OK, let's see if we can follow this. If a train leaves Boston on Sunday night at 8:15, headed for Washington at 85 miles per hour, and runs over a penny left on the tracks in Connecticut, causing the track to ripple ever so slightly, disturbing a bird that's landed on the track in Pennsylvania, and that bird then flies into the path of a 747 on its way from Newark to Los Angeles, causing one of the plane's engines to fail, and a panicked passenger calls his wife on his cell phone, and the sound of the phone ringing startles their cat, which then jumps on the coffee table, accidentally pressing the channel button on the remote to switch the TV to FOX, just in time for The X-Files, someone might have watched this episode without even meaning to.
Yeah, it was kind of like that, wasn't it?
I actually enjoyed this episode because of that randomness. It was part Rube Goldberg contrivance (hence the title) and part butterfly effect, and Mulder and Scully unwittingly ended up being pieces in the contraption.
At some point in the episode, probably around the time Weems bought the lottery ticket, it occurred to me that the writers were playing with the idea that there's a balance in the universe when it comes to luck. Weems's own good fortune is balanced here by tragedy for those around him, which naturally makes it hard for him to be around people. That's unfortunate because he also happens to be a reasonably nice guy and a decent person.
In the end, of course, the bizarre sequence of events that leads to Cutrona's death just randomly - or really, when you think about it, not so randomly - leads to exactly what he's been looking for the entire episode, which is a treatment for his neighbour's hepatitis.
And I'd say it seems weird that all of that was included in the plot of this episode, but I think that's the point. Weems wouldn't otherwise have been involved with gangsters and most X-Files don't depend on a child with a deadly disease. It's the randomness of these things that make this episode what it is, which is an episode about random chance.
I also liked the really understated way Willie Garson played Weems. His nonchalant portrayal of a guy with the best luck of anyone in the world reminded me a lot of both Clyde Bruckman and Eddie Van Blundht. He had a pretty remarkable ability, but didn't really care. And we're shown the reason he doesn't care, which is that there are more important things in life to worry about. Sure, he could use his luck for some silly fun - I bet he catches every foul ball that comes his way at the ballpark, and I'd sure want him with me if I was running late for a train, but those are, to quote Eddie Van Blundht's episode, small potatoes.
That his neighbour has a deadly disease and he cares more about raising the money for a potentially lifesaving treatment shows quality character, which is unusual in a lot of the people appearing on the show with special abilities. So rarely do they use their powers for good.
In fact, it was this quality that made Mulder and Scully's investigation kind of unnecessary. In fact, isn't it a little odd they were called in in the first place? Sure, a guy was thrown off a building, but he survived with barely a scratch. A crime may have been committed, but as far as things worth getting the FBI involved over, that wasn't one.
However, that also plays into the notion of everything being in place for a reason. Mulder and Scully didn't need to be there, but they inadvertently ended up being the catalysts for one of Weems's inexplicably lucky escapes from a gangster who would have shot him had the buzzer not gone off at the precise moment he pulled the trigger.
OK, it's bizarre, and it really doesn't make much sense, but again, I think that's the point.
There was also a little bit of Mulder/Scully cuteness in the beginning, where Mulder, apparently able to get cell phone reception underground called Scully and surprised her by rising out of the sidewalk.
Well, it amused me, at least.
I will also say I liked the contraptions they assembled for the episode. Getting a ball to launch with exactly the right trajectory to land in a net every time is surely no easy feat. And the very concept is even mentioned by Mulder when he references the epic Jordan versus Bird McDonald's commercials from the early 1990s: nothin' but net. Oh, did that line bring back memories.
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