Theatre of the Mind ~ Herrenvolk

1. Season 4: And so it begins. "Last season on the XF . . ." I've often wondered what it tells us about Chris Carter that he's always the one who utters this famous kickoff of each new season or each second half of each special two-parter ("Previously on the XF . . ."). Isn't this honor usually relegated to one of the series stars? Maybe it's the "I Made This" mentality. The man seems to like control.

2. Okay, Chris, let's review. There's a tragic restaurant shooting, for the Healing Man we're rooting. Mrs. Mulder/Cancer Man, perhaps a fling? Mulder finds the icepick thing. Mulder's mom collapsed, Fox, please don't fret! The alien invasion date is set. Mulder wants CSM smoked out; ABH shows up on the rural route . . .

3. It's Canada, eh.

4. O, Canada, our home and native land; true patriot love, in all thy sons command. With glowing hearts, we see thee rise, the True North strong and free; from far and wide, O, Canada, we stand on guard for thee. God keep our land, glorious and free! O, Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O, Canada, we stand on guard for thee. (Polly Editorial Note: I have learned to sing the Canadian National Anthem [but not in French, sorry] so that just in case the Toronto Blue Jays are playing the Baltimore Orioles and they need someone to sing the anthems, I will be ready. I like baseball. Okay, back to the TOTM.)

5. Mulder needs to get some of those attachments for his footwear.

6. Bees are pesky, pesky critters, aren't they? Always stinging people just when you least expect it. (And that is the most melodramatic bee I ever saw. What a death scene!)

7. Those look-alike boys are not quintuplets. I just knew.

8. Don't worry about the bee sting. The fall will probably kill you. (Unless you're the ABH.)

9. Tag line change: Everything dies. (Except our Scully, of course. Mr. Bruckman said so.)

10. "You can't use your gun!" Good thing Scully didn't remember this sage advice from Mulder.

11. Big chase scene with everybody chasing everybody and no Big Ass Flashlights in sight.

12. Scully finally gets to drive, but is intercepted by the Mighty Morphin Bounty Hunter. (And when he jumps on her hood it appears she has a choice word for him and I don't think it was "shoot".)

13. Are M&S in tune or what? He can even interpret her car horn signal. From that long, blaring beep Mulder knew that Scully was trying to tell him "No! Run the other way! The ABH is here!" Whereas, I would have interpreted the beep to mean, "Okay, I'm in the car and my little feet can reach the pedals. Come on, let's go!"

14. When the (wood) chips are down, you can't count on Mulder hiding in them to get the drop on the ABH.

15. "There'll be more right behind him." Thanks for that clue, Jeremiah. We forgot.

16. Scully late to the part-tay again, but just in time for the big Boat Ditch. (Though, FWIW, I think in this case he's just trying to protect her, doesn't want her to get any more involved than she already is. How else can you explain his ignoring her screaming his name?)

17. What good did it do to keep that icepick thing in the PALM . . . I mean LAMP all those years if it wasn't going to be any more effective than that? (Or, could it be that there is one real ABH who can cure himself and can't be killed that way and all the others are clones? Or did Mulder just have crummy aim with his icepick?) Either way, bad news for Scully.

18. I thought that Jeremiah Smith wanted to tell Mulder the whole story, and now he's talking in those damn cryptic circles. Couldn't somebody, for once, just give a straight answer? I think you know.

19. Hegemony: the predominant influence of one state over others. (And this seems a good time to point out that Herrenvolk means a master race.)

20. Totally OT: And while I'm in the H's in the dictionary, I couldn't help but share this one. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher who proposed that truth is reached by a continuing dialectic, or exchange of logical arguments. I'd say there's been quite a few exchanges of logical arguments at Hegal Place, wouldn't you?

21. Jeremiah plays the sister card. Save mother or see sister? Which will it be?

22. CSM has been holding Mrs. Mulder's hand while Fox is rolling around in the chips, huh? Ewww.

23. The Consortium sets a trap with Mrs. Mulder as bait. Why is she so important, anyway?

24. Mulder is no longer satisfied to ditch Scully in the US of A. He's gotta go for those continental ditches now!

25. "I also need you to know that I'm okay, Scully." Awww. I'm sure she'll forgive him for the Boat Ditch. See, she forgave him already as she rushes to tell him he's being followed.

26. TWC1: Mulder isn't really looking particularly good in this episode, and I hope that although his deodorant is made for a woman, it's strong enough for a man, cause he's gonna need it. But when he and Smith run out of gas, although his face is messy, his hair is looking good. You gotta take those TWC moments where you find them.

27. Scully is summoned by Skinner and proves once again what a bad liar she is.

28. Don't you think Sci-Crime Fighter Agent Pendrell lives for these moments when he can show off for the lovely Agent Scully?

29. Though I'm sure he's somewhat deflated when he says he can't crack the SEP code and Scully says "I might be able to figure it out."

30. Jeremiah Smith obviously knows Agent Mulder has a penchant for sticking his fingers in yucky things and wisely warms him not to do so!

31. TWC2: Things are looking up! Mulder walking up the hill to overlook the plantation . . . woo hoo!

32. Mulder sees his sister here, there, and everywhere. "What is this? What's going on here?" That's what we'd like to know. Okay, Jeremiah. Spill it.

33. Awww, but what a sweet reunion, if only for a moment. "It's me, Fox, your brother."

34. Jeremiah says Samantha is a drone so she has no language. Didn't CSM say that Jeremiah was a drone too, yet he has language. I'm confused.

35. M: "What are you talking about?" Yup, we'd like to know that too. I thought you had answers, Mr. Smith. Let's hear 'em!

36. The drone clones are "stationed" here? Didn't someone once say, "They've been here for a very long time"?

37. Scully is surprised that she gets an xpedient answer to her xuberant xpression of xtraordinary xasperation.

38. You understand all this smallpox eradication program, going in the wrong direction, don't unlock doors you're not prepared to go through stuff. Confirm or deny?

39. It probably means nothing, but it has always bothered me that Mr. X says, "Protect *the* mother." Not *his* mother, not Mrs. Mulder, *the* mother. I still think Mrs. No First Name plays a more prominent role in the conspiracy than anyone realizes.

40. How did Mulder decide which clone to take with him? Eenie, meenie, mynie, moe?

41. "Well then who is she?" Not answered. "Explain it to me now!" Interrupted by good old Mighty Morphin himself. Where's all those answers we were promised?

42. The "drones" are beekeepers. There's some irony in that.

43. Gasoline is a bee deterrent? I'm going to check the ingredients of my "Off" from now on. I hope that deodorant has kicked into overdrive!

44. Mulder comes up with a "honey" of a plan! He's going to run a "sting" on old Mighty Morphin!

45. The always adorable Agent Pendrell straightening his tie when Scully enters his office. Too cute! (And I think this marks the official beginning of the BlackBra!Scully Period. No wonder Pendrell is drooling into his test tubes.)

46. Scully figured out the code, says she got lucky. Pendrell hoping to get lucky too.

47. Pendrell *does* get lucky, getting to whip up a slide show with Agent Scully! And we see him without his lab coat Woo-hoo for Agent Pendrell!

48. Too bad Scully and Pendrell have to make their presentation to those smarmy OPR people. Scully validates Mulder's work, and they accuse Scully of being Mulder! Imagine that!

49. We're all being tagged, catalogued, and inventoried? Oh, *now* we understand why Jeremiah was a "cataloguer." (I feel the need to sing again: "Jeremiah was a cataloguer, was a good friend of mine. I never understood a single thing he did, but he might have been divine. His intervention was a little bit divine. So Joy to the World, all the boys and girls, joy to the aliens in the big blue sky, and joy to you and I." Sorry, couldn't help myself."

50. That's why you want to stick to those cell phones, Mulder. No booth necessary.

51. Finally *someone* gives us some answers! The ABH tells us everything we ever wanted to know about Chris Carter but were afraid to ask: "He shows you pieces, but tells you nothing of the whole . . . because he's inconsequential . . . a traitor to the project." (LOL)

52. TWC3: Any man who would trade his life for his mother's deserves some TWC, no matter how bad he looks. Seriously, it's nice to be back in the day when Mulder loved his mom, before he suspected that mom and CSM had something going on and confronted her about same, or before she handed him over to CSM in "Amor Fati." Do you think he forgave her for that? Maybe not, given his reaction to her phone call in "SUZ". (FWIW, I think mom saw handing him over to CSM as the only option, given that there was nothing more conventional medical science could do for him. But I digress.)

53. Mighty Morphin tells us that "Everything dies" before he slam dunks Mulder and presumably does away with Jeremiah and the poor unfortunate chosen to be Samantha-clone. (Her "silent screams" are heartbreaking, so glad we didn't see him do the deed.)

54. Back at the hospital, Scully's Mulder!Radar immediately kicks in. You think she doesn't love him? Check out her combination of relief (that he's back), worry (that he's in shock), angst (that he seems to be defeated in a way she's never seen), the way she touches him, guiding him to his mother's side. Then seeing his anguish, she drapes the blanket around him and stays with him to share a private moment (that Skinner senses as he leaves the room *and* closes the door). You say that doesn't prove she loves him? Can you imagine how he must *smell* about now? If that ain't love, I don't know what is! (And she doesn't say, "I never thought I'd say this, Mulder, but you smell bad.")

55. The MSRM: (For those who don't know, a new feature of the TOTMs is the MSRM [like we needed more abbreviations - LOL]. The MSRM is the defining [at least IPHO - in Polly's humble opinion] Mulder Scully Relationship Moment of each episode. It's just one more way to remind us of our Mulder man and how much he and Scully mean to each other until he comes home to us - Scully included.) So, the MSRM is Mulder crying on Scully's shoulder, her holding his neck and letting him cry-even when he smells bad.

56. I'm not really worried about Mulder's fish during his absence in Season 8 because all kinds of people frequent his apartment when he's not home. I don't know why he bothers to lock the door.

57. A great scene by Steven Williams as Mr. X meets his demise by the all-purpose Consortium henchman, the Gray Haired Man. Great look on his face in the instant that he realizes he's made a critical miscalculation, a look of utter disbelief as the crimson stain on his shirt spreads. We certainly think he's a goner . . .

58. Back at the hospital, we've missed the scene where Mulder and Scully told each other what happened while they were out of each other's sights. But we do hear them talk about science, belief and hope-the loss of it, and how to find it again. And a sweet Mulder smile when he talks about seeing his sister. The MSRM runner-up moment.

59. . . . but Mr. X has one more mission to accomplish. How long do you think it took him to slide down that hallway? And then to write "SRSG" with his own blood. And nobody saw him? Everybody in Mulder's apartment building must turn in early. They were probably watching the season premiere of "Millennium."

60. Thankfully, CC tells us right up front what SRSG stands for. But why Marita Covarrubias (another name I have to look up every time I spell it). The new Ms. X couldn't have been named Jane Smith? (But on the upside, this is the first Mulder informant who actually *has* a name!)

61. TWC4: Gee, how long has it been since the last TWC? But Mulder is actually looking really good here, as he listens to Ms. Lispy Lips talk about "no evidence of beehives or bee husbandry".

62. TWC5 (and tonight's Holy Flaming Cow moment): He looks absolutely incredible as he starts to talk about his "personal losses," obviously affecting him so greatly that he has trouble talking about it one month later (didn't you think Ma Mulder had died at this point? Me too.). Great DD acting, IMHO.

63. "Not everything dies, Mr. Mulder." (That's right, not Scully!) Exactly who is this lispy, blonde chickadee? Stay tuned.

64. So CSM can just ring up Mighty Morphin and ask for a favor? How come it took the ABH a whole month to respond? How come CSM didn't place a call in Season 7 when he was so sick? ABH probably got an unlisted number.

65. I guess we do get sort of some answers as to why they don't just kill Mulder and get it over with: "The fiercest enemy is the man who has nothing left to lose. You know how important Agent Mulder is to the equation." Well, it's sort of an answer . . . the best we can get from the man who shows us nothing of the whole!

66. Mighty Morphin morphs into Ernest Ainsley to save *the* mother. CSM looks on lovingly with concern. Ewww, ewww, ewww, ick ick ick. (Mrs. M should have gotten Mighty Morphin's number too-she could have used him in Season 7 as well.)

67. So are Jeremiah and the ABH of the same alien race or can all aliens do the "laying on of hands" thing and save us from all that ails us? I certainly hope we've seen the last of those bees-I don't want to hear Ms. Lispy say "beehives or bee husbandry" again, and I think we haven't seen the last of her for some reason.

68. Of course, the best thing about this episode was a little snippet of dialogue that I'm sure was cut from another episode; I'm also sure it was used in an *entirely* different context than it is in this episode! M: "I'm going to need some protection, Scully." S: "Oh, believe me, Mulder, you're going to have it." I like to stay in the gutter. Saves time.


With apologies, as always; and as always, missing Mulder even more on Sunday nights.

Polly

"I'm right where you left me, Mulder."