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.