"Everybody's doing it - so I hear."

The first episode from this season's token female team (sisters 
Vivian and Valerie Mayhew) was a muddled and heavy handed outing 
that made me miss Sara Charno and Kim Newton all the more. The 
theme of vanity, or, as we hear repeatedly, "everyone wants to 
look beautiful", is delivered through a landscape of blood and 
mirrors. Director Kim Manners is two for two this season on the 
gross out meter, though actually this episode, while certainly 
more graphic, didn't bother me as much as "Home" - I just didn't 
care much. That's OK, neither did Mulder and Scully. They move
through the Aesthetic Surgery Unit as stumbling investigators 
who really save no lives and will have to mark this X-File 
"unsolved".

X-Files has covered this sort of ground before - possession and 
black magic - and both other times (Die Hand Die Verletzt and 
The Calusari) I found it frightening. This lacked the inherent 
malevolence that made those episodes effective - I found myself 
oddly untouched by the deaths and not at all frightened for Mulder 
and Scully's safety. The visuals were often more gross than the 
least bit scary, and for being so simple in theme, the episode
was surprisingly hard to follow. This may have been intentional, 
but all it leaves the audience with is - "oh look, a leech" when 
what's going on doesn't make sense.

What really didn't make sense though was the ending. Why Dr. 
Scully of all people would barge into an operating room not 
properly attired and demand that they stop what they are doing 
*in mid procedure* just because Mulder told her to is way beyond 
me. Scully is much smarter than that. She is a doctor. She should 
know better. And, she shouldn't do something stupid just because 
Mulder tells her to. It is a good thing that they didn't listen 
to her and saved the person's life despite her protests.

What weakly passes for character development is the idea of 
Mulder getting caught up in the whole body beautiful theme. 
Throughout the episode we see him blatantly ogling nurses (which 
he is lucky Scully didn't catch or she probably would have ground 
a heel into his toe for unprofessional conduct), playing 
"before/after" with a computer simulation of his nose, and staring
at himself in the mirror the rest of the time. He even tries to 
draw Scully into his vain little world when he tells her "God, 
you look tired", but she really doesn't take the bait - of course 
she looks tired Mulder - it's 3:40AM.  Oh well, after that chemical 
peel I suspect Mulder will want to keep his nose as is. All this 
worrying on Mulder's part is nothing short of silly as it is 
apparent all the man really needs is a shave - well, that and a 
haircut - those bangs have got to go. I kept wondering in that 
scene with Nurse Waite cutting her hair in some ceremony if she 
could schedule Mulder in for a trim.

Random Musings
-------------------------

- First for the retreads, and this one was full of them. One of 
the doctors was Nemhauser from "Grotesque" another was in "The 
List", and the attorney at the beginning was Scully's one and 
only date Rob from "Jersey Devil".

- It's time for Our Heroes to hit the police procedure books 
again when a broom outside a door becomes "probable cause". Oh 
yeah, there was a pentagram too - and didn't Mulder connect the 
dots to make one? If Scully bought that as reason to break in 
maybe she should put out an APB for someone riding a broom and 
wearing a tall black hat. Well, they did hear that cat cry as 
they walked up to the door as well. I'm sure that sealed it.

- While we are on the subject of them busting in, at least they 
are cool when they do it. I love the way they move perfectly 
synchronized with only a glance.

- "Vanitas Vanitatum": latin for vanity of vanities. Oh, there's 
that theme again. Thank God, I almost missed it. I would have 
preferred it to be latin for "Tub-O-Blood".

- I'd say it's time to shell out the bucks for a new water 
filtration system if that's what comes out of the spigot. What 
did she do? Hook a stuck pig up to his water softener?

- Some nice cinematography in this one - unfortunately driving 
home the blood theme - as the candle lit home is bathed in red 
and the police lights strobe red to the straight pin "yakking" 
scene.

- Call 911 and get a recording. Ha ha.

- I, for one, was the most frightened in this episode of that 
large metal surgical instrument that looked sort of like a huge 
ail or probe. God only knows what that does.

Autumn
"Maybe they were all possessed"