Review of The Unnatural by Sue Brody Let me begin by saying the nearly unthinkable: I *loved* this ep! To begin with, I was hysterical at the tagline this week: IN THE BIG INNING. HAHAHAHAHAH! FUNNY! About time for something besides "The Truth is Out There" this season. What a cool teaser! Loved Moose. Loved Exley. LOVED THEM. And I didn't get that the Ku Klux Klan Alien was actually The Bounty Hunter... Vin Scully narrates! At last! For those of you who might not know, CC named Dana Scully after Vin Scully, so I guess DD paid homage to CC *and* to Vin this week. So many great lines of dialogue in that scene between Mulder and Scully. I liked the little alien on the shelf, too. "Did you bring enough ice cream to share w/ the rest of the class?" "It's a nonfat tofrutti rice dreamsicle." Boy, did she sound like a little kid when she said that (Nyah, nyah, none for you ). ROTFL! I bet you anything GA eats them...somehow, I don't see Scully eating them, but then again, we learned more about her yogurt eating habits in Dreamland, so maybe she *does*... I don't know about her talking about grabbing life by the testes, but I'll let it go..."You just defaced property of the US government. You rebel." And she had such a cute smirk on her face...Mulder looked hurt by some of her comments, but then again, the last scene made up for any of that tension... Obviously, DD knows his character (Note to CC: Have DD write MORE M&S scenes, please. Thank you.) and GA's character, and it showed. Scully LAUGHED. For REAL. YES!!!! They seemed so damned COMFORTABLE together, and in a scene that they won't forget and that happened. Yes!!! They can really hurl the cliches at one another, too, can't they? :) I also liked the scenes between Mulder and Dales (a helluva lot better than the ones where Mulder talks to the *other* Arthur Dales, i.e., in Travelers...). And for that matter, it was a lot better than the *other* Dales and M&S in Agua Mala, except for the end of that ep. I really like Darrin McGavin, but since they don't seem to write too well for him in TXF, as opposed to in MM, maybe the ought to keep M. Emmet Walsh in the role. Very funny way of *not* having the other Dales in, since McGavin wasn't available...clever. It's interesting how I disliked Maurice analyzing Mulder in HTGSC but I didn't mind Dales doing it here. Maybe it was because it wasn't so cruelly phrased. Maybe it was because it wasn't really at the *heart* of the ep (unlike in HTGSC). Or maybe I just don't know and just don't care this week. Young Dales is *very* cute. :) But I thought that about the other young Arthur Dales, too . Interesting how Dales didn't care one way or the other about "coloreds, Jews, Communists, or even Canadians or vegetarians." Didn't realize Canadians and vegetarians were an issue in 1947... Interesting, too, how Mulder thinks Dales is thinking about women when he speaks of "shape shifting" while Dales is actually thinking of love and passion in relation to baseball. I was also impressed by Mulder's knowledge of baseball (we already know he knows *every* basketball stat imaginable). Are Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire aliens, too? "You're a regular Rockefeller, ain't you," says the boy. Well, we have now addressed Mulder's cheapness from Bad Blood. DD was paying attention. Agent MacGyver. LOL! Note the "bee" reference when Dales is trying to protect Exley. Love those little in-jokes. Yes, DD has *definitely* been paying attention. Bounty Hunter is back! Yeah, I knew from the spoilers, but woohoo! Some continuity! And in Macon, GA. Never would have guessed Our Bounty Hunter would have ended up in Macon, GA in 1947. Very cool. That glove w/ the green ooze...cool. Best thing is that Mulder is back to trying to figure out about shape shifting aliens. Thank you, DD, b/c I was sure M&S had forgotten all about the events of 2F/1S in the hope of catching werewolves... Girlie!Screams! And Dales looked so cute whilst screaming! I loved the way he kept fainting, back again, then fainting, then back again. Of course he ends up w/ a woman (well, Exley as a woman), but he looked more comfortable w/ the alien... Poor Ted. Mean Bounty Hunter! Meanie!!! I did like, "Mars. Well, left of Mars" as his place of origin. Exley dying...so sad. That was really a poignant scene (and I am shocked to have said that! Much more poignant than the scenes in Dreamland, sunflower scene excepted). Can't believe we saw The Bounty Hunter as an ALIEN! Kind of an ugly one, eh? But at least Exley *knew* what he was doing ("risking the project for a *game*) and he died a human for his love of baseball. Oh, yeah...that last scene. Ahhhh...ecstasy. Pure and simple. Sort of summed up the whole last six years with a swing of the bat. "So I get this message marked urgent from a one Fox Mantle..." LOL! Funny how you can say anything while you're swinging a bat. "Hey, it's not a bad piece of ash, huh? The bat, talking about the bat." HA! So damn shippy! Hips before hands, hips before hands...that little placement of said hand on hip...very nice. :) And the balls flying into the night sky...I would like to think that this scene actually happened, thank you (well, they *were* taking batting practice, anyway...you could say the balls were sort of like the fireworks in that famous Brady Bunch ep), and Mulder giving Scully a birthday present that was *not* a key chain was nice, even if he didn't know *exactly* when Scully's birthday was. This is the *second* ep this season in which gifts have been exchanged (the first being HTGSC, of course). I am not sure what this means...Well, you could say that Mulder gave Scully the gift of baseball and laughter and Scully gave Mulder the gift of...herself. "Shut up, Mulder, I'm playing baseball." Yes, ma'am! :) To conclude, that ep was fun, it actually had some social relevance, and...well, hell, it was fun. Sure, fantasy and reality mingled, but not in a stooopid way, I thought. I cared about the story, I cared about Exley and Dales, and I LOVED the two M&S scenes. After this week, that was just fine. I nominate DD for future writing assignments...imagine DD and UberVince on an ep...be still, my heart... I still like the dark eps, but this time...hey, if it's well-written, I'll take it. JCFOS vs Kitsenugari...Bad Blood vs Alpha...Small Potatoes vs Schizogeny...it's about the writing. It's all about the writing.