X-Files S8E14: Be careful what you wish for, Dana

Sestra Amateur: 

The X-Files family is about to get a little bigger. No, not because of Dana Scully’s bun-in-the-oven. This is when we meet Agent Monica Reyes, played by Annabeth Gish. The episode opens with a man chasing a UFO somewhere through Helena, Montana. I’m sure the photo he took with a disposable camera while driving will absolutely be the clear-cut evidence he’s hoping for. Of course, when he’s finally able to take a good photo, it’s too late. Instead, he finds a naked woman. Oh, it’s happening, dude.

Assistant Director Walter Skinner and Agent John Doggett have news for Scully. The UFO-chasing kid is Richard Szalay and the barely alive woman he found is Theresa Hoese. Allow me to refresh your memory; Theresa was involved in the very first X-Files episode ("Pilot") and, more importantly, Mulder’s last case before he was abducted (Season 7, Episode 22: "Requiem"). 

Our three heroes fly to Montana to get answers from the horribly abused woman, but she is “circling the drain,” as her doctor so eloquently puts it. Doggett and company then visit Richie, who we’ve met before. Back in "Requiem," he was the kid in the Oregon woods whose flashlight was too hot to handle. His buddy, Gary, was abducted then. But John isn’t thinking aliens because sneaker prints were left at the scene. Dana doesn’t like Doggett’s approach, but he calls it like he sees it.

Do you remember the last time we saw Fox Mulder in the alien dentist’s torture chair? I think it was "Without" (S8E2). Scully is dreaming about it now. The nightmare causes her to run to Skinner’s house for comfort. Meanwhile, there’s a shapeshifter disguising itself as Theresa’s doctor and arranging her transfer out of the hospital. And the shapeshifter is wearing Nike sneakers. Guess that disproves John's theory about aliens and their preferred footwear. 

The next morning, Doggett introduces Dana and Walter to Agent Monica Reyes. Her specialty: ritualistic crime. She’s a smoker, but we’ll put a pin in that factoid for now. Reyes thinks Mulder joined a UFO cult. Scully is not impressed, especially because John is ignoring how Theresa’s doctor was in two places at the same time. Doggett refuses to believe in alien bounty hunters (two steps forward, one step back). He and Dana go their separate ways.

Theresa Hoese is alive and being healed by the person who removed her from the hospital. It’s Jeremiah Smith, played again by Roy Thinnes. You may or (if you’re like me) may not remember Jeremiah and his healing abilities from "Talitha Cumi" (S3E24) and "Herrenvolk" (S4E1). We last saw an injured Jeremiah with an alien bounty hunter. I guess his “long and complicated story” has managed to get longer and more complicated.

Scully learns Reyes is researching Theresa’s medical records for evidence of implants, which is exactly what Dana wanted to do. Monica has a kinship with Fox; they’re both the black sheep of the FBI. If he’s Spooky, I guess Reyes would be Eerie (or, if we want to stick with the Classics IV theme, she can be Stormy). 

Later that night, Monica is experiencing a nicotine fit when her car loses power and she witnesses a UFO in the sky. There’s another body drop but Jeremiah and his partner, Absalom (great, now I’m thinking about Supernatural) are there for the pickup. Reyes tries to stop them but they get away. Good news: there’s another body. Bad news: it’s Gary and he’s dead. Scully begins the autopsy but gets too emotional. After all, the next body found could be Mulder’s. Skinner and Doggett are there to offer support. John marvels at Dana’s resilience, and Monica gives us some of Doggett’s back story; the previous case they worked together involved John’s son. Considering her area of expertise, that had to be horrifying for Doggett. 

Reyes has background information on Absalom and uses the license plate she observed at the body dump location to track him and the other members of his group to their farm. Jeremiah senses something and tries to warn Absalom. The feds raid the compound and Skinner detains Absalom. Scully finds a healed and conscious Theresa, but it looks like Jeremiah avoided apprehension. John interrogates Absalom, who claims the alien ships drop abductees and Absalom recovers them so he can help them. He claims his theories about alien invasions have been validated but denies seeing Mulder.

Back in her hotel room, Dana momentarily thinks she sees Fox, but the image disappears when Monica enters the room. The next morning, Reyes shows Team Sculett and Skinner footage of Jeremiah and Scully recognizes him. Turns out, Jeremiah shapeshifted into Doggett to avoid detection during the raid. Dana finds Jeremiah hiding in plain sight with the others in the group. He doesn’t ‘fess up until Monica leaves the room. Jeremiah claims to be the only one who can save the injured abductees and he needs Scully’s protection. She doesn’t expose him to the others. Then Mulder’s lifeless body is found in the woods. Dana thinks Jeremiah can still save him, so she runs back to the compound. The alien ship gets there first and takes Jeremiah away. Oh, it’s happening, Dana.

Sestra Professional: 

"This Is Not Happening" comes across as a stilted episode for a number of reasons, it swings wildly from emotionally draining to ridiculous, sometimes in the course of mere seconds. The title provides a painfully obvious and glaring reason. "This is not happening" was a line of dialogue notably uttered by a cigarette-smoking alien in S3E20's "Jose Chung's From Outer Space." Trouble is, that was a high-concept layered comedic offering written by Darin Morgan. Here, show runner Chris Carter and executive producer Frank Spotnitz are referring to the life and death of a main character. It doesn't fit the same mold.

So off we go to Montana with a guy chasing a light that looks like one of the small airplanes descending at a regional airport up the road from me. But when it comes in for a landing, Richie declares, "This is not happening" a couple of times. Why would he be yelling it before finding Teresa? He's looking out for "bogeys" as he calls them, so he probably shouldn't be too surprised to find the thing he's hunting down. I even take issue with him saying it upon finding the body. He'd probably be more apt to say what Mulder uttered before the opening credits of S5E12's "Bad Blood": "Oh, shi..." 

Bad as you want to find Mulder, you're afraid to find him too: When Scully finds out what's happened, Gillian Anderson continues the masterfully subtle work she did last week in "Per Manum." She's the one continuing to keep us invested in the ongoing story, no matter how out of hand it gets. John is back to doggedly going after the facts, and even with the bonding he's done with Dana over the past few months, that makes sense. Although he discounts the evidence of alien bounty hunters he experienced for himself in the season's opening two-parter, Doggett is still taking a Dragnet just-the-facts approach.

The first time we see Fox since ... oh, yeah, he was in a flashback last week ... he's back in the alien torture chamber in Scully's dream. Isn't it sweet that she goes to Skinner for comfort? (And, oh, Walter, don't put on clothes on our account!) It is reassuring for him to be there for Dana. Although, well, his confidence ultimately doesn't pan out.

Enjoy your new company: Time for another point of view courtesy of Monica Reyes. She's got Mulder's facility for remaining "open," but she also provides a rationale John can appreciate about cult leaders and how the case seems to apply to a UFO clique. Like Sestra Am, I'm going to delay most discussion of her smoking Morley Lights until our rewatch's final coda as those not on Team Monica refer to this as a "sign." But sufficeth to say, it's the brand people on the show smoke and so it certainly makes sense an agent trying to quit would fire up the Lights upon getting put on this case. 

Monica gives Dana another going-over in regards to her fear over what happened to Fox, just in case you weren't paying attention when Walter did it a few minutes ago. But we also get to see that Reyes isn't willing to follow Doggett's line of thinking without additional investigation. Luckily for her, the fearless Monica immediately gets indoctrinated by seeing a UFO (too bad John wasn't still with her at that point).

It's something of a comfort to see Jeremiah again, well, if you remember him, which I do.  He's been soothing souls during his time with us. And speaking of people and their talents, judging by the condition of Gary's body, Dana might not have been too far off when it comes to what she has been imagining has happened to Fox while he's been "away."

I don't not believe: We know Reyes is good at her gig, because she comes up with all the pertinent details on Absalom overnight. So we can welcome her into the fold because she's not trying to cover things up like Diana Fowley or doesn't just butcher investigations like Jeffrey Spender.

And we probably haven't been giving Scully her due credit for supernatural abilities, because she just had a vision of Mulder. This is the most powerful moment in the episode, since we know from S1E13's "Beyond the Sea" that she saw her father for a moment right after he passed away. It's a payoff for all those who have been watching since virtually the beginning and it feels like a gut punch before they even find Fox.

Dana's also an eagle-eyed Jeremiah Smith spotter, picking him out of a pretty big crowd. She's less good about figuring out the investigation has put Smith at risk. He needs protection before the unthinkable happens and the way of healing Mulder (and other abductees all over the country) gets taken away exactly when Fox has been returned. So I understand Scully's pain and I'm feeling it. But I just cringe when she then screams, "This is not happening," only to well up in tears from her plaintive cry, "No," in her very next breath. They shouldn't have tried to so hard to shoehorn it together, the emotions were already there.

Guest star of the week: She ain't in the cast yet, so I'm free to give Annabeth Gish kudos here in her first appearance as Monica Reyes. Like Doggett before her, Monica brings a fresh perspective. And like Mulder before her, Reyes was considered a black sheep to those she worked with. Although she's not a card-carrying believer, she'll remain open to the possibilities. I ... believe that we can make use of that moving forward.

X-Files S8E13: Be kind and rewind

Sestra Amateur: 

We’re delving into the mythology for this episode. How do I know? Because the recap goes as far back as Season 2. In an unknown hospital, a woman – not Scully – is in labor. There are complications and the doctors – the sinister types we usually see in X-Files episodes -- drug the woman before they remove the baby via C-section so she only has a distorted view. They knock her unconscious after she starts to panic. She’s out for the count; we see an alien baby.

Dana is looking at an ultrasound of her own fetus and gets emotional. When she gets to work, the no-longer-pregnant woman’s husband Duffy Haskell (Jay Acovone) is waiting for her with Agent Doggett. Duffy claims he first contacted Scully eight years earlier; his wife Kath McCready is an alien abductee, like Scully … allegedly. Haskell is now a widower who believes his wife was murdered after a history of multiple abductions and experimentations. He shows Dana the ultrasound of their alien baby and claims Kath was not physically able to conceive a child. Duffy accuses Kath’s doctors, including Dr. Lev, of being in cahoots to steal the baby.

Doggett recognizes how Kath’s story mirrors Scully's. And Sestra Pro was right; John does not know Dana is pregnant. I thought he read it in her medical file when he saw Scully in the hospital in "Via Negativa" (Season 8, Episode 7). Dana doesn't appreciate Doggett reading that file, but an X-file is an X-file, Agent Scully.

Then Dana flashes back to an elevator conversation with Mulder about her infertility. Most people talk about the weather or sports in that 30-second ride. After he exits, Fox reveals he knows Dana is barren because her ova were stolen from her. He actually found them but they were not viable. Dr. Scully is wise enough to seek a second opinion. She goes to Zeus Genetics in Germantown, Maryland. (I can just see their marketing strategy -- if Zeus can’t get you pregnant, no one can!) There is no office staff so Dana wanders around, finds a panicked woman being treated by doctors and enters a room full of distorted fetuses. That’s an odd interior decorating choice, Zeus. A doctor catches Scully and kicks her out of the office.

Dana, worried because her ultrasound may be similar to Kath’s, calls her OB-GYN Dr. Parenti. He’s busy at Zeus Genetics unwrapping an alien baby, but says he’ll look at them. Scully flashes back to a previous meeting with Dr. Parenti, who claimed at the time that she might be able to conceive with “the proper approach.” As far as the sperm donor goes, Past Scully already had someone in mind. Present Scully meets with Dr. Parenti and he allays her fears. (Present Parenti has a goatee; past Parenti has a beard. That’s one way to keep track.) Later that afternoon, John informs Dana she left an ultrasound photo at Parenti’s office. Scully claims it’s hers but Doggett doesn’t believe her.

Team Sculett and Assistant Director Walter Skinner confront Duffy Haskell, the president of the Ohio chapter of the Mutual UFO Network. Duffy has a history of writing threatening letters to doctors. Skinner reminds Duffy he is breaking the law with his threats. Haskell seeks support from Dana but doesn’t get it. In the elevator, Duffy calls Dr. Lev, who appears to be conducting an autopsy on an alien baby. They’re working together. Back at home, Past Scully gets a visit from Past Mulder, who agrees to her request for a sperm donation. (He can finally put his hobby to good use.) Present Scully gets a visit from Present Mary Hendershot, the panicked woman Dana saw at Zeus. Both of their babies are in danger!

Scully sets up a clandestine meeting with Team Skinett in a diner. She’s taking a leave of absence but won’t tell her partner why. Walter thinks she should confide in John, who sees the woman in Dana’s car. Scully takes Mary to the Walden-Freedman Army Research Hospital to meet with a “trustworthy” OB-GYN team. (Place your bets here.) Back in the X-files office, Agent Farah breaks open the closed Haskell/McCready case for Agent Doggett. Turns out, the real Duffy Haskell has been dead for over 30 years. Dr. Miryum performs an ultrasound on Scully and claims Dana is carrying a healthy 14-week old fetus. 

The next morning, Doggett meets with Knowle Rohrer, played by Adam Baldwin. (That sure looks like an anagram name but for the life of me I can’t come up with anything.) John asked Knowle to research “Duffy Haskell,” but Rohrer says he doesn’t have answers yet. Doggett doesn’t buy it. Present Scully is about to undergo an amniocentesis when she realizes they’ve been betrayed and she needs to get Mary out of the facility. John realizes the doctors can’t be trusted and Dana may be in danger so Skinner reveals her location. Walter calls the Army Hospital’s security desk while Scully is sneaking Mary out of the building. They encounter Knowle, who claims to be a friend of Doggett’s. Dana is suspicious but she and Mary leave with him. Hendershot goes into labor and they stop the car to deliver the baby. Scully tries to intervene but Rohrer sedates her. She experiences what Kath McCready did in the opening scene. Never trust a person whose name looks like an anagram!

Dana wakes up in the hospital with John by her side. He now knows about Scully’s baby. Mary Hendershot and her baby boy are alive, although Dana claims the baby was switched. A DNA test can confirm or deny that but we, the audience, will never get to know. Doggett says the official story is Scully overreacted to everything. Dana is in full Fox-conspiracy mode, convinced they were used to cover up what happened to Mary. Hopefully she now realizes she can trust John. Past Scully meets with Past Mulder in his apartment and he learns his sperm did not fertilize her egg. Guess they’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Sestra Professional: 

I've been enjoying bringing the new guy along this season so much that I almost forgot about the old guy. Almost.

There's a lot of old-school feel to "Per Manum" by design. As Sestra Am mentioned, the callbacks to Dana's abduction certainly help in that regard. But didn't things somehow feel less macrabre when we thought it was just aliens doing the experimentation? Now that we're watching humans attempting to cultivate hybrids, everything seems way less eerie and a lot more ghoulish. This would not seem to bode well for Scully's impending bundle of joy.

We have a largely quiet episode -- eerily too quiet, save the delivery sequence -- that depends heavily on subtle work by Gillian Anderson. In that regard, it's beautiful. She's come a long long way since Scully's second-season kidnapping. Gillian's acting and Dana's hair are soooo much better now (although it seems a little floofier in this episode to distinguish it from the flashbacks to last season.)

It's all right there in the X-files: Who else thinks of S6E3's "Triangle" when Season 8 Scully walks into the elevator, and then when the doors open up again, we see Season 7 Mulder. If I believed the sequence in the FBI building during "Triangle" actually happened, then I would think the apparatus had some kind of mystical properties along the lines of S1E7's elevatorial killer in "Ghost in the Machine."

The Season 2 questions have lingered for a long time. Scully never really believed she was abducted by aliens -- save the emotional Season 5 hypnosis session -- but she didn't follow up on that aspect of the investigation either. We learn about two women (Kath McCready and Mary Hendershot) who weren't part of the second season, but whose stories seem very familiar to us regarding that time of the mythology. 

Dana's understandably concerned about her belly bump since Kath's situation appears to mirror her own. Anderson's reactions are perfect -- small but broad, free of hand-wringing and screaming -- the hallmarks of TV dramas in the late '90s. Seeing her baby on ultrasound kind of raises some questions. I think all babies kind of look like aliens on ultrasound now. 

I could do without Scully keeping Doggett in the dark as long as she does, by this point, he'd proven to be a top-clearance ally. I wish that transition was smoother, John had her respect. The clunky way Dana clings to her reasoning about being afraid of keeping her job doesn't seem to do much more than prolong the inevitable. 

The answer is yes: I'm no shipper, but the flashbacks to Past Sculder discussing Fox as Dana's potential baby daddy and the late revelation that the donation didn't pan out fit in perfectly. The latter comes as a true surprise. Our heroine's pregnant, but it wasn't courtesy of her alleged last chance. These moments are basically all I need on the personal front, Scully and Mulder have a bond that no one else shares and no one can break. But we're going to need to find another counterpart for her support squad -- Doggett. 

There's a lot of double dealing in this episode. There aren't too many people not playing both sides of the road as the story progresses with some new faces, most notably military intelligence operative Knowle Rohrer. Just like in the old days, everything Dana uncovers is explained away by saying she overreacted -- completely different from how she behaves to finding out her doctors are involved in the experiments. But we know that Scully's completely correct, she is our modern-day Mulder after all. 

Guest star of the week: At first, Jay Acovone appears to be toiling in the Fox mold without actually being the guy we knew and loved for seven seasons. Since no one else really can have that distinction, his ultimate flip doesn't come as a surprise but works well in the scheme of things.

X-Files S8E12: The train keeps a-rollin'

Sestra Amateur: 

Nope, this episode has nothing to do with the mythical character who could turn people to stone with just a look. Neither is it about Frank-n-Furter’s turn-to-stone machine in Rocky Horror Picture Show, although at least that one undoes its damage. In a Boston subway station, law enforcement is being very strict about fare jumpers. A detective is about to confront one when the subway sharply stops and Columbo loses his gun. There’s an electrical discharge and the next passenger who boards gets the lovely view of a man whose face is a half-visible skeleton. Now Columbo looks like Two-Face from Batman.

Deputy Chief Karras has one job -- get the trains running before rush hour. Agents Scully and Doggett need more time to get answers. Lt. Bianco is desperately clinging to explainable theories, which works fine on Law and Order or CSI but doesn’t pass muster on The X-Files. And Dana can add a skill to her resume: She’s an expert on “equivocal death,” which -- when you read the definition -- is how death investigations are handled nowadays. Scully was a trailblazer, but we knew that. 

Team Sculett meet their temporary team: Bianco, Officer Melnick and CDC Dr. Hellura Lyle. (If it’s a Ten Little Indians scenario, then who will emerge unscathed?) John enters the subway tunnel with them while Dana monitors from the control room. The tunnel is hot and muggy and no one really takes notice of the green shimmering puddle they pass until Melnick gets burned on his neck. Lyle heads back to get a sample and Doggett, concerned for her safety, goes to check on her. Lyle sends a sample to Scully, but now it’s just seawater. Bianco sees someone ahead of them so the team follows to an abandoned subway line. While the deputy chief and lieutenant try to steer them away from the tunnel, John gets attacked by a Two-Face lookalike, who knocks him down before expiring.

Inside the tunnel, Ofc. Melnick sees something but Lt. Bianco tries to dissuade him. Doggett investigates and finds three wrapped bodies. John realizes he can’t trust Bianco but gets distracted when Lyle sees someone running. Karras wants the team pulled but Dana pursues the infected stranger theory and sends Doggett and company after the runner. While Bianco tries to stir up trouble within Team Doggett, Melnick gets worse. His arm starts to burn away but John stops it with water. Scully’s thinking biochemical agent. I’m thinking their shutdown and quarantine decisions should be made by someone whose job title is higher than “agent" -- first, because it’s the right protocol, and second, because I always want Mitch Pileggi in the episode.

The Hazmat team arrives to remove Melnick. Lyle is doing OK, but Bianco has a glowing green secret. Karras arranges for the three bodies to be removed despite Dana's vehement objection. Now she knows he knew about them all along. Bianco is trying to convince Doggett they should stop the search but John spots the green bioluminescence on the lieutenant, who decides to leave … which means spreading the contagion. Doggett pulls his gun but Bianco knocks him unconscious. Scully’s frustrated because she can’t reach John. Even in her panicked state she refuses to call him anything but Agent Doggett. 

At least Dana gets some good news from Dr. Kai Bowe, a marine biologist who analyzed the saltwater found in the tunnel. The water contained a medusa, which looks a lot like a jellyfish. Scully hasn't identified what triggers it to kill, but she better hurry because John is covered in it. He, of course, is trying to prevent Bianco from reaching the sitting (standing?) ducks waiting for the 4 p.m. subway. Doggett finds a contrite, scared Bianco and helps him through the tunnel. John also sees a boy who leads him to the source of the contagion.

Dana realizes sweat is the trigger, that’s why the boy is unharmed. (Yay for prepubescence?!) So put the air back on and help these guys. Unfortunately, it’s now 4 p.m. so the trains are running, and they’re going to run right through a bioluminescent puddle. I’m curious to know how Karras started them again when Scully and Dr. Bowe were alone in the control center. Doggett activates the third rail as the train passes. This manages to kill the medusa and save himself and Bianco.

Later in the hospital, Dana tells John he is free of the organism and allowed to go home. A shy Doggett – he doesn’t want Scully to see his butt in the hospital gown – is livid because Karras won’t face charges for putting the public in danger. But his and Scully’s working bond is a little stronger. Team Sculett ends the episode as members of the mutual aid society.

Sestra Professional: 

Question: What do you get when you cross first-season highlight "Ice" with the landmark '70s movie The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three? Answer: Not sure, but you better get eyes and ears on it, posthaste.

Frank Spotnitz, who penned this episode, has gone on record deeming "Medusa" the least favorite of the 48 X-Files regular-season shows he had a hand in writing. I can't concur with that, especially when the list includes some real ninth-season head scratchers. But I remember taking issue with his disappointment over this one while brunching with the executive producer at X-Fest last year (total name drop, but a valid one). So what the ep may lack in coherence, it makes up for in the tension department -- both as an action piece and for the dynamic between our current leads.

If nothing else, it taught me a lot about the regional nature of police codes. The detective in the teaser reports a possible 10-13. And most X-Philes have been clued in that those numbers are also the birthday of the creator of the show, Chris Carter. So what does the code stand for? Well, in different places, it means different things. For instance, where Sestra Am is, a 10-13 reports bad weather. Where I am ... and where the intrepid agents were ... it's an officer requesting help. A fortuitous code indeed for our purposes.

There are lots of little moments to appreciate. While Chief Deputy Karras does a lot of blustering, he also calls for the investigators to "kick it in the ass," a nod to the show's season director Kim Manners' preferred call to action. (Karras reminds me a lot of supervisor Caz Dolowitz in the 1974 thriller about the taking of a New York subway car for ransom. The chief deputy is lucky not to have suffered the same fate.) 

OK, I'll be your eyes and ears: The agents get saddled with a team of people who really don't want to be down in a subway tunnel. We're all familiar with that, right? Co-workers who just want to do the minimal amount necessary to collect their respective paychecks and will bitch and moan about anything beyond that. It's a little disheartening that Dana and John seem to be the only ones who want to figure out what's going on in the system. So the other crew members come off as one-note characters, but they do remind me of the quirky group of experts Mulder and Scully went with into the Arctic in the eighth episode of the show.

There's some nice subtle pushback from Doggett in this one, not understanding why he's in the tunnel while his partner -- the medical expert -- isn't. Of course, he doesn't know she's with child and that would probably go a long way toward explaining her motives to him. But that bone of contention is juxtaposed nicely alongside the greater question of what's going on underground. His respect for her opinion is never diminished.

It's a question of who's in charge: Today, of course, "Medusa" seems prescient when it comes to the debate between the needs of a mass transit system and a greater threat to the entire population. Those in power want a return to the status quo, but the situation could lead to a more widespread problem if not contained. And as for Karras and his boisterous opinions on people being upset about their night commute -- um, if they couldn't get to work in the morning, might they have made other plans like driving into the city or working from home? Why would they need the train home if they didn't take the train to work? Our operatives aren't given a lot of breathing room to maneuver, they're constantly barraged with questions about why they haven't figured it out yet. Give them time to investigate, people. 

While I don't think Medusa can live up to the Greek mythological legend, it is a fun way to pass an hour in our eighth season. It's similar to how I feel about "Vienen," five episodes from now. These shows may not set the world on fire, but they're far more engaging than the likes of "Surekill" and "Salvage" while pushing our main characters' paths down their respective tunnels. 

We've got a new wrinkle: So I buy what Spotnitz is selling up until the point when John runs across the boy. Sweat seems like an all-too-easy solution to the flesh-eroding issue, and maybe that's what Spotnitz referred to during a 2012 Reddit chat when he explained his misgivings about the episode by saying the concept "just wasn't clear or compelling enough to sustain the hour." It was a helluva ride getting there for me, though.  

Sestra Am noted the sweet little moment between the agents in the hospital at the end. It may seem shoddy that a simple alcohol bath can clean Doggett right up after it ate the flesh off its victims and equally shabby that one electrical charge so cleanly wiped out the organism causing all the trouble, but John's modesty at not wanting Dana to see his backside in his airy hospital gown provided an unexpectedly welcome touch.

Guest star of the week: I'd claim I'm genetically predisposed to liking Brent Sexton because of the short-lived but amazing Damian Lewis-Sarah Shahi show Life, but this episode aired about eight years before he got that gig. There may not be a lot of substance to the role of Officer Melnick, but Sexton -- who also impressed in the third episode of the season "Patience" as a gravedigger -- makes him one to watch and worry about all the same. 

Catching up with WKRP's Little Big Guy

It's that time of year when those of us raised on television equate Thanksgiving with the WKRP in Cincinnati pop-culture staple "Turkeys Away."  The seminal episode aired during the first season and while that's, by and large, the show many think of first when it comes to the series, another episode that year introduced another character who loomed large on the canvas, even though he actually only made one appearance.

I'm referring to Arthur Carlson Jr., the militant young son of the often-befuddled but always affable station owner. Little Arthur was played by Sparky Marcus, a wide-eyed fresh-faced boy seen a lot on the small screen and an occasional movie in the late '70s who also voiced Richie Rich and other characters in the early and mid-'80s. 

Today, Marcus Issoglio understandably no longer goes by Sparky. He's no longer in the acting business and he likes it that way, having been a physical therapist for over three decades. But he recalls his time on the WKRP set very fondly, and as his 19-year-old son, Aidan, has hit certain age benchmarks, it's reminded Marcus of his own unique childhood.

We've all heard many cautionary tales about child actors over the years. While Marcus has his fair share of those, he avoided the darker side of fame -- "I didn't do drugs, I didn't crash cars." But he's got plenty of horror stories about stage parents and misbehaving co-stars to go around.

It all started relatively well. At barely 6 years old, Marcus had never been on an airplane when he booked Friendly Persuasion, a 1975 TV movie starring Richard Kiley and Shirley Knight. It's one of his earliest memories, particularly the fact he was called upon to feed a goose bigger than he was on camera --- and the goose attacked him. 

He remembers filming a 1977 Christmas episode of Nancy Drew Mysteries at Universal Studios. An unknown man lurked around the set, reportedly beating up people, so Marcus was walked to the car after hours every night. But that might have seemed like nothing compared to what happened on The Bad News Bears' short-lived TV adaptation in 1979-80. "You can't put seven or eight prepubescents in the same room and expect no problems," he laughed. 

The WKRP in Cincinnati casting process wasn't quite the cattle call he experienced for other shows. "They were looking for a certain look or size," Marcus recalled. "I'm not kidding, I saw some three-headed kids in other interviews ... I mean, auditions."

The half-hour comedy about a ragtag group of radio station employees was markedly different than other shows he had been on. On Monday, he got the script. By Thursday, they were doing a trial run and taping was on Friday. 

"Doing a live show is so much more of a rush than a taped show," Marcus said. "Every moment of the day is planned. ... There's one stage you film on and one you block on. You end up learning everybody's lines. The jokes aren't even funny to us anymore. They're funny to the audience."

In fact, the more humorous things that happened were off camera, such as when Tim Reid's Venus Flytrap picked him up by his uniform. In rehearsal, when the angry Venus grabbed Little Arthur's lapels, they ripped off. "We were laughing so hard," Marcus said.

To fans, the subject matter may make it hard to believe the actors were having so much fun. The script by show creator Hugh Wilson might be deemed politically incorrect by today's standards. The 11-year-old talks down to the disc jockey, even referring to the Black man as "Boy." 

"Truthfully, I was so naive, I had to be coached on that," Marcus said. "It was tough for Tim. He was so gracious about it. ... I'm not that person. It couldn't get any further away from me, although I always wanted to go to military school. I didn't have that mentality."

Since then, the barometer of political correctness has certainly changed and a script with that kind of confrontation might not be aired today.  "The censors wouldn't let get through now," Marcus said. "It flipped, the social context [changed], but you can still say bad words. How did they put it on Star Trek?  Now you can use 'colorful metaphors.'"

Even Loni Anderson's normally calm, cool and collected Jennifer Marlowe got physical with Marcus after Little Arthur rooted through her pocketbook. In character, she gave him a good throttling, but all of it was very carefully blocked out. "It looked worse than it ever was," Marcus said. "It was nothing."

That was a lot different than what Marcus experienced on other shows. On the '70s cult hit Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, he played Jimmy Joe Jeeter, whom Marcus described as a "bit of a butthead." And although traditionally shows did everything in rehearsal the way they would for taping, it got a little bit different when TV dad Dabney Coleman had to spank him in one episode. "When we recorded, he unleashed on me," Marcus remembered.

WKRP dad Gordon Jump went a lot easier on him. "The key to the episode was the father-son relationship," he said. "I was a big fan of the show, so I was so happy to be able to play that role."

After a serious talk with his father at the end of the episode, they got to have some fun on camera with the toys in the Big Guy's desk. The scene was capped off with Arthur and Little Arthur throwing foam basketballs into a hoop on the station manager's door. They'd been working on that shot all week without success. "We actually hit it," Marcus remembered of the taping. "They said don't worry, that they would cut away ... but we hit it."

Marcus had such a great time with the cast that the serious nature of the subject matter didn't even sink in. He can still go on at length about Howard Hesseman being "frickin' funnier" than fans can imagine and how nice Reid and Anderson were to him. The show invited him to the wrap party when the series ended, even though he had only been on the one episode. 

"They were great. That was a child-friendly set," Marcus said. "I melded with these guys and we all bonded. It was like being with your friends. We were having a blast. It was everyone -- the crew and the director (Will Mackenzie) and the sound guy (Ken Becker). ... When I look at a show like that, you really feel the warmth, I think it's always going to translate to the screen." 

Marcus was suitably impressed by the subtle work done by members of the cast. To this day, he's tickled by Richard Sanders donning a bandage on a different body part each week as Les Nessman. In fact, he could even get credit for the bandage's placement for "Young Master Carlson." 

"I said, 'Put it on your ear,' and he did," Marcus said. "That is how you draw attention to a secondary or a tertiary character. Gordon did this thing in which he switched the pens in his pen holder, taking one out of one and putting it in the other, shticking around with it. He looked like he was lost in his own words. And that's how you make an impression."

That made it easier for Marcus to cry when tears were called for during Jump's serious talk with Little Arthur. "That was the real thing, because I had that chemistry (with Gordon)," he said.  "I don't have a trick for that. It came to me naturally. In all my years, I only had one problem on the worst movie ever made -- Goldie and the Boxer Go to Hollywood." 

Record companies in the day sent their new releases to the WKRP in Cincinnati set for promotional purposes in hopes of getting publicity on the show, so Marcus left the studio after his work was completed with a new Grease soundtrack and Gene Simmons' solo album. "Young Master Carlson" first aired on April 30, 1979, living on with the rest of the show in syndication. 

"When I think of the top five things, WKRP is one or two," he said of ranking his experience on the show. "I can't think of anything I had a better time on than that. ... I had a good time with Scatman Crothers [on 1979's animated short Banjo the Woodpile Cat]. And the Goodtime Girls [a 1989 sitcom starring Annie Potts, Lorna Patterson, Georgia Engel, Peter Scolari and Adrian Zmed]. That was a great cast. Fun times."

Being on sets was all Marcus knew during the '70s. Reminiscent of Les Nessman in the second-season episode "Baseball," Marcus missed out on a lot of things like playing sports, particularly during summer, which was "child actor season" since the kids didn't have to be in school. As he remembers it, peers who kept getting jobs just showed up, shut up and hit their marks. "I grew up with adults," he said. "I didn't relate to kids back then." 

And it increasingly took a toll on Marcus. For every fun WKRP booking, there was another that was much rougher on him, like portraying the only child on The Nancy Walker Show in 1976-77. "Nancy Walker hated me," Marcus said. "She would not talk to me, she would not look at me," he said. "That set was frigid at best, at least for me it was. I generally hung out with the crew, they were always nice to me." 

Even worse, there were "Me Too" moments that had to be dealt with while he was on the sets of Trapper John, M.D. and Goldie and the Boxer Go to Hollywood. To add injury to insult, he suffered a concussion and a split forehead while playing a 17-year-old with a hormone deficiency at age 13 on Trapper John. After the Bad News Bears, he continued doing mostly voice work -- "It doesn't matter if you have a broken arm or zits" -- until he was finished school.

Marcus' parents made him stay in the business to make money long after he had lost interest. "When I turned 18, I just said no more," he recalled. "I just said, 'You can't make me.' The day after I graduated from high school, I left home. I became a physical therapy aide and then got my license. I've been lucky, I've been working in it for 33 years."

Today, Marcus lives in a small town of 7,000 in California with his wife and son. His career occasionally comes up, like when Nancy Cartwright published a book with a picture of her and Marcus from Saturday Supercade's "Space Ace: 1984-1985") or when he was included in an awards ceremony video tribute for Freaky Friday co-star Jodie Foster. That's when he's been asked if he "goes by Sparky?" To which his answer inevitably has been, "It depends who's asking."

Although Little Arthur was mentioned often throughout the rest of WKRP's run, Marcus didn't appear on the show again. He thought he might have a chance when the show rebooted with Jump in the fold for two seasons as The New WKRP in Cincinnati in 1991. "I almost thought my phone would ring," Marcus said. "I don't know if I would have done it, though."

He doesn't often get recognized or bring up his time on television or in the movies, preferring to leave it in the past. At one point, one of Aidan's teachers called about screening Freaky Friday in class, and Marcus respectfully declined. "I said, 'Please, don't," he recalled. "I was tortured all through elementary and junior high school. You get judged on that stuff." 

So what does Marcus love as much as fans love rediscovering WKRP? In addition to being a huge fan of the New Orleans Saints, he and wife Jennifer enjoy watching shows like House, Bones and The Big Bang Theory. Although he bemoans that most of them are off the air -- the WKRP fans feel your pain -- he doesn't get so into them that he jumps on message boards or listen to podcasts about them. He doesn't have many mementos from his time in the spotlight, but he's occasionally been able to pick up a WKRP photo on eBay. 

"I haven't seen that episode in 30 years," Marcus admitted. "I'm flattered that anybody remembers. It's a different place and a different life. ... I'm fat and happy and living in northern California." -- Paige Schector

X-Files S8E11: The gift that keeps on taking

Sestra Amateur: 

Three things come to mind when I hear the title "The Gift." First, of course, is my favorite show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In that episode, Buffy learns death is her “gift” before she bites the dust at the end of Season 5. Then there is the Sam Raimi movie from 2000; Cate Blanchett’s gift -- clairvoyance -- almost gets her killed. Finally, there is the 2015 Jason Bateman thriller in which the gift can be literal (a basinet filled with disturbing presents) or figurative (the truth). I never gave it much thought either way. But in this episode, in true X-Files fashion, the gift is amazing yet nauseating.

It’s a stormy night in Squamash Township, Pennsylvania. A man with a gun enters a family home marked with blood (or red paint), shoots someone in front of the terrified residents and leaves. It’s Mulder! Do his alien captors give him furlough time to indulge in his X-file obsessions?

Doggett is driving to Squamash on a much calmer, sunnier day. He’s thinking about Fox's disappearance and bleak medical outlook. John meets with Sheriff Frey, who claims he met Mulder on a bogus missing person case prior to his disappearance. The phone records show Fox returned to Squamash the week before the events of "Within"/"Without," the first two episodes of Season 8. Doggett interviews Paul and Marie Hangemuhl, the couple Mulder helped. Flashbacks show Fox interviewing them as well. Paul lies to John by claiming Mulder never returned to the house. He admits Fox believed a story about an Indian folk legend coming to eat Marie alive. John silently takes note of the sloppy bullet hole patchwork on a wall in the house.

Doggett then searches Mulder’s apartment and feeds his fish. Whoever’s keeping them alive has gotten pretty lazy with the dusting. And who’s paying Fox’s rent these days? Mulder never struck me as the type who would (or could) pay for months upfront. The porn channel, sure. During his search, John finds a Walther PPK, which may have been the gun Fox used to shoot someone/something in Squamash. 

Sheriff Frey oversees an exhumation of an area in the cemetery marked by stones while Doggett inspects the gun at the FBI office. He updates Skinner, who knew about Mulder’s second weapon but naively believes Fox would have filed a report if he fired his weapon three times during a case. (I had the best laugh of the season after hearing that line. There is no way Walter truly believes Mulder told him everything.) John's main problem is he proved Fox lied about an official investigation and Scully is complicit because she signed the same falsified reports as Mulder. At least Doggett would rather go through Skinner to get answers than file an official complaint with the FBI.

Things are escalating in Squamash again. Several men and their dogs chase and catch a shirtless man from a cabin. There’s clearly something wrong with the guy, whom they treat like an animal. Team Skinett confront Sheriff Frey after learning he signed a death certificate for a shooting victim found outside a woman’s cabin the day after Fox met with the Hangemuhls. John and Walter find the man’s open grave at the cemetery. Skinner takes note of the stone markings, while Paul goes back to painting symbols on his front door. The vigilantes bring their -- I don’t know ... zompire Indian? -- to the Hangemuhl’s house, where Marie allows it to take a bite out of her while Paul prays quietly. Team Skinett arrive after the cleanup, but Paul missed a spot. Meanwhile, the man/creature is underground, vomiting up something in human form. It’s a really good thing I don’t eat while watching these episodes.

Agent Doggett has put most of the pieces together and Skinner shows him the now-erased mark on the front door, courtesy of Luminol. They reach out to the Lone Gunman, who identify the mark as a medicine wheel, which summons a soul eater to use its gift to remove the illness. You know, for a trio of men who believe in all sorts of conspiracies, they sure got on board with Team Skinett very quickly. John goes to the cabin to interview the woman who lives there. She believes in the soul eater and is still protecting him. Doggett follows a tunnel under the cabin and locates a probably-now-healthy Marie covered in slime and mucus. He thinks he’s rescuing her, but she’s already been saved. 

John sees the rejuvenated Marie in the hospital and surprisingly is on board with the soul eater’s power. He thinks Mulder went to the cabin to save himself but couldn’t go through with it. The woman says Fox tried to put the creature out of its misery instead, but it couldn't die. Doggett sees the creature crying and plans to take him away from Squamash. The vigilantes return to claim it and the sheriff shoots John dead. The soul eater escapes and the men bury the dead Doggett in the woods. The end.

Nah, just kidding. John wakes up covered in slime and mucus in the same place he found Marie. The soul eater saved his life by taking away death. Now the creature is at peace and Doggett has no idea how to write up his case report. Walter unofficially encourages John not to. Your X-files initiation is complete, Agent Doggett.

Sestra Professional: 

Initiation in half a year, that's even quicker than Scully's at the start of the series! Well, I guess the show's under something of a time crunch, Doggett needs to have been put through the ringer and come out the other side before we pick up steam for the resolution of Mulder's story and the end run to the season finale.

It's a little unsettling to carry on with the plot device of Fox keeping Scully unaware of all he was going through and what he was doing. For that reason, I can't appreciate "The Gift" as much as I might have, even though it's a story that feels more in the X-Files wheelhouse than the three that preceded it. The way our longtime leads depended on each other, such an unwieldy secret feels unnecessary and misguided. "How well did you really know him?" continues to feel like a hollow question to Dana and those of us who have been on their journey all these years. 

Are you calling Mulder a liar? On the other hand, we've got Skinner and Doggett working the case together. That's a definite plus. The Mulder flashbacks are welcome as well. For as much as John has been the proverbial shot in the arm this year, we've been in Fox limbo land way too long. The show certainly made sure we couldn't forget him either with his inclusion -- or at least the shape-shifter version of him -- in the opening credits of the episodes he hasn't been in. 

Giving Mulder a pass on the "not letting anyone else know he was dying" front, this story trades on an intriguing concept. Of course, Fox would be interested in a soul muncher that takes the acrid badness out and leaves the yummy goodness behind. That's so Mulder, so Frank Spotnitz's script is certainly right on the mark in this regard.

Good thing Walter remembers what he saw at the end of last season. He's a little rough on Doggett, though. The guy wouldn't be out of line in pointing out Mulder fired his weapon in Pennsylvania when reports confirmed by Scully stated conclusively that Fox was in D.C. Skinner's depending a lot on the bond John's been creating with Dana. It would be pretty easy for Doggett to give the FBI the narrative it's looking for and earn his way off the X-files while endangering Scully's job in the process. And Walter calls John the one on shaky ground?

This theory's even nuttier than the one Agent Mulder came to town with: But Doggett's quest for the truth persists. And it's not a truth like the one Mulder searched for all these years. It's that quantifiable kind that seems closer to Scully's early ilk. Dude still loves looking for the paper trails and taking every single fact and figure as an absolute truth. 

Director Kim Manners gorges on this one the way he traditionally handles the grossest of X-Files offerings. He feasts on the really gross stuff. The way the story plays out doesn't do much for the guest actors -- there won't be a Guest Star of the Week as a result -- but all we really are called on to care about for this story's purposes are our regulars. So while we gaze upon cured Marie and take in the latest exercise in exposition from the Lone Gunmen, the success of "The Gift" depends on John getting something out of the experience that he'll be able to hang his moral code on going forward. 

As Sestra Am mentioned, this looks to be the case that evens the playing field. All it took was a taste of the soul eater's medicine -- a slight case of death followed by restoration on a plot of dirt and regurgitation. After that, Skinner's spoonful of advice can have the proper medicinal effect on Doggett. And if disillusioned fans remain whose minds are as open as John's has become still don't consider him a valued member of the team, they probably never will.

That sentiment was backed up by Spotnitz in The Complete X-Files. "If you're going to depart from literal reality as most of us know it, if you're going to go into the supernatural -- as a writer, you have you ask yourself, 'Why? What's the purpose? What's the reason? And if you don't really have a point or a reason, your story's probably not going to very good." Spotnitz does have one here, and if it's perhaps not delivered as cleanly as we might have liked it to be, the fact remains that it does keep the show in line with where it needs to be at this juncture.

X-Files S8E10: Someone get the Ex-Lax

Sestra Amateur: 

I suggest you hold off eating during this episode, at least during the pre-credits scenes. In Los Angeles’ version of an airport in Mumbai, India, an American businessman named Hugh Potoki ignores the poor citizens’ pleas for money. He takes pity on one legless man on a cart. Sort of. The morbidly obese man insults the pauper then goes about his business, but Cartman somehow drags him off the toilet. Later, in a Washington, D.C., hotel room, Potoki is trancelike and oozing blood from … everywhere. And he has the cart with him. So this is human smuggling, X-Files style.

Agent Scully gets the case, but Agent Doggett beats her to the scene. So far, they’ve ruled out the scary contagious diseases. John somehow finds a child’s bloody handprint on the bedspread that local police “missed,” but Dana doubts their killer is a kid. Her autopsy supports that theory because she finds massive tissue damage inside Potoki’s body. John’s thinking drug mule case gone awry. Scully’s estimated time of death puts it before the flight from Mumbai. Of course she’s right, but logic is against her since Potoki appeared functional way after that.

In Cheverly, Maryland, Mr. Burrard is applying for a custodial job in an elementary school. The principal sees a “normal” American male, but we see Cartman. Later, seventh-grader Trevor is bullying sixth-grader Quinton, but Quinton’s father intervenes and takes him home. Custodial Cartman watches intently but no one notices him.

Doggett learns about a similar death of an overweight man that recently occurred in India. Scully actually suggests a small person traveled inside the larger men. Even with the evidence she’s seen, that’s a Mulder-level leap. At night, Quinton sees Cartman in his bedroom mirror and screams. Dad placates his son and goes back downstairs, where Cartman inhabits the father. Quinton finds his father’s dead body. Team Sculett gets the call and respond to the scene, but it’s after the coroner’s initial report that Dad died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Quinton describes Cartman as a munchkin and Doggett finds munchkin -- I mean Cartman’s -- prints all over the crime scene. Scully thinks the victim’s bloody eyes are just the first stage of the human smuggling process and hurries to the coroner’s office to prove her theory.

Without authorization, but with enough X-files experience that she audibly records the procedure, Scully cuts Cartman out of Dad’s body. (Most government agents aren’t considerate enough to provide evidence of their crimes.) Unfortunately, she panics and during the scramble to get her gun, Cartman drags himself away. Wouldn’t it be funny if he somehow smuggled the cart in the body too?

Back at school, Mr. Burrard gets berated by the principal for being late. In his defense, as Cartman, he had to drag himself all the way back to work. Trevor sees something is wrong with Custodial Cartman. Team Sculett gets a lesson in siddhi mysticism from Dr. Chuck Burks, who dresses like a Season 2 Walter Skinner. He explains how Cartman can look like someone else or disappear before a person’s eyes. Doggett doesn’t buy it, but Burks isn’t offended. He’s used to it. Scully calls Burks to the X-files office to get more information on their killer’s motivation. Somehow, Dana linked her case to an industrial accident that killed 118 people at an American chemical plant in Vishi, India. One victim’s father was a holy man of the beggar caste. Guess that explains the begging at the airport.

Trevor does the right thing and tells Quinton what he saw. While walking home, Trevor is chased by Cartman. He thinks he’s safe at home but somehow ends up at the bottom of his pool. His mother jumps in to save him, but it’s actually a cloaked Cartman and he kills her. Team Sculett gets notified because Mom died with bloody red eyes. John is clearly frustrated with this case as well as Dana’s approach to it. Trevor returns home, learns of his mother’s death and tells Scully about “the little man.” Maybe that’s the kick in the pants Doggett needs to get on board. Trevor leads them to the school custodian. Dana's interrogation of Burrard goes nowhere, but Dr. Burks arrives with camera equipment that shows no one is sitting there. Thank you for providing John's kick in the pants, part 2, Doc.

Mr. Burrard returns to work, disturbing the principal, so she calls Scully. Trevor and Quinton, now bonded over the murders of their mother and father respectively, set a trap for Cartman, but it doesn’t work. Cartman stalks Quinton while Trevor goes for help. Scully and the principal find the boys, but Cartman has cloaked himself to look like Trevor. Dana believes Quinton but is hesitant to shoot a child, even a former school bully. Doggett arrives and hears shots. He finds Scully standing over Cartman’s dead body. Afterward, Dana is clearly upset that her eyes conflicted with her instincts, Mulder’s instincts. And somehow, back in the Mumbai airport, Cartman is begging again. 

Wow, this episode had an interesting opportunity to show Cartman taking revenge on the people who he believed caused the fatal accident at the chemical plant. But the script never made a real connection between these characters and the plant, so it’s just Cartman stalking kids and killing their parents. If Cartman’s plan is to take out every single American, it’s going to take a while. On the upside, I think Trevor’s bullying days are over. 

Sestra Professional: 

Reading Sestra Am's recap before rewatching the episode, I just kept shaking my head. This is one of the most -- insert your most colorful adjective meaning ridiculous here -- episodes the show has ever put forth. This was way before the legalization of marijuana in California, but someone had to be on something to come up with this premise. At best, it's ... um, a novel approach ... to the concept of smuggling. And at worst, it's really gross methodology.

I can buy virtually any concept The X-Files puts forth if it's done in a coherent manner, but I don't get any of that here in the script from ol' reliable John Shiban. Maybe it's because of the cringeworthy way the character who has become known in the fandom as "the butt genie" goes about his business. That's off-putting, to say the very least. But I have to admit, I just don't get this one. I don't understand its intent and I don't understand its resolution.

This theory of yours requires an openness that I'm just not comfortable with: It's genuinely creepy when the gene genie wheels around, I'll give director Tony Wharmby that much. "Badlaa" was the second of seven episodes with him at the helm. With the striking "Via Negativa" (Season 8, Episode 7), the veteran of shows ranging from The O.C. to NCIS proved he was certainly up to a challenge. This one would have been too much for anyone in the X-Files stable, I feel for Wharmby having drawn the short straw here. 

When push comes to shove, this episode has one objective -- to show us where Dana is at this point in the season. John's still Mr. Denial, in essence, he's Season 1 Scully. He believes his partner to be prone to belief in alien invaders or sloppy vampires as suspects. But Dana doesn't fit into that niche. Although she has been serving in the Mulder role for almost half a season and despite having conducted an unauthorized autopsy, at the denouement of this one, she doesn't consider herself up to or worthy of that task. 

I'm still trying to figure this out. The butt genie has two demonstrable skills. One, he can crawl up someone's body, effectively snuffing out the person who used to be there while still having the victim walk and talk. Two, he can appear to be anyone. Are the two mutually exclusive? It's not really explained, and I don't mean in that "we know what's going on, but we can't dot the i's and cross the t's" way that X-files often are presented to us. 

If he's not there, he can be anywhere: Part of the problem is the viewpoint. By virtue of swinging the camera back and forth, we can see the person whose body has been taken over as the butt genie. But that's not what really is there, I'm supposing. And another issue is that all this comes to pass within the two realms the show historically doesn't depict particularly well -- young kids and foreign cultures. So basically it's twice as troublesome, with twice as many one-dimensional characters.

.

I'm also not comprehending the stowaway methodology. Two heavy-set importers are killed instantly by the method of transport, but he can jump in and out of the janitor with little problem. Does Mr. Burrard take a laxative regularly, or does the "Beggar Man" pick and choose who and when he knocks off someone? It seems to be a lot of unnecessary trouble for him to apply for ... and then do a janitorial job. Why didn't he exit his usual way prior to the autopsy ... and how did he leave blood prints on one side of the door and then transport to the other side? I guess he's just messing with everyone's minds ... ours included.

Buy yourself some WD-40: That raises more questions. The initial victim was chosen for his girth, but that's not necessary with the janitor or the former bully? I don't get how Trevor can sense from looking down the hallway that something's wrong with Mr. Burrard. And back to Sestra Am's salient point, what about that cart? It's the same one we saw in Mumbai. Is that intended to be an illusion or did the butt genie bring a carry-on? But most of all, I can't wrap my head around this, if the Beggar Man can literally inhabit a body and destroy it from within, why not just do it to exact his revenge? 

As previously stated, this was all to pave the way for Dana shooting the kid who wasn't the kid and then having a bit of a breakdown over it. Now let's remember, she's pregnant and her partner is still MIA. It's not entirely surprising that she'd lose it a bit. I think she's too hard on herself, she's got more of an open mind than she realizes and seeing through the illusion is our latest and perhaps greatest example of that. I could use some of her open mind to help me through this. The beggar man's back in Mumbai after being shot by Scully? How? And more than that, why? I clearly need Mulder back to help me understand it better.

Meta-Montuzema's revenge: In The Complete X-Files, Shiban explained his original idea was for the beggar to climb inside someone's ear. "Chris Carter -- and this is why he's Chris Carter -- said 'No, no, no! I know what's even better." ... The episode title means "reprisal" or "vengeance" in Hindi.

Guest star of the week: All the guest characterizations are pretty paper-thin, but I'll give a measure of credit to Deep Roy for making the beggar a genuinely scary entity. I've been crossing my legs for an hour, I just don't want to risk going to the bathroom.