X-Files - Babylon Season 10 Ep 5
I haven’t come to Tumblr in ages other than some reblogs, but I can’t think of any other place that I can post my thoughts on the latest episode of the X-Files reboot. I was a fan back when it was on, but lost track of the last season or so. Obviously a lot has happened to the real world since Mulder and Scully left our TV sets, so it is of no surprise to me that many of these new episodes would encompass much of that. The show is after all, based on a real life government agency investigating seemingly real life cases that could be found in the news, especially nowadays.
Spoilers and recap ahead….
When the episode started showing a Muslim man going about his daily prayers, I knew it was going to go one of two ways. He could have been a regular guy who happens to be a Muslim, or he could be a terrorist. Given the ominous music in the background, and the nature of the show, it was obvious which one it would be. And within a few moments of seeing him and his friend walking into a building, I knew which it would be. The building blows up, credits begin.
Next we have Mulder showing Scully some video footage of people around the world hearing trumpets playing from the sky. He tells her the phenomena is what many believe to be an end of times warning, as foretold in the Bible. Scully is surprised that Mulder is buying this, as he’s not religious and doesn’t believe in God. But he insists he is just in investigative mode. At this point, there’s a knock at the door, two younger agents who are assigned to the terrorist case. They are pretty much literally mini Scully and Mulder, with Agent Miller being the open minded to all things, and Agent Einstein being the scientific doctor. I’m not sure if this is laying the groundwork for an official reboot, but that would be stupid because why do the exact same thing…and the characters were cool for the episode, but I didn’t care that much about them to want to see more.
Anyway, moving on. The rest of the story unfolded pretty much predictably, but interesting enough. Agent Miller (Young Mulder, as I’ll call him) wants to try to communicate with the terrorist who managed to survive the attack by not setting his bomb off, but is basically a vegetable in ICU. And Agent Einstein (Young Scully…) thinks it’s a huge waste of time and resources. The little twist happens when the agents sort of switch teams. Mulder seeks assistance from the Young Scully, asking her to help him get some “magic mushrooms" under her guidance in an attempt to get himself to a different plane of existence to talk to the terrorist. Scully also wants to try and communicate with the comatose terrorist, but by means of a more medical tactic. Something about hooking him up to a brain waves monitoring machine and asking questions first of a common nature, which could then lead to more informative responses in the brain’s reaction. That was the gist, anyway.
Scully and Young Mulder get kicked out out of the room due to some vague bomb threat called into the hospital. At this point, a rogue nurse is left alone with the terrorist and she tries to kill him. Real Mulder and Young Scully come in just in time, pull rank on the nurse, and Mulder ends up taking his ‘shrooms. But in a few minutes time, he's out of the room and wandering the streets of Texas in a trippy state. He ends up at a country bar line dancing to Achey Breaky Heart (really, THAT song??). The trip takes a dark turn and he’s suddenly on a boat with various past characters. At the end of the boat, is the terrorist in the arms of what seems to be his mother. The terrorist is whispering something, so Mulder gets closer. But he doesn’t understand what he’s saying, as it’s in Arabic. Soon enough he wakes up in a hospital with a very PO’d Director Skinner in his face. Apparently, Mulder’s little trip has caused much embarrassment for him and the Bureau. Duh. Mulder also learns from Young Scully that she didn’t actually give him ‘shrooms, but placebo pills. So any trippin’ he experienced was solely in his head, the power of suggestion. Mulder grapples with this as he’s being wheeled out of the hospital, when he sees a bunch of Feds detaining a woman that Mulder recognizes from his trip, realizing it's the terrorist's mother. He takes her to the ICU.
This is where it all starts to come together. The mother talks to her son, and he seems to understand her. She tells him that this was not who he really was, that she raised him to be peaceful and not give into the hate, and this is why he ended up being scared at the last second of the attack, apparently not setting off his bomb. He does end up dying at this point, which I figured would happen. Mulder remembers that the terrorist was whispering to him in the trip he had, and he tries to make out the word. He puzzles it out a bit, and finally comes up with something like Babel….and Young Mulder recalls there is a hotel called Babylon. The Feds go there and bust up a cell of terrorists planning their next attack.
The episode wraps up with the two new young agents discussing all they’ve learned, blah blah. Finally we see Mulder sitting on his porch and Scully drive up. They discuss the case as well. Mulder says he’s been thinking about God, but specifically the angry God in the Bible, as in Babylon, and what exactly is that all about. Scully gets what he's on about and points out this is the same God that’s in the Koran. They both ponder this and lament that out of all these centuries, the only message that stuck has been anger. Whoa, this is deep. Then Mulder brings it home to a point I hadn’t even noticed until he said it. He said it made him think of the role of “Mother Love”, as in any mother giving birth to any child. Mulder doesn’t want to believe that a mother is giving birth to a martyr, but that there is a greater purpose for mothers. This ties in to last week’s episode with Scully’s Mom passing away, and the continuing mention of William, the son they have but had to give up due to his safety and the nature of their work all those years (this is the stuff I’ve missed and have to revisit, eventually). Back to this ep, Scully agrees, and says maybe that is “God’s will”, that the greater purpose is that we’re supposed to all find a common language, common ground, etc. But Mulder asks, how are we supposed to know when God is “absent from the stage”? Scully says maybe it’s beyond words, we’re supposed to be like the prophets and open our hearts and truly listen. At this point, Mulder begins to hear some trumpet sounds, as in the beginning. but Scully doesn’t hear them. We pan out to a view of good old Mother Earth and left to ponder all the questions that Mulder and Scully posed. But if you’re anything like me, you’ve been asking these questions yourself for many years, and will continue to. Each time perhaps gaining just a wee bit more insight, and yet no real answer at all.
I’ve read just a few reviews on this episode and they didn’t seem too thrilled with it. Many complained it was out of character for Chris Carter’s writing, and that it fed into the all too common Islamophobia that is rampant in our world today. However, I think they missed the point. The point was not the obvious portrayal of Muslims in the world today, but the bigger picture. The questioning of what’s life about, what’s religion about, if anything at all. The fact that so many different cultures can read these stories taught to them as religion and often misinterpret the message, or take the angry version and follow that rather than the peaceful version of religion that we all know exists too. What causes them to go one route or another? Obviously hate, but where does it stem from, and why? They drew the connection with Mulder taking the placebo and thinking he was tripping on “shrooms the same as these suicide bombers following their angry God’s wishes to commit murder for glory. The power of suggestion can be that strong, clearly. This was the main point of the episode, and all of the stereotypes portrayed was necessary to get to that point.
Overall, I thought it was a great episode.
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