"Three Words"

"For a guy who was in a coffin not too long ago, I think I'm doing pretty damn good."
Originally Aired 4/8/01

For the 8th season of The X-Files, David Duchovny was contracted to appear in 12 of the 21 episodes. So far we've seen Mulder in a flashback or two, in his alien fetish chair, as a disguise of the Alien Bounty Hunter, and he's also played dead. In "Three Words", David finally gets to play Fox Mulder alive and well, which marks his 7th appearance overall this season. Halfway through his contracted amount and he's finally able to play Mulder in the way we all know and love seems like it might not be the best use of that contract.

Whether it was the best use of Duchovny or not, I really enjoyed everything about this episode, from the performances to the action. Mulder tells Scully he's not sure where he fits in and this show could've been pretty crowded with three lead actors and guest stars galore, along with the amount of stories it's trying to weave together. The first is the continuation of the mystery surrounding the returned abductees, and it seems a database has gathered information on all of these people, including Mulder and Billy Miles. Mulder investigates and brings along the Gunmen, giving that trio some action in the field in a scene reminiscent of the Mission Impossible films.

Doggett has an investigation of his own though its not of his own freewill. The creepy Absalom from the previous episodes has broken out of jail and he abducts Doggett because he wants to expose the government database too. I'm not sure his plan to break into that government facility would have been very successful, since the computer password was not revealed until much later in the episode. I'm really going to miss Absalom as he was a whole different kind of creepy compared to the Syndicate. He wasn't really a typical villain since he was actually trying to expose the secrets behind the experiments on the abductees, he just had a flair for the dramatic that ended in his death, like the guy who jumped over the White House fence in the episode's opening.

We also learn that not only is Doggett being used as as a fall guy at the FBI, he's also being used by his own friend Knowle Rohrer, played by Adam Baldwin. When we first saw Doggett, he was a golden boy at the FBI and was chummy with his fellows agents, but now all he has is that lonely basement office. He should have listened to Scully's warning and got out before it was too late. I'm not sure what's a worse punishment- being exiled to work in the basement office or being the boss of those who work in that basement? It's also interesting to note how Mulder was given an informant character named Deep Throat (and later X) and his rival was a former FBI agent. Now Doggett has an informant who is also being set up to be his rival. Even more people are shunning Doggett. Poor guy. Although with Rohrer as a new wave of villains with these bumpy neck spikes, and Absalom knowing how to detect them, it would have been a better use of the characters had they been able to come face to face. Perhaps Rohrer was one of the people at Absalom's UFO cult camp, so Rohrer kills him after he informs Mulder of their neck spikes.

The most interesting aspect of this episode is that Mulder is actually on the outside looking in, so he was right when he said he didn't know how he fit in. For 7 seasons the show was through Mulder's eyes and we saw every wrinkle in the conspiracy unfold as he discovered them. In this 8th season, til now it has been mostly Scully's journey as she searched for Mulder and was forced to work with a new partner. However this episode seems to be slowly passing the torch off to Robert Patrick's John Doggett. I used an example before that Doggett is like taking a character like Snake Plissken and placing him into a horror movie, but after viewing the conspiracies in "Three Words", I see Doggett closer to Roger Thornhill in North By Northwest. He's a regular guy that gets mixed up in a conspiracy in classic Hitchcock-style. Scully informed Mulder that Doggett was above reproach, which we know is true since he returned to government facility to save Mulder in the episode's climax, after he realized he unknowingly set up Mulder with the classified information.

Five episodes remain in Season 8, which isn't nearly enough screen time for the "friendship" between Doggett and Mulder to grow. I really enjoy their anti-bromance and it's nice to see Mulder interact with someone he clearly doesn't like, much like those scenes with Agent Spender in Seasons 5 and 6. I'm putting "Three Words" near the top of Season 8's collection of episodes.