X-Files S2E20 (aka the one in which Scully eats a cricket)

Sestra Amateur: 

This is an episode in which it pays to watch without distractions. There are so many great throwaway lines and sight gags that casual viewers will otherwise miss a lot of Darin Morgan’s wit. 

Today, we travel to Vancouver’s version of Florida. Alligator Man stalks two boys who are swimming in a pool. Turns out it’s cool because he’s their dad, Jerald Glazebrook. To show just how normal he is, he tells the boys to go to bed before their mother finds out they’re out past their bedtime. No husband, even an alligator man, wants to bear the wrath of an angry wife/mother. Unfortunately, something enters the pool and kills poor Jerald. 

Mulder tells Scully that 48 similar attacks have occurred in the past 28 years. At Jerald’s funeral, Dana notes different quirks and traits of the sideshow attendees. Fox is hardly fazed when one freak – pardon me, escape artist – burrows out of the ground and rams a railroad spike through his own chest. Apparently, the purpose was to show his admiration for Jerald’s escape abilities. The deceased's friends and family are understandably annoyed. 

The Sheriff defends his town’s “very special people,” but Scully argues if they are truly normal then they are capable of the same actions and reactions of … non-very special people. Sculder meet with local artist Hepcat, who sculpts a creature called the Fiji Mermaid (hope it’s Fiji because closed-captioning changed it to Feejee) that is very reminiscent of Morgan’s Flukeman. Sculder head to the Gulf Breeze trailer court and Mulder pisses off Mr. Nutt – a dwarf - by assuming he’s former circus folk. Nutt, in turn, stereotypes Fox but since he nailed it, we'll have to just move on. Sculder meet bellhop Lanny, who, along with his conjoined – and shy – brother Leonard, left the circus to work for Nutt. Meanwhile, Hepcat gets attacked, X-Files-style. 

The next morning, Fox is jogging when he spots a man covered with a jigsaw-puzzle tattoo fishing ... without using a pole. The man, known as The Conundrum, starts eating his bounty raw – not like sushi with rice and chopsticks, but ripping into it with his teeth. He runs away upon spotting Mulder. 

Lanny retrieves Scully on behalf of the sheriff. Dana is as mesmerized by the bellhop's exposed deformity as much as he is mesmerized by her exposed breast. They both instinctively cover up. Fox sees blood on the outside of Hepcat’s tiny window. The sheriff doesn’t understand why the killer just didn’t come through the open front door. They watch Dr. Blockhead – the funeral burrower – escape from a straight jacket and hammer a nail into his nostril. They also meet The Conundrum. Remember hearing about human geeks as a kid? They’re the ones who would bite the heads off of live chickens. The Conundrum eats a handful of crickets – mid-morning snack, I guess. Scully just nibbles on hers, to Mulder’s amazement. Turns out, it was just sleight of hand; Dana didn’t really eat one, but did Gillian Anderson? 

Scully meets with the freak-show museum curator, who tells her the story of Siamese twins Chang and Eng. Chang died from a cerebral hemorrhage and poor Eng died from fright soon after Chang’s death. Can you imagine being conjoined to a dead body for the rest of your life? You can kind of see where this is going. The curator teaches Scully how to spot phony acts, which he calls gaffes. He finagles five bucks out of her and then Dana is shown the Great Egress. Guess she can write it off on her expense report. 

Mulder catches Nutt under Scully’s trailer. The manager jumps to the conclusion that Fox has concluded Nutt was spying on Dana for cheap thrills. Nutt tries to use the stereotype prejudice argument again, but Fox shuts him down and creeps him out to the point where Nutt leaves without fixing Scully’s plumbing. (No, that is not a euphemism.) Fox catches his partner up regarding Dr. Blockhead -- Jeffrey Swaim -- who, surprise surprise, is not a real doctor. Dana does the same for him with Sheriff Hamilton, formerly Jim-Jim, the Dog-Face Boy. When the sheriff confronts them about their suspicions, Scully uses the by-the-book approach. Mulder goes a different route – he blurts out the truth. 

Meanwhile, The Conundrum is paying his rent – it’s very amusing to see his personalized checks, but that zip code isn’t even a U.S. one, let alone a Florida one. The Conundrum has nicer penmanship than I do too. After the human geek leaves, Nutt gets attached by the killer creature. Lanny wakes Dana, and with blood on his hands, says he found his boss' body. Awwww, Nutt(s). 

There’s evidence at the scene which leads Sculder to Dr. Blockhead, so they take him into custody. Of course, he escapes from the cuffs, what were they thinking? He makes a run for it, but the sheriff catches him outside. Lanny, who’s sleeping in the jail’s drunk tank, sees something and starts screaming. Dana thinks Lanky Lanny's brother, Leonard, is the killer. He confirms those suspicions and Scully watches Leonard run (crawl?) away. The puppetry takes away from the pursuit scene, but maybe it’s supposed to look cheesy in keeping with this episode. Sculder try to corral Lenny in the funhouse, but they’re clearly not having any fun. 

Back in the trailer park, The Conundrum's attacked, but does what he does best and eats Leonard. The next morning, Sculder and the sheriff are still looking for their suspect. Dana tells Dr. Blockhead that Lanky died the night before and her autopsy revealed his death was caused by cirrhosis of the liver. Even though Lanny drank frequently, I’m sure there was a touch of Eng involved as well. Dr. Blockhead condemns future society for eradicating freaks in favor of more Mulders. Fox’s Superman pose during Blockhead’s tirade is one of the funniest visual moments in this episode. Then Doc Block and The Conundrum pack their things in a Volkswagen Bug and leave the trailer park. (Punch buggy yellow!) Hope they pick up some Pepto-Bismol for the human geek’s tummy ache.

Sestra Professional:

What an introduction for Darin Morgan to the series. His introduction as a writer anyway, since he was the unidentifiable title character in the episode "The Host" earlier this season. But at the typewriter, he's very recognizable. He changed the series for better and for good. His legacy in the credits may be four episodes in the original run, but his fingerprints are all over most of the very best shows the series has to offer from here on out.

Just the teaser alone proves we're in a brand-new ballgame. Until now, an alligator man would be the "Monster of the Week." But the croc here is a fun dad, a good dad and then a dead dad at the hands of something infinitely more monstrous.

Do you recall what Barnum said about suckers? And then Morgan gets his hands on Mulder, who was plenty ripe for more ribbing a lot deeper than being nicknamed Spooky. He does let Fox show his intelligence in the FBI office before he virtually tears him down bit by bit in front of God and all his creatures, great and weird.

Darin's very, very good to Scully, she almost gets a personality transplant in his hands. She's sexier, funnier and more curious about the case and the world in general than she's been over two seasons. And so we get her saying things that might have been attributed to Mulder earlier in the run, like her explanation that if the oddities are normal, they also would be capable of committing the crimes.

You never know where the truth ends and the humbug begins: With our leads taken care of, Morgan's free to trot out any creature his mind can come up with via the sideshow theme -- Dr. Blockhead driving a spike into his own chest, the diminutive trailer court manager and the local sheriff who turns out to once have been Jim-Jim, the Dog-Face Boy. But all of them are shown more dignity despite their quirks than the FBI guy.
 
As Sestra Am said this episode is jam-packed with juicy Darin Morgan goodness, both in words and images brought forth by director Kim Manners. Morgan's got the premise built in P.T. Barnum's history and how the circus creator and promoter manipulated the public into turning over their hard-earned dough. It's priceless the way Scully and Lanny cover up simultaneously when they become aware their bathrobes are perhaps a bit too revealing. Mulder's pulse doesn't quicken, though, he can pluck a nail out of Doc Block's nose as smoothly he can ponder whether there's more than one bald-headed jigsaw puzzle-tattooed naked guy.

It's what's inside that counts: Somewhere in all of that -- and the ongoing animosity Fox invites from the pint-sized proprietor -- is the actual murder case. Once Sculder is done being embarrassed while eliminating the former dog-faced boy as a suspect, they can close in on the actual culprit.

As with all Darin Morgan episodes, there really is a message of heart at the core. "You can not change the way you were born," Lanny bemoans. We see it here as little Leonard can't and Mulder can't, but the insinuation of the extension to the real world hangs in the air with such a lightness of spirit that we're not really bummed by the concept. Especially when the author -- via Doc Block -- immediately takes Mulder down another peg. 

"Twenty-first century genetic engineering will not only eliminate the Siamese twins and the alligator-skin people, but you're gonna be hard-pressed to find a slight overbite, or a not-so-high cheekbone," he proclaims. "You see, I've seen the future, and the future looks just like him. ... Imagine, going through your whole life looking like that." 

So much meta from this episode, starting with the cricket/grasshopper thing. 'Tis true, Sestra Am, Dana may not have ingested the grasshopper, but Gillian sure did. We'll go back to the Season 2 gag reel for Manners' animated response to that bit -- he wonders whether she'll be up and hoppin' around all night.

Morgan's costume from "The Host" is part of the set decoration at Hepcat's place. And the best of the marquee sideshow performers -- Blockhead (Jim Rose) and The Conundrum (naturally played by The Enigma) -- came to prominence while performing on the second stage of the 1992 Lollapalooza Festival. (Can't wait for Darin's lollapalooza of a joke about that festival next season.)

Guest star of the week: Oh, the horror of choosing just one. Everyone was picture-perfect, particularly Jim Rose, Michael Anderson (Mr. Nutt) and Wayne Grace (the artist formerly known as Jim-Jim). But the gravitas of the episode has to be handled by Lanky Lanny Vincent Schiavelli, the character actor we all know from Ghost and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (and I know from Moonlighting and Sestra Am knows from Batman Returns) who fits in all-too-seamlessly amidst those who worked in sideshows for a living.