“En Ami” (season 7, episode 15; originally aired 3/19/2000)
In which the Cigarette Smoking Man and Scully go on a road trip…
As a show gets into its later years, original premises become thin on the ground. Most of the dramatic material available when the pilot aired has been mined to exhaustion and beyond, and stones have been wrung of every possible drop of blood. Things start to seem familiar no matter how hard the writers try to keep it fresh, and the behavior of characters (and the actors who bring them to life) is so well worn it’s possible to predict the words and inflection of every scene minutes ahead of time. Yet it’s not completely hopeless. After all, predictability isn’t always a bad thing, and the comfort and pleasure of seeing the same faces after so much time gives everything a lived in feel, enriching the relationship between the work and its audience. Also, every once in a while, the writers can still hit on an idea so striking and perfect you’ll wonder why it wasn’t done ages ago. That’s the case with this week’s first episode, “En Ami.” Scully and the Cigarette Smoking Man go on a road trip. How cool is that?
So cool that it mostly overcomes some significant script flaws, although the hour hasn’t aged well for me in the four days since I first watched it. To set up: a little boy named Jason has cancer, and his parents are refusing to get him medical treatment on religious grounds. One night, he sees a glowing light outside his window, and strange men on the lawn. The next day, his cancer has disappeared, seemingly verifying his and his family’s faith. Since this is The X-Files and not Touched By An Angel, it’s not quite so simple, something Scully discovers for herself after Mulder sends her to the boy’s home to investigate. Jason has a scab on the back of his neck, and that’s pretty significant, seeing as how this is a show where people get chips injected into their necks to keep track of where they are, and, oh yeah, to cure their cancer. So Jason’s salvation came from the government, and as soon as Scully realizes it, the Cigarette Smoking Man comes calling. He tells her he’s dying (cerebral inflammation), but before he goes, he wants to do one last good thing: he wants to bring the cancer cure, which is in fact a cure for all disease, to the world. The catch is, he needs Scully to come with him to meet the man who developed the process, and if she tells Mulder, the deal is off.
Right away, the big problem with this story is that it requires Scully to be a lot more naive than she usually is. Which isn’t to say she’s an idiot; once she accepts C.G.B Spender’s story (or, at least, realizes there’s enough of a chance he’s right that she can’t bare to risk not going), she starts wearing a wire, and tries to send tapes back to Mulder in case things go south. Of course, the trip doesn’t seem to last that long, so I’m not sure how useful those tapes would’ve been, unless she got killed, but still it’s good prep work which only gets foiled because Spender has a high class assassin following them. It’s just not enough. Teaming up these two characters creates all kinds of potential for fascinating drama, and the actors work well together, but given their history, the idea that Scully would believe Spender’s tale enough to make her think the risk was worth taking is stretch. This is a man who has lied and murdered and plotted against her and her partner from the very beginning, before she was born even, and now he suddenly, and with no more cause than a sob story about a death sentence, wants to do right by the world?
I can buy Mulder going along with it. Mulder has always been the impulsive one, the guy who takes big risks and doesn’t seem to value his life all that highly. (He’s not suicidal, he just never lets the fear of death stopping him from following his hunches.) Scully is the skeptic, and yet all she needs for proof is Jason’s health, and a quick trip to Spender’s supposed offices. William B. Davis is one of the show’s greatest assets, and his hang-dog sincerity can be surprisingly convincing, but our heroes have fought him and everything he represents for far too long for this to be believable. The reveal three-quarters through the hour that it really is a con, and that Spender’s using Scully as a way to draw out a Defense Department mole, is more disappointing than shocking. Given the way the episode ends, that’s probably intentional, and I’ll get to that ending in a moment, but that still doesn’t justify the treatment of our favorite red-headed FBI agent. She’s basically passive, moving where she’s told, her one act of rebellion quickly and easily stamped out. Anderson sells it for the most part, but it’s still disappointing she doesn’t get to put up more of a fight, especially considering Spender’s creepy paternalism towards her.
Yeah, so this is also an episode in which one of the show’s greatest villains changes Scully into her pajamas while she’s unconscious, and buys her a sexy evening gown. It’s weird, and the only reason it’s not incredibly creepy to watch is, again, Davis. The script even makes some feints towards trying to suggest Spender is mixing some light seduction into his con job, exploiting his own legitimate fears about aging and his place in the world in order to appeal to her pity, and then going just a little bit further. He busts out Scully’s old line about being attracted to powerful men, and makes sure to tell Scully he’s had a special affection for her all the years he’s been tormenting her and her partner; and while sure, the “affection” could just be read as a kind of faux fatherly concern, the whole situation is threatening in a way that’s never properly addressed. There’s no question that, if Scully is going to work with Spender, there’s going to need to be tension, but Scully’s willingness to just keep going along with what’s happening robs her of agency, and makes what should be a courageous choice (risking her life for the potential betterment of humanity) into something inexplicable and vaguely childish.
I’m not sure I’m making as much sense with this as I’d like, but I’ll leave this thought behind, because going further risks losing what little thread I have left. Suffice to say, there’s a contrast between Gillian Anderson’s performance (as confident and powerful as ever), and her character’s paralysis, and it doesn’t quite work for me. And yet, like I said near the start of this review, I consider “En Ami” to be basically sound. The Cigarette Smoking Man is a great character, a frumpier precursor to more charismatic TV Machiavellis like Lost’s Benjamin Linus and Justified’s Boyd Crowder, and attempts to give us a clearer sense of what drives him, even while his motivations remain a mystery to our heroes, are always welcome. It’s both darkly hilarious and deeply sad to watch him try and chat Scully up, as they drive across country or share a meal in a restaurant so classy it uses well-stocked bookshelves for interior decor. For Scully, this is agony, a frightening, dangerous glimpse directly into the heart of darkness. For Spender, it’s very likely the most human contact he’s had all year.
Of course it’s a con job, but like any great lie, there’s some truth to it. While the episode probably would’ve been improved if Spender had come to Scully with a more convincing lie, the amount of his personality that slips through makes the agent’s gullibility easier to accept. This isn’t a perfect hour, but for me, it mostly gets a pass because it gives us a glimpse of the man behind the monster. I’m always a sucker for that (see “Musings Of A Cigarette Man”), and even with the number of compromises needed to get the premise off the ground, it’s still a fundamentally good idea. I love the fact that Scully feels a brief bit of pity for a man she despises, for all the right reasons, only to end up hating him even more, even though he saves her life. (After admittedly putting her in danger in the first place. This shit has layers, yo.) Scully’s CD with the supposed cure for disease turns out to be blank, and the informant who gave it to her is shot dead for his efforts; that’s a bummer, both for the obvious reasons, and because it’s hard not to want to accept Spender’s self-defense, even when his rhetoric is more empty posturing than facts. His power comes from having just enough humanity left to covnince other’s he’s a human being. Yet every time he does it, he loses a little more. So: the bad guys win again, and Spender basks in his victory with a glass of wine. But man, as nice as that cabin is, and as comfy as it looks sitting by the fire, there’s only one person in the room, the house, for miles around.
Grade: B+