Case 09, File 18: Sunshine Days

AKA: The Navidson Bunch

As The X-Files faces down what was, at the time, its ultimate ending, it kind of went through its own stages of grief. Improbable feels like denials, Jump the Shark could be viewed as depression, Scary Monsters as bargaining, even Hellbound as anger although I'm really pushing the metaphor well past its breaking point at that point. But here, in the penultimate episode of Season 9, the last Monster of the Week of the original run, we have acceptance.

Our episode opens with two slackers hanging out across the street from a house one of them insists is the house from The Brady Bunch, at least inside. When his buddy disagrees, they go and break into the house, only to find that it does, indeed, look like the house from The Brady Bunch, at least on the inside. Unfortunately one of them runs out and the one that doesn't gets launched through the roof and into his buddy's car.

That's weird, so Doggett and Reyes are called in to investigate, and the surviving dude quickly leads them over to the house he broke into only to find that it's owned by a guy named Oliver and also that it's...not The Brady Bunch house. Not even two floors. But Doggett does discover a piece of a shingle on the dead guy's body and also that the house's roof had been repaired, while Scully discovers the dead body is still giving off electricity.

While all this is happening, the surviving slacker decides to go confront Oliver, only to see the Bradys in the house and the moment he DOES confront Oliver, he also gets launched through the roof. At this point Oliver won't talk to Doggett and Reyes, and Scully decides to go digging through Mulder's old files to find a kid named Anthony who was crazy telekinetic, and the doctor who worked with him. Unfortunately Anthony's powers faded while living with the doctor...and he changed his name to Oliver Martin! Dun dun d-oh I guess that's not that significant.

"Okay, I know this is weird, but it's weirder that you know all this Brady Bunch trivia."

Also significant is the fact that Oliver Martin was a character on The Brady Bunch, one everyone hated, so they don't know what's up with that. They go to see him again with the doctor in tow, and Doggett nearly gets launched through the roof, but stops in the attic, so that's good, and the doctor talks Oliver down. Turns out he can create new spaces whenever he wants, in addition to the telekinesis, and after a bit of coaxing, he gets dragged off to Washington to show Skinner.

Skinner is, naturally, pretty impressed and he says this will keep the X-Files opened forever, but Oliver collapses with a seizure. It turns out his power is eating him alive and he's dying, which is bad. But, they can stop it, and his power, when he's happy, and the last time he was happy was when he was living with the doctor. So the doctor agrees to rekindle their friendship, despite the fact that it'll destroy Oliver's powers, because, as Doggett says, some things are more important the proof of the supernatural.

Much like Season Nine as a whole, Sunshine Days is a mundane entry, rarely (although occasionally) better than passable, which is made worse by the position it finds itself in. Were it just some random episode in the middle of an earlier season, it would likely barely raise an eyebrow except for wondering if they were doing vertical integration with a revival of The Brady Bunch. But positioned, as it is, as the last Monster of the Week of the original run, the penultimate episode of the entire series for over a decade? Its weaknesses stand out all the brighter.

Not to say that it's rotten down to it's core, it's just not a particularly unique setup; We are nine seasons deep, at this point they've done like 10 different flavors of telekinesis. They try to take it in unique directions (including the big one, which gets its own paragraph in a moment) but they can't really commit to one and make it stick. Sure we get a sense that he's lonely, but the fact that his powers are killing him feels pretty unearned, since it comes out of nowhere with 5 minutes till credits. If you're taking the time to show us his home life, at least give him a Consumption Cough or something.

This is the funniest shot in the episode, accept no substitutes.

Too much of the episode's is resting on the Brady Bunch thing and honestly, I just don't get it. I've never watched The Brady Bunch so maybe it's some unassailable classic of television, but putting so much emphasis on it means that if you're not already familiar, you're basically locked out of the episode. The series has done homages to older media before, but they tended to be broader, a throwback to a genre more than anything specific. If you don't have nostalgia for The Brady Bunch, big chunks of this episode will leave you out in the cold.

But what's odder than that is the fact that the episode doesn't seem to DO anything with the Brady Bunch connection, outside of one shot of the fake-family running down the stairs. They don't fuck with the color grade, no one is giving a particularly sitcom-y performance, and nothing seems particularly heightened. The end effect is an episode that seems like it was going for the vibes of a comedy episode but ultimately chickened out.

Okay that's not fair, it does have some jokes, they're just kinda thinly spread. The repeated bit where a victim gets shot into the air is a funny visual and the episode knows it, and the bit with the 2nd body embedded in the ground is a funny as fuck. It, and the similarly cartoony bit where Doggett is walking on the ceiling, are the only times the episode really reaches the heightened level I feel like it needs to be at the whole time for the episode to work. Maybe it's just a limitation of Doggett and Reyes being the leads, and with Mulder and Scully it might have been more overtly comedic.

"I finally make it back into the series and this is how you use me!?"

It is weird how much this episode is focused on Doggett, given that of our three leads he's the least suited to doing a plot like this, and the episode knows it (since they give him confusion so that Scully and Reyes can bounce exposition about The Brady Bunch off him) but it almost feels a bit wistful for it. The episode, especially in context with Release, feels a little like it's lamenting the character Doggett wouldn't ever get to be. Which maybe feels a little premature, given Doggett's tenure on the show, but I can dig the idea that Robert Patrick deserved a better shot.

I made a bit up top about these last few episodes being the five stages of grief, and while I feel like I'm stretching my metaphor a little thin, it does seem a little like there's a bit of acceptance here, as The X-Files limps to its first major finish line. The ending, where the cast give up their shot at proving supernatural stuff exists, does seem like the show is trying to say something about their inevitable end. I don't know if "The answer may disappoint you but it's okay because other things are more important" is quite the message it wants to give though.

Case Notes:

• The subtitles identified the song the dude is whistling as The Brady Bunch theme, which is good because I genuinely wouldn't have recognized it.
• Breaking into a house to prove it looks like The Brady Bunch house on the inside does seem like a very Drunk Teen thing to do.
• You can tell the drunk guy has never seen a horror movie or he'd know you never go towards the creepy children giggling.
• Okay body being launched across the street is a pretty solid hook.
• Honestly Doggett, the dude getting from the house into a helicopter is more unbelievable than something supernatural.
• Okay so the fact that the outside dimensions of the house don't line up to The Brady Bunch house is a plot point, got it.
• I'm like, 90 percent certain that Doggett searching that dude's trash is illegal.
• Doggett saying that he's getting the hang of this job in the last Monster of the Week of his run is darkly funny.
• The dead being electric is weird and intriguing.
• Hey reference to the fact that Mulder exists. So they knew they had Duchovny back for the finale by this point?
• With the dimensions of this house changing, can I get away with a House of Leaves reference or would that be too urbane? Too bad, I did it.
• They treat the reveal of the doctor like it's something big, but he's literally just some guy? What an odd shot.
• It does seem like you'd keep better track of someone who had that level of psychokinetic ability.
• Doggett's confusion at the Brady Bunch references mirrors my own.
• Scully basically saying "Look, we've been doing this show for 9 seasons now, we need to get some proof" is kinda funny with the finale looming, I wonder if the episode got rewritten to include that or was always written that way.
• Okay, solid work on that shot of Doggett going upside down before being shot through the roof.
• Doggett having the ice in the evidence bag? Also funny.
• Oliver teleports them to the Windows 95 wallpaper
• Doggett's little speech basically amounts to "Look, I know that showing his power to the world sounds rad, but the episode isn't over yet."
• Holy shit, Skinner got to be in this episode.
• The pan across Doggett, Reyes and Scully is very funny, especially given how excited Scully is.
• "It'll ensure the X-Files will go on forever" Ah so we've got Series Finale Blues huh?
• "[The Brady Bunch] is the family everyone wishes they had." Speak for yourself Reyes.
• Not sure I like where the metaphor ends up (He only has his power when he's unhappy) but I guess "His life and happiness are more important than his power" is okay?
• Reyes and Doggett holding hands at the end is uh...well they're no Mulder and Scully.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so that I don't have to learn anything about The Brady Bunch to make ends meet.

Future Celebrity Watch:

One of the two slackers is played by David Faustino, who played Bud on Married...With Children, which I've never watched, and also Mako on The Legend of Korra, which I have. He's the only member of the cast who seems to have a sitcom background, which is a shame, that would have been my first port of call.

Oliver, on the other hand, is played by Michael Emmerson, who is probably still best known for playing Ben Linus on Lost. I might say some unkind things about the upcoming X-Files finale, but it can't be as bad as that one.

Finally one of the Bradys (Marcia) is played by Danielle Savre, who is currently playing Maya on Grey's Anatomy and Station 19. I've never watched either, but I asked one of my lesbian friends if she's the one who got married to that hot Italian chick and got a 15 message summary of their relationship, so someone is.