#our last convo he asked me what soup he was and. i may have gone a lil overboard. but he should know that w me by now

[k-f-c-official]

rlly on a nostalgia kick rn (ish? does it count if its. recent nostalgia? like a different phase of life but a relatively recent phase of life?). listening to the band camino (haven’t listened to them since 10th grade) and some of the songs from “tryhard” remind me of my sister bc she introduced me to them after finding out i liked a few of their later songs. and that was nice. and then “1 last cigarette” came on and it was a gut punch reminding me of a friend (who ive known since i was six or seven and had a crush on for five years straight thru all of middle school and the first half of high school) i lost contact w this past fall (no idea why) and like. had to not cry bc he was a close friend n i miss him a lot.

[crossedbeams]

ROSE REVIEWS… THE X-FILES - S1.E11 Eve

<<1.10 Fallen Angel ———————————  1.12 Fire >>

I’m salty today and what better way than to transfer that into something positive than to finish this long overdue and almost certainly irrelevant recap of Eve. Read on for children who are almost as scary as their acting is bad, prison aesthetics and idiotic blithering by me.

THE PLOT

The fathers of creepy children are being exsanguinated on opposite coasts and Mulder wants to know the aliens have upgraded from cows. IVF suspicions run wild and with a little help from good old Deep Throat, the terrific two suspect genetic government experiments gone wrong may be responsible for the shenanigans. When the creepy kids go missing, things escalate and soda becomes a very dangerous refreshment...

Let’s go...

MY STREAM OF SEMI-CONSCIOUSNESS

Ah. The X-Files, the show that is always a scenic autumnal bath for my eyes…. And where under the leaves there is probably a dead person eaten by a molewoman or an alien. Honey? I’m home.

We find ourselves in an idyllic suburban neighbourhood, (always bad news on screen), where very concerned joggers approach an underdressed child and her stuffed animal. It’s hard at this stage to decipher whether the kid is creepy or just a really bad actor but the suspense synth hardly encourages us to give her the benefit of the doubt...

They head to the backyard, where peppy jogging neighbour fails to notice that the kid’s dad is dead coloured, posed like a corpse and basically, stereotypically and obviously dead... until he claps him jovially on the shoulder causing a tragicomic half slump of dead dad, and exposing vampiric looking marks. The kid screams, not sure why, she’s way too far away to see anything. This is the point at which I begin to suspect that she is both a bad actor AND entry #224 in the Vancouver local listing of Creepy Kids for Hire. Move over Conduit boy!

CREDITS!

This week we only wait 2.5 mins for our special baby Agents to materialise, Scully dressed as a Catholic grade schooler and Mulder wearing a tie designed, as far as I can tell, to look like mushroom soup with licorice allsorts floating in it.

Their poor fashion choices don’t seem to put them off them though, and we zigzag between lip biting (Mulder), making weird moany noises (Scully), and the level of inter office eye contact we’ve come to expect from these fluffy baby agents all set to a soundtrack of cattle mutilation chatter. And our series first (!) cow slideshow!

Scully is still naive enough to ask why Mulder believes cattle mutilation is linked to aliens. Give it a few weeks and you’ll realise that aliens is pretty much always the answer to “Why….” on the X-Files and that eyebrow is the only appropriate response before you just go with it.

I can’t wait :D

As Mulds and Sculls traverse some stairs, I realise that creepy kid #1 is called Teena. Spelled the same as Mulder’s mum. Because apparently the X-Files name bank isn’t only shallow in the male department. Also is Teena a normal spelling in the States? Here it’d only really be Tina….

I then get distracted by Scully in the biggest of purple coats. I’d love to see S1 Scully’s closet. A symphony of oversized pastels with overcoats to clash… don’t worry though hon. You’ll get some style later though for the bargain price of two (2) family members and also your ova. Poor Scully.

Scully also looks incredibly young in this scene, speaking all soft to the kid. Moments like this I struggle to believe that Mulder “never saw her as a mom” until Home. She’s all melty round the edges even though the kid is weird and creepy.

When creepy Teena starts talking about red lightning, the massively coached and unnatural pauses in dialogue and the trouble pronouncing exsanguination are just so glaring you can’t believe that this kid’s innocent charade will hold up as long as it does. But it all adds to the creep, just in time for…

**bring bring ** Scully leans in to kiss her spoopy partner tell Mulder there has been another murder. Darn. Seriously though. Close talkin to the power on uuuungghhh right here. No wonder this fandom is so thirsty.

We’re in Vancouver San Franciso, still in giant coats, for another exsanguination and what we now know is death by digitalis. Mulder says that the two estimated times of death were at the “exact same time” and I chuckle to myself like the pedant I am. Estimates cannot be exact dumdum. It also takes the edge off him mansplaining timezones to Scully. SHE IS A MEDICAL DOCTOR DAMMIT. 

This scene has very nice warm, sunsetty lighting which is nice as our Spooksters demonstrate why the X-Files department is always over budget; they’ve flown cross country to do two laps of a crime scene while reading a file aloud and the kid they wanna question isn’t even in town. Where is she? I’m glad you asked, coz remember that sunny warmness? Well it’s over.

Back on the east coast, creepTeena is getting outcreeped by a thunderstorm and what appear to be disembodied footsteps at her door. We see nothing but a flash and then the door is open. It’s tense and I’m pretty sure this is never explained, raised as a concern beyond “she got abducted”?

A new day means new suits, Mulder in a tie inspired by parquet flooring and Scully in eggshell and pinstripes and a brown trenchcoat named regret. It’s a lot to process and they still don’t seem overly concerned about Teena’s kidnapping. Despite his post Samantha abduction PTSD, Mulder’s only contribution is a dramatic sky point and the suggestion the cops need to look up, but then dun dun dduuuuunh - there’s another one.

Sinister Cindy in the house. Literally.

She informs them she has lived there “since she was born eight years ago”. Zero inflection with that info and a sentence structure as unnatural as the phenomena Mulder wants to blame. Deffo a rent-a-creepykid. 100%. The woodenness only adds to it.

Commence super awkward kitchen convo where they Mulder and Scully try and fail to find a tactful way to imply Cindy might not be this grieving wife’s legitimate child. A birthing video is offered and declined. Thank god. Imagine is CHris Carter had to watch rushes of an actual woman’s vagina with a female child emerging. 

Mrs Reardon’s insistence that Cindy was daddy’s girl is pretty horrifying once you know how it ends. Damn creepy kids. Listening in while watching politics, Cindy is infinitely creepier than Teena and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not for this kid “actor”.

Back in the car and Mulder is still pretty blase about Teena’s abduction/kidnap, though I forgive him because his flippant potato/potahto is adorable and he does hang out in the bushes to try and protect Cindy from getting nabbed sending Scully off to the IVF clinic alone. Ahh... the foreshadowing is out there.

At the Luther Stapes Medical Centre, a doctor mansplains IVF to Scully. She does not punch him. Another way that she is better than me.She does however, maintain super intense eye contact with him for the entire walk and truly it is a miracle she doesn’t fall over.

The next scene is pretty uneventful except that I can honestly say that Sally Kendrick is the last human I would want toying with my cervix. She’s...robotic and it looks like she has to work out how to sit down like a human. She could give Theresa May lessons.

Back at the hotel there’s some funky camera panning that I am here for and also I think there is some dialogue but let’s be honest.... this is more important 

Yes Professor I would like some extra credit and may I also just smooth your poofy hair.

Even Scully knows it. Hence her confusion at being ushered out, for no obvious reason. She just wants to look at him and maybe get inside his shirt and ... and... Mulder’s “what’s a girl” is cute.... but this is cuter. (even more overanalysing of this scene here for ya glasses lovers). 

Instead of meeting a girl, Mulder meets Deep Throat in an excessively aesthetically pleasing place. Honestly, Eve is a beautiful episode. Despite the creepy kids and imprisoned women. (Eve Aesthetic here). DT seems very concerned that Scully not be invited and while I’m sure that this has some link to the possibility of spy!Scully, it reads more as jealous older manfriend wants pretty Mulder to himself. And honestly I get it. God, fic has ruined me. Anyway, enough of that, enjoy this picture of pensive waterside Mulder and try to recall the specifics of the Deep Throat reveal. Project Blah. Boys called Adam. Girls called Eve. Clones. Bad. Disaster. EVE-il is at work. ¬¬ (sorry)

Mulder has brought sunflower seeds because meeting an informant without snacks = rookie error. 

The important thing to note is that Deep Throat basically sets the stage for the Super Soldier Arc and everyone forgets about it when they actually get to the super soldier arc. God, for a continuity pedant, my fave is SO problematic!

Deep Throat finishes by telling Mulder he’s scored him front row seats to what’s left of the whole fucked up thing.

Cut to the most aesthetic Institute for the criminally insane and after some hot DAMN camera angles we get panic buttons and a tromp into the deeps where they keep all the government created monsters, including Eve 6.

I just wanna take a moment away from my snark and give a huge shout out to Harriet Harris who is SO good and creepy in this episode. A lot of the Season 1 extras/bit parts are average to the extreme and honestly, Harris makes this episode. Without her eyeball biting, jerky, wild eyed delivery, this ep would be as mediocre as the creepy twin actresses.

Now we’ve got that out of the way - we find out that Eve 6 screams when the lights are on but is fine with  an industrial sized flashlight being shone all up in her face.  Nobody’s ever got a good look at her... except presumably the person who undoes her straitjacket so she can pee? And now Mulder and Scully.

Eve 6 is my fave Eve tbh. She’s this perfect mix of terrifying and pitiful, alludes to the telekinetic connection that the younger Eve twins later reference, and is the kind of proof of government misdeed that and older Mulder and Scully despair of, delivered while they’re way too young in their partnership to do anything about it. She tells them that Eves are into suicide, psychosis and murder, and on exiting, our baby agents still don’t suspect the kids.

(Break for actual analysis) It struck me during this scene how this case tunes into both Mulder and Scully’s demons. For Mulder, it’s the missing girls and the incarcerated Eve represents a scenario that could explain Samantha’s absence in the most horrifying ways. What if she is a locked up experiment just like Eve 6? For Scully it’s a visceral representation of her struggle between scientific duty and Christian morality. The creation of Eve 6 is an aberration against both good scientific practice AND the divine right of Good to control life and death... and yet she is also a victim who did not choose too be engineered and while Scully tries to question her, maintaining composure, this face/stress swallow really says it all.

Just to double the sucker punch we cut to Cindy asking the lord to take her soul, her mother looking on with a mournful doomladen stare before telling her daughter how special she is. Cindy is unmoved, because she is special(ly evil) and Mama Reardon leaves, bereft of her husband and unacknowledged by her kid. We get it Chris Carter. Genetic experimentation BAD, family GOOD, foreboding, CHECK.... now can we just-

Mulder Scully stakeout! There is no iced tea in the bag and when Mulder posits that the adult Eves 7 & 8 did done the murders, Scully pulls this face, and mutters without much conviction that she was beginning to suspect the girls. 

GOOD CALL SCULLY

Except Mulder then says “no no and here is why” and Scully just goes with it. The whole delivery at set up of this scene feels very Season 1, by which I mean Scully vacillates wildly between submitting to Mulder’s experience and being done.with.his.shit, Mulder gets all the big lines/theories/feelings/hunches and Gillian especially (and David to a lesser degree) seem unsure how to play their nuances and dynamic. Essentially it all becomes irrelevant because CRISIS takes precedent but being the super-nerd I am, this stuff fascinates me as evidence of them still learning their characters. No way S5 Scully gives up on a plausible theory so easily, even if it makes 8-yos into suspects. If cats can be evil, these staring, soulless kids can be too.

Cue Mark Snow jangles and Cindy and her similar to Teena’s bunny rabbit run away from her terrifying wall dolls and many crucifixes towards the window where she makes terrifying eye contact with Scully’s binoculars before getting grabbed by someone who is considerate enough to announce themselves by turning on the lights?!.

Mulder will take the back! (any time Mulder. Any way ¬¬ ) and sets off with his almost convincingly held gun/torch combo while Scully takes the indoors. This is, invariably, only going to go one way.

DOWN GOES SCULLY!

Sally Kendrick/Eve? leaps through the window where Mulder confronts her by asking her which Eve she is, allowing her a chance to pull a gun, shoot at him and escape and this is why you don’t want S1 Muldo and Sculls handling your home invasion. I mean who holds their gun like this, takes out a psychopath and ends the day without a hole in them?

Fox “Thinks he can outrun a car” Mulder is who. 

I love his idiot face though.

Despite the fact that Cindy didn’t struggle/scream/react to her apparent kidnap at all, Scully’s remaining focussed on the adult Eves in support of Mulder’s dismissal of her earlier theory... well I already said it but - *sigh*

After Scully briefs the police and Mulder tries to reassurea distraught Mrs Reardon that her increasingly abnormal daughter will be found we get the kind of side by side, meaningful  moment that I am here for all day long. Except that the height difference is so extreme that they never actually get Scully in focus!

And Scully’s “and then what” brings us back to unsettling truth that even if the kid gets found, things aren’t looking good for her given how much murder is in her genes. Poor Mrs Reardon.

Very X-Files, through-the-motel-sign shot and we see Sally Kendrick taking Cindy into motel to meet Teena. The girls look... creepy... and Kendrick looks weirdly and simplistically happy given that she has multiple abductees, severe genetic issues and the FBI on her back. Maybe poor old Sal just wants a normal life? Unlucky girl, this is the X-Files, no happy ending for anyone EVERR. Except possibly a two-faced rapist who likes Cher but that’s for another time.

Back to Sally Kendrick who is rocking a poloneck and showing a remarkable lack of nutritional concern for someone supposedly a genius. Pretty sure 8 cartons of fries are no better for psychotic murder-kids than regular ones. She begins to explain that she was pretty hopeful that she’s evolved the murdering out of her second batch of Eves but turns out she actually made it worse! Let’s pop a check in the box for “playing into popular concerns about genetic testing” and “reasons you shouldn’t do it yourself”. She tells Cindy and Teena she’s “disappointed” that they’ve done murders ahead of the curve. They are not bothered which is unsurprising given they don’t know her/are psychopaths.

Aesthetically this scene is very pleasing and the lack of stilted kid dialogue “we just knew” vs. long sentences definitely adds to tension. As does the total lack of background music. Hearing even these fairly limited actors candidly and remorselessly admit to murder is effective. And Kendrick’s slightly desperate plea that they not think that way, that they be “better” as she designed has the double effect of showing her own Eve-y instability and her very human desire to not have made a horrible mistake in creating this terrifying she-devils.

Sorry Sal.

Genetic destiny’s a bitch

And the X-Files narrative demands that when you play god you get dead. unless you’re the CSM in which case you probably drink digitalis and kale for breakfast to aid skin regrowth. Bye bye Sally Kendrick. Thanks for the creepers.

On attending the crime scene, Mulder and Scully are midway through being told that the scene is undisturbed when they hear stuff breaking. This prompts some X-Files-Action-MagicTM and some truly outrageous faces by Gillian.

Yup

What is most disturbing on rewatching is that with the scene secured, Scully confirms death and Mulder goes to gaze out the window while the Creeper twins cower and cry on the floor. Noe we know they’re guilty AF by this point, but in the narrative DumbScull and MulderingItOver haven’t quite got there because they’ve been too busy gazing at each other so we have two children just whimpering in the corner while Scully pokes a corpse and Mulder mulders about. 

Scully does eventually go and pat them. And again I say fuck you CC and anyone else who “didn’t see her as a mother”.

Mulder volunteers to chaperone the creepsters to hospital and beyond and the guy in charge kinda just goes “meh”. Pretty sure some liberties have been taken with child service procedures but hey, at least this means we’re almost at the crescendo moment. Right?

Having loaded them into the car, where their spiffy red outfits match the velour upholstery and promised they’ll talk about “what happens next” (again, is this really FBI jurisdiction? Fox Mulder counselling bereaved kids seems like a HORRIBLE plan to me) , Scully and Mulder note the girls attachment and somehow miss the horrifying expressions of murder on their creepy little faces. 

Again though #aesthetic

Cue some spangly night driving music, Mulder looking all pops over a red vinyl steering wheel, Scully playing mom and the creepsters plotting murder in the back. Ver ver X-Files. They pull up to a used car lot masquerading as a rest stop and go for a group wee,Mulder makes the rookie error of a) hyping evil kids with sugar and b) letting them order a murder weapon, and as soon as Scully’s distracted, one of the creepsters, possibly Sinister Cindy creeps out to spike the drinks. 

Now at this point, honestly, I’m questioning the kids narrative motives. Yes they’re murderous, but aren’t they also meant to be hyper intelligent? Amd getting marooned at a nowhere rest stop, with the corpses of two FBI agents seems SUPER dumb. Like they’re a bit small and loudly dressed to hitch a ride to Vegas and make it on the strip. What gives, creepsters?

The waitress tries to stop her plan by insisting she wait to take the soda until it’s paid for, but is way too easily placated by the kids excuse. Stick to your guns lady, you might just stop a murder.

Although apparently nobody is paying any attention because THIS ISN’T SUSPICIOUS AT ALL IS IT?

Apparently Mulder doesn’t think so, even knowing digitalis is sweet and that there is something weird afoot, he doesn’t question his super sweet diet drink or the kids totally normal and not at all weirdly resistant to drinking sugar free soda and just does this. Seriously it’s like he wants to die in agony.

Scully’s not much better, simply commenting on the “syrupy” taste. MMhmm. Bitch. You’re a medical doctor with a previously voiced suspicion. Quit sipping the murder juice.

Fortunately, after some suspenseful drawn out paying and a forgotten key excuse, Mulder FINALLY twigs when he finds some green goop on the table. Apparently murderTwin is cackhanded when she pours and Mulder, having licked the poison just to check it’s murdery enough (I just cant even) rushes outside to karate chop Scully’s drink away from her in a way so unsubtle that the creepers escape.

Which is actually great news because it gives us all the chance for a nice dark, X-Files bread and butter cat and mouse around a truckstop, cool lighting and tubey-arty stuff sequence. Which I’m here for. 

Despite some pants ruining puddles, the twins are quickly apprehended except for some gun wielding truckers interfere because in this universe regular citizens can hold law enforcement at gunpoint and prevent them doing their job/identifying themselves and anyway everyone almost gets shot and the kids run off again. I should probably insert some pithy political point here about arming the kids too but I’ve been writing this review for 84 years and I don’t have the energy.

Fortunately, at this point Mulder and Scully rediscover some investigative nous and having flashed an ID and truckboy, they trick Sinister and Creepy into thinking they’ve sped off after a school bus. Mulder goes full on child catcher and nabs them with a “gotcha” and is finally deaf to their “we’re just little girls” plea.

I’d like to take a second to flag up his response “that’s the last thing you are” because he’s wrong too. They are little girls, as well as psychopaths, and everyone’s insistence that they must be one thing or another is a device for narrative obfuscation as old as the bible. The appearance of beauty/youth/innocence is not mutually exclusive of the presence of malign intent or evil. Just ask Henry James/Oscar Wilde. Or me. I literally wrote a dissertation on this so. Yeah. They can be little girls and killers Mulder. Don’t be reductive.

But I guess we do need the simplicity of “this kid is evil” otherwise Mrs Reardon ripping her daughter out of a picture and burning it would be more conflicting and we’re only on season 1. 

Likewise the disturbing concept of two eight year olds in a secure prison. I mean yes thy’re creepy but - duh duh dunnnnh - rescue is at hand! Eve 8 shows up for them and once again thy “just knew”. This is the kind of X-Files ending I love. This is the kidn of story I would have loved the revivals to pick up. Imagine (recast) grown Cindy and Teena, off doing murdery clone stuff. Yep. Okay. I’m done now. This is the end. 

Except the score. Which is...

A solid “C” Grade (26/50)

Plot 6/10 - It’s entertaining and a good idea but I penalised it because it depends on Mulder and Scully being super slow on the uptake. That said, they do actually solve the case.

Mulder  6/10 - Mulder is in charge (thanks S1) and presents a mess of grieving brother, heroic car catcher and good cop. Good, in character stuff but not exceptional.

Scully  4/10 - Scully seems to forget she’d an MD and a badass here. She lets Mulder talk her out of (correct) suspicions, gets taken down in the action scene and generally second fiddles. She’s a cute mom but not the Scully we want to see.

USP 3/5  - This was an ambitious idea, beautifully presented, and while it didn’t quite get the polish to make it iconic it is memorable, creepy and a good representation of S1 bread and butter eps. 

Other Characters  5/10 - These points are all for Harriet Harris. None for you creeper twins. None for you.

Bonus points 2/10 - One for being aesthetically pleasing. One for the dorky, cute, feeling out Mulder/Scully moments (motel urnghh) and also their mom and pop act at the rest stop.

That’s all for now folks. I’ll probably have the next one done this decade. Fire. Goodie.

<< 1.10 Fallen Angel ———————————  1.12 Fire >>