X-Files S7E1: Our latest 'key to everything' in X-files

Sestra Amateur: 

Good news, you only had to wait two weeks to hear outcome of the Season 6 cliffhanger, not six months like first-run fans endured back in 1999. Scully is narrating her tale on the Ivory Coast of West Africa, but it sounds more like a love letter than a case summary for her partner. Dana is experiencing some weird phenomena -- she sees an African tribal man in a reflection and her tent is overrun with locusts. Hate when that happens.

Back in the Georgetown psych ward, Mulder’s extremely high brain function won’t let him sleep, so he’s left in a padded room. (I wonder how much time has passed from last ep to this one. Scully narrates like she’s been on the Ivory Coast for weeks, but Fox barely needs a shave.) Assistant director Skinner visits and Mulder-with-the-blank-stare attacks him. The staff sedates Fox, but Mulder managed to give Walter a tiny note written in blood: “Help me.” (How did Fox write it so precisely when he doesn’t have access to anything?! And how did the padded room cameras not pick up on that? Remember how I’ve complained about episodes using cell phones -- or lack thereof -- as a contrived plot point? This is the low-tech equivalent.) And speaking of Africa, Professor Amina Ngebe has arrived to help Dana and remind her the locals will think a disappearing tribal man, locusts (and now the burning ocean) are warnings from God.

Skinner and Fox start working together while Scully is desperately in need of Google Translate because she can’t understand what a man has come to tell her. Luckily (?!) the murderous Dr. Barnes arrives and offers to interpret. Dana defends her camp with a machete. Barnes claims he did not murder Dr. Merkmallen and shifts blame to our government (like Chris Carter usually does in his eps). The ocean turns blood red and Scully again briefly sees the African tribal man. It looks like everyone will be working together after all.

Mulder sends Walter to contact Michael Kritschgau (common spelling), who you may or may not remember from his three-episode run beginning with "Gethsemane" (Season 4, Episode 24). The last time Fox asked Kritsch for a favor it didn’t end well for the government employee, so he’s reluctant to help. But Mulder’s psychic ability is still intact because he keeps answering Kritschgau’s unasked questions. “Skingau” relocate Fox to an unmonitored area where Walter gives Mulder a drug recommended by Michael. Meanwhile, Diana Fowley has arrived and is clearly being kept out of the loop. The haters must have loved that. 

Dana continues to review the markings on the buried ship, using an old Navajo alphabet to translate the words. Professor Ngebe claims the ship’s markings refer to passages in the Koran and contain the word of God. Barnes denies the word, focuses on the science of evolution and threatens the ladies with the machete. But the doc gets distracted by some fish-related resurrection and Scully's able to clock him with a chair so the ladies can escape. During the getaway, Dana’s disappearing tribal man then warns her, “Some truths are not for you.” Hasn’t Scully essentially been saying that all episode? 

She taps out and leaves Africa instead of going with Amina to the local police. While that’s going on, Mulder surpasses Kritschgau's expectations with his psychic ability. Fox goes fugue again so Kritsch shoots him up with more drugs over Walter’s initial objection. Fowley and the doctors find Mulder, who suffers a seizure. When he’s stabilized, Diana confesses she knows he knows she’s loyal to Cancer Man. She also admits she loves Fox, but Mulder keeps his gag reflex in check so Diana will think he’s still unresponsive.

Dr. Barnes hacks his driver to death, but it doesn’t take. The driver gets resurrected revenge on Barnes and he drops dead in the water beside the alien ship. Scully finally makes it home and demands Skinner tell her where Mulder is. He takes full responsibility for what he and Kritschgau attempted. Dana claims Fox is not dying, he's more alive than his body can handle. Mulder hears Doctor Scully in the hallway but she doesn’t even look at his medical chart when she finally gets entry. (Bad doctor!) Dana gets weepy as she tells Fox to hold on, but he doesn’t respond. 

Back on the Ivory Coast, Amina and local police find Barnes’ body in the water but the ship is no longer visible. So even when Mulder recovers, there’s no longer a puzzle for Sculder to solve together? Also, Fox should remember this useful tool in the future: Fake a coma and women will come out of the woodwork with their true feelings. Interesting message, Mr. Carter.

Sestra Professional: 

I'm ready to dig into Season 7. Truth be told, I've often ranked this the lowest of the original run seasons because of the overall lack of energy and wanderlust that seemed to permeate the show this year, but I'm willing to go all Mulder and keep an open mind to see how I feel about it this time around for this rewatch.

And so we start off with Scully doing the voiceover -- a sign she's progressed far since her skeptical beginnings. And if the words do sound too heavy-handed and out of character -- i.e., talk of what's taken hold of Fox "consuming his beautiful mind" -- it does chart a new course for Dana. (And it also falls in line with the X-Files standard for pontification via narration.) For although she believes what she's found may have been meant for Fox to make sense of with connections denying logic and reason, she'll be still trying to prove the theory that in the source of every illness lies its cure.

His brain is on constant red line: Mulder's fricasseed cerebellum does ring true. The guy has so many facts and figures and X-files trapped in his noggin that it's a wonder it didn't happen sooner. He may or may not be able to control the mind meld he's suffering, but we're seeing a lot of his fighting spirit. Meanwhile, poor Skinner's become a veritable Krycek -- he's the one taking regular beatings now.

Scully's new strength becomes her -- as does not having a hair dryer at the beach. She's starting off the season strong despite the swarm of insects in her tent. But not too strong, because the voiceover moments that feel better suited to a soft-core romance novel continue throughout the episode. That can be jarring when juxtaposed immediately with the image of Dana wielding a machete.

Barnes, he's kind of blah. Well, he was kind of blah. He's imposing in terms of size, but too stone-faced and meandering to serve of real value to the story. With each stilted line he utters, I feel the absence of the likes of Cigarette Smoking Man and Well-Manicured Man more and more. 

Even though we haven't seen Kritschgau for two years, he's contributing more to the process than Barnes. Not a bad idea to factor him back into the equation so he can explain all about remote viewing and CIA investigations into minds working harder than brains can sustain. Side note: Don't you love it when a character says "I'll never do that" and then does the very thing he/she said they wouldn't do later in the same scene? 

It's the most beautiful, intricate work of art: Meanwhile back on the Ivory Coast, Scully's dealing with locusts, a sea of blood and discovery of passages from religion and the complete human genome. So everyone's banking on the day of final judgment being some kind of combination of science and mysticism.

Barnes gets a little more interesting near the end. He seems to have a pretty good handle on everything except what his fate will be ultimately. Hitting him with a chair could be the least effective method of taking care of a threat the show has ever produced, but I guess that was so he could be taken care of by a more mythical faction. What all this has to do with spacecraft etchings escapes me, since I'm obviously not working at Fox's current brain speed.

Who ya gonna call? This episode finally finds a niche for Fowley. Mulder's powers confirm his suspicions that Diana is allied with CSM. His state provides the added bonus of getting Walter off the hook. And for the last time, I'll point out that the exciting episode which initially put Skinner under Krycek's thumb (Season 6 Episode 9's "S.R. 819") has been all but wasted since. We didn't see much of Walter after that, and he minimally proved to be a stumbling block to our heroes before this reveal.

Sestra Am's certainly right that the "some truths are not for you" uttered to Dana by the tribal man was chapter and verse what she was saying the whole episode, but it's still a creepy moment nonetheless. And the last scene with Scully imploring Mulder to hold on is quite affecting -- much more so than Fowley's confession of love. So if Fox knows all the truths inside everyone, he certainly knows what's in Dana's heart too now, right?

Meta mites: According to "The Sixth Extinction" director Kim Manners, insects wouldn't swarm Gillian Anderson on cue, so the team had to "blow popcorn and packing foam at her with big fans." The critters were added in postproduction, he said in the official episode guide. ... In the not-a-bad-theory department: If the spaceship Scully touches has healing powers, might Dana now be able to conceive a child?

Guest star of the week: Kritschgau hadn't factored into the proceedings in quite a while, but John Finn's appearance fit in well here. And not only because he served Mulder, the inkling of what helping Team Sculder the first time cost Michael was nicely played with nuance.