X-Files Flashback: ‘Herrenvolk’

Season 4, Episode 1
Director: R.W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter

The X-Files opens Season Four by completing the 2-part mythology arc initiated at the close of Season Three. Even though this is my first jaunt into the mythology of the series, some things are starting to sound familiar – namely the infamous bees that appeared in the first film. For a reason unbeknownst to me, “Herrenvolk” appealed to me more than the prior episode, partly because it’s a wild, wacky road trip/chase outing that never stops too long on any one sequence to allow the audience to become wise to the outlandish plotting.

The episode opens with a telephone repairman climbing up to make some sort of repairs when he is stung by a seemingly innocent bee. Seconds later, he begins to convulse from the sting while a group of what appear to be quintuplet boys gather beneath him to watch. Being The X-Files, we know these kids are some sort of alien clones. When he falls to the ground dead, the boys callously observe him and wander away into the distance. Returning to Mulder and Scully, the two are attempting to protect Jeremiah Smith from the hulking assassin of Season One. After eluding him briefly, Mulder manages to stab him in the back of the neck with that evil icepick and escapes with Smith. Mulder didn’t stab him correctly, though, as he wakens to take Scully hostage and uses her to find Mulder’s whereabouts.

Smith leads Mulder to a mysterious farm in Canada, conveniently near the dead body of the telephone repairman, where little boy and girl clones silently tend a massive farm swarming with the same bees. The girls are all clones of his sister, Samantha. Mulder takes a Samantha and attempts to escape the omnipresent assassin by hiding out with Jeremiah in a bee apiary as Smith and “Samantha” are immune to the bee’s stings. Scully, meanwhile, has stumbled upon some information at Jeremiah Smith’s day job and determines they are records of children who received a particular smallpox vaccination. She attempts to contact X who advises her to stay away from the path the vaccination data will lead her down.

X, himself, is in trouble as the Smoking Man discovers he has been playing a double agent by assisting Mulder (the photos X took of Smoking Man and Mulder’s mother surface). The episode ends when the assassin finally tracks down Mulder, Smith, and the Samantha and supposedly kill all but Mulder. The Smoking Man sets a trap for X in Mulder’s apartment, and he is killed by the Gray-Haired Man (I hate these names). X writes “SRSG” in blood on the floor, leading Mulder to the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations who shows Mulder a picture of the children tending the fields. Mulder’s mother is saved by the Smoking Man and the assassin when they decide a grief-stricken Mulder is something they want no part of.

The intricate plotting of “Herrenvolk” is actually something I’m fairly comforting tuning out. It’s not the chase scenes or the constant threat of the mysterious alien assassin, of course. It’s more the gradual, extremely gradual, revelation of information in the overall mythology of the series. Bees and black oil and aliens aside, The X-Files is at its best when it focuses on the human elements of Mulder and Scully, something not particularly in focus this episode. Still, it was fun watching Mulder run all over the country to escape a man who appears to have zero difficulty finding them at any given moment. The chase scenes here are fun and engaging, and it makes a better overall episode than its pretentious precursor.

And just when I needed another reason to fear killer bees…

X-Files Flashback: ‘Talitha Cumi’

Season 3, Episode 24
Director: R.W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter (based on a story by David Duchovny and Chris Carter)

Nothing deflates my soul more than an X-Files mythology episode.

I suppose it’s inevitable that Chris Carter feels the need to complete each season with a dramatically inert episode that supposedly deepens the grand conspiracy kicking around his head. Drawing influences from such lofty places as the Bible and The Brothers Karamazov, the pretentious and bloated “Talitha Cumi” – the title alone makes me want to slap someone – is the perfect evidence of a series creator who thinks Big Important Statements make an episode great. Ignoring the incredibly complex yet seemingly effortless outings like “Humbug” and “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” Carter closes a mostly great third season with such a dud of a cliffhanger that 1996 audiences must have been reeling from disappointment.

Granted, the episode does revolve around two things about which I care little: X and the Smoking Man, here referred to as “Cancer Man” because Chris Carter doesn’t ever miss a chance to cater to his fanboys. it begins with a shootout in a fast food restaurant. An unbalanced man draws a gun on an unsuspecting crowd, and a tall, quiet stranger comes up to him and nearly convinces him to relinquish his weapon. Angered when someone tries to escape, the man opens fire but is quickly laid low by a police sniper outside. The good samaritan who tried to intervene then lays the healing hands on the shooter, healing him completely along with other another shooting victim. After the police question him, the samaritan disappears into the crowd.

The incident naturally brings the attention of Mulder and Scully who discover a recording of the man, Jeremiah Smith, appearing to shape-shift into another person. Meanwhile, Mulder’s mother has an unpleasant encounter with the Smoking Man and later suffers a stroke. Mulder becomes determined to find Jeremiah Smith who he wants to use to heal his ailing mother. Informed of his mother’s connection to the Smoking Man by X, Mulder scours her house looking for whatever the Smoking Man may have wanted from her – unable to speak, she has scribbled “PALM” on a sheet of paper for Mulder. In the deserted house, Mulder eventually discovers one of those retractable ice picks that can kill alien clones.

The Smoking Man kidnaps Jeremiah Smith and imprisons him, questioning him in an extended and meaningless exchange. By now, we realize that Jeremiah Smith is most likely an alien/human hybrid similar to those seen in late Season One. In fact, Smith (or a variation of him – it’s never really clear) morphs into Deep Throat and Bill Mulder in front of the Smoking Man. Toss in the psycho alien bounty hunter, and you’ve got a full-on Season One party. In the end, Mulder has attacked both X and the Smoking Man in search of the truth. When Smith approaches the sorely underused Scully, she connects him to Mulder in a vacant lot where the bounty hunter shows up. And we’re To Be Continued…

So, there’s literally nothing remotely interesting about this over-plotted episode, which is fairly standard of the worst mythology episodes. There just isn’t anything here to grab onto despite many falling head over heels for the Smoking Man/Jeremiah Smith interrogation scene, which I found ultimately boring and pointless. “Talitha Cumi” wasn’t even all that visually interesting an episode, showing that Carter focused too much on the intricacies of the plotting rather than making a well-rounded episode of television. In a season that gave us such greatness, closing it with this dud feels like an insult.

Teaser: A Minimalist Approach to ‘Crime’

Premiering in 2016 on FX, the future Emmy-winning American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson has released a teaser that literally defines the word teaser. Rather than show the parade of celebs lined up to play the figures in this most modern of crime dramas, the teaser instead focuses on brief lines of dialogue, leaving the distraction of the heavily made-up actors to our imaginations.

What do you think? You in?

Review: ‘South Park’ Finds Jenner ‘Stunning and Brave’

South Park launches its nineteenth season premiere by firing Principal Victoria and hiring a new, more politically correct principal, literally named P.C. Principal. The opening flashes back to some of the inflammatory animated series’s most offensive moments, including the owner of City Wok who hates Mongolians (“Goddamn Mongolians! You TEAH DOWN MY SHITTY WALL!”). As South Park loves to do, the episode devolves into vaguely thought-provoking commentary thanks to Caitlyn Jenner when Kyle calls into question her status as a hero. It’s been years since I’ve watched an episode of South Park. It’s refreshing to know that its heavy-handed sense of humor is still fully in tact.

The running gag of the episode is effectively a statement on the over sensitivity of millennials who have zero tolerance for anything deemed politically incorrect. In the episode, whenever someone says “Caitlyn Jenner,” a frat boy flies around the corner and militantly proclaims her “stunning and brave.” After urging him to stand up to P.C. Principal, Cartman attempts some old school framing and blackmailing by sneaking into the faculty bathroom and attempting to link him to a pair of boys underpants soaked with Principal’s urine. After Cartman says the word “spokesperson” and makes a vague reference to Italians, P.C. Principal beats the shit out of him in a fit of PC rage. Including a subplot about Stan’s father joining a PC frat, the episode somehow culminates in Cartman declaring war on the PC frat boys by orchestrating a siege that includes pregnant Mexican women, tacos, Syrian refugees and their children, and a overly lascivious Jared, formerly of the Subway commercials.

So, with all of that, is the episode funny? Yes and no. Growing up loving such un-PC things as Truly Tasteless Jokes, Porky’s, and pretty much every 80s-era horny teen flick (many of them featuring gross Asian stereotypes looking for “big American breasts”), I did kind of chuckle at the satirization of the humorless millennials. That said, I don’t personally believe the world has become too PC, especially not when social cyberbullying seems to contribute to a new wave of teen suicide. At the end of the episode, Cartman, who I suspect often serves as Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s mouthpiece, claims at the end that talking about non-PC things is good because it starts a dialogue. I suppose ultimately that’s never truer than after this week’s Matt Damon diversity controversy, and, even if the episode feels a bit stale by bringing in Caitlyn Jenner references (which honestly feels so three months ago), it does have a point that sometimes a conversation and personal growth comes from ugly events.

Goddammit.

 

X-Files Flashback: ‘Wetwired’

Season 3, Episode 23
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Mat Beck

With a title like “Wetwired” and Mulder’s penchant for adult entertainment, you’d think this episode of The X-Files would be a little sexier. I’m imagining a little virtual reality brothel maybe – a virtual reality brothel OF DEATH. Sadly, this is a rather tame outing about (guess who?) a secret government conspiracy to subliminally convince ordinary citizens to commit random acts of violence. Ultimately, it’s the kind of smug, self-satisfied episode that brings the worst out in The X-Files, even if it’s competently made.

The prologue involves a man digging a fresh grave for a dead body. We don’t know how they got there, but it’s fairly obvious the man digging the grave killed the other. Later, as he is washing the blood from his hands (“Out! Out damned spot!”), the man turns to find another man in his kitchen. Horrified, he grabs his nearby shovel (because that’s what you do with your grave-digging shovel) and smacks the stranger across the face. As he shoves the body into his trunk, two police officers arrive on the scene and ultimately tase the man when he becomes aggressive toward them. Shocked back into reality, the man looks back into the trunk of his car, and it’s not the body of a strange man there. It’s his wife.

Mulder is then contacted by a mysterious man who alerts him to the crime. As he and Scully investigate, they begin to unravel the advanced psychosis of the murderer and discover dozens of recorded news clips. As they pour through the tapes, nothing jumps out at them immediately, but Scully gradually becomes increasingly paranoid. At one point, she’s convinced she sees Mulder and the Smoking Man exchanging a video tape in Mulder’s car. The next day, she cannot find evidence of the Smoking Man’s presence. After another incident happens, Mulder sees a cable repairman who was seen earlier at the previous murderer’s house. He discovers a mysterious object lodged in the nearby cable box. Further analysis by the Lone Gunmen prove this device offers some sort of signal modification that allows the television to effectively control the viewer’s mind.

Scully, meanwhile, grows increasingly unstable, eventually firing at Mulder when she thinks he’s come to kill her. After attempting to contact X for help, he eventually tracks her down at her mother’s house where the two of them convince Scully she is safe. She is hospitalized, but nothing appears physically wrong with her (I think she just misses Queequag). Here’s where the story line becomes a little fuzzy. Mulder tries to contact the original murderer’s doctor but finds him missing. Mulder then tracks him down to a house where he and the cable repairman are having a conversation. Suddenly, shots ring out, and Mulder finds X in the house having just killed the doctor and the cable guy. Mulder and X have an argument, and X tells Mulder that he had him involved in the case because X wanted to expose the men before he had to carry out his orders to kill them. So, just so you’re getting this right, X asked Mulder to bust them before he had to kill them, but Mulder was too late. Clearly, X could not wait another second. Anyway, the episode closes when X meets with his boss, the Smoking Man.

Yawn.

I find the whole mind-control-through-TV subplot a little Halloween 3: Season of the Witch myself, so it didn’t interest me. Plus, this “Wetwired,” while technically not a mythology episode, lends itself more to that line of plotting and farther away from the eccentric brilliance of “Humbug” or “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” two episodes I’m on the record for going apeshit over. The mind control device is never really fully explored, and it simply becomes a red herring for the secret revelation about X and the Smoking Man, something that many undoubtedly found mind-blowing but I found pointless and trite. Still, I enjoyed seeing Scully shaken and out of her mind, and there were a few tidbits of commentary about television, the media, and the like. It just wasn’t enough of a bonus to make me overlook the more mundane aspects of the episode.

Unlike Scully, when I turned off my TV, I nearly forgot everything I saw. Hey, I’m over 40 now. It happens. I’m getting used to it.

Review: NPH’s ‘Best Time Ever’ …Eh, I’ve Had Better

Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris is very strange, and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s billed as a variety show, but it’s a mixture of celebrity Candid Camera, a game show, America’s Got Talent and physical challenges from Double Dare. While some of the show succeeds with its seemingly unplanned charm, other moments will make some viewers feel like their lives will never, ever be as great as the one belonging to its host.

Harris is more of a public persona than an actor in my book. Personally, I feel like I watch him more as a host of awards shows than I do as an actor. When he’s hosting the Tony Awards, he can do no wrong in my book. Give me singing and dancing NPH—he can land a joke while doing a time step and making me melt with his “aw shucks” grin. The standard variety show hasn’t been around for years, so it’s interesting that Harris wants to take a stab at it. He’s honestly the type of guy who could pull it off.But does it work? I’m not sure. In the Tuesday series premiere, Reese Witherspoon pulls a big WTF moment in the first few seconds as a celebrity guest announcer. Wrangling a super famous announcer for every episode will be really impressive, so points should go to NPH. Since the show has a frantic format, one doesn’t really know where it’s going to go from there. For instance, he pulls a couple of newlyweds on stage and reveals that he’s basically been following them around for weeks. Harris disguised himself as an elephant mascot at a football game, and he even unknowingly photobombed them when they were getting their wedding pictures taken. At the end of his big reveal, he tells them that he’s sending them on a long honeymoon.

Some segments, however, fall flat. Carson Daly comes out (he still hasn’t selected a college major, evident from his outfit) to tell everyone that Harris “really pulled a fast one” during a taping of The Voice. Harris dressed up as the host of the Austrian version of the show, and he conducted a strange interview with the judges (Gwen Stefani, Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, and Pharrell). He then went on stage and performed “And I’m Telling You” during a blind audition. Harris watched the segment from a box on the screen, and you could tell he wasn’t even enjoying it. Another segment featured Witherspoon and Harris climbing a 15-story structure and zip lining off of it. She wasn’t in on it, but Harris doesn’t seem to care since he beat her to the finish line.

When Harris is generously showering gifts on unsuspecting audience members or interviewing strangers, he’s charming and fun. When it comes to the dumb celebrity tricks, though, it feels kind of like he’s rubbing it in your face. It’s like the winner of the trophy is bragging how shiny it is. Let the audience have the best time ever, Neil. We already know you are having a blast. 

X-Files Flashback: ‘Quagmire’

Season 3, Episode 22
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Kim Newton

Mulder and Scully investigate a series of brutal murders around a lake in “Quagmire.” Now, that has to be one of two potential killers: Jason Voorhees or the Loch Ness Monster. The X-Files settles on the latter, American style. It’s funny, though, that given all the bodies that pile up in every episode of the series I most object when innocent animals are killed. Yup, say goodbye to Scully’s little pup, Queequeg. As Mulder says, that’s a terrible name for a dog.

The episode features many variations on the same event: someone stands alone next to a lake. Sometimes it’s at night. Sometimes it’s during the day. All with the same outcome: the camera swoops in below from “monster perspective” and consumes its victim, dragging him into the lake. By the way, I’m not being sexist – all the victims were male. Mulder immediately believes in the local monster-in-the-lake lore, Big Blue. Scully, well… I’m not exactly sure what Scully ultimately believes is eating all of these people left and right, but she’s not a believer. Toward the end of the episode, Scully takes her dog out to pee, and it is quickly consumed by something in the woods, easily the most upsetting death of the episode. After that, Mulder and Scully board a small boat with sonar equipment and explore the lake. They are quickly attacked by a large object and left stranded on the shore of the lake. The episode wraps when Mulder is attacked by something he believes is Big Blue but ends up being an alligator. As we close, we glimpse a long, Loch Ness Monster-like image gliding peacefully through the waters of the lake.

One of the biggest surprises about “Quagmire” is how thematically heavy it is. Late in the episode, after Queequeg has bit the dust, Mulder and Scully (can I just start calling them Sculder? Mully?) are stranded on the bank of the lake after the monster has decimated their boat. Scully launches into an extended scene of dialogue between the two where she astutely compares him to Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. It’s an apt comparison – Mulder’s constant search for “the truth” equates to Ahab’s constant search for the whale. She’s afraid he’ll end up like Ahab, completely out of his mind and alone. Even Queequeg is an allusion to Moby Dick. The extended dialogue sequence is one of the rarer moments of open sharing between the two, despite Mulder’s frequent attempts at sarcastic humor. They may be in love, but there’s a wall between them that he assures remains high and solid.

One last loving touch in “Quagmire” is this line, which I think closes this review nicely: “I don’t have the time for these absurdities. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some amphibians to release.”

Mansplaining Diversity on ‘Project Greenlight’

It was an ugly moment. It was the kind of moment that, however quickly it passed by, you knew instantly that it would stir controversy thanks to the unfortunate truth it uncovered. And it has, deservedly so.

On last night’s Season Four premiere of HBO’s Project Greenlight, the judging panel tasked with selecting the right person to direct their broad romantic comedy script – Not Another Pretty Woman – started to discuss their favorites within the top ten directors. The conversation was genial and professional. They discussed the screenplay and their desire to select someone who would bring out the best in the clearly underdeveloped work. Hopefully they were also looking for someone to rework that awful title.

And then it happened.

Here’s the situation. Line producer Effie Brown advocated for Leo and Kristen, a white woman and a Vietnamese man, anticipating they would bring sensitivity and the delicate handling required for one of the script’s female characters – Harmony, a black prostitute. She very eloquently urged her producing partners to think about selecting a more diverse director who would consider such issues in their interpretation of the script. Matt Damon interrupted her, reminding Brown that Leo and Kristen were the only two who fully embraced the script as is. And then he said this…

“And when we’re talking about diversity, you do it in the casting of the film, not in the casting of the show… Do you want the best director?”

Yeah… Effie Brown reacted professionally, but even she was taken aback by the display.

I did not include the scene in my immediate review of the episode, and that bothered me all day. I had a few very specific reasons for excluding it. I didn’t have an advanced copy of the episode, so it was late last night when I finished watching it. I was lucky to bang out my review as quickly as I did. The scene wasn’t the kind of water cooler moment you want to react to quickly. Thanks to the “now-ness” of the Internet, reactions all have to be instantaneous these days, leaving little time for contemplation or reflection. Given the powder keg nature of the scene, reflection and thoughtfulness would only contribute positively to the overall conversation.

So I chose to wait it out. To let it marinate. My opinion on the scene hasn’t changed, but hopefully my words are more thoughtful than my knee-jerk reaction last night would have been. I’ve gotten in trouble before for quick takes. I didn’t want that to happen this time.

Do I think Matt Damon is a bad person? Absolutely not. Do I think he’s a product of the omnipresent Hollywood culture? Yes I do. Most likely realizing the impact of what he said and how a team of reality TV producers would edit it (they didn’t), he filmed a separate segment to clarify the intent of his statement. Basically, he uses the old (white) Hollywood adage that the best person should get the job, and it would corrupt the integrity of Project Greenlight to make their ultimate selection based on any other criteria.

But that’s the problem. In my opinion, it wouldn’t corrupt the integrity of Project Greenlight at all. In fact, it would enhance the show’s reputation by potentially giving young, diverse filmmakers a leg up in an industry dominated by white men. Those who pay attention have all see the statistics of the members who make up the Academy. But just think how revolutionary it would have been for Project Greenlight to flip the script and cast someone different behind the camera. Damon mentions diversity comes in casting, not behind the camera, which comes dangerously close to mirroring an old phrase I’d heard many times growing up in the South – effectively “black folks are good for entertaining.” Damon wasn’t trying to be outwardly racist, but he clearly did not see the value in looking for a different perspective behind the camera.

Just imagine if a non-white, non-male teenager had seen a Project Greenlight Season Four that featured someone more like them and less like the standard Hollywood power types. Just imagine someone growing up inspired by the next Ava DuVernay or Carl Franklin. In twenty years, think of the wonderfully diverse films that would produce. If only we could inspire those who are too often ignored. Think what a cinematic world that would create.

Instead, we get Matt Damon mansplaining diversity to a black filmmaker, and an angry white male winning the directing slot in Project Greenlight. That’s not shocking or surprising in the least. It’s kind of what I’ve come to expect from Hollywood today. What was shocking (and disappointing) was the brutal efficiency Matt Damon used to so quickly dismiss the idea of selecting a contest winner based on their ability to bring a broad perspective – diversity – to the project.

Project Greenlight remains a class act when compared to the broad field of reality television programming. In fact, I give it props for pulling actual truth within the confines of the reality TV genre. Matt Damon, however, is less so, and I hope this incident causes him to reconsider his position of privilege  in Hollywood and support someone from a broader and more diverse background. It’s not simply affirmative action.

It’s simply in support of a more colorful canvas of cinema.