The X Files: Beyond the Sea

The kidnapping of two college students co-incides with a family tragedy. Scully loses her father (after having a vision of him sitting in her living room trying to tell her something without actually making a sound).

As if that alone weren't enough to keep the agents busy, a conviced serial killer, Luther Lee Boggs, awaiting his execution, offers up information on the recently kidnapped kids. How does he know? Through his 'psychic powers'. Mulder, knowing Boggs, does not believe for a minute that the guy knows anything other than what he may have learned simply by being involved in the actual crime.

He wants to be granted a permanent stay of execution, but Mulder does not play ball. Scully, however, has some rather weird encounters with Boggs, who channels her late father and speaks out warnings against certain symbols that are a little to close to actuality. Like, he would talk of a waterfall that Scully later sees (sort of, it is acually a sign for the Niagara Hotel) and warn Mulder to stay away from the cross (he doesn't, which doesn't end well for him).

So, for once, Mulder is the sceptic and Scully is the believer.

It is interesting to see their roles reversed. Mulder can't believe that after having witnessed so much unexplained phenomena, she choses to believe in psychic powers where he believes that there are none. Scully is uncomfortable with going against Mulder, with having to deal with supernatural signs, her father's passing.

Emotionally, she is a wreck, but once again she is left holding the reigns, because Mulder was shot and is in the hospital for the better part of the episode.

My favorite bits are the two times Boggs is shown going to the gas chamber, a walk during which he sees every person he killed standing in the corridor in a pretty b/w shot.

Hey, isn't that...?
Scully's father is played by Don S. Davis, whom I have only ever seen in US military uniform. He played Major Briggs, father of Bobby Briggs, in Twin Peaks. Looking through his list of credits, it looks like he was very comfortable in that uniform. He always appears to be a kind of authority figure, friendly enough but not willing to take shit from anybody (see the scene in Twin Peaks, when Bobby lights up at the dinner table and Major Briggs slaps him across the face without breaking stride and sends the cigarette flying onto his wife's dinner plate).

Luther Lee Boggs is portrayed by Brad Dourif. When this episode of The X Files aired he was best known for playing young Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a role that got him an Oscar nomination. He has since had a small role as Wormtongue in the second installment of The Lord of the Rings.

7/10