"Never explain. Your friends do not need it,
and your enemies will not believe you anyway."
-- Elbert Hubbard
"Zero Sum" goes a long way towards explaining at least one facet of the Mythology that surrounds The X-Files. It's time for May Sweeps, so that means it's time for Frank Spotnitz to step to the forefront to try to give us a few more answers and to raise a few more questions. That's been the basis for the Mythology since its inception. They tell us something we didn't know, and raise more possibilities while they do it. It's TV's (and Chris Carter's) version of the old shell game. No matter what shell you look under, there's no pea.
"Zero Sum" begins with the death of a woman who works for a private delivery service. What's unusual is that this woman was stung to death in the ladies' room at work. This catches the eye, not of Fox Mulder, but of the investigating detective. He sends Mulder an email message along with some on-line photographs of the crime scene. Apparently, Mulder's reputation for the bizarre has extended beyond the FBI and is now growing among local police forces as well. ;-)
We spend the next 7 minutes watching as Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) goes about systematically eradicating all the evidence connected with the death, including the theft of the corpse from the morgue and its subsequent destruction in a furnace. Shades of "Hell Money" and "Never Again"! What could possibly drive an Assistant Director of the FBI to take part in a criminal conspiracy to suppress evidence? A deal with the devil. In "Memento Mori," Skinner warns Mulder about making a deal with CSM for Scully's life. At the end of that episode, Skinner is consorting with Cancer Man, having already made the decision that he will make the requisite sacrifice to save Scully. In "Zero Sum," Skinner must ante up before Scully is healed. After a series of deceptions, lies and machinations, Skinner eventually confronts CSM and nearly kills him in anger. Some more interesting things are "revealed," and some more questions are raised. It's business as usual in the mythology episodes on The X-Files.
Mitch Pileggi does a nice job with a script that drags in too many places for this episode to be considered a classic. Watching someone dispose of evidence for 7 solid minutes is almost too much to bear. Mark Snow's music had to fill the void that resulted from the absence of dialogue. Since the action wasn't compelling, it was tedious. Contrast this with some of the long stretches of silence during "Squeeze," where the action was leading up to something unique and the suspense mounted by the second. There was no build-up of suspense in the silence of "Zero Sum" because there wasn't any portend of danger. It was simply filler: Hamburger Helper for the eyes. At the merciful conclusion of this sequence, the members of the Mitch Pileggi Estrogen Brigade got some eye candy, and Pileggi got rid of the clothes he wore on his mission and stood there wearing nothing but a pair of briefs. This is simply another instance of style trying to substitute for substance, and it doesn't hold up. It was cheap and tawdry and demeaning to a fine actor.
Fortunately, the episode picked up the pace and the intrigue. Pileggi did a fine job of portraying a man who is caught in a vortex, spinning out of control, ever downward, towards a crash at the bottom. Every move he makes is anticipated by CSM, who manages to use Skinner's every move to his (CSM's) advantage. Pileggi made a believable caring person when he was in South Carolina, and his face-off with Cancer Man in the apartment was golden. As he stared at Cancer Man, you could see Skinner's eyes saying, "Enough is enough, you bastard!" And when he pulled the trigger, I was struck with amazement. I believe my words were, "No F*CKIN' WAY! He SHOT Cancer Man!!!" and those really were my words, because I said them out loud. :) The reaction on William B. Davis's face after Skinner pulled the trigger was priceless. For all of his cool veneer, Cancer Man looked for all the world like a man in dire need of a change of underwear. :-) This was, to my recollection, Bill Davis's finest reaction shot on the series. Normally quiet, unemotional and almost robotic in his portrayal of a stone killer, Davis turned in a nice performance in "Zero Sum." If only his hand had shaken when he lit the cigarette as he answered the phone . . .
But no amount of screen time seems to be enough to break Laurie Holden out of her wooden portrayal of Marita Covarrubias. If she were directed to play Marita as an ice queen, then break out the portable heaters. There's a frost build up on my screen. But I must admit that when she was shown to be on the other end of the phone with Cancer Man right after the shooting, I once again exclaimed out loud. It was something about a female dog being in cahoots with Cancer Man. ;-) But it wasn't Ms. Holden's acting that made me shout; it was the twist in the story. I got over it. ;-)
David Duchovny's limited screen time was actually a case of less being more. He didn't have Scully for a foil, so he didn't have to carry the story alone. DD did have some nice reaction shots, particularly when he was watching the enhanced bank surveillance photo come into focus. His face said, "I don't believe it, but I know in my heart that it really is Skinner," and he didn't look judgmental. His was a nice turn as the angry agent as Skinner tried to explain, and I got the distinct impression that it was Mulder who filed the serial number off Skinner's gun before he took it to the forensics lab for ballistics analysis. Mulder was present just enough for continuity, but was off-screen enough for Pileggi to have center stage pretty much all to himself. I thought Pileggi pulled it off.
Kim Manners' direction was somewhat inconsistent. The first 10 minutes of the episode dragged, but the last 10 minutes fairly flew by. There were some nice confrontational scenes (Skinner and CSM twice, Skinner and Mulder twice, Skinner and Marita) and some nice camera angles were used. Oddly enough, these appeared during the evidence removal scenes. Michael S. Stern did a nice job of editing these scenes together into a smooth, coherent flow. And Mark Snow's music was superb. It had to be; it was all there was during the silence of the evidence removal scenes.
Finally, I have to address the writing. I can't say from first-hand knowledge, but my instinct tells me that Howard Gordon wrote the set-up scenes (read: the boring parts) and Frank Spotnitz wrote the good stuff. History is a good teacher in this respect. Certainly, the main story theme came from Spotnitz, who has been Mr. Co-mythology with Chris Carter since early in Season 3. I get the distinct impression that Carter and Spotnitz have pretty well sketched out the details for the mythology and are now filling in the blanks. With the series scheduled to end after next season, I think this is a pretty good idea. ;-)
So, in total, "Zero Sum" was almost what its title implies: all gains are offset by equal loses. In Skinner's case, it's Scully's life for his own. For CSM, it's more power over Skinner and Mulder and less esteem in the eyes of the Consortium. For the viewer, it's one question answered and another one raised. But it would be unfair to say that "Zero Sum" was an exercise in frustration. It did reveal, or at least made the viewer think it revealed, some pretty interesting stuff about the mythology. And it stayed true to the old show business adage: it left us wanting more. It was a good, solid episode, redeemed by the story, the surprises and the performance of Mitch Pileggi.
My Score: 9 out of 10