"She was trying to tell you to stop. To stop looking for your 
sister."

Couldn't Mrs. Mulder have tried to tell him this like, say three 
seasons ago? Before the fans were so tired of the Samantha run 
around that even a fairly well done episode such as this is pulled 
down by the weight of countless red herrings and lies surrounding 
little Miss Stratego-Pants? When they have to find yet another 
young actress to play Samantha (this time luckily only in a photo 
which unluckily doesn't much look like the other Samantha in the 
photo right next to it) because the others are now too old, then 
maybe, just maybe things have drug on far too long with this 
particular story line. This time around we revisit the "Paper 
Hearts" Samantha theme of a serial killer rather than the ever 
popular clone theme, the "One Son" she's still out there theme, 
or my personal favorite the "Redux 2" all growed up and livin' 
in the burbs theme.

And frankly, if those of us who practically cringe now at the 
mere mention of Samantha can get past that, what we have here 
is a rather good outing on the X-Files. At least they've stopped 
throwing everything and the kitchen sink into the mytharc these 
days and instead just concentrate on hopelessly confusing one 
aspect of it. This time writers Carter and Spotnitz board the 
MAN PAIN EXPRESS and poke at Mulder repeatedly with the proverbial 
sharp stick until he snaps so bad he does something virtually 
unheard of: he actually asks for time off. That could have been 
the shocking cliffhanger right there. Anyway, the little girl 
abducted angle isn't enough to tweak Mulder properly anymore 
so they killed off the last member of Mulder's family. Well, 
the family he grew up with.

David Duchovny really stepped up to the material for a very 
strong performance this time around. His quiet desperation 
throughout as Mulder's intuition goes wacky on him was 
effective and touching. I especially liked his delivery when 
he tells the LaPierre's "I hope so, I really do" to their 
question about the FBI finding their daughter. I found his 
trip to his mother's apartment when he goes into denial mode 
and doesn't think about her death by trying to think about 
everything else and his breakdown scene with Scully especially 
moving.

With Mulder out of leap commission, duties automatically fell 
to Scully by role reversal default as outlined in the Robert's 
Rules of Orders Special X-Files Mytharc Edition, and our old 
pal psychic!Scully makes an appearance long enough to put 
together that a ghost of a little girl saying "74" to her 
mother meant a California Highway. I won't even get started 
on how this idiot who buried kids mere yards from the reindeer 
pen in obvious graves got away with this since the 60s.

When she wasn't performing the requisite leap, Scully's role 
in this episode is limited to trying to keep Mulder on a leash 
and getting to be the dutifully concerned and caring friend. 
Scully's been down the route of Mulder personalizing this type 
of situation enough times to know just what is happening. 
Gillian Anderson makes the most out of the important moments 
when she gets to do more than stand around and listen and is 
especially good as Scully asks Mulder "please don't ask me to 
do this" about his mother's autopsy. That whole sequence between 
the two of them was golden. I also enjoyed, as I always do, when 
Scully gets bossy with Skinner. For him being the manager she 
knows just how and when to put him in his place. I especially 
enjoyed her protectiveness at Mulder's door after she'd just 
had to go through what was most likely a very unpleasant night.

They did a really nice job with the supporting casting in 
"Sein Und Zeit". Kim Darby was oddly eerie as the jailed Kathy 
Lee, and I especially liked Shareen Mitchell as the distressed 
mother Billie LaPierre. Everything she did just rang very true 
for me. I'm really hoping that the automatic writing angle is 
followed up on because I found that aspect of the episode very 
interesting. Director Watkins uses the patented BellyVision 
technique to clue us into the identity of our voyeur and did 
and nice job bringing out the more intimate moments in the episode.
 
Here's hoping that "Closure" next week will finally put this 
Samantha thing to bed, because right now Mulder is the only 
one that needs any closure on that issue. I sure don't need 
to hear about it again.

Random Musings
------------------------

-Frank's Fashion Spot: I'm starting out with this as my first 
random musing this week because I am getting increasingly 
annoyed with whatever this style (and I use the term loosely) 
is with Scully this year. The hair is just bad. It looks and 
moves like a fiberglass helmet. You could douse Scully in 
Gatorade like the coach of a football team and it wouldn't 
move. Gillian does a better job styling it herself these days 
for her public appearances. What's next? Scully wearing a 
bunch of barrettes in her hair? And make a decision with the 
damn buttons on the shirts and jackets and freaking stick with 
it. Pretty soon she'll just be buttoning one middle button in 
her shirt and leaving the rest undone. It might be also nice 
to actually tailor her jackets so they fit instead of having 
her hands barely peaking out as well. At least whoever is 
picking out Mulder's ties is doing a good job this year. 
That's about all I have to hang onto from a fashion perspective.

-While I'm annoyed I might as well talk about the whole "Harsh 
Realm" thing. How utterly petulant to toss in the self reference 
along with "this is great" to that *riveting* hallway scene or 
trying to tweak FOX about not promoting it by saying "I never 
heard of it before."  Move on guys, it just came across as sour 
grapes.

-Since Frank and Chris just couldn't exhibit some self control 
about the "Harsh Realm" thing it does really screw with the 
whole time stamp issue. There is no explicit stamp in the episode 
so you have to go by what is on TV. Either the "Harsh Realm" 
premiere on October 8th or the fact that the news was also 
recapping the State of the Union Address (which was on January 
27th).

-Boy those LaPierre's are quite the exciting couple. They're 
headed for bed at 9:30 on a Friday night. Party animals...

-Speaking of, Mulder's up late nights listening to his Spooky 
Scanner (TM) again since the little girl disappeared at around 
12:30AM and he was all over it and at the FBI by 3:14AM. I 
certainly did not get the impression Skinner invited him to 
the party. He then apparently found some D.C. to Sacramento 
red eye (no doubt a popular route) to manage to get at the 
site by 8:12 the next morning. Probably the same airline that 
runs the red eye back from Sacramento so they could get to 
that meeting the following morning after the scene at the 
motel stamped at 10:12PM.

-O.K., it's probably me just reading the sign wrong, but I 
looked really really carefully and when Mulder gets out of 
the car at the LaPierre's it looks like the street sign 
behind him reads "Alien Ave".

-Retread Alert: So when someone asks you what was the episode 
that guest starred Mark Rolston about some pervert video taping 
kids and walk-ins what will your answer be? "Red Museum" in 
which he played Odin or "Sein Und Zeit" as Bud LaPierre?

-We always knew Lariat was the coolest of the car rental places, 
but now we find out that they have amazingly detailed road maps 
for their cars as well. I'm lucky when I rent to see a vague 
approximation of major cities and this thing had a run down 
roadside tourist trap marked on it. Does it also have every 
Stuckey's listed on it too?

-Our Little Sailor: Well, it's not the best swearing example, 
but "Skinner is royally pissed" is the best we can come up with 
this week.

-Perhaps Skinner should switch from boxing to running as 
exercise since that out of shape old toad seemed to give 
him quite the run for his money. Heck, Mulder and Scully 
had to bust down a door and they still arrived mere seconds 
after Skinner.

-To be honest, I've been a little disappointed in Mark Snow's 
scores of late. I miss the inventiveness of "Soft Light" or 
"Grotesque" so it was nice to hear this gentle but effective 
piano and string combination.

-Apparently the big activity at the Idaho State Women's Prison 
is to stick your arms through the bars holding onto something. 
It just looked so odd seeing Mulder and Scully walk down this 
hall of arms just sticking out for no reason.

-Looks like Mrs. Mulder moved to an apartment building since 
"Demons".

-After years of reading about it in fanfic we finally get to 
see a pizza box on Mulder's coffee table. Next thing you know 
Scully will be coming over for take out Chinese.

-The Attorney Harry Bring in this episode was named after the 
Unit Production Manager.

-Aren't all those smug FBI Agents in D.C. going to be hacked 
off once again that the Spookys managed to track this case 
down when they could not. Someday they may even learn Mulder 
and Scully's secret of actually leaving D.C. to solve these 
things.

Autumn
"It's been a hard night for him."