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The X-Files
Home Again
Original Air Date: Feb 8, 2016
Vincent Chia – Sr. Reviewer
vincent@thetwocentscorp.com
This week, we get a more toned down and somber episode compared with last week’s quirky fun adventure. Although it was technically a Monster-of-the-week episode, it felt more like a character arc episode with a monster mystery only in the background. There is an unfortunate passing of one of our heroes’ family members and unsurprisingly, it affects our hero in a profound way.
We start off with a mystery in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. A federal employee has been ripped apart and the local police call in the FBI team who has experience in such “strange” cases. A normal human being would not have been able to do such a thing. In medieval times, it took four horses going in different directions to do it.
However, we are almost immediately confronted with a family emergency. Agent Scully’s cell phone rings and she is notified that her mother had a heart attack and is in the ICU in Washington, D.C. Scully leaves to be with her mother as Mulder investigates further.
In D.C., a nurse tells Scully that her mother asked for “Charlie,” who is Dana’s estranged younger brother. Dana is confused as to why her mother would ask for Charlie but not her, or her brother Bill. Scully stays with her mom and talks to her, urging her to awaken.
After some preliminary investigation, Mulder also leaves Philly to join Scully and be there to comfort her. She manages to get her brother Charlie on the phone and Charlie talks to their mother briefly on speakerphone. Their mother awakens for a brief few moments. Mama Scully holds Mulder’s hand and says “I have a son named William too” but passes away soon after. Scully is distraught and wonders why her mother would mention Scully’s son.
As the hospital staff collect Mama Scully’s body to prepare for organ donation, Scully insists they return to Philadelphia to solve the crime and perhaps distract her from her mother’s death. Back in Philly, the agents are able to find a homeless artist who painted a figure nearby the first murder scene. The artist confesses that he somehow brought to life a weird monster from something that he sculpted. Mulder mentioned the name of some type of Buddhist creature, but in my mind, they seemed to be describing something like a “Golem” which is a Jewish mythological creature magically created from an inanimate statue. The creature, which the homeless call “the Band-Aid Nose man,” tries to protect the city’s homeless from those that would treat them like trash.
In the end, Mulder and Scully are unsuccessful in preventing the last death the creature perpetrates. However, the case affects Scully in conjunction with her mother’s death. Scully realizes that her mother asked for Charlie because her mother was worried for Charlie. In the end, Charlie was her son and she was responsible for his wellbeing. (I guess it’s implied that Mama Scully felt that Bill and Dana were already doing pretty well, so she didn’t have to worry about them.) So now Scully has a deep desire to know that her own son William is doing well. She wonders if he misses her or otherwise feels abandoned. Scully also doesn’t want her son to feel that he was discarded like trash. I guess this episode sets up Mulder and Scully’s eventual finding of William, which will be great to see.
Random thoughts:
– Philadelphia does have a noticeable homelessness problem, like many big cities. I thought it was interesting (likely purposeful) that the run-down area they showed was supposedly 18th and Walnut. In reality, 18th and Walnut are the corner of a small park called Rittenhouse Square which happens to be one of the most posh areas in the entire city! Also quirky that the land developers who were trying remove the homeless were supposedly going to build a 10 story apartment building. There is tall condo building near 18th and Walnut called “10 Rittenhouse” which is, from what I hear, one of the nicest residences in the city.
– So, I do hope that Scully and Mulder reunite with their son. However, I wonder whether their son is living a pretty good life as he is. Scully wonders whether her son misses her. I think there’s a 50/50 chance her son doesn’t even know of her existence. He possibly knows of his adoptive parents as his biological parents, or even if he knows he’s adopted, treats his adoptive parents as if they were biological.
So what did you guys think? Did you like this episode? Sorry I spent so little time with the monster of the week, but it almost seemed like an inconsequential side story.
I *am* pretty excited by the preview of next week’s episode. A younger version of Mulder and Scully? A must see indeed. It also seemed to be a more light-hearted adventure akin to last week’s were-monster ep. The only thing I think might’ve made it even better is if they reversed the genders and made the male character a science-logic guy but the female character the imaginative believer.