1.19 - Shapes
Guess I’m doing it, clocking the length and comparing visuals and overall pacing to each cold open. This one is two minutes and two seconds long, middling visuals, the strongest being the close up of the manitou’s eyes juxtaposed with the bar of light sliding across Lyle Parker’s eyes. It ends up falling just short of cool due to the kind of silly-ass shot of the manitou freaking the fuck out, whipping its face side to side like Jack Putter turning back into the Cowboy.
Ty Miller is great as Lyle Parker. He doesn’t have a weak moment in the whole episode, and they gave him shit like this:
“Gave me the creeps,” Lyle said.
“The creeps?” Scully asked.
“Yeah. The creeps. Don’tcha ever get the creeps?”
Lyle walks away and Scully looks at Mulder, maybe kind of embarrassed at how earnest this kid is, or I don’t know, maybe ready to fucking kiss him? He’s got great hair, that’s for sure.
Showing the cowboy boot footprints eventually sprouting claws is super cool, as is Mulder’s reveal of the skin he located.
“I was at Wounded Knee in 1973,” Ish, played by Jimmy Herman says. “What I learned fighting the FBI is you don’t believe in us, and we don’t believe in you.” Filled with pain, surprisingly deep. Similar to how the show managed to avoid being politically incorrect with gender in Gender Bender, this episode is refreshingly open minded toward Native Americans. Again, my status as a white male limits my understanding, so if I’m wrong and this episode is actually offensive, I’d be more than happy to engage with the ideas and themes around why. I can see how it may be seen as reducing Native Americans to the sort of “Magical Negro”, their mysticism a tokenism that allows the denial of their humanity. As fucked up as those things are they’re insanely common, obviously, and the show does trade on their history within American storytelling. It’s not as bad as it could be, which really sucks to settle for, but it’s from the early ‘90s — we’re lucky we got the depth we did.
“All I know is tomorrow, day after, you’re gonna leave. But I have to stay here with these people,” Sheriff Tskany says, brilliantly summing up the post-colonial relationship between the Native Ameircans and law enforcement, made all the more weighty by it being said by a sheriff.
It must rain nine out of seven days in Vancouver.
Ish telling Mulder he’s more open to Native American beliefs than some Native Americans (side-eye to Sheriff Tskany) is one of my favorite parts of the episode. It’s where Mulder’s belief being utilized to strengthen the Monster of the Week premise works exactly as it should, compared with Miracle Man where it’s sloppily tossed on top of religion.
Jimmy Herman is wonderful in the episode, he’s pure truth in all of his scenes.
Weirdly, at one point Fox brings up the “very first X-File” which was opened by J. Edgar Hoover. It’s a throwaway line, other than being the case they use to support Mulder’s suspicions. There’s always at least one old case, or the rumor of a case, that Mulder does a front flip off of to cannonball into the episode’s center.
A lot of this is pretty straightforward horror and mystery, but it’s all more powerful due to the performances, the direction, and especially the lighting and special effects. Nothing better to capitalize on all of that than a great transformation scene! The image of Lyle roar-screaming at the ceiling of his bathroom is impossible to forget.
