The X-Files is back! For this six-part mini series, I will be recapping and reviewing each episode. These will contain spoilers, fair warning.
A scientist, Dr. Sanjay (Christopher Logan), commits suicide inside a locked room after seemingly suffering some kind of psychotic break moments earlier. This leads Mulder and Scully to uncover DOD-funded genetic experimentation taking place under the direction of a reclusive man known as “The Founder.”
***
Season 10, still no desk.
Mulder and Scully meet with resistance when they investigate the crime scene inside Neugenics Technology despite their clearance levels. True to form, Mulder side-steps legality and swipes Dr. Sanjay’s phone in order to get in touch with his friends outside of the lab. Scully handles the autopsy just like old times, while Mulder meets up with Gupta (Vik Sahay), a man with whom Sanjay had a secret relationship. They learn that Sanjay had two separate apartments, and that he head been acting strangely in the weeks leading up to his death. He also was worried about his “kids” dying, but by all accounts was single and without children of his own.
Sanjay’s Kids.
As it turns out, Sanjay’s work had been to develop radical therapies to treat these children born with genetic disorders or cancers. The Founder, a scientist named Augustus Goldman (Doug Savant), has been using young, homeless pregnant women at Scully’s own hospital in these trials. This includes an appearance by Hannibal alum Kacey Rohl as one of the pregnant teens who seeks out their help. They meet Goldman’s wife, Jackie (Rebecca Wisocky) who explains how she discovered that both of her children had also been part of his genetic experimentations.
Though the episode itself has all the makings of a Monster of the Week, it ties heavily back into the mythology of their son, William, and his possible conception. Scully’s own DNA had been altered by secret government experimentation, and by all accounts, she had been rendered infertile. However, in season five, she learned that some of the ova harvested from her body had been made to create a child named Emily Sim. “Requiem” (7×22) revealed that somehow, Scully had become pregnant. Her pregnancy was not normal, and she spent most of the last two seasons running from people who wanted her child. William exhibited psychokinetic powers as a baby and was believed to be integral to the alien colonization plot talked about in the original series run.
You can see the exact moment where my heart broke.
The episode brings to light both Scully and Mulder’s thoughts about their son. In Scully’s segment, we see her taking him to his first day of school and expressing her love for him (something she worried he never know due to his young age at the time of the adoption). The fantasy grows dark, and she imagines him suffering a broken arm outside of his school. Then in another scene, she walks into his bedroom to find his eyes and face have changed, resembling an alien. She reveals her feelings of guilt that she gave William up for adoption, but Mulder reassures her that it was what she had to do to keep him safe. At the end of the episode, we see into his thoughts where he’s sharing some fun moments with William. They watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Mulder teaches him about a possible meaning behind the Monolith. In another scene, the two put together toy rockets in the backyard. Whereas Scully had worried William would befall genetic testing or somehow turn more alien than human, Mulder sees him being abducted just as Samantha had been. It just broke my heart to watch them both assume their child would be ripped away from them in one manner or another. A solid hit to the feels.
This episode also felt like the beginning of an X-Men storyline.
Something I noticed about this episode is that they aren’t shying away from gore in this revival. Not just Sanjay’s violent suicide, but we also witness a pair of genetically modified siblings cause Goldman to start bleeding from seemingly every orifice. Before that, Jackie describes how she cut into her own abdomen to “free” her unborn child after a car crash. In the original series, it was much more likely that they would cut away from the gore or imply it. Not this season. Perhaps it’s just a change in network standards, but I definitely had to cover my eyes during these scenes.
Compared to the premiere, this episode is much better in terms of storytelling and pacing. It does a great job of entwining the mythology with a standalone-style episode. I hope the other remaining episodes stand up to this one or even exceed it.
What did you all think of the episode?
Images courtesy of Fox and The X Files Source.
Follow Us!