Rewind: The X-Files S2

At the end of the first season, The X-Files had disbanded the x-files.  Agents Mulder and Scully were separated and the entire format of the show was in question.  Sort of.  Look, it was pretty obvious the show was returning to normal sooner rather than later, a fact which somewhat hurts the show.  But at the same time, it seems a little much to expect the show to completely change the status quo after one season.

As opposed to the first season, which was only serialized in the sense of character growth and development, the second season is serialized much more heavily.  It probably didn't hurt that the writers needed to work around Gillian Anderson's pregnancy.  Unless they wrote the pregnancy into the show - and at this point in the show's run that seems unlikely - they needed to either hide her pregnancy or have her go away for a few episodes.

So hamstrung with limited options, the writers created a first six episodes worthy of the status that The X-Files has achieved.  In the first episode, Fox Mulder goes through a crisis of faith and a non-believing Mulder is just weird.  But it's necessary.  Deep Throat had just been killed and he was removed from his pet project.

The next two episodes see Mulder on his own, without Agent Scully.  Mulder does his best to contact Scully and it's hard not to wonder at the time of watching these episodes, how they could possibly maintain the show without getting them together.  These episodes suffer ever so slightly from the diminished presence of Anderson.  It's a necessary evil to reduce her screen time rather than explain her pregnancy (something I happen to agree with), but Anderson is just light years ahead of David Duchovny as an actor.  (Unpopular opinion: I don't think Duchovny's that great of an actor.  He tries to cry later in the season and its painful.  He may not be a bad actor, but his range is certainly limited)

The diminished presence continues for Scully, but they add a new player to the game in the fourth episode: Alex Krycek.  As played by Nicholas Lea, he seems like a by-the-book, earnest employee with strong ideals.  Instead, he's a badass killer, spying on Mulder.  I wish there could be more of an arc with Krycek and Mulder as partners, played nearly completely straight.  The show reveals much too quickly that Krycek is a bad guy.

Nonetheless, we get what we get and what we get is still very good.  Not hurting the show is good mysteries independent of what's happening with Mulder.  A sleepless man goes around murdering his Vietnam buddies for what they did in Vietnam and thanks to Tony Todd, it's freaky.  Then Duane Barry, a former FBI agent who was abducted, goes kind of crazy and holds a travel agency hostage.

At first, Barry seems to want to bring his psychiatrist back to the aliens, because if he finds a replacement, they won't want Barry anymore.  Or so the theory goes.  He changes his plans when he's captured by escaping and kidnapping Scully instead.  Barry's kind of clearly crazy, but he also seems to have been genuinely captured by aliens and the ambiguity works in the episode's favor.

All of these episodes reveal the true potential of The X-Files, which makes the next few episodes disappointing.  The jump down in quality from "Ascension" to "3" is enormous.  Scully returns quickly in "One Breath" somewhat abruptly, but I'm not complaining if "3" is any indication of what The X-Files looks like in Anderson's absence.

At this point, the show returns to the old structure with Mulder and Scully visiting monsters-of-the-week.  This isn't a bad thing necessarily, although they are unquestionably inferior to the beginning of the season.  The positive and negative thing about MOTW for The X-Files is that usually it's still entertaining television, but normally it doesn't exceed anything approaching greatness.  That is until "Die Hand die Verletz," which is awesome.  Mulder and Scully are mostly just witnesses to what's happening and don't really have much effect on what's happening, but the story is so great it doesn't matter.

In this whole season I was impressed by the show's added emphasis on Mulder and Scully's history.  Scully's sister is introduced and I instantly wanted to see more of her in this show.  Similarly, while Mulder's sister isn't exactly his actual sister, the two-parter "Colony" and "End Game" lets us see the relationship that motivated Mulder's career path.  The ending result is a bit frustrating and seems largely symptomatic of the show's path - heroes come close to uncovering a mystery only to not end up making any ground up at all - but it's not worrisome yet.

Plus, making Mulder's father in cahoots with the federal government goes a long way towards explaining why he's allowed to do everything he does.  Plus, it makes the quest more personal for Mulder.  And it's always better to make a threat more personal than unknown, generally speaking - at least if it's well done.

Like the middle of the season, after "End Game" the show mostly goes back to the MOTW format.  But for whatever reason, these episodes are just better.  "Humbug" is from the acclaimed Darin Morgan, who's got an amazing reputation purely on the basis of six television episodes.  This is the first one I've seen and it's certainly off-the-wall and creative.  Looking forward to his next The X-Files episode personally.

"F Emasculata" is related to the entire mythology in a way and it's another very strong episode.  "Soft Light" is intriguing and was Vince Gilligan's first script on the show.  I've read that Gilligan was the most consistent X-Files writer in later seasons so I'll be looking for his credit in the future.

Lastly, the show ends on a major cliffhanger with Mulder in an underground something with a bunch of dead alien bodies.  Oh yeah and he's not found and the place is burned.  Previous to this we saw Mulder see no openings so the cliffhanger is pretty effective at making you wonder what the fuck exactly happened and how will Mulder come out alive.  (I suppose this is a benefit of having a character you know you won't die.  If it was an expendable character, there would be a threat of death but it'd feel like a cheat if they made it alive.  Whereas in this instance, it's kind of understood he'll survive.)

The X-Files second season is a definite improvement over the first season.  There's more genuinely great episodes, less outright stinkers, and more serialization making it worth it to watch it in order.  The show starts and finishes the show as good as it has ever been and the mythology still makes a certain amount of sense - in that it doesn't seem overly convoluted and ridiculous.  I'm hoping that the third season can continue that momentum.

Grade: A-

Playlist
1. "Seconds" - Ghost Loft
2. "Mother & Father" - Broods
3. "Superstar" - Sonic Youth
4. "Soul Food" - Logic
5. "Changing" - Airborne Toxic