Sestra Amateur:
No seasons-long storyline this week, no comic relief, just standard bottle-episode fare. Three 20-something guys are playing soldier in a live video game resembling laser tag. “Retro” -- the leader of this platoon -- calls for them to shoot the enemies approaching them on crotch rockets. It looks like live ammo until they hit the targets, which disappear after the “kill.” Next, they shoot Nazis, who take out one player in a slimy, neon yellow mess. But Retro moves onward and encounters the stunning Maitreya, played by Krista Allen. He bows to her, she shoots him. This scene is rated M for Mature.
Sculder arrive at the FPS (First Person Shooter) Corporate Offices in Inland Empire, California. (Darn, now I want to watch the David Lynch movie, Inland Empire. I’m easily suggestible.) The security guard scans their IDs and retinas before they can enter. After that, they’re quickly joined by the company's consultants, the Lone Gunmen(?!)
The trio brings the agents to the game’s creator, Ivan, and coworker Phoebe, who are standing over Retro’s dead-in-reality body. (So that guy has been rotting on the floor for however many hours it took for the staff to contact the Gunmen, who then contacted Mulder, who arranged for him and Scully to fly across the country to investigate? This California relocation is really wreaking havoc with the suspension of disbelief on a show in which you’re supposed to believe anything is possible.)
Phoebe tries to explain how Retro was in “non-combat space.” Tweaking the video replay reveals Maitreya. Phoebe doesn’t look surprised but no one else notices. That’s probably the story of her life. By the time Fox brings a picture of the killer to Dana, local Detective Lacouer and crime-scene techs are leaving. But have no fear, Darryl Musashi, the “boy wonder of virtual mayhem,” is here. Mulder and the Lone Gunmen geek out while Darryl searches for Maitreya in the virtual world. Maitreya, dressed as a ninja, disarms him quickly and literally. She says something in Japanese before beheading Darryl. This scene is rated O for Ouch!
Scully conducts Retro’s autopsy. If the agents had to scan IDs and retinas to enter the FPS building, wouldn’t the company have all Retro’s information on file? They certainly wouldn’t let an anonymous person test a groundbreaking game one week before release. Dana is clearly frustrated with the progress of her autopsy. Mulder arrives so he and Scully can voice their opposing viewpoints about violent games in today’s society. Fox has a surprise for Dana: Darryl’s severed head. (Normal men bring flowers.) But local police have a surprise for Sculder -- the female suspect is in custody. Scully interviews Jade Blue Afterglow, who claims she was paid to have her body image scanned. After a Basic Instinct homage, she is released from custody. This scene is rated I for Immature.
Sculder return to FPS where they find Phoebe asleep and the Gunmen trapped in the game. Mulder suits up to save them ... and because he has an urge to blow up stuff. He chases down the assassin. The Lone Gunmen try to assist but end up leaving the game. While the others try to find out where the game and Fox went, Mulder shoots at a hyper-gymnastic Maitreya. Hey Fox, why don’t you try talking to her? That’s what Dana does with Phoebe, who reveals she created Maitreya from Jade Blue’s image while creating her own video game.
Mulder is getting his butt kicked as the team tries to figure out how to regain control of the game. He grabs a sword and progresses to Level 2. Welcome to Westworld, Fox. He’s outnumbered by multiple Maitreyas, but Scully arrives to save Mulder's skin. She does so with a seemingly unlimited supply of ammunition. Unfortunately, there’s an unlimited supply of Maitreyas. Phoebe and Ivan fight over destroying the game to save Sculder. Phoebe gives the command and our heroes are saved. I don’t know why Fox acts so victorious, Dana did all of the heavy lifting here. And it shows, thanks to Cyber Scully’s new digital design. It helped me tune out Mulder’s extraordinarily unnecessary end-of-episode narration. This voice-over is rated G for Give it a rest, Mulder.
Sestra Professional:
We go from one of the better examples of fitting The X-Files into a pop-culture universe within a pop-culture universe to one of the worst examples of the same.
Visually, I suppose the idea of visualizing a videogame on broadcast television had merit. But let's face it, this episode exists to suit Mulder and Scully up in buff outfits so they can blast some stuff. It's already not my thing, I'd rather watch the much-maligned "Space" (Season 1, Episode 9) and geek out over NASA than virtual reality. Even Byers' claim that the game is the launchpad of a rocket headed to the stars doesn't appeal to my "space cadet" nature.
"First Person Shooter" was written by William Gibson and Tom Maddox. The driving force behind the cyberpunk genre seemed to have leveled up to another shot at an X-Files script by besting Stephen King in a one-on-one fifth-season battle for least worst attempt at writing the show. His "Kill Switch" -- the 11th episode that year -- was slightly less onerous than the horror master's "Chinga" the previous week.
It's all about body count: The teaser quickly shows the weakness of the concept. Dialogue about bloodthirst and carnage come up very short, initiate massive eye rolling. When the agents arrive on the scene, Dana denegrades the proceedings as immature, hormonal fantasy. And while it was cool to have the Lone Gunmen back in the mix, watching the trio and Mulder prove Scully's point doesn't rack up any respect points (and would take them away if they actually existed). How many viewers cringed like Dana (and me) at the very idea of bleeding-edge technology?
The tone of the episode bounces wildly back and forth between comedy -- "I'll put out an APB for Frederick's of Hollywood -- and gruesomeness. It's not helped (as it usually is) by Mark Snow's exhaustive score. We're watching people get viciously slaughtered -- kinda. But at the same time, all the men are acting like they just hit puberty. Mulder's pretty flip about it all, just minutes after he witnessed the death of an idol. And then there's the police station, chock full of cops behaving like adolescents drooling over the real-life incarnation of Maitreya.
As Sestra Am mentioned, Sculder engage one of those now-time-honored debates about whether violence in games begets violence in the real world. Scully wonders aloud why such amazing technology is being wasted, finding no redeeming value in it whatsoever. Fox considers it an outlet for certain impulses. They don't reach any kind of understanding or offer us any new and/or interesting insight on that front.
The episode loses another turn for Phoebe's clunky complaint about Dana not understanding what it's like "choking in a haze of rampant testosterone." Yeah, she couldn't possibly understand what that's like as a special agent at the FBI.
And then we get to the big finale. Mulder and Scully are in the game shooting multiple Maitreyas. They -- and the Lone Gunmen before them -- get lightly winged, but none of our regulars suffer the decapitation and horrible deaths of the expert players before them. Fox decries multiple versions of the assassin as cheating. And Dana may be "in the zone" -- activate the stilted dialogue module -- but ultimately, our heroes don't beat the game. They just get saved after the most dopey of discussions over a keyboard and the use of a kill code. Suspense level: Zero.
That's entertainment ... not!! Game over, I don't want to put another token into this particular machine. Even the satisfaction of completing a full rewatch isn't worth it. But credit where credit is due, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences was impressed enough to award the show Emmys for Outstanding Sound Mixing and Special Video Effects for this episode.
Guest star of the week: Krista Allen makes for a pretty dazzling femme fatale (in all her forms) as well as the sassy real-life counterpart whose idea of gaming leans more toward adult fare -- cosplaying Sharon Stone. Yeah, she's got game.
Sestra Amateur:
Do you like The X-Files? Do you like Cops? Do you like FOX TV circa 2000? If so, then "X-Cops" is the show for you! This week, FBI Special Agents Mulder and Scully are on location in Los Angeles with the men and women of law enforcement. All suspects, even supernatural ones, are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Rookie Deputy Keith Wetzel tries to sound like a veteran while waxing nostalgic about the effect of full moons on night patrol shifts, but he likes to use the word "irregardless," so I’ve lost interest. He and the Cops camera crew respond to a monster call, but the deputy is thinking drug addict or burglar. He finds huge claw marks on the complainant’s front door, so it’s either a monster or Freddy Krueger.
Deputy Wetzel searches the backyard, panics and bolts with the camera crew back to his patrol car. Unfortunately, the unseen monster attacks the car, preventing their getaway. His backup arrives, led by Sergeant Duthie, but the deputy claims it was “gangbangers.” The entire squad chases down armed subjects, but it’s just Sculder. Fox tries to interview Wetzel, but he’s now reluctant to talk on camera. Mulder makes it easier for him and mentions a werewolf-like creature seen during a previous full moon. And it turns out, poor Deputy Wetzel has a bite on his wrist. Do you know how much paperwork he and his sergeant have to do now?
Meanwhile, Scully tries to convince Fox not to be so open about their types of investigations with the camera running. He’s titillated by the possibility of catching a werewolf on camera to validate his beliefs. Mulder shows Duthie the werewolf sketch from the previous victim, but this victim describes Freddy. (I was right!) Dana tells Fox that Deputy Wetzel was not bitten by a werewolf, it’s just a bunch of bug bites. Deputies get another call and the agents follow the cops to a clawed dead body. It’s the sketch artist who had just left the victim’s house.
Sculder and Duthie interview witnesses Steve and Edy, but the sketches from the previous attacks aren’t helpful. The fingernail Scully finds at the crime scene gets quickly identified as belonging to Chantara the streetwalker. The duo and a camera crew locate Chantara, who blames her pimp boyfriend Chuco for the murder and is terrified he will break her neck. The cops and the agents raid Chuco’s crackhouse, where they find his long dead body. Now that’s a great alibi. Everyone runs outside when Deputy Wetzel starts shooting at something. Too bad that something broke Chantara’s neck first.
One deputy finds evidence that Wetzel may have shot the creature. Keith finally admits he thought he saw “The Wasp Man.” (That explains his bug bites.) So this creature is able to become a person’s worst nightmare. Maybe they’re looking for the Batman villain Scarecrow, whose modus operandi is to feed on everyone’s fears. Sculder return to witnesses Steve and Edy, who are in the middle of a domestic dispute, not an attack. Our intrepid heroes split up to follow different leads. Surprisingly, Scully lets the cameraman tag along for Chantara’s autopsy, probably because Assistant Director Skinner told her the FBI has nothing to hide, off camera. The coroner’s assistant already heard way too much about the investigation and is concerned about contagion. She would fit in very well in today’s reality. Of course, her fear of the hantavirus causes her to die of the hantavirus. Dana was spared because she wasn’t afraid.
Deputy Wetzel is trying to be a brave little soldier, but he apparently doesn’t feel safe with just the camera crew and they get attacked again in the crackhouse. (How did law enforcement manage to clear, search, process, inventory and seal the crime scene in only couple of hours? I’ll believe in the fear contagion before I’ll believe that!) Sgt. Duthie -- who, by now, should have relinquished command to a higher ranking officer -- and her deputies try to enter through the locked front door. Mulder and Scully go around the back and gain entry. They find the camera crew alive and well. (I wonder what kind of hazard pay the Cops camera crew gets. This particular show, it doesn’t seem like enough.) Dana keeps them safe and hidden. Wetzel is alive but bleeding. Did he defeat the creature by being courageous? It sure didn’t sound like it. Regardless of his own beliefs, the sun began to rise, so he’ll have to revisit his fear during the next full moon. I’ll bet he switches to the day shift by then.
Sestra Professional:
Bad claws, bad claws, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you? After the wrapup of the Samantha mythology 7 1/2 years in the making last week, we definitely could use something a little lighter. Enter Vince Gilligan with a concept he had been trying to turn into reality -- at least The X-Files' version of such -- for many years. Hence the mashup "X-Cops."
Creator Chris Carter's concern, according to The Complete X-Files, was that such an effort would be "too goofy." The show needed to play the episode exactly like an installment of the fellow FOX show. And so it did. With Cops co-creator John Langley consulting, Gilligan was invited on an actual shoot to get the rhythm of the show. It looked so much like the original that FOX decided a notification was needed at the beginning so viewers understood The X-Files wasn't being pre-empted.
Can I see your badge again? "X-Cops" also feels very reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project, the small-budget film that did big box office the previous summer. Not just in terms of the hand-held cameras either, the idea that the evil remains unseen and we never get a true look at what Mulder, Scully, the cops and the camera crew are after. Our protagonists even hear strange noises while stomping around an old house at the end.
With all that going on, we might have expected our leads to fall by the wayside in an episode that might have seemed gimmicky, particularly during a season in which the bottle shows haven't done much to advance our story. Luckily, it doesn't play out that way.
That's why they pay us the big bucks: Mulder really gets into the idea of having a camera crew trail his every move while documenting his ideas -- particularly since he's so far ahead of the curve than anyone else -- for an international audience. It's your basic feast for David Duchovny, he plays to the Cops camera with perfect precision. There's not a more perfect moment than when Fox tells Dana, "I don't think it's live television, she just said [bleeped out]." One would think Mulder had been on the actual Cops for years, the way he can conversationally lay out details of the case while driving or walking. Maybe Fox was a closet viewer, when not indulging his various other television predilections.
Contrast that with Scully, who probably doesn't want to be investigating the case anyway, let alone with cameramen following in her wake. Gillian Anderson matches Duchovny beat for beat with her comic timing. Early on, Dana just turns away from the camera in shame -- I'm not entirely sure whether that's because she's being filmed or because she's investigating a monster. But Anderson really excels as the episode rolls to its conclusion. Girlfriend can perform an autopsy and point out out that the FBI has nothing to hide at the same time. And her "I hate you guys" upon finding the Cops crew cowering in the closet is priceless.
Meta monsters: The crossover episode was filmed on videotape by director Michael Watkins, who even worked the camera at times. Having had an ongoing relationship with Los Angeles law enforcement, he called in a few favors -- including use of real sheriff's deputies as extras, according to the official episode guide. ... The average number of edits in an X-Files ep ranged from 800 to 1,200. The total in the first cut of this one was a mere 45, the episode guide stated. ... Cops cameraman Daniel Emmett and sound man John Michael Vaughn played themselves and an editor from the show was tapped to create the trademark blur over the faces of innocent bystanders, according to the guide.
Guest star of the week: Dee Freeman was an arresting presence as Sgt. Duthie, pun intended. She sounds as disbelieving as Dana, and she's also got a vocabulary reminiscent of Detective Manners in "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" (Season 3, Episode 20). But most of all, she brings some grit to an episode besieged by such flamboyant characters as Steve and Edy and a hooker whose pink hair matches her fingernails.
Sestra Amateur:
Maybe it’s wise not to overanalyze Chris Carter or Frank Spotnitz’s thinking processes, but the curiosity is still there. We’re finishing up a two-parter here and last week’s episode had a German title, so why not do the same thing this week? Is it because "Closure" doesn’t accurately translate with the American alphabet? (SchlieBung isn’t correct because the "B" is really an eszett or "sharp S" sound. Funny how my smart phone probably has the right character but my computer keyboard does not.) And since it doesn’t accurately translate, did Carnitz think fans would not understand the closure of this long-running storyline? Makes me wonder.
So last week, Assistant Director Skinner chased their suspected kidnapper into a cemetery loaded with unmarked graves. This week, while we watch the feds dig up the dead children, we must listen to Mulder’s voiceover. The scene would have been more powerful with just the visual sights and Mark Snow’s haunting score, especially when we see the children’s souls gathering in a circle at nighttime. But I’ll try to “believe to understand” so I can reach the end of this story arc.
Scully reveals to Mulder that Ed Truelove admitted (off camera) to 24 murders, but denied taking Amber Lynn LaPierre. Dana doesn’t reveal whether Truelove confessed to taking Samantha Mulder, as Fox searches through decades-old reel-to-reel tapes hoping to find a connection. She had to have asked the killer that question, hoping for some type of response. But I guess if we get that answer now then what would we watch for the next 39 minutes? Police psychic Harold Piller, played by the entertaining Anthony Heald, arrives to help Sculder with their investigation. Scully quickly writes him off, but Harold’s timely explanation of the phrase "walk-ins" catches Mulder’s attention. I’m surprised Dana is so easily willing to return to D.C. and give up on little Amber Lynn, who is still an active missing child! Hopefully the FBI’s Behavioral Unit keeps looking for her.
Fox takes Piller to the burial site where Harold explains how matter transforms to starlight. Poor Piller claims he can feel how the murdered victims suffered before they died. Harold senses a connection between Amber Lynn and Mulder’s sister, and once again, Fox has hope. Scully meets with Agent Schoniger to watch video footage of Mulder’s hypnosis session dated June 16, 1989. (I’ll bet you didn’t know Schoniger means "more gentle" in German. Yep, still have the Google Translate page open.) He notes that Fox didn’t first regress until 16 years after Samantha’s disappearance, which gave Mulder time to incorporate alien abduction into his own beliefs. Schoniger believes Samantha is dead because a huge government effort (including the Treasury Department, for some reason) failed to locate her during the original investigation. Dana is right about one thing: Fox deserves closure. We all do at this point.
Mulder is hearing timely words of wisdom from the original Planet of the Apes movie when Piller arrives with a "visitor" -- Fox's mother. (Good thing she/they didn’t arrive during one of Mulder’s adult movie times.) Fox doubts Harold’s ability, but we can see Teena Mulder in the background trying to say something. Fox absentmindedly writes "April Base" and now we know how Billie LaPierre and Kathy Lee Tencate wrote their notes in the previous episode.
Scully lockpicks her way into Teena’s house and finds an original torn document in the scorched garbage can. Dana calls Mulder to tell him about the Treasury Department investigation and the initials of the person who closed Samantha’s investigation -- C.G.B.S., the Cigarette Smoking Man. Fox is convinced that’s a dead end and hangs up on her. Mulder and Piller arrive at the decommissioned April Air Force Base, but there is still a security guard on base. Scully arrives home and encounters Cancer Man in her living room. She tells him to put out his cigarette. He tells her to stop looking because Samantha is dead. Neither listens to the other. Fox and Harold sneak onto the base and search an abandoned neighborhood. They stumble across cement palm-print memories of Samantha ... and Jeffrey Spender. (Why would Cancer Man let her keep her first name if there was such a huge investigation? He should have changed it to ... Paige!)
The next day, the agents compare notes in California. Fox does a poor job explaining everything he learned. One disposable camera would have gone a long way; it would have shown what he and Harold saw at the base. It would have shown the size of Samantha’s hands (Mulder's acting like she put them there last week, but it would have been decades earlier). Cancer Man never said Samantha died the day she was taken, Fox. Sculder confront Piller, who Dana learned is under investigation for killing his own son. How tormenting must it be to get answers for other people’s loved ones, but not your own?
Sculder and Piller go to the base where Harold tries to reach the spirits. They end up with a roomful and one little boy leads Mulder away. The next morning, Fox finds his sister’s hidden diary from 1979 and one passage explains that she decided to run away. He still doesn’t know what his mother was trying to tell him, but luckily, Teena talks to Mulder that night while he sleeps.
The next morning, Scully finds a California Highway Patrol police report from Oct. 23, 1979 involving a 14-year-old runaway girl. Dana and Harold talk to the nurse who signed her in, Arbutus Ray. She tells a similar story of seeing a vision of the girl dead, even though she was sleeping peacefully. CSM and his men came to take her away, but the girl had vanished. While Scully learns this, Fox is led by the spirit boy (Harold’s son) to a circle of spirit children in the nearby woods. He sees Amber Lynn and Samantha, who apparently can recognize him even though he’s 27 years older than she remembers. Mulder finally has his closure, but unfortunately he couldn’t convince Piller his son was there. Fox certainly hasn’t convinced me those children are in a "better place." But if it means I can wipe my hands of one of the most convoluted, inconsistent storylines in TV history then ich bin dabei (count me in).
Sestra Professional:
So we've literally (and figuratively) come to the end of the road with the Samantha storyline. While it may not have been the ending we wanted and have been picturing lo these many years, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz were banking on it being the one we needed. The way David Duchovny sells it, I buy it too.
I guess I just want it to be over: "Closure" starts with an overblown voiceover so we know it's important to The X-Files mythology. In the sixth season, the show dispatched The Syndicate mid-year, and in the seventh, the powers-that-be decided to do likewise with Samantha.
There are a lot of parallels to be drawn between Fox Mulder and Harold Piller. The latter is a psychic who often works with the police. He seems to be so good at delineating things but can not see what's right in front of his face. Sounds a lot like someone we all know, right?
In the conclusion of the two-parter, Carter and Spotnitz double-down on a line of thinking that we all really would like to believe is true -- that children who die before their time aren't shackled by pain for all eternity, they turn into starlight. It's the way they come to terms with the "fate too cruel even for God to allow."
Taking the pin out of our discussion from last week's "Sein und Zeit," now we're getting a closer look at everything we know about Mulder's quest to this point. He wasn't regressed until 1989 -- when his hair was really bad -- and by then, his guilt and his fear about Samantha's abduction had overwhelmed him. According to Agent "More Gentle," that was compounded by the Close Encounters of the Third Kind/E.T. effect and his finding of the X-files.
She was here, she had a message: There's much to be gleaned from the scene in which Harold visits Fox to tell him that his mother is near. In an oh-so-subtle way, it harkens back to Scully's moment with her late father all the way back in "Beyond the Sea" (Season 1, Episode 13). Mulder gets his message because Harold was there to help him receive it. Dana might have done likewise in similar circumstances.
Fox is a bit off the rails in this episode, an appropriate state considering where he was at the end of the previous one. That leaves Scully to deal with ol' CBG Spender. She thinks she's on to something in regards to him calling off the hunt for Sam in 1973, but for once, he actually is telling the truth. The Cigarette Smoking Man explains why it was OK to not tell Mulder the truth for seven years, but it is now: "There was so much to protect before. But it's all gone now."
In an episode of fine touches, another one is the sight of Samantha's hand prints right above Jeffrey Spender's. Yes, she was abducted, but she was returned -- and not to her own family. She went to CBG's family and was raised with CSM's other kid. That doesn't negate all the adult Samanthas we've seen over the course of the labyrinthine journey. All the Megan Leitch variants were grown-up versions of Sam. But the real one -- apparently subjected to more invasive tests than can be imagined -- never reached her 15th birthday.
Mulder should really get where Harold is coming from. The psychic has been discredited to the point that Scully doesn't believe what he's telling her partner -- she has paperwork that says otherwise. But Piller is resolute. He doesn't know how he sees the things he does, but he thinks it's so he can help. What a fine and sad touch that in the end, we realize the only thing he can't see is what he wants to see the most.
I'm fine ... I'm free: The finding of the diary seems rather clunky, it's the falsest note to me in "Closure." Dana finds what she needs in the police blotter, so the facts are revealed, but there was no way to get across Sam's emotional state without the words in her journal -- even with the ER nurse's candid recall of events. It leads Fox down the path he needs to go down -- again, figuratively and literally.
In a series that has been so dependent on Mark Snow and his music cues, I can not overstate how key I consider Moby's "My Weakness" to wrapping up this part of the mythology. I find its use so profoundly moving that it eases any qualms I have about the resolution to the story, as does Kim Manners' direction -- coming up with a way to make that work visually could not have been easy. I compare "My Weakness" here to the seminal use of John Williams' score in Jaws. "My Weakness" drives the denouement like Williams' two-note motif did in the world's first summer blockbuster.
Guest star of the week: If not for Anthony Heald's amazing -- and rather unheralded -- performance as Harold Piller, I would have been giving this nod to Moby. In one episode, Heald gives us a look at someone so familiar to us and he winds up having the opposite reaction to finding out the truth. Harold can solve everyone's pain but his own, and it takes a special actor to give us an emotional look into his character in 45 minutes that aren't all his.
Sestra Amateur:
I immediately went to Google Translate when I saw this episode’s title because I was unintentionally embedding Seinfeld into my head and knew this was not going to be a comedic bottle episode. "Sein und Zeit" translates to "being and time." Now that Seinfeld’s quirky theme song is stuck in my brain, on with the episode!
In Sacramento, California, a little girl is saying her nighttime prayers while Marvin the Martian stares at her. After the parents put her to bed, Dad – played by Mark Rolston of Aliens and The Shawshank Redemption (I’ll let Sestra Pro address his previous X-Files appearance) -- watches TV in the living room while Mom is writing a kidnapping note in their bedroom. Dad checks on his daughter and briefly sees her as a corpse, but she is actually OK. Dad gets locked out of her bedroom, and by the time he breaks down the door, little Amber Lynn LaPierre is gone. Alien abduction? Don’t blame Marvin, he’s just a doll.
The FBI is brought in to investigate. Mulder wants the case, but since it’s not an X-file, it, must go through the proper protocol channels. You should have stayed in Behavioral, Fox. They get first dibs. Luckily, Assistant Director Skinner is a little disgusted with the cavalier attitude of the assigned agents, so he gives Mulder a few hours to get some answers from the parents. I think that’s going to taint the pool results, Walter. Fox arrives at the media circus outside the LaPierre home and hits the first roadblock: Bud and Billie LaPierre’s underqualified attorney Harry Bring. Mulder conducts his follow-up interview with the LaPierres together, which is always a bad idea, especially since we know Billie wrote the note. We just don’t know if she knows she wrote it.
Scully arrives to check on Fox since he didn’t contact Skinner after re-interviewing the parents. Somehow he knows the LaPierres are innocent but he can’t prove it. He also thinks Amber Lynn is still alive. Sculder attend the FBI briefing and learn Billie’s prints are the only ones found on the ransom note. Their handwriting expert also makes a tentative link to the mother. Mulder claims they’re wrong and finds evidence of a 1987 abduction in which the ransom note had the same handwriting and the same signature: "No one shoots at Santa Claus." Meanwhile, someone is observing a future victim.
The agents interview Kathy Lee Tencate – played by Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’s Kim Darby. (Now that’s a creepy movie!) Kathy Lee is in an Idaho prison for killing her own son, even though his body was never found. Kathy Lee claims she did it, but Fox doesn’t believe her. Dana accuses Mulder of personalizing this case, but he’s determined to find both kids – not just Amber Lynn. Kathy Lee sees a vision of her son and begs for Sculder to return to her cell. Fox records her statement and plays it for the LaPierres. The feds release the LaPierres for “lack of evidence” and they return home. Meanwhile, Teena Mulder learns her son is on the case and starts acting sketchy, leaving cryptic messages and burning family photos.
Somehow, Fox has become the FBI spokesperson and the suspect watches Mulder’s statement on TV. While Fox gets reamed by Skinner, Scully breaks the news of Teena’s death. The duo arrives at his mother's Connecticut home and sees evidence of suicide. Mulder thinks it’s a staged scene and begs Dana to do the autopsy. Fox returns to Idaho (I would love his frequent flier miles account) and wants Kathy Lee to help him understand his sister’s kidnapping. Tencate calls them the "walk-ins," old souls looking for new homes and starts to ramble incoherently. Mulder has no choice but to listen and hope what she says is true. Meanwhile, at Santa’s Village, the offseason makes it seem very depressing. Our suspect runs the place and dresses as Santa Claus for the eager children.
Fox finally goes home and hears his mother’s final message on his answering machine. Scully arrives and Mulder realizes his memories of his sister’s abduction are false. (Considering what Chris Carter made X-Files fans endure about Samantha’s alien abduction for seven seasons, this must have come across as either a major copout or just one piece of revisionist history too many. So Fox is just going to ignore decades of government conspiracies?! ::heavy sigh:: Let’s put a pin in that for now … or forever.) Dana reveals Teena was terminally ill and was trying to tell Fox to stop looking for answers. Mulder breaks down and Scully comforts him.
Back at the LaPierre house, Billie sees a vision of Amber Lynn, just like Kathy Lee saw of her child. She reaches out to the FBI but only will talk to Mulder, so Sculder and Skinner fly back to Sacramento. Billie said Amber Lynn was silent but trying to say something that looked like “74.” Fox is convinced a spirit version of Amber Lynn means the girl is dead. Just because you haven’t seen something yet doesn’t mean it isn’t real, Mulder. Boy, you’ve become such a Negative Nellie since your mother died. If Dana mentioned she couldn't hear what her late father was saying when she saw his spirit in "Beyond the Sea" (Season 1, Episode 13), it might have bolstered Fox's argument. But Mulder knows he’s off his game and asks Walter for some personal time. Luckily, Scully is paying attention and realizes they’re near Route 74, which leads to Santa’s North Pole Village. When the trio searches the place, Dana finds a videotape with pre-abduction footage of Amber Lynn. “Santa” catches Sculder in his surveillance room and locks them in, but that only slows down our intrepid heroes briefly. Skinner chases their suspect and subdues him in a homemade cemetery. Unless that’s where the dead reindeer are buried, “Santa," aka Ed Truelove, has a lot of explaining to do.
Sestra Professional:
We haven't been hearing much about aliens since the start of the season, but at least we get back to the mythology that's at the heart of The X-Files with this two-parter -- namely whatever the heck happened to Samantha Mulder.
The emotional component of "Sein und Zeit" was apparent right from the opening teaser when this episode originally aired on Feb. 6, 2000. It's impossible not to draw a line between the kidnapping of Amber Lynn LaPierre here and the still-unsolved real-life high-profile murder of JonBenét Ramsey in 1996. There's even a photo of the child beauty queen briefly shown on the television during the scene between Mulder and Scully at his hotel room.
Intensify our search where ... the twilight zone? This episode really gets back to the essence of Fox. The show had been paying lip service to him ever since his miraculous recovery from that overcharged brain problem in the season's opening two-parter. This is the guy who obsesses over cases, particularly when they venture into territory that reminds him -- or at least Dana and us -- of his sister. I really appreciate seeing Mulder put pieces together that the brightest minds in the FBI can't. And one of the finest performances by David Duchovny in the entire series run really brings that home.
Even without reading the credits, diehard fans will recognize this episode as the handiwork of Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz. The show's creator and executive producer work hard to find an explanation for us when it comes to the most horrific of real-life crimes involving children. As Fox himself says, it's incomprehensible in any kind of real-world way to think that parents would do this to their children. The duo uses their affinity for philosophy to back their theory.
I've been looking for my sister in the wrong place: It's somehow easier to accept the kids' passings under the walk-in theory. Not only are these parents not guilty of the worst possible transgressions, they're guided through unspeakable traumas with the help of visions of their children who have passed on.
Mulder understands that so well, but the facts indicate he's completely wrong about the untimely departure of his mother. It's somehow easier to believe Fox's supposition about the missing children than his theory about the staged death of Teena. And since Dana's subsequent autopsy proves he's wrong about his mother, it casts doubt on the rest of his belief system. He's at least smart enough to know he needs to take some time off.
You can't see a ghost and hope to find her alive: With Mulder all but incapacitated, it's up to Scully to make the connection about the highway and the Santa Claus village. Good thing she was looking up at that precise moment, and not back at Fox like she had been doing just seconds before. Then it's up to Skinner to take care of the chase portion of the program. And from there, Mulder just has to lift his head up to see that Ed Truelove doesn't really live up to his name.
I plan to address Sestra Am's comment about the revisionist history after the conclusion of this two-parter. There certainly was a "that's what this was all about?" fan reaction to the ultimate revelation about Samantha, but it's not completely laid out yet, and I don't want to jump the gun until after "Closure" next week. So we'll keep that pin where it is for now.
Meta beta: Sestra Am's research paid off, Sein und Zeit was the German title of philosopher Martin Heidegger's 1927 book we know as Being and Time. ... Harsh Realm, the Carter creation that had been canceled by the time of the original airing of "Sein und Zeit" was the show Amber Lynn's father watched. (I remember lobbying for Nicholas Lea to be the male lead of the program, but they went with D.B. Sweeney. I still think it would have had a better chance for survival with our Krycek in that role.) ... Mark Rolston was indeed in a previous episode of The X-Files, another one referencing walk-ins, "Red Museum" (S2E10). Speaking of Harsh Realm, Rolston also had a part in the second episode of the series he seemed to like at the beginning of this show. ... The LaPierres' fish-out-of-water attorney Harry Bring was named after The X-Files' unit production manager.
Guest star of the week: The performances across the board are so strong and truly serve the story. I'm giving the nod to Kim Darby as the mother serving a sentence for her son's death who realizes she has to help Amber Lynn's parents ... with help from her own boy. Because of her, I want to believe.
Sestra Amateur:
I watch CW’s The Flash on first run, meaning I actually catch the new episodes each week. There’s a new character named Joseph Carver, played by Eric Nenninger, and just three days ago, I was watching the show and thinking I know him from somewhere but just couldn't place him. And now here he is in the opening scene of this week’s ep "Signs & Wonders."
Of course, now that I’ve taken a moment to read his IMDB credits, I probably knew him from "Malcolm in the Middle." But let’s get back to his other FOX TV appearance in 2000. On a rainy night in Blessing, Tennessee, Jared Chirp gets some bad medical news, starts praying, arms himself and jumps in his car. He’s safe inside until he isn’t. Now he’s surrounded by rattlesnakes and wasting his ammo. You’ve only got six bullets. Shoot the window, you idiot! You know, it took longer for me to explain the Nenninger connection than it did for his character to live in this ep.
Mulder convinces Scully they need to investigate because there were 50 different types of snakes involved and Chirp was alone in the locked car when someone found his poisoned, bloated body. Dana provides the biblical history of snakes, and for once, Fox seems to agree with her. Jared’s pregnant girlfriend, Gracie, doesn’t seem to be taking his death well. Sculder talk with Reverend Mackey at Jared’s funeral while Gracie gets escorted away by church member Iris Finster. Mackey doesn’t have nice things to say about Jared’s previous house of worship, The Church of God with Signs and Wonders, where they use snakes to test faith. The agents search for Enoch O’Connor, but find snakes instead. Enoch saves our intrepid heroes, but it’s kind of hard to hear the dialogue over the very loud rattlers. Glad I use closed captions when I watch TV.
Iris meets with Reverend Mackey to reveal a drunken Jared called Gracie the night he died, but Iris didn’t let him talk to her. Mackey says they’ll talk about it later. (That must be code for one character to die, like “I’ll be right back” in a horror movie.) Mackey’s bible study group is clearly held differently from Enoch’s, even before you bring snakes to the table. Mackey is calm and peaceful; Enoch convinces his congregation that God wants them to be hot so he can avoid paying for central air conditioning.
Iris is working in Mackey’s office when she gets bitten by a snake, I mean, a staple remover. She treating her wound in the bathroom when she gets attacked by other snakes. Guess she’s not righteous enough to survive. Sculder arrive and learn more about Gracie’s connection to her former church. Did I mention Enoch is her father? He kicked her out of the church and their family because of her pregnancy. Fox learns Gracie’s mother is also dead as Dana gets attacked by Enoch in a snake-filled trailer. Of course, he’s just trying to save her soul, right? Mulder rescues Scully and arrests O’Connor. In an interesting turn of events, the snakes attack Enoch in jail. He barely survives, but Gracie prevents the doctors from treating him based on religious grounds.
Sculder search Jared’s home for clues and learn he was not the father of Gracie’s baby. That leaves the only other men as potential baby daddies: Enoch or Mackey. (Boy, this is just a completely anti-religion episode, isn’t it?) When Mackey leaves Enoch’s hospital room, venom starts oozing from O’Connor’s wounds and Enoch regains consciousness. Mackey returns, but the O’Connors are gone. Mackey claims Enoch is the baby’s father and that was why Gracie left his church. Enoch brings Gracie to his congregation and they try to “save” her, but she gives birth to a litter of snakes. (Is that the right way to phrase it?)
The next morning, medics arrive for Gracie. Mulder points out the bloody snake trails to Scully and goes searching for Enoch, who confronts Mackey with a knife. Fox shoots Enoch to save Mackey. On the way to the hospital, Gracie tells Dana the truth while Mulder realizes it with help from Enoch: Mackey was behind everything. This time, Scully tries to save Fox, who passes the righteousness test and survives his rattlesnake bite. Mackey somehow escapes to Connecticut, begins a new life as Reverend Wells and reveals his inner serpent is literal, not metaphorical. It’s the year 2000, does no one check references?!?
Sestra Professional:
Call it the "Teso dos Bichos" effect, but there's a dog every season -- one that I never see unless I'm in full rewatch mode. And we're on Season 7's. Since we're coming up to an incredible two-parter that caps off the Samantha storyline and is quickly followed by an uproarious Vince Gilligan tale, I'm prepared to traverse through this muck to get there.
The religious episodes with faith at the center -- not Scully's, mind you, but everyone else's -- haven't gone over too well over the years. But eps such as "Miracle Man" (Season 1, Episode 18), "Revelations" (S3E11) and "All Souls" (S5E17) have served as markers to let us know where Dana is on her journey. I guess it is about time to check in with her on that front, but the marker here seems to be Fox going along with her sentiment. That certainly is different.
I didn't learn that in catechism class: What I didn't count on was how strangely relevant "Signs & Wonders" feels in this time of self-quarantine. The religious people in the episode are confident they can handle snakes and avoid death by poison. Sounds an awful lot like those determined not to adhere to stay-at-home recommendations. "You've got nothing to fear if you're righteous people," Reverend O'Connor tells our heroes. I'm pretty sure I heard the same thing on the news from a holy man who is no longer with us due to coronavirus.
Such thoughts of serpents and religion going hand in hand might overwhelm me while watching this episode, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm more frightened by Iris' very severe hairdo. Now that's the kind of thing that can scar you for life.
God hates the lukewarm: By this reckoning, God probably would be fine with this ep, because it pulls every punch and turns the volume up to 11. That fits right into director Kim Manners' wheelhouse, he's the one who can pull off a juxtaposition between a snake at a religious ceremony and a staple remover in a church office. I don't quite understand how the reptiles appear at Iris' house -- perhaps they're attracted by her pomade -- but the eye-level shot of the fatal snake attack shouldn't slip away unnoticed.
There's not a lot of meat on this episode of the non-snake variety. As you probably know living in the time we do, changing people's minds doesn't really happen that often. So the two reverends are satisfied to keep on doing what they're doing, and we know Sculder will continue along their merry way. I hope the fact that all these people have been killed by snakes doesn't mean the intolerant faction is correct about its supposition, because I'm going to have to be about as stubborn as the religious naysayers on this one.
The devil has been cast out: Scully may be right that there's no way Mulder's going to be told what to believe, but Fox is also correct when he points out that being told what to think is a very powerful supposition. It explains why some of the masses are out there gallivanting around when they should be home binge watching TV shows and perusing rewatch blogs. They really do think resisting the devil will make him flee.
At least there's something of a mystery and resolution within this tangled morass of snakes. And while it's true, maybe the devil doesn't always have two horns and a tail, it really shouldn't fall by the wayside to stay on your guard when you do see a creature with two horns and a tail. ... By the way, do you think Mackey has met up with slithery demon Mrs. Paddock from Manners' first X-Files episode "Die Hand Die Verletzt" (Season 2, Episode 14?). And above all, and to quote a famous fictional adventurer ... why did it have to be snakes?
Meta monstrosities: Among the cast and crew bugged out by the reptiles -- Manners, David Duchovny and supervising producer John Shiban, according to the official episode guide. ... Michael Childers, who played Reverend O'Connor, apparently knew a lot about the world in which his character hailed from. His father was a real-life snake preacher, the guide said. This was Childers' first screen role. ... The guide also credited producer Paul Rabwin for writing the song "Sweet Lord Protect Me and Take Me to the Light" when an appropriate gospel song couldn't be found for the snake-handling scene.
Guest star of the week: I'll go with another actor hanging around FOX TV around this time -- Tracy Middendorf, fresh off a stint as someone else wronged on "Ally McBeal." She gives a nuanced performance here as Gracie, and that's tough to do since, between one death and another, she spends the entire episode being overemotional.
Sestra Amateur:
We’re in sunny Santa Monica so our Los Angeles-based crew doesn’t have to travel far (or provide us with an unbelievably fake cooler climate). The Amazing Maleeni – played by Ricky Jay, who I know mainly from movies Sestra Pro made me watch -- is getting screwed out of his promised fee, but the show must go on. He’s pretty good with the sleight of hand, even as he deals with an annoying heckler. (Really, is there any other kind of heckler?) Maleeni takes the bait and performs an unexpected head twist of Exorcist proportions. Afterward, he’s found in his van with his head severed from his body. No blood though, so it should be an easy cleanup.
Sculder manage to drop everything, fly to luminous California and arrive at the still-active crime scene. Scully thinks it’s murder and Mulder says it’s a magic trick gone wrong. The agents watch video of Maleeni’s trick and Dana takes note of the heckler, Billy LaBonge. The next day they track him to a North Hollywood magic club. Billy turns his hand around 360 degrees for them. Apparently, this is one of those episodes where you really can’t watch and type at the same time, you’d miss too much sleight of hand. LaBonge is trying to explain his contempt for Maleeni while simultaneously showing off his own skills. But it was nice of him to return their FBI badges.
After the autopsy, Scully determines Maleeni’s head was sawed off, but there are traces of spirit gum holding the head onto his body. Of course, none of that caused his death. It was advanced coronary disease from approximately a month ago. He’s been refrigerated since then. That certainly explains the lack of blood.
Meanwhile, LaBonge is up to something. He meets with former cellmate Cissy Alvarez, the bookie who Maleeni owed $20,000. Billy takes credit for cutting off Maleeni’s head and claims he can makes Cissy 10 times what was owed. Billy keeps Alvarez's men from beating him to a pulp by proving his abilities.
Sculder meet with banker Albert Pinchbeck who looks exactly like the Amazing Maleeni. He’s even wearing a neck brace because he was (allegedly) in a car accident in Mexico. He and his twin brother, Herman Pinchbeck, used to perform magic together but parted ways when Albert left the act. Mulder theorizes Albert helped his dying brother commit one last act so he would be remembered. Unfortunately, it was such a bad car accident in Mexico that Albert lost his legs. Convenient. Sculder return to LaBonge to see if he could help them uncover how Herman’s severed head trick was done in exchange for learning The Amazing Maleeni’s secrets. Too bad it’s beyond his capability for explanation. But Mulder does find Cissy’s notebook record of Herman’s $20,000 marker.
Back in the bank, Albert performs his own bit of misdirection with the armored car security guard. Afterward, Cissy shows up demanding Albert make good on Herman’s debts. Inside the armored car, the guard shoots at a man with Cissy’s tattoos, but it’s Billy wearing fake ink who gets away. Sculder interview Alvarez about Herman’s murder but don’t seem to know about the armored car attempted robbery yet. Fox thinks they’re being intentionally misdirected.
After they leave, LaBonge arranges for police to show up at Alvarez’s pool hall to arrest him (LaBonge, not Alvarez). And at the bank, Mulder unceremoniously dumps Albert out of the wheelchair, revealing he has legs after all. Albert reveals he is actually Herman. Albert died of a heart attack and Herman came up with a plan to get out of his gambling debt. Fox's explanation was spot on, he just had the wrong brother. But Mulder thinks Herman had bigger fish to fry, like robbing the bank … or the armored car.
Of course, Herman Pinchbeck and Billy LaBonge end up cellmates and reveal they’ve been working together this whole time. And the following day the bank vault has been emptied of $1.8 million. The video surveillance is blank, but the armored truck guard identifies Alvarez as the tattooed man he shot at. Fox finds the bank’s money hidden in the pool hall (hope he had a search warrant), so Cissy goes down for the theft.
Herman and Billy make bail, but the agents catch them before they leave the jail. Their theory -- it was revenge on Alvarez. The duo easily could have escaped the holding cells (that’s really not saying a lot about the overnight guards and security system in the police station), committed the burglary and theft, framed Alvarez, then returned to their cells. Pinchbeck and LaBonge get off scot-free but Mulder prevents them from going through with their final criminal act, an electronic bank transfer that can be authorized with a federal agent’s badge number and thumbprint. That sounds more unbelievable than the rotating head trick.
Sestra Professional:
I'm always torn between thinking that "The Amazing Maleeni" is complementary to "The Goldberg Variation" a couple episodes ago or that airing those two in the span of three episodes is a bit much, especially since there isn't much particularly X-filey about either of them. I suppose our heroes must investigate to determine that, though. And I still don't know whether it was a good idea or a bad one to have the return of Donnie Pfaster in "Orison" split the two up either.
Why are you talking like Tony Randall? It's also the second time in less than a month in which Mulder and Scully don't have a lot to do other than filling their usual roles on the canvas. However, since Dana just did something contrary to her character last week and we're nearing a two-parter that will wrap up Fox's search for his sister, I'm not going to complain that we're not really advancing their story or relationship at this juncture.
In the meantime, I'll take "Movies I Made Sestra Am Watch with Ricky Jay in Them" for $100, Alex. Let's see ... definitely Magnolia, Boogie Nights and State and Main ... possibly The Spanish Prisoner and House of Games ... and absolutely not Tomorrow Never Dies or Mystery Men. Hope I fared better on that than she thought I did on the National Siblings Day quiz.
Abracadabra, man: That was a pretty stellar teaser, though. I did originally roll my eyes in true heckler fashion at the commonplace ball trick -- I'd much rather be riding the rides -- and the head-spinning illusion isn't too much of a con with editing. But Maleeni's head rolling away soon after he pronounced that the feat didn't meet with a lot of success in previous attempts, now that was something.
How I can buy that easier than the idea that a trash bin wasn't dumped in over 24 hours -- enabling Scully to pinpoint the heckler -- is beyond me. (Although Sestra Am points out it was an active crime scene and thusly probably was cordoned off.) Maybe I'm more Mulder than I suspected. But I do wish one of those magicians could give Dana back the rest of her hair.
"The Amazing Maleeni" was written by our favorite three-headed machine -- co-executive producer Vince Gilligan, supervising producer John Shiban and executive producer Frank Spotnitz. They hadn't received a writing credit together since the "Dreamland" two-parter (Season 6, Episodes 4 and 5) more than a year earlier, unless you count Gilligan and Shiban's teleplay of Spotnitz's story for "Field Trip" (S6E21). Because of them, the episode is imbued with a certain spirit and a playfulness between the lead characters. In that sense, the comparison to "The Goldberg Variation" feels less warranted. Wherever you'd put this tale on The X-Files spectrum, it does inherently feel like a Mulder and Scully vision and less like one that could be found in any other supernatural show.
That winds up being a good thing, because much of the story about the marker and the money is a bit dull. Ricky Jay and Jonathan Levit (LaBonge) are real-life magicians, so the flair they utilize in their illusions helped liven up the lulls with more flair than Maleeni handled his cup and balls trick on the pier. I was more blasé about Fox explaining what sleight of hand is to a partner who probably would know that kind of thing, that was used to much better effect by both our leads in "Humbug" (S2E20).
Another moment I really appreciated in this episode was Mulder grabbing the wheelchair and unceremoniously dumping Maleeni out of it. It was so much more dramatic than jabbing a pin into his leg to prove Herman wasn't dead and he could walk. I view it as Fox living up to the challenge of presentation posed by the tricksters.
The bigger setup engineered by the two magicians proves to be a satisfying denouement akin to the classic movie The Sting. But even better was Scully showing Mulder she can appear to turn her hand around 360 degrees on a fixed spot. She did learn a thing or two from the uncle she mentioned in "Humbug" who was an amateur magician, didn't she? So much more impressive than The Amazing Muldeni's disconnecting thumb trick.
Meta magic: Jay and Levit have often been called upon in movies and television to whip up some magic. Among the more amazing of the titles, Jay plied his trade in The Prestige and Levit's credits include consulting on Now You See Me. ... In The Complete X-Files, Gilligan revealed the episode concept originated with Spotnitz, who had wanted to do an episode about magicians since he started on the show -- like Fox, he was a huge fan of Bill Bixby in The Magician. In the official episode guide, Spotnitz explained that it didn't go so smoothly. "Vince was ready to kill me," he said. "For him, this was agony." ... Billy LaBonge was named after the show's second unit director of photography, Robert LaBonge.
Guest star of the week: I've got to go with Ricky Jay in the dual roles. He's supremely talented on the magic front, but he also stands out playing the beleaguered aspects of both characters. Wait, no, just the one character. I mean, the one character playing his deceased brother and himself. Right.
No seasons-long storyline this week, no comic relief, just standard bottle-episode fare. Three 20-something guys are playing soldier in a live video game resembling laser tag. “Retro” -- the leader of this platoon -- calls for them to shoot the enemies approaching them on crotch rockets. It looks like live ammo until they hit the targets, which disappear after the “kill.” Next, they shoot Nazis, who take out one player in a slimy, neon yellow mess. But Retro moves onward and encounters the stunning Maitreya, played by Krista Allen. He bows to her, she shoots him. This scene is rated M for Mature.
The trio brings the agents to the game’s creator, Ivan, and coworker Phoebe, who are standing over Retro’s dead-in-reality body. (So that guy has been rotting on the floor for however many hours it took for the staff to contact the Gunmen, who then contacted Mulder, who arranged for him and Scully to fly across the country to investigate? This California relocation is really wreaking havoc with the suspension of disbelief on a show in which you’re supposed to believe anything is possible.) 
Scully conducts Retro’s autopsy. If the agents had to scan IDs and retinas to enter the FPS building, wouldn’t the company have all Retro’s information on file? They certainly wouldn’t let an anonymous person test a groundbreaking game one week before release. Dana is clearly frustrated with the progress of her autopsy. Mulder arrives so he and Scully can voice their opposing viewpoints about violent games in today’s society. Fox has a surprise for Dana: Darryl’s severed head. (Normal men bring flowers.) But local police have a surprise for Sculder -- the female suspect is in custody. Scully interviews Jade Blue Afterglow, who claims she was paid to have her body image scanned. After a Basic Instinct homage, she is released from custody. This scene is rated I for Immature.
Mulder is getting his butt kicked as the team tries to figure out how to regain control of the game. He grabs a sword and progresses to Level 2. Welcome to Westworld, Fox. He’s outnumbered by multiple Maitreyas, but Scully arrives to save Mulder's skin. She does so with a seemingly unlimited supply of ammunition. Unfortunately, there’s an unlimited supply of Maitreyas. Phoebe and Ivan fight over destroying the game to save Sculder. Phoebe gives the command and our heroes are saved. I don’t know why Fox acts so victorious, Dana did all of the heavy lifting here. And it shows, thanks to Cyber Scully’s new digital design. It helped me tune out Mulder’s extraordinarily unnecessary end-of-episode narration. This voice-over is rated G for Give it a rest, Mulder.
Visually, I suppose the idea of visualizing a videogame on broadcast television had merit. But let's face it, this episode exists to suit Mulder and Scully up in buff outfits so they can blast some stuff. It's already not my thing, I'd rather watch the much-maligned "Space" (Season 1, Episode 9) and geek out over NASA than virtual reality. Even Byers' claim that the game is the launchpad of a rocket headed to the stars doesn't appeal to my "space cadet" nature. 
It's all about body count: The teaser quickly shows the weakness of the concept. Dialogue about bloodthirst and carnage come up very short, initiate massive eye rolling. When the agents arrive on the scene, Dana denegrades the proceedings as immature, hormonal fantasy. And while it was cool to have the Lone Gunmen back in the mix, watching the trio and Mulder prove Scully's point doesn't rack up any respect points (and would take them away if they actually existed). How many viewers cringed like Dana (and me) at the very idea of bleeding-edge technology?
The episode loses another turn for Phoebe's clunky complaint about Dana not understanding what it's like "choking in a haze of rampant testosterone." Yeah, she couldn't possibly understand what that's like as a special agent at the FBI.
Guest star of the week: Krista Allen makes for a pretty dazzling femme fatale (in all her forms) as well as the sassy real-life counterpart whose idea of gaming leans more toward adult fare -- cosplaying Sharon Stone. Yeah, she's got game.
