Remember the rule of The X-Files: children are evil or creepy, often both. This goes doubly so for dolls. And even more so for dolls in episodes co-written by Stephen King.
I didn't think much of the fact that this episode took place in Maine until I saw the writing credits. And then it seemed almost cliché. Maine plus Stephen King equals horror. And boy was there horror.
But first there was Scully on vacation, being one of those tourists who wears the t-shirt of the place they're travelling in, which I've always found kind of tacky and obvious. Like, way to point yourself out as an outsider, right? No one actually from Maine would wear a Maine t-shirt, unless it represents a school they went to there or something. And really, if you do get a souvenir t-shirt from a place, wear it somewhere else. Every now and then I'll see families in Washington all wearing identical Washington, D.C. t-shirts - and not tasteful t-shirts, either. They're usually the most garish and tacky (yes, even Washington has some garish and tacky tourist kitsch) kind of t-shirts, and of course the tourist families think they're being cute and original.
Um, where was I? Right, Scully. So I'm glad we got to see her casually dressed for a change. Apart from the tourist t-shirt, she looks good in this episode and makes a nice contrast to her always very conservative outfits, even when she's at home. I do sometimes forget that Scully is meant to be in her early 30s here, even if Gillian Anderson is younger, so I'm always shocked to see her dressed like someone her age.
The episode itself otherwise seemed like it was meant to be somewhat of an inversion of 'War of the Coprophages', in which Mulder was investigating a case while on vacation and Scully was at home being all domestic. Whereas Mulder sits at his desk at the FBI sharpening his pencils and sticking them in the ceiling. He has clearly never matured beyond adolescence. Or discovered mechanical pencils.
The mystery Scully ends up investigating is more creepy than it is interesting, and there are still a whole lot of unexplained aspects to it. I get that the doll was causing all the trouble, but I'm not entirely sure how the girl and her mother were so involved. Why would the doll single out the mother to show visions of its next victims? Or was this simply tied into an ability the mother had, not unlike that of Harold Spuller in 'Elegy'? She could just see dead people, or people who were about to die.
But there's also no real motive for the doll. It's just purely evil. They referenced Child's Play, which was pretty obviously the first thing I thought of, too, when I saw this, but in that movie, Chucky is actually a possessed doll whose spirit is that of a murderer now trying to put his soul back in a human body. This had no such backstory. And I'm not entirely clear on whether or not the young girl's behaviour was just her being bratty or if that was all an effect of the doll, as well.
So I think that's where the episode kind of falls flat. If the doll was given an actual motive or the connection between the doll and the girl or the victims made any sense, it might have been better. I thought perhaps the connection was that anyone who angered the girl would feel the doll's wrath, but that didn't explain the butcher, or everyone else clawing at their eyes, for that matter. Did I just miss something while otherwise distracted by complete horror?
This was good as a horror story, but not great as a mystery. Maybe I should lower my expectations for the episodes that turn out to be exceptionally terrifying.
The real moral of this story is twofold:
1. Neither Mulder nor Scully should ever attempt to take vacations, as it never goes well.
2. Dolls are fucking creepy.
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