"He was King of England when America declared independence in 1776. King George the III kept a diary. On July 4th he made an entry in it: 'Nothing important happened today'."
ACTUAL DOCUMENTED ACCOUNT: Lucy Lawless turns out to be a super-soldier and the ship where they're making those blows up before Scully can get evidence about her baby.
REVIEW: It's simple, if Scully's baby were a human supersoldier, they would have shown us the spine on the back of its neck and the alien hybrids wouldn't have given it the Messianic treatment at the end of the previous season. Scully shouldn't be so worried. Then again, these plots are so convoluted, who knows if I've understood this one correctly? After all, I sort of have to trust Shannon from Bravo Company (i.e. Lucy Lawless' not-a-mermaid-after-all) on this plot, but it seems legit. Well, maybe. Did she really bump off whistleblowers? Or was she killing the various links in the chain that would dose the American public with supersoldier hormones? Showing up at the end, decapitating fellow soldier Knowle and then getting his hand through her stomach in some kind of disembodied attack seems to put her on the side of the angels. Doesn't it? I don't know anymore.
And I don't know because there's just too much happening. These mytharc-heavy episodes are so plotty that explanations often become secondary. Things happen, but everyone speaks in veiled allusions. Naturalistic, sure. But if you're supposed to draw your own conclusions, there may just be too many double-crosses to really see the strings being pulled. Case in point, the other reveal from this episode: Kirsh may not be Doggett's enemy. What?! If he's to be believed, he knows about the FBI's infiltration, and he's been coerced into letting it happen. But he's not above trying to fight the supersoldiers some other way, like sending his Dogg at them while making like he's disowning him. (It's too bad, I really wanted the "Deep Throat" to be Mulder.) So Kirsh is more of an early Skinner, someone you can't be sure is on your side, but he kind of is, in his way. He just can't resist being a jerk is all. Well, okay. Brad Follmer, for his part, claims to be a friend of the X-Files, but he's an office politician first, and his smiles are insincere. I just think they're going out of their way to make everyone untrustworthy, and it's not making me paranoid, it's just frustrating me.
On the plot side of things, we're introduced to a ship on which the supersoldier-making lab is secretly located, and it, of course, blows up before Scully can get the answers she wants but may not need. Interesting for Scully's role, dragged into Doggett's obsession the way she used to be pulled in by Mulder, and then falling prey to her own. Countdown, bomb, people getting out at the last possible minute with nothing to show for it. X-Files 101.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium - We get a better sense of the new enemy, but the episode is overloaded to the point of making its audience throw up its hands in surrender. Lots of interesting things; I just wanted a minute to spare to actually explore them.
REVIEW: It's simple, if Scully's baby were a human supersoldier, they would have shown us the spine on the back of its neck and the alien hybrids wouldn't have given it the Messianic treatment at the end of the previous season. Scully shouldn't be so worried. Then again, these plots are so convoluted, who knows if I've understood this one correctly? After all, I sort of have to trust Shannon from Bravo Company (i.e. Lucy Lawless' not-a-mermaid-after-all) on this plot, but it seems legit. Well, maybe. Did she really bump off whistleblowers? Or was she killing the various links in the chain that would dose the American public with supersoldier hormones? Showing up at the end, decapitating fellow soldier Knowle and then getting his hand through her stomach in some kind of disembodied attack seems to put her on the side of the angels. Doesn't it? I don't know anymore.
And I don't know because there's just too much happening. These mytharc-heavy episodes are so plotty that explanations often become secondary. Things happen, but everyone speaks in veiled allusions. Naturalistic, sure. But if you're supposed to draw your own conclusions, there may just be too many double-crosses to really see the strings being pulled. Case in point, the other reveal from this episode: Kirsh may not be Doggett's enemy. What?! If he's to be believed, he knows about the FBI's infiltration, and he's been coerced into letting it happen. But he's not above trying to fight the supersoldiers some other way, like sending his Dogg at them while making like he's disowning him. (It's too bad, I really wanted the "Deep Throat" to be Mulder.) So Kirsh is more of an early Skinner, someone you can't be sure is on your side, but he kind of is, in his way. He just can't resist being a jerk is all. Well, okay. Brad Follmer, for his part, claims to be a friend of the X-Files, but he's an office politician first, and his smiles are insincere. I just think they're going out of their way to make everyone untrustworthy, and it's not making me paranoid, it's just frustrating me.
On the plot side of things, we're introduced to a ship on which the supersoldier-making lab is secretly located, and it, of course, blows up before Scully can get the answers she wants but may not need. Interesting for Scully's role, dragged into Doggett's obsession the way she used to be pulled in by Mulder, and then falling prey to her own. Countdown, bomb, people getting out at the last possible minute with nothing to show for it. X-Files 101.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium - We get a better sense of the new enemy, but the episode is overloaded to the point of making its audience throw up its hands in surrender. Lots of interesting things; I just wanted a minute to spare to actually explore them.
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