Alone

I don't know if you're aware of this, but David Duchovny stars in The X-Files. Did you know that? Because they've really been keeping it under wraps at Fox. Just in case you didn't know, he stars in the show. He's the star!

So what had happened was, they're totally reusing the Vomity Shaman Cabin in the Woods set for this episode. This time, it's supposed to be in Ellicott, New York. ["I've been there! Well, I've been to Ellicottville, which I assume is close to Ellicott. My friend has a chalet there. I skied at her resort and got bad bad aching muscles but...what's that? The X-Files? Oh, fine." -- Wing Chun] At the tone, the time will be 11:02 PM. A car pulls up outside the cabin and a guy gets out and goes inside.

The guy from the car -- who looks sort of like a thinner James Gandolfini -- enters the cabin and starts chatting, sort of grumpily, with an old guy in a wheelchair who turns out to be his father. "Did you do what I asked?" Grandpa asks. Yada, you ought to be in the hospital, yada, you promised me, yada, you don't owe this man anything, yada it's not about owing, yada yada mysterious dialogue. Gandolnotfini makes some comment about how sick he is of having to check to make sure the cabin doors are locked all the time, and walks into the kitchen to make dinner. What a loving caretaker for his ailing parent. Frank Spotnitz, drunk with the power of both writing and directing, treats us to a Monster Point of View Shot from behind Grandpa's head. Yeah, yeah, let's get to the pouncing and devouring; I've got a beer icing in the fridge. Grandpa's heart monitor beeps. We pan to his face. He looks apprehensive. We pan up to the open window above Grandpa's head, the panes knocking against the sill in the wind. Grandpa's heart monitor starts beeping faster. Monster Point of View is now directly above Grandpa's head. He blinks, leans back, and moans something unintelligible. The heart monitor goes berserk.

In the kitchen, Gandolnotfini hears first the heart monitor beeping madly and then a muffled crash. He sort of strolls nonchalantly into the living room, where he finds Grandpa's empty wheelchair, tipped over onto its side. He looks around and sees the front door slightly open. Gandolnotfini peers out the open door. Something with a tail lurks behind him. Gandolnotfini turns around. The thing, which looks vaguely like a lizard, pounces. What an unexpected development; I thought it was going to rise up on its hind legs and ask Gandolnotfini if he'd like to play a game of canasta before turning in for the night.

And credits. Just because I haven't said so in a while doesn't mean I don't still hate them.

Lush Basement Office. Scully's packing up her desk. Nice green shirt. Semi-decent hair. She looks at the fused penny and dime from Dreamland with an amused smile, which is pretty interesting because I didn't think she was supposed to remember anything that happened in that episode. But whatever. out of the Top Desk Drawer of Seasons Past is Queequeg's dog tag. Scully's gazing at it fondly, remembering that one episode when she had a dog, when Doggett bounds into the office. She looks up and gives him her Brave Mommy smile, explaining that her doctor insisted she take her maternity leave, so she's packing up her desk. Doggett makes some supportive noises. out of the Biggest Little Desk Drawer in Texas is the Apollo 11 keychain Mulder gave her, which Scully smiles at dreamily. She tells Doggett that she'd like him to have the keychain; Doggett is unimpressed, until Scully explains that the keychain symbolizes all kinds of important things, like partnership and teamwork and when this show used to be really good. "It means no one gets there alone," she finishes, weepily. Then she sighs that she couldn't have made it through the past year without Doggett. Scully blinks back tears. Okay, we've established that Gillian Anderson can cry. Really well. Very effectively. Quite evocatively. And now it's time to practice conveying another emotion: keeping a stiff upper lip. Please. Anyway, Scully hugs Doggett, who manages to look pleased, touched, and uncomfortable all at the same time. They stare at each other, and Scully turns to go. "This is just a leave, right?" Doggett asks her as she gets to the doorjamb. "I mean, you are coming back? Eventually?" Scully just smiles her Mona Lisa smile at him and leaves. Doggett looks upset and confused and all alone. He wanders over to the "I Want to Believe" poster, which you'd think Mulder would have taken with him -- if only to hang it in the kid's nursery -- and sort of shakes his head at the muddle he's somehow gotten himself into. Footsteps tip-tap down the hallway toward the office. Doggett smiles. "You're not gone five minutes, Agent Scully, and already I'm starting to feel like a stranger in my own...office," he shouts, trailing off when he sees that the tip-tapper is not Scully, but a small, pretty blonde woman in a blue pantsuit. "Can I help you?" Doggett wonders. She's there to help him, she tells him. She has an X-File for them. "Who are you?" Doggett asks, furrowing his brow. The blonde blinks. She's his new partner, Leyla Harrison. (Sidebar: this character is named after an X-Files fanfic writer who recently died of cancer. I know I pour a lot of shit all over the writers on a fairly regular basis, but I think what they did here was a pretty cool gesture. Even touching. Good work, boys.) Didn't Kersh tell him...no, of course not. Leyla smiles apologetically. I already like her five thousand times more than Moronica.

Ellicott, NY, 10:47 AM. That estate is so not in upstate New York; that's Pasadena, and if I had a dollar for the number of times I've driven past that house in my life, I wouldn't have to look for a new job. Up pulls the Sensible Car. Out pops Doggett, with Leyla trotting after him. They watch as the coroner carts out Grandpa's body -- which, Leyla exposits, was found in the woods about fifty yards past the house. "Maybe we should start there," she offers. "Let's start in the house," Doggett decides. "Okay, then," Leyla says, and scampers after him.

House of Scully. Enter Mulder. "Ready to roll?" he asks. She's crabby. He's awkward. Scully sort of shuffles around her dining-room table while Mulder stuffs a throw pillow under his shirt and makes awkward Lamaze-oriented commentary. He explains that he's knowledgeable about baby stuff because he's been spending his days watching Oprah, which is a total lie, because I know he's sitting around, taking notes on What To Expect When You're Expecting, while watching Passions out of one eye, and then feeling totally cheated because everyone on Passions this week is either having sex or talking about having sex or trying to talk people into have sex with them and he never gets to have any sex. "Word," crabs the Mulder action figure. Scully solemnly thanks him for "doing this with her." More tears well up in her eyes. "What's the matter?" Mulder asks. Scully tearfully shakes her head. She's not sure whether it's the hormones, she says, but she feels so strange. "About having a baby?" Mulder asks. "About leaving work," Scully sniffles. She moans that she feels like a deserter. Mulder tells her that she's more than paid her dues in that office. She sniffs. "You're concerned about Agent Doggett?" he asks. Scully stares at Mulder's neck for a second, then looks up and comments that she always had someone watching her back, and Doggett doesn't have anyone. Mulder wisely declines to point out that "watching her back" often consisted of running off half-cocked and not telling her where he was going, but simply reminds her that Doggett can take care of himself. "He's a big boy," Mulder says. "You've got to worry about the little boy. Or little girl. Boy? Or girl?" Scully just smiles and says nothing, because that's the most frustrating response possible. I take it, from that exchange, that the two of them really haven't had a long sit-down chat about the AlienMiracleBaby. Or maybe they have and they're simply acting obtuse. Nobody knows nothing about anything here.

LizardMan Estates. Doggett manages to make his way up to the house. Without knocking, he walks inside. The house is quiet and dark. Mark Snow throws a little twinkly piano into the soundtrack, and I actually like it. I am so getting soft. What the hell is wrong with me? ["Are you drunk yet?" -- Wing Chun] In the study, Doggett finds a book called The Sixth Extinction, inscribed "For Herman Stites: May you find what you seek." Doggett puts the book down on the table and purses his lips.

Back to the LizardCam, which comes careening down the hallway and into the study to peer around the door at Doggett, whose Spidey-sense alerts him to an alien presence (so to speak). He slowly, slowly draws his gun. Doggett looks over his shoulder, even more slowly, creeps over to the door, and peers into the hallway. The person in the hallway? Leyla. Shocking! Doggett breathlessly asks her what she's doing. "It's here," he says. "It? What it?" Leyla asks, sharply. Is she armed, Doggett asks? Leyla awkwardly removes her gun from its holster. They probably don't have a lot of call for gunplay in accounting. Doggett tells her that she needs to get outside and guard the door. When he flushes "it" out, she needs to shoot it. Leyla nods, and creeps down the hallway. "Agent Harrison?" Doggett calls after her. "Take the safety off." Dumb girls. We never know how to properly work manly equipment, like weaponry, or cars.