X-Files S6E7: Ashes to ashes

Sestra Amateur: 

Bruce Campbell – known to most as Brisco County, Sam Axe, Evil Dead’s Ash, and star of some of the best bad movies you’ve ever seen – guest stars on this week’s episode. He’s trying to play the straight man in an overly dramatic scene in which he and his wife, Laura Weinsider – played by Lisa Jane Persky – learn their unborn child may not be normal. Wayne Weinsider seems like the caring husband as he puts “Poopydoo” (worst term of endearment ever!) to bed and gives her warm milk and … medication? A sleeping pill? We’ll find out soon enough. 

Poor Laura dreams of fire and a demon at the foot of her bed who forcibly removes the horned baby from her belly. Fortunately, she bites him on the neck. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a dream. Wayne’s hands and Laura’s nightgown are covered in blood. Fortunately, Laura’s brother is a local deputy sheriff who doesn’t know what to do with the case, so he contacts the X-files. Unfortunately, it’s Jeffrey Spender’s unit now – remember? He placates Deputy Stevens then “files” the report in the shredder. Fortunately, Mulder is a garbage picker who pieces the report back together and contacts the deputy.

Fox meets with the Weinsiders, listens to Laura’s description of her “dream” and learns the results of the sonogram. Mulder already suspects Wayne is being less than truthful and calls Scully, who is at the Department of Agriculture conducting boring background checks. She’s livid because Fox is shirking his assigned responsibility, but he has an original, albeit laughable, defense: “Scully, this is a classic case of demon fetal harvest!” Mulder wants Dana to look at the baby’s sonogram photo and review the medical reports. Too bad Wayne is listening to Fox's conversation on the baby monitor. Um, how is he able to hear Scully’s side too? It’s not like Mulder was using the speaker phone.

Later that night, Rosemary – I mean Laura – is looking for Wayne, who is burning leaves outside. He has a great defense – “It was in the job jar!” – and burns the fetus in the outside furnace while crying fake Vaseline tears. (Don’t get me wrong, Wayne is clearly devastated, but the crying makeup they used for Bruce was pretty lame.) 

The next morning, Dana phones Fox with her analysis. She thinks Laura intentionally caused a late-term abortion by consuming mandrake (the pill Wayne gave her before bed) because the baby was deformed. Mulder still suspects Weinsider, which is clear when he doodles horns on Wayne's photograph while talking with Scully. Weinsider goes home to see his wife, “Poopydoo” … but it’s a different home and a different pregnant wife. This one is Betsy Monroe, played by Grace Phillips, whose hypnotic blue eyes rival only movie actress Meg Foster’s. 

Wayne returns to the Weinsider house where Fox, Deputy Stevens and local officers are combing the area for evidence. Mulder baits Wayne with some devilish comments. Wayne pulls Laura aside and claims he found his wife holding their baby and chanting while in a trance. He claims he burned Wayne Jr.’s body to protect her. The deputies find the remains in the furnace and Laura begins to believe she had something to do with the baby’s death. So the wife goes to jail and Weinsider thinks he is free to try again with his next baby mama. 

Too bad Fox's on his tail when Wayne goes to pick up Betsy for her sonogram. (At least Weinsider has cool driving music, "I’m Only Happy When It Rains" by Garbage.) Wayne tries to throw Mulder off the trail by seeing one of his clients. Did you know phlebotomy is a skill requirement for insurance agents? Yeah, I don’t buy it either. The client notices some lumps on the back of Weinsider's neck but doesn’t say anything. Wayne solves his Fox problem by complaining to assistant director Kersh, who calls Dana, who calls Mulder. This gives Weinsider a chance to get away from Fox.

Later that night, Wayne meets Laura at the Roanoke County Jail. She sees the bite mark on Wayne’s neck and now knows what he is. Wayne regrettably sucks the life out of Laura. He tells Mulder and police she died in his arms, but Fox clearly isn’t buying it. Paramedics manage to bring Laura back, which stuns Wayne. When he finally makes it back to Betsy, she shows him their baby’s sonogram picture and tells him about the visible bone growths. She doesn’t seem as upset by it as Laura was, but Wayne is clearly disappointed and prepares to do to Betsy what he did to Laura. 

Scully finally finds her way to Mulder whose background check -- see, Kersh? He’s doing his job -- of Wayne Weinsider shows three other fake names for the “horned demon who sucks the souls of the innocent.” (My personal favorite is Bud Hasselhoff.) Local police use subterranean mapping equipment in the yard of one of Wayne’s former homes and find the remains of a horned fetus. Fox tells Deputy Stevens to put an APB out on Weinsider, who just gave Betsy some spiked warm milk. She didn’t finish it though, so when Demon Wayne tries to take the fetus, Betsy fights back. 

Sculder head toward Wayne’s second residence, but find Betsy driving Wayne’s car. (You know he’s going to be mad that she got blood all over his seats.). She claims Weinsider took her baby, so the agents head to her house and find Wayne outside with a shovel. He says he’s digging up the baby and tries to explain how Betsy is different, but his brother-in-law shoots him three times before Weinsider can finish. 

Post-surgery, the hospital staff puts Wayne’s bed next to comatose Laura’s. (Whose brilliant idea was that?!) He transfers his essence (spirit, soul, whatever) to Laura’s body then dies. Dana, who is back at the crime scene digging up baby remains, cannot find Betsy’s baby. Fox arrives and convinces her she won’t because Betsy played everyone. She wanted a demon baby and now she has one. So good job there, Wayne. Too bad they didn’t follow up this episode during the reboot so we could see where the demon baby is now. At least Betsy was able to clean the blood off the car seats. And as much as I love the Garbage song, it’s not put to accurate use in this episode because Betsy is clearly happy and there’s not a drop of rain in sight. 

Sestra Professional:

"Terms of Endearment" had never been a favorite episode of mine, but it's one of those rare times when I like something more in retrospect than I did during original run. The initial issue might have been Bruce Campbell playing the everyman. I might have been expecting something more out of a guest star of this ilk. Spoiler alert: He won't even be snagging Guest Star of the Week kudos. But I do come around on this casting choice.

I just want it to be normal: There is a lot to be said for Campbell's portrayal of Wayne. Before we even get into the opening credits, we understand Weinsider is feeling some kind of ultimate disappointment about the malformed baby. It's not exactly what we think it is at first, but the internal blow he's taken is certainly palpable.

Since we've had a few lighter-of-spirit episodes by this time in Season 6, I guess it was time for a true monster-of-the-week offering. They sure went whole hog on this one. There's an unfortunate aftereffect, though. Wayne's transformation into a nightmare fire devil, the fetus with horns and that demonic exchange of breath thing all seem kind of cartoonish. Even director Rob Bowman couldn't avoid that.

What's more effective -- albeit something of a ripoff -- was writer David Amann's pilferage from both Rosemary's Baby and Hitchcock. The first was more obvious. The latter, remember how twice Wayne dubiously carries a glass of milk up a staircase to his wife? That mirrored the action in Hitchcock's Suspicion when Cary Grant brought poisoned milk to Joan Fontaine, complete with the strategically placed illumination of the liquid to point out that something's off with it.

I just wanted what everyone wants: Ultimately this just a character study of Wayne. Campbell portrays him as genuinely sad about what he's going through. He's another one of those X-Files villains who does abominable things, but we can at least understand if not side with him. Wayne's apparently been trying to have a healthy, normal baby for a long time, and the demon's love for Laura does seem genuine -- even if he says the same things to Betsy that he says to her. 

There are some choice Mulder moments in the episode -- he gets to tail and antagonize his suspect. And even if his quips aren't as sharp as they usually are, it's fun to see him have the upper hand more than he generally does in the mythology episodes. Of course, he figures out Wayne's dealio, even if he doesn't quite gauge Betsy's until it's too late.

Ultimately that leaves Scully almost completely bereft in this one. Let's see, she gets to do their actual assignment, examine fetus corpses, get chewed out (off camera) by the boss, read research and ride in the car. This is not character growth by any stretch of the imagination.

Even Spender seems to have more to do than Dana does here. Then again, he's developed something a dream cushy job. All he has to do is take reports and then shred them. I wish they would flesh him out a little, it's so easy to write Jeffrey off right now.

Speaking of thankless roles, Persky really grounds the character of Laura, first when Wayne tells her she harmed her own baby while she was in a trance, and then when she admits to her brother that she didn't know what she was doing. It's easy to understand that the devil actually fell for her amidst his legions of victims. 

Betsy isn't like Laura: We quickly see things aren't the same with Betsy, even before we know what she's up to. This wife seems to have more spine -- bony or not -- than Laura did, even before she puts the kibosh on his fiery transformation. And two thumbs way up for possibly the best twist of the entire series. For all the ham-fisted throwaway lines like the potential insurance customer telling her children, "Slow down monsters," the saving Grace winds up being that Laura wanted the exact opposite of Wayne. Well except for taking off in his car, which apparently only has one CD in it. By the way, I don't think she needed rain specifically, it's just the idea of what's misery to us is happiness to her.

Monster mash meta: Campbell auditioned for the role of Season 8-9 lead John Doggett, saying on Twitter that he read for the part on the same day as Robert Patrick (who got the gig) and Lou Diamond Phillips. ... Credit Chris Carter with the ultimate revelation. Amann came up with the reverse Rosemary's Baby concept, but according to the official episode guide, the show creator was the one who said "What if the second woman wants the exact opposite of what the guy wanted?" ... Chris Owens noted in the episode guide he started getting recognized for playing Spender around this time. "One day, somebody actually waved his finger at me and just said, 'Paper shredder!'"

Guest star of the week: Sorry, Bruce and Lisa Jane. You did fleshed out your respective characters really well. But Grace Phillips stole the spotlight as Laura, a woman with power and determination. It was a helluva twist that saved the ep and her fiendish portrayal fueled that.