"The Truth Is Out There" Re-Watch: "E.B.E." & "Miracle Man"

 The X-Files

We have another mythology episode this time so if you are a mythology fan you are probably pretty excited. If you aren't, well it's just one, so you'll make it through just fine I'm sure. 

"E.B.E."

Scully: "I have never met anyone so passionate and dedicated to a belief as you. It's so intense that sometimes it's blinding."

Notable Guest Star(s): Bruce Harwood, Dean Haglund and Tom Braidwood as John Fitzgerald Byers, Richard Langly and Melvin Frohike collectively known as The Lone Gunmen

Mythology or Monster of the Week: Mythology

X-File of the Week: In Iraq, near the border with Turkey, an Iraqi fighter pilot shoots down a UFO. Chatter about this is picked up on a US military base. In Tennessee, a truck driver named Ranheim shoots at a strange shape in the dark while another UFO flies overhead. Mulder gets wind of this and he and Scully show up to investigate. They interrogate him, but he is let go by uncooperative local authorities.

Red Rum... er Room... Red Room

This episode is well known for a couple of reasons. First and most importantly, it introduces side characters that will become so popular and important to the show that they will get their own short-lived spin-off. I am of course talking about The Lone Gunmen. They aren't in a lot of the episode but they immediately make a great impression. They counter balance Mulder a little. You think he's obsessed and a conspiracy nut, you ain't seen nothing yet. The actors immediately settle into their characters. There is the buttoned up Byers, the long hair Langly and the grizzled horny Frohike, who is immediately, we'll say, smitten with Agent Scully. TLG are just immediately charming and likable and you want more of them and the show delivers throughout its run. 

"Fallen Angel" may have set the template for mythology episodes, but "E.B.E." really flexes and shows that they can be just as exciting and compelling as the MotW episodes have proven to be. The episode is pretty briskly paced which you can't say of a lot of "X-Files" episodes. From the time they first meet with the trucker Ranheim who they later learn is actually Frank Druce, Mulder and Scully are on the go. Multiple meetings with Deep Throat. Chasing a semi. Leading shadowy spies on a wild goose chase. 

This episode deepens the character of Deep Throat and also pushes him further back into the shadows. It's pretty clear that Deep Throat is manipulating Mulder and you kind of figured he had before this, but Jerry Hardin plays it all just right. Subtle shifts in his posture and facial expressions.  It's great. In later seasons, when the mythology episodes really start to go off the rails, there are a lot of red herrings but that's it. This episode has plenty of red herrings but the conclusion gives some answers but leaves just enough doubt to make you question. Is Deep Throat's story about killing E.B.E's (extraterrestrial biological entity) or is it another carefully curated lie? 

Grade: A-

"Miracle Man"

Mulder: "I think I saw some of these people at Woodstock."

Scully: "Mulder, you weren't at Woodstock."

Mulder: "I saw the movie."

Notable Guest Star: Scott Bairstow as Samuel Hartley

Mythology or Monster of the Week: MotW

X-File of the Week: Scully is contacted by Sheriff Maurice Daniels in Clarksville, Tennessee to investigate the Miracle Ministries led by Reverend Calvin Hartley and his son, Samuel. Samuel claims to have the ability to lay hands and heal the sick and dying, a claim seeming held up by a man named Leonard Vance, who was supposedly brought back to life by a young Samuel after being badly burned. Scully shows Mulder a video of Samuel supposedly healing a woman with a malignant spinal tumor. Twenty minutes later she was dead.

Halleloo.

I really want to like "Miracle Man" more than I do and I think that every single time that I watch it. It has everything that I usually like. A weird pseudo religious cult that is maybe a fraud. Seeming backwoods people buying into it. A lot of is it real or isn't it real back and forth, but for whatever reason, it just is lacking. It could be that the episode is written by Chris Carter and Howard Gordon. They are able to come up with solid concepts but they pretty easily allow them to go off the rails and be really heavy handed. I'd love to see what some of the great "X-Files" writers like Glen Morgan and James Wong would have done with this. I think it would have been considerably better than what we get. 

The episode begins well enough. I really enjoy the cold open. Young Samuel and the Reverend proselytizing in the rain while the police clean up an accident that looks pretty gruesome. Samuel going full faith healer and touching the grotesquely burned hand of Leonard Vance. It moves along at a nice clip with Mulder and Scully attending a revival and Mulder being as snarky and incredulous as you thought he would be. Things take a turn for the considerably more mediocre when the agents come face to face with Samuel.

Samuel was played by Scott Bairstow. If you watched Fox at all in the mid to late '90's and early '00's then you probably recognize him. They worked really hard to make him happen. From this, to a guest stint on "Party of Five," the short-lived "Harsh Realm" you couldn't turn around without seeing this non threatening blonde Canadian. The reason Bairstow never took off though is because he has zero charisma and that doesn't really work when you're playing a faith healer. Someone who people come to because he has some sort of magnetism. Bairstow plays Samuel as a sullen, emo drunk and it is really meh. I get that Samuel believe he has caused this and he's upset but it would have been nice to see some of what drew people to him peek out. 

This episode does a thing that I hate. It trots out Mulder's sister for cheap emotional effect. They clearly want to get Mulder on Samuel's side and instead of trying to find an organic way to get them to connect. I understand the show wants to periodically remind people that Samantha is a thing, but there have to be better ways than this to do it.

The episode kind of goes off the rails in the third act starting when Samuel is beat to death in his cell on the sheriff's orders. The sheriff's motivations behind this are never really revealed.We are led to believe that it maybe has something to do with his wife who is in a wheelchair but like, why would he go this far? Actually showing the apparent ghost of Samuel appearing before Vance is too much. It pushes things into hokey territory and doesn't work at all. It's kind of cringe-y and it doesn't help that neither Bairstow or the actor who plays Vance is strong enough to make any of it work. 

Grade: C+

Next up, the agents learn about werewolves and evil termites.

What do you all think? Do you agree that this mythology episode is pretty strong? And that "Miracle Man" is full of wasted potential? Let's hear your thoughts in the comments.