“Lord of the Flies” feels surprisingly a lot like one of the four or fifth season attempts to emulate a Darin Morgan script. The episode has a fairly lighthearted tone with some horrifically jarring scenes in the climax to shake you out of relatively easy mood you have been in thus far. Throw in some social commentary about the idiotic things people will do to get on television, but not be too preachy about it, and you have a decent episode for the final season in spite of some glaring flaws.
There is an overly long teaser in which of group of kids are filming various dangerous stunts for a reality show like Jackass. The final stunt involves a kid in a shopping cart jumping over a girl laying in the street. The cart goes awry and lands in a ditch. The kid’s head is partially caved in. It was not the impact that killed him, but a swarm of flies that voraciously ate his brain so quickly, his head collapsed.
Doggett, Reyes, and Scully eventually discover a boy named Dylan has the hormonal ability to control insects. He killed the kid because he has a thing for Natalie, the girl who was part of the stunt, and he did not want her to get hurt. It turns out he and his mother, played by a pre-Glee Jane Lynch, are some sort of biological anomalies that are neither insect, nor human.
It is at the point of this discovery the episode turns from a goofy story of awkward teenage angst with creepy insect elements to a claustrophobic horror show. Dylan and his mother encase entrap several victims, including Reyes and a smarmy entomologist, in some sort of cocoon webbing. Several years old corpses are found in Dylan’s house, but he and his mother have escaped by then.
There are two major leaps in logic that have me puzzled. One is that Doggett and Reyes just happen to find an overturned car which Dylan had been in. He spewed the webbing on the other kids, then fled. Neither the agents nor the kids had any idea where he might be going. Yet Reyes decides to go to Natalie’s house assuming he will go there. Why? She has no indication that is where he would go. As far as she knows he would head back home to safety. Two, when Scully and the entomologist arrive at Dylan’s home, it is night time. No one is home, so the house is dark. But instead of cutting on any lights they whip out flashlights in order to look around. No intelligent person would search for a suspected murderer in pitch blackness if it were not absolutely necessary. The only reason it is done is to add to the horror when the webbed up corpses are discovered. It is effective emotionally, but really dumb.
It may be the old school X-Phile in me talking, but as entertaining as “Lord of the Flies” is in spite of its flaws, there is a big problem to be taken away from it. Namely, Doggett and Reyes have no real expertise in handling the case, and it shows. It is Scully’s science background that does all the heavy lifting. She even does the end voice over, which indicates she wrote up the case file even though she is not officially assigned to the X-Files in general or the case specifically. I hate to degrade the characters, but Doggett and Reyes do not exactly inspire confidence among fans here with their ability to take over the series.
I have to mention the entomologist is played as over the top and wildly attracted to Scully, thoughh any woman would be repulsed by him. In the end, he tricks her into performing CPR after he has been trapped in the webbing solely so she will give him mouth to mouth. He was a mildly entertaining addition, but the CPT scene was very degrading for Scully. Why does this show frequently make her act stupidly for either a cheap laugh or to put her in danger for another character to rescue her? It is very annoying.
It would have been cool to see Bambi again. It is not like Bobbi Phillips was really busy at the time.
My criticism of these points may make it sound like I am down on “Lord of the Flies.” I am really not, though I am judging episodes based on the lower standards of the final two seasons. Such flaws would have killed a Mulder/Scully episode as far as I am concerned. Kudos to at least an effort to reference the novel The Lord of the Flies subject matter of kids losing their civilized demeanors by giving into baser emotions when the rules disappear.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
“Lord of the Flies” feels surprisingly a lot like one of the four or fifth season attempts to emulate a Darin Morgan script. The episode has a fairly lighthearted tone with some horrifically jarring scenes in the climax to shake you out of relatively easy mood you have been in thus far. Throw in some social commentary about the idiotic things people will do to get on television, but not be too preachy about it, and you have a decent episode for the final season in spite of some glaring flaws.
