A much improved second episode for the new X-Files finds Mulder and Scully investigating the suicide of a scientist who stabbed himself in the ear after hearing an incessant high pitched noise that only he could hear. The resulting investigation leads Mulder and Scully further into the conspiracy that we were bored with during the last episode by introducing some mutated and possibly alien hybrided children and also leads Mulder and Scully to feel guilt over giving up their own son.
It’s better, but it’s still not there yet.
While it was refreshing to see an episode that dealt with this new and, if I may say, lamer conspiracy deal with the issue without being consumed and bogged down by it, the show still feels rusty, but at least it feels much looser.
Gillian and David have defintely stepped it up from last episode, both of them coming off as more relaxed and more confident than before, even though Mulder did have a very strange and out of character conversation with Scully that made me see more of David Duchovny than Fox Mulder.
To see the pair on an actual case and doing some actual investigating really made the episode feel, for lack of a better word, right and I also have to applaud the concerted effort to return fun into to the X-Files. Sure, it might have been low brow, but I actually laughed.
I still can’t get over this new conspiracy… removing the aliens from The X-Files is like removing the Enterprise from Star Trek. I’m giving it a chance, but this just sucks so far. No aliens… just an evil government. I swear the idiots on my Facebook feed are writing this show.
I wouldn’t call “Founder’s Mutation” a home run, but I am at least more confident with the show than I was yesterday and, with a monster episode coming up next week, I have a feeling it will only get better from here.
Jason Gaston 