120 DARKNESS FALLS

"Hello darkness my old friend"
Simon and Garfunkel
Sounds of Silence

"When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we see
No I won't be afraid
No I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me."
Ben E. King
Lyrics by Leiber & Stoller
Stand By Me

SYNOPSIS

OLYMPIC NATIONAL FOREST
PRESENT DAY
Never underestimate the tenacity of bugs... Tough, manly logging men have disappeared in the forest in Washington state. Turns out, bugs that had been laying dormant in old trees, the very trees that loggers are cutting down. When they're reawaken, they attack when it's dark.

SCULLYVISION

Just as in the excellent 'bottle episode', Ice, Mulder and Scully are brought out of their element to investigate the disappearance of men who work in isolation. In this episode, the issue of trust is a major character.

SmilingScully appears twice in this episode. First when Mulder suggests she look for a boyfriend in the picture of the loggers and then again when Scully gets in an early dig at Mulder questioning whether or not he thinks the culprit is Big Foot. His response about choking down all that flannel causes an even bigger smile.

Scully arrives in the big, bad forest wearing an innocent look, a pony tail and outdoor clothes that look fresh off the rack. Although who wouldn't be out of place, those woods seemed dark, dank and deep. Spooky even. However, our youthful agent manages to maintain her sense of humor when she later comments about the brain sucking amoebae.

Novice OutdoorsScully quickly comes around to bravery when they hoist her up to probe around in a giant cocoon. If what ever built that thing was still inside of it, she would be a sitting duck.

BraveScully has a lapse when the bugs first crawl on her. She freaks and almost breaks the lone light bulb that is in fact keeping them all alive.

PartnerScully and Mulder have a heated argument. One so tense, one like it hadn't been seen since "Ice". At least this time they didn't point guns at each other. After Mulder had let the eco-terrorist leave camp to see if any of his comrades in another camp are still alive with not only their Jeep, but with the last of their gasoline that they'll need for the generator if they're still trapped that night. She confronts him, not so much for being an idiot, but for making a decision by himself, a decision that would affect everyone. She has a higher perspective, a higher sense of fairness than most. Mulder tries to blow it off by telling her to cut the sanctimonious crap. Sanctimonious crap? Brutal truth, is more like it.

Scully was smart enough to put in a fresh light bulb before dusk on the last night at the cabin. Could you imagine if that bulb burned out in the middle of the night?

This is an episode where both Scully and Mulder together figure out what the bug situation really is. Mulder saves Scully, not from the bugs, but from her fear of them. Sadly neither can save the other from the bugs and we're fairly certain toward the end that there really is no healthy way out of this situation. This ending comes close to belonging in the Oh Come On section of this review.

OH COME ON!

They need to be in the light, yet Spinney walks into a dark room to go to bed.

Why was Spinney dawdling with Mulder and Scully when it was so urgent to get back to his buddies at the other camp?

When the generator went out the last night in the forest, why didn't they just start a fire? Torch the cabin? Anything to make light?

The bugs attacked Spiney in the bright glare of the headlights but not in the dim light of one little bulb in the cabin?

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

An environmental terrorist is called a monkey wrencher.

An employee of the Federal Forest Service is called a Freddy.

If you're a tough logger, by all means, drink milk that's been sitting out for a couple of days.

Did the bugs actually build that contraption the cocoon was found on? Why didn't they bring the body up to a tree?

If they cut down that huge old tree, why didn't they bring it out with the other trees that were cut down in that same area?

SFX

The bugs on the dark side of the tress, swarming, coming into the cabin, going through the air vents in the cars were cool but the close up as the show went to commercial with Mark Snow's music behind it, really cool.

WRITER
Chris Carter

Using the excellent setting of a 'bottle episode', this episode starts light and humorous, only to slowly build it's tension. By the end of it, after moments of mistrust and arguing, the characters, even Mulder and Scully (who should be bullet-proof because they're the stars of the show) are in real danger, the enemy is time and bugs.

It's gotten to the point in the series that if you see the words WRITTEN BY Chris Carter in the opening credits, you inwardly cringe. Space and Fire were sub-par efforts, and that's me being polite. Miracle Man wasn't too bad, but lacked a certain spark. CC redeemed himself in this episode. The partnership-bond of Mulder and Scully is strong and neither are reduced to doing or saying or reacting stupidly. He also won an Ecological Award for this episode. Good job.

Two nice instances of ironic symbolism in this episode that I enjoyed, story-wise. One, the loggers are cutting down old, very old, protected trees, thereby reawakening dormant bugs that aren't in the newer trees that they can cut, and the bugs kill them. Two, the 'monkey wrenchers' put tire spikes on the road to keep loggers out of the forest... when they're trying to escape, the carload, in which a 'monkey wrencher' is driving, drives over one, trapping them in the forest.

DIRECTOR
Joe Napolitano

The director of Jersey Devil makes a return visit and again uses darkness as suspense. Nice views of the lush, yet scary forest and showing the growing tension in the faces of the characters and body languages.

RUNNING TALLIES
Flashlights - they didn't use them. Hm. Dark forest, X Files episode, and no flashlights??
Guns
Slide Projector
Scully does an autopsy - examined the cocooned man
Raining
Scully lights candles - she should have, but obviously didn't bring any with her to the forest

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

When they were both recovered, they had a plane ride home:

Scully: Three questions, Mulder.

Mulder: Three?

Scully: Why would you, Mr. Trust No One, trust a radical that you knew for one day and trust him with, not only your life, but your partner's life as well?

Mulder: Terrorist? You sound like Spinney.

Scully: Too bad Spinney didn't make it.

Mulder: I can read people. I trusted him. I knew he'd be back. This was a matter of life and death. I thought I'd be more useful at our camp.

Scully: Why didn't you wake us all up to make a decision that affected all of us?

Mulder: We already went over that. I should have. I agree. I'll never do it again.

Scully: Good.

Mulder: And?

Scully: And?

Mulder: You said there were three. That was only two.

Scully: I forgot what the other one was. Those were the important ones.

Mulder: Kay.

Scully: Oh! I just remembered three. Why don't they give you peanuts anymore on planes?

Mulder: Easy answer! Some people are allergic to them.

Scully: I have a fourth question. Can I have your pretzels? I'm starving.

ATHENAEUM

The parchment slid beneath her door that meant that Scully was being called again to the Athenaeum. When she arrived and found that the subject was Big Foot, she immediately regretted her wise ass comment to Mulder. It also made her think that perhaps Mulder was behind all this Athenaeum business.

The Curator greeted Scully and informed her that certain factions were interested in her receiving additional information that might ultimately serve her well in the X-Files. Before she could laugh or reply, he continued, "Known by many names including Sasquatch, Yeti, Almas, Abominable Snowman, maybe Jersey Devil, possibly even werewolf and many other names throughout the world, Big Foot continues to intrigue young and old alike."

"What about that video of Big Foot from California. Didn't that turn out to be some guy in a monkey suit?" Scully inquired.

"Other than Citizen Kane and the Zapruder film, probably no other film has been studied more than the Patterson-Gimlin film of Bigfoot taken in California in 1967. The story goes that Patterson had been involved in the search for Bigfoot for many years and had written a book on the subject that provided a great deal of evidence that supported the creature's existence. Gimlin, an experienced outdoorsman, was a friend of Patterson and agreed to accompany him on a wilderness expedition to search for the creature.

"Equipped with a 16mm hand-held Kodak movie camera, the two searchers set out on horseback to explore the wilderness in northern California. They concentrated their search in the area near Bluff Creek which is in the Six Rivers National Forest. Road construction workers had reported large human-like footprints in that area.

"On the afternoon of October 20, 1967 Patterson and Gimlin spotted a creature they believed to be a female Big Foot. Patterson's horse freaked out but Patterson managed to grab his camera and running toward the creature he took 24 feet of color film footage. During this time, the creature calmly walked off into the woods. It was estimated that the creature weighted 700 pounds and stood 7 foot three and a half inches tall."

"Wouldn't even be the tallest guy to play professional basketball, although I wouldn't want to be the one to teach him to shoot free throws." Scully's humor rang hollow in the Athenaeum.

"Roger Patterson died in January 1972 steadfast in his belief in the creature's existence. Robert Gimlin has also stood by the story. However some reports on the internet claim that Gimlin now wonders if he had been duped by Patterson and some guy in a monkey suit. Speaking of the monkey suit, there are reports that it was custom designed by Patterson and the guy who wore it is about to take it out of moth balls and reveal it to the world. We're all still waiting, of course."

"What to the film experts say?"

"Recently it was claimed by some that upon further review they have spotted a belt buckle or zipper partially hidden on Bigfoot. Film experts fail to confirm that this finding is accurate. In addition, film experts warn against trying to analyze copies of the film siting many reasons why only the original should be studied. Needless to say, just as with all popular films, this one continues to spark much discussion. And once again, the experts don't all seem to agree. The debate continues."

After a pause, Scully waited for more. Big Foot? That's all she had to make the long trek down to that abandoned warehouse for? She decided to ask, "Now about that Zapruder film..."

Suddenly, The Curator ushered Scully out of the building.

QUOTES

SCULLY And you suspect what? Bigfoot?
MULDER Not likely. That's a lot of flannel to be choking down even for Bigfoot.

MULDER Come on, Scully, it'll be a nice trip to the forest.

SCULLY Freddies?
MOORE Employees of the Federal Forest Service. It's, uh, it's what the Ecoterrorists call us.

SCULLY Get the impression that we've walked into the middle of a war that's already started?

SCULLY Why do these men work so far up in the wilderness?
HUMPHREYS That's where the trees are.

SCULLY Well, you were right about one thing.
MULDER What's that?
SCULLY It definitely wasn't Bigfoot.

MOORE Looks like a hive. Maybe a cocoon of some kind.

SCULLY What kind of an insect could have gotten a man all the way up into that tree?
MULDER Itsy-bitsy spider.

HUMPHREYS Doug Spinney... I oughta shoot you where you stand.

SPINNEY Darkness is our enemy.

SPINNEY You don't want to go out in the night. Take my word on that. It's out there.
HUMPHREYS If I go out that door, something's going to attack me, eat me alive and spin me in it's web?
SPINNEY Yes.
HUMPHREYS What? It's too polite to come in here and get me?

SCULLY What do you think?
MULDER I think I'm going to suggest that we sleep with the lights on.

MOORE Well, parasites attack a tree in a variety of ways, but they always attack the living parts. The leaves, the roots, the new growth rings. Even if they're borers of something, they wouldn't be working so deep in the tree.

SCULLY That's weird. Usually bugs are attracted to light.

MULDER When Mt. St. Helens erupted, there was a large amount of radiation that was released from inside the earth. Strange things started to grow. There's actually this lake where they've discovered a kind of amoeba that can literally suck a man's brains out.
SCULLY Oh, a brain-sucking amoeba.

MULDER He left earlier this morning. He took a battery and some gas. He's gonna come back for us in the morning.
MOORE Yeah, what, he gave you his personal guarantee on that?
MULDER He gave me his word, yeah.

SCULLY Mulder...
MULDER Look, it's done. I shouldn't have let him go. Let's just move past it, okay?

SCULLY You mean, would I have made a decision by myself that would have affected the whole group?
MULDER Oh, will you cut the sanctimonious crap?
SCULLY Well, what do you want me to say? Let's face it, Mulder, we might die up here! If we're lucky, they'll find our bodies spun up in a tree or they may not find us at all!

SCULLY Look, they're coming through the wall down where it's dark. You see them?

SCULLY They're oxidizing enzymes. Just like fireflies. Maybe that's why they cocoon their prey... so they can oxidize the proteins taken from the fluids in the body.

SCULLY What if the generator goes? Are they all going to swarm in here and drain the life out of us?

MULDER I told her it was going to be a nice trip to the forest.

GOVERNMENT MAN The government has initiated eradication procedures. They're quite certain that by using a combination of controlled burns and pesticides, they will be successful.

MULDER And if they're not?

GOVERNMENT MAN That is not an option, Mr. Mulder.