Case 08, File 16: Three Words

AKA: No, Not The Three Words You're Thinking Of

As the 8th season hit and Mulder disappeared into space, the series' story arc episodes shifted from being about the Conspiracy to being about finding Mulder, or just learning about (read: backfilling) what happened to him before he was abducted. But with Duchovny back in the series (sorta) and Mulder back in the game (again, sorta) they're left with a new question to ask: What the hell do we do with this team now?

This time our story kicks off with some dude jumping the fence at the White House and bolting for the door. Bet that hit different a few months ago, huh? Anyway, it goes uh, about as well as you expect, meaning he immediately gets taken down by security, despite brandishing a CD that says "Fight the Future" on it and demanding to speak to the President. Oh and then he accidentally shoots himself and dies. Well done random dude, was that really your best option?

Anyhoo, back at the hospital, Mulder is still pretty clearly mentally messed up from his experiences, but according to the doctor, he's physically fine (even the brain thing the writers are clearly tired of is cured), so he gets to go home. So after a few minutes of some Mulder/Scully banter, and a brief check in with Absalom in prison (who gets a newspaper clipping about the dude hopping the fence) we check in with Doggett and Skinner, who get told by Kersh that Mulder isn't allowed back on the X-Files.

So they putter about for a bit, until Absalom manages to escape from prison and decides the logical, level headed thing to do would be to head to Doggett's house and kidnap him. So while Skinner leads a manhunt for Absalom and Mulder notices the dude who hopped the fence was in a picture with Absalom (and then finds the dude's encrypted laptop), Absalom drags Doggett off to the census bureau. Much like his buddy, it goes about as well as you'd expect, and ends with Absalom getting shot in the head. Seriously, come up with better plans.

Anyway, Mulder decides to be equally levelheaded about it and thinks that Doggett is somehow responsible for Absalom dying because he knew the truth, which isn't a great conclusion, but cut him a break, he's been through a lot. Mulder decides to team up with the Lone Gunmen to get the info from the census bureau, which they can't do without a password, while Doggett checks in with his buddy Knowle, who gives him the password. And Doggett, trying to be helpful, gives it to Scully. And Scully, trying to be helpful, gives it to Mulder.

"Alright, I got Flock of Seagulls playing on my boombox back there, I'm definitely gonna make it."

Mulder decides to immediately use it to break into the census, which honestly, what did she expect? But Doggett talks with Skinner and realizes that Knowle set him up (or set him up to set Mulder up?) and rushes off to save him. And despite being initially antagonistic towards each other, they do eventually decide to escape, mostly to not get shot. And thus the episode ends with Doggett confronting Knowle, but Knowle telling him that Doggett needs him as an informant. Except Knowle has a thing on his neck that means he's an alien replacement. They establish that's what it means earlier, but it's real fast, so I didn't mention it before.

With Mulder back and the show unsure of its next few steps, this episode is mostly an exercise in plot management, giving us a broad outline of what the overarching plot will be about going forward and also using the opportunity to do some character work. On those merits, it's fine, coasting by on a fun conspiracy thriller vibe and the thrill of having Mulder and Scully reunited. But we're at the point where the series overarching plot is deep in the weeds without much in the way of a guiding purpose, so we kinda just gotta roll with what we're handed.

The core appeal of this episode is going to be finally having Mulder back, and the show knows it as well as we do, taking several long moments to just have Mulder bounce of Scully, Skinner and eventually the Lone Gunmen (more on that in a moment). It honestly might have been better, both from a storytelling perspective and from an audience engagement perspective, to cut way down on the plot and just make this episode about Mulder recovering from his experiences, give us more time with Mulder and Scully, and maybe let Mulder and Doggett meet more naturally.

"Dammit, now I've got Flock of Seagulls stuck in my head."

But the episode does have a plot, a lot of it actually, and it's...kind of a mess? Absalom escaping from prison seems like it should be the sort of thing someone in power arranged, but no, he just got crazy lucky finding a weapon out in the middle of nowhere, and then just running and then he somehow gets to Doggett's house and then...I honestly have no idea how all of this is intended to work. I get that they want to get Absalom from prison to the census place so he can get shot with Doggett, but the sequence of events feels so disjointed that I kept waiting for the reveal that someone set it up. No such luck.

Other things that need setting up is Mulder and Doggett's relationship and this is a misstep, but kind of an odd one. They want Mulder and Doggett to have an antagonistic relationship, but rather than give them a real reason to have one, rooted in their philosophical differences, they just have Mulder decide that Doggett got Absalom killed and flip out at him. Reading between the lines, you can guess that this is Mulder's reaction to trauma, seeing enemies everywhere, but that's me doing the stretching for the episode, and if that was the intention, the episode failed to establish it properly.

And while we're talking about things the episode failed to do, this is probably one of biggest canaries in the coal mine that The Lone Gunmen is not going to make it, at least partially because the series isn't willing to do any free advertising for it. Yes, having the characters who have spun off into their own show show up in the parent show to do advertising is incredibly cheap, but it's cheap because it works, and the Gunmen popping up here is a perfect opportunity to have Jimmy or Yves with them, or just give some indication that they're off having their own adventures. The fact that no one is even willing to go that far shows that no one in The X-Files really has any faith the spinoff is going to last.

But now that I've whined myself stupid, I will say that the episode is highly entertaining when you approach it on its own wavelength. It's got a fun, Three Days of the Condor conspiracy thriller vibe that the series has been missing lately, since the Conspiracy got iced and the Myth Arc started being more about the aliens than the plot to hide them. I like clandestine meetings and weird secret passwords. Knowle has also been officially deployed as the new informant, and as ambivalent as I am about the actor, he works in that role as he's got a completely different vibe from the previous informants, even if that is because he's an alien replacement (I think, I didn't totally follow what that was about).

"Who the hell is playing Flock of Seagulls over my earpiece?"

It's also worth noting, as much as it's been clear for a while that The X-Files never had a long term plan for its myth arc, it's been equally apparent that the show never figured it would get this far, and endeavored to have most of its loose plot threads wrapped up at the end of Season 7. Finding Mulder and backfilling what happened before he left provided direction for a while but now the show is digging around for what the remaining season and a half of the show is gonna be about. I don't recall much of the upcoming plotline with much fondness (I have vague memories of super soldiers, is that accurate?) but this is a decent enough introduction, even if Knowle has to speak in mysterious generalities a bit.

The X-Files' quality level is pretty bumpy right now, and has been for a little while, but Mulder and Scully's chemistry can help smooth out a lot of a lot of those bumps. Now that we've got Mulder back, he can help with that, but if I recall correctly his time back on the show is limited. So they've gotta make sure they utilize him to his fullest before he wanders off again. And as long as I'm giving advice to a show that ended, came back and re-ended years ago, they should probably hire 11 year old me. I had some good writing ideas.

Case Notes:

• Am I supposed to recognize the dude climbing the fence at the White House? I don't.
• I gotta say, watching a dude hop the fence at the White House is uh...hitting differently after 2021. Dude is pretty lucky he didn't just get lit up though.
• I like that the disc says "Fight the Future" bit expecting us to remember the subtitle to The X-Files movie feels like a big ask.
• I like that Mulder is pretty realistic fucked up by his abduction, and I also like that he makes jokes about it to Scully, clearly trying to play it off.
• They bring in a doctor to say "Hey, remember that brain killing thing we were doing? Yeah we're done with that."
• I'm not gonna lie, the beginning of this episode is getting a TON of mileage out of just letting Mulder and Scully interact.
• "I don't know if you'll ever know what it was like, learning you were abducted and then finding you dead and then having you back." Isn't that basically what happened in reverse back in Season 2?
• I feel like Mulder saying "I have no idea where I fit in" is basically where the episode is at, vis a vis Mulder.
• The prison librarian offering the new Harry Potter is another thing that hits different in 2021.
• Are prisoners not allowed to have newspapers? Why is that dude being so secretive about giving Absalom the newspaper clipping?
• Kersh tells Doggett that he and Scully have a better arrest rate but like...what? They didn't arrest people that often. I think getting to arrest the entire cult in Roadrunners is just goosing that number.
• Kersh is such a dick, you'd think he'd at least tell Mulder himself that he's not letting him back on the X-Files.
• The scene in Mulder's apartment is pretty utilitarian, but I like that they remembered that Mulder doesn't know who Doggett is.
• Dude who plays Absalom looks terrible running.
• Doggett looks so weirdly calm with Absalom pointing the gun at him. He does look pretty confused when Absalom decides to look at the back of his neck.
• Doggett asking plain questions and Absalom giving him bizarre nonsense is pretty funny, Robert Patrick has a confused "What the fuck?" face.
• Mulder noticing that the dude who jumped the fence at the White House was in the same cult with Absalom is vintage Mulder.
• Scully says that Mulder could be fired for breaking into the evidence room, but he breaks a law like that at least 3 times per case.
• Mulder saying that the entire hard drive has been used up with the encrypted file is fun, but then him saying "10 Gigabytes" makes me laugh.
• The guard at the gate is pretty dumb to wait till he sees the gun on the scanner to know that something is up.
• The scene were Absalom gets killed is pretty intense and chaotic, in a good way.
• Mulder's reunion with the Lone Gunmen is really sweet. Where's Jimmy though?
• "Just because you get more votes doesn't mean you win" is pretty salty in 2001.
• Knowle and Doggett have a decent "Oooooh mysterious" scene to get Doggett the password, but it's fun conspiracy thriller dialogue.
• Doggett is getting to be way more at home with the conspiracy stuff, he even gives Scully a non-answer to a direct question.
• I like Mulder busting into the database with the Lone Gunmen but I feel like any plan which expects Mulder to sneak past someone is a pretty flawed plan.
• I like Mulder just completely ignoring Doggett at the door. Like, of course Doggett is gonna shoot the door and he and Mulder are gonna argue, but him just going "Whatever" is funny.
• The Lone Gunmen have a single shared cellphone. I want to note that.
• If I'm ever a thug in some conspiracy, you can bet I'm gonna check the ceiling when someone I'm tracking disappears.
• Knowle and Doggett have another "Oooh mysterious" conversation, but I'm also not totally clear what Doggett is threatening him with.
• I know we're getting more into the sci-fi stuff, but the thing on the back of Knowle's neck is really obvious, how do they hide sleeper agents with that thing in them?
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so that I don't have to start a UFO Cult to make ends meet.

Current Celebrity Watch:

The prison guard Abaslom hits is played by Dwight Hicks, who played for the San Francisco 49s between 79 and 85. His wikipedia entry has a lot of stats related to how well played but I don't know what any of them mean.