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Five Thoughts On The X-Files‘s “Duane Barry”

By | June 19th, 2018
Posted in Television | % Comments

With all our favorite shows taking their usual break in the summer months, this opens up an opportunity to watch some of our old favorites. That’s where the Multiversity Summer Binge comes in. Last year, I took a look at the entire first season of my favorite show ever, The X-Files and this summer, I’m back with a vengeance covering season two. The first season of this show was more of a prelude. It teased all the things that were to come and spent a lot of time doing the ground work. In the second season, the show really kicks into gear. Truth be told, of the 11 seasons, this is easily top three for me. I’m really excited to be writing about these episodes, particularly the middle of the season. This week I’m looking at “Duane Barry,” the first of a crucial two parter that puts the alien mythology in the forefront.

1. The Premise

Duane Barry is a former law enforcement agent who was abducted by aliens in 1985. After this, Duane Barry became unstable and violent and when he goes to his doctor this time, he refuses to take any more medication. He believes the aliens are coming back for him and he loses all grip of himself and takes a travel agency hostage along with his doctor. This is when Mulder gets called in. He and Alex Krycek (I hate his face) are called in because of Mulder’s area of expertise. Mulder takes a lead role in this hostage situation and goes toe to toe with Duane Barry and a bigger mystery gets unraveled in the later part of the episode. “Duane Barry” is a huge episode because what happens in this episode and next week’s will be felt all the way down to the eighth season when Scully gives birth to William. It’s important but it’s also…..

2. Tangibly Tense

“Duane Barry” is an episode that has big implications down the line but it’s also a really good episode on its own. This episode is one of the most tense episodes in the series and that’s highlighted by the interactions between Mulder and Barry. There’s is so much tension in the hostage situation and it’s elevated by Steve Railsback’s performance as Duane Barry. He’s so unhinged and scary and you believe that none of these people are about to make it out of here alive. He completely commits to the crazy and I love it. Mulder’s conversations with him about alien abductions are full of so much extra storytelling. Mulder is paranoid and believes Duane Barry’s story but he hasn’t gone off the deep end like he did and he isn’t violent. Mulder hasn’t allowed himself to go that far away from the light and he never really will but it’s always interesting to see Mulder come up against someone like Duane Barry.

3. Not What He Seems…

Scully enters the episode after finding out some information about Duane Barry. It turns out that Duane Barry was shot in the head and she believes that he’s now a compulsive liar to due to the frontal cortex being destroyed. Scully is now a part of this hostage negotiation and it’s here that the episode begins to turn. Mulder doesn’t trust Duane Barry anymore but still trusts the ideas he’s talking about. Scully even has a great hesitant line about working together with Mulder that feels like something more is starting to brew there. Scully’s entry into the episode is important because she becomes a quick part of the bigger alien abduction storyline and we’ll get to that at the end of this recap/review. Scully on the headset with Mulder is where the episode shines to me because even in this brief moment, we get to see them work together again without interference. He trusts her and he trusts her information and she trusts him to do the right thing here. It’s great and for a while, we are led to believe that Duane Barry and his stories about aliens drilling into his teeth and taking him from his home while government agents watch are all lies.

4. Or Is He????

And that is the case until Mulder tricks Duane Barry into walking into the line of sight of the snipers. Everyone believes they’ve just taken care of another “basket case off his meds” but when they get to the hospital, Mulder is told that there was proof of drilling into Duane Barry’s teeth. The kind of holes he has couldn’t have been done with any technology that exists right now without damaging his teeth. Mulder gives Scully one of the metal implants taken from Duane Barry, who has survived, because she’s the scientist and he trusts her research. Scully and a ballistics expert take a look at it and they find a barcode but don’t really know what that means. Pieces are falling into place here for Scully and she realizes something alarming just a little too late. The best thing about this whole thing here is that Duane Barry is not lying. These are things that I love about this show. It’s never a question of whether aliens exist or not. They do and the show is exploring that.

5. Ascension 

At the end of the episode, Scully takes the piece of metal taken from Duane Barry’s body and scans it on a register at a supermarket. The metal makes the register go crazy and it startles Scully. Scully realizes that the barcode might mean that someone is cataloging something, possibly people. Just as that happens, Scully is kidnapped. Here is where everything changes for Scully. Scully’s abduction over this episode and the next two lead to huge things down the line with her health and with the alien mythology as a whole. Duane Barry’s story is reality and Scully is going to get personally acquainted with it in this season and it’ll affect her forever going forward. I’m excited to talk about this next week and in the weeks coming up.


//TAGS | 2018 Summer TV Binge | the x-files

Jess Camacho

Jess is from New Jersey. She loves comic books, pizza, wrestling and the Mets. She can be seen talking comics here and at Geeked Out Nation. Follow her on Twitter @JessCamNJ for the hottest pro wrestling takes.

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