X-Files Episode Guide: F. Emasculata

Written by Howard Gordon & Chris Carter

Directed by Rob Bowman

This is one of the more gruesome files in the season, and a rather refreshing change from the conspiracy episodes, because this is actually about a conspiracy. We're spared some of the more pompous dialogue that we tend to get with Carter, and there's some pretty good acting on display. We're also given the rare example of having a story with a beginning, middle and end, and has its issues very clearly delineated. For all that, I'm not a hundred percent convinced that F. Emasculata is one of the better episodes in the shows canon.

Because this conspiracy doesn't involve aliens for a change, it's rather refreshing to see that Mulder and Scully are, for most of the episode on the same side. This is interesting, considering that they spend the majority of the episode completely apart from each other. One does wonder, as one does with so many of these episodes, why Mulder and Scully are called into investigate this kind of thing in the first place. This case, strictly speaking isn't an X-File, and considering that it has none of the elements that Mulder would normally trawl for, you'd think the people behind this (especially the Cigarette-Smoking Man, who should know better by now) would not want to get these people involved. Even if, as Skinner puts in once it's crystal clear that the conspiracy will never be uncovered, 'they're' always three steps ahead, you don't want to put Mulder on the trail of anything remotely like this.

Admittedly, the episode is weakened, a little structurally by having our heroes apart for most of it, mainly because Scully is given somewhat less to work with. Even though she's more qualified to deal with this kind of outbreak than Mulder is, she behaves incredibly blasé considered there's a quarantine going on. Her protective gear consists of a mask and gloves, as opposed to all of the body suits that everyone connected with Pinck Pharmaceuticals is wearing, she keeps mucking around in infected bodies, a sore on a dead prisoners bursts on her (and can I just say 'Ewww') and she eventually gets bitten by a bug in order to test for the virus. Yet somehow she manages to emerge from the experience completely uninfected. This may be the biggest X-File yet (though later episodes may hint that something strange is afoot with our fair doctor).

Mulder has more to do than his partner, and he spends most of the episode pursuing a fugitive which gives his job something of a purpose, and some reasonable when it comes to help. Still, he doesn't seem to regard the manhunt with any more seriousness than he does anything else in his search, as we all know what he's really looking for. Though it's easiest enough to play him for a fool, Mulder seems angrier than he usually does. Then again, a lot of this resentment may be due to the fact that he's seeing the CSM, who has been absent from the scene ever since he put a gun to his head in One Breath.  (No doubt he was changing apartment, getting his new address and contact information to the Consortium.... oops, we don't know about that yet.) But for once, it becomes clear that Mulder's search for the truth may have more dire consequences than he wants to admit, a theme that will start to become clearer in the next few seasons. When Scully stays Mulder's hand (and at a time, when she would want the truth to come out more than anyone) it makes us question whether or not our heroes are on the right side this time.

What stops this episode from being another confusing mess is the relatively high quality of the guest cast. William B. Davis is given something with a little more meat on it than the usual conspiracy episodes have given him. Charles Martin Smith is marvelous effective as the doomed Dr. Osborne, who abandons his loyalty to the company when he knows the reaper is coming. And those of us who are Breaking Bad fans will chuckle a bit to see Dean Norris portraying a federal marshal with the same sensibility Hank Schrader would have (and looking about the same as he would nearly fifteen years later!)

Admittedly, this episode is quite a bit more confusing than most of the mythology ones can be. It's a little hard to understand what exactly the trump card Pinch finally plays to completely outmaneuver our heroes, and in truth, it does seem overly complicated. But because it's self-contained and well acted, I'm more inclined to admire it than some of the messier ones we've dealt with in the series so far. It's uglier, but it's also a lot cleaner, and for that I am grateful.

My score: 3.5 stars.