Written by David Amann
Directed by Cliff Bole
Two seasons into his stint on the
show, its still pretty difficult to tell whether David Amann is a good fit for
the X-Files. So far, his episodes seem to do less well when it comes to
providing good doses of the paranormal, and have more interest in the looks of
the emotion of the characters involved. But the more stories he wrote, the
better a fit he seemed to be getting for the series, as we see in Chimera.
In
a way, Chimera could be seen as a companion piece to Amann's first
story, Season 6's Terms of Endearment. There we saw a supernatural creature who
was trying to do anything to live a normal life in the suburbs. In this
episode, we see a creature arising from a need to protect the so-called normal
life. But as Mulder picks up very quickly, the life in suburban Vermont
isn't much less seamy than the one that seems to be murdering prostitutes in
the underbelly of D.C. - it just looks a bit prettier. Admittedly, there's very little in this
episode that we haven't seen in so many lesser TV series - the perfect
homemaker who has been murdered turns out to be having an affair that has left
her pregnant - but it has enough of a paranormal twist to it to make it seem
more of a suspense episode than we've seen in awhile.
Admittedly, what makes this story
far more interesting than the one than we've seen before is the atmosphere. We
see a lot of ravens which, though its never stated explicitly in the episode,
are summoned to transform a seemingly innocuous housewife into a creature
capable of killing the women that she sees as a threat to her perfect family.
The broken mirrors are actually a more interesting touch to the episode as they
keep us from getting a good look at the monstrous creature that is behind these
violent attacks. We don't really get a look at it until the climactic battle
between it and Mulder, when it finally sees itself in the reflection of the
bathwater that is trying to drown Mulder in it. As twists go, its a fairly good
one - its not until Ellen Adderly finally sees the monster that she's become
that she finally manages to control herself.
The atmosphere provides some creepy
elements, if not a lot of scares (perhaps part of the reason that we never see
the monster that clearly is because it looks like a pretty lousy makeup job).
But the level of writing is more intriguing than a lot of episodes that we've
gotten this season. Mulder and Scully are separated for almost the entirety of
the episode; this time, after they've been involved in a stakeout for what
appears to be a female serial killer who has been responsible for the
disappearance of six prostitutes. At first, this seems to be just an excuse to
play the humorous contrast between the cheerfully domestic atmosphere that
Mulder is enjoying in the Adderly household, while poor Scully suffers in a
freezing surveillance mission. But in an utter rarity for the series, this is
one occasion where the separation helps the investigation. Admittedly, the
resolution to Scully's part of it is
more faultily handled comedy than anything else, but by realizing that the
killer was just a preacher cross dressing to try and win over members of his
flock, Mulder finally manages to put together that the killer isn't the sheriff
whose been having affairs with both of the victims, but rather his wife, who
has effectively become another person to do what she thought she had to do in
order to save her family. It's actually more effectively than what we learned
happened to Ellen in the episode's denouement.
Now, I'm not going to pretend that
Chimera is a classic. Even saying that it's one of the better episodes of
Season 7 would be damning it with faint praise. There are far too many false
leads in this episode, especially the character of Jenny Uphaus, whose entire
presence in the story seems to be 'I am a fake out", The fact that Mulder's refers to not having a
significant other in the 'typical definition of the term' actually seems to
play out as more depressing than cheerful given what the viewer of the X-Files
ultimately knows about the future of the Mulder-Scully relationship. And the
ultimate conclusion of the episode smacks of the explanation that was forced on
the end of Psycho rather than
anything than a real reason for what happened. But it is a fairly good episode
in a season that hasn't had a lot of high notes. And it shows that even as many
of the older writers of the series were beginning to have a lot of trouble
writing for the show that some of the newer hires were starting to find a
groove. Shame that the series would soon be moving in a direction so radical
that most of them would have to start all over again.
My score: 3.5 stars.
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