Sestra Amateur:
You know how to tell when The X-Files is wrapping up a season? They circle back to previous mythology and someone – usually Fox Mulder – does an allegedly deep but often meandering voice-over. This time, we begin with the opening credits scene from Look Who’s Talking but without the frivolous Beach Boys soundtrack. Of course, while narrating the act of conception, growth and birth, Fox manages to make it about himself. It almost makes you look forward to that rude awakening and rewritten history in Season 11. Almost.
Margaret Scully is throwing a baby shower for Dana and correctly guesses her daughter is carrying a boy. Lizzy Gill (Frances Fisher) is hired by Margaret help Scully, but she’s snooping in medicine cabinets and being filmed at sinister angles so we shouldn’t trust her. She’s also replacing Dana’s medication. Meanwhile, at Zeus Genetics in Germantown, Maryland (a place we first visited back in Season 8, Episode 13 “Per Manum”). Dr. Lev, who is holding an “alien” baby, gets murdered by the current version of Billy Miles, who we last saw in “Deadalive” (S8E15). Nu-Billy burns down the building because murder isn’t enough.
Agent John Doggett is enjoying a relaxing day off watching NASCAR and cleaning his gun when former Agent Fox Mulder ruins the mood with the Zeus Genetics story. Doggett requests the FBI Crime Lab peeps secure the evidence. Agent Gene Crane is not happy to be called into work and he’s even more annoyed that John is entertaining Fox’s theories. Mulder thinks they’ll find Lev’s remains in the fire. He tells Doggett the other founder of Zeus Genetics, Dr. James Parenti, used to be Scully’s OB-GYN (which stands for Oh Boy…). Team Mulett break into Parenti’s office. He takes umbrage and claims his work is to prevent non-survivable birth defects in infants. Fox plays the Dana card, which doesn’t work to support his argument.
Back at Scully’s place, Lizzy is brazen enough to get picked up outside the apartment building in broad daylight by Duffy Haskell, who we also last saw in “Per Manum.” She thinks Dana trusts her. Agent Crane believes they found Dr. Lev’s remains and then some. John reminds Mulder that “unidentifiable” doesn’t always mean “alien.” Team Mulett heads to Dr. Parenti’s office. Too bad Nu-Billy gets there first. 
Doggett finds a head in a jar while Fox runs into Nu-Billy, who throws Mulder through a glass wall. Nu-Billy has neck implants just like John’s former contact Knowle Rohrer in “Three Words” (S8E16). Doggett shoots Nu-Billy, who doesn’t go down but doesn’t stick around either. Luckily, Scully is still a medical doctor, so she is able to stitch up Fox’s forehead. He’s short-sighted enough to complain about pain to a woman who soon will be expelling a human being through the birth canal.
Mulder claims Billy is not Billy anymore, but John uses Fox’s own reports against him to show Miles is not an alien. Fox agrees Billy is in a category all his own as an abductee who was tortured by aliens and survived only after shedding his skin. Mulder tells Dana he’s concerned about “this baby of yours.” Does he really think he isn’t the father?! Lizzy arrives unexpectedly and updates Duffy by phone. Luckily, Nu-Billy dispatches Haskell fairly quickly. Mid-sentence, in fact.
The next morning, Doggett meets with Assistant Director Walter Skinner at the latest crime scene. Considering how involved he was in “Per Manum,” I’m surprised John didn’t involve Walter in the Team Mulett weekend investigations sooner. Skinner points out the connections between Dr. Lev, Dr. Parenti, Duffy Haskell and Scully. Fox joins the conversation and Walter demands to know who the father of Dana’s baby is. Mulder doesn’t give him answers but calls Scully to arrange a meeting. Knowing Fox’s narcissistic tendencies, I’m surprised he hasn’t announced to the world he impregnated a barren woman.
Dana catches Lizzy switching out her meds and immediately goes to her current OB-GYN Dr. Mary Speake, who we met briefly in “Empedocles” (S8E17). Margaret and Mulder are there for moral support. Dr. Speake claims Lizzy was giving Scully vitamin supplements and the baby is fine. Skinner brings Fox to Lizzy’s interview. Ms. Gill says she was a research scientist who worked with human eggs and alien DNA. They used the infants’ tissue and stem cells for other experiments. Lizzy claims they’re trying to protect Dana, whose unborn baby is very special. Mulder bails on the interview to take Scully away and keep her safe.
Alex claims the super soldiers (replacements, replicants, pick a noun) want the child because they are afraid of the miracle baby's implications. Krycek wanted to prevent the birth because he was trying to destroy the truth that a higher power is involved. Yeah, Dana won’t forget that anytime soon, Krycek. She doesn’t even get an “I told you so” moment when the others believe God might exist. And do they even know neck implants are a way to tell who the replicants are?
Sestra Professional:
This episode -- penned by show runner Chris Carter, of course -- feels like a two-parter in and of itself. There's the setup surrounding the miracle baby and then the action/adventure of getting Scully and her bundle to safety. The first part is pretty dry, for Pete's sake, there's a baby shower in it and discussion of the baby's sex that feels like it should be in a thirtysomething episode. But after the proverbial bases are covered, the second part really kicks into overdrive.
The mythology once was at the center of our known universe, but the pretentious voiceovers heralding these episodes have put a damper on that excitement. They've become more akin to vocabulary tests. Class, today's words are extract, implant and inseminate. Granted, we're used to these particular terms from the ongoing story, but the lead-ins are constructed with such a heavy hand that they feel oppressive from the jumping-off point because they're not put together with Mulder's normal nomenclature. Now they got me doing it too, I'm starting to see the attraction.
He is a type of alien: Conversely, and as previously stated the last time we saw Billy Miles in "Deadalive," bringing him back into the fold has provided a jolt for the ongoing story, as well as a viable reason for having Krycek back in the mix. Alex has been the perfect foil for Fox and the good guys as long as he's been around. And Billy's change from mild-mannered victim to hard-charging terminator feels strangely organic in terms of our story structure. Plus, he's a threat at a level Krycek never could attain.
I think it also benefits the story greatly to have Doggett in the middle of the proceedings. We're ahead of him on the mythology learning curve, that's strangely comforting. We've seen fetuses in jars before, he hasn't ... although he should have read about them while poring over the old cases. It feels right to have his face in the middle of this -- Robert Patrick is particularly fabulous at aiming his gun while conducting searches -- and he's a real shot in the arm for the ongoing saga.
You have to keep a cool head: Although the show seems to be lumbering to a possible finale, the super soldiers deliver another sign that it could move in a new direction with John at the forefront. The super soldiers provide the strange dual effect of making me nostalgic for aliens with green blood and inconsistent toxicity, while eager to move on with Doggett and Reyes. Luckily Skinner's also in tow to help balance things out.
From the moment we learned of the pregnancy in "Requiem" at the end of Season 7, we knew it was only a matter of time before Scully's baby became the center of attention. Dana perfectly hits the nail on the head when she says she can't live as the object of some unending X-file. I don't particularly want that either, but that's where we seem to be heading.
Hey, look who's back: Still, Carter has this one really well plotted out. For every piece of business that needs to be done, he gives us something unexpected. Like Alex as Mulder and Scully's savior. I say that not only because Krycek is my favorite character in the series, but because the idea of Fox and Dana being beholden to him is another fine stroke in an episode with a bunch of them. Ever notice how Alex always knows what's going on? He doesn't react to the proceedings like our heroes would, but he always knows the dealio. If only he used his powers for good.
So the effort to get Scully and her bundle to safety winds up being as much fun as we've had with the mythology in years. It also reminded me a lot of the sensational sequence in "Triangle" (S6E3) -- also by Carter -- that found Dana, or at least Mulder's idealized version of her, racing around FBI Headquarters trying to get information that would help her save him in the Bermuda Triangle. I never would have foreseen Fox leaving Scully in Krycek's care, let alone having Alex and Dana holding hands while trying to avoid Billy Miles.
Nicholas Lea addressed Krycek's turnaround in The Complete X-Files: "Toward the end, he realizes that it's possible that the world could completely go down the tubes -- then he's got a stake in trying to keep that from happening. That's when he starts giving the information to Mulder so that he can use it."
By the way, time has been kind to Doggett and Monica Reyes. They weren't given much wiggle room by the fan base at large during the original run for fear they would be replacing the stars who turned the show into a juggernaut. Now they're downright beloved by X-Philes who are keeping the spirit of the program alive, and I think it's -- in large part -- because in rewatching these episodes, the quality of their respective characters is evident. Another point for Carter. I'm having a real push-pull thing with him in "Essence."
Guest star of the week: Frances Fisher. This was great timing for me, a day earlier, I watched a Zoom chat with Frances and two best friends from her earliest days on the daytime soap opera Edge of Night. Fisher only gets a couple of scenes to put up a front we know to be false as Lizzy. She's strong enough to handle those kinda clunky moments and the total turnaround that follows it flawlessly.
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