Sadly, the dreaded deux ex machina has started to show its face big time this episode. Coming so strongly off of last week's promising pace and plot developments, we slow down significantly with plots that go nowhere and more focus on Sean and his new partner, agent Scully (I know her name is Collier, but I'm calling her agent Scully because of her fabulous pantsuits and moxie).
Of course, this means that President Martinez and Sophia get short shrift again. We get even more conspiracy elements, and our beloved flashbacks show no sign of diminishing.
This episode was the weakest so far, and I hope it turns out to be a hiccup rather than a trend.
Spoilers Now!
Sean walks into a hotel room with a bunch of medical supplies, where we find he's beat up a hooker...wait, it's the FBI agent and it's two hours earlier, and instead of slowly panning away last week from the road block, the FBI car is hit out of nowhere by an RV which pretty much kills everyone necessary, except for Sean, who can get out of handcuffs and everything by swiping Mulder's keys. Mulder's dead, of course (that's what he gets for missing the cast photo shoot). But luckily Scully is alive, albeit bloody, and Sean pulls her to safety.
Sean doesn't have much time to do anything more than a quick visual scan of the RV driver, the cop and Mulder, who all must be dead. He hops in the cop car and drives off as the scene erupts in flames behind him.
Back to the present, Sean's got Scully handcuffed to the bed, because that's how he rolls. She's being quite the bitch about it, but Sean's found Vicky on the Internet and has managed to figure out Scully's FBI password on her laptop (which he spent time retrieving from the wreck rather than, oh, I don't know, maybe checking on other survivors) but he still needs her help. She won't cooperate but he's determined to find Vicky Roberts. While he's cleaning up, though, he leaves her enough time to contort a way to get her cell phone and make a call for back up. But that appears exactly what he wants her to do.
Vice President Jarvis confronts Blake about the current investigation, suggesting that Blake might have wanted the press conference stopped. We jump ahead to the Arizona crash sight where Blake and the president review the field of bodies and discuss moving the wreckage and corpses to a more acceptable crash location (Brazil).
Agent Lee is also there, and explains many survivors appeared to have been fleeing whatever killed them. To get answers from Sophia, Martinez goes to see her again. He shows her the dead passengers. She won't defend her comrades, but can't betray her people. So Martinez makes an offer to all the detainees for freedom for whomever talks.
The FBI rescues Scully from the hotel and she's brought back to a field office for debriefing, but Sean has hidden in the trunk of the car to get into the FBI field office with Scully's laptop. Meanwhile, the news report finally makes mention of the plane crashing in the Brazilian rain forest.
Meanwhile, ironically enough, Vicky's got Leila in her trunk, but gets stopped by the cops. When flirting doesn't work, she shoots him. She drops Leila off in a shipping container for safe keeping.
I neglected to mention that for this episode, Sean's developed computer hacking powers and has gotten into the FBI database to find Vicky's identity, just as he's discovered. But Scully decides he might be on to something as they drag him away, and confides in Mulder II that he could be on to something. At last, that FBI training is bearing fruit.
Blake meets one of the turncoat detainees who has decided to take the amnesty. And we get his flashback in which we learn...
Back in 1944 Sophia clears out the able-bodied survivors, but our turncoat, William, can't leave as he's one of the wounded. Sophia sends his girlfriend Maya away with the others, but refuses to let William slow them down. It is imperative to her that Thomas escapes as he apparently has a critical mission. Maya elects to stay with her boyfriend.
Back to the present, William now wants his girlfriend back, forcing Blake to arrange that release and delay this confession even longer for Martinez and us. Martinez is watching them on a two way mirror and agrees to his demand.
Lee gets a meeting with Sophia and has some private time to talk with her, because apparently any FBI agent can get a private meeting with the aliens. She orders Lee to deal with the William problem.
Back to Blake. Though the plane's black box was mangled, they get some of Sean's voice on the recording, finding him on video surveillance getting on the plane in a maintenance uniform. They tie him to Michael's daughter, and also reveal he was quite the computer hacker in his youth (plot hole sealed). They decide to investigate this lead, as he's the only survivor of the crash, and need to track him down.
The background check on Vicky shows she may work for the government as an underground operative. With all the weirdness surrounding the disappearance of the plane, Scully gets suspicious when a prisoner transfer for Sean comes through too quickly. She tries to check with the field office but the call is cut off and the mysterious G-men arrive and go all Terminator on the field office, killing pretty much everyone (including Mulder II—also not in the cast photo). Scully protects Sean and makes off with him after they manage to finish off all the bad guys (except for one who is only knocked out and can therefore fill in his bosses about what happened and then pursue Sean and Scully).
Blake arranges for Maya (Sophie from Carnivale!) to be brought to William. She's not too impressed that he's spilling the beans. But when she finds out he was holding out his information until he was assured of her release, she's pretty happy, as she can then stab him because she's the worst girlfriend ever. And so she does.
Vicky gets a call that Sean has gotten away again. That buys Leila some more time, as they will need her to draw out Sean before he starts to put everything together. Sadly, that means we get more Leila next episode.
Meanwhile in the temporary morgue for the crash victims, we hear breathing, and it turns out a girl is still breathing. Then another. And suddenly it's zombie morgue because everyone is waking up. They were apparently all having a siesta in the hot desert and nobody bothered to check before carting them off to the morgue.
Such a letdown! The moment an RV comes out and conveniently kills everyone, this episode was on a downward spiral. We get a possible confession plot line that serves nothing but fill up time and goes nowhere. And like everyone born after 1990, Sean is a part-time hacker coupled with the intuitive abilities of correct password guessing. The weakest episode so far.
Such a letdown! The moment an RV comes out and conveniently kills everyone, this episode was on a downward spiral. We get a possible confession plot line that serves nothing but fill up time and goes nowhere. And like everyone born after 1990, Sean is a part-time hacker coupled with the intuitive abilities of correct password guessing. The weakest episode so far.
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