X-Files S9E1: Resetting with a 'Splash'

Sestra Amateur: 

The first episode of Season 9 – the final one in the show’s original run – is titled “Nothing Important Happened Today.” It first aired on Nov. 11, 2001, which according to the website onthisday.com, experienced only two noteworthy events -- three journalists were killed in Afghanistan and Belgium won their first Women’s Tennis Federation Cup. Guess which one is the highlight on the page. Since I’m writing this in the early morning hours of March 31, 2021, nothing has happened yet. Maybe I should have saved my review for April Fools’ Day.

In Baltimore, Maryland, a man (played by soap opera hopper Nicholas Walker) who clearly prefers his scotch straight up to on the rocks, chats up a woman (played by post-Xena Lucy Lawless) with the opposite mind-set. They leave the bar together. She forces him to drive his convertible off a bridge then has the gall to refuse to let him swim to the surface when his body needs air. Since he was complaining about the quality of water, is this coincidental or ironic?

Two days after giving birth, Agent Dana Scully looks packed and ready to leave, Agent John Doggett is one giant bruise and Agent Monica Reyes appears to be bruise-free. Assistant Director Brad Follmer (played by Cary Elwes, one of my faves) wants to see Reyes before she leaves D.C. Since Follmer is watching news footage of Carl Wormus, the dead man -- and Deputy Director of the Environmental Protection Agency -- pulled from the water, it appears to be work-related. But then Brad greets Monica with a kiss and gives us a glimpse into their previous relationship. Follmer gives Reyes surveillance videotapes related to Doggett’s drama from the season finale.

Meanwhile, John and Deputy Director Alvin Kersh share a tense elevator ride. Doggett meets with Monica, who shows him the tapes which seem to confirm nothing important happened that day -- no car chase, no explosion, no bullet in Krycek’s head. He goes to Fox Mulder’s apartment but it’s empty. (Yay!)

The woman who killed Carl shows up in the reclamation facility’s water. One of the employees follows her so she takes him for a swim. John goes to Dana’s apartment looking for Mulder, but she dodges efforts to explain where he went and why. Monica tries to get information from Assistant Director Walter Skinner but he’s not talking either. Skinner asks Doggett to drop his investigation in order to protect Sculder and their baby. Reyes picks a side, she’s with John. Monica later meets with Brad in a bar to complain about the loss of the X-Files Division and her expected return to New Orleans.

Doggett confronts Scully, who remains in denial about the possibility that her son may be a future super-soldier. She asks him to leave. John reaches out to his former Marine buddies to find information on Knowle Rohrer. He leaves a message for Shannon McMahon, the woman drowning everyone. (They should have obtained the rights to John Williams’ Jaws theme for her scenes.) Reyes crosses paths with her in the FBI building and senses something. In the X-files office, Monica later breaks a pencil, and because she can’t find the sharpener, takes one from the sacred ceiling shrine of lead. In the meantime, someone tips her off about Carl Wormus.

Dana has second thoughts about her “normal” baby and asks Doggett not to drop his investigation. She comes to assist Team Johnica at the county morgue. AD Skinner tries to warn John away from pursuing the investigation against Kersh while Scully does the autopsy. Doggett also requests assistance from the Lone Gunmen and they show up at his apartment. Langly’s looking a little blue (literally, not figuratively). Maybe because he misses Mulder? They don’t learn much about Carl, but Dana confirms he died by drowning. Reyes wants to know why Scully is back on board but Dana’s not talking … yet. Luckily, she gets distracted by the finger-shaped bruising on Wormus’ foot.

AD Follmer tips off DD Kersh about John’s unauthorized activities. Clearly, he’s out to get rid of his “competition,” but Alvin orders Brad to clean up his own mess. Shannon shows up unannounced at Scully’s apartment. Dana’s mom wisely doesn’t let her in. McMahon goes to the Maryland morgue, but Reyes gets herself and Scully to the elevator where they are overrun by Brad and his squad of agents. Dana plays the baby card to get out of there and leaves Monica to clean up the mess – figuratively, not literally. Luckily(?) Carl’s body is missing. Thank you, Shannon?

Reyes goes to Doggett’s apartment and hangs out with the Lone Gunmen. After insulting Frohike while also trying to keep him safe, she learns they found encrypted messages between Wormus and Roland McFarland (the other drowned dude). Team Skinett are looking for evidence at the reclamation facility when Follmer shows up with his men. John grabs some files and they run. Doggett hides in the water and it looks like he’s successful until Shannon grabs his foot and drags him down…

Sestra Professional: 

Another season, another new era on The X-Files, and not just because David Duchovny isn't in the credits (even the flailing Fox has fallen by the wayside). The less-eerie, more-techno opening theme made that abundantly clear. I've always been a proponent for the series being malleable enough to extend beyond the Mulder and Scully relationship, but this intro has lost a lot of its charm and creepiness. As we all know well, those co-existed seamlessly for many moons.

 

Is Annabeth Gish smiling in her FBI badge photo after graduating to series regular? She looks awesome, but if we can't smile in driver's license photos, it can't be acceptable to do so as a representative of the U.S. government. Well, at least Mitch Pileggi finally made it into the opening credits.

So aliens are out ... sorta ... and Xena: Warrior Princess and super-soldiers look like they're in ... kinda. It almost makes you long for the days of implants and shape-shifters. And now there's the requisite need to deal with Dana's bundle of joy. That's gonna weigh us down like a psycho mermaid pulling on our legs in deep water. At least the mind-bending trippy Scully theme seems to have been left behind in the eighth season. 

 

They can't just make this all go away: But John Doggett's back, and with a season of all preternatural craziness under his belt, he's got to be more open to possibilities, right? Looks like free-thinking Monica Reyes has returned with extra baggage in the form of Brad Follmer. Meanwhile, the tension between Doggett and Deputy Director Alvin Kersh has remained at a boiling point. That's almost comforting with everything else in a state of flux.

 

John's understandably unhappy about all the things missing from the FBI's video collection. Sure, there's nothing about Knowle Rohrer driving his car into a wall. Don't care so much about that, I'm still clinging to the last vestige of Krycek. If there's no footage of him being killed ... and staying dead ... maybe the "Alex became a super-soldier" theory isn't all wet.

 

And once again, the show needed to come up with a plausible reason for Mulder being gone since Duchovny didn't permanently return to the fold. It's not like Fox stopped by his apartment to pick up some things and then reboarded the spaceship. Meanwhile, Skinner's doing his annual regression thing under the guise of fear for Mulder, Scully and the baby. Well, at least he doesn't seem worried about nanobots any more.

I'd never betray a confidence: It makes no nevermind to me, I'm all in favor of turning the X-files investigations over to Doggett and Reyes. On one hand, we have John Doggett, the stalwart by-the-books investigator. On the other hand, there's Monica Reyes -- and mark this down, because it'll come up later -- the dedicated agent who actually wants to be in that basement office.

So where does that leave Dana Scully? Right now, she's a reluctant sounding board, worried mama and autopsier extraordinaire. It's certainly not what we want for a woman who has battled every conceivable obstacle for eight years. And it's not what we'd want for Gillian Anderson, who has proven she can convincingly act her way out of any supernatural situation. 

Like we got anything better to be doing these days: There's a tremendous amount of set-up work in the first episode of the season. The Lone Gunmen are back in the fold after their spin-off series was canceled. (That just might have worked had it gotten underway earlier in The X-Files run, they certainly haven't added much of note to the starter series the past few years.) If you weren't one of the few who watched their series finale, then you probably think Langley blue himself like Tobias from Arrested Development. A strange relationship seems to be building between the deputy director on the ropes and Monica's boy toy. And, of course, the miracle baby has some kind of X-filey powers.

Scully refers to Monica as Agent Reyes. That's a wee bit formal conversation for her to have with the woman who helped deliver her baby and even sang a whale song for her. And because Monica did all that, it also would have been nice if Dana didn't flatleave when Follmer confronts Reyes about the autopsy.

Nevertheless, as we determined at the start of Season 8, Doggett's good at his job. John pinpointed Shannon, he realized the connection to chloramine. If we can't have Fox -- yeah, I know Sestra Am's not exactly broken up about that -- I personally think the X-files are in as good hands as they can be with Doggett at the helm, even with the Dread Pirate Roberts serving as Kersh's wingman. If John manages to avoid the watery grave, that is.

Guest star of the week: Lucy Lawless doesn't need (or get) much time to settle in as the inversion of her Xena character. She's got to deliver on a demented Splash theme and Lawless makes it work for our new premise, even if she's not anywhere as scary as the Flukeman in "The Host" (Season 2, Episode 2).