{"id":117832,"date":"2020-11-23T00:16:52","date_gmt":"2020-11-22T21:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/bad-blood-is-the-x-files-operating-at-peak-silliness\/"},"modified":"2020-11-23T00:16:52","modified_gmt":"2020-11-22T21:16:52","slug":"bad-blood-is-the-x-files-operating-at-peak-silliness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bad-blood-is-the-x-files-operating-at-peak-silliness\/","title":{"rendered":"#\u201cBad Blood\u201d is \u2018The X-Files\u2019 Operating at Peak Silliness"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#\u201cBad Blood\u201d is \u2018The X-Files\u2019 Operating at Peak Silliness<\/strong>”
\nThis essay is part of our series<\/a>\u00a0Episodes<\/strong>, a bi-weekly column in which senior contributor\u00a0Valerie Ettenhofer digs into the singular chapters of television that make the medium great. This entry revisits “Bad Blood,” a wonderfully ridiculous episode of The X-Files penned by Vince Gilligan.<\/em><\/p>\n

Throughout eleven seasons and two movies worth of alien abductions and cigarette-smoking men, The X-Files<\/em><\/strong> has proven again and again that it\u2019s best when it doesn\u2019t take itself too seriously. Chris Carters\u2019 supernatural investigation series can do self-contained serious episodes, sure, but it often loses the plot on its own winding mythology. By the time the series ended for the second time in 2018, it had rewritten its own central story so many times that even the most emotionally engaging plot points, like Agent Mulder\u2019s sister\u2019s disapp<\/a>earance, began to feel like a meme of themselves. Pile on a handful of culturally insensitive Monster of the Week episodes, and you\u2019ve got yourself a beloved series that\u2019s harder than most to rewatch. All is not lost for The X-Files<\/em> fans, though: we\u2019ll always have the funny episodes.<\/p>\n

The X-Files<\/em> has a quirky, irreverent sense of humor that bubbles forth unexpectedly in one-off episodes that are scattered throughout the series. Many of the show\u2019s most playful outings — among them \u201dWar of the Coprophages,\u201d “Jose Chung\u2019s From Outer Space,” and \u201cClyde Bruckman\u2019s Final Repose\u201d — are penned by Darin Morgan, whose name in the credits always elicits a welcome cheer. However, the series\u2019 most seamlessly built and hilariously executed comedy episode takes its cue from Morgan\u2019s comedic spirit but credits its script to someone else: a then-up-and-comer by the name of Vince Gilligan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As David Duchovny<\/strong>\u2019s disoriented FBI agent Mulder might put it after reciting the Shaft<\/em> theme song from his hotel room floor: it\u2019s \u201cBad Blood<\/strong>,\u201d baby.<\/p>\n

Nestled in The X-Files<\/em>\u2019 fifth season, after Scully\u2019s battle with cancer and just before the duo saved the world from an alien virus in the franchise\u2019s first film, \u201cBad Blood\u201d is a welcome comedic break that seems to draw inspiration both from an earlier perspective-shifting entry, the aforementioned \u201cJose Chung\u2019s From Outer Space,\u201d and from classic sitcom episodes like The Dick Van Dyke Show<\/em>\u2019s \u201cThe Night The Roof Fell In.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all fun and game<\/a>s from the start, though. The episode opens with a scene straight out of a thriller movie. A teenage boy runs through the woods, screaming while a man with a weapon relentlessly chases him. Dramatic music by series composer Mark Snow matches the action. The scene is shadowy and quick, and soon the boy is on the ground. The man over him shoves a wooden stake into his chest, then pounds it in further with a rock for good measure. There\u2019s no visible blood, but it\u2019s still a grimace-inducing moment of unhesitant violence.<\/p>\n

Then we hear a familiar line. \u201cMulder?\u201d Scully calls, and the camera closes in on the killer\u2019s face for the first time. It\u2019s our very own Spooky, with a zealous gleam in his eye. Scully approaches and quickly examines the mouth of the now-very-dead teen. It appears he has fangs, but they come out with a quick yank. They\u2019re fakes. \u201cOh shi-\u201d Mulder starts, and the theme song cuts in.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear from the jump that this isn\u2019t going to be your average X file, but the audacity of the plot itself is still surprising all these years later. It\u2019s one of the funniest hours of the series, yet it revolves around FBI agents Mulder and Scully contemplating the idea of prosecution after one of them murders someone. Episode writer Gilligan would famously go on to create Breaking Bad<\/em>, a series that sometimes spun bleak, bizarre humor into its extremely dark overarching story. \u201cBad Blood\u201d does the same, but after its initial set-up — Mulder and Scully have an hour to rehash the events leading up to the murder before explaining themselves to their boss, Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) — mostly abandons the facade of seriousness. The episode is divided up into roughly three sections; Scully\u2019s version of events, Mulder\u2019s version of events, and a coda in which the pair solves the mystery (spoiler: the vampires are definitely real) and deftly avoids prison time.<\/p>\n

The best parts of The X-Files<\/em>\u2019 forays into comedy often feel like a strange drug trip<\/a>. There are surreal moments presented with almost imperceptible deadpan humor, and lines that beg to be posted online with little context. It\u2019s this occasionally wacky attitude, along with the actors\u2019 strong charisma and chemistry, that made the series so formative to the world of internet fandom. \u201cBad Blood\u201d combines the weird humor, charisma, and chemistry, and dials it all up to eleven.<\/p>\n

Duchovny, whose Mulder regularly delivers outlandish theories with a drollness that undercuts even the serious episodes, is here finally cut loose to play the most ridiculous version of his Spooky persona. \u201cYee-haw!\u201d he exclaims in Scully\u2019s version of the story, presenting slides of dead cows while enthusiastically asking, \u201cHow does that grab ya?\u201d Scully clearly sees Mulder as immature and naive, if hysterically high-energy. Every fast-and-loud line Duchovny delivers in Scully\u2019s version of events is pure gold; he\u2019s like if one of the conspiratorial talking heads from Ancient Aliens<\/em> did a bunch of coke before filming.<\/p>\n

In fact, this singularly goofy performance might be a better showcase for the actor\u2019s talents than anything on the dramatic end of the series\u2019 narrative spectrum. \u201cThe man\u2019s SHOES ARE UNTIED!\u201d Mulder practically yells at one point while inspecting a body, as if in a Sherlockian moment of epiphany. At another point, he laughs like a maniac while lying on a vibrating bed. Every moment of Duchovny\u2019s performance is unexpected and hilarious.<\/p>\n

Mulder\u2019s imagined version of Scully isn\u2019t quite as exaggerated as her version of him, but Gillian Anderson<\/strong> still carves out moments to shine within the episode. In Scully\u2019s version of events, she\u2019s bored to tears while performing a tedious autopsy. It\u2019s a regular plot point that the series usually skims past quickly, but this episode\u2019s subjectivity allows us to witness the day-to-day feelings that come with hunting monsters, namely exhaustion, hunger, and apathy. Mulder\u2019s take reveals a gender-based disparity between the two partners. He casts her as the cynical nay-sayer to his measured fountain of wisdom. When the two regroup, he imagines her as whiny without thinking about all the labor she put in while he was on a wild goose chase involving, of all things, a runaway RV. Anderson doesn\u2019t get the comedic upper-hand here, by design, but since she kicks ass in roughly two-hundred and eleven other episodes, we can give \u201cBad Blood\u201d a pass on this.<\/p>\n

Aside from giving fans insight into the ways in which the two opposing partners see one another, \u201cBad Blood\u201d also features some good-natured love-triangle angst in the form of a third party, Sheriff Hartwell (Luke Wilson). Scully thinks the small-town Texas lawman is a chivalrous guy; in her imagined testimony, the two bond over her braininess as she explains the inherent eroticism of vampire mythology. Mulder scoffs at the idea that the sheriff would call her \u201cDana,\u201d so she discreetly re-writes that scene the next time we see it. Through Mulder\u2019s eyes, the sheriff is buck-toothed and brainless, tossing off lines like \u201cY\u2019all must be the guv\u2019ment people\u201d with a heavy local accent. Wilson clearly has fun with both variations of the role, and pulls off the third-act reveal that he and all the local townsfolk really are vampires with subtlety and skill.<\/p>\n

\u201cBad Blood\u201d ends with a bit of anticlimax, revealing the green-eyed cadre of vampires only to have them leave Mulder and Scully alone and without memory of the encounter. \u201cThat is…essentially exactly the way it happened,\u201d Mulder tells Skinner when their deposition finally arrives, \u201cexcept for the part with the buck teeth.\u201d As always, the pair of investigators are back to square one, unable to prove or disprove the existence of supernatural beings. If \u201cBad Blood\u201d teaches us anything, though, it\u2019s that there can be joy in rewriting the same old story in new and different ways.<\/p>\n

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“#\u201cBad Blood\u201d is \u2018The X-Files\u2019 Operating at Peak Silliness” This essay is part of our series\u00a0Episodes, a bi-weekly column in which senior contributor\u00a0Valerie Ettenhofer digs into the singular chapters of television that make the medium great. This entry revisits “Bad Blood,” a wonderfully ridiculous episode of The X-Files penned by Vince Gilligan. Throughout eleven seasons…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Mulder_Scully_X_Files_Bad_Blood-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[7059,57101],"class_list":["post-117832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-episodes","tag-the-x-files"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}