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Feb 09, 2016 By Cody Ray Shafer Web Exclusive

Last week’s episode of The X-Files certainly set the high bar for this series. It was fun, weird, and told us an awful lot about where these characters are twenty-plus years into their evolution. I don’t think anyone was expecting this week’s episode to top “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,” so it is understandable that “Home Again” is a bit uneven at times. But among its low points there are quite a few memorable moments, mostly focusing on Scully’s quest in comparison to Mulder’s, and delivered by yet another moving performance from Gillian Anderson.

It starts with a pretty typical X-Files investigation into an unexplained death. The victim was brutally ripped into pieces by a tall figure, and the FBI quickly discovers a link between the victim and a plan to relocate a homeless community. The killer is some sort of guardian of the homeless, emerging from a garbage truck to take out privileged jerks who pose a threat. Each of the murders is a grisly scene, and the investigation takes Mulder and Scully to an underground street artist who apparently constructed the monster with his art as a means of protecting those who have no one to stand up for him. It is an interesting idea, though they never really make much of it.

Meanwhile, Scully’s mother is hospitalized, and while Dana essentially waits for her to die, she deals with a barrage of small mysteries of her own; why did her mother call out for her youngest, estranged son before being hospitalized? And why did she look at Mulder, not Scully, and mention their son before she finally passed? Scully laments not having answers, and the show doesn’t offer much either.

I am having a hard time figuring out how these two stories are supposed to complement each other, and even if they need to. It seems, at the outset, that each storyline is somewhat compromised by the existence of the other; each time we’re getting somewhere with the Trash Man, we have to check in with Scully, and as interesting as her scenes with her mother are, they feel overly rushed for the sake of getting back to this week’s monster.

During the investigation, I am reminded of the pair’s remarkable skill at finding common ground among the people they are interrogating. In this episode, they are able to descend into the depths of society and meet a man who despises the social hierarchy, and yet he confesses all to a couple of feds in nice suits. It’s jarring, but a remarkable facet of these two; they can gain trust from all walks of life, and their job as investigators knows no real social boundaries.

“Home Again” may be uneven, but it does give us some excellent Mulder-Scully moments. I was skeptical of the show’s need to bring up Scully’s post-adoption depression so often, especially when it risks compromising her trademark stoicism and strength. But this episode really made that aspect of Scully’s character work, by revealing Scully as vulnerable without making her weak.

I think what “Home Again” comes down to is that The X-Files exists in a world of mysteries, of unexplained phenomena, and it is the story of the curious minds who question everything. What this episode tells us is that there will inevitably be mysteries that simply cannot be answered, and here we see how that reality deeply saddens our heroes. (www.fox.com/the-x-files)

Author rating: 6.5/10