Hellbound: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS)
(January 27, 2002)

There are no spoilers for future eps in this OTTOMH.

HELLBOUND (9ABX04):

In a nutshell:  People are being skinned alive... and they
had been in previous lives, too.  An interesting concept
with mediocre execution (no pun intended).  Not a bad ep,
but nothing to write home about.  Not for the squeamish.


What I liked:
-  Good creepy lighting throughout the ep.
-  Doggett to Reyes about Scully: "It was a little late for
her to be looking for a sitter."  Hee hee!
-  Doggett again: "What part of 'stop right there' did you
not understand?"  Hee hee!
-  Hey!  Doggett was willing to listen to an alternate
theory without dismissing it out of hand!  Character
development is a good thing. :)


What I didn't like:
-  Was it necessary to show Doggett that first skinned body
without giving him some idea of what he was going to see? 
What was the point in the shock value?  Or was that solely
for our benefit?  (Don't answer that.)
-  You mean they found that guy hanging upside down skinned
and nobody bothered to check for a pulse?
-  OK, at the end of Act II the detective and Dr. Holland
are obviously involved somehow, since they're the only ones
left alive.  Ho hum.  The only questions are: how and why? 
And why should I care?
-  Oh, wow.  Yucky awful serial crimes that repeat
themselves every 40 years or so.  Where have we seen that
before?
-  The souls are murdered over and over again?  In the same
way?  Huh?  And just how did Monica come up that theory? 
She just did?  It was just in her head?  Umm, OK.
-  How did Monica figure out that Dr. Holland -- a woman,
when previous victims had all apparently been men -- would
be the fourth victim?  Did she somehow match up the
birthdays?  Naaaaaaah.  It was just in her head, apparently.
-  So why was Reyes so wrapped up in this case, anyway?  If
there were 5 people involved in 1960, 1909, and 1868 (one
murderer and four victims), where did she fit in?  You mean
she fit in... just because?  Huh?


What's got me puzzled:
-  So Reyes is calling Scully "Scully" again?  And Scully is
calling Reyes "Agent Reyes"!  What happened to first names? 
Oh, wait, I heard a "Monica" or two.  Do they just switch
back and forth?
-  How did Reyes know that Victor had dreamed that he would
die by being skinned?  I thought his dream was of *other*
people being skinned alive?
-  Does *everyone* in that anger management group work in
the meat packing plant?!  Holy cow.  Umm, "holy pig"? 
Whatever.
-  How did Doggett get in Reyes' motel room?
-  Why did Reyes call Scully in on this?  Are there no other
forensic pathologists in the FBI?  It didn't seem as though
Scully was going to be able to bring any special knowledge
to the case.  (Yeah, I know, she was involved because GA has
to be in every ep.  It still doesn't make sense.)
-  I'll give points to AG for having Reyes acting weirded
out over this whole thing... but why was Reyes so
tight-lipped about why the case was bothering her?  Did she
tell either Doggett or Scully that she had a dream about
someone skinned alive?  Maybe under normal circumstances it
wouldn't be odd to dream about a case you're working on, but
in this situation where the dreams are an integral part of
the case...
-  What sort of paper in 1960 would publish a photo of a man
who had shot himself in the head?  I don't know how many
papers would publish a photo like that today.


Etc.:
-  That "isn't this a great group" guy in the teaser (which
one was he?  Terry?)... did anybody buy a word that he was
saying?  I couldn't tell if it was bad acting, or if he was
supposed to be pretending to believe what he was saying.
-  Having that blonde female doctor in a group of
dark-haired men just seemed to scream, "Look!  A victim! 
Keep an eye on her!"  Note to 1013: subtle is better.
-  Scully's wearing her cross.  Bummer.  (Actually, it
didn't look like the same cross we've seen her wear in the
past; it looked "fatter."  So maybe Mulder has her original
cross.  Hope springs eternal. *g*)
-  But GA's haircut looks lovely. :)
-  Hanging pigs = Chaco chicken factory from "Our Town."  Or
the meat packing plant from "Red Museum."  Take your pick.
-  Old doctor in retirement community = old police detective
from "Tooms."
-  Doesn't anyone know that they should never work alone at
night?  Sheeeeeesh.
-  So.  Doggett and Reyes are checking out the coal mine. 
An abandoned coal mine.  That sounds like a real good idea. 
It's not, like, the sort of place you could get lost in, or
trapped in, or have a cave-in, or whatever.  Yup.
-  Sorry, 1013, but I didn't care about any of these
characters.  Not one of them seemed likable to me... not
even Dr. Holland.
-  The underlying story was interesting, but the logic fell
apart because neither Dr. Holland nor Reyes had any
observable connection to the prior cases.  So we had an
"aha!" ending, or an ending that just "is," very much like
we had with "John Doe" (e.g., Reyes found Doggett at the
garage; Doggett got his memory back).  Sorry, 1013, you need
to do better than this.


***