X-Files--"Emily"

I want to appreciate “Emily.” Its heart is certainly in the right place. The episode wants to create an emotionally charged story on par with some of the past episodes regarding Scully’s abduction and subsequent cancer. If you can resist nitpicking some glaring inconsistencies, “Emily” does the job. But I just cannot overlook the flaws, particularly when they are glossed over for the sake of manipulating your emotions.

David Duchovny, resigned to the knowledge a love scene with Angelina Jolie will not make him a movie star, but no so resigned we will not leave the series in three years for another try with Minnie driver, returns as Mulder. He arrives in San Diego to find scully having an impossible time proving she is Emily’s real mother. Mulder had Frohike hack into the California Social Services computers for records of live births. He finds Emily’s surrogate mother is named Anna Fuggazi, a slang term for fake, but no other records exist.

The adoption agency does not buy the idea Scully was kidnapped by secret governmenmt conspirators, had her ova removed, and was returned, but someone Emily is a product of their experiment. Why in the world would they? Scully herself suffers a pained look as Mulder makes the case. To his credit, he does go the extra mile throughout to both get to the bottom of Emily’s origin and save her. When he realizes he cannot, hew is careful again to spare Scully from uncomfortable truths about the overal conspiracy in order to let her grieve. Earlier in the series, when he was more interested in proving her skepticism wrong than maintaining their relationship, he would have dangled evidence right in front of her.

As it is now, his search for the truth as he sees it takes a backseat to Scully’s needs. There is no overt evidence guilt over the effects of her abduction is his primary motivation, which is something I chalked up to lazy writing until I decided this is another step in the journey towards their eventual romance. For better or worse, mulder has moved on from guilt over Scully’s losses because of him to the realization, perhaps because he nearly lost her to cancer, he has grown to care for her. Agape love, but not yet romantic, so chill out, shippers. Your time will come in about sixty more episodes.

Emily becomes extremely ill. They discover a green cyst on the bsack of her neck which bleeds the corrosive green blood when popped. Emily is one of the human/alien hybrids Mulder and Scully have encountered before. A systematic effort is underway to keep Scully from making medical decisions to treat Emily, from the doctor formerly treating her “{anemia’ refusing to release her medical records even after mulder pounds the stuffing out of him to the adoption agency attempting to remove her from the hospital even as her condition worsens. Scully stands her ground there while Mulder scoops around for Emily’s origin.

He finds Anna Fugazzi is an elderly woman in a nursing home. Four other women there, are also surrogate mothers to children born within the last few years, all of whom are actually the children of abductees like scully. Inside the nursing home’s pharmacy, he finds a hybrid fetus along with medication used to treat the suurogate mothers. One of the alien bounty hunters shows up to get rid of him and the San Diego detective from the previous episode. The bounty hunter, posing as the detective, escapes to clean up all evidence of the experiment.

Emily is getting weaker because she needs the treatment posing as her anemia medication in order to survive. Her parents wanted to stop it, so they were killed in what was made to look like suicides. Emily is, unfortunately, a failed test subject who cannot survive on her own regardless. She slips into a coma and dies. In the interim, all evidence from the nursing home to any records of Emily’s existence are erased. The only evidence remaining is Emily’s body.

For all the lukewarm reactions I have had to “Emily,” the final scene still gets to me. Emily casket sits in a chapel with Scully standing over. When mulder tells her all that is left of the experiment is Emily’s body, they both know the truth, but scully has to look anyway. Mulder turns around to give a private moment. She opens the casket to find nothing but sand equal to the weight of a three year old girl and the crucifix scully gave her. There is something so deeply sad about the scene.

Alas, there are so many lazy mistakes in “Emily.” how come no one has realized up until this point Emily has green, corrosive blood? If you want to argue that was only in the cyst on the back of her neck, fine, but that is inconsistent with every hybrid we have seen so far. Green blood should have been revealed when some was drawn from her Dna test in the previous episode. Fugazzi explains to Mulder they give her medication for ’beauty sleep.” Evidently, that means a nine month nap so the elderly women can carry the hybrids to term. I can see the rationale for using ’forgotten” nursing home patients, but the nine month nap and giving birth without the women knowing anything is up is too far fetched. The most glaring error is how mulder is fooled by the shape shifting bounty hunter who takes on the form of the detective. He high tails it out of the nursing home when the detective shoots the bounty hunter and becomes burnt by exposure to its blood. When Mulder steps outside to call the police, the detective comes out a moment later, perfectly fine, claiming to have subdued the bounty hunter--and Mulder buys it! Has he nort dealt with these bounty hunters enough to know that is not the detective? I guess not/

If these three errors had been dealt with more competently, “Emily” might have been considered a classic entry into the series pantheon. As it is, I have to call it a noble effort that falls short. It is definitely worth seeing, but there have been far better in the past. Even Gillian Anderson comes across as rather wooden compared to some of her past performances in similar situations. She reveals an awareness of the often lackluster material. Still, it would not be fair to give “Emily” a bad score. It is still good, but it could have been much more.

Rating: *** (out of 5)