We’re back in Monster-of-the-Week mode, which is preferred after the last intriguing-but-ultimately-icky episode. This MOW is about a chimera (pronounced "kai-mare-a," but I really want to say "chime-ra"). In Greek mythology, it’s a fire-breathing creature with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail. (I’m not sure if those are the best or worst parts of these animals to be fusing together.) It also has a non-specific definition of “imaginary monster.” But the non-mythological translation of chimera is that it’s an unobtainable dream. Being The X-Files, I’m expecting it to lean more toward the former than the latter.
It’s Easter time in Bethany, Vermont, where Martha Crittendon has planned the perfect celebration for the community. Her daughter, Michelle, seems to be finding all of the hidden Easter eggs. She wanders into the woods and gets startled by a raven and one of the other mothers, Jenny Uphouse. Michelle drops her basket and runs away. Later that night, after calling her husband, Howard, to tell him what happened, Martha finds the raven in their house and gets attacked by a horrible-looking creature. (See? The former.) Sculder are conducting surveillance on a female serial killer in a seedy part of D.C. (insert political joke here) when Assistant Director Skinner reassigns Fox to the Crittendon case. Martha has been missing for two weeks and Walter wants Mulder on the case because of the raven factor. Howard’s position as a federal judge has made this a priority case for the F.B.I. The next morning, Mulder meets with Sheriff Phil Adderly, whose wife is friends with Martha. Fox notices how perfect the home looks. (OK, maybe it’s the latter after all.) He also sees four claw marks on the mantel and asks about the missing broken mirror in the living room. Howard thinks Martha is with a lover because he found a room key and birth control pills, even though he’d had a vasectomy.
Ellen Adderly is handing out missing person fliers when Jenny startles her. After Jenny leaves, Ellen sees a hideous reflection in a car window and the glass shatters. Later that night, the Adderlys arrange for Fox to stay in their home. At dinnertime, Ellen prepares the perfect meal. The Crittendons are having depressing mac and cheese when the raven returns. Actually it’s ravens now, plural, and they were kind enough to unearth Martha’s buried body in the backyard. (So none of the cops noticed a disturbed area of the yard over the past two weeks?!) Ellen tells Mulder and her husband about the monster she saw earlier that day. The sheriff is a non-believer, but Fox explains that mirrors (and windows) are doorways which can be used to summon spirits. When asked who could have done the summoning, Ellen points them in Jenny’s direction. Ms. Uphouse denies any involvement, while dropping hints about Martha (and Phil’s) less-than-perfect lives. Meanwhile, Ellen is cleaning her living room and the sweeper sucks up a key similar to Martha’s. The raven appears on her child’s crib. Ellen bravely grabs the baby and runs as the creature appears and chases them, breaking mirrors along the way. (The former!) Luckily, Phil arrives home in time, but he thinks it’s all in Ellen’s head. The sheriff gets the key from Mulder and later uses it to unlock the door to a cabin where Jenny is waiting to have sex with him.
The next morning Ellen has made the perfect breakfast (the latter!) and even ironed Fox's shirt. They have a talk about the importance of family and relationships before Phil returns home from “work.” Mulder reveals Martha was four weeks pregnant but Sheriff Adderly isn’t naming names. (I’m still trying to figure out why a law enforcement officer is wearing a uniform that’s clearly missing its badge.) Back in the hotel room, the ravens pay a visit to Jenny. The mirrored ceiling crashes down on her as she gets attacked by the beast. (The former!) Adderly and Fox respond to the scene, where the sheriff finally admits to affairs with both Jenny and Martha. The pig claims his wife trapped him into staying in a loveless marriage by getting pregnant. (I guess he wasn’t using condoms with anyone. Classy guy.) Of course, now that Phil could be considered a suspect, he’s on board with the supernatural aspect of the case. But poor Ellen realizes the wound on the back of her neck occurred when she fought the creature.
By the way, Scully solved the D.C. mystery. There was no serial killer, just a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” This convinces Mulder that Ellen is their killer, but she’s too afraid to see herself for what she really is. She/it attacks Fox and gives him a good thrashing before attempting to drown him. But Ellen defeats the monster inside and releases Mulder. She gets committed to a psychiatric facility and the doctors rationalize her condition as dissociative identity disorder, which is figuratively and literally true. Hope you’re happy, sheriff. Now go find your badge. Sestra Professional:
This is one of those episodes I admittedly don't remember as well as most of them in the series. After reviewing it this week, I'm considering that a good thing.
During the original run, I never really got up in arms about the show moving from Vancouver to Hollywood. At the time, I just thought anything keeping the increasingly unhappy David Duchovny in the fold would be a good thing. But as we get deeper into Season 7, I'm starting to have a long-delayed adverse reaction to that change.There's something ennobling in that: A Vancouver episode would never open with the idyllic Easter teaser we get in "Chimera." Even if the plotline was startingly similar, there would be something undercutting the whole thing. That was the atmosphere of Vancouver. And this show is a pretty good example of why I usually rank the Season 7 at the bottom of my favorite season list.
If you ask me, the stakeout about the alleged female serial killer is much more interesting than this raven business. Then again, if we're talking about round-the-clock exposure to a seamy underbelly, Fox's venture into the 'burbs seems to fit a similar bill. It's just shaded better in pastels.
What a crazy caper: This is a little too Peyton Place for me. I'd call it soap opera, but the daytime drama The Edge of Night utilized its Raven a heck of a lot better than The X-Files does here. Writer David Amann (with the assistance of staff writer Greg Walker, according to the official episode guide) utilizes every single thing he's ever heard about ravens in this story -- they're attracted to death and decay ... they are companions to evil. It's overkill, literally and figuratively.I find that happens on occasion with Amann's scripts for the show, but at the same time, I appreciate his distinctive take on our genre. I'm one of a precious few who love "Agua Mala" (Season 6, Episode 13), but this year's "Rush" (S7E5) suffered from some of the same oversimplification that "Chimera" does. "Terms of Endearment" (S6E7) and next season's "Invocation" (S8E5) are underrated -- in my opinion -- and his final effort for the show, "Release," (S9E17) will be one of my favorites of Season 9.
There are just parts of the episode that teeter perilously on the edge of a proverbial cliff. The sheriff -- in addition to not knowing the whereabouts of his badge -- thinks his wife has imagined everything due to stress. Occasionally, he does make a salient point, like when he pointed out that Mulder thinks the broken mirrors have deeper meaning, but couldn't tell him exactly why. (Our expert profiler from the Vancouver years wouldn't have such a problem, isn't that textbook psycho for "can't bear to look at him or herself?")
In the midst of the sheriff's scum and villainy, we get one scene that serves to move our core story along. Mulder confesses (to evil's companion) that he doesn't have a significant other "in the widely understood definition of that term." It doesn't quite mean he doesn't have someone in his life, though. I thought it was a nice subtle way of making the point. And there wasn't a lot of that in this one.Witness that the solution to Dana's surveillance helps Fox solve his case. I'm going to overlook that quick fix in favor of considering this another way of looking at Mulder's thought processes. The ability to draw the parallel makes Fox the special agent he really is. On the other talon, Mulder's lucky that he got through to Ellen on some level, because she really had him at a disadvantage in that bathtub. On the other other talon, again maybe I'm not giving Fox enough credit. The fact that he was able to reach her also means he saved his own life. He's truly a special special agent.
Metatarsals: Scully's not in the raven's share of this episode because Gillian Anderson was in preproduction for next week's "all things," which she wrote and directed. ... Sadly, this was the last screen credit for Gina Mastrogiacomo (Jenny Uphouse), who passed away from a rare bacterial heart infection the following year. ... It wasn't too difficult for Michelle Joyner (Ellen) to act as mom to the baby in her scenes. Katy was played by Joyner's real-life twin boys.Guest star of the week: The cast doesn't get much to work with, on paper, all the characters seem to be cutout dolls. I'm giving the nod to Joyner, largely on the basis of the scene in which Ellen encourages Fox not to miss out on having a family. It's the only thing that hits home in this one. Does the fact that she's also the raven detract from that?
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