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 “Red Museum,” an episode that many people forget is actually a mythology episode. While the pieces of it are interesting, the whole thing quickly becomes a mess and it all becomes a big missed opportunity.
1. The Premise
“Red Museum” begins by showing us the small cattle town of Delta Glen, Wisconsin. We’re quickly introduced to a single mom and her teenage sons. Her oldest gets a phone call to meet his friends and what should have just been a few minutes turns into hours and he’s found in the woods with “He Is One” written on his back. Mulder and Scully get called in to the case because Mulder is told by the local police that they think this is the work of possessions. Once in town, they see just what’s going on. Delta Glen is not just a normal small town. This town shares space with the Church of the Red Museum, a vegetarian religion steeped in new age philosophies. The sides don’t get along and what initially starts as some kids getting roughed up quickly becomes an episode about government testing that ties back to the show’s bigger mythology. And that’s where it gets messy and becomes a little bit of a mess.
2. A Town Conflicted
A couple of weeks ago I watched Wild, Wild Country on Netflix and because that was in my head, this episode vaguely reminded me of that. This is a town divided by the church people and the non church people and one of the things the episode does nicely is address that. I particularly like how Mulder behaves in all of it when he defends one of the church members from being harassed by the sheriff’s son. Mulder is a good guy even if he questions religion and I really like that the religion is questioned but not necessarily judged. This conflict in and of itself would make for a good episode all on its own but all that kind of gets dropped by the wayside for what ends up being revealed.
3. This Is A Mythology Episode…
and everyone always forgets that! I forget it too but “Red Museum” is a mythology episode. When more teens come back from the woods after being attacked, Scully realizes something about their bloodwork. She finds a high level of a substance in the victims’ blood that links her to a doctor named Odin who took care of many kids in town. About halfway through the episode, Mulder and Scully are approached by an old man in the town who tells Mulder and Scully all about the injections that are being given to the cattle. This man believes that this is what is causing problems in town and that is why the kids have become unruly. Scully and Mulder question whether the FDA would allow that but this man scoffs at them and they know that he’s right. This is absolutely something the government would do. This is where the episode takes a turn and becomes pretty jumbled up.
4. A Familiar Face?
Scully notices someone during all this that she recognizes but moves on fairly quickly when they end up arresting a peeping tom who confesses to what he’s done. He calls this kids monsters and points to the doctor in town for all of this. They find him with videotapes of the kids and that part of all this gets wrapped up pretty fast. Then Scully gets back her full toxicology report and she comes to the conclusion that this is Purity Control, which means not only are the kids in town being injected with something but for Mulder, he summarizes that they’re being given alien DNA as part of something bigger. Scully then realizes that the man she recognized was the man who killed Deep Throat and that’s when they get it through their heads that this is a massive deal they just walked into.
5. Open and Unsolved
The episode ends on a really weird note because nothing actually gets resolved. The identity of man who shot Deep Throat is not known and nothing gets resolved in the town itself. The Church of the Red Museum ends up not really being all that important because it was just a peeping tom hurting the kids. It’s a classic Carter episode that just goes and goes until the time is up. The introduction of the government possibly messing with the DNA of regular citizens is something that will go through the entire series and this is it on a very small scale. We’ll get into this more with Scully as the series goes on but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this. It’s an episode that starts strong, introduces good idea and then abruptly ends and becomes forgettable, which is a shame because there are some good ideas here.
