Wednesday, November 11, 2015

The X-Files - S6:E15 "Arcadia"

[ S6:E14 "Monday" <<< Season 6 >>> S6:E16 "Alpha" ]

Recalling the more mythology-oriented suburban monster attack in The Beginning, this episode takes place in a secure, planned community in San Diego. Of course, any perfect Leave It To Beaver neighborhood has to be hiding some dark secret. That's what Mulder and Scully have been assigned to investigate, by going undercover as a married couple (shippers take note!). The community is downright obsessive-compulsive about punishing rule infractions, and maintaining conformity - to the point that some kind of evil trash monster (which looks really cool, what little we get to see of it) never fails to be summoned to terminate habitual rule-breakers. The episode cleverly gives us all an opportunity to try out the "Mulder-Scully Romance" on a non-committal, trial basis, and - expectedly - it doesn't feel quite right to have them treating each other as lovers rather than professional co-workers (Mulder seems to enjoy making the most of the ruse, but Scully isn't having any of it) - although shippers may disagree with me on that. In sum, despite the attention paid to Mulder and Scully's relationship, which is very characteristic of season 6, this is a pretty solid, fun monster-of-the-week episode.

Memorable quotes:

Scully: A.D. Skinner, in assigning us this case, thought a fruitful approach to the investigation would be if we went undercover, posing as prospective home buyers, as this planned community would seem to hide a dark - possibly murderous - conspiracy of silence.
Mulder: You wanna make that honeymoon video now?

Mulder: This isn't an X-File.
Scully: Sure it is - it's unexplained. What do you want? Aliens? Tractor beams?
Mulder: Wow. Admit it, you just wanna play house.

Win: Did you use the dolphin-safe tuna this time?
Cami: Dolphin-safe all the way, honey.
Win: We always use the dolphin-safe.
Mulder: You gotta love those dolphins. Although, they're pretty tasty, too.

Mulder: Every community has its dark underbelly, don't you think?
Win: We don't have any underbelly. As far as I'm concerned, this community's the American dream.

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