The X-Files - S9:E17 "Release"

[ S9:E16 "William" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E18 "Sunshine Days" ]

In this episode, the show revisits the well that is the loss of Doggett's son. Going into it, I'm kinda thinking, they hinted at it in Invocation, addressed it head-on in Empedocles, and then revisited it in John Doe. All of which is fine. But by this point, maybe it's starting to feel a little over-played. I mean, it's a defining element of Doggett's character, and it's a great subject to explore in order to get inside his head, but as far as its importance to the show, it's not exactly Samantha's abduction. You know what I mean? But, since the show is coming to a close, and this is the last chance they'll have to really address the issue, I figure this is a chance for the writers to say whatever it is they have left to say about it, and bring some closure to Doggett's story (and maybe Reyes', too, by association), before (presumably) turning the focus of the end of the series over to Mulder and Scully, where it belongs.

But damn, this episode - a joint effort between David Amann (Hellbound) and John Shiban (Underneath) - is good. It's dangerously close to reaching the level of standout quality (you know I hate rating these things). It has a sense of style to it that I really enjoy out of the best episodes. And that climax? Wow. Those are the kinds of scenes I watch TV (or movies) for. That's entertainment. Robert Patrick really brings it. But even going back to the opener, the episode starts out strong, with a gritty atmosphere, as Doggett raids a dark building and discovers a murder victim plastered into the wall. He turns it over to Scully, and she shares it with her students, one of which is a real prodigy. He seems to have an uncanny grasp of criminal psychology - effortlessly constructing a plausible scenario leading up to the victim's death just from glancing at the condition of her body - the likes of which we haven't seen since Mulder (with his unparalleled investigative talent) left the show.

He is pretty creepy, though, and admits to having visions if he studies cases long enough (he must have trained with Frank Black). Doggett enlists his help in studying the unsolved case of his son's death; his unusual willingness to trust the kid's seemingly paranormal abilities demonstrates the depth of his grief and obsession with finding the killer. The cadet makes a connection to the current case, which involves the mafia and police corruption. Reyes begins to suspect A.D. Brad Follmer of being involved in a bribery, and he retaliates by digging up dirt on the cadet, throwing his trustworthiness into question. Ultimately, Follmer gets the chance to redeem himself (although he acts like a petulant child when angry), and Doggett finally finds closure, following that breathless climax.

Memorable quotes:

Cadet Hayes: Like I said - obvious.

Doggett: Cadet, you should know there's a real good chance you're nuts.

Regali: You're done when I say you're done.

The X-Files - S9:E16 "William"

[ S9:E15 "Jump The Shark" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E17 "Release" ]

Spoiler Warning: This episode pretty much wraps up the remaining mythology threads from the last two seasons, in anticipation of the coming series finale, so expect major spoilers. Also, the best thing about this episode is the mystery of a certain character's identity, which will be spoiled herein.

Ever since Robert Patrick came on and breathed new life into this show, in the wake of David Duchovny's absence at the start of the eighth season, The X-Files has been rebuilding its mythology (to questionable results - these Super Soldiers, and the convoluted mystery surrounding Scully's baby). Now, with the show scheduled to finally go off the air once and for all, this episode is (presumably) tasked with killing off the new mythology, so as to wipe the slate clean for the series finale (which makes me wonder what they have planned for that). As happy as I am to see William finally go bye-bye, this is an at times ridiculous and frustrating episode, with a perhaps too clean resolution. It opens with a family considering their decision to adopt a child, with the twist that the child is baby William (cue nervous laughter). The rest of the episode explains how Scully comes to the decision to give her baby away.

A stranger attacks Doggett and attempts to steal some X-Files from the basement office, only to be caught in the act. He is badly burned over his entire body, and claims to have been sent by Mulder (still AWOL) to get back at the conspiracy that burned him in an early attempt to turn him into a Super Soldier (which he says the aliens - who have infiltrated the government, as we've already seen - are going to eventually do to the rest of the population, as part of their invasion (what a shame - I was looking forward to a fiery war zone like we saw in Amor Fati)). He gives the agents a false identity, but Doggett thinks that it might be Mulder himself. It's a patently ridiculous statement, but the episode devotes much of its emphasis to it - almost to the point of making you think it might be true. Not that this stranger acts anything like Mulder, or even looks like Mulder (even considering the burn scars) - but at this point in the series, I wouldn't put it past Chris Carter et al. to pull a stunt like that. It reeks of the shadowy doubles we've seen this season, and the half-assed flashbacks and Alien Bounty Hunters posing as Mulder in the last season.

But the weird thing is, David Duchovny was actually brought in to direct this episode. So he's actually there. At least, behind the camera. You'd think if it really was Mulder, they'd at least trot him out in a scene for the grand reveal. But, well, it's not Mulder. And the biggest giveaway is the fact that, in spite of the really good makeup job, it's not enough to conceal the identity of Chris Owens, who has played a certain character of some significance on this show before. That it's Jeffrey Spender pulling this ruse also leads to a DNA test that verifies, once and for all, that the Smoking Man (Spender's father) was indeed also Mulder's true father. Just like that. (You know, in spite of all the vain hinting going at least as far back as season 3's Talitha Cumi, I was pretty sure that wasn't going to turn out to be the case, in the end).

But that's not all. The whole alien invasion thing wraps up just as conveniently. Whether sent by Mulder or not, Spender maneuvers himself into Scully's home. There are some stupidly convenient writing decisions - like making the stranger get some sleep before talking, and having three agents in a house with a stranger leave the baby unsupervised (and I don't care if they think it is Mulder, he's still a stranger). Ultimately, Spender injects the baby with magnetite (presumably the same "kryptonite" we saw in action in the episode Trust No 1), which apparently removes the baby's special powers and makes him a completely normal baby - no messiah, no ability to be used by the alien invaders as some kind of leader or savior. Of course, the baby is still in danger, because of who he is (and who he was), so Scully chooses to give the baby away (I wonder how Mulder is going to feel about that, although I suppose he's voting with his absence), so that he can have a normal life (similar to a plot point that occurred in Angel, I recall).

And that's that. A lot of fans seem justly frustrated with this conclusion to the William arc, and I believe it's a symptom of the crappy mythology in this season. Personally, I'm not that invested in it to begin with, so the fact that the writers copped out to get rid of an inconvenient burden to a potential future film series (that never really materialized) - and the collateral damage done to Scully (and Mulder)'s character as a result - doesn't bother me on a visceral level. It's not a great episode, but then there haven't been very many of those this season. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for the series to end already. It's been in a coma for so long that I doubt I'll even be sad when it finally ends. I shed my tears (of frustration) back when Mulder "found" Samantha in season 7's Closure...

Um, who's watching the baby?

Memorable quotes:

Scully: That's ridiculous! It's absurd.
Doggett: Is it?

(Yes, Doggett, it is. It is).

The Breather: The conspiracy about the truth to keep aliens from the American public - all but destroyed a few years ago - has given rise to a new conspiracy in the government now, by men who are alien themselves.

Dr. Edwards: Your son is completely normal.
Reyes: That doesn't make sense.
Scully: No, I think it does. It makes perfect sense now.

(But feel free to elaborate).

Scully: I've seen my share of the hideous - of the disgusting, and the repellent - but you, sir, are the most perfect expression I will ever see...of all that is vile and hateful in life.
The Breather: That may well be, but for a moment, you believed it - that I was him.
Scully: I never believed it.
The Breather: You wanted to believe.

The X-Files - S9:E15 "Jump The Shark"

[ S9:E14 "Scary Monsters" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E16 "William" ]

I must confess that I've never seen The Lone Gunmen spinoff series, which ran for 13 episodes between seasons 8 and 9 of The X-Files. I'd be willing to give it a watch, if I could find it somewhere, but I'm not exactly motivated to go too far out of my way. The brainchild of John Shiban, Vince Gilligan, and Frank Spotnitz (the trio that brought you the wacky Dreamland two-parter in the sixth season, from which the character of Morris Fletcher originated, who appears again in this episode), I imagine it epitomizes the "X-Files Lite" approach that I'm not especially fond of. And like the season 7 episode Millennium was a coda to that series, this episode is the coda - and a closing - to The Lone Gunmen's story. I would have liked to have seen the series before viewing this episode, but time marches on toward that deadline.

At any rate, the opener consists of a voiceover montage that briefly describes The Lone Gunmen's genesis on The X-Files (going back to Morgan & Wong's season 1 episode E.B.E.), and their hijinks on their own series, but - unlike Millennium - I don't know that it really works as a standalone. Even without having seen the series, it feels to me more like an episode of The Lone Gunmen than The X-Files, and - the Super Soldiers connection aside, which seems tacked on anyway - Doggett and Reyes (especially the chronically straight-faced Doggett) feel very much out of place. My opinion of the episode may improve if/when I ever get the chance to watch the spinoff series, but as of right now, there's little in this episode to make it worth viewing. (I think the lasting impression I'm going to take away from it is that Yves Adele Harlow - or rather, the actress Zuleikha Robinson - is very cute). I still maintain that Unusual Suspects is the best example of a Lone Gunmen-centric episode.

And I can understand the creators wanting to give the characters a final send off (especially knowing, as they probably did at this late date, that The X-Files itself was going off the air), but the conclusion is unsatisfyingly morbid. It's almost as if the episode is begging the viewer not to take it as canon. Besides, it's a little late for the series to be jumping the shark - I'd say it did that back in the seventh season, around the time of First Person Shooter, if not earlier. There's a wacky plot about some convoluted weapon involving shark cartilage, but - given that this episode is the coda to a whole series - there's a lot of baggage behind it, and, not having seen it, I have a hard time getting invested. It's sad, but when Morris Fletcher dangles the "truth" about 50 years' worth of conspiracy in front of Doggett and Reyes' faces (and the funniest joke in the whole episode is that they couldn't care less that he worked at Area 51, because that means nothing to them), it doesn't even get me excited, because this show has already laid its mythology out, poured gasoline over it, and lit it up back in the sixth and seventh seasons. "Don't cry for me, I'm already dead."

Memorable quotes:

Morris Fletcher: I was a man in black! The men in black. What, you've never heard of us?
Doggett: I saw the movie.

(This represents everything that was wrong with that whole Dreamland arc. Too much pop culture, not enough gritty conspiracy).

Morris Fletcher: Look, if we have to work together, let's work together.
Frohike: We don't have to work together.

Frohike: You gotta admit, Byers, it hasn't exactly been our year. And to top it all off, we screwed the pooch pretty good today. Maybe we should pack it in.
Byers: And do what instead? We never gave up. We never will. In the end, if that's the best they can say about us, it'll do.

(A moment this solemn doesn't really work in an otherwise wacky episode. It could just be the finality in this episode, but I wonder if this tone schizophrenia was part of what led to The Lone Gunmen spinoff series' early demise).

The X-Files - S9:E14 "Scary Monsters"

[ S9:E13 "Improbable" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E15 "Jump The Shark" ]

Do you believe? Great title for an episode, right? The creepy opener has a real "monsters under the bed" kinda atmosphere. And when the dad holds the door shut on the kid, I'm thinking of Aliens, when Burke locks the facehugger in with Ripley and Newt.

This episode's got several things going for it. The unexpected return of Agent Leyla Harrison (who is as cute as ever, but more annoying than I remember her). A pseudo-metaphor about a bug infestation standing in for monster attacks. A car ignition spurting blood. Agents trapped in a house during a snowstorm. Monsters that behave like gremlins (e.g., sabotaging electronics). A boy with strange powers, like something out of the Twilight Zone. And the clever usage of Doggett's skepticism as a weapon against a monster that relies on belief.

And then it has some things not doing it any favors. To start with, it's written by Thomas Schnauz - the same person who wrote Lord of the Flies, which doesn't inspire much confidence. Scully's scenes serve no other purpose than to provide humor (also like in that other episode). There's one scene that seems to be trying to play digging up a dead cat for laughs, and I'm thinking - this series hasn't been this far over the line of bad taste since Badlaa (but at least in that episode, you got less of a feeling that it was trying to be funny, instead of just unsettling - which it accomplished). And then there's the bad CG effects (an 8 year old's drawing of the monsters is better). Plus, though giant bugs as monsters is more realistic (at least from my perspective), it's not as imaginative as something, well...more monstrous.

Mix it all together, and you get a halfway decent episode - one that's not great, but not as bad as Lord of the Flies was. The inside references (to D.P.O. and Field Trip) are not as plentiful coming from a less experienced staffer than Frank Spotnitz (who wrote Alone, which was the last episode that Leyla Harrison appeared in). And the brief attempts at self-aware deconstruction don't compare to what came from the tortured genius of Darin Morgan, or even Vince Gilligan, in some of his funnier moments.

Furthermore, Leyla's signing off on Doggett (and, by extension, Reyes) as Mulder and Scully's replacements at the end is a little heavy-handed, considering her role as audience surrogate. It's a bit too much like putting words in our mouths. I like Doggett and Reyes enough (especially Doggett, although Reyes has grown on me this season), but I'm not ready to write Mulder and Scully off completely - I don't think I'll ever be.

I do like the little commentary thrown in at the end about how television kills the imagination. Although, I would agree with it only to a certain extent. For some, zombification does indeed seem to be a real consequence. But for us creative types, I find that my imagination is actually stimulated by watching fictional media (it's the difference between finishing an episode and wanting to analyze/discuss it, and just wanting to put the next episode on). I guess the trick is to take it in moderation (which is obviously not what's happening at the end of this episode), and not everyone has that kind of self-control.

It's the Antlion!

Memorable quotes:

Tommy: No such thing as monsters.

Leyla Harrison: I apologize. I let my imagination run wild, and I ruined both your evenings. Thank you in advance for not yelling at me.

Leyla Harrison: What would Agents Mulder and Scully do if they were in this situation?
Doggett: Agents Mulder and Scully aren't in this situation. Agents Doggett and Reyes are.

(Even the meta-commentary is feeling less inspired).

Dad: Come on, you saw what happens. You think you've killed one. And then, it becomes two.

(This is my fear every time I encounter a pest in the home. Killing it doesn't bring satisfaction so much as the creeping anxiety that there might be more, hiding just out of sight).

Tommy: You're just trying to scare me.
Doggett: (Lights a match). Scared yet?

Leyla Harrison: Your lack of imagination saved our lives.
Doggett: Gee, thanks.

The X-Files - Binge Watcher's Guide

As I type this, the upcoming X-Files revival is just two weeks away. I've spent the last 200 days - (going all the way back to the end of last June) - watching and reviewing, on average, one episode per day. And now, my 200 day marathon is coming to a close. It was a fun run, but also very time consuming. As I stumble exhaustingly over the finish line in about another week or so, I'll be looking forward to getting my free time back. But I'm also very excited to see the six new episodes that will be airing over the next several weeks.

If you, too, are looking forward to the revival - but, unlike me, haven't had the time or the dedication to re-watch the entire series in preparation - and are looking to binge watch a handful of notable episodes to get ready, I have a few lists that can help you get started. If you enjoy the standalone, freak-of-the-week episodes, I've picked out 12 (scratch that, 13) of what I consider to be the best here. If you're more into the show's over-arching mythology, I've picked what I consider to be the best 15 hours, or top 10 mytharcs, here. And if you have time for both, you might instead consider consulting my list of the series' highlights, grouped by season, starting here.

And if you just want to see some suggested episode titles already, here are the shortlist versions of those pages:

Top 12 (scratch that, 13) Freak-of-the-Week Episodes [link]

#1: S3:E20 "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'"
#2: S1:E13 "Beyond The Sea"
#3: S4:E10 "Paper Hearts"
#4: S2:E22 "F. Emasculata"
#5: S2:E14 "Die Hand die Verletzt"
#6: S6:E18 "Milagro"
#7: S3:E14 "Grotesque"
#8: S3:E22 "Quagmire"
#9: S4:E2 "Home"
#10: S3:E17 "Pusher"
#11: S3:E4 "Clyde Bruckman's Repose"
#12: S1:E1 "Pilot"
#13: S8:E7 "Via Negativa"

Top 15 Hours of Mythology (or Top 10 Mytharcs) [link]

#1: Fight The Future (1998)
#2: S2:E8 "One Breath"
#3: S2:E25 "Anasazi" / S3:E1 "The Blessing Way" / S3:E2 "Paper Clip"
#4: S2:E5 "Duane Barry" / S2:E6 "Ascension"
#5: S4:E24 "Gethsemane" / S5:E1 "Redux" / S5:E2 "Redux II"
#6: S3:E9 "Nisei" / S3:E10 "731"
#7: S5:E13 "Patient X" / S5:E14 "The Red and the Black"
#8: S1:E24 "The Erlenmeyer Flask"
#9: S4:E7 "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man"
#10: S2:E16 "Colony" / S2:E17 "End Game"

Series Highlights (listed in airing order)
Note: episodes tagged with "(m)" are mythology episodes

Seasons 1-3 (Classic X-Files) [link]

Pilot (m)
Beyond The Sea
The Erlenmeyer Flask (m)
Duane Barry / Ascension (m)
One Breath (m)
Die Hand die Verletzt
F. Emasculata
Anasazi / The Blessing Way / Paper Clip (m)
Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose
Nisei / 731 (m)
Grotesque
Pusher
Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'
Quagmire

Seasons 4-5 (Mainstream X-Files) [link]

Home
Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (m)
Paper Hearts
Leonard Betts
Memento Mori (m)
Small Potatoes
Gethsemane / Redux / Redux II (m)
Unusual Suspects
Bad Blood
Patient X / The Red and the Black (m)

Seasons 6-7 (L.A. X-Files) [link]

Fight The Future (m)
How The Ghosts Stole Christmas
Two Fathers / One Son (m)
Monday
Milagro
Field Trip
Sein und Zeit / Closure (m)
En Ami
Requiem (m)

Seasons 8-9 (Doggett X-Files) [link]

Roadrunners
Via Negativa
Per Manum (m)
Three Words (m)
Essence / Existence (m)
4-D
Release
The Truth (m)

Coming soon - I'll probably post some more lists of episodes ordered by different themes - the best and worst of each season, the most overrated and underrated episodes (in my opinion, of course), and episodes rated by writer, possibly among others. Stay tuned for those, but in the meantime, the above lists should be adequate in preparing you for the revival!

The X-Files - S9:E13 "Improbable"

[ S9:E12 "Underneath" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E14 "Scary Monsters" ]

I said in my review of the last episode that this season would do well to stick to a serious tone, like it mostly did in season 8. Alas, with this episode, Chris Carter (who writes and directs) is back to his old tricks (the non-mythology ones, that is), trying to do a light episode, infused with questionable humor. Imagine that the writer of such cringe-worthy episodes as Syzygy and Fight Club were to try to construct a copycat of Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose. This is not just Chris Carter trying to fill the void left by Darin Morgan's humor, but actually applying his own extremely dubious sense of humor (also witnessed in The Post-Modern Prometheus) to the formula of what was undoubtedly a winning episode. I'm surprised that they're still chasing past glories this late in the series. And if this and prior episodes are any indication, then I don't think I like Chris Carter's sense of style or humor or music (Nick Cave and the Bad Seed's Red Right Hand notwithstanding). The closest thing to real humor in this episode (the serious, cynical, situational sort of humor this series used to rely on) is a professional numerologist not believing in numerology. And as a director, this episode's technical flourish is the use of split screens, except there's no real point (not like in David Duchovny's Hollywood A.D., where it was used effectively in one scene to serve a joke).

Opening in a Vegas-style casino (that recalls another goofy episode, Three of a Kind), this episode guest stars Burt Reynolds as a card-counting magician (to get a sense of the mood, in one scene, he wiggles his butt in front of the camera while dancing the cha-cha). I've been using the phrase "leave it to Reyes" a lot, but once again, she's relying on a dubious new-agey theory - in this case, numerology - to tie together a series of murders committed by a killer who seems to be driven by the mystical power of numbers (considering the themes of Syzygy and Fight Club, perhaps I should be saying "leave it to Chris Carter" instead). The subject matter allows the characters (especially Scully, who is a scientist) to bring up some interesting scientific concepts (e.g., the Unified Field Theory), but they are stretched to the breaking point - it's like the difference between astronomy and astrology. The idea of counting cards, for example, is seductive, but statistics relies on probabilities. It doesn't allow, in this case, for the accurate prediction of complex actualities - as demonstrated in a ridiculous scene (I actually wrote the word "ridiculous" twice in my notes describing it) which posits an underlying pattern to all of existence, a la The Goldberg Variation. This episode has enough problems in its conception, but what kills it is its goofy tone.

Postscript: I swear, I didn't pick up on this at all, but apparently Burt Reynolds' character in this episode is supposed to be God. And I think that just makes me hate this episode even more. Lame-o.

Memorable quotes:

Burt: You know your problem, my friend? It's not the cards - it's playing the hand you were dealt. Plenty of guys get a bad deal; it's all in what you do with it.

Reyes: Do you believe the universe is knowable as a mathematical calculation of the whole, reducible to a single equation?
Scully: No.
Reyes: Why not?
Scully: Because I don't think that its complexity allows for it to be reduced so simply.

Burt: You know, there's a secret to this game, Wayne-o. And I'm gonna tell you what the secret is: choose better.

Doggett: Don't we at least have to accept that as a possibility?
Special Agent: No, we don't.
Reyes: Why?
Special Agent: Because it's highly improbable.
Doggett: But not impossible.

(Just a cheaper version of Mulder's great line from The Jersey Devil - "highly unlikely, but not outside the realm of extreme possibility?").

Wayne: Go to hell.
Burt: Are the reservations in your name?

Scully: Sir, does it look like we're here to play checkers?
Burt: ...No.

(And neither am I, Chris. Neither am I).

The X-Files - S9:E12 "Underneath"

[ S9:E11 "Audrey Pauley" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E13 "Improbable" ]

Now this is like what the last season was putting out - classic, dark X-Files representing a return to form. If this season had had more episodes like this one (and less like Lord of the Flies, not to mention the mythology), surely it would have rated higher, or at least could have been labelled an underrated season like 8 was, instead of the confirmation of the show's rapid decline post-Duchovny that it was. This episode's credit goes to John Shiban (one third of the power trio that includes Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz), both for the writing, and for his directorial debut. It's a great episode for Doggett, about the release of a man that he fingered for murder (albeit on circumstantial evidence) back when he was in the NYPD 13 years ago. This event is depicted in the unsettling opener, which effectively captures the fractured psyche of a serial killer - if he really did kill those people. Now, DNA testing has exonerated him, and he's set to walk. But not if Doggett has anything to say about it. He's too close to the case to view it from an objective standpoint, but leave it to Reyes to provide a paranormal explanation involving transubstantiation (unsurprisingly - given the writing this season - involving religious overtones), that could possibly explain the man's guilt despite not leaving any clues tying him directly to the murders, and maybe not even realizing it himself. This is easily one of the highlights of an otherwise underwhelming season.

Memorable quotes:

Doggett: I can't just sit here and wait for this guy to kill again.

Doggett: A cop I know - a man I respect deeply - told me one time, you don't clock out at the end of your shift unless you know you did everything you could.

Bob Fassl: I pray all the time. I pray even when it looks like I'm not praying.

Doggett: You know that what you're sayin's impossible.
Scully: And yet, somehow, it's true.

Damon Kaylor: This isn't about the truth. This is about getting a conviction, Agent Doggett. And if we can't get a conviction, then the truth doesn't matter.

(In other words, the truth is no good without proof).