"Demons"

"What do you want, to kill him again?"
Originally Aired 5/11/97

Ahhhhhh! Ice cream brain freeze!

Just wanted to start by saying this is another of many from Season 4 that I haven't already watched. What I knew going into the episode was that Mulder had amnesia and there were "flashbacks" to his childhood, except what happened was so outlandish yet entertaining.

"Demons" begins with a great teaser, where it appears Mulder is dreaming, then wakens to find he's wearing a blood-soaked shirt. He phones Scully and tells her he doesn't know what's happened to him. She comes to his aid and we discover he's also fired his gun twice, as well as drove someone's car. Immediately my mind jumped back to "Paper Hearts", which had a fantastic plot, yet was so implausible that Mulder would still be employed after letting a convicted child murderer escape custody. In this episode I was entertained by the way the events unfolded, yet once again it's crazy to think Mulder would still have a job in the FBI for another 4 years. I tried really hard to ignore that, until Mulder confronted his mother about his childhood. He asked her if she had a fling with the Smoking Man, when she lets him have it and slaps her son! Yes! At that moment I was able to totally let go and even a line from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme popped into my head, "Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'" Not only that, I started thinking about what holiday meals at the Mulder house would be like, possibly with Mama Mulder asking if Fox would pass the corn, to which he says, "like the way you passed your daughter over to the aliens?!"

When the mystery of what happened to Mulder was finally revealed, its such a Season One-styled story that focuses on Mulder's wildly driven quest for the truth, not just about aliens but also his sister. In Season One, there was an episode where he investigated a possible x-file because of something he read in a magazine. That was "Conduit", which showed his wild way of investigating things and showcased first-hand how much his sister's abduction affected him. This time in "Demons" he read about an experimental form of therapy and wanted to try it out, which isn't out of character for Mulder since he's already been hypnotized in the past. The gripe I had about Mulder remaining an FBI agent was explained through that therapy. The experimental treatment caused these reactions in the patients, so Mulder wouldn't be charged for murder. The ending narration with Scully typing a report was also Season One-inspired, serving a purpose with Scully explaining what happened to Mulder. It was a good conclusion to an excellently-crafted and, most importantly, a fun mystery.

Even though I know how the season finale ends, this episode was a great way to foreshadow what's going to happen to Mulder. It's just like the ending to last season, where what seemed like another standalone episode actually sets up what would happen to Mulder's mysterious informant named X. It's so strange to think that two very important episodes came from unusual sources. "Demons" is definitely an episode that will get a lot of spins in my dvd player.

Gotta love 1990's futuristic gadgets. This looks like Mulder is wearing those lame virtual reality glasses.