Theatre of the Mind ~ Providence
Providence:
a) Capital of and largest city in Rhode Island.
b) TV drama starring Melina Kanakaredes.
c) Divine direction.
d) Kill Will Volume II.1. Operation Desert Storm reminds us that war, like Season Nine, is hell.
2. God appears in mysterious X-File-ish ways.
3. Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Josepho. The big four.
4. "Touched by a Super Soldier."
5. The Messenger and his Unidentified Flying Pulpit.
6. TWC1: The old credits used to fill me with great anticipation. The new credits fill me with great yearning for the old credits.
7. Previously on the X-Files: Border jumping, rubbing studying, cult infiltrating, artifact flying, Doggett mashing, and William kidnapping.
8. Just in case you were in the bathroom during the "previously on the X-Files" segment, Follmer goes over it again.
9. TWC2: Cute little mini-Mulder!
10. Other men may have fancier projectors, but no one puts on a slide show like Mulder.
11. The Gunmen willingly participate in a campaign of misinformation.
12. So convenient to have the good guys and the bad guys recuperating at the same hospital.
13. Other shows have Hallmark Moments; the X-Files has Hallway Moments.
14. I wish Skinner would choose a team and stick with it.
15. Maybe all the men on this show should stop trying to protect Scully; they do a piss poor job anyway.
16. She learned to be paranoid from the best.
17. TWC3: Walter storms in and yells, "Get your hands off my Johnny, you bitch!" Okay, he didn't really, but wouldn't that have been much more exciting?
18. You might never wake up, but look on the bright side: no brain swelling!
19. I don't like to make comparisons, but Mulder got hit by a car once and only busted his cell phone.
20. Skinner has an inspirational Vietnam story for every occasion.
21. Monica leaves her partner's side to be Scully's beck and call girl.
22. Can't we tell the FBI anything? Oh yeah, trust no one.
23. The old hidden cell phone trick.
24. William, can you hear me now?
25. Pistol Packin' Mama.
26. TWC4: Ugh! It's that music from "Existence".
27. They found the signal! Their kung fu is improving!
28. The cutie pie in the blue hat is thinking: "Yo, my ass is buzzing."
29. William seems destined to find himself in the care of irresponsible people who leave him unattended in motor vehicles.
30. You'd think one policeman between D.C. and Pennsylvania would have noticed a car with bullet holes in the windshield.
31. Wouldn't it be funny if the Canadian Cultists opened the hatch and found the cast of "Lost"?
32. It's moving! Now might be a good time to jump off.
33. Too late. Feed me, Seymour, feed me! Season 9 = the Little Season of Horrors.
34. Factoid: It takes 1 hour and 53 minutes to drive the 103 miles from Washington, D.C., to Warfordsburg, Pennsylvania. During that 1 hour and 53 minutes, did Scully and her Gal Friday think William and his kidnapper would be passing the time sitting in the car playing a mean game of peekaboo? Wouldn't it have been a good idea to call the local authorities, tell them the location of William's Car Seat Phone, and have them take the notorious Overcoat Woman into custody? Doggett's aren't the only brain cells at risk in this episode! (It's the hair, I tell you.)
35. TWC5: Speaking of Scully's hair, it's looking particularly dismal after that road trip.
36. I thought maybe the walk-in's got Agent Doggett, but it was only radiology.
37. Reyes visits the Chapel and asks God to bring this show to a merciful end so she can get a part on "The West Wing."
38. Ew, Brad shares a little more than "information" and implies that he has switched teams (oh, get your mind out of the gutter!).
39. Follmer says see #34.
40. Comer looks really talkative except for the ventilator.
41. "JACKET" -- a much better clue than "PLAM."
42. TWC6: Scully in Mulderific black leather.
43. Just a couple of girlfriends passing notes.
44. What a blabbermouth! Scully refuses to tell Monica what the clue means so as not to compromise her integrity, but two seconds later, spills the whole story anyway.
45. Spaceship fragment works just like smelling salts.
46. Paging Dr. Scully! She gets so few opportunities to practice medicine with no accident-prone Mulder around.
47. MamaBear clears the ventilator tube and goes right for the throat.
48. This prophecy requires a flow chart.
49. TWC7: While the prophecy has definite drawbacks, the best part is that *everybody* (including Scully) believes Mulder to be William's father.
50. Artifact tug-of-war interrupted by Toothpick Man and Tattletale Nurse.
51. Comer can kiss the artifact and his ass goodbye.
52. Nobody can open the spaceship, but everyone seems to be able to chip off a piece to carry around as a souvenir.
53. TWC8: Nooooooooooo! This is not happening! That music from "Existence" again! Make it stop!
54. William the Alien Conqueror is in the house and the previously impenetrable spaceship starts unfolding like a flower.
55. TWC9: Skinner and Follmer arrive together. Maybe Brad has "switched teams" after all!
56. Walter! Go fetch! Good boy!
57. Scully, the Skeptics-R-Us Poster Girl, takes Comer's word as gospel and falls apart? Thinks that since God sacrificed His only son so that mankind would not perish from the earth that Chris Carter would expect her and Mulder to do the same? I'm surprised she didn't volunteer to Kill Will herself! This isn't the Scully I know. Just one more example of Where It Went Wrong (WIWW) in Season 9.
58. Monica should have slapped Scully silly, but instead gives her the "Chin up, Starbuck" pep talk (the faster she can help save William, the faster she can get back to her primary objective of saving Doggett).
59. No one believes Monica's bizarre claims. A man brought back to life? It's not like he's Mulder or something.
60. The Scully Ditch.
61. Good thing Scully mentions *Monica's* feelings, otherwise I would never forgive her for blubbering all over Doggett.
62. MMM: He don't need no stinkin' artifact; the Manly Man is awake.
63. Now we know why Doggett has such big ears; the better to hear voices with, my dear.
64. TWC10: Awwww, the DRR lives! Monica, feel free to kiss his forehead or something.
65. How did Josepho get Scully's cell phone number? Can't she get on a cult no call list?
66. Canadian Coffee Shop Talk. We'll have coffee, we'll talk. No big whoop.
67. Send Scully and Josepho back to Sunday school! The Bible passage that Josepho quotes (also heard in the teaser) is Ezekiel 1:4-5, not Ephesians.
68. It appears that reports of Mulder's death are greatly exaggerated. (Hooray!)
69. DMMM: Why just his head? Why not the whole damn man? C'mon, I'm Desperately Missing Mulder!
70. Factoid: Was Josepho a Sam Peckinpah fan? "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" was a 1974 low budget film directed by Peckinpah, widely considered his darkest and most personal film. It stars Warren Oates as Bennie, an American piano player living the low life in a Mexican brothel. Bennie stakes everything on a bounty set by a Mexican patrone on the head of Alfredo Garcia, the man who impregnated his daughter.
71. But Josepho's offbeat directive to Scully might be a nod not to Pekinpah but to the Bible -- "Give me, served up on a platter, the head of John the Baptizer." (Matthew 14:8.) In Chris Carter's world of religious imagery, it's conceivable that John the Baptist is to Jesus as Mulder is to William.
72. Scully's got all her peeps on the case!
73. Can you get Lariat rentals in Canada?
74. Where's On Star when you need it? Luckily the rented van has a Frohike Positioning System.
75. William could be communicating with the alien ship or he could be in need of a diaper change.
76. The rings on the ship go round and round, round and round, round and round ...
77. A big white tent in the middle of nowhere! It's either the Crazy Cultists or Brad and Angelina's wedding reception!
78. Calling William's name, yeah, that's gonna be really helpful. William should have spent less time learning to rotate objects like mobiles and spaceships and more time learning how to talk.
79. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
80. If I was a Crazy Canadian Cultist, this is the part where I would be checkin' my shorts for cake.
81. TWC11: At least Reyes doesn't get conked on the head every time a spaceship goes flying by.
82. You know what Scully's thinking as she watches that ship take off? There goes William; just like his father!
83. Scully's been invited to this kind of barbecue before.
84. A faint cry ... could it be? It is! It's William wrapped in his bonny blue blanket looking none the worse for wear! A regular uncharred chip off the old block! The Mulder family passes genetic muster!
85. What a sweet reunion! Scully and William ... and Reyes, who seems on the verge of articulating, "I have to say with everything I know you must be feeling, you look amazingly beautiful, Dana."
86. Are those whale songs I hear in the distance? No, it's a Mark Snow generated chorus of heavenly angels celebrating the fact that William is safely returned, God is in His heaven, Mulder (presumably) still has his head, and all is right with the world. For now.
87. Props to the power of prayer.
88. Do you believe the voice? I want to believe. Just call me Spooky. Spooky Doggett.
89. TWC12: As long as you two are in the Chapel, why don't you get married and do the MSR a favor?
90. Skinner remembers where he left his balls and refuses to sign the report; now Follmer wants to switch teams urgently!!
91. Kersh continues to have the Mulder Problem; we should all be so lucky!
92. Did the CSM Wannabe get a toothpick stuck in the back of his throat? No, he's a Super Soldier. Scully better keep a close eye on William; Doggett better keep his ears open in case the Voice has more to say; and Mulder better hang on to his head.
93. As I've said before, Mulder, Scully, and William should have been allowed to live happily ever after at the conclusion of Season 8, and this should have been Doggett and Reyes' year to sink or swim on their own. So any Season 9 episodes that try to incorporate or make sense of the *old* mythology at this late date are pointless, IMBO, and this one is no exception. In the end, we don't know if Josepho's prophecy is true or just the ramblings of a madman, so we don't know if William is destined to lead the aliens, fight the aliens, or not even care when the brothers from another planet come calling. It's most distressing to me that the episode *implies* that William has some sort of connection to the alien menace, but I prefer to believe that the ship reacts the way it does because William is a threat, not a collaborator. In spite of CC's best efforts to the contrary, I still want to believe that the reason the aliens are so interested in William is because he is a miracle, conceived the old-fashioned way, born to a supposedly barren mother and a recently resurrected father. He's something the aliens can't replicate. He is proof that there is a greater power somewhere out there -- a power that can create miracles. And he's proof that love between two consenting adults (albeit with very special DNA) can conquer all.
94. Are we sure this episode was only an hour? It seemed to go on forever. Much like this TOTM. It took me so long to finish because I lost my way a time or two, and I had to look for providence to put me back on the TOTM straight and narrow. Why?
95. "Maybe when you're lost you knock at the door with the porch light on."
Turn out the lights, this TOTM is over; and just like Doggett, I can hear you talking. And I hear what you're saying: "Piece of crap!"
Oh, well, apologies as always,
Polly