The X-Files Season 2, Episode 10: Red Museum

In what initially seemed to be a run of the mill case - well, as run of the mill as anything on The X-Files can be, suddenly an assassin shows up who Scully remembers as being the man who shot Deep Throat, and we're made to wonder how everything is connected.

The only problem is this episode feels incomplete, and not in that way of there's more to be revealed later, but that only part of the story will ever be told.

There were some odd acting choices in this, particularly the sheriff's shocked response in the beginning.

I mean, sure, discovering someone wandering in the woods half-naked is shocking enough, but why would he suddenly be that much more shocked to see a message written in permanent marker on the guy's back? OK, it's marker, it'll come off eventually. I'd have expressed similar shock if it had been, say, carved into his back. Otherwise, it's more troubling what actually happened to him.

Anyway, the story. Yes, the stories.

I'm glad that despite some of the more obnoxious behaviour of the Red Museum members (seriously, you may not like meat, but blocking customers' access to a business is uncool) they really weren't the bad guys, they were mostly just misunderstood. And also they were, quite literally, a red herring. Like communism.

And while it's nice that the show is willing to send that kind of message of tolerance, I feel like they could have represented the people a little better. Here was this group of extremely white people wearing a style of turban more commonly worn in parts of south Asia and the middle east, and commonly associated with religions of the regions, and their tormentors at one point called them names recognised as actual racial and ethnic slurs - 'towel head' and 'diaper head' - when I think it might have been better to go with costumes and slurs that were not based on things that exist in the real world.

As for their religious beliefs, I have to say, I've met some vegetarians before who are very adamant about their refusal to eat meat and have acted self-righteous about it, but I've never seen anyone quite as vicious about it as Odin was, especially when he was being questioned by Mulder and Scully. Is he not aware of the concept of 'obstruction of justice'? Well, I suppose the extremely self-righteous often aren't and place their own agenda ahead of the law.

But then we're shown a man in a pickup who decides he needs to let the FBI in on a little secret, and the episode quickly changes course.

First there's the suspicious plane crash, which, thanks to this being television, resulted in a much larger explosion than a small plane burning ordinary gasoline should have, but whatever. This leads to further investigation of the doctor who was on the plane, and suddenly there's a course change in tension when an apparently innocent farmer (well, not too innocent, if he's been injecting his cattle with some strange substance) is murdered in cold blood and broad daylight by a mysterious individual.

And Scully puts the pieces together after passing the assassin on the road, realising he's the same man who murdered Deep Throat, and that the substance being used on the cattle (and therefore the children - because you know, in big agribusiness, towns always end up with their locally raised and processed meat, that makes sense! But I suppose if you're orchestrating a huge coverup and experiments with alien DNA, you can probably swing it so the meat raised in Delta Glen, Wisconsin would end up right back there) was the same as what was in the Erlenmeyer Flask.

But that's sort of where it stops, and I don't even know if I want or care about more? The case remains open, but so many questions are left that may never be able to be answered, and the entire sub-plot with the man who was abusing the children was mostly misdirection, as was the sub-plot involving the tension between the Red Museum and the other residents of the town. Sure, it was resolved, but in a very unsatisfying way.

Well, they can't all be amazing episodes, I guess.