Say what you will about the final two seasons of The X-Files--I have have often been brutal myself thus far--when it is on, it is on. “The Gift” has the feel of an episode from one of the early seasons. Consider that a big surprise, since it is largely a Doggett going solo in his pursuit of the missing Mulder. I wrote yesterday that Mulder’s shadow would hang heavy over the next few episodes until his return. The feeling would add a much needed boost to the stories. “The Gift” is a fine example. It may irritate fans how much it proves Doggett is a worthy successor to Mulder as a investigator of the paranormal, but it does.
Unbeknownst to Scully, Doggett heads to Pennsylvania in order to pursue a lead on Mulder’s whereabouts. He had gone to Pennsylvania a week before his abduction, which Doggett still does not believe happened, but falsified the report of what occurred while there. Supposedly, Mulder was looking for a missing woman, but that was actually a false alarm from the woman’s overly excitable sister and he knew it. So why was he there?
During the investigation, Doggett discovers mulder was looking into a folklore story of a creature haunting the woods. For some reason, he fired three shots in a couple’s house. A day later, a transient who had been shot was buried by the local authorities. Doggett begins to suspect Mulder murdered the man, and then disappeared to avoid capture. Back in Washington, he finds the murder weapon, with three shots fired, hidden in Mlder’s apartment.
Skinner joins Doggett on the trip back to Pennsylvania. Like the audience, he knows Mulder was abducted, so at least the latter half of Doggett’s theory that he ran off to avoid prosecution is false. he does not believe Mulder would kill a man in cold blood, either.
It turns out skinner is right. The transient was not a man at all, but a variation on the folklore. It was a creature called a soul-eater. It possesses the ability to cure one’s illness by taking it upon itself. Mulder came looking for it because he had contracted a brain disease from his experience with the alien artifact found in Africa two seasons ago. It was killing him, but he could not go through with the soul eater process because of the suffering it would cause the creature. When he realized the townspeople were exploiting the soul eater for their own benefit regardless of the damage it was doing to it, he killed it himself before it could heal a woman of renal failure.
Doggett finds the pitiful soul eater himself, proving that Mulder only thought he had killed it. The look on his face when it finally dawns on him something paranormal truly does exist is priceless. But the big deal is that he draws the same conclusion as Mulder did. The townspeople are holding the soul eater captive while exploiting its abilities and ignoring they are slowly killing it in the most painful way imaginable. Rather than putting it out of its misery as Mulder tried, Doggett attempts to leave with it, but is fatally shot. Later, the soul-eater heals his bullet wound, but taking it on is too much. The creature finally succumbs to all the illness and wounds it has absorbed.
The case has a profound effect on Doggett. For one, he now has to accept the paranormal exists. He also has to accept he died, but returned from the dead. He ultimately decides not to file an accurate report on the case under the rationale that, not only would no one believe it, but he needs to protect Scully’s reputation. See what I mean by how Doggett is fast becoming a worthy successor to Mulder? He is drawing the same conclusion, both morally and professionally, that Mulder would, and even for the same reasons. Working the X-Files does that to you, no?
Mulder appears for the first time sense the season premiere two part story, albeit in flashbacks from his previous visit to Pennsylvania. Scully does not appear at all. Nevertheless, it feels like an old fashioned episode. Maybe that is because Doggett is taking on many of Mulder’s trait’s the longer he investigates the out of the ordinary. There are some flaws, such as why the FBI never searched Mulder’s apartment after his disappearance well enough to find the hidden murder weapon, but it is a minor gripe when all things are considered. “The Gift” is one of the highlights of the eighth season.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
Say what you will about the final two seasons of The X-Files--I have have often been brutal myself thus far--when it is on, it is on. “The Gift” has the feel of an episode from one of the early seasons. Consider that a big surprise, since it is largely a Doggett going solo in his pursuit of the missing Mulder. I wrote yesterday that Mulder’s shadow would hang heavy over the next few episodes until his return. The feeling would add a much needed boost to the stories. “The Gift” is a fine example. It may irritate fans how much it proves Doggett is a worthy successor to Mulder as a investigator of the paranormal, but it does.
