X-Files Episode Guide: Founder's Mutation

Written & Directed by James Wong

James Wong, along with his collaborator Glen Morgan, were perhaps more vital than anyone other than Carter when it came to establishing The X-Files as the force that it was. In the first two seasons, they created some of the most memorable and iconic moments of the series not only when it came to monsters but in the humanity of Mulder and Scully.  There is a certain irony in the title Founder's Mutation, as one realizes that the noun could just as easily apply to Wong himself.

In his first solo script for the series, period, Wong finds himself drawn into the principles that he helped make critical for the show in its first incarnation.  But much more accurately than Carter did last week, he has a better feel for how the series should run and how are heroes should play. The story is all about secrets, from the ones that the suicide victim  keeps, to the one Augustus Goldman has been hiding on top of the ones for public perceptions, to the critical ones that our heroes have been keeping from each other.  And it is in those secrets as well as the humanity of the characters involved, that this episode truly sings.

In principle, this episode has more new stuff than the official restart. Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate a suspicious suicide, but it becomes clearly very quickly, that's the least of what Mulder is interested in.  He finds out that genetic experiments are being conducted by a government run facility, and that most of it has to do with children. One could make the argument that this is nothing more than a variation of a lot of revisited territory - even Mulder seems to admit as much at one point - but when the victims are so grotesque and so powerless, it resonates in a way that then most of the mythology didn't. And by having so much of the story center around children - particularly Kevin and Molly, the siblings who have spent their entire lives trying to find each other, as well as the mothers, birth and surrogate who want so desperate to protect their children. - it has a poignancy to it that Wong has been very skilled at.

Wong, like the other writers in this series, also takes the helm as director, something he actually has experience with in his Emmy nominated turn at the helm of Musing of A Cigarette Smoking Man. And he has a definite flair for it. The opening teaser is one of the more inventive we've seen the series ever do, and his uses of flashes and fantasy is far more skilled than, frankly, anything we've seen on the show before. One should be disconnected from it - frankly, it was never the series style even when the show was at it's peak - but Wong has a genuine handle on it because he has a grip on the series history. When he deals with the story of a brother and sister trying to seek each other out, he has the decency not to draw attention to the fact that it was Mulder's quest for his entire first stint on the X-Files. And he manages to draw strength from the actors in a way that shows unexpected skill. (It takes a real gift to make Doug Savant seem like a villain, considering that his entire career has been predicated otherwise.)

But what really raised Founder's Mutation above average is the way that the series finally deals with the issue of William. The nature of his birth and possible scientific oddity was by far the greatest plot failing of the last season of the original series. But now for the first time, we get to see him in a way that the X-Files never considered him - as a child. The brief sequences where Scully and Mulder imagine what it would've been like to raise their son are by far the highpoints of the episode. We finally get to see Scully as a mother in a way that all the stories with Emily and William never did, someone who wants the best for her child, and who clearly loves him. And Mulder becomes the father we all imagined he would, showing 2001 to his young son, then helping him launch a rocket into space. The final sequences are also great because they show that their fears for their son's ultimate fate may differ by their beliefs, they are the same. It resonates with an emotional power that all the angst filled sequences of Scully and Mulder near tears all those times never did.

Above all, the great strength of this episode is that it reminds us where so much of the X-Files assets really were. The mythology was ultimate so arcane that it robbed the series of its power, and in an era where every show is serialized, its the monsters-of-the-week that brought about the finest moment. There may have been great steps forward in technology since the series went off the air, but its the characters growth that matters more than anything. (A subtle point should be added in the way that Skinner has finally been given some growth too; he's now supporting his agents with the bureaucracy instead of penalizing them for it). Founder's Mutation demonstrates that, nearly two decades after writing his final script for the X-Files, Wong has lost none of the deft touches he demonstrated. It's not a perfect episode by any stretch of the imagination, but as a guidepost for what the revival should be doing, this episode is a big step in the right direction.

My score: 3.5 stars.