Essence: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS) (May 13, 2001) Caution #1: spoiler for next week's ep (based on the trailer) is in the "Etc." section. Caution #2: there is graphic language in this post. Children and those offended by certain four-letter words should look elsewhere for commentary on this ep. ESSENCE (8ABX20): In a nutshell: Gee, guess what? Scully's baby is special! Lots of action, lots of people-doing-stupid-things-because-it- advances-the-plot, and an asinine ending where Mulder and Scully are separated. What I liked: - Mrs. Scully talks! - I'm glad that Mulder is so protective of Scully. Really, I am. I just wish that everything else in this ep made as much sense as that did (but see "What I didn't like" below for related bitching). - Umm, let's see. There was some cool camera work that I liked, such as the way the camera followed Doggett when he was searching Parenti's office the second time. - That's all I can think of that I liked. And that's sad. What I didn't like: - Can you say "Carterlogue"? I knew you could. DD sure sounded bored in that voiceover. Or maybe he's just as disgusted as I am with the whole where-did-this-baby-come-from teasing crap. - I'm really getting fed up with stupidity on top of stupidity with the babyarc. Case in point: if Scully was suspicious enough of Dr. Parenti to change obstetricians (presumably due to the events of "Per Manum" -- oh, and I had to go over my past ATXA posts to remember which ep it was; isn't that a bad sign?), WHY THE HELL DIDN'T ANYONE CHECK OUT DR. PARENTI BEFORE THIS EP??? - Second case in point: oh, how convenient for Scully to "realize" how much she needed help once Lizzie was on the scene. What, she needs somebody to pick up her dry cleaning? To answer her phone? If she needed help, Mulder would help her in a nanosecond. I can't believe that he hasn't offered, so why didn't Scully say "no thanks" to this stranger (remember, Scully, strangers are Bad, no matter how much your mother insists you use their services) and just ask Mulder? Because otherwise the ep doesn't work, that's why. :-PPP - Third case in point: Scully's interaction with her mother. So. Mrs. Scully is curious about the gender, but not about the father? That means one of three things: (1) Scully has told her mother that she ain't talkin' about the father. And do we really think that Mrs. Scully would have put up with that, and then just chatted away about gender? Nah, I don't buy that. (2) Scully has told her mother that she used an anonymous sperm donor. In that case, wouldn't Mrs. Scully be a little less concerned about gender and asking things like, "Gee, honey, how are you planning on handling this whole single motherhood thing? When are you going back to work? What are you going to do about child care?" I don't buy that this conversation happened off-screen. If it did, it's just more 1013 bullshit. (3) Scully has told her mother -- or let her mother believe -- that Mulder is the father. If that's the case, then why is Mrs. Scully hiring someone to help Scully out with mundane stuff like picking up dry cleaning? Wouldn't she be expecting Mulder to help out with that stuff? Grr. Nothing adds up here for me. - Is it just me, or is Lizzie the stupidest member of the conspiracy we've ever seen? She meets Duffy Haskell right outside Scully's apartment. She uses Scully's own phone to call Haskell at The Secret Cloning Factory. Real smart, sweetheart. - As I said above, I'm glad that Mulder is so protective of Scully. And I guess Doggett and Skinner are, too, albeit to a less intense degree (as it should be ). But when the hell are they going to start including Scully in their little meetings? How could they leave her in the hospital -- at which point Doggett already knew something fishy was going on, so shouldn't he have suggested somebody with a gun maybe stay with Scully? -- and go off and talk to Lizzie about her without Scully there? Hello? Doesn't Scully have the right to hear what Lizzie had to say? Why did it take so long for Scully to even find out that Mulder and Doggett were checking out Dr. Parenti? - For that matter, why was Lizzie spilling her guts? Was she afraid because all the other people she was working with (that we saw, anyway -- surely there were others?) were all dead? She didn't seem very frightened to me. I guess that was just The Big Exposition Scene. Whoop-freakin'-ee. And while we're at it... if Scully's baby *isn't* part alien, why were Lizzie and her buddies keeping tabs on her? Were they *expecting* it to be part alien, and if so, why? And why isn't anyone asking that question? And just how do you tell that a baby is human, but that it "has no human frailties"?!? - ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING PATERNITY MYSTERY! Why the hell can't Mulder just tell Skinner who the father is, especially when Skinner thinks something is wrong? Oh, I know. It's because *we* aren't allowed to know. It can't possibly be because we're supposed to believe that *Mulder* doesn't know at this point. :-PPPPP - Oh. Wait. No. It can't be. 1013 wouldn't pull this crap, would they? That Scully's baby is really a miracle? A *literal* miracle; a gift from God? And Scully's pregnancy proves the existence of God? Excuse me while I puke. Whatever happened to normal human beings who were put in extraordinary, challenging circumstances, and who dealt with them as the honorable, courageous, flawed people that they are? And I mean that in the sense that it all could have happened to anyone -- you, me, the guy down the block -- if we had the same strength of character that Mulder and Scully have. But apparently, Mulder and Scully are The Chosen Ones. Or, at least Scully is. ::retch:: Can I just say how much I hate this plot development? I sure hope Krycek was just trying to mislead them. Unfortunately, I don't think so. - Wait another minute. So if Scully's child is truly a miracle, then it has no identifiable father -- is that the idea? Do you mean to tell me that with all the tests that Scully has had done, she hasn't verified Mulder as being the father? And if she hasn't verified Mulder as the father, why haven't we seen her freaking out? Is she supposed to be so much in denial that she hasn't *tried* to verify who the father is? If Mulder *is* the father, how can that possibly tie into Krycek's story? - I'm sure I must be missing something here. Somebody help me out here and make sense of all this before I lose it completely. - And while you're at it, explain to me why it was necessary to bring Reyes all the way from New Orleans (or wherever she was) to take Scully away. It must have taken her *hours* to get there. So Mulder, Scully, et. al. just sat and waited like sitting ducks instead of getting Scully the hell out of that building? Um, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. More stupid plotting for the sole purpose of separating Mulder and Scully at the end of the ep. Attention, 1013: I DO NOT BELIEVE FOR ONE SECOND THAT MULDER WOULD HAVE SENT SCULLY AWAY WITHOUT HIM. And see my rant below about next week's ep. What's got me puzzled: - Who are all those women at Scully's baby shower? I guess 1013 just invented some friends for her so they could have a party. - Why did Scully have her medications in the bathroom? As a doctor, she should know that medications shouldn't be kept there because of the humidity. - Is *anyone* not involved in the conspiracy surrounding Scully's baby? - Why did Mulder go to Doggett rather than Skinner about the arson at Zeus Genetics? Skinner would have believed him; he should have known that Doggett wouldn't. What could he get from Doggett that he couldn't get from Skinner? - So Lizzie gave Scully vitamins. Or did she? Was that blonde doctor in on it? Or did someone in the lab pull a switch? And what was it that was *supposed* to be in Scully's prescription bottle? Even if Lizzie replaced Scully's pills with (harmless, I suppose) vitamins, isn't it a criminal act to tamper with someone's prescription? Couldn't she have been arrested for that? - I know that the guys are shooting their own series in Vancouver, and so were probably unavailable for this ep, but wouldn't it have made sense to at least *mention* the Gunmen, doing some checking up on Lev, Parenti, Haskell, Lizzie, Zeus Genetics, etc. etc. etc.? - Why didn't Billy Miles kill Mulder with that first blow, rather than just send him flying through the glass wall? Does Mulder still have some importance, or was that just because Mulder can't die (not yet, anyway -- and no, that's not a spoiler)? - Is Doggett gonna mention the bumps he saw on the back of Billy Miles' neck? Will he be on the lookout for them in the future on other people? Or will he conveniently forget he ever saw them? - What version of alien are we up to now? Greys that just run around, greys that rip you to shreds, oiliens, ABH's, faceless rebels (remember them?), Jeremiahs, clones, hybrids, and now red-blooded self-preservationists. Um, OK. If these new aliens don't answer to anyone, where did they come from? Are they related to any of the other aliens? They must be, if they were the product of the ABHs' tests on the abductees. So... why did the ABHs need this new kind of alien? To wipe out any type of resistance to the coming invasion? Does this have anything to do with the Consortium's attempts to create an alien-human hybrid, or is that a forgotten chapter in the mytharc? Can anyone make all this make sense to me? Help! - So how does Scully know that her new obstetrician can be trusted? Or are we supposed to just take that on faith? ::snort:: And wasn't that Denise Crosby, the same actress who played the blonde doctor in "Empedocles"? Is she supposed to be Scully's new OB, or was she the ER doctor again? - When Scully was on the phone with Mulder, and she thought someone was in the bathroom, why did she just put the phone down? Did she hang up, or did she leave the phone on and sitting on the table so Mulder could hear what was going on? - Umm... why did Mulder hand Scully over to Krycek? Couldn't he have done exactly what Krycek had done -- get Scully down to the parking garage? Maybe he didn't trust Krycek to be alone with Skinner (BTW, what happened to the Palm Pilot of Death?), but wouldn't he have been more distrustful to let Krycek be alone with Scully? Oh, wait, I get it on this one, too -- it was because the plot required that Mulder and Scully be separated. It's that dramatic tension thing again, right? Have the characters do something uncharacteristically foolish because the plot requires it? Yup, that's it. :-PPP - Was that Doggett's smartass buddy Agent Crane at the end, stopping Scully and Reyes from leaving the parking garage? Jeez, is there *anyone* that Doggett knows professionally who doesn't have bumps on the back of his neck? Etc.: - You know, if it were *my* mother pushing a "helper" on me behind my back, I'd kick her ass. But that's just me. - Glad to see that 1013 is still going for the product placement in the baby shower scene. - Zeus Genetics still has no security? Ooops, sorry, I meant they *had* no security. I guess they don't have to worry about it any more. - Is it just me, or were there some points where the music was drowning out the dialogue? One particular moment I recall this happening was when Skinner met Mulder outside The Secret Cloning Factory. I could hardly hear what they were saying (in fact, I missed some of it). - Next week's ep: Mulder tells Doggett not to tell him where Scully is? You gotta be kidding me. There had better be a *damn* good reason -- a reason that *makes sense* -- for Mulder to say that. But after all the inanity of "Essence," I'm not hopeful for "Existence." ::sigh::