Case 04, File 15: Kaddish

AKA: So Much For The Tolerant Left

If you had told me 17 years ago when I first watched this episode that today Neo-Nazis would not only not have died out but would be back on the rise and entering into mainstream relevance. Not 48 hours ago as of this writing, there was a Neo-Nazi rally in Georgia, complete with a burning swastika. All of which makes an episode where a literal figure out of Jewish mythology murders Neo-Nazis super super satisfying.

Our episode opens with an Orthodox Jewish funeral for a man named Isaac, who was killed in the convenience store he owns by Neo-Nazis. That night, a mysterious figure forms the dirt on his grave into a human shape which starts breathing. Mulder and Scully are called in a few days later when one the Neo-Nazi kids is killed by someone with Isaac's fingerprints, I assume to give the killer a medal.

But first they have to find them, and they open up by going an interviewing Ariel, Isaac's wife and Jacob his father-in-law. They deny knowledge of who's killing the Neo-Nazis but point out they've also still been receiving hate mail and the police were dismissing their concerns. So they go see the publishers of some Anti-Semitic literature and tell him that someone with Isaac's fingerprints is killing the Neo-Nazis.

So the Neo-Nazi kids who were listening in, decide to dig up Isaac's corpse to make sure he's dead instead of like, skipping town. With intellects like that, I can see how they became Neo-Nazis. Anyway, they find his corpse right there in its grave, but one of them is immediately murdered again. Mulder and Scully show up to find a book on Jewish mysticism buried in with the coffin, which immediately catches fire. Seems pretty standard.

I dunno if the casting call for this character read "Smug asshole" but if it did, A+ casting.

So the Neo-Nazi kid goes and confronts the Neo-Nazi shop owner, demanding money and telling him that his Anti-Semitic literature is responsible for him going to kill Isaac. Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully get the book they found checked out and find out it belongs to Isaac's father-in-law, Jacob. They head to his synagogue to arrest him, but find the last Neo-Nazi kid dead in the attic of the place, and Mulder is attacked by someone big while arresting him.

So Mulder, being Mulder, hops straight to "Someone summoned a golem" while Jacob is being interrogated. The Neo-Nazi book seller gets killed too and they let Jacob go, but see the golem (who looks like Isaac) in video surveillance footage. Mulder figures out that Ariel is the one who summoned it, because she never got to actually have her marriage to Isaac, and head back to the synagogue in time to save Jacob from the golem and see Ariel unmaking the golem. And the episode thus ends on a solemn note of Ariel mourning Isaac.

Kaddish is, on the surface, a pretty straightforward Monster-Of-The-Week episode, albeit one that has aged rather poorly. Although that's not its fault, who could have predicted Neo-Nazis would make a resurgence? Its got enough bubbling under the surface to make it a more interesting episode than it might have been otherwise, and to make it worth discussing. And I gotta say, watching some Neo-Nazis get brutally murdered is pretty cathartic.

That is a HELL of a ring lady. I know it's based on a real ring that the writer knew of, but still, hell of a ring.

Honestly, the most interesting part of the episode is mostly relegated to side moments, a small running theme about the power of words. One of the more interesting scenes of the episode is when the Neo-Nazi teenager confronts the guy who is writing the Nazi literature. The guy writing the literature tries to abdicate responsibility (saying that he never told him to commits acts of violence) while the kid points out that he was merely carrying out the logical endpoint of his writing. It's an interesting examination of the way violent acts are inspired that is unfortunately just left dangling there. It gets briefly brought up in a lecture about the Power of Words again (given that words are how the golem is animated) but they never really go far into it there either.

The episode does stuff like that in other areas, such as the creation of the golem itself. The episode is so devoted to the twist that Ariel is the one who summoned the golem that it forgets to actually explore her and her motivation until the episode is nearly over. Maybe dropping the twist earlier and taking some time to explore her pain and motivation in summoning the golem would have been better, although given that her actress seems to be struggling a bit with her scenes, maybe it's for the best.. As it is, Jacob is the best developed of the side characters and also barely relevant to the actual plot.

And of course there's the portrayal of the Neo-Nazis. Outside of the one scene I mentioned, the main portrayal of the Neo-Nazis is that particular media portrayal of racists, the kind where they can't stop telling everyone who comes within earshot that they're racist. As we've all learned through painful experience, that's not actually accurate to racist actually act like. I don't know if we can really blame The X-Files for that, but it does mean the way they're portrayed doesn't ring true.

"Is she building a sandcas-"
"Mulder, this is a solemn, tragic moment, don't you dare make a joke."

Still, it's not like the episode isn't fine as a standalone monster episode. The golem is a solid monster and it draws heavily enough on real Jewish myths to feel authentic. The mystery isn't the best, but Jacob is giving a great performance and the direction on the death scenes is overall pretty good. I suppose the parts I wish were better are mostly subtext and theme, the actual meat and potatoes of the episode are really solid. And I can't blame it for not being the episode I want it to be, especially since it lets me see Neo-Nazis get murdered.

Case Notes:

• I've only been to one Jewish funeral in my life, and it wasn't an Orthodox one, so I can't tell you how accurate this. Everyone joining in on putting the dirt on the coffin is accurate though.
• The transition from the shot of the tree during the day to it at night is a really nice edit.
• Mulder makes references to the Tawana Brawley rape case and the Crown Heights Riots in the opening, neither of which are super relevant to this case and neither of which took place in Williamsburg (Tawana Brawley didn't even take place in New York City) but they are evidence of racial tension so...?
• I know that it's killing people, but it's killing Neo-Nazis so I'm rooting for the golem.
• I like how the episode doesn't downplay Ariel's father (Jacob)'s anger or have Mulder condemn him for it. 
• I love how, when the Neo-Nazi guy opens the conversation by spouting hatred, Mulder and Scully immediately just realize what level of guy they're dealing with.
• There's a lot to be said about this episode normalizes the idea that racism is only when someone starts spouting open hatred, but this was in the 90s so maybe it's important to put it in context. 
• I forgot the bit where the book randomly catches fire. I also forget if it's actually relevant to anything or just a neat way to end the scene.
• I guess the book randomly catching fire does get them talking to the Rabbi and they discover it's Jacob's book, so that's...something?
• For such a major character, the third Neo-Nazi gets offed surprisingly nonchalantly.
• The scene in the attic of the Temple is pretty confusing, but I guess it works, since they're still trying to keep the fact that it's a golem secret.
• Mulder hops straight from "There's someone else in the attic" to "Golem." I guess they're running short on time.
• I wish the "Power of Letters" theme got more play, especially since it ties back to how the Neo-Nazi publisher's hatred led his readers to kill Isaac.
• I kinda wish they'd revealed who was behind the golem earlier so we could get a better sense of the emotions that went into her creating it. As it is, we get one monologue, but that's it.
• As climax's go, this one is kinda weak, built more around dialogue and emotion than action, which is fine, but a lot of it is devoted to just explaining why Ariel summoned the golem, which leaves it a tiny bit anti-climactic. Mulder just gets briefly choked by the golem and it attacks Jacob off screen. Weak.
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Current Celebrity Watch:

The woman who played Ariel, Justine Miceli, has a recurring role on NYPD Blue, which is a show I've never watched. Also, David Groh, who played Jacob, was one of the main characters on a Mary Tyler Moore Show spinoff called Rhoda, which despite running for 5 seasons and over 100 episodes, I've never heard of until now.