We find that monster, we find Skinner.

The X-Files

11.6 Kitten

(SPOILERS) A couple of first timers on the show in their respective roles show the old hands how it should be done, with one of those rare supporting player-focused episodes that can prove indulgently misplaced or surprisingly assured depending on the assembled elements. Skinner takes his place in the spotlight for the first time since… S.R. 819? And there’s a fine supporting turn from Haley Joel Osment. Not ground breaking, perhaps, but a cut above most of the fare of late, and equipped with a suitably cogent coating of conspiracy lore to bed it in.

Writer Gabe Rotter has produced the show since its return, and worked as an assistant on Lone Gunmen, for which Carol Banker also directed an episode. So they aren’t exactly fresh blood, but they’ve been around long enough to know what they’d probably like to see done better or added to the mix. Throwing young Skinner into Nam filmed in Vancouver is a little on the Tour of Duty side of realism for my tastes, but Banker avoids dwelling on the shortcomings of the scenery and rather concentrates on the Jacob’s Ladder horrors of a government unbashful about experimenting on its troops.

I might begrudge that this is the third in four episodes where hallucinations form a key part of the X-file, but since they’re only central to one of them, the overall effect doesn’t whiff to strongly of writers stirring and repeating. Ironically, given this is Skinner-centric, Mitch Pileggi is off screen for quite a while – Cory Rempel acquits himself well as his ‘Nam version – and when he is, he spends a wedge of time stuck in a hole.

Kersh: Have you ever wondered why, after 35 years in the Bureau, Walter Skinner isn’t sitting on this side of the desk, or even perhaps running the whole damn agency, for that matter?

It’s nice to see the return of nasty Kersh (James Pickens Jr), the kind of germane reappearance I can get behind, one that doesn’t seem like it’s raking over the show’s dying embers. He’s exactly the guy to give a rundown of Skinner’s shortcomings at the FBI, and the reluctant Mulder a wakeup call to the fact that his AD has had his best interests at heart all along, even if he’s been frequently hamstrung in his work. What’s been missing is why, and this retconning is mostly fairly coherent, giving a guy who keeps what he believes and thinks generally close to his chest; it’s a motivation that works reasonably well (particularly good, when Dana notes they know nothing about him, is Mulder’s comeback from rooting around in a cupboard in Skinner’s apartment with “It appears he may suffer from moderate to severe constipation”).

Mulder: The monsters are here.

Scully: Does that get your juices flowing, Mulder?

Mulder: As much as I appreciate any reference to my juices, Scully, my only concern here is Skinner.

I have to admit, I was expecting Davey to be revealed as a non-aging John “Kitten” James – due to the toxin he’d been exposed to – until quite late on, the point where we saw flashbacks to John in the veterans’ facility (the narrative of why he was let out doesn’t quite pull together, nor the fact that we never really find out what has happened to him: plus, he’s played by a stuntman). Osment makes the most of his performances, though, and seizes the story in a manner Karin Konoval wasn’t quite able with her dual roles in Plus One a few weeks back.

Davey’s narrative of the injustices committed upon his father, and his putting forward the kind of conspiratorial mutterings that are Mulder’s lifeblood, makes for good meaty grist. It’s nice to hear the conclusion – after I expressed my doubts about a programme being shut down last week – that this time such protestations are deemed unlikely (“Thirty years research and development and they just throw it in the trash?”). Davey believes the government can control minds by exposing the populace to this experimental toxin, via water, food supply and chemtrails, which admittedly isn’t the most popular of chemtrails theories, but it’s gratifying to have two references to the conspiracy theory in as many episodes, this time even ending with their proliferation. Nevertheless, it’s clear Davey’s a wrong ‘un, because he thinks cats are creepy.

Sheriff Stenzler: People are swearing they’ve seen some kind of monster out in the woods.

There are a few elements here left hanging, such as MK-NAOMI – MK-ULTRA in releasable form – causing people’s teeth to drop out; why are they releasing it in that area, specifically? Because they’ve let John back out so there’s a readily available scapegoat for any adverse consequences? And why was Skinner called Eagle back in the day if he wasn’t bald? An ironic reference to his eyesight? Generally, though Kitten satisfies as a character-based episode and a conspiracy one.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

Whoever comes, I'll kill them. I'll kill them all.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
(SPOILERS) There’s no guessing he’s back. John Wick’s return is most definite and demonstrable, in a sequel that does what sequels ought in all the right ways, upping the ante while never losing sight of the ingredients that made the original so formidable. John Wick: Chapter 2 finds the minimalist, stripped-back vehicle and character of the first instalment furnished with an elaborate colour palette and even more idiosyncrasies around the fringes, rather like Mad Max in that sense, and director Chad Stahleski (this time without the collaboration of David Leitch, but to no discernible deficit) ensures the action is filled to overflowing, but with an even stronger narrative drive that makes the most of changes of gear, scenery and motivation.

The result is a giddily hilarious, edge-of-the-seat thrill ride (don’t believe The New York Times review: it is not “altogether more solemn” I can only guess Jeannette Catsoulis didn’t revisit the original in the interven…

No time to dilly-dally, Mr Wick.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)
(SPOILERS) At one point during John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, our eponymous hero announces he needs “Guns, lots of guns” in a knowing nod to Keanu Reeves’ other non-Bill & Ted franchise. It’s a cute moment, but it also points to the manner in which the picture, enormous fun as it undoubtedly is, is a slight step down for a franchise previously determined to outdo itself, giving way instead to something more self-conscious, less urgent and slightly fractured.

She worshipped that pig. And now she's become him.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018)
(SPOILERS) Choosing to make The Girl in the Spider’s Web following the failure of the David Fincher film – well, not a failure per se, but like Blade Runner 2049, it simply cost far too much to justify its inevitably limited returns – was a very bizarre decision on MGM’s part. A decision to reboot, with a different cast, having no frame of reference for the rest of the trilogy unless you checked out the Swedish movies (or read the books, but who does that?); someone actually thought this would possibly do well? Evidently the same execs churning out desperately flailing remakes based on their back catalogue of IPs (Ben-Hur, The Magnificent Seven, Death Wish, Tomb Raider); occasionally there’s creative flair amid the dross (Creed, A Star is Born), but otherwise, it’s the most transparently creatively bankrupt studio there is.

Isn’t Johnnie simply too fantastic for words?

Suspicion (1941)
(SPOILERS) Suspicion found Alfred Hitchcock basking in the warm glow of Rebecca’s Best Picture Oscar victory the previous year (for which he received his first of five Best Director nominations, famously winning none of them). Not only that, another of his films, Foreign Correspondent, had jostled with Rebecca for attention. Suspicion was duly nominated itself, something that seems less unlikely now we’ve returned to as many as ten award nominees annually (numbers wouldn’t be reduced to five until 1945). And still more plausible, in and of itself, than his later and final Best Picture nod, Spellbound. Suspicion has a number of claims to eminent status, not least the casting of Cary Grant, if not quite against type, then playing on his charm as a duplicitous quality, but it ultimately falls at the hurdle of studio-mandated compromise.

I mean, I think anybody who looked at Fred, looked at somebody that they couldn't compare with anybody else.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018)
(SPOILERS) I did, of course, know who Fred Rogers was, despite being British. Or rather, I knew his sublimely docile greeting song. How? The ‘Burbs, naturally. I was surprised, given the seeming unanimous praise it was receiving (and the boffo doco box office) that Won’t You Be My Neighbor? didn’t garner a Best Documentary Oscar nod, but now I think I can understand why. It’s as immensely likeable as Mr Rogers himself, yet it doesn’t feel very substantial.

I think, I ruminate, I plan.

The Avengers 6.5: Get-A-Way
Another very SF story, and another that recalls earlier stories, in this case 5.5: The See-Through Man, in which Steed states baldly “I don’t believe in invisible men”. He was right in that case, but he’d have to eat his bowler here. Or half of it, anyway. The intrigue of Get-A-Way derives from the question of how it is that Eastern Bloc spies have escaped incarceration, since it isn’t immediately announced that a “magic potion” is responsible. And if that reveal isn’t terribly convincing, Peter Bowles makes the most of his latest guest spot as Steed’s self-appointed nemesis Ezdorf.

Our very strength incites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict... breeds catastrophe.

The MCU Ranked Worst to Best

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog