The X-Files Season 8, Episode 8: Surekill

Sometimes I get the feeling the writers just don't think their ideas all the way through, but implement them anyway.

How many times have we reached the end of an episode of The X-Files and it's seemed like the writers just didn't know how to end it or really how to build to any kind of reasonable ending at all? It's certainly happened more this season, but it's by no means unique to it. They've been doing this since season one. It's kind of the formula for the weaker episodes: take a marginally interesting premise, like a guy with x-ray vision, make him either an innocent victim or a villain or an unwitting accomplice to a main villain, bring in Scully and whoever she's working with at the time, have them kind of work out the case but not really conclude anything, roll credits.

I mean, I guess 'Surekill' wasn't all bad - I liked the double meaning of the episode's title. The cold open even made it seem obvious - there's someone who can kill anyone, anywhere, and will stop at nothing to reach his target. If only it had been that interesting.

Because you know what? Love triangles aren't that interesting. Obsessive creeps who can see through walls for apparently any distance and use it to continue being creepy are, well, not that interesting. Also, how the hell did Randall stop his ability? He could see through anything, but could target things wherever he liked? I don't think that's how x-ray vision is supposed to work. If he can see through walls, then can he ever see walls at all? How does his ability stop at a computer screen?

Not to mention the big question this episode raised, how did he get his ability? I'm assuming the intention was that this was one of those twin stories like 'Roland', where one twin got a particular ability to the extreme and the other got the same ability almost not at all, but they never actually went into it.

Instead they seemed to waste more time on the mystery that was really not all that mysterious, as if there was really much hidden from us that we needed to figure out. Or cared to. It was barely even an X-File. And really, the villains weren't that persistently dangerous. It's not like they made a regular thing of shooting people through walls - as far as we know, the initial murder was mostly incidental to the actual paranormal nature of the case, which would actually be why Scully and Doggett were called in the first place, right? It's not like the FBI routinely gets called for every murder.

In fact, it really is just an ordinary murder investigation, isn't it? The fact that the gun was shot through walls and ducts and electrical wiring is pretty much irrelevant. Yeah, this could have been investigated by just about anyone. Scully and Doggett should have left and gone to look at something actually interesting.

Speaking of which, I'm going to go watch something that's hopefully more interesting, and that would be episode nine of season eight.

Well, at least it wasn't 'Teso dos Bichos' or 'Agua Mala'. I think those were still worse, but only barely.