X-Files S9E9: Crime and Provenance

Sestra Amateur: 

It’s a good thing this is not a Monster-of-the-Week episode. I desperately needed the recap to remember everything I’d forgotten about The X-Files over the past couple of months. Alien ship? Check. Clones? Check. Baby with potentially supernatural abilities? Check.

In Burke County, North Dakota, local cops pursue a dirt biker suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Canadian border and they manage to chase the guy to his death. Seems like the punishment does not fit the crime in this case. And it looks like he was carrying something with markings similar to the alien ship from previous episodes "Biogenesis" (Season 6, Episode 22) and "The Sixth Extinction" (S7E1). (Without the recap, I probably wouldn’t have put that together.)

Back in Washington, D.C., Special Agent Dana Scully gets called into a meeting with several FBI bigwigs: Deputy Director Alvin Kersh, Assistant Director Walter Skinner, Assistant Director Brad Follmer and several unnamed extras. If this was an earlier ep, Cigarette-Smoking Man definitely would have been present. They blindside Scully with the evidence recovered from the dead biker, but Dana remains cagey until she gets downstairs to the X-files office. She pulls the case file with her copy of the rubbings of the alien markings from the ship found off the African coast two years earlier and shows them to Special Agents John Doggett and Monica Reyes.

Doggett drives to sunny, cool North Dakota and meets with the Special Agent in Charge – Brad Follmer -- who admits the border-crosser’s body has not been located yet. Turns out he’s been hiding in plain sight, camouflaged by the shrubbery and grass. The clearly injured biker is played by Neal McDonough, who has spent the past 20 years appearing on every television show known to man. He’s carrying an artifact which contains alien markings.

Scully meets with Reyes in the latter's apartment to talk about the translation of the alien language. Both women agree that if it’s the word of God, that could put all of mankind’s beliefs in question. Dana thinks the answers she’s looking for involve her son, William. John meets with Skinner and holds Walter’s feet to the fire. Doggett knows something is going on and wants answers. Of course, Skinner isn’t giving them so John searches Walter’s office and finds the rubbings in an unlocked drawer. Meanwhile in Alberta, Canada, an overnight dig reveals another buried ship.

Doggett wakes up Reyes in the middle of the night to show her the case file he obtained on Special Agent Robert Comer – the illegal border-crosser. Yep, he’s one of theirs. (John gets some interesting results without the convenience of a Deep Throat or Mr. X.) Meanwhile, Comer is looking a lot healthier as he hotwires a truck in Maryland. And Scully is trying to leave her apartment at night to meet with Team Johnica, but her mother, Margaret, is not happy about it. This may be the end of the free babysitting train, Dana. 

When she meets with Doggett and Reyes, Scully drops a bombshell -- the new rubbings don’t match the old ones. Too bad Agent Comer has found his way into Dana’s apartment. Scully finds her injured mother and makes a rookie mistake when going to check on William. Robert easily disarms her and locks her out of the baby’s room. Margaret throws a gun to her daughter, who shoots Comer before he can smother William. (Actually, I’m assuming that was Robert's intent. He might have just wanted William to have a more comfy pillow for better neck support.) 

Team Johnica arrive during the aftermath. Reyes takes Margaret and William to a safe location while Dana and John deal with Comer. Agent Scully wins out over Dr. Scully because she wants answers. Dogged Doggett calls 911 as Comer tells Scully her son has to die. After the paramedics take away Robert, Dana finds the artifact with alien markings in his jacket pocket.

For some reason, Agent Comer’s shooting is front-page news in Calgary, Alberta. A woman involved with the Alberta dig is especially interested in that story and she shows it to another man at the dig site. Back at FBI headquarters, Team Sculett appears before Kersh, Skinner and Follmer. This meeting has a different tone from the earlier one. Alvin discloses that Agent Comer was undercover to infiltrate a cult threatening Agent Fox Mulder. Follmer also claims Mulder may already be dead and they were trying to confirm that information. Scully leaves the meeting and goes home. Monica brings William home to Dana. The alien artifact wants to be with the baby too; it flies across the room and hovers over William. Is he controlling it?

John races over to Scully’s apartment. Reyes tries to explain William’s connection to the alien artifact but Doggett has some doubts. (Shocking, I know.) Team Scules (Reyly?) drive away with William while John confronts Alberta Woman, who has been staking out Dana’s apartment. In the battle of gun vs. car, the vehicle wins and Doggett is left for dead. Scully and Monica go to the Lone Gunmen, knowing William will be safe with them. (Yep, it’s Three Men and a Baby.) By the time Team Reyly return to Dana’s apartment, Skinner is on the scene and Doggett is hospital-bound. Scully immediately heads back to the Lone Gunmen, but they get ambushed by Alberta Woman who is about to take out Byers, permanently…

Sestra Professional: 

We've been away for a while, so it's kind of nice to see something hasn't changed in this topsy-turvy world. That's about the most complimentary I can be about the opening of this two-parter. Mythology episodes used to be compelling chapters in the ongoing story. Now they're these eye-rolling, been-there-done-that pieces that must be slogged through. And they're two-parters to boot, which means the already well-worn plot gets stretched out to the point at which random threads stick out. I don't think it's just cause Mulder and/or Cigarette-Smoking Man aren't currently on the canvas either.

 

Season 9 had sort of transformed into a mashup of The X-Files and The Twilight Zone. And it was working for the show, for the most part. Now we're back in FBI-vs.-those-attached-to-the-X-files mode again. It would be refreshing for everyone to be on the same page for a change.

 

They're not just words: Poor Scully. "They're all waiting for you" used to pertain to Mulder and his activities. Now it's become Dana's proverbial cross to bear. She'd like to know who or what is being investigated and won't say everything she knows because of it.  The FBI administrators are said to have a sense of their power. Oh well, maybe they should, considering what their overall mission is supposed to be.

Doggett gets to utter the best line in the episode when an allegedly dead man can not be found. "It happens every day, at least it does on the X-files." Brad Follmer threatens John, while Walter Skinner is falling mute once again. What might have been a better way to deal with the situation -- especially with the need for stretching the story out for two episodes -- would have been for Skinner to talk with Doggett about the supposition that Fox Mulder might have been rubbed out. OK, maybe they're not sure yet about telling Scully, but keeping John in the dark seems unnecessary. The extra script time building up to Dana finding out that news could have been better spent with some discussion about if and how they were going to tell her.

 

Reyes should have been clued in too, because Season 9 Monica's just smart as a tack. She understands that the markings are from scripture around the world. Scully also points out that science also plays an important part in the rubbings. And just to drive the point home, there's the overarching suggestion that "everything mankind believes in would come into question." OK, aliens know more than we do about religion and science. I consider that just a given at this point in the story. (But by the way, the aliens may be more knowledgable, but they sure crash a lot of ships.)

 

The question of what's going on with William is definitely legit, though. As little as we wanted Scully's child to be the center of the show's universe going forward, right now it's the only interesting thread left to pull from that unraveling fabric.

 

Your son ... has to die: Comer might have been an acceptable temporary stand-in for Mulder if the show hadn't shot his wad far too quickly. The agent had been undercover for six months, obviously dealing with a lot of stuff Scully, Doggett and Reyes wouldn't be privy to -- if they weren't stealing information from the organization they work for. That gives me a seed to plant for fan-fiction writers. What if Comer eventually becomes the character Neal McDonough played in Project Blue Book -- schemer General James Harding.

 

Anyway, why did Comer go that far? Was it because he was gulping the Kool-Aid after so many months with the cult? Or because he's part of the more nebulous, more skilled and thusly more dangerous faction of liars the FBI has become? They're now keeping things from people just because they don't think they can handle them. And the ongoing theory that Mulder's situation has been any more dangerous than that of Dana and William is ridiculous. The baby is constantly facing threat of elimination, and so is anyone around him.

Whatever you do, don't worry: The Lone Gunmen are also shadows of their former selves. They fail far more than they succeed. What did it take, a good two minutes for the trio to fail at protecting the precious cargo they had been entrusted with? Jeez, at least give them a misguided attempt at getting the job done before they fail so completely and miserably. 

 

So when I feel I'm being too hard on "Provenance," I think back at what these mythology episodes used to be able to accomplish, with our heroes not always winning but not losing to the point at which it's just embarrassing. And as a result, the dressing-down of the storyline seems like not nearly enough.

Guest star of the week: McDonough. Sestra Am is right. No matter how much TV you watch, you're probably familiar with his work. And you probably like him. In fact, I like him so much I'm giving him the kudos just because he's on the canvas. I mentioned Comer's journey might make for one particular great fan-fiction idea, but considering McDonough's number of credits, it's easy to draw parallels to a lot of his other roles too.