"All We Can Do Scully Is Pull The Thread, See What It Unravels..."
Typical. You wait fourteen years for one of your favourite shows to return and then you get hit with two new episodes within the space of just twenty four hours. It's like London buses. Kind of. If the first episode was let down by its' extreme determination to shove as much in your face as humanly possible with the return of the shows' overlying mythology, then the second adheres to the secondary X-Files plot basis with the return of the "Monster of the Week" stories whilst featuring a heavy dose of looking back in regards to the long lost William, the son of both Mulder and Scully whom they gave up for adoption in Series 8. From the off, it is fundamentally wonderful to witness a programme as loved as The X-Files back on the small screen, and those that may have been let down by the premiere of the latest series will hopefully have their faith restored with "Founders Mutation", an episode in which it reminds us of the good old tales of the paranormal in which the original series made its' name. And oh, with added blood and gore.
After the supposed suicide of a scientist, Agents Mulder and Scully, recently back on X-Files duty, unravel the strange circumstances regarding his death, eventually resulting in the discovery of a laboratory in which testings are made upon young children, each with extreme genetic deformities as well as dangerous and powerful paranormal powers. Sounds like an atypical episode of The X-Files does it not? And in proper succinct fashion with classic monster-of-the-week episodes, "Founders Mutation" does what X-Files has always done best; show off a creepy story with a rather mind-boggling plot but keep it together with the chemistry of its' two leads. If Duchovny and Scully were in danger of being recognised as actors who had perhaps just decided to "phone-in" their performances within this latest series, then this episode alone shows off how inherently excited and proud they must be to back in the show that quickly made them household names in the 1990's. They're having fun and so is the audience, with a script so stark-raving mad it verges on X-Files satire with the violence being turned up way past eleven it makes a Tarantino flick look harmless. It's X-Files 101 and I love it.
Viewers who are perhaps less than informed with the overarching mythology of the series' earlier seasons may be rather alienated by the plot thread of William, but it was interesting to see the correlation between the investigation and our agents' personal lives, one in which the discussion of their long lost child has been a good way to keep relations to the earlier plot lines established across the mythology. Perhaps the realisation of Scully's DNA being part alien will tie into the rediscovery of their adopted son, something of which may in turn be exposed in the remaining four episodes. Whatever the ultimate goal of this ever-so-short revival inevitably is, whether it be to see if interest in the show is still rife today, fans across the globe are just happy to see its' return and with "Founders Mutation" being a stark improvement on the first episode, things are only getting better.
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