Sestra Amateur:
“The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” But I can write about it, so how’s that for a loophole? In Kansas City – the one in Kansas, not Missouri – two probably Mormon missionaries reach out to Betty and Lulu, women who live in separate houses but look exactly alike and are both played by perennial D-Lister Kathy Griffin (her word, not mine). Betty and Lulu even have the same bumper stickers on their cars, although they’re on the opposite bumpers. Lulu slams the door on the men, and the duo starts fighting with each other over nothing.
Police arrive to break up the tussle and now those starch white shirts need a major bleaching. The next day, Mulder, Scully and the missionaries arrive at Betty Templeton’s house. Actually, it’s not Fox or Dana, although they are voiced by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. It’s their doppelgangers who are “out there somewhere,” as Betty would say. (You’re a sneaky one, Chris Carter.) Faux Sculder are doubting the existence of Betty’s double when Lulu happens to drive by. Faux-ly then punches Faux-der and the fight is on! The brawl continues until our intrepid doppelgangers crash into a tree. Now the real Sculder get the case.
Fox enjoys laying the facts out for Dana, but she’s not interested in playing Watson to his Sherlock this time (her words, not mine). Of course, she does manage to figure out Mulder’s theory. Meanwhile, poor Lulu Pfeiffer is trying to get a job at Koko’s Copy Center, but her unstable employment and residential histories make the manager nervous. Luckily, all the copiers go haywire and he asks her to start immediately. Then Betty arrives to apply for the job, but since it’s no longer available she applies at a nearby Koko’s. While trying to find Betty, Sculder run across Bert Zupanic -- played by Randall "Tex" Cobb -- but the shady character is less than forthcoming. Fox waits for Bert to leave, then breaks into his hotel room. Bert meets with Betty at a dive bar named Froggy’s and she doesn’t seem to know him. Then Lulu walks in and chaos ensues. Betty and Bert escape through the back of the bar.
Scully meets with Mulder and wrestling promoter Argyle Saperstein -- played by Art Evans -- at a nearby arena, where Bert "The Titanic" Zupanic is expected to wrestle. Bert wants his good luck charm (his words, not mine) -- Betty -- by his side when he fights. Scully knows all about Lulu and how the two women have crossed paths through 17 states over the past 12 years. The next morning, Betty is in Bert’s bathroom when Lulu arrives, livid that Bert stood her up at the bar the night before. He talks his way out of it and sends her away. When Betty exits the bathroom, the upstairs neighbors start fighting and shoot several rounds into the floor. Luckily, Bert and Betty are unhurt, but I can’t really speak for the neighbors.
Later at Froggy’s, Lulu arrives for lunch and Argyle, who’s waiting for a cash payoff from Bert, confuses her with Betty, who arrives after Bert. The women see each other and the bar again explodes into chaos. (How did they manage to repair the previous damage so quickly? That’s some awesome insurance coverage.) In the aftermath, Argyle takes the suitcase full of cash from an unconscious Bert and bolts. "The Titanic" regains consciousness with Sculder hovering over him asking questions.
Fox tracks down Betty at work. She blames everything on Lulu. Dana gets a similar saga from Lulu. Both doppelgangers refuse to leave Kansas. Lulu drives past Betty and poor Mulder, who is literally in between them, gets sucked into a manhole. “Bulu” drive away without even trying to help the now-underground Fox. Scully arrives to look for her partner, but gets distracted by the Internet. This leads her to Bob Danfous, the incarcerated and extraordinarily irritated biological father of Betty Templeton and Lulu Pfeiffer, thanks to his sperm bank donations.
Meanwhile, Bert, panicked because he thinks he lost his financing, is still juggling Betty and Lulu. Betty thinks she’s helping Burt by photocopying hundred-dollar bills. So does Lulu. If it were really that easy, don’t you think everyone would do it? Mulder finally manages to escape the storm drain and calls Scully. She updates him on the girls’ paternal history with the “angriest man in the world” (her words, not mine). He updates her on the girls’ boyfriend-in-common, Bert, who Dana finds incarcerated in the penitentiary. But Bert’s actually at the arena, where Argyle claims Bert still owes him money. Betty shows up with a bagful of counterfeit cash and Titanic Zupanic is allowed to wrestle. Mulder arrives to arrest Betty, but Lulu shows up with her own bag of counterfeit bills (which Argyle promptly takes off her hands) so Fox carries Betty away to prevent a riot in the packed arena. It doesn’t work.
During the melee, Scully strolls in with Bert’s doppelganger and the crowd stops fighting. For a minute there, Dana’s pretty pleased with herself. Unfortunately, Bert and other-Bert reignite everyone’s anger and the brawls begin again. Looks like the referee is the only unscathed one. Scully ends up with some nasty facial injuries and Mulder’s jaw is wired shut. That’s somewhat fitting, considering how he wasn’t very forthcoming with Scully at the beginning of the episode. Betty and Lulu finally take their aggressions out on each other. Hopefully they’ll be forced to live at opposite ends of the country. And what about Argyle and his two bags of fake hundred-dollar bills? He seems to be the only winner in this story, unless the reason Sculder arranged for him to come to their office at FBI Headquarters was for more than exposition.
Sestra Professional:
It's been pretty easy to adhere to the first rule of "Fight Club," because The X-Files' variation on the theme is one of the least effective episodes in the entire run of the series. I'd rather watch the movie version of Fight Club than rewatch this one, and I didn't even like the 1999 film starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
But onward and we're seeing double, definitely two too many. You can almost see and hear the wheels turning in show creator Chris Carter's head when he was putting the script for this one together -- hey what's better than two Jehovah's Witnesses fighting? Ooooh, Mulder and Scully fighting! Or at least an amazing facsimile in the form of Steve Kiziak (David Duchovny's stunt double) and Arlene Pileggi (Skinner's real-life wife and Gillian Anderson's double).
Don't go thinking I'm going to start doing the autopsies: I'd like to blame the failing of this episode on the inconsistency of the metaphysical events, the women are blocks away in the teaser when the two missionaries start duking it out but a whole wrestling scene plays out with Betty and Lulu in the same auditorium before things start to get hinky. It's much more than that, though. And Mark Snow's score goes as purposefully overboard as the rest of the proceedings to make sure we know it's supposed to be a comedy episode.
So after an overly playful explanation of the case and slide show, we're treated to an exact copy -- hefty pun intended in the spirit of an ep in which no joke lands without a thud -- of the job-seeking scene with Betty and Lulu. The laundry list of jobs they've both had includes Mongolian barbeque chef and wild animal trainer, lines that were barely funny the first time but twice as eye-rolling the second time.
Basically there are no Fight Club rules for what we're witnessing. A tussle can break out when one drives by the other, but Lulu can physically walk into the bar Betty's in before things go sideways. Remember how much trouble Carter had with his Heathers homage, "Szyzgy" (Season 3, Episode 13)? That was perfekt compared to this one. At least there was an attempt at reasoning back then -- something about planetary alignment that ended at the stroke of midnight. Scully pulls her punch with a line about putting the "I" in FBI (it's more like the "B" ... as in bull****). Mulder tags one with a quip about learning some wrestling moves so he can quit getting his ass kicked so much.
Meanwhile, the incongruity between the convenient psychokinetic events continues -- sometimes they cause fighting, sometimes it's more akin to an earthquake. I'm not sure an explanation could have helped that out, but I would have liked a stronger one all the same. Luckily for Mulder, he gets sucked into a storm drain with such pinpoint accuracy that he sustains no injuries (at that point) and the manhole cover pops perfectly back on top.
What's so special about you? There's a jail scene that goes for partial justification of the doppelgangers' connection, but ultimately only proves Anderson can act any-thing. I'd be impressed if I wasn't so inherently bored by the concept of shoutyshout guy -- the alleged angriest man in the world -- explaining his sperm donation. I think Carter realllly needed a summer break about this time. He reportedly was writing the pilot for The Lone Gunman at the same time as he was preparing this script. I think he needed his own doppelganger.
And the closest we got to seeing Fox and Dana put up their dukes was in the forms of their stunt doubles and an impressive job by the makeup crew? Well, I guess that's what we would have seen anyway if Mulder and Scully got it on here in the physical sense. No, not the one that shippers hadn't loosened their grip on for almost eight years. And take heart, Carter will get much better at visualizing the concept of fate by Season 9's "Improbable."
Guest star of the week: As much as I want to give the nod to Arlene Pileggi or even Kathy Griffin for putting her head(s) down and charging through this brouhaha, I'm going to go with Randall "Tex" Cobb. Not a lot of the goings-on here make sense or even hold interest, but I can kinda understand why Betty and Lulu duke it out over lovable lug Bert Zupanic and the way he clings to superstition in beliefs that at least one of them is his good luck charm and ultimately will change his fortune.
Sestra Amateur:
The first 60 seconds cover a lot of ground. A movie version of Fox Mulder, played by Garry Shandling, is involved in an action-packed shootout inside a cemetery. He dodges for cover behind a headstone for Alan Smithee, a well-known Hollywood inside joke almost on the level of the Wilhelm Scream. But the sniper zombies and the Cigarette Smoking Pontiff (yes, you read that right) have Dana Scully, who is played by David Duchovny’s then-real-life wife, Téa Leoni, so what’s a hero to do? He chooses Scully over the Lazarus Bowl and they make their escape. The audience reacts accordingly, except for Minnie Driver and Mulder. Assistant Director Walter Skinner looks positively gleeful. So how did we get here?
Eighteen months earlier, Skinner assigned a church bombing case to Sculder. Unfortunately, they’re also assigned screenwriter Wayne Federman, played by Wayne Federman, who is just so … Hollywood. (The most unbelievable part of this flashback story is Scully’s hair. Eighteen months earlier, she would have had a "The Beginning" (Season 6, Episode 1) ‘do, not what she had last week. Continuity police!) Fox is concerned he wronged Walter more than usual.
Mulder and Federman (Mulman?) meet with Cardinal O’Fallon, played by perpetual movie/TV bad guy Harris Yulin. At the crime scene crypt, Mulman stumble onto a clue because the bomber left behind a ringing cell phone – and his dead body. (Now correct me if I’m wrong, but the name that pops up on screen when you receive a phone call is the person calling you, not the owner of the phone, right? I thought so.) Scully joins Mulman at the lair of suspect Micah Hoffman, where Dana identifies evidence of religious text forgery.
Mulder and Federman start creeping around the crypt and Fox locates the fake Gospel of Mary. But is it a real fake or a fake fake, since the gospel doesn’t exist in the first place? Doesn’t matter at this point, because Wayne is watching animated bones while we listen to a calliope-type musical score. He later tries to convince the agents what he saw but Dana assumes her typical skeptic role. The funny thing is, Federman thinks it was done mechanically or with CGI, so technically, he’s also a non-believer.
After Federman returns to Hollywood, Scully tells Mulder the story she learned from Catholic school Sister Spooky (not related to Fox "Spooky" Mulder) about the Lazarus Bowl, which has the power of resurrection embedded in its grooves. Of course, Fox is now the skeptic. FBI techie Chuck Burks analyzes it for Scully and discovers a “heavenly” tune. Mulder shows Cardinal O’Fallon the forged Gospel of Mary, who translates part of it. The Cardinal admits to buying them from Hoffman thinking they were real, but also hiding them from the world because they destroyed his beliefs. Fox is convinced Micah was dead before the explosion so he asks Dana to perform the autopsy. Too bad Hoffman resurrects mid-procedure … or does he? Scully just imagined it. She learns Micah died of poisoning and Mulder thinks the good Cardinal is guilty.
Sculder go to the church to arrest him and Dana briefly envisions Hoffman as Jesus on the cross. Mulder is arresting O’Fallon when an apparently alive -- and unharmed -- Micah Hoffman strolls into the church. A.D. Skinner (Skinman!) is understandably livid, but he’s wrong; they’ve had at least one previous case in which the dead person was still alive, namely Mulder (S4E24's "Gethsemane"). Our heroes are suspended for four weeks (that’s a punishment?!) but Chuck has some Lazarus Bowl information for them which leans toward forgery -- the translation from Aramaic to English is loosely, “I am the walrus.” There’s also a resurrection spell in there somewhere.
The agents meet with Hoffman, who sounds like a method actor preparing for the role of Jesus Christ. He admits to bombing the crypt so he could destroy the blasphemous forgeries but stops short of explaining how his cell phone ended up on the dead body. Later, at Fox's apartment, Mulder is using the Ed Wood method of deduction. I prefer Dana’s Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner comparison. Fox learns Federman is making a movie about their case so the duo head to Hollywood. (OK, it is a punishment, after all.) How did this get green-lit so quickly? Talk about suspension of disbelief. Skinman, who is staying in same hotel as Sculder, calls Fox to apologize for berating him. (Walter would never do that! Hollywood has claimed another victim.)
Fast-forward to the movie premiere. Sculder are clearly uncomfortable with their on-screen counterparts' kiss and Mulder loses it when reel-life Scully chooses Skinner over Fox. (Go Skinman!) Dana tracks down Mulder at the movie’s fake graveyard to tell him Micah is dead … again. The cardinal murdered Hoffman, then hanged himself. They try to salvage the evening and walk toward the green screen together while resurrected zombies dance in the soundstage graveyard. The episode tried to end on a lighthearted note, but the murder/suicide just stuck with me because it was such a throwaway scene. Nice going, Hollywood. Maybe years from now, the X-Files-universe version of HBO will tell the true story of Cardinal O’Fallon (Judas) and Micah Hoffman (Jesus).
Sestra Professional:
This bowl is overflowing. David Duchovny wrote and directed "Hollywood A.D." and he crammed it past the brim. There's comedy -- not a lot in the entire run of the series compares with Scully, or Gillian Anderson's double at least, showing Téa Leoni how to run in high heels. Then there's an adventure with philosophical underpinnings, a trademark X-Files story particularly in the early years. It's also an overblown look at the kinds of cases Sculder face and what that looks like to the world. And it takes a run at the hoopla surrounding the show's major motion picture. To top it off, the best of use of Mitch Pileggi's Skinner in eons.
I've liked this one since the original run. It's a hot mess, but in a great way. David seemed to have put every idea he ever wrote down on a scrap of paper into his script. We haven't had a lot of memorable one-liners this season, but Duchovny makes up for that by stuffing them all in here. With a couple of decades under the bridge, the episode wears even better because we don't have to try to shoehorn its tale into the ongoing story. Even the zombies dancing at the end exactly as Mulder predicted no longer bother me, although thankfully they stop short of the next item on Fox's to-do list ... namely doing it.
It's a Silence of the Lambs meets Greatest Story Ever Told-type thing: We start off with screenwriter Wayne Federman -- oh, sorry, writer/producer Wayne Federman. And that scene brings to mind what might have played out in some mogul's office when The X-Files, the show went Hollywood for Fight the Future. Were our leads considered Jodie Foster's foster child on a Payless budget and Jehovah's Witness meets Harrison Ford's Witness? For agents trying to do their jobs, it was a hindrance/pain in the neck, though.
We learn about Mulder's holy trinity -- Micah Hoffman, Willie Mays and Frank Serpico. With Duchovny set to power down in Season 8, it's too bad we didn't get his stories with the other two. I am willing to consider his first writing/directing effort for the show, "The Unnatural" (S6E19), a tribute to "The Say Hey Kid," though. Fox probably downgraded his trinity to a dyad after this one. Like we always say, it's a crapshoot when you meet your heroes.
One more pun and I'm pulling out my gun: Duchovny has fun with all of it and particularly with the idea of the ancient artifact being faked. And that gives our resident score guru Mark Snow license to do the same. Sculder aren't untouchable either, as Federman -- far from the most respected character driving around the canvas -- gets to tell Fox that he's crazy for believing what he believes and Dana's crazy for not believing what Mulder believes.
So our dead, undead Micah Hoffman is equal parts explosives expert, master forger and savior. Everything around us vibrates and has music, although I don't think we'll be getting vinyl of a man commanding another to rise from the dead on Record Store Day. But we don't need to focus on that when there's movie casting to be talked about. Richard Gere as Skinner? He'd never take a part that small, although The Lazarus Bowl: The Movie takes care of that by having the redhead forsake our hero for the assistant director. And truth be told, throwing over Garry Shandling for Gere in a flick might not be a big stretch.
No ifs, ands or bees: I want to give Duchovny props for filming his co-star. Through his lens, Anderson looks absolutely ravishing, and with Dana experiencing things that seven seasons haven't even prepped her for -- a one-time impersonator who appears to have become Jesus Christ, not to mention the depiction of herself on a 50-foot screen -- she grounds the episode, as much as it's possible to do such a thing.
We switch gears completely after Walter bounces the dynamic duo off the case, so Duchovny and company go in a completely different direction. Leoni gets to flirt with her husband, and there's a reference to the Shandling-Duchovny relationship first explored on the former's Larry Sanders Show. We get a "kick it in the ass" nod to the show's most tenured director, Kim Manners, and extras slow down the production by expressing their personal belief systems.
The bubble-bath scene -- so reminiscent of the split-screen scenes used in romantic comedies in the '50s -- was an instant classic, as was the film's punchline that Leoni prefers Gere (not shown) because Skinner has a bigger flashlight. One of my favorite touches are the Lazarus bowls used to hold popcorn. Now that's how you do movie merchandising.
Meta melodies: When sending me her share of this week's blog, Sestra Am pointed out the use of the Alan Smithee moniker for directors who didn't want their real names attached to a film was discontinued in 2000, so that name on the gravestone in the movie particularly hits the mark. ... During Skinman's meeting with his charges, Federman says he's going to be Heisenbergian, a hologram. I think Vince Gilligan put a pin in that until Breaking Bad. ... Mulder says he's seen Plan 9 from Outer Space 42 times, both a reference to the ultimate question in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe and his own apartment number. ... Lots of behind-the-scenes faces pop up in this one -- series creator Chris Carter gets to sit with the bigwigs at the screening, director of photography Bill Roe portrays the vegetarian zombie, producer Paul Rabwin plays a studio bigwig hitting on a chorus girl, assistant director Barry Thomas serves as Sugar Bear, Tina Ameduri of craft services plies her trade on screen, visual effects coordinator Bill Millar plays the director and David's brother, Daniel, serves as the assistant director.
Guest star of the week: Duchovny called on a lot of his buds this week -- Garry Shandling, Téa Leoni and even his Return to Me co-stars Minnie Driver and David Alan Grier. It's tough to overlook Harris Yulin (the elder watcher on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the judge from Ghostbusters 2) as the cardinal. But I think I have to go with Federman for delivering relentless Hollywoodness without inducing copious amounts of eye rolling.
Sestra Amateur:
In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Assistant Director Walter Skinner is in charge of a protective custody detail. Grand jury witness Dr. Jim Scobie has a mild cough, so he takes a sip of water. What’s left in the glass looks disturbing -- blood and an unidentified insect. What’s left of Jim’s face is even worse. Jeez, Walter, you had one job. Hopefully Skinner knows someone who can investigate this unexplained type of phenomenon.
Sculder arrive the next morning and learn Dr. Scobie was a biochemist for Morley Tobacco who was about to testify against his employers. Scully heads to the morgue to perform the autopsy. Mulder notices the drinking glass containing the now-drowned insect. The agents meet with Daniel Brimley, the head of security at Morley Headquarters.
They’re allowed to interview Scobie’s former supervisor, Dr. Peter Voss, but only with a team of lawyers present. The interview ends after multiple invocations of the Morley confidentiality clause, but Dr. Voss looks like he wants to talk. At least Fox learns the bug in the glass is a tobacco beetle. When Voss goes home, he has a late-night visitor played by Tobin Bell, who’s only four years away from Saw franchise notoriety as serial killer Jigsaw. He shakes down Voss for some special smokes then leaves.
Skinner and Mulder (Skulder?) get the autopsy results from Dana. She rules out acids and caustic agents, then determines cause of death to be hypoxemia -- Scobie essentially choked to death. Meanwhile, faux Cigarette Smoking Man is arguing with his coughing neighbor through a wall. The man dies like Jim, but this time we see the victim covered in those tobacco beetles. Luckily, local police know enough to contact the FBI, so our intrepid heroes continue their investigation with this new lead.
During his neighborhood canvass, Fox knocks on suspect Darryl Weaver’s door. Since the FBI isn’t offering a reward, Weaver clams up. I doubt he was going to rat out himself anyway. Mulder unsuccessfully reaches out to Dr. Voss again for answers. A surveilling Brimley immediately calls Voss and asks for Weaver’s location, but the doctor denies knowing where he is.
Skinner and Scully get the homicidal tobacco beetle analyzed and learn there are some deviations from normal ones. Dana thinks they’ve been altered at a genetic level. Voss finds his “guinea pig” Weaver and unsuccessfully tries to bribe him to leave town. He flinches in fear when it looks like Darryl is going to light a cigarette. Scully conducts an autopsy on the neighbor and finds larval stage beetles inside his lungs. (I’m really glad I wasn’t eating dinner during this episode.)
Walter and Dana’s engrossing Entomology 101 discussion is rudely interrupted by a coughing Fox, who is bleeding internally. Always have to be the center of attention, don’t you, Mulder? They rush him into surgery, where doctors vacuum out dozens of tobacco beetle larvae from his lungs while a concerned Scully watches. She assumes Mulder got infected by inhaling the smoke. Skinner returns to Morley Headquarters with a search warrant and two FBI extras – I mean agents. Dr. Voss overrules the corporate attorney and tells Walter they were trying to genetically engineer a safer cigarette. Three of their test subjects died; Darryl Weaver is the fourth. Skinner returns to Weaver’s apartment where he finds an infected -- and soon-to-be-dead -- Brimley.
This marks the second week in a row that Dana is in a hospital by a lover’s bedside, holding his hand. Fox starts coughing and hacks up a tobacco beetle. New X-rays show his lungs are fully infected with larvae. Skinner sends a protective detail to the Voss residence to keep them safe. I hope it’s not the same guys who did such an exceptional job protecting Dr. Scobie.
Peter Voss never returned home, but Walter finds him and Weaver at Morley Headquarters. He holds Darryl at gunpoint but Weaver thinks he’s got the golden ticket and lights up a killer smoke. Skinner wounds Darryl and stamps out his cigarette. The "truth" anti-tobacco campaign missed a great opportunity to use that 10-second clip in its ads. Back at the hospital, Scully determines nicotine will save Mulder’s life. Two weeks later, Fox is back at work, suffering from a sore throat and nicotine cravings. But maybe we should be more interested in Dana's health at this point.
Sestra Professional:
I always equate "Brand X" with "Folie a Deux," the 19th episode of the fifth season. It's probably due to the fact it's about a corporate environment ... and has a Mulder chaser. The latest ep was penned by Steven Maeda and Greg Walker while the former was from show wunderkind Vince Gilligan (pardon the ebullience, I just started a Breaking Bad rewatch.) And both eps do sport the cinematic flair of X-Files legendary director Kim Manners (that's just my normal hearts and flowers for Manners' work behind the lens). At the very least, watching these back-to-back would make an interesting two-fer, fer sure.
Poor Skinner. He had a much better success rate when he was riding herd over Sculder more regularly. It is nice to see you again, Walter. That's of little consolation when your charge has lost most of his face and his life, I suppose.
Guests check in but they don't check out: This episode rolls up slowly. It gives Fox a lot of opportunity to quip, which he hasn't had this much of on a regular basis this season. Even Skinner gets the chance to flex his possibly atrophied deadpan humor muscle -- "Killer bugs? This is what I'm supposed to tell director?" Surely he hasn't forgotten what it was like when he was in the swarm -- er, the swim -- of things with Mulder and Scully.
So Fox is on to the cause pretty quickly after finding one bug in a glass of water. He can even declare that it wasn't murder from that insect, which seems like he's spreading his wings a little far. But he's gotta get both his observations and his jokes in before people start dustbustering his lungs.
Darryl Weaver seems to be a cardboard version of one of those unintended catalysts we've met over the years on the show -- someone like Augustus Cole from "Sleepless" (S2E4), Lucy Householder from "Oubliette" (S3E8) or Nathaniel Teager from "Unrequited" (S4E16). But frankly, we got more depth out of Tobin Bell's role as the face of the Saw franchise; the scientific marvel here comes off thinner than cigarette rolling paper. Ditto entomologist Libby Nance -- who's a combination of an older Bambi Berenbaum from "The War of the Cophrophages" (S3E12) and consultant Agent Pendrell from Season 3 and 4, without the charm of either of them. By the way, Mulder's doctor really reminds me of the latter.
Smoke 'em if you got 'em: So "Brand X" sort of plays out like our version of Michael Mann's powerful film The Insider -- not surprising considering that movie came out as Oscar bait at the end of the previous year. That's why we're prone to dialogue like "How many people have to die before you do the right thing?" See how much trouble trying to engineer a safer cigarette gets you into? Somewhat prescient about the ills of vaping, if you ask me.
The ante gets upped when Fox falls victim, though. (Nice call, Sestra Am, noting that Dana's spending an inordinate amount of time holding hands at lovers' bedsides.) Luckily, she can still figure out the scientific details and make appropriately paranoid -- albeit correct -- guesses that usually fall to Mulder.
Long before the current pandemic climate, I wondered why masks or other protection wasn't being worn around those known to be infected in this episode. Clearly, Scully at Fox's bedside or Skinner and FBI extras on the suspect's turf should be geared up and guarding against becoming victims themselves. And it takes Walter far too long to lay down his suppressive fire. He did have years of experience in trying to get Cancer Man to not light up in his office for years.
Guest star of the week: Dennis Boutsikaris. Dr. Voss gets worn down over the course of the episode, and we see that in the veteran actor's face. Nowadays, he's probably known best for Better Call Saul. But the Sestras will always have a soft spot for him as the beleaguered doctor from The Dream Team. There are probably a lot worse things for an actor than being typecast as a physician.
Sestra Amateur:
All things ... considered? All things ... being equal? All things ... must end? Maybe we should ask Gillian Anderson, the writer/director for this one X-Files episode. And depending on how you look at it, the ep either strays from the formula or steamrolls forward with seven years’ worth of buildup.
Scully is getting dressed in a bathroom while we listen to her voiceover about choices, which, unfortunately has the same effect on me as Mulder’s voiceovers. Plus, it also distracts from the fact that Dana’s quietly leaving the apartment while a presumably naked Fox is sleeping peacefully. Sixty-three hours earlier (well that’s oddly specific!), Mulder is gyrating to Moby music when Scully arrives at their office. He tries schooling Dana with a crop circles slide show, but she’s too engrossed in her salad to pay attention. They bicker because Scully wants an actual day off, so Fox heads alone to England for his next lead.
Dana picks up an autopsy report at a local hospital, but gets medical records for Dr. Daniel Waterston instead. Turns out Dr. D is Scully's former teacher and lover. He’s in the hospital with cardiac issues and his daughter, Maggie, takes umbrage to Dana's visit. However, Daniel wants to see Scully, so Maggie begrudgingly passes along the message. When Dana arrives, she holds hands with Waterston at his bedside. Mulder keeps picking the wrong times to ask Scully for her help with his case, and Dana almost has a car accident when driving while distracted by his latest call. Luckily, a blonde pedestrian prevents that from happening.
Later that night, Scully goes to Fox's source, Colleen Azor, and realizes she saw the woman in the hospital before meeting with Waterston. Colleen reads Dana as a just-the-facts type and condescendingly reminds Scully, “There is a greater intelligence in all things. Accidents or near accidents often remind us that we need to keep our mind open to the lesson it gives.” And now we know the origin of the episode title.
Clumsy Dana drops the papers and sees a correlation between Mulder’s crop circles and Dr. Waterston’s medical issues. She then gets summoned back to Daniel’s bedside to serve as a supporting medical opinion, which contradicts his attending doctor’s treatment plan. When they’re alone again, Dan and Dana have a heartfelt conversation about their choices in life. Waterston flatlines while Scully's resting her head on his chest. Clearly, he was ready to go but Dana's not ready to let him. Even without hospital privileges, she leads the code to bring him back.
The next morning, Scully returns to Colleen's house to apologize for her rudeness and to seek holistic advice on Daniel’s medical case. After hearing Colleen’s tale summed up with, “everything happens for a reason,” Dana returns to the hospital, but Maggie refuses to let her visit now-comatosed Daniel. Scully wanders through Chinatown and ends up following the blonde woman from her near-accident. Dana kneels before a Buddha statute, and taking Colleen’s advice, just stops for a moment. People from her past rush through her mind, along with the realization of how to treat Daniel.
Scully, Colleen and a healer arrive at the hospital and Dana earns Maggie’s support. The healer determines there is nothing more he can do because Daniel has unfinished business. That doesn’t quite explain how Dr. D managed to “let go” earlier in the episode. Frankly, a simple DNR would resolve his pesky unable-to-move-on issue.
Later that night, Maggie calls for Scully to return to the hospital where Daniel is conscious again. He pooh-poohs her “voodoo” ritual, but Dana convinces him he needs to atone for the pain he caused his family. Scully also makes it clear that Daniel’s future is not with her. Outside the hospital, Dana chases down her blonde pedestrian who ends up being Mulder. His leads in England petered out, but I love his “Stonehenge rocks” ballcap. They talk about choices until Scully falls asleep on his couch. Based on that teaser scene, we know the choice they made. My choice right now is to go listen to some more Moby.
Sestra Professional:
I never could decide whether "all things" was over my head or if it overshot the mark. Either way, it's cool to get Gillian Anderson's spin on things. Co-star David Duchovny has been getting story credits since Season 2. He wrote and directed "The Unnatural" (Season 6, Episode 19) around this time last year and his second effort is coming up in a couple of weeks. It was definitely Gillian's time and I was eager to see her take on a universe she's inhabited for seven years.
Anderson doesn't waste any time either, starting off with the most incendiary scene possible. Naked Mulder, with Scully dressing nearby. It's what the shippers longed for for seven years, even when show creator Chris Carter maintained he didn't want to go there! Even as a non-shipper, seeing that does provide a bit of a jolt.
So here's my stance. I'm generally a no-romo. This doesn't mean I don't want Fox and Dana together, what it means is that I don't need to see them smooching. At this point, it doesn't seem like anyone else would be good enough for either of them. They've been through so much together, there's just no way for someone to compete under the present guidelines. Now if he was to get abducted and go through rigorous probing -- by aliens, get your mind out of the gutter ... OK, mine was there too -- then there might be a change in the dynamic. But as currently constituted, yes, I recognize that the only person for Mulder is Scully and the only person for Scully is Mulder.
Why don't you ever just stay still? This episode offers up a scenario in which that might not be the case. And judging by what happens after the teaser, it's a wonder these two crazy kids get together at all. They're so far afield of each other. Fox and Dana are acting like the versions of themselves Scully describes in "Bad Blood" (S5E12). Mulder's off on a computer-generated crop circle kick that Dana rightly describes as not even close to the FBI's purview. He wants to race off to England, she would like to take a bath. Are we sure they're soulmates?
So Scully hangs back and goes to the hospital for autopsy results we know she doesn't need anymore. It's a little bit of a stretch that Dana would find an X-ray in her autopsy folder ... but if we're hanging our ep on the nature of coincidence and that everything happens for a reason, I suppose I have to let that go. (Speaking of that "everything happens for a reason" chestnut, I believed it a lot easier when Clark Kent was told that by his Earth dad in Superman: The Movie.)
But I do love the coat that Dana got to strut around in all episode. This was a far cry from her wardrobe in the early seasons, when she seemed to be garbed in men's wear that didn't come in her size. And she gets some silk pajamas too, Mulder should loooove them.
You may be more open to things than you think: I don't think the scenes between dubious doc Dana and former physicist Colleen would have played out similarly under the show's male forces as we know them to this point. And that's not a judgment, just recognition that etching out that kind of space and time was something Anderson brought to the table. Conversely, Scully's taking a lot of things on the chin with everyone making snap judgments about her life, be it that she needs to slow down or she doesn't know as much as she thinks she does. In our other episodes, that usually comes out in more winky and jokey fashion.
I'm not quite certain about the woman with the blonde ponytail who leads Dana everywhere she needs to be -- just short of an accident, to the eerie image of the buddha looking down on her and ultimately to Fox. Did she really need any of these chance occurrences to make Scully realize she's not the same person as she was back then? So if the idea of Daniel Waterston's existence kept Dana from admitting certain truths when it comes to Fox -- and I kind of find that to be another huge stretch, although maybe it's just one of those "grass is greener" circumstances. We tend to remember the good times in the past as these untouchable moments that people in the present wouldn't understand. When she does come face to face with Daniel again, Scully realizes he's not the love of her life.
Does it detract from "the" moment to have Scully rethinking her life choices all throughout this episode? In wondering if she wants the life she didn't choose, the one she did doesn't get too much air time. But an interesting take on sickness does come to the forefront. Her former love got sick because he was running from the truth for 10 years. That ends up clashing a bit with the concept of the comatose man being ready to move on but having unfinished business tying him to the plane, unless those chakras worked double-time.
How many different lives would we be leading if we made different choices? Then Dana and Mulder sit down and talk about everything that occurred while he was gone. So much more tends to happen to her when Fox is on his own path -- witness "Never Again" (S4E13) and "Chinga" (S5E10), to name a couple. I found the idea of there being only one life we were meant to live with signs along the way to guide us both intriguing and aggravating, not necessarily in that order.
So Sestra Am posits that the Sculder match, in fact, finally did ignite, rather than seeing it as Scully woke up from where she was on the couch, went to the bathroom to fix herself up and then left. The two scenes that bookend "all things" will be mulled over much like "En Ami" (S7E15) from a couple of weeks ago, although not nearly in the same way.
Guest star of the week: Nicolas Surovy may be best known as Susan Lucci's on-screen paramour, Mike Roy, on All My Children. The ability he undoubtedly cultivated on the soap made him well situated for the more melodramatic aspects of his part here.
“The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” But I can write about it, so how’s that for a loophole? In Kansas City – the one in Kansas, not Missouri – two probably Mormon missionaries reach out to Betty and Lulu, women who live in separate houses but look exactly alike and are both played by perennial D-Lister Kathy Griffin (her word, not mine). Betty and Lulu even have the same bumper stickers on their cars, although they’re on the opposite bumpers. Lulu slams the door on the men, and the duo starts fighting with each other over nothing. 
Police arrive to break up the tussle and now those starch white shirts need a major bleaching. The next day, Mulder, Scully and the missionaries arrive at Betty Templeton’s house. Actually, it’s not Fox or Dana, although they are voiced by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. It’s their doppelgangers who are “out there somewhere,” as Betty would say. (You’re a sneaky one, Chris Carter.) Faux Sculder are doubting the existence of Betty’s double when Lulu happens to drive by. Faux-ly then punches Faux-der and the fight is on! The brawl continues until our intrepid doppelgangers crash into a tree. Now the real Sculder get the case.
Scully meets with Mulder and wrestling promoter Argyle Saperstein -- played by Art Evans -- at a nearby arena, where Bert "The Titanic" Zupanic is expected to wrestle. Bert wants his good luck charm (his words, not mine) -- Betty -- by his side when he fights. Scully knows all about Lulu and how the two women have crossed paths through 17 states over the past 12 years. The next morning, Betty is in Bert’s bathroom when Lulu arrives, livid that Bert stood her up at the bar the night before. He talks his way out of it and sends her away. When Betty exits the bathroom, the upstairs neighbors start fighting and shoot several rounds into the floor. Luckily, Bert and Betty are unhurt, but I can’t really speak for the neighbors. 
Fox tracks down Betty at work. She blames everything on Lulu. Dana gets a similar saga from Lulu. Both doppelgangers refuse to leave Kansas. Lulu drives past Betty and poor Mulder, who is literally in between them, gets sucked into a manhole. “Bulu” drive away without even trying to help the now-underground Fox. Scully arrives to look for her partner, but gets distracted by the Internet. This leads her to Bob Danfous, the incarcerated and extraordinarily irritated biological father of Betty Templeton and Lulu Pfeiffer, thanks to his sperm bank donations.
During the melee, Scully strolls in with Bert’s doppelganger and the crowd stops fighting. For a minute there, Dana’s pretty pleased with herself. Unfortunately, Bert and other-Bert reignite everyone’s anger and the brawls begin again. Looks like the referee is the only unscathed one. Scully ends up with some nasty facial injuries and Mulder’s jaw is wired shut. That’s somewhat fitting, considering how he wasn’t very forthcoming with Scully at the beginning of the episode. Betty and Lulu finally take their aggressions out on each other. Hopefully they’ll be forced to live at opposite ends of the country. And what about Argyle and his two bags of fake hundred-dollar bills? He seems to be the only winner in this story, unless the reason Sculder arranged for him to come to their office at FBI Headquarters was for more than exposition.
But onward and we're seeing double, definitely two too many. You can almost see and hear the wheels turning in show creator Chris Carter's head when he was putting the script for this one together -- hey what's better than two Jehovah's Witnesses fighting? Ooooh, Mulder and Scully fighting! Or at least an amazing facsimile in the form of Steve Kiziak (David Duchovny's stunt double) and Arlene Pileggi (Skinner's real-life wife and Gillian Anderson's double). 
So after an overly playful explanation of the case and slide show, we're treated to an exact copy -- hefty pun intended in the spirit of an ep in which no joke lands without a thud -- of the job-seeking scene with Betty and Lulu. The laundry list of jobs they've both had includes Mongolian barbeque chef and wild animal trainer, lines that were barely funny the first time but twice as eye-rolling the second time. 
Meanwhile, the incongruity between the convenient psychokinetic events continues -- sometimes they cause fighting, sometimes it's more akin to an earthquake. I'm not sure an explanation could have helped that out, but I would have liked a stronger one all the same. Luckily for Mulder, he gets sucked into a storm drain with such pinpoint accuracy that he sustains no injuries (at that point) and the manhole cover pops perfectly back on top. 
Guest star of the week: As much as I want to give the nod to Arlene Pileggi or even Kathy Griffin for putting her head(s) down and charging through this brouhaha, I'm going to go with Randall "Tex" Cobb. Not a lot of the goings-on here make sense or even hold interest, but I can kinda understand why Betty and Lulu duke it out over lovable lug Bert Zupanic and the way he clings to superstition in beliefs that at least one of them is his good luck charm and ultimately will change his fortune.
