The X-Files - Kitten

While I wasn’t all that wild and crazy about Kitten, I have appreciated Walter Skinner’s further involvement in the eleventh season of The X Files. The flashback to Skinner’s time in Vietnam and the poison gas that caused severe hallucinations and mental breakdown of another young man (drafted) named John (Haley Joel Osment, who has seen better days) gets some shine, and I'm all for it. The ongoing thread of “lost trust” and estrangement between Skinner and agents, Mulder and Scully, is something I actually really find worthwhile. It gives us a really nifty near-close to the episode (before we see that John’s psycho son, Davey, was correct about the poison gas being used in the United States at present) where Skinner tells Mulder and Scully (who came to his rescue) that it is because of them he didn’t totally give up on believing in anything. They felt guilty about the idea that Skinner never achieved an upgrade in his career due to constantly protecting them. He sets them straight that it is because of them he wasn’t completely devoid of trust in anyone. So the episode, if nothing else, gave the three this nice moment. And that Skinner was trying to right wrongs committed to a friend long ago, having testified against him during a court martial (following orders which haunted him until the present), with the son setting a trap against him, gives him a chance at redemption. The positioning of the government/military as once again this malevolent entity follows the X Files formula.