*"Sein Und Zeit", 7x10*

This ep has me really worried. First off, I can't believe that Chris and co. killed off Mulder's mom, although it fits with the plot really well. One would have thought that Mulder would be able to handle his mother's death, seeing as how they aren't very close, and yet Mulder still breaks down when he's hit with the full impact of her death and what it could possibly mean. It was nice to see Scully there for him, because in my humble opinion, I thought that writers really screwed this one up as far as their relationship is concerned. Gillian and David, I think, did the best they could with what the scripts said, because what should have seemed like total stiffness and even bad temperament with each other, came across as concern and reluctance to dig too deep.

Skinner was sort of out of character for the first few scenes, and some others during the show, as well. I'm glad that, ultimately, he trusted Mulder's judgement and let him get involved, even though it seemed to do more damage to him. As we'll see with the next episode, a continuation of this one called "Closure", Mulder may find what he doesn't want to find.

The gravesite, where Mulder, Scully, and Skinner arrest the man they believe to be the murderer, is probably the most shocking part of the episode. One can only imagine what was going through Mulder's head, at the thought of his sister possibly being among those graves, or going through Scully's, flashing back to when Emily died. Both agents were being struck from different angles as to the major amount of grave sites, but I think that just seeing did sufficient damage to both. As for Skinner, I think he's the type of man who maybe didn't have such a close relationship with this particular case, but was horrified just the same.

This is definitely another one of those series that is not for the light of heart. Child deaths are terrible enough without Hollywood turning them into an hour of entertainment, and even though I absolutely love this show, it seems to me that death and harming of children, innocents, has been played up a little too much. At any rate, this ep should be the closure of what happened to Samantha, but in the grand tradition of Chris and Co., I doubt we'll have any more closure than what we began with.

Come back for more next week, and please feel free to send comments in as well!