Finally, some quality.
I honestly didn't know what to think for most of 'Aubrey'. I often try to come up with theories while watching, only to watch those theories completely shattered by the end of an episode.
In this case, though, I think I was only partly wrong?
I admit, I initially thought this would be like 'Born Again', and that the pregnancy was the trigger for B.J.'s 'copycat' crimes, with Cokely having died around the time she conceived, and being resurrected in her body.
But then it turned out the original perpetrator was actually still alive, which probably shot that theory to hell.
No, it was something far more disturbing, and I liked the way they tied it all together. I especially like that I really felt like I had it figured out and then turned out to be almost entirely wrong. Well, not almost entirely - I was right that the pregnancy was at least somewhat connected to the new crimes, at least.
I think part of my misjudgement was that I keep thinking it's 2013, not 1995. Someone who committed those crimes in 1942 could easily still have been alive in 1995, just 53 years later. Obviously now, Cokely would have been 95, which explains why it never occurred to me that he'd be alive to talk to, or really that any of the people who had been involved in the crimes of the 1940s, as perpetrators or victims, would be alive.
Either way, what I really liked about this is that we got more of the Mulder and Scully interaction that seemed to have been missing from the previous episodes, except for that one scene eating BBQ and talking about Nixon in 'Red Museum'. I think this show is at its best when they're having conversations that aren't directly related to the case they're trying to solve. Obviously both that discussion and the one about sunflower seeds in 'Aubrey' are relevant, but I like the humanness of them.
There's a somewhat tense scene in Mrs Thibedeaux's home, but it's cut short when B.J. realises something, which we later find out in a much more harrowing scene in Cokely's house, and like any good X-Files episode, Mulder or Scully - Mulder in this case - is actually put in danger. Kind of a LOT of danger, really, with the razor to his throat and all.
I couldn't figure out how Mulder was going to escape, but then they delivered the deus ex machina of Cokely dying and everything was suddenly better, but I guess that's also fairly typical in this show, especially the 'case of the week' episodes. Obviously if they're going to kill of Mulder or Scully they'll make their death important, right?
But the point is, they actually kind of resolved the case in this episode, and didn't leave it hanging for no reason. That, along with the Mulder and Scully interaction, made this a much more interesting episode.
The actor who played Cokely, Morgan Woodward, is actually alive at age 90, though he would have been 17 in 1942, so he is probably a few years younger than Cokely was supposed to be.
ReplyDeleteThe woman who played Mrs. Thibedeaux, Joy Coghill, is also alive aged 89.
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