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Babylon, the penultimate episode of The X-Files miniseries takes a look at the nature of terrorism, hate and love in the 21st Century while straddling the divide between life and death. Plus, Mulder takes a placebo that still yields insights to prevent a terror attack! This episode was written and directed by show creator Chris Carter and aired February 15, 2016 to an audience of 7.1 million viewers.
The news is still out there this week with two stories for you. First is an article from The Inquisitor chatting with Chris Carter on the return of the Lone Gunmen. We follow that with a really interesting interview with series composer Mark Snow in Vice’s site Thump.
Then it’s time to delve into this episode that has divided fans, some from the portrayal of the villains, some from the introduction of new agents, and some lamenting the impending end of the series. Then we look into the Spooky Drawer to learn about the Arabic word Bismillah, Theosophy and Madame Blavatsky, and Einstein’s Twin Paradox. We wind up this week with all of the terrific feedback from everyone!
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I have to say this is tied for my top episode of the 6 episode X-Files mini-event… so far at least.
It has just about everything: the wickedly accurate humor along with the silly humor, the very aggressive and foreshadowing plotline paralleled with the sweet sentiment of days gone bye, a remarkably insightful, guiding and playful soundtrack, along with the great cameos we all crave.
On a scale of 1-to-10, I would have to give this ” 9 Crushed Egg Shell Skulls ” out of 10.
One super solid thread was the call for ‘World Peace & Understanding’ – – it was poignant and well-conceived – – contrasting the fanaticism of religious zealotry with the bigoted prejudice of the ICU nurse while the grieving mom only wanted the life of her child to not have followed the path that it took. The Dana chat with Fox about motherhood ‘hopes and dreams’ echoed the situation too.
I think the best part of the episode was the parallel character introduction. Einstein and Miller fully represented the younger Scully and Mulder: same general body-type, same general backgrounds and professional skills, along with an uncanny duplicate Zeitgeist. But – the best part was that their core values, egos and basic Gestalt were all transposed. Miller had all of the pace, cadence and demurring persona of Scully, while Einstein had all of the angst, animosity and trepidation of Mulder. Brilliant!
This was definitely the ‘best written’ of the first five episodes and should quickly be Emmy-nominated for that effort along with ‘best episode’ in the ‘limited event’ category.
The final 10 minutes was cathartic. Miller and Einstein definitely earned top-brownie-points for their final scene and Scully and Mulder have never been more likeable as partners, colleagues, friends, and/or lovers. Their last scene together made the previous 180-plus episodes and movies worth every second I spent watching them. They were holding hands and ‘out standing in their field ‘ or was that just Mulder’s ungroomed front yard. [8^)
Cheers – DocH.
My only additional hope from here-on-out is that the final episode is brilliant and devastatingly entertaining.