I become apprehensive about episodes of The X-Files which are written and directed by creators not normally associated with the show. I am also apprehensive when I see the name Shia Lebeouf in the cast list. Vut I should not have worried about “The Goldberg Variation.” Written by Jeffrey Bell and directed by Thomas J. Wright, it is a sweet, funny episode. Predictable in places, particularly the final resolution, but still one of the seventh season’s few highlights.
Henry Weens, the luckiest man alive, wins $100,000 playing poker against a mobster. The mobster throws Weens out a highrise window to keep from paying, but Weens survives. The whole incident is witnessed by two FBI agents, so Mulder and scully are called in because of the odd nature. Mulder thinks Weens has some super healing ability. Scully just thinks he is really lucky.
Weens does have extraordinarily good luck. He has had nothing but good things happen to him since surviving a plane crash in 1989. But his good luck comes at a price. Life is symmetrical, therefore someone around him has to suffer from luck just as bad as his is good.
Weens is on a quest to earn $100,000 in order to pay for an organ transplant for a seriously ill boy in his apartment building. The boy, Richie Lupone, is played by a very young Lebeouf. I am resisting the urge to say the good luck the kid experiences because of Weens is counterbalanced by the bad luck that we had to suffer through Transformers and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but you may draw yourt own conclusions.
Various mob hitmen die in incredibly elaborate and hilarious ways while attempting to kill Weens. Think Wile E. Coyote/s ACME products going all wrong on him and you will just about have it. Even mulder faces bad luck, but being the star of the show, he survives. Considering his post The X-Files career, maybe encounting Ween’s good luck abilities were a trade off for him, too. n the interim, Weens is attempting to get the $100,00 by playing the lottery, which he always wins, but can never get the money fast enough.
The mobster eventually kidnaps Weens, Richie, and his mother to keep Weens from testifying against him. As you might expect, the mobsters all die horribly, but the Big Man is an organ donor--and an exact match for Richie. So all is well that ends well.
Again, though, Mulder and Scully are incidental to the story, as well as completely irrelevant to its conclusion. “The Goldberg Variation” could have been an episode of The Twilight Zone as easily as The X-Files. It might have even been a better fit. But I like the episode. It has the same feel as one of the old Darin Morgan scripts from the early seasons. It is a light hearted, goofy caper that is fun to watch--especially with the Tom & jerry style violence that befalls anyone near weens when he is experiencing his lucky streak.
One point of note: the episode ran short, so an extra scene had to be filmed in which Mulder and Scully discuss the case while sitting in their car. An added scene between the two agents means there was even less of them originally than the scant bits there are now, but the interesting bit is that Gillian Anderson has cut her hair much shorter after the episode was filmed, so she was forced to wear a wig while filming the added scene. If you know to look for it, the hairpiece is laughably Dolly Parton-esque. Fortunately, its inclusion adds to, rather than detracts from, the tone of “The Goldberg Variation.”
Rating: **** (out of 5)
I become apprehensive about episodes of The X-Files which are written and directed by creators not normally associated with the show. I am also apprehensive when I see the name Shia Lebeouf in the cast list. Vut I should not have worried about “The Goldberg Variation.” Written by Jeffrey Bell and directed by Thomas J. Wright, it is a sweet, funny episode. Predictable in places, particularly the final resolution, but still one of the seventh season’s few highlights.
