Case 08, File 13: Per Manum

 AKA: Is An It's Alive Reference Here Too Esoteric?

While I've been pretty obviously bummed out about Duchovny's departure from the series, it's nothing compared to what the series has been going through. The series is caught between the desire to move on and make a clean break from the Duchovny era and feeling completely lost without the actor and relationship that used to be the anchor that they could build scripts around. And while that's not necessarily the worst place to be in, their terror to move on has led to them failing to actually build on what should be the new core partnership.

Our episode opens with a couple, Duffy and Kathy McCready, about to have their child, but when the father has to step out during a C-Section, the doctors uhhhh cut an alien baby out of the mother. And then euthanize her. Which I feel means it doesn't count as a successful birth. Anyway, later Scully is hanging around her apartment musing on her own baby (having just had an ultrasound) and when she heads into work she finds Doggett talking to Duffy McCready.

Turns out Duffy is a member of MUFON who told Mulder about his wife being abducted, given cancer, having that cancer cured and being unable to conceive before suddenly getting pregnant. He believes the doctors killed his wife and he wants Scully and Doggett to solve it. And before it can get anymore weird, Doggett points out that his wife's story is similar to Scully's. Except the getting pregnant part. He doesn't know about that yet.

After a quick flashback to when Mulder was still around (and he told her that he found her ova in a government lab) Scully goes to check out the doctor's office and finds a panicking pregnant woman. Oh and a storeroom full of mutant babies, that's weird. Scully, understandably weirded out, calls her doctor and wants him to look at her ultrasound and compare it to one from Ms. McCready. But her doctor is apparently in on it too, because he's dissecting an alien baby. It turns out basically everyone is in one it by the end, just roll with it.

After another flashback where her doctor tells her that her ova might be viable with a sperm donor, and consulting with her doctor in the present, Scully goes back to the office where Skinner and Doggett have some news of their own: Duffy is a weirdo crank who has sent threatening letters to...basically everyone, but Mulder especially. But it turns out that Duffy is ALSO in on it (told ya everyone was in on it) and later that night, the panicking lady from the doctor's office, Mary Hendershot, shows up at Scully's house and tells her that both their babies are in danger.

"Yes, I'm here, and I'm about to have a scene with Scully. Please, hold your applause till the end."

After a quick flashback where Mulder tells Scully he'll be her sperm donor, Scully meets up with Doggett and Skinner that night and tells them she's gonna disappear for a while, but she can't tell Doggett why. Despite being obviously hurt (seriously, he looks so sad), he finds out that Duffy has apparently been dead for decades and figures out he's a spook and goes to ask a friend of his about it (I didn't catch the dude's name in the watch, but wikipedia tells me his name is Knowle Rohrer) and eventually tells Skinner that Scully is in danger and they have to find her.

Hokay, turns out Scully has taken Mary to a hospital to try and protect her, but after Scully gets another ultrasound and finds out it was faked, she realizes her crack team of doctors are in on it too and tries to go on the run with Mary. She gets intercepted by Doggett's friend who offers to help, but he knocks her out as they deliver an alien baby and she awakens to find out she's fine and Mary's baby is normal, and realizes how completely she got played. And so the episode ends with Doggett promising to help her find Mulder and a last flashback about Scully finding out the sperm donation didn't work. Oh and Mulder is still on the spaceship.

Per Manum is a kind of episode I like a lot but the series doesn't do a lot, a Myth arc episode that doesn't really do too much to move the broader story forward, but still manages to reinforce how powerful the conspiracy is, to give a sense of how screwed our heroes are. And from that vantage point, it's pretty good, a neat little thriller with some solid emotional stakes. It's probably the kind of episode that should have come into the season earlier, since it essentially acts as Doggett's introduction to the conspiracy, but better late than never.

"I'm sorry, do you mind if we have this conversation someplace that doesn't look like that one scene in Alien Resurrection?"

Those emotional states mostly center around Scully, specifically her pregnancy and her relationship to Mulder. The flashbacks are textbook backfill but they work, both as reminders of how close Mulder and Scully's relationship and how weird and awkward Scully's relationship with Doggett is by contrast. And it's really good at that; If nothing else, Mulder and Scully still have excellent chemistry and the flashbacks emphasize how close they'd gotten by Season Seven. Asking someone to be your sperm donor is the sort of thing that requires you be pretty close, I suspect.

On the other hand, Doggett and Scully are still pretty clearly uncomfortable with each other, and the episode does a good job of communicating that, from Scully being annoyed that Doggett read her files in the X-Files, to Doggett being very clearly hurt that Scully is bolting without telling him where she's going, while Scully seems a little torn about lying to him. These are solid character building interactions and both actors sell them pretty well. This makes the final scene, where Doggett realizes how badly they got played but also vows to help Scully anyway, actually land pretty hard. If Doggett and Scully are going to be stuck together for the long haul, it's good to show their partnership growing (the fact that Reyes is about to show up in the next episode is something I'm just going to have to live with).

The conspiracy thriller aspect works reasonably well too, even if it does stretch credulity that basically every doctor in Scully's orbit is in on it. Most of the Myth arc episodes of late have focused more heavily on the alien aspect, shapeshifters and spaceships, so it's nice to have an episode that just has a group of humans teaming up to screw over our heroes. I'm not saying I don't love me some Alien Bounty Hunter, but I remember when our experience of the conspiracy was like 3 dudes with guns, it's nice to feel a little more grounded sometimes.

And it works, because the stakes are clear and the actors sell it. I love the concurrent scenes where both Doggett and Scully realize how badly they're getting played and try to act, ultimately in vain. Having us know, from the get go, that the alien babies are real and that the doctors will kill to cover it up, keeps us on our toes, and means that even if the conspiracy gets the alien baby (which they do) at least saving Scully's new friend (and Scully herself) feels like they accomplished something. And that's nice, I like it when I feel like our heroes did something.

"No John, I won't sing the Ballad of Jayne. It's...too painful."

The issues are minor, most of them settling on some weird directing or setting choices, which is odd because it's overall a very nice looking episode, with a lot of good camera movements and smooth transitions between flashbacks and modern day. The episode takes some slightly annoying shortcuts here and there, which have the result of making those moments feel like the screenwriters moving characters, rather than character actions; How Mary finds Scully's apartment or why Scully decides to go with some guy she doesn't know cause he says he knows Doggett, for example, are mysteries to me. And while we're at it, both Scully and the doctor she's talking to seem way too calm about being in a room full of mutated fetuses. Is that a normal thing for a doctor's office to have? I feel like one of them should have brought it up.

The core question of Season Eight (and by extension, Season Nine) is whether the show should have kept going without Mulder at all, a question the series is desperate to not have to answer. Trying to drag a series kicking and screaming into extra seasons when its lost its core character is rarely worth it (witness: The Office, Scrubs, 10 Simple Rules etc.), and The X-Files was already groaning under its own weight a full season ago. And Per Manum is a strong argument that, yes, the show could be perfectly fine with Doggett and Scully, so long as it had good writing and was more willing to figure out what their relationship should actually be.

Case Notes:

• The cold open is very "Budget horror movie" but it gets the setup done fast enough. Plus I do like casualness with which the doctors deliver an alien baby.
• I feel like Scully looking at her ultrasound and checking her stomach is the first reminder we've gotten for a while that she's pregnant.
• Scully and Doggett's reactions to "My wife gave birth to an alien" is pretty solid.
• The flashback conversation between Mulder and Scully is mostly just backfill but it's a good scene. I'd be worried about including it though, Anderson and Duchovny still have so much chemistry.
• The camera is really moving in this episode, especially circling around rooms and around Scully. I'm not knocking it, it looks nice.
• Scully wandering into a room full of mutated babies is really freaky.
• Scully's doctor being in on the mutant babies is an obvious mid-episode twist, but they handle it well and he's got a nice, calming affect that doesn't make it obvious.
• Scully gets told that her ova could be viable with a sperm donor and immediately thinks of Mulder. Awww.
• Doggett is mostly being left in the dark in this episode and he seems reasonably annoyed by it.
• Duffy turning out to be in on it is a better mid-episode twist, since he seemed way more genuine.
• Mulder and Scully's conversation about him being a sperm donor is so good. Mulder even sneaks a masturbation joke in there.
• I like the scene with the OB/GYN people, lot of dialogue moving pretty fast and it's pretty well acted.
• Doggett finding out that Duffy is a spook off a random fingerprint is good, he seems like a thorough guy.
• I guess Doggett's backstory would give him some friends in military intelligence, but him just randomly knowing a guy who can find out who Duffy is seem convenient.
• I have to ask, what kind of dumbass conspiracy just leaves the VHS of their fake ultrasound in the VCR with the patient?
• Again, Robert Patrick sells his panic in the third act really well, especially when he seems to suddenly get how badly outmatched he is by the conspiracy.
• The third act of this episode has a lot of tension and some really solid built in stakes. Scully realizing (a bit too late) that she fucked up hard by trusting Doggett's friend is really good and it kind of emphasizes how doomed they were from the start.
• The final scene with Doggett and Scully is really solid and the kind of scene I've been begging for all season, one where Scully and Doggett bond over their shared hardship and their desire to find Mulder (albeit for different reasons). I also really it in comparison to the final flashback with Mulder and Scully, it emphasizes their different relationships without making one better or worse.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out cause we've got big things incoming.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Jay Acovone, who plays Duffy Haskell in this episode, was best known for playing the DA (apparently a main character) in the 1980s Beauty and the Beast TV show. Hey did you know George RR Martin wrote for that show? Wild.

In addition, one of the doctors is played by Mark Snow, an incredibly accomplished TV composer whose most famous works include a little known show called The X-Files.

Future Celebrity Watch:

Doggett's friend, Knowle Rohrer, is played by Adam Baldwin. While Adam Baldwin was already reasonably well known for his role in Full Metal Jacket (and 26 episodes on something called Firehawks which doesn't warrant a Wikipedia entry) he wouldn't gain real notoriety until his main role on Firefly as Jayne Cobb. He's currently on The Last Ship and spends his free time being kind of a garbage human online.

And finally Meagan Follows, who plays Mrs. McCready, was known in Canada at the time for playing the titular character in a TV adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, but now she's probably better known for playing Catherine de' Medici on Reign.