"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come
and take you away"
-- Stephen Stills, "For What It's Worth"
I could have quoted most of the lyrics from this song and had it apply to "Unusual Suspects." Paranoia lies at the heart of this episode from the fertile mind of writer Vince Gilligan, in his first solo effort since Season Four's memorable "Small Potatoes." He's still playing head games, but the end result was worth it.
Told in flashback, the story unfolds after the arrest of what will later become the intrepid threesome known as The Lone Gunmen. This episode, by my interpretation, lays the cornerstone for the ongoing Mythology that is at the epicenter of The X-Files. It is superbly crafted, both technically and emotionally, and is richly layered with multiple subtexts that have become the trademark of the series' best writer.
On the surface alone, the story is worthy of praise. Gilligan's script and director Kim Manners' skillful pacing combined with Lynne Willingham's artistic editing to bring the viewer a veritable visual feast for the eyes. (Stephen Stills isn't the only one who can use alliteration. ;) What could be appreciated solely as a wonderful episode that fills in some of the blanks in the history of The X-Files takes on much greater significance when scrutinized closer.
Gilligan's narrative tells the story of how John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood) encountered a fugitive from the FBI, Susanne Modeski (Signey Coleman), and through that happenstance, met fellow Gunmen Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood) and Langley (Dean Haglund), who apparently is still searching for a given name. ;) Gilligan blends some moments of comic relief with high levels of suspense to produce a literal roller coaster ride if you just follow the story from beginning to end. But Gilligan rarely attempts to satisfy on merely the surface level. His scripts have a depth and subtlety that transcend the medium and elevate it to an art form.
Take, for example, the beautifully acted and photographed scene where Byers pursues the object of his infatuation, Susanne Modeski. When he meets her, he almost melts into a pool after gazing into her deep blue eyes. He was hooked. He simply could not let her just walk away and out of his life forever. As she turned a corner, he was in hot pursuit. Then he rounds the corner and they collide. Metaphorically speaking, this was a clash of two very different worlds. The beautiful, flashy stranger runs smack into the not unattractive but reserved government employee who has found her charms irresistible. Boy meets girl, Vince Gilligan style, was a joy to behold. What man could resist helping a beautiful damsel in distress?
The ensuing dialogue between them led Byers to down the path to "the dark side," to the point where he would commit computer crimes in an effort to maintain proximity to the object of his desire. Men will do crazy things when blinded by lust, and it was easy to appreciate how Byers would get caught up in activities he would never even consider were he thinking clearly.
Bruce Harwood turns in a superior performance as the smitten Byers. Gilligan's script afforded him the opportunity to run the gamut from dedicated civil servant to hopelessly enthralled suitor to indignant citizen to the lovable conspiracy theorist of today. These transformations were all achieved within 44 minutes of screen time, and at no time did it seem as though these metamorphoses were strained or artificial.
Playing the femme fatale to Braidwood's star-struck Byers, Signey Coleman gave a convincing performance. She was smoothly sensual when she wanted something from Byers and his soon-to-be cohorts and icily calculating when it came to her own survival. It was in my analysis of the Susanne Modeski character that I discovered the third layer of the story.
There were so many inconsistencies in Susanne's actions and words that a more recondite examination was in order. Consider that she's supposedly an organic chemist. Yet she possesses the skill to break into a locked hotel room. She's also a crack shot, as evidenced by her firing two shots in rapid succession and killing the thugs who were about to end Mulder's life before his X-Files adventure had even begun. She manages to extract her own tooth without any anesthetic and without so much as a groan or a moan. And speaking of the tooth, what I saw was a completely healthy tooth with the roots intact. There was simply no way that a miniature surveillance device could have been implanted in the bottom of her tooth and then reinserted into her mouth. Finally, after she was captured, as X rolled down the window and the limousine drove off in slow motion, she could be clearly seen sitting up straight in the back seat next to X, calm and composed and not struggling to get away from her captors. So what do all these inconsistencies add up to?
They add up to the fact that writer Gilligan, if no other, is playing fair with us. What this story was meant to tell us was that at the heart of the conspiracy that is the main backdrop for the series, involving Fox Mulder was part of the scenario. Consider X's command that "No one touches this man!" Why not? When the two thugs started firing, they kept firing at the box of the test drug; they didn't try to go for position and kill Mulder. Again, I asked myself, why not?
Given the nature of the actions of Susanne and X, there is one rational scenario that fits all the facts. Mulder was the intended test case. Mulder had been given up by his father as the test subject for the paranoia-inducing drug; Samantha was sacrificed for the DNA/cloning testing. Mulder's actions have been monitored for the past eight years (through the FBI, i.e., Section Chief Blevins) to determine the lasting effect of the drug. Susanne was part of X's team, and she used the Lone Gunmen to lure Mulder to the warehouse so that he could be brought into contact with the ergotine histamine compound. Then, as Mulder was told the story by Byers et al., he was already predisposed to believe that there was something conspiratorial going on. The seeds for the Mulder we know today were planted back in 1989.
The performances of two notable guest stars were worth the price of admission. Steven Williams' X hadn't lost any of that menacing edge that he could display with just a look. Those piercing eyes when he looks askance could freeze a man's heart. He hasn't lost any of his commanding presence from being off the show for over a year. He has been missed.
I'd swear that Vince Gilligan is a regular viewer of Homicide: Life on the Streets. He captured the sardonic wit and demeanor of Detective John Munch so dead on that I was looking for some closing credit to Tom Fontanna. Richard Belzer looked so at home playing his own character in another series that even his facial expressions were true to form. This was especially true when he was interrogating Byers ("Do I look like Geraldo???") and when he confiscated Langley's cable pirating device.
Kudos go to director Kim Manners for another excellent job. He moved the story forward at a perfect pace, lingering in the parts that deserved special attention and rapidly moving ahead when that was the desired effect. Contrast the lingering scenes in the hotel room between TLG and Susanne with the tailing of Mulder by Byers and Frohike and the penultimate scene where Frohike and Langley knock over a man on the street while running to catch up with Byers, who has just spotted Susanne leaving the newspaper. Then re-watch as X and Susanne drive by in slow motion, so that X's glare makes a final statement to the Lone Gunmen as they stand by, watching helplessly.
Lynne Willingham's expert editing proved that her amazing efforts in "Redux II" were no fluke. The light flashes that bridged us from the interrogation room (this was NOT "The Box") to the visual narrative and back again to Byers and Munch were just one example of her exquisite handling of the editorial scissors. She may not be my favorite editor yet, but she's #2 with a bullet. :)
But the applause has yet to die down for Vince Gilligan's superb script. He managed to tell an intriguing background story with elements of humor and suspense mixed perfectly. He captured the essence of a character from another show and wove it into the fabric of the story. He demonstrated an all-too-familiar insight into men-women relationships. And he gave us a glimpse into the initial development of the character of Fox Mulder and the basis of the Mythology. "Unusual Suspects" had it all.
My Score: 10 out of 10