The X Files / Lazarus / Additional

 

What a great performance from the late Allport, who was a veteran character actor in every kind of genre on television and film. I just watched a town burn his photographer alive in "Dead & Buried" just the other night on Shudder. I was revisiting "Lazarus", one of those episodes in a rather okay period during the first season of "The X-Files". I admit that I'm starting to get that itch for more alien government conspiracy series arc episodes, but the likes of "Lazarus" provides further fleshing out of Scully, so I couldn't complain all that much. And Allport really does show us the emerging personality of the bank robber his FBI agent killed in the opening sequence, how the presence of that person won't give up access to the body of Jack Willis, despite Scully's best efforts to draw the man she once dated and had a relationship with back. Cec Verrell, as Lula, I watched not too long ago on Shudder in the Roddy Piper apocalyptic junk movie, "Hell Comes to Frogtown"...she's the woman robber Dupre loved. Lula telling Dupre (in the diabetic and deteriorating body of Willis) she set him up and left the scene of the bank, that crushing blow that clearly breaks in the face of the sick Willis is heartbreaking because he was so devoted to her while she could care less about him. And Scully handcuffed to an old radiator having to watch it all really builds to a tragic conclusion while Mulder and a team of FBI and police gather intel and develop the whereabouts of Willis, Lula, and Scully, eventually isolating sound of an airplane taking off when Lula calls them up for a million dollar ransom. Allport really does provide Dupre's disheveled personality in how he wears the FBI suit, tie, and coat and walks around the office, clearly not comfortable and trying to pretend, play the role, until he can get back to his Lula. Scully seeing Jack die, taken aback by Dupre holding a gun on her while in his body, disregarding her in favor of Lula; this all plays out with Scully having to intellectualize something quite extraordinary. A body swap where two people die with one departing while the other confiscates his shell...that is a lot to absorb if you are a skeptic like Scully. And a doctor trying to explain that to her while Mulder remains amused at her response remains such a fun scene...the entire time Scully has that look on her face of "Yeah, right...sure."