The X-Files Season 2, Episode 9: Firewalker

'Ice', 'Ice', baby.

This essentially felt like a rehash of a much better first season episode. People doing scientific exploration in an isolated and harsh environment discover a previously unknown biological entity that infects them and eventually leads to their demise.

That doesn't mean it was a total loss, though.

So this being the first episode since Scully's return, I was wondering how they would handle her reintegration into her work. And it turns out they did it with a single conversation between her and Mulder in which she stated that she had already lost too much time and wanted to work. OK, then!

Despite this basically being a warmer version of the first season episode, 'Ice', it still manages to be tense and present a decent mystery story.

Oh, right, and also a horrifically nightmarish one, because it's not every day you see spores bursting from the middle of people's necks.

I like stories that are told in enclosed spaces. I'm not claustrophobic myself, so the story doesn't make me uncomfortable in that way, but I guess because I really like small, enclosed spaces - I find them safe and comfortable - it's odd to see something that corresponds to my own comfort zone so grossly violated in fiction. That's what unnerves me about stories like this, and it's why I like them. I mean, why do horror if you can't make your audience squirm?

So the story is a little different from 'Ice' in that this time it turns out pretty much everyone is infected and nothing is really resolved, because they never discover a cure, only a way to avoid infection.

The tensest scene of the episode was the one in which Jessie handcuffed herself to Scully not long before she died. While I obviously knew Scully would be fine, there was still some nagging concern that she would be a little too close when that awful thing came out of Jessie's neck. But Scully was clever and figured out a solution just in time (after failing to hack apart the handcuffs), shielding herself with a door. Oh, and we also were treated to a much more graphic spore cloud explosion than the first time it happened in the episode. Yum.

And speaking of Jessie, I think she had what has to be the World's Most Unfortunate Haircut™. It's not an awful hair style, but it's a little too short (or too long, depending on how you look at it) and it looks like she cut it herself with her eyes closed after having had so much caffeine her hands were shaking. Though in fairness, Pierce also had somewhat Unfortunate Hair for this episode because it was obviously so humid out his hair kept getting curlier as the episode progressed.

Until he was killed anyway.

I guess the greatest unanswered question, and this may just be a feature of some odd production decisions rather than anything intentionally sinister, was the lingering focus on the shoulder patch of the crew decontaminating the lab. The kind of focus on something would seem to indicate it is somehow important than previously thought.

Maybe we'll find out. In like, season 7 or something. Or one of the movies.