Ah yes, this is the kind of X-Files episode I like, a good dose of humor mixed in with the paranormal. I didn't realize it until I saw the cast credits list, but it was a single actress who portrayed both 'Little Judy' Poundstone and her brother Chucky! I thought the Chucky character was a hoot and a half, calling out Mulder with all manner of sarcasm and derision. If this had been the first episode, Mulder would have pounded him/her into the pavement.
After all this time, I keep wondering how Chris Carter and the writers keep coming up with original concepts for the weird and bizarre. They did it again here with a dopplelanger story in which victims see their own double just before they die. It all hinged on the telepathic link between Judy and her twin brother Chuck, but if you think about how they did it, there was a bit of artifice in the way the siblings played the hangman game. If you noticed, with victims Arkie Seavers (Jared Ager-Foster) and attorney Dean Cavalier (Ben Wilkinson), it was the spelling of their first names that they employed. Whereas with Scully and Mulder, the Poundstones were focused on their last names. You could explain it away with the idea that it was the way the characters normally referred to themselves, so I guess it wasn't much of a stretch to make it work here. The argument that ensued between Judy and Chuck over a single letter 'L' and no 'D' in what would have been Scully's name brought to light the fact that each sibling wanted a different FBI agent dead. I thought that was pretty clever.
In keeping with the times, Mulder managed to take a shot at President Trump going after the FBI, but that only reinforced a thought I had about the way the series opens each episode. It seems a little anachronistic to me that the producers still use the original graphics with quarter century old photographs of Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny and Mitch Pilleggi on their FBI ID tags. You would think the Bureau would update those pics every couple of years. I kept forgetting to mention it in prior reviews, but as time goes by, it becomes more and more blatant with each passing episode.
After all this time, I keep wondering how Chris Carter and the writers keep coming up with original concepts for the weird and bizarre. They did it again here with a dopplelanger story in which victims see their own double just before they die. It all hinged on the telepathic link between Judy and her twin brother Chuck, but if you think about how they did it, there was a bit of artifice in the way the siblings played the hangman game. If you noticed, with victims Arkie Seavers (Jared Ager-Foster) and attorney Dean Cavalier (Ben Wilkinson), it was the spelling of their first names that they employed. Whereas with Scully and Mulder, the Poundstones were focused on their last names. You could explain it away with the idea that it was the way the characters normally referred to themselves, so I guess it wasn't much of a stretch to make it work here. The argument that ensued between Judy and Chuck over a single letter 'L' and no 'D' in what would have been Scully's name brought to light the fact that each sibling wanted a different FBI agent dead. I thought that was pretty clever.
In keeping with the times, Mulder managed to take a shot at President Trump going after the FBI, but that only reinforced a thought I had about the way the series opens each episode. It seems a little anachronistic to me that the producers still use the original graphics with quarter century old photographs of Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny and Mitch Pilleggi on their FBI ID tags. You would think the Bureau would update those pics every couple of years. I kept forgetting to mention it in prior reviews, but as time goes by, it becomes more and more blatant with each passing episode.