Well, we're back to the disturbing episodes. Wait, did those ever really take a break? 'The List' and '2Shy' were pretty disturbing, too, but somehow 'The Walk' seemed even more so.
The whole idea of people being made specifically to suffer is pretty revolting. And while I get the idea that Rappo has suffered plenty himself, the idea of inflicting it on others is pretty uncool.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I have plenty of sympathy for people who come back from wars and other conflicts, especially those that maybe we shouldn't have been involved in in the first place. (Though this is well before the second Iraq war, and I think the first one was at least somewhat more justified.)
I can't identify directly with veterans who have lost limbs or mental capacity or have other injuries that make their lives more challenging than they had previously been, but I think I can understand how they could be angry, spiteful, and even wishing for revenge. I cannot understand actually taking that revenge, and that's what makes Leonard Trimble, a.k.a. Rappo, not really that sympathetic a character.
He's using astral projection, since he is essentially unable to move of his own free well, to murder people close to others who have not suffered as much as he has and to inflict non-fatal pain on them as well (holy shit, the 200 degree bath was rather horrifying) so they can live with similar disfigurements.
I did like the message in the group therapy session, though. "We are normal people." Yes, exactly. I can't say I'd necessarily be as accepting of it if I lost a limb, or two or three or four, because like the people there, I'm very used to having the use of all of mine, and I don't adjust well to drastic changes. So I do understand Rappo's bitterness, but I think it's extremely unfair for him to be lashing out at those who have accepted their conditions and see themselves as normal people who are just different.
That's an extremely strong position, and Rappo (and myself, I suspect) don't really have that strength. But I wouldn't ever presume to know how someone else feels in the same position - whatever that position is. I can't really make any analogies to it, because again, I have all my limbs. I don't know of anything comparable. Either way, it's not for me or anyone else to judge anyone else's response to whatever fate has befallen them.
Unless that response is to start murdering people. Because yeah, that's wrong. I'd say, "especially someone's 8-year-old kid" but ALL murder is wrong, and I don't think one really needs to draw a distinction there. We know Rappo refused treatment, prosthetics, or therapy, choosing instead to just stay angry and do his whole astral projection murder thing.
But this also ends up as another episode that either seems half-finished or just half-baked. We finally see that Rappo is capable of astral projection, and his death stops him from murdering Mulder. And that's it? We don't really see how he was doing it, except for a passing reference in Mulder's voiceover at the end (which is much more thorough when captioned, apparently).
Rappo blamed those around him for his condition - there's an implication in the captions of Mulder's voiceover that it was a friendly fire incident, so maybe they are somewhat to blame, but war is hell, as they say.
I will say that I did like the commentary about how we all watch wars on our cable TV and are disconnected from them and don't really see the worst aspects of war. We can change the channel and escape. The soldiers can't. Rappo and the others had physical reminders of the war they had to live with every day. And most other people, despite being aware of the existence of the war, really neither knew nor cared about their conditions.
Of course, my conclusion from that, as someone who generally opposes most war, especially say, the second Iraq war, is that the people making the decisions to go to war are similarly disconnected from it. They see soldiers as their tools for implementing their political agenda, not as human beings. They don't understand what it's actually like on the ground. It's a lot easier to support something like that when you don't really care about the human cost, isn't it?
I think if the episode had gone more deeply into that kind of commentary (relevant to the first Gulf War, anyway), even shown us combat flashbacks and developed the characters better, it would have been a much better episode.
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