Can we just take a moment to stop and appreciate the audacity of “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster”? This is the third episode of X-Files’ new limited season, and it’s the one the critics have been telling us to look forward to. In fact, back before this new season even started airing Fox sent out the first episode (“My Struggle”) to critics for advanced review. When the resulting reviews were less than favorable Fox quickly sent out the next two episodes, with a post-it note practically attached to “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” proclaiming, “Trust us. This one’s really, really good.” The critics enthusiastically agreed, meaning “Were-Monster” had already achieved instant-classic status before the rest of us actually laid eyes on it. So, yeah, no pressure.
Thankfully, “Were-Monster” is indeed quite good. It was always going to be, though. To borrow a line from Dos Equis, “Were-Monster”‘s writer and director Darin Morgan doesn’t always write for The X-Files, but when he does his episodes are always classics. Peruse any top 10 list and his four prior X-Files efforts (“Humbug,” “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” “War of the Coprophages” and “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”) will be well represented. As EW put it, Morgan’s episodes always “push the series in a direction that’s playful, experimental, and even metaphysical, with a sensibility that’s lighthearted and melancholy and brain-twistingly cerebral all at once.” So, of course his “Were-Monster” would include as its big twist the reveal that the titular monster was actually an innocent, ancient lizard creature who after being bitten by a human was now stuck turning into a human during the day, racked by a sudden self-awareness and overwhelmingly human needs like securing clothing, shelter and steady employment.
That’s clever, sure, in the same way that most of X-Files‘ vaunted funny monster-of-the-week episodes are at some level fairly clever. However, this inversion of the were-monster concept isn’t the sole reason that I’d call this episode audacious. No, I’d used that word because “Were-Monster” featured as its centerpiece a 15-minute (!!) conversation between Mulder and the titular monster, in its human guise, going by the hilarious nom de guerre Guy Mann (Rhys Darby). Moreover, this was a conversation set in a cemetery, reflecting both Mulder (who’s suffering a bit of a mid-life crisis) and Guy’s mental states. As Guy told Mulder, the humanity forced on him brought with it an actual consciousness which forced him to ponder his own mortality, “I know this sounds weird, but until a few days ago, I didn’t know we died.”
Ah, good, a funny episode. Thank you, X-Files.
However, there’s more going on in that scene than you might immediately realize. Before the stoners walk into a supernatural crime scene, Smith’s character gazes at the stars in the night sky and ponders, “Do you ever think life is so amazing that maybe we shouldn’t waste it by getting high all the time?” Labine’s character replies that he mostly thinks about what it would be like to be a werewolf, but that even he was a werewolf he’d still mostly get high all the time.
We can laugh because seemingly every thing Tyler Labine does and says is inherently funny. However, it’s almost tragic that all these years later these two have not changed, even if one of them is at least beginning to suspect that they’ve been wasting their lives.
That directly informs the rest of the episode since Mulder goes through, as I said earlier, his version of a mid-life crisis. We find him throwing pencils at the “I Want to Believe” poster in his office (a poster, we later find out, was actually purchased by Scully), a change of pace since his usual target would be the ceiling. He’s taking his frustration out on the poster representing his classic mantra because he’s gone through endless old case files and discovered that the majority of them have been solved through cold, hard logic. My personal favorite of the bunch, which he ran down for Scully, was how an apparent rock monster turned out to be part of a publicity stunt by a local landscaping business:
This instantly feels like a better use of the new X-Files than the season’s prior 2 episodes, which were both perfectly fine and often adhered to vintage X-Files rules, e.g., aliens, mad scientists, shadowy cabals of bad guys, oh my. “Founder’s Mutation” at least paused to remind us that Mulder and Scully will forever miss their son, but “Were-Monster” takes full advantage of the dramatic possibilities to be had with an older Mulder and Scully.
Of course, as the partners work the lizard creature case Scully is quick to cut through Mulder’s new cynicism by pointing out that their goal is still to ultimately stop a killer and save lives, an interesting reminder since Mulder’s ruminations on his legacy conveniently forgot about out all the people he’s saved over the years. They interview the animal control officer (actual X-Files superfan Kumail Nanjiani) who survived an attack, and they actually end up chasing the lizard around a rest stop area.
With the assistance of a peeping tom motel owner, Mulder identifies a prime suspect, the aforementioned Guy Mann, who works at a cell phone store. Mulder’s done all of this so many times before that he can finish all of Scully’s logical counterpoints to his crazy theories before she’s even had a chance to speak, which is exactly what he does after he begins to believe that they might actually be dealing with a legitimate monster. If this episode itself is not an instant classic, this scene definitely is, ending with Scully observing of her partner’s manic presentation of evidence, “Yeah, this is how I like my Mulder.” To which he replies, “So you’re agreeing with me?” thus eliciting Scully’s stern declaration, “No! You’re batcrap crazy!”
Those two in a nutshell.
The next day, Scully inadvertently causes Guy to run for it, and when Mulder tracks him down in the cemetery it kicks off their 15-minute conversation, which cuts back to earlier scenes in the episode to show them from Guy’s point of view. The story he lays out, implicating the animal control officer as the real killer, is silly and illogical, the type of thing a younger Mulder would have jumped at. However, this Mulder is searching for some kind of internal logic to it all. “Why?” Guy replies, “There isn’t an external logic to any of it.”
Guy talked his way into a job, and was promoted in record time. He started worrying about saving up for a mortgage. He got a pet to counter loneliness and watched porn to fulfill some biological need for procreation, even lying to Mulder about having sex with Scully out of some male need to brag about sex. However, he’s desperate to be rid of his humanity, lamenting, “Life’s hopeless. A few fleeting moments of happiness surrounded by crushing loss and grief.”
That type of line is why “Were-Monster” is a rather deep and insightful episode posing as a funny one. We essentially have a monster and a monster-hunter both going through separate existential crises, and they ultimately meet up in the middle, Mulder’s faith in the unreal gloriously restored in the final scene when Mann switches back to his lizard form right in front of him.
That lizard assures Mulder that he’s right to want to believe, but on a larger level this episode verifies that Darin Morgan made the right choice: he’s one heck of a writer.
THE NOTES
1. Who looked like they were having more fun making this episode – Duchovny or Anderson? I’d say Anderson because she didn’t have nearly as much heavy lifting, and thus appeared to be on the verge of busting into laughter multiple times.
2. Let’s not go crazy, internet GIF makers, with that Scully fantasy sex scene, okay?
3. So, so many easter eggs in this episode, from the name of the dog being yet another Moby Dick character to Scully’s reference to her Clyde Bruckman-confirmed immortality.
What did you think? Did this qualify as an “instant classic” in your book? Or was the hype too big? Or was it all just a bit too weird?
