The X-Files 11.3 "Plus One" Review

                                            
The X-Files returns to its best when it's doing one off  'monster of the week' stories instead of the arcs.  Here people kill themselves after their doubles/doppelgangers appear to them, reinforcing the theory or belief that if someone sees their doppelganger they are going to die.  The case begins with Arkie (Jared Ager-Foster) who says his double saved him from driving into a tree.  However Scully (Gillian Anderson) remains sceptical, as always, good to see nothing's changed there then and puts it down to some form of medical illness.  Bounding about medical jargon which Mulder (David Duchovny) doesn't get and isn't really interested in hearing.  Well okay I said that since 11 seasons later, we see Scully return to her scepticism after going through so much and yet for her it all boils down to science once again; having all the answers.

Including her explanation on ghosts and why people see shadows from the corner of their eyes, I'd repeat it here but.. long exposition like that is more entertaining when viewed.  Mulder thinks it's more of an evil presence and she again says she doesn't believe in evil or the devil.  Mulder's added quip of  Scully's Catholic schooling not helping her much in the way of believing.  Though she does answer she did think of the devil and believe in him once.  Oh no, so what were all those past eps about and oh I can't fathom how they could have written this ep and have her return to being 'early' Scully when the show started.  Well I can, as I know they have to have someone to challenge Mulder in his beliefs and theories; but this just reverted back to the beginning as if there were no other seasons in between to make her think differently at least for the moment.

As Arkie is moved to his cell to be transferred, he is killed and authorities believe it's suicide, which Scully explains is possible even if he was handcuffed.  His lawyer Dean (Ben Wilkinson) explains Arkie didn't want to die and he's going to make someone pay.  As Mulder notices the trustee who found Arkie, someone by the name of Chucky: a bigtime hoarder.  Mulder and Scully question Judy and her game of hangman, where Mulder finds a hanged man with Arkie's name written under it.  Her psych room wall is littered with such hanged men pictures with names under them.  She says there's another one of her on the chair, an evil version of her, also saying she's an actress.  Well being an actress she could easily feign another darker version of herself, any mental illness aside.  As Scully also experiences her darker version, later the good Judy tells her the nurses give her pills and they tell her they're just bread pills, but they take them too just incase.  Which stops Scully from throwing them away.

As Mulder speaks with Chucky he finds he also has hanged men pictures and Judy is his sister.  Apparently their parents hanged themselves, that was no coincidence; also showing they were behind the killings.  Dean sees himself too and rushes over to see Mulder and Scully who tells him not to panic and to go home, Mulder agreeing with her.  Scully notices her double too after they find Dean has 'lost' his head and was also killed.  But she doesn't tell Mulder.  Instead she goes to his room when she sees her double again; wanting him to hold her and they have a conversation about her getting old, wanting another child and who she would have this with.  What if Mulder met a younger model and left her, and he asks the same, before they finally 'get it on.'  Really you'd think that's all this ep was leading too and formed the basis of it, instead of the case, especially those times she turned around to see Mulder lurking there by her bed.  Ha. Scully saying she sleeps with her back to the door to keep the devil away.  SO Mulder was her devil.  The crafty devil!  Ha.

As their game hots up, Judy and Chucky that is, not Mulder and Scully, they each try to guess the other's hanged man, with Judy going for Scully and Chucky going for Mulder, accusing the other of cheating.  As Mulder's also seen his double in the bathroom mirror, where most ghosts usually show themselves, they head to their respective suspects.  With Mulder having to fight off his double, and Scully telling her double in the car that she doesn't believe she's real and is just "a manifestation of latent hostility."  Yes but whose hostility?  Chucky and Judy both end up dead by their doubles, of course and Mulder finds two hanged man pictures with 'MOM and 'DAD' written under them.  Thus they killed their parents.

Back at the motel Mulder tells Scully if she needs anything to just call and he's getting some shut eye, that being the furthest thing from her mind and as she opens the adjoining door, she finds Mulder waiting behind it! Yeah we know where that title was heading in more ways than one!  As for Mulder's 'shut eye' comment, it just opens up the conclusion that they have indeed been at this more than once and his comment about her having "more scoot in your boot" is not just a throwaway comment or an attempt at reassuring her she's not over the hill, in more ways than one!

Also Mulder is the one who hones in on Judy in the psych ward as being behind it, what led him to her.  Surely something must've pointed him in this direction.  As for Scully taking the pills to avoid the violence her double would ensue on her - what she didn't give any to Mulder and he told her about seeing his own double!  This reinforces that everything she just spoke about to him is not really what she believes and perhaps she is just being cautious in this uncertainty and improbability, but it was funny to see her going back on what she just told him to save herself, mostly. 
But there's more on the FBI being disbanded and what they'll do if they lose their jobs and the world is going to hell" as Scully says and they're the only ones who can save it.  But what will the world do without them?  Sans wheelchair or not?!

Karin Konoval plays both Judy and Chucky which gives this ep a bit of  a twist, reinforcing her line of being just an actress in real life too!  However season 7.20 Fight Club also involved twins so a bit of a harkback there in many ways particularly with the violence aspect.

The X-Files 11.2 "This" Review

                                               
Mulder (David Duchovny) receives a communication from Langley (Dean Haglund) on his phone but he is supposed to be dead, with a cryptic message saying "if he's dead, then they know he knows, am I dead?"  Of course they don't know what that means and as they contemplate, they are attacked by three masked men.  Two are killed but one escapes.  They are then told to come out of the cabin after Scully (Gillian Anderson) reports the shootings.  They refuse to surrender and Scully thinks Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) might be able to help.  However he tells them to surrender cos he can't help them now.  They refuse and Mulder's hidden his phone in the oven, like it'll be really safe there, especially since he hasn't turned it off.  As they refuse to surrender they are attacked and the Russian man demands Mulder's phone, telling the others to kill them after it's found.  Which it is at that moment as the message comes through again.  However they manage to escape into the woods by attacking one of the soldiers and meet up with Skinner.

He tells them about the American company in Russia and that they weren't supposed to kill them, giving them money.  Skinner tells Scully he saw Langley at Arlington, just like she did.  So they head there and find the graves, but Langley's birthday is wrong.  Working out the president's birthdays or deaths, such as JFK etc they find President 33 isn't there.  So it's a clue to a location which leads Mulder to find the grave of Deep Throat.  He tells Scully he didn't know his real name and all this time the world has changed so much.  Obviously not for the better.  His real name being Robert Pakula.  Mulder notices the cross is different and then finds a barcode chip which you scan on a phone and he doesn't have his phone.  They're attacked again by the long haired man.

Heading to a cafe where they eat bran muffins, they find they need to access the X-Files but can't get to their office.  So they intercept Skinner once more and he also tells Mulder how times have changed that there was only one desk there when Scully started.  Also they don't trust him and don't need him to get them out of this, but they need his help.  He takes them to the X-Files which were digitally uploaded onto databases accessed by authorized agencies and this includes the Russians.  As Skinner says, "the X-Files belong to everyone."  However when they were reopened, control reverted back to the FBI.  Skinner making a remark about the current presidency too, which makes Mulder chuckle.  Whilst he's on the phone they access the files and find Langley isn't on there.  However there's a Scully file: spankback which holds information of a Kara Hamby (Sandrine Holt).

She lectures at a university and Mulder shows her the barcode chip and she explains about their minds being uploaded onto a computer, where they live on.  They didn't want to be separated and she gives them an algorithm to follow so they can get onto the site.  However the long haired man shoots her, before Scully shoots him.  Mulder takes the evidence with them, telling Scully "he's evidence."  At the diner he manages to work out the algorithms and has to wait for the phone to receive another message again.  Having to turn it off otherwise they'll be located.  Langely transmits again and Mulder tells him Scully's here too.  He wants them to kill the database since nothing is real there, it's all pain.

Getting to Titanpointe in Manhattan with Scully pretending Mulder is a prisoner, she manages to convince the FBI agent Colquitt (Dejan Loyola) to let her take him to the tunnels.  He wants her to replay the favour, with Mulder making a sick gesture with his finger in his mouth.  Getting to the tunnels they take the stairs and are ambushed, with Mulder being caught by the Russian (Andre Roshkov).  He takes him to see Erika Price who spins him a yarn about being told how she'd meet Mulder again and would actually want to meet him.  Telling him the programme is for good and is making headway in that direction.  They can upload a piece of his mind everytime he uses his phone.  Thus the best thing to do is not to use the phone.  He says he wants to be uploaded with Scully, but she won't like it.  He fights and escapes the Russian as Scully switches off the computers causing a fatal error.

Mulder says they should come back with help but obviously when they return there'd be nothing there.  As the try to pick up the files from the floor back home, then throw them back down, Langley communicates again and tells them to get rid of the backup and disappears as he's pursued by the longhaired man again inside the simulation.  See they don't die.  Maybe they'll manage to put Mulder and Scully into one of these so they won't either!  Okay don't know why that came to mind.

This episode written by stalwart Glen Morgan who described it as the X-Files North by Northwest episode where Mulder and Scully go on the run after learning of another conspiracy, so what's new, or not new?  You see their enemies, introduced last ep with Mr Y and (it was the next alphabetical progression after the letter X I guess!) and Ms Price (Barbara Hershey) happen to be connected to Russia (isn't everyone!) and the very same people who digitized the X-Files.  But they were Mulder's baby!!  Two files have been deleted, Langley's of course and Titanpointe, an NSA spying area.  You see, it's not spies chasing here as in North By Northwest but deeper conspiracies.

The programme doesn't guarantee immortality but as Langley realizes it's just being a slave to the machine, so to speak and is forced to use his knowledge within his brain to make breakthroughs in science just for the bigwigs.  In order to get to space, as was shown last ep.   Mulder and Scully and their 'relationship' status especially the one where Mulder retorts doesn't everyone dream about him!!  As well as Skinner: "The bureau is not in good standing to the Whitehouse these days."
Mulder: "The FBI finally found out what it's like to be looked upon a little spooky."  Yeah well, that'll be putting it mildly!!  Mulder also adding he wants to believe (with several shots of the "I want to believe" poster) that they can exist in some other dimension/afterlife.

However a bit of a damning ep which serves to show how things were simpler back then, when the show first appeared and Mulder says it at Deep Throat's grave; "he's dead because the world was so complex and dangerous back then.  Who would have thought we'd look back with nostalgia and say that was a simpler time."  Leave it to Mulder to get his usual meaningful lines.  Yeah who would have thought (and much younger too!)

The X-Files 11.1 "My Struggle III" Review

                                            
The return of this was anticipated by many but did it follow through on the wait and to bring it back for another season.  It could be confusing to some, let's start off with the world again, rehash some politics, the moon landings, all orchestrated by the Smoking Man (CSM) with his smoking gun you might say.  And all for what?  To get the world back as it should be, without civilzsation or order.  Random chaos; well it does appear to be heading that way in our reality, with several references to past politicians including the present one too.  All taking us back to grass roots and basics.  Thus it was no surprise that the tagline now became: "I want to Believe! I want to lie!"  Not only a measure of truth (no pun) or reality, as said, but also the story in this show.

Scully (Gillian Anderson) is taken to hospital suffering from a seizure where we last left her, apparently having suffered some fall.  However she gets flashing images through her mind and when Mulder (David Duchovny) and Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) are shown her brain scans by the attending Dr Joyet (Anjali Jay) Skinner notices a signal coming from her brain, dashes and dots, which Mulder doesn't see or get.  You'd think that's something he'd be familiar with.  Sitting with Scully she tells him to "find the Smoking Man" as he's still alive and Skinner deciphered the message as "find him."  Mulder needs to find him and also she wants to find William, believing that it's William who is actually in touch with them and he will find them. 

Mulder's followed, her vision comes true but he's not the one whose car crashes and his chase of the tail behind him leads to the house of the other smoking man, addressed as Mr Y (AC Peterson).  Spender (Chris Owen) is also targeted since he knows where William is and he contacts both Scully and Mulder at risk to his own life but he doesn't tell Scully where he is. Breaking his promise he only knows the name of the adopted family, Van der Camp.  Scully also getting into an accident due to her visions as she refuses to stay put but needs to find William.  Skinner tries to find her but instead is stopped in his car by Monica (Annabeth Gish) with CSM getting in as well, wanting Skinner to be a part of his plan.  Offering him the antidote for the virus in return for finding William. 

Agents Einstein (Lauren Ambrose) and Miller (Robbie Amell) were rather slow in not noticing the man was suspicious looking enough to have warranted a follow back to check on Scully.  Huh amateurs!  All CSM wants now is Mulder taken care of and Monica thinks he's in love with Scully and the question everyone wants to know is why now?  (Aside from fodder for more eps!)  Why the sudden need for William?  As Mulder finds Mr Y who wants CSM eliminated so they can set up space habitation for people, or rather their own plan for world domination.  Since Mulder's his son he won't see it coming.  However CSM already knows Mulder will come for him and kill him.  Mulder realizes the organization has an agenda, just to save themselves and the select few and can't entertain their notion.

Returning to the hospital where the man who was following him tries to kill Scully, Mulder saves her.  Skinner finds out that Mulder isn't William's father (here we go again) and claims he "impregnated her with science."  Well she was always into her science.  He gets into an altercation with Mulder and Skinner tells him to stay out of it.  Lots of political undertones here with the emphasis of science playing an important factor in everyday lives and Mulder being told there won't be an alien invasion.  But CSM did conduct tests on an alien and extract its alien DNA used on Scully to create a superhuman.

The X-Files now overrun (again no pun) with car chases, everyone practically featured in a car this ep and whilst that was enjoyable in earlier seasons, at least the clandestine meetings with Deep Throat or X, this just seemed to build up more exposition and more so-called mystery as the big reveal comes up with Mulder not being the father, was there ever doubt as to the paternity?  Actually take that as a rhetorical question.  Perhaps it's just another lie in this universe where the truth is spartan, to nick the name of the Spartan virus which Scully sees Mulder succumbing to and dying from.  Think I'll look forward more to the stand-alone eps than the continuing arc which isn't going to go away anytime soon.  Though apparently this is the final season Gillian Anderson will appear in.