"No matter how paranoid you are, you're not paranoid enough"
~Susanne Modeksi
I'm what's been called a Mulder-Scully purist; the shows that don't
center on one or both of them don't interest me as much. But that didn't
stop me from throughly enjoying Vince Gilligan's tale about how Mulder met
his crazy "It's a conspiracy man" friends. I laughed out loud
many
times and at times, I was rather sobered by the courage of these three average
men and one gutsy, brilliant woman as they try to expose the Truth.
One of my favorite aspects of the Lone Gunmen is that even though we
always see them together, we still see three separate, very different personalities.
From the beginning, they bickered. I loved Beyers wide-eyed, stubborn
courage in the face of danger (a few more episodes of that and I could really
develop a crush on that man-- he's darling). I loved Frohike's grumbling
threats ("I swear to god, Beyers, I'll kill you myself") when
Beyers tries to threaten Mr. X. The competition between Langley and Frohike
as to who's "kung-foo" was the best was
quite amusing. And how can any OBSSE sister not love Frohike calling Mulder,
whom he has not yet met, a "punk-ass"?
Yet for all its humorous moments, this episode was not quite just fluff.
I thought it did quite a nice job of telling an actual *coherent* story
about how exactly Mulder met these guys in the first place. All the essential
elements of the story were involved (with the notable exception of one Dana
Scully, but since she and Mulder had not met yet, I'll let that slide)--
the possibility of aliens, cover ups, paranoia. Even Mr. X made an appearance.
As always, I loved the ambiguity of whether or not the aliens were real.
Seeing this after the movie made me nostalgic for the good ole days when
they were in Mulder's head. Anyway, apparently, Mulder is sent after one
Susanne Modeski, a scientist who stumbled on some vital government secrets.
To escape, she
invents a story about her "psychotic" former boyfriend kidnapping
her daughter and sells the tale to a naive, smitten Beyers. Frohike and
Langley are drawn in as well, grumbling and complaining even as they clearly
want to help. She tells them more than they ever wanted to know
about Evil Government Conspiracies and presto! The Lone Gunmen are formed.
The tale worked well for me.
Also, the acting was good. Duchovny was quite good in the few scenes
he had. He conveyed an innocence that worked well for a Mulder who was
not completely involved with all things paranormal yet. Modeski, I thought,
was quite well played too. The doe-eyed seductress bit was a little overdone
for me, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was trying
to be funny (I laughed). That scene when she pulled out her tooth to extract
the evil Government Tracking Device was quite effective; all of a sudden,
things weren't so funny anymore. And I
really appreciated another woman, rather like Scully, being shown as brilliant
and courageous (though she was not triumphant in the end). I liked her.
And, finally, a Charitable Continuity Note for Mr. Carter, since he seems disinclined to pay attention to these things: the FBI records in this episode clearly list Mulder as SINGLE!!
I missed Scully. I wanted more of Mulder. I had a good time anyway. That'll get this one 9 tic tacs out of ten.
SWILS Note: Missed you, St. Girlfriend
MulderDrooling: Gosh, he was cute when he was younger (and you thought
I'd go for the obvious nekkid and shivering thing....)