File this one under "creepy kid cases", like season 2's The Calusari, which also opened on a carnival. But this episode plays out more like a second pass of season 4's Paper Hearts. Either way, this show is having the feeling of classic X-Files lately, the likes of which we haven't seen this consistently in years, Mulder be damned. In this one, a little boy vanishes into thin air, only to reappear just as mysteriously ten years later, not having aged a day. Moreover, he won't speak a word, and he wears the most world-wearied expression I've ever seen on a 7 year old. For that note, it must be weird for the other kid to all of a sudden have a little brother who's really his older brother. The events of this case hint at a tragic event in Doggett's past, but subtlety is the name of the game here. In fact, there's a part where Scully goes off on Doggett for trying to question the kid, but this is not a portrait of a man out of control. Rather, he displays tasteful restraint and sensitivity. I have to say that I'm with Agent Doggett on this one (horrors, I know!), and Scully comes off as being unduly influenced by her irrational mothering instincts (possibly exacerbated by recent revelations in the mythology). Anyway, a little psychic mumbo jumbo involving backward masking in real time isn't enough to seriously hamper this episode, nor does the fact that you'll likely see the conclusion coming make it any less haunting. This is another very good episode - surprisingly so.
Somebody's been watching Paper Hearts...
Memorable quotes:
Scully: Well, what we've got here is a healthy seven year old boy who was born seventeen years ago.
Doggett: You know, these words - anomalous, supernatural, paranormal - they purport to explain something by not explaining it. It's lazy.
(It's a crazy world where Scully is the one introducing alien abduction as a hypothesis, only to be naysayed by a more skeptical mind).
Psychic: Is this going to happen?
Doggett: Shouldn't you be telling us that?
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