Post by Rainbow Rosa on Jun 12, 2020 1:05:37 GMT -5
[1X06] "Shadows"
Written by Glen Morgan and James Wong
Directed by Michael Katleman
This was an episode, I guess?
What Happened? Okay, so this woman gets mugged while she's cashing her paycheck, but then shit gets spooky. A little while later, the two guys who assaulted her get caught hanging from a fire escape. Mhm. Opening credits - which I haven't mentioned before, but are pretty cool despite obviously having been assembled last-minute and with a nonexistent budget. Mulder and Scully get called in to do an autopsy on the bodies, which have had their throats crushed with no damage to the skin; but they're not given any information about the circumstances the bodies were found. The two agents who brought them in are basically Mulder and Scully but not white and also they don't like talking. Mulder and Scully do some digging and find that the two vics were named Mohammed (gasp!) and had ties to a "mideastern radical sect" or some shit. They do some detective work and find out what we already know, that there was this woman named Laura or something, and that she was attacked at the ATM.
Meanwhile, Laura or whatever is at work where her boss is making creepy-ass moves on her. She tries to quit, because she's distraught that the guy she was secretary for committed suicide. He is pushy and insists she is like family to him, and then gets a little physical. He is promptly visited by the spirit of #MeToo who does some spooky stuff to get him off her. Anyway, Laura meets Scully and Mulder but is all evasive and stuff, even after Mulder shows her an ATM surveillance photo of a weird smudgy guy behind her as she's being attacked. Then when they try to take off in their car, it goes really frickin fast and nearly kills them!! Woah!! Mulder suggests that Laura or whatever might have psychic powers which she isn't aware of - like Carrie at the prom, Scully helpfully tells for the audience members trying to place where this plot is ripped off from. But, um, later that night Laura-or-whatever goes into the bedroom and sees a bathtub fill up with blood, and realizes that her boss's suicide wasn't a suicide at all! Woah.
Laura or whatever then does what you obviously do when you find out a powerful businessman killed somebody, which is confront him about it in his office. She phones Mulder and Scully to let them know she's willing to talk. At home, she opens the door to them... but gasp, it's not Mulder and Scully at all but two hired killers! (This would be a shocking misdirect if the female assassin wasn't wearing taupe leather. C'mon now.) Anyway, the GHOST OF HER FORMER BOSS takes the two killers out, which Mulder witnesses but Scully oh-so-conveniently is a second too late to see. In an interrogation room Scully pretends to side with Laura or whatever, or whatever, so that they can get a warrant to search her work. Which, by the way, does military contracts or something? I don't know. They search her work with the help of Black Mulder and South Asian Scully from the beginning of the episode, which is fruitless. And then the ghost makes a lot of papers go swish swoosh around the guy's office and reveals there are documents implicating the evil businessman in evil business hidden in the walls by making a letter opener go swoosh and cut open the wallpaper. Mulder sees this and Scully doesn't, ho ho ho. And then the dumb case is over, and Laura or whatever moves to Nebraska, where when she sees a coffee mug shake she thinks it's the ghost still haunting her. But it's just an earthquake or something.
Is It Any Good? No. This reminded me a lot of the pilot episode, with all the spooky unexplained phenomena that didn't quite seem connected; unlike the pilot, though, there are no good character beats. In addition, a lot of this episode is just Mulder and Scully figuring out things that we already know - I think basically everyone figured out that the "ghost" was Laura or whatever's boss, and that he was protecting her, but the episode treats this as some big twist... then more or less abandons this part of the plot to swerve into the world's least compelling Iran-Contra pastiche. There's a ton of stuff going on here, which could have been better if the episode wasn't so damn plodding - the two agents who stonewall Mulder and Scully are kind of cool, and would be cool recurring characters maybe (spoilers: they do not recur). And Laura or whatever's plot could be interesting if it was a metaphor for grief or something, and the episode was centered on her PTSD or something. Instead her emotional arc is jettisoned so that we can have some low-budget windstorms and wrap up a half-assed corporate espionage plot. There's not even any good Mulder-Scully banter. Skip it.
Should Scully Believe inAliensGhosts? Actually, this is the worst thing about the episode. Morgan and Wong's previous episode, "Squeeze," had Mulder and Scully look at the same events but come to different conclusions, which is the whole dynamic of their relationship. This episode has Mulder see all the spooky shit, and then have Scully come in just a second too late - and it does this twice. Way to forget about the whole premise of the show, dumbasses.
Most Nineties Moment? Probably the dopey terrorists, because in the golden years between the fall of the USSR and 9/11 you could casually include some fictional middle Eastern terrorist group without the plot derailing into some screed against the dangers of radical Islam or whatever. Oh, and also, there's unironic use of the enhance button, but I suppose that dumb trope has stuck around into the 21st century.
Written by Glen Morgan and James Wong
Directed by Michael Katleman
This was an episode, I guess?
What Happened? Okay, so this woman gets mugged while she's cashing her paycheck, but then shit gets spooky. A little while later, the two guys who assaulted her get caught hanging from a fire escape. Mhm. Opening credits - which I haven't mentioned before, but are pretty cool despite obviously having been assembled last-minute and with a nonexistent budget. Mulder and Scully get called in to do an autopsy on the bodies, which have had their throats crushed with no damage to the skin; but they're not given any information about the circumstances the bodies were found. The two agents who brought them in are basically Mulder and Scully but not white and also they don't like talking. Mulder and Scully do some digging and find that the two vics were named Mohammed (gasp!) and had ties to a "mideastern radical sect" or some shit. They do some detective work and find out what we already know, that there was this woman named Laura or something, and that she was attacked at the ATM.
Meanwhile, Laura or whatever is at work where her boss is making creepy-ass moves on her. She tries to quit, because she's distraught that the guy she was secretary for committed suicide. He is pushy and insists she is like family to him, and then gets a little physical. He is promptly visited by the spirit of #MeToo who does some spooky stuff to get him off her. Anyway, Laura meets Scully and Mulder but is all evasive and stuff, even after Mulder shows her an ATM surveillance photo of a weird smudgy guy behind her as she's being attacked. Then when they try to take off in their car, it goes really frickin fast and nearly kills them!! Woah!! Mulder suggests that Laura or whatever might have psychic powers which she isn't aware of - like Carrie at the prom, Scully helpfully tells for the audience members trying to place where this plot is ripped off from. But, um, later that night Laura-or-whatever goes into the bedroom and sees a bathtub fill up with blood, and realizes that her boss's suicide wasn't a suicide at all! Woah.
Laura or whatever then does what you obviously do when you find out a powerful businessman killed somebody, which is confront him about it in his office. She phones Mulder and Scully to let them know she's willing to talk. At home, she opens the door to them... but gasp, it's not Mulder and Scully at all but two hired killers! (This would be a shocking misdirect if the female assassin wasn't wearing taupe leather. C'mon now.) Anyway, the GHOST OF HER FORMER BOSS takes the two killers out, which Mulder witnesses but Scully oh-so-conveniently is a second too late to see. In an interrogation room Scully pretends to side with Laura or whatever, or whatever, so that they can get a warrant to search her work. Which, by the way, does military contracts or something? I don't know. They search her work with the help of Black Mulder and South Asian Scully from the beginning of the episode, which is fruitless. And then the ghost makes a lot of papers go swish swoosh around the guy's office and reveals there are documents implicating the evil businessman in evil business hidden in the walls by making a letter opener go swoosh and cut open the wallpaper. Mulder sees this and Scully doesn't, ho ho ho. And then the dumb case is over, and Laura or whatever moves to Nebraska, where when she sees a coffee mug shake she thinks it's the ghost still haunting her. But it's just an earthquake or something.
Is It Any Good? No. This reminded me a lot of the pilot episode, with all the spooky unexplained phenomena that didn't quite seem connected; unlike the pilot, though, there are no good character beats. In addition, a lot of this episode is just Mulder and Scully figuring out things that we already know - I think basically everyone figured out that the "ghost" was Laura or whatever's boss, and that he was protecting her, but the episode treats this as some big twist... then more or less abandons this part of the plot to swerve into the world's least compelling Iran-Contra pastiche. There's a ton of stuff going on here, which could have been better if the episode wasn't so damn plodding - the two agents who stonewall Mulder and Scully are kind of cool, and would be cool recurring characters maybe (spoilers: they do not recur). And Laura or whatever's plot could be interesting if it was a metaphor for grief or something, and the episode was centered on her PTSD or something. Instead her emotional arc is jettisoned so that we can have some low-budget windstorms and wrap up a half-assed corporate espionage plot. There's not even any good Mulder-Scully banter. Skip it.
Should Scully Believe in
Most Nineties Moment? Probably the dopey terrorists, because in the golden years between the fall of the USSR and 9/11 you could casually include some fictional middle Eastern terrorist group without the plot derailing into some screed against the dangers of radical Islam or whatever. Oh, and also, there's unironic use of the enhance button, but I suppose that dumb trope has stuck around into the 21st century.
RATING
X - - - -