Kaddish
"The danger of the truth is contained in the word itself."
First, a note here I guess that hopefully I am able to return this afternoon to finish this review, and all of you are free and able to read it tomorrow. It’s an extremely important time to show up in numbers and demonstrate that we’re not ready to give into fascism. 🫡 May the authorities in your location respect our rights to demonstrate and speak out.
Also, Happy Father’s Day to my dad, my #1 most loyal reader. 👋🥰 Many, many thanks to Dad for introducing me to The X-Files when I was 12, and for always supporting my sometimes very weird hyperfixation interests.
On that note, I should add that he pointed out that the adult Kurt Crawford clones last episode are a possible goof. If we assume they really are the offspring of Scully and the other women who were abducted only two years ago…how are they adults already? One possible explanation is “I dunno, weird alien science”. Another possibility is that the Kurt clone wasn’t being literal saying Scully and those women were his mothers. Who knows how long this experiment has been going on, how many hundreds of women were abducted before and had their ova stolen. Maybe it was more of a general “those women in the files” are “our mothers”. (🚨 Minor spoiler🚨) We are going to get a more specific haunting experience of Scully possibly being an unwilling mother next season. So perhaps it wasn’t literal. Or perhaps it’s weird alien science. That wasn’t one of the things that bothered me the most about last week’s episode, but Dad is correct that it was…weird, and unexplained.
Moving on now to this week’s episode! I don’t really have any particularly strong feelings about this episode. Overall, I think it’s pretty good. As usual, I should note from the beginning that I can’t really offer any specific cultural perspective on this episode myself. I was correct that the episode focuses on Jewish mythology. As far as I can tell, the episode does a good job with it? Nothing about the story feels inherently disrespectful or cringey to me. The writers appear to do a good job of respectfully displaying Orthodox Jewish customs and beliefs, and not going too far with the myth of the Golem being some super spooky supernatural thing.
Granted, it probably helps that Howard Gordon (the writer of this episode) is himself Jewish, and based aspects of the story on personal stories from his friends. I also appreciate that the actress who plays the main grieving character, Justine Miceli, reached out to a friend’s rabbi to learn the proper pronunciation for the Jewish prayers in the episode. Again, noting that I am not Jewish myself, the depiction of the rituals and prayers in particular did feel real and respectful to me. I get the sense at least that the writers and actors put a lot of effort into correctly portraying these important cultural rituals.
…I will note here though, that while I appreciate this greatly, it does also make some of the other episodes all the more frustrating. I know it was easier for the writers to base this episode on his own experience, but the fact that the same effort wasn’t put into doing proper research on Indigenous beliefs and rituals in episodes like “Shapes”, “The Calusari”, and “Teso Dos Bichos” is…frustrating. Especially because it’s not like they are incapable of it! The writers did put a lot of effort into properly learning and portraying the Navajo rituals in “The Blessing Way”.
I do still really appreciate the (as far as I can tell) respectful, at least mostly accurate portrayal of Jewish beliefs and customs in this episode. And I understand that to some extent research was more difficult in the 90s. But…still feels a bit frustrating to me that the same effort wasn’t put into understanding and respectfully telling the stories of Indigenous or other cultures in earlier episodes.
All of that being said, I do overall think this is a fairly good episode. Not one of the series’ strongest, but it’s definitely up there for me. The plot weaves together quite nicely to tell a full, complete story by the end. This does also feel like the perfect episode to have after Scully’s cancer diagnosis. As I noted last week, to my memory the fact that she has cancer isn’t going to be directly addressed for another…6 episodes or so, but whether the writers intended it or not, there is a beautiful, haunting parallel to Mulder and Scully and their relationship together in this episode. Particularly given Scully’s recent (untreatable…???) cancer diagnosis.
Let’s jump into the episode now! (Assuming we’re all still free by Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.)
Prelude: Isaac Luria’s Murder (And Rebirth?)
I should probably note from the start that this is definitely not a particularly “cheery” episode. Not that there are that many purely cheery/happy/silly episodes of this show, but at least some of them are just weird rather than being haunting or a horrifying commentary on real world situations?
At least we do get a kind of nice message by the end of the episode on the power of love, but the episode starts off incredibly bleak. And unfortunately all too real.
Before we get into the case Mulder and Scully are investigating, we should start where the episode begins. We are at a very solemn Orthodox funeral, and we pretty quickly get the sense that this is a woman (Arial Luria) burying her lover (Isaac Luria). From her point of view, we see choppy flashbacks of (at least how she imagines) Isaac’s murder occurred. And it is a very violent murder, three teenagers beating Isaac bloody before shooting him in the head.
Arial’s father, Jacob Weiss, leads Arial away from the grave after the funeral, but later that evening we see someone has returned to the cemetery. It is very dark, and there is a thunderstorm, so we don’t actually see the detail of who is working in the muddy ground. But whoever it is has built the shape of a human body out of the mud, (apparently) directly over where Isaac was just buried. As the person walks away from their mud sculpture, the camera pans back to the muddy shape seeming to breathe.
So. Well, there we go, we’ve already got our supernatural aspect to this case: The apparent creation of an animate body out of mud. I think it’s also pretty safe to assume that this newly animate body is (at least at its core) Isaac Luria, “reborn” in a way. The audience is going to continue to stay several steps ahead of our agents throughout this episode. Honestly, if there is one weakness to this episode it’s that not much is really a mystery to the audience. It almost might’ve been better if they didn’t show the body being created from mud? Or at least didn’t show it to us right at the start of the episode?
That prelude set up, let’s move on to the actual case Mulder and Scully get involved in. Because it’s not the almost certain hate crime against an Orthodox Jew…
The Case: Vengeance Murders (From Beyond the Grave?)
Back with Mulder and Scully, we do learn some further information that Isaac’s murder was not a robbery. It really does seem like it was entirely motivated by hate and the desire to kill Isaac. The suspects stole only a single thing from the store: The VHS from the security camera, so they couldn’t be identified by the police.
Given that, I will note that the case of Isaac’s murderer definitely wouldn’t be a cut and dry, easy to solve one for the NYPD. But…it is a little unclear exactly how hard they worked on solving it. Considering the exact location where Isaac’s store was, and where the murder took place, there really should’ve been at least one obvious suspect to question, as we’ll get into in a little bit.
It doesn’t seem the police had any suspects until one of them was discovered murdered, in his home, watching the VHS tape he had stolen from Isaac’s store. Reliving the glory and sense of power he gained from his horrible crime. Sixteen-year-old Tony Oliver was seemingly strangled as he watched the tape.
A case of vengeance taken on by Isaac Luria’s family? That would certainly be the easy assumption, especially if the family, and general Orthodox community, was far more aware (or definitely actually concerned about) antisemitism in the area. So perhaps someone in the family, or the larger Orthodox community, had a sense at least of Oliver’s beliefs and likelihood that he was one of the killers?
But the case is…much weirder than that, and that’s why this case gets handed off to Local Freak Investigators™ Mulder and Scully rather than the FBI Civil Rights branch. Brooklyn Homicide found that whoever killed Oliver didn’t care to cover up their crime; they were able to pull fingerprints right off of the body. And those fingerprints belonged to…Isaac Luria!!! Who is supposed to be dead.
There are three theories here, none of which really make sense, but let’s go ahead and lay them out:
Isaac Luria did indeed rise from the grave. Somehow.
Isaac Luria isn’t actually dead? Someone else was killed in his store and buried in the grave. No clue why this would be the case, and even considering Jewish burial customs, I presume someone with Brooklyn PD took responsibility for confirming the identify of the man who had been shot five times point blank.
Isaac Luria is dead, and still dead. This is a clever resurrection “hoax”, carried out by the family or someone in the community.
Scully goes with the last theory as a start. I suppose it is definitely more logical than theory #1, and puts a bit more faith into the Brooklyn PD (and the family) than theory #2, but I’m still a bit baffled by how exactly Scully thinks this theory is possible. They found fingerprints belonging to Isaac Luria on Oliver’s body! How would that be possible???
Possibility 1 is that the vengeance killer somehow…got ahold of Isaac’s hands and directly used them to leave fingerprint impressions on Oliver’s neck as he was strangled. Possibility 2, I guess, is that the vengeance killer obtained…I dunno, ink impressions or something of the fingerprints? And somehow managed to leave them behind on Oliver’s neck? Neither possibility feels particularly logical or…conceivable to me? I at least hope that medical examiners can tell the difference between fingerprint impressions left during the active act of strangulation, as opposed to ones left behind either by a dead hand, or left as impressions taken from some other source. Come on, Scully, you regularly do autopsies yourself, are you really saying you would mistake fingerprints from the actual murderer with those left by a killer…somehow placing someone else’s fingerprints on a corpse?
But sure. It’s the easier assumption for now. And I guess I will say that neither Scully nor Mulder seem 100% set on theory #3 being the most likely. While they don’t explicitly state theory #2, possibly out of respect (…the tiniest amount of respect) for Arial and Jacob, the fact that their aim is to exhume Isaac’s grave suggests that they think either Isaac’s hands may be missing, or perhaps Isaac isn’t in that grave.
Now, Mulder and Scully do get the tiniest amount of respect for me for going to ask permission from Isaac’s family before exhuming his grave. Scully will note at the end of their conversation with the family that they can get a court order to exhume his grave without permission, but at least they…try to speak, somewhat respectfully, to the family before going that route.
They immediately lose that respect though when they bring up that the reason they want to exhume Isaac’s grave. Because they want to catch whoever killed Tony Oliver and actually got some justice for the family. Saying “Hey, we need to catch this killer so he doesn’t kill your husband/son-in-law’s other murderers” is not a great angle to bring to a very newly grieving family, Scully. Especially because Mulder and Scully are coming into this as new investigators, and don’t understand that the Orthodox community has zero trust in the police. Who have ignored the regular threats of violence against them.
Scully isn’t very sympathetic to this line of thinking, the desire for revenge (especially when the police do nothing to protect you). Mulder is at least somewhat more sympathetic, now that he saw one of the hate pamphlets that was left under the Weiss’ door (🚨 Gross Antisemitism 🚨, this one reads: “How AIDS was created by the Jew" and has a caricature picture of a Jewish man with a money bag). Mulder postulates that whoever published the hate pamphlet likely knows the other two boys who murdered Isaac Luria, and may have an idea of who killed Tony Oliver.
Second possibility seems less likely to me, especially as whoever printed the pamphlet apparently despises all Jews and will probably just spout out the names of every Jew in the neighborhood as a suspect. But he does at least very likely know the teenage murderers. And if Mulder and Scully go to him with the angle of “we need to make sure the evil Jews don’t take justice into their own hands with these two boys too” (🤮🤮🤮🤮)…they might actually get somewhere this time. (Unfortunately)
Extremely Gross (but Real) Antisemitism
Turns out that the pamphlet, and many other disgusting ones like it, were printed at a local print shop owned by Herb Bjunes.
Bjunes makes a solid effort to come across as respectful and cooperative with the agents at first, but quickly slips into displaying his hateful antisemitic beliefs. His second statement to Mulder and Scully includes the gross stereotype that Jews are evil money hoarders, stealing (somehow???) from people who do honest work for a living.
Some more gross antisemitism from Bjunes includes:
Bjunes telling Mulder he himself “looks like” a Jew
The evil Jews run the government!
All Jews are Zionists (not true!!!!!!!)
Also interesting to note here that apparently Mulder and Scully already figured out the identities of the other two teenage murderers, and now I guess they’re just hoping Bjunes will tell them where the boys are? So they can be placed in protective custody?
You’d think Bjunes would want to hand them over, especially after he is told that Tony Oliver was murdered. Supposedly by Isaac Luria, who has risen from the dead. But Bjunes remains steadfast in claiming that he doesn’t know the boys, and sends Mulder and Scully on their way.
Of course, Bjunes is lying. The audience sees one of the two remaining murderers (Derrick) working in the back of the print shop, watching this exchange over the security camera feed. Bjunes may not be frightened by the idea of a man rising from the dead to exact vengeance, but Derrick is. It’s his friend, after all, who was just killed in (seemingly) such a scenario, and now he needs to go see himself if this resurrection story is true.
Vengeance Murder #2
Derrick and the third teenager (Clinton) decide to take matters into their own hands, visiting Isaac’s grave later that night. They need to make sure he is indeed dead and won’t be coming to kill them in revenge too. After a bit of a struggle in opening Isaac’s casket, Derrick is able to confirm that Isaac (or a body, at least) is still inside.
Unfortunately, he discovers this only after Clinton has been murdered by a figure in the dark of the cemetery.
Getting closer and closer now to ensuring justice and getting revenge against Isaac’s murderers.
I guess the good thing now is that Clinton and Derrick did the hard work of exhuming Isaac’s grave for Mulder and Scully. They also now get to confirm that a body is inside the grave. With both of his hands. Theory #3 from above is out the window…unless we’re still thinking the possibility of fingerprint impressions from another source. Theory #2 is also looking less likely, though to be fair at this point Mulder and Scully haven’t actually confirmed it’s Isaac’s body in the grave. So. He could be alive still…theoretically. Or alive again…
They aren’t any closer to figuring out who could be carrying out these vengeance murders, but the grave holds another couple of clues for our agents.
First, there is some sort of tattoo writing on the corpse’s hand. Interesting here that Scully assumes it may be blood pooling after death, especially since Isaac wasn’t embalmed, consistent with Jewish customs. Also, somewhat interesting that Mulder points it out as unusual in the first place? You would hope that at least one of them did the background reading on Isaac Luria’s death, and then perhaps that’s why they both think the writing (or whatever it is) wasn’t present when Isaac was alive. But, as far as we know, the writing could just be…a tattoo that was on Isaac’s hand when he was alive.
The clue will become relevant later in the episode, though. So, it’s a good thing to be noted by Mulder, even if the logic of him questioning it being there isn’t really there.
Second clue: Isaac was buried with a small book inside his casket, which immediately bursts into flames upon Mulder picking it up. Fortunately, the book is still legible enough that our agents can see it has writing in Hebrew, and further fortunately, all of these events are taking place in New York City. It’s pretty easy for our agents to find someone at the local Judaic library who can give them some information on the book.
The book, it turns out, is the Sefer Yetzirah, the earliest known book of Jewish mysticism. We are also told that there is no reason the book would’ve been in Isaac’s grave; Jewish custom is to have the dead buried only in their burial shroud. There is also nothing unusual about this particular book. Just normal paper and ink that shouldn’t have been flammable. Scully, the scientific one, postulates that perhaps some toxic chemicals or gases from the soil seeped into the book, creating a flammable mixture once it was exposed to air.
(I’ll note here that we never do get an explanation as to why the book burst into flames. Perhaps Scully was correct. Or maybe it is mysticism…)
The only unusual thing about this book is that there is a notation that it belonged to someone. Not Isaac Luria, who it was buried with. No, the book belongs to Jacob Weiss, Isaac’s father-in-law, and the person who has expressed the most anger regarding Isaac’s death and the lack of concern police showed to prior threats against his community. Mulder and Scully already suspected that Jacob may have known more than he was willing to tell them in their first meeting, but now they have reason to believe he himself may be the perpetrator of the vengeance murders.
A (Living) Suspect
Our agents head to the local synagogue to question Jacob, but end up stumbling onto a much more interesting scene and confession.
Jacob leads our agents through the hallways and back rooms of the synagogue, straight to…the body of the final teenage murderer, Derrick. Hanging from the rafters. As they investigate, both Mulder and Scully are shoved to the ground, at almost the exact same time. Keep that in mind, as it at least suggests more than one other person may have been in those back rooms with them. But ultimately, they are able to capture Jacob Weiss, standing in the room with Derrick’s body.
Jacob willingly gives himself up to our agents, even admitting that yes, he did kill Derrick. But it was in self-defense!!!!
…Hanging someone from the ceiling?
As self-defense?
Unless the synagogue has random ropes hanging from the ceiling everywhere, and Jacob pushed Derrick as he attacked him, tripping him conveniently right into a rope that went around his neck, I don’t see that as a viable excuse. I also, no offense to Jacob, don’t really see him having the strength to hang the body of a young teenager from the rafters if we assume he did kill him (in “self-defense” or otherwise). Mulder clearly isn’t buying the story either, even with an easy confession (Jacob freely confesses to Clinton’s murder at the cemetery too).
Scully would be happy to take Jacob’s confession, especially with the background check revealing that Jacob was arrested 40 years ago in Israel as a suspect in a terrorist bombing. But Mulder is adamant that, at the very least, Jacob had an accomplice in these acts. A suspicion that is lent more credence when his daughter, Arial, is allowed into the room with her father. She seems to know that her father is not the one responsible for the murders. Neither of them come right out and say it, but both of them seem to know exactly what is going on. There’s a reason Jacob’s Sefer Yetzirah was found in Isaac’s grave. Jacob is covering up for someone, or something, that has been seeking revenge. Both father and daughter appear to know exactly what (or who) that might be, though neither wants to admit it could be possible.
A Fourth Murder, and Isaac Luria Caught on Tape
The theory that at least Jacob has an accomplice (if not the idea that he isn’t involved in the murders at all) is confirmed pretty quickly when a fourth murder occurs while Jacob is still in police custody. Bjunes is back in his print shop making more of those disgusting antisemitic pamphlets when he too is attacked and strangled by a strange figure coming out of the dark.
I do appreciate that the spree of vengeance murders didn’t stop with the three direct perpetrators. Perhaps Bjunes may not have any desire himself to be directly violent, but I honestly think his belief that he can just spout of gross propaganda and not cause any direct harm to the community he hates is even more dangerous and evil than actually…going out and committing the murders. Which isn’t to say that the three teenagers aren’t terrible themselves, but…well, that hatred got into their head somehow. Bjunes can’t just sit back in his print shop, claiming he’s horrified by Isaac’s murder because he “never told [them] to kill anyone!” My guy. What exactly was your goal then? You can’t really believe that you would encourage all these lies and hatred toward Jewish people in your community and…what, they would just go away quietly? Some people wouldn’t internalize that hatred and use it to spur on their violence?
Honestly, out of everything, it was Herb Bjunes who felt too real, like a character that could exist today, except probably spouting out hatred on Twitter or Reddit and then acting all shocked when someone used his words to carry out a huge act of violence.
Or maybe Herb Bjunes would be working in the government. There’s lots of guys like him in the government who encourage hatred but then try to pretend that their words couldn’t possibly be responsible for that horrible shooting/bombing/running over those protestors 🙃🙃🙃
So, excellent, if unfortunate (?) commentary on the reality of how hatred grows and spreads and escalates into violence. Of course Isaac would want revenge on Bjunes, too.
Although, this excellent social commentary is reduced somewhat when “Isaac” (don’t worry, we are getting to how this is “Isaac”) then seems to go on just attacking anybody. But. By itself, the fact that Bjunes was killed was very poignant. He may not have beat up anyone or shot the gun, but it was his hatred and lies fed into the brains of those teenagers that led them to murder.
Back to Bjunes murder and the overall investigation. Our agents have a suspect still in custody. Jacob Weiss couldn’t have killed Bjunes. I am shocked though that Scully immediately went to “yeah, I’ll have him released from custody”. Sure, Jacob couldn’t have done this murder, but that still doesn’t rule out the possibility that he was working with an accomplice in all four of the murders. Maybe Scully is hoping that Jacob will go meet up with his accomplice and thus they’ll be led to the real (?) murderer but the impression I get is more just Scully saying “Oh well, we were wrong, we’ll let him out”.
They were wrong, but I’m still baffled at Scully completely giving up on Jacob as having any role in the murders.
Anyway, the perpetrator of Bjunes’ murder is caught on security tape. It’s Isaac Luria! Or at least someone who looks exactly like him, standing clear as day on that VHS recording in the print shop.
This time, Scully does check and confirms the body they saw in Isaac’s grave does indeed belong to Isaac Luria. It does. Sooooooo, how could he also be standing clear as day on that VHS tape? Scully again tries to go to a logical explanation, thinking maybe someone planted this tape to further their resurrection hoax. But Mulder, of course, has another idea. A type of resurrection has been carried out here, based on the wishes of a grieving lover.
Jewish Folklore: The Golem
OK, let’s finally get into it. I am a bit cautious myself about trying to explain this particular aspect of Jewish folklore, as I want to make sure I also explain it as correctly as possible. But we will try. I’m honestly probably mostly going to go off of what Mulder is told by the researcher at the Judaic library, and popping in with a little more information about the folklore from what I’ve found.
It turns out that Jacob Weiss’ Sefer Yetzirah being in Isaac’s casket is very important. Among other stories and ideas on God’s creation of the world and man’s connection with the divine, the book contains instructions on how to create a Golem.
The idea is that one can create an animate creature from the inanimate, specifically by crafting mud or clay into the shape of a body. Creating life from the earth. The creature is then brought to life with the power of a specific word, with a single word inscribed onto the back of the mud figure’s hand. The word “Emet”, meaning truth.
But while this creature, a Golem, can be created and brought to life with a word, it is not a full form of life. A body has been created, but there is no soul. In essence, the creature that has been created is a sort of monster, unable to speak or feel any emotions but the most basic, like anger…and possibly love???? (more on that in a bit) The creature cannot be controlled, and must be destroyed by its creator, by erasing the first letter of the word to read “met”, meaning dead.
As far as I can tell, the explanation Mulder gets from the researcher at the Judaic library feels pretty accurate to the understanding/knowledge of a Golem within Jewish folklore. There is some variation as to what word/words need to be inscribed, or how they should be used to bring life to the earth shaped into a body. Other sources mention other words or describe writing the word on a slip of paper and placing that into the “mouth” of the earthen body.
The earliest known written descriptions of a Golem’s creation date back to the late 12th century. The most famous version of the myth comes from 16th century Prague, when a Rabbi named Judah Loew ben Bezalel created a Golem out of clay from the banks of the river to protect Prague’s Jews from pogroms.
From my understanding, there is also some variation as to the extent to which a Golem can follow instructions, or whether they always act obediently. I also didn’t find any specific cases in history where a Golem was supposedly created after death to take on the form of a real person in a sort of resurrection. So that may be the one area where this episode veers from the folklore and general understanding of what (or who) a Golem can be.
Of course, the vast majority of Jewish scholars, even strictly Orthodox ones who spend more time reading old texts, see the story of the Golem as a piece of folklore, and just a piece of folklore. I do think the episode does a good job of explaining that as well, as the researcher Mulder talks with thinks it’s absurd that an FBI agent would be interested in this story.
With all of that context, at least one of our agents has finally discovered (or strongly suspects) what the audience already knew from minute…2, or so, of the episode. After Isaac’s funeral, someone returned to the cemetery and created a body out of mud on top of his grave. That body came to life, and that is how Isaac was “resurrected” and explains how he has been walking around (leaving fingerprints and video evidence) getting revenge on his murderers.
The question now is, who was it that created this Golem, and why?
The Wish of a Grieving Lover
I’ll just go ahead and give the easy, probably quite obvious answer: Arial (Weiss) Luria created the Golem, returning to Isaac’s grave the night of his funeral. I don’t think she expected the ritual to work; she likely returned and carried out the ancient mystical ritual as a sort of prayer. A wish that her soon-to-be husband would return to her, at least for a while, so they could officially be married before he returned to the earth. She says basically as much to her father toward the end of the episode: “I didn't think. It was just a wish. They were just... words.”
Back to the fact that Isaac was her soon-to-be husband. I admit that the exact logistics of this are another possible slight plot hole in the episode. She is credited as Arial Luria, not Weiss, throughout the episode, which suggests that in some sense they were already married. Arial tells Mulder and Scully that they got their marriage license weeks ago, but were not actually set to be married until several days after Isaac’s murder. Not sure if this means that they were legally married, on paper, but not married yet in the eyes of their faith, bound as king and queen of their castle home. Or if they really weren’t married at all yet, legally or in faith, and the crediting of Arial with the last name “Luria” is a plot hole or a way to…I dunno, not give away that part of the plot until halfway through the episode?
Regardless, it is clear that at the very least they have not yet been wed in the Jewish faith. Their souls have not yet been bound together, and that is what does make this whole episode all the more heart wrenching. Plus the fact that we learn Arial was actually on the phone with Isaac just minutes before he was murdered. They were discussing plans for the upcoming wedding, before he had a customer come into the store and said he would call her back later. And he never did. They never got a chance to say goodbye, or to have their souls bound together.
And that’s all Arial wanted. She had no desire for revenge against her husband’s killers. She just wanted to have her wedding before she had to say goodbye to her soulmate.
But, as noted, a Golem is not a creature that can be controlled. The figure may take on Isaac’s appearance, but it does not have Isaac’s soul. The creature’s motivation was revenge. Arial didn’t know or fully understand what she had created.
Now, where the episode does again kind of lose the plot (in my opinion) is when “Isaac” continues on his vengeance path after he has killed all the people responsible for his death. “Isaac” goes after Jacob, and then Mulder, before finally being…called back, in a sense, by Arial? I mean, I do get that the whole point is a Golem operates on only the most basic of emotions and instincts, but…why exactly was he attacking people who were not responsible for his suffering? Perhaps the idea here was that once he got revenge, he did now have the goal of reuniting with Arial, and thus he was attacking anyone who got in the way of that secondary goal but. That’s not actually made clear.
There’s the strong implication that the “Isaac” Golem can be driven by the basic instinct of love as well, but it’s…less than clear. At least he didn’t get very far when attacking Jacob, and Scully was able to save him.
And, ultimately, our lovers did get their wedding. With Arial in her wedding dress, and the binding of our king and queen together with that beautiful communal wedding ring. However, even this union I think is heartbreaking because if we do take the definition of a Golem literally, their souls still haven’t been bound together. Arial got her wedding, and the chance to say goodbye, but that wasn’t truly the man she loved she was binding herself to in that moment.
Haunting Parallels to Mulder and Scully’s Grief
Let’s end finally with a brief reflection on why the timing of this episode makes it all the more poignant. No clue if the writers really planned this or not, considering they ignore the fact that Scully still has cancer for the majority of the rest of this season, but whatever. We, the audience, should remember that she does, and our two agents are walking through their own grief right now while trying to remain as normal as possible.
The most haunting parallel, imo, is between Isaac as the “walking dead” and Scully, essentially…living a very similar path at the moment. Not the exact same path, of course. “Isaac” is a body without a soul, a man who is dead but has been resurrected enough to walk around and carry out the most basic of actions. Scully, on the other hand, is very much still alive and fully herself, but given what we learned last episode, she is almost certainly walking toward her death, the same painful fate that met the other women from the Allentown MUFON group.
And then consider that Mulder, too, is facing the probable likelihood of needing to say goodbye to his soulmate partner soon, without either of them ever really admitting how much they mean to each other.
And just. Kill me now. 😭😭😭😭😭
Our “Completely Platonic Coworkers”
Not too much here that’s really direct. The parallels noted above, mostly. We also had a lot of Mulder longingly gazing at Scully as they listened to Arial’s story about the communal wedding ring and her love for Isaac.
The 90s™
The fact that Bjunes was printing out and distributing pamphlets. Oh, the people he could’ve reached and murderers he could’ve created out of hatred if he’d had access to the internet…
The X-Files is a Comedy
I’ve got two here. The first is legitimately funny, the second is more “Oh damn, nice one Mulder”.
Casper didn’t leave fingerprints
(credit) Scully is so proud of Mulder for that comeback about Jesus (a Jew!) rising from the grave.
Goofs/Bloopers/Fun Facts
First, it’s harder to create a burning book (prop) than you might think 😂
Well, I already noted a couple of other “WTF, really, that’s the explanation you’re going with” throughout the review. My main other possible goof is regarding how exactly the Sefer Yetzirah ended up actually inside of Isaac’s casket? We assume she took her father’s book and used the instructions inside to create her Golem, hoping to bring her lover back to life, at least briefly. That’s all fine, but then…how did it end up inside of the casket???? Not just buried in the dirt or next to the grave, but actually inside of the casket that our two teenage murderers had to work really hard to open?
Other goof is that Scully states Jacob Weiss belonged to the Irgun in Israel and was arrested for terrorism by the British in 1959. The British pulled out of Israel when it became a recognized state in 1948, and Irgun was dissolved at the same time because there was no motivation for it to exist any longer. This is a weird historical inaccuracy, as there’s no reason they couldn’t have said Jacob was arrested sometime between 1945-1948 instead?
A mixture of fun production facts:
The communal wedding ring was a real Jewish relic owned by a rabbi who survived the Holocaust. In fact, the rabbi had used it to wed two of writer/producer Howard Gordon's friends.
When writing the script, Howard Gordon had the characters who beat and killed Isaac as African Americans. Gordon found anti-Semitism among black people to be an interesting subject, informed by figures such as Louis Farrakhan as well as the 1991 riots in the Crown Heights area in which a Jewish man was killed.
Fox executives were uncomfortable with this idea, not wanting to alienate their growing number of African American viewers. They asked Gordon to turn the villains into white neo-Nazis, and okayed the script once he did
Personally, I do think this was the right decision. I am aware that there is a fair amount of antisemitism among the Black community. But I also think focusing on that rather than white neo-Nazis and white supremacists ends up allowing white supremacy to fester and grow? Ignoring the hatred that exists in your own community while focusing on the same hatred in another group doesn’t solve the hatred…
Fans were hoping this episode would confirm a fan theory that Mulder himself is Jewish. I’m honestly not really sure where this idea came from, other than the fact that David Duchovny does have Jewish ancestry
Both of his paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants, and his father was a publicist for the American Jewish Commitee and the Combined Jewish Philanthropies
There is really no evidence throughout the show that the Mulders might be Jewish. So. It seems like wishful thinking and also…I dunno, a bit weird that fans assume a character would be Jewish just because the actor is?
“Kaddish” is a hymn of praises to God found in the Jewish prayer service.
“The Mourner's Kaddish” is said as part of the mourning rituals in Judaism in all prayer services, to show that despite the loss they still praise God.
To create Brunjes's propaganda, Gordon reached out to the Anti-Defamation League and requested samples from their archives.
These articles were later reproduced and used in the episode with only “minor alterations”. 😬🙃
None of the synagogues in the Greater Vancouver area were willing to let the production crew use their space, so the scenes in the synagogue were filmed at Shaughnessy Heights United Church.
The church was chosen for its gothic interior and stained-glass windows that resembled many New York synagogues
It was booked for two weeks so that the entire interior could be redecorated to look like a legitimate Jewish temple.
This included completely redesigning the pews, carpet, and light fixtures, as well as crafting a Jewish altar.
Overall Thoughts/Summary
Episode rating: 7.5/10. Overall, it’s a pretty solid episode that comes together into a full, complete story at the end. I do think there are a couple of (mostly minor) plot holes that take away from the episode. I also still do think that the fact that they gave away the “mystery” to the audience at the start ruins most of the suspense, and leaves us rolling our eyes at the agents’ attempts to figure out what is happening. Would’ve been more powerful, I think, to not show Arial creating the Golem…or if they do, at some point, to not show us that until a flashback or something midway through the episode.
X-Files cases “solved” to date: Well, they definitely did solve the case? Not sure exactly how they’re going to write up a report to Skinner: “A resurrected mud man came back and was getting vengeance on his killers”??? But he’s received weirder reports from his favourite children agents, so. At least we know that this particular string of violence between the Jewish community and gross neo-Nazis has ended.
10.5/15 for the season, 60.5/82 overall.
We got this review under 7,000 words!!! 🥳😂😂😂
Next week we have “Unrequited” which I also don’t really remember much about. But I think at least part of the plot involves a military coverup. The X-Files really needs to stop being so timely to current events 30 years later. 🫠