The Grand X-Periment Day 9

10/9/11

25) Herrenvolk- Season 4, Episode 1- The cliffhanger from the end of last season gets resolved via an hour long chase sequence. We see more Samantha clones, get introduced to the killer bees and see some kind of special plant being grown. Scully learns more about the cataloging system of the conspiracy. Really, as fun as the Mythology episodes are, things are getting slowed waaay down. This season finale/opener is kind of the definition of The Illusion of Change.

Essentially, we just see the alien Bounty Hunter track down and kill more clones. Mulder and Scully relearn that there are Samantha clones and government databases for smallpox inoculation. There are bees that kill you and aliens can heal people are the two things we learn. The confusion sets in when you start thinking about the entire colony/end game storyline and this one. You can kill clones with a needle to the base of the skull (this includes Jeremiah Smith and the Samantha clones). However, you can't kill the alien bounty hunter that way. However however, he has the same shapeshifting and healing powers as Jeremiah Smith so...WTF? Also, if the alien bounty hunter works for Cancer Man, why does he keep killing the clones that work for the project? Are they all rogue? I know Jeremiah Smith is considered rogue but all the older Samanthas and abortion doctors, too? How little control does the Consortium (that gathering of old men) have over their various scientists and clones? The conspiracy has kind of swung from menacing to incompetent. They couldn't even kill Krycek correctly (twice). If this invasion does go off, it will be a miracle.

A couple of small notes of interest in this one, Mulder's mom is healed by the bounty hunter at the behest of Cancer Man. Cancer Man lets it slip that Mulder is an important part of "the equation." The Consortium figures out X is the leak and has him killed. Before he dies, X points Mulder in the right direction to find his new source of info. Goodbye X, you cranky SOB, I'll miss you.

26) Home- Season 4, Episode 2- Good lord. I thought I had seen this one but apparently not. That was one of the most genuinely disturbing hours of TV I have watched and certainly the creepiest X-Files episode yet. I had heard for years that this was a good one but...wow.

It starts with a baby being born in a lightning storm, taken out to a field and buried alive. When some kids are playing baseball on the field the next day, they find a bloody surprise near home plate. There is a lot of really dark humor here. The sheriff of the town of Home is Andy Taylor and his deputy is Barney (but don't call him Fife). Mulder and Scully get in some talk about parenthood and genetics that is sweet and flirtatious.

It seems there is a family in Home called the Peacocks who are in-bred for generations. The three Peacock boys learn they are wanted and decide to brutally murder the sheriff and his wife. It is as tense and horrifying a sequence as this show has had. When Mulder, Scully and Barney mount a three man raid on the Peacock farm, they find the place booby trapped with violent results and make a queasy discovery.

In fact, queasy is the word I would use to describe this whole thing. The X-Files episodes I have been watching for this marathon deal a lot with the alien conspiracy or the more lighthearted stories. This one reminds me that X-Files could be a horror show as well as science-fiction. Unlike good chiller episodes like Ice or Darkness Falls, this one is all about getting under your skin and disturbing you. I don't want to say too much more about it but I would recommend this if you want to see how good a monster of the week ep can be.

27) Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man- Season 4, Episode 7- This is not considered a vital episode to the backstory of the show, but I can't help but see it that way. The Lone Gunmen call in Mulder and Scully to tell them the history of Cancer Man. We only hear this, though, since Cancer Man himself is set up across the street from them with a listening device and a sniper rifle. As Frohike tells Cancer Man's tale, we get to see the villain's memories in flashback form.

Further clues are laid down that Mulder's mom is the great lost love of CM's life. Later in the series, they try to imply that CM may be Mulder's father but I think they backed away from that Star Warsian idea. We find out that CM was the shooter who really killed JFK and MLK. If you are a student of history or know a little about Lee Harvey Oswald's activities on the day of JFK's assassination, the segment where CM frames him makes all the weird stuff Oswald did that day make sense.

There is a running bit in the episode that shows CM as a frustrated writer of purple spy thrillers in a sub-Clancian vein. He is constantly being rejected and even writes a letter of resignation after learning one of his stories will be serialized. Unfortunately, they alter his ending and he ends up giving a poisonous monologue about how life is like a shitty box of chocolates.

This episode really helps humanize the main villain of the series. His reluctance to kill MLK and a recovered alien are indications that he is at least conflicted about what he does and is not amoral. Like all good villains, he is the hero of his own story and this episode gives us a good look at that. Even if his pen name is Raoul Bloodworth.

28) Tunguska- Season 4, Episode 8- We continue wandering further away from pertinence with this part one of another mythology two-parter. Krycek leads Mulder to bust up a militia that is planning an Oklahoma City style assault on the government. Rat Boy leads our heroes to recover a piece of meteor rock that has the black oil inside it.

Skinner and Scully get sucked into the whirlpool of "OMG big trouble" when Krycek throws a dude off Skinner's balcony. Meanwhile, Krycek and Mulder end up in Russia where the meteor originated in a kind of Crime and Punishment situation. Mulder gets captured and is strapped down with chicken wire so that the horrific black oil can be pumped into his face. The ep ends with Mulder infected.

As far as cliffhangers go, that's a pretty good one. We've seen others come out of the Black Oil experience alive. In its original appearance, the Black Oil was mistaken for Diesel fuel because that's what was used in the WW2 airplane and the WW2 sub that first encountered it. Now, it appears as though all the black oil looks the same no matter where it is from. It seems awfully close to those parasites that were in the arctic ice back in Ice (although the show makes no attempt to link the two). Instead of controlling people towards an end (like in Piper Maru/Apocrypha)it leaves people catatonic ( and we find out more in the X-Files movie about this). I'm not sure how these two conceptions work together, but I guess we'll find out?

This one didn't leave me too stoked. But, for your edification, the entire box of chocolates speech from Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man...

Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast and the taste is ... fleeting. So, you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.