Confession time: even though I recap The X-Files, this is the first time I've watched The Lone Gunmen. Not because I'm boycotting any and all Chris Carter efforts not called The X-Files, and certainly not because I'm spending these four sweet X-Files-free Sundays dancing around my living room, kissing my Mulder and Scully action figures, and making up little songs about how free the three of us suddenly feel -- free, I tell you, free! -- but, rather because, dude, The Sopranos. Thank God for Alex Richmond's awesome recaps, or I'd have no clue who any of these chuckleheads are. Anyway. To the chuckleheads.
God, will I never escape the dreaded voice-over? Guess not. Cue "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Cue newsreel footage of various important historical events: JFK waving from the back of a motorcade, Teddy Roosevelt shaking hands with the great unwashed, the moon landing, Winston Churchhill. Cue Jimmy Bond voice-over: "Heroes. Once in a great while, they come along when we need them the most. Like President Churchill [sic], who won World War II, and Gandhi, peaceful leader of the Indians. Or, as we know them, Native Americans [sic!]. The thing about heroes is you can just never tell where the crop is gonna come from. And you don't always recognize them at first sight." Fade to an elementary-school classroom in Sterling, Virginia, 1976. All the kids are getting up in front of the class and sharing what they want to be when they grow up -- and they all want to be "rich and famous." Except one (very cute) kid in a corduroy suit, who desires above all else to become "a career bureaucrat for the U.S. government" and help lots and lots of people and spread democracy all over America! Name that Gunman: John Fitzgerald Byers. "Idealist."
Saltville, Nebraska, 1982. A doofy blond kid with glasses is furiously typing on his computer. Let's just pretend that a kid in 1982 would (a) have his own computer or (b) be able to lug it all the way out to the barn, since it probably weighed sixty pounds, or (c) had a freaking power source in the barn with which to run the freaking computer. His dad swings around the corner and hee-haws that "typing is for secretaries." And for writers, dumb-ass -- I type eighty words a minute, and let me tell you, it is one useful skill. The kid stands and predicts that computers will change the world, and also that, by the year 2000, we'll "all eat food pills like on Star Trek, and we won't need cows anymore." Name that Gunman: Richard "Ringo" Langly. (Ringo?) "Computer God."
Pontiac, Michigan, 1967. A bunch of clean-cut guys in khaki pants and letterman jackets stride past a short, chubby kid. The head jock is, by the way, about thirty-three and welcome to call me anytime. The chubby kid jumps on the head jock from behind, and wrestles him to the ground. "Say it!" he squeals. "The Cutlass 442 is faster than the Belvedeare GTX, all right?" Jocky chokes out. People -- to me, they are speaking in code. Is that cars? Calculators? Whatever. "Damn straight," Chubby says, as Jocky shakes him off. "Some captain of the football team you are," Chubby continues. Again, I have no idea what they're talking about, but I know football, and what they're talking about has nothing to do with football, so I really don't know what Jocky's knowledge about...um, whatever, has to do with football. Now, if Jocky told Chubby that he didn't know the difference between a field goal and a two-point conversion, that'd be a whole other story. Oh, maybe Chubby means that Jocky is a crappy football player because he was so easily tackled, in which case, word. Jocky calls Chubby a shrimp, and further informs him that he always will be a shrimp. Chubby ruefully shakes his head and tells Jocky that he thinks big. Real big. And when he grows up, he's going to be a "crusading publisher, and make this world a better place. Like...Hugh Hefner." Chubby leers at the schoolgirls behind him. Name that Gunman: Melvin Frohike. "Man of action."
Oh, gawd. We cut to a tri-split screen, each of the little boys on his own red, white, or blue background. "Three heroes. Three separate paths leading to one shared destiny," Jimmy says, as the boys morph into their grownup selves. "To change the world. To make history. Today's the day it happens." I'm sure.
Credits.
Federal File Depository, Owings Mills, Maryland. Hey, that's where you write if you want transcripts of Wall Street Week. Which my parents used to make me watch with them every Friday night of my young life, until my grandmother took pity on me and got me a TV for my room, and then, later, of course, I got a life and used to leave the house. The voice-over, by the way? Still. Coming. Atcha: "You gotta figure, people never see history coming. It just kinda sneaks up on them" Byers exits the GunVan. "Like when the Chinese bombed Pearl Harbor[sic. Sic. SIC.]. You're living your life, them boom! You're swept up in it."
This voice-over was brought to you by the Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer production of Pearl Harbor! Starring Ben Affleck, and a bunch of other people! And bombs! Starring lots of bombs! It's like Titanic, but with bombs instead of that iceberg!
Inside the FFD, the guy at the desk wears the snotty/weary look which is, I'm told, de rigeur for government employees. He sneers at Byers -- who, it seems, spends a lot of time requesting stuff that he never gets clearance to see. The obligatory "it's the Freedom of Information Office; why isn't the information free?" comment from Byers. Apparently, one of his requests has finally been honored; Snotty Weary heaves a giant box onto the counter with a bang, and goes back to time-date stamping documents. I don't know why he looks so bleak. When I worked at the front desk of my dormitory at UCLA, I loved time-date stamping items, because the time-date stamper made such a satisfyingly violent thonk. On the other hand, I didn't constantly have to time-date stamp; I also got to read residents' postcards and magazines. And remove meals from the meal cards of people who really, really pissed me off. A word to the wise: don't piss off the people at the front desk of your dormitory. I was one of the nice ones. Anyway, Byers is all shocked by the size of the box.