X-Files--"Demons"

One of the major running themes of The X-Files is the two sided relationship between Mulder and Scully. On the surface, they are pit against each other as the True Believer v. the Skeptic. The dynamic constitutes their professional relationship. On a personal level--the one I prefer over any romantic inclinations--is how scully serves as an anchor to keep Mulder grounded when he becomes too immersed in his obsessions, whether it be his own guilt over the past or his quest for the truth as he sees it. “Demons” is one of the best examples of this aspect of their relationship.

Mulder awakens in a motel room in Rhode Island disoriented with no memory of the last two days. Worse yet, he is covered in someone else’s blood and his gun has been fired. Scully ruishes to his aid under the assumption he has had a stroke. He suffers a seizure which triggers memories of a house he is familiar with, but does not know why. Against her better judgment, Scully helps Mulder find the house. Inside are a married couple who have been shot dead.

A zealous police detective believes he has Mulder on the hook for double murder. Things do not look too promising for him until forensics identifies the blood splatter on his shirt as impossible if he had pulled the trigger. The story immediately shifts gears from whether Mulder is a murderer to how he got connected with the married couple.

We learn Amy Cassandra believed she had been abducted by aliens. Presumably, she contacted Mulder to tell her story. She murdered her husband, them committed suicide while he was with her. A police officer, who also believes he was an abductee, commits suicide while Mulder is incarcerated.

The common element between Amy, the officer, and, as we learn, Mulder, is an ethics challenged psychologist who uses an hallucinogenic drug injected directly into the brain to illicit repressed memories. The ’memories” are not necessarily real, but they are maddening enough to drive two people to suicide. Scully fears for Mulder, who believes the treatment is helping him uncover the truth about his sister’s disappearance.

In a highly tense climax, Scully has to convince Mulder to trust her over what he thinks are the real memories of what happened the night Samantha was taken or face him shooting her in his mania. He makes the choice to trust her over his ’memories.” It is a mark of progress for the character. Only in recent times as he put his friendship with her over his personal quest. Scully still makes it vlear she fears for her partner’s sanity in the closing scene, a foreshadowing of what is to come for him in tomorrow’s fourth season finale.

“Demons” is the only script for the series written by managing producer R. W. Goodwin. The result is one heck of a tense story which proves he has a fine grasp on what makes the characters tick. That Goodwin never wrote another episode is our loss. He offers us a fresh look at how the two agents fill their roles without falling into the same formula many non-mythology episodes do. I would like to have seen him have the opportunity to twist it more.

It is not just the writing that makes “Demons” such a good episode. David Duchovny does a fantastic job of playing Mulder as a man tortured by his memories, but no matter how crippled he is by them, indulges his need for the truth. While it sounds like a Mulder-centric episode, Gillian Anderson is equally vital. He stands by Mulder for the duration, never believing he could be a murderer even when his gun is pointed at her in a deranged fit.

I have to give ’Demons” full props. From the allusion of Cassandra as the mythological woman who could accurately foresee the future, but no one believed her, to a solid script, to the interjection of mythology element--Mulder confronts his mother about whether the Cigarette Smoking man is his real father, and the superior acting of the leads. “Demons” is top notch.

Rating: **** (out of 5)