"Nothing Important Happened Today II"

"She's the key to everything in this case, right to the FBI."
Originally Aired 11/18/01

Typically the season finales and season premieres of The X-Files feature all of the big players returning to the series for their two-part, and even three-part, story arcs. This is the lightest it's ever been since the first season ended. All of the Syndicate was burnt to a crisp, the Smoking Man took a spill down a flight of stairs, while the remaining men in black have taken a bullet to the head, leaving us with the bare bones "agents vs evil FBI" story which was the central arc for the series in its earliest episodes. That, in theory, should be a good storyline to center this 9th season around, with Doggett and Reyes trying to see just how deep the Super Soldiers have infiltrated the government.

Instead, this episode muddies up the weird plot from last week, involving a conspiracy to tamper with the water supply, and it now somehow involves a big boat. Before I viewed this episode again, I used to think the boat should've been linked to the alien oil which resurfaced in last season's "Vienen." Perhaps the infected oil workers managed to stow away and spread the virus on land, which I think would have made more sense than what we got. "Nothing Important Happened Today II" tries to link the dead water treatment workers to this boat, which is then connected to the Super Soldiers' plot, and somehow that all ties to Scully's baby. Scully's son William also might be part alien, and it's odd to me how she never refers to him by his name; she only says "my baby." Nothing happened is a fairly accurate title.

Shannon (played by Lucy Lawless, by way of whispy Marita Covarrubius) is a Super Soldier that confesses her story to Team Mulder, yet she could be playing them just like everyone else who ever told Mulder anything government conspiracy-related. We've seen this before countless times. Brad Follmer returns from last week too, still trying unsuccessfully to keep Reyes from working with Doggett so her reputation won't be tarnished. Knowle Rohrer was assumed dead after an explosion at the end of Season 8, and now he's back as well, lending some truth to Shannon's tale of the "unstoppable" Super Soldiers. Most times these season premiere story arcs end up being fairly weak anyway, but I can't help but feel like this is all just "Alien Bounty Hunter-lite", and replace the bees with water. Their little neck protrusion just doesn't match the visual effect of the bubbling alien blood either.

The best part of this episode is John Doggett, who's slipped into Mulder's Nikes so well that he's even borrowing his lines, when he tells Scully and Reyes that "she is the key to everything." Later Doggett nearly gets his head popped like a pimple by Knowle, before he has a scene with Kersh that is the highlight of this entire two-parter. It's so good that it nearly redeems the previous 80 minutes of TV; except that it's a condensed version of an even better scene! Kersh and Doggett get their dialogue chopped in half, likely by the same cutting crew that lifted a scene with Krycek and CSM from "One Son" that gave reason for Alex attempting to dupe the Smoking Man again. Robert Patrick and James Pickens, Jr. seem to have a real chemistry together that makes these scenes with Doggett and Kersh so fun to watch. It's a shame the rest of these episodes just aren't as good.