Spoilers

“Detour”

The X-Files starts a strong run of episodes with “Detour” which finds Mulder and Scully in the woods in Florida in an attempt to avoid a FBI “team-building” conference with two inane agents.

That might not be fair, but Mulder and Scully were sharing a car with another pair of agents and it was quite apparent that they could not stand the discussions going on. So when their car was stopped because of a police barricade, Mulder took the opportunity to ‘stretch his legs’ and get away from the other agents.

Coincidentally, Mulder found himself engaged with the investigation of several missing people, attacks that did not seem to be human or animal.

The episode was written by Frank Spotnitz who said he was inspired to write it after watching Deliverance. I have to say that there are several scenes that felt more like Predator than Deliverance.

The strength of the episode was the interplay between Mulder and Scully. It was reminiscent of the episode “Quagmire” where Mulder and Scully are stranded on a rock in the middle of a lake with a supposed monster at large. However, the scene where Scully sings “Joy to the World” to an injured Mulder is excellent and gives an insight to the complex relationship between Mulder and Scully.

There was also a really funny moment when Scully had fallen into a hole in the woods and Mulder tossed down his gun to her because the creature was int he hole with her. Moments later, Mulder saw movement int he woods, and he dropped himself into the hole too. The comic timing on that was beautiful.

However, I did not like the explanation of the creatures from Mulder. It felt like the whole Conquistador/Fountain of Youth explanation was thrown on in an attempt to make the story make some semblance of sense in the X-Files world. As Agent Kinsley had said, it is just a way for Mulder to write off his motel room as a business expense.

Overall, this was a fun monster-of-the-week episode that is made better because of the dialogue between Mulder and Scully.