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Episode 5x13: Patient X (Pt 1) Category: abduction/colony/Elders/gvmt/Black Cancer/Grays · Rating 5 of 5
Contents Synopsis:
A mass abduction in Kasachstan turns into a nightmare when the people that have gathered there are being burned by some strangers. - Mulder takes part
in a UFO tv discussion and states that he questions mindless belief, that he has come to modify his own beliefs. He is then presented to a woman who
claims to be an abductee - she's the mother of an Agent Jeffrey Spender, who has just joined the FBI and doesn't want Mulder to talk to his mother because
he doesn't want his reputation ruined. In Kasachstan, Covarrubias tries to investigate the crime scene but is hindered from doing so by Krycek. He
has found a survivor and brings him to the Tunguska lab, questions him and infects him with the black oil. He then escapes with him to the US.
Meanwhile, at Skyland Mountain (2x06) another mass obduction is burned. - Krycek seems to have an affair with Covarrubias, but after that she steals his prisoner but gets infected by the black oil. The prisoner escapes. Spender's mother, Scully and the Kasachstan witness are being called to such an
abduction without conscious knowing. They are standing on a bridge. A spaceship appears and suddenly there are men with flame-throwers approaching them.
Episode 5x14: The Red and the Black (Pt 2) Category: abduction/colony/Elders/gvmt/Black Cancer/Grays · Rating 3 of 5
Contents Synopsis:
A boy approaches a house somewhere in snowy mountains and gets a letter to the FBI, addressed to 'my dear son'. - Scully has survived, but she questions
her devotion, her memory. So she undergoes hypnosis. The men with flame-throwers are rebels, rebelling against their own people who now try to
colonize Earth. The men are immune to the effects of the black oil because they have mutilated their faces so that the oil can't get into their nose,
ears, mouth or eyes. - The Well Manicured Man gets the vaccine Krycek had stolen from the Russians and tries it on Covarrubias. As it seems to be not
working fast enough, the First Elder orders to return a captured rebel instead of making an alliance when not sure if there was a defense against the
black oil. Mulder tries to prevent this, but the bounty hunter seems to be faster. At the end, Covarrubias recovers - the vaccine is working. -
The letter to the FBI is given to Spender, but he doesn't read it and returns it to his father - CSM.
Review:
Group abductions where the abductees are burned. The black oil. Krycek. The Elders. Covarrubias. Cancer Man. Spender. Mulder believing in
anything but extraterrestrials. Scully and Skinner urging Mulder to believe what he believed before. Scully almost quitting with Mulder.
The Bounty Hunter. Alien rebels. An intergalactic war. - - - Does all of this sound weird? I think so. This is, finally, after Redux the
two-parter episode that throws all known elements together, mixes them up, finds new combinations, new answers, new enemies, a new threat.
And, as usually, the viewer has to pay a price - each "answer" is worth a bunch of new questions. Welcome to the dark zone of the X.
The conspiracy seems to get different aspects again - the group is somehow divided, the Well-Manicured-Man fighting on his own, Cancer Man
still in exile from death, new forces summoning against Mulder's work. But what Mulder than? A Mulder that throws all away he has believed
in for years? Or just a Mulder that seems to have realized that he isn't a player, just a spectator? He tries to play again, crazy thing,
that he got his motivation from Krycek! Does no one remember that this guy killed his (supposed) father?
Chris Carter solves the possible dilemma of the show, the necessity to arrive at the answers at some time, by always centering the
stories around new aspects, it is like the truth is supposed to be encircled and then captured by some kind of lasso, but parts of it will
always escape. So The X-Files are not about concrete facts, not about accusing some government, not about real extraterrestrial
influence on this planet. It is about the search for truth and our inability to succeed in this quest; we might try, we might hope, we might
make some progress on our way, but we will always have to make concessions. We are like Sysyphos. We can try, but we will fail. But then, we
have nothing else to do. So why not try? Mulder, after having regained his strength and belief, is a tragic figure - but so is everyone
within the grasp of the conspiracy. And he might become part of it, just as his father did, just as Deep Throat did, just as Cancer Man did,
just as X did, whatever the motives of all of them were. But he will always be not just a spooky, but a hunting fox.
July 7th, 1998 / June 2nd, 1998
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