Scully discovers that she is being watched by someone who wants to tell Mulder all about the supersoldiers roaming the Earth. Unfortunately, it's not clear if he wishes harm on the agent, or what his plans are for Scully's baby.
This is an almighty mess. Considering how simplified the mythology is now, quite why Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz can't write a coherent script between them is anybody's guess. The supersoldier story was pretty adequately fleshed out in the opening two-parter. They can't be killed, they're out and about, and we're not really sure what their purpose is and how or if they fit into the ongoing government conspiracy. Fine. So why does this story feel such an overriding need to overcomplicate things once again, with almost every character lumbered with the most incomprehensible, meaningless dialogue Chris Carter has yet come up with. And that's saying something. There are no answers again, merely riddles, double-talk, nonsensical turns of events, traitors where none are required, and a suggestion that somehow Mulder has gained in importance.
This is the biggest problem: Mulder. He's not in this series, so trying to prise him into it is ludicrous in the extreme and goes to show that Carter has no desire to just leave well alone and find a way to write round the problem. At the end of last season, the supersoldiers had no interest in Mulder at all, and were concerned purely with Scully's child. Now, all of a sudden, Mulder is a huge threat. Why? Since when? We're told he's 'gone underground' to escape them, but if that's the case why didn't he take baby William too and get him out of harm's way? If the so-called 'Shadow Man' has seen Scully have sex with Mulder and knows so much else about her, how come he couldn't track Mulder once he left Scully's apartment that fateful day?
On top of this, after years of writing off the possibility of a romance between Mulder and Scully, now we're supposed to believe that they've been hot lovers for ages, and close enough that they're sending each other intimate-sounding e-mails. With no on-screen evidence of this deep love, it all comes as something of a surprise. Not only that, but somewhere along the line Scully has become some kind of Barbara Cartland figure, churning out the kind of prose no normal person would ever come up with.
And then there's Mulder's appearance. As I've already said, there should be a way to work round him. But no. Carter puts him centre stage in the action, knowing full well he can't appear. The train Mulder's on is forced to drive through the station in a horribly contrived bit of scripting, then we get word he's leapt out at a quarry where everyone runs to. We and Doggett see a shadowy figure that presumably is David Duchovny's stunt double for a brief second and that's it. It's such an obvious cover-up of Duchovny's absence that you will kill yourself laughing, there's simply no other way to react. Not only that but it screams out that it's a desperate attempt to bring viewers back to the show by hints of Mulder still being present. It's not going to work. And if Carter insists on pulling another ridiculous stunt like this, complete with no story and dreadful plotting (although some great-looking shots), he's going to lose the few followers he has left.
*
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