Three Words: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS) (April 8, 2001) Caution: spoilers for future eps (based on the trailer) is in the "Etc." section. Spoiler space is added. THREE WORDS (8ABX18): In a nutshell: Hooray! Mulder's back, and he's got an attitude! Too bad the story didn't make much sense. What I liked: - Mulder's back, in all his wise-ass glory. God, I love that man. :) - Fight the Future! Continuity! Woo hoo! - The Gunmen! For two eps in a row! I loved the funky poaching -- I just wish it hadn't reminded me so much of "Memento Mori," a far, *far* better (and more logical) ep. (It also reminded me of "The Lone Gunmen," and not in a good way. ) - DD's performance was just superb. Did I already mention that? :) - Loved Mulder's comment about Frohike's hands on his ass. ROFL! (Who's got a copy of the script? Was that ad-libbed?) - You probably already know that I don't much care for the character of John Doggett -- I find him to be wooden -- but RP did a good job with the material he was given here. I cared enough about JD that I was glad that he didn't get his head shot off. - Oooh -- is Knowle an ABH? Now *that's* the kind of twist that I like. And here I thought he was just going to be some new Mr. X. Now, could there please just be some rhyme or reason to his behavior? What I didn't like: - Mulder and Scully's first conversation in Mulder's apartment. I realize that things should be awkward between them, but the awkwardness that I saw wasn't there in the right way. Scully started in with some weird commentary about how strange her experience had been (did CC write that part of the dialogue?). That seemed like an unfair burden to drop on Mulder when he was just trying to re-orient himself... at the very least she could have phrased it better, like how happy she was he was back, rather than how awful it had been for her while he was gone. But maybe I should just be glad that she's opening up? ::shrug:: And then Mulder started in with some weird commentary about how happy he is for Scully that she's pregnant. OK, 1013, you're pissing me off here. *Please* do not spend the rest of the season feeding us this "who's the father"/IVF!baby crap. I realize that Mulder and Scully are damaged and idiosyncratic, and that's one of the reasons I love them. But *this* level of disassociation, or whatever the hell it is, is so unrealistic -- even for these two -- as to be ridiculous. *They* know what the status of their relationship is. *They* know what the deal is with the baby (or, at least, they think they know what the deal is). Continuing to hide it from us has gone well beyond cliff-hanger story-telling and into pure dreck. - Speaking of the Big Tease... gee, I just loved that look that Mulder gave Scully after Frohike's comment regarding the blessed event. ::snort:: Am I really supposed to believe that Scully told *no one* who the father of her baby is, even after said assumed father was d-e-a-d? - Would somebody please give Skinner a backbone? What the hell are the writers trying to do to poor Mitch Pileggi? First, he has nothing to say to Kersh about keeping Mulder off the X-Files. Then, poor ol' Skinner has to go to Doggett's house (what, he couldn't use a phone?) because Scully was all upset when she called him. Gee, Skinner didn't seem to know what to do without consulting Doggett. Huh? - And while I'm on that topic -- can someone explain to me why Scully called Skinner when Mulder took off for the census place (aside from it being a lousy plot device to allow Doggett to find out where she had gone)? - Scully, in general, didn't seem to have a good ep here -- she seemed to be either following people around, or acting as a message-giver. Did I miss something, or did she do nothing of any real consequence in this ep? She didn't even get to autopsy Absalom. - Oh, and Scully thinks that Doggett is "above reproach." I *really* don't want to see Scully caught between Mulder and Doggett, trying to give her loyalty to both of them -- *unless* we can see her have a heart-to-heart with Mulder about why she trusts JD. Otherwise, it's the Fowley thing all over again. - I'm glad that Mulder was able to see a clue that no one else had, but... am I really supposed to believe that NO ONE had compiled a list of the returned/healed abductees? (Umm, where are they now, anyway?) And that neither Scully, nor Doggett, nor Skinner would have recognized Howard Salt's name? - And along the same lines... am I really supposed to believe that the FBI confiscated all of Mr. Salt's personal belongings, and no one had checked his laptop before Mulder go to it? I would have thought that that would have been the very first thing that the FBI analysts would have taken apart. What's got me puzzled: - Will Mulder tell Scully about his flashbacks, or otherwise act on them in any way, or will they ever be important to the plot again, or... were they just there for the gratuitous gore? - Umm... *how* long was Mulder "dead"? He was in the ground for 3 months, but Frohike said that Mulder was dead for 6 months. - I'm not sure whether I like the several comments that Mulder made about having been recently in the ground. I'd like to think that it was Mulder's attempts to deal with what had happened to me, but while I was watching it felt more like the writers trying to hit the viewers over the head with backstory. What did everyone else think? - So... Scully didn't want Mulder to get to the bottom of what was on that disk? Why? Didn't Mulder deserve to find information that would shed light on what had happened to him? Didn't Scully want to know? Surely it wasn't just a matter of her wanting to keep Mulder out of trouble...? And if she didn't want Mulder to pursue it, what made her change her mind and give him the password that Doggett gave her? And what made her change her mind again and call Skinner, "upset" as he put it, when Mulder tried to pursue the information at hand? Why, why, why?! - Why didn't that guard at the census place ask who Absalom was? Was it enough for Doggett to flash his badge, so the guy with Doggett could go in anonymously? - Why did Scully wait to call the Gunmen until the military showed up -- why didn't she contact them when Doggett arrived and said that he thought Mulder was being set up?! - And how the hell did Doggett get in without being noticed?! He wouldn't have known that the Gunmen had knocked out the surveillance cameras (and they weren't *all* knocked out, were they?) - And why didn't the military guys grab Scully? Wouldn't they have been on the lookout for anyone nearby who looked suspicious? Or did they have orders specifically to leave the pregnant redhead alone...? - And for that matter, why did Mulder and the Gunmen go directly to the census place -- since they had the password, why didn't they just hack in? - Why did Knowle strip off his hooded sweatshirt as Doggett approached? It would have been easy for Doggett to see the back of his neck. - So what was Knowle trying to do, anyway? Get Doggett killed? Get Mulder killed? Get them both killed? Was he behind Absalom's death? Was he behind Absalom getting the info about Howard Salt? Was he behind that well-timed train that let Absalom escape? If Knowle wants everybody dead, why does he have to get them into a government installation to do so? What's the point? What did I miss? Etc.: - Timestamp? It's dark at 6:44 p.m. in Washington, DC, but warm enough for a light jacket to be sufficient. (Oh, hell -- why am I even trying? ) - So, Mulder's in perfect health. I guess that means that terminal brain disease is now a thing of the past? ::snort:: - Was anyone besides me expecting "The Coming Apocalypse" to have been written by Dr. Alvin Kurtzweil? - Future eps: * * * s p o i l e r s p a c e * * * - Glad to see Krycek again. Not glad to see a lizard!baby again. *Really* not glad to see In!Labor!Screaming!Sweaty!Scully. Given 1013's track record in dealing with women, pregnancy, and reproduction, I have a Bad Feeling about the whole thing. And I wasn't made any more comfortable seeing that Scully is, apparently, going to give birth on a brass bed. ::sigh::