The X-Files: "Mulder and Scully Meet The Were-Monster" (February 1, 2016)

Typically, The X-Files concerns two dueling viewpoints or philosophies.

We can understand the world through Romantic principles (belief and faith); and these ideas are usually expressed in the series by Mulder.

Or we can experience and comprehend our reality via the tenets of the Enlightenment: science and reason. 

Most often, Scully is our voice for this world-view.

Sometimes -- such as those occasions when Christianity is involved -- these roles and viewpoints are reversed.

But there is a third philosophy that viewers encounter in The X-Files, particularly in the catalog of writer (and now director) Darin Morgan.

In episodes such as “Humbug,” “War of the Coprophages,” “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” and now 2016’s “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,” we encounter a philosophy of existential angst and nihilism.

Nihilism -- the philosophy that life is meaningless -- probably sounds like too strong a descriptor for these stories, though I have utilized that term many times regarding Morgan’s contribution to Chris Carter’s universe.

Ordinarily, Morgan’s episodes of The X-Files (and Millennium [1996-1999] as well…) picture human existence itself as, if not meaningless, then certainly as absurd.

Perhaps this quality sounds depressing in nature, but Morgan uses humor and pathos to escape nihilism’s darkest corners.  In some cases, life’s absurdity is the very thing -- the very factor -- that makes human connection, like the relationship shared by Mulder and Scully, so important.

Life is nuts, but at least we have each other to help us get through it, right?

“Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” is actually a Master’s Thesis of sorts on the Darin Morgan X-verse: a crafty summation of this thematic paradigm. It is also a bit more hopeful in its musings than some of the author's other episodes.

Why? Well, the episode merrily and deftly dissects horror stories and mythology, thus qualifying it as post-modern in intention. 

Yet “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” is simultaneously a story that honors series history -- taking stock of the past and present -- and then, in conclusion suggests that there is indeed an antidote to what Jose Chung once termed the inevitability of “1000 more years of the same old crap” (“Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense.”)

That antidote to such stagnation is, simply, transformation.

What makes us, as individuals, transform?  

Well, perhaps catching a glimpse of something wondrous. Or, perhaps, catching a glimpse of something just wondrous enough to re-fill the empty well of faith.

In the episode, Mulder’s mid-life ennui is resolved, for example when he sees a were-lizard in the flesh. His faith is restored. He transforms beyond depression and mid-life crisis.

But in real life the effect could have been the same (or approximately the same), if he had witnessed an eclipse, found a four-leaf clover, or witnessed even an especially beautiful sunset.

In all such moments -- whether there are scientific explanations or not -- we feel that, at the very least, we are at the right place at the right time.

And that feeling can keep us afloat against the crashing tides of nihilism. Life may be meaningless. Life may be absurd. But Life still shows us, occasionally, these odd little grace notes. 

And being there to witness them, is, in the final analysis, better than not being there to witness them.

And having someone like Scully to share them with you? 

That’s the best way to get by in a universe -- in the words of the episode -- constructed of “nonsense” or “madness.” 

Transformation occurs when people feel supported in their choices and passions, and face the world with renewed purpose. Scully may disagree with Mulder, but she is buoyed to see him be his old self again, feeling a renewed sense of meaning in his life.

In “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,” a downcast Mulder (David Duchovny) questions his career and life choices. Scully (Gillian Anderson) brings him some respite by reporting that they have a new case…and that it involves a monster.

In particular, there has been an incident in Shawan, Oregon.

There, dead bodies have been discovered (following the night of the full moon…) with vicious-looking bite wounds.  

Two stoner witnesses (Tyler Labine and Nicole Parker) claim to have seen a “man-sized lizard with human teeth.”

The hunt for the lizard-man, leads -- strangely enough -- to Guy Mann (Rhys Darby), an oddly-dressed man facing his own crisis of identity.  Mulder believes that Guy transforms into a monster by the full moon.

The truth is somewhat different than that explanation, however…

Darin Morgan’s thesis in “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” is quite brilliant. Specifically he seems to note that man and monsters are one-in-the-same, two-sides of the same coin. 

Humanity tells and re-tells all these elaborate stories of monsters that prowl under the full moon -- the inaugural image of the episode -- and then makes up crazy ways to defeat them, like a green glass bottle to the abdomen.  

What these horror movies and horror stories are about, really is the fact that mankind is a judgmental S.O.B. In all these stories, we quash those who transform; those derided others who undertake so-called unacceptable change.

Take Guy Mann  for example, our Monster of the Week. He is a real monster, a Lizard-Man who has been bitten by human and now suffers the ultimate curse: daily transformations into a man.  He has to get a job. He lies about his sex life. He feels the irrational need to cover himself up when naked, and so forth. Instead of being a man who becomes a monster, he is monster who becomes a man.

His most fearsome power as a human being? Being able to b.s. his way through any situation.

Guy Mann, interestingly, is dressed as cult-TV’s greatest monster-hunter, Carl Kolchak (from Kolchak: The Night Stalker) and actually pinpoints Mulder, verbally, as a monster. These things reinforce Morgan’s notion that there aren’t any real monsters; that we just perceive each other as such because we are all different. To us, Mulder isn't a monster, and neither is Kolchak. But to their quarry?

Our subjective, perceptual sets selectively classify people as monsters, and then we weave together stories of death (“and penetration,” to quote the episode’s psychologist) to legitimize our beliefs, and thereby destroy the threat of unsanctioned transformation.

Morgan’s story not only inverts the classic werewolf tale and opens with that classic image of the genre (the full-moon), it contextualizes the werewolf myth, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and now, The X-Files as stories that express some crucial aspect of the human psyche; the need to assign the world monsters when what mostly people simply dread are those who are different.

The episode features some remarkable continuity and call-backs to earlier X-Files episodes in terms of Scully’s immortality (“Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” “Tithonus”), Mulder’s choice in underwear, the re-appearance of the stoners (“War of the Coprophages” and “Quagmire”) and even legendary (and much-missed…) series director, Kim Manners.

But again, what the episode is really about --  if such a claim can be made -- is transformation and its practical value in a world without meaning. 

The world is nonsense and mad, and utterly meaningless, unless we choose to transform ourselves and view it differently. 

Look at Scully.  Instead of being kidnapped and abducted by a serial killer (“Irresistible” and others) she transforms herself here with a word, noting that she is “immortal.”   She is so immortal, in fact, we don't even need to see her apprehend the episode's real villain.

Mulder, when faced with the idea that his life has been a sham and pointless, sees something amazing and re-fills the well of his faith.  He transforms, once more, into a “bat-crap-crazy” believer. Now he is ready to "see" the world again.

And Guy Mann attempts to transform too. He has changed into a man, but he wants to be a monster. 

He attempts to hibernate and kick the “man” part of his body away, permanently. He is going to will himself to sleep, so he can transform, to wake up anew. To see the world, transformed.

This leitmotif of transformation is the reason why the episode is in no way trans-phobic, as some critics on the Internet have suggested. I suspect that they don’t know how to interpret art and imagery, and should stick to (the apparently humorless) world of political activism instead.

What is a transgender individual, after all, but a person who has seen and recognized that transformation (or transition, to use the appropriate technology) can remake a person’s life?  

Transgender individuals have imagined a purpose or destiny for themselves amidst a world apparently without meaning, and sought, against much criticism, to make it happen. They have attempted to re-order the chaos of life in a way that brings them true happiness. Too many people do call them "monsters," but that's the point of the episode, isn't? 

That which society calls monstrous, on closer look, is merely different from some socially acceptable norm.

Disapproving critics should connect Mulder’s journey, Mann’s journey, and, yes, the transgender journey, and see that they are all about one thing; the hunt for meaning; for finding a purpose and identity in a world that at times seems absurd.  

The quest is not big. It is, in the words of the episode to “find a few fleeting moments of happiness” before inevitable death.

We all transform in different ways, but constant transformation is an inescapable part of the human equation. This episode embraces the transgender dynamic, and indeed, makes such transition or transformation the center-piece of the drama.

Watching an episode like “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” reminds me that The X-Files is no more about monsters of the week than Star Trek was about new life forms and new civilizations ,or The Twilight Zone was about a "fifth dimension" beyond our own.

All these series use the “other” (the so-called alien or the monstrous) to help us better understand ourselves and our nature. 

Frankly, I never expected Darin Morgan to be cheery in his imagination. His stories are dark, because he imagines a universe of absurdity and meaningless. But "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster" is the most optimistic, nihilistic work of art I've ever seen, if such a thing can exist.  

This episode of The X-Files reminds us that life is absurd, but we hold the power within us to combat the absurdity; to transform meaninglessness into meaning, to transform purposeless into purpose.

The episode is funny as hell too. It's an argument for belief from someone who doesn't believe. But clearly wants to believe.

Sound like anyone else we know?

The X-Files 20th Anniversary Blogging: "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" (April 12, 1996)

As I’ve noted before, Darin Morgan’s stories for The X-Files (1993 – 2002) are something of a philosophical anomaly. 

Where Mulder and Scully typically voice facets of belief or skepticism, Morgan often populates his episodes with a lead character who is a surrogate for his own belief system: nihilism.

That surrogate in “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” is an opportunistic “non-fiction/science-fiction” writer, Jose Chung (Charles Nelson Reilly) who is seeking  a quick buck by writing a history of an alien abduction experience. 

And at one point in the episode, Chung directly diagrams this episode’s theme: “Truth is as subjective as reality.”

This statement of principle, as you may detect, is deliberately and distinctively at odds with a series which made famous the catch-phrase “The Truth is Out There.”   

How can truth be subjective, if it exists in some definable place, “out there?”  If it is subjective, is the truth even worth seeking?

This thematic tension represents merely one glory of The X-Files as a multi-layered and meaningful work of art.  The Chris Carter series can accommodate different points of view and different philosophies so long as Mulder and Scully remain true to their beliefs and histories as the audience understands them.  Morgan’s episodes are so much fun -- and so provocative -- because the scribe stretches the boundaries a bit, but never totally breaks them.  In this case, the lead protagonist role is taken by Chung, an act that permits the storyteller to present a different philosophy while sacrificing nothing we know in terms of continuity. 

To wit, the alien-abduction and Mulder and Scully’s role in its investigation is largely recounted in flashbacks this episode.  Under this creative paradigm, memories, essentially, are “portrayed” or dramatized as answers to Chung’s probing interview questions.  In true Rashomon (1950) style, the viewer has no way of knowing or verifying the honesty or veracity of each account.  In other words, the author’s point that the truth is subjective becomes manifest in the very absurdity of many witness reports. 

This is a funny development, to be certainly but also a complex one, for it leads to Darin Morgan’s final, existential truth about our human existence.  Since there is no objective truth for us dwelling here on Earth, only interpretations of it, we are truly -- in a variation of Close Encounters’ (1977) ad campaign --“alone.”

Two teens in Klass County, Washington are imperiled by dueling aliens on the way home from their first date.  A popular author, Jose Chung (Reilly), interviews Scully (Gillian Anderson) about the case and she recounts her perception of it.

Scully and Mulder (David Duchovny) have a difference of opinion about the truth of the case, however.  Mulder believes there was a genuine alien abduction while Scully believes the matter was date rape and ensuing post-traumatic stress.

Meanwhile, a witness to the odd events of that night, Rocky, claims that a third alien -- one from the Earth’s molten core and named Lord Kimbote -- was involved, as were two unearthly Men in Black.

Unable to discern the truth for himself, Chung hopes to interview a reluctant Mulder about what really happened that fateful night…

I’m not passing judgment on this aspect of the episode, but a deep cynicism shines through in “Jose Chung’s From Outer Search.” 

That cynicism concerns humanity’s eternal quest to know the truth.  Through a series of re-enacted events related to one bizarre alien encounter, this episode by Darin Morgan suggests that human memories are inherently and fatally flawed and therefore unreliable arbiters of fact or history.  For one thing, humans may lie on purpose, without others knowing it.  To this end, we learn that the teenagers involved in the close encounter actually had sex on their date, and are desperate to hide this fact from their parents.

So memory being wrong is one thing, but some people encourage wrong interpretations because they boast hidden or unknowable agendas.

Morgan’s critique of truth goes further.  “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” also expresses doubt in truth-searching tools, ones developed under the auspices of man’s science; tools such as hypnosis.  Here, hypnosis is termed explicitly in the dialogue as a procedure which “worsens” rather than “enhances” human memory.  In other words, human memory is bad but memories re-surfaced during hypnosis are even worse.

Intriguingly, “From Outer Space” also indicates that the desire to know the truth -- in this case to believe in alien life forms -- is merely a primal scream shouted in response to a nihilistic human existence, and a delusion or blind alley fostered and encouraged by a complicit mass media.  The episode’s first shot, for instance, is of an object (actually a work crew’s crane…) that could easily be mistaken for a UFO. 

In fact, this inaugural image knowingly harks back to the first sequence in Star Wars (1977), with the triangular Star Destroyer intersecting the frame, as well as a moment from Close Encounters (1977), wherein Roy Neary spots a large object overhead, hovering in the dark Muncie sky. 

Those productions nurture in us, the episode seems to indicate, some sort of romanticism about the nature of life and the universe.  It’s a false or unfounded romanticism, according to Morgan/Chung.

More important, however, is the fact that in this shot we believe we’re seeing a spaceship at first glance.  As we watch longer, however, we become aware that we are actually seeing something much more mundane, something utilitarian and man-made.

This visual joke thus perfectly reflects the idea that we can’t ever be sure that we are correctly seeing, registering, and interpreting external stimuli.  Our desire for the romantic (look, it’s a spaceship!) supersedes our rationality (oh, it’s a work crane!) and our brain seems to respond to our deeply-held desire see that which isn’t, plainly, there.  And if this is so, it means that our perception, our memory, our very truth, is suspect.

At the end of the same scene, we witness the appearance of an intentionally silly-looking “monster,” Lord Kimbote.  This hairy, cyclopean thing seems based on an amalgamation of creatures from 1960s Ray Harryhausen films.  No matter -- our eyes immediately discount Kimbote as fake or corny. 

Here’s the point, however.  We don’t visually “read” the Greys nearby in the same dismissive fashion.  On the contrary, they seem “real” in a way that Kimbote just does not (perhaps because the Greys reflect 1990s mythology instead of 1960s mythology/fantasy…)

Morgan’s message is thus that we shouldn’t stand in judgment of other people’s belief systems, because they are all equally flawed and yes, silly.  Why accept dome-headed Greys from space without question, but nit-pick Lord Kimbote from the center of the Earth?  Is one “being” intrinsically a nuttier idea than the other?  Or are they insane on a co-equal level?

It’s a little like saying that you believe in the literal meaning of communion (eating and drinking from the literal body of Christ), but that you draw the line of believability at the Pope’s infallibility. 

Everyone draws this line differently…

And, of course, if we draw that line differently and can’t objectively support our belief system, then we are, for the most part, alone in our belief system. 

What I find so interesting, however, is the last few moments of “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.”  Here, Morgan establishes how the abduction has influenced each “alone” individual to change his or her life for the better.  A teen girl at the center of it has become an activist hoping to save the world.  The boy she was with that night, contrarily, has been reconfirmed in his (unrequited) love for her, and has made this love the center of his (meaningless?) existence. 

And Mulder, of course, tilts forever at Morgan’s impossible windmills, looking for answer to things that aren’t really questions in the first place.  Why seek truth when there is no truth?

“What really happened to those kids on that night?”  Chung asks Mulder.  His answer is “how the hell should I know?”

For Mulder such an answer might result from a lack of facts, or a need for more investigation and research.  But for Chung it’s a validation for the belief that we are all animals trapped in our cages of subjectivity, unable to know the truth or reality of any event in our lives.

Undeniably brilliant and categorically funny, “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” is another signature X-Files episode.  I appreciate it intellectually, and it always makes me laugh.  Yet it is not among my personal favorite episodes of the series because I tend to believe that we, as humans, must search for the truth, even if it is, finally, a fool’s errand. 

The journey is worth the trip, and even if truth is ultimately found infinitely subjective, it still may be enough to help us sleep better at nights, or accept our limitations as flawed, mortal creatures. Sometimes, a little bit of self-delusion isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it can keep us looking to the stars, or to the next horizon.

Next week: “Home.”