Case 09, File 17: Release

AKA: I Really Don't Like That Title, Can't Explain Why

I don't know to what degree Doggett's dead son was intended as a direct attempt to recreate the mystery of Samantha's abduction, but it's what it felt like, and so that's the metric it has to be judged by. The problem is, it never really committed to it the way the series committed to the Samantha mystery. Samantha was central to Mulder's motivation and a major element of the main story. Doggett's son was a detail of his backstory. But with the series wrapping in a little bit, it did manage to remember that this was an element of his backstory that needed resolution.

Our episode starts with Doggett heading to the shady part of town following an anonymous tip to an abandoned apartment building, only to get knocked down by some mysterious guy who bolts. Of course Doggett investigates the apartment and finds a dead woman encased in the wall, which he thinks is worth looking into more. But when Scully has her students look at the body, one student, Robert Hayes, can tell how she was killed and probably where, based on just glancing at her. Also he's weird.

So Doggett and Reyes go and talk to a mob guy who fits Hayes' profile and he is standoffish, because he's a mob guy talking to cops, I genuinely dunno what they expected. Meanwhile Hayes is hanging around his apartment which is covered in pictures of unsolved murders, including one of Doggett's kid's murder. Eventually Doggett goes to see Hayes, and recognizing Hayes as an obsessed crime solver in a tv show, asks him to help out in his son's murder, since Hayes is super good at reading crime scenes. Hayes says that the dude from Empedocles (Jesus, remember that episode?) kidnapped him but that the mob guy (Regali, I think his name is) pulled the trigger, since they worked together.

Doggett goes and asks Brad to help him out and after an extremely awkward meeting with his ex-wife (most realistic scene in the episode right there) she looks at a lineup including Regali and doesn't recognize anyone. But while digging into Luke's death, Doggett realizes that despite being involved in a ton of shit, he's never been connected to anything and decides he must have had a guy on the inside. And then Reyes remembers Brad taking bribes when they worked together in New York.

"And I'm still not as annoying as the dude played by that Doctor Strange guy."

If that sounds super contrived, it is, but Brad found out that Hayes is actually an unbalanced dude named Mimms who lied his way into the FBI Academy, so they get pretty hyperfocused on that. But Hayes/Mimms doesn't deny it, admits to being obsessed with Doggett's son's murder and says that he still thinks Regali did it. And it turns out Regali did have a dude on the inside, Brad, so I guess Mimms must be onto something.

At the end of his rope, Doggett just straight goes to see Regali and asks him what happened. Regali tells him a hypothetical story about how the dude from Empedocles kidnapped his son for uh...reasons (look I ain't writing it out) and then his kid saw Regali's face and therefore had to die. Doggett doesn't take this great and is about to kill him, but then Brad jumps outta nowhere and kills Regali. So that's over with. And with that, the episode ends with Doggett and his ex-wife scattering their son's ashes.

Release has the air of an essay slammed together at 7 in the evening the night before it's due, because that is, in essence, what it is. I don't think anyone in the creative team behind The X-Files saw themselves slapping together an end to Doggett's main backstory motivation only 38 episodes into his tenure, but the end is drawing near and they want to at least hand him some catharsis before the reached it. And I don't think that's an unworthy goal, but we might have some issues with how we go there.

The core of Doggett's son's death, dying to some random psycho for no reason, is actually good. I feel like trying to tie it into the bigger plot would have been an absolute mistake, and having it be a random act of cruelty that Doggett could neither predict nor prevent gives it some thematic heft. My only real issue is that the actual way they go about it is...needlessly gross, in a way The X-Files usually isn't, and it leaves a bad taste. Maybe this is a sign of the changing times, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit hit a few years ago and this kind of subject was only getting to be more and more of a fixation of culture, but like every time The X-Files touches on this subject, it strikes a weird, sour note.

Given the context, it's hard to make a joke here, but it is a nice shot.

The other major weakness of the episode is Brad, because he exits permanently on the note of killing Regali to...protect his secret? Regali tells him that he has blackmail ready to go in case Brad kills him, but that never really gets resolved and Brad never shows up again, which feels lazy. Brad ended up as a pretty confusing character all told. I compared him to Skinner a lot (who has basically been gone all season) but honestly, he never got the screen, either with the heroes or villains, to make that work. His role here seems like a last minute attempt to slide him off the board for the finale, and unfortunately, it's an exit that's handled about as well as his character's whole role.

The rest of the episode is better though. I do think this episode does a good job of showcasing Robert Patrick's strengths as an actor, he puts in a lot of barely restrained despair and anguish over the course of the episode, especially given that the episode is largely the John Doggett show. The entire episode is basically leaning on him to get the emotional weight across and luckily he does a pretty good job. The final scene, of him scattering his son's ashes, does actually hit home, without a line of dialogue.

And when I say the entire episode is leaning on him, I mean. Reyes doesn't do anything in the episode except briefly accuse Brad of being corrupt. Scully gets Hayes into the plot and then disappears from (I think she's in the scene where they interrogate Hayes?). Hayes is barely a character (more on that in a moment). Skinner isn't even in this one, so it's just Doggett up there, he probably gets the most help from his ex-wife. I honestly can't remember the last episode that was this focused on a single character that actually had other characters in it.

"Yeah I'm under suspicion of murder, and may be under surveillance, but it's cool to meet with my inside man in public, yeah?"

Hayes is our other major character and he's...odd, and not always in a good way. He's definitely a Crime Solving Neurodivergent Character, and not always in a good way. The reveal that he's schizophrenic is so heavily telegraphed that it's basically not a twist, and the actor is doing a pretty generic "TV Crazy Person" performance, but he does turn out to be sincere and I like that he basically tells Doggett to his face that even though he could have helped, they'd never listen to him if he hadn't lied his way into the FBI. And yeah, I'm not gonna lie, I like the brief beat where Reyes points out what we all instinctively know, that a Brilliant Investigator character would be insufferable to be around.

Doggett is a character who got a raw deal, a character who arrived to replace a beloved lead at a point where the series' integrity had already begun to fall apart. That's a tough spot for any character to be in and I think Doggett acquitted himself about as well as could be expected. The next few episodes aren't really about him at all, and unless I'm forgetting something, he doesn't appear at all in the revival episodes. So I guess, in a way, this episode could be considered his sendoff. Maybe he deserved a better one, but this one almost, in its final moments, seems fitting.

Case Notes:

• You know that pop culture has ruined my brain because the title card "The Tip" sent me into giggles.
• The opening scene is nicely moody, lots of very nice shots, good use of light and shadow.
• I like the blood coming out of the wall, it's also a good shot, sue me.
• Scully's description of the crime nice and calm, although I wouldn't mind if she had a bit more emotional instability given she gave up her kid in the previous episode.
• I like how everyone basically admits this case isn't an X-File but they're all like "Fuck it, it's our case now."
• Hayes is nicely creepy and his deductions are pretty logical even if they basically amount to Mind Powers.
• The mob guy is VERY bad at talking to cops.
• Doggett and Reyes basically have to walk without arresting the mob guy cause otherwise the plot would progress too quickly.
• I feel like they could've built up the shot in on the picture of Doggett finding his son's body more. Just a zoom instead of a cut, something.
• Oh they're still doing the title cards, okay.
• Hey, a Season 8 callback.
• Hey, Doggett's ex-wife. Better late than never huh?
• Doggett and his ex-wife feels kind of authentic, in that it's clearly painful and awkward.
• I'm not gonna lie, Doggett's ex-wife "God, if he could just move on from this, he could make out with Reyes" is kinda funny.
• Mimms, as we must call him now, cleaning up his Murder Wall before getting arrested is amusing.
• So I guess Brad IS crooked? Jesus this episode is all over the place.
• The stuff with Mimms in the final stretch of the episode is very odd, but the actors all sell it. And I like that the dude isn't ashamed of being schitzophrenic, especially since he turns out to not be the killer.
• "Would you have listened to a mental patient with insight into your son's death?" Dude, what do you think they do at the X-Files?
• Brad shooting the mob guy at the last second still feels a tiny bit contrived, and may be a roundabout way to get Brad off the table for the finale, but it makes enough emotional sense that I can overlook it.
• The final, dialogueless scene of Dogget and his ex-wife scattering their son's ashes is good, as is the hug with Reyes, it's the ending the episode needs.
• As always these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so I don't have to become a Sherlock Holmes-style crime stopper to make ends meet.