Case 09, File 08: Hellbound

 AKA: Wasn't That The Subtitle To Hellraiser 2?

While The X-Files is supposedly a horror show, it rarely has the desire to be horrific, so to speak. That doesn't make it not-a-horror-show, lots of horror movies and tv shows don't try to be horrific. The X-Files' vibe tends to hover more towards the spooky or creepy end of the horror spectrum, in keeping with its Twilight Zone roots. This makes the brief bouts where it does go directly horrific, like Home or Irresistible all the more notable.

Our story this time kicks off with two dudes named Terry and Victor at an anger management program talking about how they want to change who they were, but a third dude named Ed says that they fundamentally can't change and they're all going to hell (which is, to be clear, a shitty thing to say at an Anger Management meeting). Oh and Victor has been having visions of dudes flayed, that's probably bad. And it's especially bad when he turns up flayed a few days later. It's also gross, but we all knew that.

Reyes in particular is interested in this one, and drags Doggett and Scully into it, because she feels that she has to solve it for...some reason. I'm not being glib, she literally says she doesn't understand why she feels she needs to do this. But they end up in the town where the dude died, where the sheriff is dismissive and the therapist lady (Lisa, who is in fact tearing me apart) talks about how these guys were trying to turn their lives around. As if to demonstrate they, we check in with Terry and Ed who are working at a butchers and quarrelling over who killed Victor, while Terry has the flayed person visions.

Back at the FBI, Scully begins digging into other cases of people being flayed and finds an identical case from 40 years ago. Turns out a bunch of people got flayed 40 years ago, and the coroner who investigated it notes that the Sheriff at the time ignored it, and then killed himself. And in case you're wondering if that's a coincidence, Terry also turns up flayed back at the butcher's shop. And the FBI is pretty sure Ed did it.

"Hey I'm gonna act really shifty so I can be a red herring for the audience, is that cool?"

So they go to arrest Ed, who is in the process of bolting, but when they grab him, Reyes notices he seems scared shitless and is having the flayed person visions. And it turns out he was across town when Terry died, so he can't have done it. Doggett still wants him watched though, but the cop doing it disappears and Ed is more or less immediately flayed. Reyes, having figured out that the new victims were born on the same days that the previous victims died, decides it's time to have a vision of some details about the crime to convince Doggett that some Weird Shit is going on and they head to a nearby coal mine to investigate said Weird Shit.

In the coal mine, Reyes finds some old newspaper clippings about similar events (and also a prospector who got flayed and his killers got away with it) and after the Sheriff attacks her, she realizes what's going on: The sheriff is the reincarnation of the prospector who died, while the people he kills are the reincarnation of the killers, and he shows up every 40 years to flay them and then kills himself to restart the cycle. She also realizes his next victim is Lisa, and she gets there in time to stop him and kills him, even though he tells her that she always fails. And the uh, episode just kinda ends there.

Hellbound isn't top tier X-Files but it's pretty damned solid X-Files, a nasty little yarn that sets pretty reasonable goals for itself and mostly fulfills them. It still has some of the bugbears that have been weighing down Season 9, but it manages to mostly navigate them without getting mauled (I might have pushed that metaphor a bit too far) and ends up being just kind of a good time.

Well a good time in the way a grimy little horror story can be, but the episode has a gritty and gross style that really makes it stand out amidst other X-Files episodes which is always a plus. The X-Files has some gore, sure, but rarely anything as intense as dudes getting flayed alive and it's unusually visceral, in a good way. Plus the episode has a solid atmosphere to get us through, choosing good locations and shooting them well. I was particularly fond of the meat factory, it's an instantly atmospheric location and the visual of Terry getting hung up next to the pig bodies is really effective, there's a reason why they set the longest horror sequence there.

"Hey dude, I like visual metaphors for how people are made of meat too, but uh, can you let me down?"

The script is pretty good if a bit lacking in deeper stuff. The mystery is complex and intriguing and while it's pretty obvious that the Sheriff is in on it from the start (they draw too much attention to his disinterest for it to not be relevant) but the reincarnation angle is a neat twist, even if I wish Scully brought up the events of The Field Where I Died. It does undercut what I thought the core theme was going to be (that all the victims are discarded members of society) but a late episode attempt to tie it into the "People trying to better themselves" theme that Lisa brings up like once, but that's enough for it to land, I guess.

Of course Scully isn't in the episode much to bring up The Field Where I Died and that actually, ironically, brings up one of my issues with the episode, nay the season. Now, my love of Scully is well established, but the writing still doesn't know how to balance three main characters (Skinner, despite his promotion to main credits, doesn't really get more screen time than he used to) but also isn't really willing to shunt her off into proper secondary character status, which keeps messing with the script. It's really very telling that when Doggett and Reyes are meeting up in the opening that when Scully gets brought up, it feels like it throws off the rhythm of the dialogue.

And it's a shame, because they're doing a decent job with Reyes and Doggett. It goes without saying that they're a pale imitation of golden era Mulder and Scully, but they're getting a handle on how to use them and they've got some endearing little details (I still like Doggett calling her Agent Reyes, it's amusingly stiff, which is good characterization). But the episode either needs to focus more heavily on Doggett and Reyes or figure out how to properly balance the three leads, because the current setup is just holding episodes back.

"You'd think a literally centuries old newspaper would have rotted but nope!"

And I wish the episode wasn't being held back, because it's a solid exploration of Reyes as a person. I like how readily she throws herself into trying to stop the cycle and how readily she just rolls with finding out she's having visions and she has to try and break the cycle. They've been hinting that Reyes has some kind supernatural powers for a while and while she has the same role as Mulder did in the original duo, episodes like this showcase how she's a different character and how she can be engaging in her own right.

Honestly, I've been surprised by how well Season 9 has been doing so far, but that could be simply because of low expectations. 2 major cast shakeups in as many seasons (not to mention having 3 characters spin off and then return) is a hard swerve for any show to handle, never mind one who had long ago lost control of their main storyline. So while The X-Files isn't really up to the standard of the Golden Era, it can still spin entertaining little horror yarns and maybe that's all I can ask.

Case Notes:

• Anyone who says "There's X kinds of people in the world" is completely full of shit. Props to this dude for X>2 (three so not much more, but still).
• You don't see a lot of group therapy sessions in tv shows from this time period that actually take it seriously.
• "[I've been having dreams] of people skinned alive." I dunno dude, stop watching Hellraiser before bed.
• They telegraph the fact that he's about to see a vision of his buddy flayed for it to land, but it's a decent effect.
• I like that both Doggett and Scully are basically saying "This is super gross, but just because he had a vision of his death doesn't mean we gotta deal with it."
• Hey, dickhead Detective who doesn't care. Bet you he bites it by the end.
• Hope the therapist lady doesn't die or turn out to be evil, I like that she's interested in rehabilitation.
• Fakeout shot of the dude cutting the skin off the pig is good.
• Scully noticing the pattern in the way people were flayed is good.
• The episode seems to be trying to establish a theme of the victims being people who are forgotten or undervalued by society, which is a good theme if they manage to follow through.
• The scene in the butcher shop is pretty solid; It's a naturally creepy location and it's well shot.
• Love them shooting a regular church like it's a gothic nightmare mansion, and I mean that unironically.
• Monica having a brief freakout actually feels kind of in character, like Scully wayyyyyyy back in Irresistible.
• Terry still being alive is the most horrifying thing in the episode so far.
• Reyes: "You must be thinking I'm the good cop." Ed: "No such thing." Hell yeah baby, ACAB.
• Ed's fear is unexpectedly real in the interrogation, it's good stuff.
• The episode telegraphs that Ed is gonna die pretty hard, but it's upfront about it and the scene with the reveal is pretty solid.
• I feel like if multiple people have turned up flayed I would not be splitting up, but that's me.
• I wanna fault the episode for just shotgun blasting like 3 reveals at as at once (the one about the prospectors at least has some old timey facial hair, but the idea that Reyes is fated to be part of this kinda irritates me), but at least they properly set them all up.
• The climax kinda just has to happen at breakneck pace to finish everything in the time they have left, but I guess it mostly works.
• So Reyes is the reincarnated prosecutor who failed to prosecute the killers the first time around, right?
• I wouldn't have cut to the baby, and just left it ambiguous whether she broke the cycle.
• As always these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so I won't have to wait for my next reincarnation to have some money.

Current Celebrity Watch:

This is straining the definition of celebrity, but Terry is played by Don Swayze, brother of Patrick Swayze, which is kind of neat I guess.