Summary
"I've seen too many things not to believe." Sigh. I loved the scenes of Mulder with Samantha; I loved the thought that somewhere out there, there was still a real Samantha waiting to be found. Why? Because as one reviewer put it when he indicated that he wasn't giving away the ending of The Search for Spock by describing the reunion scene: "What, they call it "The Search for Spock" and they don't find him??" In this case, ever since episode one, we've been led to believe that it's Mulder's life search to find his sister. And in the long journey leading up to the middle of season seven, we occasionally saw cryptic episodes like this that led us to believe that she was still out there.
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| Holding some of the "proof" |
Ah — this is the one that starts off with the Telus commercial. I believe our local telephone company had just adopted a new corporate identity and managed to score big time in making a bold splash on an episode of The X-Files, of all things. (As for me, it was neat to see an Alberta "Wild Rose Country" license place on TXF... )
However, I must begin my revisitation comments with an objection to the lineman's requisite use of the oh-so-Canadian "eh" in his first line: "A bee stung me, eh?" Excuse me? Was he asking a question? (Because when we Canadians say "eh", we are generally looking for agreement of some kind, e.g., "Some cold weather we've having, eh?") "A bee stung me" is a statement that ends with a period or an exclamation mark... it doesn't get appended with an "eh?" Not in Canada and probably not anywhere. (If anything, Mr. Lineman should have used it in his next comment: "Don't you all take the cake, eh?") There, rant over.
Jeremiah Smith says to Mulder at the beginning of the episode — before ABH even shows up at the mill — "I can explain everything to you." And yet, in the time it takes for them to fly all the way up to the middle of the Canadian prairies, steal a car, and then walk for ten miles or so to the farm, he didn't tell him anything of note, judging by Mulder's questions over the next half hour or so. What did they talk about, the weather? ("Kinda warm up here this time of year, eh?")
All we get is that a new plant is being grown for its pollen and that bees have been introduced to do their "normal bee thing" and that the boys and girls (Samanthas) are clone-drones doing what work is required to keep the operation running. And yet Mr. Smith has the audacity to ask Mulder, "Have you seen enough?" WTF? If this was all you wanted to quote unquote show me, you could have done what Marita does at the end of this hour and just given me a photo! Then, just before they go inside the giant beehive, he tells Mulder that he has "a chance here to understand something so much greater, to comprehend it, to expose it"... yada, yada, yada.
Meanwhile, even though Scully's findings regarding the data that was pulled from Social Security Admin appeared to be somewhat fascinating at the time (smallpox? cowpox? cataloguing?!) it basically all means nothing. At least as far as I can recall.
Picayune Peculiarities
Back to the lineman... didn't he fall face down? Why wasn't his face very much damaged?
I wonder, does the ABH have the ability to run really, really fast — I mean, like Superman? Or with his morphing abilities, can he change into a bird and fly? I mean, for a big lunky guy, he had to have been really stealthy to get away after being attacked by the bees, to get all the way back to that abandoned van, in order to use it to ram Mulder in the phone booth. (And really, wasn't that an unlikely place for a telephone booth?)
Skinner complains to Scully that they have been "swinging in the wind" for five hours, apparently waiting for Mulder to show up at the hospital. Not a very patient man, is he, our favourite A.D.? I mean, Mulder is coming from somewhere in rural Alberta all the way to the eastern seaboard. Even if — immediately after he talks his way out of being killed by the ABH and manages to take the Telus van to the nearest international airport in (best guess) Calgary — there is no guarantee that a flight will be "at the ready" for him. In truth, even if he called before he boarded a flight to say that he's on his way (on a direct flight, an option which, to the best of my knowledge, does not even exist today), it would still take over five hours for him to show up at a hospital in Providence, Rhode Island.
Best or Worst Moment
The Mulder breakdown moment (and the scene beyond) was very touchingly done and underscored the support between these two, and the best dramatic moment in this one had to be the "offing" of X, but I rather liked the end scene with the mysterious new "source", Ms. Marita Covarrubias. I felt Mulder's pain — still fresh at a distance of one month — and I rejoiced in his being able to hold a little bit of proof in his hands.
Original Rating: * * *
Revised Rating: * * *
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