The X-Files #250: Essence

"I can't live like this, the object of an unending X-file."
ACTUAL DOCUMENTED ACCOUNT: Billy the alien is killing doctors monitoring Scully's unborn super-baby.

REVIEW: The mysteries surrounding Scully's baby seem to multiply in this episode. What is its sex? Who's the father? Why did Krycek want to kill it? Who are all those creepy doctors interested in it? And is it an alien baby or something else? We get answers to a number of these, hurray! Nothing on the paternity, of course, though Mulder seems to play coy with what he knows. There is a twist though. Though everything seemed to point to her baby being an alien hybrid like the women we met in Per Manum, the truth is quite the opposite. Her baby is apparently a super-human, possibly resistant to alien viruses (so black oil control and replicant replacement), possibly even to such things as toxic hybrid blood, who knows? So Krycek wanted it aborted before the aliens found out and accelerated their plans, and the creepy doctors (with their ridiculous wall of light-up deformed fetuses, come on now), while they HAD experimented with alien DNA, believe her child to be what they only hoped to create in the lab, going so far as planting one of their own among Scully's mom's friends to keep tabs on her (but what were the pills for?).

But the aliens HAVE found out and they've sent replicant Billy Miles (one of Mulder's fellow abductees, now a killer alien duplicate) to murder the whole team of doctors who apparently stand in the way of invasion. They research and expertise must be destroyed lest they reproduce the miracle that is Scully's baby. Cue effective action to get Scully to safety, though that's in doubt given the participation of Doggett's FBI friend who turns out to be a replicant himself. Or some kind of alien, the type with the strange spine, which given the various aliens we've seen, doesn't HAVE to be the same group as Billy Miles', but is definitely the same group as Knowle's, whose allegiance is still ambiguous. We're in deep paranoia territory here, aren't we? Speaking of which, Denise Crosby is back, AGAIN with a smattering of lines, and she's Scully's new trusted doctor? I smell complications!

Very close to the season finale now, we again get the sense that Mulder and Scully are making their farewells. And so, Mulder leaves Doggett some kind of legacy, i.e. tips on how to stir the pot to get answers AKA pissing people off. Reyes is called in, and something tells me her presence will stick, this time. Another good bit is Krycek's slimy smile when Skinner cuts him out of the loop. Boy, he must really be sick of having to ally with the guy who's got his finger on his death button.

REWATCHABILITY: High -
Very plotty, but doesn't skimp on the revelations for once. We do seem to be heading for some kind of ending.

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