Things Are Getting Strange – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Watch as Dale Cooper fends off Audrey's attempts at seduction in order not to bring the FBI into disrepute shortly before making use of the Bookhouse Boys because they need to do something across the Candian border! Not saying he shouldn't have resisted Audrey, but the latter also feels distinctly dodgy.

At this point in the series everyone seems to be converging at One Eyed Jack's or about to commit arson. Or making *checks notes* Laura Palmer's cousin dress up as her in order to lure her psychiatrist out of his office in order to steal an audio cassette made by Laura Palmer...

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Twin Peaks continues to tease that a solution to its central mystery can only be imminent! Birds singing and perpetual music get their explanations here!

But in the meantime, we continue to complain about James, continue to enjoy every time Bobby shows up on-screen, and remain hopelessly fixated on Maddy and who's playing her in this series. Also the mill-arson plot is just getting more tangled by the minute.

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Content warning: mentions of sexual assault

We're not wild about this episode of Darkplace, but as discussed it contains some of the more quotable lines. Also the episode has the absolutely incomprehensible production mistake of Thornton Reed actually acting in the episode!

Otherwise, as is our way we meander off into other avenues of the 80s and in particular 80s horror...

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Content warning - Animal Death in Quagmire

The first of this week's episodes doesn't involve war in Ba Sing Se. Or Unobtainium on other planets. Instead we get a weird hybrid monster of the week/conspiracy episode where the forces of the supernatural help Skinner in perhaps the least helpful way.

This is Avatar apparently.

We discuss the curious merits of framing Skinner and getting him fired after the attempted murder back in Piper Maru.

Quagmire also seems to be an episode struggling with its premise; part lake monster story and part intense Mulder and Scully character relationship piece. Where Mulder completely flubs his empathy on numerous occasions.

Still, at least Stoner and Chick are back.

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We would (quite seriously) love to see James Hong be cast as a CSM equivalent or just be a member of the syndicate in general, but in the likely absence of that, we will take his fantastic turn as the Hard Faced Man in Hell Money. Which features a good number of actors who have also been in Mulan.

We discuss the episode's kind of back-door pilot feel and why the body-part lottery supernatural cover-story feels kinda redundant in the end.

The X-Files has dabbled a few times by this point with implying alien abductions are in truth covers for some other shady goings on by the government. Jose Chung's "From Outer Space" offers the wonderfully silly next step by asking what happens if, mid-faking an alien abduction, an actual (stop-motion looking) alien showed up and captured the disguised air-force pilots and their would be teen abductees?

If only the story could be remotely as simple and not make everyone look very, very silly. We find it tremendously hard not to gush about all the surreal comedy this episode provides, the assorted guest stars and cinematic flourishes to sell the unreliable narrators.

Fear not though! Even with this episode Nick manages to come up with some complaints and nuisance slips on the part of the episode.

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Pusher is that rare thing - an episode Nick is unable to find much of a fault with at first.  Blackly comedic and engaging, this cat and mouse encounter between Mulder and the titular Pusher is so good.

We do get into Mulder's pretty incredibly specific knowledge of the Japanese language and how this episode might have damaged whatever burgeoning relationship Mulder and Scully have been building.

We struggled to say much about Teso Dos Bichos ultimately. Other than we could totally watch The Relic (the 90s monster movie, not the more recent housebound horror about dementia) for a similar (very similar) setup and have a far better time.

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Time for a new alien species!

Piper Maru brings us the very sinister, very dangerous Black Oil. Whether the alien in truth or - as Mulder conjectures - a medium for transference, its still damned cool as a new threat.

Anyone, anywhere might be infected! Though just watching their eyes for a bit tends to give them away.

And, you know, that the Black Oil is perhaps one of the worst stealth operatives in the world except for the times it is.

Apocrypha is probably the best second part of a two-parter we've had to date, even if Cancer Man's suggestion to Skinner digging too deep into Melissa Scully's death is sending the same assassin to shoot Skinner and when that doesn't work, sending the same assassin to shoot him all over again.

Still we get some tremendously creepy moments, a potential reworking of the power dynamics in the Syndicate and are left wondering if Cancer Man shouting "You saw nothing" ever works for him.

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...The X-Files also stares back into you!

Aside from a few fun moments (and pre-fame Ryan Reynolds), Syzygy has little to recommend it. Mulder and Scully are out of character and kinda annoying and increasingly unprofessional.

Still! It oddly provided the origin point of the Keystone Cops footage we found in our Let's Play of The X-Files Game (part 1 available on Patreon). We get to talk about 90's teen culture and how we would rather the episode focused more on ostensible villains Terri and Margi.

Grotesque manages to change some of Mulder's backstory and be inconsistent with its own plot. As one of the admitted major inspirations on Millennium it is not without interest for future detail, even if Nick wanted a more supernatural-edge to the episode, while Kim would rather the Seven-like aspect got more focus.

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Wherein Kim is very keen on Bambi Berenbaum's bug talk in War of the Coprophages.

But that's after Revelations which seeks to invert the usual Mulder and Scully dynamic by making Mulder staunchly sceptical and Scully open to less scientific conclusions. I only wish Scully applied her new-found beliefs to every other episode going forward.

Also; tip for demons/agents of evil/other nefarious agents - booking rental cars under known demonic names makes you pretty obvious.

War of the Coprophages is the latest by Darin Morgan so we have a new funny episode with some pointed jabs at Mulder's entire belief-system. And Sculder shippers get some unexpected food in this installment.

We've also got a Let's Play of The X-Files Game in the works over on Patreon!

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...and you too could own a.... lacklustre alien autopsy video.

Nisei starts with what looks an awful lot like an alien autopsy on a train and ends with Mulder leaping onto a completely different train. Which may or may not contain... something.

We get quite taken with the "red-haired man" as he is known, though according to one DVD somewhere, he does have a name.  The episode is pretty exciting with Mulder doing stunts, avoiding armed soldiers and swimming in a harbour at night. But Scully might be on the verge of finding out what happened after Skyland Mountain. While Mulder sparks an international incident.

731 seems to forget that Mulder caused an international incident (or Skinner was just lying for some reason) and goes in some odd directions to turn Scully back into a hardcore sceptic all over again. Because Reginald FirstElder said so.

We make note of some lazy props and are so very taken with X's turn this time around.

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