“En Ami,” which roughly translates from the French as “as a friend,’ or phonetically in English as “enemy,” is the first of three season seven episodes to be written by a cast member. The episode was penned by William B. Davis, aka the Cigarette Smoking Man. The other two are written and directed by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson respectively. We will get to the others when we get to them, but I will say now ’En Ami’ is my favorite of the three. That goes against conventional wisdom that Duchovny’s combination of humor and drama can do no wrong, but there you go. I frequently find such a thrill in being a contrarian.
The Cigarette Smoking Man lures to a young boy in Virginia whose parents refused to allow his cancer to be treated because of religious objections, but was miraculously cured anyway by a chip mysteriously placed in his neck. The CSM offers her the cure for cancer if she takes a trip with him under the condition she not tell Mulder. She is reluctant at first, but the prospect of curing cancer gets the better of her compassionate side.
The two take a car trip from Virginia to Pennsylvania in order to meet a contact dubbed Cobra who works for a pharmaceutical company. They have been experimenting with extraterrestrial material. While doing so, they discover, not just a cure for cancer, but every disease known to man. Scully is being set up in two ways. One, her e-mail was hijacked, so cobra believes he has been corresponding with her for months when he has been talking to the CSM instead. Two, she is the old man’s fantasy, to put it mildly.
The first set up is straightforward. The CSM used an FBI agent to gain cobra’s trust so he could steal the cure. Without the resources of the now defunct syndicate, I guess this was the best way to go about it. Cobra is killed by a sniper working for Csm after the exchange is made, but the CSM prevents him from murdering Scully, which leads to the second and more important point.
The CSM clearly has a thing for Scully. Who could blame him, no? it fits quite well in retroactive continuity. He did save Scully from her terminal cancer even though he did not get anything out of it. Although he killed Diana Fowley for her betrayal, he still allowed Scully to find Mulder after his brain surgery using the clues Fowley gave her. He even pointed her in the right direction as to Samantha’s fate a few episodes ago. The CSM has been something of a patron for her even amongst the grief he has caused her and Mulder.
“En Ami’ gives the distinct impression he is carrying a torch for her, although as a cold blooded killer, he has a difficult time expressing it a way that is not creepy. There is a point where they arrive in Pennsylvania at which Scully is asleep in the passenger seat. A throwaway line says she had been up for thirty hours straight, but she later suspects she was drugged. The truth is left up to the audience, but while passed out, the CSM puts on gloves, probably in the same manner as if he were going to commit a hands on murder, caresses her face, carries her up to a bedroom, and changes her into pajamas. I get the vibe her just wanted to see her naked.
In a less sinister moment, he buys her a revealing dress to wear to a dinner in which they are supposed to meet Cobra. The meeting is supposed to happen, though it does not. The evening is left with that old awkward trick of arranging a date with a pretty girl by claiming it is not actually a date, but still with the hopes of winning her over. It is the sort of thing some inexperienced kid suffering puppy love does with a girl he realizes he cannot have.
The two incidents contrast with one another--the first kind of a peeping tom deal, with the other coming across as boyishly awkward--but they both reveal a longing for companionship and love a cold fish with the history of the CSM can never have. He tried to convince himself Scully might fall for him. At one point, he remarks that she is drawn to powerful men, but her independent streak will not allow her to love them. He speculates she likes Mulder for carrying on his lone crusade against men of power, but she will not allow herself to love him, either. Perhaps he is attempting to win her over by seeking out this cure for all diseases in the kind of quest Mulder might indulge.
In the end, she is angry at being cheated out of the real cure. The Csm is seen throwing the data disc with the cure’s information on it into a lake. He has a haunted look on his face. His demeanor makes one wonder if he was looking to cure his own fatal disease with the data, or if he decided to throw it out because he was rejected by Scully. With his act of ’redemption” failed, the whole world can burn? I do not know, in all honesty, but his true purpose remaining ambiguous is a poignant ending.
I find characterizations are usually off when cast members take to writing for the characters. They write their own character as they see him or her, and one suspects the true feelings for their co-stars become evident, too. In regards to the former, Davis gives the CSM some much needed character development. There is much more to him here than a shadowy, finger in all pies evil mastermind. He is a man nearing the end of his life who wants a shot at something he cannot have. There is just enough of the disturbing aspects of the Csm to keep me from sympathizing with him. As for the latter, I do not think Scully would be quite so gullible, even if her sense of altruism is very strong. I also doubt Mulder, paranoid as he is, would sit on his hands with his partner out there quite like he did. Minor gripes, those. This was a CSM episode, save for the highly gratuitous shots of Anderson’s cleavage. I guess the Csm is not the only one with old man fantasies.
But the gripes do keep “En Ami” from earning four stars. The odd characterizations are distracting. I am also a bit thrown off by the whole MacGuffin of a cure for all disease. It is one of those too good to be true deals that a skeptic like Scully would never buy into. She would certainly walk out the door the minute she heard the claim the cure is mostly alien in origin. Nevertheless, the Csm is one of my favorite characters, and he has not been handled very well in his recent appearances. Hence, I give any good turn of his props. Davis has a knack for crisp dialogue, too, though like any “autobiographer,” saves the best lines for himself. Cannot fault him for that, I suppose.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
“En Ami,” which roughly translates from the French as “as a friend,’ or phonetically in English as “enemy,” is the first of three season seven episodes to be written by a cast member. The episode was penned by William B. Davis, aka the Cigarette Smoking Man. The other two are written and directed by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson respectively. We will get to the others when we get to them, but I will say now ’En Ami’ is my favorite of the three. That goes against conventional wisdom that Duchovny’s combination of humor and drama can do no wrong, but there you go. I frequently find such a thrill in being a contrarian.
