X-Files S06 E07–09
6x07 Terms of Endearment
A couple are getting the news from their doctor that the baby growing inside the lady has some sort of abnormality - sounds like she’s got a devil baby inside her! We’re in Rosemary’s Baby territory, but practically speaking, at least we’re in Virginia, so it’s only a three hour drive for M & S this week. And oh yikes this just got real, the lady has a crazy dream full of fire and a giant devil pulling the baby out of her and she wakes up and uh oh, baby is dead. And hey, the devil dad is Bruce Campbell!
But it’s not M investigating, it’s CSM Jnr, Spender. By investigating, I mean he puts the file directly into the shredder. That doesn’t stop M getting hold of it, and M’s right over there to interview Bruce Campbell (BC.) Back at base S is not impressed that M is off exploring demon babies when they’re meant to be doing boring background checks, as penance for whatever they last got in trouble for/whatever shut down the XF currently. Nevertheless, S looks into the miscarriage and tells M it was induced, not natural.
BC is a busy guy, across town he has another (secret) wife who he’s trying to also get pregnant, but he’s back in time to defend his first wife from M and the baby killing allegations. M makes a joke about BC being the devil which lands with BC. Solid burn! BC is clearly lying about what happened and trying to gaslight his wives. Because he’s, y’know, the devil and he burned up the devil baby carcass in the firepit. M has a funny scene racing his car with BC to 90’s Garbage classic ‘Only Happy When It Rains.’
S is barely in this episode, M just calling her now and again to tell her, to tell the FBI bosses, to go fuck themselves. It’s fairly weird M doesn’t just get fired at this point, I think we have probable cause, a million percent. Speaking of fired, BC quite literally sucks the soul out of his first wife and she’s in a coma. BC is bad (he’s an actual demon) but he seems to have good intentions, in that he kills the demon babies but yearns to have a ‘normal’ baby.
M has found some “evidence” that BC immigrated from an Eastern Europe area full of demons (?) and clearly is himself a demon. Sure! BC doesn’t have much luck with his abortion plan on wife number 2, as during the dream she recognizes BC as the devil and is like OK dude, WTF no thanks. This baby is staying alive! Ha! She’s a devil too and the twist is she does want a devil baby.
Wife 2 frames BC for killing the baby and escapes! Nobody listens to BC protesting his innocence, death by cops, although not before he manages to give wife 1 her soul back. He’s a good devil!? We end on devil woman driving off listening to Garbage again, with her demon baby in the front seat and her demon eyes shining.
Fun if not super memorable episode - BC Is great!
Wiki notes — Bruce Campbell & Duchovny got on famously on set and started pranking everyone until this got way too annoying and everyone was like OK fucking stop that you asshats.
6x08 The Rain King*
A Valentine Day episode? In Kansas? Ohh, I remember this one!
Some guy pounds beers as he drives down a country road after being mean to his fiance. Out of nowhere a crazy hailstorm causes him to crash his car and the hailstones are shaped like hearts! Ha, cool effect!
M & S arrive in town in a tiny plane that lands on a dirt strip where the mayor has a child spin a baton and dance for them. Weird! There’s a big drought in town, they done need them some raaaain. The mayor believes it’s all the fault of the guy who crashed in the opening, Daryl. He’s now the one legged ‘Rain King’ and is apparently withholding rain. Sure, that sounds plausible! M tells S this little town is ground zero for extreme weather but S is (get ready) not having this bullshit. Not one bit.
At the local TV station, M & S are misidentified as ‘The Gundersons’, a couple who won some giveaway. M plays along, but S is quick to spoil everyone’s fun by pulling out her FBI badge and demanding to speak to the weatherman. He directs them to Daryl the Rain King’s (RK) afternoon activities where lo and behold RK does in fact, make it rain.
Sheila who works at the station, is debating with the weatherman (who is clearly in love with Sheila) about what the FBI wants — she’s very unsettled by the whole thing. Also unsettled are M & S who can’t sleep in their crappy motel rooms. M is out of bed looking at a tornado, which is just as well since a goddamn live cow gets thrown through his roof! Where’s the beef indeed.
Don’t worry here’s S and the weatherman to say how this was a totally -natural-in-no-way-insane-thing to happen, despite the claims of Sheila that she is responsible for this and many other climate disasters in town.
Actually, turns out the weatherman is the one who controls the weather! He was just helping Daryl make it rain because he felt bad for him after he was responsible for him losing his leg! Which is bad news for M because Sheila tells the weatherman that she now has the hots for M! Hot weather action!
M makes peace with the weatherman, saying he just has to let his emotions out, so that he will stop making crazy weather. Weatherman wants M’s help in wooing Sheila, but M is like, ‘no way man, I’m leaving town, case closed!’ But ho ho, here’s a real pea-souper of a fog to stop M & S leaving and now M — the lunatic conspiracy nut who never dates and doesn’t even own a bed — has to play Cupid for Sheila and the weatherman. With the amount of porn M watches, I’m not sure the advice he gives is going to be actionable. Plumber role play? Pizza delivery guy with a big meat pizza?
We get a happy ending at the 20 year high school reunion dance, with the weatherman admitting his feelings, stopping the giant thunderstorm he conjured and ending up with Sheila. Cute little touch as we see M & S swaying in time on the dance-floor, watching it all unfold.
Great episode, lots of fun, plenty of asides about how M & S never got together. In the end we get ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ as Sheila plays with their new baby.
I don’t know how S is going to explain the expense report for this trip though. She’s going to need some creative explanations to explain why the FBI got involved in combating a drought in small town Kansas.
6x09 S.R. 819
We’re in a hospital prepping someone for surgery and they need Doctor Scully because this guy is going to die and there are gross huge black veins pulsing and oh shit it’s Skinman! The machine makes that noise we see on TV when someone is dying, it’s like beep beep beeeeep and the doctor says let him go! If it was M or S, OK you wouldn’t believe it, but with the XF sort of closing down, I guess Skinman could actually die here/be written out?
24 hours earlier we’re in the boxing gym and Skinman is beating the shit out of some much bigger dude, thereby proving he’s fine, but then unrelated to the boxing his vision starts to go weird and he slows right down and the guy knocks him out. Something is rotten in Denmark and Denmark in this case is Skinman’s insides! Also he’s a really good boxer?
Skinman gets a robo call in his hospital room, that tells him he’ll be dead in 24 hours! Not good! He heads back to the office for a nap and M & S realize he’s not so good — they link it to some scientist dude who randomly stopped Skinman and touched him on the wrist earlier in the day, Russian spy killer style. This is definitely a mythology episode which I always have mixed feelings about. Usually they promise a lot then deliver little but shadows.
At the scientists house, they manage to get hold of another mysterious dude, who is compelling the scientist to do stuff, but they have to let him go, since even the Feds are no match for the diplomatic immunity he has. So, that immunity is a real thing that extends to you kidnapping people at gunpoint? Nice!
The pair split up, M chasing a dead end to some Senator who denies knowing about ‘SR819’ tech when he obviously does, and S finding out that Skinman has nanobots in his blood! Cool tech! But also, very bad for you know, your health and life expectancy. Compounding this, Skinman gets shot in the parking garage. Not a great day!
Fortunately it’s not the sort of gunshot (ie any gunshot) that would kill you or me dead, dear reader, just the sort that’s a mild inconvenience. One of those grazes! It’s all got something to do with a mysterious bearded man that M is chasing around who has something to do with health care bills and no doubt, alien invasions.
The senator (the dad from Justified, Arlo) is either helping or not, running around behind the scenes, seeing the scientist guy die, but unless someone deactivates the nanobots, none of this is going to matter too much. And we’re back to the start where Skinman died and wait no, he doesn’t die because beard man turns off the nanobots.
Three weeks later Skinman is all better and tells M & S he has no idea who the bearded man on the tape is and they need to drop the whole thing. I mean, the guy is clearly Krycek in a Dollar-store disguise, how can M not see that?? And now he controls Skinman through blood robots, that rascal! Good twist!
