Homicide Episode Guide: A Doll's Eyes

Written By James Yoshimura; story by Henry Bromell and Tom Fontana

Directed by Kenneth Fink

     One of the reasons that Homicide remained a brilliant show for its seven year run was its ability to examine one of the most critical emotions in any murder investigation: grief. Most of the time we would only seen the grief over the deceased for a few minutes. But at least once a season the writers would take an in-depth look at the loss and pain  that comes with death on those who suffer the most greviously. In Season 2 the episode was ‘Bop Gun’. In season 3, it was ‘Every Mother’s Son’. And this year the writers explored it in ‘A Dolls Eyes.’

     Now because every murder causes a different kind of pain, there are countless reactions. But what makes ‘A Dolls Eyes’ an agonizing hour of television is that unlike the episodes I mentioned--- and indeed, for most episodes of the series—is that for the majority of the episode the victim is still alive. Technically. As the doctor who examines Patrick Garbarek’s chart for the detectives, he has  ‘dolls eyes’--- a slang term in emergency medicine for being brain dead.

This faces the Garbareks with an agonizing choice for their ten year old son—whether or not to take their son off life support so that his organs can be donated to others.

     The episode focuses on the tragic--- and for that matter pointless—anguish of Joan and Paul Garbarek. They bring their son to a shopping mall and are in the process of leaving when two teenagers run by firing shots at each other. In the process Patrick is hit by a stray bullet--- one that we never even see fired. The Garbareks then spend most of the episode in a daze as events unfold. At first they are numbed and focus on trivial things, like where their car is parked. Then when Bayliss and Pembleton come into talk to them about the shooting, they understandably freak out when they hear the words ‘homicide detective’. Their son is alive, they argue and it is for just that reason that they are in agony. Their son is brain dead. But this is a world where medical miracle seem to be happening every other day. If they don’t take their son off life support, he could exist in a vegetative state for fifty or sixty years--- something that would very rapidly eat away all of their money. But to ask a parent to just let their child submit to death is a decision that no parent should have to make. Gary Basaraba (pre ‘Boomtown’) and Marcia Gay Harden (pre Academy Award) give absolutely wrenching performances which don’t hit any false notes or go for histrionic high points. The scene where they finally turn of their sons life support is an absolutely gut-wrenching one. Even the writer of the story (Fontana) says that he was moved by that last moment.

     With the attention focused on the bereaved Bayliss and Pembleton find themselves investigating a crime like this. They speak for the dead, and to deal with someone living unnerves and upsets them. Both want to pass the case off to Violent Crimes but Gee and Howard insist they follow up on it.  They spend much of the episode sniping at each other over trivial things--- Bayliss not picking Pembleton up, Pembleton not asking the victims mother for her sons clothes (which are now evidence. This is business as usual for them, but it is pretty clear that they both feel a lot of distress over having to deal with the case like this. It doesn’t help matters that this murder (like those in ‘bop Gun’ and ‘Every Mother’s Son’) was committed by children--- a sixteen year old was shooting at his younger brother over an incident with his girlfriend. Again this has a crime with no real criminals, something that we can tell pisses off both detectives no end.

     Religion is not explicitly mentioned in this episode but there is a very subtle theme. The episode occurs when the Pope is visiting Baltimore.  At first this is used for levity as Munch tries to persuade Captain  Russert to sell her ticket. It becomes more serious when she offers her ticket to Pembleton, and Frank refuses it. Even if he wasn’t already estranged from the church, this case is not one that would reinvest one with faith in God. Eventually Frank watches a televised broadcast of the Pope at Camden Yards. Another show might have Frank give some kind of reaction—but all he does is look at the screen for a few seconds and then answer another call. There is no  rest for the murder police; it’s one tragedy after another.

     But for myself, the most painful part of the episode occurs when a father of the boy who received Patrick’s kidney and thus saved his life.  He wants to talk to the Garbareks to thank them for letting them have their son donate his organs. The happiness in his voice  strikes such a discordant note when we realize their tragedy brought joy to this family. It is something that they will never understand and something that we the viewer, having got caught up in these parents lives, find very hard to hear.

     Like most of the episodes when Homicide does this kind of thing, it is very difficult to enjoy ‘A Doll’s Eyes’ But one can not deny that an episode like this is what good television is all about.

My score:4.75 stars

Viewer Rankings 15^th

X-Files Episode Guide: 4-D

Written by Steven Maeda

Directed by Tony Wharmby

Steven Maeda's best script for the X-Files, so far, was last season's Redrum, an episode which bent the already fractured format of the series by turning it, for one week, into Twilight Zone, and making the focus of the paranormal on a single character. In 4-D, he tries something similar, using a theme that would not be out of place in Twilight Zone,  focusing the episode on a serial killer who has the ability to shift between parallel universes. In some cases, he does a better job than last time; at least, he has the logic to realize that if you're going to write for the X-Files, you damn well better utilize the characters that you've been given. In another sense, he's still clearly struggling with the format - we don't really get an explanation as to why serial murderer Erwin Lukesh has the ability to flit between these two worlds, nor why John Doggett ends up between the two, albeit ending up getting shot. And for that matter, he doesn't seem to really much of a better handle when it comes to resolving the mysteries that he's trying to unfold. Monica Reyes somehow picks up on what is going on - again, much faster than Mulder probably would - and then once she figures out a way to resolve the issue, the timeline is magically restored, and she's back at her apartment with 'her' Doggett.

But even if you want to count all these things as negative, the fact remains 4-D does what none of the writers have managed to do so far, and that's breathe life into a series that has practically been stillborn so far. For the first time, the characters have a movement and spark to them that's been missing, and that's particularly true with Annabeth Gish, whose finally been given something to work with Monica Reyes, other than seeming a little kooky and possibly having an affair with the boss. She's given something emotional to work with, being suspected of a murder there's no way in hell she could've committed, while simultaneously trying to deal with the fact that Doggett is now paralyzed. There's an energy and freshness to her character that we haven't seen before, and Gish clearly seizes on it.

Admittedly, the hospital scenes in the series have practically become a running gag, but for the first time in many season, they too have a poignancy to them because they are dealing with characters we are still coming to know. If Mulder and Scully had been in them, we'd been able to dismiss it as the writers just mining the same old angst of the week crap. But because of the relationship between Doggett and Reyes - particularly in seeing this vital man, probably paralyzed for the rest of his life - it has a sharpness that the writing hasn't been willing to give. One could make the argument that this is poor man's approach for the series trying to deal with euthanasia, but the ability of Patrick to go through with the performance focusing solely on his face for most of it, makes for riveting drama.

And the performances aren't limited to Gish and Patrick. The X-Files has always done particularly will in trying to reveal its serial killers as small men with little lives. In a way, that's no less true of Erwin Lukesh, who is given the power to flip through dimension, and only uses is to kill women. But there's a strength to this that we've primarily only seen in Vince Gilligan. This is particularly true when Lukesh comes closest to be caught - he may be an amoral monster, but when he realizes he has to kill his bedridden mother in order to avoid capture, there's a level of emotion that we really aren't accustomed to seeing in our killers-of-the-week. Lukesh's attempt to murder Reyes in the final act seems more an act of deliberate suicide than anything else; its clear that he's broken. Dylan Haggerty gives a far more convincing performance than we're used to seeing at this point. There's some similar good moments from Anderson for the first time, particular in the moment when she admits the paranormal aspect to the early moments of Beyond the Sea - its a subtle aspect that we really wouldn't have expected of her even by now.

4-D is by no means a perfect episode. It's still clear that Maeda doesn't seem to have a clear fix on how the X-Files work. After spending a better part of half the episode dealing with an investigation into Reyes' culpability into Agent Doggett's shooting, it all gets dropped rather perfunctorily when Doggett regains consciousness. And given how much effort is expended on Reyes saying she won't pull the plug on her partner, the fact that she does it with nobody arguing seems a little hurried, and even less explanatory. We know, given the way that the series works by now, that Robert Patrick has to come back next week, but it still seems shoddily done. But the fact remains that after a very sluggish start, the X-Files seems to be moving in a promising direction at last, and maybe that there's a future for this series with Doggett and Reyes in it.

My score: 4.25 stars.

Fargo Season 3 Review

One of the many delights of watching FX's Fargo is that each season, showrunner Noah Hawley seems to cast a British actor solely for the purpose of speaking with the bizarre Minnesotan accent that everybody in the series must utilize. In the inaugural season, it was Martin Freeman. In Season 2, it was Patrick Wilson. And this year, its Ewan McGregor. Adding to the delight, Hawley has cast him as two brothers - Emmett and Gus Stussy - each visually different, but with the pronounced similarity.

Twenty years ago, the Stussy brothers received an inheritance. Emmett received a sports car; Gus a book of stamps. Emmett persuaded Gus to trade, and their lives have gone in substantially different directions since. Now in 2010, Emmett is a millionaire, the 'Parking Lot King of the Northwest." Gus is a pot-bellied, balding parole officer, with a broken-down sports car. Gus' grudge, in typical fashion, sets the chain of events that push the season forward.

Angry enough to try and steal one of the stamps, Gus blackmails one of his parolees to do it. In typical Fargo fashion, he chooses the wrong man for the job, and his parolee accidentally murders a man. When he tries to collect on, Gus' girlfriend, a daring much younger con artist named Nikki Swango (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has him meet death by air-conditioning unit. This should be the end of things, but Swango, a competitive bridge player still wants her boyfriend to be made whole. She goes after the stamp, and when she doesn't get it, she does an unthinkable thing with a tampon.

But things are not going much better for Emmett. A year ago, at the height of the recent economic crisis, he and his business partner borrowed a million dollars from a man named V.P. Varga (David Thewlis, a revelation for those who only know him as Remus Lupin. When they try to repay the loan, Varga tells them - enigmatically, like so many Fargo villains - that the money was an investment, and they are now his 'partners'. We're not sure yet what exactly his enterprise is, but he and his associates are operating at a level that will easily terrify the viewer.

As always,. local enforcement is trying to get involved, but in this case, Deputy Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon) is a little more personally involved. The person murdered in the original crime was her stepfather, and between dealing with the downsizing of her department, and trying to co-parent a child, she finds herself looking into it, and finding unsettling things about her stepfather's past.

In any other year, Fargo would be a shoo-in to win a lot of Emmys. The performances are electrifying, the dialogue is crisp and unsettling, and the overall mood is one of quiet dread, wondering which domino is going to fall next. Given the level of brilliance of limited series this year, it seems very possible that Fargo will fall by the wayside as it did last time. One can't escape the feeling watching it, though, that the Coen Brothers must be bursting with pride when every new season starts off. As is the case with so many of their movies, you watch each year, knowing that there's nothing like it on TV.

My score:4.75 stars.

Homicide Episode Guide: Autofocus

The season of change continues in this episode when Lewis, who has been flying solo  since the beginning of Season 3, finally gets a permanent partner--- new Homicide Detective Mike Kellerman. Meldrick is understandably jumpy--- as Munch cheerfully reminds him in the teaser, he has partnered with every detective in the squad (save Howard) and none of the partnerships have been successful. As it turns out this partnership will work better even though it gets off to a rocky start in this episode. Of course, everyone is even more unsettled when the entire squad is forced to move to a nearby bank due to a gas leak.

     In this sea of confusion, Meldrick and Mike get their first case together--- the murder of an old lady at a bus stop. Despite the fact that there were people waiting with her, in typical fashion, no one seems to have seen anything. Indeed, the main witnesses are so focused on a terrible blind date they don’t notice anything. The detectives are left swinging until they get help from an unlikely source-- cameraman J.H. Brodie. As it turns out Brodie gets the killer on tape entirely by accident and then spends a good deal of the episode trying to convince the detectives that he has something worth watching. Naturally, he has a price—he wants an exclusive on the arrest of the killers.  Eventually he does get this but it is not enough to save his job. The higher-ups at his TV station are far more focused on getting an exclusive then they are on solving a crime. When Brodie gives this up he is promptly fired---  again, this is closer to real life, when getting your job done is more important then doing the right thing.

     Brodie will eventually become a regular on the show--- one of only two that will not play murder police. Unfortunately, Fontana and company never find a way to work him seamlessly into the show. His role is unclear, none of the detectives become friendly with him and he never gets the same attention made to his life as the regular detectives. I was never entirely sure what to make of Brodie, he never really gelled for me (or for most viewers of the show) Its pretty clear that he was meant to be a version of David Simon, the man who spent a year on the killing streets. But Simon stayed outside of the story in his book, Brodie keeps stepping into it on TV. It is impossible to pretend (like the detectives do) that he isn’t there but we’re never sure what to make of him.

     Another major change that never completely gelled occurs in ‘Autofocus’--- Howard is promoted to Sergeant. Unfortunately, in the book, it was made very clear that a sergeant’s role was mostly office work, although they are allowed to go out on cases. This is the reason that the sergeants were written out of the series when the show premiered. And since there is already one office bound leader (Giardello) there would seem to be less for Howard to do. Howard gets squeezed between these two extremes and as a result would have almost no presence on the show for the next two years--- not being called out on cases, or allowed to supervise. It’s a great pity, because as this episode illustrates there was a lot that could have been done exploring Howard’s character as she dealt with the challenges of her new job--- how she deals with it and how others deal working with a former friend. Instead, Howard was all but eliminated, a sad fate for Melissa Leo who was such a vital part of the show for its first three years on the air.

     Despite all of these problems, there are some interesting elements in this episode. We see how Meldrick and Mike reluctantly dance around each other as they both try to settle into a new situation. They don’t start out very well but by the end of the episode they are slowly beginning to function as a team. They will be a somewhat lighter version of the ‘A-team’ for the show--- Bayliss and Pembleton. Generally speaking the stories surrounding them will be somewhat lighter in tone—which doesn’t necessarily make them less interesting as we shall see.

     Also somewhat interesting are the killers themselves--- James and Trevor Douglas, two seventeen-year old boys who went from armed robbery to videotaping random killings. In typical ‘Homicide’ fashion, they refuse to confess—even though the police have the videotape of the shooting the victim. Even more bizarre is that they arrest the shooter at his own wedding, suggesting that the previous night’s murder was his bachelor party. When the breadth of their criminal activities are explained to Gee, he is remiss of how young people have gone from playing cowboys and spacemen t0 these kinds of felonies. That is all the philosophy that we get for this particular episode.

     ‘Autofocus’ isn’t a great episode. There are a lot of elements of the new ‘Homicide’ rather than the old. But the acting and writing are good if not spectacular. If the episode seems a little more traditional cop show that old style ‘Homicide, well that is just how the show has begun to evolve. Poorer examples, unfortunately, lay ahead.

My score: 4 stars.

X-Files Episode Guide: Daemonicus

All right. This is the step in the right direction. And considering how good Spotnitz was at making John Doggett become the most prevalent character in Season 8, it makes a certain amount of sense that he would try to do the same thing with Monica Reyes. Unfortunately, he stumbles here,  though that's not the episode's biggest flaw.

So far, Reyes hasn't been the most engaging of characters. There have been moments where she has seemed a more believable person, but despite Annabeth Gish's best efforts, most of them have failed. Daemonicus is an admirable attempt to try and open a window into her that most of the efforts have -  her expertise in ritualistic killings would seem to be a way in. But there's something way too convenient about the fact that just after being assigned to the X-Files, she encounters a Satanic killing that actually seems to be the work of the Devil. Spotnitz does his make the murders seem dark and evil, but by this time, even the casual X-Files viewers has past the point where they can be considered shocking, much less the work of the Devil himself. Frankly, one finds himself agreeing with Doggett far more often then Reyes in this episode, and that's surely a bad sign for a series that is supposed to be about the supernatural.

The series has had more than its share of success dealing with decidedly ordinary killers who find themselves dealing with evil, but however improved Spotnitz's writing has become over the last year, he is not Vince Gilligan or Howard Gordon.  John Kobold presents as an interesting figure at first (and there is a certain irony that James Remar would, just a few years after this episode, spent the entire length of Dexter, playing the conscience of a serial killer), but the second he gets put into a larger room, one can't help but think that Spotnitz has fallen into the trap of trying to turn Kobold into a cut-rate Hannibal Lecter. And it certainly doesn't help matters the way that he begins talking about Doggett as being inferior to Agent Mulder as his job - Season 9 already has enough strikes against it; it doesn't need the constant reminder to fans about Doggett's inferiority to Mulder.

But then, this episode has larger problems. Scully has now apparently transferred back to Quantico, this time teaching forensic science. But the image of her taking to a bored, openly disdainful group of students about working on the X-Files is another metaphor that the series really doesn't need right now. And the idea that she's trying to convince people to argue her own line of thought, while taking what is now Mulder's perspective in the investigation into these murders seems brutally unfair. For one thing, now that Reyes is arguing the believers side, Scully now seems the third wheel. For another, whenever she's there, it makes Doggett outnumbered, which makes him even pricklier.  Robert Patrick was by far the best thing about Season 8, but by making him not merely skeptical but also being overrun by Scully and Reyes, he becomes even more defensive, and that's not an attractive characteristic on him.

And while all of these issues are playing out, we have an episode that can't decide whether it wants to be viewed as paranormal or as a straight manipulation of the agents by Kobold. Now, let's be clear. Some of the killings have a very frightening feel to them - Spotnitz the director does a far better job than Spotnitz the writer, and the teaser, and several of the cutscenes are genuinely frightening. But as the writer, Spotnitz keeps undercutting himself by trying to keep a certain level of ambiguity to the nature of the killings. Now, the X-Files is more often than not all about ambiguity. But at least in the old days, it would decide on one path or the other. Here, in the denouement, it clearly seems like Kobold has spent the entire episode outmaneuvering everybody involved - the way he seems to have chosen the victims proves it. But after apparently proving it, Reyes seems determined to argue that evil was involved in everything that happened, and that Doggett somehow knows it.

This just seems to be another strike against a series that's now trying to find its direction with its lead actor gone and yet not gone.  And on top of everything else, it doesn't succeed at its primary objective, which is making Monica Reyes more of a realistic character. It was established in Empodecles that the most interesting thing about her was that this was someone who needed to believe less. But right now, what the X-Files seems more intent on doing is making her someone who out-Mulder's Mulder. Even he wouldn't be crazy enough to ask the doctor of a mental institution whether one of her patients was possessed by the devil.             And all the predicate of her belief seems to center around whether or not a ceiling fan at the original crime scene was on or not. This does not seem to be a scenario that is believable even by the standards of Mulder.

Daemonicus is definitely a positive step forward, as far as the Season 9 opener goes. But in trying to prove a working template as the series goes forward or as a Monster of the week in its own right, it doesn't really succeed as either. Not a good sign for those looking for one.

My score: 2 stars.

'Better Call Saul' Season 3 Review

With each successive season of Breaking Bad, one could clearly she the steady progression of Walter White into the monster that became known as Heisenberg. Even as the third season of Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan's increasingly brilliant prequel series, it is a lot more difficult to see the changed that will turn Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman, Walter's long suffering consigliere.

What is clear is that one can clearly see Jimmy trying to rise above the mess that he is being dragged into, and with each successive episode, we can see him sinking a little deeper. This season, Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk, who continues to astonish with each new episode) has now reached a breaking point with his older brother, Chuck (Michael McKean, demonstrating another level of Emmy worthiness with each season) After going so far as to Scotchguard his entire house in order to get Jimmy to confess to a crime critical to the later episodes of Season 2,  Chuck demonstrated that, even as far psychologically gone as he may be, he is as mentally sharp and manipulative as his younger brother will be one day. By using a tape recording, he managed to manipulate his assistance, which led almost like dominoes falling to his brother throwing all caution to the wind, angrily confessing everything, something that will almost surely land him prison. (The viewer, of course, knows he'll walk away, but it sure looks bad.)

Things are in an even darker place for Mike (Jonathan Banks, stoically outstanding) who in the last moments of his storyline, where he was about to assassinate someone in the Salmanaca clan, when he was stopped and told he was under surveillance. He's spent the last two episodes trying to figure out who and why is doing this, which has led to long stretches of silence, eventually leading to the fast food restaurant, Los Pollos Hermanos. This led to a very well-done sequence where Jimmy went into the restaurant, spent five minutes watching a certain man, and trying to find something he couldn't, all leading up to a brief moment where he interacted with the head of the chain. In any other series, we could see this as just another excuse to bring a Breaking Bad favorite, but Gus Fring is no ordinary character, even within a universe of memorable ones, and to see him in the opening minutes, you almost forgot how miserable he made Walter's life. Just for a moment. I'm sure we'll be reminded of this soon enough, considering Giancarlo Esposito has agreed to come back.

Better Call Saul is one of the more astonishing series to come over the last few years. It's still nowhere near the level as Breaking Bad is, but considering that the series has been ranked by experts as one of the five greatest shows ever created in TV history, nothing could, even if it came from Vince Gilligan. But what the series manages to do is something that very few prequels can manage: it makes you forget the ultimate fate of the characters involved. And it works a lot better as a character study than so many of these kinds of shows manage to do. The performances are universally superb, and the writing is so good, it makes you even more amazed how many sequences there are that are just long stretches with no dialogue. I don't know how long Better Call Saul will be on the air, or what the future is for so many of the other characters we never saw Jimmy/Saul with (what will happen with Kim, Jimmy long-suffering legal colleague/girlfriend?), but even if we know, from the black and white sequences that open each season, what Jimmy's inevitable fate is, you find yourself hoping and praying for Saul Goodman, a man you never thought was worthy of it, and maybe didn't think so himself.

My score: 4.5 stars.

Homicide Episode Guide: Fire, Part 2

Written By Jack Behr; story by Henry Bromell and Tom Fontana

Directed by Nick Gomez

              The conclusion of the arson storyline is a much better episode than its precursor. The main reason is now that the sensationalism of the burning buildings has disappeared and we are now in the midst of what Homicide does best—trying to catch a killer.

     Not that things are simpler, of course.  We learn quickly that the victim of the first fire was killed by the fire itself, whereas the second victim was killed BEFORE the fire was set. Furthermore, even though both the victims are teenagers it soon becomes very clear that they had nothing in common and probably didn’t know each other. So why were these people killed? The answer doesn’t come easily.

     Kellerman and Pembleton each get a minor lift after talking with two very different informants. Kellerman’s is a ‘professional’ snitch, giving his services for money. Pembleton’s informant, however, is more phantom like—in both of his phone calls the editors go to a great deal of trouble to make sure that we don’t see his face. This particular informant has a good reason for being anonymous; turns out he’s a burglar.  This is a bit of the old Homicide—these are people whose activities, while criminal are ignored because they don’t relate to the investigation.

    Without any clear direction, Gee sends the detectives back to the site of the first fire. We don’t know why—until Frank  points out the homeless people who have now marked the ruins of the buildings as their territory.  One doesn’t think the detectives will get much help from these transients but one—a slightly dotty old woman known as Mrs. Rosen—cheerfully admits that she may have taken the ride in the arsonist van.

     This leads to the interrogation of Gavin Robb, a chemistry professor who had the second victim in one of his classes, but who otherwise doesn’t know her. We expect that Frank and Tim will chew him up. Except they don’t. Kellerman begins a conversation with the man treating him like a man. Robb points out that this is a variation of the ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine and it is—but Kellerman says he’s the bad cop. Very gently Kellerman lulls Robb into feeling safe, talking about little things—like a dog who was killed in the first fire. Then, just as Robb is about to leave, Kellerman conversationally asks: “Why’d you kill the dog?” Robb replies: “I didn’t know it was there.” Boom.

     Technically this has the marks of cliché—the rookie detective tricking the killer into confessing. What makes it different is that Gavin Robb is no criminal mastermind. He killed the first victim by accident when he set the first fire. The second fire was set to cover up his real crime--- the murder of the second victim. But when Kellerman asks why he did it, Robb refuses to answer. We never know why he did and as Giardello wisely points out, sometimes you’re better off not knowing why people do bad things

     The police procedural part is interesting enough but what makes the episode work on another level is our exploration into the character of Mike Kellerman. We see him off-duty for  the first time, talking very friendly to his ex-wife—who we met in the first episode. He seems to have a very good relationship with Annie (which is surprising given what we will eventually learn about how his marriage broke up) We also get a sense of the boyishness of Mike. He seems to be one of those guys who is a hearty drinker, smoker and partier—as he puts it “he worships fun”. He has a lot of youthful energy—which will be eroded in later seasons to an extreme. He has an inferiority complex with the detectives at Homicide but he does have the sense and the cunning to make Gee offer him a job. He initially declines it, saying he’s good at what he does. Then he goes to see his father at a beer-bottling plant- and realizes that this is the philosophy of his dad. He realizes what he wants to get away from and the last scene shows him accepting the job.

     We also get some insight in Frank—a man who in many ways is Kellerman’s antithesis—he is purely professional, he doesn’t have much of a social life and he is very pessimistic. But this dourness is there for a reason. He is still very concerned about the world he is going to be bringing his child into. Like many new fathers he’s scared, but his reasons are very legitimate. We will gradually learn more about Frank the husband and father through how the world operates.

     And there is some comedy. Bayliss continues to walk around stiffly as his back—caused by a degenerate disc—and he is beginning to get worried about it. And there is the byplay between Kay and Munch as the sergeant’s exam approaches—which turns out to be for naught when Munch doesn’t even show up for the exam. Whether or not he chickened out is never told but he never seems to feel any ill feeling to Howard for taking the exam.

     All in all, the second part of ‘Fire’ is much better than the first. Apart from the excitement of the first episode, we see Homicide’s true nature—quiet, talky, ruminative with a little humor and no explanations. Even if the show had a new look, it maintained most of the old rules.

My score: 4.25 stars.

X-Files Episode Guide:Nothing Important Happened Today, Part 2

Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Tony Wharmby

I didn't think it would be possible for things to sink any lower than we were in the season premiere. As bad as some of the X-Files season openers have been, at least in the second part of these episodes, there was at least the hint that there was going to be a little clarification - at least as far as that terms stands for anything relating to the mythology. But, if anything, the second part of Nothing Important Happened Today seems to make clear that things are just getting incredibly murkier. And while it was one thing to try and do this when Mulder and Scully were around - even if the mythology became increasingly morass-like the longer the series was on the air - our heroes presence at least gave us something to hold on to. Here we have what appears to be the start of entire new mythology, new characters, new loyalties that seem to be shifting - this is what Carter seems to think the X -Files should be about now. And its horrifying. Because rather than keep the characters more important than the mythology, now that Duchovny is gone, he is ranking the mythology above the characters. And the fans  long since realized that there was no there there.

So what we have is an entirely new conspiracy that is so confusing and protracting, it makes one almost long for the days of the Syndicate. Here's this new character with allegiance to Doggett, who we've never seen before, and we'll never see again. She tells us an  entirely new story of what the mythology is now - apparently the ideas that putting fluoridation in the water have been turned into a literal plot point. It's no more plausible than the bees were, and the series is going to drop it after this episode. We have a new location where the government is apparently using a ship as a mobile lab to manipulate ova, except we've been dealing with the extremes of this since Memento Mori with even less coherence, except now it seems that it might have something to do with the baby. (The baby. Apparently Scully and everybody else has decided not to call William by his right name. It's just more way of removing us from a storyline the series doesn't want to personalize.)

And look, here's the reappearance of Knowle Rohrer, who now seems to be taking the role of the Bounty Hunter, except he doesn't bleed green. (Honestly, I never thought I'd find a phrase that I'd grow to hate more than 'alien-human hybrid, but only three episodes into it, 'super-soldier' now sounds just as ridiculous. New record, Carter.) And the fight between him and Shannon is even more inconclusive, even though she manages to decapitate him, and he punches a hole in her torso, they both somehow survive. It's almost like Carter isn't even trying to come up with new ideas; now he's reinventing horror clichés.

All of this is bad enough, but if the series would at least try to hold fast to the characters the way that it managed to do as well as last season, there might be hope that the actors could somehow pull through it. Instead, we've got everybody acting out of character, right up to the fact that everybody seems to be using their first names, something that just doesn't track. Deputy Director Kersh, who has pretty much seemed like a bureaucratic asshole throughout his time on the series, Carter now tries to paint as someone who might be an ally, because he seems to be trying to help Mulder, and at the last possible minute, saves Doggett from destroying his career. It's not the least bit believable.  Skinner, whose growth as a genuine ally was one of the highpoints of Season 8, now seems to have fallen all the way back to the level of caution, but even past the point of being a decent boss. Brad Follmer seems to be even harder to read, but Cary Elwes plays him fairly oozing with contempt, that he might as well be any of the dozens of stick figure adversaries the X-Files has been up to this point. The fact that he seems to be leaning on his relationship with Monica Reyes doesn't really add anything to the character either, considering that Reyes seems to be openly loathe him by the time the episode's over. Even the Lone Gunmen now seem more ridiculous than usual. Considering that it took them two seasons to really trust Scully, the fact that they're now popping in out of the X-Files, talking to whoever works there, and making none-too-subtle jokes about their lack of funding, makes it wonder how Carter could've lost control of them after writing a series for them.

All of which pales before the problems with our central characters. Its bad enough that Mulder is gone, worse that they seem to trying to carry on the series as though he's still a part of it. Now it seems, that after moving heaven and earth to get Mulder back to her, Scully seems to have been the one who persuaded him to leave. We're not told what the danger is (when we do, it will make things even worse), but considering how many horrible threats Mulder has faced over the last eight years, why the hell would he run away from the woman he loves and his new son, even if she begged him too? Mulder hasn't run from a threat all series; why the hell would he do it now? Its bad enough Carter can't seem to come up with a viable reason for Duchovny's departure this time; in doing so, he seems determined to take the word 'alien' out of the mythology. It was strange when Mulder operated that way throughout Season 5,  but at least there was motivation. Now it seems one further remove to separate the viewer from everything they've been watching for the length of the series.

This is by far the worst opening for the X-Files the series would ever do, and if you're trying to keep your viewership in the ninth season of the series, that's a horrible blow. Now the X-Files has to go back to Monster of the Week, which might be more encouraging if they hadn't been such a mess throughout the eighth season. One would hope the only place the series could go was up from here. But at this point, the long time viewer knows better.

My score: 1 star.

X-Files Episode Guide: Nothing Important Happened Today, Part 1

Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Kim Manners

Admittedly, the X-Files opening of its ninth season has a lot of strikes against it almost from the get-go. Apart from the most obvious one - Mulder's gone, and no one's even trying to come up with a plausible explanation as to why he's disappeared this time - Carter and company have put themselves in a really deep hole. They have to really introduce a couple of characters they haven't really vetted - Monica Reyes has had some promising moments in Season 8, but she seemed more of a flake than anything else. Having closed the last season with no real cliffhanger - they probably thought Season 8 might be the end - they have to try and create drama where none existed, something that they last tried back at the beginning of Season 6, and failed disastrously at. And now, having closed last season with a two-parter, they now decide to open with a two-parter, which has always led to a ridiculous amount of padding, most notably with Redux in Season 5.

The positives can be briefly recounted. There's none of the awful purple prose or stilted voice-overs we've come to associate with these season openers. And with the teaser finally starting with some genuine action, it briefly feels like the X-Files is going into the new territory. Unfortunately, the operative word is briefly.  The X-Files has always tried to open with some giant exposure at the beginning of every season, and if its failures were inevitable, they at least had the feel of effort with it. In Nothing Important Happened Today, the main drama seems to be around an internal investigation at the FBI around Deputy Director Kersh. Now Kersh has come off mostly as an obstructive prick, but until Existence, there was very little to prove that he might be on the side of the conspiracy. Now Doggett seems to be determined to bring him down, and while the diehard Mulder fans might rejoice at this, we know that its going to come to nothing. And sure enough, all of the evidence has been covered up, and AD Skinner, who had seemed to be firmly on the side of the angels in Season 8, now seems to have gone into full retreat. So what we're left with is basically an hour where Doggett is being accused of violating the Bureau's authority, and flouting his superiors. If we hadn't seen all of the series before now, this might be interesting.

Then there's the far bigger problem for the series - Mulder's gone. Cleaned out of his apartment, apparently without having to rent a moving van, buy a plane ticket or get a car. (You'd think he'd want to do something for his fish, but they'll soon be migrating to Scully's.) Now with Duchovny gone for good (so it seems), Carter and company would have to come up with a plausible explanation for why he would leave the woman he loved, and his newborn son. And amazingly, having had a summer to come up with an explanation, Carter and Spotnitz seem determined to ignore this giant elephant, and try to focus on a whole new conspiracy. It's bad enough that they decided to take a sledgehammer to the existing mythology throughout Season 8, but now they seem determined to do so by wrecking everything we've come to love about our heroes. And worse still, they've now decided to ignore what they went to a great deal of trouble to say wouldn't happen in the last weeks of the eighth season, and make William part of the mythos. And how do we know there something wrong with him? He appears to move a mobile with his mind. Scully, you're supposed to be a goddamned scientist; didn't you even bother to check whether or not there was some kind of breeze in the room?

And all of this, by the way, is being done with the introduction of new characters that seem even flakier then the ones we've already known. Annabeth Gish is a good actress, who seems to be stuck working with one hand tied behind her back. One of the few good points of the episode comes when we find out that this closet office in the basement represents Reyes' dream assignment. But even given that, the writers don't seem able to come with a clear focus for Reyes' yet. And the ways that they try to do so involve even more stumbling. They introduce another previously unknown character, AD Brad Follmer, who seems to have been involved with Monica at one point, and known is put here just to be an obstacle between her and Doggett. We dealt with the issue often enough in Season 1, and God knows it was mishandled with Diana Fowley, so why does Carter need to repeat this mistake again with someone we barely know?  And now, we introduce another mysterious character, who seems to an alien replacement/supersoldier, whose sole purpose seems to be killing EPA bureaucrats. Now I realize Lucy Lawless had just gotten away from Xena: Warrior Princess, but considering that we got introduced to at least a handful of these people in the last episodes of Season 8, is there really a need to introduce another mysterious character from Doggett's past, who now seems to be trying to kill him?

This is a lousy way to start off any season of The X-Files. The fact that the episode seems to be acknowledging all this with its own title would seem almost laughable in the face of the dour mess that we seem to be dealing with. At least given how messy Season 8 was, the presence of Robert Patrick managed to lend it a certain gravitas even when things tended towards the absurd. Nothing Important Happened Today seems to be determined to start Season 9 reminding the viewer just how worn out and tired the X-Files seems to be, and does nothing to assure the viewer, like it managed to as recently as last season, that the series might be worth sticking with.

My score: 1 star.

Homicide Episode Guide: Fire, Part 1

Written by Julie Martin, story by Henry Bromell and Tom Fontana

Directed by Don Scardino

In keeping with the new style Homicide had gotten, the show would also change introduce another experiment—the two part storyline. Rather than dealing with one crime for a period of weeks, they would be dealt with in two  installments. This was a  big blow to the show, though it never did get rid of carrying storylines over a number of episodes. Unfortunately, these storylines would be more personal, not criminal.

‘Fire’ was the first of three two-parters that it would do in the 1995-1996 season, Unfortunately, in addition to being burdened with that the episode also had to explain a lot of the problems that the squad would face. Bolander and Felton have been suspended for twenty-two weeks (and yes, the number is not a coincidence) and the detectives are facing severe overwork. However, the bosses reaction is not to help Lieutenant Giardello , but to consider firing him for not being able to control his detectives. In her position as captain, Russert has to run interference in order to help Gee but she finds herself clashing with the lieutenant.

In the midst of these problem, Bayliss and Pembleton are called out to investigate an arson-related homicide when a dead body is found in a burned warehouse. They run across arson-detective Mike Kellerman—a youthful, handsome  man who looks more like he belonged on Friends. Looks can be deceiving, however, and we soon learn beneath the boyish, fun-loving exterior is a cagey  and complex detective. We will also see that Reed Diamond, the actor who plays Kellerman, has real depth and emotion to him as well. We soon learn that Kellerman is good at his job when he beats the homicide detectives to the ME and Missing Persons.

As one can probably suspect, Kellerman clashes with Pembleton. This is nothing new, as Pembleton clashes with people with a pulse. And he does not like the idea of having to work this murder with this detectives help. He clashes with him over cause of death, whether or not he died in the fire or was killed before it, the victims character, what leads to pursue. But it soon becomes clear that there is something bothering Frank. He tells Meldrick a story about a father gluing his daughters eyes shut and freezes when helping Bayliss chase down a suspect. At the end of the episode we learn what is bothering him: Mary is pregnant. Not that he is all mushy over it: when he finally tells Tim about it, he swears him to secrecy and continues being ornery.

While Tim and Frank are chasing down one dead end after another, Kellerman is having less luck on the arson front. He sees an informant who doesn’t know who did the job, a witness who says she has information only has designs on him, and his suspicion that the arson was a job for hire turns out to be nothing. (Though not quite: Matt Roland, the would-be beneficiary will return to play a critical role in Kellerman’s career in Season 5.) We do, however ,learn his first quirk  about him, he is trying to quit smoking, something he will be trying to do for most of the year.

We also get some personal stories for the other detectives. In addition to learning Frank is going to be a father, Tim collapses with back pain in the middle of making an arrest—a problem that will bother him for much of the season. And Kay has decided to take the sergeants examine. This spurs Munch to do the same. And Meldrick spends much of the episode wandering around with no partner and no real prospects for one.

Much of the ‘new’ Homicide appears in this episode. The colors are brighter, we are involved in personal issues, we have Tim and Frank chasing a suspect, the series first nude scene and finally another fire  being set. However, there are shades of the old show still present. We have the typical Baltimore criminal who runs away from Bayliss and Pembleton--- because he likes being arrested. We have some of the old style camera-work when we follow the corpse of the victim from the warehouse to the ME’s locker to the funeral home and finally the crematorium—where its fires consume what the first one didn’t. And we have the fact that at the end of the episode the detectives are right back where they started.

‘Fire’ is a successful episode in that it sets the mood for the season to come. But compared to the other season openers, it is more a case of style or substance. For good or ill, the show is more conventional. Its very good conventional but still you expect a little more.

My score: 3.5 stars.

X-Files Episode Guide: Existence

Written by Chris Carter

Directed by Kim Manners

There's a bit more focus to the final episode of the season than we got in its predecessor. Whether any of this, however, leads to much in the way of more clarity is pretty much non-existent. What makes Existence work, at least a little better, are the more emotional moments.

It's not clear how one should actually view the death of Alex Krycek. He hasn't had any real focus since Season 4, and ever since the Syndicate went up in flames, we've never been clear what side he's on. The fact that Mulder, Skinner et al were willing to trust him at this point just shows how far the beaten path the character has gone. Carter clearly doesn't know what to do with a character that's long since outlived his usefulness to the series, so he tries to give him a full death scene, where Krycek finally seems to show the faintest sense of remorse that he has to kill Mulder, followed by the moment where Skinner, who has more cause to hate him than anyone else in the series, finally assassinates him. Why Mulder, of all people, should feel  more regret about what Skinner has done than the average audience viewer (or at least me, I was glad to see the rat-bastard get what was coming to him) is hard to measure.

The intrigue that's going on within the FBI might be more interesting if we hadn't, I don't know, been watching this same stuff going on for eight seasons. We have yet another informant, with the unwieldy name of Knowle Rohrer, come into the bureau and tell Doggett that Billy Miles is part of a military program to build some kind of super soldier. Considering that we've just seen Billy literally pull himself back together, that seems underwhelming, and the fact that he's lying, and is in fact conspiring with other people within the FBI would be unsettling, if the audience wasn't way ahead of the game by this point.

And then there's the entire  sequence involving Scully and Reyes traveling to the ass-end of Georgia in order to finally deliver Scully's baby. The entire pregnancy storyline has been more of a burden for the X-Files then anything else: basically non-existent for the first half of the season, then being held as an utter mystery even to Mulder for much of the rest, and now we are give the setup of a miracle child, literally being born in a barn, with a giant glowing star in the sky,  and a bunch of aliens witnessing the birth. At this juncture, its hard to know what would be worse: a baby looking as horrible as the ones we've seen in the final third of the season, or a perfectly human baby. Carter can't decide at this point, so in the end, we will pretty much get the worst of both worlds.

And yet, for all of that,  Existence isn't a bad wrap up to the season. Considering all of the big explosive moments that we've supposedly been about to witness during it, its telling that the smaller moments resonate far more. The moment in the car when Doggett finally tells Mulder that there has to be a point where he's willing to put an end to his quest isn't nearly as powerful as the one between Mulder and Scully that we got in Requiem last year, but it pulls us up short because its being told by an outsider. The sequence where Scully and Reyes bond over whale songs and positive energy seems a little labored, but the fact that we finally get a mention of Melissa has a pang that these callbacks usually don't have. The scenes where Skinner and Doggett try to escape the FBI, pursue by Rohrer and Agent Crane, intercut with the delivery of Scully's baby, are some of the most energetic and daring scenes we've seen the series try all year. And the penultimate sequence where Doggett and Reyes confront Kersh on his corruption have a real zing to them, considering that he's had it coming for the entire season.

What made this episode work in a way that it really shouldn't have was, of course, the final moments between Mulder and Scully as they hold their son in their arms. Yes, its aggravating as hell that the only time the whole Mulder-Scully romance seem to happen was off-screen¸ and for them to now assume it as a given is incredibly sadistic, but seeing them happy, with their child in their arms, after everything they've gone through  would have been a satisfying place to the end the X-Files. It wouldn't have had the emotional wallop that Requiem did last year, but considering that we've now turned Billy Miles into an alien monster (who's still out there; the series will perfunctorily dump him, now that they don't need him any more) the personal moment would be a good one.

Problem is, of course, not just that Carter and company would decide to do a ninth season, but that they had signed Gillian Anderson to participate in it. There would be far too many flaws in the ninth season (I'll get to them in time; believe me), but trying to do the season with Scully and no Mulder would be an even bigger mistake than trying to do it with Scully and some Mulder. They've come up with good reason to end the series now, or at least their roles in it. Trying to continue without them would have been difficult, but surmountable. But doing it the way that they chose to, especially after coming up with a good way to end not once, but twice,  was a sin that I don't think a lot of fans of X-Files can forgive even more than fifteen years later.

Existence was a good stopping point. Not a great one - that ship sailed when they decided to do a Season 8 in the first place - but at least it would've been able to give fans of the series closure. As it is, the fine moments that this episode has - and there are quite a few of them - are pretty much wrecked as the X-Files decides to drag on. Its bad enough considering what Carter and co have decided to do to permanently wreck the mythology. To decide to torpedo the one thing that was considerably more vital to the series - well, that's a story for the next chapter.

My score: 3 stars.

X-Files Episode Guide: Essence

Written by Chris Carter

Directed by Kim Manners

Right from the teaser before the episode begins, we know we're in trouble. It's yet another one of those monologues we associate with the mythology episodes, and even though the prose isn't nearly as bad as the worst of the Carter-speak we've had to endure, considering that one of the few real virtues of Season 8 has been that we seem to have put this stuff behind us - its not a good sign. And unfortunately, Essence really only goes downhill from there.

 One could be frustrated with the fact that Scully has been dealing with her pregnancy the same way the X-Files has been all season: not telling the people most important to her, which now apparently include her own mother. Not revealing what the gender is, and still not trying to reveal who the father is. (And at this point in the series, I really think Carter was trying to squeeze the last drop out of the 'will they-won't they' with Mulder and Scully is borderline offensive.) So given that, you would think given what happened just a few episodes ago, she would be a little more careful who she has take over watching her. But she doesn't, and so the fact that Mulder now has to be the one asking questions about the doctors who were responsible for treating her pregnancy is even more irritating.

And if fans weren't already gnashing their teeth about how badly Carter was handling the final days of Scully's pregnancy, they had to be practically tearing their hair out when they saw what the overall plot was. It is bad enough that the mythology has almost never made any sense, but at least with Doggett around, there seemed to be some sense of understanding. Now, Carter does as thorough a job as he possibly can to make sure that the central plot of the series will never make any sense. Bad enough he has to take poor Billy Miles, who has suffered so much during the course of his term on the X-Files, and essentially turn him into the new form of the big monster of the series. But now, he's basically saying that now they seem to be the equivalent of alien replicants, and now they seem to be even more unstoppable than the Mighty-Morphing Bounty Hunter ever was. But at least we can now recognize them due to the bumps under their neck, though again, maybe not, seeing as Doggett seems to have worked with Crane all year, and never noticed. Oh, and by the way, now it appears that Scully's baby is the equivalent of the Christ-child. I really wish I were kidding about this, but now it seems that Carter has taken the idea of the miracle of Scully's baby, and will now drain it of all the mileage he possibly he can. And just to make sure everything's even more incomprehensible, he has the nurse of Scully's baby, Lizzie Gill, spin more of a story about alien cloning and human embryos.

It's bad enough that we have to muck through all this, but then Krycek  turns up like the inevitable bad penny, albeit this time in order to save Mulder and Scully. And then he spins another story so unbelievable it's remarkable that Doggett has to be the one to tell them how full of crap he is. And he doesn't even know Krycek. Mulder, Scully, Skinner, people who should know better given the last time they all dealt with him, listen to him, and take his story as gospel. Now, I know there's a monster on the rampage who's trying to kill Scully, but considering that Krycek was perfectly willing to let Scully's baby die the last time we saw him... It boggles the mind.

All of these things have the worst aspects of the X-Files mythology, combined with elements that just don't make any sense. Given that the series might not have more than one episode left, why on earth is Carter determined to rewrite the bible of the series again?  Especially because it seems to bring out the worst aspects in everybody. Gillian Anderson has been effectively carrying the series far more than she had to in any season before, but this episode brings up a streak of denial in her that is hard to fathom. It was bad enough when she just said 'I'm fine' after repeated assaults on her life; now she's doing it for her child, and the poor kid isn't even born yet! Mitch Pileggi is doing his damnedest to balance what he has seen with what he thinks he knows, but the fact that Skinner doesn't seem willing to ask his favorite agents for the truth about their relationship is not flattering. And Duchovny just must be counting the minutes til he can leave this series for good; Mulder doesn't even try to make realistic connections between the conspiracy he knows and the series as it is now.

There are a few good aspects to this episode.  It is good to see Sheila Larken again (yes technically, we saw her at Mulder's funeral), and finally get the chance demonstrate some of the compassion and understanding she always seemed able to channel as Margaret Scully. And we can see Robert Patrick really making an effort to try and make sense of everything that's happening around him, even though, for the first time, it seems that he's in over his head. But the good moments are far and few between, and make you almost miss the days of the Syndicate.

Essence is a more confused episode than we are used to from the X-Files. For the only time in the series history, Carter chose to wrap it up with a two-parter. (And as we'll eventually find out, he buckled on that, too.) It's clear at this point, he doesn't have a clear idea of any part of the series future, and seems to be trying to tie up loose ends, or prepare for a future. In the first part of this episode, he doesn't do much of either. I'd say it doesn't bode well for the series future, but at this point, it really hasn't got much of one.

My score: 2 stars.

X-Files Episode Guide: Alone

Written & Directed by Frank Spotnitz

If the eighth season has been mostly hit or miss, one of the few positives to come out of it is the genuine skill of Frank Spotnitz. Though by this point he had been with The X-Files longer than any writer other than Carter, it has been harder to get a handle on a specific style of his writing then say, Vince Gilligan or Howard Gordon. And that's mainly because he has specialized almost entirely in the mythology episodes, which have increasingly been the bete noire of the series. It's true to a certain extent of this season as well, but he has taken an increasing role in the nature of how the series proceeds, and been one of the greater bulwarks of the writing staff. Even the mythos episodes have become more emotionally driven, and have become a strength of the series (so far).

So there's a certain sense that in the episode that he makes his directorial debut that Spotnitz manages to demonstrate that he has an understanding of the X-Files far better than you would've expected. Alone is essentially a story about nostalgia, representative of (what everybody on the series had reason to believe) the end of an era. Scully has finally begun her maternity leave, and goes digging through her desk for memorabilia of past episodes, finally settling on the Apollo 11 keychain that Mulder gave her way back in Tempus Fugit as a farewell gift to Doggett. (The way she very pointedly refuses to answer whether she's ever coming back is very telling.) Doggett is then promptly given a new partner, an inexperienced agent from the accounting department, who is one of the rare people who seems to have admired Mulder and Scully's work. (Even her name, Leyla Harrison, is a tribute of sorts; Harrison was the name of a prolific X-Files fanfic author.) A true innocent abroad,  she is clearly there to represent all of the dedicated fans of the series.

Its something of a shame that the case that they have been chosen to investigated is, like so many of the Season 8 stories, so much old style folderol. The idea of a giant reptile creature that has killing people and trying to digest their bodies is one that we've seen before (even Harrison seems able to point that out), and its hard to figure out whether there's anything that makes more plausible that the manbat that was Doggett and Scully's first case together. In a way, though, this may be part of Spotnitz's point. Alone is meant to be about the familiar, and how the X-Files has been less about find paranormal creatures and more about how the characters work together. Scully, even looking as pregnant as she is, can't stop her feelings of concerns for Doggett when he goes missing looking into the investigation. Mulder may not like Doggett, but he respects him enough (and perhaps has a lot of ire towards the FBI at this point) to go on to the scene and try and find him. And in a way, this episode is supposed to be more about closure that Vienen never quite managed; Scully's back at the autopsy bay, slicing up one last corpse. Mulder's on one last stakeout, spitting his ubiquitous sunflower seeds on the lawn of a suspect he doesn't like, and giving one more thumbing of his nose at the man who fired him. And in a way that Vienen never quite pulled off, Alone manages to show a certain amount of teamwork between Doggett and Mulder. In the climactic moments, when the Sites monster seems on the verge of devouring them, Doggett is almost completely blind, and must rely entirely on Mulder in order to save their lives. The ability to see through a different point of view has been a recurring, albeit subtle theme of Season 8, and it reaches a certain climax when Mulder has to do it for Doggett.

It's also good that Alone is a lot lighter in tone than this particular dark season has been. I don't mean that its a comedy - Spotnitz was never very good at those - but there's a certain level of relaxation and looseness among all of the leads that has been missing for almost all of Season 8. And even if you don't really believe that this episode accomplishes much, it is much better at the symbolic passing of the torch than last week was. Spotnitz also throws the fans who have been suffering with the series for this point in the final scene, when Leyla Harrison, in a room alone with her idols, asks them a question about one of the biggest plotholes in Fight the Future, and has the joy of seeing Scully and Mulder fall into an argument like an older married couple about what actually happened. That by now they should be able to agree on this is not the point; its the idea of wish fulfillment that we have been hoping for.

Alone is far from a perfect episode, and if it was meant to be the final standalone (you've got to wonder if once again, Carter and company had any idea if the series had a future), it suffers immensely in comparison with last year Je Souhaite, mainly because Vince Gilligan is still a better writer than Spotnitz. But for a series that has been struggling for tone and subject almost all season, its a light touch that is definitely needed before we dive once more into the morass of the mythology, where things are about to reach a level of confusion that, unfortunately, The X-Files has become known for.

My score: 4 stars.

Homicide Episode Guide: The Gas Man

Teleplay by Henry Bromell; story by Tom Fontana and Henry Bromell

Directed by Barry Levenson

For several years ‘The Gas Man’ was my least favorite episode of Homicide. I disliked it for the same reasons that I initially didn’t like ‘Night of the Dead Living’ or  ‘Three Men and Adena’--- it didn’t seem like anything was happening, it was mainly centered on one character rather than the squad but mainly because we stayed away from the squad almost completely. However, there were other circumstances  in this episode that I didn’t know about until years later and didn’t appreciate until later still.

When Season 3  of Homicide  was nearing its end, the creators of the show didn’t think they were coming back the next year--- the ratings for season 3 were middling at best. So Barry Levenson and Henry Bromell  decided if they were going to leave, they might as well exit with style and in a way that was about as non-traditional as you could get. They created an episode of Homicide where the central characters are not even involved in the story and where the murder is the least important part of the episode.

Instead the episode centers on a recently paroled convict named Victor Helms and his friend Danny. As the episode begins Victor has just been released after serving six years for negligence when he installed a defective gas heater that would kill an entire family. Victor clearly has not taken responsibility for his complicity in the crime and has instead focused all of his rage on the detective who put him away--- Frank Pembleton.

Victor says very clearly in the episode that he’s going to kill Frank—but he wants to humiliate him first. So he and Danny follow Pembleton around for two days--- and we see the detective from the point of view of an outsider. The ironic thing is the Victor and Danny spend the entire episode doing what the Homicide detectives do--- talking endlessly about personal issues and bizarre quirks of the world. (There is a hysterical scene where Danny discussing with Victor how they  ‘decaffeinate’ coffee which sounds a lot like Munch or Lewis).  This discussion has a very musical background as well--- the oldies  station that Danny like. Blondie, Earth Wind and Fire, The bee Gees and Gloria Gaynor can all be heard as Victor and Danny ‘tail’  Frank.

Victor’s method of ‘humiliation’ is trying to hurt Frank professionally. So he follows him to a crime scene, where he removes the murder weapon and the head of the victim, places them in his house and sends photos to the Sun  and the police. This might have more  success if Frank didn’t crack the case about as easily as they come—the suspect tries to kill himself and confesses to the crime. Far more alarming are his methods of stalking Frank and Mary. First he breaks in to their house and leaves a gas burner on. Then he impersonates a cop and has a conversation with Mary, in which he drops hints that he ‘knows’ thing about their relationship. Then he breaks in the house again, turning all the burners on—very dangerous, especially with a smoker in the house. Then he leaves Frank a message on his answering machine arranging a meeting for the, alone.

The ultimate irony of this episode is Victor’s insistence that he is not the killer that Frank made him out to be, and that’s why he fails in his attempts. He backs out of buying a gun, and he has several chances to kill Frank but keeps avoiding it. And when he finally has Frank with a knife to his throat, Victor is incapable of cold-blooded murder. The late Bruno Kirby was a very underrated actor and he does an excellent job of making Victor both weaselly amusing, and a little sympathetic. We know he’s trying to kill Frank, but he plays him in such a way that we ignore the scarier parts of his nature.

There are serious issues being brought up but there’s quite a bit of comedy as well. Most of comes from the character of Danny, well-played  by Richard Edson.  His behavior and attitude are very amusing, even when the subject is dark. One wonders how much of humor is due to nervousness that a man he clearly cares for is going to kill someone. He doesn’t try to talk Victor out of his plan, but he keeps making little remarks on how crazy it is. Danny is basically a good-hearted person and when the time comes, he refuses to help his friend kill Frank, saying that he has to take responsibility. But he is Victor’s friend, and when the ex-con is taken into custody again, he’s there for him.

There are some serious bits being discussed about Frank in this episode. We see Bayliss and Pembleton  sniping at each other, because of the events of ‘Colors’ are still fresh in his mind. But by the end of the episode they bury the hatchet. We also see that Frank and Mary are trying to have a child, something that leads to Frank learning he has a low sperm count. As becomes clear in Season 4, the Pembletons get around this obstacle.

And what does Frank think about the attempt on his life? He knows he lucky but there is more to it. As he puts it ‘God reached down, and graced a fool with wisdom’ Victor Helms had vengeance in the heart but eventually he could not do what he had set himself on doing.

This is an interesting and amusing episode, and yet I can not rank it as one of the high points of the series—not in the way that other deviations from the norm such as ‘Bop Gun’ and ‘Every Mother’s Son’ were. The reasons for this are complicated but mostly its because I think the episode I’m not sure whether we are suppose to empathize with Victor or not. Seeing the detectives from the point of view of a suspect is interesting but because we see so little of him in the episode, we don’t get a clear view of him.

‘The Gas Man’ is a pretty good episode of Homicide, and if the series had ended, it would have made sense to end with an episode that broke all the rules. Still I’m sure that I (and probably everyone else) was glad that this was not the final episode of the show. The show would change a great deal over the next four years, not always for the better, but it had a lot of great moments to come.

My score: 4.5 stars.