And so we begin our first two-part episode, and really enter into the core mythology of the show. Not that the couple of mythology episodes in season 1 were unimportant—they are very foundational indeed! But here the whole show really takes on a different tone, as we finally meet a (possible) victim of alien and/or government experimentation. And our two agents really come face to face with the reality of what the truth they are looking for might be—it’s not just the government knowing about aliens.
Now, this episode is the first one in our two-parter, and it is certainly slower, with not a lot of action happening. Almost the entire episode takes place in a travel agency office (ah, the 90s…), with scenes interspersed with flashbacks (or delusions…) from our abductee Duane Barry. But the slowness of this episode definitely works, and the mystery is maintained very well.
Alas, just like during the original run, you will have to wait until next week to get the second half of this two-parter, and then another two weeks until we really see the conclusion of what happens there.
So, knowing that now, let’s not delay any further, and go ahead and get into some of my thoughts on this very good episode.
Duane Barry
Let’s start with a background on who Duane Barry is, giving it to you right at once rather than in bits and pieces like Mulder gets.
Barry is a former FBI agent, with all records showing that he was exemplary at his job…until he mysteriously got shot by his own weapon on a drug stakeout, and was left for dead in the woods. (Did he have a mental break then and shoot himself, or did whoever he was staking out steal his gun and shoot him…????)
We learn from Scully that Barry was specifically shot through both his left and right frontal lobes. For a brief science interlude here, the frontal lobes are the largest lobes of our brains, and they are involved in a lot of critical functions, including language and reasoning.
And yes, among those roles, Scully is correct that the frontal lobes play a crucial role in impulse control, reasoning, emotional regulation, memory, judgement, organization, and controlling social behaviours. All areas that I think we can see quite early on, Duane Barry indeed has problems with.
We are told that Duane Barry after his mysterious shooting accident, Duane Barry lost everything—his wife, his kids, his job, his house. What isn’t quite clear is how Barry ended up in prison, essentially—a correctional treatment center. The psychiatrist notes concerning behaviour, but what is interesting is that there is no actual evidence given to us that Barry has been violent before? What exactly happened in the 9 years between the first abduction we are shown (which is not his first abduction) and present day?
On to Duane’s delusions/memories of his experiences.
Again, we are shown one of his abductions, when aliens apparently arrive and stand mysteriously outside of his windows (and bedroom door?) before taking him up on to their ship. He tells Mulder of various experiments done on him during these abductions: holes drilled in his teeth, scooped tissue out of his abdomen, and placed various implants around his body. He also claims the military is involved in these abductions in some way.
Through all of this, Duane Barry really does walk a fine line between sanity and psychosis, and we are very much left to question whether these are memories, flashbacks he is having, or mere delusions caused by his brain injury and years of paranoia. A lot of credit to his actor (Steve Naismith) here. I am no psychiatry/psychology expert, as noted, but I personally feel that Naismith does an excellent job here of portraying someone with paranoia—whether that is paranoia caused by delusions or reality, and someone who is manic and not in control of their emotions or impulses due to that paranoia.
I do have a couple of questions here, regarding how Duane Barry was treated/dealt with:
I feel like the general idea we are given is that Barry has been diagnosed with some sort of schizophrenia, what with the “hearing voices” mention by the psychiatrist. For the most part, I felt the psychiatrist did a good job with Barry at the start of the episode, calmly discussing his medication and behaviour, not feeding into his (possible) delusions but also not completely discounting what Barry believes to be reality. But, my dude, there is no way that you don’t know a large part of Barry’s fear/paranoia is regarding medical treatment and experiments. So why on earth do you think it is a good idea to just casually mention giving him a shot, by yourself? Someone else should’ve been in that room helping to secure Barry.
Semi-related to the above, why on earth was Barry “restrained” with such flimsy, seemingly makeshift “handcuffs”? It looks like just a zip tie around his wrists, which could easily be cut (not sure if by the fountain pen he seemingly ends up using but…sure). I get that this seems to be a relatively low-security correctional unit. As we walk past other inmates, none of them are in restraints. But if Barry’s recent behaviour and refusal to take medication was truly so concerning, why wouldn’t you actually restrain him, using something that he couldn’t just cut himself out of?
Agent Kazdin and the others originally handling the hostage case do know that Barry is former FBI. (They neglect to tell this to Mulder for…reasons.) What I don’t understand is how none of them were aware of Barry’s full history. They seem surprised by his shooting injury. Why was Scully the only one to bother looking into Barry’s history any further?
Mulder Taking Advantage of the Situation
Now let’s get into really my main annoyance with this episode:
Mulder really does completely take advantage of his access to Duane Barry. Sure, part of him does want all of the hostages to make it out of the travel agency alive and unharmed, but that’s not why he volunteers to go along with the medic into the travel agency.
He goes because he wants the opportunity to talk to Duane about his abduction experiences. Before he even knows anything about him, he believes him because he so desperately wants to, he wants to essentially interrogate someone directly about what it’s like to be abducted. He wants direct information about what might have happened to his sister.
DUANE BARRY: I've seen kids sometimes, young girls.
MULDER: What are they doing to them?
DUANE BARRY: Doing tests. You know... testing them. I tell them not to cry.
MULDER: Are they hurting them?
And there are several moments when I really did feel Mulder was pushing Barry too hard. I will grant that the original agents’ plan of not at all believing Barry was probably not going to work, not with this man so deep into his psychosis/paranoia. Mulder definitely got farther by telling Duane Barry he believed his stories, and saying he had met others with similar stories. Sure, even mentioning his sister to provide a greater sense of connection and trust might not have been a terrible idea.
But there are several times when Mulder asks Duane Barry “how it happens” and then gives him possibilities, things he has heard from other people/news stories. Doing this pretty clearly is pushing Barry deeper and deeper into his fears, not helping. Bringing up those memories was purely for Mulder’s benefit. Especially doing so repeatedly. The first time, maybe, okay. But Mulder had to notice his “exciting case study” was becoming more and more afraid, and thus more and more dangerous, as other memories were brought closer to the front of his mind.
I know Mulder states he has no experience in a hostage situation, and just like Agent Kazdin, I will applaud him for putting his life on the line, trading himself for the hostages and eventually talking Barry into letting everyone except the psychiatrist leave. He doesn’t do the worst possible job of solving the situation.
But I really did feel that most of the questions he was asking were for Mulder’s own benefit, and he wasn’t terribly concerned about the effect his questioning might be having on the “exciting case study” sitting in front of him.
The Fine Line of Sanity: Mulder Identifying with Barry
Now, all of the above being said, I also felt to some extent that Mulder identified with and related to Duane Barry. Particularly because Mulder is also never believed, even when he knows he is telling the truth.
Which I think is also part of why Mulder so desperately wants to believe Barry’s stories. He knows what is like to be told you are crazy, to have no one believe in you. Maybe part of him is even worried about how he will be treated by the FBI, about how he is currently being treated by the FBI.
Mulder sees himself in Duane Barry, and I think that terrifies him. Is this how he might end up if he is constantly told he, too, is crazy?
Scully’s Persistence and Curiosity
Now for Scully, who I must stress again, is the only one in this episode who actually bothers doing some fucking investigating. You know, the JOB of an FBI agent?
When those implants are found inside of Duane Barry at the hospital, Scully acknowledges they are most likely pieces of shrapnel, and they are right where he said they would be because he remembers being struck there during Vietnam. But even so, she can’t just let that sit there.
Nope, Scully is the one who takes those metal fragments down to the ballistics lab. “For Mulder”, sure, but also because she can’t just let that knowledge slide by either. It feels like too much of a coincidence, too unlikely that all of those fragments would be found, including in Duane Barry’s gums.
At the ballistics lab, Scully is told that it is most likely the metal fragments found are indeed shrapnel from the war. But, hmm, this one has strange, very detailed etching in one area. The ballistics lab dude doesn’t seem to think that etching would normally be found on a bullet…
And so Scully takes the evidence with her out of the FBI. Just carries it around casually in her pocket, mulling what it could be…
(I don’t think that’s proper FBI protocol, Scully!)
In a flash of brilliance she will later regret, Scully realizes at the grocery store that the detailed etching she saw under the microscope looks an awful lot like the barcodes on her ice cream containers the cashier is scanning.
Now, the smart thing to do would be to take the metal fragment back to the FBI and have it scanned there (they must have some sort of machine that can scan barcodes!!!), but nope, Scully has to appease her curiosity right there, so she oh so casually leans over to scan the metal fragment at the grocery store.
I just. I love her so much. We all talk about how weird Mulder is with some of his actions (and he is, just wait for the episode when he eats some evidence), but you guys. Scully is just as weird!!!! These two were made for each other.
If what happens next didn’t happen, Mulder would’ve been so proud of Scully using the resources right in front of her to do her investigation, because of course it couldn’t wait.
Fact Check: Phineas Gage
Brief fact check here, because Scully makes reference to Phineas Gage and I actually know this case, largely thanks to Hank Green’s song.
First, let’s note that Gage and Barry did not have the exact same injury. We are told that the bullet went through both Barry’s frontal lobes, while in Gage’s case, only his left frontal lobe was injured.
Scully claims that after his injury, Gage apparently became violent and a “pathological liar”. But…history doesn’t actually support this. There were some reports from family and friends of Gage that his personality changed, but history doesn’t really find much written record to show that Gage became violent or delusional. In fact, Gage moved to Chile after his accident and became a stagecoach driver, and apparently got along well with any passengers, not showing any real mental or psychological problems stemming from his injury. Further, most reports of any changes to his mental faculties came immediately following Gage’s accident, and by all accounts he recovered quite well in all respects by later years—physically and psychologically.
Like most “fascinating tales” from history, accounts of drastic changes to Gage’s behaviour after the injury to his frontal lobe are likely exaggerated. Or, based only on his final years of life when he “couldn’t hold down a job”…because he was finally suffering from seizures and other long-term symptoms of brain damage. Really, Gage lived a largely productive 12 years after his accident, with few notes of true physical or psychological problems in that time after he recovered from the initial incident.
All this to say essentially that the Phineas Gage anecdote gets thrown around a lot when the subjects of brain damage, particularly to the frontal lobe, come up. Like, a LOT. In all sorts of psychology classes and everything. So, I don’t actually fault the writers for this, especially since the story is barely a mention by Scully, who probably heard an exaggerated version when she was in medical school.
But I just need anyone who reads these reviews to know that Gage’s story is fascinating and did teach us a lot about the brain’s ability to recover from terrible injuries such as these. And, like most stories from centuries past (this accident occurred in in 1848), most of the truth about what really happened has been lost to history, exaggerated and retold so many times that the truth has disappeared almost entirely.
(Useless) Rat Boy
I appreciate that they kept Krycek in this episode even though he does basically nothing here. Because spoiler, he will have a critical role in the next episode, so it would be weird if he was just forgotten during an intervening episode.
But I also really enjoyed that everyone involved in the hostage situation recognized that Krycek was useless. His only role here was to drive Mulder and be sent to buy coffee (which I can’t even tell if he gets in the end).
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Now, that being said, while his disappointment above is fun to laugh at, I do think this speaks to Krycek’s ability to essentially blend into the background. He doesn’t act suspicious in any way. He looks like the eager young new FBI agent, desperate to help in whatever way he can. But no one ever really pays attention to what he’s doing…so he could be doing anything, while everyone ignores the new guy just standing quietly in the corner, absorbing information.
Scully almost kills Krycek
Bless. Every woman has had this exact same reaction to a man telling her to calm down at least once in her life.
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She could’ve saved herself so much trouble if she killed him right then and there, and I don’t think anyone in the room would’ve blamed her for it.
Shut up, Rat boy…
The (Alien?) Implant…
SCULLY: This piece of metal that they took out of Duane Barry, it has some kind of a code on it. I ran it through a scanner and some kind of a serial number came up. What the hell is this thing, Mulder? It's almost as if... it's almost as if somebody was using it to catalogue him.
I can’t remember if this ever gets explained or if this is just a headcanon that I have, but I need to mention it anyway.
Before the implant is scanned, Duane Barry is apparently “critical”, and certainly appears to be on some sort of life support.
After Scully scans the implant, Barry wakes up…almost as if he has been sent some sort of “message” through that scanning, and he now knows where he needs to go, or who he needs to go to, based on that “signal”.
That’s the only possible way he could end up at Scully’s apartment after all, isn’t it? He never even saw Scully or heard her voice during the hostage situation, so the only possible explanation is that she basically accidentally “activated” this implant someone placed in him to track him—either the government, or aliens, or both.
Not sure if that’s been confirmed by any writers, but I’m sticking with my theory here regardless.
That Cliffhanger!
And so, it happens: Duane Barry finds Scully and takes her from her apartment, likely eager to continue his previous plan: He is going to the first place he was abducted, but this time, he’s not letting them take him.
Someone else is going in his place.'
Thank God Scully was already on the phone with Mulder when she was taken.
Our “Completely Platonic Coworkers”
Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of real Mulder and Scully interactions in this episode, and we won’t get much still for a couple more episodes.
But I do still love that Scully dropped anything she was previously doing immediately upon Mulder’s call for information, and then she ran to find him at the hostage situation. And then she continues chasing down small leads for Mulder, taking the metal fragment to the ballistics lab for Mulder (he could’ve easily done that himself, the ballistics lab is apparently at the FBI headquarters, not Quantico).
Also, this very sweet moment.
Scully doesn’t tell Mulder directly that he’s wrong or he was wrong about Duane Barry. But she quietly reminds him not to look too hard, which we can say he was definitely doing in this episode, as I noted above. Whether Duane Barry ends up telling (some part of) the truth or not, the way Mulder approached this situation was not appropriate. He was pushing too hard for his own reasons.
The 90s™
Holding people hostage at a travel agency. And yes, I do know that travel agents still exist, but for the most part everything is handled online these days, not at a travel agent office.
Scully’s groceries only cost $11.14 😭😭😭😭😭
Scully pays for her groceries with a check. A CHECK.
Goofs/Bloopers/Fun Facts
Mixed collection of goofs and fun facts here:
OH MY GOD, why did Scully fly down to Richmond? It takes less than 2 hours to drive from DC to Richmond, and if she was actually still at Quantico, that’s less than an hour and a half! They will drive 5 hours to Atlantic City, but apparently she has to fly to Richmond?!?! I feel like it would take longer to get to one of the DC airports, buy a ticket, and fly, get a rental car…than just driving! Even before 9/11 TSA security. I am choosing to believe that Scully meant this figuratively as in “I drove down here in only an hour, breaking all speed limits” because Christ. Who on earth would fly from DC to Richmond?
Semi-related geography question, though not as egregious/can be better explained in my opinion. Duane Barry and the psychiatrist somehow get from Marion, VA to Richmond, VA, which is almost a 5-hour drive. Now, I do assume that Barry forced the doctor to drive his car, or I guess maybe they stole a different, less-trackable car. But given that’s at least 5 hours between the time Barry broke out and when the hostage situation starts…really? They had no one trying to find him and whatever car they took in all that time?
The power goes out (very mysteriously…) on that whole block in Richmond—so how is Duane Barry still able to use the phone in the travel agency? Even a cordless phone still would’ve needed a power supply to work…
Scully buying pickles and ice cream at the grocery store is an in-joke among the cast/crew, as Gillian Anderson was pregnant during this episode.
Related to above, Gillian Anderson’s pregnancy is why this storyline was written! They needed a good reason for Scully to be completely missing from the show for a couple of episodes, and landed on this epic storyline which really sets the mythology of alien abductions vs. government conspiracies/involvement for the rest of the show.
The part of Duane Barry was written specifically for his actor, Steve Railsback, which was an excellent decision. He absolutely knocks that character out of the park.
Overall Thoughts/Summary
Episode rating: 9/10. This is another episode similar to “Little Green Men” where on the surface, not much really happens. The story takes place at very few locations, and is primarily told during the hostage situation, with Mulder (mostly) alone with Duane Barry at the travel agency, with Barry being pushed back into either flashbacks or delusions. And this episode is very much the slow-build up to the next episode, when the bulk of the action will take place. So, it could have been boring, but because of the acting, directing, and script, the story here remains very engaging. Maybe not too suspenseful, but engaging and exciting. Naismith (Duane Barry) does an incredible job of walking the fine line between sanity and psychosis, keeping everyone, including Mulder and the hostages, wondering what the truth really is. With a different actor or different script, the very stereotypical alien abduction scenes and memories very easily could’ve been very cheesy or laughable, but Naismith’s acting really brings the viewers into those places—whether they are real or not.
I’m still keeping my “10” ratings and even my “9.5” for very special, truly excellent episodes. This one falls a little bit short of excellent for me, but it is a great episode all around. Very few complaints, other than Scully’s weird travel and (some) lack of character growth for Mulder—why must he use this situation for his own benefit?
X-files cases “solved” to date: This is another tricky one. The main case for this particular episode was solving the hostage situation, and Mulder definitely did do that. But then of course we have the start of a whole other case at the end of the episode, and the question of what really happened or didn’t to Duane Barry.
But, well, the FBI gave Mulder the hostage case, and he solved that one, so I’ll give it to him. And Scully. None for Alex Krycek, whose only role was to drive Mulder and get coffee.
So, 4/5 cases solved for the season. 24/29 solved (a couple of those partially) to date.
Heyyyyy, I managed to keep this review under 4,000 words! 😎 Nice job me.
Next week we will continue this storyline to its (very dramatic) conclusion with “Ascension”.