Um. Whoa. I think I need some time to digest 'Anasazi'.
This was clearly the work of writers who knew the show was being renewed, and went all-in with a cliffhanger season finale. I was right, it was epic.
I'm writing this separately from the beginning of Season 3, even though the first episode will clearly be a continuation of 'Anasazi', because I feel that while I do two-parters together in a season, people watching this when it aired would have had to wait the entire summer to find out what happened to Mulder, so as much as the story will continue, 'Anasazi' very much 'belongs' to Season 2, and whatever follows it 'belongs' to Season 3.
This episode was utterly mindblowing. As soon as I saw William B. Davis's name in the credits, I knew shit was going to get real. And boy, did it.
There's a lot going on here, so it's going to be a little hard to unravel, but the main theme is clearly paranoia. And as was even said two episodes ago, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. And they kind of foreshadowed this idea of induced paranoia all the way back in 'Blood', only now it's deliberate. And to go with that giant helping of plausible deniability, they infected Mulder's entire apartment building, causing an old lady to shoot her husband. Whoops!
But Scully put her entire job (and possibly life) on the line to protect Mulder. That is, after Mulder received stolen government property and physically assaulted Skinner due to the paranoia and violence induced by the drugs in his water. The interesting thing is that Mulder was already pretty paranoid about Skinner and Cancer Man and generally everything he's been made to do this season.
And it really doesn't help that his father has a connection to Cancer Man (I know he's listed as Cigarette Smoking Man, but I like Mulder's name for him better) and is then murdered by Krycek to prevent him from spilling the beans to Mulder. I mean, they really have given Mulder plenty of actual reasons not to trust them. (It's also too bad his father died, not just because he seemed like a nice guy and now Mulder has lost his father, but because the truth died with him. I know that's the point, but it's like Skinner said in 'F. Emasculata', they're always three steps ahead.)
There are some fantastic scenes in this episode, like the one where SCULLY SHOOTS MULDER IN THE SHOULDER to prevent him from killing Krycek. I mean, Krycek certainly has it coming, and I'd express no sympathy for the guy if Mulder killed him, but Scully is right - the entire plot surrounding Mulder is designed to discredit him. Either to turn him violent and have him actually committing murder, or frame him for murder by setting up a situation where he'll be blamed for a hit someone else made. It's win-win, if you're whatever secret organisation Cancer Man is a part of.
You know what? I'm going to call them the Death Eaters. That's the vibe I got from them, and until I know otherwise, that's what they'll be. I also detected a slight Snape vibe from Cancer Man in his discussion with Bill Mulder. He talks of having protected Mulder, and although he apparently tries to kill Mulder later in the episode, I think he knew better than to assume Mulder wouldn't find a way out of the box car. The rule of fiction (and real life, too!) is, if you don't see a body, don't make any assumptions.
Maybe Cancer Man should have checked to make sure Mulder really was dead. (Obviously as of this point, the viewers might have assumed he was, but I know he'll come back, and I'd guess a lot of people watching in 1995 would have believed he wasn't really dead for the very same reason - they never saw a body.)
Either way, Cancer Man has an out, and it may be beneficial to him even if Mulder survives, and he can fake Mulder's death to the other Death Eaters. I mean, he's a master of conspiracy, right? He can hide Mulder for long enough to take down the group from the inside. If it turns out that's what he wants. He might just be playing his own game, and if Mulder turns up again, he'll then decide how he can best use the man. Now it makes me wonder how Krycek got recruited.
And despite the calm we've generally seen from Cancer Man in the past, he's clearly rattled when he discovers that Mulder has apparently vanished from the box car, angrily claiming that nothing vanishes without a trace. Well, I guess that's why he's there, right? Someone failed to make some documents vanish without a trace, right? So he would know.
Oh, and what is it they're trying to cover up? Aliens, of course. Experimentation on 'merchandise'. Human 'merchandise', that is. That's seriously messed up and evil (just like it was in the Holocaust, some of whose scientists are apparently involved), and I wonder what the implications are for say, Mulder, because of his sister, and Scully, because of herself. Are we going to find out what happened to at least one of them?
I am looking forward to the continuation of this story.
I think the only real complaint I have in this season finale is that once again, the status of the X-Files, along with Mulder and Scully's employment at the FBI, is threatened. Is this going to be a thing? Every season, the FBI's going to want to shut them down or push them out, and every season they'll find a way to get back in?
Speaking of which, I should go start watching season 3 now, because I don't have to wait four months to find out if Mulder's alive or what's going to happen to Scully and her job.
No comments:
Post a Comment