Case 07, File 19: Hollywood AD

AKA: Everybody Goes To Hollywood

The creation, evolution and eventual oversaturation of the comedic episode in The X-Files history is an interesting one, because on the surface it doesn't seem like something the series would be interested in doing. The X-Files is a horror show, why would it want to do comedy (we are, for the moment, ignoring how much DNA The X-Files gets from Twin Peaks, which was as devoted to its bizarre flights of comedic whimsy as it was to its deeply disturbing horror sequences). But against the odds, the comedic episode not only appeared by flourished. And since the last run of Monster of the Week episodes leading into the season finale are all comedy slanted, we get to examine them from several different angles.

Our episode kicks off (after a brief in media res opening of Mulder and Scully at a movie screening based on the two of them but involving an evil priest, and also sniper zombies?) with our intrepid heroes being assigned to check out a bomb going off in a crypt at a church under a Cardinal O'Fallon, and are also assigned to be accompanied by Wayne Federman, Skinner's college roommate and a really annoying screenwriter. They go and check out the crypt and immediately find a body in there. So you know, that might be something.

The body turns out to belong to a former Weather Underground guy named Micah Hoffman, and after they dig around Hoffman's apartment, they find bomb making tools and some counterfeit gospels of Mary Magdalene, which they decide is odd. So Mulder and Federman return to the crypt, where they find some more counterfeit gospels and also Federman finds a bowl which causes a bunch of skeletons to reassemble themselves. So, again, that might be something.

But it's also enough to cause Federman to fuck off back to Hollywood, while Mulder and Scully keep investigating, with Scully in particular saying that the thing with the bowl reminds her of an old legend her Catholic School teachers told her of the Lazarus Bowl, a pottery bowl that recorded the words Jesus said to resurrect Lazarus. So Mulder asks Chuck to take a look at the bowl, while Scully heads off to do the autopsy, where she...hallucinates Hoffman coming back to life. That sound significant, but it actually ends up mattering very little.

Hey, remember Chuck? He doesn't show up too much anymore, but he was great.

Anyway, after finding out that Hoffman was trying to blackmail O'Fallon with the forgeries, and also that the bowl contains recording of someone instructing a man to rise from the dead in Aramaic and also the lyrics to I Am The Walrus (also in Aramaic), AND that the body in the crypt was poisoned, they go to arrest O'Fallon but Hoffman shows up, very much alive. Skinner gets pissed at Mulder and Scully for...investigating a suspicious death? I didn't follow that scene much. Anyway he kicks them off the case but they find out that Hoffman thinks he's Jesus and then they head off to LA to see the movie Federman is writing being shot.

After some futzing about in Hollywood with the actors playing them, we cut back to our framing device, where Skinner gives Mulder and Scully the night off and after some musing about the fact that O'Fallon and Hoffman died in a murder/suicide, and also the fakeness of their film depiction, Mulder and Scully decide to head off and enjoy the night together. And all the fake zombies from the movie rise and dance. And that's your lot. The end.

Hollywood AD is two concepts for episodes, one about complex issues of faith and self-deception, the other a cute (perhaps overly cute) story about Mulder and Scully going to Hollywood to watch a movie based on them. Both are solid enough concepts for episodes, but neither of them really has the room to breathe here that I think they need. And since our next episode is uh...what it is, it probably would have served to cut that and give each of these stories their own episode.

"Hello Agent Scully. This bit doesn't really go anywhere, but I guess this is kind of a cool shot."

The one most undercut by these two stories getting pushed together is the story of Hoffman and O'Fallon. There's a lot of good ideas in it, like O'Fallon's despair at discovering a gospel that conflicts with his idea of Jesus, but they mostly just get left dangling. Hoffman showing up alive and believing himself to be Jesus is even less developed and then the plot just sort of runs out of gas, explained in a line of dialogue in the finale. Seinfeld could get away with plots that just sputtered off into nothing, but it feels lame when The X-Files does it.

The Hollywood story is even weaker, but in its current form I dunno if it even deserves to be called a proper story. It's mostly just a series of broadly drawn sketches, opportunities to make easy meta jokes and Hollywood inside baseball gags. There are bits here that I like (the conversation between Mulder and Chandling, while Leoni runs back and forth in the background, learning to run in heels, feels like an Arrested Development joke, in a good way), but the whole thing is defined by the vegetarian zombie freaking out about eating turkey: Not un-amusing, but definitely on the wrong side of lazy.

The Hollywood story's saving grace is that it is consistently amusing, especially for long time fans, since it does a lot of general fanservice-y gags (like the running in heels bit or Federman joking about warrants). Fanservice is something that can get kind of annoying sometimes, but when done well (as it usually is here) it can be endearing. Federman, on that note, is clearly written as annoying on purpose, and while I caution most writers that "Intentionally annoying" is still "Annoying," he gets enough good lines in, and more importantly wanders off into the ether early enough, that I don't hate him.

Alright, fine, I'll include the shot of them in the bubble bath, I am not made of stone.

There are some attempts to tie the two stories together, and they don't always not-work. The recurring zombie motif (as well as Mulder's thoughts that zombies will eventually begin to do more romantic things) wasn't totally played out at the time the episode came out (even if it really is now) and it does feel like they're straining for some connective theme there, even if it doesn't totally land. And there are lots of small jokes and character details in the episode that I just absolutely love. Mulder having seen Plan 9 From Outer Space 42 times to help him get past logical blocks is such a brilliantly in-character thing, I feel like it's always there (and indeed I do the same thing with The Room to get past writer's block, so thanks X-Files).

And this is the thing, I feel like I'm being too hard on this episode just by digging around for theme and meaning, or even consistent character beats, because at the end of the day, that's not what this episode is about. What this episode is, is a victory lap. Duchovny is basically out the door at this point, and everyone knew it, so this was an opportunity to have a big showy sendoff to him and this era of the series. It honestly, puts me in mind of the final piece of DLC released for Mass Effect 3, entitled The Citadel. Was it a solidly constructed piece of plot? No, but what it was was a final chance to say goodbye to all these characters we'd come to love over the years, and have fun doing it. I don't know if that was Duchovny's intent when he made this episode, but that's the way it feels and maybe that's all I need.

Case Notes:

• I admit, I get a chuckle out the shift from "Give it up Mulder" to a man who is clearly not Mulder.
• Okay but where is an actual movie with Sniper Zombies?
• The "Bees" comment also gets a chuckle from me.
• I feel like Skinner letting the writer hang around is kind of out of character, but without that there's no episode, so I guess I can live with it, if I have to.
• "Bathrobe of Saint Peter" warrants a laugh, as does the running "Wayne, shut up" bit.
• The cellphone ringing gag where all three of them have phones is an easy joke, but it's well timed.
• Scully just happens to know Greek, sure, why not?
• Everyone is getting really good reception in a crypt in 2000. I go too far towards the New York border, in Stamford, in 2020, and I lose reception, but they're getting it in a crypt, why not?
• Wayne's final scene is where he's at his most insufferable, and yes I know the point is he's insufferable but intentionally insufferable is still insufferable.
• I know the Lazarus Bowl isn't a real historical concept, but I'm pretty sure I've seen people claiming to sell wood from the true cross in NYC.
• Is...is the episode claiming Mulder isn't handsome? Cause uh...
• I have no idea to this day what the point of Scully seeing the body come back to life is.
• Did they decide to go arrest the Cardinal during Mass on purpose?
• Again, the bit with Scully seeing Hoffman on the cross is weird but doesn't matter?
• The sudden swerve with Hoffman being alive requires Skinner to act WILDLY out of character and basically everyone to forget that there's a dead body that had strychnine in its stomach. 
• Hoffman basically admits to like six different crimes but Mulder and Scully are still in trouble, is that what I'm getting?
• I'm also not going to go into Hoffman believing he's Jesus because it's such a dead end.
• The bubble bath conversation is too cute by half, but I like that Skinner is the only one comfortable enough to admit to taking a bubble bath.
• The final scene is walking the line between maudlin and comical that the episode doesn't handle very well throughout, but it does handle it well there.
• I don't think the dancing zombies that work for me though.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so I can afford to take enough time off to become a big time Hollywood director too.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Alright, most of the celebrity cameos in this episode were in this episode because they were celebrities playing themselves for the Hollywood aspect, so I'm not gonna run down their plot history. We all know, for example that Tea Leoni was in this episode because she was married to David Duchovny at the time, and our roster of other cameos include Gary Shandling and Wayne Federman, as well as Minnie Driver and David Alan Grier in the crowd (also a very brief Chris Carter cameo).

Future Celebrity Watch:

Tony Amendola, who plays the Cigarette Smoking Pontiff in the in-universe movie has been around the block a lot in television. Aside from a run, contemporary to this, on Stargate SG-1 his most famous role is probably as Gepetto in Once Upon A Time (a show I'm not super interested in ever really thinking about again). He also was recently Eno Cordova in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order which was a pretty decent game I think.