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PLOT:A small town in West Virginia reports the birth of five babies with tails, which prompts Mulder and Scully to investigate. They encounter a young man, who has a way with the ladies, but not in the conventional sense.
The episode begins with a mother giving birth. Yes, that does happen every day, but not when the baby is sporting a tail. In the rather small city of Morgantown, West Virginia, having *five* babies born with tails is highly unusual. So our favorite agents come to town to investigate, and it becomes a laughfest in the highest order.
Not since "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" have I laughed so hard from an X-Files episode. Gilligan has shown that when it comes to angst, he's risen to the challenge (just watch "Paper Hearts"). Yet, this is the first episode that he has shown a flair for comedy and does an outstanding job.
Investigating a fertility clinic where four of the mothers had treatments, Mulder finds a janitor with his pants falling to reveal a noticable scar on his rear end. Later, we find out his name is Eddie Van Blundht (Darin Morgan), who is positively identified through blood tests that he is the father of the five babies. He has no remorse for literally raping the women, but does not explain how he was able to make them not remember the incident.
Mulder and Scully find out that his father also had the tail-affliction after finding him dead and preserved in quick-lime. The scene in the examining bay with Mulder breaking off the tail was just too funny. I think I wore out my tape from that part alone. :-)
The main reason that this episode is an instant classic is because Eddie takes over Mulder's identity. The difference is subtle at first. The mannerisms and facial expressions are there, but it takes a trained eye to really watch out for it. Eddie has obviously had practice at impersonating people. He persuades Scully to call off the investigation and even survives Skinner's glare. Though he does need some help in his spelling.
Skinner: "You spelled Federal Bureau of Investigation wrong."
Mulder(Eddie): "Um, typo."
Skinner: "Twice."
The treat for the fans is that we really get to see what Mulder and Scully do in there off-time. Surprise, Surprise: pathetically nothing. Well, nothing that I would consider meaningful or fun. Eddie surveys Mulder's office after hilariously trying to unlock the door with unfamiliar keys. He sees the posters and reports strewn all throughout the wall. ("Good night! This is where my tax dollars go?") and goes to Mulder's apartment to find no bed ("Where the hell do I sleep?").
All of this is just the appetizer to the main course that many fans have been dying to see: an intimate evening between Mulder and Scully. In a span of less than five minutes, we are privy to scenes not normally shown on a typical "X-Files". It appears that Scully trusts Mulder so implicitly that she is not the least bit surprised to find him knocking on her door on a Friday night. The bottle of wine that FauxMulder (a name I've seen on the newsgroups to help avoid confusion) brings over does raise Scully's eyebrow but not enough that she isn't willing to drink. Not too surprising since she was spending an evening alone looking over Eddie's dad's autopsy reports for a monograph she was working on.
Though we see how close they are professionally, it was surprising to find out that after working together for over four years, they have never *really* talked! I'm sure Eddie was thinking how could this be. This is very worrisome, because even after the events in "Memento Mori," it would make some kind of sense that they would spend more off-time with each other.
Thus, the flirtatious overtures that FauxMulder has been giving Scully all night has thoroughly affected her. She comments how she is seeing another side of Mulder, and *likes* it! We see that FauxMulder is about ready to make the moves and kiss her when low and behold, the real Mulder breaks down the door and prevents...what? We'll never truly know.
Let's start with the good stuff...the last twenty minutes of the episode were priceless. Seeing the FauxMulder live it up and trying to get with Scully when the real Mulder has yet to get past the sophomoric teasings was a treat all to itself. Scully had no obvious objection to seeing her partner get closer than he ever has and willing to go through with it. The very fact that she told him an early sexual encounter during her senior year prom was just as intimate as when he tried to kiss her. Scully is trying to be more open to Mulder, while he is still obsessed with the X-Files.
If there were any episodes that I would love to see the blooper reels, this one ranks up there with "Szygy" and "Jose Chung's From Outer Space". Duchovny absolutely shines as both the real and the FauxMulder. He shows that he can do comedy very easily. For the many critics who complain of his supposed two-dimensional acting talents, this one should silence them. I wouldn't doubt that he loved just having fun with his own character. While Anderson made the rather difficult distinction of working with two different Mulder characters look believable and effortless. Kudos goes to Darin Morgan as well for making Eddie rather loveable and mischievous even though his actions were not exactly honorable. Though I could never truly hate a character with *my* name. ;-)
Gilligan did a rather brilliant job with the pacing of the story. Yet, I had problems with some plot holes. If Eddie is so good at impersonating other people, why didn't he just permanently change his looks? People do it all the time with plastic surgery. He saves himself money doing it the natural way. Also, how could a rather tubby Eddie impersonate the trim, much taller Mulder? On top of which, Eddie locked Mulder in a basement in a hospital in West Virginia. He had no wallet, money, cell phone, or gun. How the heck did he make it all the way back to Maryland *and* just in time to stop his partner from making whoopie with...himself?
Plot holes aside, this was still an excellent episode that will forever be enjoyed by many fans. Perhaps the issue of Scully ready to kiss a fake Mulder will never truly be resolved. A month passed, and it seems that they are still somewhat uncomfortable about the whole incident. "Never Again" showed what Scully would do in defiance of Mulder, but this episode shows what she would *like* to eventually happen between them. At least Scully shows her interest. When will Mulder do the same?
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