X-Files S3E21: Fleshing out Skinner a little

Sestra Amateur: 

The word "Avatar" has undergone some pop-culture upgrades since this episode aired 20+ years ago: These days it can refer to your online presence, last airbenders or the extremely profitable movie about skinny blue aliens. We’ll have to see in what context The X-Files uses it. 

Whoever arranged series' air dates was pretty shrewd, you can’t follow "Jose Chung’s From Outer Space" with just your run-of-the-mill story, so we get to enjoy a Skinner ep. Of course, Walter isn’t going to be that entertained. His wife of 17 years is divorcing him, but he’s not quite ready to sign the papers. (Does that make this an episode of The Ex-Files?) Instead, he goes to a bar and hooks up with Amanda Tapping, soon to be famous for all things Stargate. Afterward Skinner has a nightmare about an old lady. He wakes to a living nightmare because his transitional person is dead in his hotel bed. 

Fox meets with the local detective investigating the homicide. Walter, who claims to be suffering from memory loss, leaves with the police. Mulder ignores Skinner's suggestion that he not get involved. Scully goes to the coroner’s office and concurs with the official report of the cause of death. Fox learns the victim, Carina Sayles, was a former legal secretary who moonlighted as a prostitute. When Dana turns off the light to leave, she observes glow-in-the-dark residue around Carina’s mouth and nose. 

Sculder interview her employer, madam Lorraine Kelleher, who claims Walter hired Carina for the night. Scully’s ready to write him off, but Mulder -- of course -- intends to dig deeper. Skinner gets released but won't tell Sculder why he refuses to take a polygraph to prove his innocence. But he is clearly surprised to learn Carina was a lady of the evening. Walter then sees the old woman on the police station steps wearing a red coat and hood. He runs to her, but finds his soon-to-be ex-wife Sharon instead. 

Skinner walks away and Sharon admits to Sculder they’ve been separated for eight months. Fox says he doesn’t think Walter committed murder. The agents get called back to their office and meet with Agent Bonnecaze, who is in charge of Walter's FBI inquest. He tells Sculder to cease and desist their investigation. Mulder is suspicious. Yes, really.

Dana learns Skinner has been receiving treatment at a sleep disorder clinic because of his recurring dream about the old woman. She thinks Walter may have accidentally killed Carina in his sleep thinking he was defending himself from the old lady. Mulder jumps on board with this theory and goes one step further, he thinks a succubus has targeted Skinner. Scully finally gets around to telling Fox about the residue around the victim’s mouth and nose, but by the time she takes Mulder back to the body, it’s gone. Of course, the sample she sent to the lab no longer exists. You dropped the ball on that one, Dana. 

Sharon visits Skinner at his “new” apartment and tries to talk to him, but he still won’t open up to her. Maybe he thinks of her as the succubus, they do wear the same red coat. The wedding picture of the Skinners taken 17 years earlier actually looks like an authentic photo, not one of those fake, hastily assembled shots. Walter falls asleep, but abruptly wakes to the old lady’s shrieks. Police arrive because Sharon was run off the road. Of course, they think Skinner's involved. 

Fox updates Walter about Sharon’s condition and Skinner’s frustration is apparent. What doesn’t make sense is why he wouldn't go to Mulder about what was happening to him. If anyone is an expert on investigating the unknown, then it’s Fox. Walter admits the first time he saw the old woman was when he almost died while serving in Vietnam, but he thought she was a hallucination. Cancer Man quietly watches Skinner confide in Mulder. Sculder look at Skinner’s car and the damage is consistent with the vehicle who hit Sharon’s car. But Mulder goes one step further and removes the air bag. The lab starts analyzing the bag to recreate the face that hit it. 

Scully attends Walter's professional conduct hearing, and even though they initially wait for Mulder, the panel chooses to start without him. Dana dodges the question of whether she believes in paranormal phenomena and hides behind science. Seriously, after three years and all of these cases, she still can’t admit when she sees something inexplicable? Agent Bonnecaze cuts off Scully and dismisses her. Mulder finally arrives and learns Skinner was fired. He thinks this is an elaborate plot to weaken the X-Files unit. 

Fox shows Dana the pixelated photo of the man who face-planted in the airbag. Mulder does bring up a good point, someone did just try to kill Skinner very recently (S3E15: Piper Maru). Sculder learn the madam is dead. They use Lorraine's former employee Judy Fairly to set up a meeting with the man who hired Carina. Too bad he and his partner are watching them make the call. 

Walter finally opens up to Sharon in the hospital. Too bad she’s still unconscious. Skinner sees the old lady in the bed instead of his wife and takes her hand. She talks through Sharon so Walter can understand her. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, the bad guy overpowers Scully and tries to shoot Judy, but Skinner arrives and kills his tormenter. Guess we know what the old woman told him.

The next morning, Dana gives their report to the reinstated Assistant Director, but lets him know they haven’t identified the killer. Walter doubts they ever will. Mulder wants to know -- off the record -- how Skinner knew to go to the hotel, but he still won’t spill the beans. At least Sculder get a thank you. After they leave his office Walter takes his wedding band out of his drawer and puts it back on, which actually mars the ep a teeny bit. Since the agents claimed to not even know Skinner was married, if Walter ever wore his ring in the office, then Sculder need to work on their observational skills. And I’m still not sure how the title "Avatar" relates to the episode.

Sestra Professional:

The one-night stand sure showed us where the "Skin" in Skinner's name comes from. At this point in the series, we didn't have an incredible amount of insight into Walter's character. This episode might not be one of the ones X-Philes return to time and again, but it gives Mitch Pileggi an opportunity to do a lot more than reflect upon the whereabouts of his agents.

It's a nifty plot device too -- a dalliance spun through the world of the supernatural and expounding upon Skinner's history as a veteran. Sculder's concern for their boss reminds us that he's someone to be rooted for and not some faceless bureaucrat trying to deter them from their work seemingly at every turn.

David Duchovny and Howard Gordon worked up this story, and I give much credit to our lead actor for wanting to bring Skinner -- and Pileggi, in turn -- to the forefront. It's a move that gives viewers a whole other look at the landscape. Giving Walter some humanity ensures we don't always have to take everything Mulder and Scully say and do as 100 percent in the right. They can survive their mistakes with him around.

But Duchovny admitted in the official third-season episode guide that his motives weren't completely altruistic. "Actually, I conceived the idea trying to give myself a break. ... As it turned out, It was a very heavy episode for me. ... It was nice for Mitch, and I think he deserved a nice episode after two years. He did a great job."

Truth is, we don't know very much about him: But I think we should open an X-File on why Dana changed her opinion a couple times over the course of the same conversation with Fox. She started with "It just doesn't seem like him," segued to "I think the lack of discretion is the least of his sins" and capped off with the ol' dead-prostitute-in-his-bed evidence.

The trouble with the episode -- in addition to the non-explanation of title "Avatar" -- is that it gets a little convoluted while trying to cover a lot of ground between the prostitute, the succubus, the wife, a madam, another hooker and the party ultimately responsible for the frame job. We do ultimately discover Skinner's old lady -- the phantom, not the wife -- is a good succubus, but her methods leave a little something to be desired. Not until late in the game does she actually pass on information in a more direct manner. (By the way, according to the official third-season episode guide, "Avatar" is Sanskrit for "descent to Earth of a deity in human or animal form.")

He's doing everything he shouldn't be doing: While the agents indeed should get taken down a peg for not realizing their boss was married, I do understand why Walter might not have confided in Mulder about his visitations. First of all, he never really is positive he's seen what he thinks he's seen, and secondly, because he's sketched out as a veteran so affected by what he's seen and done that he never even told his own wife any of the gory details.

Thank goodness we have Fox around to take certain leaps. Dana delivers news on their boss' REM sleep disorder -- I'm not so sure she should have been able to get that information from his doctor -- and Mulder immediately goes right to succubus determined to wipe out any woman competing for his affection. Wouldn't Sharon have been a goner long before now if that was the case? I guess there were no other supernatural options, like the ghost of someone he may have accidentally killed in the service of his country, for example. 

I can get behind Scully seeing something that Mulder doesn't get to, although she perhaps should have gotten photographic evidence of the glowing around the mouth. Dropped the ball indeed. Speaking of convoluted, what exactly did that have to do with the outcome of the episode?

I was a dead man: I can't give Pileggi "Guest Star of the Week" kudos, since he's a regular, but he does get a chance to flex his acting muscles beyond tightening his jaw line. His scenes with David Duchovny and Walter's comatose wife (Jennifer Hetrick) deliver exactly what X-Philes need from the assistant director at this point in the series. Doesn't matter how perplexing this particular episode turns out to be, we're now invested in him and eager to see shows that give him to more to do.

Writer/producer Vince Gilligan explained it best in The Complete X-Files. "Skinner was meant to be a bad guy, and yet Mitch is such such a good actor they thought to themselves, 'Let's not take this character in the direction we thought we were going to take him in."

X-Files S3E20: Going 'Outer' our minds

Sestra Amateur: 

There are a handful of bottle eps from The X-Files that I’ve seen more than once: "Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose" (Season 3, Episode 4), "Triangle" (S6E3), "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" (S6E6), and "Jose Chung’s From Outer Space." In the latter's case, writer Darin Morgan and company reward the fans for their ongoing loyalty and patience. And the actors are clearly having fun with it too. There’s so much to absorb in this one I’m glad we have Sestra Pro to fill in the blanks and really flesh out everything. 

Director Rob Bowman starts with a subtle homage to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There’s a cute couple named Harold and Chrissy going out on their first date in Klass County, Washington. The car dies, there’s a bright light and a UFO appears above them. Creatures start walking toward them and they look like the stereotypical descriptions of aliens we might have seen on the cover of Weekly World News. 

Harold and Chrissy lose consciousness and the aliens carry them – dummy drag style – toward their ship. I had to do the dummy drag for training once upon a time. That sucker weighed 150 pounds. Chrissy certainly doesn’t weigh that much, but her alien doesn’t seem to have upper body strength. Harold's alien seems better at it. Maybe he’s training Chrissy’s alien … a UFOFTO.  But the aliens are interrupted by a second UFO, one that produces a red light and a very non-stereotypical cyclops beast. The original aliens panic – and start talking to each other in English. What the what?

Three months after the alien/alien encounter, Jose Chung -- played by Charles Nelson Reilly -- meets with Dana to discuss his future novel, a “non-fiction science fiction” story. He has to settle for Scully because Mulder refuses to talk to him. I’ve always associated Chuckles with the '70s (and early '80s) game show Match Game even though his career spanned four decades. His presence in this episode as Jose Chung seems tailor-made for him. Sestra, did they consider anyone else for the role or was it written specifically for the Reilly-meister? 

Jose claims he cannot report the truth because everyone in Klass County has a different account of the incident. In essence, he wants Scully’s “version of the truth,” so she tells him about their investigation. She flashes back to Chrissy’s testimony. Authorities -- Dana included -- believe her to be a victim of date rape, not alien abduction. Harold gets picked up by the cops, denies raping Chrissy and claims they were abducted. The boy passes a lie detector test, but changes his story when Sculder arrive to interrogate him. Now Harold claims he raped Chrissy and refuses to take a lie detector test to prove he didn’t. That’s so backward. Mulder interviews Chrissy and asks enough leading questions to convince her and her parents she actually was abducted. The girl gets hypnotized and “remembers” being on a table surrounded by those stereotypical aliens while they steal her memories. Scully clearly ain’t buying it. Detective Manners, who observed the hypnosis session, doesn’t live up to his name and colorfully tells Fox he ain’t buying it either.

Harold tells the agents what happened while he and Chrissy were trapped on the beast alien’s ship. One of the original aliens in the cell beside Harold is smoking a cigarette. Which is weirder: Picturing other planets having cigarettes or picturing other planets having convenience stores that sell cigarettes? Chrissy wakes up and Harold says he won’t let anything happen to her. She promptly gets yanked out of the cell from above. Nice work there, Harold; you can’t really protect anyone while you’re in the fetal position. Cigarette Smoking Alien keeps rocking back and forth and saying, “This is not happening.” Harold doesn’t even question the fact that the alien speaking English. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have time to. Harold gets yanked out of the cell and is released. 

Harold admits to Scully he and Chrissy had consensual sex – on the first date. Jeez, no wonder he kept saying he was in love with her. Harold’s already whipped. Det. Manners interrupts to tell Sculder – with his usual verbal flavor -- that there’s a possible witness to the abduction. 

Roky Crikenson -- who had been working on the power in the area at the time a la Roy Neary in Close Encounters -- starts to sound like a Lone Gunman when he details Men in Black arriving at his house to deter him from coming forward with his story. MIB No. 1 -- Jesse Ventura – tries to convince Roky he saw Venus in the sky, not a UFO. Really, Jesse should have just taken his printed-out version of events, he had his hands on it. Or maybe the Men in Black just want Crikenson to think they don’t want his story released, but secretly do want the public to know so they can debunk it later. 

So Roky’s story – which is written in screenplay format, how tacky is that?? – describes him driving up on the beast vs. aliens vs. Harold/Chrissy encounter. Crikenson tried to hide by ducking out of sight in his work truck. But the beast alien, now named Lord Kinbote, approached Roky and spoke to him in Shakespearean English -- thou, thee, blah blah blah. Roky claims Lord Kinbote took Crickenson to inner space, not outer space. Ooh, what a twist! 

As lame as Roky’s tale comes off, Mulder points out it confirms part of Harold’s account. Since Chrissy’s account is the only one not matching the others, Fox arranges for her to be re-hypnotized. This version starts to sound like Harold’s, but she throws the Air Force into the mix. Now it sounds like a conspiracy version of her first account. Scully claims Mulder and the hypnotist were leading Chrissy with their line of questioning, but it’s a moot point as Det. Manners then claims someone has found a real-live dead-alien body. Sounds like an oxymoron.

Abductee wannabe Blaine Faulkner talks to Jose about meeting Men in Black (disguised-as-a-woman Scully and mandroid Mulder). Blaine claims Dana grabbed and threatened him, but Scully vehemently denies that account. Faulkner shows up at the alien autopsy and Fox lets Blaine use his video camera to document it. The footage ultimately gets made into a video with the Stupendous Yappi as host. Remember that charlatan from "Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose"? Dr. Scully discovers the dead alien is just a human male wearing an alien costume. Pretty sure that part didn’t make it into the video. Blaine gets sick and runs out of the room and probably out of the building with his priceless footage. 

Dana identifies the body as Air Force Major Robert Vallee. The Air Force arrive to take Vallee into custody for desertion, but learn he’s dead. Blaine goes home and watches the footage but Men in Black No. 1 and 2 break in and steal the tape. MIB No. 1 does a nice wrestling backbreaker which renders Faulkner unconscious. Fox smacks Blaine awake. On his way back to the hotel, Mulder finds a naked Lt. Jack Schaefer -- also known as the “this is not happening” Cigarette Smoking Alien. 

At a diner, Schaefer uses his fork to turn his mashed potatoes into Devils Tower – another Close Encounters reference. Jack claims his job is to fly a UFO and abduct people who are taken to the base and hypnotized into thinking they were probed by aliens. The Air Force arrive to take the lieutenant into custody. But Jose had learned a slightly different account from the diner cook, one that had Mulder pursuing a ridiculous line of questioning and eating a lot of pie.

Fox finds the Men in Black in Dana's room. Again, No. 1 does the bulk of the talking, but we finally see No. 2 and he looks an awful lot like Alex Trebek. Scully claims she doesn’t remember any of it. Then Det. Manners calls to say they found the bleeping UFO. Of course, Major Vallee and Lt. Schaefer's bodies are recovered in the wreckage. Surprisingly, this investigation has more closure than most X-Files cases.

Mulder finally visits Chung and implores him not to write the book. Jose asks what really happened to Harold and Chrissy that night, but Fox can’t answer the question. We do learn what happened to Blaine, Roky, Harold, Chrissy, “federal employee Diana Lesky” and “Raynard Muldrake, ticking time bomb of insanity,” though. Sestra, since we’re not going to be blogging about Millennium, do you want to cover Jose Chung’s appearance there?

Sestra Professional:

I do consider "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" my favorite episode of television ever, albeit with an asterisk. As a pop-culture junkie in a world full of shows running the gamut from hilarious to intense at my fingerprints, how do I arrive at this conclusion? Let me try and explain -- hopefully in a less convoluted manner than the plotline of "Jose Chung's From Outer Space." 

Truth is as subjective as reality: The first shot of the episode clues us in to the fact that we're in for something different and special. We appear to be looking at a spaceship moving slowly through the heavens, but then we find out is we're actually just seeing the undercarriage of a platform. Then standard formation on shows in The X-Files vein, two kids spy a UFO -- or two -- in the middle of nowhere. The first aliens look a lot like we'd expect them to, as Sestra Amateur points out, but hmmm, the second one seems kind of cartoony. Something's not right here.

And that's the key to a Darin Morgan episode. He may pen images and ideas that have been presented 1,000 times over, but he'll give us fresh looks and inspired reactions. Yeah, lanky Mulder has seemed rather "blank and expressionless" for almost three seasons, and we don't really process that because he's great with quips. Fox ran an alien autopsy program to further cash in on the success of the show, and Morgan rips that to shreds during Scully's procedure when the alien is revealed to just be a human in an intricate costume.

At the same time, Darin takes us to places we hadn't previously considered. A military-industrial-entertainment complex? That's just wild enough that it could be true. The non-fiction science fiction -- what a great idea for a literary genre. But there's also room for some recurring themes. After wordy pontifications, many of the characters' motivations get boiled down to "How the hell should I know?" or "dead man" threats. 

Those kids' stories couldn't be more bleeping different: Rob Bowman's directorial skills sure get a workout in this episode. He filmed the hypnotic sessions very similarly and in slightly distorted fashion so that the psychologist putting Chrissy under hypnosis mirrors the alien leaning in to examine her during her recollection. During a subsequent session, even Sculder wind up in similar positions in the room as Air Force personnel conducting an interrogation.

Speaking of our leads, Scully's got as good of a handle on the goings-on as it's probable to have, even with extended fan girling at the sight of her favorite author. She shows extreme patience with Chung where she would be rolling her eyes and guffawing if her partner posited similar theories. Mulder tries really hard to get to the bottom of things as usual, but after getting knocked down by others' accounts of him and perhaps dispirited by his discussion with the Cigarette Smoking Alien (sans mask), even he's willing to dismiss the case with a "How the hell should I know?"

You really bleeped up this case: I have to devote some time and space here to Detective Manners, spiritedly portrayed by Larry Musser (who we've seen in S2E14's "Die Hand Die Verletzt," Manners' first directorial foray into The X-Files, and will see again in two more episodes. So he probably had gotten the Manners-isms down pat.) Morgan wrote the character's "colorful phraseology" for director Kim Manners, who did some acting in 1970 but ultimately decided against taking on the part. 

Your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder:  In fact, every single character in this episode deserves more air time in the blog, from Men in Black No. 1's diatribe on perception to Blaine Faulkner wanting to be abducted because he doesn't want to find a job. And yeah, there are several nods to my favorite movie of all time -- Close Encounters of the Third Kind -- but don't think for a second that's why this is my favorite episode of TV. There's just as much entertainment to be found in Jose explaining why he prefers the term "alien experiencer" over "abductee," the cook's account of Mulder's pie eating and Blaine's description of Fox's yelp as in Schaefer building a Devils Tower out of his potatoes. Just to name a few, because they come fast and furiously over 45 minutes.

You ever flown a flying saucer? Afterwards, sex seems trite: To truly figure out this story, even though we don't particularly need to understand the through line to enjoy it,  I think everything hangs on the lieutenant's version of events. Jack details the soft-option kills -- nerve gas, low-frequency infrasound beams, high-powered microwaves -- that explain the missing time detailed in abductee reports. Their subsequent hypnosis leads people to believe they were probed by aliens. So, as Morgan sees it, the UFO phenomenon might just be covert intelligence operation utilizing secret military airships. 

But what about Lord Kinbote? That other unexplained alien still makes us wonder whether there's still more to be gleaned. "I'm absolutely positive me, my co-pilot and those two kids were abducted, but I can't be absolutely sure it happened. I can't be sure of anything anymore," Schaefer says. "I'm not even sure we're having the conversation.  I don't know if these mashed potatoes are really here. I don't know if you even exist." 

Do we discount witnesses because their recollections make them sound like lunatics? Just because Roky's account has Shakespearean dialogue, does that mean it didn't happen at all? Or was he just remembering it that way because that's how his brain needed to process that? One thing's for sure, the doctors' method of stealing memories seems more effective than Clorox. Thanks to Jack, Mulder's version of what happened in the diner seems a lot more plausible than a cook who just remembers Fox eating plate after plate of sweet potato pie. 

How the hell should I know: Maybe this is of those pop-culture litmus tests. If you think everything that went down -- Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek included -- were psychological tricks, you're probably on the straight and narrow. But if you think the kids ran into a real alien, perhaps you're a pie-eyed dreamer.

Chung's conclusions on the characters who made it to the end of the saga bring us back down to Earth rather quickly. Well, Mulder getting his enjoyment out of life by watching vague Bigfoot video elicits a chuckle, but Harold remains lovelorn as Jose puts Darin's bow on the story. "For although we may not be alone in the universe, in our own separate ways on this planet ... we are all alone."

Can't wipe this: According to the official third-season episode guide, the name Jose Chung was a recurring practical joke created by the writing staff. John Shiban would call the office about an unsolicited script using that moniker. ... Morgan used callbacks to his previous episodes, including the previously mentioned return of the Stupendous Yappi and the autopsy show, "Dead Alien! Truth or Humbug?" The last word of the title was the first script he wrote The X-Files (S2E20). ... According to The Complete X-Files, Darin was inspired to build a show around a writer by a Truman Capote lookalike. With Capote and first choice Rip Taylor unavailable, Reilly auditioned and won the role. "It was one of the hardest episodes to shoot because he was so funny," first assistant director (and Lone Gunman) Tom Braidwood recalled in the book. "He would have people laughing between takes and during takes."

Guest star of the week: Charles Nelson Reilly, no doubt. He may not have initially been on Morgan's radar, but the writer found so much to appreciate that he penned (and directed) the sequel "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense" on sister show Millennium. I don't want to divulge too many details, but it takes Chung in a whole other different direction -- annihilating everything from Scientology to the downbeat nature of lead Frank Black. And here's where my asterisk comes back into play. "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" is my favorite episode of TV ever ... unless I've just watched "Doomsday Defense."