Author Archives: Doc

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

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It was a strange path to arrive at me watching this movie. After seeing trailers, I had zero interest in going to see this Christmas movie. It looked very much like a Lifetime special and Christmas is down my list of holidays. I had pretty much decided I would not go to this.

Then I started doing the Year in Review and I realized that the only Christmas film that I had seen this year was Red One, and that was, at best, okay. It felt wrong to give it the X-Mas Movie of the Year Award so I watched an animated movie called This Christmas on Netflix. Sadly, it was just around okay too. I then looked at the Rotten Tomatoes score for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and it was at 91% critics and 97% audience. This made me wonder if I should take this basically open weekend and go see it. It was only an hour and a half. How could that be painful? So even with a doubt in my head, I went to Cinemark this morning for a 9:15 AM showing.

This was really a good movie. I liked this way more than I ever expected.

Historically, I have not been a fan of the faith-based movies, but that is not what this is. This is a movie featuring characters who are being reminded about what Christmas means to them, and how important the Christmas story can be for them. It was about characters. And it was really well done.

Based on a popular novel, we are introduced to The Herdmans, a family of six children who were the biggest troublemakers in the town of Emmanuel. They were feared by children and adults alike.

At this time, the director of the local pageant broke both of her legs, making her unable to continue to do her duties. Grace (Judy Greer) volunteered to take over the job. Unbeknownst to her, the Herdmans decided to come and join the church’s pageant (to get the snacks they were told would come with it). The Herdmans, led by the scary Imogene (Beatrice Schneider), forced their way into the main roles of the pageant, which just happened to be the 75th Annual event.

This was well written, solidly acted and had some genuine funny moments. You can’t but help to like the antics of the Holdman kids, and you can see the diamonds in the rough beneath their surface, especially Imogene. Young Beatrice Schneider does a fantastic job in the role, bringing a humanity to this character that is gruff and unappealing on the surface.

I will admit to getting kind of emotional during the film. I was amazingly impressed with the kindness and unbelievable patience shown by Grace, who could have easily bowed to city pressure and dumped the Holdmans from the play. As a teacher, I was inspired by the way she reacted to these troublesome children and watching the Holdmans respond to the play and trying to answer the questions they naturally had (by a trip to the library) was awesome to me.

You kind of knew what the film’s resolution was going to be, but it was well constructed and still managed to tug on those heartstrings. This was one of those times where predictability was not a negative.

As a Christmas movie, this is much better than much of the sentimental slop that is out there and it gives us a chance to really question if we know the true meaning of Christmas.

4 stars

2024 Year in Review: In Memoriam Part 1

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This is the first of our In Memoriam honors. We hope all of these stars rest in peace.

Featured:

Fernando Valenzuela

Carl Weathers

Bob Newhart

Chance Perdomo

Charles Cyphers

Charles Osgood

David Gale

Drake Hogestyn

Wayne Northrup

Gary Graham

Jerry West

Johnny Woctor

Dr. Ruth Westheimer

Pete Rose

Quincy Jones

Richard Simmons

Sika Anoa’i

Afa Anoa’i

Terrance Beaser

Toby Keith

Virgil

Robyn Bernard

Liam Payne

Benji Gregory

That Christmas

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A new Christmas animated movie arrived on Netflix recently entitled That Christmas. While I do not think that this was great, it certainly is a decent Christmas film and beats out a lot of the typical schmaltz that we normally get this time of year.

According to IMDB, “It’s an unforgettable Christmas for the townsfolk of Wellington-on-Sea when the worst snowstorm in history alters everyone’s plans, including Santa’s.“

There were multiple characters and storyline from within this little town of Wellington-on-Sea, and, fact is, I was pretty bored through the first section of the movie. It took me awhile to come to be interested in any of those storylines. However, it must have worked on me eventually because I was feeling very moved by the third act and there were even a few signs of tears from the wonderful ending to this film.

The voice cast is excellent, including several great voices including Bill Nighy, Brian Cox, Jodie Whittaker, Fiona Shaw, Guz Khan, Rhys Darby, Freddie Spry, Zazie Hayhurst and India Brown.

The animation was well done, as one would expect these days. The colors and the brightness made everything better and the amazing work of the snowstorm in the third act helped build some real tension.

The film was mostly about the relationships between parents and their children and how they all fit into Christmas. Brian Cox’s Santa Claus and Guz Khan’s Dasher had a funny interaction through all of their scenes.

Sure, this is not a superb animated movie, but I did eventually enjoy myself with it. It did take some time for me to get into it, but once I did, I was pleased that I chose to watch it.

3.1 stars

Juror #2

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Clint Eastwood’s new film is called Juror#2, a legal drama/thriller starring Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Zoey Deutch, J.K. Simmons and Kiefer Sutherland.

According to IMDB, “While serving as a juror in a high-profile murder trial, a family man finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma, one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict or free the wrong killer.”

Without spoiling the film, there is a central piece of the story that depends on you accepting a HUGE coincidence, one that is really implausible, and I had a real difficult time suspending my disbelief to make this possible. This story element made it very difficult for me to enjoy the movie.

I thought Nicholas Hoult was outstanding as Justin Kemp, who was the titular character. J.K. Simmons was great but he was not in the film enough. Toni Collette’s character, Faith Killebrew, the prosecutor, was okay, but not stand out. Kiefer Sutherland played the worst lawyer I have ever seen on screen.

I began to get past the issues I had as the film went on, but I was not a fan of the ending either. It felt a bit anticlimactic.

I have not been a huge fan of recent Eastwood directed films, and this one is a mixed bag for me. I did enjoy a lot of what was presented, but the whole center storyline element just was too much for me to handle. Overall, it was fine.

3 stars

EYG Favorite Comic Cover of the Week Take Two

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Dec. 12

Surprise. A second Favorite Cover of the Week post. As you know, the Wednesday order at Comic World only included DC books. I got a call from Todd today saying that “the new phone books are here!” quoting The Jerk, of course. The remaining part of the missing order arrived and I went down to pick them up.

Because of that, I am going to do a second group of medalists with these books.

Bronze Medalist

The Exorcism at 1600 Penn #2

Cover art by Vanesa Del Ray

Looks creepy as can be as a Presidential family portrait has a special shadowy hand crawls across the top of the pic, near George Washington. This has been such a successful book when it comes to cover art.

Silver Medalist

All-New Venom #1

Cover art by Iban Coello 

You can never go wrong with some golden foil. The brand new Venom gets the special cover treatment with this lovely gold foil. Even his webbing looks to be golden too. Too bad the gold foil only got the silver medal.

Gold Medalist

The Art of Something is Killing the Children Companion

Cover art by Werther Dell’Edera

Is it ironic or expected that a book of art from Something is Killing the Children gets the gold medal for its cover? Either way, this is a sensational cover featuring Erica Slaughter coming out of the darkness. The art inside is beautiful too.

Creature Commandos

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Spoilers

“The Collywobbles”

“The Tourmaline Necklace”

The DCU is officially underway!

James Gunn’s DCU kicked off with an animated series on MAX based on one of the strangest properties in the DC Comics, The Creature Commandos.

That is a bizarre choice to kick off the DC Studios, aka the DCU. Still, DC animation has always been a strength and perhaps this will play into that well.

These two episodes, which both dropped on MAX were fine. They may not have been as awesome as I thought it could have been, but with a bunch of basically unfamiliar characters, the show was entertaining.

I think my favorite character so far is The Bride, and so I did think more of episode two, which looked at her history and her back story with Frankenstein (voiced by David Harbour). Of course, the backstory does twist the Bride of Frankenstein movie around a bit and it does take some chances with the story.

The feel of this was more like Invincible than it was any of the other DC animated projects. That may be about the blood, violence and sex (this is not a show for the kids). I thought that Invincible became too needy with the blood and went over the top with it. X-Men ’97 had some blood too, but I thought that was a much better use of it than Invincible. I may not have too many people agree with me, but I felt as if the blood in Invincible goes too far. Creature Commandos is not too bad, but feels as if it would be more like Invincible with blood.

Of course, at some point, G.I. Robot must kill some Nazis.

It did have a definite Suicide Squad feel to it, but I do think this has a lot of potential. The episodes were short, but packed quite a bit into them. I think the show has room to grow and I do believe that James Gunn is going to bring the goods.

Shrinking S2 E9

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Spoilers

“Full Grown Dude Face”

Another wonderfully charming episode of Shrinking. The writing on this in on par with some of the best writing on television.

However, next week is the finale of season two and I am not sure where this will go. There does not seem to be any kind of overarching storyline through the season. There was but it has been resolved a couple of episodes ago. And this episode felt like a wrap to a couple of more. At least, for the moment.

It was a great single episode with some excellent character work, as Jimmy as seemingly on fire this week, while dealing with Alice’s growing and becoming even more independent. We had some furthering of the search for a baby by Brian and Charlie.

I guess the theme of the episode is parenting, as everyone involved has some connection to being a parent and trying to understand the sacrifices and, sometimes, the outright lying, that goes with it.

Seeing Harrison Ford doing exercises that look to be twerking is a highlight for sure. There is not enough Harrison Ford this week even if every second he is on screen he absolutely dominates,

EYG Comic Cavalcade #127

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December 5, 2024

Well, there was a bit of an unhappy situation this week. When I went to Comic World on NEW COMIC BOOK DAY, I sadly discovered that a huge part of their shipment had not been delivered. Nothing that came from Diamond was available, so there was no Marvel, Image, Boom, Dark Horse or so on. The only books that were there were DC Comics (and one from IPI).

I have only recently began to pick up a few DC books otherwise, I might not have had anything.

I am dreading the pile of books next week. I had over forty a few weeks ago, and I think it might be pushing that number or more next week.

This past Friday was Black Friday and I went to Comic World to partake in their Black Friday special of “Buy one back issue, get one free.” I was excited and I picked up a whole bunch of cool stuff. In particular, I got a large run of Defenders Vol 1 books. The earliest was #5, and then a bunch in the teens (#15-18), twenties and thirties (#20-22, #25-28, #32, #34-35). I also picked up several Peter Porker issues. I had number 1-5, but then I added #7, 8-11, #15. It was a lot of fun and I am very appreciative for Comic World.

I have been busy on eBay this week too. I picked up West Coast Avengers #35, 33, 30,29,28,27, 26, 25, 23 that arrived today. I had a gap in my West Coast Avengers collection and this gave me a chance to fill it out a little. I completed my DP 7 comics too with issues #15-17. DP7 was easily the best comic of the New Universe. BY FAR!

This week’s books:

Dark Shadows #1-4. By David Campiti, Scott Rockwell & E. Silas Smith. Another special series that I picked up at eBay. I actually won this in an auction on the site and got a pretty good deal, if I say so myself. The Dark Shadows TV show is given the Innovation comic treatment and it is a beautifully looking series. It will go nicely in my collection with the Innovation Psycho book. I am intrigued by these Innovation books from the 1990s and I will be looking into what other choices they may have available.

Absolute Superman #2. “Sun of Nothing.” Written by Jason Aaron and art by Rafa Sandoval. Cover art by Sandoval & Ulises Arreola (Gold Medalist). The Absolute Superman continues to be very different and interesting, as Jason Aaron is, once again, awesome. Last issue I complained about “Agent” Lois Lane, but this issue seems to be tickling the journalism itch in Lois, and I kind of like it. I am enjoying this new take on the Man of Steel and I am excited to see where they are going to take me.

Two-Face #1. “Face vs. Face” Written by Christian Ward and art by Fabia Veras. Cover art by Baldemar Rivas (Silver Medalist). I did not intend to get this issue and I only picked it up because I had such a small week of books. Yet I really enjoyed this story of Harvey Dent and a courtroom of darkness. This issue got me hooked and I will be picking up issue two as well.

Creature Commandos #3. “The Deadening.” Written by David Dastmalchian and art by Jesus Hervas. Cover art was by Tirso. This is issue #3 of 6 and I am really not interested at this point. Any intrigue I had was washed away and I am only buying this as a completionist. I am looking forward to the new Creature Commando animated series on HBO Max, which I will probably be watching tonight. This, however, is a dud for me.

Sherlock Holmes: The Dark Detective, Claws of the Chimera #2. By Christopher Sequeira, Philip Cornell & Dave Elsey. Dave Elsey did the cover art (Bronze Medalist). I do like the new take on Sherlock Holmes so far. I must say that I hate the writing in the text boxes. It is just too small… it is making me feel old. The dialogue in the word balloons are fine, but those text boxes I have to squint and look really close at.

EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

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Week of December 2

Well, this was an easy week to pick the medal winners.

See, I got to Comic World today and a huge section of the shipment was missing. Everything from Diamond was not delivered. Okay, apparently, there was an attempt at a delivery with a holiday driver that turned out very badly.

Making a long story short, I only wound up with four books this week. Two weeks ago I had over 40. If the Marvel, Image, Boom etc. don’t come til next week, I dread the pile for next week.

Until then, we have two DC books and one from IPI Comics as the medalists this week.

Bronze Medalist

Sherlock Holmes: The Dark Detective #2

Cover art by Dave Elsey

This is a really creepy cover with Sherlock looking out a dark window. He sure seems to be a dark detective.

Silver Medalist

Two-Face #1

Cover art by Baldemar Rivas

I picked this one up off the rack because I did not have very many books this week. This is a cool cover with the focus on the coin being flipped. Again, I love the white background with the red of his face and title.

Gold Medalist

Absolute Superman #2

Cover art by Rafa Sandoval & Ulises Arreola

The cool new Absolute Superman looks great and the Peacemakers all around him make a great counter. The cover creates a great bit of what is going to happen. Looks excellent.

2024 Year in Review: YouTube

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I spend a lot of time watching YouTube. It is probably the app I watch the most on my Roku TV. There are so many channels and programs on this site that I watch regularly. So every year I have to find the list of my favorite YouTube shows and personalities.

I am counting down the Top 15 YouTube series/channels of 2024. Many of these are repeats from last year and several have moved up or down.

#15. Songs from a Suitcase. Vocal coach watching cool stuff. She watched Agatha All Along.

#14. Alex Hefner’s TV and Movies. A reaction channel that has slipped a bit this year for me. As in most reaction channels, it depends on what the reactor is watching. I do enjoy Alex even if I do not watch him as often as I used to.

#13. Dodgers Nation. A big year for my Los Angeles Dodgers meant I spent more time watching this Dodger discussion show.

#12. Jeremy Jahns. Jeremy Jahns has been one of my favorite online reviewers for years. I always thought our opinions matched up. It seems as if some of my thought differed more this year than in the past, but I still think Jeremy is a good time, no alcohol required.

#11. Dan Murrell. Another of my favorite online critics, Dan is also very well spoken and intelligent. His Charts with Dan show featuring box office reports is always informative and compelling.

10. Fatman Beyond. Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin together are always a good time. I will admit that I do not watch this as regularly as I have in the past, but anytime I have the time to watch FB, I have a laugh and enjoy myself.

#9. Ashleigh Burton. Another reactor, but I seem to enjoy seeing her react more than some others. I just watched her react to Spider-Man: No Way Home and it was wonderful. She does the MCU and is currently doing Buffy season two. All of that interests me.

#8. New Rockstars. When a great new Marvel trailer comes out, there is no better place to go than to New Rockstars for the break down with Eric Voss. There are a lot of other shows on the New Rockstar lineup, but the breakdowns are still the bread and butter here.

#7. The Geek Buddies. John Rocha, Michael Vogel and Shannon McClung have excellent chemistry, being close friends. Their opinions on geek culture is not always the same, which makes it all the better. I love their long reviews of certain projects, including the great review of Agatha All Along this year.

#6. Ups and Downs. Simon Miller from WhatCulture Wrestling uses that finger of power to give the good bits and up and the bad bits a down. I watch him do these reviews for WWE wrestling and Simon is such a Positive Pete that he brings such an energy that makes the show even better than it was.

#5. Settle the Score. I enjoy this game show very much as Matt Knost hosts and Andy Merryweather plays the music. A combination of movie trivia and name that tune, Settle the Score is a hoot each week. I will say that when I know the contestants, I enjoy the show more, but there are still some winner from people I do not recognize.

#4. FYC. An Oscar discussion show featuring Scott Mantz, Perri Nemiroff and Jeff Sneider. The hosts are the strength of this show. They can disagree with one another and yet hold a civil and intelligent conversation. They clearly respect one another and it shines through the show.

#3. The Reel Rejects. Another reactor channel, but this year the team has exploded. They are doing a ton of movies, TV shows and trailer reactions and they are thoroughly entertaining, whether it be Greg and John, the original rejects, Roxy, Coy, Andrew, Tara, Aaron or any other, The Reel Rejects have had some awesome live streams that are extremely fun, such as the one this year where they were following news from ComicCon and found out Robert Downey Jr was going to play Dr. Doom in the MCU. It is great.

#2. pReview’d. It’s Jay and Adam… it’s pReview’d! Hey Peaches! The highest of the movie/TV reactors again this year is the pReview’d boys. Jay and Adam just feel so authentic and they are downright funny. So whether it is them watching Agatha All Along, Deadpool and Wolverine, Shogun, Cobra Kai, The Princess Bride, Daredevil, The Penguin, or doing a trailerpalooza in order to GAME THE SYSTEM, BA-BEEE!, Jay and Adam are awesome.

#1. Bonus Action Vol. 2. Jay Schmidt and Adam Lash from pReview’d are back with their D&D roleplaying group, creating one of the most thrilling and engaging story around. DM David Armstrong creates the story for Adam, Jay, Amanda Nichols, Ja-Ron Young, Josh Hurley and Jason Spina. These players are as creative and outstanding as improvisers which brings the gaming session to such an entertaining result. This was the #1 YouTube show on the list last year and the second season/volume has returned to the top spot. I’m not a fan of their time slot (Mondays, meaning I have to watch it the next night), but that is my only complaint. These players are so in touch with their characters that it is a joy to watch them play them and to interact with each other. So much chemistry among the group! And David is one of the best DMs I have ever seen.

Skeleton Crew S1 E1, E2

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Spoilers

“This Could Be a Real Adventure”

“Way, Way Out Past the Barrier”

I usually do not do write ups on the Star Wars Disney + shows. The main reason is that I do not like that many of these shows. I do consider myself a Star Wars fan, but I have not been a fan of several of these shows, and a few I have not even watched (such as Ahsoka). However, the 1980s Goonies/Amblin feel this show provided made me intrigued.

Disney + dropped the first two episodes of this new series last night and I loved it. This was such a fun series and it absolutely captured that 1980s kid adventure movies.

In fact, one of the first things I noticed was the great music used. That music completely made me feel like we were watching an Amblin movie, but it also gave me the feel of Star Wars. The music was a wonderful blend between the two types of films.

I thought all of the kids did a great job. I was a big fan of Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) as our main protagonist, and I enjoyed Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) a ton as well. The little elephant character, Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) was fun too. I liked him very much. He made a great companion to Wim.

Jude Law showed up at the last scene of the second episode, bringing an interesting storyline with him.

I loved the mystery circulating around the kids’ home planet, At Attin, a planet that it seemed that the rest of the Star Wars universe believed this planet was just a myth. What is this central mystery? It has me intrigued for sure.

I am excited about the Skeleton Crew. I can’t wait to continue watching this series next Tuesday.

2024 Year in Review: The Expendables Award for Acting Excellence

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It is once again time for the annual look at the best and the worst of films/TV etc. from the world of the cast of the Expendables. Yes, this might be a bit of a joke award, and a little too easy, but … whatever.

Best Movie with an Expendable: Hit Man. This was an excellent film starring Expendable 3 star Glen Powell. Powell has become a real star and he could dominate these Expendable Acting Awards moving forward if he continues to take these interesting roles.

Best Expendable Actor: Harrison Ford (Shrinking). It is the second year in a row for Harrison Ford winning this award for his work on the Apple TV + series, Shrinking. He is just perfect in that role, steals every scene he is in and absolutely rules. His comedic timing is so great and he has chemistry with every actor on the show. He has made the grumpy old man trope his own and his is brilliant on this show.

Worst Movie with an Expendable: Monster Summer. Starring Mel Gibson, this film was a weak 1980s type film that wanted to be like Monster Squad, Goonies, Hocus Pocus or Sandlot, but just lacked any of those films’ strengths or any of those films’ charms. Gibson was miscast in the role too.

Bruce Willis Quantity over Quality Award for Most Movies Made by an Expendable: Antonio Banderas. He had four films (five if you include the London release of Paddington in Peru). The four films were Cult Killer, The Clean-Up Crew, Babygirl and the short Mercedes-Benz: In Her Shoe. I expect to see Babygirl, but the others I missed.

Best Expendable Cameo: Wesley Snipes (Blade, Deadpool & Wolverine). One of the best cameos of the year came from Snipes, reprising his classic role of Blade for the new MCU film. Despite the rumors of a feud with Ryan Reynolds stemming from Blade 3, Snipes appeared in the love letter film to the MCU and was an absolute highlight.

Confirmed? or is it? Award: 2024 Year in Review

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Every year, the internet takes a rumor and makes it a fact, despite anything that resembles the truth. We tend to talk ourself into things because we desperately want it to be so. Many times we then are upset or mad because it doesn’t happen. We then blame the product, which is wholly unfair because it was our own expectations that affected our viewing experience.

Thus, this is the award for that thing that was confirmed… but was never actually confirmed.

Confirmed… or is it? Award

Previous Winner: Mephisto is in WandaVision (2021), Fantastic Four has been cast (2022), Everyone is cast as Reed Richards (2023)

This year’s winner: Spider-Man 4 was being secretly filmed.

Tom Holland’s next movie has been confirmed to start filming in 2025, but there were some people on the internet who were speculating that the new MCU Spider-Man movie was being recorded in secrecy of 2024. The fact that it would be nearly impossible to do did not seem to be a determent to the fans.

We just want Spidey back and how cool would a secret movie be?

The X-Files S7 E12

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Spoilers

“X-Cops”

Bad boys, bad boys… whatcha gonna do?

This X-Files episode was an extremely clever and creative one as it was a blend of X-Files and another of the big hits on FOX at the time, Cops.

Cops was a TV program that had cameras follow different law enforcement agents around and recorded their interactions with their cases. This X-Files episode crossed over with its fictional story of what we thought might be a werewolf, but turned into much more. It was a creature of some sort that was feeding on fear.

Some of the best and most classic episodes of the X-Files blended the bizarre, paranormal world with comedy. “Bad Blood,” “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” and “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” being top examples the show’s comedy. “X-Cops” expertly mixed its comedy in with this ultra serious and realistic situation.

I loved how Scully was reacting to the camera crew. Every time she made some comment or turned a different way, Gillian Anderson showed off her remarkable comedic timing. For example, Scully, doing an autopsy, turned directly to the camera and said “The FBI has nothing to hide,” a statement Skinner had told Scully on the phone when she called him to let him know about the cameras involved in this case.

The episode started with a disclaimer about a special episode of the X-Files and followed that with the Cops TV show theme song. The title included some shots of Mulder and Scully, which was done to prevent any audience members from being confused and thinking that Cops was on instead of the X-Files.

This is one of the best episodes of season 7 and should be included on any list of the best X-Files episodes ever.

The X-Files S7 E10 E11

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Spoilers

“Sein Und Zeit”

“Closure”

The X-Files investigates the JonBenét Ramsey case.

Ok, not exactly, but they may as well have.

Only, they tied it into Mulder’s missing sister and his own family tragedy.

I was surprised when this turned out to be a two part episode as some horrible images were shown, including a mass graveyard of children. This was a shocking moment that I did not expect in this series.

You see, at first, I felt very dismissive of this episode, in particular “Sein Und Zeit” because it felt as if the fictional case of this episode was such a take off of the Ramsey case that it seemed exploitive. Then when they tried to connect it to Mulder’s sister, it really took another step away from what I wanted.

Then, Mulder’s mother, who had tried to contact him, committed suicide.

And the emotional power of the episode really took over.

David Duchovny brought some of the best work I have seen from him in a long time. The scene where Scully tells Mulder that his mother had a terrible disease and that she had committed suicide and not killed by some mysterious conspiracy was extremely powerful.

This was all building to answering the question about what happened to Samantha Mulder. As I am watching it, I did not believe that the show would give us a final truth. I saw on Wikipedia that Chris Carter believed that season 7 might have been the final season of the X-Files so I thought that maybe that elusive mystery would finally be revealed. The title “Closure” leads to the idea as well.

Cigarette Smoking Man showed up to see Scully, and I kept yelling at her to shoot him in the head. She didn’t.

As I continued to watch the episode, I started believing that the show might actually give an answer to the mystery. I did not grasp the idea of what in actuality happened. Samantha was apparently taken by “walk-ins” which was a concept told to Mulder by a psychic named Harold Pillar (Anthony Heald) who was also in search of his own missing son. A walk-in was a being made of starlight that would take children who suffered horrible fates.

That whole concept was strange, but the scene where the spirit of Samantha Mulder came to Fox Mulder and hugged him was quite beautiful and provided the character with some serious closure. He could accept that Samantha was gone and, as he said at the end of the episode, he said, “I’m fine. I’m free.”

I am still not sure how his mother played into this. What was her message? Did she know this was Samantha’s fate or what was going on. We saw Mulder’s mother’s spirit come to him and whisper something. I am just not sure that fit with what the show was telling us.

We also got the image of the little girl whose disappearance started this whole thing indicating that she too had become starlight and was, in fact, dead.

I am not sure I love the resolution of this seminal mystery, but I am happy that it is done. I am not sure that all of the different times when we learned bits about Samantha fit into this theory and it works best when you forget about some of those. The whole Samantha mystery was used multiple times over the seasons for episodes and I wonder how much they knew about what actually happened to Samantha.

No matter what, even if the resolution was not totally satisfactory, I am glad that it was addressed and that Mulder was given closure. It is good that this Samantha story ended here.