The X-Files Season 1, Episode 22: Born Again

OK, we inadvertently watched this before Tooms and I'm honestly not sure which one is more disturbing. I also don't think we missed anything by watching them out of order, but I'll certainly be more careful to check episode numbers before I click in the future.

So hey, another creepy kid shows up. I still think the Eves win on creep-factor so far, especially since Michelle's condition was only temporary. But oh so damaging in the mean time.



My girlfriend made a prediction very early on in watching this series that every child that appeared would be evil in some way. I'm not sure I agree with evil, but the point remains that so far, children on The X-Files have tended to be on the creepy side ('Conduit', 'Eve', 'Miracle Man' ... I guess maybe 'Fire' is the exception? Those kids didn't seem so bad, but they were also victims, rather than the characters the story was based on.)

I'm not sure how the girl being possessed by the reincarnated Morris would have also given her psychic abilities, but hey, it's X-Files, I'll go with it. (BUT NO SMOKING AT THE FBI, DAMMIT!) But I just couldn't really bring myself to care about the part of the plot that didn't involve figuring out what she knew.

So the guys stole some money and promised not to do anything with it for a decade? And then there was some murder? It seemed both contrived and not very well explained. Or hand-waved, even. For that matter, why did it take Morris/Michelle this long to get revenge? I would have thought he'd go for it as soon as the girl could walk. Was he intentionally waiting until just before they were going to take the payout? (Does it matter?)

So yeah, kind of eh. There wasn't much I found interesting in this episode, except the increasingly awesome dynamic between Mulder and Scully. I think if there was a drinking game that involved taking a drink every time Scully rolled her eyes at Mulder, I wouldn't make it past the first season. (Wait, does this exist? Probably. It's probably full of spoilers, too.)

And as I'm writing this, something occurred to me that didn't while I watched it, which is that Fringe did something a lot like this, too, in the episode, 'Unearthed'. Some googling reveals that I'm not the only person who thought this, but I'm apparently the only one who watched Fringe first and noticed the connection later when watching the X-Files.

Shows how behind I am on my TV watching, right?