Case 09, File 13: Improbable

AKA: Never Tell Me The Odds

As the series progressed into its new cast in Season 8, one of the things that got left by the wayside was the comedy episodes. There were a couple of reasons for this, Robert Patrick is just not very good at comedy and the main outlet for that energy being the more straightforwardly comic spinoff chief among them. But with the cast expanding out to include Annabeth Gish, whose previous credits include stuff like Mystic Pizza, and The Lone Gunmen folded back into the main series, there was room to try and bring back the comedy episode.

Our story kicks off with a guy, hanging around a casino, bitching at the dealer for giving him a shit hand. I think his name was Wayno? Like, I know I named the villain in the last review Beardo, but I'm pretty sure that's actually it. Anyway, after a quick conversation with a mysterious figure who we'll call Burt (because the credits call him Burt, and he never gets a name), Wayno heads off to the bathroom to randomly murder a lady customer.

This draws the attention of Reyes, who connects the murder to 3 others via...numerology. Okay. We're doing this. After a bit of sparring with Scully over it, Scully connects the murders via some actual, you know, evidence. Meanwhile, Wayno is still running into Burt hanging out on the street, doing card games. That's not relevant to the actual plot, but the Burt scenes are the best scenes in the episode, so I'm gonna keep talking about them.

Anyway, Reyes goes to see a numerologist, and asks her to read their...numbers? I don't really get numerology, so I'm gonna just skip past that. After she gets back to the FBI, they're looking into the murders but don't take her numerology stuff super seriously, at least until Wayno walks into the numerologists office and proceeds to murder her because...I'm actually not clear on why he did that. Doggett actually runs into the killer, but he ends up hiding while talking to Burt. Doggett heads back to the FBI and starts looking the shape the kills make when mapped out because...I dunno, this numerology is contagious?

Bit of a tip here, don't start an episode with a bunch of people looking bored.

After Scully autopsies the numerologist lady, and kinds that the killer's ring has 666 imprinted on it, she meets up with Reyes at the numerologist's office and discuss more numerology stuff. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm skipping past all the numerology, but I cannot make heads nor tails of it, and I don't want to spend all of my time trying to. Plus it doesn't matter, because in the elevator down, Scully catches a glimpse of the other passenger's ring and sees that it, indeed, has 666 on it. Turns out Wayno has been staying in this same building the whole time.

But he manages to get onto the elevator and down to the parking garage, apparently getting in his car and driving off before Scully and Reyes can get there, trapping them inside. They search the garage and meet Burt who...convinces them to play checkers? I didn't follow that at all, but it turns out Wayno is still there and he attacks Reyes, but Doggett shows up just in time and shoots him, with Burt disappearing right after. And thus the episode just kinda...ends, with a shot of a city looking like Burt's face. Okay.

Improbable is an odd episode, not bad just odd. It is a clear attempt to properly revive the comedy episode for the new cast, much more obviously and much more successfully than the previous attempt (Lord of the Flies, for the record). But it still feels weaker than it's predecessors in previous seasons, like something is missing. I don't know if that thing, the missing piece, is something genuinely tangible, an actual part that previous episodes had that this one lacks, or if there just used to be more love and care put into the show that's just been gradually drained away by its age.

"Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?"

If I were to point to a tangible difference between this episode and other comedy tinged episodes, it would be in the fact that the script is MUCH less tight. Multiple elements of the plot more or less hinge on such obvious coincidence that it's pretty clearly intended as a plot point, that all of this stuff is just pure coincidence. While that's theoretically fine, in practice it gets ends up feeling like the episode's plot doesn't exist, it's just a random series of events, and the script isn't focused enough to mine any depth out of that concept either (not that it doesn't try, with a lengthy dialogue sequence of Scully and Reyes discussing the philosophical implications of numerology, but it never matters) so it just papers over those issues with flashy camera work and a big name guest star.

What a guest star though. Burt Reynolds seems like an odd fit for an X-Files episode but he works so perfectly here, a bizarre entertaining performance as...God? I guess? They never really explain, or even try to explain, what his deal is, but honestly, when he's this much of a delight to watch, who even cares? Even when he's being used to kill time by making our heroes do something completely nonsensical, he's entertaining enough that it makes all of it go down smooth. How can I hate a plot point, no matter how frivolous, that results in Scully and Reyes playing checkers while Burt Reynolds dances in the background?

The other major filler for issues with the script is stylization, but it's pretty inconsistently applied. The FBI guy who speaks in a rapid fire, clipped style is a good example; It's weird enough that it's pretty clearly an intentional affect, but he's the only one doing anything like that, even Burt is pretty naturalistic despite saying weird shit. There's also some minor attempts at visual stylization, like semi-musical numbers, split screen and heavily choreographed overhead shots, and while they're fun, they don't really come together into a consistently applied style. They mostly just make me think Chris Carter, who directed this episode, might have seen The Royal Tenenbaums when it released like 6 months prior to this.

The main cast acquits themselves pretty well too, albeit at least partially by sidelining Doggett who is just not well suited to this material (and poor Skinner, who I think has actually gotten less screen time since his promotion to main credits) and focusing in on Scully and Reyes. And they do a good job, they have chemistry and the pairing lets Scully slip back into the role of a skeptic, while Reyes does the wild out there theories, and it works pretty well. I'm not certain either of them accomplish a whole hell of a lot, but watching them bounce off each other is just fun.

You know what, sure.

If there's one thing that I don't want you to take away from this review, it's that this episode is bad, it's definitely not. Between Reynolds' entertaining performance, Scully and Reyes bouncing off each other, and the occasional bouts of stylization or out of nowhere musical number, the episode has enough humor and energy to keep you engaged and laughing the whole way through. Thing is, I remember when they humorous episodes of The X-Files could be more than that. Previous seasons humorous episodes could have inventive structures, or amount to nothing much even while they had tight scripts. They could be profound or even tragic, in between making us laugh. In the end, Improbable is probably one of the best examples of Season 9 as a whole; Not necessarily bad, just not the show it used to be.

Case Notes:

• Using split screen to show the lady shuffling the deck and the people watching him is an odd choice, but okay.
• Guy gets mad at the dealer for giving him a bad hand? Dude suck it up.
• I dig Burt sitting there giving the dude a lecture on probability and how no one can beat you but yourself, but I feel like he should do more to help when he basically reads that the rando dude is gonna go kill the lady in the bathroom.
• Why is "I Want to Believe" replaced with "God loves you" in Italian?
• The sequence with Reyes in walking through the FBI to the same music as the cold open is pretty weird, but I like the overhead shots.
• Scully dropping exposition about the unified theories of math in the universe is probably a bad sign.
  
• I dunno if I get the soundtrack in this episode, it's weird.
• Okay, I kinda dig the bit where Burt Reynolds sings along with the music and all the incidental noise is part of the music.
• It took us 9 seasons but we finally have a moment where one of our heroes goes to interview an expert on the subject they're looking into and they respond "Sorry, I'm mostly a bullshit artist."
• Doggett doesn't show up until 15 minutes into the episode.
• The split screen stuff is deeply strange, but they keep using it, so it's clear that it's an intentional aesthetic choice.
• I gotta say that I missed scenes of our hero explaining bullshit magical stuff to increasingly skeptical rooms full of FBI agents. Now that's some classic X-Files stuff.
• "We don't consult horoscopes [in the FBI]" buddy have you MET the X-Files?
• I do love Doggett pointing out that the description he gets from his numerology is basically applicable to anyone.
• If I end up giving this episode a positive review, it'll be mostly cause of Burt Reynolds, he is a fountain of charisma.
• Scully seeing 666 everywhere is pretty amusing, although a killer having 666 on his ring is pretty lame.
• I'm pretty amused by Reyes excitedly telling Scully that she's figured out that she's figured out the numbers of all the victims and then, when Scully asks her how it helps them find the killer, her responding "It doesn't!"
• I like Doggett trying to use his own methods to get to the answer, and coming up with the 6 on the map.
• I'd say that Reyes and Scully running into the killer in the elevator is the height of coincidences but I think that's the point of the episode.
• Burt Reynolds is still very friendly but kind of suspicious and I dig it.
• The shot of Burt Reynold's car filled with CDs is a great random shot and I love it.
• Okay the scene Scully and Reyes playing checkers with Burt Reynolds is instantly worth the entire episode, it's hilarious.
• More X-Files episodes should have a lengthy scene where two of the leads discuss the philosophical implications of the subject of the episode.
• Doggett just knocking over the dude and shooting him in the middle of the action beat again, feels like the height of coincidence, but I still think that's the point.
• The post-climax end of the episode is a little overlong, but I love the shot of all the FBI agents tilting their heads in unison to look at Doggett's map.
• Ending music number? Okay. City being Burt Reynold's face? Little odd there.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out or I'll have to go down to Atlantic City to try and gamble on making some money too.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Alright, let's start with the big one; Burt in this episode is, indeed, played by Burt Reynolds. I don't think I really need to try and summarize Burt Reynolds career here, which began in 1958 and is only now concluding with a handful of posthumous releases. He was well into a late career revival at this point (spurred on by an Oscar nomination for Boogie Nights, a fantastic movie) and he does a lot to make the episode work.

Less famous than him, but still worth mentioning, is the fact that the numerologist lady is played Ellen Greene, who was most famous for her role as Audrey in the film of Little Shop of Horrors. You kids these days might also recognize her as one of Ned's aunts on Pushing Daisies.

Future Celebrity Watch:

Ray McKinnon, who plays Wayno, has never exactly been famous but he's never been out of work either. He's had recurring roles on Deadwood and Sons of Anarchy, directed a handful of movies, appeared in secondary roles in stuff like Take Shelter and O' Brother, Where Art Thou and most recently created a tv show called Rectify for SundanceTV. If you are just now learning that Sundance has it's own streaming service, you are not alone there.

Audio Observations:

This episode is absolutely lousy with a bunch of 50s and 60s standards sung by Karl Zero, as well as one sung by Henri Salvador. I'm not gonna bother to list them all, because it would like, double the length of this review and probably wouldn't mean anything to most people.