'X-Files' Review: 'Home Again' Brings a New Monster and Old Sorrow
Monday night’s episode of The X-Files — the fourth in the revived series’ six-show run — is called “Home Again.” It’s a “monster of the week” episode, but also one with firm roots in X-Files mythology: specifically, the fourth-season episode titled “Home.”
This week’s new hour finds Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) tracking down a mysterious creature who comes to be known as the Band-Aid Man. He’s a force of destruction — he rips bodies apart — but the nature of his rage is complicated. The episode turns on the idea that the way a big city treats its homeless population can become a moral dilemma that plays out in matters of life and death — in this case, some of it supernatural.
An important subplot involves Scully’s mother, who’s in a coma and presumed to be on the verge of death. This in turn raises the specter of the baby Mulder and Scully gave up for adoption — William, who would have been the grandson of Scully’s mother.
“Home Again” was written and directed by Glen Morgan, who, with James Wong, wrote 1996’s “Home.” That episode is one of the series’ best, and focused on a frightening family in a Pennsylvania town that has been in-breeding for decades. The new “Home,” also set in Pennsylvania — Philadelphia, to be precise — is, like the original, intensely concerned with matters of family and loyalty.
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I can’t give away too much more without spoiling this week’s episode. I will say that the hour is not entirely grim. There’s a sweetly funny moment when Scully and Mulder exchange ideas about what’s changed between now and “back in the day.” But the hour gives serious focus to Scully, who must deal with the possible death of a parent while also grappling with reminders of her own child. (There was a William-related subplot in the new series’ second episode, “Founder’s Mutation,” which had originally been scheduled to air after “Home Again,” as episode five.) Anderson plays all of the varying emotions extremely well and subtly. I’ll be curious to see how fans react to one of Morgan’s decisions: to have Scully be the person who carries more guilt over the adoption of William than Mulder.
The new episode’s subplots can be fairly summed up in a line someone says: “People treat people like trash.” It’s a harsh sentiment whose implications are explored with a lot more nuance as The X-Files unfolds.
The X-Files airs Monday nights at 8 p.m. on Fox.
