The X-Files Recap: Episode 10 - Fallen Angel

Posted by Brian Cramer on 06.17.2008

We are back in business this week with a kick-ass episode and the debut of...the new part of the column! And even better, you guys get to pick the name of it! Check it out!

Cast:
David Duchovny - Fox Mulder
Gillian Anderson - Dana Scully
Frederick Coffin - Chief Joseph McGrath
Marshall Bell - Commander Calvin Henderson
Scott Bellis - Max Fenig
Jerry Hardin - Deep Throat
Brent Stait - Corporal Taylor
Alvin Sanders - Deputy Jason Wright
Sheila Paterson - Gina Watkins
Tony Pantages - Lt. Fraser
Freda Perry - Mrs. Wright
Michael Rogers - Lt. Griffin
William MacDonald - Dr. Oppenheim
Jane MacDougall - Laura Dalton
Kimberly Unger - Karen Koretz

Well, here’s the game-plan. Twitch gave me an idea by mentioning the fact that Ken Kirzinger had a part in the episode “Ice”. As you may or may not know, that’s a fun fact because he later went on to play everyone’s favorite slasher, Jason Voorhees.

So what I’m going to try is this – at the beginning of each recap, we’re going to have a little section called…well, I don’t know what it’s going to be called. It’s going to be fun little facts about each episode, so here’s the deal – ATTENTION! READER PARTICIPATION TIME! ATTENTION! – someone come up with a kick-ass, clever name for me to call this section and if it really rocks, I’ll use it. For that matter, if someone can think of something more clever and eye-catching than “The X-Files Recap,” I’ll consider creative column titles also. So put your thinking caps on, kiddies, and either e-mail me or leave your ideas in the comments, along with your name so I know who to credit. In any case, until it has an official name, let’s kick off the inaugural section:

Fun Facts About This Episode! *drum-roll*

This is the first episode we hear mention of MUFON, which stands for Mutual UFO Network and happens to be a legitimate organization. It won’t be the last, however, as MUFON will be back for us to learn more about in Season 3.

We learn about MUFON from Max Fenig, who will make two more appearances on the show before it’s all said and done – “Tempus Fugit (1)” and “Max (2)”, episodes 17 and 18, respectively, of Season 4.

Along with MUFON, this episode contains acronyms a-plenty. We also get mention of CUFOS (Center for UFO Studies), NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) and CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) although the latter is now known as CSI (Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). Whew. Those are a mouthful. And again, they are also all real and legitimate organizations.

The actor that plays Dr. Oppenheim, William MacDonald, appears on the show five times between 1993 and 1998. Incidentally, he never plays the same character twice. On an semi-related note, MacDonald and another actor in this episode, Brent Stait, both have bit parts in a movie called “Smokejumpers” that is currently in production.

Brent Stait, Alvin Sanders and Michael Rogers have all had cameos on “Supernatural”, which really should come as no surprise, as directors David Nutter and Kim Manners, and writer/producer John Shiban, all did considerable work on “The X-Files” in days-long-past before “Supernatural”. Makes me wonder how many other crossovers between shows there were. I’m sure between Nutter, Manners and Shiban, they have a lot of people on speed dial.

This is the first time we hear the phrase, “Trust No One”. Max Fenig says it in passing to Mulder when they’re locked up together. It would become a staple phrase of “The X-Files”, along with “The Truth Is Out There” and “I Want To Believe”.

This is the first episode that there are seeds planted that there are people in the government that actively want Mulder out of the Bureau. We find this out when Scully shows up to where Mulder is locked up and tells him that Section Chief McGrath wants to shut down the X-Files and wants Mulder gone.

Episode 10 – Fallen Angel

TOWNSEND, WISCONSIN
12:57 A.M. DAY 1

Deputy Wright spots a fire in the woods. He tries to call for help but gets strange static interference over his radio. Go figure. So he goes to investigate.

U.S. SPACE SURVEILLANCE CENTER
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, COLORADO

Captain Koretz and some guy not important enough to have a name inform Colonel Henderson that something fell down and went boom (at 800 miles-an-hour, to boot) right outside of Townsend, Wisconsin. Henderson turns on denial mode and tells Koretz that it was a meteor and the odd movement was due to instrument malfunction. He suggests (read: orders) that her report reflect this.

I call bullshit. You know how I know? Because immediately after this, Henderson walks away and calls in a code “indigo delta echo niner” and says that he has a confirmed fallen angel in sector 87 and instructs the person on the phone to “mobilize Operation Falcon immediately”. Meteor, my ass.

Back to Deputy Wright, he gets about 25 yards from his car into the woods when we get a first-person shot from the camera advancing towards and behind him. Something in the woods does its best Predator impression before one more first-person camera shot comes straight at Wright. Judging by his screams and reaction, this baby is no “E.T.”

*cue The X-Files introduction credits and theme song*
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

BUDGET-REST MOTEL
TOWNSEND, WISCONSIN
12:57 A.M. DAY 1

Wow. Mulder’s good. He found out what was going on, hopped a plane and got to Wisconsin all in less than a minute. If we’re to believe on the on-screen information, that is (seeing as how it’s STILL 12:57 A.M. on Day 1). A flashback while Mulder prepares informs us that Deep Throat (FTW!) told Mulder that he would estimate he has about 24 hours before the quick-response, crash-retrieval team mops things up squeaky-clean.

On location, Mulder surveys the perimeter. He comes across a laser-fence walks past it until next thing we know, he’s outside a makeshift military field base.

OPERATION FALCON
FIELD HEADQUARTERS

Mulder shows us he has balls by sneaking his way onto the base by means of the underside of a military convoy filled with soldiers. As soon as it’s clear he bee-lines it for the forest and lays low until dark. When night falls, he follows the work lights to the crash site. Soldiers are walking around the site in Hazmat gear, spraying everything down with something. After his hard-on from what he sees goes away, he starts taking pictures. He manages to get off four or five before being unceremoniously introduced to the butt end of an assault rifle.

After Mulder comes to, he and Henderson exchange some banter before Mulder gets tossed into a temporary holding cell somewhere in the camp. In an attached cell, he meets Max Fenig, a member of NICAP that also came to investigate the crash but got caught 100 yards past the roadblock. Mulder doesn’t say much but takes in what Fenig tells him.

Mulder wakes up to someone entering the bunker where his cell is. That someone turns out to be Scully and boy, is she pissed. She tells him that Section Chief McGrath wants to shut down the X-Files and wants Mulder out of the Bureau. Mulder isn’t phased. She also tells him that it wasn’t a toxic spill that he saw (like is being reported) but a downed Libyan jet with a nuclear warhead. Mulder isn’t buying it. Oh yea – and Max disappeared sometime during the night.

Back at the laser-fence, the thing running around in the woods is still in Predator mode, as it’s see-through but produces an aura that can be discerned. It feels out the fence and after a military truck passes down the road, it passes right through the beams and crosses over to the woods on the other side.

When Mulder and Scully return to the motel, they find the room trashed and Max dangling from the bathroom window. He explains that he had to know if it was really Mulder – apparently NICAP monitor his every move and idolize him or something. He tells them he has something to show them (which somehow makes them totally disregard the fact the he broke into and destroyed their motel room).

At Max’s trailer, conveniently parked outside of the hotel room and across the parking lot, he plays a recording of the transmission that Deputy Wright sent when he saw the fire and then played one from a panicked fireman pleading for a Medivac and saying that things are really bad and that they have a situation before being cut short.

Quick flash back to the military base, Henderson tells a superior on the phone that every inch of ground is being searched and that it won’t get away – “not this time”. Not this time? There was a last time? Hmm.

MILL ROAD HIGH SCHOOL
EMERGENCY EVACUATION CENTER
6:27 P.M. DAY 2

Mulder and Scully try to talk to Wright’s wife. She confirms he’s dead and says she doesn’t know anything. After calming down a minute, she confides in them that the government won’t release his body and that they told her if she talks to anyone, they’ll withhold his pension. Assholes. Suddenly the power in the gymnasium cuts out.

U.S. MICROWAVE SUBSTATION B21

Henderson throws down the headphones he has on as a high-pitched screeching noise emanates from them. The military policeman outside radios him that the target is on the northeast side of the compound. Henderson radios the beta team and gives them the order to search and destroy. They attempt to do so until the creature approaches them unsighted and…well, does something bad to them, at least. All we see is a bright-ass white light and the soldiers screaming.

COUNTY HOSPITAL,
TOWNSEND, WISCONSIN
11:42 P.M.

The doctor at the hospital tell them that Deputy Wright and a handful of firemen had 5th and 6th degree burns covering 90 percent of their bodies but they were carted off by the military before they could do any pathology. Mulder asks if the burns could have come from ionizing radiation, to which the doctor says it’s possible. Mulder relates this back to UFO stuff as he and Scully walk down the hallway to leave the hospital. Before they can do so, the soldiers from the substation are wheeled in on gurneys, extra well-done. (It took FIVE hours from the time the shit at the substation went down until they got them to the hospital? Whoever did the time-code for this episode must have been high.) After the doctor grows a set and tells Henderson that he runs the show in his hospital and that Scully is staying to help since they’re undermanned, the Colonel tells some MPs to get Mulder out of his sight.

Having nothing else to do, he opts to go back to hotel but upon a second thought, walks over to Max’s. Lucky for Max, as he’s lying on the floor, having a seizure. After he snaps out of it, Mulder helps him to his bed and in the process notices a V-shaped scar behind his ear.

Back at the hotel room, Mulder is reading some things when Scully walks in, exhausted. She said all but two of the men died. Mulder tells her about Max and shows her two pictures of women that have the exact same scar. He asks her to look at it and give him her medical opinion. She says she will – on the way to the airport. They have a plane to catch back to D.C. in an hour and she has every intention of them being on it.

U.S. SPACE SURVEILLANCE CENTER
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, COLORADO

It seems yet another craft has appeared and when Koretz tells her unnamed supervisor, he corrects her like the Colonel did to him and says, “meteor.” He asks her what the status of it is and Koretz gets the last laugh, stating that his “meteor” is, “…hovering over a small town in Eastern Wisconsin.” Ha!

We cut to the weird first-person POV of the creature and it appears to be above Max’s trailer. Once inside, it looks at his ear, which begins bleeding. Max’s eyes shoot open and he stares (directly into the camera, due to the method of filming) as we fade out.

Mulder and Scully head over so she can look at Max before they leave, but he’s nowhere to be found. Mulder hears a transmission over Max’s scanner from Henderson saying there’s an unidentified trespass at the waterfront and instructing those listening to move on the target. Outside, Scully tries to talk Mulder into going back to D.C. for the inquisition but he’s more concerned about Max and what’s going on in Townsend. He asks for the car keys and after a moment of hesitation, she gives them to him.

LAKE MICHEGAN WATERFRONT
DOCK 7

Max is approached by two MPs, who radio to Henderson that the trespasser is just a civilian. Henderson tells them to take him with extreme caution regardless. Good advice, as when we cut back to where Max was, Mulder and Scully are just pulling up and find the two MPs char-broiled. They find Max inside a warehouse, repeating “it hurts” over and over again while holding his ear. A helicopter approaches outside, which causes Scully to go investigate it. Convenient.

No sooner than Scully closes the door behind her, soldiers tell her to hold it right where she is and to come with them. Scully has an absolutely FANTASTIC look on her face that, added in with how she reacts body-wise, just screams, “Chalk this up to running defense for Mulder and getting knee-deep in shit because of it.” It really is a great subtle thing. Henderson affirms that all teams are in position and after some dude with a heat-sensor tells him there are three forms inside, he readies his units to go in 30 seconds.

Inside, Mulder tries to calm Max down but before he can do much, Max fixates on something behind Mulder and when he turns around to see, he gets tosses across the room. After he comes to his senses, he looks for Max and finds him floating in midair in a beam of light. See why Scully had to vamoose? If she was in here, she’d have seen something she couldn’t explain and we have to keep Scully the skeptic. One bright flash later and he’s gone. When the heat-sensor guy tells Henderson he’s only picking up one figure in the room, he gives the order to blast the door and the soldiers run in. Mulder says “they” got to him first. Henderson is pissed and tells an MP to arrest Mulder and to keep looking.

FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.

OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL
RESPONSIBILITY HEARING
10:17 A.M. DAY 4

Scully gets grilled first and asked questions that are obviously designed to Mulder look bad. She realizes this and requests to make a statement at the end of the questioning, which is denied. She tries to get a word in edgewise two more times, being excused both times, before giving up and leaving the office. She wishes Mulder good luck in the hallway and he hobbles in the room on his crutches. Inside, McGrath tears into him and Mulder argues right back. After realizing that McGrath has an “answer” to all his questions, Mulder gives up. He asks them how he can disprove lies that are stamped with an official seal and tells them that no government has jurisdiction over the truth.

In a park somewhere, McGrath power-walks (©Vince McMahon) over to Deep Throat (FTW!) and asks him why he countermanded their decision. Apparently they were set to kick Mulder’s ass to the curb. Deep Throat (FTW!) tells McGrath that he should always keep his friends close, but his enemies closer and then walks off.

*cue credits*

The 411: Much, much, much, much, much better episode than last week. I actually found a source citing that Chris Carter himself called that last episode one of the worst hours ever produced of the show.

But "Fallen Angel" was a fantastic comeback. We got back into what hit it off in the first place - the alien abduction story-arc and mythology. We also got more of Deep Throat and that's never a bad thing.

Seeds were definitely planted for some trouble in paradise for our favorite agents though, so we'll see how that works out in the future. For now, this episode was a firm step up from last week and definitely must-see.

Final Score:  8.5   [ Very Good ]