X-Files S11E3: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 is...

Sestra Amateur: 

This may be the first X-Files ep that starts at a rock concert. Enthusiastic stage diver Arkie Seavers literally sees himself but loses him/it in the crowd. Arkie drives away but his doppelganger is with him and causes a near-fatal accident. Should’ve worn your seatbelt, kid. Special Agent Fox Mulder somehow gets the call and learns several people had reported seeing themselves right before they committed suicide. Arkie is the only survivor of Doppelganger Syndrome (my term, not Chris Carter’s). Mulder and Special Agent Dana Scully interview Arkie – with his lawyer, Dean Cavalier, present – at the Henrico County Jail in Virginia. Seavers admits to driving drunk but claims he’d been seeing his double for a week. Team Sculder go out to the crash scene and the evidence supports Arkie’s version of events.

Scully and Mulder go to the hospital and interview Dr. Babsi Russel. She admits the previous victims were never treated for psychological issues but they weren’t fine upstanding citizens either. Fox is intrigued by a schizophrenic patient named Little Judy Poundstone (no relation to Paula). She’s a Hangman enthusiast who plays telepathically with her brother. She’d also played a game with Arkie’s name as the answer. Meanwhile, Arkie gets transferred into a cell where his doppelganger silently waits. Since it's getting late, Fox and Dana check into a motel room. She initially asks for two rooms but there’s only one available. (I guess they’ve regressed back to separate corners.) Too bad Mulder wakes Scully for work and nothing more; Arkie’s dead.

The next morning, Mulder interviews Chucky Poundstone (no relation to Paula), who is not only Judy’s twin brother, but was the trustee at the jail who found Arkie’s body. Chucky says some raunchy things about Scully and accuses Judy of cheating at Hangman. Chucky also has a Hangman puzzle with Arkie’s name and seems to have possible schizophrenic tendencies as well. Meanwhile, Scully meets Demon Judy, who claims Seavers killed himself. She attacks Dana’s self-esteem with words and her body with flying poop. Sculder meets at the motel to share information. It looks like Demon Judy’s mental illness may have gotten to Scully after all. And Chucky, not happy with attorney Dean Cavalier, starts a new Hangman game with his sestra.

Fox baits Chucky while Dana interviews Little Judy about her power to cause death. Judy claims she has pills to keep people safe. The nurses say they’re only pieces of bread but they take them like medication “just in case.” They encourage Scully to take them too. Meanwhile, Arkie’s attorney keeps seeing his doppelganger. He’s trying to rid his house of all lethal weapons: guns, knives, gardening tools, belts. (Wouldn’t it be easier to just leave the house, Dean?) He accidentally slashes his arm with a sword, then his doppelganger finishes the job. (Does that mean Chuck or Judy won Hangman?) 

Mulder again wakes up Scully with gruesome news. Unfortunately, Dana spots her doppelganger in the crowd outside the crime scene. She has trouble sleeping and wakes up Fox to ask him to hold her. Of course he complies. They talk and she utters my favorite line in the series, “And I’ll always be around to prove you wrong.” Scully starts worrying about hypothetical futures for their hypothetical private lives. The rest of their conversation is actually pretty frustrating: DOCTOR Scully will always have a career even if she gets fired by the FBI. DOCTOR Scully can take steps to have another child even without a boyfriend or Mulder. Then Dana’s double is there, staring at her with hatred in her eyes. Maybe the doppelganger knows their history and is also annoyed.

Team Chudy (Juck?) are playing Hangman with Fox's name now. He doesn’t react well when he sees his double in the motel shower. He wakes Scully, who’s sleeping on the other side of the bed and wearing a lot less clothing than she was during cuddle time. Dana reveals she’s also seen her doppelganger. It’s amusing how Chuck-Face is spelling Mulder (--UL--) but Judy thinks it’s Scully (--UL--). No wonder they’re both seeing doubles. But unlike Fox, Dana has a magical bread pill to keep her “safe.” 

Mulder arrives to arrest Chucky but ends up fighting himself. Luckily, Team Chudy have turned on each other and write each other’s names on the Hangman game. Scully and the nurses get terrorized by Demon Judy one last time before Dana finds Judy’s lifeless body. Fox finds the same situation with Chucky. Back in the motel room, the door is figuratively – and literally – still open for Fox and Dana’s personal relationship.

Sestra Professional:   

The X-Files has always been the "Mulder & Scully Show," somewhat to my chagrin as I found the concept to be inherently viable beyond the relationship of those two seminal characters. I think the original run could have gone on in Season 9's Twilight Zone-esque fashion with Doggett and Reyes, but I realize I'm in the minority with that one. Nevertheless, even with these restrictions, there have been episodes across the landscape in which Mulder and Scully are really the sideshow, and either the guest actors (i.e., Peter Boyle in S3E4's "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose") or the circumstances altogether (as in S3E20's "Jose Chung's From Outer Space") tend to relegate our heroes to the background.

Both of those ring somewhat true in "Plus One." Karin Konoval made a brief appearance in "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and an unforgettable impression as Mrs. Peacock in "Home" (S4E2), but she's literally four times as good here. It's a performance to feast your eyes upon over and over (and over and over) again. But lest that turn off those tuning in for the "M&S Show," there's plenty to salivate upon for the shippers.

The opening is such a TV trope, no one has ever seen another person in a gyrating throng of people rocking out. Kind of like how a wronged woman gets her cheating husband back after he's forsaken the bombshell half her age all year until a ridiculous cliffhanger. (Sorry, just finished bingeing Season 1 of Loot.) But returning to the concert, when I'm at a packed show, I barely can see the person next to me, let alone make out a complete form way back in the pack. Series creator Chris Carter recovers a point, though, for using The Fendermen song "Mule Skinner Blues." Hey, wait a minute, is that how Walter got his last name in the first place?

This is a mass phenomenon: Nice to get back to a bread-and-butter investigation. Dana explains it in what would seem to be a logical matter if we didn't happen to see Fox's version in the teaser. That sets up for an old-school X-Files ep, since Arkie Seavers is not a one-off (or two-off) and there's lots more where he/they came from.

So initially Fox and Dana are back in their separate corners personally, and Scully doth protest too much. And then Dana explains the case away again -- that really sounded kind of logical to me. But again, we saw it happen so... best to let that version of events fade away. And it's easy to do that with Mulder meeting Chucky Poundstone. I remember watching this originally, and it took me more than a minute to figure out Konoval was rocking Chucky's belligerence.

Nothing hurts like the truth: It was just fun and games until the point that Konoval assumes Demon Judy's persona. That is just some next-level dookie. Scully may not buy the telepathic game playing, but DJ pushes all Dana's buttons in just a couple minutes. And while Scully says she can't be hurt by those words, we as the Dana faithful actually can be. Luckily, our champion is picking up on the psychic transferrence while my hackles are raised. And Fox is around to remind her that she has "scoot in her boot."

Chucky No. 1 baits the threatening Mulder by saying he's seen attorneys with better cases take it on the chin in court, but good for Fox for rising to the occasion again and bringing on Chucky No. 2 in the process. Scully's doing the same with Judy No. 1 and we see some shadings of Judy No. 2, but that's circumvented by the handing over of the bread pills. Two questions spring to mind: What happened to them working on cases together and why would Dana be about to throw away evidence before the nurses stop her on a flimsy pretense?

Scully's all over the map. She makes complete sense when she explains that mass hysteria is just fear running wild. Less sense when she claims there's no such thing as ghosts or evil, two entities we've watched her experience. Another mark in the deterioration of Dana column ... and I can't figure out why in the world that would be done by someone who created the character to be an inspiration to a generation. That's a bigger mystery than the psychic transference.

Put a dimmer on that afterglow and get yourself to the hospital: We knew we'd get to the point when one or both leads would start to see his/her doppelganger. Oh well, whatever gets them in closer proximity, right? Scully seems to be having kind of a Loot crisis of conscience. Dana, I don't think you have to ever worry about Fox leaving you behind. Well, unless he starts to freak out about seeing another him. Didn't seem to get to him quite as much when it was Eddie Van Blunhdt ("Small Potatoes," S4E20) or Morris Fletcher ("Dreamland," S6E4-5).

It gets a little "Fight Club" (S7E20) in resolution -- and that was one of the series' real low points -- but at least it's more entertainingly so with actual suspense over what's going to happen to all the Mulders, Scullys and Poundstones. Consider it a real "Punch & Judy Show."

Guest star of the week: Quite obviously, it's Konoval. I don't think "Plus One" would play half as well with someone else in the roles. There's something subtle in Karin's work amidst all the flashiness required at the same time. And I'm not just saying that because she's one of the show's biggest champions, a woman who is wonderful to the fan base and works equally hard on personal pet projects such as raising awareness of the plight of orangutans and their conservation.