Translate

Monday 29 February 2016

The X Files 10.4 "Home Again" Review

                                             Image result for the-x-files-home-again photos
This episode focuses on the homeless of Philadelphia as they are being evicted from the area where they congregate to make way for new housing.  A man returns to his office and is subsequently ripped apart by a tall and shadowy figure.  As he then gets into the back of a rubbish truck.  Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) are assigned as detective Dross (Chris Shields) on the scene asked for them since he's heard they have experience with these "spooky" cases.  Scully finds the man, Joesph Cutler (Alessandro Juliani) was torn apart as several body parts are found dotted around the room and his head is found in the bin.  The forensics man says he didn't have any sort of prints or footprints even.  Mulder looks out the window and sees a piece of graffiti depicting a tall man in black clothes.  Where those meant to be trashbags?

Scully gets a call from William Jnr as the phone first shows 'William' on the screen and he tells her their mother's had a heart attack and is in the hospital.  He's in Germany.  Mulder tells her to go.  As he continues investigating the case, he notices the security camera on the wall.  Having analyzed the footage, he finds that the graffiti, okay it may have been street art but I called it graffiti, appeared overnight and wasn't there before the attack.  If they find out who made it, they can see if he saw anything.

Scully arrives at the hospital and is told by the nurse that her mother asked for Charlie.  Scully asks if she didn't ask for her or Bill, but only her estranged son.  She says that her mother made a living will where she wanted to be kept alive but the nurse finds her directive which she altered without telling Scully, in not wanting to be resuscitated.  Bringing back memories of Scully's own time in a coma with Mulder by he and how her mother survived the last time too.  Mulder looks into the case and finds two people arguing in an alley one of them,  Peggy (Nancy Huff) doesn't want the homeless to be moved to a nearby hospital as they redevelop the area, as it will be close to her school.

Mulder returns to Washington to be by Sully's side and as she waits for the inevitable and plays with a necklace, a quarter which her mother (Sheila Larkin) wore now, but doesn't have any significance for her.  Time was could make a phonecall with a quarter.  Charlie calls and she wants him to speak with her.  After she hears his voice, Margaret regains consciousness for a brief minute and holds Mulder's hand saying, "my son is named William too."  Scully feels guilty that she should say this as she understands later why her mother said it.  That she wanted to see Charlie cos he was her responsibility and she wanted to know he was ding well.  She gave birth to him and he was her son. But she gave William up for adoption.

Meanwhile there's more murders taking place as the Band Aid Nosed Man (John DeSantis) continues to kill, including two people who stole the artwork to sell on.  As well as Peggy as she tries to outrun him in her home to the theme of  Petula Clark's 'Downtown.'  Obviously this was a theme on trash and recycling and the inordinate amount of waste humans produce.  Everything in her home went in   the trash.  Scully returns to Philadelphia as she wants to work and their lead takes them to a man buying a certain type of paint at a store, found by forensics.  They follow him and he leads them to the Trashman (Tim Armstrong) the creator of the art.  He hides in the darkness so he can't see him. Telling Mulder he created it and comes to life as a Tulpa.  Mulder says it's not a Tibetan thought form (think Supernatural and season 1's Hell House ep).  Besides it wouldn't harm anyway.

Trashman talks of the trash humans produce and is taken to landfills.  Band Aid Nose Man is protecting the homeless, Scully telling him he's responsible for him and their deaths.  "You're responsible, you put it out of sight so it's not your problem, but you're just as bad as the people you hate."  Which is a rounabout way of Scully referring to herself and she's responsible too for giving up William when as his mother, she was meant to look after him.  Of course everything here all points to William and how season 10 is really about him in many ways.

I do have to add the funny scene of where the man who leads them to Trashman runs away when he says it's all dark there and Mulder tells her he wasn't gong to shoot him.  Scully saying she used to do stairs in the dark in three inch heels, er, not quite three inches and they certainly weren't stiletto type heels either.  But weird place to wear a skirt! Mulder replies, "this is back in the day."  They find Band Aid Nose Man's next target is the developer, Daryl Landry (Daryl Shuttleworth) at the hospital, but they're too late as he does his work and all that's left of him is his bandaid under his shoe. Trashman leaves and there's another piece of art on the wall.

This episode is more about Scully's guilt, her thoughts and her enduring love for William.  She gets some form of closure in realizing why her mother wanted to see Charlie but we don't really get any sort of conclusion to Band Aid Nose Man, who Trashman will probably bring back again wherever he's needed to do what he wants done.  Scully saying "I need to believe that we didn't treat him like trash."  She said that about William, I mean he's not trash, she didn't throw him out like garbage but gave him up out of a real sense of caring and wanting to protect him.  A mother's first instinct.

No comments: