[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]
So, if you’re an OG fan, the title “Bad Blood” means something to you, and if you’re not, it might be the one episode your X-Files friends tried to show you to get you into the series. That season five gem, filmed during the show’s last season in Vancouver, is a terrifically goofy tongue-in-cheek outing that had Luke Wilson along for the ride as Mulder and Scully investigated a vampire MOTW and later had very different, drug-induced, versions of their story to relay back to Skinner. It’s immensely quotable, and a much-beloved episode. That season also had the similarly fun “The Post-Modern Prometheus” (if you don’t look too closely that its central monster was in effect a serial rapist) and “Kill Switch.”
Writer/director Darin Morgan returns to that same territory, wink and nudge firmly intact, with “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,” a MOTW episode that plays out against Mulder’s existential crisis about where he is his life and career now that they’re back in the FBI and he’s discovered many of his monsters have since been debunked. When he and Scully are called to Oregon to investigate a potentially monstrous serial killer, Mulder’s prepared to talk himself out of it and Scully goes along for the hell of it, and because it’s their job to actually solve the crime. What they discover is that Mulder’s not the only one struggling with his sense of self.
It’s a wonderfully silly hour with several nuggets for the longtime fans: hugely long monologues, a menacing Porta Potty, the red Speedo, the headstone of Kim Manners (and I seriously wondered if this was his actual Vancouver grave–if yes, I think he’d love that), and Scully’s beloved Queequeg. Tyler Labine and Nicole Parker pop in for their third appearance as the same stoner couple (they previously appeared in “Quagmire” and “War of the Coprophages.”) There’s also a fantasy scene with Gillian Anderson that will be GIF’d immediately tomorrow night.
Even if you have no frame of reference for the in-jokes, it’s still a delightful and light episode that’s also emotionally resonant. That may throw new fans who just picked up the show last week with the considerably darker two-part premiere. Go with it. This is what they do, very, very well. Flight of the Conchords’ Rhys Darby and Silicon Valley‘s Kumail Nanjiani also guest star. I was thrilled to see Alex Diakun in the episode, too–his fourth–plus he was in the second film. He’s one of mine from Da Vinci’s Inquest.
The X-Files airs at 8/7c Monday on FOX. Here’s a sneak peek of tomorrow’s episode.
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