April 1, 2023

Gabbing Geek

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The X-Files “Lazarus”

A dead bank robber seems to have taken over the body of an FBI agent.

Oh hey, it’s another somewhat familiar face for fans of sci-fi shows shot in and around Vancouver:  Callum Keith Rennie, who would be one of the human-looking Cylons in the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

Then again, I’m not sure his name even appeared in the guest star list in the beginning of the episode.

The Case:  Body-Hopping Killer!

The Rest:  Well, if I thought the last episode might show the agents just showing up wherever the case is, that’s not what’s happening here as Scully is assisting one Special Agent Willis as he stakes out a bank to catch a notorious bank robber whose escapades, along with his wife, have left seven people dead and a lot of money stolen.  The man in question, one Warren Dupre, has a distinctive tattoo on his arm dedicated to his wife/partner-in-crime Lola, and they take turns robbing banks while the other drives the getaway car.  Mulder apparently is late, but not as late as Dupre and Willis might end up being when Dupre shoots Willis and Scully unloads on Dupre during the robbery.

They only had two agents in there?  That just seems like bad planning.

However, while Scully oversees Willis’s revival at the hospital, no one notices Dupre’s body reacting to the electroshock paddles.  Oh, and there’s that tattoo.  They really want the audience to see that thing.

And then two days later, Dupre wakes up in Willis’s body.

Eep.

So, as cases go, this one seems to have some problems.  Dupre’s tattoo seems to make the jump to Willis’s arm, and then he actually goes to work at the FBI to find Lola because, he later says, his love for her is what brought him back.  Mulder is suspicious, but he’s always suspicious.  Mostly because Willis is now left-handed like Dupre was.  And he doesn’t remember he and Scully shared a birthday.  And his signature is different.  And he’s acting weird.

That all comes after Dupre-as-Willis tracks down and murders Lola’s brother (Rennie), thinking he was the one who informed the FBI.  No, it turns out later it was Lola.  I guess that was an easier way to get a divorce or something.

Point is, the tattoo hopping (temporarily it turns out) to Willis’s arm is just a little of the stuff that made this episode kinda silly.  Scully apparently knows Willis very well, since she dated him for a while and he was her instructor at the Academy.

Um, that’s kinda wrong, Scully.

Likewise, Willis was a diabetic, and Dupre doesn’t know that as he keeps drinking sodas and such.  Scully, even as his hostage (because yes she was taken hostage), realizes he needs insulin but never quite believes he’s Dupre.  By episode’s end, she seems to be the only one who believes as such,  All I know is, Dupre should have checked the owner’s manual for that body he took over.  He might have lasted longer.

Oh, he still died more permanently in the end, and then that magic tattoo disappeared from his arm.  He’d already murdered the mutinous Lola by then anyway, and Scully can go back to Not Believing.  Then again, the episode did show Mulder is actually good at his job when it came to finding Scully using ordinary FBI resources.

Needless to say, kinda weird this time.  And not in the way this show often was.

Up next, a killer whose aging was reversed wants revenge, as one does.

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