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.