201 Days of the X-Files Blog

Mulder: You have any ideas, Scully, any thoughts?

Scully: What I’m thinking, Mulder, is how familiar this seems. Playing Watson to your Sherlock. You dangling clues out in front of me one by one. It’s a game, and… and, as usual, you’re, you’re holding something back from me. You’re not telling me something about this case.

Written by: Chris Carter

Directed by: Paul Shapiro

Original Air Date: May 7th, 2000

Principal Setting: Kansas City, Missouri

Episode Summary:

Two strikingly similar women, who do not know one another, cause people to erupt into violence upon each other, whenever these two women come in contact. Mulder and Scully set out to solve the mystery of this unexplained violence involving the two women.

Personal Commentary:

No, this is no cross-over to the movie Fight Club and not even close to as good of quality either. I would skip this one if you’re a casual X-File watcher. It’s a far fetched plot even for the X-Files and Kathy Griffin gets on my nerves. Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard.

It’s a shame because the alternate universe idea could have been a really interesting story device, but it just goes to waste with a lackluster plot about two woman who cause violence for little, to no purpose or cognitive reason.

Episode Grade: D-

Favorite Scene:

Fun Facts:

• Mulder and Scully’s look-alike FBI counterparts are played by David Duchovny’s stunt double and Gillian Anderson’s stand-in, respectively.
• Jack McGee, playing Lulu’s and Betty’s biological father, is only 11 years old than the actor who portrays them, Kathy Griffin.

Faces You May Recognize:

• Kathy Griffin is famous for playing in the show Suddenly Susan and Sally Weaver in Seinfeld. She also has made an appearance in the movies Pulp Fiction and It’s Pat.

Mulder: A tobacco employee that doesn’t smoke– Isn’t that kind of like a GM executive who drives a Ford? If this was a hit it seems unnecessarily high-profile. It kind of draws attention to itself, don’t you think?

Written by: Steven Maeda & Greg Walker

Directed by: Kim Manners

Original Air Date: April 16th, 2000

Principal Setting: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Episode Summary:

A potential witness in a high-profile tobacco case under Skinner’s supervision is found dead in his bathroom from mysterious circumstances. Skinner asks Mulder and Scully to assist him in the investigation. They find a man who smokes a unique kind of cigarettes, the second-hand smoke of which, has deadly results for the inhaler.

Personal Commentary:

This was an interesting episode about a tobacco company that finds out when you try to make a “healthier” cigarette, it goes terribly wrong. The use of bugs will give you the jeepers creepers and Mulder’s life really is at risk and it’s Scully this time that saves his life by, for the first time ever, saving his life with nicotine.

Other than Mulder’s life being in dire risk and needing lots of nicotone patches at the end, it’s mostly a sub-par episode.

Episode Grade: C

Favorite Scene:

Fun Facts:

• The scenes featuring shots of beetles crawling out corpses were shot and filmed using real insects, as well as real actors.
• The fictional tobacco company, Morley, is the same brand of cigarettes that CGB Spender has smoked throughout the series.

Faces You May Recognize:

• Tobin Bell is famous for playing Jigsaw in the horror franchise Saw. He has also appeared in shows Revelations and 24.

• Dennis Boutsikaris has been in several shows including Better Call Saul, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and ER. He has also co-starred in the movies W. and The Bourne Legacy.

Scully: Time passes in moments… moments which, rushing past define the path of a life just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen, to consider whether the path we take in life is our own making or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed.

But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?

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Scully: Look, we’re always running. We’re always chasing the next big thing. Why don’t you ever just stay still?

Mulder: I wouldn’t know what I’d be missing.

Written by: Gillian Anderson

Directed by: Gillian Anderson

Original Air Date: April 9th, 2000

Principal Setting: Georgetown, Maryland

Episode Summary:

Scully is finishing up the autopsy of a person at a hospital. A file mix-up involving the autopsy folder and another patient’s x-ray leads Scully to discover a former lover of hers has been admitted at the hospital. Meeting with him again causes Scully to re-examine the decisions she has made in her life, leading to her where she is to today.

Personal Commentary:

This is the first, and I believe the last, time Gillian Anderson wrote and directed an episode and you can feel a difference with the slower pace and her taking a journey to understand the path she could have taken compared to the path she did take working in the FBI.

I like the rhythm theme throughout that could symbolize the passing of time and the emotions Scully goes through seeing her ex-boyfriend dying and realizing the path she took, although extremely difficult and taxing on her, was the best choice. It’s probably one of the few episodes that there really isn’t an X-File and could be a drama, rather than sci-fi. It has that dramatic feeling of the previous episode “The Field Where I Died”. It’s not my favorite, but it’s an important moment for Scully’s character to get reassurance that this ultimately was the right path to take.

Episode Grade: C+

Favorite Scene:

Fun Facts:

• Rhythm is a recurring theme. Beyond the music these include: 1) Opening scene, sound of water dripping from faucet starts before video starts and continues on. 2) The slide projector changing slides. 3) At the hospital the nurse that hands Scully the medical file is tapping her pencil. 4) The cord on her blinds is tapping the wall. 5) The heart monitor in Dr Waterson’s room. 6) Scully’s turn signal when she’s talking to Mulder on her cell phone. 7) The Apothecary sign squeaking.
• *Spoiler fact* This is the first time that we can see that Mulder and Scully had sex, but later in ninth season, a supelsordier tells Scully some personal details of her, like “on one lonely night you invited Mulder to your bed”. So, we should think that this was not their first time.

Faces You May Recognize:

• Nicolas Surovy has been in several TV shows including Deadwood, The Practice, and All My Children. The movie he is famous playing in is the movie starring Mel Gibson, Forever Young.

Ellen Adderly: Whenever my life’s a mess, I just do some housework. It gives me the illusion I’m in control.

Mulder: Well, maybe I should try that sometime.

Written by: David Amann

Directed by: Cliff Bole

Original Air Date: April 2nd, 2000

Principal Setting: Montpelier, Vermont

Episode Summary:

Mulder and Scully are on a stakeout of a female serial-killer of prostitutes. Mulder gets called away from the stakeout by Skinner to investigate the disappearance of federal judge’s daughter. The strange appearance of a raven shortly before she went missing leads Mulder to believe this case may have paranormal significance.

Personal Commentary:

This is one of those middle of the road monster-of-the-week episodes that doesn’t add a whole lot to the series, although it is scary and seeing the chimera woman’s strength as she almost kills Mulder is very intense. I like how Mulder always abandons Scully to do the investigate the more interesting case. Poor Scully left behind on her boring stakeout.

Episode Grade: C

Featured Video:

Fun Facts:

• Michelle Joyner played Ellen Adderly. Ellen’s baby, Katy Adderly, was played by Ms. Joyner’s real-life twin boys.
• Gina Mastrogiacomo’s final role before her death one year later.

Faces You May Recognize:

• Gina Mastrogiacomo is famous for playing in Goodfellas and The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear. This appearance in the episode was her last acting job before unfortunate death a year later.

Mulder: He did it all for himself– to get the science on that disk. His sincerity was a mask, Scully. The man’s motives never changed.

Scully: You think he used me to save himself– at the expense of the human race.

Mulder: No, he knows what that science is worth, how powerful it is. He’d let nothing stand in his way.

Scully: You may be right… but for a moment, I saw something else in him. A longing for something more than power. Maybe for something he could never have.

Written by: William B. Davis

Directed by: Rob Bowman

Original Air Date: March 19th, 2000

Principal Setting: Richmond, Virginia

Episode Summary:

A boy is miraculously cured of his cancer, without medical treatment. After Scully visits the boy and his family, she is met by the Cigarette Smoking Man. He offers Scully the chance to obtain the cure for all cancer in exchange for going on a trip with him to get the cure and keeping the trip a secret from Mulder.

Personal Commentary:

This is the episode we learn why Cigarette Smoking Man kept Scully alive all this time. He truly has the hots for her. He treats her like his daughter or a crush that he wants to take on a road trip, and William B. Davis impressive acting surprisingly comes across as a tad caring rather than very creepy. I liked seeing CSM and Scully interact without the bias of Mulder getting in the way. She really wants to believe he has the best intentions for them and that he really has the cure for cancer, but yet again it’s just smoke and mirrors. He does deep down care for and respect Scully, and we see a sensitive side of CSM that we have yet to see.

Episode Grade: B-

Featured Video:

Fun Facts:

• The script went through many revisions; several scenes were cut, including one that featured The Cigarette-Smoking Man teaching Scully how to water-ski. Which apparently William B. Davis is a pro water skier. Who would have guessed that?!
• In French, the title means “as a friend.”
• It’s a popular theory that the real proposal of CSM travelling with Scully wasn’t the one that we can see in the episode, but returning to her her lost fertility. It’s believed because we never figure out why he drugs her for.

Faces You May Recognize:

Nobody that we haven’t seen before that is recognizable.