X-Files Episode Guide: Home Again

Written & Directed by Glen Morgan

As I mentioned in Founder's Mutation, Glen Morgan was as responsible for the early success of The X-Files as any of the first group of writers, perhaps even more than Chris Carter. In addition to being able to write some of the most frightening stories in the early canon, he also was one of the more humanistic of the writers. It's very unlike him, therefore, to be the one writer in this revival, who seems to be more interested in looking backwards than forward. This pertains to the title of the episode: Home, referring to the most controversial and goriest story the series ever produced, and Again, referring to Never Again, referring to the last script he and Wong ever wrote for the series. And there are certain elements of both of those scripts that those stories echoes: like Home, the series is set in Pennsylvania, it deals with a forgotten population that society seems to ignore at its peril, it has frankly some of the bloodiest the series has ever done (and frankly, I'm a little amazed they got them past the censors) and it even has a murder being performed to the most contrasting cheerful background music; in this case, Petula Clark's 'Downtown" There are also far too many flashbacks in this episode to make anyone comfortable, particularly in regard to William. Were it for these elements, and the general monster of the story, one could dismiss Home Again out of hand.

But the episode works a lot better than that, because of the other stories that Morgan is trying to recall: Beyond the Sea and One Breath. Both involved Scully heavily, and both involve the hospital scenes that so many fans grew tired of long before the X-Files closed up shop. In this case, though, I actually think they merit because we are dealing with something far more pertinent: the passing of a beloved character that, frankly, the series could've used more of: Scully's mother.

Margaret Scully was one of the better characters that the series created. Because she was never directly tied to anything related to the X-Files mythology, she had a warmth and humanity that too many of the other regulars on the series sorely lacked. One could argue that she was an easy ploy for sentiment - every time her character showed up, it was almost a sure thing that someone in her family would be either dead or clinging to life - but Margaret always seemed to be the series greatest source of kindness in a universe that was generally grim and unforgiving.

So its fitting that when she makes her final appearance, there's nothing mythology based about her illness. Indeed, its almost bluntly simple - she has finally succumbed to a heart attack, and now is in a coma, neatly reversing the scenario of One Breath. And now Scully finds herself facing the same problem her mother did, learning that Margaret has given an advanced directive that she not be kept on life support. And now Scully finds that in her mother's final moments, the child she is most concerned about is Charlie, the youngest and never seen Scully child, who has been estranged from the family for years. Scully wants desperate to try and save her mother, and answer the almost banal questions that seem to surround, but all she can do is try and connect her comatose mother with her estranged child. And her last words  almost fittingly, are to Mulder, about their child - and then she's gone. It's honestly the most heartbreaking death the series has ever given us because its painfully simple, and the agony that Gillian Anderson goes through in this episode doesn't feel as forced as it did the final seasons of the show, even when William comes up, because it finally gives us a connection that we haven't seen before.

It's rather a pity the case that Mulder and Scully end up investigating in this episode isn't particularly original. Oh, I'll admit there are some interesting elements - to see the homeless being avenged by a group of politicians and developers who honestly couldn't give a damn about it would have some entertainment value if it were done a little more subtly. But there's no reason for the same level of gore and excess that we get in Home Again that we got in some of the darker episodes. And at least when we saw in Home, it was Morgan & Wong poking sharply against the idea of the American Dream; this seems too much like a Howard Gordon revenge story for comfort. The explanation is even less subtle, because the street artist whose responsible for this never seems to either explain how his Frankenstein's graffiti came to life nor ever seem to pay for it.

But for once,  its almost worth overlooking because the human element is so much richer than it has been. Just like in Founder's Mutation, Morgan seems able to tap into the angst over William in a very genuine way. One could say that the scenes from Season 9 weren't exactly the X-Files greatest hits, but they also brought a poignancy to Scully's motherhood that was never really there in the final season. And Home Again is by far the best showcase of Anderson's work in a very long time, as she deals with both the loss of her mother and her son in a way that the writers couldn't have master before. (The fact that Scully ends up scattering her mother's ashes the same way her father's were is a nice callback that you're amazed that Glen Morgan remembered it). It doesn't have anywhere near the power of Beyond the Sea or One Breath, but as an episode which merges the humanity of our protagonists with the supernatural bits of those early stories, its well worth the time.

My score: 4 stars.