Case 08, File 06: Redrum

AKA: No It's Not Related To The Shining

As much as I mock the Revenge From Beyond the Grave plot setup, it's mostly a punching bag because many of the episodes that use it are pretty bad, not cause the series usually has a wide variety of complex plot setups. While The X-Files can have extremely creative monsters and ideas, it usually has pretty straightforward plots, and that's not a complaint. When you have 43 minutes to tell a complete story, you kind of have to fall back on easy to understand plot beats so you don't have to worry about confusing your audience. What that does mean is that the plots that are uniquely put together stand out.

Our episode kicks off with a guy named Wells waking up in prison on Friday and not having any idea how he got there. He's apparently been accused of murdering his wife, and Scully and Doggett are there, mad at him and acting like they know he's guilty of something. Before he can figure out what's happening, he's being transferred to another prison, but his stepfather shoots him before he can figure it out.

But it turns out to not be such an issue, as he wakes up the next morning. Only now it's Thursday. We've all figured out what's going on at this point, but he's gonna take a few more scenes, just deal with it. Scully and Doggett show up, apparently still pissed at him, and confront him with some key evidence in his wife's murder, suggesting that he did it. At his bail hearing, he recognizes his father-in-law and freaks out, but gets bail denied anyway. Oh and I guess he's a prosecutor? They really hammer that point, it's relevant.

Wells meets with Scully and Doggett again, and Scully suggests she believes he didn't do it. Later he meets with his kids and their nanny and comes up with an idea, but when he gets his attorney to grab the nanny cam from his house, it seems to indicate he's the only one who's been in his house. But then he goes to sleep and wakes up on Wednesday and when he meets his attorneys for what is, for them, the first time, he starts to cotton onto what's going on. 

Look, I have simple tastes. I see a serious looking lawyer carrying a stuffed bunny, I laugh.

When out in the yard waiting for Doggett and Scully to show up, he gets his face slashed by a dude with a spiderweb tattoo on his hand and that's kinda it for this day. The next day he awakens on Dogget's couch on Tuesday and starts putting together what happened. Namely, he starts working with Doggett and figures out that for him to be the only one on the Nanny Cam, the killer had to have turned off the Nanny Cam, and only the nanny knows about the Nanny Cam. So they go to her house and find the dude with the spiderweb tattoo there.

The guy with the spiderweb tattoo it turns out is named Hector, and he hates Wells for prosecuting his brother, and sitting on evidence that his brother was innocent, causing him to get a 3rd strike life sentence and kill himself in prison which uh...yeah, there's no way around that, that's fucked up, fuck Wells. But the cops arrest Wells anyway cause uh...look, there's no way to not point out that cops are racist here, so I'm just gonna move on.

Namely onto Wells waking up on Monday morning and going to Doggett and confessing to illegally sitting on evidence in an effort to get Doggett to help him save his wife. Wells gets to his apartment but neither his wife nor Hector is there. But that happy moment is undone seconds later when his wife and then Hector arrive. Hector overpowers them both but Doggett saves the day by shooting Hector, and thus the episode ends with Wells in prison for sitting on the evidence. Oh and Mulder is still on the spaceship.

I don't know if this is a controversial opinion, but I totally dig this episode. Maybe I'm just a big fan of backwards episodes (yes, The Betrayal is one of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld) but this episode does really work for me. It's got a solid setup, a unique way of telling its story and some good acting to anchor it all. I know some people are annoyed that it doesn't feature our leads much, but it's nice to get outside of the usual style of an episode, even if it is completely biting (heh) Hungry's style of refusing to follow our usual leads.

"Hey, should you be investigating my case if we're close enough that you let me crash on your couch, or am I just not worrying about it?

There's lots of elements that click, but I think the most important in this case is the script. The episode needs us to stay a few beats ahead of Wells in the unraveling of the mystery, and while it's not always subtle about that (the spiderweb tattoo serves basically no purpose except to visually tie into Wells waking up, and alert the audience that he's important), it accomplishes it pretty well. It manages to have nice little touches, such as the nanny showing up naturally so you don't think she's going to come back and then BAM she's important in the finale. It's not complex, but it keeps the plot ticking the entire time.

It also helps that the episode has a genuine point and a character arc for Wells. It's abbreviated, yes, but the fact that Wells is pressuring his lawyer to sit on the nanny cam footage at the midpoint is a solid setup for his change. And I like that Hector's motivation is entirely sympathetic; It would have been very easy to write him as a dude who was just mad he got caught, but by giving him a real reason to be murderously angry at Wells makes him feel more human, and it ties into Wells' character arc, realizing how shitty a person he'd been as a prosecutor, nicely.

It's all held together by some really good acting. Morton is really good as Wells, selling how confused he is as the days move backward before managing to make his character shift feel real enough to be convincing. It's certainly good that he's up to the task, as he has to anchor most of the episode, with Doggett and Scully almost entirely absent (although Doggett does get enough screen time to make his friendship with Wells feel authentic). And yeah, Danny Trejo is really good as Hector, we all know Danny Trejo is good at what he does, and the episode has the good sense to give him an extended monologue.

"You're lucky I only killed your wife, my brother is a spy and-oh, that's not in this continuity."

If the script has a major flaw it's that the ending feels a little off, compared to the rest of the episode. Maybe it's the kind of lame final voiceover or maybe it's that the ending feels like it's going someplace way darker before it ends on its happy ending, but the final few moments feel off. Not enough to undercut the story or make it noticeably worse, it just doesn't totally stick the landing. Following Wells rather than Doggett or Scully is a neat trick but it kind of forces the script to screech to a halt when the main story is over. It's a shame too cause the rest of the script really works.

Outside of the script and acting, there's actually not a whole lot to talk about; It's nicely directed, but doesn't feature any major effects and nothing particularly flashy, so that kind of leaves me without a solid ending to this review...much like the episode itself, hey, meta. Redrum is just exactly what it seems like on the tin, a decent little Monster of the Week, built around a very solid script and good character work.

 Case Notes:

• I gotta admit, if I woke up with a spider THAT close to my face, I'd probably freak out.
• I like this cold open, it's nice and mysterious, especially since Wells doesn't seem to know what the hell is going on either.
• The shot of the watch going backward is a little on the cheesy side though, I get it, we're doing a time thing.
• The actor playing Wells is doing a great job selling his confusion and I think Robert Patrick is doing a really great job selling how angry he is at Wells.
• Wells says "This is not happening" which I thought was a later episode.
• The court room scene is most exposition, but I dunno what Wells thought was gonna happen when he started ranting about how his father-in-law is gonna shoot him in court.
• Wells starts going at the premonition thing early in his conversation with Doggett and Scully, does he know that Doggett is on the X-Files?
• I love Scully asking Wells how can he be sure he didn't kill his wife if he can't remember, it's a good line and Anderson sells it.
• I love the image of his lawyer carrying in a teddy bear, it's great.
• Of course Wells is gonna be on the Nanny Cam, it'd be more surprising if he wasn't.
• Martin meets his lawyer and immediately starts ranting about the Nanny Cam because he still hasn't cottoned on to what's going on.
• The scene with Wells in the yard is edging close to racist caricature but it does make a solid point about how his actions as a prosecutor affected other people (adding six months to a dude's sentence for having a wrench fucking sucks).
• Scully is willing to hop on the "Time is moving backwards" train fast.
• Doggett saying "Freakin'" makes me realize that Mulder and Scully rarely, if ever, say that. Is he supposed to be more foul mouthed cause he's a former cop? Cause that's hilariously hard to pull of with TV restrictions.
• If I was Wells I'd be happy I'm not waking up in the jail anymore.
• I feel like Doggett shouldn't be investigating the case if he's close enough to Wells to let him crash with him, but that's another issue altogether.
• Wells has to have a better way to go about telling people what he knows than just immediately starting rambling about the days of the week.
• The bit with Doggett and Wells solving the mystery is really solid, it feels like it could be the climax, but it's just far enough away from the end credits to keep us guessing.
• It's pretty obvious that Wells has to go back and try to stop the murder, but I like that they do it in such a way that he has to change who he is and maybe lose everything to try and stop it, especially since he confesses to Doggett he sat on evidence.
• The police officer says that it's 4:20 and I reflexively said "Nice."
• I like the bit where the episode pretends that Vicky is still gonna die (and even pretends for a moment that Martin is gonna do it accidentally) since the episode is unpredictable enough to go for that.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Time is only moving forward for me, so check it out cause I can't go back and undo the terrible decisions I've made.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Wells is played by Joe Morton, an actor who was a ways out from his big breakout role as Olivia Pope's dad on Scandal but was, at this point, best known for his role as the head scientist in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, alongside uh...another X-Files actor. I actually don't think he and Robert Patrick ever share a scene. 

Future Celebrity Watch:

Danny Trejo, who plays Hector, is, of course, a very well known character actor, at this point already known for playing toughs in movies like Desperado and Con Air, but was about to break out after a major role in Spy Kids, which would of course spin off to the VERY different Machete franchise. Aside from that, his list of roles is too long to really list here, but he's great.

And finally Wells' lawyer is played by Bellamy Young who was also going to have a main role on Scandal as Mellie Grant. She also played Dr. Miller on Scrubs, which is normally such a minor role that I wouldn't even note it, but the episode she's in were on in the background when I was writing this review, so I thought it would make for a funny note.