Monthly Archives: September 2015

Just getting right into this and hoping to be caught up … someday.

Episode 1.15: “Lazarus”

Netflix Synopsis
The consciousness of a dangerous criminal possesses an FBI agent who is also Scully’s ex-boyfriend.

Alaina’s Synopsis
Scully’s Ex-Boyfriend Jack and a bank robber switch bodies when they’re both shot and die at the same time, only Scully doesn’t know until Scully’s Ex-Boyfriend Jack kidnaps her and handcuffs her to a radiator.

MOTW/Mytharc
MOTW, although it’s not really a monster …

Unexplainable Phenomena
The FBI is actually doing FBI-like things, like foiling a bank robbery!

Have I ever told any of you my FBI bank robber story?

All About Alaina
So, when I was a second-year freshman at the University of Southern Maine (after transferring from Franklin Pierce College), I had to take this “Introduction to Accounting” class – it only met for like, six or eight weeks, once a week. It was a one-credit class, and for the most part, it was bullshit. But one thing they’d do is bring in people from different agencies with accounting backgrounds, in an effort to show how “cool” accounting was.

Also, this was right after the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals, so they were also trying to show us the legitimate ways to be accountants. And there were a bunch of boring people, but one night, this guy from the local branch of the FBI was there.

Now, I had actually chosen Accounting as my major because I wanted to join the FBI, and a bachelor’s degree in accounting was the easiest way to get in. You know why I wanted to be an FBI agent? DANA SCULLY, Y’ALL.

But then I learned that I can’t run, and all agents have to go through the obstacle course at Quantico. So … I worked in retail for 10 years!

BUT ANYWAY. The people at that seminar would take questions and answers, and one of the questions for the FBI guy was, “What is a typical day in the life for you?”

And I’ve never forgotten what he said:

“It never fails; you try and plan your day, and someone robs a bank.”

I keep saying I’m going to cross-stitch that into a sampler, but I haven’t yet. But seriously, that is a good line.

First Meetings
– First time Scully kills someone! After the bank robber shoots Jack, Scully drops him like he’s … hot?

I’m sorry.

– Also, Scully’s first ex-boyfriend who isn’t Donal Logue!
– Also-also, the bank robber has a tattoo that shows up on Jack’s body, so — evil tattoos!

Unbelievable Shit
That Scully dated someone who has the same birthday as her. I don’t know if I’d ever date someone who has the same birthday as me; I’d be scared that we’d be too alike. Oh no! No one would ever clean out the fridge.

Fun Fact!
Scully’s birthday is February 23.

Ships Ahoy!
Mulder, in talking with Jack/Bank Robber’s ransom demand: “Now you listen to me – you lay one hand on Scully, I swear to God –”
And when he’s leading the team who’s going to search and rescue Scully: “For those of you who don’t know already, this one’s important to me, so … let’s do it right.”

(It’s so weird to see Mulder actually working professionally with other FBI agents.)

Watch or Skip?
Feel free to skip this one.

Episode 1.16: “Young At Heart”

Netflix Synopsis
A criminal believed to have died in prison years earlier wages a vendetta against Mulder.

Alaina’s Synopsis
A prisoner with Benjamin Button disease escapes and leaves love notes for Mulder everywhere and also, he breaks into Scully’s apartment.

MOTW/Mytharc
A hybrid of the two, because it turns out that the escaped prisoner is working with the Shadow Government. Also, Cigarette Smoking Man was there!

Fashion Statements
Scully’s mint triple-breasted suit with matching Oxford stripe blouse:

Mulder, You Precious Angel
He shouts “I’ll get you, you son of a bitch” in broad daylight.

Thing I Can’t Even
Scully Doogie-Howsering at home with a cup of tea, and a lit candelabra. And what sounds like Carmina Burana in the score, under Mark Snow’s eerie violins:

This is so 1994, I can’t even.

First Meetings
– First time Scully is shot! SPOILER ALERT: she was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Watch or Skip
I mean, I think you’ve got the jist just from this, so — skip.

Episode 1.17: “E.B.E.”

Netflix Synopsis
Mulder and Scully become the focus of a misinformation campaign when they attempt to trace the government’s secret transport of an alien life form.

Alaina’s Synopsis
Mulder and Scully road trip across America, following a tractor trailer truck possibly carrying a dead alien.

MOTW/Mytharc
Definitely Mytharc.

First Meetings
I’m going to need you to open this in a new tab and please play it on repeat throughout this section: let’s get ready to look good!

In this episode, we meet …. THE LONE GUNMEN!

CHEERLEADER

SO AND SO

THE UGLY ONE

(you guys – when I realized I could introduce these guys a la Teen Girl Squad, I was SO FREAKING HAPPY)

The Lone Gunmen – Langley (“Cheerleader”), Frohike (“The Ugly One”), and Byers (“So-and-So”) – are Mulder’s occasional accomplices. They run a magazine called “The Lone Gunmen,” and Mulder sometimes asks them for help. In another classic quote (that didn’t make the Classic Quote section below), Byers says of Mulder, “That’s what we like about you, Mulder; your ideas are weirder than ours.”

Also, Frohike quickly develops a crush on Scully.

Other, Less Important First Meetings
– Mulder’s apartment!- The manner in which Mulder signals to Deep Throat from his apartment!
– Scully actually drives the car with Mulder in the passenger seat!

Unbelievable Shit
That Mulder and Deep Throat had enough time together to actually plan out these elaborate, secretive communication gambits.

Classic Conversation
Scully: Those were the most paranoid people I have ever met. I don’t know how you could think that what they say is even remotely plausible.
Mulder: I think it’s remotely plausible that someone might think you’re hot.

Fashion Statements
Mulder, your tie:

What even is that?!

Ships Ahoy
At one point, Mulder leaves the office, grabbing Scully’s shoulder on his way out. It’s practically a caress.

Classic Quote
Deep Throat: Mulder, the truth is out there – but so are lies.

Horrible Irony
Mulder and Deep Throat meet at the shark tank to discuss the fact that Deep Throat gave Mulder a fake photo. You guys know about sharks, right? How they never stop swimming or they’ll die?

TWO SECONDS LATER
Deep Throat: “Mulder, if a shark stops swimming, he will die. Don’t stop swimming.”

HAND TO GOD, I wrote my note before Deep Throat had his line. Also:

I am IN LOVE with the idea that Mulder is Marlin. Holy shit, Mulder, the look on your faaaaace.

Watch or Skip
WATCH.

Episode 1.18: “Miracle Man”

Netflix Synopsis
The agents investigate a ministry led by a man whose son possesses the power to heal – and to kill – with a touch of his hand.

Alaina’s Synopsis
A preacher’s adopted son seems to perform miracles. In addition, he also makes Mulder see visions of his abducted sister, Samantha.

Full Disclosure Moment
When I read the Netflix synopsis, I was reminded that there is an episode – in a much later season – about a preacher who preaches using the power of snakes. And I should tell y’all right now – there is NO WAY IN HELL that I am rewatching that episode. I would just tell you to skip it anyway, because nothing important happens there. FUCK SNAKES, MAN. FUCK ‘EM.

MOTW/Mytharc
MOTW, with a side of Samantha.

First Meetings
– Scully’s first autopsy!

Mulder, You Precious Angel
The preacher’s son who can heal by laying on hands basically John Edward’s Mulder about Samantha.

Watch or Skip
Since the above is literally all I have to say about this episode? SKIP.

Episode 1.19: “Shapes”

Netflix Synopsis
The agents track a wolf-like creature linked to Native American Legend.

Alaina’s Synopsis
… see above.

MOTW/Mytharc
MOTW.

Special Guest Stars
Michael Horse! Basically, if anyone needed a sheriff of Native American heritage, they hired this guy. He played Tommy Hill on Twin Peaks (which no, I haven’t watched yet), but fellow 90s kids will recognize his voice as belonging to Elisa Maza’s father on Gargoyles! (He also voice-acted on Liberty’s Kids, but I couldn’t find out which character. Wait, he was in “The Turtle”? THAT’S THE EPISODE WHERE SARAH SAYS “GIVE US BLACK DICK AND WE’LL FEAR NOTHING”

OH MY GOD – IT’S COLLEGE ALL UP IN HERE RIGHT NOW)

Classic Conversation
Dude: It gave me the creeps.
Scully: … the “creeps”?
Dude: Yeah, the creeps. Don’t you ever get the creeps?

Oh, and while we’re talking about Spaceballs, I’m gonna put this here so I can easily retrieve it later, for when I send some taxpayers their forgotten passwords:

Watch or Skip
Skip, guys. I totally had this on as background noise.

Episode 1.20: “Darkness Falls”

Netflix Synopsis
A group of loggers working in a remote forest unearths thousands of deadly insect-like creatures that paralyze – and then cocoon – their victims.

Alaina’s Synopsis
Commercial Wood Harvesters find scary bugs that are afraid of the light.

Special Guest Star
Titus Welliver! You may know him as the Man in Black from the last few episodes of Lost (*shakes fist about that show, still*), but others may know him as Silas Adams from Deadwood! Yay!
(Also, he has hair here – it’s kind of weird.)
(Did Timothy Olyphant ever guest-star on The X-Files? or Ian McShane? Oh man — I can’t fucking wait)

Fashion Statement
Holy shit, Scully. Where did you get that jacket. Oh my god.

Also, later in the episode, she wears this:

(In real life – and in her defense – Gillian Anderson was pregnant with her first child at this time, and obviously, they couldn’t have Scully get knocked up, so … tried and true methods of really bad blousy tops!)

Classic Quote
Dude: The only crime to investigate here is the death of that tree.

Fun Fact!
The Mt. St. Helens eruption that Mulder discusses in this episode? Happened on May 18, 1980, which is the day after my parents married.     You’re welcome?

Watch or Skip
Only watch if you’re a die-hard Titus Welliver fan.

Episode 1.21: “Tooms”

Netflix Synopsis
Eugene Tooms, a supernatural killer whom Mulder helped incarcerate, is released on parole.

Alaina’s Synopsis
Creepy Squeezy Guy gets out on parole, eats his therapist, and then Mulder kills him in an amazing way. But in a way, it doesn’t even matte, because Skinner is trying to get Scully to get Mulder to return to the fundamentals of investigation.

MOTW/Mytharc
Technically MOTW, I guess? I mean, it’s our first sequel of sorts. But we also see the Cigarette Smoking Man, so there are hints of Mytharc about.

First Meetings
YOU GUYS

YOU GUYS

I promised y’all an ode, didn’t I?
(thank god odes don’t have to rhyme)

AN ODE TO WALTER SKINNER
by Alaina

O Skinner,
Protector, bureaucrat;
Assistant director to my heart.
Your honesty is a beacon through the shadowy darkness,
Much like light bouncing off your perfectly-shaven head.
Your feelings towards Mulder are the epitome of
An equal mixture of amusement and frustration.
Your spectacles shine like justice,
And your voice is dark, like tinted glass
You are fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack.
You tour the facility, and you pick up the slack.
You want the girl with the short skirt and the loooooooooong …. jacket.

… I realize that devolved into Cake’s “Short Skirt, Long Jacket.” I have no regrets.

YES, this is the first appearance of one Walter S. Skinner, Assistant Director of the FBI. Section Chief Blevins (who I don’t think we’ve seen since the pilot, to be honest) falls under his purview, and therefore, so do Mulder and Scully.

And look, if your only opinion of Skinner is formed off of this episode, PLEASE WAIT. Because I did not remember that Skinner was an absolute DICK in this episode. But he was. And also almost so far in the Cigarette Smoking Man’s pocket that he’s that loose dime that always gets stuck in the corner.

Just you wait – this man will become AWESOME.

Special Guest Star
Paul Ben-Victor, playing Tooms’s lawyer or doctor or whatever. Who’s this guy? Well, he was best-known to me as Stan from In Plain Sight, that show about U.S. Marshals that was on USA for five seasons. But if y’all had listened to me a couple of years ago and watched FDR: American Badass like I told you, y’all would realize that you’re currently looking at a much younger, less werewolfy Mussolini.

Scully’s Hair
Has become flatter and rounder.

Ships Ahoy!
This entire scene:
Mulder: They’re out to put an end to the X-Files, Scully. I don’t know why, but any excuse will do. I don’t really care about my record, but you’d be in trouble just sitting in this car. I’d hate to see you carry an official reprimand in your file because of me.
Scully: Fox …
Mulder: (sheepish) I … I even made my parents call me Mulder.
Scully: Mulder, I wouldn’t put myself on the line for anybody but you.
Mulder: If there’s an iced tea in that bag, it could be love.
Scully: Must be fate, Mulder: root beer.

Thing I Yelled At The TV
When Mulder traps Tooms under the escalator:
“Tooms had better fear and respect that escalator.”

Thing I Also Yelled At The TV
as Tooms gets caught in the escalator and dies horribly
“HIS PANTS GOT CAUGHT AND A BLOODBATH ENSUED!”

Watch or Skip
Watch this one. WATCH IT.

Next time on Project X: The end of Season 1! “Born Again,” “Roland,” and “The Erlenmeyer Flask.”