Case 8.5, File 06: Madam, I'm Adam

AKA: You Think They Named The Episode Or The Dude First?

One of The X-Files' pieces of quiet brilliance was its decision to have its leads be FBI Agents. In a Monster-of-the-Week format, you need to have the leads find out about the monster, have a reason to get involved and then travel to the monster before you can get to actually dealing with the monster; Having Mulder and Scully be FBI Agents instantly gives them access to knowledge, motive and transportation, so you make your life very easy that way. The Lone Gunmen on the other hand, don't have any of that stuff so the episodes have to contrive a reason for them to get involved, with varying degrees of contrivance.

Our episode kicks off with a guy (who we learn later is named Adam) arriving home to, after a few minutes of futzing about, find that there is a couple who live in what he thinks is his house. On the run from the cops and everyone else, he naturally calls the Lone Gunmen (he found their paper in a dumpster, just roll with it) and tells them he thinks he was abducted by aliens and brought here from an alternate dimension.

Normally the Gunmen would ignore him, but he spoke to Jimmy who's interested in the story and after they notice a weird thing on the back of his neck, they decide to actually investigate. And after scanning his head (they have a homemade MRI, just roll with it) they find his brain is full of wires. Deciding that's a little on the odd side, they head to what he thinks is his house and, after a brief interlude where he recites the goings on in the neighborhood, they break into the house to look for surveillance equipment.

But all they end up doing is knocking down one of the walls and getting hauled in by the cops. At the prison (after a brief cut to some scientists and people in liquid filled tanks), Adam starts acting way more aggressive and angry and nearly attacks Langly, before Yves shows up to bail them out. Back at the hideout they try to figure out what to do, but an ad for an electronics store owned by a guy named Marvin sets Adam off again and he attacks Langly. So they head off the electronics store, but Marvin denies knowing Adam. Also the scientist lady shows up, claiming to be Lois, Adam's wife. So that's weird.

"Man you'd think he'd notice that was there."
"Don't worry about it."

Anyway, after some prodding, Adam sees Frohike as a...dwarf wrestler named Santini (this is where the episode goes off the rails, so I hope you're still used to rolling with it) and some research reveals that Santini is dead, but his daughter Sadie is still alive...and sleeping with Marvin, despite the fact that her husband is missing. Those of you who are paying attention have probably figured out the big twist; Adam is her missing husband.

Specifically, Adam's real name is Charlie and he's a massive piece of shit, enough so that he signed up to be in Lois' VR simulation designed to reprogram his mind to be Adam after he attacked Marvin, and thus less of a piece of shit. Lois didn't need to make him think she's his wife though, she's doing that cause uh...I dunno actually. Anyway, it doesn't matter, Charlie decides to go back in, which bums Jimmy out. But after some prodding, all five of them (Yves too) go to hack into the VR to convince Charlie to break out. And thus the episode ends with Charlie and Sadie getting back together. So that's kinda cute, right?

This is not as good an episode as the previous one. The emotional throughline is a lot less solid, the gang feels less like they're part of the adventure and more like they're along for the ride and the episode's back half bases WAY too much of its humor around "Dwarfs are funny" bits.  But the overall it's still got enough decent bits to showcase what the show would look like when it just wound up aiming at the middle, which all shows end up having to do. It's a pretty decent middle.

"How did they get those wires into his brain without any external evidence?"
"I said don't worry about it!"

Not that the episode exactly starts off on the right foot; Every episode has to navigate the question of how and why the Lone Gunmen will decide they're getting involved, but this episode feels more forced than usual. It's very weird that Adam would decide to call them and it's even weirder that they'd care and the episode never finds a way to mitigate that. And no, having Jimmy be dumb about it doesn't make up for it (although it does seem weird that they call this his "First story" given that he doesn't seem to actually write anything).

The actual plot is also weirdly structured, which kills its chance to have any sort of emotional resonance. The core idea, that Charlie is willingly letting his identity be erased because he doesn't know how else to stop being a bad person is an idea with some power to it, but we only find out that's what's going on in the final minutes, so the potential is completely squandered, and the fact that Lois is being villainous is an odd little detail that the episode brings up but never elaborates on. Bringing that reveal up to the middle and letting the characters ruminate on it might have let it hit a little harder, and might have made the leads pleas to Charlie to escape the VR actually mean something.

Of course then it might also have to cut down on the self conscious quirkiness which is the episode's other major issue, namely that the show is still navigating the murky waters of comedy. While the previous episode had solid comedy built on top of the story, here the comedy seeps into the actual plot and starts to cause problems. There is some good moments of comedy not related to the plot (I found the bit with the wall falling down very funny) but overall it relies too much on the inherent absurdity of the plot to make us laugh, which completely undermines any chance of us taking the plot seriously.

Is this gag a Buster Keaton shout out or am I reading too much into it?

But now it's starting to sound like I'm down on the episode, which I'm not. The episode does spend a lot of time undermining its plot, but it doesn't get nothing for that; The episode is funny. A lot of that is down to the cast of the episode. Adam/Charlie navigates the shifting comedy beats with great skill and the episode is right that the sight of him just going apeshit and attacking someone will remain consistently funny so long as they don't overdo it. Marvin doesn't get a lot of screentime, but he brings a lot of manic energy to his part that makes his scenes engaging. And while the episode is much too in love with what it thinks is the inherent comedy of dwarfs, Sadie's complete disdain for the goings on is solid, and she sells her fondness for Charlie pretty well.

The show has also reached the point where its got a solid understanding of its main cast, which is good. Jimmy is still proving that he's a great addition to the main cast, his enthusiasm is consistently infectious and his naivety lets the show be sincere without undermining the Gunmen's established cynical personas. And I also love that the show has officially stopped coming up with reasons for Yves to show up and help the gang out. She's basically the 5th member of the Gunmen at this point, and I like it.

I have a great amount of sympathy for a show in its early run; Figuring out what the audience will like and respond to is firing at a moving target blindfolded, and it's worth remembering that very few shows are at their strongest in their first season. Even The X-Files, which had a handful of great episodes in its first 13 (like Squeeze or Beyond the Sea) wouldn't develop a solid batting average until Season 2. So while a lot of these early Lone Gunmen episodes are a little shaky, I'm willing to be generous about it, especially since we won't ever get to see the results of these experiments.

Hey Frohike saying that he's not ready to call Mulder is a continuity error, right? Or just proof that they didn't know when these episodes were gonna air when they shot them?

Case Notes:

• I absolutely refuse to believe there is a town in Maryland named "Surf City." If I'm wrong, please do not disabuse me of this notion.
• The opening sequence, with the two guys wandering around the same house, doing similar things and pointedly not seeing each other, is a nice mix of cute and mysterious.
• The end when they both end up in the same bed seems like it's going to get weird but I like that they all end up screaming.
• Jimmy's glee at having his first story is just great.
• Not sure why Adam would go to a random newspaper with his problem, but I'm also not sure what else he's supposed to do.
• Jimmy looks so delighted when Adam drops that he thinks aliens brought him from an alternate dimension.
• Byers is pretty judgmental about Adam's theory given that he hangs out with Mulder. Or used to.
• Langly knowing that the weird stuff Adam found on him is used to lubricate cow udders is a nice backstory detail.
• Frohike does seem like the kind of guy to try to make a homemade MRI. I feel like Adam getting his watch stuck to it is an easy joke but it's funny so whatever.
• The bit with him revealing he knows a lot about the neighborhood is okay (even if it's a long way to go for a "He oggles a college student" punchline) but I'd never in a million years be able to do that about my neighborhood. Who pays attention to what times your neighbors do things?
• The Lone Gunmen could have led with "There's no record of you," rather than going through all this. "No Blockbuster card even," is funny though.
• Jimmy knows Gilligan's Island really well. I have never watched a second of it, so I don't know if that's out of character.
• I did not follow what they're letting Jimmy scan the walls with. Does it detect cameras? Or just electrical shit?
• The bit with the kid bullying Frohike is okay enough I guess, but I feel like the kid is angling to get himself hurt, given that he thinks Frohike is a burglar.
• I like that Adam is gungho enough about thinking there's weird things in his walls to just carve them open himself.
• Frohike attacking the kid? Okay. The whole wall of the building just falling down? Better.
• Not sure why we needed a 10 second flash of the lab that's behind all this, but it's mysterious and spooky, so we'll roll with it.
• The actor does a great job handling Adam switching personalities in the cell.
• The ad just randomly causing Adam to go off and attack Langly is pretty funny.
• The scientist showing up while Adam is out is coincidence of the highest order (especially since they didn't need to take him) but it's easier to swallow those things when it's more comedic.
• Langly mentions that lots of things set Adam off, including dwarfs but...we don't learn that for a couple more minutes, right?
• Bringing in the idea that Adam has memories of a dwarf wrestler in his head at this stage in the game is pretty solid evidence of how far off the rails this episode has gone. Not that I'm complaining.
• The misdirect of Santini's daughter answer the door and it turning out to be the electronics salesman is fun.
• I'm a little uncomfortable with dwarfs being used for comedy but I feel like the way to handle it is the Seinfeld way, IE make it about a character instead of "Heehee, Dwarfs are funny."
• I like Adam (sorry, Charlie) about to kill the electronics guy, but the way he immediately remembers everything and then Lois shows up, is a sign that the episode knows its out of time and needs to wrap shit up.
• Jimmy looks really upset at Charlie and Sadie having broken up, and his little speech about how he's unhappy that Charlie and Sadie didn't get back together is a good bit.
• I feel like we need more from Lois about why she wants to be with Charlie/Adam so badly, some sort of motivation.
• I like that the finale basically builds itself around whether Charlie chooses reality. I feel like The X-Files would have ended with him in the VR thing and choosing to stay.
• Marvin and Sadie having a wrestling themed wedding is tacky on a level I didn't know existed. I like how unhappy Sadie looks with it though.
• As always these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out cause I can't actually become a pro-wrestler.

Current Celebrity Watch:

This is not a celebrity at all, but Arnie Walters who plays the preacher in the last scene of the episode also played Scully's preacher in Season 4 of The X-Files and I choose to believe they're the same character.

Future Celebrity Watch:

Adam/Charlie is played by Stephen Tobolowsky who at this point had already had meatier roles in stuff like Single White Female and Groundhog Day but would later go on to major roles on stuff like One Day at a Time, The Goldbergs and, most notable for our purposes, Californication alongside David Duchovny. He also appeared as Tor Eckman in the Seinfeld episode The Heart Attack, which is honestly one of my favorite single episode characters in the entire show.