Case 05, File 02: Redux Part 2

AKA: The Assassination Of The Cigarette Smoking Man By The Coward Quiet Willy

Keeping a series fresh and exciting is a high stakes game. You need to keep coming up with new and interesting ideas to keep the audience invested, keep coming up with new places for the story to go, new characters for our heroes to interact with, new challenges for them to overcome. If you fuck it up, you can end up collapsing into ridiculousness, no matter how good your series is. And while some of the pressure is taken off when you're largely a Monster of the Week series, like The X-Files, it doesn't mean that they don't occasionally chase plot twists down rabbit holes.


Our story opens more or less where the last one ended, with Mulder bursting into Scully's hospital room after she collapsed at the end of the last episode. Of course Skinner is there and is a little surprised to see the supposedly dead Mulder, so he has him dragged off to see Section Chief Blevins, who is also a little surprised and therefore begins to transition the investigation from why Mulder killed himself into who was the dead dude on Mulder's floor and how he died. Meanwhile, the Cigarette Smoking Man tells another Conspiracy member that he can get Mulder on their side.

So Mulder goes back to visit Scully, where Scully tells him not to trust Skinner and Scully's brother tells Mulder that he (Scully's brother) doesn't like Mulder. But Mulder gets a call from the Cigarette Smoking Man, telling him that the way to save Scully's life is in the vial. So after searching it, they discover a microchip, and after some arguing, Scully's decides to have it implanted in her again. While all this happening, Kritschgau testifies that he has no idea who the dead dude in Mulder's apartment is.

The Cigarette Smoking Man, still trying to get Mulder onto his side, arranges for Mulder to meet in a diner, where he produces...SAMANTHA! Not really, but that's later. Anyway, Mulder and "Samantha" have a conversation where she tells him that she lost her memory after being abducted but that the Cigarette Smoking Man cared for her, and also that he's her father. Eventually the conversation gets too intense and "Samantha" bolts before Mulder can get a way to contact her.

"Agent Mulder, we're here to calmly discuss why you...what was it again?"
"Faked your own death."

Back at the main plot, Scully is recently re-chipped, undergoing more aggressive anti-cancer treatment and having a crisis of faith, while Blevins pressures Mulder to name Skinner as the guy inside the FBI who was spying on Mulder. But Mulder tells Scully that he refuses to do that, and also refuses to say that Scully is the one who killed the guy. Mulder meets with the Cigarette Smoking Man again, who asks Mulder to join him, but Mulder tells him the TV version of "Go fuck yourself" while both of them are watched by another Conspiracy member's goon.

Okay, home stretch here. Mulder goes back to the super creepy room to testify and testifies that Blevins, is the one who was ordering the spying on Mulder. Blevins calm and rational response is to bolt from the room and immediately get killed in his office by a dude who makes it look like a suicide. While this is happening, the goon decides to shooting and kill the Cigarette Smoking Man! Not really, but that's later. Doesn't make it look like a suicide though. And thus the episode ends with Mulder doubting his crusade, but Scully's cancer in remission. So that's nice.

Taken as a single entity, mostly divorced from what came after it, the Redux duology (and Gethsemane I suppose) forms a pretty solid three act structure that reshapes the series in unique and interesting ways. But as engaging as it can be when I'm watching it, it's always one that bugs me on rewatches. It is a trio of episodes that shake up the status quo, revealing Samantha, killing the Cigarette Smoking Man and making Mulder no longer believe in aliens (not really, but that's later), but all of those changes would be undone before a full season had passed. It makes me feel like I'm being jerked around, which is not something I appreciate.

"I hate you Mulder."
"What? Why?"
"I dunno, it's easy characterization for me."

But let's try to evaluate this episode on it's own merits, because it does have more than a few of those. It's an episode that focuses heavily on Mulder and Scully's relationship, turning Mulder's desire to save Scully into his primary motivation and really sells it hard. It's not every sci-fi/horror show that would have the guts to stop in the middle of its third act to have one of its main characters go to the others bedside and have a small, wordless breakdown, but this show does it and it gives the episode an emotional resonance most other shows don't have.

It's also got a good conspiracy thriller vibe, with multiple different factions vying for their goals. I've said before that I'm a bigger fan of the Conspiracy when its more of a collection of individuals rather than a single, monolithic entity, and this is one of the best examples of that, what with the First Elder having the Cigarette Smoking Man murdered and arguing about whether they can turn Mulder. It's mostly nonsense, since they have to keep it vague whether the aliens Mulder saw are real or not, but it's always good to watch them spar.

But, and here we come to the crux of the matter, this episode also contains some attempts to shake up The X-Files status quo that ultimately just bounced off. The big one, in my mind is the Samantha reveal, partially because its the one that gets the most time devoted to it, but also because I think this reveal is better than the reveal they actually went with. The reveal that Samantha was taken by the Cigarette Smoking Man and raised by him is a concept with a lot of potential, and the actress playing her sells her role hard, but the meeting trails off into nothingness. A greater willingness to stick with its shaken up status quo might have made for a more interesting storyline in Season 6.

"Wait, this is where we're testifying? Jeez, can we turn on some lights?" 

But that's not really relevant to the episode, in the episode (despite the semi-abrupt ending) the meeting between Samantha and Mulder is intense and engaging. But, as we wander deeper and deeper into the series, and the Myth Arc gets more and more convoluted, it's going to get harder for me to separate my feelings about the rest of the series from my feelings about an individual episode, but we're still in the golden age of the series and this episode is still pretty good.


Case Notes:

• I actually really love the hospital scene in the cold open, the camera work on the really long take emphasizes how off kilter and desperate Mulder is.
• I love how Mulder turns up alive at the hospital alive and all that happens is Skinner yells at him a bit, instead of, well a lot of stuff. In fact, everyone is pretty blase about Mulder faking his own death. Only Skinner appears kinda pissed.
• The Cigarette Smoking Man looks so smug when he says Mulder is alive, I love it.
• Mulder and Scully's reunion in this episode is so cute, from Mulder's incredible genuine smile to Scully immediately worrying about Mulder being caught, I love them so much you guys.
• I forgot that Scully's brother doesn't like Mulder. That might have been important he showed up more than this once (maybe once or twice later? I forget).
• The dude with the kit that turns the pistol into a rifle really stuck with me. I think I even included something like it in my writing.
• I also kinda dig the Cigarette Smoking Man's visit to the hospital. He's at his best when he's smug and in control.
• Did Mulder and the Lone Gunmen really not think to look in the vial for anything else? I get that they wanted the cliffhanger and we need to get the chip involved, but still.
• Kritschgau says that he gets money from a lobbying firm called Roush and then says he has no idea what that is or what it does. Kritschgau, what are you doing with your life?
• I am consistently amused by Scully's brother's anger at Mulder, especially how he doesn't buy the alien stuff. Does he know what Scully does for a living?
• Scully's brother calls Mulder "One sorry son of a bitch" and moments later he answers the phone with "One sorry son of a bitch speaking." Love it, love all of it.
• Mulder's face when "Samantha" calls the Cigarette Smoking Man her father never ceases to amuse me.
• I actually like Scully's scenes with her doctor and her mom, they're really good acting showcases for Gillian Anderson to do nice, subtle work.
• Has Quiet Willy been sitting in the clocktower for like, 18 hours? Jesus dude.
• The scene with Mulder and Cigarette Smoking Man is pretty standard stuff (it's basically an X-Files variant on the "Join me" scene from Empire Strikes Back), but I never get tired of their sparring.
• I'm sorry, did The X-Files just Forrest Gump Skinner into a hearing on human cloning?
• Mulder visiting Scully's hospital room and breaking down crying breaks my little shipper heart.
• I love how Mulder and Scully suspect Skinner of betraying them every season or so and it always turns out that he's loyal.
• Man, this episode is just hammering me with scenes of Mulder and Scully that rip my heart apart. Their scene towards the end before the Priest shows up is just heartbreaking.
• Do they really have to have their hearings in the underlit room of evil?
• I really like how the shots of Skinner and Mulder talking are really close up, cutting off almost all of their heads.
• I'd forgotten this is the episode where the Cigarette Smoking Man gets shot and killed. Not really, but whatever.
• The final montage of everyone getting shot to cover their tracks is kinda rushed, but the meeting scene is very very intense when it could have very easily been silly.
• Mulder names Blevins as the guy who was spying on him and that apparently means that he's not getting prosecuted for killing the DoD guy? It is possible to worry too much about this stuff I suppose.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Please consider donating, we're getting close to when The Lone Gunmen starts and I put reviewing those episodes as one of my Patronage goals.