The X-Files Mini-series Episode 4 Recap

The premise of the fourth episode has Mulder and Scully investigating a death that couldn't have been done by a a human being. Looking for clues from the episode title, I wondered if this could be a Victor Eugene Tooms episode, as the premise sounds exactly like his first episode. It's unlikely, and it shouldn't be. This season needs to stand on it's own. The most infamous episode of The X-files that was banned from television is Home, about an inbred rural family. Are there clues to be gained from the title? I hope not.

We've seen three episodes so far. None of them are classics, I wouldn't rank any of them as top episodes. Episode 3 is the best, but the mood never reaches the level of creepiness that the original run did so well. Check out my X-files mini-series recaps.

Mulder and Scully.

Recap: Episode 4 Home Again
The third episode is the best of this season, but it never felt dark enough to compare to the original series run. I never got away from the feeling that the monster was always a man in a lizard costume.

A city official named Cutler is forcing homeless off the street. When Cutler goes up to his office, a strange looking guy appears on the street after a garbage truck stops for a minute. A shadow appears at Cutler's door after his lights go out and phone cuts out. At this point Cutler pulls out a revolver from his desk drawer. Did hey really have an unsecured, loaded weapon in his desk drawer? That's got to be some kind of violation.

Cutler has a gun and he's not afraid to use it.

Cutler gets I ripped apart, literally. The added gore still surprises me. The trash man walked barefoot on broken glass after the door exploded and then ripped Cutler's arms off. Trash Man tosses the arms into a garbage truck and then hops inside. Roll the theme song.

The Trash Man cometh.

At the scene, Mulder and Scully find a footprint with no ridges. Scully has to leave suddenly when she gets a call that her mom had a heart attack. Do we have enough episodes to delve into something like this? It feels like trying to cram too much in. With the limited number of episodes are the writers trying to wrap up as much as possible in case the series doesn't get another season?

The scene of crime has cameras that were knocked out of place with no help of identification. Very convenient for the perpetrator. Mulder finds a used band aid stuck to his shoe and saves it, for science I assume.

AT the hospital, Scully works in her son William again. Is there going to be any payoff to that? He's mentioned often and even imagined in episode two. Scully is upset to learn her mom changed her living will to do not resuscitate.

Landry, Mulder, and Huff.

School board president Nancy Huff is arguing with another city official Landry. She doesn't want the homeless moved to a vacant hospital as proposed, as that puts them within two blocks of a school. She posits one of the homeless people killed Cutler, and that puts the children at risk. A homeless man interrupts the conversation to tell Mulder "Band aid nose man." How convenient. The graffiti near the crime scene has also disappeared.

Mulder took the band aid to the lab, but it is completely clean. The Material is neither organic nor inorganic.

The street graffiti that disappeared was taken. Two guys cut a portion of the billboard to resell it to an art gallery. The image actually disappears this time and the two art thieves are killed by Trash Man. The blank canvas is signed in the corner as Trash Man. Why did Trash Man rip second guy apart but not the first. What does he do with bodies? Where does this trash truck go?

This episode feels like a traditional monster of the week, though all of the episodes move quicker and don't create the mood the old ones did. It doesn't spend enough time giving you that feeling of unease.

Nancy Huff is playing an old timey downtown song that lets you know something bad will happen. Trash Man appears. Who drives Trash Man's truck? The truck appears outside of lady's house. When it pulls away, Trash Man appears. Is he decomposing or what? He wears a bandaid on his nose. Why? Is it because trash smells bad? What is the method to his killing? He appears inside the house and then outside within seconds. He throws some of her in the trash amd some in the truck, jumping back in again.

Scully's mom dies after telling Mulder her son's name is William too. Giving up her son for adoption is weighing heavily on Scully.

The lab is able to determine from where the paint from the Trash Man signature was obtained. Scully's has super fast internet on her phone. She knows the paint store that sells the exclusive paint in seconds. We get a heels and a back in the day joke in one line, how quanit.

They follow the buyer of the paint to a rundown, abandoned house . He points them to the basement where they see a guy that looks kind of like trash man but apparently blind. They find an artist and his studio in the basement. The artist insists on no lights. A sculpture of a head has a band aid on the nose. The artist insists if I cant see them, and they can't see me, I'm safe.

The artist claims he willed the trash man to existence. The emotion popped into the artists head to use violence, and now trash man uses it, killing people. The artist talks about responsibility and trash. People throw things away and then it's not their problem. When it's out of sight, it's out of mind.

The Trash Man sculpture.

Scully sees flashbacks of William's birth. The trash analogy connects with her, making her feel bad about giving her son up for adoption, like somehow she ducked responsibility.

Landry transplants the homeless to hospital. He smells trash and then the chaos of the hospital subsides. He's killed by Trash Man as Mulder and Scully are only seconds away but see no perpetrator exit the room.

The next scene depicts the artist leaving the abandoned house. His Trash Man sculpture now a smiley face, though there is a trash man mural on an exterior wall.

Scullys feels responsible for the son she gave up for adoption. She wants to know he is okay. She wonders if he thinks about her. How does he feels about what happened? She is plagued by these unanswered questions.