X-Files--"All Souls"

I had a lukewarm response to the introduction and sudden death of Scully’s daughter Emily earlier this season in “Christmas Carol” and “Emily.” Part of the problem was the comparison to the previous seasons’ cancer arc, which I still consider the best the series has to offer. But more importantly, there was a lack of drama. I had a difficult time convincing myself Scully really believed Emily was her daughter. Her mourning for the child felt phoned in. Subsequently, we got back to monster of the week stories with nary a mention of Emily. It is almost as though the story was being swept under the rug as a bad idea.

That is a possibility, by the way. Would the miracle birth of William in season eight not have more meaning without the Emily detour? I think so. You cannot discount the idea Gillian Anderson was exhausted from filming Fight the Future overlapping the new season, too as the blame for its lack of heart. Truth be told, the fifth season has not had a lot of top tier material so far. Filming a movie in the middle of a television series while expecting to maintain high quality is probably expecting too much.

All that to say a more fitting resolution was needed. Recall how wonderfully emotional episodes like “One Breath” and “Irresistible” standalone, yet complement one another in helping Scully deal with the scars of a traumatic event. I think “All Souls” was meant to take a shot at repeating the past success.

Whether it succeeded is a matter of just how overwhelmed you were by the demonic imagery involved in “All Souls.” I have discussed many times my efforts to purge the Bob Jones University fundamentalist attitude from my earliest socialization, but I still get an uncomfortable twinge when demonic imagery shows up in popular entertainment. We are not talking iconography or Scriptural allusions here. There is a four headed Seraphim, children being scorched to death with their corpses in angel positioning, upside down crosses, blinding lights, and hellfire. The entire episode is a tour de force attack on your sensitivities.

Scully is asked by Father McCue, who we previously saw giving her Last Rites before her cancer went into remission, to discreetly look into the impossible death of a newly adopted, severely handicapped girl who miraculously left her wheelchair one night to wind up struck by lightning in the street. Scully begins looking into the case, but is distracted by memories of Emily. Matters get far more personal when the murdered girl’s sister is killed in the same manner at the orphanage before she can be awarded to her new family. During the autopsy, the girl literally turns into Emily and begs Scully to let her go.

It turns out the two handicapped girls were a pair from a group of quadruplets. Mulder joins up with Scully even though this is not an official FBI case as he begins fearing for her emotional state. He suspects the ex-Catholic priest who has gone on to establish his own peculiar Christian based cult is responsible for the murders. He is just some religious kook who thinks he is doing God’s will. Scully falls back on her Catholic faith in believing far different is going on, particularly when she witnesses what she later comes to learn is a Seraphim.

She is right. The social worker assigned to handle the adoptions is a demon of some sort. He has been after the four girls, who are, in fact, Nephilim. Nephilim being the children of a union between angels and men. A Seraphim is to appear to take the Nephilim to heaven so the devil cannot have them. Scully surmises the girls, though murdered, are in heaven where they are supposed to be, so she allows the fourth and final child to be killed by lightning before a Seraphim to prevent the demon posing as a social worker from getting her. Before the child dies, she turns into Emily and asks her mother to let go. The episode ends with Scully taking confession. She feels guilty about letting the girl be killed even though her faith--and the message from Emily--convinced her it was God’s will.

All of that is a lot to absorb for one who is devoutly Christian. I cannot say I was necessarily offended by any of the subject matter, but I was still uneasy. I can say this--there was a bit of comic relief in which Mulder was talking to Scully at a pay phone. He claimed he had to go because he was tailing a suspect. In fact, he ran into an adult movie theater to pull a Pee Wee Herman. Normally, that would not faze me, either, but it felt so oddly out of place amid the other themes of the episode as to be in especially poor taste. So obviously, the religious aspects were done respectfully enough for me to not like the comic relief contrast.

You know, I am just going to have to chalk it up to Hollywood’s idea of Christianity. Even which they are attempting sincerity, it is weird and kooky. If I stop attempting to cram real theology into the episode, it is a bittersweet story about how Scully gains a sense of closure over Emily’s death topped off with the typical cynicism of The X-Files. In that sense, “All Souls” does the trick. It is still not in the top tier of personal episodes for the main characters, but it is worth watching. Those with deep religious convictions may squirm a time or three.

Rating: *** (out of 5)