Written by Chris Carter & Frank
Spotnitz
Directed by Kim Manners
In retrospect,
one of the more bizarre things about The X-Files, is how few actual 'events' there were. It
became something comic, if very frustratingly so, how many of the promos we got
(especially for the mythology episodes) that said every few weeks, the next
episode "will change everything" And in fact, all we got was stasis,
a series that refused to change. Contemporary series that were more
conventional procedurals - ER and Homicide, for example - would have more
game-changing episodes than the X-Files ever did, while later series would
learn from X-Files mistakes, and actually deliver on their promises. By the
time the series did offer revelatory episodes - the end of the
Syndicate, or the revelation of Samantha Mulder's final fate - so much time had
elapsed that by now the average viewer of the series could only consider the
endings either contrived or disappointing.
Which is why now,
with the series in what could be considered its dying fall, that the X-Files
actually delivered on one of its promises - 'The Search for Mulder is
Over!" scream the promos. And it is. And in an equal rarity for the
series, what we get is actually is worthy of our time, and far more powerful
than you'd think, considering we've spent the better part of Season 8 pretty
much ignoring that same search. What makes it far more effective is the fact
that even though we should be celebrating the fact that we're going to finally
find Mulder, almost from the beginning of the episode, there is a very grim air
to the proceedings. When Teresa Hoese is found in a hospital bed, barely
clinging to life, we finally seem to realize what the end of the search may
entail, and damn the fact that David Duchovny is going to appear in the next
six episodes. Scully finally admits what she has to have been considering for
months - that Mulder is probably going to be found dead. It almost would be
better not to find him at all, if that's how its going to be. We get a sense of
this when we find the body of Gary, the young UFO explorer that was captured in
Requiem. We can see the interior grief that Scully is going through when his
friend Richie comes in to ID the body, and then he disappears, his job done.
Now it seems clear that there's a very
real possibility that Mulder could be found dead in some field.
And that's the
tragedy of the episode - that is exactly what happens. Scully has spent the
better part of a season trying to take on the mantle of Mulder. It's a job that
she finally admitted in the closing minutes of Badlaa that she is ill-suited
for. She tries her very best throughout the episode to see things in the same
way her partner did, but at the last possible moment, finding Jeremiah Smith in
UFO cults camp, she stumbles, and the final cost is Mulder's life. The X-Files
has played on so many emotional moments that is almost started to seem camp,
but when Scully finally comes across Mulder's body, the pain is so wrenching
and real, that it almost completely justifies everything we've had to go through
in this often frustrating season.
Paradoxically, by
this point in the series, the mythology
episodes are starting to coalesce better than they have earlier on. The purple
and stilted prose that made so many of them unbearable, and the long and ponderous
voiceovers are gone. What we are finally getting is something far more
emotional - and real- than we have for years on this show. Even the moments
that shouldn't work - Scully tearfully relating to Skinner a conversation she
had with Mulder about starlight, or the scene where Scully 'sees' Mulder in her
motel room - manage to resonate because
they are finally stripped away and deal with things we care about far
more. Its because the X-Files doesn't
seem to be concerned with a bunch of old man sitting around in rooms, smoking,
but rather the fates of individual people, that the show finally seems to be
finding a mission statement that it has all but lost over the last few years.
Jeremiah Smith now no longer seems like a pawn between two rival elements, but
a man trying to do good work, that the character now seems fully realized. And
yes, in just a few episodes the series is going to relapse very badly, but that
doesn't change the fact that its finally starting to sing again.
This is Not
Happening works in a way that some of the best episodes of the series have
managed to succeed. Yes, there are parts that really seem to be going around in
circles - do we really need to reintroduce a whole new group of characters now
that we're finally free of the Syndicate? And though Annabeth Gish's initial
characterization of Monica Reyes plays with a far more flaky appearance, the
fact that she actually seems to be more of a human being (particularly in her
connection with Doggett's dead son, a bit of characterization finally given
voice to) means that ironically, the series is starting to finally get a handle
on introducing new regular characters. This episode works because it is willing
to finally take risks in a way that
the X-Files just hasn't been willing to do; its promises the return of Mulder,
and brings David Duchovny back without uttering a word of dialogue. It finally
brings about an episode that deals with the realism of dashed hopes, and the
pain and consequences that come as a result.
My score: 5 stars.
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