1.12 - Fire

I was wrong, this is tied for my least favorite episode of the season. Its script and acting are just as bad as Ghost In the Machine.

There’s some cute interactions between Mulder and Scully at the beginning and throughout, compliments of a subconscious jealousy and flirtation. Inspector Phoebe Green is supposed to be a wedge between them, but also a character who is a match for them both, a formidable foil.

It doesn’t work. She comes across as pedantic and annoying, an asshole more than a brilliant investigator. I think it’s a combination of the acting from Amanda Pays (most likely due to the script and direction), but also because Mulder and Scully just have too strong of a gravitational pull.

A lot of the dialog from Cecil L’Ively lands exactly like the declarations of a villain in a pulp serial from the 1940s, like the scene where he tells the family dog “I’m the caretaker now” as the camera zooms in on the dead caretaker’s hand beneath the loose soil. He then goes into a bar and lights his hand/arm on fire in front of an entire fucking bar full of people. It’s not the sign of a criminal genius or any sort of mastermind, it’s just really dumb.

The rich family’s driver has a persistent cough and Cecil decides he’ll help him out, get some cough syrup. The cough hangs around though.

“Maybe it’s the cough syrup,” Cecil says to a completely empty room as the camera whips over to the cough syrup. Somehow they didn’t make him say “Maybe it’s the cough syrup, which I poisoned heh heh heh.” I’m glad Phoebe Green doesn’t show up again. Her knowing glances at Mulder, along with her references to their past are about as clever, useful, and subtle as cutting a birthday cake with a sledgehammer. It’s never sexy, it’s always awkward.

An episode that needs forgetting, start the process as soon as possible.