X-Files S06 E14–16
6x14 Monday*
Bank robbery! Skinman is on the outside, where a stranger tells him to ‘not let this happen.’ M is inside with S, and M is bleeding out! But that doesn’t matter because the police storm the bank and the dude inside blows himself up! M & S are dead, XF is over, goodbye forever.
So it’s Groundhog Day, again, and it’s cold out there. M wakes up to find his waterbed (with mirrored ceiling HA, the whole thing continuing from I guess, the Dreamland episodes?) has sprung a leak and his apartment is flooded. S has to cover for him while he goes to the bank. The two robbers wait outside, one the guy who blew up in the opening and his gf, Pam, who tried to warn Skinman. Pam is mouthing the words she knows by heart — it’s Pam living through the Groundhog Day (GD).
It’s funny to see S sat in the boring FBI office having to cover for M dicking around, not being present as usual. The day then plays out as earlier. S going to the bank, M shot, building exploded. M waking up in the water. Just like GD, Punxsataweny Pam lives the day over and over, trying to fix it and save everyone’s lives, to no avail. M & S have some fun conversations along the way about free will vs determinism and all that.
Pam contacts M and tells him about the time loop, and damn, did she back the right horse, as far as finding someone to believe her insane story. M has a flicker of recognition on his face but busts into the bank anyways. The next time he wakes up, he seems to be slowly putting it together. He’s getting deja vu, prompted by Pam telling S not to use the bank today and Pam telling M they’re in hell and she’s the only one who sees it. M dies again but knows about the bomb on some level for next time.
This knowledge allows M to intervene as soon as he sees the guy in the bank and place a call to S, to bring Pam into the bank. M instructs S to let Pam and bomberman go, thus saving everyone. But here are the police sirens and now the gunshot, but Pam saves M! Her sacrifice shocks bomberman into sadness, he doesn’t blow the place up, gets arrested, time loop over.
We get a little scene the next morning playing with the GD theme, where M is on the couch, dry and S calls — it’s Tuesday! M just explains the whole he knew exactly what was going to happen thing as just a feeling.
Classic episode!
6x15 Arcadia*
So we’re in a very neighborly community, where a guy is getting shamed for his mailbox not being the right colour. He’s pretty pissed and seems on the brink of a typical American shooting spree, maybe that’s what this is about. No, instead he doubles down, putting a lumberjack ornament in the back garden. Not smart Dave! Later that night a monster beats him to death which seems like a fair trade off.
Now we get to the comedy. M & S must go undercover as newlyweds to investigate! For this, S is dressed exactly as normal, but M has a sweater over the shoulders, over a polo shirt, ‘80’s preppy bully style. Nice!
They get a first warning; you can’t move in after 6pm, don’t break the rules! M is going full comedy jerk in this one, arm around S talking about how much he loves all the dumb shit the neighbors foisted on them. I wonder how the FBI got a full house full of stuff to plausibly fill a house. The least helpful guy is Big Mike, the longtime nurse from ‘ER.’
M takes out his basketball hoop, to practice the skills he used at his home FBI court. The mailbox police, Win, freaks out saying they need to put that hoop away in the garage. It’s ugly! It might break the rules! M is having way too much fun here. S of course, not so much, is straight to getting out the camcorder, filming the house, and giving us exposition of all the people who’ve disappeared in the community. A lot!
Some old white dude is chairing a community meeting to talk about how to welcome M & S, but also threaten them not to break the rules or the monsters will eat them! So you know, a mixed introduction.
Big Mike is like ‘hey maybe we like, let them know what the fuck is going on here?’ but old white guy is like, ‘nah, eff that’ and also Big Mike needs to watch his back as now he’s definitely marked for death. Doesn’t take long, just a nod to Win and Big Mike is no more. Old White Guy pays a visit to M & S and tells them the bad news about the basketball hoop being denied, in a totally non creepy cult leader death way.
M & S entertain Win and his wife, M telling them that they met at a UFO convention and that S is the one who is really into UFO’s and crystals and bracelets and all that horseshit. Then they push a little on where Big Mike is — he’s dead, S finds the evidence in a storm drain.
We get to see S’s bedtime routine, full green face of cream. Meanwhile, M is trying to provoke everyone, putting up a plastic pink flamingo, throwing soda around, and finally putting up the forbidden BB hoop. Maybe the monster is just an anthropomorphic issue of Architectural Digest?
Win is fully freaking out about the hoop, but it’s still all a great gag for M who doesn’t even think this is an XF. The lab results, combined with M’s encyclopedic knowledge of every monster ever, leads them to the conclusion something is in the dirt or under the ground or something. It is an XF!
Old White Guy wants Win to take care of the rabble rouser M, and that opinion is only going to be bolstered, when they see M digging up his yard with a goddam backhoe! No bodies but there is a clue, Old White Guy sent the trinket that got ole Dave murdered and now the monster is coming for M & S — Big Mike is back from the dirt to warn them about the Ubermensch!
M goes to try and take down Old White Guy, telling him that he knows the monster is some Tibetan thing, summoned to protect the rules! That’s pretty intense my dude. Still, cocky Old White Guy is giving M the business about suing him back to the stone age and that sort of hubris rarely ends well. Sure enough, M handcuffs him to the mailbox, goes to help S and the monster appears and destroys Old White Guy, before vanishing into dirt, I guess not being able to live if it’s creator ceased to be.
S gives the wrap-up, saying everyone said there was no monster and that it was all the Old White Guy all along. Fun episode, good balance between monster and comedy.
6x16 Alpha
Classic cliched setup with some dock workers checking the box of a scary animal that came from the far east and doing what you don’t do, open the box! The monster dog/tiger kills them and gets loose in the city! Animal control! Definitely a case for the FBI and the XF!
I like the little opening between M & S, S asking M if he’s headed home soon and M — back in the once again reopened XF — replies “I am home!” Nice! We get a little banter about ‘dog gone etc’ before S concurs that sure, they must fly to LA and investigate a wild dog, why not.
They meet with the guy who was exporting it, some local sheriff dude and Karen, a rare animal expert who M has some sort of online relationship with (which S scoffs at) but has never actually met.
Oh shit, Karen is Amy from The A-Team! Older, shorter haired, and playing an introverted, shuffling lady who prefers animals to people and may be in love with M. M believes the dog has human intelligence and can cover his trail and his crimes. Dog-man! This is immediately proven to be true and we seem to see a guy change into a dog and kill the chasing dog catcher, which makes the sheriff guy ready to murder the dog on sight.
S thinks this whole thing is a crock of shit and that maybe Karen the loony dog lady is behind the whole thing (multiple murders at this point) in some sort of plan to lure M to the west coast because she’s in love with him. Which seems totally the way to build a relationship. Even for S’s occasional flight of jealousy (remember Bambi?’ Sure. Fine. Whatever.’) this seems a bit of a stretch.
The local sheriff goons are messing up catching dog-man because apparently he can also transform into other dogs, in this last case, a St Bernard. At this point, everyone (apart from S) seems to believe that the guy who caught dog-man is actually dog-man and is tranquilizing himself to stop him killing more people, including almost the sheriff. Karen isn’t afraid of him though, since she can commune with dogs and wolves (sure) and clearly it’s her dream to be dog-woman.
Karen waits for dog-man in her office, but then instead of unloading with the tranq gun, she beckons him, which goes…not well. They both end up crashing through a high window just as M & S show up. They find the animal expert dog-man impaled on a fence post and Karen dead next to him, which is a pretty hard bummer ending. We get a tiny nice final note though, through the mail, M receives an ‘I Want To Believe’ poster from Karen, to replace the one that got burned up in the office fire.
This wasn’t a classic episode but it was a solid 7/10, return to the early days. Dark hallways, poor lighting, cheap jump scares, unclear plotting, weak love interest suggestion, all in all pretty enjoyable.
