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.