The X-Files
We are wrapping up season 3 with a couple of interesting episodes. Maybe not the greatest episodes ever but definitely worth watching and very engaging. Let's get to it.
"Avatar"
[In the posh apartment of a madam]
Dana Scully: "Business must be booming."
Fox Mulder: "I think you mean "banging."
Mythology or Monster of the Week: MotW
X-File of the Week: Assistant Director Walter Skinner is in a bad way. He is in the process of a divorce requested by his wife, Sharon, and he decides to drown his sorrows in a local bar. There he meets a beautiful woman and they get a hotel room. After a disturbing dream, Skinner wakes up to find the woman dead in his bead. Skinner is the number one suspect but for some reason, he's not doing the best defending himself, instead he's making himself look more guilty. It's up to Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully to try to clear their bosses name as repayment for all the times that he's stuck his neck out for their work.
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| The woman of Skinner's dreams. |
On the surface, I love the idea of this episode. Ever since his first appearance, Assistant Director Walter Skinner has been playing a big part in the investigations of the X-Files. At first you're not sure what side Skinner is on, but it's become clearer and clearer that he supports the agent's work while going toe to toe with the Cigarette Smoking Man behind the scenes. It was David Duchovny's idea to give Skinner his own spotlight episode. He primarily suggested this to give himself a bit of a break, but Chris Carter and the other writers kind of jumped on it. They felt like viewers were still unsure who's side Skinner was actually on, so they looked at an episode like this as a way to clarify that for them.
This episode kind of feels like an episode of "The X-Files: Special Victims Unit." I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. It's just the general beats of the episode. From Skinner and the victim meeting, their steamy lovemaking and him finding her dead in his bed. That was a shock. Her head was turned completely around and that's not something you see a lot on network television. And I'm not mad about that. Then we learn that the victim, Carina Sayles, was an escort and the next thing we know, Mulder and Scully are at the apartment of Lorraine Kelleher. Kelleher tells the agents that Skinner ordered the escort.
Things shift a bit towards the middle of the episode with Skinner having his strange dreams with the image of the old woman. Mulder immediately suspects a succubus and his theory seems to be backed up when Scully describes the phosphorescent residue that she observed on Sayle''s mouth post mortem. But, the lab that she sends it to says there is nothing analyzable.
This is kind of where things start to fall apart. This episode feels kind of disjointed, like it can't decide where it wants to go or what it wants to do. There's the possible succubus, the old woman, the idea that maybe Skinner is doing this in his sleep because of a disorder. But Skinner's been dreaming of the woman since he almost died in Vietnam. But actually the real culprit is the Syndicate and the Gray Haired Man actually sent the assassin to frame Skinner. It just feels like writer Howard Gordon was throwing everything at the wall and just seeing what would stick. The last third of the episode is such a hodge podge that it feels like it could have been written by an AI.
One place the episode excels is it's focus on Walter Skinner. Mitch Pileggi is such a strong component of the show. He was only supposed to appear in one episode, but he did such a great job they had to keep bringing him back. I like the way that the episode dives into Skinner's personal life. The walls he puts up and how they impact not just Mulder and Scully but his wife as well.
I will say that if part of the point of this episode was to solidify whose Skinner's side was on, it's still unclear. I guess viewers are supposed to imply that he is their ally because the agents work so hard to clear him, and because of the Syndicate coming after him. But, then he's still like cagey with Mulder at the end, so it's maybe still as murky as it was when the episode began?
Grade: B-
"Quagmire"
Dana Scully: "My father used to read to me from "Moby Dick" when I was a little girl. I called him Ahab and he called me Starbuck. So I named my dog Queequeg. It's funny, I just realized something.
Fox Mulder: "It's a bizarre name for a dog, huh?"
Dana Scully: "No. How much you're like Ahab. You're so... consumed by your personal vengeance against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or its mysteries, that everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology."
Fox Mulder: "Scully, are you coming on to me?"
Notable Guest Star: Tyler Labine as Stoner
Mythology or Monster of the Week: MotW
X-File of the Week: At Heuvelman's Lake in Milliken, GA, people are turning up dead. Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully show up with Scully's dog, Queequeg, to investigate. Mulder believes that the culprit is Big Blue, a Loch Ness style creature that is rumored to live in the lake.
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| Conversations on the rock. |
This episode starts off as kind of your run-of-the-mill "monster-of-the-week" episode. Mulder gets Scully out of bed at like 5am on a Saturday and drags her to Georgia. There are no dog sitters available so Queequeg comes along, much to Mulder's chagrin. As they get closer to their destination, Scully sees billboards for Big Blue and it becomes clear to her why the are really there. This is classic Mulder and Scully. Mulder getting Scully somewhere under false pretenses. Scully being exasperated. Going to a local general store and hearing all about the lore of Big Blue from the owner who is probably making a lot of money selling Big Blue souvenirs. There is Ansel, the man who is obsessed with Big Blue and is going to make his fortune selling a picture of the creature. This is all really familiar well-trod territory.
We meet Dr Paul Farraday, a frog researcher who is trying to get them put on the endangered species list due to their diminishing population which he believes is due to human encroachment. He's a suspect in Scully's eyes due to the fact that he was around when the first victim was killed. Farraday doesn't believe in Big Blue at all and again this is all stuff that we are used to from the show.
Things take a turn a little more than midway through after Queequeg is killed (RIP) and the agents rent a boat and search the lake for Big Blue. Their boat sinks and they end up sitting on a rock and having a long conversation. It's this conversation that really elevates this episode and makes it one of the most memorable episodes of season three.
Kim Newton is credited as the writer of the episode but Darin Morgan was brought in to punch up the episode a little bit. It's for this reason that we get some call backs to the previous episodes he's written. The stoners from "War of the Coprophages" stoners make an appearance on the dock of the lake licking toads in their newest endeavor to find new ways to get high. They are in for a surprise when their buddy gets attacked leaving only his severed head behind.
The conversation that Mulder and Scully have was 10 pages of dialogue which is a lot for an episode of television. It's one of Gillian Anderson's favorite scenes and she and Duchovny are clearly relishing this. Scully is kind of at her wit's end with Mulder. She's been drawn into the middle of nowhere once again due to something she thinks is patently ridiculous. Her dog is dead because of it. She kind of lets Mulder have it about his psychotic pursuit of the truth. I think its really telling that Mulder doesn't really have a response to her. He just makes a smart ass remark, which is very on brand for Mulder. The talk turns to what it would take for them to resort to cannibalism. Then, it all goes back to Moby Dick.
The icing on the cake of this is that the agents are actually right near the shore, which they find out when Farraday stumbles upon them. They could have walked to the shore from where they are. The episode is resolved when Mulder fires on what he thinks is Big Blue but turns out to be an alligator. Scully comments that Mulder should be happy that he probably saved countless people by killing this alligator and the way that Duchovny says he just wishes it would be real.
We do see Big Blue at the end of the episode, but I kind of wish we didn't, because that CGI image is not great. Like, maybe we just leave it to viewers imaginations.
Grade: B+
Next up, we wrap up season three with regular citizens becoming murderers due to images they are seeing and in the season finale, they search for a man with powers that may have a connection with Mulder's family.
What do you all think of these episodes? Do you think that Skinner deserved a better showcase? How do you feel about the conversation the agents had? Let me know in the comments.
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