The X Files - Small Potatoes

 

I could certainly see how this episode might not be the altogether comedy gem for some who find adopting the face and bodies of other guys and seducing their wives, impregnating them in the process, leaving behind a DNA marker of a tail on their babies abhorrent, rapey, morally atrocious behavior. But when Eddie Bundht (remember the h between the d and t) takes on the guise of Mulder and pretends to be him, the episode does give Duchovny a chance to add his personality behind his face. This will always be known for Eddie's Mulder practically seducing Scully before real Mulder busts through her door. If Eddie's Mulder had kissed Scully, a lot of X-Files fans would have been furious. But it does open a discussion as to what was Mulder waiting for. Scully clearly was interested in him. All Mulder had to do was really, really try to talk to her, outside the work and away from aliens. She is attracted to him, cares about him, and loves to be around him. So when Eddie is back in his slovenly Average Joe form, with muscle relaxers keeping him from taking someone else's face, he tells a visiting Mulder, behind the glass in prison, to not be even more of a loser than him!

Eddie's father, found tucked away in the house as his son pretended to be him!

Seeing Eddie's Mulder in Skinner's office getting a disapproval about misspelling Bureau, nearly falling out of the chair in Mulder's office (not happy with where his tax dollars go as he scans all the alien contact scattered throughout the walls), talking to a girl he once dated and seduced in the guise of Luke Skywalker (!) just to see if she had anything nice to say about him when she dated him as teenagers, and leaving the house of another neighbor he emulated to the confusion of the couple in the home are bits of amusement the episode offers. The rapey side of Eddie cannot be brushed aside, though. If he got Scully to sleep with him, it was nothing to laugh about because it was deception.

Classic Scully when reacting to Star Wars theme hummed to her!

Eddie uses the Mulder disguise to cozy up to Scully!

Eddie the janitor

Duchovny is a handsome man. Eddie saw Mulder as the perfect body and face to emulate even if totally disguising his personality wasn't altogether successful. But something about Eddie works at getting women to sleep with him. Yes, he has the facade of the face and body the women he seduces don't suspect as suspicious. But there is a charm and appeal, a way of using what he acquires of the men surface-wise in  order to relax the women, and through that succeed in romance and sex he fails at in the dumpy body of real Eddie that seems so unappealing to everyone. It doesn't excuse the crimes and the children he fathered without the women's approval. That is not fucking cool at all! Still, what seems like a grocery store checkout line goofball alien fathers baby story checks out to be quite a trip overall for Mulder and Scully!

The scene where the last impregnated victim tells Mulder and Scully she was seduced by Luke Skywalker and the investigation into who is responsible for the baby tails results in classic facial expressions and conversations between the two.

5/5