The X-Files “Born Again”

Oh hey, it’s Maggie Wheeler in a supporting role as a cop for this episode, one that doesn’t have a weird laugh that annoys Chandler Bing, but she was apparently dating David Duchovny at the time this episode was made.  Poor gal…

Also, this one is apparently not a favorite of a lot of the people who were working on the show.

The Case:  An Angry Ghost Reincarnated As A Young Girl!

The Rest:  Wheeler’s role here is basically a Buffalo cop who specifically requests Mulder and Scully’s help on a bizarre case.  She says her brother is a Baltimore cop, and they really appreciate everything Mulder and Scully did in the Eugene Tooms case.

Wait, the Tooms case that was so airtight, the courts let Tooms go?  I think that might be a bit screwy.  It also makes me wonder how much people buy Mulder’s theories in-universe.

Regardless, that all happened.  Will the agents look into what the police department ruled a suicide but looks awfully suspicious?  See, a somewhat sleazy detective had been interviewing an eight year old girl who appeared to be lost when he was suddenly thrown out of a window a couple stories to the ground below.  Mulder is there to point out suicides usually open the window first.  Scully thinks there had to be another person in there especially when the girl describes a man who looks a lot like a picture of a dead officer taken from a memorial wall.  And me, I’ll just point out that girl in the first scene looks like she took fashion tips from the kid in Little Miss Sunshine.

Eh, it doesn’t matter.  The dead cop was one Detective Charlie Morris, and Mulder thinks it would be a good idea to look into how he died.  Sure, it looks like a gang hit by the Tongs, but he’s suspicious.  He talks to the man’s partner who claims to have never met the guy who flew out a window, but he likewise lied that his wife was taking a nap.  Scully notes she was clearly baking since her hands were covered in flour.

Enter:  creepy guy!  Yes, another former detective, this one working for a life insurance company, so you know he’s probably up to no good.  He even looks creepy.  Ex-partner Tony goes to see the callous creep because, well, gosh golly gee whiz, Charlie wasn’t murdered by the Tongs.  I am so surprised.  What next?  I find out Tony’s wife Anita is also Charlie’s widow?

She is?  Is that because I remember this episode better than I thought or because the story seemed too familiar?

Whatever.  Creepy guy dies when his scarf gets caught in a bus door and the driver can’t stop in time before he’s…whatevered to death.  He’s not dragged to a bloody pulp.  I might notice that.  He doesn’t hit anything.  I guess the scarf strangled him.  That works.  Invisible forces pulled the scarf into the door and pushed down the gas pedal.  And yes, that girl is sitting in the back of the bus.  Someone keeps breaking curfew.

But this girl already had problems.  She was seeing a psychiatrist and maiming dolls to look like Charlie’s dead body, something Mulder noticed because he’s weird.  His efforts to get the girl some past life hypnotic regression just upset everybody but him.  However, he and Scully do show up on time when Charlie’s ghost decides to take down Tony even if it was really Anita’s presence that calmed Charlie down.  Tony did confess and he’ll do time.

Did Anita divorce him after that?  The episode never says, but the little girl sure seems normal again.

Too bad.  They could have brought her back as an experienced detective in a young girl’s body to assist with more cases.  That could have made for an interesting spin-off.

Up next, be kind to the janitorial staff.