The Grand X-Periment Day 22

10/22/11

56) The Unnatural- Season 6, Episode 19- Duchovny wrote and directed this episode that has very little of him in it. He captures the ponderous ruminations of old men well as Mulder seeks out the brother of X-File founder, Arthur Dales. Dales spins Mulder a tale about a Negro League Baseball player in the 1940s who is secretly an alien. Our old buddy, the alien bounty hunter shows up and so does the Klan.

This is really a great big love letter to baseball. One of our would-be invaders is so enamored with the sport he betrays his own race to infiltrate human teams. Not once, but twice, someone's passion for baseball is mistaken for the love of a woman.

I have never been a big sports fan but baseball was always the most accessible to me. No complicated plays and a dozen moving pieces to keep an eye on...just a man (or four men at the most) against a field of enemies. When I lived in Boston, that was the height of my interest in the sport. Of course, up there, it is a religion.

Just like tales of aliens, peeking in on baseball culture is a fun diversion for me. Throw in a shape-shifting bounty hunter and I am yours for 45 minutes.

57) Three Of A Kind- Season 6, Episode 20- This is the follow-up to the Lone Gunmen focused The Unusual Suspects from a few seasons back. Mulder appears only as a voice. The Gunmen lure Scully to Las Vegas to help them find Susan Modeski (Byars lost love from the Unusual Suspects). He does find her, but she is in the arms of another man. Byars is sure she is being brainwashed but she is really just in love with him (Charles Rocket, rest in peace, plays the fiance). Even though he turns out to be evil, I really felt for Byars in this one. He just could not believe this woman he has obsessed over could have moved on since he never could.

There is a fun sequence in this episode where Scully gets drugged and becomes silly and flirtatious. I have never been more attracted to Gillian Anderson in my life. Her pouty looks when she is told she has been drugged are adorable. Special continuity bonus, when she is holding court in the hotel bar, none other than Morris Fletcher (from the Dreamland episodes) is one of her suitors. Of course, keep in mind that neither of them remember those episodes.

Just a rollicking good time. I wish they hadn't made Rocket a heel, just so there would be a real obstacle between Byars and Susan. But otherwise, a fine thing.

58-60) Biogenesis, The 6th Extinction and the 6th Extinction II: Amor Fati- Season 6, Episode 22 and Season 7, Episodes 1 & 2. These are a little troublesome and, honestly, I think I stopped the mythology at a good point in my original run.

A downed spaceship near the Ivory Coast is washing up in pieces covered in ancient Navajo script. And here I thought episodes like Two Fathers, One Son pulled in all the recurring players, there are people in this one we haven't seen in a long time. Deep Throat, Albert "A Long Time Ago There Was a White Buffalo" Hostein, Kristgau (from the "everything Mulder knows is a lie" storyline) and good old Cancer Man, Krycek and Diana Fowley are all here to party.

The bloody disappearance of a scientist leads Mulder to come into contact with a piece of UFO. He starts having crippling migraines and collapses, eventually being locked in the looney bin for extreme violence. It seems, sigh, that exposure to alien radiation has interacted with the black oil that has been dormant in his system (because of the vaccine, I guess?) and activated mutant powers within him that make him like the little boy (Gibson) from the end of Season 5. Mulder can now read minds.

Cancer Man twigs him as the messiah who can resist the black oil and help fight off the aliens. Cancer Man tells Mulder that he is Mulder's dad (which I think took place after the injection that sent Mulder into a coma) and whisks him away to the real Last Temptation of Mulder. Mulder lives out an alternate life where he marries Fowley and has kids and lives in a neighborhood with Cancer Man and Deep Throat. He even ends up with old age makeup and gets to act out a deathbed scene. Meanwhile, Cancer Man removes some DNA or some shit from Mulder to give himself the abilities Mulder had. It is kind of stupid.

Krycek goes around killing people (this time Fowley gets it off camera and Kristgau, cancer-the disease- gets Albert Hostein). Scully finds the key to all knowledge on the downed UFO in Africa and then loses it all to a zombie or something. This is the first time I felt like the show wasn't just spinning its wheels but looking frantically for a way to make the concept last past the sell by date. Duchovny was already making noise about leaving and demanding more time to follow movies. They are moving Scully into the believer position to take his place. It is all very inorganic.

I think the aspect of it that disappointed me the most was that Mulder keeps getting more and more special. It wasn't enough that he was the brother of an abductee, next he has to be the son of a conspirator and now he has to be the human who happens to be resistant to the black oil. I'm sure it will come out that his dad was somehow responsible but still. Nibbling at the edges of a vast conspiracy is far more interesting to me than being the lynchpin of it.

It happens in all hero's journeys I guess. Luke isn't just a farm boy, he is the last chance for the Jedi's. Neo isn't just a hacker or even just the next messiah, he is the one who can break all the patterns of control. X-Files seemed more vital when it was two versus armies of evil. Now, it has lost some of the luster. I am calling this as the turning point. Of course, I have 3 more seasons to go.