Case 07, File 16: Chimera

AKA: Should I Watch Full Metal Alchemist So I Can Make A Reference To It Here?

I talk a lot about the themes of this or that X-Files episode, but honestly, a lot of that is just subtext. Sure every so often you end with an episode like Clyde Bruckman that takes a big idea and explores it with heart and nuance, but more often you get a general concept and maybe some subtext or small character arcs that build on it. That's not a criticism, the format of a 40 minute Monster of the Week storyline is not really built to explore heavy themes, but it's nice when the theme is at least central to the episode.

Our episode kicks off with a perfect family having a perfect Easter Egg hunt in a perfect suburb in a perfect st-is Vermont a perfect state? I've literally never been even though it's only a 2 and a half hour drive away. Anyway, there's one woman there (Jenny) that the woman who arranged the thing (Martha) doesn't like, and after a crow attacks Martha's daughter, she's not in the best mood about it. And that mood doesn't improve anymore when the crow appears in her house. Also a mysterious thing shows up, attacking her and also shattering her mirror.

Back in the rest of the world, Mulder and Scully are on a stakeout looking for a mystery woman who has been slipping into a club and disappearing sex workers without getting caught. But Mulder gets a call from Skinner and leaves Scully alone on the stakeout, as Skinner ships him off to Vermont to look for the missing woman, because the crow thing is weird and Mulder deals with weird shit. I'm not being sarcastic, that's literally the reason Skinner gives, it's great.

So Mulder heads off to Vermont, where he starts finding evidence of the crow and also starts thinking magic is involved because he's Mulder, and meets Martha's husband who says that he learned that Martha was cheating on him when he found birth control pills and a key to a...something. Meanwhile the Sheriff's wife, Ellen, has a brief confrontation with Jenny, and Ellen gets a glimpse of the monster in a car window before the window shatters. While staying up there in Vermont, he gets some special pampering from the sheriff's wife who seems obsessed with being the perfect wife, while Scully is suffering back at the stakeout.

Also Martha's husband finds her body in the backyard. That's uh, that's important. Martha's body is covered in claw marks and Mulder decides there must be a demon involved, because he's Mulder. And because he's Mulder, he's right, as the thing shows up in the Sheriff's house and chases Ellen for a moment, before the Sheriff comes home and rescues her. She also mentions that she found a key similar to the one the Judge found on Martha. And that key turns out to be key to what's going on, as the Sheriff steps out that night to sleep with Jenny. This episode has too many white lady names.

Oh shit, is this Locke and Key?

Anyhoo, the next morning Mulder figures out that the Sheriff is banging Jenny and was banging Martha and given that the creature attacks Jenny, he figures that might be important. But the Sheriff claims to not have killed either of them, and Mulder believes him. And when Scully calls, telling him she has the solution to the stakeout (the lady was a preacher, and also a man in drag) Mulder realizes the killer is Ellen, trying to destroy anything that threatens her idea of a perfect family. And since Mulder is now threatening it, she attacks him, but stops when she sees her monstrous reflection in the tub. And thus the episode ends with Mulder and the Sheriff musing that seeking a perfect suburban life must have damaged her psyche.

Chimera is a pretty good episode that I think gets a lot of stick because it's got the bones of a great episode in there. It has some good moments and a really solid theme at the core, but it never really comes together the way really great episodes do, and ends up just being kind of okay. And maybe I'm cynical, but so much of this season has felt like a major step down from previous seasons, it's nice that we can still get really solid episodes this late in the game.

The big selling point to me about this episode is the monster itself. It's not a complicated villain, it's a person with some big claws (and also a raven shows up to announce its presence?) but the episode uses it well. The mirror shattering thing is a solid way to hide the creature and also create some tension; I really like the sequence where Ellen runs through the house with the mirrors shattering after her, it's both a good tense horror sequence and doubles as foreshadowing.

"Mulder, I'm dreaming of killing you."
"Psh, basically every woman in my life has said that to me at one point or another."

The mystery is an element that I think doesn't entirely work, but it could. The problem is that the law of conservation of details points to Ellen being the killer pretty early, so the episode would probably benefit from just dropping the pretense and exploring why Ellen's desire for an unobtainably perfect family drove her to demonic murder. As it is, it's a nice third act twist, but that's all it is (and it comes at a moment when basically all other suspects have been eliminated) and a stab at a theme that doesn't really come up before then.

Not that I mind the theme, it just only comes up in brief moments, much like our other hero Scully.(Boom, how's that for a segue?) Scully's absence isn't a super odd one (Anderson was off directing an upcoming episode), but I'm not certain Scully being gone really adds anything. Yes, Mulder finds the answer because she mentions that the woman they were looking for was hiding in plain sight, but that could have come up in other ways, and the tradeoff of no Mulder and Scully banter except in like 3 scenes is not worth it.

Which is a shame because the rest of the script is really solid. Mulder and the Sheriff make an amusing duo, and most of the secondary characters (which really just means the Sheriff and his wife) are well acted and well realized. I find it easy to get why the Sheriff feels trapped in his life and also how his wife is both comforting and kind of smothering. It does a good job foreshadowing how the character relationships and how the small town drama is playing out. There's a lot of solid material here that with a just a little more fleshing out could have made for a truly great episode. Instead, the episode settles for being merely pretty good.

This episode can try all it likes, but I'll always associate mirrors on the ceiling in this show with Morris Fletcher.

As we approach the end of season seven and Duchovny's original tenure on the show, it's hard not get misty eyed. Seasons eight and nine might have some solid episodes, but it's undeniable they are going to be very different from the rest of the series, so it does feel like a threshold is coming up, and the series is never going to be the same when we cross it, and so as I look forward at the slate of episodes coming up (some dire, some fine) it's hard not to feel like we're leaving the last good, straightforward, Mulder and Scully Monster of the Week episode in our rearview. And given that's what drew me to the show in the first place, it's equally hard not to miss them.

Case Notes:

• Nice to see that The X-Files hasn't lost its habit of not looking anything like its setting. Vermont (hell, New England in general) at Easter would not look like this episode at all.
• The obvious disdain the family has for Jenny feels pretty Stephen King-ish for some reason. I guess inserting small town drama into horror will always feel that way.
• The little girl got super freaked out by a crow flying near her?
• For some reason Mulder doing a stakeout to catch a mysterious woman feels very out of character. You'd think he'd be off telling sex workers that he thinks she's a shape shifter.
• Good Mulder and Scully banter in opening. I like Mulder talking about how noble what they're doing is and immediately bolting.
• I like Mulder assuming her did something wrong. Does he actually screw up that oft-yeah, yeah he does, doesn't he?
• Mulder just shows up in the house and immediately starts bouncing around figuring out small details, cause he's Mulder.
• I know that it's supposed to be a plot point, but people use birth control pills for things other than...well birth control.
• The scene between Jenny and Ellen is nicely paced and gets a lot of solid exposition in naturally. Plus the random horrifying reflection is nice.
• I like the sheriff interacting with Mulder. "Look Mulder, we know you were brought here to be crazy, but could you be less crazy?"
• Without Scully to filter Mulder's ideas, I think Mulder is likely to convince everyone in town that he's a nutjob.
• Mulder telling Scully that he thinks that his nice little town is just as seedy as her red light district feels like a post-hoc justification for Scully being there, like they wrote them apart cause they had to and decided to figure out the thematic justification later.
• The monster being shown only in the mirrors that immediately shatter is both a good way to hide it and a solid way of making the chase more exciting, good stuff.
• Aw man, turns out the sheriff is a jackass who won't believe his wife. AND he's cheating on his wife? What a jerk.
• I got to admit, I don't understand why anyone would want mirrors on the ceiling.
• Mulder is so clearly uncomfortable with being taken care of, it's kind of fun.
• "Do you [Mulder] have a significant other" Well he's got an FBI partner with whom he is in love and perfect with, so mind your own business lady.
• Okay I love Mulder talking with the Sheriff over breakfast, he's read the Sheriff so clearly, it's great.
• The episode is clearly aware that its time left is limited, so it runs through a lot of reveals, in quick succession, but I like how we the audience get clued on who the killer is and that Ellen might not be a great person.
• Oh so Mulder figures out it's Ellen because Scully references that her suspect was right under their noses.
• Oh so the Sheriff was right, she DID break the mirrors herself. I'd forgotten that she gets beaten by seeing her own reflection, that's clever.
• The episodes theme (the whole 'Repression of suburbia' thing) comes in a bit late, but it works well enough.
• As always, these episode are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so I can afford to drive up to Vermont and see if it is actually perfect. I sincerely doubt it, but it's worth checking.

Future Celebrity Watch:

Martha, our cold open victim, is played by Wendy Schaal, a veteran actress whose been appearing in various stuff since the mid-70s, but is best known these days for playing France Smith, the wife on American Dad! I actually like American Dad! believe it or not, but I'm just going to end this paragraph here.