[nothing important happened today II 9x2]
© The X-Files

I was hoping that The X-Files would somehow get its groove back soon, and for the most part, it did so this week. I mentioned in my review of NIHT that middle episodes of multi-parters on TXF are generally the lesser of the bunch, and Nothing Important Happened Today II stuck to that pattern by hiking up the drama, raising the stakes and, heavens to Betsy, even tossing out an answer or two to some of my questions.

Since it has been a while since I watched the episode, and my notes are practically illegible, this won't be the most detailed examination. I'll try to hit some of the major points, though.

First, the episode title - an answer! From the mouth of Kersh, no less. "Nothing important happened today" was the July 4, 1776 diary entry of King George III of England. The implication being that revolutions can begin under the most mundane of circumstances. The apparently accidental death of one man, Carl Wormus, is a seemingly innocuous event; once investigated, however, his death told quite a tale. Kersh is beginning to win my favor back once again. He is more balanced this season, his character more nuanced. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him.

We also get an explanation for Skinner's recent un-Skinnerly behavior: he was told by Mulder and Scully to "leave it be." His insistence on dropping Doggett's investigation into the FBI and Kersh did not stem from fear for himself but was an attempt to protect Mulder, Scully and William. MP's scenes with GA have always been some of his best, and this one was no exception.

McFarland's call to the USS Valor Victory in the first part was also explained. The naval ship is home to a sea-going high-tech laboratory, a genetic lab in which scientists are manipulating ova for transplantation. The scenes on the bridge of the ship brought me back to "Colony" and "End Game" and the scenes on the submarine. The climactic ending on the dock and ship was a doozy - a face-squishing, a beheading, an evisceration-by-fist and a great, big explosion. I chuckled at the sign posted on the cabinet that contained the bomb: "Danger - Hazardous Materials".

The character of Shannon McMahon was expanded in this episode, revealing information not only about herself but also about the latest conspiracy developments. I think my appreciation for the character, as well as Lucy Lawless's portrayal played a large part in my enjoyment of the show. She is the perfect physical ideal for a female supersoldier, and she has that combination of mystery, menace and vulnerability that are necessary to make a shadowy character like hers effective. She obviously knows something, but just how much of what she's telling is the truth, well, you know how that goes. She's a bio-engineered combat unit with the voice of an angel. A dangerous combination. It's really too bad that we won't be seeing more of her character in the future (Lawless is pregnant and won't be returning). Her motivation at this point seems irrelevant.

Shannon spins a story about these bio-engineered supersoldiers, about how the men she killed had knowledge of a plan to "prime a population to breed a generation of super-soldiers" by contaminating the water supply with an agent that would promote the mutation of offspring, leading to the birth of a supersoldier from a mutated egg. Cool. No mention of an extra-terrestrial influence, but that's to be expected. I don't believe Shannon was being entirely altruistic and she certainly wasn't telling the whole truth. How much of what she said was the truth is up for debate, harkening back to the words of the (unfortunately not) immortal Deep Throat: "...a lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."

Scully listens to Shannon, actually is pretty much forced to listen, and finally, for a brief, shining moment, I see my Scully. She is fierce, alert, scientific and she asks all the right questions. For a few minutes she is able to lose the quivering voice, the watery eyes and the posture of indecisiveness and fear. Shannon is evasive, however, and Scully does not push as hard as she should for answers. Once again, her fear prevents her from doing so, even allows her to accept the results of her cursory physical examination of Shannon as proof that she is not what she says she is; when Doggett says that Shannon is the key to everything (guys, please find another catch-phrase), Scully even says that she hopes not, for her own sake. When her sister was murdered back in Season 3, Scully said to Mulder, "I've heard the truth, Mulder. Now what I want are the answers." Are the stakes so high now that she is no longer looking for answers? Is the enormity of what has been done to her, Mulder and the baby so overwhelming that she refuses to accept it? Maybe so, but she can't go on like that forever. That's where the hope is.

"It's freaky! It's mindblowin'!"

Oh, truer words were never spoken, Agent Doggett. Just how do these supersoldiers fit in with the ongoing mythology of the show? Are they even supposed to? I have to believe that they do; in an effort to resolve the current development with the existing mythology (such as it is), I went back and took a look at the progression of the conspiracy and the crux of what it was that they were doing. I'm probably digging my own grave here, but what the hell. I'm going to ignore the minutiae of the mythology and those things that I wish to ignore because they don't fit in with my theory, and just touch briefly on the salient points, those concerning cloning, hybrids and Scully. Hey, I say I can do whatever is necessary to make sense of this stuff.

Here we go:

So, what does all of this mean? Ya got me! Seriously, though...Here's what I'm thinking - this is a very malleable theory, by-the-way...

The creation of an alien/human hybrid in season 6 was the culmination of decades of Syndicate-led experimentation. The Syndicate was burned to a crisp in the same episode, effectively ending its reign (as far as we know). So was the hybrid/clone project also terminated? Or is the supersoldier project simply a continuation of it? I think so. Who's behind the project? That I can't answer, not yet at least. It is perfectly reasonable to me, however, to assume that these supersoldiers are not the product of a completely separate conspiracy but are the descendants, so to speak, of those who came before them. The bumps on the neck, while not only fitting nicely into the back-of-the-neck theme (chip, gimlet-stabbing-spot), clearly indicate to me the involvement of alien DNA. The plan has moved from the confines of the lab and is "expanding in ways never dreamed of", according to Shannon. They have achieved the first successful birth of a supersoldier from a mutated egg - William. This would mean that Scully somehow, at some point, had a mutated egg implanted - one of her own, I would presume. We know they have her eggs. This would explain how a once-barren Scully could conceive a child in the old-fashioned way and how that child could be both their child and a genetically-engineered alien hybrid supersoldier. And why Krycek would ask Skinner to terminate Scully's pregnancy in DeadAlive. While we're explaining things, the importance of William's birth to the conspiracy could also explain why the alien replicants simply walked away after William was born. They were not trying to harm Scully or her baby, but to ensure a safe birth, and possibly even to protect them from Krycek. It's perfectly reasonable for Mulder and Scully to think that William is normal. If he doesn't currently have the little bumps on the back of his neck, little William would exhibit none of the previous signs of alien/human hybrid-ness - like Billy Miles, the supersoldiers bleed red blood, just like us.

So, why supersoldiers? We know from Vienen that the black oil, the colonizing force in its viral/dormant form, is still out there, waiting. It's reasonable to assume that the vaccine that Krycek was bargaining with in DeadAlive was the vaccine developed against the black oil; would it have worked on Mulder? If the virus that he and Billy Miles was infected with was a mutated form of the black oil virus, then yes, perhaps. Billy Miles' transformation into a supersoldier after being infected by this virus ties the supersoldiers nicely back to black oilien colonists. Are these supersoldiers being created as a weapon for the colonists or against them? I think that's the big mystery now - their purpose. One of the reasons I enjoyed this episode is the way it got me to think about the mythology again - and that's always a good thing.

[back to ex post facto]

©2002, Regina M. Dardis, All Rights Reserved