The X-Files Season 6, Episode 8: The Rain King

There is nothing about 'The Rain King' that wasn't weird. It wasn't bad, but it was really really strange.

OK, so lets see if I can get this straight. The main premise is that a guy who has never shared his feelings for a woman for twenty years is so bitter about the perceived rejection (but how can she reject him if she doesn't even know?) that he ends up torturing their town with rotten weather. FOR TWENTY YEARS.

There were a lot of weird assumptions in this episode, or weird rush judgements or something. I mean, Sheila's feelings for Mulder came completely out of nowhere. But of course, they served to further tease the Mulder/Scully relationship that this entire season has been really intent on pushing towards so far but keeps coming up short.

I'm honestly getting a little tired of it. They have the chemistry. They have the right kind of relationship to develop into something more. It just needs to happen already. Scully is clearly jealous when she sees Sheila kissing Mulder, and Mulder gets defensive when Holman says he gazes at Scully. Denial is kind of a classic sign there, Mulder. You've got a thing for Scully. Fortunately, it's requited, so you just need to SAY SOMETHING ALREADY.

Oh wait, he did, at the end of 'Triangle', and she thought he was just loopy from the drugs. Damn. Well, OK, say it when you're not all drugged up, right? Make this happen, writers!

I'd say the general plot was sweet, except that it isn't. It's really really creepy. Also, I can't watch anything with Victoria Jackson in it without remembering that she's become a racist, right-wing, conspiracy theory spouting nutball. Still, the plot was creepy. Holman likes Sheila but is nervous around her and afraid to tell her how he feels, which causes him in his anger and jealousy to affect the weather?

How does that even work? I mean, obviously the show is science fiction, but they never even got into it. Holman can simply control the weather, and we're just supposed to assume this is a Thing that happens. Did he control the weather as a child? When his parents sent him to bed without dessert because he didn't eat his vegetables, did he make it rain? Or snow? How did school work? If the guy could make it snow, he could get a snow day whenever he wanted. Must be nice, right?

I also found it weird to focus so much on the Rain King aspect of it, which just seemed to be a side effect of Holman's misplaced guilt. Daryl was a jerk all along, and not that that justifies Holman's behaviour towards him for being with Sheila, the guy was driving drunk. I don't exactly have a lot of sympathy for him. And I guess Holman didn't, either, because as soon as he found out that Daryl was drunk when he crashed his car, and that it wasn't because of the hailstorm (well, probably a product of both, really), he caused Daryl's business to ... *sunglasses* ... dry up. Yeeeeeeah!

Sorry.

So really, the Rain King side story, despite being the title of the episode, was really only somewhat relevant and more of a red herring. I think I would have preferred this episode be framed a little differently.

Well, I also would have preferred that Holman's plot revolve around something other than jealousy over Sheila. Remember 'Small Potatoes'? 'Leonard Betts'? 'Revelations'? Those all featured people with special abilities that didn't trigger out of one single emotion. They all used them in different - and sometimes creepy - ways, but they were new. I feel like the trope of jealousy leading to the manifestation of an ability is a little too played out at this point. (Remember 'D.P.O.'? That's right, they already did this.)

The idea of someone being able to control the weather isn't a bad idea for an X-File, but I didn't care for the motivation.

Also, moo.