The X Files - Release

“Release” finally settles a major plot mystery: John Doggett’s son’s death. Doggett, always tormented and unable to forgive himself for not solving the case after nine years, keeps the ashes of his son in his closet, the date of birth and death a reminder that he was taken far too soon. A cadet at the Academy, named Rudolph Hayes (Jared Poe), sullen, matter-of-fact, his face often tilted downward, offers direct observations regarding a victim on Scully’s slab during a live body examination (one of those students training sessions where the professor asks them for their opinions on the victim, how he or she died, and any other evidence they might see available to them), sure and confidant. Scully is impressed, eventually connecting the case of a female victim found in a ditch and another victim found by Doggett through a tip inside a tenement wall (the rats gnawing on her legs how he knew where to look). This leads them to profiling a suspect, although Hayes assures Doggett and Reyes that who they have on their radar is not the killer. Instead Hayes’ specific description and profile of the man he thinks is the killer (someone who has killed many times) leads Doggett and Reyes to a mob thug tied to organized crime in New York, never indicted for anything heavy, seemingly always kept out of prison although he is the right candidate for hard time. Doggett returns to his long-suffering wife, Barbara (Barbara Patrick, Robert’s real-life wife), wanting her to take a look at a lineup, with the suspect, Rigali (Sal Landi, the kind of creep that will make your skin crawl, the kind of mob enforcer that keeps folks awake at night), not familiar to her. Later, when Brad Follmer (Elwes, returning after some absence in the season) is revealed to have taken money from Rigali (Reyes remembers the bribe, reminding him in his office with Patrick standing off to the side), he informs Doggett that Hayes isn’t who he says he is.

Patrick’s best episode alongside “John Doe” (in my opinion, anyway) gives his Doggett finally a reprieve. He can now move on thanks to Brad’s putting to rest a far-too-long alliance with such a vile cretin as Rigali who tells him their association will only end when he decides so. While Hayes, with photos of unsolved crimes (including chilling ones with Doggett’s son), tacked to his wall, is proven to be a schizophrenic under a false identity who was able to get into the FBI Academy, his work to help Doggett (mental patients obsess, Stuart Mimms, his real name, tells Scully) find closure proves to be not in vain. In the episode’s most chilling scene, Rigali pretty much tells Doggett he killed his son because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time…the kidnapping pedophile had taken the kid off his bike to a location Rigali eventually arrives to, unable to let anyone who can identify him some place he shouldn’t be live. As Doggett looks to execute him in revenge, Brad serves as a surrogate, shaking with gun in hand as Rigali lies on the sidewalk with an eye pulverized by the bullet.

Brad, to me, is such a disappointing character in the ninth season. It just felt like he was meant to serve a much grander purpose on the show but by the end of the ninth season he seemed to just emerge as a mild antagonist, a bit of a compromised jerk who made it to Assistant Director through the right connections. He sits in his car with Rigali in the passenger’s seat, knowing that this monster possibly murdered Doggett’s son, clearly rattled by such knowledge. Rigali, emboldened by years of evading prison and how corrupted Brad is, can carry himself so braggadociosly.  And until Brad actually took it upon himself to put an end to it, Rigali could walk around without a care in the world.

I don’t want to fail to mention a great dialogue scene between Reyes and Doggett about Hayes. Gish’s eyes well up as her Reyes tries to ground an optimistic and driven Doggett into not getting his hopes up too high because Hayes sends him on a chase of Rigali. Murders of these women, the tip eventually tied to Mimms, and Doggett never even considering Rigali a candidate for his son’s death; Reyes tries to distinguish the facts from speculation, that details that might be similar nonetheless aren’t concretely exact. I just loved how Reyes admits she can’t possibly understand what Doggett has endured but recognizes why he won’t stop. But she doesn’t want him to put so much stock in what Hayes tells him without approaching what they know for sure with careful investigation. Ultimately, though, Hayes’ “received messages” seem to lead to the truth! Maybe that part of the overall story remains a bit enigmatic (is he really hearing the dead talk or as Doggett implies that he might be just a little nuts?) but the acting by all involved is so good I could live with that without too much problem. Patrick’s roller coaster performance, the highs of maybe finally getting justice for his son to the lows of Hayes perhaps just being a loon with no real merit to anything he says, is laudable and phenomenal…you get hope and disappointment, desperation and concern, misery and horror, and eventually relief and the ability to finally grieve. Robert’s wife, Barbara, offers a performance that communicates a sense of acceptance in the years of no arrests and a lot of dead ends, as the cold case just distanced and eventually fractured the marriage, her Barbara just wanting an end to the case if for Doggett’s well being and emotional health. The recall to the possibility of romance between Reyes and Doggett is implemented in the episode when Barbara comments to Scully that they could become an item if her ex-husband would just let it happen. Scully returns to her role of helpful ally, with Doggett once again the central focus. The episode features chapter markers like "The Tip" to separate the different parts of the ongoing story development.  4/5