X-Files Episode Guide: Empodecles

Written by Greg Walker

Directed by Barry K. Thomas

Tonally, Empodecles may be the oddest episode of all of Season 8 - and considering what has been the haphazard manner of this entire year, that's saying something. It's hard to figure out exactly what is wrong with the episode - it's definitely nowhere near as bad as the series has been at times, it just seems, now that the X-Files has all four of its major leads in one place, its having a real difficult time trying to find something that justifies it.

What makes it strangest of all is that every permutation of our leads seem to have its advantages except  the one that we are the most used to. Now that Mulder and Scully are back in the same place, they seem utterly incapable of dealing with the elephant in the room. I realize the desire to have ambiguity over Scully's pregnancy, but this is becoming ridiculous, considering how much the series will wallow in it, often to great disadvantage ,in its final full year. As a result Mulder and Scully's banter seems to be particularly forced, as if the writers are determined to drain every drop out of it before the kid finally pops out. We're almost relieved when Scully is hospitalized with abdominal pains - one more pizza man joke, and I'd have shot myself.

So even though Mulder realizes he's now got one foot out of the door at the Bureau, there's a certain symbolism that he, however reluctantly, ditches Scully one last time to help the newly arrived Monica Reyes. Given how hostile he was towards Doggett in the last episode, we can see that he's even more reluctant to find himself wanting to help him, even given the severity of what may be in play. We've been getting bits and pieces of Doggett's son throughout Season 8, but its telling that its Reyes who finally has to reveal what has been at the center of so much of his pain. Doggett isn't like Mulder, he doesn't where the pain of his loss on his sleeve, and his reaction when he learns that someone is looking at Luke's death is as angry as we've seen him get all season. But there's a level of emotion to it that reveals that this crime has never been solved, and that this particular wound has never healed.

The Mulder- Reyes relationship is one of the more interesting ones, because its never dealt with again throughout the rest of the series. Mulder has spent his entire career at the Bureau, looking for someone who is willing to believe in extreme possibilities, and now that he finally has met someone, he seems more hostile towards not only her, but to the possibilities that she is suggesting. It's paradoxical that, now that his career at the Bureau is in what he thinks is its dying fall, he seems to have closed his mind to the ideas that there are more connections to what he really thinks is happening. Perhaps it is out of his concern for Scully, or perhaps it is his reluctance to want to help a man he still considers a foe, but only occasionally - such as when Reyes zings him with the idea that the X-Files 'needs someone with an open mind - does he show any spark towards the investigation.

Then again, perhaps its because we're never entirely sure what is going on in the middle of this investigation. When Jeb Dukes is the witness to a car crash, something seems to come out of the fire and invade him, causing him to kill his boss, and go on a cross-country spree of extreme violence. There are some neat effects with fire, and there are some increasingly interesting ideas connected with the string of violence, but how any of this seems to have any links to anything we've seen before on this series, besides its apparent links to a suspect in Luke's death is hard to fathom. In appearance, it bears a passing resemblance to Conduit, with all of the bizarre links between a current crime and the abduction of Samantha Mulder, but that was a little more bearable because the X-Files was finding its sea legs. And stripped away of that, the idea that there might be some kind of chain of evil linking from Bob Harvey to Dukes to his sister, plays rather badly compared to some of the simpler ideas of what the series has done about evil. Irresistible played particularly well because of the idea of the banality of evil, and its among the best cards the series has always kept in its back pocket. This idea plays a lot closer to last season's Orison and it doesn't particular balance well.

Despite all that, Empodecles works a lot better than it should for a couple of very valid reasons. The fact that we're seeing this through Doggett's eyes plays a lot better than it would for Mulder, as we see him as he's at his most human, particularly in the scenes that he shares with Reyes. The fact that he uses on of the key catchphrases of this series in connection with his son has a certain poignancy because we can see the kind of truth he wants to find. And the scene near the end where he has a conversation with Mulder about evil and what happened into his son works because its so awkward, and because Mulder has never been particularly good at giving this kind of aid and comfort particularly when it comes to belief.

Empodecles is not exactly the  best when it comes to its investigation, but when it comes to being a character study, particularly leading off the work of Patrick and Annabeth Gish, its definitely spot on. The fact that ultimately has nothing to do with the  ultimate solution of Luke Doggett's murder is actually not a hindrance, as we are not trying to solve Doggett's murder, but rather come to some kind of realization as to what makes a couple of our characters tick. As a look at the past, its slightly awkward, but it has more promise when it comes to the future of the series - maybe.

My score: 3.75 stars.