Case 03, File 20: Jose Chung's From Outer Space

AKA: The Ballad of Lord Kinbote

I said this during my review of War of the Coprophages, Darin Morgan's first four episodes left a big mark on the series, and all four of them are constantly in the running for best episode. But I, being a stickler, always felt the need to determine which of the four was the best. And for my money, only one episode manages to find the absolutely perfectt balance where it's both deeply affecting and side splittingly funny.

Our episode this time kicks off with two teenagers, Harold and Chrissy, being abducted by grey aliens before another alien shows up out of nowhere and attacks the grey aliens. One theme song later, Scully is sitting down with our titular character, Jose Chung, to give interviews about the subsequent investigation for his novel about the incident. Mulder refuses to join in but Scully tells him that Chrissy was found later with signs that she'd been sexually assaulted, most notably that all of her clothes were turned inside out.

After Harold shows up at her house saying that he was terrified for her, but the police pick him up and don't believe his story that they were abducted by aliens, even when he passes a lie detector test. By the time Mulder and Scully arrive, he's changed his story to that he's sexually assaulted her, which nearly causes our heroes to leave, but Mulder decides to have Chrissy hypnotized, and is unsurprised when she remembers being abducted and being held in a pretty generic spaceship.

This kind of blows up the local cops case, who are pissed about it (the cop who says Bleep every time he's supposed to be cursing is the best running gag in the episode) and points out that Harold's story involves being held in a cage as well as a grey, smoking alien who kept repeating "This is not happening." In the middle of all this, Scully gets him to reveal that he and Chrissy had consensual sex and begins to believe that all of this is a result of them having sex and being unable to emotionally handle it.

Even the design of Lord Kinbote is funny.

This theory is complicated when a road worker named Rory Crikenson, who claims he witnessed the abduction and was threatened by a pair of strange acting Men in Black (not Will Smith) who tried to intimidate him into not discussing what he saw. But they needn't have bothered, Rory's description of his experiences are unhinged and weirdly similar to Scientology. It's enough to convince Mulder to have her re-hypnotized, where she suddenly remembers being captured by the military and hypnotized by them to forget the whole thing.

Chung next goes to in to see a generic 90s nerd named Blaine, who claims to have come across a dead alien body. Of course he also thinks Scully and Mulder are Men in Black, so you know, not super reliable. He does find what looks like an alien body however, and when Scully goes to do the autopsy, he breaks in to film it. Back with Chung and Scully, the video of the autopsy gets distributed, but cuts out the part where Scully finds out its a guy in an alien suit. Some Air Force guys show up to collect the body, but it's gone and Mulder tricks them into revealing another pilot is still missing. Wah-wah.

It's a good thing he did too, since the next thing we know, Mulder has run into the other pilot wandering the streets in a daze and repeating "This is not happening." Mulder and the pilot have a conversation in a diner in which the pilot states that kidnapping kids and flying planes that look like UFOs are standard operating procedure for the local air force, although the diner owner told Chung that all that happened that night was that Mulder sat there eating pie alone all evening.

After the Air Force shows up to collect the pilot, Mulder heads back to the hotel and finds Scully having a confrontation with the Men in Black, who hypnotize them both and bolt. The next morning, they, and the local PD, find a downed air force plane with two pilots, including the already dead one from earlier, in it. Back in the present day, Mulder goes to see Jose Chung and asks him not to write his book and confesses he has no idea what happened. The episode ends with Chung giving a voice over about the events and identifying how alone all the people involved are.

I like seeing Yappi again, but nowhere near enough Eyebrow.

When I say this episode is the best of Darin Morgan's original run, I meant that it has the best balance, and is the one that spoke to me most intently (which might seem odd given that my Clyde Bruckman review descended into me ranting about my depression, but bear with me). While it doesn't do any one element the best of the four, it is funnier than Clyde Bruckman while still being more emotionally resonant than War of the Coprophages. And that final coda still gets me to this day.

The thing that makes this episode, really makes it, is the casting. From Jose Chung's weird, nerdy energy, to Detective Manners' complete commitment to saying "Bleeping" instead of cursing (a running gag which never gets old, frankly), the oddity that is Rory Crickensen or the brazen casting on the Men in Black, the cast really brings their A-Game from top to bottom. Actors this good could carry a much worse script and given a fantastic Darin Morgan, the entire episode is electric.

Of course it makes sense that they need a variety of great actors given that the entire episode is about its characters. The story, when you boil it away, is pretty meh. It resembles elements of several other episodes, most heavily Season 1's Deep Throat, but the actual plot is mostly superfluous, just a series of vignettes about the characters and how they handle the events of the episode.

The theme, that each person handles the events they experience on their own and interprets what they've seen wildly differently, and are thus essentially alone no matter how many people are around them, is so strongly woven into the episode that it gets stated aloud no less than three times. But it makes sense enough in context that it never feels like its pushing it too hard, and it always feels affecting. As I've said a couple times already, the final monologue, which spells its themes out explicitly, is oddly affecting, partially because the sense it gives, that of utter isolation and desperately trying to make sense of your life to find your place in the world, is an incredibly universal one.

I still don't know why this shot is so funny to me.

Of course using the Rashomon style to tell a story about how we are all isolated by our experiences is a great one, and a unique use of the idea. It's not quite a Rashomon homage (the series will do a much more direct homage 2 seasons down the line in a weaker, but still entertaining, episode) but it works for the episode. I like the subtle retellings of certain events or how we, the audience, know that Blaine is full of shit when he says that Mulder and Scully threatened him. The fallibility of perception is an interesting way of framing a UFO story and its one I wish the series would indulge in more.

All of it is held together by some truly great direction from Rob Bowman. His signature fantastic lighting is there, especially in Rory's confrontation with the Men in Black, but he does some other great work too. The X-Files' style doesn't usually lend itself to comedy direction, but its great to see good comic timing on edits like the bit where Harold tells Chrissy he'll protect her right before she gets sucked up into the ceiling. I also really like how the editing and direction take us through time and space, such as moving from one interview with Harold to another within a single edit.

Really, its hard to pick apart the episode and figure out which element is the best, because they're all working so perfectly in concert. With worse direction, a slightly worse cast, even a less perfect Darin Morgan script, this episode wouldn't be quite so fantastic. As it is, its easily one of the best episodes of the season and probably one of the top 3 best of the entire series.

Case Notes:

• The opening shot of this episode being a parody of the opening shot of Star Wars is just a tiny bit too cute, but I can accept it.
• Harold telling Chrissy that he loves her on their first date is framed as adorable but in real life that's kind of alarming behavior.
• I love how hilariously fake Lord Kinbote looks.
• Jose Chung makes a strong impression in his first scenes, he's got such a great nerdy, energetic vibe. I love his bit about how he prefers "Experiencer" to "Abductee."
• The outfit Chrissy is in during the hypnosis bit on the table looks like something out of Barbarella.
• Detective Manners' bleeped out dialogue is still one of the most casually funny things in the entire series.
• The guy playing Roky Crikenson is A++ casting. I kinda want to know what his casting call looked like though.
• The lighting and editing on Rory's encounter with the Men in Black is fantastic. Like, I just want to take an entire paragraph to talk about it, but I kind of can't.
• Upon rewatching, this episode is 99 percent dialogue, but it's shot and edited so well, it works great.
• So much of this episode is just repeating the same scenes with variations or from different points of view, you'd think it'd get dull, but given that it's thematically about different perspectives and how truth is subjective, it works like a charm.
• Mulder's "Yipe" still gets me laughing so hard that I had to pause the episode.
• Making fun of the Alien Autopsy Fox aired is a really dated reference, but it's still pretty goddamn funny.
• Hey, Stupendous Yappi cameo. Good stuff.
• I love the timing on Scully discovering the zipper during the autopsy.
• Mulder tricking the Air Force Pilot into revealing that there are two guys AWOL and giving the other one's name is pretty solid stuff.
• Blaine still going "Roswell! Roswell!" while being lifted bodily by the Man in Black is really funny to me for reasons I don't know if I can explain.
• How many times has Mulder or Scully come across a naked or semi-naked person wandering the roads in this show? It seems like it happens a lot.
• The scene in the diner with Mulder and the pilot is kinda pointless, since it's mostly information we already have, either directly or indirectly, but it's a good scene nonetheless.
• I feel like the bit with Mulder ordering several pieces of pie in a row is a Twin Peaks joke, but it could just be a bit of fluff.
• The casting on the cook is pretty solid too.
• I L-O-V-E the scene with Mulder and the Men in Black.
• "I know it probably doesn't have the sense of closure that you want...but it has more than some of out other cases." I love this show so much.
• The scene with Mulder and Jose Chung has some unexpected pathos in it, especially since it's one of the rare moments where we get the feeling Mulder understands, and resents, how he's viewed. One of Morgan's real gifts is being able to unearth stuff about Mulder and Scully that we always kind of know is there, but doesn't get a lot of play and this is a great example.
• Roky's story ends up as a send up of Scientology, which is funny but doesn't go anywhere.
• Mulder lying in bed watching the Bigfoot footage is A+ characterization.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. If you like what I do, please consider donating, I am so cold and hungry. *Editor's Note: He is never cold and he's only hungry cause he forgot to eat breakfast.*

Current Celebrity Watch:

This hardly feels like it counts, since them being there is part of the joke, but our Men in Black in this episode are played by Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek. Ventura is pretty funny, as there's something amusing about Jesse Ventura ranting about Jimmy Carter seeing the planet Venus, but Trebek is mostly just there to be amusing that he's there.

Future Celebrity Watch:

Rory is played by William Lucking, who would go on to play Piney on Sons of Anarchy, who was a fairly prominent character, or so Wikipedia tells me. My brother was obsessed with that show, but I never got into it.