X-Files 7.11 "Closure"

"Oh yay, a seance."

Well? The episode is titled "Closure." Mulder may feel like he has
some, but I sure don't--which isn't a complaint. I found the music at the
teaser and at the climax, with all the happy dead kids? Very creepy. Chris
Carter/Mulder's line about the murders being cruel "even for God" is the
same ol tired vague hostility I spoke of a few weeks ago: I think Mulder
and Scully actually fighting this out, Mulder's rage against God and
Scully's (apparent) faith in Him, would be good television, but all
carter seems interested or up to is a throwaway jab. 24 dead kids is a lot of
dead kids--and a lot of cleared cases. It would be nice if they would
have had our heroes getting a little credit or even a pat on the back from
Skinner for doing something good.

Harold Piller was so creepy to me, and I was surprised and not a little
disappointed when he turned out to be just a misguided psychic dad. The
actor will always be Dr. Chilton from "Silence of the Lambs": "I am not
some turnkey, Miss Starling." What a bummer about the sequel, huh? I
mean, the book was a horrific piece of garbage, but I had hoped they'd get
Jodie Foster back with a good script. now they're either going to recast Agt.
Starling or have another agent go after Lecter. That's not what I've
been waiting 9 years for, but...oh well.

Loved protective Scully and her "dis" of Piller "Uh, we've got real work
to do." Then she sees Mulder's in gullible/desperate mode and falling under
his sway. Again, still, the "walk-in" idea didn't gel for me. Good
Spirits save these children how exactly? From what? Do they stay in
freaky kid land or are they given other bodies to inhabit (I was so
afraid that would be Mulder's new quest: to find his sister's "new life."
X-Files tried re-incarnation before to disastrous results). ANYWAY, I still
don't get it. We get the year: it WAS 73, not 74 when Samantha was abducted.
The discussion of regressive hypno-therapy was great and accurate:
hypnosis is very spurious, because when you're in that state, you can't recognize
the difference between things you've imagined or dreamed and reality,
which has, unfortunately, led to false accusations and memories of all types.

Tangent: Ben Affleck just bugs the crap out of me, and the commercials
for that "Reindeer Games" movie looks like a fake Saturday night Live
commercial to me. And he's going to host SNL next week too, great. I
don't know what it is I just want to slug him everytime I see him (and
he's on every freaking magazine this week to so I'm in a violent mood.)
Mulder's mom is always giving Mulder little clues, even from the grave;
seems she could've just told him all this so he wouldn't have become the
work-obsessed, socially stunted emotional cripple we all know an love,
but hey, that's just me. "April Air Force base" is surely a euphemism for
"March Air Force Base" which is/was out near Riverside, Ca. I think it's
closed but I'm not really sure. I hate that we know Cancerman's name.
It's just not as cool, especially his pretentious three initials.

By this time, Scully barely raises an eyebrow at the fact that she comes
home to discover a bad guy is in her apartment. Dana, it's time to move,
seriously. As far as I can remember, this is their first real meeting.
Could be wrong. He makes reference to being ill due to an operation: the
one that made him a hybrid of some type instead of Mulder.

The handprints of Jeffrey and Samantha were touching, but it seemed weird
that Mulder was so willing to believe it wasn't a set-up--I still can't
believe it wasn't. Does leather jacket Scully have the same effect on
you guys as Leather Jacket Mulder does on me? :) Scully's seeming to take
Cancerman's story at face value, arguing his case, seemed odd. I also
didn't get it when Mulder said "You went to him?" and Scully's just
repeated what he told her rather than say "No, I came home and he was
sitting in my living room." It would have been nice if Scully had made a
reference to growing up on base housing herself as they crept around the
abandoned Air Force Base--or if she made some disparaging cracks: "Man,
The Air Force Sucks. Navy RULES!" No?

Loved surly Scully reluctantly taking part in the seance, though I think
she should have kept one eye open like a true skeptic. Mulder's "spin
the bottle" crack seemed to genuinely fluster her--"mulder, don't flirt with
me in front of the creepy psychic." AGAIN, I didn't really get what we saw,
in terms of the ghosts, because we saw "Spender" which was Cancerman in
his younger days, and since he's alive, I guess those weren't literally
ghosts, just figurative ones. Was that Mulder leading him Samantha's diary and
eventually her? Or Jeffrey finally being a brother? The diary stuff was
very effective, I thought, and as usual, Gillian doesn't need dialogue
for us to see that she's relating to Samantha as a fellow victim of the
tests.

All this stuff: the idea that Samantha was abducted, experimented on and
returned but not to the Mulder's, concurs with earlier plot points, going
way back into the second season, in fact: The Colony/End Game two-parter
presented us with a Samantha who spoke of a troubled past and
psychological problems. She turned out to be a clone. Then there was the woman Mulder
met at the diner who claimed to be Samantha--funny Mulder doesn't mention
her either--I mean, do they think we'd be confused? Don't they know that
for obsessed people like me it's only confusing when they DON'T make it
more complicated? I never really liked the actress they had playing
Samantha in any of those scenes. She doesn't resemble any of the young
Samantha's they've used in the past. Even in this episode, 14 year-old
ghost Samantha has lighter hair and eyes, whereas 8 year old abducted
Samantha always has dark eyes and hair (even in photos we saw last week)
Maybe it was the alien tests.

Mulder and Scully track down the nurse in Victorville, CA, which is out
near Ontario (?) The walk-in thing is brought up AGAIN, just to confuse
me. Is it a mass delusion used to block painful reality from entering
the person's mind? I loved Scully handling things for mulder, but think he'd
go talk to the woman, if he really thought she was his last link to his
sister. then he goes to scary dead kid land. (Was that supposed to be
heaven?) The reality is, monstrous things DO happen to children and
adults everyday, and yes, God does allow it. It's very difficult to accept and
impossible to really understand and that image of the kids playing in
thisworld where they are kids forever alone and playing, no parents--I found
it more ghoulish than comforting. I don't know what Heaven is going to be
like, but I'm sure music will play forward and not backward, that's for dang sure.

Ultimately, I liked his reunion with Samantha (choosing to believe it
wasn't a literal vision, of course) but his acceptance of his sister's
death was troubling...does he think she was killed at 8 in Massachusetts
or at 14 in California? I have to believe there's more to this story. I
personally believe Samantha WAS abducted by aliens, and it would be cool
if she was alive out there, trying to remember Mulder and find him. That
could have been this whole last season, if you ask me. Maybe that's
what's in store for us in the (hopefully) series finale--Samantha turns up. I
mean, what else can it be? This episode makes it hard to imagine another
year. It seems logical that, without the conspiracy, without Samantha,
both agents will start to need something else, a different challenge.
I'm looking forward to the "Cops" take off, looks great.

Be sure to catch me on Tuesday's "Who wants to marry a multimillionaire"
and keep your fingers crossed!!! Can you imagine? I will probably
watch a little of it, because it's so irresistibly tasteless. Last week, I
praised my homeland, Northern California. Tonight, I was given a big
reason why. In NorCal, they know what "Stormy" means. the fact that it
has been raining off an on for the last couple is a storm by Socal
standards--the news has these graphics of lightning bolts hitting the LA
skyline and stuff, even thought there hasn't been any lightning or even
any real downpours (haven't even had an inch, total, still Waaaay below
normal, still need to drain another Northern California Lake and kill an
ecosystem to get all that car-cleaning water for the summer). Then they have the
nerve, after showing traffic jams they claim are weather related (seems
to me we have them during the 350 dry days too) and maybe some palm fronds
that have fallen into the street, they have the nerve to say "And we're
not alone" and then they show ACTUAL flooding in Petaluma and then they show
all this terrible damage in Arkansas and Tennessee--trees down, power
poles down, buildings damaged. Yeah, that's comparable. NOTE TO SOCAL NEWS
MEDIA: If you can still get excited about how great the surf is and how
good the skiing's gonna be in Big Bear, guess what: it's not a natural
disaster. And my advice to Malibu: YES the hills are sliding, YES they
will catch fire this summer. MOVE. Malibu people are like Dana Scully,
though and aren't going anywhere.

Have a great week everybody! :) christine