X-Files S4E24: Bunk or debunk, that is the question

Sestra Amateur: 

Chris Carter gets the final word as another season comes to an end with "Gethsemane" (common spelling). The episode opens with a televised NASA symposium about alien life from Nov. 20, 1972. (Imagine 5-year-old Sestra Pro sitting intently in front of the family TV, just like teen-aged Chris Carter probably was.) Fast forward to May 1997 – when this episode aired – and Scully is at a crime scene identifying a dead body. She later appears before an FBI committee to tell the tale of how she joined the X-Files and how Fox Mulder came to “believe the lie."

Dana is at a family dinner and the family priest is trying to save Scully's soul before the cancer kills her. Luckily, Mulder calls her away to meet a forensic anthropologist named Arlinsky, who unearthed a frozen body deep in the Yukon Territory. Arlinsky claims the “extraterrestrial biological entity” is at least 200 years old and insists the samples were not faked. Clearly he doesn’t know the government. And why not just call the episode "E.B.E. Part 2"? (Part 1 was Season 1, Episode 17.) That is so much easier to spell – and say – than "Gethsemane." Sculder veer into a philosophical discussion about God and belief. Meanwhile, Dana's cancer has metastasized and clearly she needs a season-finale miracle.

Back on the mountain, Babcock arms himself because he has trust issues with the other men. There’s evidence of possible tampering with the ice, which ruins Arlinsky’s theory. Another man, Rolston, heads back down on foot. Scully gets a breakdown of the ice from a different scientist. He finds something unusual and wants to look into it further. The crew members are executed on the mountain. Mulder and Arlinsky arrive at the deserted site the following morning. They take a walk and find Rolston’s dead body. Fox and Arlinsky push on, following footprints in the snow. It’s so much easier to track people in snow, isn’t it?

Dana interrupts a burglary and theft at the lab, but doesn’t realize it until it’s too late. An unidentified man steals the ice sample and pushes Scully down the stairs when she pursues him. Mulder and Arlinsky find the crew’s dead bodies in the tents at the peak. Not only that, the E.B.E. is missing from the ice. Fox seems more affected by the missing alien than the poor murder victims. Makes you wonder how much time has passed for him between the last episode (in which he put his brain through hell trying to recover his memories) and this episode. Maybe apathy is a side effect of ketamine treatments and electroconvulsive therapy. Babcock is still alive, but he’s seriously injured. Somehow he managed to hide the E.B.E. from the hit squad.

Dana’s brother, Bill, meets her at the hospital and admits he knows about her cancer diagnosis. He’s pissed because she won’t stop working and because Mulder isn’t there for her, emotionally or physically. Luckily for Fox, Dana doesn’t tell Bill that Mulder is searching for aliens on a Canadian mountaintop. Continuity error: Sestra Pro, can you explain how Scully had several blood-stained blotches on the back of her shirt even though we didn’t see any visible cuts from her fall there? Her facial bruises don’t explain it and even if she had one of her frequent nosebleeds, she would have had to take off her shirt to use it as a big-ass tissue.

FBI Agent Hedin is tasked with doing the analysis work Agent Pendrell would have handled had he not been stupidly murdered six episodes ago ("Max," S4E18) . Based on Scully’s suggestion, her assailant is identified as government employee Michael Kritschgau (again, common spelling). Arlinsky is beginning the E.B.E.’s autopsy while Mulder watches and Babcock records with a video camera. Inside the creature’s body, the doctor finds evidence that it is not human. Dana confronts Kritschgau in the parking garage at the Pentagon and stops short of actually mowing him down. He runs away from her and takes off in his own car. She takes a shortcut and gets him out of the car at gunpoint. He claims he’ll be killed by the same people who gave her cancer. That’s enough to get Scully to stop yelling at him.

Dana learns Fox is back in Virginia with the E.B.E. She believes Kritschgau and brings him to Mulder to show they've both been set up. He just has an answer for everything, but Fox doesn’t believe. Ironic, huh? At the same time, an assassin working with Babcock kills Arlinsky. Sculder return to the warehouse and find Arlinsky’s body … as well as Babcock’s. No loss there, you can double-cross only so many times before it bites you in the butt. 

Scully explains to Mulder why she believed Kritschgau, but her partner doesn’t want to hear it. Fox waits until he is alone in his apartment, watching that same NASA panel, before showing signs of emotion and despair. Dana tells the FBI committee Fox Mulder died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Aren’t you glad you don’t have to wait an entire summer to find out how Fox gets out of this one?

Sestra Professional:

I put forth that no episode of The X-Files loses more impact upon rewatch than "Gethsemane." We obviously know that Mulder isn't dead. And we spend the entire show watching Sculder document things that have already happened. Fox treks to the peak of a mountain to find a crew murdered, except one guy who saved the alleged alien body that everyone else was supposedly killed for. Meanwhile, Scully -- her health still in decline -- tries to get an ice sample documented. Dana gets knocked down the stairs for her trouble, but recovers enough to nab the guy who did it.

Even worse, our dynamic duo spend very little time together. At the beginning, they have a clunky stairway discussion in which Mulder's belief in aliens is juxtaposed with Scully's faith in God. And at the end, they listen to Dana's attacker -- who claims he was doing the conspiracy's bidding to save his son -- systematically explain almost every part of the mythology in less than five minutes.

Now contrast that with "Anasazi," the incredible second-season closer in which the tension is kept at a fever pitch. Yeah, we didn't expect Fox to be a goner after Cigarette-Smoking Man ordered the boxcar he's hiding in to be burned, but at least it was Mulder at the center of the action. Also, this one has no CSM ... or Skinner ... or Krycek ... or even X to propel the story.

But back to the start of the episode. Had I known the space symposium with Carl Sagan was on in 1972, I probably would have been crossed-legged in front of the TV in anticipation. As I actually was on May 18, 1997 when "Gethsamene" aired with the big cliffhanger -- Mulder dead, What??? No!!! Not sure I was aware they were making the first feature film during the summer, I was actually concerned about Fox's welfare and David Duchovny's future on the show. 

A victim of his own false hopes and his belief in the biggest of lies: Another season is coming to an end, so I suppose it was time for another round of "Scully was assigned to the X-Files to debunk Mulder's work." OK, I can take that. What I never have been able to abide are the blanket statements about the work. Just because the alien investigation takes a turn, that doesn't negate all the work they have done. Was Season 1's Tooms (Episodes 3, 21) bogus? Did Season 3's Pusher (Episode 17) not push? Everything isn't every-thing.

The Yukon territory was certainly picturesque, though. I could have watched 45 minutes of the helicopter flying around and the guys trucking to the peak. I would have used that time to work on the pronunciation of "Gethsemane." Looked pretty frosty on location, I felt for the actors. I'm glad I can reflect on calling it "Geth-us-mon" before the light bulb went on from the warmth of my own home.

We get a proper look at Dana's brother ... Bill. Another Bill. Could they come up with no other name? And the guy's a tool and he's rather two-dimensional, but maybe he's a tool with a point. Scully's health is worsening and Fox is out getting his toes frozen in the name of his quest. 

There is some interesting character development with Dana, and as we've been accustomed to, Gillian Anderson just rocks it. She gets pulled into an awkward discussion with Father McCue, explaining she does have strength and feels it's hypocritical to ask God for help when she hadn't been attending church when she was well. But nope, Sestra Am, I didn't see any reason for Scully to have cuts after she fell down the stairwell from what aired. Something might have been cut ... out. (According to the fourth-season episode guide, 12 minutes had to be edited out of the show.)

Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to make Fox believe as though a complete corpse of an extraterrestrial biological entity that is over 200 years old was stuffed into a crevasse at high altitude. It's the ultimate punk job. And the question is actually raised in the episode. If this were a hoax, why were there six dead men up on the mountain? I still don't have the answer for that.

This is your holy grail, not mine: We're reminded that Scully's just been tagging along  on Mulder's ride when she tells him it's not her last dying wish to find out whether the aliens exist or not. He's knocked down another peg when she later tells him that the people involved in the conspiracy are the ones who gave her cancer.

So Kritschgau knocks down every one of Fox's presumptions -- after the guy who shoved Dana down the stairs is invited to Mulder's apartment. He starts with a great Chris Carter supposition, these people gained power and momentum during the Cold War. There's lots of Carter-esque bunk in his dialogue with words such as "unbridled and unchecked" and "confabulating," but the main point is crystal clear -- "Their lies are so deep, the only way to cover them is to create something even more incredible."

After a line about the lies they fed Mulder's father -- a blatant attempt to get him off the hook -- Kritschgau talks about the above-top-secret military aircraft that feeds the hysteria, the naturally occurring biologic anomalies that will eventually be explained by science frozen into place and that Fox was only meant to see the E.B.E. -- not to test it. What took four years to build up was deconstructed by Kritschgau (and Carter) in over five minutes. 

Freezing our meta off: I was worried when the credits started at the beginning of the episode, because I never had fallen victim to "So-and-so was on The X-Files?" I thought I had when I saw the name John Oliver in the credits, though. I didn't remember The Daily Show alum/star of his own show was in this one at all. But IMDb revealed that the John Oliver who played Rolston is also known as actor Gerry Bean. ... The episode was filmed a week before David's wedding to Téa Leoni. ... The cavern set built in a warehouse near Vancouver registered 21 degrees below Fahrenheit, according to the fourth-season episode guide. "I think I left a couple of toes on that soundstage," Duchovny quipped. ... The other outdoor scenes were filmed at Mount Seymour. ... The guide said Michael Kritschgau was named for a former drama teacher of Anderson's.

Guest star of the week: John Finn must have had a really big impact on me as Kritschgau. I never again bought into the story the way I did before his spiel (although "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" (S3E20) already had me questioning it). Heaps of credit to Finn for delivering Carter's bombastic morasses so succinctly.

X-Files S4E23: Getting some exorcise

Sestra Amateur: 

Here’s some useless trivia: On May 11, 1997, the same day FOX aired this show, NBC ran a 3rd Rock from the Sun episode which contained an X-Files subplot. (For those not familiar with it, the comedy was about four aliens masquerading as a human family to study earthlings.) Harry -- the not-too-bright one -- throws out a prediction about The X-Files episode they’re watching; “I bet they break the genetic code and realize Scully’s been implanted by the smoking guy.” Good insight by writers Mark Brazill and Christine Zander, considering Scully’s pregnancy with William doesn’t occur until Season 7 and Cancer Man’s icky revelation in Season 11. Anyway, back to this week’s episode.

Adult Fox is dreaming about his young sister, Samantha, who shows him a forgotten memory involving their parents. Mulder wakes up sweaty and covered in blood in a Providence, Rhode Island motel room and, of course, calls Scully for help. Interesting how Fox of all people doesn’t lock the motel room door or the bathroom door when he takes a shower. We know he’s paranoid and has major trust issues, but seriously, has he never seen Psycho? 

Dana examines Mulder, who has no memory of the past couple of days. She asks some pretty good questions and learns at least two bullets were fired from his gun … but was Fox the one who pulled the trigger? Scully assumes he’s suffering from a medical issue; Mulder has yet to offer one of his otherworldly explanations. There’s a set of keys in the room which belong to “Amy.” At this point, you’re probably asking, “Who is Amy?” Well, join the club. Meanwhile, an unknown man is cutting his own face out of every … single … picture. There’s blood dripping from the guy’s head, so that can’t be good.

Amy’s keys work on the car outside Fox’s motel room. Sculder try to locate the owner – David Cassandra – and/or Amy at the registered address. The housekeeper seems suspicious, but still lets them into the house. Amy has a weird painting fetish, she only paints images of her old house. But Mulder recognizes the home from when his family summered on Rhode Island. 

The dynamic duo goes there and Fox gets hit with violent memories about his family and Cancer Man. Inside the abandoned, cobwebby home, Sculder find the Cassandras … each dead from a single gunshot wound. Gee, with all this circumstantial evidence, Fox should just turn himself in and plead guilty … didn’t we already see this plot with Walter Skinner (S3E21)? It would be more intriguing if Mulder had a threesome with the older Cassandra couple before assassinating them…

Detective Curtis clearly doesn’t buy Fox's seizure story. Dana attends the autopsy -- a major conflict of interest. After all, she told Mulder not to say anything else while he rode with detectives to the hospital. She notices a small puncture wound on Cassandra’s head and requests a craniotomy be performed. The detective claims he has evidence contradicting Fox's limited statement. Curtis reveals Mulder's bloody shirt and arrests him. Fox appears to be an autumn because the orange prison jumpsuit is a flattering color on him. 

Scully arrives with pertinent medical evidence -- the Cassandras and Mulder both had ketamine in their systems. That isn't good enough for the detective, so Mulder stays in jail. Curiously, one of the police officers is Michael Fazekas, the bleeding man cutting up photographs earlier in the episode. Without any provocation, he shoots himself in the head with his own handgun. Dana notices a puncture mark on his head and drags Curtis back into the investigation. The detective says Fazekas was reassigned because of anger issues with his partner. The officer also believed he had been abducted by aliens. While sifting through Fazekas’ property, Scully finds an Abductee magazine with Cassandra on the cover. I’m seeing a pattern here.

Mulder is back in dreamland. His parents are arguing about Samantha while a young Cancer Man looks on. He disturbs the whole cell block all night long. I wonder why they haven’t contacted Skinner about Fox being a murder suspect. That must be Dana's doing. Scully arrives the next morning and updates Mulder on her investigation. Turns out Amy Cassandra and Officer Fazekas were receiving radical psychiatric treatment. The case appears to be murder-suicide.

Fox's car is located outside the office of Dr. Charles Goldstein. (I’m guessing Dana and Curtis did not put out an A.P.B. on the missing car. These episodes where Scully is equally good and bad at her job are extremely frustrating.)  The doctor claims he has not met Mulder before. Goldstein takes the rare position of not stalling the investigation by claiming doctor-patient confidentiality; he’s pretty much an open book. But Dana thinks he administered the ketamine and Fox knows he’s met the doctor before. They leave the office and Mulder continues to suffer from memory attacks, which he wants to encourage so he can get answers. After all, the truth is “in there.”

At his mother's house, Fox confronts her and she slaps him. They have such a healthy relationship. Instead of asking about Samantha’s abduction, he hounds her about the possibility that Cancer Man is his real father. Mulder, who is bleeding from his head like Fazekas, takes off without Scully. That’s gonna be a long walk back, hope she’s wearing sensible shoes.

Fox returns to Dr. Goldstein, who admits to drilling the hole in Mulder’s head to trigger memories via electrical stimulation. He tells the doctor to treat him again and they begin another round of “therapy.” Fox revisits the past in his mind, but Curtis and his backup arrive a little too late -- Mulder is already gone. At least they arrest Goldstein. Scully finally shows up and interrogates the doctor. Tired of being manhandled by the tiny female agent, Goldstein caves and tells her about Fox's plan to “exorcise his demons.” 

Local police set up outside the Mulder summer home in Rhode Island. Dana enters and Fox -- suffering from memory overload -- points his gun at her. She tries to convince him to trust her. He fires several shots – not at Scully, of course. You didn’t really think he would shoot her, right? Then he loses consciousness. Dana actually writes up a report related to Fox's little adventure so at least it’s officially documented. I hope Skinner gave him at least a month’s suspension without pay for conduct unbecoming an agent. Too bad Mulder can’t just ask Harry from 3rd Rock about aliens.

Sestra Professional:

I'll just state this outright. Maybe "Demons" should have been used as the basis for the first feature film.

The episode starts with a blood-covered Mulder not remembering anything about the previous couple of days. The intensity only gets ratcheted up as those occurrences become clear and the mythology gets propelled with heightened flashbacks of the childhood incident that scarred him for life. The vivid imagery and emotional toll really won't be matched again, even on the big screen.

It's all ... falling into place: This one seemed to be under the radar during the show's original run, but it has started to garner more recognition -- and rightfully so for David Duchovny's performance -- in the ensuing years.

Chris Carter and Bob Goodwin powerfully advance the story in an atypical direction. And David makes the most of his chance to expand upon Fox's character. He's not just "Spooky" any longer. We've seen him willing to pay any price to find out the truth for four years, but the stakes seemed perilously lethal in this particular one. "Demons" sets the stage for Mulder's fifth-season arc, but almost at too high a cost. 

The rest of the narrative is far too convenient and suspect: Down the road, we're going to see some standard genre tropes -- particularly in Fight the Future (filmed after this season and released following the next one) and some downright insulting conceits. It'll never feel this real or severe again. Mulder using an aggressive method to access his buried memories, we can definitely buy that one. Putting his fate in the hands of a doctor he knows has lied? That's a fearsome proposition.

Give much credit to Kim Manners, who completely unbalances us in the flashback scenes. From his off-kilter perspective and through grainy heightened color, we don't get a clear sense of what's going on -- a lot like Mulder's point of view. And it's also reminiscent of our own nightmares -- not really clear, not making a lot of sense. We want to figure it out, not just for him, but for our own peace of mind.

This is not the way to the truth: We're brought back down to Earth some by Scully's supposition that they aren't true memories, just in the way our own dreams don't truly reflect what's going on in them. It isn't reality. If you've ever been so tired that you've had those "electrical storm in the brain" moments, that'll make a lot of sense to you. It's another mark in the plus column that Dana knows Fox didn't commit the murders before he figures it out himself.

Of course, Scully should have stopped his attempt at an investigation from the start. Mulder needed to be checked out more than perfunctorily. Say it was an aneurysm and Fox dropped dead during one of his seizures. How would Dana live with that? And who would make the outlandish hypotheses that usually end up solving X-Files cases?

The truth is in there, recorded: I've never been an advocate of having Cigarette Smoking Man turn out to be Mulder's father. But it's certainly utilized to its full potential here. Why does Teena vehemently deny she ever betrayed the man Fox knew as his dad? Maybe she got a dose of that ketamine herself.

On a much less serious front, did you enjoy that Scully's idea of casual wear includes a blazer? I was much less appreciative of Mulder's orange prison wear than Sestra Am. 

Mulder, it's meta: Early on in the fourth year, Goodwin -- who directed the first and last episodes of the first five seasons -- proposed the idea of Mulder waking up in a strange place and not knowing how he got there. According to the fourth-season episode guide, before Goodwin knew it, he was penned in on the writing schedule. ... The guide detailed how Fox's flashbacks were filmed by continuously stopping the camera's shutter mechanism, but co-producer Paul Rabwin's team did much in post-production on the color, used strobe lights and filtered the dialogue and background noise. ... Chris Owens played the young Smoking Man for the second time and the first time under Manners' direction. "Kim is very dynamic, and he loves to get right in there; he's very passionate," Owens said in The Complete X-Files. "So the set would naturally be a little more boisterous that day."

Guest star of the week: It's a bit of a thankless role for veteran stage actor Mike Nussbaum as Dr. Goldstein. (We also know him from the likes of Men in Black and Fatal Attraction.) But he's eminently believable when first interviewed by Sculder, and even though he doesn't exactly twirl a mustache later, we can feel the bad doctor's pulse increase when Mulder tells him he wants to be treated again. He fit the landscape perfectly.

X-Files S4E22: Put on your your your your bowling shoes

Sestra Amateur: 

This may be my favorite solo episode so far penned by John Shiban, who has written for and produced several of my favorite shows (Torchwood, Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries). This week we’re not in alien land or monster-of-the-week mode, it’s unintentionally disturbing apparitions that up the creep factor to the point in which you wish it wasn’t a bottle episode.

It’s bowling night in Washington, D.C. More accurately, it’s the end of bowling night. Dedicated alley employee Harold Spuller is putting away the shoes but his boss, Angelo Pintero, is in a wee bit of a hurry and does a sloppy job after taking over. Harold doesn’t take this too well, but Angelo gives Harold an “attaboy” speech then sends him home. When he’s alone, Pintero hears one of the lane rigs activated. He investigates and finds a puddle of blood, then a poor bleeding girl staring at him from atop the pinsetter. He runs outside to tell a nearby policeman and ends up seeing the same girl outside with her throat slashed.

Sculder are called to the scene and – after they switch into the appropriate footwear – inspect the pinsetter. Mulder notes the damage to the machinery is consistent with someone lying on top of it. Of course, the body and the blood are gone from the lane because that would just make things too easy. Pintero tries to convince the agents he isn’t crazy. Fox bowls as he explains to Scully that this is the third recently reported incident of a murder victim trying to communicate after her death. (I wonder if David got his strike on the first take.) Mulder somehow knows to pour soda onto the alley lane to uncover the phrase, “She is me.”

Then Sculder attend a local law enforcement debriefing complete with a possible psychological evaluation of the serial killer. Detective Hudak is the non-believer du jour because he calls out Fox, who insists they shouldn’t follow the traditional profile model to find this suspect. The detective shows he’s not the brightest bulb in the pack because he gives a lot of pertinent case information to the group, then asks who Mulder and Scully are. What if Fox was your killer, genius? 

Sculder learn “she is me” were the last words spoken by one of the murder victims and were repeated during a 911 call. They follow the phone lead to Spuller and New Horizons, the group home where he lives. They get assistance from Martin Alpert, who gathers the patients in a room so the agents can talk to them. Harold’s roommate, Chuck Forsch, claims he made the phone call but later admits he lied. Spuller is clearly upset but not owning up to anything.

While inspecting the crime-scene photos, Dana notices the murder victims’ rings were switched from their left hands to their right. She blames Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Mulder leans toward mental illness and believes Harold made the phone call. So Fox confronts him and asks him about ghosts. Spuller, who is autistic and suffers from OCD, loses control and starts rattling off bowling scores frame by frame. Nurse Innes tries to calm him down. 

While showing Mulder that Harold is an employee at the bowling alley, Scully gets a nosebleed and retreats to the bathroom. While there she sees the words “She is me” written in blood on the mirror and observes a black-and-white apparition of a woman with her throat cut trying to tell her something. Fox interrupts to tell Dana there’s another murder victim. Scully taps out and goes to the hospital for a checkup. Mulder looks for Spuller, who snuck out of his room. Poor Harold is gluing bowling scores to the wall while the four murder victims hover around and try to communicate with him.

Dana confides to a shrink about her concerns about the case and her condition. Fox returns to the bowling alley to find Spuller. This time Mulder doesn’t change his shoes when he runs onto the alley lane. Harold leads Fox to his secret hiding place but can’t stop muttering, “She is me.” Spuller gets taken to the police station for an interview. Harold’s attorney is present when he starts reciting each murder victims’ bowling scores and shoe sizes. Hudak thinks it’s a confession. Luckily, we already know the dick is a … well … you know. Spuller leads them back to his wall of bowling scores and then is stunned to see Pintero’s apparition. Harold runs back through the alley and finds paramedics trying to save Angelo, who apparently died of a heart attack.

Fox asks Dana whether Harold is able to see the apparitions because of his condition and they plan to meet back at the resident home. Nurse Ratched – I mean Nurse Innes – waits until she’s alone with Spuller, then insults and taunts him. After an alleged attack, she blames Harold, who runs away. Scully talks to his roommate and realizes the road leads back to Nurse Innes. Here I thought it was going to be Alpert, he seemed too helpful to be an actual good guy. 

The nurse attacks Dana with a scalpel, but the idiot brought a knife to a gunfight so Scully takes her down. Nice work, Dana. Mulder, who was right about the killer not matching the stereotypical profile, arrives after Scully handles the situation and tells her Harold died. Dana finally admits to Fox she saw the last victim’s apparition. Mulder, of course, acts like she didn’t tell him sooner to hurt him and babbles about trust. Considering she’s already facing her mortality, seeing a ghost probably felt like unwillingly taking another leap closer to her own death. John Shiban didn’t do Fox any favors here by writing Mulder in such a selfish and unlikable way. And Scully’s emotional reaction while alone in her car would have had way more impact if it didn’t look like she had just applied a fresh coat of a different shade of lipstick. 

Sestra Professional:

It's a little eerie watching this episode after spending some time the past two weeks watching "Celebrity Bowling" on YouTube. Some of the '70s movie and television stars' bowling scores were as dead on arrival as anyone in this ep.

I agree with Sestra Am about this being the strongest Shiban stand-alone to this point. But "Elegy" will be supplanted when we get to Season 6. And speaking of X-Files Lite (the unfavorable nickname bestowed by fans), let's put a pin in the fact that Mulder has asked her point blank if she believes in ghosts. I'd be more up in arms about it if she actually answered his question.

Does anybody recognize this man? This episode would be worth its weight in strikes just to watch Scully put on bowling shoes. Although as Sestra Am pointed out, it kind of dilutes the effect later to see Mulder and other guest actors streaming up and down one of the lanes without the bowling shoes on. Maybe that's what killed the alley owner. Also love seeing David Duchovny seemingly effortlessly knock down all 10 pins -- the real X-File there, though, is that a ball perfectly suited to his fingers was sitting right there in the lane well.

So this is the episode in the fourth season that centers around someone with autism having a connection with the paranormal. I'm really not sure it was all that necessary, although Shiban's stroke of having Spuller spew the bowling scores constantly was a nice touch. I think it took me longer than Sestra Am to initially pick up on what he was doing with the numbers.

I just want to be left alone: Steven M. Porter makes for a very sympathetic Harold, though he comes off a little too overwrought. I kind of wish director James Charleston had reined him back a notch on the crying and twitching front. Nope, he's not going to be garnering guest star of the week honors. But Harold isn't enjoying his gift and Porter carries enough weight in the role that it's a sad moment when we realize the character won't make it to the end credits alive.

Even though this is a stand-alone, we get some serious progression on the Scully front, and as we've become accustomed to, Gillian Anderson is up to the task. In addition to worrying about Dana on the bloody-nose front, we also get to see her literally face down a supernatural occurrence. Really, Scullbags, you gotta believe in ghosts now. You can't tell us in Season 6 that you don't after this.

What is a death omen if not a vision of our own mortality? Sure, Shiban gives the hard sell on the fact Dana has cancer. Everyone who saw an apparition was close to death -- emphysema, cancer, heart attack, respiratory failure. But it really is a nifty reminder of her status as the fourth season gets close to wrapping up. I do wish her ability continued in subsequent episodes.

The scene at the therapist's office feels a little odd amid all the bloody murder. And for Dana to admit how much of a source of a strength Fox has been for her only to have him at the end deride her for not telling him sooner that she saw the fourth victim's ghost kind of felt awkward. But then upon reflecting on that, isn't that just a microcosm of their relationship to this point? Scully was just being Scully, trying to figure out if she saw the apparition because of stress, because it had been suggested or because of her own fears -- of failing Fox. 

Meta scoring: The episode was filmed at the Thunderbird Bowling Center, which insisted the production crew wearing bowling shoes or paper booties to preserve the lane surfaces, according to the fourth-season episode guide. Wonder how they felt about that last alley scene. ... In the guide, Shiban said he was inspired to write this episode by his late father-in-law, who apparently had visions in his hospital room while dying of lung cancer. ... Shiban had a card with "haunted bowling alley" on his bulletin board all year before fitting that together with the ongoing Scully cancer saga, the guide said. ... Don't know if Duchovny got the strike on his first try, but he and Charleston wagered while playing games between setups, according to the guide.

Guest star of the week: This is where playing it over the top does pay off. Nancy Fish, who also was in Beethoven with Duchovny, was under the radar for most of the episode as Nurse Innes, but she really took advantage of the late big scenes she got. Her manic nature certainly worked for a character who quipped "working with these people starts to drive you crazy" due to the fact that the meds she had been stealing from Harold were known to cause violent impulses. 

X-Files S4E21: Compromising positions

Sestra Amateur: 

This episode has Skinner and Mulder and bees, oh my… #10wordepisodereview. No Scully in this one, it’s a Mulder/Skinner ep. What do their shippers call them? Mulder? Skinner? Mulskin? Sounds like a bad name for beer or a primitive name for condoms. However, the title of this episode is pretty telling. "Zero Sum" essentially means one side wins, the other side loses. Wonder which side will apply to our boys.

In Desmond, Virginia, postal employee Jane Brody violates the Virginia Clean Indoor Air Act (which didn’t exist until 2009, so we’ll give her some leeway) by smoking a cigarette in the ladies room stall of the processing center. Thousands of bees inexplicably enter the bathroom and attack Jane. Co-worker Misty Nagata checks on Jane and finds her friend’s bee stung corpse in the stall.

Assistant Director Walter Skinner – who is in full puppet mode – snoops through Mulder’s computer and deletes photographs of Jane’s dead body. He also cleans up the crime scene, complete with flushing Jane’s cigarette and vacuuming up evidence. I think Walter missed his true calling. Maybe he’ll come to my house and clean my grout too. 
Skinner then heads to the local morgue and removes Jane’s corpse. He burns her in an off-site furnace and director Kim Manners finally gets some great reflective shots from Skinner’s glasses. Mulder – actually Walter masquerading as Fox – arrives at the Desmond Police Department and tampers with the evidence. He replaces a (probably tainted) vial of blood with a (probably normal) one. Seems like Desmond PD’s coroner is more on the ball than their crime-scene techs, who hadn’t even processed the bathroom that Skinner cleaned.

Detective Ray Thomas catches up to “Mulder” before Skinner can get away. Walter tells the detective the case is not an X-File and there will be no further FBI involvement. Back at home, Skinner strips down to his tighty whities and is about to throw away his clothing when Mulder shows up at the front door ... at 4 a.m. Fox printed out Jane’s photographs before Walter deleted the files, but he is still livid someone hacked his computer. To make matters worse, Det. Thomas has been shot and killed, and the time of death coincides with Skinner’s evidence-tampering visit to the precinct. Walter heads to his underground garage and gets a visit from a man smoking a cigarette. He confronts Cancer Man about the cop’s murder while the latter just smokes and talks cryptically. (I don’t mean he was smoking cryptically, but is that even a thing?)

The next morning, Mulder calls Skinner to report the theft of Jane’s body and the tampering of her blood evidence. And, of course, the gun used to kill the detective is Walter's since he’s being set up. Skinner calls CSM, who continues to turn the screws. Walter claims he’ll turn state’s evidence but Cancer Man dangles the "heal Scully" carrot to keep him in line. Skinner returns to the original crime scene and looks for evidence he overlooked that he can use to get out of this mess. He breaks through the bathroom wall and finds an abandoned honeycomb, then brings a sample to forensic entomologist Dr. Valedespino in a Maryland lab to determine what type of bees created it. Skinner’s continued research into weaponized bees leads him to Fox's contact, Marita Covarrubias.

Walter is still in Mulder’s office when Fox returns with grainy surveillance photographs of Det. Thomas’ killer, “Fox Mulder”. Meanwhile, the weaponized bees attack and kill Dr. Valedespino. Luckily, Fox gets to the new corpse before Walter and learns the scientist died of smallpox carried by the bees. Skinner goes back to the post office processing center and interviews Misty about her friend as Skinner, not Mulder. She’s worried about losing her job and tells Walter that men visited her, told her not to talk and asked about damaged packages.

The FBI’s photo technician enhances the surveillance photograph and the unknown suspect clearly becomes Walter Skinner. Cancer Man meets with his Syndicate in New York City and updates them on the situation. Without naming names, CSM indicates Skinner has taken care of things and their project is under way. Then we get to watch the weaponized bees attack and sting children on a playground in South Carolina. One of the teachers gets stung hundreds of times. Wow, those Syndicate guys are real jerks. 

Skinner shows up at the hospital and tells the ER doctor to treat the victims for smallpox. Dr. Linzer isn’t buying it, but Marita does because she shows up to help Skinner. She wants to track down those missing packages and expects answers. Walter tells her about the “experiment,” but is reluctant to reveal his own duplicity. Wow, Skinner hasn’t been this screwed since "Avatar" (Season 3, Episode 21).

An armed and pissed Mulder is waiting for Skinner … and some answers at the assistant director's abode. (I don’t think this gets addressed, but did Dr. Linzer eventually believe the smallpox story and finally treat the children? Or were they all dying while Mulder and Skinner yelled at each other?) Surprisingly, Fox doesn’t want to believe Walter is being set up. It should have been the conspiracy buff’s first thought. 

Skinner surrenders his gun and ballistics tests show it is the same one used to kill the detective. But Mulder doesn’t disclose that it’s Walter’s. (They filed off the serial number so no one can trace it back to him.) Skinner confronts Cancer Man with a different handgun, but CSM keeps playing the save Scully card. Skinner shoots at CSM three times but intentionally misses – at least we hope it was intentional. Otherwise, Walter is a really, really bad shot. Skinner leaves and Cancer Man takes a phone call from Marita, who seems to be playing ball with the Syndicate. Boy, Mulder was right, trustno1. By the way, if you use that as a password, mix it up a little bit: tRu$tN01! 

Sestra Professional:

At first glance, there's doesn't seem to be too much meat on the bones of this one, since it's mostly action and little talk, but it gives us a good look at Cigarette-Smoking Man's new hold on Skinner. Jane could have avoided certain death if she just went outside for her smoke break, though. 

Howard Gordon (his final work for the show) and Frank Spotnitz's script depends upon director Kim Manners handling the initial array of scenes without dialogue. And he really pulls it off. Everything from the scary bathroom death to the reflections of Skinner's glasses lend a lot of atmosphere before the enticing two-person scenes get underway.

A man digs a hole, he risks falling into it: "Zero Sum" gives Mitch Pileggi a lot of wiggle room, and not just in the tighty whities. Walter's obviously walking a fine line now. He's compromised, but we can remain firmly on his side because he's doing it all for our beloved -- and absent -- Scully, who seems to be getting worse off camera. And because he really doesn't look happy while he's doing it.

I agree with Sestra Am, Skinner does a nice job of cleaning up and he's pretty buff too, being able to tote the "180-pound victim" around. I guess that's how he ascended to the Assistant Director position. (Clue flashback: "Why do you think it's run by a man called Hoover?") But wouldn't the Spic and Span restroom raise the eyebrows of technicians processing the crime scene?

Thank goodness Mulder's around to open Walter's eyes to the larger picture. (He hasn't been doing this long enough to jump to conclusions.) It's left to Fox to explain how the technician can contract a disease that doesn't exist anymore -- through the dreaded bee stings. Mulder hypothesizes that someone's experimenting with a method of delivery for smallpox -- with a reminder about that illness killing more people in history than any other before the cure was discovered. It could make a rather devastating comeback.

So there's a bee hive in the walls of the post office. That's kind of a dramatic way to make adhesive for stamps. Remember when we used to have to lick them? Maybe that would have been a better way of transmitting smallpox than the bees. 

I'm a little disappointed by another quick reveal of someone in CSM's corner. Marita Covarrubias seemed to be very interested in justice when talking with Skinner at the hospital, but just minutes later, we find out she's reporting to him. The X-Files never held off on imparting that kind of information. With so many episodes and seasons to play with, I kind of wish they had. 

I'm starting to get used to my own advice: We get quite a few conversations between two characters in "Zero Sum." There's Mulder holding Skinner at gunpoint -- again? But I do appreciate how he quickly jumps to the conclusion that Walter had knowledge of the death of Fox's father. It's a great gut response. Skinner makes a nice callback to "Memento Mori" (S4E15), when he talked Mulder out of making a deal with the devil. 

And that's followed by another scene wrought with tension when Walter pulls his new gun on Cancer Man. He thinks he's being strung along, but CSM counters that he'll never know if Dana can be cured if he wastes him. Manners utilizes a great set of beats before revealing that the three shots whizzed by CSM's head, and we're left with the realization that Skinner could very well do the job if the mood strikes him.

Meta-stizing: The episode came about because Gillian Anderson was away for a week filming The Mighty. In the fourth-season official guide, Spotnitz recounted that they didn't want to work David Duchovny too hard, so they made use of the annual tradition of writing a Skinner episode. "After all, Skinner had already made his Faustian bargain with the Cigarette-Smoking Man in 'Memento Mori.' This was a logical time to see it played out. It was also a good place to bring back the bees, where were introduced at the beginning of the season in 'Herrenvolk' (S4E1), but which had never been explained." ... Pileggi had only a few days notice that he'd be appearing before the cameras in his underwear. The guide reported he immediately hit the weight room. ... Manners was thrilled that he got his first chance to work with Pileggi on an episode that the actor really sank his teeth into, according to the guide. ... One of Mulder's folders halfway through the show is labeled "Foo Fighters." ... The episode was dedicated to Pileggi's late father, Vito.

Filming the schoolyard scene proved to be quite a chore, with thousands of bees really liberated around the children. "They released the bees, and we had paramedics standing by on the off chance that someone got stung and then would go into anaphylactic shock," Manners said in The Complete X-Files. "I'd say, 'Cut it, print it' and a kid would come running out crying, and the mother would say, 'Get back in there, you're working on The X-Files!'"

X-Files S4E20: The mystery of the tater tots

Sestra Amateur: 

We’ve been long overdue for an amusing episode, so I’ll dial back my usual levels of incredulity and annoyance of plot contrivances and character actions that occur for the sole purpose of moving along a particular story. I think of this one as my episode – from a month and date perspective (Season 4, Episode 20) not for any other underlying meaning – I was lucky to get a good one linked to my birthday. Sorry about "Fresh Bones" (S2E15), Sestra. "Small Potatoes" even aired on April 20 in 1997. Too bad I didn’t watch the show during its original run.

Writer Vince Gilligan’s fingerprints are all over this one. It’s the rare bottle ep that you almost wish could be a continuing story. A woman is in labor at a West Virginia hospital and freely admits her baby daddy is from another planet. She has a nice easy labor and the baby girl sounds healthy, she just happens to have a vestigial tail. And it sounds like she’s not the only one. Considering how long the tail is, wouldn’t that have shown up on an ultrasound? Whoops, there’s that sarcastic tone of mine again. 

Because there have been five local incidents in three months, Mulder wants to take the case. Scully would rather refer the case to the health department. Fox interviews the new mother, Amanda Nelligan, to find out more about the baby daddy she claims is Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. Yay! Luke finally got some! Sculder learn through DNA testing that all five babies are Skywalker’s younglings. Damn, Luke, now you’re going to end up on The Jerry Springer Show! (You’re wrong if you think it would be The Maury Povich Show because we already know who the father is.) 

Mulder thinks the women’s gynecologist is behind the insemination. That’s a rather sensible approach, Fox. The agents head to Dr. Alton Pugh’s office where the other four couples are confronting him. His defense is the women had outside affairs. I smell a lawsuit. While wandering around the building, Mulder spots a plumber who is unironically showing his stereotypical plumber’s crack. Luckily, it enables Fox to see the scarred remains of a tail. He identifies himself as an FBI agent and the plumber makes a run for it. Mulder tackles him in front of Scully and the couples, then shows them the scar. DNA testing confirms the plumber – now identified as Eddie Van Blundht – fathered all five babies. 

You may not recognize Eddie -- played by Darin Morgan -- from his previous appearance on The X-Files as Flukeman in "The Host" (S2E2). Coincidentally, I referred to him as Fluke Skywalker in that blog. But Darin wrote some of the show's best episodes, including "Jose Chung’s From Outer Space" (S3E20) and Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose (S3E4). The man has a unique wit, as does Gilligan. 

But let’s get back to the interrogation room. Eddie is complaining because no one spells his name right. (I feel your pain, Mr. Van Blundht.) Eddie tries to take the hypothetical "no harm, no foul" angle because the couples all got the babies they wanted. Dana thinks he drugged and raped them, and Fox doesn’t have one of his usual explanations. The booking officer is taking Eddie’s information when Van Blundht transforms into him and smashes a piggy bank over the officer’s head. (Yeah, I have to ask: Why is there a piggy bank in a police station?)

The next morning the officer regains consciousness and tells everyone what he saw. Mulder finally has a theory -- physical transformation. Sculder go to Eddie’s father’s house, but he claims he hasn’t seen Eddie Jr. for two days. Senior, who was "Monkey Boy" in the circus, kept his tail his whole life, but Junior had his removed. Senior slips up and Mulder realizes they’re talking with Junior, who bolts and gets away. 

Eddie disguises himself as one of the baby daddies and hides in his house. Fred’s wife “Baboo” wants answers, but she gives “Sugar Patootie” time to regain his composure. Real Fred comes home, then he and his wife confront Eddie, who has camouflaged himself as Fox. They believe him, but the Mulder we know would never be caught dead in that thrift store shirt/pant combo.

Back at the coroner’s office, Scully is cutting into Eddie Sr.’s corpse because, well, it would be awkward for her to do it anywhere else. Fox, who needs to learn to keep his hands to himself, accidentally snaps off Monkey Boy’s tail. She learns about Senior’s unusual physiology, which might explain Eddie’s ability to look like anyone. Mulder goes back to re-interview Amanda because she doesn’t fit Van Blundht's pattern. She remembers him as a loser from high school who was a huge Star Wars fan. But is she talking to Fox Mulder or Faux Mulder? 

Turns out to be Option B, because Fox shows up immediately after Faux gives Amanda a rose and leaves her room. Mulder realizes what happened after getting a phone call from Fred. Hopefully Fox won’t get charged with stealing Sugar Patootie’s suit. Fox detains two hospital employees, thinking one of them must be Eddie. But neither is the right man, Eddie falls through the ceiling and crashes into Mulder, then gets away. Dana arrives to assist and leaves with Fox when he convinces her the case is not an X-File. But it’s Eddie back in Faux Mulder mode, Fox is locked in the hospital basement.

The rest of the episode contains some of David Duchovny’s best comedic moments. Faux Mulder and Scully (Fauxly?) meet with Assistant Director Skinner to discuss the case. Walter seems particularly perturbed by this Mulder’s inability to spell. Dana determines Eddie Sr. died of old age and Faux suggests Eddie hid his father’s body then impersonated him in order to collect the Social Security checks. At least now we know the motive. They go to Mulder’s office where Faux just can’t find the right key to unlock the door. Scully leaves to begin her exciting weekend plans ... they were so boring I couldn’t even retain them long enough to type them here. 

Faux heads to Mulder’s apartment, feeds the fish and screens phone messages from the Lone Gunmen and phone sex lines. Faux shows he can at least correctly spell FBI during his really bad DeNiro Taxi Driver impersonation. But Faux Mulder is bored, so he heads to Scully’s apartment with a goofy smile and some wine. Dana tells stories about her past while they finish off the bottle. Faux leans in for a kiss, Scully does too … and Fox breaks down Dana's door. She bolts off the couch and Faux morphs back into himself. So, in just a few hours, Eddie as Faux Mulder got further with Scully than Fox has so far. Wouldn’t it have been funny if Eddie showed up as Fox in one of the Season 11 episodes? We wouldn’t have seen that coming.

Sestra Professional:

Even before me-too political correctness came into vogue, it probably wasn't right for me to enjoy "Small Potatoes" as much as I do. But it's not the first nor the last time The X-Files played fast and loose with what would be considered PC. It's tough to be able to deliver such material with as much flair and gusto as the show does, but might it still diminish the entertainment value? I'm not sure it should. It is a fictional television show, after all.

Sestra Am's right, it's refreshing to get a respite in the highly charged fourth season. The episode begets nice textured performances from David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. In fact, it might be David's best of the whole run, because he not only plays a more laid-back version of Mulder, but also spends a lot of time as Eddie Van Blundht's take on him.

I don't know if this episode is the one David submitted for the Emmys that year, but if it wasn't, maybe it should have been. He gives the most subtle signs that he's Faux Mulder in scenes such as the questioning of Amanda. He reacts in ways we don't usually see Fox do, so if we haven't cracked the code, we probably should have. And when we know for a fact it's Van Blundht, he shows perfect timing as the man masquerading as our hero. Not just with the instant classic "F-B-I" bit in the mirror, but with brilliant Vince Gilligan dialogue such as "Local authorities are already on the warpath," the priceless case wrapup scene in Skinner's office and the dejected face when he's discovered to be Faux.

Not that Duchovny doesn't get to have some choice moments in his "own" body as Mulder -- best of all when he accidentally breaks off the father's tail right when Scully says the body is "preserved and intact" while she's detailing the strangeness of the anomalous musculature that enables Van Blundht to morph into anyone's size and shape.

This is where my tax dollars go? Gilligan (and Eddie) make us look at Mulder's life in a different way. He has geeks for friends, dials phone sex chat lines with frequency and doesn't have an actual bed. Fox is a "damn good-looking man," but he's not taking advantage of god's gift to him. Not to mention how he hasn't even considered making personal inroads with Scully. Even after Van Blundht gets incarcerated, he reminds Mulder to treat himself. 

I'm not sure how the shippers are supposed to react to the big bonding scene between Van Blundht's Fox and Dana. It gave a whole new showcase to the chemistry between our leads and one of the most extended looks at them outside of work to date, buuuuut since that was actually Eddie's Mulder and not the real one, I guess it probably ultimately doesn't go over too well. Just more personal proof that I'm not a shipper, I guess.

Anderson is just spectacular in that scene as well. She starts off keenly interested in following up on the science of their case and progresses into a tipsy story about the high-school love of her life. That gives way to astonishment when Eddie Van Mulder gets close to kissing her. Frankly, I would have given her the Emmy for this scene as much as anything else in this year's cancer story.

But for all of that, we also get the sense that Fox and Dana aren't on the same wavelength a lot in this episode. Mulder tries to glean what person Scully would transform into if she could choose anyone. She doesn't even want to play the game, adding that looking like someone else and being someone else aren't the same. Fox counters that people might be treated differently when they look different. So she picks Eleanor Roosevelt and Fox's reaction indicates her choice leaves much to be desired. Then Mulder's pretty eager to see Eddie the Monkey Man's tail, but Dana quickly snuffs out that opportunity.

Did he have a lightsaber? But Dana gets to have some great lines in an episode chock full of them. I wonder how much the show had to pay the forces behind Star Wars so Amanda could "sing" the theme song she found so seductive. And she's seen the movie 368 times, expecting to break 400 by Memorial Day. I'm left wondering about Sestra Am's total about now.

There were some atypical moments in the episode that also work well. The victim helped solve the case -- Amanda questioned whether there was any chance Luke Skywalker was the father of the other tater tots. The other couples surmising Sculder were also insemination victims provided some guffaws. And the doctor isn't even overlooked in favor of any wildly speculative theories. They actually crack the case fairly early on in the episode to leave room for Mulders, faux and real, to bounce around the canvas.

On behalf of all the women in the world, I seriously doubt this has anything to do with consensual sex: But less "Small Potatoes" sound too idyllic, Van Blundht's explanation that everyone wanted babies and he helped them do that doesn't really fly. Was this passive aggressive writing? See Morgan sorta left the show in the lurch after delivering four definitive episodes. He had been penciled in for more, but bowed out. So even though he departed the show on good terms, writing a character for him who impregnated five women without their consent kinda seems a little strident. 

It's directed with a supremely fine hand by Cliff Bole, who gives all the moments their space. It collects momentum because of little things like Fox taking a moment for an eye roll when Eddie makes his first run for it, the "H" in Van Blundht sign outside the house falling when Sculder stop by the old homestead and a lingering shot that shows Eddie left Fox an apple and a soda so he wouldn't starve before taking off with Mulder's badge, gun and Scully. 

Meta physical: We weren't the only ones finding Season 4 a little dark, as Gilligan referenced in the official episode guide. "I didn't want to get a reputation for only writing about doom and gloom," he said. ... Then the writer had to convince Morgan to take the role. "Vince caught me on a good night," Morgan added in the guide. "Immediately after saying yes, I thought: I should have said no." ... X-Philes probably know the show's gag reels pretty well, and it's tough to watch Fox chase Eddie down in the hospital without thinking about how Duchovny went a little overboard in trying to show the scar. ... According to the guide, the original script called for the babies and Van Blundhts to have wings instead of tails.

Guest star of the week: Morgan always stood out among the show's talented group of writers. Even in his self-imposed limited capacity, he inspired the likes of Gilligan. In the somewhat thankless role of Eddie, he provided some pathos and a lot of heart. Morgan was a real gamer in a tough role, getting a very big assist from Duchovny in this regard. I admit I still kind of have a soft spot for Eddie. Political correctness can suck it for a week. Morgan is a superstar.