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.