The Grand X-periment Day 25

10/25/11

67) The Gift- Season 8, Episode 11- This is not considered a vital episode but one website I went to said it was. They were kind of wrong. Doggett had found out that Mulder was dying of a brain illness before he vanished. He was in Pennsylvania a week before his abduction and, apparently, shot something or someone there. ALL SORTS OF SPOILERS FOLLOW...

This episode may have had one of the grossest monsters of the week. The soul eater is a shaman who eats sick people and throws them back up without their illness. But, he takes on whatever illness they had. Mulder tried to mercy kill him and but the guy survived, somehow. He never ate Mulder and never cured him.

This was, essentially, a monster of the week episode with Mulder's actions being used to draw Doggett into the story. Scully isn't in it at all. Pretty inconsequential, all told.

68) Per Manum- Season 8, Episode 13- This one is considered important. Women are giving birth to alien babies and Scully wants to make sure her baby is ok. We finally get the backstory (sort of) of how she got pregnant and who the father is (hint: it's Mulder). Adam Baldwin shows up as Rohrer (I believe he gets important later on).

This episode raises a lot of questions and pretty late in the game. Who is coordinating this vast web of doctors and military if the conspiracy no longer exists? Why bother impregnating women with alien fetuses if the black oil can just make new aliens out of humans without the 9 month gestation? It seems like doctors were harvesting these alien babies to study but this implies this is another faction working against the invasion. I guess I will see.

69 & 70) This Is Not Happening and Deadalive- Season 8, Episodes 14 and 15- I went ahead and watched these because I will be too busy to see them tomorrow. This two part episode brings Mulder back to Earth and introduces Reyes (the really open new female Mulder to John Doggett's skeptical Scully 2.0). Jeremiah Smith (remember him?) is picking up abductees and healing them before they succumb to comas and turn into aliens. Unfortunately, the FBI busts in on him and a cult who helps him before he can heal Mulder. So, Mulder appears dead.

They bury Mulder and everything then skip ahead by six months or so. Scully is visibly pregnant and about to go on leave. Billy Miles and some of the other abductees form the pilot return. Honestly, this one kind of pissed me off. The whole point of the time Cancer Man captured Mulder was because Mulder was resistant to the effects of the Black Oil. Krycek comes back in this one dangling a vaccine he says will cure Mulder but then Scully just finds a way to cure him with anti-viral treatments. MAYBE Cancer Man's operation left Mulder vulnerable again but then, how can Scully recreate the effects of the vaccine with common treatments when it took Bill Mulder and the Russians 40 years to make a vaccine? Or, if Mulder is still naturally resistant, why was his body still going through the stages everyone else was? This made no real sense to me and just seemed like a way to write Mulder back in with a bit of dramatic tension.

I am still on board, but just barely at this point. Shit better start making sense again soon.