X-Files S8E19: Leyla, you got me on my knees

Sestra Amateur: 

In Ellicott, New York, located south of Buffalo, an old and infirmed man named Arlen Sacks is living in fear. His caretaker son, Gary, seems fed up, mainly because it’s chilly outside when he checks the house locks. (In his son’s defense, it’s a nippy 16 degrees Fahrenheit that day in Ellicott. But this episode aired on May 6, 2001, when the Buffalo temperature ranged from 42 to 69 degrees Fahrenheit. Suck it up, Gary.) The old man knows someone (something?) is coming for him and it looks like his fear comes true. Gary finally gets with the program, but only after he is attacked by the same creature.

Inside the X-files office, Dana Scully reminisces while preparing for maternity leave. She bonds with John Doggett, who will need a new partner for the foreseeable future, if not longer. Luckily, someone strolls right into his office. Agent Leyla Harrison (Jolie Jenkins, who currently can be seen on several Netflix comedy series), arrives with the Sacks case. They fly to the crime scene, where Arlen’s body is found in the woods. Son Gary is missing and presumed guilty. Harrison seems giddy when Doggett finds slime at the crime scene. She’s quite the X-files groupie. Even though she’s new to field work, Leyla worked in the FBI’s accounting division and marveled over Sculder’s travel expenses for years.

Back in the normal world, Scully and Fox Mulder are preparing for a Lamaze class. Dana is worried about Doggett working alone, but Fox blows it off, claiming John can take care of himself. That’s an awfully flippant attitude for someone who knows most X-files cases shouldn’t be worked alone. How many times did Scully have to save his butt? And Fox came to her rescue quite a few times, as well. In fact, Doggett already died once in “The Gift” (Season 8, Episode 11)! You’re not gaining any points with me, Mulder.

John is searching the Sacks home and finds a book titled The Sixth Extinction. (Maybe it’s a summary of the Season 7 opening two-parter of The X-Files.) Doggett senses something in the house and tells Harrison to wait outside the front door. After taking her post, she hears a rattling and shoots at something above her head. John realizes she’s been dragged into the woods and follows until he falls into an obscured oubliette. (OK, it’s just a trap door, but how often do we get to use the word oubliette in our daily lives? My last one was a follow-up reference in “731” (S3E10) about “Oubliette” (S3E8) so it’s been 3½ years for me.)

Since two FBI agents are missing, Assistant Director Walter Skinner arrives to lead the local law enforcement search party. Dana, who feels helpless, calls Skinner. Doggett regains consciousness underground but has no cell phone service (gasp!) and can’t find the exit door. Scully puts herself to use by autopsying Arlen Sacks. (Many thanks to Agent Harrison for having enough foresight to ship the body back to Washington, D.C.) Dana finds slime on Arlen’s eyes and realizes venom blinded him. He then died of heart failure. Mulder, who  separated himself from a tour group to get access to Scully, mentions how Team Dogison -- Team Harriett? I kinda like that -- sent similar slime samples to be analyzed.

Doggett encounters the slime creature, which resembles a giant salamander. John shoots but misses, mainly because he’s been temporarily blinded. Agent Harrison finds John and brings him to Gary Sacks, who’s not looking well. Mulder throws caution to the wind and heads to the scene. Walter reveals they’re going to check a new search location (based on a false lead), so Mulder heads into the woods alone. While searching for clues, he encounters biologist Herman Stites. Herman, played by familiar face Zach Grenier, is the one who gave Arlen Sacks a copy of The Sixth Extinction. He also owns the house and property. Fox introduces himself as Alvin Kersh. (The assistant director is going to love hearing about this. Maybe he’ll file charges against Mulder for impersonating a federal agent.)  

Below them, Doggett is slowly crawling his way to the surface. He makes it to the top after Mulder walks away from Herman. Of course, Stites prevents John’s escape by crushing his hand so Doggett falls back into the pit. While Team Harriett discuss their options, Gary disappears.

Scully updates Mulder about the effect his presence is having on the FBI higher-ups. He seems delighted with it, but annoyed that Dana regifted his Apollo 11 medallion to Doggett when she packed up her office for maternity leave. Luckily, Fox found it on the Stites property and believes John is still there somewhere. Back underground, Leyla is now completely blind. Doggett shoots at Salamander Man, who’s been feasting on Gary’s body. Unfortunately he misses again and it gets away again.

Dana calls to tell Fox that Herman Stites is a cryptobiologist who tried to create a new reptile species. Mulder sees the man-sized creature and chases it toward the house, where it crawls up the wall to gain entry upstairs. But Herman is Salamander Man and he morphs back into his human form before he opens the front door for Fox. They head underground to help Agents Doggett and Harrison, but Leyla realizes Stites is the creature. Herman transforms into Salamander Man and Mulder guides a blind Doggett who is able to kill the threat which is now back in human form. Later in the hospital, Sculder visit John, who is no longer visually challenged. Harrison is improving, but decides life as an FBI agent is not for her. At least she has the Apollo 11 medallion as a keepsake. 

Sestra Professional: 

 

I'll just say straight off that this is one of my favorite episodes of Season 8 and it's also one of my favorites for repeated viewings from the entire series. And that's mainly due to fresh-faced Leyla Harrison, perfectly played by the sparkling Guest Star of the Week, Jolie Jenkins. (There really wasn't any suspense to be had in saving that for the end.)

Right off the bat, Leyla comes off as a well-meaning fan, the kind we all probably would be if we were on an X-files case. In fact, the character was named after an early X-Files fan-fiction writer who passed away of cancer in 2001. In our case, Harrison represents the viewers who, after watching nearly eight seasons of this show, think we would have the procedure down pat if initiated into the department. But then we'd come face to face with the reality of the situation, just like Leyla does in "Alone."

 

Harrison comes complete with that questioning nature endemic to the fan base. All those nagging questions mulled over endlessly on message boards and in chat groups. One of those examples is in this story. If Scully had the fused coins in her desk because everything not in the path when time snapped back was not altered in the "Dreamland" two-parter (S6E3-4), then Deputy Director Kersh still would have known they weren't where they were supposed to be.

 

This ep features one of the creepier monsters from the back end of the series. Remember the Vancouver years, when the cases Mulder and Scully investigated had a real eerie vibe to them -- be they liver-eating mutants in "Squeeze" (S1E3) and "Tooms" (S1E21) or more of the hair-obsessed fetishist (S2E13's "Irresistible") variety? Salamander Man certainly fits that bill.

 

It means no one gets there alone: Oh wow, I just got that. No one gets there "Alone." All the times I just said I've watched this episode and I never connected the title to Scully's (and later Doggett's) sentence full of meaning. So there's one vote for needing repeated viewings.

 

There are a lot of sweet bonding moments in this monster-of-the-week episode. Dana and John in the office together seemed to be a well-deserved payoff to the strong work they did together before what's-his-name came back. Mulder guiding Doggett to shoot the Salamander had real suspense to it, while the regifting of the regifting's regifting added the final perfect touch.

What is that, slime? But before that, we get a look at an agent in the field for the first time. Decked out in her little Scully suit, Agent Harrison isn't the least bit qualified, but she does know the X-files inside and out on paper. She's so beyond green that she has to be told to take the safety off her gun and she thinks the case they're on could be connected to an array of previous culprits. But as Sestra Am said, at least she did have the wherewithal to send the body to D.C. and the slime samples in for analysis.

 

In his first directorial effort, Chris Carter's right-hand man Frank Spotnitz -- who also penned the episode -- gives a nod to David Fincher's underappreciated camera work on Alien 3. There's the added bonus of the haze that shows us what it would be like with venom squirted in our eyes. Doesn't look like a good time.

 

Talk about the blind leading the blind: Of course, our Faux Kersh figures things out a lot faster than real Kersh ever could. In fact, Alvin probably would sweep the whole thing under the rug. The cool thing is that Fox's prowess doesn't make John's contribution any less important. Doggett works doggedly to get them out of there. And he's pretty gentle about dealing with his newbie tagalong. Here's a guy who spent a whole year getting railroaded and being denigrated by people he works for, but John still keeps his cool with her. And it pays off, because eventually she does put her years of X-files knowledge together with the facts to figure out Stites is his own test subject.

 

In the end, Harrison gets to ask one of the fandom's biggest questions about how Mulder and Scully got back to the mainland at the end of Fight the Future. But we never do get a resolution on that. Instead, the executive producer casts doubt on something we thought we had worked out. In the closed captioning of the feature film, Scully says she saw the spaceship. But now, Dana says she never did. That darn Spotzy.

I recently enjoyed a Cameo video message from Jolie Jenkins, who wasn't an avid fan when she booked the role, but had a lot of reverence for the show because family members were into it. "Isn't it the best ever? It was such fun getting that job and then even more fun doing that job. Sometimes the best part is like getting the job and doing the job is like 'eh,'" she said. But Jenkins did have to overcome one hurdle due to her pre-existing eye conditions. "Going into the job, I had all these eye fears," she said. "I had to wear these crazy contacts you can't really see. ... I really had to face all my eye fears doing X-Files. ... I had a great time."