Index to all seasons | Abbey Home Page
"Everybody's doing it - so I hear."
The first episode from this season's token female team (sisters Vivian and Valerie Mayhew) was a muddled and heavy handed outing that made me miss Sara Charno and Kim Newton all the more. The theme of vanity, or, as we hear repeatedly, "everyone wants to look beautiful", is delivered through a landscape of blood and mirrors. Director Kim Manners is two for two this season on the gross out meter, though actually this episode, while certainly more graphic, didn't bother me as much as "Home" - I just didn't care much. That's OK, neither did Mulder and Scully. They move through the Aesthetic Surgery Unit as stumbling investigators who really save no lives and will have to mark this X-File "unsolved".
X-Files has covered this sort of ground before - possession and black magic - and both other times (Die Hand Die Verletzt and The Calusari) I found it frightening. This lacked the inherent malevolence that made those episodes effective - I found myself oddly untouched by the deaths and not at all frightened for Mulder and Scully's safety. The visuals were often more gross than the least bit scary, and for being so simple in theme, the episode was surprisingly hard to follow. This may have been intentional, but all it leaves the audience with is - "oh look, a leech" when what's going on doesn't make sense.
What really didn't make sense though was the ending. Why Dr. Scully of all people would barge into an operating room not properly attired and demand that they stop what they are doing *in mid procedure* just because Mulder told her to is way beyond me. Scully is much smarter than that. She is a doctor. She should know better. And, she shouldn't do something stupid just because Mulder tells her to. It is a good thing that they didn't listen to her and saved the person's life despite her protests.
What weakly passes for character development is the idea of Mulder getting caught up in the whole body beautiful theme. Throughout the episode we see him blatantly ogling nurses (which he is lucky Scully didn't catch or she probably would have ground a heel into his toe for unprofessional conduct), playing "before/after" with a computer simulation of his nose, and staring at himself in the mirror the rest of the time. He even tries to draw Scully into his vain little world when he tells her "God, you look tired", but she really doesn't take the bait - of course she looks tired Mulder - it's 3:40AM. Oh well, after that chemical peel I suspect Mulder will want to keep his nose as is. All this worrying on Mulder's part is nothing short of silly as it is apparent all the man really needs is a shave - well, that and a haircut - those bangs have got to go. I kept wondering in that scene with Nurse Waite cutting her hair in some ceremony if she could schedule Mulder in for a trim.
- First for the retreads, and this one was full of them. One of the doctors was Nemhauser from "Grotesque" another was in "The List", and the attorney at the beginning was Scully's one and only date Rob from "Jersey Devil".
- It's time for Our Heroes to hit the police procedure books again when a broom outside a door becomes "probable cause". Oh yeah, there was a pentagram too - and didn't Mulder connect the dots to make one? If Scully bought that as reason to break in maybe she should put out an APB for someone riding a broom and wearing a tall black hat. Well, they did hear that cat cry as they walked up to the door as well. I'm sure that sealed it.
- While we are on the subject of them busting in, at least they are cool when they do it. I love the way they move perfectly synchronized with only a glance.
- "Vanitas Vanitatum": latin for vanity of vanities. Oh, there's that theme again. Thank God, I almost missed it. I would have preferred it to be latin for "Tub-O-Blood".
- I'd say it's time to shell out the bucks for a new water filtration system if that's what comes out of the spigot. What did she do? Hook a stuck pig up to his water softener?
- Some nice cinematography in this one - unfortunately driving home the blood theme - as the candle lit home is bathed in red and the police lights strobe red to the straight pin "yakking" scene.
- Call 911 and get a recording. Ha ha.
- I, for one, was the most frightened in this episode of that large metal surgical instrument that looked sort of like a huge ail or probe. God only knows what that does.
Autumn
"Maybe they were all possessed"