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

Oh, you got me right in the pantaloons, partner.

The Party (1968) (SPOILERS) Blake Edwards’ semi-improvisational reunion with Peter Sellers is now probably best known for – I was going to use an elephant-in-the-room gag, but at least one person already went there – Sellers’ “brown face”. And it isn’t a decision one can really defend, even by citing The Party ’s influence on Bollywood. Satyajit Ray had also reportedly been considering working with Sellers… and then he saw the film. One can only assume he’d missed similar performances in The Millionairess and The Road to Hong Kong ; in the latter case, entirely understandable, if not advisable. Nevertheless, for all the flagrant stereotyping, Sellers’ bungling Hrundi V Bakshi is a very likeable character, and indeed, it’s the piece’s good-natured, soft centre – his fledgling romance with Claudine Longet’s Michele – that sees The Party through in spite of its patchy, hit-and-miss quality.

They'll think I've lost control again and put it all down to evolution.

Time Bandits (1981) (SPOILERS) Terry Gilliam had co-directed previously, and his solo debut had visual flourish on its side, but it was with Time Bandits that Gilliam the auteur was born. The first part of his Trilogy of Imagination, it remains a dazzling work – as well as being one of his most successful – rich in theme and overflowing with ideas while resolutely aimed at a wide (family, if you like) audience. Indeed, most impressive about Time Bandits is that there’s no evidence of self-censoring here, of attempting to make it fit a certain formula, format or palatable template.

I never strangled a chicken in my life!

Rope (1948) (SPOILERS) Rope doesn’t initially appear to have been one of the most venerated of Hitchcocks, but it has gone through something of a rehabilitation over the years, certainly since it came back into circulation during the 80s. I’ve always rated it highly; yes, the seams of it being, essentially, a formal experiment on the director’s part, are evident, but it’s also an expert piece of writing that uses our immediate knowledge of the crime to create tension throughout; what we/the killers know is juxtaposed with the polite dinner party they’ve thrown in order to wallow in their superiority.

I'm an old ruin, but she certainly brings my pulse up a beat or two.

The Paradine Case (1947) (SPOILERS) Hitchcock wasn’t very positive about The Paradine Case , his second collaboration with Gregory Peck, but I think he’s a little harsh on a picture that, if it doesn’t quite come together dramatically, nevertheless maintains interest on the basis of its skewed take on the courtroom drama. Peck’s defence counsel falls for his client, Alida Valli’s accused (of murder), while wife Ann Todd wilts dependably and masochistically on the side-lines.

You must have hopes, wishes, dreams.

Brazil (1985) (SPOILERS) Terry Gilliam didn’t consider Brazil the embodiment of a totalitarian nightmare it is often labelled as. His 1984½ (one of the film’s Fellini-riffing working titles) was “ the Nineteen Eighty-Four for 1984 ”, in contrast to Michael Anderson’s Nineteen Eighty-Four from 1948. This despite Gilliam famously boasting never to have read the Orwell’s novel: “ The thing that intrigues me about certain books is that you know them even though you’ve never read them. I guess the images are archetypal ”. Or as Pauline Kael observed, Brazil is to Nineteen Eighty-Four as “ if you’d just heard about it over the years and it had seeped into your visual imagination ”. Gilliam’s suffocating system isn’t unflinchingly cruel and malevolently intolerant of individuality; it is, in his vision of a nightmare “future”, one of evils spawned by the mechanisms of an out-of-control behemoth: a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. And yet, that is not really, despite how indulgently and glee

A herbal enema should fix you up.

Never Say Never Again (1983) (SPOILERS) There are plenty of sub-par Bond s in the official (Eon) franchise, several of them even weaker than this opportunistic remake of Thunderball , but they do still feel like Bond movies. Never Say Never Again , despite – or possibly because he’s part of it – featuring the much-vaunted, title-referencing return of the Sean Connery to the lead role, only ever feels like a cheap imitation. And yet, reputedly, it cost more than the same year’s Rog outing Octopussy .

Miss Livingstone, I presume.

Stage Fright (1950) (SPOILERS) This one has traditionally taken a bit of a bruising, for committing a cardinal crime – lying to the audience. More specifically, lying via a flashback, through which it is implicitly assumed the truth is always relayed. As Richard Schickel commented, though, the egregiousness of the action depends largely on whether you see it as a flaw or a brilliant act of daring: an innovation. I don’t think it’s quite that – not in Stage Fright ’s case anyway; the plot is too ordinary – but I do think it’s a picture that rewards revisiting knowing the twist, since there’s much else to enjoy it for besides.

Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you ripped the fronts off houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) (SPOILERS) I’m not sure you could really classify Shadow of a Doubt as underrated, as some have. Not when it’s widely reported as Hitchcock’s favourite of his films. Underseen might be a more apt sobriquet, since it rarely trips off the lips in the manner of his best-known pictures. Regardless of the best way to categorise it, it’s very easy to see why the director should have been so quick to recognise Shadow of a Doubt 's qualities, even if some of those qualities are somewhat atypical.

I don’t like fighting at all. I try not to do too much of it.

Cuba (1979) (SPOILERS) Cuba -based movies don’t have a great track record at the box office, unless Bad Boys II counts. I guess The Godfather Part II does qualify. Steven Soderbergh , who could later speak to box office bombs revolving around Castro’s revolution, called Richard Lester’s Cuba fascinating but flawed. Which is generous of him.

I think you’re some kind of deviated prevert.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) (SPOILERS) Kubrick’s masterpiece satire of mutually-assured destruction. Or is it? Not the masterpiece bit, because that’s a given. Rather, is all it’s really about the threat of nuclear holocaust? While that’s obviously quite sufficient, all the director’s films are suggested to have, in popular alt-readings, something else going on under the hood, be it exposing the ways of Elite paedophilia ( Lolita , Eyes Wide Shut ), MKUltra programming ( A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket ), transhumanism and the threat of imminent AI overlords ( 2001: A Space Odyssey ), and most of the aforementioned and more besides (the all-purpose smorgasbord that is The Shining ). Even Barry Lyndon has been posited to exist in a post-reset-history world. Could Kubrick be talking about something else as well in Dr. Strangelove ?

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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