The X-Files
It's mythology time!! It's been a minute since we've had one. So let's not waste anytime. We will get right into things.
"Nisei"
Dana Scully: "I went to go see those MUFON members to find out about that woman, Betsy Hagopian."
Fox Mulder: "And what did you find?"
Dana Scully: "I found out that she's dying. Along with a lot of other women who claim to be dying too. All of them who say that they've had these implanted in them. It's the same thing that I had removed from my own neck."
Fox Mulder: "But you're fine, aren't you, Scully?"
Dana Scully: "Am I? I don't know, Mulder. They said they know me. That they've seen me before. It was freaky. They know things about me, about my disappearance."
Fox Mulder: "That is disturbing. But I don't think you should freak out until we find out what this thing is."
Notable Guest Star: Stephen McHattie as the Red Haired Man
Mythology or Monster of the Week: Mythology
X-File of the Week: An alien autopsy video leads Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully to Allentown, PA. When they reach the home of the man who made it, they find his dead body and a Japanese man carrying a briefcase. He's supposedly a high ranking diplomat who is quickly released and murdered by a mysterious assassin. The agents split up and each discover equally alarming things. Scully meets a MUFON group who knows her and details about her abduction. Mulder discovers a salvage vessel that may contain remains of an alien.
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| Hold on, Mulder! |
These mythology episodes pick up from the season openers and further explore the idea of alien/human hybrids and what that means for the show. There are two sort of distinct sides to this episode as Mulder and Scully diverge after they leave Allentown and for me one is a bit more compelling than the other one.
Mulder's portion of the story is kind of what I'm least interested in. After stopping Kazuo Sakurai, Mulder finds a satellite image that he takes to the Lone Gunmen. They say the Japanese were watching the Talapus, a salvage vessel located in Newport News, Virginia. When Mulder gets there he manipulates the harbormaster and ends up sneaking to the Talapus and breaking in to it. Before Mulder can find anything, a team, much like the team that wiped out the Japanese scientists in the cold open, arrive and Mulder has to make an escape. Later, after Mulder emerges from the water he finds a hazmat team fumigating a strange vessel. Mulder, of course, immediately believes that this is an alien craft that the Talapus recovered and that the Japanese were seeking it out.
It's not that the Mulder segments aren't compelling and important. They are. It just kind of feels like this is well tread territory for "The X-Files" particularly during these mythology episodes. Mulder is somewhere he isn't supposed to be. He gets into trouble. He's pursued by a covert ops government team and is either captured or barely escapes. He finds some sort of alien craft. It's early enough in the shows run that we aren't completely desensitized to it, but it still comes off as a little bit formulaic.
The other thing of note found in Sakurai's briefcase is a list of MUFON members with the name Betsy Hagopian circled. Scully heads to visit Hagopian and finds women who aren't Betsy in her house and they seem to recognize Scully. The women call the rest of the chapter of their MUFON group and they tell Scully some things that don't sit well with her. They seem to know a lot about what has happened to her and they claim to have seen her before in their memories.
Scully's portion of this episode is much more compelling. I have to believe the writers have to know by now what a gift they have in Gillian Anderson. Anderson is such a great actor and watching her reactions while she listens to the MUFON members is like a masterclass. She says so much by just the expressions playing across her face. Or a head shake. Or just a murmured no. Her body language. It's so great. This episode sets up a journey that will take Scully through the remainder of this season and season four. They finally get around to telling Scully that Betsy Hagopian isn't home because she's in the hospital and she's dying. And they are all dying.
Scully brings this information back to Mulder. He's kind of dismissive of her concerns which is kind of cold. It's basically just calm down now let's talk about these evil scientists. This episode connects to Victor Klemper as Mulder tells Scully about a group of Japanese scientists, the 731, who performed inhumane experiments on innocents during World War 2, much like Victor Klemper's cabal. And much like Klemper, it seems that while they were presumed dead they are not. They were the scientists that were murdered in the alien autopsy video but one Scully recognizes from her abduction experience.
We get a lot from this episode. A visit with Mulder's Congressional informant, Senator Matheson. That some of these Japanese scientists are helping make these alien/human hybrids and are using a secret railway to shuttle the victims back and forth. Mulder heads to said railway and despite warnings from Scully via X, Mulder ends up clinging to the roof of the train as the episode ends.
There's a lot of compelling stuff to take us into the next episode. The Red Haired Man assassin is on their trail. X's appearance. Scully investigating her implant with Agent Pendrell. And what's on the train?
Grade: B+
"731"
Dana Scully: "Don't you see Mulder, you're doing their work for them. You're chasing aliens that aren't there, helping them to create the story that covers the shameful truth. And what they can't cover they apologize for. Apology has become policy."
Fox Mulder: "Maybe. Maybe you're right, Scully. But I don't need an apology for the lies. I don't care about the fictions they create to cover their crimes. I want them held accountable for what did happen. I want them to apologize for the truth."
Mythology or Monster of the Week: Mythology
X-File of the Week: Picking up from where the last episode ended, Mulder makes his way on the train, but when he finally gets onto the closed car, he finds out that he's triggered a bomb. Scully, meanwhile, learns some disturbing things about her implant and via a Syndicate member called The First Elder some disturbing things about experiments Dr Zama/Ishimaru was doing at a leper colony and potentially herself and other supposed abductees.
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| This looks hauntingly familiar. |
This is definitely a quieter and slower paced episode than "Nisei." The last episode moved at a brisk clip, but I think "731" is the better episode because it allows for space and allows these storylines to breathe a little bit more.
The agents are separated for the majority of the episode and again I have to say that Scully's portion of the episode is a little bit more interesting to me, but Mulder's portion is exciting in it's own right. Mulder spends the bulk of the episode playing a cat and mouse game with the Red Haired Man after he finds the dead body of Dr Zama in his compartment. I loved Mulder enlisting the help of the train conductor and giving him an unloaded gun in case they needed a bluff, which, hey they did! I wonder whatever happened to that train conductor. I hope that he's OK. And that he didn't like lose his job or anything.
There is a subject in the train car that Mulder believes is an alien-human hybrid. When Mulder and the Red Haired Man end locked in it, the RHM informs Mulder that a bomb was triggered. The tension is already high, but the addition of this maybe or maybe not bomb just ratchets things up higher. The great thing about this is that it doesn't feel contrived at all, which is a feat. I really like that after the Red Haired Man tries to garrote Mulder he has a bleeding mark on his neck for the remainder of the episode. It's a nice little detail that I'm glad they paid attention to.
While Mulder is a stranger on a train, Scully is all over the place in this episode. She starts off with X at Mulder's apartment. I love these melodramatic confrontations. Threats! Guns drawn! X suggests that Scully learn more about her implant which could lead her to answers in regard to her sister's murder. This brings Scully back to the blushing Agent Pendrell who has dug up some interesting information on said implant. It can seemingly map a person's brainwaves which pretty much allows someone to read your thoughts. He can only find one record of something like this existing and being shipped to a facility in Perkey, West Virginia. The recipient? Zama.
Perkey was the location of the cold open where we saw groups of people who look like alien-human hybrids rounded up and shot, their bodies falling into a pit. This is chilling and definitely invokes the Holocaust, which I'm sure is on purpose. When Scully arrives she finds survivors hiding. A patient, Escalante, explains that this was a leper colony, but Zama came and was doing odd experiments on others that were kept separated from the lepers. Escalante takes Scully to the death pit, which is even more chilling when we get a close up look of it full and flees when a helicopter arrives. Scully is taken before a Syndicate member we've seen before, The First Elder.
What the First Elder tells Scully could potentially change everything and that is a part of the reason I love this episode. The Elder tells Scully that Zama had been recruited by the US government because the strength of your scientists is now more important than the strength of your armies. But, Zama went rogue and was performing unsanctioned experiments on people and using alien abduction as a cover. He takes Scully to a room that is identical to the one that she remembers from her missing time. This sounds completely plausible. Much more plausible than a conspiracy involving extraterrestrials and alien-human hybrids. I'm not saying the First Elder is completely trustworthy but it makes total sense why Scully would believe all this. It is extremely believable and the show leans into that. They do a bit more but for the most part after this they sort of leave it by the way side particularly in the show's last few seasons to its detriment.
Scully informs Mulder that the patient on the train car is actually infected with hemorrhagic fever and if the bomb goes off lots of other folks will be exposed. The Red Haired Man furthers this theory saying that the patient is a biological weapon the Japanese are trying to get their hands on, hence the bomb. Mulder is still convinced that the patient is a human-hybrid. The rest of the episode is pretty quick. Scully is able to figure out the door code by analyzing the alien autopsy video but the Red Haired Man ambushes Mulder and leaves him to die. He's shot in the gut by X, a fun(?) callback to Mulder telling the RHM that getting shot in the stomach is maybe one of the most painful ways to expire. X chooses to save Mulder over whatever is in the car and they escape moments before the car explodes.
At the end of this two-parter, much is the same. Everything has been covered up. Mulder is more convinced than ever that there is a giant government conspiracy involving extraterrestrials and Scully believes a much more realistic theory and that Mulder is being set up as a patsy. The real winner in all this is of course the Cigarette Smoking Man who got away with Zama's journals and is having them translated as Mulder and Scully argue.
Grade: A-
Next up, stigmata, cockroaches and hot scientists named Bambi. Oh, my!
What do you all think of these episodes? Classics or are you already tired of the mythology episodes? Let me know in the comments.
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