Existence: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS) (May 20, 2001) Caution: like last week's commentary, there's some strong language contained herein. Kiddies, hide your eyes. EXISTENCE (8ABX21): In a nutshell: It's a boy! And Krycek's dead! M&S are together for a grand total of about two minutes, all at the end of the ep (with baby). The season finale wasn't a train wreck, and I've learned to be grateful for small things like that. What I liked: - The effect of the vertebra regenerating was pretty cool. :) Did it remind anyone else of the artifact from Biogenesis? - Billy doing his karate chop through the elevator door was pretty amusing, too. - OK, I admit it. The baby was cute. The kiss was sweet. It appears pretty clear that Moose and Squirrel have some kinda thing goin' for each other , although we've got no idea when it started. I guess I can live with that. The ending wasn't schmoopy, but Mulder and Scully (and son) appear to have a happy ending. (At least until November sweeps. ) But see my bitching below. What I didn't like: - If Mulder, Doggett, and Skinner knew that Miles was alive again (and a special phbbttttt to Doggett for denying it when the photo was in front of him -- could he have at least have offered an alternate explanation, like Billy having a twin or something?!), how the hell could they all have been so naive as to believe that Scully was safe? Mulder should have been on his way to Georgia in a second. I don't buy that he didn't want to know where she was -- that makes no sense at all. :-PPPP - Oh, and while we're on the subject of where Scully and Reyes went, whatever happened to FBI safe houses? Yeah, OK, they can't trust anybody in the FBI, but did anybody REALLY think that Scully could be safe ANYWHERE? At least an FBI safe house would have had running water and electricity. - Reyes feels energy about "people and stuff"? Lord, take me now so I don't have to deal with this next year! - A star (or light)? Which Mulder winds up following? And the Three Wise Guys visit Mar -- er, Scully and the baby -- bearing gifts? You've got to be kidding me. Could 1013 be a little more obvious with the parallel to the birth of Christ? Well, at least Scully didn't giving birth in a barn. ::rolls eyes:: - Gee, I am *SO* freakin' glad that Reyes is the Martha Stewart of the FBI. What the hell was that all about? Was she just trying to create good karma for the baby's birth or something? - And... MOOD MUSIC? Excuse me while I puke. Who the hell wrote this dialogue? I am *so* dreading having to see this character next year. - Scully on her sister's death: "It was a terrible time." No shit, Sherlock! I repeat: who the hell wrote this dialogue? - Scully: "Any vibrations, Agent Reyes?" Oh. My. God. Does Scully really believe this stuff? Whatever happened to Scully the skeptic? Is she never to be seen again? Or only when the plot requires it? - But I guess Monica didn't get any bad vibes about the Game Warden before seeing the back of her neck, eh? BUT, on the plus side, at least we got to see Monica seeing the back of *Billy's* neck first. Continuity and logical character behavior are our friends, yes? - OK, help me out here. This is #1 on the confusion list for me this week, but I'm putting it under "what I didn't like" because it just MAKES NO SENSE. So, all these aliens show up, right? And then they just stand around to wait for the baby to be born? And then they just leave? And The Big Explanation for this is: gee, I guess the baby wasn't what they thought it was? Hello? How would they have known just by looking at the kid? And wouldn't they have wanted to kill Scully, the baby, and Reyes anyway so there would be no evidence/witnesses of the aliens having been there? (At the very least, Reyes should now be able to ID a whole bunch of those aliens' faces.) And doesn't that just blow that whole Lizzie story from last week out of the water? Whatever happened to the human baby with no human frailties? Was that just a big "ooops" on the part of Lizzie and her cohorts? (Whatever happened to Lizzie, anyway?) Does any of this make any sense to anyone? - This just might be what pissed me off the most about this ep, because it ruined an otherwise rather nice scene: the baby's name. First of all, why is Mulder asking what Scully is going to call him? If it's his child, does he not have any say in the matter? Or are we still playing the "who's the father/Mulder was just a sperm donor and that's it" game? And why in the world would Scully name the baby after Mulder's father, the guy who let his own daughter be abducted and tortured and experimented on? And how could Scully forget that HER father's name was William? WTF?!? - That scene with Kersh -- he was just *way* too over-the-top-bad-guy-nasty-evil for me. I almost wanted to laugh. What's got me puzzled: - Why didn't that morgue attendant put Billy Miles' remains in the fridge when they were done? That stuff would have smelled pretty bad in morning. - How did that vertebra know to wait until no one was in the room before it started to regenerate? - Whatever happened to the Palm Pilot of death? Did Krycek lose it along the way? It could have come in handy in this ep. - When Reyes had her gun on the Game Warden, and the GW told Reyes to put her gun down -- why did Reyes do it?! Just because the woman looked official in her truck and her uniform? - Why did Doggett ask Mulder, "How long can you keep this up?" I mean, it sounded like Doggett thought that Mulder had a choice. What did Doggett expect him to do? - When Billy Miles first encountered Reyes, why didn't he just chop off her head like he was doing to everyone else? At least last week, when Billy didn't chop off Mulder's head, there was the possibility that Billy either recognized Mulder or that there was a reason for the aliens to not kill Mulder. But not killing Reyes made no sense at all. (And I'm not just saying that because I hate the character of Reyes. ) - Didn't Scully or Reyes have a cell phone with them? When Billy Miles dropped by and Scully went into labor, why didn't anyone try to call Mulder, Doggett, or Skinner? Maybe there was no cell phone service in that area, but it would have made sense to take three seconds to show that to us. - I really need to have someone explain the whole "Krycek death scene" to me, because it was the second most confusing thing about the whole ep for me. Why did Krycek want Mulder dead? The music was awfully loud in that parking garage scene, and I think I might have missed some of the dialogue. But really, I can't think of a good reason why having Mulder dead would have done Krycek any good. Any why did Krycek try to talk Skinner into killing Mulder? What was that business about 1,000 lives for one bullet? That killing Mulder would save 1,000 lives? And how was that supposed to happen...? And why did Skinner kill Krycek? Krycek was pretty incapacitated at that point. I know Skinner was rather pissed off at that moment, and probably needed to give Krycek some payback ditching him when Billy originally showed up, and for the nanite stuff (want to bet we never hear about the nanites again now that Krycek's dead?), but he just killed the man in cold blood. Or was there supposed to be some hint that Skinner was involved with Krycek and the other bad guys? That's why Krycek thought Skinner would understand that Mulder needed to die? And Skinner killed Krycek to protect himself? But that makes no sense. Nothing else in the ep supports that, and with no great likelihood of us seeing Mulder next year, having Skinner as a behind-the-scenes bad guy doesn't make a whole lot of sense. - When Knowle and Crane got off that elevator and advanced toward Doggett, why didn't Doggett shoot them? He didn't realize they were aliens, and thus impervious to the gunshots, did he? - When Reyes returned to In!Labor!Scully, with the aliens following behind her, and said, "It's OK, Dana" -- do you think it occurred to Scully that Reyes might be one of the aliens, too? (Hey, throwing boiling water at the Game Warden might have been a red herring!) - Puzzling, but funny: the baby shower balloons (both blue and pink, so presumably NOT blown up after the baby was born) were in Scully's bedroom at the end of the ep. Those were latex balloons. The helium would not have held them up for more than a day. Etc.: - Scully: "I was hoping this was all a dream." Me too, Scully -- this entire season! - Think Doggett will have more contact with Knowle and Crane next year? Think he'll believe either one of them? ;) - Did anybody else think that Concussion!Skinner was moving around pretty well for a guy just released from the hospital? - And did anybody else want to hear Scully scream for Mulder while she was in labor? :) - Overall, I guess I can just say that I'm glad the Mulder/Scully era ended on a happy note. There were certainly plot points in this ep (hell, the whole damn season!) that made no sense to me, but all things considered this ep could have been a disaster, and it wasn't. I just hope that 1013 doesn't do a retcon in S9 that takes away those last few moments of "Existence." - This may well be the last OTTOMH I ever post. I'm sure that I'll be watching S9 (as long as either GA or DD is around, I won't be able to tear myself away, even with the Mind-Numbing Reyes on board), but without the hope of Mulder/Scully interaction I can't see me having the enthusiasm to write these posts anymore. (Some of you are probably cheering. ) My thanks to everyone who's ever responded to my posts, or written to me privately about my little rants and raves. :)