The X-Files
Season three is just on another level. The episodes are great and as you'll find out, they get some pretty big name guest stars before they were household names. Let's get started.
"D.P.O."
Dana Scully: [seeing Fox flip through an issue of Playboy, she says, with a why aren't you working tone.] "I'm surprised you haven't already read that issue."
Fox Mulder: "Oh, I have."
[Responding with no shame]
Fox Mulder: "April is the cruelest month, but mine didn't come with this."
[Handing her a photo of an unknown woman]
Notable Guest Star(s): Giovanni Ribisi as Darin Peter Oswald & Jack Black as Bart "Zero" Liquori
Mythology or Monster of the Week: MotW
X-File of the Week: In Connerville, OK, people are dying by lightning strike. They are up to five victims with one survivor. Lightning strikes are uncommon but there is an institute in Connerville that generates lighting for study. Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully aren't convinced that these strikes are natural and when they meet the only survivor, Darin Peter Oswald, the begin to believe their suspicions are correct.
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| This doesn't seem safe. |
After some pretty heavy mythology episodes, we are back to the stand alone episodes and it is a nice change of pace.
Season three has a few episodes with celebrities before they got famous and we get two in "D.P.O.:" Jack Black and Giovanni Ribisi. Zero, the character Black plays, is kind of a prototype of the type of characters that Black would make a career out of. A slacker/stoner arcade employee. It's basically his bread and butter. It's nice to see him doing it even back then. Zero is kind of a non entity here. He's just Darin's friend who ends up paying the price for being close to him and knowing his secret. It's still cool to see him in this and even though he's not in it a ton, he still shines. He's super charismatic. Watching this, you can see everything that would make him a huge star in the years to come.
Giovanni Ribisi is the star of the guest stars here. Darin Peter Oswald is one of the one off "The X-Files" villains that I remember the most. Darin is a textbook toxic man. He sets his sights on his English teacher, Sharon Kiveat, and he believes that because he wants her, she wants him too or that he will eventually want him. He's someone who has clearly felt like a victim most of his life and when he is feeling victimized now, he just fries them like Jack Hammond in the cold open. He's sadistic. He changes lights to try cause a collision and then curses the anti lock brake systems when it doesn't happen. He causes his boss and Sharon's husband, Frank's, heart to stop. Then, giddily restarts it and declares himself a hero. He is the definition of unhinged and Ribisi knocks it out of the park. For a redneck kid who is played off as special, Ribisi makes Darin chilling.
We have seen Mulder and Scully have some issues with local law enforcement, but I don't think we've seen a sheriff be this openly hostile. He is a condescending dick bag. He is super shitty to Scully when she's doing the autopsy. Asking her questions about lightning just to try to humble her almost. I legit get angry watching this. And, Mulder doesn't say anything the whole time, which makes me even more upset. Come on, Mulder. It's infuriating, especially since he puts Sheriff DBag in his place when het tries the same tactic with Mulder. I'm certainly not upset when he gets killed by Darin towards the end of the episode.
For all it's good parts, this episode is a little more straightforward than most "X-Files" episodes. I do wish that there had been some twists and turns. Heck, even just one. But, it's a straight line, when most episodes have at least one loop de loop. We know Darin is the perp, the agents figure it out and that's that. There's nothing wrong with that in "Law & Order" but this is "The X-Files!"
The conclusion is a little rushed. And, I thought it was strange that Scully didn't once challenge the idea that this teenager was controlling lightning. She was onboard from the start. Sometimes the show plays up Scully the skeptic when they want to and ignore it when it suits. This was definitely one of those times.
Grade: B+
"Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"
Clyde Bruckman: "You know, there are worse ways to go, but I can't think of a more undignified way than autoerotic asphyxiation."
Fox Mlder: "Why are you telling me that?"
Clyde Bruckman: "look, forget I mentioned it. It's none of my business."
Dana Scully: "There's something you haven't explained. Can you see your own end?"
Clyde Bruckman: "I see our end. We end up in bed together. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I don't mean to offend or scare you, but not her, not this bed. I just mean I see us quite clearly in bed together. You're holding my hand very tenderly, and you're looking at me with such compassion and I feel - tears are streaming down my face - I feel so grateful because it's just a very special moment neither of us will ever forget."
Dana Scully: "Mr. Bruckman, there are hits and there are misses. And then there are misses."
Clyde Bruckman: "I just call them as I see them."
Notable Guest Star: Peter Boyle as Clyde Bruckman
Mythology or Monster of the Week: MotW
X-File of the Week: In St. Paul, Minnesota, fortune tellers are getting murdered with their eyeballs and entrails being removed while the bodies are dumped elsewhere. The St Paul PD enlists the help of the Stupendous Yappi, a famed television psychic, but Special Agents Mulder and Scully are skeptical. Mulder believes he has found the real deal, when insurance salesman Clyde Bruckman finds the most recent victim in his apartment dumpster. It turns out that Bruckman can see when you are going to die and he's having some troubling visions involving the agents.
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| Out of my face Yappi. |
I'm not going to beat around the bush. "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" is probably the second best "The X-Files" episode of all time. I have seen it a lot. I even watched it in a college class. I barely took any notes while I was watching it because, well, I've seen it so many time, I couldn't really look away.
I never watched "Everybody Loves Raymond" but if i ever did it would be because of Peter Boyle's appearance in this episode. Boyle plays Clyde Bruckman to perfection and he was Ray Romano's dad in the CBS sitcom. Boyle has credited this episode in giving his career a jumpstart. Bruckman was dealt a rough hand. Imagine seeing the deaths of everyone you met. He's used it to his advantage using his special ability to be a successful life insurance salesman. Though, his sales technique can be a little intense for some of his customers. Bruckman is sassy but not crotchety. He's deadpan. He's maybe the perfect one off character. You care about him right away and even though you've only known him for 45 minutes his fate hits you right in the heart.
A lot of this has to do with Boyle. He is so charming and has chemistry with both of our leads and let's be honest, everyone that he comes into contact with. Boyle and Anderson play off each so well. You kind of watch Bruckman disarm Scully in real time throughout the episode. Scully is in full skeptic mode. She has put Bruckman in the same category as the stupendous Yappi. A charlatan that is taking Mulder for a ride, but you can tell that no matter how hard she tries, she can't muster up the derision that she immediately felt and continues to feel for Yappi from the moment that she met him. This natural chemistry is the most on display when they are alone in the hotel room and Bruckman relays his vision of the two of them on a bed together and Scully crying while holding his hand. When that scene does come to pass after the agents find that Bruckman has committed suicide it is heartbreaking. And it wouldn't be as heartbreaking if it weren't for the masterful acting of Anderson and Boyle.
This episode contains one of the most memorable sequences in the lifetime of the show. When Bruckman tells Mulder of his recurring dream of lying naked in a field of poppies, dying and feeling himself decompose in real time. As he describes this to Mulder, you see it happen and though it might not look impressive by todays standards it was a marvel back in the mid-'90's and a really stunning sequence overall.
This was the first episode that "The X-Files" really dived into comedy. It had dabbled before but this I would say is the show's first comedic episode. It worked so well that it would return to this well many times, even in the revival. And it is very funny. That is all thanks to writer Darin Morgan. Morgan has such a great grasp on the characters voices and is able to poke fun at the patterns the show had already started to establish with the agents and their personalities. The first time we meet the Stupendous Yappi might be the most I've ever laughed watching "The X-Files." Morgan left the show after season three. The strenuous schedule of writing for a network television series for him. Luckily we have a couple more Morgan penned episodes in season three before he returns in season 10.
This episode is not a mythology episode but it does introduce a bit of "The X-Files" lore. Scully takes custody of Bruckman's elderly neighbors Pomeranian, Queequeg. Scully is not phased that Queequeg did eat a little bit of his old owner's face after she died, but as Bruckman points out in his suicide note, he can't really be held responsible for that.
Grade: A+
Next up, mysterious deaths occur following a death row inmate's execution and online dating in the '90's really was a killer.
I would love to hear your thoughts about these episodes, particularly "Clyde Bruckman." Let me hear them in the comments.
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