(Season 3, Episodes 1-4)
Parts two and three of the death of Fox Mulder, tons of revelations about the underlying conspiracy substructure and appearances by three familiar faces in guest roles. What a fun way to start the third season.
(Original Air Date: September 22, 1995) It looks like this was their first look at what a feature length X-Files film could be like. And it worked, so long as they were sticking with the major conspiracy storylines; something I hear the latest movie didn’t do.
I won’t say I’m stunned that Mulder is still alive; he is, after all, the star of the show. But I’m enjoying the runaround that Scully’s been on trying to figure out the truth.
Interesting that the consortium of powerful companies, the Syndicate, had its own “deep throat” who tracked down Scully and warned her enough to save her life. Too bad the same can’t be said for her sister. At the rate Mulder and Scully are running out of family members, I expect them to both be orphans by the end of this season.
Skinner continues to elude me as far as his ultimate loyalties. I want to believe that he’s on the side of Scully and Mulder. In fact, I do believe that but he does make it difficult. I’ll attribute it to him having to play his cards so close to the vest due to a certain smoking fella breathing down his neck.
By the way, why the hell does Cancer Man spend so much time in Skinner’s office? Doesn’t he have one of his own? It seems like every time we see Skinner’s office, he’s hanging out. Maybe he’s lonely.
3.2 – “Paper Clip (Part 3 of 3)” [MythArc]
(Original Air Date: September 29, 1995) So way back when, they were originally going to abduct Fox instead of Samantha? So much going on in this episode, and so much falling apart around CSM (Cigarette-Smoking Man).
It was great seeing him fumbling around, and seeing that he answers to this Syndicate and isn’t as all-powerful as he would lead you to believe. It’s one of those beautiful things. When your boss is chewing you out and looking all bold and powerful, it’s probably because his boss just chewed him out … “It’s the circle of abuse. It wounds us all!”
If I’m following this correctly, Skinner now has some pretty substantial leverage on CSM. After all, CSM has lied to the Syndicate and sworn that the tape and its contents are destroyed. He also indicated that Krycek was dead.
Speaking of which, Krycek is one of the worst assassins ever, but he’s good at saving his own neck. I guess he’ll be back to cause trouble. Probably work with Mulder and Scully. That’s how these shows do it. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Of course, he killed Mulder’s father and Scully’s sister so that’s quite a fence to mend. At least the kids got their jobs back, right? That needed to be done so we can get to these “monster-of-the-week” cases that take up most of every season.
3.3 – “D.P.O.”
(Original Air Date: October 6, 1995) Hey check it out. It’s Giovanni Ribisi. That’s pr– Is that Jack Black!? Holy crap, I had no idea either one of those guys did The X-Files. How weird to see them circa fourteen years ago. But why does Ribisi always play mentally challenged people, or at least “a little slow” folks?
One of the things that’s the most fun about going back and watching shows like this is to see how many familiar faces I’ll see. Many of them were just getting their starts in the industry when they made these guest spots.
So if the kids were playing that fighting game, then why did I keep hearing the tune from Sonic the Hedgehog so loudly? Nearby machine dominating the audio? It was flashing me back to my college days. I had a friend who loved Sonic the Hedgehog, playing it all the time, and was absolutely addicted to The X-Files.
Ribisi played his part well, but it was almost written too harshly for me. I wanted his character to at least have some moral existence. The way he so brutally killed his friend Jack Black (I’m going to call his character that) on suspicion alone took any ability to sympathize with him out of the character.
I think we want to sympathize with the mentally slow, because it’s not their fault. But this kid was a monster through and through. I only worry that he wasn’t killed outright. Can they really keep him held down?
3.4 – “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”
(Original Air Date: October 13, 1995) Holy crap! Peter Boyle says Mulder’s going to die of autoerotic asphyxiation and Scully isn’t going to die at all. Methinks the writer’s were up to something.
The Mulder death prediction was probably a throwaway gag to his personality, but the Scully one seemed to be more meaningful. Add it to the fact that she’s been abducted, and it does make one wonder what her intended fate was at this point.
As far as I know she’s still alive, so either they changed their mind, her fate got averted, or it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe they just needed to bring in more psychics.
Not that you could have easily had more than were seen in this episode. Standing tall above all of them was Boyle’s reluctant psychic, Clyde Bruckman. It was a heart-wrenching performance, as you could just see the sadness oozing out of him.
It was interesting that the killer was so inconsequential that we never even learned his name. This was Bruckman’s story, as well as another key moment in the evolution of Scully toward the realm of the believers. The look on her face when she was sitting there holding his hand at the end of the episode while he died (I say he wasn’t dead yet because of that tear) was exactly as he’d foreseen.
I really enjoyed the balance of humor and pathos throughout. As far as “monster-of-the-week” installments go, this was one of the more emotionally satisfying.
Clacked by Jason Hughes 
on Aug 21, 2009 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
