This seems to be becoming a pattern. Aliens to start the season, then a mid-season two-parter, then ... well, then I don't know, but probably complete abandonment of anything related to the main series alien mythology storyline until the season finale. We'll see.
Either way, they know how to create tension in these two part episodes, and I think '731' is a pretty amazing followup to the otherwise kind of meh 'Nisei'.
So the theme of WWII human experimentation begun in 'Paper Clip' is continued here, only this time with the Japanese rather than the Germans. Apparently Unit 731 is as real as Operation Paperclip. I like that the show is focusing on real events and carrying them to an extreme that involves the possibility of experimentation on human-alien hybrids.
Except that maybe it doesn't? Again, they plant huge seeds of doubt in our minds, and Scully, whose stubborn skepticism is actually becoming more than a little grating in these episodes, is possibly pulled in by a different series of lies. I mean, if they're covering up the truth in a giant conspiracy, why would you automatically believe someone when he explains what the lies are and how they work? Why must he not be lying, too?
She claims to want the truth, which I think is a mistake - what she should really be after is evidence, which isn't quite the same thing. With evidence, she can at least reconstruct things and arrive at a conclusion that leads her to accept certain truths. It's like solving just about any crime (which, by the way, she should be good at, what with being an FBI agent an all). Unless there's precise video of the crime taking place, all you have is evidence that you can use to create a proof. It's why the reasonable doubt clause exists for proving criminal cases in court. But Scully wants to take it a step further. She doesn't seem willing to accept that the government has done these experiments, despite mountains of evidence and not a lot in the way of reasonable doubt. There's no reasonable innocent purpose to the files they have, and she's seen an alien fetus in a jar.
And even worse, she just instantly believes the first person who tells her it's not aliens. I just don't understand how skeptical Scully can so easily dismiss the idea that aliens have visited earth and been experimented on by humans by readily accepting anything she's told that might contradict that. She seems to accept that there's a giant conspiracy, but also appears fairly clueless about the fact that, as shown in these episodes, conspiracies like this often involve covering the whole truth by revealing half of it. And also by telling lots and lots of lies.
So maybe the aliens are real? Maybe there's been just enough alien activity on earth to cover for the government's secret projects that otherwise don't involve aliens? I think both Mulder and Scully are absurdly stubborn in their beliefs for some reason - Mulder in his belief that there absolutely are aliens, and Scully in her belief that there absolutely are not. (Well, one of them has to be wrong.)
In the plot of 'Nisei' and '731', does it even really matter whether the aliens actually exist and came to earth? Either way, there's a giant government conspiracy. Even if they aren't covering up aliens, they're still covering up some really creepy and disturbing research, so maybe you should just be investigating that, whatever its source? Just a thought.
I'm taking Scully's meeting with the women of MUFON in Allentown as a further indication that at the very least, the abductions are at the hands of the government (or the Death Eaters), which I've suspected since 'Paper Clip'. The man who apparently tells Scully the entire truth (really just a separate set of lies, I'm sure) was also a Death Eater, so it does seem all rather tied together.
But also, why only women? Everyone in the Allentown MUFON group was female. We haven't seen anything about male abductees except for Duane Barry, right? But what if Duane Barry was purely a setup by the government/Death Eaters. I'm so confused. But that's probably the point, as it would be if this weren't a television show and I was discovering these possible conspiracies myself. Obfuscation and misinformation are certainly key to hiding the truth.
And as always, the Death Eaters and/or the government are one, maybe two steps ahead of Mulder in these episodes. Well, except when they're trying to track him down on a ship he sneaked onto. It was kind of ridiculous, but very laugh out loud funny how incompetent those soldiers were at securing the area. It was rather cartoonish, really.
But someone who seems to know an awful lot about what the Death Eaters are up to is X. He seems to know everything about everything, and we don't even know who he is or who he works for. But he's obviously very well connected, somehow able to save Mulder, which I'll get to in a second, but also having significant knowledge of what is on the train, what happened to Scully's sister, and what goes on at the FBI.
I'm beginning to think X works in some form for both the government and the Death Eaters. He's clearly a double agent, and we don't really know which side he truly represents. But the fact that he's willing to save Mulder seems to indicate he wants justice, but due to his status as a double agent, cannot pursue it himself. So he uses Mulder, feeding him just enough information to set him on the right path, and denying him information where it may directly lead back to himself. And bailing him out when the situation requires it. I would have thought that Mulder being killed in the train would be a relief for X, but he clearly can't afford to allow that to happen.
And being a double agent, I'm pretty sure his days are numbered, whether he likes it or not. It's only a matter of time before someone takes issue with what he's doing or realises he's not actually on their side, much like Deep Throat. X may be trying harder than Deep Throat did to remain more on the sidelines, but he's involved enough that he can't hide for ever.
(Also, random aside: my across the hall neighbour lives in Unit 731. Had I been an X-Files fan and not a Buffy fan when I moved in here, I might have noticed that significance instead of my own apartment being, "Counting down from 7-3-0.")
No comments:
Post a Comment