X-Files S7E19: Tale from the crypt

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.