#9x05

we open with a guy SCREAMING. but these are silly screams, not scary ones, even though i was initially frightened. it is sky commander winky, which is an epic name. and he is jesse pinkman, but i’ll try to call him winky to prevent confusion. 

he is hugging the beautiful captain dare (real name bill), who he proclaims is the biggest dumbass he knows. they are going to do some stunts. captain dare gets a baseball fired at his balls. he asks natalie for a good luck kiss. and then he is put in a porta potty attached to a car which drives away. 

okay. 

winky yells into the camera about his dumbass-ness. wait, why is he green? oh, from the grass. see, i thought this was a zombie moment. 

now one of them is going to launch himself in a shopping cart down a ramp and over natalie holding a torch - but natalie did NOT agree to this!!! i support her calling out their dumbassery. 

i get that this spoofing an existing genre… but it doesn’t make it easier to watch.

natalie doesn’t want to get hit in the head… but the crowd pressures her. and so, she gets on the ground. 

the shopping cart goes the wrong way and captain dare hits his head. AUGH? his head CAVED IN??? natalie is screaming. POOR NATALIE.

back to the weird ass intro. it will not ever grow on me. I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE!!! ESPECIALLY NOT TO THE BOY ON THE STRING.

aww, doggett and reyes are here :) they’re about the same height, which i think is cute. he’s a little bit taller. 

the medical examiner asks if they are the experts and doggett is like… uh…

(YES, JANE LYNCH IS HERE, LET’S GOOOO!)

doctor fountain says he doesn’t want to go on record since the kid’s parents are suing everybody. the supermarket he stole the shopping cart from. the county for making the street too steep. 

hi, doggett looking sternly. hiiiii. (idk, he looked hot here. sue me!!)

doggett unboxes the kid bill’s body and sees his head caved in. the doctor asks if they have heard of the dumb ass show.

and what is going on with the whole side of his head being folded in? “you investigate the unexplained. how about you explain it to me?” (doggett and reyes are silent) 

haha, this dr. fountain guy is speaking my language. i think i would do the same thing if i was in his shoes. YOU FBI PEOPLE FIGURE IT OUT!!

ohhhhh…. ew…. there is movement under his eyeballs. the bugs… reyes opens his eyeball and bugs POUR OUT. EWWWWW. 

CUT TO SCULLY COMING DOWN THE ELEVATOR, LMAO. she has been summoned. she looks so pretty :) she is enveloped by doggett and reyes :)

it is now slicing and dicing time!!! scully is in her happy place. and she declares she has never seen anything quite like this before. doctor fountain walks away. 

augh, she thinks his skull collapsed because the bugs ate everything inside!! the helmet protected his head during the crash - there was no impact damage from the fall. very fascinating for a freak like scully.

doggett asks why the flies attacked this guy when there were so many kids there. it is a good question! scully removes her gloves maybe it has something to do with natalie?

DOGGETT ASKS ABOUT FLY PHEROMONES USED TO ATTRACT WOMEN, WHICH HE SEES IN THE BACKS OF MAGAZINES THAT HE GLANCES AT FOR AMUSEMENT. HELLO????? did i miss a cultural moment by not being alive at this time?😭😭 did people really buy fly pheromones to attract women??? reyes looking at him… killlll me.

(this sent me down a google rabbit hole)

scully says she may have to brush up on spanish fly, but she doesn’t think science works that way 😭😭 but she starts talking about looking for an M.O., so she is hooked and on the case. william must spend a lot of time with his grandma. mommy is investigating aggressive flies now.

WHO IS THIS FLY SCIENTIST WHO ENTERS LOOKING AND TALKING AND WALKING LIKE THAT?!?! remove him from my screen at once!!!

he is dr. rocky bronzino; i know this because he tells the audience three times. kill him, scully. no one looks at him. DO NOT WINK AT DR. SCULLY. NO, DON’T HIT ON HER. reyes steps in. smack him. smack him. (no smacking takes place)

back at the high school, natalie is eating lunch sadly. someone stares at her. creepily. we later learn this kid is named dylan lokensgard. enter winky, who comes along with a camera, sticking it in natalie's face and claiming he is filming for the memorial of their dearly departed captain dare. she tells winky he is a jerk and so is his brother for making him do those stunts. 

dylan stands up to defend her… but then winky slams a cupcake on his head or something. i can’t tell what the food item smashed into his head is, and i don’t care, because coach sue sylvester just rolled up. she’s calling winky into her office. dylan’s mom is the principal?

doggett chuckles at the stupid videos which he and reyes are watching for case reasons. “this isn’t just stupid, this is the glorification of stupid. these kids take enormous pride in being sub-mental” tea. i feel like i could use that reaction gif on the regular. and they notice dylan in the crowd… hmm.

when in comes winky, presented to the agents by the principal. doggett addresses him as “sky pilot winky” 

“sky commander,” he corrects. “and you can call me sheriff john when i haul your dumb ass off to jail, winky” oh! get him.

OH! he is trying to sell the video of his friend’s death to news networks, like that is a normal thing to do 😭 they hypothesize that winky killed him to sell the video and make some money. 

meanwhile, he’s itching like crazy, and i feel the bugs are coming…

AUGH, “dumb ass” is written in his back… bitten into his skin by the bugs?? does the principal’s kid dylan have bug summoning powers he used to defend natalie?

eeeew… nasty. so gross. 

principal’s kid dylan comes home. principal mom declares that dinner is on the table and she has something to talk to him about, DYLAN!! but he stalks off to his room and shuts the doors. he then pulls out a picture of natalie. he hides it and turns up his music when his mom approaches. when he tries to close his eyes, FLIES COVER HIS WINDOW. then the wall. they surround him??? he seems to be crying??? is he haunted by these bugs?? does he wish to be free??

scully is investigating her bugs. all the brain-eating flies are female. “exactly how is that a break?” asks doggett. “well, what are the chances of that?” LMAOOOOO, fair enough i guess.

doggett hands scully the picture of winky’s back, which had the words carved into it with the power of body lice. she says something about lice being common in schools and it momentarily killed me because that is something the old scully would say, whereas new scully would comment upon the fact words are spelled out. doggett instead is the one who observes this.

reyes thinks someone is directing the bugs. they narrow down on the loner they saw in all of the videos - dylan lokensgard - who is currently at home looking in the mirror. while his principal mom shuts the door in a visitor’s face. mom tries to come see him and he climbs out the window. it was natalie visiting. OHHHH!! i see what is going on here.

principal mom starts to talk to dylan about like puberty and shit and tells him that natalie is trouble. okay. he bikes away.

back to the creepy scientist, rocky, who is at the scene of the “crime”, if it can be called that when a kid’s head caves in from fly infestation after he launches himself from shopping cart. we need to get rid of this rocky fellow. but scully is here too, and she looks so pretty. they are looking for pheromones together. 

PULL YOUR GUN ON HIM, SCULLY. STOP. don’t talk to her about fly mating and menstrual cycles!!!

“you know rocky. i’m a mother” <- this is arguably a very polite way to try and tell a creepy man to back tf off. “mothers are women, too” KILL HIM!!!

the pheromone detector goes off as dylan bikes by!!

this is soooo stupid 😭😭😭😭 how did we get here??

dylan is riding to school so fast that he crashes his bike in the bushes next to natalie. okay. king shit. he climbs out of the bushes and then says he’ll get his bike later in an attempt to play it cool. LMAOOOOO. that actually got a really good laugh out of me. being a teenager is like that sometimes.

dylan says he was worried about natalie, and she stops walking and starts crying. her parents think what she feels - this grief over her now dead boyfriend (were they dating?) - will go away. she wants to turn back time. also, is this jamie lynn spears? let me rewind back to the featured actor’s names at the beginning. hiiiii doggett lifting up the kid’s head!

let us see who is in this here show... no one by the name of spears mentioned. maybe people just looked like that in 2001.

okay, back to the main plot. dylan and natalie reminisce about being kids and carving their name in a tree… yeahhh, whatever man. teenage love. booooring. what are we doing?! AH! reyes and doggett are here to get him. 

dylan is sweating profusely while they show him the footage from the dumbass show. principal mom catches reyes and doggett asking him questions and declares that no one shall interrogate her son in her office without her permission (lmao)

doggett, reyes, and principal mom start to fight, when flies appear above dylan’s head. flies all over the ceiling. when they turn back he is COVERED in flies. gross. he looks like he is going to cry. 

doggett exits the school as a bunch of people in hazmat suits enter, declaring that they are too late - the bugs are all gone. did he summon them to make them go away?? dylan doesn’t have any bites on him…. winky glares at him as he leaves. reyes agrees that the bug summoning was a distraction. but how was it accomplished?!

the agents present scully with a tissue and ask her to look for pheromones. and it has so many pheromones it broke the machine! i really hate this scientist guy rocky and i think that is on purpose. he delivers the following line: “a boy is a boy. a bug is a bug” yeah. they don’t make shows like this anymore. 

they start to put together the pieces… they saw dylan talking to natalie that morning…

back to dylan cam. natalie is climbing into his room!!! they start talking about childhood again. he remembers the last time she was here was a wednesday in april.  and now he’s talking about bands. okay. yeah. he’s a brilliant guy no one understood. yeah. wowwww. how original.

okay. wait. his dad is gone. did the bugs eat his dad?

i don’t care anymore. are they gonna kiss? that might as well happen. i really don’t give a fuck. yeah they’re kissing. okay. genuinely, why do i do this to myself? they barely kiss, and he declares it amazing and then they start really kissing but her mouth is covered in blood….

THERE’S something wrong with his tongue??? she starts sobbing!!!! she runs away before he can explain!!!!

so they can’t kiss with tongue? big deal. they can make it work if they want to.

and then winky arrives. calling him bug boy. with some friends who take him for a drive. winky asks how he did it. AUGH! dylan opens his mouth and some evil bug thing crawls out. where are we, guys?!?! where is home?! the car crashes. 

scully arrives at the lokensgard home to see wtf is going in. oh, and the gross bug scientist rocky is here too. “i’ve never had a partner before” “i have” OUCH. he’s still hitting on her, but she wants to get moving.

don’t say she completes you. i don’t have time for this.

doggett and reyes roll up to the crash and winky and all the guys are covered in cocoons. “the dude’s a freaking bug” winky yells. 

i have no reactions at this point. 

doggett stays with the guys while reyes heads to natalie’s house. 

doggett calls scully to inform him what is going on while rocky investigates upstairs at the lokensgard home. 

reyes finds natalie. how did she get in her room? well, never mind that. you better not say dylan’s name around her. she is hysterical. but she locks in when she hears that winky and his brother have been attacked. 

but THEN dylan appears at her door asking why she ran from him. because you made her mouth bleed, bro. let’s use context clues??

he confesses to killing bill to keep her from being killed and then he does some bug jujitsu while rocky hunts for pheromones. 

JANE LYNCH EATS ROCKY??? SHE IS A BUG TOO???? holy shit y’all, you cannot make this stuff up 😭😭😭 

now we are having a confrontation scene between dylan and principal mom. she wanted to save him from what he is about to do. did she eat his dad?

doggett on the scene. reyes has been cocooned. he rips her open from a cocoon, which is endearing.

scully approaches dylan’s house. natalie is sobbing. she points upstairs. where the cocoons are. did the lokensgards cocoon each other?

oh! it’s rocky the bug scientist. he’s alive. scully has experience in being cocooned; she must understand. 

scully is trying to do CPR on him. and they did find dylan’s dad and three other bodies up there.

okay. so they were not human or insect. and then the lokensgards hit the road. 

natalie wakes up in the night and sees fireflies dancing outside her window. they spell out “i love you” well. that would be sweet if dylan didn’t just try to kidnap her.

had bug guy not killed bill or tried to kiss her with bug tongue too soon or kidnap her i think they could have made it work. but after such actions, i do not think the relationship is salvageable.

this episode just did nothing for me. i laughed hard when he biked straight into the bushes. after that, i was bored. scully was used as a prop for a side character to objectify her. the case had potential to be interesting, but it didn’t. 

i feel like the writers of this show haven’t met a real high schooler in a loooong time. do they know they can be complicated people with their own thought processes and not walking stereotypes? they always feel so stiff and awkward caricatures to me. guys, you can write them like other normal people. they are normal people. just a little younger 👍

uh. what else. 

idk. they went for silly here but i wasn’t laughing. wait, dr. fountain made me laugh. other than that though… eh. the rescue scene with reyes would have been good in a different context, but at that point i could see each plot point coming and it was so predictable i was checked out.

well. shrug. i guess we move onto the next one?

i can feel the absence of mulder in times as these, but if he were here, it still would have been an episode i didn’t care for. and there are plenty of those MOTW ones that just don’t do it for me. but something about this one actively pissed me off. i think it was rocky and the flat ideas of how high schoolers act. i just kept thinking “this show is better than this” but also?? it isn’t always. maybe that is part of the magic?

well. i have nothing else to say really. i wish they gave our characters more time to shine. 

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