The X-Files
"The Gift"

Airdate: February 4, 2001

Mulder returns from his mysterious absence...

Undoubtedly, Frank Spotnitz is still laboring under the delusion that his episodes of The X-Files this season have been providing the necessary chills and scares promised by the writing staff after nearly two seasons of parodies and one-offs. I'd like to take this moment to deliver a personal message to Frank. Ready? Here goes: Frank, nasty doesn't equal scary. Enough with the axe murders, the severed heads and the puking. And while you're at it, please take the time to write a coherent episode of the show you've been working on for seven years.

Spotnitz's latest offering, humbly titled "The Gift," is a vague attempt at continuity, in that it follows up on even vague plot elements established in the season premiere, namely the revelatory fact that Mulder had for an entire season concealed that he was dying of a brain tumor and was making mysterious trips out of the state. This week, we discover just where it was that he was going. His destination was the small community of Squamash, where a town filled with desperately sick people have been harboring a Native American Soul-Eater, a being that can consume the sickness and pain of others and make them well again. The only catch is that, in order for the Soul-Eater to do this, it must consume the entire person, then vomit them back up again.

Ewwwwww.

...unfortunately, his hairdresser remains abducted.

So what we get is a lot of lovingly rendered shots of crooked teeth chewing on bloody human flesh, languorously slow depictions of creatures vomiting said human remains, and close-ups on shotgun wounds. There's nothing scary or disturbing about this stuff in itself; it's window dressing for the nearly non-existent plot, which, for the record, traces the actions of Doggett as he finally discovers how Mulder was spending his downtime. Flashbacks reveal that Mulder had discovered the existence of the Soul-Eater and had even attempted to use it to heal his own malady. When he discovered how much the creature was suffering, however, Mulder opted instead to put it out of its misery.

But the Soul-Eater didn't die -- I mean, there'd be no plot if it was dead, right? Oh wait, there isn't a plot. Sorry.

Yeah, we hear ya, pal.

As this season has gone on, it's become increasingly apparent that Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz and company have decided that a move back to the macabre is really just an excuse to parade before the audience some of the most abhorrent and vomit-worthy visual effects they can muster. Instead of, say, giving us a character that we actually care about and then dropping them into a life-threatening situation, the geniuses at 1013 have instead only provided us with a vague caricature of Agent John Doggett and mostly robbed us of Scully, who doesn't even really appear in this episode. "The Gift" is no different. Doggett is the focus here (we see Scully once in the episode) and the much touted return of Duchovny (who was apparently abducted right along with the show's ratings) is only in a few out-of-character flashbacks. All of this is staged around protracted segments that would make a surgeon toss his cookies, not to mention a Soul-Eater.

Granted, it's not quite as heinous as last week's "ass-bandit" extraordinaire, but this is one "gift" that you'll wish you could exchange.

-- David Rosiak

The X-Files airs at 9pm EST/8pm MNT, Sundays on Fox.

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