"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time
thing . . ."
-- Vince Lombardi
This quote by the late Green Bay Packer coach is often misquoted as "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." "Kitsunegari" is an episode about winning and losing, because this time, it's not how you play the game. "Kitsunegari" is a sequel of sorts to season three's "Pusher," penned by Vince Gilligan. This time around, Gilligan joins forces with new (to The X-Files) writer Tim Minear to produce a work that had a great deal of promise, but failed to deliver. Call it subtraction by addition.
Mulder's nemesis Robert Patrick Modell recovers from his apparently fatal gunshot wound and escapes from prison using his extraordinary powers of suggestion. So far, so good. But what happens after a promising start is simply too strained, too force-fit to make for a believable X-File. More's the pity. "Kitsunegari" suffers greatly by comparison to "Pusher," which FOX had the temerity to re-air last week. Instead of Modell's using his power to challenge once again the man who shot him, we get something straight out of "Star Wars." The real antagonist is Linda Bowman, who in reality is Modell's fraternal twin. And not only is she his twin sister, but she also has a frontal tumor, just like Modell's, that enables her with the same power he has. Sure. Fine. Whatever.
The FBI comes in to lead the manhunt for the escaped killer, with Mulder and Scully at the forefront. In workmanlike fashion, Mulder tracks down Modell, only to succumb to Modell's will. I guess without Scully there to bolster him, Mulder is no match for even a weakened Modell.
The characterizations were no less disappointing than the actors' portrayal of them. Modell, through some incredible change of heart, is not out for revenge, but to warn Mulder about his sister. This is not the Robert Patrick Modell we came to love and hate in "Pusher." There is no explanation, rational or otherwise, as to why Modell wants to help the man who shot him. I'm still confused, despite the Murder, She Wrote type ending, where Scully explains that Modell was trying to protect his sister. Huh? From what was he trying to protect her? A life that ends up like his? A life sentence or worse when she's caught for the murder of her husband? If either of these were the case, then why help Mulder? Why not kill Mulder himself when he had the chance, so she wouldn't have to? The authorities would have been more than happy to pin both murders on Modell. This whole scenario still doesn't make any sense to me.
Similarly, I found it hard to understand why Scully, after all these years of seeing Mulder being proven right, would now pick this time to side with AD Skinner. And since when does any Assistant Director apologize for having one of his subordinates disobey his orders?
David Duchovny does portray Mulder with a nice intensity. His determination to see through the smoke screen created by Modell and eventually get to the truth was nicely counterbalanced by his showdown scenes with Modell and Linda. I thought DD looked genuinely at odds with himself in the climactic scene in the warehouse.
Unfortunately, Duchovny seemed to be the only actor who cared about his performance. Mitch Pileggi acted like a kid who had memorized his lines from a school play and recited them verbatim, on cue. When he had to deal with Mulder one-on-one in the final scene, Pileggi still couldn't show anything that resembled an emotion. His assertion that Mulder had won rang hollow. Since when did AD Skinner become a subscriber to "the end justifies the means"?
Gillian Anderson was given no room for exploration or expansion of the Scully character. She was perfunctory in her siding with Skinner and in all her interactions with Mulder, except for when she made him hang up the phone when he was talking to Modell. I'm starting to think the only reason she was even in this episode was to provide continuity from "Pusher" and to utter that most banal of lines, "Fox hunt! Fox Mulder!"
Guest star Diana Scarwid turned in a mind-numbing performance as Linda Bowman. She was as stoic and mechanical as is humanly possible. Perish the thought, but she acted like a Cum Laude graduate of the Laurie Holden School of Method Acting. There's a difference between low-key acting and automatic pilot. She barely raised an eyebrow or changed her voice inflection in any scene. Even in the deathbed euthanasia scene with her brother, she was icy cold. Director Daniel Sackheim returns to helm an episode after a long absence, one that played at a very fast pace. I think it was deliberately done that way so the viewer would excuse the mush that was supposed to be the substance of the story. There was one nice piece of camerawork, when Mulder, Scully and Skinner were interrogating Linda after she first appeared. The view panned in to the room and crept ever closer to the four of them. The scene in the warehouse, where the two policemen split up and Modell beckons the one who ends up holding his partner at gun point was also nicely done, as we watched the officer move towards us. But that was about it as far as good direction is concerned.
Joel Ransom at least had some nice touches with the bluish shadowing in the warehouse where the cop ended up holding the gun on his partner. And Heather MacDougall did her usual fine job in splicing scenes together. She almost never disappoints.
Mark Snow's score was omnipresent. While effective throughout and brilliant in spots, when I watched the episode for the third time, I noticed that there was hardly any time at all when there wasn't some background music being played. Sometime less is more, Mark. Call this addition by subtraction.
Writers Gilligan and Minear seemed hell-bent on injecting some humor into "Kitsunegari." If they had only succeeded. In the opening sequence, the physical therapist urges Modell to "Keep pushing." Subtle, it wasn't. Funny it wasn't, either. Mulder's exclamation, "Let me guess. This is some sort of clue," bordered on the obnoxious. And Modell's referring to Skinner as "Mel Cooley" once again provided continuity, but no laughs this time.
In closing, let's talk about the theme of winning. When Mulder picks up the empty Carbo-Bar wrapper that Modell left on the counter of the sporting goods store, the back of the wrapper proclaims, "You may already be a winner!" Geez, why not just have Mulder pick up an envelope with Ed McMahon's picture on it? In Skinner's congratulatory speech to Mulder in the final scene, such as it was, Skinner asserts that Mulder won. Mulder's reply about feeling like he lost echoes my own sentiments. I feel that we, the viewers, lost in this one.
My Score: 3 out of 10