1x14 GENDERBENDER

"Man, I feel like a woman."
Shania Twain

"Dude look like a lady!"
Aerosmith

"All I know is that in this outfit I feel like a total femme.
And you know what? I don't have a problem with it!"
Tom Servo Operation Double MST3K

"There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be."
Norman Mailer

SYNOPSIS

STEVENSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
ALL ALONG NEW ENGLAND
Two woman and three men have died just after doing the 'Wild Thing', and cops let Mulder know about it, as he'd put out a call for police to keep an eye out for that sort of crime. A member of the Amish, excuse me, the Kindred, seems to be the prime suspect.

SCULLYVISION

The suspect of the crimes committed is thought to be a transvestite to Scully, but a 'sex machine' by Mulder. As they investigate, Scully does the questioning, while Mulder gathers evidence. The latest victim had a form of clay embedded in the scratches that only come from the area that the Kindred live. Eventually, Scully has a sensual encounter with an alien. She would never admit it, but there it is. Brother Andrew has some power to influence as earlier in the episode, it was Scully who stated, "It's hard to imagine that in this day and age someone would sleep with a perfect stranger."

When interrogating Brother Andrew on the street, she goes with the tactic of talking about what he knows and is comfortable with to start the conversation. She asks about the horse's shoes on asphalt. One can conjure the image of little Dana astride a pony. It is there that the seduction of Agent Scully has begun. A simple handshake turns into an spellbinding encounter.

She is still under his spell when Catholic Scully pays more attention to Brother Andrew sitting next to her than grace.

Mulder and Scully have honed their signals to each other when they go in for the bust. Mulder only has to make a few motions and Scully knows exactly what he means. And, as an added bonus, he actually introduced her to the shop keeper! Go Mulder.

We sure don't want to see Scully doing the wild thing with a stranger but we didn't mind seeing her all doe eyed and dreamy as only an alien pheromone could do to her. But she was a little too dreamy including in the final street scene when she warned Brother Andrew that she was armed. He probably already spotted the weapon that she had pointed at his head only about a foot away.

And we do enjoy seeing that after Scully is slugged by the alien, she is able to leap up and really haul ass down the hall and out into the street. But earlier Agent Scully seemed less FBI like when she and her partner surrendered their weapons to the Kindred.

Scully continues to challenge Mulder's quirky theories but did it without a whole lot of passion in this episode. In fact, for an ep with raging pheromones, it was overall rather passionless. The most sensual parts were the music and some of the visual images like the Kindred with their lanterns in the rainy woods and the steamy street night scene at the end.

OH COME ON!

Scully takes some good hits in this episode, but like a SuperWoman we all know her to be, she doesn't even have a scratch on her.

When having pictures reframed, you keep them under the counter?

Why did the Kindred bring Mulder and Scully to their farm? Shouldn't they have rather answered their questions with no comment out in the woods and go home alone with no one to see what's going on back at the farm?

Who were the Kindred praying to? Was it just a show for Mulder and Scully? Or is God celebrated on other planets also?

That club that Brother Martin frequented is still pretty hopping, considering there had been many deaths of their clientele.

Mulder has trouble following a map, but can easy navigate through a cavern system even though he'd never been there before?

Mulder and Scully were back at the farm just hours after losing Brother Andrew in the alley... just how long and how many people did it take to fill in the cavern system with concrete?

THINGS LEARNED
or All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From the X Files

Don't let Mulder navigate above ground.

JACK'S MONSTERVISION

Ah yes, the Kindred. Immigrants from another planet or the Amish with weird powers? Either way, they act a lot like the Amish but it seems they can change their gender at will. But what kind of episode would it be if they just stayed secluded from the world? One of the Kindred, frustrated by his? her? it's? uptight associates, makes it's way into a new world of dancing and sex with strangers. Considering it's a walking aphrodisiac, it fits right into the club scene, luring both men and women into it's trap. Sure, having amazing sex with a person and them having them change gender right in front of you is scary enough, but then you die of a heart attack from an overload of hormones causing this cool red stuff to come out of your mouth. (Even though there is really no scientific reason for it, they must have thought they needed something weird for these people's deaths.) All in all this MOTW is just kinda boring. It had a mediocre ability and no motive at all. So I give this monster 2 out of 5 crop circles where a farm used be.

CARTERVISION

This is obviously not a mythology episode, but there are aliens in it. This is the first glimpse of shape shifting aliens.

SFX

They did well with the morphing Brother Andrew, but really dropped the ball on turning the old man in the cave into a woman. Only slapping a long haired wig on him doesn't do the trick.

WRITERS
Larry and Paul Barber

They could have created a more sensual atmosphere of the type of monster they came up with, but it just didn't spark. The idea of a member of a strict, overbearing religious sect wanting to break out could have been done better.

DIRECTOR
Rob Bowman

This is the first episode of a director who becomes important to the series. He created the juxtaposition of the frenetic atmosphere of the club scene with the spooky calm of Kindred life. One of the striking symbols was when Mulder and Scully are brought to the farm and it's slow, quiet, tranquil, and there's a close up of a block of wood, and it's suddenly split in half with an axe. Nice shot from the roof when Mulder opened the barn door to see the cave had been filled in with concrete. Too bad the rest of the episode couldn't be so exciting.

RUNNING TALLIES
Flashlights - sorry, lanterns
Guns - first taken away by the Kindred, then used at the end
Sunflower Seeds
Slide Projector
Mulder Breaks a Law - they both did, trespassing?
Raining

SCORE CARD FOR SAVING EACH OTHER'S ASS
Scully - 3 - Mulder - 3
They're even now. If Mulder hadn't stepped in, Scully would have been wilded to death.

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

Rob Bowman opened Chris Carter's office door to say this:

"Chris, you know that guy we hired to play the loser who picked up a transvestite? I think he's a great actor. We really should keep him in mind for another character. A character that really rocks! A character that will keep the woman on the edge of their seats wondering when he'll show up again. But also a character that the men will like. A character who's really shady, you don't know what side of the fence he's on. A character who will cause confusion and rack up the body count whenever he appears. A character that's ... let's just say, 'misunderstood'. We can go for years with people wondering if he'll show up again. We can even leak on the web that there will be an entire show built around his character, and then never do it. It will be great! I can just tell that it will work! What do you say?"

Chris replied:

"You are so right Rob, that Nick Lea was super. Let's most definitely build a character around him. But the character I have in mind is more untrustworthy, maybe even evil. Sometimes he whines like a baby and people kick his ass and other times he just scurries around in the shadows like a rodent. Women might think he's good looking but not too many will like him and all the guys will pretty much hate him. But I like your idea that we don't know which side he is really on. And he will really rock, people will tune in just to see him get his ass kicked. A big corporate yes to faking out the public regarding building an entire show around him. In fact, let's make him so mysterious that everyone will be dying to see him and then we'll almost never put him in an ep. What a blast. You're da man, Rob!"

ATHENAEUM

Michael sat waiting for his first appointment with the shrink and pondered his surroundings. He was in the basement of a mostly abandoned building and the basement seemed to be a branch of the public library. He wondered just how respectable this shrink could be. But the shrink's name was Dr. Frederick Freud, so that must mean something.

Suddenly the spitting image of Sigmund Freud stood in the doorway gesturing Michael to enter the office. He entered cautiously.

"Please." The shrink gestured to a couch. "Lie down."

"I didn't realize people still used couches," Michael laughed and looked around but the shrink had seemingly vanished behind the couch. Michael stretched out on the couch and stared up at the ceiling very sure now that he did not want to fess up to having dated a transvestite. He felt very exposed on the couch, very vulnerable. And you just never knew about some of these shrinks. They could be more wacko than their patients.

"Well, Dr. Freud, I..."

"It's Dr. Fred."

"What?"

"Oh, gentle patient, rest assured that I am indeed a descendent of Sigmund Freud but when my family moved here from the old country they, as many families did, dropped a letter from their name. They dropped u."

"I see," mumbled Michael. "Well, Dr. Fred, I was wondering if transvestitism is a psychiatric disorder?"

"It is still listed but the criteria includes that it must disrupt the patient's life to a major degree or it doesn't count. So if you bend your gender but then go have a ball at the clubs, then you're just fine."

"But I thought shrin...uh, Psychiatrists, looked askance at these kinds of things."

"Not in my family. I'm sure you have heard that Anna Freud was really Uncle Sigmund in drag. But surely that isn't your presenting problem?"

Don't call me Shirley is what Michael thought of saying but didn't. "No. No, I uh, well the club scene is just more complicated these days. And this person that I went home with was, well, more than a woman."

"Ah yes. I understand. Ain't nothing like a girl, huh buddy? Well, fear not. For you see, gender switching is sometimes a very natural event in nature. You know, like guppies."

"What?"

"However, what you experienced may have been more in the line of morphism than genderbending."

"Morphism?"

"Some civilizations are able to morph though some do it much more slowly than others. And if the Kindred were aliens..."

"How did you know about the Kindred?" Startled, Michael rose up on his elbows and started to look back at Dr. Fred.

"Don't look, please don't look. It's against the rules."

"Sorry." Michael laid back down.

"As I was saying, this all might account for their extreme pheromones. Some civilizations are like moths. Their pheromones are so powerful they can be detected by other moths as much as ten miles away. Simply irresistible little buggers."

"What's a pheromone?"

"Any chemical secreted by one animal in order to affect another. Except birds of course. And not only animals, mushrooms do it too and so do molds. Pheromones can promote sexual togetherness or serve as warnings of danger."

"But what has all this to do with me?"

"Our time is up for today my good man. If you're worried about the club scene all you need is to be a little more macho. Change your name to something tougher and then go join the Marines, or better yet, the FBI. Good day."

QUOTES

HORTON Guy blew an artery. Must have been some roll in the hay.

MULDER Radar love.

MULDER He's the ultimate sex magnet.

MULDER The Kindred are known for their handmade stoneware pottery. They mine the clay themselves in the local hills.
SCULLY What's so weird about that?
MULDER The white clay in those hills is particular to that region. It's also the same substance I scraped out of the scratches on the latest victim's sides.
SCULLY Aren't these people famous for their abstinence and their pure Christian ways?
MULDER Yes, but it looks as if one of them may have forgotten to clean under his fingernails.

MULDER You need anything from the feed store?

SCULLY There's something up there, Mulder.
MULDER Oh, I've been saying that for years.

SCULLY What does the map say?
MULDER That we should be there already.

SISTER ABIGAIL We pray for the day of the coming, the moment of our release.

MULDER The Addams family finds religion.
SCULLY Take me back to the 20th century.

SCULLY These people have probably been inter-marrying for years.

MULDER I'm going to go back for a little look-see.

MULDER I know what I saw, Scully. And I saw you about to do the wild thing with some stranger.

MICHAEL On a scale of 1 to 10, she was a kind 3. But there was something about her.

MICHAEL After she left the car and she was fighting with the cop, I saw her in her clothes and she looked like ... (nervous laugh) ... she looked like a man.

MICHAEL Hustling in the club scene used to be so simple.

MULDER I think Don Juan in there knows the difference between the male and the female of the species.

SCULLY I don't understand. How can they just disappear? They have no means of transportation.
MULDER No earthly means of transportation.
They realize they're standing in a large crop circle in the Kindred's field.