X-Files Episode Guide: Deadalive

Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Tony Wharmby

This episode requires the viewer to take two enormous - and that's even by the standards of the X-Files - leaps of faith. First, you have to accept that the FBI would be so unsettled by Mulder's return that they would bury the body and not do an autopsy. Even allowing for his faith and Scully's wishes, that's a pretty big jump. The second comes near of the episode, when we learn that after being infected with the alien virus that has been the basis of the series for six seasons, that it can somehow be treated not with the vaccine that we've heard about, but simply with a course of anti-virals, they can knock it out as if were nothing more than a bad case of strep throat. (Granted, this is the mythology, which Carter has repeatedly demonstrated that he seems to be making it up as he goes.)

If you can get through those gaping plot-holes, the fact of the matter is Deadalive actually has a lot to offer. By having Mulder buried in the episode's tease, it seems to be putting a pin in everything we've been led to believe over most of the season, that Duchovny's supposed return is nothing than another deception. What makes it work is the way that there is a real sign of the passage of time. We cut to three months in the future: Scully is now obviously pregnant, and Kersh is offering Doggett a transfer off the X-Files. Doggett's is clearly torn: its been clear since he started working that he just can't get his mind around some of the larger concepts at work here, but he knows enough that when Scully finally goes on maternity leave, the X-Files can finally be closed down without any fuss. He can't be forced away from it, even though he thinks the digging up of Mulder's body is a huge mistake.

The return of Billy Miles, somehow apparently dead and alive simultaneously leads us to Mulder, and back to the endless hospital sequence. What makes this one feel less perfunctory is the condition of Mulder. One can't help but the draw the parallels to Scully's return way back in One Breath. And even more telling is the fact that it now seems that death is no longer the worst fate that can await Mulder. The scene where Billy Miles takes a shower and his skin literally falls off may be the goriest sequence the X-Files does all season, and seeing what may await Mulder if something is not done is somehow even more frightening to conceive. (Of course, we don't how the series is planning to handle it, but the appearance is bloody enough to make us fear for our hero.)

Deadalive is a crossroads episode for the series, and as a result, there are two conflicting approaches to the story, one of which is extraordinarily effective, the other seems like series runaround. The strongest part, as is the case for most of Season 8, is the fine work of Robert Patrick as Doggett. Given a chance to walk away from the X-Files, he finds himself going into depths that the series has not yet tried. His reaction to Skinner unearthing Mulder's body, isn't one based in denial, but rather to try and spare his partner pain. Even after seeing what has happened to Billy Miles, and his story, he can't bring himself to accept that what may be happening is somehow extraterrestrial. He nevertheless finds himself taking a huge leap in seeing Absalom, to try and find an answer to questions he doesn't want to ask. And the sequence where he encounters Krycek, and comes to battle with is a highpoint. All of this magnificent work, coupled with the driving irony that despite the fact he decides to stay on the X-Files is highlighted with the final scene - he's finally found Mulder, but now that he's back, he will be the odd man out in the unit.

On the contrasting end come the scenes between Skinner and Krycek as they try to negotiate a way to cure Mulder. Now don't get me wrong. After more than two years of having those pesky nanobots nesting in Skinner's blood with no consequence, I'm glad to see that Chekhov's gun is finally being fired. Its the return of Krycek that makes things so confused. Krycek's loyalties stopped making any logical sense around Season 5, and with the Syndicate gone, he now just seems like a loose end the series doesn't seem willing to tie up. We have no idea where he's getting his knowledge any more, and in true X-Files tradition, no one seems willing just to ask what will happen if Scully's pregnancy, which likewise has been ignored until now, comes to term. We can guess how he managed to get the vaccine, but given everything he's done to Mulder over the past seven season, why in God's name would he want to save him?

But you know something? It works in the end, and that because the series is finally willing to take risks. Only the X-Files would spend an entire season teasing Mulder's return, and then decide the most charitable thing to do would be to take him off life support. Only now would that decision turn out to be the right one to make, that somehow ends up saving his life. And the final scene, where Mulder somehow manages to return from the dead with the trademark Mulder wit still intact, almost makes everything we've had to go through in Season 8 worth it  There's no purple prose, no stupid narration, just a simple five line exchange between Mulder and Scully. Its perfect.

Deadalive is a messy episode, and I don't just mean the bloody horror that comes from watching so much of the hospital sequences. There are confusing moments that defy the corkscrew logic the X-Files has been running on for awhile. But there's more of the genuine feeling that has been present in the last couple of episodes than we've been getting for awhile. Its rather sad that now Carter and Spotnitz have finally managed to get the perfect merging of mythology pain and human emotion right - right when they're going to be forced to whisk it away again.

My score: 4.5 stars.