The X-Files
11.5 Ghouli
(SPOILERS) Perhaps great partnerships should never break up.
Together, Glen Morgan and James Wong wrote some of the best episodes of the
original run, but their solo efforts for the return have been entirely
adequate, entirely unremarkable. Wong’s the better director of the two, as his
feature work on a couple of Final
Destinations evidenced, but it isn’t enough to make Ghouli seem either necessary or earned, particularly as it returns
to the barren well of not-so-wee William.
The most curious aspect of the episode is that it feels as
if Wong decided he had to shotgun wedding two diverse concepts, such that the
seams show unforgivingly. As a consequence, I was initially waiting for a
reveal that Scully had fooled herself into thinking Jackson Van De Kamp (Miles
Robbins) was William, and she was being duped by a creepy kid. After all, why
would said creepy kid be engineering a Slenderman-inspired encounter between
his two girlfriends Brianna (Sarah Jeffery) and Sarah (Madeleine Arthur), in
which they attack each other imagining the other is a monster, unless he was a
bit of a loon? That we’re supposed to sympathise with what he did, because he
was apologetically unable to control his id, doesn’t really wash, and evidences
awkward attempts to finesse the material.
Mulder: This is my problem with modern day monsters,
Scully. There’s no chance for emotional investment.
As a result, the Ghouli/Slenderman side is given short
shrift, aside from the effective opening teaser featuring derelict ship the
Chimera; on one level, this might be for the best, since we only just had a
psychically projected adversary in Plus
One. On another, it’s a flagrant waste of a modern urban legend that has
had actual rather nasty consequences. The opening scenes also take in Mulder
quoting Edgar Cayce (“Dreams are today’s
answers to tomorrow’s questions”), a first for the series I think, so
probably overdue, and also an effectively staged dream paralysis encounter between
Scully and her son.
The conspiracy side of Ghouli
is typically muddled and murky, hastened along by an unwieldy burst of
exposition from Skinner attempting to marry alien-human hybrid experimentation
with Mulder and Scully’s – or CSM’s and Scully’s – son. There’s some effective
old-style law enforcement friction as Mulder encounters Detective Costa (Louis
Ferreira), who’d rather just put the case to bed, and DoD guys hot on the trail
of Jackson/William. Scully meanwhile receives pep talks from who she thinks may
be the architect of the hybrid programme (Peter Wong of Lost fame) but turns out to be Jackson pulling some psychic
shapeshifting. I’m still not really going for Scully’s emotional burden over
having lost William, but that’s because I was completely uninvested in the
plotline in the first place.
Having Skinner reluctantly working with CSM again is plain annoying, especially as
it involves actually helping Mulder and in so doing duping him. We learn that a
Dr Matsumoto developed eugenics programme Project Crossroads, eventually
forsaken due to the unpredictable attributes manifesting in test subjects, and
that it was defunded 15 years ago (as if something like that would ever really
be knocked on the head), with the doctor going on the run and the DoD trying to
track down his test subjects.
Not only is the unwanted William manifesting big time (but
joy, he connects with mom), but we’re back at the unholy mess that was the
Season 10 finale, as it’s still very much in line of sight – William is
dreaming of the apocalypse, just like Sculls. Wong keeps the episode watchable,
incorporating several effective set pieces such as the hospital altercation in
which William causes DoD guys to see each other as first Ghouli and then
Scully, but so far this season has very much kept in step with the previous (as
such the media response of a return to form feels like wishful thinking); crap
Carter mythology, merely acceptable Morgan & Wongs, and only Darin to
remind you just how good the show can be.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.