The X-Files Season 2, Episode 11: Excelsis Dei

I found 'Excelsis Dei' (which is mislabelled on Netflix as 'Excelsius Dei') pretty creepy and unsettling, like most X-Files episodes, but otherwise not very compelling, unlike most X-Files episodes.

It seems we're in a stretch of mediocrity between 'One Breath' and whatever the next great episode is going to be, because 'Firewalker' and 'Red Museum' were only marginally OK, if that.

Either way, that's certainly not all there is to this episode.

By far the most entertaining moment in this one was the scene in which the bathroom flooded to the ceiling until the pressure caused the door to give way, causing a fairly spectacular rush of water into the hallway. I was rather anticipating it, too. "Wow, wouldn't it be cool if the water overwhelmed the door and rushed out?" And then it did and it was glorious.

However, this episode was completely full of ridiculous stereotypeseverything. Let's see, the utter douchenozzles at the beginning, watching boxing and acting like children, and laughing about the death of a resident; the dirty old men; and oh yeah, the typical response to a woman making an accusation of rape of, "Are you sure?!" Wait, that's not a stereotype. That actually happens. A lot. I kind of wish at least someone had just outright said, "I believe you," but obviously the circumstances of the attacker being invisible made that difficult. Maybe it would have been better if they hadn't gone with rape in the first place? Make it eerie, but not a lot like real life.

Oh, and also relating to Shitty Things That Happen In Real Life, it seems that Michelle Charters was the ONE person at that place who actually took her job seriously and truly wanted to help the residents, so of course she's completely disregarded and treated like a meddling pest. Of course.

I'm sure this also probably parallels real life, but the fact that the elevators in the home for elderly and disabled people haven't worked in years is absurd. Seriously? I mean, that place is full of problems, so I guess it's not surprising, but the episode also shows a woman using a wheelchair. But the building's elevators don't work. OK, then!

Physics problem - a person falling off the roof backwards would land on his back, or if the impact did somehow roll or flip him over, he would be heaped, rather than sprawled face down looking like he's just sleeping.

OK, other nitpick - how did Leo manage to paint that entire mural without anyone noticing for so long? That thing was huge. He had to have spent hours on it. Are you really trying to tell me no one had seen Leo or been in that room in a long enough time that that would have had that little idea what he was up to? I just can't see it being a surprise, especially a "OMG EVERYONE COME HERE RIGHT NOW!" kind of surprise.

And Mulder and Scully in the basement can hear Michelle screaming? I guess it's an old building so sound carries? Maybe? Whatever.

I think there was a plot buried somewhere in this train wreck?

Oh, that's right, there's that guy secretly feeding the residents his mushrooms that he's growing in the basement? And the mushrooms are somehow causing spirits to appear and attack people as revenge for their mistreatment in the home? (Another flaw there with the rape storyline - rape as revenge, really really not a place you want to go as a writer.)

And they also decided to go with the "our cultures are different" angle (with extra special condescending "You're not in your country") and play that into Gung's misguided desire to 'help' the residents by giving them unapproved 'medication'? Because apparently cultural differences are harmful and bad? (I'm not denying that unauthorised treatment is a bad thing, but again, they could have found a better way to depict it.)

Yeah, there's not a lot to like here.

I don't even know how the people's progression of degenerative conditions was slowed or reversed by either the mushrooms or the drugs, or the combination thereof, or even stranger, how they pretty much immediately reverted to their more recognisably afflicted states once both of those treatments stopped. That's not how the human brain works.

I feel like this, along with a lot of the episodes in this weak stretch, just wasn't very well thought out. One of the writers probably came up with the basic idea, they started adding some characters and ideas for spookiness, and produced an otherwise half-baked episode without ever considering what they might have been implying in their depictions.

And even with those issues removed or corrected, this episode just seems kind of pointless anyway (there isn't even any character development, unless you count finding out that Scully likes mushrooms on hamburgers as character development), and I'm ready to watch the next one, hoping it breaks the streak.