X-Files S9E14: They did the monster mash

Sestra Amateur: 

In Fairhope, Pennsylvania, a young boy named Tommy Conlon is scared of something in his bedroom. His father, Jeffrey, played by Scott Paulin, just wants Tommy to go to sleep. Tommy can still hear the creature and tries to escape the room but dear old dad is holding the door closed. That’s called tough love, right? Fun fact: When you type “Fairhope Penn” into Google, the second suggested result is "Hillbilly Haven Fairhope Pennsylvania."

Dr. Dana Scully is trying to eat her lunch in between classes at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, when she gets a surprise visit from accountant Leyla Harrison, whom we first met in "Alone" (Season 8, Episode 19). Harrison manages to ruin Scully’s appetite with photographs from a graphic X-files case involving Tommy’s now-dead mother. Even though Tommy insisted a monster killed his mommy, the coroner’s autopsy determined the victim stabbed herself. Sixteen times. Harrison also claims the monster killed Tommy’s cat, Spanky. 

Dana dismisses Leyla and goes about her day until she gets a call from Special Agent Monica Reyes, who is heading to Pennsylvania with Special Agent John Doggett … and Harrison. She manages to convince Team Johnica to continue with the investigation. I wonder whether Leyla is as fascinated with Reyes and Doggett's expenses as she was with Sculder’s.

The trio meets with Jeffrey Conlon, but he sends the feds away. Luckily, John notices some physical evidence that convinces him to get a warrant to search the place. Too bad their car gets disabled in a very disgusting manner. Meanwhile, Dana gets woken up in the middle of the night by Harrison's friend Gabe Rotter, who hand-delivers Tommy’s dead cat. (Wow, the things a guy will do for a date.) 

Back in Fairhope, no one has a working car or phone, so it’s sleepover time. They hear Tommy scream for help upstairs and observe Jeffrey preventing his son – and the monsters – from leaving the bedroom. Doggett shoots the creature but that splits it into two monsters. Jeffrey tries to defend his actions but Leyla doesn’t buy it.

During the necropsy, Scully determines the cat did not commit suicide like Mrs. Conlon. She then speaks with Sheriff Jack Coogan (Jackie Coogan? Sounds like some kind of in-joke), who is familiar with the Conlon family. Too bad the worsening weather may make it difficult for him to get to the agents. Outside the Conlon home, the feds unearth a broken piece of mirror, not a monster. They’re preparing to leave the house with Tommy and Jeffrey when the sheriff arrives. Too bad it’s not actually him, just a meaty shell John is able to impale with his fist.

Gabe complains to Dana about Leyla’s fascination with Mulder and Scully. She decides to head to Pennsylvania with Mr. Rotter. After Team Johnica examines the “sheriff” and realizes he’s not a typical human being, Doggett proposes an interesting theory: Maybe they’re experiencing something similar to what happened to Team Sculder during an exposure to mushroom spores in "Field Trip" (S6E21). Tommy and Reyes head upstairs to his bedroom while Team Harriett tries to get more information from Jeffrey. Dear daddy claims he locked Tommy in the room with the monsters because he knew the creatures would not hurt his boy like they hurt everyone else. While they’re upstairs, Tommy shows Monica his latest drawing -- it depicts a creature inside her stomach.

Scully and Rotter (Scotter? Rully?) arrive at the Sheriff’s office but the big man doesn’t think they can get to the house safely. And Reyes, who now has a creature inside of her, realizes Tommy is the scary monster! (Of course, most parents of 8-year-old boys probably figured this out much earlier.) Too bad John chases the kid into the bedroom and falls into an abyss, where he gets attacked by hundreds of these things. Tommy then makes Leyla bleed from her eyes by drawing that very scene. 

Doggett, who managed to convince himself the creatures aren’t real, escapes from the room and confronts Jeffrey with the truth. And Mrs. Conlon truly did stab herself but only because of what Tommy caused her to believe. John and Jeffrey get the women out of the house while Doggett prepares to burn it to the ground with Tommy inside. The little boy thinks he’s bluffing until everything starts to burn. Somehow, his fear enables Leyla and Monica to heal. Team Scotter swoops in to save the day. Inside the house, Dana and Gabe find an alert John and an unconscious Tommy. Luckily, Doggett was bluffing and never set the fire. He didn’t even use actual gasoline. What a letdown.

Leyla and Gabe later visit Scully, Doggett and Reyes in the X-files office. Harrison’s backhanded compliment to Doggett shows she’s still a little in awe of the X-files agents. And Tommy’s treatment to stifle his imagination and prevent the return of the monsters? Television, lots of television. Interesting message from a TV show that aired for nine years and needed viewers to continue. I wonder whether they already knew The X-Files was being canceled by this point.

Sestra Professional: 

I'm sure it's been fairly evident that, on the whole, I'm a fan of Season 9. There are a couple main reasons for that. First and foremost, I've always thought the Doggett and Reyes characters show how malleable The X-Files formula could have been. I know legions of shippers will disagree with me on that front. But I think I could have the Star Trek universe in my corner in that regard. Second, it's because of the breadth of stories coming from a lot of different directions. I've mentioned The Twilight Zone cross-pollination on a number of occasions. Last week, Chris Carter gave us arguably his best stand-alone ep, and this week, well, lookie lookie, it's a throwback to the early X-Files (aka The Vancouver Years) complete with a textbook "creepy kid." 

That juxtaposition between the show creator's flight of fancy last time out and the return of Leyla Harrison makes the season's pendulum swings all the more apparent. So after jumping off the high board, we revisit the character who winds up speaking for the fandom simply because she herself is a fan of the Mulder and Scully dynamic and their work on X-files cases. Looks like a little temporary blindness in "Alone" did not permanently close her eyes to the cause.

How could someone stab themselves 16 times? This particular episode also reminds me of an episode of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff Angel -- "I've Got You Under My Skin" -- that had originally aired a couple of years earlier. The scenario feels sort of Millennium-istic to me as well with some misdirect over the behavior of a dad who seems to be extraordinarily tough on his young son.

Scully's still working hard at Quantico, so hard that she apparently doesn't have time to eat. She's gotta be used to that, right? It's not like we saw her and Mulder chowing down very often when they were working in the FBI basement. Gillian Anderson gets the bulk of this ep's light-hearted moments, if having to do a late-night autopsy on a dead cat can be categorized as light-hearted. It is fun to watch her unencumbered by the overbaked mythology for a while.

Mulder and Scully, Scully and Mulder, blah blah blah: So the actual monsters come off as cartoony, but I appreciate that since they're supposed to have been thought up by a young boy. It fits the profile. So does Gabe Rotter, when he voices sentiments he's had to have heard from Leyla a lot more than we have in the two episodes she's been a part of. I mean, we have gotten Sculder discussion to the point of distraction, right? It would have been worse on a guy trying to get with Harrison. And Rotter, named after the show's writers' assistant, must have heard such talk even more than the viewers. Symmetry!

Leyla's apparently having as much of an effect on John as the FBI investigators have on her. For Pete's sake, the man cited a previous X-file as a possible explanation for what's going on with the monsters. His guess of "Field Trip" was about as unsubstantiated as Harrison's reference to the boy fueled by lightning in "D.P.O." (S3E3). But at long last, Doggett's disbelief that things are really happening as they appear to be finally comes in handy for the ultimate resolution.

I made this: Once I stopped being tickled by the fact that eerie Tommy voices the words we hear every week for the show's production company Ten Thirteen, I focused on how great Annabeth Gish vocalized Monica's screaming. For some reason, I didn't doubt for a second that Reyes was in major pain from having a monster with pincers trying to claw its way out of her stomach. And poor Leyla. Two cases, twice victimized in the eyes.

As Sestra Am pointed out, that was a dispiriting way to end the episode, though, with the idea that inundating a young boy with even more television would be the only way to squelch his overactive imagination. But The Complete X-Files backs up Sestra's assertion, it was during production of this episode that the cast and crew found out the show was going to end its regular run.

It wasn't a complete bummer behind the scenes, though. I got some extra insight into Jolie Jenkins' return as Leyla via Cameo last year. "I wished for it so hard. I feel like I manifested it ... the opportunity to go back," Jolie told me. "Particularly working with Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish ... I had such a great time with the two of them. I just remember having so much fun. Everyone was so warm and friendly, and it was such a wonderful work environment in that way. And at the same time, everyone had such respect for the show and what Chris Carter was doing."

Guest star of the week: Apologies to Scott Paulin, but I'm giving it to Jenkins again. How thankless a task is representing The X-Files base at large? You got your shippers, your no-romos, your Vancouverians -- and a large chunk of that base was pretty disillusioned with the show by now. But for the second time in as many chances, Jenkins provided a breath of fresh air as the FBI's resident fan girl and she lived up to some lofty standards once again.

X-Files S9E13: Playing the numbers

Sestra Amateur: 

How bad can an episode be when the opening scene features Burt Reynolds? He’s in a casino, imparting wisdom to a pathetic gambler named Wayne. Both of their heads are turned by a lovely female loser who also always lets the house win. And her luck goes from bad to worse when she gets murdered in the bathroom by our pathetic gambler. Did Burt know that would happen? That seems … improbable.

Special Agent Monica Reyes is reading about the death. She picks Special Agent Dana Scully’s brain about the universe and mathematical equations. Monica believes she’s found a serial killer link via numerology and karmic numbers. Scully thinks it’s bunk but she does notice physical similarities with the victims’ injuries.

Wayne spots Burt playing three-card monte outside his apartment. Apparently, three is a very important number here -- people show up in threes, do things in threes, etc. It’s quite a rhythmic scene; too bad, Sestra Pro can’t attach a gif instead of a jpg to the blog. Wayne confronts Burt and upsets the apple cart when he doesn’t like what Burt has to say.

Meanwhile, Reyes visits Vicki Burdick, a numerologist played by Ellen Greene, who doesn’t really believe in her own science. Special Agent John Doggett calls Monica with an update: He and Dana have found two more victims with the same M.O. Now called the Triple Zero Killer, the feds have formed a task force to catch him. Too bad he found his way to the numerologist and adds her to his murder list. Wow, that too seems … improbable. FBI supervisor Fordyce, played by John Kapelos, loves Reyes' initiative but cringes at the esoteric aspects of her investigation.

The Triple Zero Killer meets with Burt at an outdoor café. Doggett briefly stops at their table to watch some domino action. Too bad he doesn’t know how close he is to the killer. Meanwhile, Scully is about to autopsy the numerologist but the number six keeps distracting her. She identifies “666” markings made on the other victims’ bodies by the murderer’s ring. Fordyce provides John with a textbook serial killer profile description and is surprised when Doggett doesn’t consider it much of a lead. Team Scules also stumbles across the killer, this time in an elevator. Too bad the women don’t know it’s him until Dana sees the ring on his finger. He manages to get away because Scully won’t shoot a fleeing unarmed man, even if he is a serial killer.

In the parking garage, they find Burt “waiting for a friend.” Instead of finding a way out of the garage and continuing their investigation, they play checkers with Burt and lose badly. Monica determines from the game they will be the next victims because the Triple Zero Killer targets a blonde, a brunette and a redhead. Reyes and Dana's argument about the patterns in the case and God’s influence over all of it lead Monica to believe the killer is still in the garage with them. (Yes, that means Burt is God.) 

The lights go out and Wayne attacks Reyes. He’s about to shoot Monica with her own gun when John arrives and shoots the Triple Zero Killer. So, to summarize, Scully and Reyes stopped looking for the killer, played checkers and had to be rescued by their male partner. That is the most improbable part of this whole episode.

Sestra Professional: 

It's time for some name-dropping of the highest order. My favorite college professor, Watson B. Duncan III, is the man who got Burt Reynolds into acting. As the story goes, and no one -- not even Chris Carter -- told a story better than Watson B. Duncan III, when Reynolds suffered a career-ending injury in football at Florida State University, he was at the end of his proverbial tether. When he returned to Palm Beach County, the multihonored English prof was the one who told him to try out for a play (and believe you me, Burt was none too willing at first). The rest is history and I'm glad The X-Files got to be a part of his storied career.

As Sestra Am noted earlier, Reynolds certainly made for a refreshing change of pace around these parts. There aren't a lot of actors who we could buy slotting into the role as Mr. Burt, a concoction that seems part hustler, part celestial being and all heart and soul. I'll give all the credit in the world to Carter for this. He finally stopped trying to be Darin Morgan/Vince Gilligan and gave us a truly unique concoction of his own. With complex numerical factors giving way to supernatural results, I believe Chris finally dialed into his comedic stand-alone ep voice within his own creation. He's come a long way from "Syzygy" (Season 3, Episode 13), baby.

It's playing the hand you're dealt: Carter really gives voice to some intriguing concepts through Mr. Burt, continuously reinforced via ingratiating refrains of famed French writer Karl Zéro songs like "Ca Va Ca Va" in the background. We're certainly not in the usual X-Files milieu, but we are on firm Season 9 ground for sure. It only helped my case to have just rewatched Magnolia, in which Paul Thomas Anderson detailed random occurrences that wound up being anything but while also raining frogs down on Los Angeles.

Come to think of it, "Improbable" is a lot like that film. There are aspects we take note -- like Sestra Am mentioning the penchant for things happening in threes, the rhythm of sweeping matching another Zéro song, and the expansive dance number at the conclusion -- but we can't tap into Carter's motivation and meaning on every single level. We can cling to the obvious ones (our agents running into the baddie in offhanded ways) and marvel at a greater picture we can't see quite as well as that final expansive image of Mr. Burt.

Go, girl: This is a really fun episode for Reyes. She has still been making Mulder-esque leaps during investigations, but the bulk of her "whale song" impulses this year have been muted. Utilizing numerology to crack unsolved murders provided a refreshing look at the investigator we knew was in there somewhere. And yet it also brings her point of view in line with the Scully we've always known and loved. In this episode, it truly is all connected.

Ellen Greene, long a favorite of mine on stage and in the heaven-sent Pushing Daisies cast, gives possibly the finest brief appearance in the show's run. Totally prejudiced here, but how one-note would a couple of scenes of the numerologist talking about filling out forms have been without being Greene? And equal kudos to John Kapelos. In nine years on the show, no one has hit the FBI crew chief note quite like The Breakfast Club's insightful janitor.

Choose better: That leaves Ray McKinnon to bring Mad Wayne to his inevitable conclusion. A performance largely overlooked because it's as big and brash as the episode requires him to be, the Sons of Anarchy/Deadwood veteran moves the proceedings along with the necessary unsophisticated blend of cluelessness and psychosis.

The scenes with Mr. Burt, Monica and Dana in the garage rank among my favorites for the season. The checkers scene is playful, but there's a greater, more X-filey sentiment at work. Yet I have to admit I never thought of the denouement quite the way Sestra Am envisioned it -- with John having to save his two brilliant co-workers -- and now I feel I will see it no other way, particularly since it's fitting a very particular Carter profile.

Guest star of the week: Greene and Kapelos add dashes of flavor to the concoction. But it's beyond improbable and jumping ahead to inconceivable to not give this ep's kudos to Reynolds. He utilizes all the tools at his disposal to make the ep unforgettable. That surely would make Watson B. Duncan III proud.