The Gift: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS) (February 4, 2001) Caution: spoiler for next week's ep (based on the trailer) is in the "Etc." section. THE GIFT (8ABx11) In a nutshell: Interesting yet dragging story of Doggett investigating what Mulder was doing shortly before he disappeared. Lots of Mulder- and Scully-related plotholes. Mulder-lite; Scully appears only in flashbacks from the premiere. Good LGM and Skinner stuff. What I liked: - OK, call me a traditionalist (or whatever ), but I was happy to see DD in the credits again. Yeah, I know he hasn't been there because he hasn't been on the show; it was just good to see him again. - Mulder's fish are alive! Mulder's fish are alive! - I loved Skinner's dressing-down of Doggett: "It's about you!" When the writers write crap for Mitch Pileggi it's really a shame, but when they give him something good to chew on he does a fantastic job. - The Gunmen were a hoot, especially Langly not having any pants on (OK, I'll give Doggett a point for that line). But see below for a concern I have with the Gunmen's appearance. - I liked the ending, with Mulder standing in his office -- but *not* that it was *Doggett* seeing Mulder rather than Scully or Skinner. How does Mulder even know that Doggett exists? I assume the implication was that it was really Mulder's spirit standing there (as in SUZ/Closure?), rather than some weird vision, since Mulder was there for so long. What I didn't like: - That it's taken so long for Doggett (and don't get me started on the fact that Scully isn't involved... I'll get into that more below) to check into Mulder's cell phone records. If Doggett were going to investigate Mulder's disappearance, wouldn't it have made sense to work backwards from when he was abducted to review where he had been and what he had been doing? How did it take months for Doggett to review Mulder's calls from a week before his disappearance? - Lack on continuity. We finally have a firm timeframe for "Requiem": mid-May (because Mulder was abducted a week after his visit to Squamash on Saturday, May 6). If Scully were a month pregnant at that time, then she should have been about 8 months' pregnant in "Redrum." I don't think I need to watch that ep again to know that she was pretty svelte in early December. - Doggett finding the gun under Mulder's sink. Hello, contrived plot point! Wouldn't someone else have found that gun before now? Didn't Doggett already search the apartment after Mulder disappeared? (He knew back in the premiere where the fish food was, right?) And wouldn't Mulder have brought his ankle holster and weapon with him when he went to Oregon? And if Scully were "in" on what Mulder had been up to in Squamash, she would have removed the gun from Mulder's apartment, right? - Doggett left Skinner (with no car!) and went to the cabin to confront the woman about the creature *by himself*. If he thought something fishy was going on, why didn't he bring Skinner for back-up? Is this all just a way to get Doggett seem like Super!Agent? If Skinner were off checking out something else I wouldn't have minded, but there seemed to be no reason for Doggett to be alone other than to make him look... well, you know, that "M" word. - And then once Doggett found Marie, why did he carry her out rather than call for an ambulance? How did he know that the goop on her wasn't caustic or otherwise dangerous? What's got me puzzled: - When does this ep take place? From the outdoor scenes in Squamash it looked like maybe early fall...? - Boy, it seems like every ep so far this season leaves me with tons of questions. Did Mulder keep this case from Scully, or didn't he? At the end, Doggett seems convinced that Scully knew nothing about what happened when Mulder went to Squamash. In that case, why did she sign the report? But why would Mulder keep it from her in the first place? Because he was dying? Sorry, but that's still an asinine plot idea, IMO. However, if I go with the flow, suspend my disbelief, and all that... - Why is Doggett investigating Mulder's trip to Squamash by himself? You mean Scully hasn't had a hand in his checking out Mulder's cell phone calls? Doggett didn't know that Mulder's report (with Scully's signature) was inconsistent with the facts (regarding, e.g., the three shots) until after his initial trip, so it doesn't make sense to me that Doggett might have kept his investigation a secret from Scully on the basis that he thought she was covering something up. And besides, if he thought Mulder was up to something, wouldn't Doggett have considered that Scully's signature on the report was forged? - If Doggett didn't want Scully to know that he was investigating Mulder's trip to Squamash, why did he get the Gunmen involved? Surely he must know that the Gunmen will tell her what's going on. (At least, they'd damn well better, or I'm going to be even more pissed off than I am now.) - Why did the woman in the cabin simply hide the creature rather than help him escape? Did she think she could keep him hidden forever? - Why did Mulder (try to) kill that creature? I mean, I understand that he thought he was putting it out of its misery, but what made him think he had the right to do so, or that the creature *wanted* him to kill it? There are miserable people all over the world; Mulder doesn't go around executing them, does he? I realize that he might have killed Cassandra Spender if he hadn't been interrupted by Fowley and her HazMat team back in 2F/1S, but I don't think it's a comparable situation. With this creature, did he really know much about its background, or its future, or what it really wanted? He had that (as much as anyone could) with Cassandra. - So... did I understand this correctly? Mulder stopped the creature from curing him of his terminal illness because the creature would have suffered? OK, that's noble, but if Mulder knew anything about how the creature did its thing, wouldn't he have already known that the creature would suffer? Was he so desperate to be cured that he put those thoughts aside until he was actually staring the creature in the face? - Will Doggett tell Scully about what happened in Squamash, both to him and to Mulder? If not, why not? Doesn't she have a right to know what her partner was doing? If he doesn't tell her everything that he's found out about his behavior and whereabouts, doesn't that impede her ability to find him? Doesn't she have the right to know that there's further substantiation to his terminal illness? If Doggett doesn't tell her, will Skinner? I'd be appalled if he kept the information from her; almost as much as I'm appalled that Mulder wouldn't tell Scully that he was dying. - What happened to the Sheriff and his buddies? Nice to know that they're so concerned about human life that they would blast a man in the back without a second thought, but I guess Doggett can't prosecute with no evidence that he was shot. - I know I've alluded to this already, but... WHERE'S SCULLY? Am I supposed to believe that Scully isn't involved in the search for Mulder? As I said above, Doggett didn't know until later in the ep that there was a disconnect between the report and the evidence, so I found no reason for Scully not to have been going with Doggett to Squamash to check out Mulder's trip there. Come on, writers, you can do better than this. Etc.: - How nice that Doggett's so eager to find Mulder. Why haven't we seen this eagerness since the premiere? - ::grimace:: I was hoping for an ep that would give some plausible explanation for Mulder's lying to Scully. I didn't get it, obviously, and that pisses me off. So much for the ad in TV Guide that said, "The last thing Mulder did before he disappeared was lie... to everybody. Tonight... find out why." I don't know about the rest of you, but I sure don't understand why Mulder lied to Scully. Oh, excuse me, he didn't lie; he just withheld information. Whatever. - The basic plot about a suffering soul-eater was interesting, but I thought the story dragged -- at the end of the 2nd act I couldn't believe we were only halfway through the ep. I'm glad that RP was given more to do with Doggett than he has been lately, but that wasn't nearly enough to make me like this ep. I don't hate it, either, but there are still so many unanswered questions regarding Mulder's actions, and what Scully did or did not know about them, that I was left almost 100% unsatisfied. - Next week's ep: I'm eager to see it because it's set in Boston, but I have a feeling that it's going to be Scully-lite, since Scully doesn't appear to be where the action is. I also have a feeling that the name "Mulder" will never come up.