"The Amazing Maleeni"

"Young man, shall I come heckle you on your job? Make sure you count out the requisite number of McNuggets?"
Originally Aired 1/16/00

At the beginning of this episode, a character was asked if he was "ready to rumble?" It reminded me of a recent email I received through my account at my place of employment- a radio station, which is that we're not allowed to use that catch phrase without consent from Michael Buffer. Maybe FOX allowed The X-Files to use it since it's a varation on the phrase and didn't include the beginning portion, which actually is more of a command- "let's get ready to rumble", than it is a question.

Nonetheless, this episode actually turned out to be a fine, little mystery involving magic, without any elements of the paranormal to be found. I expected it to be funny and at least mildly entertaining since it comes from the trio of writers, John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz, and Vince Gilligan, who are credited with "Leonard Betts" and "Dreamland". I feel like magic and magicians is a hard concept and this is probably the best they could do, even with Vince Gilligan attached. Honestly though, it's not the script that is lacking this time, it's the casting choices. While they went with real magicians (Ricky Jay as Maleeni and Johnathan Levit as Billy LaBonge) and it does add a sense of realism to "The Amazing Maleeni", the comedic tone doesn't seem to hit the mark that it should. It's not just the magicians, even this week's supporting cast seems flat. Despite that, David Duchovny seems like he's having fun even though he's again taking a backseat to this week's guest cast. There really hasn't been much meat for David and Gillian this season outside the "Sixth Extinction" pair of episodes, though this is likely the most fun they've had in an episode all year.

Despite Ricky Jay's acting talents, I found the character of "The Amazing Maleeni", or rather Herman Pinchbeck, to be another in a long line of relatable X-Files guest characters. His speech to Mulder and Scully reminded me so much of Vince Gilligan's previous creation, Eddie Van Blundht. I read that Frank Spotnitz had championed the idea of a "magic" episode for the series for several years, but much of the humor seems to be from the mind of Vince. I wonder if that left John Shiban's contribution to be the twist-filled bank robbery plot? He did pen one of my favorites, "The Pine Bluff Variant", which had an equal amount of turns in it's 45 minute run time.

Several episodes in the early years of The X-Files felt like they borrowed from episodes of The Outer Limits and Kolchak The Night Stalker, but this week's episode feels too much like that recent movie Now You See Me. That was my least favorite of 2013, and among the worst that I've paid money for a ticket to see. Actually, I think it is nearly beat for beat, the same story as it revolves around stolen cash and a revenge plot. The FBI even allows the criminals to "get away" with their tricks and misdeeds. In Now You See Me everything was spelled out and removed all mystery, and it even happens here when Mulder finally reveals all of their tricks and slight of hand, but at least he's ahead of the game and wasn't the one that needed everything explained. Well, he did say he's The Great Muldini, which could've worked as a possible episode title, too.

I felt this would be a strong contender for "best of the season" if it weren't for the one liners falling flat. Next week is one I've watched years ago, but I'm looking forward to what February has to offer, since all four are "brand new" episodes- "Sein Und Zeit", "Closure", "X-Cops", and "First Person Shooter."

X-Files Rerun: "Fearful Symmetry"

"It's not really black hole season, either."
Originally Aired 2/24/95

Mulder says it may not be black hole season, though it sure feels like it is, since the middle of Season 2 could very much be the 'black hole of suck.' I feel like it started off pretty awesome, then ended on a super high note with it's best season finale in "Anasazi", while the middle of the season is hit or miss. Much like Season One, you can almost bet that an outstanding episode will be followed by a turd. That might sound really harsh towards Season Two, which I absolutely love, yet "Fearful Symmetry" is one I can say I never watch. I put it right up there... or down there, with "Space." So much for February Sweeps.

The opening teaser is pretty intense and looked incredibly life-like as an invisible elephant stampedes through town and light poles bend, road construction barricades are sent flying, and a car's windows explode. This is from an area before computerized effects were commonplace, so I'm wondering how this was achieved by the special effects crew. Those guys were ahead of the curve , so I'm sure they devised some practical means of executing it. The teaser also features the stellar dance moves of a young janitor named Roberto, though I can't place his older janitor partner. I recognized his familiar face, though I misidentified him as the guy on Seinfeld who said, "you don't want to wear the ribbon?!" I think that guy had thicker hair, so I relied on an internet search to end the mystery. Turns out I was wrong, and he actually shows up later in the series as a henchman of the Cigarette Smoking Man, named Luis Cardinal. Coincidentally, he was smoking a cigarette in this episode.

The plot of "Fearful Symmetry" involving zoo animals and UFO's reminded me of an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, although its been far too long to remember what the connection was other than "zoo" and "UFO". That's probably a good thing. I completely forgot the episode includes a wildlife organization that butts heads with the zoo over animal rights, reminding me somewhat of Season One's "Darkness Falls" where an environmentalist was a red herring. That environmentalist was another familiar face, who'd later portray the villain on the series Lost, while the guy in "Fearful Symmetry" was also one I didn't recognize off the bad. Another internet search led me to find out he was in Halloween II as the EMT that helps Laurie in the hospital. Except he looks like he didn't age as well as Jamie Lee Curtis.

This episode's plot may not have thrilled me but I did get a kick out of the brief Lone Gunmen appearance, and this is a time where two out of three really isn't bad. Frohike and Byers appearance "live via satellite" in a video chat with Mulder long before webcams and Skype chats, and Frohike even makes a crack about how much it'll cost the taxpayers. "Beam me up, Scotty!" is also said by Frohike. For such a lukewarm plot, the one-off writer of this episode (Steve De Jarnatt) really nailed the humorous dialogue between Mulder and his buddies. That's one thing I noticed early on in my fandom, that when it's a regular series writer you can usually bank on a good episode, though when it's a one-off writer it's nearly always a stinker. Much like the opening teaser, the series always had cool visuals and I rather liked the sequence where a tiger mauled a guy with the environmental group. They masked it by filming it as a reflection in a camera lens. Later Scully actually performed an autopsy on the elephant!

"I'm buff."

"Orison"

"Love your hair."
Originally Aired 1/9/99

This episode of The X-Files features a song, "Don't Look Any Further", that appears as an omen to Agent Scully throughout the hour. On Friday afternoon, hours before I was to watch this episode, I hopped into a rental car and started the engine, with the radio instantly powering into a song midway through. It happened to be this song, and I enjoyed it, not yet clued into the fact that this song played a role in "Orison." I realized after I cleaned the rental car that I had slipped my phone in my back pocket and sat on it, cracking the screen, although the phone was on it's last legs anyway. I took a lunch hour and drove to purchase a new cellphone, when it dawned on me. "It's that F'N song!! It jinxed me!" is what I shouted when I realized "Don't Look Any Further" was going to be in the same X-Files episode I was to watch later that night. Another odd coincidence I realized later while driving back from the cellphone store is that this is the third X-Files sequel to a monster-of-the-week episode (following Tooms' return in Season One and Pusher returning in Season Five), and all three of the original episodes are in my Top 10. So revisiting "Orison" has a lot to live up to.

"Orison" features the return series villain, Donnie Pfaster, who was a 'death fetishist' since they couldn't say 'necrophiliac' on the FOX Network. He stalked and abducted Scully in his first appearance in "Irresistible" in Season Two, following her previous abduction at the hands on Duane Barry. Scully was really put through the ringer in Season Two, so Mulder attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Scully from leaving this case when they realized Pfaster has escaped from prison at the beginning of "Orison"; kind of seems like they traveled a long way just for Mulder to talk her out of the investigation when they're already on the scene. Maybe he should have attempted that before they boarded a plane for Illinois.

Donnie's first appearance was scripted by Chris Carter and directed by David Nutter, who would later direct the pilot for Carter's other series Millennium, which they say this episode led to the creation of that series. Chip Johannessen, who wrote and produced many episodes of Millennium, is credited for the script for "Orison", and I feel this episode is in the same vein as many that aired on that series. While in "Irresistible", Donnie was merely a man with a twisted obsession and only appeared as a demon in Scully's imagination, this episode plays that up as fact- that Donnie is evil incarnate. I actually like that they went all the way with that aspect of Donnie, even though it may betray part of the original episode. What happens here is that the "Orison" in the title of the episode is Reverend Orison, a prison chaplain, who has made final judgment and killed several prisoners, feeling that he was doing the Lord's work. But he ultimately ended up with more than he bargained for when he picked Donnie as his chosen one, since he's more than just a man. This is exactly what I meant when I said it felt like a Millennium episode, since that series featured demons, and many even tempted the series' main character Frank Black (who actually appeared earlier this season.) One such episode, "Goodbye Charlie", focused on man who was euthanizing elderly folk, and Frank Black questioned whether he was doing the work of the Lord or the Devil.

Mulder and Scully again seem like passengers in this episode, with Mulder popping in to explain his theory on Rev. Orison to Scully and the moments when she hears that song, "Don't Look Any Further." The case is wrapped up within the first three acts, earlier than usual, so it should clue in the viewers that there's going to be an epic conclusion. I felt it was a little too convenient, like it may have been lacking more dialogue between Mulder and Scully since they casually exit the investigation and leave it in the hands of the Marshalls. Donnie is seen even throwing a fit when he can't have a girl with red hair...

The ending even reminds me of another moment on Millennium, when Frank Black is pushed to his limits and beyond, much like Scully when she's again abducted by Donnie Pfaster. However once she's abducted, I felt the song changed its meaning from being just an omen with it's title of "Don't Look Any Further", to something far more sinister. As Donnie is drawing a bath and laying out an assortment of shampoos while Scully is crawling for her life towards her gun, this song plays over that entire scene. The sequence is chilling, maybe one of the best directed moments I've seen on the series since the intense finale moments of the Syndicate in "Two Fathers."

Scully questions what force was at work in her during those finale moments, God or the Devil, and that cements the Millennium connection even further within "Orison", and strengthens the overall bond between Carter's two series. The Rev. Orison believed he was working on behalf of the Lord, and his line to Donnie of "whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed" is actually taken from the book of Genesis. The song even says "you need a man to take over", and I felt during that sequence that maybe it was implying Scully needed Donnie to "take over" in a twisted way as lit candles, though maybe the song really was an omen for her and she just need to led a higher power take over and pass judgment on Pfaster. Either way, this is the strongest episode yet of these early Season Seven installments.

X-Files Rerun: "End Game"

"It's over, the fat lady is singing."
Originally Aired 2/17/95

The follow-up to "Colony" features another extended monologue to Mulder about clones and hybrid experiments, this time from his "sister" Samantha. She seems far less believable than CIA Agent Ambrose Chapel, but with Scully now a prisoner of the Alien Bounty Hunter, who does he have left to turn to? Skinner even put his ass on the line for Mulder not once, but twice, after telling him to drop the case last week when an FBI agent turned up dead because of him. So with Skinner on his side, the two Mulder kids meet the Bounty Hunter at a bridge for a switcheroo to get Scully back. Mulder tells his "sister" not to take any risks when she's handed over to the Bounty Hunter, but she doesn't listen and tries to stab him with the alien ice pick stiletto. The two topple over the edge and into the watery depths below... leaving Mulder without his sister, again. And not just that, Papa Mulder is pissed too, so Mulder's quest to find is sister is intensified and nearly leaves him dead by episode's end. Now the opening to "Colony" makes sense.

I've realized Mulder is such a glutton for punishment. He's used by Samantha this week, just like Ambrose Chapel last week, played for a fool by Krycek and the Smoking Man, and even Deep Throat misled him in last season's "E.B.E." At least the mysterious Mr. X isn't pretending to be his friend during their late night meetings. Mulder's always led around with the vague promise of answers to alien existence like one of those carrots dangling on a string, and while he always winds up being empty-handed 45 minutes later, we're always given interesting moments along the way. So really, he can't "trust no one" or he'd betray his quest for the truth, so really he wasn't joking when he stated it's trust everyone.

The highlight of "End Game" is the meeting between Scully and X, and later Skinner and X; though they appear to have met before this elevator encounter. Scully uses Mulder's method of taping an "X" on the window and draws out the mysterious informant, and I love how he blows off Scully once he realizes he's the one who's been misled. I want to believe that Scully didn't know Skinner was was going to be waiting outside of that elevator for X. Skinner acting as a bad ass, head-butting guardian angel of Mulder and Scully is a more satisfying belief, and it makes sense given what he'd do later in Season 4 for Scully.

While I'm still not a fan of the way Mulder's family was introduced in this two-parter, I love the introduction of the Bounty Hunter, and more appearances by Skinner and X in "End Game" make this installment of the mythology a winner. There's even three separate brawls, likely an all-time high that's never topped in the following seven seasons, so I hope the stuntmen (and woman) were paid handsomely. Season Two is a still a little rough around the edges as The X-Files was forming a mythology, but it remains a favorite of mine for the way it laid the groundwork for future seasons. Most of the key players were introduced this season- Krycek, X, the Alien Bounty Hunter, and while Skinner and the Cigarette Smoking Man first appeared in Season One, their personalities were fleshed out during this season. Skinner as the stern boss, though he is always looking out for Mulder; while the Smoking Man is actually much more sinister than a man who leans on a filing cabinet in someone else's office.

X-Files Rerun: "Colony"

"I changed it to 'trust everyone', I didn't tell you?"
Originally Aired 2/10/95

Once this X-Files episode gets rolling with a case involving the deaths of abortion clinic doctors, Scully tells Mulder she has a bad feeling and that none of it makes sense, "we've got three deaths of identical victims, no bodies, a non-suspect", and I tend to agree. It's bordering on wacky, even by X-Files standards, though we have seen clones last season in the form of evil, young girls. In "Colony", these doctors are revealed to be clones from an earlier experiment and now they're working on a new experiment, with each man working at separate clinics. But really, that's just an excuse to introduce a brand new character, the man who's eliminating these clones- the Alien Bounty Hunter. That name sounds so ridiculous on paper (or on computer screen), and is he an alien who is a bounty hunter or a hunter of aliens who have bounties on their head? Well, he's actually both, and he's The X-Files version of The Terminator. He actually isn't sent to harm humans, just to eliminate evidence of cloning experiments. Notice that green blood too, which we've seen before in Season One's finale, "The Erlenmeyer Flask", which introduced an alien-hybrid plot. The plot, err, blood thickens.

Enter a man named Ambrose Chapel, a CIA agent who introduces himself to Mulder and Scully and explains the clones we've just seen get wiped out by the Bounty Hunter. He states that these clones are "Gregors", from a Soviet experiment that replicated a genetic anomaly in twins. These Gregors traveled into the United States and were stationed in different locations as "sleeper agents", then during the threat of war, they'd contaminate our blood supply and pharmaceutics. Seems legit to me, Scully. I like the real world aspects by tapping into a Cold War conspiracy, which the series would do again in later mythology installments.

While I enjoy the Bounty Hunter and the nonsense with the Gregor clones, what I did not like when I first watched this episode in 2008 and still don't in 2015, is the return of Samantha Mulder. Fox Mulder has agonized for years over the abduction of his sister, so her return at some point in the series was inevitable. I just feel like she's introduced late in this episode, on top of a Bounty Hunter and clones, and it's always seemed odd to me how accepting Mulder's parents are of this person as their long-lost daughter. Maybe its because I'm not a parent and have never had a child go missing, so I don't have that sense of loss. I understand the reasoning behind introducing the character into the series in this way, and now after watching seven seasons' worth of episodes, I know that's just the way they paced things on the series. It wasn't as serialized as television shows are today, leaving the writers and producers with limited options.

I realized I haven't even mentioned the most important aspect of this Bounty Hunter, that he's a shape-shifter. He changes his appearance to fool Mulder and Scully into believing he's a CIA agent so they'd lead him right to his next target, and by the end of the episode he even appears as one of them! Another interesting aspect is that Scully is actually right in this episode- well, beyond her earlier assessment when he she wanted to abandon the case. Now she doesn't trust CIA Agent Chapel and digs deeper into his background, even doing her own investigation after her brand new high-heeled shoe is eaten away by that bubbling, green alien blood. I've always known Scully was the more interesting character, mostly since Mulder is willing to believe anything, so watching Scully struggling and coming to gripes with meeting the paranoia, supernaturally elements leads to more suspenseful moments. For that, "Colony" is a home-run and has an excellent cliffhanger following a lot conspiracy elements for the viewers to digest.

X-Files Rerun: "Fresh Bones"

"In case you haven't noticed Agent Mulder, the Statue Of Liberty is on vacation."
Originally Aired 2/3/95

For the past decade, zombies have been all the rage, with comic books having mash-ups like Marvel Zombies, motion pictures like 28 Days Later and a remake of Dawn Of The Dead, and a hot cable TV series called The Walking Dead. The popularity of The Walking Dead rivals that of The X-Files in it's heyday, with it's cast members having celebrity-like "rock star" followings at conventions where they sign autographs and meet with fans.

With the popularity of zombies, many are familiar with the type that rotting, re-animated corpses that feast on brains. There's another variant that are created by a virus and the zombie outbreak is spread like a disease, mirroring social commentary and how the human race would react in the face of armageddon. I like how this X-Files episode follows the voodoo version of zombies, through their use of black magic. The writer of "Fresh Bones", Howard Gordon, grounded the black magic with a plot involving Haitian refugees that taps into the political side of The X-Files conspiracy. This was back during the early stages of the series where the "alien mythology" wasn't fully formed, so the distinction between a standalone episode and the conspiracy episodes wasn't always clear. The mysterious informant X makes an appearance, which blurs that line even more. It always raises the bar when that guy shows up, well he's usually half-hidden by shadows, and he spouts cryptic warnings to Agent Mulder.

Speaking of Mulder, it seems like Mulder and Scully take a backseat here, as they're along for the ride just like the viewer. This is definitely an episode that's gotten better with age, and I especially like the creepy visuals. One such instance is when Scully hallucinates that a man's arm is tearing through the palm of her hand, which reaches out and strangles her. I should have known this episode would have strong visuals since it comes from the skilled hand of Rob Bowman, who would later direct many conspiracy episodes and even the first feature film. This is a solid script among the many great ones in Season Two, though I often overlook it due to it's placement between "Irresistible" and the next two-part installment of The X-Files conspiracy.