Written by Jeffrey Vlaming
Directed by David Nutter
You want to
give this episode more credit than it probably deserves. Another episode done
by a first time writer, story editor Jeffrey Vlaming would have a brief career
with The X-Files, writing only one
other episode before moving on to such other cult series as the remake of Battlestar Galactica and Fringe. So one can be a bit understanding why this episode isn't as
good as it could be---- they can't all be Darin Morgan or Vince Gilligan.
So you ignore
the fact that's pretty obvious that the villain is just a flat out ripoff of
Eugene Tooms, substituting fatty tissue for liver, and adding a fair amount of
disgusting goo as the killer seems able to digest his victims before he murders
them. You also have to ignore the fact that even by a considerable margin,
Mulder makes one of his more enormous leaps, going from the lack of fatty
tissue in a single skin sample to determining that our villain is 'a
fat-sucking vampire' Add to this a really big "ewww' factor given the
condition of the victims, and you have an episode that pretty much seems to be
a knock off.
Where the
episode works a lot better is all of the side elements, many of which are more
interesting then the actual story. There's the factor of internet chatrooms and
using it to stalk one's victims. These days that's practically an element of
every other police procedurals, but back in 1995, it was a fairly big deal.
Unfortunately, this means it hasn't aged as well as some of the others,
particularly going with the idea that most of the women who frequent chatrooms
are overweight and lovelorn. So much time that has passed that it seemed a cliché
before the episode had gone into reruns. But it leads to some interesting
wrinkles--- the most obvious of which is the fact that for all of Virgil Incanto's charisma and
predatory nature, when he comes face to face with an actual normal woman who is
attracted to him----- his landlady--- he can't get away from her fast enough to
get on the Internet and engage in virtual conversations. It's a pretty good
joke, and one that far too many of us tech heads can relate too.
There's also
the relatively rampant sexism on display for a lot of the episode--- sometimes
so forced, you can almost feel Vlaming straining to get his point across. Scully is treated with disdain by her fellow
policemen because of her sex, something that seems positively subtle
considering the way Incanto feeds off his victim's loneliness. The fact that a
woman like Ellen would be so desperate for companionship she is willing to throw
caution to the wind seems to play on clichés that seem heavy-handed. And there
is the fact that, even when she has the man in question in her house, rather
than have sex with him she'd rather email her friend to brag about who she has
in her apartment. The fact that Scully tells Incanto in the episode's
denouement that the worst thing about him is not the way he was a killer, but
the way that he fed off their souls as well as their bodies. The fact that he's
about to start rotting away will probably seem to much of a metaphor for being
a player that I've seen on TV.
There are some
interesting elements about 2Shy. There's the fact that the agents finally
manage to get their man intact for once (though if the last scene is any
indication, not for long), and there's the addition of some details that you
wonder what they're for. (There's the fact that the landlady's daughter gets
rather a lot of screentime, considering how limited her role is, as well as the fact she seems to get very
little help for her disability from even her own mother.) But the fact this
episode, despite the goo and some of the trimmings, that this episode is just
pretty average as far as scares or entertainment. The special effects are good
the paranormal elements decent, but there's nothing particular remarkable about
it. I'm willing to go with it once, but its not you, it's me. Actually, it is
you.
My score: 2.5 stars
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