Sunday Mornings with Mulder and Scully – The Return of Robert Modell

Toward the end of season three, Robert Wisden guest starred as a manipulative villain that like to mind fuck people into killing themselves. He almost succeeded in getting Mulder to do it before Mulder shot him, leaving the man in a coma. It was believed that a tumor in his brain allowed him to manipulate people’s mind the way he did. It was the first episode to ever feature Russian Roulette on network television. A genuinely good episode. The sequel in season five, not so much.

Kitsunegari – a Japanese word for fox hunt. Also the title of the eighth episode of season five.

Robert Modell, A.K.A. Pusher, awakens from a coma and convinces the prison guard on duty to allow him to leave the prison hospital he was in. When Mulder heads the investigation to find him, Scully believes that Mulder is intentionally playing into his game where they left off. They interview Modell’s sister Linda which leads Mulder to believe that Modell is not on another killing spree.

Still, even as Mulder questions what is going on, Modell still manages to trick Skinner, Mulder, and Scully into seeing things that aren’t real and almost tricks Mulder into shooting Scully. Or at least they believe it is Modell until it continues to happen after Modell dies. Turns out, his sister has the exact same tumor Modell did and had the same abilities.

This sequel was too much of a red herring to keep my interest. When the show brought back Victor Tooms for a second episode in season two, the sequel added so much to the creepiness of Tooms’ character that his arc went full circle. This particular character sequel with Modell was really just a retread of the previous episode, but with the sister as the killer instead of Modell. Not much of a twist in my opinion, and after all the great monster of the week episodes so far this season, this one stood out as not being up to par.

Schizogeny – or the killer tree episode which is what cast and crew referred to it as during filming.

Fun fact: David Duchovny called the villain in this episode dickweed during filming and the censor said they couldn’t use the line so they dubbed it over with dorkweed. That is pretty much the most interesting thing about this episode. It is neither great nor bad, but it does feel much like a season one monster of the week that doesn’t stand out among a bunch of better episodes.

Mulder and Scully investigate the death of a man who was apparently killed by being buried alive by his son. The kicker was that the son seemed to have used his mind to tell tree roots to pull the man under the soil. Killer tree episode, indeed.

After a couple more bodies turn up buried among the large trees in an orchard, one of the town’s residents admits that the soil is bad. The last time soil was bad and the trees were dying, a few people were buried alive as some kind of Wicker Man type fertilizer. The kid didn’t bury is dad after all. He was trying to pull his father out of the soil, not bury him.

This episode had potential. It could have gone full on Midsommar and had this small Michigan town be full of people trying to save their next harvest as their trees were dying. The writers could have taken this to a really creepy place, but, alas. It doesn’t quite get there which is really sad because it stars Katherine Isabelle and Sarah Jane-Redmond.

Katherine Isabelle is one of my favorite Scream Queens. She has starred in Ginger Snaps, Feddy vs. Jason, and American Mary as well as nine episodes of Hannibal. When I’m done with my X-Files blog, I’ll be doing a write up of Hannibal and how its three too short seasons should not have been cancelled. If you haven’t seen it, watch it.

Sara Jane-Redmond would later go on to star in the 2008 X-Files movie I Want To Believe as one of the FBI agents as well as The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Smallville, and an episode of Fringe.

Chad Lindberg plays the kid accused of killing his father on this episode but his performance is so lackluster that some of his dialogue was dubbed over to make it standout more. I think that really sums up this episode in a nutshell. Lackluster and needed life breathed into it.

Until next week, the truth is out there.