I’m writing this review while sitting outside, as Florida has finally decided to cooperate and the weather is nice on the weekend, instead of being beautiful during the week and then raining/getting cold (and by cold…I mean 50s) on the weekends. I just finished a beautiful hour long walk in the woods and I am now very happy to sit down in the fresh air and summarize this…very weird, but surprisingly good episode. Though this does mean that my Scully kitty isn’t supervising this review, as she is napping inside on my bed.
An important note: I am not going to include any images/GIFs of the “Flukeman” monster from this episode. While I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this episode in retrospect, there is no getting around that it is a very gross episode. And I’m not going to force anyone to look at the very gross (but very well done costuming/makeup!) “Flukeman” without consent. You can go look up images/videos/GIFs yourself if you would like. But I’m just going to describe the case and the monster, and mostly, as usual, include lots of cute GIFs of Mulder and Scully investigating.
As I stated last week, this episode reminds me of “The Jersey Devil”, in that it is a very classic episode of The X-Files. Monsters, silliness, good investigating, and solid Mulder-Scully partnership interactions. All things considered, it’s actually a very straightforward episode. I mean, if you ignore the complete improbability of the “explanation” behind the Flukeman monster, of course 😉. I do think that it is better than “The Jersey Devil”, actually partially because the make-up/costuming for the Flukeman are so good that they are…gross and upsetting and definitely make your skin crawl as you watch the episode. The Jersey Devil “plot” and costuming were so bad they were almost funny, which just made for a fun episode. The plot of “The Host” feels a bit more fleshed out to me, and it’s actually good that they don’t try too hard to explain exactly the origins of the Flukeman. I mean, I still have some problems with the conclusion Mulder and Scully come to, but at least they didn’t try to explain science that the writers don’t actually understand.
But, it is indeed hard to get around the fact that this episode is gross. Poor Mulder has to go swimming around a sewer, the Flukeman is a disgusting looking creature, and uh…just all the talk about flukeworms is less than enjoyable. So, I get why some people might not like this episode, and it’s certainly not one I go back and rewatch by itself.
Anyway. Let’s get into some thoughts, shall we?
A Monster in the Sewers: Case Summary
This episode in particular is weird enough that I do feel I kind of need to do a full summary of the case and what is happening, especially since Mulder and Scully do separate investigating and come together, and there’s the addition of Skinner and (apparently) the Justice Department playing a role. So, here. A nice long summary:
The episode begins on some sort of Russian freighter off the coast of New Jersey. Their septic/pump system on the ship is clogged by some unknown thing, and a poor young (new?) crewman is forced to go into the septic tank (or whatever you call it on a ship) to try to remove the clog. Poor dude isn’t even given gloves or anything as he sticks his whole arm right into there. Gross.
While he is trying to remove the unknown clog, something pulls him into the septic tank! I do have to give some credit to his fellow crewmen, as while they were teasing him and forced him to do the gross unclogging work, they did try to save our poor young guy from being pulled in, and then immediately flushed the tank (so I guess our poor young guy was at least successful in removing the clog).
But mysteriously, as they flush the tanks, it appears to be empty! Whatever was causing the clog is gone, as is our poor doomed young crewman.
Question here: Uh, look, I am not at all an expert on big ships. I know some about small fishing boats (catamarans, skiffs, etc). But, are the flushing systems on big ships really large enough that a whole adult man’s body can fit through the tubes and apparently out to sea, as we are later led to believe? This isn’t a fact check, because I actually don’t know. But if the pipes really are that large in diameter…that seems dangerous? And unnecessary?
Anyway. Apparently our young crewman’s body is carried out to sea by the sewage pipes on the ship, and then he ends up in the sewers of Newark, New Jersey. Which also seems oddly specific, and somewhat unlikely? I guess it would depend entirely on the tides and currents, and exactly how close that Russian freighter was to the coast, but really? His body was just swept directly into a sewer tunnel, rather than…I dunno, out to sea, or just ending up on a beach in Atlantic City or something?
There is something else in the sewer tunnels of Newark. Not just the dead body of a Russian ship crewman. A city sanitation worker is also pulled underwater by an unknown creature, though this guy is rescued at least. And he chooses to believe that he was bit by a python.
Sanitation Worker: “Somebody probably flushed a pet snake down the toilet. I found an alligator in the sewer a couple of years ago.”
Mulder, however, notices the weird shape of the bite on the man’s back. And Scully, having conducted an autopsy on the Russian man, has found the larva of a “fluke” or flatworm inside his body. So Mulder, of course, comes to the conclusion that there must be a giant flukeworm down in the sewers of New Jersey somewhere. Though he is, weirdly, not particularly excited about this hypothesis (more on that in a bit).
Moving along in the story, our poor city sanitation worker dies after (🚨Warning: GROSS🚨) coughing up a flukeworm in his shower. What is a little unclear is exactly how this sanitation worker died? Come to think of it, there’s no official cause of death for the Russian dude either, as Scully is too excited about her flukeworm discovery. I would imagine that the Russian dude died of drowning? There is no mention of a bite on him anywhere, and given how large the bite was on our sanitation worker, uh, you’d think Scully would have noticed a bite. Then again, that flatworm larva got inside the Russian dude somehow. I mean, I suppose we are just supposed to believe that the flatworm larva killed both men, possibly in combination to a likely VERY GROSS bacterial infection from a Flukeman bite? But that part of the episode is a little unsatisfying—you’d think Scully, of all people, would want to figure out what exactly it was that killed those two men. Though she doesn’t even get to do an autopsy on our sanitation worker, sadly ☹
Well, somewhat surprisingly, back at the Newark Sewage Processing Plant, Mulder and two city workers find the creature they are looking for fairly quickly. And manage to capture the creature, and then apparently, everyone concludes that the best thing to do is to take the weird creature to a psychiatric hospital?! Not like, a lab to be examined? Nope, straight to the psych hospital, and then apparently to be transported to a jail to be prosecuted. Even though, uh, whatever this “Flukeman” is, clearly is not human, and the creature can’t like, talk or anything. Does this Flukeman get a public defender? Who is going to prosecute it? Is the government going to try to hold the creature in a prison, or kill it, or study it? Why is everyone so calm about this creature?!
That last question is my main one. Like, what the fuck, everyone? Again, more on Mulder’s attitude later, but of course he is calm since he is the “monster guy”—it’s more disappointing how bored Mulder seems. Scully is more interested at least, but I still feel like she should’ve been more shocked and uh, pushed to study the creature or something. For science?
But what the fuck is up with everyone else? Skinner just calmly reads through Mulder’s case report and apparently immediately accepts that yep, OK, some flukeworm-primate hybrid killed two men and yeah, now I guess this creature needs to be prosecuted. This reaction does I suppose give us more insight into Skinner’s character, and suggests he is more open to the “unbelievable” than we would normally think, considering he’s an FBI “executive” dude. Even Mulder seems shocked by how calm Skinner is, and how supportive he appears to be of the existence of the “X-files” unit.
We finally have our two sewage plant workers. I dunno, maybe these old guys are so calm because they’re just thinking “Yeah, sure, these are the Newark sewers, there’s all sorts of weird shit down there, why not a giant primate flukeworm?”
Foreman: “Wouldn't surprise me. No telling what's been breeding down there in the last hundred years.”
I really do wonder what the rest of the FBI and Newark police force are thinking. And, again, I wonder if the justice department really does want to move forward with prosecution…or was “Flukeman” being transported to some government lab? I can’t imagine there are actually any federal prosecutors delighted to try to convict some weird monster. For that matter, why and how exactly did this become a federal case? If anyone actually wanted to prosecute the creature, shouldn’t it be Newark, where we know the one death occurred? I suppose maybe if the government thinks the creature did indeed kill that Russian guy, it’s an international-ish case, so. Sure. Maybe.
Or, the government never plans on prosecution but instead wants to study the creature.
Regardless, no one gets the chance to either prosecute or study the creature, at least not alive. The Fluke-dude escapes while being transported, is suctioned from a Porta Potty into a septic truck, and returned to the Newark sewage plant, where the creature then decides “Fuck, I don’t want to stay in New Jersey!” and tries to swim back to sea. Mulder, swimming in gross sewage, seemingly manages to kill the Fluke-dude as he escapes, (🚨Warning: GROSS🚨) cutting the creature in half with a sewage grate.
The case is closed.
Or…is it?
Apparently, no one (government, scientific, or otherwise) did have any interest in the Fluke-dude once the creature was dead. Which, does surprise me. Scully apparently did some further analysis of the fluke larva found in the Russian crewman, but no one went to get the lower half of the Fluke-dude from the sewer, and no one tried to get the other half out of the outflow pipe?
I mean, come on Scully, you know that the creature is apparently capable of asexual reproduction. You’re not going to warn anyone that this creature can likely regrow itself?!
Mulder’s Attitude
Mulder: It's kind of hard to make an appointment when you're up to your ass in raw sewage, being jerked around from one meaningless assignment to another.
Man, Mulder really is so cynical and despondent this episode, isn’t he?
At the beginning of the episode, I understand his attitude. I mean, you would think he’d be delighted to get back out in the field and out of that hotel, listening to gross men talk about lap dances and whatever else. But yes, at first glance, it does indeed look like Skinner threw a very gross and random case at Mulder, forcing him to go down into the sewers of Newark.
Still, Mulder of just a couple episodes ago would be delighted to do any sort of investigation. He would’ve asked Scully to do the autopsy, rather than her asking him to let her do it. I guess that Mulder doesn’t like being told what to do, so that’s certainly part of it, especially after his precious “X-files” were shut down and he’s been stuck on wiretapping duty, eating endless sunflower seeds. At the start of this episode we did at least see that Mulder graduated to sunflower seeds and Chinese take-out.
OK, but even if we take all of that into consideration, Mulder still seems exceptionally bored once he does discover this incredible primate-flatworm creature. Come on Mulder!!!! If you had read about this creature yourself, you would’ve been delighted to investigate and try to determine how this creature came to exist, and what exactly it is capable of. You would’ve been dragging Scully into the sewers yourself, throwing Wellington boots at her yourself and begging her to do an autopsy.
And then, when Skinner admits to Mulder that the “X-files” unit should exist, and this case should’ve been an “X-file” from the start…rather than appearing the slightest bit pleased that Skinner is on his side, Mulder just seems disgusted and depressed. I feel this case should’ve worked to show Mulder that he can still do important work and investigate the “weird” cases with Skinner’s permission, even with the closure of his unit and his reassignment. Sure, Mulder, you don’t have the apparent wild freedom you had to investigate whatever, not even needing travel authorizations, and you can’t investigate government conspiracies at the moment. But your work isn’t over.
Come to think of it, I’m also surprised Mulder isn’t more concerned or suspicious of the federal government’s apparent desire to prosecute this creature. I’m suspicious that what they really wanted to do was experiment on it—shouldn’t Mulder also be asking those questions?
Anyway. I regret to inform you that Mulder’s mopey attitude will continue to last for the next couple of episodes.
Sad puppy.
Scully is bored too!
I did really enjoy how eager Scully was to involve herself in this case. Carrying on from the season premiere, Scully is the one pushing Mulder to keep investigating, and she wants to work with him!
She even asks Mulder to come work at Quantico with her! She misses her partner. 🥹
And it is pretty clear to me, at least, that Scully is very bored with whatever she’s been assigned to do at Quantico. I mean, all we’ve been shown so far is that she teaches new FBI recruits about autopsies, and I can definitely see that getting old for her. Just like Mulder, Scully loves solving cases and working out the different pieces of the puzzle. It must get boring to just do “normal” autopsies for demonstration, and not be able to do any real science or investigating.
Maybe her boredom explains some of why she isn’t more skeptical of the existence of this primate flatworm creature? She’s delighted to just have something new to investigate, something she helped to discover? You’d think she be more shocked about the existence of such a creature.
Perhaps because in theory, this “monster” could be explained with science. I mean…it’s a big stretch, but sure. Genetic mutations and whatever, something about radiation, and you’ve got a primate flatworm. I can see that being more believable to Scully than aliens, because at least there’s some science there.
Mulder and Scully’s “secret” meetings
Just a short note here that I do appreciate that Scully and Mulder’s “secret” meetings have moved from the Watergate parking garage to a random bench (somewhere on the mall?)
I am a little surprised though that no one at the FBI seems to mind that they worked together on this case? Yes, Mulder was assigned to the case directly. And I guess Scully presumably did get permission to do the autopsy from the FBI, or Quantico at least? But I did think part of the point of closing the “X-files” was to separate Mulder and Scully, because the FBI higher ups and other secret government conspirators were concerned they were too good when their forces were combined.
And yet, it has to be clear from Mulder’s case report that Scully also contributed to solving the case, right?
Maybe Skinner’s the only one who read the case report, and he is just following orders and won’t snitch on Mulder and Scully.
Anyway, enjoy these two cute moments from their bench meetings. I love them.
Flatworm fact check
OK, I do feel the need to do a little bit of “science interlude” regarding flatworms here.
First, they aren’t all parasites. Actually, I’m fairly certain the vast majority of the thousands of “flatworms” (Platyhelminthes) are free living. And some of the marine species are actually very pretty!
Christ, I went down a Wikipedia rabbit-hole trying to find pictures of pretty flatworms and made the discovery that “Bedford's flatworm” engages in something called “penis fighting”. I’m sorry, but I feel the need to share this somewhat unfortunate and disturbing information.
Nature is WEIRD.
Anyway.
I did appreciate the little inclusion of Scully doing her own research (using an early 90s computer encyclopedia, hahaha). She’s a medical doctor, so it does make sense that the main information she would know about flatworms is that a small number of them are parasitic. So, the show does at least do its own little bit of fact-checking here, including the information that most are free-living and are carnivores, and are hermaphroditic.
What the episode doesn’t exactly make clear is why this primate flatworm hybrid monster is attacking people? Even in the case of parasitic flatworms, they become parasites when another organism eats eggs or larvae…not when a flatworm bites the organism. And, as we learn later, Fluke-dude, like many flatworms, is capable of asexual reproduction, so he doesn’t need to infect humans to procreate.
But, overall, I’ll accept the weird science the show is trying to do here. It’s actually good that they don’t try too hard to explain what is happening, how the Fluke-dude came to be, or what exactly he is doing. Which brings me to:
…Radiation fact check?
OK, so the conclusion Scully comes to is that the Russian freighter ship was carrying a bunch of radioactive waste from Chernobyl. In that waste, there were some flatworms, and I guess maybe/probably also some bits of human tissue? Blah blah blah, somehow the combination of radioactive waste and flatworms (and human tissue?) caused a mutation that created a flatworm-primate hybrid.
…What?
That’s a lot of steps in DNA mutation/evolution that you’re skipping over there, Scully!
The Chernobyl disaster did cause some immediate mutations in plant and animal life in the area, with baby animals born with physical deformities and such. But there weren’t like, whole new species created, and especially not the combination of an invertebrate flatworm with an evolved vertebrate primate/human form.
That. That is not how DNA mutations caused by radiation work.
And like, I know that the effects of the Chernobyl disaster weren’t really known still in 1994, but come on. Scully is a scientist, and it’s wild that she came to this conclusion, skipping over how evolution and DNA mutations and hybrid animals actually occur.
Again, as I stated earlier, I do appreciate that the writers didn’t try to dig too deep into the science with this explanation, because it would’ve sounded ridiculous if they did. Yes, this explanation is still improbable, but at least basically all they did was throw out “Radiation scary, creates new organisms, bad!” and didn’t expand on that.
So, Okay. Sure. Chernobyl Radiation = Primate flatworm.
Early 1990s: The former Soviet Union is probably hiding all sorts of weird shit from us. 😉
Supportive A.D. Skinner
I already touched on this earlier, but I am really enjoying the small evolutions of Skinner’s character in his minor roles in these early season 2 episodes. Last episode we got the hint that he hates The Smoking Man, when Skinner kicked him out of his office and didn’t even punish Mulder for his impromptu Puerto Rico trip (I mean, except reassigning him to that wiretapping case).
In this episode, first, Skinner doesn’t reprimand Mulder for shouting at him when he was (seemingly) in a very important meeting of other assistant directors. In fact, Skinner just looks amused and a little exasperated that Mulder shouted “up to your ass in raw sewage” to a room of other important FBI folks.
And we learn that Skinner didn’t want the “X-files” to be closed. He, at least, can see how useful that unit is, and how effective Mulder and Scully are at solving cases.
“You have a friend at the FBI”
So, Mulder has a friend in Skinner, though I don’t think Mulder really fully grasps that yet.
But this episode we learn that Mulder has another friend who wants to help him. A mysterious voice on the phone, who also passed a newspaper to Scully to help her solve this case. A friend who wants to help show how important the “X-files” unit really is.
Unclear if this voice itself is a friendly one, and just slight spoiler: this character will continue, and it continues to be unclear the loyalties of this character. But for now, it appears there is another “Deep Throat” like person out there, eager to help Mulder continue his investigations when possible.
Our “Completely Platonic Coworkers”
Mulder is only considering staying because he doesn’t want to completely be separated from Scully 🥹
Scully misses Mulder, and his crazy theories 🥹
Scully considers Mulder more than a coworker—she will miss just talking with him if he leaves 🥹
The 90s™
Mostly I’ve just got here 1) Scully’s large desktop computer and the fact that she was using some sort of early 90s computer encyclopedia to look up stuff about flatworms and 2) The premise of the “Ah, Chernobyl radiation scary!” I just feel like there was definitely a time in the 90s when people were really scared of what sort of weird effects all that radiation would have on nature. Not that radiation isn’t still scary, but I feel like TV shows and such aren’t so fixated on that storyline anymore? There’s a Buffy episode that also includes a premise about weird experiments in the “former Soviet Union” and I dunno, to me, that very premise just screams “early 90s, still afraid of Cold War”.
The X-Files is a comedy
The show is starting to get into some of its funny moments, so I think this will become another recurring section. Probably not every episode, as some are indeed very dark, but there are often just funny moments I feel the need to comment on/include, so they’ll go here when they happen
Goofs/Bloopers/Fun Facts
Well, I already detailed my main “gripes” with parts of the storyline above, so let’s just get into a bunch of fun facts:
The Flukeman was played by Darin Morgan, who would later go on to write some of the best episodes
Brother of Glen Morgan, who was already a writer on the show (“Squeeze”, “Ice”, “Beyond the Sea”, among others from season 1)
Apparently Glen could not fathom seeing his brother as “Flukeman”—he once saw him in his trailer in the costume and make-up and just walked right back out
Apparently, when David Duchonvy later met Darin when he was writing “Humbug”, he had no idea that they had actually already met because he had only ever seen the Flukeman in full costume.
The costume took six hours to put on. It dissolved in water, so had to be remade every day. The costume also didn’t allow for Darin to breathe through his nose, so he couldn’t eat while wearing the costume.
He once had to wear it for twenty hours straight
My god. Poor guy! Why would you make him do that for that long?!
(Note: slight image of Flukeman in following GIF, but nothing of the gross face)
Lake Betty Park does actually exist in New Jersey! Good job, writers!
Chris Carter was inspired to write this episode when he had to treat his dog for worms
Overall Thoughts/Summary
Episode rating: 7/10. Look, it’s hard to get around the fact that this is overall…indeed a very gross episode. And yes, I know I spent a fair amount of time complaining about certain plot points and how they tried to explain the Flukeman’s origins.
But, despite that, I really do think this was overall a fairly solid episode. Not great, but not bad, and certainly a little above average. The episode moved quickly, the writers didn’t try to explain too much science that they really don’t understand, and we also got small little additions of government interference with the mystery “friend at the FBI” from that voice on the phone. The acting was good, and I actually did think the “Flukeman” creature was pretty well done. It’s an original monster, and because they didn’t really show the creature until more than halfway through the episode, the suspense was there…keeping you worrying about what lives in the sewers.
Not an episode I will eagerly rewatch, because it is gross, but I did enjoy it.
X-files cases “solved” to date: Total for the series is now 21/26, as this case was definitely solved, though, uh, left unfinished. We’re at 1/2 cases solved this season so far.
Next week we have “Blood”, which I remember somehow involving “Ah, modern (90s…) technology is scary” and possibly hallucinogens? We’ll see if that memory is correct.
We’re getting closer to Mulder and Scully fully working together again, but it’s still a couple episodes away. I am enjoying their small interactions, their “I just can’t stay away from you, please investigate with me” attitude. The cute flirting hasn’t stopped even though they work in different locations.