form and start referring to the bounty hunter as Boba Fett. 

Mulder and Samantha arrive at Scully’s hotel room too late. Samantha says the bounty hunter can only be killed by piercing the base of its skull. She also warns Fox about Boba Fett’s toxic blood … that’s definitely not a Mandalorian trait. But Mulder wants more answers, so Sam tells him about the colony of clones throughout the country. They worked in abortion clinics to get access to fetal tissue and found a way to combine alien DNA with human DNA. Samantha tells Fox he has to trust her because she is his sister. Clearly, she doesn’t know Mulder – or human nature – at all. 

Skinner arrives and reports the four Gregors that Scully put into protective custody are missing. Fox introduces his boss to his sister and says Dana is missing. That’s a lot of information for Skinner to absorb in a five-second period. Boba Fett lets Scully call Mulder and arrange a trade: Dana for Sam. 

They meet on Memorial Bridge in Bethesda and complete the exchange, but Samantha tries and fails to stab Boba Fett in the neck. A sniper takes the shot which hits Boba Fett, but both Sam and Boba go into the icy water. The next morning, divers are still searching for them and Mulder has the unfortunate task of telling his father. Fox assumes all responsibility and breaks down in front of his dad. Luckily – conveniently – Samantha left an “if anything should happen to me” envelope with Mr. Mulder for her brother that includes a key card for a local abortion clinic. 

Mulder moseys over there, but Scully calls to say the divers finally found Sam’s body. After hanging up, Dana sees Samantha’s body start to disintegrate. Back at the clinic, Fox finds “Samantha” in the lab. Turns out, Samantha was a clone too! Mulder also sees Samantha 3, 4 and 5. He learns they were just manipulating him to get his help. None of them are the original Samantha, but one claims to know where the real Sam is. Boy, clones will say anything to get their way. Unfortunately, Boba Fett tracked Fox there – he’s good at his job – and knocks Mulder unconscious. He sets the clinic on fire but the firemen only find Fox, not the Samanthas. Does that mean the Samanthas were taken or dissolved? 

While Mulder is spinning his wheels, Scully learns how the cold weather helped preserve the bodies exposed to the retrovirus like Special Agent Weiss (who inhaled Boba’s toxic blood) and Samantha 1. Fox reaches out to Mr. X, who says all the clones are dead and the bounty hunter is returning to his ship in Alaska. 

Scully later goes to Mulder’s apartment. (Sestra Pro: Is his apartment number, 42, an intentional Douglas Adams reference or just a happy coincidence?) Dana notices the X in masking tape on Fox’s window while she’s searching his computer. She reads an email Mulder wrote to her explaining how he’s going it alone because he wants to keep her safe. Scully doesn’t want to stay safe so she asks for Skinner's help through “unofficial channels,”  but he declines.

Dana returns to Fox’s apartment and “calls” Mr. X. He shows up, surprised that it’s not Mulder. Makes you wonder how the covert government official who knows everything managed not to know Fox had already left for Alaska. Mr. X plays dumb and leaves. Walter intercepts him at the elevator and tries to encourage Mr. X to change his mind. They both use their heads to resolve the issue – literally. They headbutt each other. Skinner gets the 411 and relays it to Scully. Unofficial channels, indeed. 

Meanwhile, just north of Alaska, Mulder walks up to that submarine which has been trapped in the ice for a few days. Fox  enters the sub – shouldn’t those things have some type of lock on the outside? – and finds a survivor. He tells Mulder how they lost power and drifted into the ice. A man – yes, Boba Fett – came aboard and killed the others. Fox assumes this sailor is the bounty hunter, so he handcuffs him and interrogates him about Samantha. 

Turns out, Mulder’s instincts were correct and Boba Fett morphs back to his original form. He throws Fox around the sub like a rag doll and taunts him by saying the real Samantha is still alive. Mulder shoots Boba in the back, but the toxic blood hurts the agent instead. The bounty hunter locks Fox outside where the cold will likely keep him alive now that he’s been exposed to the retrovirus. Boba Fett then maneuvers the sub down through the ice. 

So now we’re back to the prologue scene from last week’s episode. The medical staff is trying to save Mulder the normal way because they think he’s only suffering from hypothermia, but Dana now has the right information to make sure Fox can be saved through unorthodox means. So even though he got some answers, I think Mulder needs to consider this one a loss, especially considering the emotional toll on himself and his parents. Boba Fett is off to who knows where, celebrating his win. Do you think he got paid a flat rate for the overall job or per clone kill? And what did he accept as currency? Maybe he’s a clone of the bounty hunter. Although that would make him more like Rick Deckard from Blade Runner than Boba Fett. 

Sestra Professional:

You can't swing a cat without hitting a dead Samantha around here.

And welcome to the party, Frank Spotnitz. As said last time we convened, Spotnitz came up with the concept of the returning Samantha, but his first credited contribution didn't come until he co-wrote the conclusion of this two-parter. As we can see, he quickly becomes a part of the show's overarching dynamic, raising the stakes as this episode did.

I remember once upon a time David Duchovny saying "End Game" was his favorite episode. One might think it's because Fox's search for Samantha showed some forward movement, but he joked it was because as the shape shifter, he got to toss Scully around willy nilly. And by the way, yep, Sestra Am, Mulder's apartment No. 42 has long been seen as a reference to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 

That would kill anyone: Among the handy-dandy tips we learn in this episode, we find out how to dispose of a shape shifter in one easy lesson -- by piercing the base of his skull with that ice pick that goes "pfffft." We also know to cover up when a clone gets penetrated, cause the gas that green goo emits is vicious.

Now that the emotion of getting his long-lost sister back has worn off a bit, Fox seems to have noticed he doesn't know all that much about what happened to Samantha. Since the clone is well versed in Sam 101, she tells a good story, and that's one of the ways in which the conspiracy plot gets advanced.

So why would Mulder make this trade -- his partner of a year and a half for the sister he's been seeking since he was a teenager? It makes for some top-notch tension, to be sure, but the only way to justify that is to presume somewhere deep down inside the recesses of his haunted mind, Fox knew it wasn't really her all along. At least the hope I've clung to lo these many years.

I'm not your savior: But his conscious mind doesn't seem to be aware of that, because he's really upset when he happens upon the field of Samanthas at the abortion clinic. His father's guilt trip was already eating away at him like that retrovirus soon will be, maybe he's just struggling with what he'll have to tell his parents next. They might ground him and take away his porn.

I'm still a little hazy on Mulder chasing down the sub when he knows the shape shifter not only has a head start, but certainly the power to kill him a thousand times over. "You'll only win the war if you pick the right battles, Agent Mulder. This is a battle you can not win," X rightfully tells him. How ticked off must Fox's informants get when he never heeds their advice?

How hard do you want to make this? Couldn't agree more with Sestra Am about why X was looking for Mulder's bat signal when he thought he was on his way north. And how does Scully even figure out the taped X is way to contact him anyway? Maybe it's just leftover hurricane protection. Nevertheless, it's impossible not to dig that Skinner-X fight scene. "I've killed men for far less," X claims. No need for bragging, dude. 

Lots of fun meta from the elevator battle, with Steven Williams coming up with the idea of the dual head butts. In addition to taking some shots to the groin, Mitch Pileggi reportedly broke the set on the second take of the bit in which Skinner throws X against the wall. And Williams cracked a knuckle when he accidentally connected with Mitch Pileggi on one punch.

Even the shape shifter speaks more sense than Fox: "Is the answer to your question worth dying for?" Sure, the guy gives Mulder the same taste of what he gave Scully, guess we should be grateful he didn't pierce the back of his neck with the ice pick of doom. Or his frontal lobe or any other part.

I found something I thought I'd lost -- faith to keep looking: A half-hour after Fox makes his deal with the devil, Dana saves him right back. Truth be told, I never liked that line at the end of Pretty Woman, but it certainly fits the bill here as Scully uses science to deal with a "bad case of freezer burn." We certainly got more questions than answers, but some of these new plot points will fuel the show for a few seasons.