The X-Files - S8:E8 "Surekill"

[ S8:E7 "Via Negativa" <<< Season 8 >>> S8:E9 "Salvage" ]

The opener of Surekill recalls in a way that other episode with "kill" in the title - Kill Switch - although here the killer has a corporeal body. It's a great setup. A man is killed in traditional manner - a bullet to the head - but, like Squeeze, what makes the case weird is how the killer was able to do it, with the target in a locked cell, without being detected. It turns out the killer - a hitman daylighting as an exterminator - is able to shoot through walls with precision accuracy, using (spoiler) x-ray vision (/spoiler). Although, for someone with that ability, it's too bad he's dimwitted. However, what is a promising premise - the idea of a deadly assassin who always gets his mark, even more Terminator-like than the Alien Bounty Hunter - is disposed of in favor of a more drama-based tale of two brothers and their downtrodden secretary working at cross-purposes to better themselves by stealing money from drug dealers (although the moral ambiguity of their Robin Hood-like approach is largely glossed over). As such, it fails to reach the level of a great episode. But it's not bad, either, so it avoids breaking season 8's streak in reviving the darker tone of the series, even more consistently than season 7 did in its first half. Though, the longer it goes on, the more one wonders how long it will be able to last.

Memorable quotes:

Doggett: So which kinda shooting was this? Lucky, coincidental, or some third alternative?
Scully: Well, it's precision marksmanship, that's for sure.

Dwight: You know, eyes are the windows of the soul. They tell you everything you need to know about a person.

Doggett: I hate twins. Twins never rat each other out.

Doggett: Someone's after you, you don't pack - you leave with what you're wearing.

The X-Files - S5:E7 "Emily"

[ S5:E6 "Christmas Carol" <<< Season 5 >>> S5:E8 "Kitsunegari" ]

Spoiler Warning: Another mythology episode. More huge spoilers. You've been warned again.

From the start, this episode proves to be a bit more interesting than the last one, opening with a metaphysical monologue that is fairly reminiscent of Mulder's in Colony (not an inappropriate reference, given the elements that turn up in this episode). On that note, Mulder appears - thankfully - to join in on the action in this episode. Things start up relatively quietly, with Mulder presenting evidence in Scully's petition to adopt Emily. He reveals that all of Scully's ova were extracted in the experiments performed on her during her abduction (which Scully is learning for the first time - the expressions on her face in this scene are excellent). Scully obviously wants to protect Emily, but Mulder sees her as a child that never should have been, created by government interests that aren't interested in letting somebody just come along and take their experiment away from them.

Another phantom call (sans Melissa's voice this time) leads them back to the children's center, where Emily is staying. She has a fever and a weird, green cyst on the back of her neck. When the doctors try to take a biopsy of it at the hospital, she begins to bleed toxic, green blood! Well, I guess now we know who (or at least what) her father was... Scully tries to get Emily's medical records from Dr. Calderon, but he won't release them, citing trade secrets (what with their experimental treatments and all). Mulder totally freaks out on him - and it's not that he doesn't deserve it, but wow, that's pretty unprofessional, Mulder. Shortly after, the doctor is killed (with one of those retractable ice picks) by not one, but two shapeshifting assassins. They never assume the form of the Alien Bounty Hunter, so it's not clear whether they're other bounty hunters, or just shape-shifting clones (like we saw in Talitha Cumi) on cleanup duty.

Meanwhile, Emily is dying, and it's not altogether clear whether the conspirators need her alive, or want her dead (although they seem to be leaning toward the latter outcome). Nothing Scully is able to do can heal her. It really puts a personal face on these hybridization experiments. I mean, back in The Erlenmeyer Flask, the renegade hybrid was the tight-lipped doctor's friend, but he was still a stranger to Mulder and Scully, and to the audience. It's one thing to talk about the government throwing innocent lives away for their mad science, but when one of those lives is Scully's own flesh and blood - a little girl she's quickly come to view as her daughter - the stakes are so much higher. In spite of the lukewarm subject of motherhood in the last episode, I think this was a good direction for the mythology to go in. And the introduction of the hybrid experiments (as well as Mulder's contributions) make this episode a lot more entertaining than the last one.

Speaking of the experiments, Mulder finds a few more small pieces to fit into the big puzzle we've been piecing together at least since Scully was abducted. He tracks down Emily's listed surrogate mother, which he had originally assumed to be a fake name, and finds a nursing home doubling as a secret maternity ward, where elderly women are given hormones, presumably so they can deliver these hybrid babies. Mulder examines one of the fetuses in a cooler, finds Scully's name on a list, and makes off with a vial of green goo (which, honestly, I don't know the significance of). All the other evidence gets cleaned up as usual by the end of the episode, and Emily succumbs to her inevitable fate. To her enduring credit, Scully ultimately decides to put the big picture ahead of her personal desires, and continue to fight the conspiracy instead of redirecting that attention toward raising a kid. But let me tell you, endings don't get any grimmer than Scully recovering her cross necklace from her own child's coffin...

Memorable quotes:

Scully: It begins where it ends - in nothingness. A nightmare born from deepest fears, coming to me unguarded, whispering images unlocked from time and distance. A soul unbound, touched by others but never held, on a course charted by some unseen hand. The journey ahead promising no more than my past reflected back upon me, until at last I reach the end. Facing a truth I can no longer deny. Alone, as ever.

Scully: I don't understand. Why create a false record?
Mulder: Because there are no true records.

Mulder: I'll be back.

Mulder: You know anything about pharmaceuticals?
Frohike: Medicinal or, uh...recreational?

Scully: Who are the men who would create a life whose only hope is to die?

The X-Files - S4:E16 "Unrequited"

[ S4:E15 "Kaddish" <<< Season 4 >>> S4:E17 "Tempus Fugit" ]

Unrequited features one of the more compelling openers I've seen in a while. Obviously, all of these episodes try to catch your interest in the first few minutes before the opening credits roll - to get you invested in watching the rest of the episode. But after seeing so many episodes, you tend to familiarize yourself with the general formula. Yet this one is kind of unique, using the "in media res" technique (I swear, critics are as irrationally opposed to this technique as they are to found footage - like as if every time they criticize it they earn a gold star from their un-creative, standards-oriented English Major teachers (I'm looking at you, Dolores Umbridge)) that we've mainly seen in a few mythology episodes (Colony and Tunguska spring to mind), to create suspense. The agents themselves are involved - Skinner included, which is always a treat - in tracking a possible terrorist through a crowd celebrating the re-dedication of the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial. They have a hard enough time finding him in a bustling crowd of people, but then he appears to vanish into thin air!

The would-be assassin (an uncannily memorable Peter LaCroix, who played the truck driver in season 1's E.B.E.), who seems to be taking advantage of a "floating blind spot" in a remarkably literal interpretation of the stealth tactics of guerilla warfare, is seeking retribution against a government that left him for dead behind enemy lines. In this he is supported by the leader of a violent revolutionary group (Larry Musser, whom you'll likely remember as the colorfully-spoken Detective Manners in Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'). But when he starts targeting key members of the U.S. military, Skinner - a Vietnam veteran himself - understandably begins taking it personally.

Also appearing is Marita Covarrubias, whom we've seen very little of since her introduction in the season premiere. She provides an intriguing conspiratorial twist that recalls the mind games of F. Emasculata (also penned, perhaps not surprisingly, by the combination of Howard Gordon and Chris Carter), and that confirms what a smart and subtle series this is (no doubt for some people too subtle). I'm not sure I can speculate why - although maybe it's because military cover-ups and internal government conspiracies are more this show's bread-and-butter than racial tensions and environmentalist creeds - but the social commentary in this episode is more effective than usual. It's more subtle, less forced, and feels less insincere. This is one of those great episodes where you just get lost in the story as it unfolds - an unexpected hit.

Memorable quotes:

Skinner: I've already seen more dead soldiers than I ever wanna see.

Markham: The Right Hand believes in empowering the individual over a corrupt and corrupting federal government. We're prepared for the time when armed resistance will be necessary. Lives will have to be sacrificed. But that day has not yet come.

Scully: This guy's a one-man threat to national security. I'll bet he's got more weapons and ammo than most third world armies.

Mulder: Given the facts of the case, and Private Burkholder's polygraph test, it's the closest thing to an explanation that we've got.
Scully: Or, it's just a clever story being proffered as a cover-up for what is actually an elaborately orchestrated conspiracy.
Mulder: Well, there is that possibility, too.

Scully: That's beyond my capabilities here to make that kind of analysis.
Mulder: I think it's beyond all our capabilities, but somebody's got to explain how a four-star general could be shot and killed in what is symbolically the best-guarded military base in the country.

General Bloch: I am here because people are dying - soldiers, who dedicated their lives to the defense of this country.
Markham: I guess that's one way of looking at it.

General Bloch: I just need to know what he wants.
Markham: You know what he wants. And we both know you can't give it to him. Not without dragging that nice, clean uniform of yours through the mud.

The X-Files - S4:E7 "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man

[ S4:E6 "Sanguinarium" <<< Season 4 >>> S4:E8 "Tunguska" ]

Spoiler Warning: As you might imagine, this review is going to be spoilerrific.

The Cigarette Smoking Man - who has been listed in the credits as the Smoking Man, and referred to as both that and Cancer Man (though more often Cancer Man) by characters on the show - has always been a crucial character for The X-Files (arguably the most important one after Mulder and Scully), going all the way back to the pilot episode, even though at that point in time he was little more than an archetype of institutional evil. Unless I am mistaken, he appeared in only a few short scenes in a confirmed three episodes throughout the first season, uttering a grand total of four words (three of which were two letters or less, not to belabor the point). Perhaps because of this relative obscurity, as well as his larger-than-life character, every little bit we saw of him in the second season was a welcome addition to his legacy. Then, I remarked that there was a point in this series when he could be considered to be too exposed, and overly humanized. He appeared quite a bit in the "merchandise trilogy" that wrapped around seasons 2 and 3 (Anasazi/The Blessing Way/Paper Clip), and his connection with Mulder's parents then, and particularly in the wraparound to seasons 3 and 4 (Talitha Cumi/Herrenvolk), have gone a long way in humanizing him; although I daresay that at this point in the series, he hasn't yet lost his edge. But this episode is certainly a major turning point for the character.

The episode opens with the Smoking Man setting up in an abandoned building with a view of the offices of The Lone Gunmen, armed with a sniper rifle, and highly sophisticated surveillance equipment. He spends the episode eavesdropping on a juicy lead Frohike shares with Mulder and Scully (neither of which who, aside from a short clip of repeated footage from the pilot episode, appear in this episode beyond a few dubbed lines - a rare first for the series), detailing the Smoking Man's classified history. Therein lies the episode's disclaimer, however, as it's not apparent how much of what we see is the Smoking Man reminiscing about his life, and how much is merely a dramatization of the unverified and admittedly sensational leads Frohike thinks he's uncovered.* Nevertheless, it's a very satisfying episode, even inasmuch as it further humanizes the main villain of the show.

The episode is divided into four chapters, three of which center around a critical assassination. The first glosses over the Smoking Man's childhood, during which his father was executed for being a Communist spy, and his mother died of lung cancer before he began to speak. He grew up an orphan, and eventually enlisted in the army, where he was friends with Bill Mulder (the Smoking Man will come to treasure a photo Bill shows him of his wife and son). At that point, we witness his recruitment (though not necessarily his initiation) into life as a political assassin. The episode brazenly suggests that the Smoking Man himself (played in his younger years by Chris Owens), was the man who shot JFK. What's more, in the second chapter, we see him responsible for the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., as well (despite respecting the man - gotta keep the commies out of America). We also see that he's gained considerable power and influence, and connections with the FBI.

The third chapter is more relevant to the themes of this series, as it depicts Deep Throat's assassination of an E.B.E. - mostly consistent with his revelations in the season 1 episode of that title - just months before the start of the series. The fourth and final chapter gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of when Scully was assigned to the X-Files project, as we'd previously seen in the pilot episode. In addition to the Smoking Man's illustrious yet ignoble career, we also get a look into his aspirations - such as his unrequited desire to be a published fiction writer (as an aside, I really liked that the Smoking Man's rejection letter contained the phrase "burn it!", which the Smoking Man notably utters in Anasazi) - and his personal struggles - namely, his addiction to cigarettes. Overall, it paints the portrait of a very important, but very lonely, man, and it depicts his work for the government - as gruesome as it is - in a relatively sympathetic manner.

The episode, written by Glen Morgan and directed by James Wong, is masterfully crafted, in such a way that we feel we've been exposed to much, and have a much better understanding of the character of the Cigarette Smoking Man, while simultaneously not really critically advancing the show's mythology - as this is not a mythology episode per se, so much as a portrait of a critical mythology-centric character. As far as experiments go, it's infinitely more successful than The Field Where I Died was. I consider it an essential episode of the series.

* Credit goes to The A.V. Club, whose review of this episode opened my eyes to a subtle but incredibly important implication made in a nearly throwaway line at the end of the episode. I didn't actually pick up on this on my own, but I believe now that we are meant to conclude that Frohike's lead - which drives the recounted events of this episode - are none other than the story the Smoking Man himself wrote up and submitted to the magazine for publication(!) - which is, presumably, the Smoking Man's dramatized and glorified account of his own life.

Memorable quotes:

Byers: Frohike's close.
Frohike: Don't use my name! What the hell's wrong with you? Now I'll have to kill you!

General Francis: You see, Captain, most people seek to control life's events in order to secure a more positive, productive, and free existence. Often, however, the objectives of others conflict with our objectives. Now, most people - common people, really - can barely manage to control their own self-centered, myopic existence. They command armies of lawyers, armed with paper weapons, attacking with spiteful, vengeful, cowardly litigation. Others operate within elephantine bureaucracies. And then, Captain, there are extraordinary men - those who must identify, comprehend, and ultimately shoulder the responsibility for not only their own existence, but their country's, and the world's as well.

Associate: I'm working on next month's Oscar nominations. Any preference?
Smoking Man: I couldn't care less. What I don't wanna see is the Bills winning the Super Bowl. As long as I'm alive, that doesn't happen.

Smoking Man: How many historic events have only the two of us witnessed together? How often did we make or change history; and our names can never grace any pages of record. No monument will ever bear our image. And yet, once again, tonight, the course of human history will be set by two unknown men, standing in the shadows.

Smoking Man: A living E.B.E. could advance Bill Mulder's project by decades.
Deep Throat: Security council resolution 1013 states any country capturing such an entity is responsible for its immediate extermination.

Deep Throat: I'm the liar. You're the killer.
Smoking Man: Your lies have killed more men in a day than I have in a lifetime. I've never killed anybody.
Deep Throat: Maybe I'm not the liar.

Smoking Man: Life...is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this...undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup, or a...English toffee, but they're gone too fast, and the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. If you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is an empty box, filled with useless, brown paper wrappings.

(This was one of my all-time favorite quotes from the series, on my first watch).

Smoking Man: I can kill you whenever I please. But not today.

Violet & Daisy (2011)

I thought Violet & Daisy was going to be a more or less run-of-the-mill femme fatale/teenage assassin picture, but it actually turned out to be an unexpectedly sensitive portrait of human life. Saoirse Ronan and Alexis Bledel are both mesmerizing as a pair of walking paradoxes - girls who behave like middle school besties, but who are in fact professional hitmen (hitwomen?). Instead of being jaded beyond their years, they maintain a certain innocence about their work (especially Ronan's Daisy), like as if being an assassin is akin to taking up a paper route in order to finance impulse purchases - like the latest fashionable dress on the market.

The bulk of the story regards the unpredictable consequences of a hit-gone-wrong, but while there is a good bit of Tarentino-esque atmosphere (and gangster violence) to the proceedings, instead of a stylistic snapshot into the rough-and-tumble lives of a couple of underground dwellers (or the upbeat buddy pic that the synopsis seems to suggest), you instead get a slowly unfolding portrait of humanity, centered around the unnamed mark, played by a touchingly sensitive James Gandolfini, who does not act like a typical man targeted for death. I watched this movie mainly for its leads, but though I was expecting something rather traditional (maybe I should have known better, having seen some of the other movies Saoirse Ronan has starred in), I was pleasantly surprised to find that it rises above being a simple genre pic, and manages to be no less than a beautiful film.

Hanna (2011)

Hanna is a stylistic tour de force, with fantastic cinematography. A stunning Saoirse Ronan stars as the titular character - a girl raised by an ex-special operative (Eric Bana) in the Arctic wilderness to be a superhuman assassin. She's been training all her life to get revenge on the government agent that killed her mother (a chilling Cate Blanchett), and her coming of age means stepping out into a world she's a complete stranger to, in order to complete her mission.

The serious tone is tempered with some humorous and endearing scenes of social awkwardness on account of Hanna's upbringing, particularly those involving a likable family of tourists (centered around a hilarious Jessica Barden as a sassy teen). I could stare at the lovely Saoirse Ronan for hours, but the whole movie is filmed in gorgeous stylism, with some beautiful landscapes (from desert to winter wonderland). The plot's pretty straightforward, although there are some mild twists along the way, but this is a movie you watch for the journey, not the destination. It's cinema as art, and it's pure fun to watch.