"The Truth Is Still Out There" Re-Watch: "Ghosts in the Machine" & "Ice"

 The X-Files

So, we have trudged through some mediocre "X-Files " episode the past couple of blog posts, but I have good news for you, dear reader. We are kicking of 2021 with one of the best episodes in season 1. So, woot!!

"Ghosts in the Machine"

Brad Wilczek: "Scruffy minds like me like puzzles. We enjoy walking down unpredictable avenues of thought... turning new corners but as a general rule, scruffy minds don't commit murder."

Mythology or Monster of the Week: MotW

X-File of the Week: Mulder's former partner, Jerry Lamana, asks him for help investigating the electrocution of Eurisko CEO Benjamin Drake by possible booby trap.

Take the stairs.

This episode begins a long "X-Files" tradition of technology taking over and being bad which continued even into the show's most recent final season. The problem with it in this episode is that it doesn't really say anything that other, better sci-fi has already done. Let's be real here, COS is basically HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey." 

The moment that we meet Mulder's ex-partner, Jerry Lamana, you know that they guy is a skeeze ball. He is super slimy. There is absolutely no nuance to the dude. After conning Mulder into helping using the sob story about how he's on thin ice ever since he lost some evidence that got a judge maimed, he's taking credit for the profile that Mulder comes up with. Scully brings this up, Mulder sticks up for his lame friend. The dude is such a pathetic sad sack that when he is finally murdered by a COS controlled elevator, you almost think that the work was doing him a favor.

The agents go to question their only suspect, Brad Wilczek, founder of Eurisko and designer of the COS. Scully is convinced that Wilczek killed Drake because Drake was basically forcing him out of his company and shutting down his pet project. Mulder, shockingly, is not convinced. Though, it doesn't look good that Wilczek is in the building when Jerry gets turned into an elevator pancake. I'd forgotten how in these early episodes utilized Deep Throat for exposition dumps even in the non-mythology episodes. DT lets Mulder know that the government has been trying to get Wilczek to build weapons for them since forever, but Wilczek is not into it. Maybe he won't have a choice now that he's in jail?

The third act of this episode is kind of a mess. After being basically 100% sure of ol' Brad's guilt from the jump, Scully starts singing another tune when she finds her home computer being hacked. She finds Mulder at Eurisko getting ready to break in to the building to upload a virus that Brad created to destroy COS. Yep. Mulder snuck Wilczek a laptop in his jail cell. And we are talking a big, clunky laptop from the early '90's and no one was the wiser. Sure. The scenes with Scully crawling through the vents while COS tries to off her are so ridiculous. They are meant to be suspenseful but they are not. When Scully shows up to save Mulder at the end, her disheveled, dirty appearance made me LOL. Of course, the building manager that the agents met at the start of the episode was an evil government agent trying to get their hands on COS. Of course, it looks like COS is still up and running even after Mulder uploads the virus. 

Meh.

Grade: D+

"Ice"

Mulder: [the three men on the expedition are undressing to check each others bodies for signs of infection] "Before anyone passes judgement, may I remind you, we are in the Arctic."

Notable Guest Star: Felicity Huffman as Dr. Nancy Da Silva

Mythology or Monster of the Week: MotW

X-File of the Week: After drilling deeper than anyone had before, a group of scientists with the Arctic Ice Core Project go seemingly insane and engage in a mass murder-suicide. The last transmission received shows a shirtless, bloodied scientist giving a non-sensical message. Mulder and Scully are tasked with traveling to the base, along with three scientists to figure out what happened. They have three days before a massive storm hits that would trap them.

Crack team.

This is more like it. "Ice" is, for all intents and purposes, a bottle episode. An episode of television where the characters are all stuck in one place and the majority of the action takes place there. The greatest bottle episodes have something that slowly ratchets up the tension throughout and that is surely the case here. From the moment, everyone gets into the base, a heavy layer of suspicion hangs in the air and it's wonderful. 

It turns out that during their record setting drill, the scientists stumbled across a worm possibly of extraterrestrial origin that had been on Earth for millions of years. This worm burrowed into their brains and caused the psychotic, murderous rages that everyone stumbled upon. After their pilot, Bear (shoutout to character actor, Jeff Kober, seriously if you've watched sci-fi or fantasy shows in the past 30 years, you've seen him) get sick and quickly dies, everyone is a suspect and no one is trustworthy.

This episode is a big win for prolific X-Files writers, Glen Morgan & James Wong. They just do everything right. When you are first infected by the worm, you get these gross black nodules under your arms but they disappear quickly so it's difficult to find any concrete way to know if you are infected or not. The three scientists accompanying the agents, Murphy, Da Silva and Hodge, are a great mix of personalities. Hodge is distrustful of Mulder and Scully from the jump because he believes the government for sure already knows what happened and isn't telling. Da Silva is sort of mousy and defers to Hodge and Murphy is a sports nut who seems to genuinely want to help get to the bottom of it, so of course he's the one that Mulder finds dead in a fridge. 

I love that the heat is cranked up and busted inside the station so even though it's freezing outside, it is sweltering inside, another great tension building tool. I loved the snarky radio voice when Mulder tries to order a quarantine and evacuation. There is still some comedy in the episode, exemplified by the quote that opens this recap. Of course Mulder would make a dick joke here. The effect of the worm moving under the infected person's skin is still very creepy and unsettling 20-plus years later. 

I think my favorite moment of the episode is the argument that Mulder and Scully have about whether the worm should be preserved or destroyed. It really boils down the fundamental differences between the two agents. It's well written and Duchovny and Anderson act the fuck out of it. Mulder wants to try to preserve the worm, so desperate for some time of proof of extraterrestrial life that he's willing to risk numerous lives and Scully pragmatically and sensibly wanting to destroy it. This is a perfect episode to show someone who has never seen the show before. A close second favorite scene is when Huffman's Da Silva goes batshit after being called out as the actual infected. 

Also, the cure for a worm infection is to stick another worm in a person and have them fight it out until they are both dead. Because of course it is.

I've seen this episode so many times and I never get tired of it.

Grade: A

Next up, the agents antagonize NASA and we meet Max Fenig.

What do you X-Philes think of these episodes? Am I being too hard on "Ghosts of the Machine?" Am I heaping to much praise on "Ice?" Let me know in the comments.