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.

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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.