Garbage in, garbage out.
By Matt Fowler
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
A bit of a backslide here this week with “Home Again,” though it was definitely the most emotionally hefty of these new chapters so far. While we all slowly discover what these six new X-Files episodes truly are (were they to be a single-arc miniseries or a condensed version of a regular season?) it’s become more apparent that the major through line here is William. And Mulder and Scully’s regrets over giving him up. Or, as Scully felt this week, the fear that they tossed him away like “trash.” As something to push out of sight and keep out of mind.
Essentially, “Home Again” was another monster hunt. Not as insightful or hilarious as last week’s rather meta take on urban legends, but still – a boogeyman tale. A street artist’s rebellious artwork coming to life in violent defense of the homeless. Sort of a ghost tale, as “Trash Man” mentioned to our heroes something about spirits floating about, looking for various vessels. Meaning, we’re to sort of assuming that could have happened here with the unstoppable “Band Aid Nose Man” and his penchant for ripping apart smarmy city bureaucrats.
Helping make this chapter feel like two episodes in one though was Scully’s tragic loss of her mother, Margaret (the returning Sheila Larken). Which worked to sideline her for most of the creature case while she ran a gambit of emotions that led her back to her overwhelming sense of guilt regarding William. A feeling she was already harboring as indicated by her initially seeing his name every time someone called her. A lot of these moments contained some very powerful work from Gillian Anderson. And to counterbalance the weight of this half of the story, Mulder’s manhunt for the mystery mutilator was given a bit of extra zip. Some clever snarkiness to the dialogue. And the two halves worked well.
And so did the parallels that came with the flashbacks showing Mulder (so young!) at Scully’s hospital bedside.
Things started to fall apart a bit though when the episode began trying to awkwardly tie everything together. When Scully came back to the case, because she needed to work, she wound up coming to a bizarre, stretch-of-a-conclusion based on Trash Man’s words. With flashback images of her giving birth juxtaposed with him creating his art. As if the two were similar. And that the monster Trash Man unintentionally made was somehow similar to William? It was a reach. And then that whole lecture about people treating the homeless like garbage. It got too preachy for a ghost hunt that essentially didn’t go anywhere.
Because Band Aid Nose Man (that will always feel weird to type) killed everyone he was out to kill. They never stopped him. And then Trash Man just took it upon himself to ruin the statue and turn the head into a smiley face. Nothing came of anything except for Scully using both her mom’s passing and the Trash Man’s speechifying to become more resolute about possibly finding William.
Loosely behind all of this was the notion of “thoughtform” and the Tulpa. Or the Tulku, as Mulder tried to insist. A vague mystic idea akin to golems and imaginary friends and such. And it’s not a bad idea for an X-Files episode. I just wasn’t a fan of how they tried to connect the responsibility of creating a vengeance demon with Scully giving up William in order to protect him. It felt like a square peg/round hole situation.
Some of the forced third act messaging aside, “Home Again” contained some very powerful scenes with Scully and her fading mother. As well as a fairly cool Candyman-style skid row rampage story. And I liked that William’s now become the thread to connect this revival series together as our heroes work more cases and focus less on the mythology introduced in the premiere (it should return by the finale though).
