This article has MASSIVE spoilers for the episode ‘Mulder and Scully Meet The Were-Monster’ of The X-Files Miniseries.
It has been a long, long time since we’ve seen the lighter side of Agents Mulder and Scully. It might have even been since Season 7 since we had a good comedic episode of The X-Files. Obviously the movie ‘X-Files: I Want to Believe’ couldn’t go in that direction due to people’s heads exploding if they had. People’s heads basically exploded anyway since they thought that was the last X-Files anything ever again.
‘Mulder and Scully Meet The Were-Monster’ is as serious as the title would have you believe. The title harkens back to the old Universal classic comedy/horror Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (as well as Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman). Not only is it great to see these characters taken less seriously, but this might be the best funny X-Files episode ever.
‘Were-Monster’ starts out with a couple getting high on huffing spray paint. They accidentally walk up on an attack and come face to face with a reptilian monster. The monster flees the scene leaving dead bodies behind it. After the credits, Mulder and Scully are called in on the case.
Before Scully lets Mulder know about this particular case, Mulder is reminiscing about how many of his old cases had been proven to be natural phenomena or straight up hoaxes. One of the hoaxes turned out to be a advertising scheme. Mulder is disillusioned. He recalls how he is now a middle aged man looking back on his life’s work with a bit of disappointment. This scene is great, because you see how Mulder has changed a little since we last saw him.
Once Scully pulls him back into the field, Mulder sets out to debunk the new monster case only to figure out really quickly that this case is one hundred percent about a real monster. Even with this being a true creature case, everything isn’t what it seems.
This episode has been out for a decent amount of time. Therefore the rest of this review will discuss almost every aspect of the plot. You have been warned.
After a hilarious exchange with the motel owner, who regularly spies on his guests though peep holes in the walls, Mulder tracks down the monster. The Were-Monster turns out not to be so much of a man turning into a monster, but a monster who unwillingly turns into a man. The attack in the woods was made by a human who ended up biting the monster. The human bite somehow allows the monster to turn into a human.
The creature takes the name Guy Man and starts a new life. The following sequence is one of the funniest and possibly profound stories captured in The X-Files. Guy explains to Mulder about how things changed for him. As a monster, he was a simple animal, but when he turned into a human he was self aware. He needed clothes and had a yearning to find a job. The entire conversation is hilarious. The humor doesn’t just come from Guy’s lack of understanding of humanity, but from his urges as a human. He doesn’t quite understand humans in some ways, but understands things better than a normal person in others.
One of the funniest bits is where Guy retells how he ran into Scully earlier in the episode. Scully already transcribed how Guy just freaked out, wrecked his workplace and ran before she could talk to him. Guy recounts that Scully came into the store, seduced him and had crazy sex in the backroom while she exclaimed, “You’re an animal!” Mulder disbelieves this with, “That did NOT happen.” Guy admits that it didn’t and since he’s become human, he’s felt the need to lie about his sex life.
It turns out that the real killer is a human. When the killer is apprehended, you don’t really care, other than knowing that Guy won’t be blamed for the crimes. Scully doesn’t even care. She doesn’t let the killer finish his back story and has the police take him away in mid sentence. This is amazing, because the episode knows that after the amazing Were-Monster story, the killer was just a loose end. Who cares?
Mulder, now believing Guy, finds him stripping in the forest. He watches the man turn into a beast before his 10,000 year hibernation. Mulder finds the evidence he needs to feel validated and we get an amazing journey into hilarity.
‘Mulder and Scully Meet The Were-Monster’ is a bizarre and hilarious experience. Despite it being an episode that you’re not to take seriously, it might be the best of the miniseries. The acting is on par, but the script is beyond great. It pokes fun at us all for being busy body humans that are way more predictable than we would like to admit. It takes a monster becoming human to show what we are at our base. You don’t have to look too deep into the themes of the episode to enjoy it, which is its greatest strength. It can be profound or just plain funny. This is the best of what the X-Files has to offer.
