This was an…interesting episode? It is indeed very marginally connected to the larger series mythology, though this is also the last time we’ll hear about “Purity Control” before we move on to other, larger (?) alien conspiracy government cover-up stuff. So, that may be part of why I never remember that technically this is a mythology episode? It’s interesting though that this episode is always included on “official” lists of the mythology episodes, while ones like “Conduit” from season 1 aren’t. I know we don’t get much of an answer to how aliens and/or the government were involved in the mysterious disappearance in that episode, but still…it was (maybe) aliens. And then we’ve got episodes like “Ghost in the Machine” and “Eve” where the government is definitely involved in some larger conspiracy but…those aren’t “official” mythology episodes either?
It really just must be that “Purity Control” is referenced and possibly what is used in this episode, that was enough to very marginally connect it back to “The Erlenmeyer Flask” and, quite probably, some large government experiment on an unsuspecting populace.
I was also correct in vaguely remembering that there’s a cult in this episode, but the cult really serves entirely as a distraction/possible initial explanation for the kidnappings that are occurring in the small Wisconsin town. I mean, the cult is definitely creepy and weird, but in possibly the least harmful/dangerous way a cult has ever been?
And then we’ve got a kind of third plot line, with the definitely very creepy man who is peeping on the tenants of his building and very heavily implied to also be abusing children.
So. There’s a lot of little things going on here, and once again it feels like possibly a little bit too much for one episode. I get that the writers wanted to have several possible suspects throughout the episode, and it does end up working out OK, but because there’s so much else going on, the possible “alien DNA” and government conspiracy storyline is kind of just…shoehorned in at the end?
Overall, it’s an OK episode. I feel like I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it, even after sitting on my thoughts for 5 days now. I’ll probably end up forgetting this episode again in a couple of years because it definitely isn’t particularly memorable.
But, anyway. Let’s get into a summary and some thoughts. 😂
Mysterious Kidnappings: A cult? Possession? Aliens???
So, just briefly a summary of the case(s) in the episode. We are in a small Wisconsin town which appears to be almost entirely based around farming and particularly the cattle industry—growing cattle up for meat. The whole industry functions in this town, from the farms to the butcher to the…BBQ house. 😉 All in all, the community appears very normal, “down to earth”, not the place where you would expect crime or weird disappearances to happen.
And yet…we open the episode with the mysterious overnight disappearance of a high school junior. The teenager leaves the house to meet someone he seems to know (based on the very brief phone conversation), and then the next morning he is found wandering out of the woods outside of town, in just his underwear. He is very disoriented and confused, even seeming scared of the cops (valid reaction honestly…) And, most alarmingly, when the teenager turns around, we see that he has written on his back in red ink the phrase “He is One”
Spoooooooooooky.
Back in DC with our favourite FBI agents, we learn from Mulder that this is the third teenage boy to go missing and be returned with this phrase written on him. Not from the same town, but from the same general rural area of Wisconsin. No evidence of assault on any of the victims, but the other two had to be sedated—they seemed even more afraid than the boy we see (Gary Kane) after their ordeal.
Now, this case is definitely unsettling and creepy, and you could understand why a small-town sheriff might want the help of an outside agency in investigating these kidnappings. But, why would that sheriff reach out to Mulder specifically (or why would Mulder happily jump on the case; it’s not actually explained who reached out to whom, but both the sheriff and Mulder are very happy to work together seemingly).
Well, you see, the sheriff thinks he already knows who is behind these kidnappings, and why all the teenagers appear hysterical with fear after their ordeal.
He thinks the teenagers were possessed.
“Walk-ins”: The Church of the Red Museum
Well, let me clarify—those are Mulder’s words. It’s unclear if the sheriff actually said that, or if he just thinks that the mysterious “church” in town is responsible for the kidnappings. I would tend to think it’s the latter, because once we meet the sheriff, he, uh, doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who actually believes in supernatural stuff like possession. He just doesn’t like the new people who moved into town.
You see, this town (Delta Glen, Wisconsin) definitely appears to be your quiet, boring rural midwest farming community. But farmers and butchers aren’t the only people living here. Three years ago, a cult leader (Odin) moved from California to Wisconsin (…what a culture shock), bought a ranch, and adopted the cattle living on that ranch as pets. Everyone belonging to the cult is a vegetarian, and they appear to believe quite fervently that eating meat clouds the spirit and is a barbaric act.
Or something like that? How exactly vegetarianism is related to their other beliefs isn’t exactly explained, and it more seems to be an important plot device for 2 reasons. One, of course everyone else in the town who makes their livelihood out of the cattle industry is immediately going to despise anyone who doesn’t eat meat and advertises that fact. Especially since the cult bought a ranch and all the cattle that could be otherwise used to…make money. And two, which I’ll delve into more in a little bit, by not eating meat, the cult kind of acts as a “control group” if part of the government conspiracy happening does indeed involve experiments on the cattle (and thus the meat everyone else is consuming) in addition to the people of the town.
So, I’ll grant that their vegetarianism is relevant to the plot, but I still don’t like that it is never quite explained how being vegetarian connects to the other “spiritual” beliefs of the cult. And, as a vegetarian myself (for 19 years now), I never love when vegetarians are depicted in a militant, almost religious way with their beliefs because that is not how most vegetarians are. People just hear from the really loud ones and assume that every vegetarian must be just as militant in wanting to convert everyone to being vegetarian. Some definitely are like that, but the majority of vegetarians aren’t…most people don’t even know I’m a vegetarian unless they eat a meal with me because I feel no need to broadcast my personal dietary decisions.
Anyway. In the end, I suppose it doesn’t really matter why the cult members are vegetarian because cults basically never make sense—these people are vegetarian because their leader tells them to be, or maybe some of them so fervently believe in being vegetarian that they get drawn into the other weird beliefs of the cult.
Those other weird beliefs: They believe in the New Age idea of “walk-in” souls. A “walk-in” is a person whose original soul has been replaced by a new soul. As Mulder (vaguely) explains, a person becomes vulnerable to having their soul replaced when they experience trauma or a state of deep despair. Mulder doesn’t explain, but I did some Googling, to learn that “walk-ins” have all the same memories as the original soul, but they don’t have an emotional connection to those past memories and the life of that original soul. Once in the body, this new soul brings new emotions and beliefs to the body and can…evolve to achieve a higher spiritual being I guess? Brief Googling suggests that “walk-ins” are almost always adults, and by moving into an already adult body, the new soul doesn’t need to experience those years of maturation to reach adulthood?
I’m sure there’s more to the concept, but that’s going to be the extent of my Googling because I don’t need to end up on some weird conspiracy websites. So, there’s my understanding of what this cult believes.
Now, looking initially, if you do believe in “walk-ins”, this definitely could explain what happened to the teenagers that disappeared and then returned. Especially since (as Mulder doesn’t explain) a “walk in” retains the same memories of the original soul, but their personality is different, and I suppose it could be understood why a new soul would also be frightened in the first few days. And those are exactly the reactions reported by the family members of the disappeared and returned kids.
So, that’s probably the explanation Mulder is leaning toward. It’s interesting to me actually that he doesn’t mention the possibility of alien abduction at all. I guess there’s no mention of bright lights in the sky, and the writing would tend to suggest a human rather than an alien but still. Neither Mulder or Scully even casually joke about alien abductions?
Now, the sheriff I’m guessing believes this cult kidnapped the kids, did some weird brainwashing thing on them, and then returned them with the note that the teenagers are now “part of the cult”. And they are just frightened and hysterical from whatever weird events happened while they were with the cult.
This possibility gains more credence when a fourth teenager is kidnapped and returned with scopolamine in her blood. Something only a doctor or pharmacist would be able to access. And hey, look at that, “Odin”, the cult leader, used to be a doctor! So indeed, the cult could be drugging the kids!
I’ll get into the darker conspiracy of what actually happened here in a minute, but as a summary now of this cult: They’re actually almost entirely harmless. I mean, they are definitely a cult, which is never good. Odin is definitely brainwashing these people…either telling them they are “walk-ins” or that if they believe hard enough, they can welcome a new soul into their body and achieve higher enlightenment. As long as they also commit to being vegetarian. But, none of the cult members are being told to kill themselves, or that the end of days are coming, or told to abuse their children. No one in the cult is going around kidnapping people or harming anyone in the town. In fact, when it comes to the end of the episode, the church opens the barn on their ranch to all the local townspeople to keep them safe from the assassin that’s going around killing anyone involved in or connected to the experiments that were being conducted (we’ll get into those in a bit here). The worst they seemed to do was buy a ranch and keep 500 cattle as pets. So, as cults go…probably about as good as any cult could be?
Anyway, there’s definitely other stuff the town should be concerned about.
Fact Check: Bovine Growth Hormone
One of the thing one of the (former) farmers is concerned about is bovine somatotropin or growth hormone that is being injected into cattle…this old farmer definitely thinks that growth hormone could be what’s affecting the local population, particularly causing more “aggression” in the teenagers. I’m not really sure how the old farmer connects that specifically to the mysterious disappearances of some of them. He actually probably doesn’t think those are connected. Most likely he heard the FBI was in town and wanted someone to investigate what he thinks is very suspicious government “experiments” on the cows and the local populace.
Now, for a brief fact check on bovine growth hormone and how it may affect human health. Cows are injected with bovine growth hormone primarily to increase their milk production, not to increase their growth or muscle mass.
Bovine somatotropin actually is banned in several countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union. It’s still FDA approved in the US as far as I can find, but it isn’t used as much as it was in the early 90s. But, interestingly, the drug/injections are banned because they cause adverse health effects in cows, not humans.
Studies have shown that there isn’t really a difference in the levels of growth hormone in the blood in people who drink milk from injected cows vs. non-injected cows. The hormone is also primarily broken down/inactivated in the digestive tract. And, furthermore…cow and human hormones are different. A cow growth hormone isn’t going to cause the same effects as our naturally produced or lab synthesized human growth hormone…it can’t bind to the same hormone receptors that we have!
So, all in all, studies to date haven’t conclusively found any ill effects of bovine somatotropin on human health. There are always more studies that can and probably should be done, and I’m not saying that everyone should just trust the government immediately. It’s good to ask questions, especially when big pharmaceutical companies get involved. Synthetic bovine somatotropin was the first drug sold by Monsanto…and as a company Monsanto is definitely evil. But genetic engineering of crops or animals for consumption by itself isn’t evil or bad…humans have been doing basic genetic engineering of food basically since the invention of agriculture. We wouldn’t have modern day broccoli or kale or cabbage if it wasn’t for farmers selecting for the parts of the plant they wanted to grow. The evil/bad thing about genetically engineered food is that companies like Monsanto own the seeds for certain crops, and farmers can’t keep seed from one year’s crops to grow the next year, so they need to keep buying their seed stock from the same company. I know less about hormone treatments of animal products (probably at least partially because I’m vegetarian…), but I imagine the same problem exists, with one or two companies owning the “patent” for a certain version of the drug, so farmers need to keep buying it for expensive prices. So…that’s the human/economic harm I can see.
I got off track there a little bit, but I have strong feelings about people not understanding “genetically engineered/modified foods” and immediately thinking they are evil when in fact, they could really help solve lots of problems.
Mooooooooving on (haha)—there have been some findings that bovine somatotropin can cause adverse health effects in the cows themselves, and as I said, that’s why the treatment is banned in several countries. Increasing milk production puts more strain on the udders of cows, and can lead to mastitis (inflammation/infection of their milk ducts) that requires treatment with antibiotics. Which actually are definitely already overused in animals and are a leading cause of antibiotic resistant bacteria in both animals and humans. So, there’s a real concern there.
Anyway. This section ended up a lot longer than I meant for it to be. I guess as a summary: It is good to ask questions about how your food is produced, whether that is produce, dairy, or meat. And everyone can and should make their own diet decisions based on what they find, but just understand that by itself, genetic modification and such isn’t evil. The evil, as is almost always the case, is capitalism and businesses getting rich off of patenting certain drugs or seed crops.
Really, these townspeople should’ve dug deeper than that one old farmer did. Because, uh, it wasn’t just growth hormone in those syringes. These cattle actually were being experimented on, along with the townspeople…
The Rural Town Doctor: Purity Control experiments
In addition to the mysterious disappearances of the teenagers, our agents are also faced with the sudden crashing of a plan that was carrying the doctor who appeared to treat families in several rural Wisconsin town. In his briefcase, our agents discover some mysterious vials…and whatever was in those vials, he appeared to be using it to treat all of the disappeared children, as well as most other families in the area.
Whatever is in those vials can’t actually be identified definitively, but it contains unidentified amino acids. Which…Scully immediately connects back to “Purity Control”. But, uh, Scully, “purity control” that you discovered last season was DNA, not proteins. Whatever the kids were being injected with wasn’t DNA (as Mulder immediately states)…instead, it appears to be either proteins derived from that DNA, or possibly, as Scully insinuates, antibodies against extraterrestrial proteins/DNA.
This is where the story gets a bit messy to me, and it feels like the writers were trying to include too much stuff in one episode and thus didn’t really explain how the town was being experimented on. On the one hand, that’s probably a good thing, since as I’ve stated several times, usually when the writers really try to explain science they do a bad job of it. But I still felt like I wanted more, and a better explanation of what the kids were injected with. Based on the case report Scully reads out at the end of the episode, it sounds most like the kids were injected with alien antibodies. That would explain why Gary (the kidnapped/disappeared teenager from the beginning) never got sick, and why all of the children previously injected by the town doctor suddenly came down with some “flu” after the injections stopped.
So. In “The Erlenmeyer Flask”, we had people injected with alien DNA, and that seemed to cure their diseases along with giving them the ability to breathe underwater and toxic green blood. In this episode, that’s definitely not what’s happening. It seems more like the government either translated that alien DNA into alien proteins, or developed antibodies against alien DNA and that’s what was being used in these “Purity Control” experiments. On both the humans and, apparently, the cattle of the local area that people then consumed…Scully notes that some local families that weren’t injected with that mysterious substance also became sick after all the injections (cow and human) stopped, but none of the “Red Museum” cult members got sick. So in this case…it does seem like “Purity Control” in the meat and milk of the cattle affected the humans.
Ultimately, this particular storyline just feels kind of unsatisfying to me. The alien/government connection doesn’t come in until the last eight minutes of the episode. And (spoiler), “Purity Control” is never mentioned in the series again, which might also be why I find the conclusion here to be unsatisfying. We move on to other alien-human experiment conspiracies and this one is forgotten after seemingly being so important. I dunno, maybe the government decided “Purity Control” was too dangerous, or maybe they realized Mulder and Scully were on to them and moved on to other things.
Gerd Thomas: A cowardly creep
One last storyline that I want to comment on here, because he was the second suspect after the “Red Museum” cult leader. Gerd Thomas is a local landlord who spies on his tenants and is also employed by at least one local ranch, involved in injecting the cattle with…whatever they’re being injected with. It’s also heavily implied that he is a child abuser based on the massive video collection found in the back hallway he uses to spy on his apartment tenants.
So, uh, definitely not a good guy. And he actually is the one who was kidnapping the kids! Because he…cares about them so much (🤮). Not enough to like…actually tell anyone that he’s concerned about what the town doctor is treating them with, but enough to kidnap them and write “He is One” on them. I guess…I dunno, hoping that someone will connect all the kids and figure out what’s happening? Definitely would’ve been easier to just…directly tell someone about what the town doctor was doing to the kids, and he was helping do to the cattle. But, I suppose that would’ve exposed his own crimes soooooo
Yeah, not a good guy.
This, again, is just where…there’s a little too much happening in this episode? We’ve got this cowardly creep who was actually kidnapping the kids, but not harming them. We’ve got the town doctor injecting the kids with something…which turns out to be possibly extraterrestrial, though we don’t learn that until almost the end of the episode. We’ve got the “Deep Throat” assassin who actually killed one of the treated kids to prevent exposure of the experiments. And we’ve got the “Red Museum” as a distraction/easy scapegoat. Ultimately, all of these storylines do come together to conclude the episode, but I guess I just felt like none of them were explored fully and so the ultimate conclusion is a bit unsatisfying and feels very sudden.
I guess I will say though that this episode probably is a very accurate depiction of how a lot of criminal investigations go. There are a lot of various elements at play and our agents get distracted by the “easy” cult explanation and the local town creep (who definitely is guilty of gross crimes) before finally figuring out the bigger conspiracy and discovering that a mysterious assassin killed the one teenager.
Just…there are more satisfying and better developed episodes, as we’ve seen. The “mythology” episodes often get messy like this, which is part of why I actually prefer the “monster-of-the-week” format over the long, convoluted, and confusing mythology arc ones.
The X-Files is a comedy
Talking about historical figures claimed to be “walk-ins” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Our “Completely Platonic Coworkers”
Several good little moments here:
They’re on a dinner date at a BBQ joint, and Mulder feels comfortable enough with his coworker to wipe sauce off her face for her
Automatic assumption that Scully is Mulder’s wife
They’re now standing so close to each other while talking that their hair is touching
The 90s™
All I’ve really got here is the giant desktop computer the Red Museum elder guy is using. Though, actually, mostly I’m impressed that in 1994, this guy was using a projector and a desktop to give his sermons. Very…ahead of the times, despite their weird cult beliefs?
Goofs/Bloopers/Fun Facts
Scully says that she thinks the “Red Museum” cult was being used as a control group for whoever was experimenting on the local populace with that “purity control” derivative
But…the cult only moved into the area three years ago, and it seems like Gary and the other children were treated by the doctor since birth. I’ll grant that it’s unclear if they were injected with these “alien antibodies” or whatever since birth, though the fact that Gary was never sick seems to imply they were
It’s definitely convenient that the cult moved into the area and could act as a control, but I don’t think that’s why this area was chosen for the experiments. Probably just remote enough to not attract larger attention, plus the assumption maybe that farmers wouldn’t ask too many questions
And it’s convenient for Mulder and Scully’s investigation that they now have a control group that allows them to determine that the cattle were likely injected with the same “alien antibodies” that affected the local populace
And Mulder and Scully?! Wait…they ate local cows too, didn’t they? 😱
Probably not enough to have any real effect. I’m sure whatever substance/antibodies/proteins build up over time 😉
That’s a lovely snowcapped mountain you’ve got there in…“Wisconsin” (British Columbia)
Overall Thoughts/Summary
Episode rating: 6.5/10. It’s a solid enough episode, but it loses points for how convoluted the plot ends up being, leaving the ending ultimately a bit unsatisfiying. For me, at least. The fact that I had completely forgotten about this episode also causes some point deduction…if an episode is forgettable, it means there wasn’t anything that really stood out as great acting or a great storyline or a unique “monster”. But, it was still an enjoyable watch, and I did love Mulder and Scully investigating and going on dates together.
X-files cases “solved” to date: Well, Scully says that officially the case is still “open and unsolved”, but I still want to give them at least half a point, because they did a lot of solving here, even if the full mystery didn’t come to a conclusion! They found a local creep/child abuser (hopefully he got arrested for that at least?!), stopped the mysterious experiments from being conducted, and eliminated an assassin.
So, while this definitely wouldn’t be counted as a “solved” case as far as the FBI is concerned, I’m counting this as 6.5/10 cases solved for this season (26.5/34 total).
This review was much longer than I thought it would be, but I guess I had a lot of thoughts as I tried to pick apart the various plot elements. And GMOs…which I ranted on for over 500 words. Sorry?
Next week we have “Excelsis Dei”. I don’t remember basically anything about the plot of the episode which probably doesn’t bode well for it being very good. In fact, while I don’t remember the plot, I’m pretty sure it’s one of the episodes that I don’t enjoy. But we’ll discover whether that is true or not together next week!