Case 07, File 10: Sein Und Zeit

AKA: Law And Order: Ghost Victims Unit

Despite Mulder's motivation being (supposedly) the loss of his sister, The X-Files doesn't really do kidnappings. Oh it's done it once or twice but for the most part, not counting alien abductions, actual kidnappings are pretty rare. There's probably a complex psychological reason behind it, with kidnapping being just a little too real and dark, or maybe they just don't want to have to keep checking in on their victim in the script, who knows. Hence we all know that when they do kidnapping, it's cause Mulder wants to make it personal.

Our episode opens up with a family (the LaPierre's) putting their daughter Amber Lynn to bed. While the father watches TV, the mother goes to her bedroom and...writes a ransom note in a trance? Anyway, the father has a vision of their daughter dead and then she goes missing. Mulder, being a normal, well adjusted man, decides he's going to insert himself into the case and go question the parents and since Skinner is an enabler, he lets Mulder do that.

So Mulder heads off to California and questions the parents and ends up deciding they didn't kill their daughter, which is what everyone thinks happened. Scully heads out to find out what's taking Mulder so long and while they're hanging out Mulder's mom calls to be kind of cryptic and ask to talk to him later. After they check out the ransom note the mom wrote (which literally everyone can tell she wrote) Mulder remembers another disappeared child in the 80s, where the mother wrote a ransom note that contained the phrase "Nobody shoots at Santa Claus."

So Mulder goes off and finds the mother in jail and bugs her about her experiences and how she confessed to killing her son (she says she confessed cause she thought she would get a lighter sentence) and also asks her to help the LaPierres by telling them that other people have had the same experience they're having. She eventually has a vision of her son and agrees to help, which makes the FBI...drop the case against the LaPierres? I feel like there had to be more to that, normal people would never accept Mulder deciding psychic nonsense is responsible.

I didn't mention the blood under the doorway because I forget if it comes back at any point and just gets kinda dropped.

Anyway, next up Mulder gets back to DC and finds out his mom committed suicide. I don't have a way to make that funny and I'm not gonna try. So after investigating her apartment, he decides she can't have killed herself and decides that the Conspiracy must have gotten to her for uh...some reason relating to Samantha? I didn't totally follow his logic train on this, I think it's supposed to be bad logic cause he's grieving. Anyway, it turns out that his mom had terminal cancer that was going to be painful and disfiguring, so that's why she killed herself. This whole bit is pretty raw and real so I'm just gonna move on to stuff I can make jokes about.

So the LaPierres have a vision of Amber Lynn saying the number 74, but Mulder decides to take himself off the case because he's having a bad week. Before they can get back to DC though, Scully sees a Santa's Village off Route 74 and puts that together with the "Nobody shoots at Santa" thing and decides to go check it out. They find footage of Amber Lynn there and before they can dig further, the guy who runs the place tries to run. But they catch him in a field with a lot of graves dug in it. Can...can this episode give me something I can joke about? Oh it's over? Okay.

Sein Und Zeit exists as the first part of a two parter, but that's not immediately obvious when watching it. The episode acts, at least at first, like it's just a normal Monster of the Week episode with some vague Samantha allusions, which is rare but not unheard of. The sudden shift in the second act, with Mulder's mom dying, is what carries us into the next episode. And while we'll get into my feelings on the resolution of the Samantha plotline in the next review, this episode works pretty well.

I think the key to its success is that it doesn't overplay its hand on the reveal that we're in a two parter too early, and it certainly doesn't overplay the fact that we're sort of (sort of) in a Myth Arc episode. For the most part the episode acts like a Monster of the Week episode, focusing heavily on the weird psychic ransom notes the mom's write and the visions of the kids the parents are having (which look kind of silly, I'm sorry). Revealing at the 2/3rd mark that Mulder's mom is gone and that we're probably going to be dealing with that for a couple episode makes it hit harder than if they started out with it.

"Yeah, I went for the full serial killer TV setup, I want anyone who walks into this room to INSTANTLY know I'm a murderer."

The mystery is pretty solid too, a nice little Monster of the Week with some extra details that make it work. I like that Scully is the one to make the big leap in logic in the finale, it shows how Mulder is rubbing off on her and also how Mulder is distracted with grief. I like Mulder remembering a random line from a ransom note 13 years earlier, it's unrealistic but very Mulder for him to do that. I really like the scene with the mother in jail and Mulder, it's well acted and it feels very tense, even while it's a small, dialogue heavy scene.

And then there's the part that dominates the back half, Mulder's mother's suicide. It's a testament to how good Duchovny is in the back half of this episode that it feels as raw and real as it is, since it just sort of comes out of nowhere (except for a brief appearance in the season premier, Teena hasn't been seen since season four). Handling actual character death in a TV show as usually light as this is tough, and while Buffy the Vampire Slayer's episode The Body is the brass ring at it, this episode hits pretty hard, primarily because Duchovny sells the hell out of it. And as I said, I'm having trouble making jokes about it, so I'm gonna abruptly change subjects here.

The episode isn't perfect, most of the weak spots happening because the mystery has to share screentime with Teena's death and thus has reduced time to run through its paces. The villain is the big one; He kind of jumps out of nowhere in the third act, has maybe one scene before he's caught (okay 1.1) and that mostly feels like they realized he didn't do anything before he's caught and they should at least establish him. The whole mystery gets dropped once Mulder's mother takes over the story and they bring it back in the final moments in way that feels abrupt.

I don't have a joke here, this moment is really touching and this is a nice shot.

I had some distinct memories of disliking this pair of episodes, for reasons that I'll either get into or disprove next time, but this episode is still very compelling. The series may be coasting a bit on my existing affection for the characters, but the actors still bring it and the script is still compelling. I'm interested to see if I'm more willing to accept the next episode, now that I'm older and more interested in emotional resonance and less in the Lore.

Still don't think I'm gonna be too kind to Season Eight and Nine.

Case Notes:

• If media has taught me anything, reciting "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" before going to sleep means something horrible is gonna happen while you're asleep.
• They're watching an actual contemporary show in the cold open instead of an old movie, which is so rare on this show that it actually surprised me.
• I forget why the mom is writing the ransom note but it kind of gets lost in the middle of the dad having weird visions, I would have separated them rather than intercutting them.
• Mulder wants to help on a normal sane kidnapping (as far as anyone knows) and Skinner is trying to talk him out of it. I feel like Skinner should be trying to steer Mulder towards cases that keep him from getting bitten by snakes.
• The family hired a real estate lawyer to try and help them. I know both they, and their lawyer, are supposed to be out of their depth but come on.
• I like that the series is actually acknowledging that a kidnapping is going to wind up a media circus and that's bad for everyone, it makes the stakes feel more real.
• Mulder, even on a "Normal" case, tries to solve it by watching tv in the dark with the sound off. He must have weirded out his partners on normal cases.
• Mulder's mom looks so different from what how she normally does, I had to check to make sure she wasn't played by a different actress.
• Since it comes up in this episode, I'd like to remind all of you that handwriting analysis is basically nonsense.
• I love how basically everyone in the FBI meeting is waiting for Mulder to say something insane.
• Mulder remembers a weird single line from another ransom note from what was, at the time of the episode, 13 years earlier. Mulder is basically Sherlock if he was funnier sometimes.
• Mulder just tells this poor woman in prison the facts of her own case. I think she knows them Mulder.
• I like the zoom in, zoom out on the TV as the transition, it's an easy shot but I'm a sucker for it.
• I wonder if other FBI Agents get sick of Mulder and Scully just wandering in and turning their cases into supernatural nonsense.
• Mulder's mom dying suddenly at the 2/3rd mark is a surprising and intense way to go into a commercial break, I'll give them that.
• I appreciate the episode giving the impression that Mulder is trying to cope with his mom's death by looking for conspiracies and explanations, it's a very Mulder way of dealing with it.
• Any other FBI Agent in the world, when the lady in prison started talking about how the kidnapped kids "Live in the starlight," would have peaced out.
• The cut to the Santa's village is good for making us understand that the dude behind it is a bad guy, but who is taking their kid to a Santa's Village outside of Christmas?
• The fact that Mulder's mom killed herself because she was dying of a horrible disease is so weirdly human and Mulder's mix of fury and sadness at it is so good. It's a pretty powerful moment frankly.
• That said, Scully trying to hold Mulder is visually awkward given that he has 9 inches on her.
• Scully just spends the night at Mulder's apartment and Skinner doesn't even question it.
• It took me a moment to realize that Amber Lynn's parents haven't met Scully before, they usually come as a unit.
• I like Mulder just kind of collapsing in the third act and taking himself off the case, like much of the episode it's very small and quiet and sad.
• I feel like you could make a drinking game out of the number of times Mulder and Scully just walk into someone's private place without probable cause.
• The killer's only strategy for when he got caught was "Lock the FBI Agents in the Room Full of Evidence and book it." Try harder dude.
• The end of episode pan out on the all the graves is grim and also makes me wonder how no one has ever noticed them before, they're really obviously graves.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. I don't have a joke here that isn't incredibly grim, so just go check it out.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Kim Darby, who plays Kethy Lee Tencate (the woman in prison) has been in a bunch of stuff, but she's best known for playing Mattie Ross in the 1969 version of True Grit. I prefer the 2010 version, but she was good in that