OK, season eight, I forgive you. You're not that bad, after all.
More backstory! More Mulder! Misdirection! Lone Gunmen! Wow, this episode kind of had everything, didn't it?
Oh, and that trademark X-Files pervasive paranoia that makes you feel like someone is coming after you, the viewer. I really felt the tension in this one and was pretty constantly worried for Scully. And I still am, because I am not at all convinced there isn't some deeper conspiracy at work here. The only thing missing is a pack of Morley Cigarettes and a rogue, one-armed former FBI agent.
I mean, OK, I don't believe Scully is carrying an alien fetus, but enough doubt has been planted in her mind that she's considered the possibility. Scully, now might actually be a good time for some stubborn skepticism. Just saying.
This felt kind of like a classic X-Files episode. It was basically a wild goose chase, but little bits were revealed each step of the way, and we saw enough of the three converging stories to get into that brilliant land of conspiracy and coverup that this show did so well over the first seven seasons. And by the end of it, there's just enough misinformation that even if we believe Scully is carrying a normal human fetus, we still don't really know whose side everyone is on. Especially Knowle.
I had no idea Adam Baldwin was even on this show. He seems just as creepy and shifty as he was as both Jayne Cobb and Marcus Hamilton, and I'm beginning to wonder if he's just creepy in real life and gets those roles for a reason. Also, he's very very tall.
I don't think he's trustworthy. With the Cigarette Smoking Man out of the picture and presumably dead (though yes, we never saw him die, so for all we know, he's recovered from his fall as well as he recovered from his gunshot wound) the show needs a new inside villain. I can see Knowle being that character. He showed up out of nowhere, has a connection to Doggett, and seems to have some high level of access to obtain information that's been otherwise obfuscated. And to be fair, I'm not entirely sure I trust Doggett at this point, either, even after 'The Gift' and 'Medusa'. He's not like Mulder - his goal is to do what the FBI needs and investigate cases. He has no personal stake in Scully or her pregnancy, and I think he's treating this as just another case. He's not really looking out for Scully, and that means we have to keep an eye on him.
Scully clearly agrees, because she doesn't entirely believe him when he tells her the other woman delivered a healthy human baby. If Doggett is part of the conspiracy, he'd have every reason to repeat that, even if it wasn't true. Especially if it wasn't true.
And there's also one really weird thing going on in this episode, and that's the flashbacks with Mulder. One the one hand, at least there was a flashback to what was presumably early season five - pre-'Emily' - where Mulder told Scully that her ova had been harvested. I say pre-'Emily' because there was that scene where Mulder was explaining that about Scully to someone else, and while I know Scully looked somewhat surprised at that revelation, I'm going to say she was just surprised that Mulder revealed it so forthrightly, but he had told her about it before.
On the other hand, it's pretty explicitly laid out that despite Mulder having made the sperm donation (is it just me, or is that a little icky? I mean, at the time, they weren't romantically or sexually involved - on-screen, they never were, it's just my headcanon where they got together - so it seems a little weird to think that Mulder is think about something during the donation process, and given the circumstances, wouldn't Scully wonder if he was fantasising about her?)
But we're also told that the in vitro fertilisation failed. The ova weren't viable after all, or something else went wrong. But now Scully is pregnant. It's possible she was still trying as late as the end of season seven, but now I'm starting to wonder if she had given up and this is some kind of 'miracle', which comes back to the whole idea that I really hope they aren't envisioning a 'chosen one' final arc for her or her eventual child, especially because that would mean yet another sci-fi pregnancy story where the woman is merely a vessel for some all-important person or other being, and no thanks.
At least there's a plot, though, and it's starting to get more interesting than the long string of mediocre standalone episodes early in the season.
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