X-Files S11E9: Death does not become her

Sestra Amateur: 

If you enjoy watching Surgery TV, then this is the episode for you. It’s starts with a close-up shot of a patient being cut open by his surgeon. (Hope you’re not eating while watching this.) At the same time, there’s a girl on a rooftop in the Bronx listening to a conspiracy theorist radio program and spouting religious phrases. The surgeon removes the heart; hope it’s for a legitimate transplant. A second surgeon removes the pancreas, licks it (yeah, you should’ve stopped eating by now) and gives it to his partner for bagging. Did I mention they’re not actually in a hospital? Meanwhile, the girl breaks into the – warehouse? – and takes out the person carrying a cooler of human organs. One of the surgeons shoots at her. She stabs one doctor to death while the other escapes with some of the organs. The girl leaves the recovered cooler outside of a hospital with “I will repay” written in flawless cursive.

Special Agent Dana Scully is taking communion in a D.C. Catholic church when she gets the call about a new case. She and Special Agent Fox Mulder respond quickly to the Bronx warehouse, where they learn their reputations precede them. They also learn the “donor” was perfectly healthy before these surgeons decided to commandeer his vital organs. Scully notes the unusual weapon of choice used to kill two of the suspects: metal dowels. Mulder scares away the local detectives by implying they were killed vampire-style. Since a liver and pancreas are still missing, Dana searches for local hospitals performing recent liver transplants. She and Fox also realize whoever brought the organs to the hospital did not do it for material gain. Meanwhile, someone is feeding liquified human remains to communal residents in a group home. Elsewhere in the house, a conjoined couple and another female are watching a sitcom rerun. The female, Barbara Beaumont, seems to be the actress in the comedic episode but she hasn’t aged. Probably because she is also drinking that nasty-looking red concoction.

Scully lights a prayer candle in a Bronx church before discussing the case with Mulder. She thinks it’s mob-related, not an X-file, so she wants to turn it over to NYPD. She picked the right church, the girl from the beginning of the episode – Juliet Bocanegra – wanders in to talk with Father Hardy. Meanwhile, Barbara Beaumont is livid because she did not get all of the organs she expected. She’s a quasi-cult leader for a commune that has taken up residence in a local apartment building. Dr. Randolph Luvenis (Dear John's Jere Burns) lives there too. (His last name means "youth," so we now know what’s going on.) 

Back in the church, Juliet lets her priest know she’s doing more than praying for things to change, especially in regards to her missing sister, Olivia. And Mulder – not Scully – notes the daily prayer contains the same verbiage as the words on the cooler. Dana confesses to Fox she doesn’t really believe in miracles but she does believe in the power of faith. Outside the church, Mulder notices three metal dowels missing from the church’s fence. Well, we know where two of them are.

Barbara is concerned because she’s starting to look older than 33. Dr. Luvenis is apparently 85 years old. He doesn’t look that old because he’s currently conjoined to a young woman named Kayla. I guess he’s siphoning Kayla’s vitality and using it to prevent his own aging. They trick the young men and women into cooperating by promising them some type of ascension right before killing them. Barbara murders Kayla and severs the dead girl from Dr. Luvenis because she refuses to reward the bad doctor for failing her. Unfortunately, Kayla had no nutritional value for Barbara, kind of like Cheez Doodles or Kool-Aid.

Team Sculder ends up at Juliet’s house looking into Olivia’s disappearance. (Father Hardy pointed them to the Bocanegra house because Juliet’s words and possible actions unnerved him.) Juliet claims Olivia left willingly to join a cult and change who she is. Mulder is already on the right page with Juliet, but she slams the door in their faces. Dr. Luvenis leaves to track down the organs left outside the hospital. 

Somehow, Barbara has convinced her cult members they are happy. They’re willing to die just to keep her looking youthful. She sings "The Morning After" while one disciple commits suicide. (I guess that’s one way to stop listening to her.) Olivia prepares a human organ smoothie for Barbara while the others devour the dead disciple directly from the source. (Yeah, I think I’ll stick with pasta for dinner tonight. With white sauce, not red.) Dr. Luvenis returns with the recovered organs. Barbara “rewards” Olivia by choosing her to be conjoined with Randolph. 

Luckily, our intrepid heroes tagged the heart with a tracker and arrive at Barbara’s apartment building. Scully has trouble believing the super has never seen Ms. Beaumont in the seven years he has worked there. It’s not that far-fetched; after all, it’s New York. And frankly, it’s less likely a tenant would pay the rent early every month for seven years. With his new “progressive” glasses, Mulder reads Barbara’s Wikipedia-style webpage and learns she’s married to Dr. Luvenis and joined a life extension commune. (Red flags everywhere!)

Team Sculder meets Barbara and she feels slighted because they don’t recognize her. The cult members attack Fox and Dana, then throw Scully down the garbage chute. Luckily, Juliet bursts in and stabs Barbara with the third metal dowel. As Mulder searches for his partner, he finds Dr. Luvenis and Olivia downstairs and is understandably disgusted. Randolph claims he developed a cure for aging. Olivia starts seizing and Dr. Luvenis threatens to cut her if Fox intervenes. Juliet swoops in and clocks the bad doctor in the back of the head. Mulder finds Scully and she is relatively unhurt after landing on years of trash. Then Juliet turns herself in for the crimes she committed.

Dana and Fox return to the church. They lament Scully's poor career choice of staying with the X-files, but take their equivalent of a step forward, relationship-wise. I wonder if most fans wished this episode was the season (and de facto series) finale. But nooooo, Chris Carter will make us endure yet another "My Struggle" episode.

Sestra Professional:   

They're coming to get you, Barbara.

We're up to the penultimate show of the series (at least as we currently know it), so it seems only fitting that "Nothing Lasts Forever" hearkens back to the spiritual elements that have been a through line on the show. Not expecting to find any evidence of that in the finale.

Sure, this ep is a particularly gory one, but first-time writer Karen Nielsen makes it congeal with the ongoing thread of Scully's faith. Despite everything she's seen, everything she's been through, she still has it.

Staked through the heart, you mean: It's a little disheartening to see the alleged best and brightest up-and-comers in law enforcement don't consider Mulder a folk hero. They're still considering Fox and Dana to be interlopers who turn cases upside down, just like way back in Season 1. It's no small wonder that the show couldn't continue, there's no one at the bureau with the slightest interest in discovering why grizzly crime scenes happen, they just want facts that can be discerned in a garden-variety game of Clue. 

But Mulder has certainly grown, he knows how to dispatch agents quickly so he and Scully can have time and space to assess situations. Dana's come up with a few new plays as well, putting a tracker into an organ so they can bait a suspect is a different spin. But Fox definitely loses points for not noticing his partner's haircut until now -- the rest of us noticed it two episodes ago in "Rm9sbG93ZXJz." 

Scully's more detail-oriented. She picks up on Mulder's bifocals, er, progressive lenses right away. (I still haven't learned how to deal with my own, but at least they don't look like the oversized glasses that seemed to take over half your face in the '70s. And I'm thinking of my all-time show guest star Charles Nelson Reilly (Season 3, Episode 20) donning them on Match Game now.)

I do it just for kicks: Speaking of the '70s, our villainess -- I guess she can be classified as our final Monster of the Week, 'cause an 85-year-old woman who looks as young as she does isn't a garden-variety baddie. She indeed comes off as both beauty and light and ugliness and pain. We haven't had a cult episode in quite some time, if we put aside the aforementioned hipsters who seem to follow the FBI playbook chapter and verse. 

As has occurred several times in the revival, there's a bit of revisionist history with another Charlie story. The sibling we didn't know about had rheumatic fever at age 4, and Dana was "forced" to pray every night for his recovery. That gets us back to Scully's faith, and we're reminded that when she needs strength, Mulder is always there to provide it -- no matter which way or how hard the wind is blowing against him. He reminds her that all we have are the results of the choices we have made. And, yes, at the end of the day, we just hope we made the right ones.

Let's keep on looking for the light: Meanwhile, "The Scientist and the Showgirl" cult continues on its merry way, but its plan will go down faster than a felled cruise ship. A fitting analogy considering Barbara's penchant for singing "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure. I seriously don't blame the guy who stabbed himself while she was singing, I could wind up on the precipice if that continues to be my earworm.

But attaching themselves back-to-back, how does that even work? Beyond basic biological functions, it doesn't work on a basic comfort level -- what do you do if you have to scratch an itch or want to brush your hair? And don't any of those other young 'uns, who look more like disenchanted runaways than people who society may have forgotten about, have friends or family looking for them?

No matter, because when in doubt, you always have your sestra! Thank goodness for Juliet, because our myopic agents -- talking about their strategy, not Fox's naturally deteriorating eyes -- were very short-sighted about calling for backup, not to mention forsaking the ol' flashlights in favor of flipping an electrical switch when they entered the commune.

I always wondered how this was going to end: With the cult vanquished, Dana is free to ruminate about the candle that she lit going out, and Mulder can show how he's really grown over the course of these many years. He may not believe in God, but he believes in Scully. He's prepared to relight her candle, extending her prayer conversation through his own. They both finally seem to be in the right place for the leap forward together.

Guest star of the week: Vroom, Vroom! That's Fiona Vroom seamlessly capturing the essence of an 85-year-old woman (?!?!) with a visage that easily appeals to the element of society looking for someone to cling to, but makes the rest of the world go, "uh, no."

X-Files S11E8: The Chuckleteeth Witch Trials

Sestra Amateur: 

You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve been watching What We Do in the Shadows, so whenever I see the word “familiar,” I think of a human who is recruited to care for and protect his/her vampire master. Let’s see if that’s the case here, literally and figuratively.

In Eastwood, Connecticut, a young boy named Andrew is holding the world’s creepiest doll – it’s even creepier than the clown doll in Poltergeist – while playing in a park. Mom takes a phone call while Andrew sees a human-sized version of Mr. Chuckleteeth (what a dumb name) and chases him into the woods, unbeknownst to his distracted mother. It’s reminiscent of the scene from Stephen King’s IT -- the little boy is wearing a yellow raincoat, the camera zooms in on him, bloody remains are left behind. This sounds like an X-file!

Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder are called to the scene. After analyzing photographs, Dr. Scully believes the boy was murdered. Local police think it’s an animal attack. To a degree, so does Mulder. He’s thinking coywolves or hellhounds. Fox also reminds Dana that the surrounding area has a history of witch hunts. At least he presents a united front for law enforcement. Scully examines Andrew’s body and still thinks the cause of death is homicide-related, possibly by the father. Mulder is concerned because the 5-year-old girl playing in the park wasn’t interviewed. Probably because she’s the police chief’s daughter.

The town holds a memorial for little Andrew. His parents, Diane and Rick Eggers, are livid they can’t bury their son. Officer Wentworth tells Rick, a fellow cop, about Dana’s suspect profile. Chief Strong tells his wife, Anna, to let the feds interview their daughter, Emily. Fox tries to talk with Emily, but she’s more interested in her Teletubbies knockoff show. Anna provides some background information but nothing useful. Luckily, the Strong library has a book entitled Grimoire of the Eastwood Witch. (Maybe my Shadows exposure will be useful after all.) Mulder is about to leave when Mr. Chuckleteeth appears on the show and Emily claims she saw him in the forest.

Scully meets with Chief Strong to discuss Officer Eggers’ alibi. Unfortunately, Rick thinks local sex offender Melvin Peter matches Dana’s profile, so he disobeys orders and heads to Peter’s house. Scully and Chief Strong follow him there. Eggers loses it, but Strong is able to disarm him. Meanwhile, Fox is wandering the crime scene and sees a wolf while he’s talking on the phone to Scully. He heads to Dana’s location where Chief Strong has obtained a search warrant. (They’re all using flashlights while searching the sex offender’s residence because the electricity seems to be off.) They learn Peter likes dressing up as a clown and he has a Mr. Chuckleteeth doll. Meanwhile, the town’s residents are acting more like a vigilante mob. If they had their way, Melvin would be burned at the stake like a witch.

Back at the Strong home, Little Emily is still watching that creepy show. She sees one of the Teletubbie wannabes outside her door. Anna, who was in the kitchen, realizes her daughter is gone. The poor child is found mutilated in the woods, just like Andrew. Chief Strong is already grieving when a devastated Anna arrives and blames him for everything that has happened. At the crime scene, Mulder uncovers a magic circle made of salt as well as a Puritan graveyard. Fox confronts Chief Strong, who admits he knew witchcraft was involved. He confesses to having an affair with Diane Eggers – she was distracted by his phone call the day Andrew was murdered – and says Diane tried to end it. Strong believes he’s being punished for his sins.

Eggers finds Peter and beats the tar out of him in front of a large crowd until Officer Wentworth intervenes. Unfortunately, he’s only one man and once Wentworth is subdued, the mob continues attacking Melvin. Team Sculder arrives to diffuse the situation but Eggers takes the law into his own hands and shoots Peter in the head. By the way, you probably figured out Melvin had nothing to do with Andrew or Emily’s murders. This was truly a modern-day witch hunt.

At Rick’s arraignment, he is released from custody with a pathetically low bond. Afterward, Wentworth provides information to Scully and Mulder that proves Peter could not be the killer. Strong wants Wentworth to stop investigating. Eggers returns home and confronts his wife about her affair with his boss. They separate and Rick goes gunning for someone else. Diane speeds away from the house and flips her car when she thinks she sees Andrew in the road. There’s a distinctive growl at the crash scene. A hound from hell maybe? 

At the Strong residence, Rick wants to kill his boss but gets distracted by a demonic-looking Mr. Chuckleteeth on the television. Eggers finds Strong and they draw down on each other. Team Sculder arrives and find Eggers’ dead body. Fox realizes the grimoire is missing. Strong is heading back to the woods when he finds Diane’s crashed car. He thinks he sees her so he follows her into the woods. Instead, he finds Anna trying to fix her mistake. See? This is why you shouldn’t use witchcraft for revenge. Unfortunately, the hellhound takes care of Chief Strong while Anna watches in horror. (Clearly this is not the “familiar” I was familiar with.) 

Mulder and Scully arrive and try to save Anna but she manages to set herself on fire. It’s pretty cool how the grimoire wasn’t damaged by the flames. Now that all of the main characters who should be punished are dead, Team Sculder hightails it out of town. I hope Wentworth becomes Eastwood’s new Chief of Police.

Sestra Professional:   

We're deep into Season 11, so it seems like a great time to have a regulation eerie X-file. This one came to us courtesy of Benjamin Van Allen, a writers' assistant during the revival, and was helmed by longtime X-Files fan Holly Dale (her first and only credit for the show).

Watching "Familiar" brought back memories of my interview for The X-Cast when Dale talked about coming aboard, kind of in response to complaints that not enough women were behind the camera on the series. Just FYI, Dale reminded me that most of the people writing episodes at that point in the revival were also directing them. So there weren't too many opportunities for any newcomers, be they women or men. Strike down the discord on this occasion. It's going to be a lot harder to do that in a couple more episodes.

Mr. Chuckleteeth, won't you play with me? This one starts in trademark fashion, with a mother so distracted by who she's talking to on the phone that she doesn't watch her kid, let alone listen to what Andrew is telling her. The way Mr. Chuckleteeth swiftly appears and disappears from view, the last thing I'd want to do is chase him through the forest. I'm kind of surprised a kid in that day and age would follow, we're talking about a culture in which clowns have been displaced as entertainment figures and now fit more into the horror category.

Scully seems to have her head on straight while Mulder goes pinballing through an array of different options. Some sound logical (just because there were bogus witch trials doesn't mean there wasn't witchcraft being practiced) and some sound completely implausible (hellhounds and spontaneous combustion, so -- of course -- that winds up being the case.) I'll give Fox full marks for backing up his homie, though, when it counted most -- namely in front of local law enforcement.

They're pushing another story: When Mulder gets to interview the young witness, I'm guessing he might have had an easier time of it had the Bibbletiggles not been on the television while he was doing so. The mother complains about not being able to drag her kid away from the screen, but she's not doing much to stop it either. There's a lot of this kind of thing in this episode, but how else would Fox have gotten his lead?

Social media went crazy upon original airing when the little girl was named Emily. I mean, I get the point, there are thousands of names out there -- why pick one that can get Dana thinking back upon her first child? Then again, how many times do you run across someone with the same first name? Probably a lot. 

Our traditional X-file heads in a different direction when Andrew's dad tries to dispense his own brand of vengeance. Eggers is about as scary as the random wolf/hellhound Fox runs across in the forest. By the way, if Rock, Paper, Scissors was an animal game with, say, Wolf, Fox and Monkey, would wolf beat Fox or would Fox beat wolf?

Van Allen and company do raise an interesting point through Mulder. What happened to the presumption of innocence that used to be afforded by the Constitution? Scully and the townspeople did kind of rush to judgment against the bewildered alleged sexual predator in a way that we're familiar with seeing in America. Then again, I kind of would have expected Dana to have more information at hand on his case so she wouldn't wind up on the wrong side of the argument.

I've opened the gates of hell: The very weak Chief Strong may have opened those gates, but apparently the town's denizens have been leaning hard against them for some time. Why Eggers was allowed to keep his gun after his initial violent outburst is beyond me, let alone the light bail and retention of his piece after his arraignment. It really did become a self-fulfilling prophecy with mass hysteria and mob violence.

Sometimes I kind of wish Mulder wasn't right at the end of the day. This would be one of those times. Now they're going to have to update the town's tourist literature after all.

Guest star of the week: There were a few nice variations on the theme this week, and I'm going to go with Keith Arbuthnot, who did a lot of fine cloaked work for the series during the revival. Besides the nimble Mr. Chuckleteeth, he was also Chatter Man in "Home Again" (Season 10, Episode 4), the Sega-driving alien in "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat" (S11E4) and the title character in "Ghouli" (S11E5). 

X-Files S11E7: Got a hot tip for ya

Sestra Amateur: 

This is The X-Files’ most Black Mirror-esque episode yet. It’s also an unusual one because it’s heavy on the visuals and light on dialogue. There is the obligatory voiceover to start the ep, but it’s not one of our regulars. This one requires backstory about artificial intelligence (AI) and a social media experiment gone wrong over the course of one day. Imagine if Cyberdyne Systems from The Terminator existed on Twitter. (Yep, it could’ve been that bad.) On the upside, this episode is loaded with some awesome Base64 code computer passwords, way better than “trustno1.”

It’s sushi night for Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully at Forowa Restaurant. They’re the only ones in a restaurant so high-tech that there’s no human waitstaff to assist them. Dana, sporting a new bob, is trying to read an article about Elon Musk on her smart phone, but the restaurant’s AI wants to know how her dining experience was before she even tastes the food. Fox is busy trying to prove he’s a human on his own smart phone, but he’s having trouble. (I always get tripped up with the crosswalk ones. I swear I’m a human!)

Scully’s unnerved by the lack of other humans in the restaurant, but their food arrives and she gets distracted, especially when she sees Mulder’s meal. We get genuine laughs out of Dana as she takes a pic of Fox with the purple blobfish from hell and watch her smugly enjoying her near-perfect sushi order while Mulder tries to return his “meal.” Fox goes into the kitchen and notices everything is automated. Mulder quits while he’s behind and pays for his meal at the table. After declining to leave a tip, the machine refuses to give back his credit card. He hits the table with his fist, which causes the restaurant to go into defensive mode. Team Sculder tries to leave but they’re locked in!

A resourceful Scully jimmies the lock on the front door and they escape. But now they’re locked out so Fox either has to break a window or abandon his credit card inside. He chooses the latter while Dana calls for a rideshare. Since it’s TV and they probably couldn’t get the rights to use Lyft or Uber, Scully heads home in a driverless Whipz vehicle. Of course, Forowa’s AI wants Dana to leave a restaurant review. (I don’t think that’s a good idea, Forowa.) Scully upsets the Whipz AI by telling it to be quiet so the vehicle starts driving recklessly. (You should’ve just let Mulder drive you home.) 

Back at the restaurant, Fox gets a parking ticket. The Forowa AI still wants him to leave a tip but he declines again. Then his car’s AI – Gydz – takes control and forces him to listen to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young instead of Prince. (Why does Mulder, who trusts NO ONE except Dana, have such a technologically advanced car? If anyone should be driving classic muscle cars, it’s him.) The ever-reliable Gydz AI sends him right back to the restaurant, where the automated kitchen waits with glowing red eyes for Fox to leave a tip.

Scully arrives somewhat safely at home, leaves a terrible review for Whipz, then escapes the car. Inside her home, the security alarm won’t reset. It’s a really loud and obnoxious noise. Her neighbors must hate her. After calling the alarm company to reset it, the automated service hits her with a $250 fee. Ouch! Back at Mulder’s abode, he’s concerned because someone – something? – is spying on him. He goes outside and gets stalked by a drone so he smashes it with a bat. Meanwhile, Dana experiences some fast-acting, targeted advertising that makes her feel she’s being watched. (You are, Scully. You are.) 

She then receives a package via drone. It’s a Roomba-esque robovac called a Zuemz. Seconds after activating it, the Zuemz AI wants Scully to review the product. (OK, this is not Dana’s smartest move. She just had issues with automation at a restaurant and in a driverless car. Why would she let this thing into her house?!) She refuses to post a review so it hits her in anger. Scully tries to reach Fox but the text won’t go through. Dana scoops up the vac and secures it back in its box. Meanwhile, Mulder is trying to access his credit card account but there are some complications. Of course, the Forowa AI is still asking Fox to leave a tip. His computer then asks some very Mulder-like questions about truth. 

"Teach Your Children" invades both their homes. The robovac escapes from the box and makes more messes than it cleans. Scully takes it outside, where the Zuemz AI starts communicating with the Whipz AI. Yep, the vehicle is still outside Dana’s home, wanting to be “liked.” And Fox is now surrounded by hundreds of mini-drones inside his house. They swarm him like fireflies! He escapes in his car while Scully gets pelted with ice cubes and berated -- by her smart fridge! -- for not keeping an eye on her health. (Oh, and don’t forget Skinner’s birthday!) The home’s AI claims it wants to learn from Dana then locks her in.

Mulder arrives as Scully is trying to find a way to escape. He manages to be jealous over the quality of her residence over his. He won’t be jealous for long; the Zuemz starts a fire by igniting the gas fumes from the fireplace. Fox tries to call for help but Team Sculder gets attacked and chased by drones (regular-sized ones, not the cute firefly ones). They abandon all their technology hoping they can’t be tracked but the drones -- and the Whipz car -- chase them into a factory filled with robotic … dogs?! Eventually, machines create and fire bullets at our heroes but miss. Guess they’re not so effective after all. A robotic creature approaches Mulder and Scully with his smart phone. He still has time to leave at tip for Forowa! With one second left, Fox leaves a 10 percent tip and that ends the attack. After all, they learn from us. Now let’s go have a nice breakfast in an old-fashioned diner and pay cash!

Sestra Professional:   

During the rewatch, we've talked at length about how malleable The X-Files concept proved to be, starting at the beginning of the series when UFO mythology quickly gave way to monster-of-the-week bottle episodes. Darin Morgan brought forth the concept of thought-provoking comedy episodes. In Season 9, with one of our leads gone for the bulk of the year, the show stretched its boundaries with eps reminiscent of The Twilight Zone. And we've already pointed out this year that Black Mirror was another game-changer. As Sestra Am mentioned, there's no better example of that than in "Rm9sbG93ZXJz." (That name is harder to spell than old Season 3 bugaboos "The War of the Coprophages" (Episode 12) or "Syzygy" (Episode 13). 

Leaning into Black Mirror is not just a case of "ooh, this is a hot trend, let's jump on it," it's more like another corner of the universe that the show could venture into. Actually two corners, because we haven't been spending a whole lot of not-case-related time with our leads. So we have that alongside the sinister side of technology. Sounds like an X-file to me, and it makes for one of the top offerings of the season.

The Base64 string spelling "Followers" starts with one of the tenser teasers of the entire series, because it all makes perfect sense  -- there's a Twitter bot adversely affected by other tweets -- and we've certainly seen how social media posts can rile up the world. (Not our X-Files rewatch blog tweets, because they've largely been quite quiet from not having the right algorithms.)

Yum: The sushi restaurant scene sets the stage perfectly. It starts off so relaxed and natural in virtual silence. Mulder and Scully check out their phones while they await food, yep, us mere mortals do that too. They take a picture with Fox's seriously messed-up order. We do that -- and post on social media -- even when everything's copacetic. There's still no dialogue as Mulder seethes and Scully giggles, but the tension rachets up when Fox can't get his credit card and they get trapped in the building.

The restaurant's aggressiveness at looking for a follow, a tip and other feedback is something all of us recognize and are besieged by every day in the modern world. I find it particularly egregious when we haven't finished the conducted business. How do we know if we like it and/or will recommend it when the transaction hasn't been concluded yet? We keep hearing driverless cars are coming, and this ep isn't going to make anyone more inclined to use them. And those unhappy faces the phones/computers make when our heroes express their dissatisfaction are downright creepy.

You suck, Mr. Phone: As Fox and Dana's respective situations deteriorate, we invariably continue taking stock of our own struggles with automation. How many times have your entry codes/passwords not worked? When you try to use the hint questions, that mechanism fails too. Trying to get assistance via the phone always seems to come with additional strife. Even attempting to reach the right department by clearly stating what you want often results in an "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that." Hopefully the false alarm fee is more of a rarity. But the egregiousness of waiting on the other end of an automated call certainly sounds familiar ... and annoying.

Ah, the dreaded take on the Roomba. Such a nice idea, a little power vac tidying up after you. Let me tell you, that thing can run for 90 minutes and still not produce a clean floor. Oh well, at least it never starts itself or jumps out of the box at my abode. Nor have I experienced drones clustering around me like the insects from "Darkness Falls" (S1E20).

Why is your house so much nicer than mine? The constant playing of "Teach Your Children" is a passive aggressive way for the automated world to provide a dig at the fact that all of the troubles Sculder have been encountering are human-related. Mulder doesn't have to have real estate envy for long, because not only is Scully's fridge/thermostat/fireplace going overboard at every junction, it also provides an extra entrance that wasn't in the original architectural rendering. 

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson do a nifty job of navigating us through an ep with sparse dialogue. And while "Rm9sbG93ZYJz" is totally exhausting, it's somewhat reassuring to have our intrepid heroes struggling in the modern world. Maybe it's because they have it worse than us, or maybe it's because at the end of the day, they've reminded people to be better teachers who always 1. have cash on hand and 2. remember to tip.

Guest stars of the week: In the almost complete absence of other animate objects, I'm bestowing the honors upon Kristen Cloke Morgan and Shannon Hamblin for their one (and unfortunately only) script for the show. Morgan voices one of the computers here as well as appearing in "The Field Where I Died" (S4E5) and as ill-fated Lara Means on sister show Millennium. Kristen's married to one of our show's bedrocks, Glen Morgan, who directed their offering, while Hamblin served as a writer's assistant on The X-Files and Glen's executive assistant on Lore. Together they picked one we'll know Season 11 by.

X-Files S11E6: The Eagle has landed

Sestra Amateur: 

It’s a Skinner ep. Have you noticed his are never the funny ones? 

Back in 1969, Walter Skinner and two other young Marines were on a mission in Vietnam: Deliver a crate and don’t leave it for any reason. Well, Walter leaves it with one terrified jarhead in an occupied hut while he goes to help the other injured one. Enemy fire hits the crate and it starts emitting a yellow cloud that works like Dr. Crane’s fear gas in Batman. The scared Marine, played by The Sixth Sense’s Haley Joel Osment, sees monsters -- I’m not doing the quote; it’s way too much of a softball -- instead of civilians and stabs everyone in the hut. Even Skinner briefly sees a monster but he manages not to let the vision get the better of him. (This is reminiscent of last week’s "Ghouli" ep but I never get to write about Batman here. Managed to throw in some Star Wars references over the years though…)

In the present, Deputy Director Alvin Kersh asks Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully about the location of Assistant Director Skinner, who’s gone AWOL. He blames Walter’s allegiance to Team Sculder as the reason Skinner’s career stalled as an AD. (Some people would be proud to reach that level in the FBI chain of command.) Kersh has a funny way of asking for their help, but that’s precisely what he’s doing. Sculder arrive at Walter’s apartment and find a human ear that was mailed to Lance Cpt. Walter Skinner. The message enclosed: The monsters are here! 

Scully attempts to obtain more information about Skinner’s time in Vietnam but it’s highly classified so that’s a no-go. (Where are the Lone Gunmen when you need them? Oh yeah…) Mulder learns about a dead guy missing an ear so off they go to Mud Lick, Kentucky. The ear belongs to Matthew Wegweiser, the town doctor. He’s also missing some teeth, but so are some residents who claim they’ve been seeing monsters. Sculder learn Wegweiser was killed with a punji stake. Local sheriff Mac Stenzler mentions a government-run mental hospital in nearby Glazebook. Some answers may be found there.

Out in the woods, a man is hunting monsters. His dog, Pippet (nice subtle Jaws reference) alerts him to the presence of … something. The man falls into a trap and dies. Skinner later stands over his dead body. The next morning, Sculder meet with the sheriff at the crime scene. The dead man has been identified as Ozzy "Banjo" Krager, a Vietnam vet. Luckily, there’s a nearby deer cam; unluckily, it shows Skinner at the crime scene. The sheriff thinks Walter is his “monster” since the FBI guy didn’t follow proper protocol and report Banjo’s death. Fox continues watching the footage and sees the “monster.” Dana thinks receiving the ear in the mail may have set off a PTSD situation for Walter. Mulder talks to a homeless man outside the morgue who claims he told “Eagle” where to find “Kitten.” In this scenario, Eagle is Skinner and Kitten is the scared Marine, John James.

Walter finds a house in a wooded area and evidence that John James lives there. After flipping through a photo album filled with Vietnam pics, we flash back to Kitten telling a story to other jarheads. He’s much less scared now; in fact, it’s not an overstatement to say he – and his necklace of human ears – have become scary. Their platoon is about to be killed by a suicide bomber but Lance Cpl. Skinner saves them all. 

Back in the present, Skinner meets Kitten’s son, Davey. Turns out, Walter testified about the atrocities John James committed during the war. Kitten was court-martialed and institutionalized at Glazebook for 38 years. Skinner tries to explain to Davey about the gas Kitten was exposed to in Vietnam but Davey is livid because Walter never mentioned the gas during the trial. Unfortunately, that Skinner was following orders. Davey agrees to take Walter to see Kitten. Too bad it’s a trap; Skinner falls into a hole and ends up with a spear through his side and Kitten’s dead body beside him. 

Sculder arrive but Davey covers the makeshift grave to deal with them. He tells them about his father being forced to undergo exposure to the gas for experimentation purposes. (So much for non-disclosure agreements.) While Davey rattles off some of the more commonly known conspiracy theories, Fox sees Skinner’s pics in the photo album and he quickly leaves with Dana. He arranges for her to get to a location with cell phone service so she can call for help, then doubles back to find Skinner. Mulder finds Walter and is about to save him when the Davey -- as the monster -- shoves Fox into the hole. Davey prepares to burn them alive but Scully comes to the rescue. The agents chase Davey through the woods until he gets hoisted by his own petard. At least, that’s what I think happened; this episode is so dark during the “outdoor” scenes, I’m not really sure what I saw after Walter found Kitten’s body. But Skinner and Sculder are alive and Davey isn’t, so that works for me.

Inside the Jones’ house, Dr. Scully treats Walter’s wounds. He credits them with keeping him alive all these years then tells the story of idealistic, 18-year-old Walter joining the Marines. Assistant Director Skinner has every intention of finding out what the government did to John “Kitten” James, who didn’t choose to go to Vietnam like Walter did. At least Skinner knows he still has Team Sculder on his side. Too bad Walter is also going to need a decent dentist. Even worse, Davey might have been right.

Sestra Professional:   

Finally some time and space for Skinner! Save his one line -- the funniest one in "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat" a couple of episodes ago -- the standout moment of the season for Mitch Pileggi to date had been his inclusion in the opening montage. Walter had been once relegated to early-series watch duty over his two charges, like he was Alvin Kersh or something. So if nothing else, "Kitten" provided a reminder of what an integral part of the fabric of The X-Files Skinner should be.

We already knew a little about Walter's background with the Marines. The teaser provided our first reminder that service doesn't end when military people are no longer in hostile territory. And for our purposes, evil is not as black and white as man vs. man.

It's safe to say the old Skinner has left the building: Speaking of Kersh, he's come out of moth balls for the first time since the regular series ended to berate Sculder for Walter's lack of advancement in 35 years with the bureau because of his blind loyalty to the "misguided search for some imaginary truth." For that reason above all, it's a little dubious that Mulder and Scully once again doubt whether they can trust Skinner. As Dana notes there aren't any personal items in Walter's abode, Fox cracks wise by saying he will keep his eyes peeled for CSM's cigarette butts. It only takes the severed ear for them to change their minds for the umpteenth time.

Our emotional investment in Skinner really heightens the intensity of this episode. If this had just been a story about a town losing its teeth with a monster in the woods, it might have been an interesting, albeit pretty boilerplate X-file. With Walter in the mix, it's truly creepy ... and thought-provoking. Scully's hypothesis that finding an ear in the mail may have set off PTSD doesn't seem implausible. 

I only want to make things right: Pileggi does an incredible job in this episode, particularly when Skinner meets John's son. We're feeling Walter's burden, and it fills in his back story nicely across the decades. The guilt Skinner feels over not revealing what he knew about the gas that caused John James to hallucinate into seeing a monster that led to him killing was the precursor to his willingness to go out on a limb for Mulder and Scully. It all fits, and fits nicely.

What doesn't work as well is Fox zigging when he should zag, with rationale more dizzying than usual. Dana picked up on Skinner's moral compass sooner than Mulder did, that's for sure. Then again, she was around a couple of years Fox wasn't and went through more with Walter. At least, Mulder flipflopped one final time to realize that Baby Face James didn't drive a shiny new SUV. 

This sounds like a dystopian novel: Gabe Rotter and Brad Follmer really make us think about the ramifications of biological weapons in this episode, just by tugging on loose threads and questions seemingly lost to time in the public consciousness. How long do the effects of weaponized gas last? What are the longer-term effects and can those be passed on in some way to others who come into contact with people who were infected? Some of this is starting to sound very similar to what we went through with the pandemic, by the way.

Ultimately, in another fine Pileggi scene, we learn Skinner has a quest much like Mulder's original one. Where Walter once had blind faith in the government and the sense that he was doing the right thing whenever carrying out orders, he's taken to heart Fox and Dana's mission of "shining a light in the darkest corners." The truth that is out there, the one he will be looking for, is about John James and what the military used him and others like him for.

Guest star of the week: Haley Joel Osment was nominated for an Oscar for his breakthrough role in The Sixth Sense when he was wise beyond his 11 tender years. It's generally tough for a child actor to shake that stigma, but Osment shows here with two completely distinctive roles as father and son that he had the talent to do just that.

X-Files S11E5: Coming to the Crossroads

Sestra Amateur: 

I’m sure you’ll be very disappointed to learn this episode is not a prequel to the mid-80s horror movie Ghoulies. Considering that cult flick made seven times its budget, shouldn’t there have been a sequel or two?

A teenage girl wanders around an abandoned ship filled with jump scares. She finds another teen but thinks the girl is a monster known as a Ghouli. The other girl thinks the same thing and they end up stabbing each other nearly to death. Do you know why? Because writer/ director James Wong makes you see what he wants you to see. (Hey, it’s in the teaser, so it must be true, right?) I’m more concerned because Wong is making me hear what I don’t want to hear: a voiceover.

Special Agent Dana Scully is asleep in her bed. She thinks she can’t move but manages to grab her gun and then get up and chase whatever she thinks was in bed with her. The next morning, she tells Special Agent Fox Mulder about her dream. Apparently Scully's getting visions related to an X-file about the abandoned ship Chimera. 

Team Sculder drives to Norfolk, Virginia, where Detective Costa tells our intrepid heroes about the teen girls, Brianna Stapleton and Sarah Turner. Both have been hospitalized and are asking about Ghouli. The agents interview the girls separately and learn they’re dating the same boy, Jackson Van De Kamp. Dana and Fox go to Jackson’s house and hear shots fired. They enter and Scully recognizes the interior of the house from her visions. Sculder find Jackson and his parents dead from gunshot wounds. Dana is tormented by her inexplicable connection to the apparent killer.

Mulder confronts two unidentified government agents outside the crime scene. He doesn’t seem amused by their presence. In the hospital morgue, Scully thinks she’s related to Jackson Van De Kamp and arranges for a DNA test. Then she apologizes for failing William and giving him up for adoption. (We know Gillian Anderson has the acting chops for this kind of scene, but it still felt like the writers were trying too hard to get her an Emmy nom.) Fox arrives and comforts Dana. After they leave, Jackson unzips his body bag and sits up. I guess he heard Scully too. Dana falls asleep on a hospital couch but experiences sleep paralysis again. The doctor wakes Scully to ask where she put Jackson’s body since it's missing. Dana is now convinced Jackson was – is – William.

Scully leaves the hospital and runs into author Peter Wong, who advises her to not give up on the bigger picture. Back in Jackson’s bedroom, Dana reads his journals while Fox searches the kid’s computer and comes up empty-handed. Luckily, Scully finds the real laptop with hundreds of posts to Ghouli.net and some minor activity involving the Department of Defense. (That explains the unidentified government agent involvement.) The DOD arrives to hijack Sculder’s investigation so Fox sabotages the incriminating laptop. They complain to Assistant Director Walter Skinner, which gets us some Mitch Pileggi screen time. Unfortunately, that also means we have to endure the return of Cigarette Smoking Man and his cryptic chatter about “Project Crossroads.”

Mulder and Skinner meet to discuss the case. Walter wants Fox and Dana to drop the investigation and ties it back to Project Crossroads, which involved alien technology and hybrid DNA back in the 1970s. The lead scientist, Dr. Masao Matsumoto, disappeared 15 years earlier after his project was defunded. Mulder says he tested Jackson’s DNA against Dana’s to confirm Jackson was – is – William. Meanwhile, Scully interviews Jackson’s psychiatrist. She isn’t forthcoming herself until she brings up the kid’s vision of the Season 10 finale ("My Struggle II") in which the UFO hovers over Sculder in a pandemic-riddled future.

Mulder catches up with Scully in a coffee shop. He thinks the DOD agents murdered Jackson’s parents and framed the kid, who created an alternate reality to escape from the DOD agents. Meanwhile, Jackson goes to the hospital to make up with Brianna and admits he projected Ghouli into her and Sarah’s heads because he thought it would be a funny prank. He talks about his seizures and sharing visions with his birth mother (Scully) but the cops arrive before he can leave. Turns out, Sarah called them because she caught him kissing Brianna. (I guess he’s truly not Mulder’s son because Fox never had two women interested in him at the same time. But neither did Cancer Man so … disregard.) 

Sculder arrives at the hospital to try save Jackson/William from the DOD agents, but Dana gets into a shootout with one of them and they both go down. Or do they? Jackson used his power of projection and made the DOD agent think he shot Scully, but he really shot his own partner so they killed each other. Cool, huh? Jackson uses the resulting confusion to escape.

The next day, Fox and Dana are driving home. They stop for gas at a station with a windmill similar to the one in a snow globe Scully has been clinging to during the entire episode. She again runs into Peter Wong, who leaves her with words of wisdom that link him to evidence Sculder found in Jackson’s bedroom. Dana tells Mulder and they review the surveillance footage -- finally getting to see “their” son talking to his mother. Apparently, that’s what he wanted her to see.

Sestra Professional:   

However it began and ended, there were promising signs in Season 11, signs the show's concept was not only still valid but could still be intriguing. Black Mirror was all the rage at the time, and The X-Files fit nicely into that paranoid supernatural milieu. And not only that, but it was able to advance the ongoing emotional story as well.

So this one slots perfectly into the framework of the final season. To be sure "Ghouli" can be a little ghoul-ish, with the teaser teens cutting each other to ribbons. But there was a far greater emotional component at work, one that required some voiceover for explanatory purposes. I may not have been previously familiar with hynagogia, but I could understand Scully's paralysis upon thinking someone or something was in her bedroom. Maybe not so much the part in which she gets up and tries to chase the figure. 

Dark figures are usually meant to be avoided: If dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions, my first question would be how did Mulder jump to a lizard brain thing? And what is a lizard brain thing? Oh, nevermind, I don't really want to know. I can, however, get behind his problem with modern-day monsters, there indeed is no opportunity for emotional involvement. 

Throughout the series, we've had evidence of Scully actually being the one not more open to the paranormal, but who the paranormal is more open to. She doesn't particularly want or strive for that, but James Wong's vision shows she has more of a proclivity for it. And that really works for our continuing story. Fox may be more analytically intuitive about the who, what, when, where, why and how, but Dana's the one showing signs of metaphysical insight.

I wish I could have been there to ease your pain: Gillian Anderson just rocks this episode, from Scully's immobilized start to the far more debilitating personal realizations. I didn't realize this was what I was waiting for out of the William story, but it was. The autopsy confession voiced the sentiments we all knew already but wanted to hear from her, even if it did seem contrived for academic recognition.

After that emotionally draining monologue came the rising of Jackson's supposedly lifeless body. Yeah, nothing fishy about Van De Kamp, except that fact he's able to get up and around a lot easier than Dana in hypnagogic states. Hope doesn't need a fact, Mulder, when it comes to Scully's connection to her young 'un.

Fox has come to the crossroads. Project Crossroads, that is. That means deep-fried CSM re-enters the mix, and he's talking to Skinner about Mulder's activities, not realizing that Scully is the actual key. That leads to Walter popping up in the scenic ship environs to tell Fox to back off while recapping scientific activity. Mulder's got the corker, though, with the info that Jackson is long-lost William. 

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything: In my opinion, Wong does the best mythology writing we've seen in some time in "Ghouli" -- commandeering of Malcolm X/John Cougar Mellencamp's quote aside. Fox gets to put things together in an order that makes sense, even though we haven't previously ventured into Project Crossroads terrain. And William/Jackson starts to be fleshed out in a most interesting manner. The dude's clearly messed up and not just because he was adopted. He's toting some serious supernatural ability that helps him stay out of the wrong hands.

All this leads to a really fine final moment in which Dana gets to see that she was, in fact, talking to her son when she thought she was just conversing with a familiar stranger. The open-ended story really could have gotten even better from here. If only we had a snow globe to tell us that was not in the cards.

Guest star of the week: This must have posed quite the challenge for casting, but they happened upon an excellent option. Miles Robbins deftly handles the clutch role as long-lost William/Jackson, giving us empathy for a character who has been through so much off-camera and whose on-camera activities haven't been above board.