The X-Files revival stumbles slightly with a disjointed tale that tries to weave monsters into Scully’s personal life. While there is some definite emotional gravity to be found and there are some great moments, the A and B plots struggle to mesh well in Home Again.
SPOILERSÂ INCOMING
In the city of brotherly love (Philly), an official looking guy is supervising as a street filled with homeless people is mercilessly blasted with a fire hose. They’re planning to ship all the homeless out to an abandoned hospital out of town (abandoned hospitals are always bad), and apparently spraying them with water is part of the plan? In any case, our official (Joseph) heads back to the main office to do whatever people like that do. Shortly after, a mysterious garbage truck pulls up to the building as the homeless people scatter.
The lights in the office start flickering as someone gets out of the truck and enters the building. Joseph is immediately terrified, pulling out a gun as a putrid stench fills the air. Some kind of monster bursts through the office door, and viciously tears Joseph’s head and arms off. He deposits the head in the garbage can, and takes the arms with him as he leaves. It’s a pretty brutal scene, and one I didn’t expect on network TV! A solid start – vicious killer monster on the loose!
Of course, Mulder and Scully are called to investigate, and as they begin to investigate the office we get some good old fashioned Mulder wit regarding the killer not using the proper recycling bins. Scully notes that the muscles were torn, not cut, something that ought to be impossible for a human to do. Matters are cut short though as Scully gets a phone call – her mom has had a heart attack, and is in the ICU in a coma. Mulder tells her to go in a pretty awkward exchange (maybe should’ve taken that one again), and he continues to check out the area. He spies a large piece of street art depicting a creature of some sort through the window.
Upon examining the security footage, we discover that the cameras are all knocked out of position before we see anything (typical), but the office cam indicates that the attacker was very tall, and Mulder notices there is no street art outside – it had to have been painted after the murder. On the way out, Mulder steps on a particularly nasty looking bandaid, and keeps it as evidence.
Outside, Mulder asks a cop to get him access to the street art rooftop, and overhears an argument in the alleyway. It’s the lawyer interested in gentrifying the area (by moving out the homeless and redeveloping), and a NIMBY lawyer opposed to the relocation. Mulder questions them long enough to decide they’re both deplorable and speak only to their own interests, before asking “who speaks for the homeless?”
The answer comes from a homeless guy in the alley: “the band-aid nose man.” Not the catchiest name I’ve ever heard, but we’ll roll with it anyway. As Mulder looks up, the street art has disappeared (gasp)!
Turns out that someone stole the art, and Mr. Bandaid Nose doesn’t like it – he murders them in the same fashion as earlier. Meanwhile, Mulder’s bandaid has been analyzed, and is devoid of any residue despite being filthy. Creepy.
At the hospital, Scully is dealing with her mom, who looks to be in rough shape. The nurse mentions that Ms. Scully was asking for Charlie – her estranged son – rather than Dana or Bill, and Dana reflects back on her own coma experience (Season 2) while asking her mom not to “go home yet.”
Mulder arrives at the hospital to comfort Scully, and yet again the chemistry and tension between the characters is palpable. Gillian Anderson does a terrific job delivering on the emotion and gravity of the situation as the doctors remove the elder Scully’s breathing tube: “I don’t care about the big questions, I just want the chance to ask a few little ones.”Apparently, Scully Sr.’s medical wishes had been updated recently, and Dana wasn’t informed. Strange.
Meanwhile, the Trashman wipes out somebody else – the busy body NIMBY lady – in equally gruesome fashion. Amazing that even with all the violence on TV, they can still find a way to make our jaws drop.
As the partners sit at the bedside they have a little moment that further punctuates the enduring connection between them – they reminisce about Scully’s coma, and Mulder reveals how deeply he cared for for even that early on. Just then, Charlie calls Dana. He speaks to his mother on speakerphone, and Margaret opens her eyes briefly. She levels her gaze on Mulder and says “My son is named William too” before flat lining.
Scully gets hysterical (reasonably) in a great piece of work by Anderson. Why were Margaret’s last words about the son they gave up? She tells Mulder she needs to work, and work RIGHT NOW. We’ve seen Scully do this before, but the scene feels particularly realistic thanks to Anderson’s performance.
Some more evidence has come back – the type of paint used in the street art is only sold in one place, so the agents case the joint and follow a sketchy guy to a sketchy place (classic!). They confront the hooded figure and ask to see Trashman. He points them down an extra dark hallway and runs off. Mulder declines to give chase as he doesn’t “do stairs anymore.” Back in the day, Scully says she did stairs in 3 inch heels. “Back in the day is now,” says Mulder as they pull out flashlights. Laying on the cheese something fierce in this episode, but I still found it mostly charming.
Down the hallway, we encounter an artist, and this is where the episode almost lost me. The Trashman is an artist who speaks for the homeless. They are treated like trash in society he says, and the art is meant to protect them. Somehow, he created the bandaid-nose man, but didn’t mean to. It’s a Tulpa, a buddhist creature created from thought. The artist insists that he willed the creature into existence, and then the creature told him what it wanted to be (a bandaid nose guy). It’s a pretty thin thread to follow, and the rambling artist isn’t quite clear enough to connect to. Too bad, since The X-Files usually excels at grabbing little myths and developing them into something substantial. Not so today.
At the same time, Scully is obsessing over William – did she invent him out of thought? She’s clearly wracked with guilt over giving him up – expect the kid to show up before this miniseries is out!
Mulder theorizes that if Mr. Bandaid is defending the homeless, the sleazy lawyer could be next on the list.
Cut to the lawyer (Landry), who is being a jerk while relocating the homeless people. He’s drawn into an extra creepy part of the hospital by a noise, and you know what happens from here. He’s savagely dismembered as the agents arrive on the scene, but the culprit disappears into thin air. His work is complete. The only remnant? A bandaid on the ground.
Mulder and Scully are seated on a log by the water, and they discuss what has happened. Scully believes that Margaret needed to know ALL her kids would be alright before she passed – speaking to Charlie satisfied her need. She believes that William is their responsibility, even though they gave him up, and that her mysteries will never be answered now that her mother is gone. That feels a bit existential to me, especially given Scully’s reliance on science, but I understand where the writers are coming from on this one. Mulder has nothing to say, and just comforts her.
This episode has all the components of a great one, but the connection felt disjointed to me. Trashman didn’t draw me in as a bad guy, even though he was a vicious killer with a good cause. And Scully’s plot in the episode deserved to have more of a role, and should have been cast against a stronger A plot. I still enjoyed it, but this was probably the weakest episode of the revival so far.
Paul will recap each week’s episode of The X-Files – so stay tuned right here for more. Be sure to also check out our recent recaps of Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and The Flash!