The X Files-4X20:Small Potatoes

Written by Vince Gilligan

Directed by Cliff Bole

Season four of The X Files is great. Don't get me wrong, I love it, it features some of the show's best ever episodes and some of its most powerful work. Yet, there's one fundamental issue that I have with the season as a whole and that is the level of angst at work in many of its stories. If you look at the trajectory of the stories running throughout the season, both within its stand alones as well as the mythology and you can see just how that much more darker the adventures of Mulder and Scully became. I don't know what was in the air, if it was something that carried over from Millennium, but season four of The X Files is the series at its darkest. Mulder's mother lays dying in the premiere, followed by episode involving infanticide, real world serial killing, the notion that Mulder's sister may have been killed by a child molester, Scully diagnosed with cancer, the killing off of both Agent Pendrell and Max Fenig, Skinner selling his soul to the CSM and that's before we get to the events of the season finale, Gethsemane where the series will take the emotional downfall of its two lead characters to a logical and disturbing conclusion.

So let's all thank Vince Gilligan for providing us with some comedy. For this relief, much thanks Vince. This is sublime stuff from beginning to end, a lovely, concoction of brilliant one liners, slapstick humour and one of the all time great X Files climaxes that is both embarrassing, suspenseful, delightfully funny and wonderfully played by David and Gillian.  On paper this sounds like a winner and thankfully the results are fantastic. Babies with tails, shape shifting played for laughs, wonderful Mulder and Scully banter and Mulder's life being put under the microscope in a funny, insightful and very true way, ladies and gentleman this is without doubt one of the all time X Files classics.

The interesting thing about Small Potatoes is that there is still a darker undercurrent to proceedings. Darin Morgan is wonderful as Eddie Van Blundht and he gives the character an "aw shucks" characteristic, not to mention comedic frustration at the treatment of his "silent h", yet the character is a rapist and the word is used twice in the episode not to mention his treatment of his dead father's body, so for all the jokes and Star Wars references running throughout (I can't help but feel how even greater this would have been if they could have got Mark Hamill into the episode), Small Potatoes does seem to fit into this dark, season four world that The X Files has been giving us. The point though, is that it doesn't want to play in that darkness, after a season of grim angst, Gilligan wants to have fun, not a surprise since he wrote two of the season's most emotionally grim installments and like his previous episodes, even though there is a more fantastic element on display here than in Unruhe and Paper Hearts, Small Potatoes isn't afraid to look at The X Files universe with real world glasses.

Eddie Van Blundht pokes holes in Mulder's life, some that fans have done and others that could only be done with a newcomer coming into Mulder's world. Upon viewing Mulder's apartment, the first thing he notes is that he has nowhere to sleep. It's very funny, and yet he seems shocked that his tax dollars are going into an office basement complete with UFO posters and a clutter of news clippings on paranormal phenomena, that his best friends, The Lone Gunmen, are geeks and that the only female company he gets is from his FBI partner who is obsessed with her work and the phone calls he receives from premium rate chat lines. The genius of Gilligan's script is that the case and the episode's plot line is effectively finished by the time the last act is about to begin, but then takes its time in the last ten minutes to have real fun with Blundht as Mulder and to let David Duchovny off the comedy leash. Doing a De Niro into the mirror, trying to seduce Scully, spelling Federal Bureau of Investigation wrong, it's all wonderfully, good fun.

Yet, you can't help but notice that the episode is essentially a tale of a rapist of sorts. Not that he forces women to have sex with him, but by shape shifting into their partners or husbands, he effectively manipulates them into having sex with him. He also makes Mulder and us take note of the fact that the life of The X Files' leading character is that of a...well...loser. Mulder is a "damn good looking man" as Blundht vainly notices and does work with a beautiful partner who has brains and beauty and yet Mulder would rather throw his life into chasing aliens and monsters than enjoying what he has right in front of him. It gives the episode a knowing quality, not to mention a subtly poignant one, that takes it above just being a silly piece of fluff.

Despite the more darker aspects at work, the episode never allows itself to be swamped by that sort of darkness and for that, it's a relief. Small Potatoes is great, great fun and you can almost feel the relief that everybody is feeling that they're being able to cut loose and have fun this week. David gets to make silly faces, Gillian gets to be a little drunk, even Mitch Pillegi gets a little moment of comedy, and then in the middle of it all is Darin Morgan putting in a winning performance as Van Blundht


The amazing thing about it is that when it comes to Gilligan and comedy on The X Files, the best was still to come.