3X03 - D.P.O.

Summary

I'll admit that Giovanni Ribisi is a good actor, but the guy creeps me out. So while this was a great performance, I don't necessarily like watching this episode. Lightning Boy was just so unequivocally mean — for no real discernible reasons — that I just wanted him to be "offed". Well-developed baddies at least prompt you to feel sorry for them at times. It's been said that this episode had the unfortunate fate of being scheduled after the really BIG run of Anasazi/Blessing Way/Paper Clip, putting it in a bit of a "no win" situation, but I think that's a cop-out. This just simply wasn't that compelling a story when you can't explain why this kid is like he is (all right, so maybe it was just an electrolyte imbalance) and why he feels and acts so unspeakably angry. In the end, I just chalked it up as one of those "normal" portrayals of disturbed and generally unlikable teenagers by The X-Files.

"You're pissing me off!"

Young Mr. Ribisi gave a really intense performance in this MotW that X-Files’ fans have come to know as the "Lightning Boy" ep. (Watching it sure made me feel old, though, particularly as I winced at the musical choices of our protagonist.) He certainly has a way of making you believe that you shouldn’t piss him off. Overall, it was a decent x-file, with the unfortunate luck to have had to follow an amazing string of early mythology eps.

I really enjoyed the first appearance of M&S in this one, where Mulder leaves Scully flapping in the wind trying to defend herself against the town’s good sheriff, who spouts all kinds of lightning facts at her, most of which she has to admit ignorance of. When they finally get a moment to themselves, Scully says something odd (in my opinion, anyway): "Look, after everything that we’ve just been through, after all that we’ve just seen, I hope you’re not thinking this has anything to do with government conspiracies or UFOs." Mulder doesn’t (in this case), but I find the last part of Scully’s statement a non sequitur. You’d think that after all that they had recently been through – TXF’s best season finale ever (Anasazi) all the way up to Paper Clip – thinking that most things are a government conspiracy or UFO related would actually be a fairly reasonable conclusion! But, as the saying goes, I digress.

This case unfolds more or less as expected. The "DPO" high scores on a video game in the arcade close to where the pizza delivery guy died in the teaser leads our heroes directly to the only person to have survived recent lightning strikes on young men. It is then a matter of the how and the why. The "how" is explained in a somewhat reasonable scientific way – something about Darin’s electrolyte imbalance making him capable of conducting massive amounts of electricity (and essentially storing and redirecting it at will). The "why" of it, unfortunately, is just simple teenage hormones.

And in the end, Darin is being assessed in a psychiatric hospital, but the implication is that he is going to be released because he’s just "normal".

I’ll bet the Kiveats will be glad to hear that.

Picayune Peculiarities

Mrs. Kiveat is uber calm. I really thought that when Mulder reached out and grabbed her — as she ran by trying to escape from Darin — that in real life, she would have screamed. It may have ended up being muffled, but she would have screamed. Just sayin'.

Best or Worst Moment

Here's a bit of trivia for you. This was the original episode that featured Mulder "smoking" (before the awful Travelers). Okay, so it didn't actually involve a cigarette, but in an episode that didn't do much for me, I got a kick out of Darin fooling with our G-Man's cellphone.

Original Rating: * *
Revised Rating: * * *