X-Files S4E21: Compromising positions

Sestra Amateur: 

This episode has Skinner and Mulder and bees, oh my… #10wordepisodereview. No Scully in this one, it’s a Mulder/Skinner ep. What do their shippers call them? Mulder? Skinner? Mulskin? Sounds like a bad name for beer or a primitive name for condoms. However, the title of this episode is pretty telling. "Zero Sum" essentially means one side wins, the other side loses. Wonder which side will apply to our boys.

In Desmond, Virginia, postal employee Jane Brody violates the Virginia Clean Indoor Air Act (which didn’t exist until 2009, so we’ll give her some leeway) by smoking a cigarette in the ladies room stall of the processing center. Thousands of bees inexplicably enter the bathroom and attack Jane. Co-worker Misty Nagata checks on Jane and finds her friend’s bee stung corpse in the stall.

Assistant Director Walter Skinner – who is in full puppet mode – snoops through Mulder’s computer and deletes photographs of Jane’s dead body. He also cleans up the crime scene, complete with flushing Jane’s cigarette and vacuuming up evidence. I think Walter missed his true calling. Maybe he’ll come to my house and clean my grout too. 
Skinner then heads to the local morgue and removes Jane’s corpse. He burns her in an off-site furnace and director Kim Manners finally gets some great reflective shots from Skinner’s glasses. Mulder – actually Walter masquerading as Fox – arrives at the Desmond Police Department and tampers with the evidence. He replaces a (probably tainted) vial of blood with a (probably normal) one. Seems like Desmond PD’s coroner is more on the ball than their crime-scene techs, who hadn’t even processed the bathroom that Skinner cleaned.

Detective Ray Thomas catches up to “Mulder” before Skinner can get away. Walter tells the detective the case is not an X-File and there will be no further FBI involvement. Back at home, Skinner strips down to his tighty whities and is about to throw away his clothing when Mulder shows up at the front door ... at 4 a.m. Fox printed out Jane’s photographs before Walter deleted the files, but he is still livid someone hacked his computer. To make matters worse, Det. Thomas has been shot and killed, and the time of death coincides with Skinner’s evidence-tampering visit to the precinct. Walter heads to his underground garage and gets a visit from a man smoking a cigarette. He confronts Cancer Man about the cop’s murder while the latter just smokes and talks cryptically. (I don’t mean he was smoking cryptically, but is that even a thing?)

The next morning, Mulder calls Skinner to report the theft of Jane’s body and the tampering of her blood evidence. And, of course, the gun used to kill the detective is Walter's since he’s being set up. Skinner calls CSM, who continues to turn the screws. Walter claims he’ll turn state’s evidence but Cancer Man dangles the "heal Scully" carrot to keep him in line. Skinner returns to the original crime scene and looks for evidence he overlooked that he can use to get out of this mess. He breaks through the bathroom wall and finds an abandoned honeycomb, then brings a sample to forensic entomologist Dr. Valedespino in a Maryland lab to determine what type of bees created it. Skinner’s continued research into weaponized bees leads him to Fox's contact, Marita Covarrubias.

Walter is still in Mulder’s office when Fox returns with grainy surveillance photographs of Det. Thomas’ killer, “Fox Mulder”. Meanwhile, the weaponized bees attack and kill Dr. Valedespino. Luckily, Fox gets to the new corpse before Walter and learns the scientist died of smallpox carried by the bees. Skinner goes back to the post office processing center and interviews Misty about her friend as Skinner, not Mulder. She’s worried about losing her job and tells Walter that men visited her, told her not to talk and asked about damaged packages.

The FBI’s photo technician enhances the surveillance photograph and the unknown suspect clearly becomes Walter Skinner. Cancer Man meets with his Syndicate in New York City and updates them on the situation. Without naming names, CSM indicates Skinner has taken care of things and their project is under way. Then we get to watch the weaponized bees attack and sting children on a playground in South Carolina. One of the teachers gets stung hundreds of times. Wow, those Syndicate guys are real jerks. 

Skinner shows up at the hospital and tells the ER doctor to treat the victims for smallpox. Dr. Linzer isn’t buying it, but Marita does because she shows up to help Skinner. She wants to track down those missing packages and expects answers. Walter tells her about the “experiment,” but is reluctant to reveal his own duplicity. Wow, Skinner hasn’t been this screwed since "Avatar" (Season 3, Episode 21).

An armed and pissed Mulder is waiting for Skinner … and some answers at the assistant director's abode. (I don’t think this gets addressed, but did Dr. Linzer eventually believe the smallpox story and finally treat the children? Or were they all dying while Mulder and Skinner yelled at each other?) Surprisingly, Fox doesn’t want to believe Walter is being set up. It should have been the conspiracy buff’s first thought. 

Skinner surrenders his gun and ballistics tests show it is the same one used to kill the detective. But Mulder doesn’t disclose that it’s Walter’s. (They filed off the serial number so no one can trace it back to him.) Skinner confronts Cancer Man with a different handgun, but CSM keeps playing the save Scully card. Skinner shoots at CSM three times but intentionally misses – at least we hope it was intentional. Otherwise, Walter is a really, really bad shot. Skinner leaves and Cancer Man takes a phone call from Marita, who seems to be playing ball with the Syndicate. Boy, Mulder was right, trustno1. By the way, if you use that as a password, mix it up a little bit: tRu$tN01! 

Sestra Professional:

At first glance, there's doesn't seem to be too much meat on the bones of this one, since it's mostly action and little talk, but it gives us a good look at Cigarette-Smoking Man's new hold on Skinner. Jane could have avoided certain death if she just went outside for her smoke break, though. 

Howard Gordon (his final work for the show) and Frank Spotnitz's script depends upon director Kim Manners handling the initial array of scenes without dialogue. And he really pulls it off. Everything from the scary bathroom death to the reflections of Skinner's glasses lend a lot of atmosphere before the enticing two-person scenes get underway.

A man digs a hole, he risks falling into it: "Zero Sum" gives Mitch Pileggi a lot of wiggle room, and not just in the tighty whities. Walter's obviously walking a fine line now. He's compromised, but we can remain firmly on his side because he's doing it all for our beloved -- and absent -- Scully, who seems to be getting worse off camera. And because he really doesn't look happy while he's doing it.

I agree with Sestra Am, Skinner does a nice job of cleaning up and he's pretty buff too, being able to tote the "180-pound victim" around. I guess that's how he ascended to the Assistant Director position. (Clue flashback: "Why do you think it's run by a man called Hoover?") But wouldn't the Spic and Span restroom raise the eyebrows of technicians processing the crime scene?

Thank goodness Mulder's around to open Walter's eyes to the larger picture. (He hasn't been doing this long enough to jump to conclusions.) It's left to Fox to explain how the technician can contract a disease that doesn't exist anymore -- through the dreaded bee stings. Mulder hypothesizes that someone's experimenting with a method of delivery for smallpox -- with a reminder about that illness killing more people in history than any other before the cure was discovered. It could make a rather devastating comeback.

So there's a bee hive in the walls of the post office. That's kind of a dramatic way to make adhesive for stamps. Remember when we used to have to lick them? Maybe that would have been a better way of transmitting smallpox than the bees. 

I'm a little disappointed by another quick reveal of someone in CSM's corner. Marita Covarrubias seemed to be very interested in justice when talking with Skinner at the hospital, but just minutes later, we find out she's reporting to him. The X-Files never held off on imparting that kind of information. With so many episodes and seasons to play with, I kind of wish they had. 

I'm starting to get used to my own advice: We get quite a few conversations between two characters in "Zero Sum." There's Mulder holding Skinner at gunpoint -- again? But I do appreciate how he quickly jumps to the conclusion that Walter had knowledge of the death of Fox's father. It's a great gut response. Skinner makes a nice callback to "Memento Mori" (S4E15), when he talked Mulder out of making a deal with the devil. 

And that's followed by another scene wrought with tension when Walter pulls his new gun on Cancer Man. He thinks he's being strung along, but CSM counters that he'll never know if Dana can be cured if he wastes him. Manners utilizes a great set of beats before revealing that the three shots whizzed by CSM's head, and we're left with the realization that Skinner could very well do the job if the mood strikes him.

Meta-stizing: The episode came about because Gillian Anderson was away for a week filming The Mighty. In the fourth-season official guide, Spotnitz recounted that they didn't want to work David Duchovny too hard, so they made use of the annual tradition of writing a Skinner episode. "After all, Skinner had already made his Faustian bargain with the Cigarette-Smoking Man in 'Memento Mori.' This was a logical time to see it played out. It was also a good place to bring back the bees, where were introduced at the beginning of the season in 'Herrenvolk' (S4E1), but which had never been explained." ... Pileggi had only a few days notice that he'd be appearing before the cameras in his underwear. The guide reported he immediately hit the weight room. ... Manners was thrilled that he got his first chance to work with Pileggi on an episode that the actor really sank his teeth into, according to the guide. ... One of Mulder's folders halfway through the show is labeled "Foo Fighters." ... The episode was dedicated to Pileggi's late father, Vito.

Filming the schoolyard scene proved to be quite a chore, with thousands of bees really liberated around the children. "They released the bees, and we had paramedics standing by on the off chance that someone got stung and then would go into anaphylactic shock," Manners said in The Complete X-Files. "I'd say, 'Cut it, print it' and a kid would come running out crying, and the mother would say, 'Get back in there, you're working on The X-Files!'"

X-Files S4E20: The mystery of the tater tots

Sestra Amateur: 

We’ve been long overdue for an amusing episode, so I’ll dial back my usual levels of incredulity and annoyance of plot contrivances and character actions that occur for the sole purpose of moving along a particular story. I think of this one as my episode – from a month and date perspective (Season 4, Episode 20) not for any other underlying meaning – I was lucky to get a good one linked to my birthday. Sorry about "Fresh Bones" (S2E15), Sestra. "Small Potatoes" even aired on April 20 in 1997. Too bad I didn’t watch the show during its original run.

Writer Vince Gilligan’s fingerprints are all over this one. It’s the rare bottle ep that you almost wish could be a continuing story. A woman is in labor at a West Virginia hospital and freely admits her baby daddy is from another planet. She has a nice easy labor and the baby girl sounds healthy, she just happens to have a vestigial tail. And it sounds like she’s not the only one. Considering how long the tail is, wouldn’t that have shown up on an ultrasound? Whoops, there’s that sarcastic tone of mine again. 

Because there have been five local incidents in three months, Mulder wants to take the case. Scully would rather refer the case to the health department. Fox interviews the new mother, Amanda Nelligan, to find out more about the baby daddy she claims is Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. Yay! Luke finally got some! Sculder learn through DNA testing that all five babies are Skywalker’s younglings. Damn, Luke, now you’re going to end up on The Jerry Springer Show! (You’re wrong if you think it would be The Maury Povich Show because we already know who the father is.) 

Mulder thinks the women’s gynecologist is behind the insemination. That’s a rather sensible approach, Fox. The agents head to Dr. Alton Pugh’s office where the other four couples are confronting him. His defense is the women had outside affairs. I smell a lawsuit. While wandering around the building, Mulder spots a plumber who is unironically showing his stereotypical plumber’s crack. Luckily, it enables Fox to see the scarred remains of a tail. He identifies himself as an FBI agent and the plumber makes a run for it. Mulder tackles him in front of Scully and the couples, then shows them the scar. DNA testing confirms the plumber – now identified as Eddie Van Blundht – fathered all five babies. 

You may not recognize Eddie -- played by Darin Morgan -- from his previous appearance on The X-Files as Flukeman in "The Host" (S2E2). Coincidentally, I referred to him as Fluke Skywalker in that blog. But Darin wrote some of the show's best episodes, including "Jose Chung’s From Outer Space" (S3E20) and Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose (S3E4). The man has a unique wit, as does Gilligan. 

But let’s get back to the interrogation room. Eddie is complaining because no one spells his name right. (I feel your pain, Mr. Van Blundht.) Eddie tries to take the hypothetical "no harm, no foul" angle because the couples all got the babies they wanted. Dana thinks he drugged and raped them, and Fox doesn’t have one of his usual explanations. The booking officer is taking Eddie’s information when Van Blundht transforms into him and smashes a piggy bank over the officer’s head. (Yeah, I have to ask: Why is there a piggy bank in a police station?)

The next morning the officer regains consciousness and tells everyone what he saw. Mulder finally has a theory -- physical transformation. Sculder go to Eddie’s father’s house, but he claims he hasn’t seen Eddie Jr. for two days. Senior, who was "Monkey Boy" in the circus, kept his tail his whole life, but Junior had his removed. Senior slips up and Mulder realizes they’re talking with Junior, who bolts and gets away. 

Eddie disguises himself as one of the baby daddies and hides in his house. Fred’s wife “Baboo” wants answers, but she gives “Sugar Patootie” time to regain his composure. Real Fred comes home, then he and his wife confront Eddie, who has camouflaged himself as Fox. They believe him, but the Mulder we know would never be caught dead in that thrift store shirt/pant combo.

Back at the coroner’s office, Scully is cutting into Eddie Sr.’s corpse because, well, it would be awkward for her to do it anywhere else. Fox, who needs to learn to keep his hands to himself, accidentally snaps off Monkey Boy’s tail. She learns about Senior’s unusual physiology, which might explain Eddie’s ability to look like anyone. Mulder goes back to re-interview Amanda because she doesn’t fit Van Blundht's pattern. She remembers him as a loser from high school who was a huge Star Wars fan. But is she talking to Fox Mulder or Faux Mulder? 

Turns out to be Option B, because Fox shows up immediately after Faux gives Amanda a rose and leaves her room. Mulder realizes what happened after getting a phone call from Fred. Hopefully Fox won’t get charged with stealing Sugar Patootie’s suit. Fox detains two hospital employees, thinking one of them must be Eddie. But neither is the right man, Eddie falls through the ceiling and crashes into Mulder, then gets away. Dana arrives to assist and leaves with Fox when he convinces her the case is not an X-File. But it’s Eddie back in Faux Mulder mode, Fox is locked in the hospital basement.

The rest of the episode contains some of David Duchovny’s best comedic moments. Faux Mulder and Scully (Fauxly?) meet with Assistant Director Skinner to discuss the case. Walter seems particularly perturbed by this Mulder’s inability to spell. Dana determines Eddie Sr. died of old age and Faux suggests Eddie hid his father’s body then impersonated him in order to collect the Social Security checks. At least now we know the motive. They go to Mulder’s office where Faux just can’t find the right key to unlock the door. Scully leaves to begin her exciting weekend plans ... they were so boring I couldn’t even retain them long enough to type them here. 

Faux heads to Mulder’s apartment, feeds the fish and screens phone messages from the Lone Gunmen and phone sex lines. Faux shows he can at least correctly spell FBI during his really bad DeNiro Taxi Driver impersonation. But Faux Mulder is bored, so he heads to Scully’s apartment with a goofy smile and some wine. Dana tells stories about her past while they finish off the bottle. Faux leans in for a kiss, Scully does too … and Fox breaks down Dana's door. She bolts off the couch and Faux morphs back into himself. So, in just a few hours, Eddie as Faux Mulder got further with Scully than Fox has so far. Wouldn’t it have been funny if Eddie showed up as Fox in one of the Season 11 episodes? We wouldn’t have seen that coming.

Sestra Professional:

Even before me-too political correctness came into vogue, it probably wasn't right for me to enjoy "Small Potatoes" as much as I do. But it's not the first nor the last time The X-Files played fast and loose with what would be considered PC. It's tough to be able to deliver such material with as much flair and gusto as the show does, but might it still diminish the entertainment value? I'm not sure it should. It is a fictional television show, after all.

Sestra Am's right, it's refreshing to get a respite in the highly charged fourth season. The episode begets nice textured performances from David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. In fact, it might be David's best of the whole run, because he not only plays a more laid-back version of Mulder, but also spends a lot of time as Eddie Van Blundht's take on him.

I don't know if this episode is the one David submitted for the Emmys that year, but if it wasn't, maybe it should have been. He gives the most subtle signs that he's Faux Mulder in scenes such as the questioning of Amanda. He reacts in ways we don't usually see Fox do, so if we haven't cracked the code, we probably should have. And when we know for a fact it's Van Blundht, he shows perfect timing as the man masquerading as our hero. Not just with the instant classic "F-B-I" bit in the mirror, but with brilliant Vince Gilligan dialogue such as "Local authorities are already on the warpath," the priceless case wrapup scene in Skinner's office and the dejected face when he's discovered to be Faux.

Not that Duchovny doesn't get to have some choice moments in his "own" body as Mulder -- best of all when he accidentally breaks off the father's tail right when Scully says the body is "preserved and intact" while she's detailing the strangeness of the anomalous musculature that enables Van Blundht to morph into anyone's size and shape.

This is where my tax dollars go? Gilligan (and Eddie) make us look at Mulder's life in a different way. He has geeks for friends, dials phone sex chat lines with frequency and doesn't have an actual bed. Fox is a "damn good-looking man," but he's not taking advantage of god's gift to him. Not to mention how he hasn't even considered making personal inroads with Scully. Even after Van Blundht gets incarcerated, he reminds Mulder to treat himself. 

I'm not sure how the shippers are supposed to react to the big bonding scene between Van Blundht's Fox and Dana. It gave a whole new showcase to the chemistry between our leads and one of the most extended looks at them outside of work to date, buuuuut since that was actually Eddie's Mulder and not the real one, I guess it probably ultimately doesn't go over too well. Just more personal proof that I'm not a shipper, I guess.

Anderson is just spectacular in that scene as well. She starts off keenly interested in following up on the science of their case and progresses into a tipsy story about the high-school love of her life. That gives way to astonishment when Eddie Van Mulder gets close to kissing her. Frankly, I would have given her the Emmy for this scene as much as anything else in this year's cancer story.

But for all of that, we also get the sense that Fox and Dana aren't on the same wavelength a lot in this episode. Mulder tries to glean what person Scully would transform into if she could choose anyone. She doesn't even want to play the game, adding that looking like someone else and being someone else aren't the same. Fox counters that people might be treated differently when they look different. So she picks Eleanor Roosevelt and Fox's reaction indicates her choice leaves much to be desired. Then Mulder's pretty eager to see Eddie the Monkey Man's tail, but Dana quickly snuffs out that opportunity.

Did he have a lightsaber? But Dana gets to have some great lines in an episode chock full of them. I wonder how much the show had to pay the forces behind Star Wars so Amanda could "sing" the theme song she found so seductive. And she's seen the movie 368 times, expecting to break 400 by Memorial Day. I'm left wondering about Sestra Am's total about now.

There were some atypical moments in the episode that also work well. The victim helped solve the case -- Amanda questioned whether there was any chance Luke Skywalker was the father of the other tater tots. The other couples surmising Sculder were also insemination victims provided some guffaws. And the doctor isn't even overlooked in favor of any wildly speculative theories. They actually crack the case fairly early on in the episode to leave room for Mulders, faux and real, to bounce around the canvas.

On behalf of all the women in the world, I seriously doubt this has anything to do with consensual sex: But less "Small Potatoes" sound too idyllic, Van Blundht's explanation that everyone wanted babies and he helped them do that doesn't really fly. Was this passive aggressive writing? See Morgan sorta left the show in the lurch after delivering four definitive episodes. He had been penciled in for more, but bowed out. So even though he departed the show on good terms, writing a character for him who impregnated five women without their consent kinda seems a little strident. 

It's directed with a supremely fine hand by Cliff Bole, who gives all the moments their space. It collects momentum because of little things like Fox taking a moment for an eye roll when Eddie makes his first run for it, the "H" in Van Blundht sign outside the house falling when Sculder stop by the old homestead and a lingering shot that shows Eddie left Fox an apple and a soda so he wouldn't starve before taking off with Mulder's badge, gun and Scully. 

Meta physical: We weren't the only ones finding Season 4 a little dark, as Gilligan referenced in the official episode guide. "I didn't want to get a reputation for only writing about doom and gloom," he said. ... Then the writer had to convince Morgan to take the role. "Vince caught me on a good night," Morgan added in the guide. "Immediately after saying yes, I thought: I should have said no." ... X-Philes probably know the show's gag reels pretty well, and it's tough to watch Fox chase Eddie down in the hospital without thinking about how Duchovny went a little overboard in trying to show the scar. ... According to the guide, the original script called for the babies and Van Blundhts to have wings instead of tails.

Guest star of the week: Morgan always stood out among the show's talented group of writers. Even in his self-imposed limited capacity, he inspired the likes of Gilligan. In the somewhat thankless role of Eddie, he provided some pathos and a lot of heart. Morgan was a real gamer in a tough role, getting a very big assist from Duchovny in this regard. I admit I still kind of have a soft spot for Eddie. Political correctness can suck it for a week. Morgan is a superstar.