The X Files - Duane Barry




****/****

You know even when I watched The X Files on first run, there were just some episodes you knew were special right from the opening. Not just an episode that will veer off into its own mini-story arc but also link itself into the overall alien / government story arc. Mulder’s own history is once again significant as he must somehow convince a supposed former FBI agent (Railsback) named Duane Barry, seemingly a multi-time abductee, to not kill hostages he has taken at a travel agency.

Barry claims he will be taking his mental institution doctor to a certain place to be coordinated by those who have abducted him in the past. The episode’s further significance stems from its ties to Scully’s own abduction at the hands of Barry who seems to leave her with those who once abducted him. Implants in his sinus, gums, and abdomen later identified in X-ray could very well verify what Mulder believes: that Barry was telling the truth about the aliens who kidnapped him drilling his teeth. A carefully placed sniper needs to take down Barry for he is indeed dangerous. A shooting incident that injured Barry when Scully investigates after a request from Mulder convinces her that Duane was enduring an affect due to the location of the brain enduring trauma.

Whether or not Duane is just the product of a brain injury that has altered his psychology, resulting in an emotional wreck and liar, Mulder does believe he’s telling the truth. The “code chip” found in Barry and removed in surgery is studied by Scully who calls up Mulder to give him news that has alarmed her, believing perhaps that Duane was being “catalogued”. Duane stops by to take Scully hostage (freeing Gillian Anderson to have her child) during mid-sentence in a phone call to Mulder’s answering machine.

It is damn good bait to close the episode as Ascension furthers this abduction as Mulder tries to rescue Scully. The second season is one of my favorites of The X Files, and I have several episodes (including this, Ascension, and One Breath) that are quite important to my growth as a devotee. Steve Railsback could phone it in during his career but when he got a part with some real meat on the bones, this actor can rent that flesh like a rabid dog. No better example of Railsback’s excellence than Duane Barry. Speaking in third person, Barry will refer to himself in sentence form…it is as if Barry needs to identify his name when talking to remind him of experience, both in past and present terms.

Mulder in that travel agency, actually humoring Barry, receptive of his experience, communicating with him in ways that concern the hostage negotiation process FBI agent in charge, Lucy Kazdin (CCH Pounder) isn’t a surprise but seizing upon the trust, he must convince Duane to “go to lock the door” knowing a sniper would be there waiting. Mulder had to belie his own feelings in favor of diffusing the situation before it could get any worse. Just a minor challenge of “Are you sure you are telling me the whole truth?” by Mulder switches Barry’s temperament from calm to immediate volatility, initiating the need to end the hostage situation in the agency. But recovering from the gunshot wound, and visualizing the aliens from the past in the hospital room, Barry frees himself from the cop in charge of keeping him from leaving through the use of a fire extinguisher. Then somehow Barry finds his way to Scully’s exact location to kidnap her…

Although he’s there in the episode, considered little more than a tagalong, Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea) would be of more importance in the connective tissue, Ascension. His true identity is revealed and the direct nuisance towards Mulder Krycek certainly becomes achieves to attach him to real antagonist status. The Cig Man uses Krycek when needing a menace to usurp Mulder’s cause and inflict him with unwanted grief. What greater pain can you cause Mulder—besides being an obstacle in his pursuit of the truth—than hurting the person (or people) he loves the most? That is Scully. But when Pounder’s Kazdin tells Krycek to get her a cappuccino when he offers his services, considering the heel he later turns out to be, this gives me a good grin.





Comments

Popular Posts