“The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” But I can write about it, so how’s that for a loophole? In Kansas City – the one in Kansas, not Missouri – two probably Mormon missionaries reach out to Betty and Lulu, women who live in separate houses but look exactly alike and are both played by perennial D-Lister Kathy Griffin (her word, not mine). Betty and Lulu even have the same bumper stickers on their cars, although they’re on the opposite bumpers. Lulu slams the door on the men, and the duo starts fighting with each other over nothing. 
Police arrive to break up the tussle and now those starch white shirts need a major bleaching. The next day, Mulder, Scully and the missionaries arrive at Betty Templeton’s house. Actually, it’s not Fox or Dana, although they are voiced by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. It’s their doppelgangers who are “out there somewhere,” as Betty would say. (You’re a sneaky one, Chris Carter.) Faux Sculder are doubting the existence of Betty’s double when Lulu happens to drive by. Faux-ly then punches Faux-der and the fight is on! The brawl continues until our intrepid doppelgangers crash into a tree. Now the real Sculder get the case.Fox enjoys laying the facts out for Dana, but she’s not interested in playing Watson to his Sherlock this time (her words, not mine). Of course, she does manage to figure out Mulder’s theory. Meanwhile, poor Lulu Pfeiffer is trying to get a job at Koko’s Copy Center, but her unstable employment and residential histories make the manager nervous. Luckily, all the copiers go haywire and he asks her to start immediately. Then Betty arrives to apply for the job, but since it’s no longer available she applies at a nearby Koko’s. While trying to find Betty, Sculder run across Bert Zupanic -- played by Randall "Tex" Cobb -- but the shady character is less than forthcoming. Fox waits for Bert to leave, then breaks into his hotel room. Bert meets with Betty at a dive bar named Froggy’s and she doesn’t seem to know him. Then Lulu walks in and chaos ensues. Betty and Bert escape through the back of the bar.
Scully meets with Mulder and wrestling promoter Argyle Saperstein -- played by Art Evans -- at a nearby arena, where Bert "The Titanic" Zupanic is expected to wrestle. Bert wants his good luck charm (his words, not mine) -- Betty -- by his side when he fights. Scully knows all about Lulu and how the two women have crossed paths through 17 states over the past 12 years. The next morning, Betty is in Bert’s bathroom when Lulu arrives, livid that Bert stood her up at the bar the night before. He talks his way out of it and sends her away. When Betty exits the bathroom, the upstairs neighbors start fighting and shoot several rounds into the floor. Luckily, Bert and Betty are unhurt, but I can’t really speak for the neighbors. Later at Froggy’s, Lulu arrives for lunch and Argyle, who’s waiting for a cash payoff from Bert, confuses her with Betty, who arrives after Bert. The women see each other and the bar again explodes into chaos. (How did they manage to repair the previous damage so quickly? That’s some awesome insurance coverage.) In the aftermath, Argyle takes the suitcase full of cash from an unconscious Bert and bolts. "The Titanic" regains consciousness with Sculder hovering over him asking questions.
Fox tracks down Betty at work. She blames everything on Lulu. Dana gets a similar saga from Lulu. Both doppelgangers refuse to leave Kansas. Lulu drives past Betty and poor Mulder, who is literally in between them, gets sucked into a manhole. “Bulu” drive away without even trying to help the now-underground Fox. Scully arrives to look for her partner, but gets distracted by the Internet. This leads her to Bob Danfous, the incarcerated and extraordinarily irritated biological father of Betty Templeton and Lulu Pfeiffer, thanks to his sperm bank donations.Meanwhile, Bert, panicked because he thinks he lost his financing, is still juggling Betty and Lulu. Betty thinks she’s helping Burt by photocopying hundred-dollar bills. So does Lulu. If it were really that easy, don’t you think everyone would do it? Mulder finally manages to escape the storm drain and calls Scully. She updates him on the girls’ paternal history with the “angriest man in the world” (her words, not mine). He updates her on the girls’ boyfriend-in-common, Bert, who Dana finds incarcerated in the penitentiary. But Bert’s actually at the arena, where Argyle claims Bert still owes him money. Betty shows up with a bagful of counterfeit cash and Titanic Zupanic is allowed to wrestle. Mulder arrives to arrest Betty, but Lulu shows up with her own bag of counterfeit bills (which Argyle promptly takes off her hands) so Fox carries Betty away to prevent a riot in the packed arena. It doesn’t work.
During the melee, Scully strolls in with Bert’s doppelganger and the crowd stops fighting. For a minute there, Dana’s pretty pleased with herself. Unfortunately, Bert and other-Bert reignite everyone’s anger and the brawls begin again. Looks like the referee is the only unscathed one. Scully ends up with some nasty facial injuries and Mulder’s jaw is wired shut. That’s somewhat fitting, considering how he wasn’t very forthcoming with Scully at the beginning of the episode. Betty and Lulu finally take their aggressions out on each other. Hopefully they’ll be forced to live at opposite ends of the country. And what about Argyle and his two bags of fake hundred-dollar bills? He seems to be the only winner in this story, unless the reason Sculder arranged for him to come to their office at FBI Headquarters was for more than exposition.Sestra Professional:
It's been pretty easy to adhere to the first rule of "Fight Club," because The X-Files' variation on the theme is one of the least effective episodes in the entire run of the series. I'd rather watch the movie version of Fight Club than rewatch this one, and I didn't even like the 1999 film starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
But onward and we're seeing double, definitely two too many. You can almost see and hear the wheels turning in show creator Chris Carter's head when he was putting the script for this one together -- hey what's better than two Jehovah's Witnesses fighting? Ooooh, Mulder and Scully fighting! Or at least an amazing facsimile in the form of Steve Kiziak (David Duchovny's stunt double) and Arlene Pileggi (Skinner's real-life wife and Gillian Anderson's double). Don't go thinking I'm going to start doing the autopsies: I'd like to blame the failing of this episode on the inconsistency of the metaphysical events, the women are blocks away in the teaser when the two missionaries start duking it out but a whole wrestling scene plays out with Betty and Lulu in the same auditorium before things start to get hinky. It's much more than that, though. And Mark Snow's score goes as purposefully overboard as the rest of the proceedings to make sure we know it's supposed to be a comedy episode.
So after an overly playful explanation of the case and slide show, we're treated to an exact copy -- hefty pun intended in the spirit of an ep in which no joke lands without a thud -- of the job-seeking scene with Betty and Lulu. The laundry list of jobs they've both had includes Mongolian barbeque chef and wild animal trainer, lines that were barely funny the first time but twice as eye-rolling the second time. Basically there are no Fight Club rules for what we're witnessing. A tussle can break out when one drives by the other, but Lulu can physically walk into the bar Betty's in before things go sideways. Remember how much trouble Carter had with his Heathers homage, "Szyzgy" (Season 3, Episode 13)? That was perfekt compared to this one. At least there was an attempt at reasoning back then -- something about planetary alignment that ended at the stroke of midnight. Scully pulls her punch with a line about putting the "I" in FBI (it's more like the "B" ... as in bull****). Mulder tags one with a quip about learning some wrestling moves so he can quit getting his ass kicked so much.
Meanwhile, the incongruity between the convenient psychokinetic events continues -- sometimes they cause fighting, sometimes it's more akin to an earthquake. I'm not sure an explanation could have helped that out, but I would have liked a stronger one all the same. Luckily for Mulder, he gets sucked into a storm drain with such pinpoint accuracy that he sustains no injuries (at that point) and the manhole cover pops perfectly back on top. What's so special about you? There's a jail scene that goes for partial justification of the doppelgangers' connection, but ultimately only proves Anderson can act any-thing. I'd be impressed if I wasn't so inherently bored by the concept of shoutyshout guy -- the alleged angriest man in the world -- explaining his sperm donation. I think Carter realllly needed a summer break about this time. He reportedly was writing the pilot for The Lone Gunman at the same time as he was preparing this script. I think he needed his own doppelganger.
And the closest we got to seeing Fox and Dana put up their dukes was in the forms of their stunt doubles and an impressive job by the makeup crew? Well, I guess that's what we would have seen anyway if Mulder and Scully got it on here in the physical sense. No, not the one that shippers hadn't loosened their grip on for almost eight years. And take heart, Carter will get much better at visualizing the concept of fate by Season 9's "Improbable."
Guest star of the week: As much as I want to give the nod to Arlene Pileggi or even Kathy Griffin for putting her head(s) down and charging through this brouhaha, I'm going to go with Randall "Tex" Cobb. Not a lot of the goings-on here make sense or even hold interest, but I can kinda understand why Betty and Lulu duke it out over lovable lug Bert Zupanic and the way he clings to superstition in beliefs that at least one of them is his good luck charm and ultimately will change his fortune.
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