X-Files 3x24: Talitha Cumi

And we come to the end of our DVD set of The X-Files: Season 3. I was quite surprised to have reached the end. I guess we've been working through them over the last couple months. In this episode, we learn that the Cigarette Smoking Man has a connection to Mulder's mother. We also meet another alien shapeshifter who apparently opposes the alien shapeshifter we saw in Season 2. There's a rather threatening appearance by Mr X, and we learn the cryptic piece of information that "the date is set." Obviously longtime X-Files fans will recognize this as meaning the date of the colonization of Earth by aliens, with whom the Cigarette Smoking Man and his Syndicate are collaborating, but it was a surprise to me that this is revealed as early as Season 3. I didn't remember that.

We do remember lots of things, though. The X-Files, which began airing when I was 12 although I didn't start watching until halfway through Season 1, was the first TV show I really, really loved. I must have seen these episodes enough on repeats (though some of them I distinctly remember watching in high school, and they must have left a strong impression) to know what's going to happen. Which leads to couch conversations like:

Mike: It's Mr X hiding in the bushes, isn't it?
Me: It's in the lamp! He's after the thingy that's hidden in the lamp.

But I had forgotten the cliffhanger. To leave us with the alien shapeshifting assassin striding toward them was sort of cheap. And though I can remember seemingly random plot points from ten years ago ("This is the part where Scully goes to the ice chest and hallucinates seeing Mulder in the car with the Smoking Man"), I can't for the life of me remember how it ends in Season 4. I guess that'll have to be our next DVD set we purchase, unless it gets beat out by Battlestar Galactica Season 1.

The title, Talitha Cumi, is Aramaic for "Maiden, I say unto you, arise." It's what Jesus said when he resurrected the daughter of the head of the synagogue. So, obviously a reference to the shapeshifter healing the people in the shooting. But there were no maidens there. A reference to the future healing of Mulder's mother, who has a stroke in the episode? It may just be meant as a general reference to resurrection, though.

Another clever bit was in the beginning when Mulder says, "He vanished," and Scully replies, "Without a trace." Then the scene changes and we segue to Mulder's mother and the Cigarette Smoking man at the family cabin in Rhode Island. This is a reference that probably only dedicated fans will pick up on, but clever writing nonetheless. It's a reference to Anasazi, the final episode of Season 2, when the soldiers report back to the Cigarette Smoking Man in his helicopter that they've searched the train car and Mulder has vanished without a trace. Cigarette Smoking Man gets angry and yells, "Nothing vanishes without a trace. Burn it!" Absolutely intentional that they quoted CSM's line, and imagine that, here he is. I'd never picked up on that before.

My top three episodes in Season 3? (And none of them are conspiracy episodes!)

1. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose
2. War of the Coprophages
3. Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'