Sunday Mornings with Mulder and Scully – The Pine Bluff Variant

Agent Mulder’s behavior during this season of The X-Files has been erratic. One minute he believes in his conspiracy theories, the next minute he doesn’t. The whiplash of watching this character be so disenfranchised by his own government and by the FBI was palpable. Does he believe or doesn’t he? Yes. No. Maybe. Or is Scully the believer now? In episode eighteen, The Pine Bluff Variant, we discover why he’s been acting in such an irrational manner. It wasn’t just the conspiracies set against him. It was also that he has been working undercover for an undetermined amount of time.

A lot of the plotting in this episode is really convoluted, but it revolves around a terrorist plot to release a biological agent on civilians. This group of terrorists that Mulder is pretending to be part of tests their biological weapon on patrons of a movie theater leaving them bleeding from all orifices. Scully realizes it isn’t airborne so they must have used another way to deploy it. Meanwhile, the terrorists rob a bank. In the safe, they spray the money with the biological weapon and leave. Scully is smart enough to figure out that the money is the deployment system, so they are able to stop the money from going into civilian hands.

There is this back and forth with Mulder and the leader of this terrorist organization where Mulder has to repeatedly prove himself to earn trust, but it turns out that the leader is actually trying to help Mulder and lets him escape. Like I said, pretty convoluted. And Mulder’s character in this episode had him refusing to shoot a hostage at the bank but needing to prove he is really with the group. Fortunately, he doesn’t shoot the hostage which would have been a total deviation from who Mulder was at that point.

I won’t lie. This is one of my least favorite episodes. Ever. It feels like the worst Millennium episode crossed over with Criminal Minds but the criminals were the cops. Mulder being a rogue agent working undercover really goes against his work on the X-Files. It has no bearing in the paranormal, and why weren’t there other agents available for that? Why was Mulder pulled away from his other work? But, whatever. I will say this – the scene in the movie theater where Scully finds the dead bodies is the real high point. It’s very much a precursor to the Fox series Fringe which has several episodes where Agent Dunham has to look into mysterious gruesome deaths at public places. Specifically, in a diner is the episode I’m thinking of. Fringe, however, did the episode justice by making it about the biological agent and not by convoluted subplots. In that respect, I guess that makes this episode a success. Begrudgingly.

The cast here was decent too, I’ll admit. Actor Sam Anderson portrayed one of the terrorists in this episode. His prolific television career includes Stephen King’s The Stand, an episode of Millennium, several episodes of Angel, and just about every single prime time series that aired on CBS in the early 00s. CSI. Cold Case. CSI: Miami. Without a Trace. CSI: NY. Criminal Minds. NCIS. It’s a long list. Just check out his IMDB.

Daniel von Bargen had a longer career before this episode than he did after, but he did star as Commandant Spangler on Malcolm in the Middle which would air in 2000 and become Fox’s highest rated show during it’s first few seasons. It would be nestled between The Simpsons and The X-Files on Sunday nights, which I never missed. He also starred in alien creature feature The Faculty released in 1998 which I highly recommend. Von Bargen also has a connection to Stephen King as he starred in the adaptation of Thinner. 

Until next week, the truth is out there. And I should rewatch Fringe. Again.