Season 2, Episode 4
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Howard Gordon

…we’re not in Seattle anymore.

The “Sleepless” episode of The X-Files typifies what we can expect of Season Two. Mulder is pulled into a case with tinges of the paranormal, Scully performs the autopsy and has a few deeper emotional moments with him over the phone (again, hiding her pregnancy), and the government continues to intervene both positively and negatively into Mulder and Scully’s search for the truth. So, in that regard, “Sleepless” offers nothing new exactly save a fantastically creepy performance from Tony Todd of Candyman fame.

Now, to understand my appreciation for the episode, you have to understand that I consider Candyman one of the more terrifying films of the 90s mostly due to Todd’s accomplished central performance. It gave me great joy to see Todd pop up here in The X-Files, a vehicle perfectly suited to his sensibilities. Unfortunately, his character does not last longer than this single episode. I wish that Chris Carter had somehow found a way to extend his presence on the show. He’s that good at chilling you with a single glance.

The prologue shows an elderly man waking in his luxury New York apartment to the sound of a raging inferno outside. He calls 9-1-1 and pulls a fire extinguisher out of the closet, but it has little effect on the roaring flames. When firefighters reach the floor, there are no flames, and, after breaking into his apartment, they discover his dead body. A later autopsy reveals symptoms of internal organs that actually burned to death, yet there was neither evidence of fire damage within the apartment nor burns on the body. Mulder’s investigation reveals that the victim worked with the government on top-secret sleep-related project for Vietnam soldiers. The theory was that a soldier’s worst enemy was sleep, so they effectively negated the body’s need for sleep by removing a portion of the brain and supplementing other functions with medication.

Turns out, that didn’t really work for the soldiers as, according to details provided by Augustus “Preacher” Cole (Todd) and other remaining soldiers, they began to go a little crazy in the jungle, eventually attacking innocent children. Preacher is now on a mission to kill all who were involved with the mission, including a fellow soldier, using his telepathic ability to project deadly events on his victims. Saddled with a new partner (Alex Krycek, played by Nicholas Lea), Mulder eventually tracks Preacher down in an desolate area of the subway where he pleads for death – the eternal sleep. Mulder’s partner Krycek is fooled into believing Preacher has a gun and shoots him dead. Later, Krycek is seen to have been working with the Smoking Man and others in an attempt to further derail not only Mulder’s investigations but also his relationship with Scully. Absence has made the heart grow fonder, and this causes the government significant distress.

There really isn’t much to say about “Sleepless.” It’s a decent episode that was, as I’ve mentioned, significantly elevated by Tony Todd’s central performance. Nicholas Lea is also good in the role of Mulder’s new partner who evolves from wide-eyed Mulder fanboy into a covert agent working for the opposition. It will be fun watching their dynamic continue as the series progresses. I also liked some of the camerawork and atmospheric detail of the episode. Shadows and light are especially well used here, particularly in the scenes that evoke Preacher’s psychic torture of his victims (something I’m not 100% sure I exactly understood how he accomplished). As with any medium, sometimes the right actors can elevate any material beyond its pulpy origins. This is certainly true of “Sleepless.”

Season 2, Episode 3
Director: David Nutter
Writer: Glen Morgan, James Wong

“Blood,” the third episode of The X-Files‘s second season, clearly identifies how significant an influence the writings of Stephen King had on the series. I’m not specifically referring to particular monsters or random madmen. No, to know King’s early writings is to understand the source of his horror: the corruption of the ordinary. His horror stems from ordinary people or items – a meek high school girl, a hapless father, a clown – that are twisted into objects of terror. Horror, typically, doesn’t stem from the extraordinary. It comes in the guise of the banal, and few episodes of The X-Files understands that as well as “Blood.”

We begin with a mild-mannered postal employee Ed Funsch (character actor William Sanderson, Newhart, doing some really tremendous work) receiving the bad news that, due to the usual layoffs and cutbacks, he’s going to lose his job. After returning to his station, the machinery in front of him begins to spout out ominous instructions: “Kill. Kill. Kill ‘Em All.” And he’s not the only one. Several people experience similar messages conveyed through electronics during situations in which they are faced with their greatest fear – claustrophobia, rape, and blood. Many of these individuals kill unwitting bystanders, and local law enforcement requests the assistance of Mulder in investigating the crimes. With the aid of the ever-autopsying Scully, Mulder determines that an advanced chemical sprayed at night to control the insect population around the town’s orchards. This chemical contains components which could cause hallucinations and heighten fear, if properly triggered. Finally, after multiple influence attempts, Ed finally cracks and takes to a nearby bell tower on a college campus. He opens fire on the crowd but is eventually overcome by Mulder. At the end of the episode, Mulder, who was accidentally doused with the chemical, receives a message on his cell phone saying, “All done. Bye bye!” Thus, we never discover the source of the trigger messages.

I reference Stephen King as a base for exploring the episode given the multiple instances of deadly violence erupting from everyday people. The theme runs through some of his greatest work such as The Shining and, most directly correlated to “Blood,” Needful Things. The horror here stems from the unexpected outbursts that lead to murder. When are they coming? Who will attack? Why are they killing? What is causing this? No answers are given, which contributes to the overall sense of dread baked into the episode. Another interesting aspect of the episode to consider is the location of the opening and closing scenes which are direct references to true-life crimes. Poor Ed is initially seen in a Post Office sorting facility, and the phrase “going postal” didn’t come to fruition in the early 90s all on its own. Then, Ed finally snaps and begins shooting from a bell tower that very strongly resembles Charles Whitman’s bloody rampage at the University of Texas in 1966. These are both true-life examples of the mundane evolving into acts of horror something that “Blood” shows us again and again.

You do wonder, if this episode were made today, would there be a scene invoking a murder within a school yard or a movie theater. None of the crimes in “Blood” happen in extraordinary ways – somewhat of a departure from the crimes most commonly associated with The X-Files – but that’s the point of it all. “Blood” hypothesizes that anyone can kill given a warped sense of motivation. He’s going to rape you. They’re coming to get you. There’s not enough air. The true horror which still stands today is not knowing the real reason why these things happen.

Season 2, Episode 2
Director: Daniel Sackheim
Writer: Chris Carter

The trouble with iconic episodes of a show is that, when viewed through the prism of preceding hype, they seldom match their reputation. That phenomena, I must say, is exactly not what I experienced with The X-Files‘s “The Host” episode – the debut of the “Flukeman.” Everything you’ve heard about the episode is 100 percent true. It is thrilling. It is engrossing. And it is super, super, super gross.  As such, this is one of the very best episodes of The X-Files thus far.

The prologue begins on a Russian tanker.  A junior level seaman is forced to deal with an onboard sewage problem. As he reaches into a giant vat of waste, he is pulled in kicking and screaming. Other seamen try to help, but it is too late. The young man is lost, only to wash up in a New Jersey sewer weeks later. In that same sewer, another man is attacked, but this time he is saved yet has a massive wound resembling a strange bite mark on his back. He checks out OK but complains of a strange taste. Later, he vomits a small worm – a fluke – and is found dead in his apartment. Hungry?

The culprit of all this, as Mulder and Scully eventually discover, is the Flukeman, a human-fluke hybrid who implants larvae in its victims as its method of reproducing. They initially trap the Flukeman in a New Jersey sewer, but he escapes, killing another man. The episode concludes with Mulder swimming in an offshoot of the New Jersey sewer system and cutting the Flukeman in half. The closing shot includes a Flukeman floating to the top of the water, eyes open.

The concept of the Flukeman is vividly rendered and one of the more ingenious creations of the series. It is discovered later in the episode that he is a result of fallout from the Chernobyl disaster, and, later in a comic series dedicated to the creature, it is revealed that Flukeman is a human mutated by radiated water and garden variety flukes. Whatever the origins, the creature is terrifying – perhaps not quite the equal of Season One’s Tooms but most assuredly a close second. The episode feeds off of our natural disgust of sewage and the innate fear of what resides within the sewers. It nicely uses this fear to build suspense and deep tension within the audience accentuated by the claustrophobic sets and cinematography. Plus, the creature of the episode is another ingeniously reasoned creation where its survival is the main avenue that causes other humans problems. This isn’t a creature who randomly kills – it attacks for survival, for reproduction. That motivation taps into deep horror genre tropes brilliantly.

Aside from the horror of the antagonist, the episode is also notable for continuing the thread of the disillusioned Mulder with the purpose of the X-files in his life. He grows closer to Scully, and, after he confesses contemplating quitting the FBI, she expresses (in her Scully way of course) that she would miss him professionally and personally. Scully’s demeanor this season, thus far, has definitely pushed their relationship in the romantic direction without explicitly stating as much. Perhaps that’s due to Gillian Anderson’s real-life pregnancy during this period, forcing her to wear bulky trench coats and remain office-bound. Additionally, Mulder is encouraged to continue pursuing X-files-like cases by a mysterious man within the FBI who continues to contact him, giving him vague statements of support. The X-files may have been disbanded, but “The Host” confirms for us that someone wishes them reinstated.

Overall, “The Host” is an excellent episode that blends focused, gruesome horror with enough plot momentum to move the mythology of the series forward. It doesn’t deal with aliens, but not all episodes really have to dip into that. Instead, it develops a new, unique creature and underlays that story with small hints and details about the future of the series. Representing the horrors man has on its environment, the Flukeman is a star of The X-Files, and “The Host” goes down in X-Files history as one of its most deranged and disturbed episodes.

Still, it’s no “Home…”

Season 2, Episode 1
Director: David Nutter
Writer: Glen Morgan, James Wong

I’m told the X-Files faithful don’t much like “Little Green Men,” the first episode of the second season. I’m not completely certain why. I think it’s a thrilling hour of television and shows all the earmarks of a show learning from its first season successes and failures and building upon them. It gracefully transports the audience from a place of despair (the dissolution of the X-files in the Season One finale) and brings us back to believing as we follow Mulder’s personal trajectory.

“Little Green Men” opens with a purposefully stuffy prologue akin to a science class filmstrip circa 1978. It digs into the history of NASA’s Voyager and the attempts made to contact extraterrestrial beings through a golden record filled with evidence of humanity’s glory. One of the listening stations in Puerto Rico, Duchovny explains with his deadpan narration, was shuttered due to government intervention. As the camera breaks through the wall and enters the facility, we see a series of long-dormant machines, all linked together to listen for a return call from E.T. Suddenly, the machines spring to life, and the message sent recorded on the golden record begins to play back to us.

Mulder and Scully, however, now lack the support of the X-files case load. Mulder is wasting away on never-ending stakeouts while Scully gives medical instruction in an autopsy lab. Both are changed people. Mulder, a shell of his former self, is full of self-doubt. He replays the incident of his sister Samantha’s kidnapping – the first time we see the full event – but doubts the validity of the memory and of his own sanity. Scully, on the other hand, has lost her hard, scientific edge. She wallows in the emotion of a motion, in this case the dissection of a human head. Events begin to unfold as Mulder’s secret government connection, a senator who has supported him for years, tells him of the Puerto Rican facility and of the recently received message.

Mulder escapes to Puerto Rico and there finds the evidence he seeks in terms of print-outs. He also finds a local man cowering in the bathroom of the research station. Speaking no English, the man draws a picture of a little green man on the wall of the facility. As Mulder reviews the machines, dramatic weather conditions begin to manifest outside causing the local to fear for his life and flee into the jungle. When Mulder attempts to bring him back, he finds the man’s corpse huddled beneath a tree, apparently dead from shock. Meanwhile, Scully does her best to evade detection and find Mulder on his Puerto Rican jaunt.

At the end of the episode, Mulder has another close encounter with an alien presence similar to the events surrounding his sister’s kidnapping. Rendered unconscious from the experience, Mulder is awakened by Scully who finally tracked him down to Puerto Rico. Just as they begin to investigate and collect evidence, a secret military operation begins to approach with directions to kill anyone in their way. Mulder and Scully manage to flee the scene with capture (or worse). Back in Washington, DC, Mulder is scolded by Assistant Director Skinner but, against the wishes of The Smoking Man, is returned to active duty on his surveillance case. The final scene shows Mulder attempting to make sense out of the seemingly black recording he took from the scene in Puerto Rico.

“Little Green Men” is a graceful blend of the best elements of the series: solid special effects, a tangible sense of threat/danger – often at the hands of our own government, and multiple alien interactions. The episode is densely plotting and atmospheric, but it’s never confusing or meandering. They have a long story to tell, and it’s relayed in a tight narrative. Layered over this is the still close relationship between Mulder and Scully. Even though the X-files are closed, they still maintain contact and their special bond. The trajectory of both characters within the episode take them in fascinating new directions – here is Mulder with a renewed sense of purpose and another encounter to reassure him that “the truth is out there.” Scully, meanwhile, went from a source of doubt and cynicism last year to one of emotion and belief. They even are allowed to share gentle, touching moments which clearly stokes the hint of passion between them. Plus, we actually get to see two “little” green men in the episode when the research station seems to become something of a Close Encounters homage. These events coupled with the ever mounting suspicion from the clandestine government conspiracy are more than enough to warrant a full-bodied recommendation of “Little Green Men.”