X-Fact: When Scully sees a vision of her father shortly before learning of his death, actor Don Davis is silently reciting the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a fine introduction to Scully’s family or at least part of it - all of which becomes more valuable down the line. Little touches make this work so well, including Mulder calling Scully “Dana” in a moment of tender sympathy for her recent loss, and the believable relationship between the seemingly distant military man and his FBI daughter, who still feels like a disappointment to him despite all she has achieved. Kudos also goes to Brad Dourif for instilling Luther Lee Boggs with such creepy charisma, shape-shifting emotionally as he claims to channel spirits and proving more than a match for Duchovny and Anderson. Don Davis and Sheila Larkin offer excellent support as Scully’s parents, the dedicated naval man and the emotional wife who wants to badly to think her husband has contacted them from beyond the grave. Writers Glen Morgan and James Wong also dig beneath the often icy veneer Scully has used as self-defence to this point, allowing Gillian Anderson to give her some welcome emotional warmth as we learn a little more about what makes her tick. Beyond The SeaĪn early twist on the Mulder-as-believer/ Scully-as-sceptic division, with Dana quicker to accept a self-proclaimed psychic on Death Row after he talks about her just-deceased father.
#X files episode home crack
X-Fact: Actual SWAT team members appear in the episode, breaking down the door of the crack house.
Throw in an off-screen cameo from Freddy Krueger, some long bravura tracking shots and Scully’s increasing annoyance at being followed by a camera crew, and you have an experiment in form that works gangbusters.
We particularly like the fact that the format allows Mulder to drop a bleeped-out F-bomb, and his exhortation to a petrified cop to “cowboy up”. X-Cops could have been a gimmicky disaster, but Gilligan’s sharp writing and the nicely underplayed performances help elevate it to classic status. Rather than a run-of-the-mill perp, the killer they’re pursuing is a diabolical creature that takes the form of whatever its victim fears most, raising the intriguing possibility that our heroes are actually on the trail of the Polymorph from Red Dwarf. Taking the form of a faux episode of Fox reality show Cops, the hour gets weird when it’s revealed that the LA lawmen are working the same case as Mulder and Scully. Vince Gilligan originally pitched this high-concept episode in The X-Files’ fourth year, but it didn’t get greenlit until Season 7.