Case 04, File 22: Elegy

AKA: Fuck It Dude, Let's Go Bowling

It's pretty safe to say that non-neurotypical people didn't get great media representation during the 90s but one of the ones who had it worst was...actually, I have no idea how to even rank that, but people with autism certainly didn't have the best, usually portraying them as people with no ability to talk or even act normally but with some sort of number or memory related super power. And while The X-Files dipped its toe in that pool before, it almost feels inevitable that they'd return to it.

Elegy starts off with our autistic man, Harold, working at a bowling alley at night as it closes and finally getting told to go home by his boss. But no sooner has Harold left than his boss discovers a woman stuck in the pin setting machine with her throat cut. He goes outside to flag down some cops only to find the woman he saw in the pin setting machine. That seems rather odd, so Mulder and Scully are called in, discover that she is the 4th victim, and find the words "She is Me" scratched into the wax of the lane.

Our intrepid heroes go to check out the investigation and Mulder promptly makes a fool out of himself but finds out that someone called in one of the murders and said "She is me" were one of the previous victims last words. So they check out the mental hospital where Harold lives (because that's where the call came from) and after some wrangling, discover that Harold was the one who made the call. Scully starts to feel like Harold could fit the murder profile but is interrupted by a cancer nosebleed.

While in the bathroom dealing with the nosebleed, she sees a vision of a girl with her throat cut, and moments later sees the same girl is the newest victim! Dun dun dun! She decides that freaks her out enough to head back to DC and get checked out, and also get a brief check in with her therapist. Mulder meanwhile works on tracking down Harold, who is hanging out in a hidey hole in the bowling alley with bunch of bowling score cards taped to the wall (which is not a good way to look innocent) seeing all the victims ghosts.

"Don't worry about me up here, I'm just a really big fan of bowling."

So Harold is looking like the obvious culprit, but Mulder doesn't believe it, taking them all back to his room full of score cards and discovering that Harold has all of the scores memorized. But, while they're standing there, Harold has a vision of his boss at the bowling alley dead and moments later his boss drops dead of a heart attack. This leads Mulder to tell Scully that the only people who can see the ghosts are people who are dying. Maybe shouldn't tell that to someone who saw one of the ghosts Mulder.

So Scully comes back to examine Harold, only for Harold's nurse to give a lengthy villain monologue about how she hates Harold and reveal that she's the killer! If you're wondering why I didn't mention her before, it's because she's barely in the episode. After some more wrangling, where Harold attacks the nurse and then the nurse attacks Scully, the nurse is apprehended but Harold dies of the poison she was giving him. And after a brief and emotional confrontation with Mulder over her seeing the girl, the episode ends with Scully in her car, breaking down and unsure of what to believe.

Elegy is an episode primarily known for its, awkward at best and offensive at worst, depiction of autism, but outside of that, it's not a bad episode, merely an imperfect one. It has a solid concept and some truly excellent moments from Gillian Anderson, but it just never comes all the way together. Add in the, ahem, depiction of autism and you have an episode that just does not work.

I just really like this shot of Mulder. I dunno what to add to that.

I guess my biggest issue with Harold isn't that his depiction is awkward, it's that Harold isn't a character, he's a ball of "Magic Mentally Challenged Person" cliches. We know very little about him, or his motivation until his final scenes, and even then, it never escapes the cliches and feels human. His roommate feels more recognizably human, just because he feels less cliched. And that's ignoring how little we know about the nurse, who I think says like 2 lines before she's revealed as the villain. I get that including her more would tip off that she's important, but as is, it feels like she pops out of nowhere.

Conversely, the best stuff in the episode is generally stuff that has little to do with the plot. The best scene in the entire thing is the one at the very very end, when Scully finally collapses under the emotional weight she's carrying. Gillian Anderson remains one of the best casting decisions the series has ever had, and she manages to carry the entire scene wordlessly (even if I think the decision to include the ghost of Harold weakens it a little bit).

The ghosts (or fetches) are also a classic example of The X-Files doing a lot with very little. The concept is pretty simple, just the actor or actress slightly translucent, but they look great and the scenes they're in never fail to unnerve me. Also, and this is an incredibly minor thing that's probably only of interest to me, but I like that the cop who is pressuring Harold to confess against the requests of his lawyer is unambiguously presented as in the wrong. I like it when a character's human rights are respected.

"Isn't this exactly how The List ended?"
"Shut up, no one remembers that episode."

The episode still has a lot of issues, nothing dealbreaking, but they add up. The biggest is that it has a problem trying to build up steam, or present danger. Most of our engagement is supposed to come from Harold, but as stated, he's a non entity, which is why my actual engagement mostly comes from the scenes with Scully. Without much forward motion or any connection with the villain until the final minutes, the episode can't figure out what to do with itself and just sort of meanders about.

Maybe without Harold and the ensuing awkwardness the episode could simply be mediocre, but that would likely require a full rewrite as he, and the hospital he inhabits, are a huge part of the polot. Of course the idea of writing it so that Harold was a fully realized human instead of a ball of awkward and semi-offensive cliches would also help, but it was the 90s, what are you gonna do? Mostly what this episode sets out to do is get us back on track with the Scully's cancer plot, so we're just gonna move forward with that and forget everything else.

Case Notes:

• When a movie or TV show opens at a bowling alley, my brain instinctively expects it to be The Big Lebowski.
• The effect on the ghost lady is pretty solid and I gotta say, finding a body hanging in a bowling alley is pretty freaky.
• I do like the long take of Mulder and Scully walking down the lane.
• I wonder how many takes it took to get David Duchovny to bowl that strike.
• The lengthy misdirection, Mulder asking for a soda to get the bowling manager away so they can talk, only for the soda to be used to reveal "She is Me" written on the floor is pretty solid screenwriting.
• Jeez the killer is only striking in a six block area? Get outside your comfort zone.
• Oh Mulder, you should know better than to spout off stuff about apparitions and fetches to other law enforcement agents.
• Scully looks so uncomfortable in the meeting.
• Given the result of the mystery, the placement of the Nurse prominently in the background is a bit of a tell but it also feels kind of...Scooby-Doo ish.
• Oh man does the psychiatric hospital make me uncomfortable nowadays.
• Okay, I will admit that the guys in the hospital saying that Jay Leno is the killer got a laugh from me.
• Mulder is off chasing phantoms while Scully is catching minor details about the killings which is fun. I don't think the ring switching thing is relevant though.
• The shot where we're looking at the page and blood drips onto it from Scully's nosebleed is solid.
• Okay, ghost girl in the bathroom is pretty good stuff. They don't push it too hard and it works
• You know, if you wanna convince someone you're not a serial killer, a wall covered in people's bowling alley scores is not the way to go about it.
• The scene in Harold's hidey hole isn't bad, and the ghost effect is still solid, but it feels too much like misdirection. Maybe I think that because I know the result? Whatever, I can't un-know it.
• Hey, it's an appearance by Scully's therapist. It's been a long while since we saw her.
• Scully says she relies on Mulder and I am briefly reminded what a massive massive shipper I am.
• The bowling alley owner says, casually, that Harold knows a back way into the alley that is always unlocked. I might be a little more worried about that buddy.
• Just think, nowadays Harold wouldn't have print outs of all the names, since they're all digital now.
• Mulder accidentally tells Scully that only people who are dying can see the visions when she saw the vision. I like it when stories take advantage of asymmetry in character knowledge.
• It's very amusing how the episode stops right at the climax for the nurse to give a villainous monologue.
• I guess it's notable that the only use of the R word in the episode comes from the villain.
• The nurse decides that he best option when caught is to attack Scully. Uh, lady, Scully could defeat Thanos.
• I like that Scully uses "I didn't want to believe," during her confrontation with Mulder at the end. It's good use of arc words and it makes their confrontation have emotional resonance.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Tune in to help me continue to make terrible life choices.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Nothing big, but this marks our third (and penultimate) appearance of Lorena Gale in the series. She previously popped up in Shadows and One Breath and will show up again way, way, WAY down the line in the 2nd movie.