Case 05, File 11: Kill Switch

AKA: Their Only Crime Was Curiosity

90s understanding of hacking and computers was uh....quaint. Not to say that modern day understanding is any better, there's a lot of silly stuff out there. And sure there were a handful of pieces of media that got it right-ish, but those are not the ones that stick in people's minds, the ones that stick in people's minds are the ones that got it hilariously wrong, like Lawnmower Man or the ones that were profound like Neuromancer. So if you wanted to bring hacking to The X-Files, you should probably look into hiring the writer of Neuromancer. Especially if you already hired the author of Lawnmower Man.

Kill Switch kicks off with a dude sitting in a diner, on his computer, doing some hacking. If you worry about stuff like "How does he have internet in a diner in 1998," we're gonna be here all day, so we're just gonna skip over it. Especially since an anonymous caller tricks several gangsters to go to the diner right before it summons the US Marshals there, and everyone (hacker included) get gunned down in the ensuing shootout.

It turns out hacker dude was...not-Steve-Jobs, or rather a not-Steve-Jobs who, at the height of his fame and on the verge of making a massive fortune, disappeared into the wilderness and never returned. Him getting gunned down intrigues our friend Agent Mulder, who decides the best way to handle it is to steal the computer from the crime scene. They discover a disk that has Twilight Time by the Platters on it. It also fucks with his car a bit, which throws up some warning flags.

So they take the disc to the Lone Gunmen who say the shit on it is hyper-encrypted and, after some faffing about trying to unencrypt it, they finally check his e-mail and discover the location of a shipping container, which turns out to contain a Goth 90s Hacker (trademark) named Invisigoth. After some talking, Invisigoth realizes that something on the net (heh) is zeroing in on them and they have to bolt before a satellite blows up the shipping container.

"Awww man, Lisbeth always makes this look so easy."

It is at this point that we get our revelation: The not-Steve-Jobs (or NSJ) created an AI he let loose on the net (heh) and it went crazy balls. It killed NSJ and tried to nuke Invisigoth and is also coming for a buddy of theirs (and romantic partner of Invisigoth) named David. We also learn Invisigoth's real name, but I'm gonna keep calling her Invisigoth because why wouldn't I? Anyway, they take Invisigoth to the Lone Gunmen where they use information on what places have high speed internet to track down the AI's real world presence so they can feed it the Twilight Time disc, which is also the Kill Switch.

So Mulder goes to the node alone for...some reason? And gets identified and zapped by the node, before being taken to the hospital, and waking up with one of his arms amputated! Don't worry, it doesn't stick. Anyway, Scully gets kidnapped by Invisigoth and forced to go to David's house, but David has been nuked via satellite. So after a bit where Invisigoth confides in Scully that she and David had planned to upload their brains to the internet (which is VERY funny to me in the internet hellscape of 2018), they decide to go find the AI's node.

Mulder meanwhile has had another arm amputated but gets rescued by Scully, only not cause he's actually trapped inside the node plugged in to some...thing? That has him trapped in a VR nightmare. Neat. After some running about Scully and Invisigoth find the node and rescue Mulder, but Invisigoth uploads her brain to the internet before allowing the node to get satellite nuked. And thus the episode ends with Mulder and Scully musing about whether Invisigoth is still wandering around the internet. Presumably on Geocities.

Kill Switch is, from almost any modern standard, an incredibly silly episode. Its notions of the internet and our future on it are very very informed by 90s cyberpunk culture, which its writer, William Gibson, was a father of. But it works, better than its somewhat silly sounding plot summary would imply. I guess the skill of the writer and the solid acting won out. Even if, yes, Invisigoth is a silly name.

"Scully, I'm trying to think of a way I could have screwed this up worse and it's just not coming."

One thing that still strikes me on rewatches is how well all the action setpieces work. From the incredibly solid cold open, to the weirdly effective bridge scene to Scully kung-fu fighting with the nurses (objectively the greatest scene in television history), they all work really well. The X-Files does not usually abandon its horror style in favor of action setpieces (usually cause they don't work) but they work pretty solidly. Our director this time around is Rob Bowman, who was probably taking time off from directing the upcoming X-Files movie, and he knows his way around an action beat.

There's also a surprising amount of humanity in the script. Invisigoth is one of the better X-Files side characters, and not just because she has an incredibly memorable name. She has just enough moments of humor and humanity to make her feel like a complete person. Even NSJ is more interesting than your average cold open victim, if only from what we learn about him later. And I gotta admit, I'm a big fan that the first thing that Invisigoth does when she uploads her brain is tell the Lone Gunmen to bite her.

Unfortunately a lot of that pathos is centered on a relationship we never see, her romance with David. It's a flaw, but it's one of those flaws I have no idea how to fix without completely rewriting the entire episode, since there's no space for him in the episode. Maybe give him a brief appearance in Mulder's VR nightmare? I dunno, the relationship doesn't work very well, and not just because Invisigoth is giving off strong lesbian vibes the entire time. Scully is certainly into it.

Whatever, that's a minor flaw. I feel like I should be more irritated by how utterly dated the tech stuff is, but it honestly doesn't bother me. Maybe it's that the way it's dated is kind of charming or maybe cause I know how much worse it can be (and we'll get to William Gibson's other X-Files episode, oh we'll get to it) but I kind of like how silly the tech stuff is. It's not like we always get it great now. I saw CSI Cyber.

I am legally obligated to include a shot of this, I don't make the rules.

Honestly, my biggest issue with the episode is that it doesn't go deep enough into its themes. I like Invisigoth's ranting about how much she thinks she can be together with David and preserve herself through the internet, and I really like the hints of a personality we get from the AI, but I wish we could get more of it. But as I've said in the past, I think the sign of a good episode is when you want more of it.

I'll be honest, as much as I love adaptations of Stephen King's work, I've never been able to get into his writing style. Conversely, I've always been a big fan of William Gibson's writing, like most good sci-fi nerds. So I guess it's no surprise that while I find Stephen King's episode passable, Gibson's is one of my all time favorites. Even if his second episode left uh...a little more to be desired.

We'll get to it, don't worry.

Case Notes:

• This is honestly one of my favorite cold openings in the entire series. It's just mysterious enough that you're not sure what's going on, but it lines up with what happens later pretty well.
• I do love the hacker in the diner's dialogue. We get a good read on him as a person in his like, 3 minutes of screen time.
• Dude takes like a full minute to actually do what he was intending to do, even after getting access. Solid 10 seconds to hit Enter. If he'd quit monologuing, he'd have accomplished it.
• I love how Mulder recognizes Gelman, and knows his entire backstory, off the top of his head. I'm not even mad, it's very Mulder.
• Mulder just hijacks the laptop, acknowledges it's evidence and does it anyway. Oh Mulder.
• I'd forgotten the Twilight Time CD makes Mulder's car go haywire.
• Scully figuring out that the answer is in Gelman's e-mail, while everyone else is trying to hack into his computer, is a good example of why she and Mulder work well together.
• Invisigoth. That is all.
• Jumping straight to "Getting shot from orbit by a weapon's platform" is a hell of a way to up the stakes, I'll give 'em that.
• Mulder groks to the fact that there's an AI behind everything more or less instantly. Oh Mulder.
• Invisigoth keeps telling Scully that she wouldn't understand but Scully wrote an essay on Einstein, you could at least try her.
• I don't even mind the massive pile of exposition that Invisigoth tosses at Mulder and Scully (and eventually the Lone Gunmen), it makes sense that she would explain it.
• When Invisigoth offers to use her tongue to type, Scully looks uh...distinctly interested.
• Mulder just goes looking for where the AI's node is alone? Not even taking Scully? Come on!
• It's too late for Scully, but she should have known that every hacker type is also into escape artistry, it makes sense she'd be able to slip the cuffs.
• I like the sudden moment of Invisigoth acting like a human being after she finds David's house wrecked.
• Mulder finding David utterly wrecked in the trailer is pretty freaky, not gonna lie.
• The spark effects when Mulder gets locked into the virtual reality bed thing are pretty bad though.
• I love that the episode completely commits to Mulder's virtual reality experience for a solid chunk of time. It's pretty scary on its own, but it doesn't tip its hand too early at what's going on.
• Invisigoth just has internet access in Scully's car and we all just accept it. Okay.
• The scene on the bridge feels like it shouldn't work, but I really like it.
• The siren outside the node goes off and Scully solves the problem the same way she solves every problem: By shooting it.
• Trapped inside a virtual reality torture device and Mulder still knows enough that Scully is nearby. When I say soul, you say mates.
• Scully just shoots her way into the node. This is why she's more effective than Mulder.
• The episode just completely skips over how the AI built the node thing, because that sort of question requires a week's answer or none at all.
• Esther uploading herself and then blowing up the node happens super fast, but I'll accept it. The closing dialogue and the bit with Frohike's computer telling him to bite me is great. Not so happy with the final bit in Nebraska, but whatever.
• As always these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so that I will feel even worse for going 2 weeks without posting a review.

Future Celebrity Watch:

Kristen Lehman, who plays Invisigoth, is a long working TV actress who's beginning to have a late career breakout. She played the lead on a Canadian TV show called Motive which ended in 2016 and is currently playing Miriam on Altered Carbon, a TV show I've never watched but which a lot of people assure me I'd like, probably cause I like Blade Runner.

Also Peter Williams who played the villain on Stargate SG-1 is apparently in the episode...someplace? He played Jackson according to IMDB but I have no idea who Jackson is.