Another hilarious episode, this time starring Darin Morgan as opposed to being written by him. Still, he's involved in a lot of the really great episodes, isn't he?
'Small Potatoes', which from the title I was expecting might literally be about, well, small potatoes, was already a pretty amusing episode, and then about halfway through it reached a point at which it became both unbearably hilarious and actually rather uncomfortable.
I liked that despite some of the absurdity of the rest of the episode, the cold open seemed like a regular old X-Files episode, with a strange occurrence and a new mother claiming the father of her newborn child was from another planet. And since the baby had a tail, well, OK, maybe we're dealing with an alien baby here.
NOPE. Not even close.
The first moment where I realised this was not going to be an ordinary episode was when Amanda indicated that the father of her child was not, in fact, an alien, but a man claiming to be Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. She's seen Star Wars rather a lot, you see. So much so that maybe she thinks, what, it's a documentary? Also, maybe she shouldn't be so proud of herself or her daughter. That girl's grandfather would be Darth Vader. (Thankfully, this episode pre-dates midichlorians, so we didn't have to put up with any of that nonsense.)
Also, by pure coincidence, we managed to watch this on May the Fourth (yes, I'm writing this three weeks in advance, see you in the future), now also known as Star Wars Day (though I still believe Thtar Warth Day would be more appropriate). So the Star Wars references seemed particularly apropos.
But it turns out that the culprit, and the father of four other babies in town, is a guy who can change his appearance at will and look like anyone. The science is a bit sketchy, because of inconsistencies like hair and voice but we'll just go with it because it's still funny.
When Mulder and Scully went to check on Eddie and instead encounter his 'father', we'd already been shown that he was capable of shapeshifting, so I was ready for the father to be Eddie himself. What I was not at all ready for was his eventual escape back to DC as Mulder. That's when things got weird.
I totally fell for it, too. It wasn't until they showed Mulder locked in the cage in the basement that I realised what was going on. I had figured out that Eddie was masquerading as Mulder earlier, and even picked up on the not-quite-matching ties, but I figured after the encounter in the locker room that Eddie escaped and that Mulder just failed to catch him.
I've seen episodes and arcs like this in other shows, too, all of which are known to have an X-Files influence - it was done on Buffy in 'Who Are You' (in fact, the scene where Eddie was practising being Mulder and flashing his badge and twirling his gun seemed to be borrowed directly for a scene in that episode), and on Angel when the old man switched bodies with Angel, and in perhaps the longest arc example, on Fringe when Peter got to know the wrong Olivia.
And I felt much of the same thing here as Scully drank some wine and opened up to 'Mulder'. Appearing as someone else can gain you instant trust with others. Scully would never have shared a single social moment with Eddie, but she believed he was Mulder, and showed the viewer, at least, a willingness to get close to Mulder. Which is kind of a shipper's worst nightmare. She's opening up to this guy and getting close, and the real Mulder is trapped in a cage in West Virginia, and this real first time they've ever been at all social with each other isn't even real. That's sure to set back any potential relationship a while, isn't it?
Mulder made that point earlier, but missed another one - appearing as someone else not only can allow you to interact with the world the way that person does, but is the perfect disguise as a means to find out more about yourself, as Eddie did with Amanda in the hospital. She thought she was telling Mulder about what a loser she thought Eddie was, but now he knows what she really thought of him, which is actually kind of sad. Also, I'm not sure where she gets off being so judgemental of his janitorial career, considering she seems to be spending her entire life doing nothing but watching Star Wars.
I think it's interesting that Eddie, who is thought of as a loser by a lot of people, sees Mulder that way because Mulder is so deeply involved in his work and interacts with people like the Lone Gunmen. I'm not going to make any judgements, because everyone has their own thing, but I'm again reminded of the Angel episode, 'Carpe Noctem', because the old man rails at Angel for wasting his life as a vampire.
But Eddie also sells himself short. He has an incredible talent, not for imitating people and taking advantage of trust, but in observing people. He's able to pay close enough attention to Mulder that he knows more or less how to be Mulder, and the same is true for the other characters he impersonates. So in a way, he's more what he accuses Mulder of - a loser by choice. Mulder may lack a stable social life, but he has ambition and drive. Eddie lacks those things, which means his talent for reading people is going to waste.
It's a little strange that this episode ends a month after it starts. That's not common on the show, and I would have liked to have seen a conversation between Mulder and Scully about what happened with Eddie in her apartment. It's clear now to both of them that she does see that kind of possibility with Mulder, so I can't imagine they would just pretend it never happened.
This review would not be complete without a bit about how amazing David Duchovny is in this episode. He plays Eddie as Mulder with the right subtlely to be funny but not ridiculous. He does a good job of coming off as nervous in his own skin. And also, he must have loved mugging to the camera and saying, "You're a damn good looking man." I have no idea how he managed to keep a straight face, except that maybe being a Hollywood actor he's probably kind of narcissistic anyway?
Either way, now we need an episode with an alternate Scully, right? Because that's a Thing that happens in sci-fi shows, isn't it? Everyone gets a doppelgänger at some point.
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