Written by Vince Gilligan
Directed by Cliff Bole
And now, we see what Gilligan has
been building to all year. All of Gilligan's scripts in Season 4 have dealt
with men whose extraordinary skills have somehow emphasized their utter
ordinariness--- which leads to poor Eddie Van Blundht, a man who takes the
silent H in his name with more seriousness than the gift that enables him to
shift into being anyone other than himself.
Eddie Van Blundht, Jr. is a loser,
at least so thinks his high school girlfriend who has seen 'Star Wars over 360 times, and is crazy enough to think that
she has been impregnated by Luke Skywalker. It is clear that this is a man, who
despite his exceptional ability never had anybody believe in him, especially
not his own father. In retrospect, the sequence where Eddie impersonates his
own father just so he can lay another level of scorn on his son is one of the
saddest things the series has ever done----- even as his father, Eddie can't
imagine saying anything positive about him. And the scene where he impersonates
Mulder in order to visit the mother of his child, and gets another load of
insults on him, is cruel. It's delightfully cruel comedy, but its cruel all the
same.
It isn't until the final act, though, that we
realize what Gilligan has been aiming at as Eddie continues his impersonation
of Mulder and finds out that the man he's aping is, if anything, a bigger loser
than him. A man who works in an office little bigger than a broom closet, who
doesn't have a bed in his apartment, whose only friends are utter nerds, and
hasn't had the decent sense to make a pass at the beautiful woman he works with
for nearly four years. The saddest thing about this is that Eddie for all the
scorn that gets heaped on him during this episode, is not a bad man. Sure he
impersonates other people to achieve his ends, but he doesn't hurt anybody, and
when he does, he goes to elaborate means to make sure there all right. (We'll get to the problem with what he does
in a minute) Even whenever he impersonating woman's husband, its clear that he
tries to listen to them. That's
perhaps the most daring thing about his impersonation to Scully --- he wants a
genuine human connection so he pays attention and acts with consideration.
There are very few characters like this in any series, much less villains on a
sci-fi show.
It's fitting that Darin Morgan is
cast as Eddie in this episode. Not only is the script an homage to all of his
comic gems in the last two seasons, but it can be seen as symbolically passing
the torch of comic genius from him to Gilligan. One should be clear that
Gilligan's satire is not a brutal as Morgan's , but its just as funny. There
are any number of brilliant bits in the episode---- Scully absolute look of
delight when Amanda reveals who the father of her child is, the look of 'oh my
god' when Mulder chases after Eddie in
the ob-gyn's office. the look on Mulder's face when he sees the doctor drop the
towel that's covering him, and how Eddie as Mulder seems both an utter klutz
and someone trying to fit in. More than that, is the fact that Gilligan, like
Morgan, has the comic insight to take keys bits of the mythology and turn them
into comedy---- this episode takes the fundamental premise of the aliens we've
seen---- the shape-shifter--- and turns into a perfect joke
This is such a perfect episode that
one is loathe to point out one of its most obvious flaws --- the fact that
while the script is very cute about Eddie's crimes, the fact of the matter is
Eddie is a multiple rapist. One can certainly see why Gilligan did it----to
make Eddie seem like such a harmless loser, he has to soft-pedal all the
criminal actions that takes place. But the fact remains, he had sex with five
women without their consent. One could sort of see this being done as part of a
darker comedy--- certainly the series will demonstrate it better in later
episodes---- but it's sort of swept under the rug, even when Eddie goes to
prison. Its probably just as well that he didn't--- if we thought Scully was
actually in danger in the long scene
with Eddie/Mulder at her apartment, a lot of the comedy would go out the
window. And we all know that part of the reason it gets such a big laugh at the
ends, it's because Mulder has broken down the door of Scully's apartment to
save her from... a kiss. (In retrospect, its hard to know whether X-philes
everywhere were relieved or enraged that Mulder arrived when he did: we almost
had it!)
One could also object to the fact
that during this entire episode, Mulder and Scully are going through business
as usual, as if Scully were not dying. But again, one can quickly forgive this
because that's Gilligan's intention---- this is
supposed to be a light and fluffy episode, and if the 'c word' came up
during the show, well, it would completely ruin the mood.
A few months after this episode
first aired, TV Guide put Small Potatoes as one of the two X-Files of the 100 greatest
episodes of all time. (The other, perhaps not surprisingly, was Clyde
Bruckman). I'm not entirely sure whether that was the best fit of the series.
But one has to admit that this is one of the true gems of the series, arguably
one of greatest episodes the show ever did. And even more than Morgan,
Gilligan's episodes were significant for showing the changes that series would
make in the seasons to come, aiming for a lighter tone rather than darkness.
Most of them would not be as good, but when the jokes were written by Gilligan,
they would always ring true.
My score: 5 stars.
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