The X Files - Trust No 1

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Trust No 1 centers on the Super Soldiers once again (through Terry O’Quinn; The Stepfather & Lost) trying to locate Mulder through Scully as Doggett and Reyes try to help keep her (and Mulder, still in hiding) safe. A married couple worried about their baby (the husband working for the NSA as O’Quinn’s “Shadow Man” seems to be his supervisor) try to adopt a ruse in order to speak to her, but the Shadow Man will seek to communicate with Scully specifically, requesting Mulder to come out of hiding so he can be provided key information on the Super Soldiers. Much like Doggett does, most viewers will probably question why Scully would ever trust O’Quinn when he just tells her that they keep all kinds of surveillance and information collecting on her, even knowing exactly what they communicated in email the day before. Why would she open her home to the wife of the married couple without any suspicion whatsoever considering they were just in a café where she was accessing internet communication to Mulder that morning, seeing them again in her neighborhood that evening? And why would Scully, always the skeptic, convince Mulder (and why would he return?) to come home to meet this obviously suspicious O’Quinn who has her going from car to car by order through phone call? As good as O’Quinn is, he’s never anything but framed and photographed sinister and mysterious. Scully, at this point in the series, is presented as achingly suffering because she misses Mulder, wanting him back in her life so badly that she’d risk endangering him while Doggett remains frustrated that she won’t trust him. And that’s the thing, too…why trust this O’Quinn when Doggett has proven time and again he can be and yet Scully just won’t fully commit to him. Reyes and Doggett, also, are always rushing to Scully’s aid and sticking their neck out and her resistance towards them remains. What really bothers me is how Scully can find the freedom to go here and there, including a teaching position at Quantico, continuing autopsies for Doggett, and conducting investigations from time to time with William? Her mother can’t always be there at Scully’s every need, can she? In a series like this, a child can be a nuisance when telling the story of a FBI agent, coroner, and teacher in pursuit of her beloved and remaining a busy, career woman. Yes, many great women juggle a career and family life, but stretches in credibility are like cracks starting to show in the ninth season. I do love Scully’s interaction with the baby, but even when she momentarily leaves his seat in the café I cringe because I always expect some Super Soldier or government creep to snatch William away. In episodes like this Carter obviously wants to keep Mulder alive even if the only times we see him are through clips from other episodes previously (although they are introduced at the beginning as taken by the NSA to follow the Shadow Man’s claims surveillance and research has provided them with very personal and intimate details, such as “Mulder being invited to Scully’s bed” once). But the Super Soldiers story arc, by this point, does appear to be running low on steam, even though O’Quinn menacingly pursuing Scully reminds us of how much of a threat they continue to be. Anderson’s Scully is lonely, longing for Mulder, and desperate to have him home, but I often miss our scientist from the first six seasons with clever retort and reason to question everything. Independent of Mulder because he is gone, Scully still wears the albatross of suffering due to his absence, seemingly unable to function completely because without him she isn’t whole. Her narration at the beginning and emails to him spell out the loss and incompleteness. The iron in the rock at the end weakening and eventually “evaporating” O’Quinn is bizarre and the special effects (how he collapses and is pulled into the rock) fail to really send him off in effective fashion. The husband coming to Scully’s aid but unable to get a shot off before Shadow Man does proves he was not the threat Doggett offered as a possibility. Full of holes and contrivances, the episode remains entertaining even as it is painfully flawed. I'm still looking for that one great episode in the ninth season. It does appear to be elusive.