The X Files - Avatar

Although I personally liked that Skinner got an episode revolving around him, I do think making him so available to users does remove a bit of his mystique. That enigmatic nature about who side was he really on kind of allowed for some serious mystery about him. The more you spend time with him and peek behind the curtain (or get a good eyeful) the less mystery there is surrounding him and possible ties to unsavory elements behind those wanting to keep the truth silenced. At any rate, by this point AD Walter Skinner was established as a heroic figure, an ally of Mulder and Scully, one of a few. Having Duchovny as an advocate in his favor, Mitch Pileggi’s role could be more than a supporting character with a small (even if pivotal), but important tie to the overall series arc. In Avatar, Skinner is undergoing a divorce, with the papers needing to be signed as we see at the onset. Skinner isn’t currently wearing the ring but opines the gift of a pen his wife gave him, deciding against signing the papers until the next day. That night, while boozing his sorrow away at the local watering hole in DC, Skinner is greeted by a woman later revealed to be a prostitute. After a night of cheap sex, Skinner awakens the next morning to find her with a broken neck (a neck break twisting her head completely around!) and is the official suspect in her murder!

The remainder of Avatar has Mulder and Scully investigating the murder, hoping to clear Skinner of the crime, learning of shady men trying to set him up. One of those men crashes Skinner’s car into his wife’s, leading to her serious condition resulting in intensive care stay at the hospital. A facial imprint on an airbag could lead to his discovery, thought of by Mulder! Good stuff.

The episode’s “boogeyman” is supposedly a succubus, but ultimately the “old woman” seems more of an obsessive figure that seeks to help Skinner. He finally admits to Mulder to seeing her in Vietnam when 18 years old, bleeding after incident in battle. Supposedly she rescued him from near death. Then he sees her in a red raincoat, calling out to him, but later confronts the person actually turning out to be his wife. His wife, Sharon (Jennifer Hetrick), tries to reach out to him with affection and simply wants him to open up to her instead of concealing everything. Skinner later frees up the reason behind his career secrecy, that shutting off emotionally to the corruption and compromising behavior of those he works for (or in concert with) was the only way he could deal with it all. And that just by lying next to her could he have just a semblance of comfort. When it appears Sharon is about to code, Skinner steps out momentarily to get help, once again seeing the old woman, reaching out her hand. Through Sharon does she tell him something…this something will possibly lead him to a hotel room. This hotel room could feature someone behind Skinner’s current dilemma.

The X Files are always under threat so Mulder and Scully needed an ally to back them up when all hope appeared lost. Skinner was that guy who stood up to the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B Davis), certainly perhaps earning his fair share of applause by those who appreciated somebody having the guts to do so. So often CSM was allowed to get away with hiding the truth, using criminal methods and tactics to cover up evidence Mulder so desperately fought to capture and unveil. Skinner would also find himself in compromising situations, and he was nearly killed because of his meddling in the affairs of CSM. Just briefly is CSM seen, behind the glass of an interrogation room as Mulder finally succeeded in getting Skinner to give him some details from his past to work with. CSM is often presented by the writer’s room as the puppetmaster, always pulling strings, always around, in the shadows and some dark corner. Was he behind the two men trying to get Skinner removed as AD, so that the X Files would be undermined and weakened? It is a bit obvious, isn’t it?

Phosphorescence around the first victim’s mouth, her madam taking an assisted flight out of her apartment, and a third (one of the two men assigned to set up Skinner) shot dead by Skinner in a hotel where the final link to who used Skinner’s credit card (and car to run into Sharon’s vehicle) to purchase the prostitute was being protected by Scully all serve as links in a chain that ultimately leads to very little. The episode didn’t really set my world on fire, I must admit. It is a Skinner episode, so I can’t hate on that, but I just wish it was more noteworthy. It gets him involved in a conspiracy against him and his job is threatened so I was invested in that part of the plot. But the old woman Skinner sees, that is the part of the episode that I felt could have used some fattening up. It didn’t quite reach to the heights it could have. We just know something extraordinary exists about her and Skinner benefited from her involvement. If anything his closing off from others how he feels does loosen, even if just a bit. Sharing a bit of his angst with his (unconscious) wife and letting Mulder know that he had experienced something he couldn’t quite explain in Vietnam (just kind of shrugging it off as hallucinations from whatever he might have experimented with) is a start, but by the end, Skinner once again slid back into his hardened shell. So there is some frustration that many a viewer can relate with Mulder on as he must step away as Skinner went back to cleaning up his desk (those behind the investigation of the murdered prostitute were searching for clues) to get back to work…

Aren't those glistening glasses on Skinner as iconic as Horatio's​shades on CSI: Miami? I think so.

Interestingly, according to reports, Duchovny wanted this focusing on someone else, Pileggi, but he ultimately has just almost as much time in the plot as Skinner. Seeing the agents discussing their conflict with the case, Skinner's guilt or innocence, and how unknowing misbehavior during sleep could have led to murder does introduce fascinating elements into the plot to consider. If it had just led to something more significant, more special, I could have left this episode more satisfied.