X-Files Episode Guide: Per Manum

13. Per Manum

Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Kim Manners

If making Scully pregnancy part of Season 8 was a shaky idea, the idea of making the possibility of her baby somehow being extraterrestrial was probably the worst possible path Carter and company could've chosen, both in theory and in realization. Especially considering what happened when Scully actually had a child back in Season 5 - but then again, the series seems to have completely forgotten that storyline. However, given the nature of Season 8 so far, and that the series has all but ignored, with a few subtle references what has been going on with Scully, one can't hope but feel that Per Manum gives the X-Files a boost it hasn't had in quite some time.

In typical fashion, what we've been getting as far as the mythos going around is something around. We meet this never before seen characters who's apparently been writing Mulder about alien abductions, and who tells a story so implausible not even the newly open-minded Scully is willing to believe it. The fact that what we see in the opening sequence is truly terrifying doesn't seem to give us much encouragement as for what's actually happening. And quick as a wink, we find out that the woman  Haskell mentions seems to have a link to her new doctor, and that he actually is part of conspiracy. And after nearly three years of going without one, we get a new informant, this one linked to Doggett. (I wonder how many fan conventions Adam Baldwin goes to where he gets ragged on for this) And all of this has to with a link to Scully's baby, which has a level of incredulity that we really could've done without at this stage of this series.

All of this is enough to make you wonder why the series wants to go down this particular rabbit hole. What makes the episode work - and for that matter, work extremely well - are the flashbacks. For the first time all year, David Duchovny is actually made proper use of, as we finally find ourselves deal with the core of how Scully could become pregnant, and the story of Scully's ova, in what seemed like a throwaway story all the way back in Memento Mori. By far the most effective view of Scully's problem is seen, not through the eyes of her doctors or her boss, but from her best friend. The scene where Mulder comes into Scully's apartment to awkwardly discuss what she wants him to do, is one of the best scenes in all of Season 8. Both of them are fairly coy around each other, Scully somehow sure that Mulder will deny her, and Mulder's fumbling around as he finally manages to say yes. Its discomfiting, its leaves our heroes unusually tongue tied, and its surprising moving, as well as the humorous moments, in which Mulder finally acknowledges one of the benefits of his rarely mentioned porn problem. A lot of fans were irritated that, after all of the shippers that the series was still dealing with ambiguity when it came to Mulder's role in Scully's pregnancy. Myself, I would've been much more satisfied if this had been the real truth behind what had happened. And the final scene where Scully comes back from the doctor absolutely shocked that the insemination process hasn't taken is quietly moving in a way that so many of the mawkish scene we got between our heroes during so many similar medical crises just weren't.

 The episode also works in a way that it finally links Mulder and Doggett in  a way that none of the scenes in The Gift did. Here Mulder is shown as someone who will share the deepest secrets he has with her, willing to do anything for the person he cares about the most, and is willing to comfort her in ways that finally are starting to seem appropriate for a woman that he's known for nearly seven years. Doggett, despite his steadfast soldier persona, still seems to be struggling to earn Scully's trust, and for the first time, he finally balks at being given the runaround. The genuine outrage and anger he shows throughout the second half of the episode features some of the best work yet by Robert Patrick. Ultimately, this comes to a perfect balance in the scene in Scully's hospital room, where he finally learns about his partner's pregnancy, and how much it has cost her. His quiet compassion mirrors Mulder's in a way his investigatory process didn't in The Gift, and it reveals that he Scully has finally found a level of trust in him, as well as a renewal to try and find a way to find Mulder.

Per Manum isn't a perfect episode - there's a bit too much of the running around in hospitals that made the latter half of Season 4 such a downer. And frankly, given that we seemed to finally be dealing with a new approach to the mythology in the season opener, it probably was a bad decision to start trying to do an entirely new mythos now. But we're finally getting a reason as to why all of the subterfuge and sneaking around has been for, and giving the storylines, which have been flat for most of the season, a real sense of purpose that the show has been lacking. It may lead to dangerous places, but for the first time in a long time, we seem to be heading in the right direction.

My score: 4.5 stars.