Provenance: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS)
March 3, 2002

Caution: spoiler for next week's ep (based on the trailer) is in
the "Etc." section.

PROVENANCE (9ABX10):

In a nutshell:  Guess what?  WILLIAM IS SPECIAL!  Who woulda
thunk it?  (Oh, and Scully is stupid.  Again.  So is Skinner. 
And Doggett. ::sigh::)


What I liked:
-  Loved Scully's dark grey ribbed turtleneck!
-  I have to admit that I'm getting to like Doggett more and
more.  I'm not at the point where I'd mind if he got killed, but
it's nice to see him standing up for Scully (even if at least
some of his concern is tied to his own son, yadda yadda yadda).
-  Thank God Mrs. Scully is finally complaining about Scully's
middle-of-the-night ditches!
-  Yay for Mrs. Scully with the second gun!  (Where did she get
it from, though?  Shouldn't Scully have her second weapon locked
up?  If she'd gotten it out before she left for her Mom's
protection, we should have been shown that.)  I can *almost*
forgive her for that whole Lizzie incident.  Almost. *g*
-  Glad to see Scully has at least *some* backbone with Kersh
and the gang about trying to keep William safe.  Too little, too
late, but I'll take what I can get at this point.
-  Yay!  The Gunmen!  And they even thought about creating cell
phones that couldn't be traced.  God bless 'em.  (Hey, it's not
their fault that Scully was stupid enough to entrust William to
them.  More on that later.)
-  I gotta say it... William is SO cute. *g*


What I didn't like:
-  Jeez, Doggett -- lose that black satin jacket.  It is
definitely *not* manly.
-  Scully determined that that ship is millions of years old? 
Gee, I'm so glad we've been told that before.  And *now* Scully
thinks that there might be answers there about William?  How is
she making that connection?  And what's this "word of God" crap?
 And why was Scully meant to find those words?  Who the hell
wrote this nonsense?
-  ::sigh::  Why is Skinner keeping secrets from Scully AGAIN? 
"Because I know things you don't, John"?  Puh-leeze.
-  I'm *so* glad those rubbings were kept *so* safely in an
unlocked drawer.  ::rolls eyes::
-  If Scully is worried about William, why is she leaving him
unprotected with her mother?  For God's sakes, Terry O'Quinn
told her that either William or Mulder had to die!  Is she just
STUPID or what?
-  Don't answer that.
-  OK, Scully, so this guy tried to smother your son.  NOW will
you take him and get the hell out of town?!?  
-  Skinner was trying to PROTECT Scully by not telling her about
threats on Mulder, and that he might be dead?  WHEN will people
on this show learn that when you keep secrets it just makes more
trouble?!
-  So Mulder might be dead?  Big deal.  He's been dead before. 
More than once.  ::yawn::
-  And why does Scully *believe* this story that Mulder might be
dead?  I mean, come ON.  (I guess that means she hasn't gotten
any "Dearest Dana" e-mail lately. ::smirk::) 
-  That's right, Scully... put William down in his crib and walk
away from him because there's a noise in the other room.  *Real*
smart.
-  If they are so sure that they want to kill William, WHY THE
HELL AREN'T THEY GETTING WILLIAM TO A SAFE HOUSE?  ONE WITH
TRAINED, ARMED GUARDS?
-  Why didn't Doggett tell Scully or Reyes that he thought they
were being watched?  Wouldn't that have been, like, the SMART
thing to do?  Well, of course... which is why he didn't do it. 
::sigh::  And that stupidity is exactly why I don't feel bad for
him that he got hurt.
-  Scully needs to know that the Gunmen are taking every
precaution?  Oh yeah, she's been so careful about precautions
herself. ::rolls eyes::
-  Frohike to Scully: "Whatever you do, don't worry"?  Oooh,
what foreshadowing!  I'm all a-tingle. ::snort::
-  What, neither Scully nor Reyes noticed that Doggett didn't
follow them?
-  ::sigh::  Why didn't Scully  GO.  WITH.  THE.  GUNMEN ????? 
If the point is that Scully feels that her chip will lead the
bad guys to them, then SOMEBODY ON THIS SHOW SHOULD TELL US
THAT.  But they don't, and it just makes Scully look like a
moron.  Again.  And again.  And again.


What's got me puzzled:
-  Do we really have a problem with Canadians trying to sneak
into the U.S.?  I mean, couldn't he have just cross the border
the normal way, in a disguise, posing as a tourist or a shopper?
 It's not like the U.S. places a quota on visiting Canadians.
-  And aren't there quieter ways to sneak alien artifacts over
the border? *g*
-  Why did the artifact need to go over the border in the first
place?  From where did Comer get it?
-  Can someone explain to me why Scully still works for the FBI?
 Kersh and Follmer sure treat her like shit.  Skinner doesn't
seem like her friend at the moment, either.
-  Those rubbings have "powerful words"?  If they're such a big
deal, why hadn't either Mulder or Scully done anything about
them after Mulder's brain surgery?
-  And why was Scully spilling her guts to Doggett and Reyes in
the basement office?  Surely she expects it to be bugged.
-  I'm confused.  Was that blond guy on the motorcycle the same
guy as Comer, who was the same guy as the blond guy at the dig
site in Canada?  They looked alike to me, and if they weren't
the same guy (well, obviously they weren't the *same* guy, since
they were in two places at once... you know, clones/hybrids,
whatever) it wasn't the smartest thing to cast two
similar-looking guys for different parts.
-  Why did Monica come to the conclusion that there was a second
craft?  Why couldn't the new rubbings, which didn't match the
ones from two years ago, have come from a portion of the
original craft from which Scully didn't get a rubbing?  The
underside, maybe?  That was a huge craft, and she didn't have
rubbings from the whole thing.
-  Why didn't the wound on Scully's head heal when she held the
piece of the artifact?  That would have been cool.  What, can it
only heal somebody once? *g*
-  Why is a story about a formerly missing, shot FBI agent on
the front cover of a Canadian newspaper?
-  And who is this woman, anyway?  I mean, she's obviously a bad
guy, but why should I care that she's a bad guy?
-  Why are the bad guys trying to kill William now, after all
these months, and in a way that requires close-up and personal
interaction?  Not that I'm in favor of hurting William, but why
not a high-powered rifle from a distance?  Neither the timing
nor the method make sense.
-  The artifact was floating over William?  Umm, OK.  But why
wasn't it doing that when Comer showed up at the apartment?  I
mean, if the thing sensed William from a room away, why wasn't
it going nuts when it was in Comer's jacket pocket in the
nursery?  Was the pocket lined with lead or something?  Or
whatever was in that quarry that killed Terry O'Quinn?  (Oh, why
am I even trying to understand this?)
-  So what happened to Mrs. Scully?  Is she OK?  Is she in
danger herself at this point?


Etc.:
-  Did anyone else think that when Follmer was standing over
Scully in Act I that he looked like big brother Bill Scully?
-  Man, Doggett sure does travel fast.  Scully was questioned
"this morning," and by then Doggett had already been to the
Canadian border in North Dakota and BACK.  I'm impressed.
-  Wouldn't it have been cool for the Gunmen to have brought
William to Susanne Modeski?  I mean, not for the "oh, men can't
take care of a baby" reason (although the Gunmen showed in their
own show that they're not very good with infants *g*), just for
the sake of the continuity.
-  Next week's ep:  I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. 
"If you want to see your son, you'll bring me the head of Fox
Mulder."  They're kidding, right?  Somebody remind me how good
this show used to be.  I hardly remember any more.  ::sigh::


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