X Files - Skinner and Those Damned Smallpox Bees!

 

The Cancer Man and the Syndicate turning their smallpox bees on a playground full of children and their schoolteacher at PE speaks volumes about how their agenda shows no mercy. A postal employee sneaking a smoke in her bathroom stall and a specialist in bees are further sacrificed to those damned bees, and Cancer Man makes sure a triggerman put a bullet in a detective working in concert with Mulder on the smallpox investigation since a similar case was already an X File under purview. 

Skinner's mission was to get a cure for Scully, making a "deal with the devil" by removing evidence (and body) associated with the smallpox bees, cleaning up and "deleting" anything of possible trouble for Cancer Man and the Syndicate. "Zero Sum" -- besides following Skinner as he cleans up the bathroom of the postal building where the female employee smoker was killed by the bees and securing the victim's body from the morgue, taking that corpse to a foundry to be burned up in a furnace -- sure casts Skinner in a suspicious light. Mulder, much to Skinner's frustration, is an excellent agent and investigator. Because Cancer Man keeps killing people with those bees, Skinner's initial cover-up is all for naught. Especially when the kids and teacher are swarmed by the bees, as well as, the doctor Mulder was in communication with. 

One of the signature scenes in the whole series has Mulder holding a gun on Cancer Man after Skinner gave him an address in "One Breath". In "Zero Sum", it is Skinner in Cancer Man's home, holding a gun on him. I love how Skinner fires three bullets into the wall, but the position of the camera leads you to believe he actually shot Cancer Man. The look on Cancer Man's face, that terror after seeing his life flash before his eyes, was palpable.

The setup of Skinner, with his missing gun, and Mulder getting a photograph from security footage of him; this proves that Mulder is a top tier FBI agent. Yes, he might be known in nickname as Spooky, but Mulder is damned good at following the clues, really highly intelligent at piecing together a case when others might miss something. Skinner thought he covered all tracks, but Mulder keeping him informed of his pursuit of the person responsible for removing the body and evidence of the second victim, and investigation into the murder of the detective really add a dynamic to the episode I found consistently compelling. Skinner reacting to Mulder all the way through, with the great confrontation near the end bringing everything full circle is quite a ride. It's Mitch Pileggi getting to really work almost the entirety of the episode with Mulder sort of entering and exiting the story in and out. I thought that was especially intriguing a decision for a show whose main star is Mulder. Scully being absent, but still very important to the story and mentioned several times in conversations, also creates an interesting divergence in the usual storytelling. 

I think "Zero Sum" is a real gem that might get lost in the shuffle of such a great season of X-Files. Because of how the story is told, through its focus on Skinner and Cancer Man, and the real presence of danger that feels so very frightening because it could be used on victims en masse, I think this is a standout episode. I need to go back to "Avatar" next since I spent this evening on two Skinner-centric X-Files episodes. Skinner could be an enigma, but he also stepped up at his own peril to help Scully and Mulder at times. He really put himself in jeopardy for Scully in this episode. Mulder holding a gun on him after seeing him on the picture on the security footage, the shock and awe of that, really is the expected outcome. Trying to conceal the truth from Mulder seems to be difficult when he's a dog after that bone. 

So Mulder has been relying on Marita Covarrubias for information, and she arrives at the hospital as the kids are dying as Skinner is trying to inform the lead clinician that he would need to treat them for smallpox. Later when Marita talks to Cancer Man, that Chris Carter once again throws at us a curve. Well, it's meat on the bone to gnaw a bit.