Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 11:33:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Randy Perry 
To: xfiles list 
Subject: Randy's 'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose' Review
Sender: owner-x-files@chaos.taylored.com


	Darin Morgan is a Fat Little White Nazi Stormtrooper

	Review of 'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose'
	by Randy Perry


"The human mind naturally seeks meaningful patterns and configurations in 
things that don't inherently have any."

There's something wonderful about watching a Darin Morgan episode for the 
third, fourth, fifth time.  Little details, nuances, connections that you 
miss on the first (or second) time suddenly become so clear.  And it's 
always a joy to watch Scully and Mulder being so scully and mulder -- 
moreso than any other writer (Chris Carter included) Darin Morgan 
understands Scully and Mulder, not just how they react to a situation, 
but how they react so PERFECTLY that you're simultaneously shocked at 
their reaction and laughing because it's true to their characters.  I 
think of Scully getting really pissed off in 'War of the Coprophages', 
and angrily shouting "Now where the hell are those roadmaps?", or Mulder 
flirting with Bambi's mind to get to her other assets.
	Another thing that makes Morgan's episodes wonderful to discuss 
is that they're seemingly filled with pop culture references and 
in-jokes, like the mashed potatoes from "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" 
and 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'.  But the trouble with this 
approach is that quite often references are assumed when none may be 
intended.  (I'm still unconvinced that the Mulder-sweet-potato-pie scene 
is a reference to 'Twin Peaks'; I think it's a total non-sequitur.  Now 
Mulder putting on a dress, that'd be a reference to 'Twin Peaks'...)
	'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose' is about this -- whether 
references are significant, whether or not someone has psychic abilities, 
whether or not a propane tank could be seen as a fat little white Nazi 
stormtrooper.  In CBFR, a serial killer is on the loose on the streets of 
Minneapolis.  His choice of victim: professional prognosticators.  Mulder 
and Scully show up on the scene because....  Well, just because.  They're 
there, that's all that matters.  In one of the episode's most hilarious 
scenes, Mulder and Scully show up at the most recent crime site, where 
the local FBI are getting leads on the killer from The Stupendous Yappi 
(Jaap Broeker); he accuses Mulder (Mulder!) of giving off negative 
energy, which inspires Scully to deadpan: "I can't take you anywhere."  
Yappi's information inspires the local FBI to put out an APB on a "white 
male, 17-34, with or without a beard, maybe a tattoo, who's impotent."  
How exactly does one issue this APB?
	Here's where the allusions may or may not begin.  The episode is 
set in Minneapolis, site of Scully's traumatic experience in 
'Irresistible' -- intentional, or not?  The victim's apartment was number 
66, the same as the address (66 Exeter St.) of Our Favourite Liver-Eating 
Mutant, Eugene Victor Tooms -- intentional, or not?  CBFR is such a good 
episode that these questions, while interesting, ultimately pale next to 
the quality of the storytelling.
	Enter Clyde Bruckman (beautifully played by Peter Boyle), an 
insurance agent with the peculiar, horrifying ability of being able to 
foresee how people die.  Mulder and Scully (read: Mulder) seek his help in 
the case.  Much of the information he provides is similar or identical to 
what Yappi (he of the autonomous eyebrows) had previously provided.  
Scully, so gorgeously skeptical, doubts Bruckman's ability; Mulder senses 
Bruckman is honestly psychic, and tries to get information out of him.  
The way that Duchovny plays the scene in the car, with Mulder in the back 
seat looking and acting like an impatient nine-year-old, asking Bruckman 
"But HOW do you know?" may be the episode's highlight.
	A lesser episode featuring a psychic who could foresee how people 
die might not have Mulder and Scully confronting their own deaths.  
Fortunately, Darin Morgan confronts this (it's an opportunity too good to 
pass up), and does so in such intriguing ways.  Bruckman, getting annoyed 
at Mulder's persistent, annoying questions, just says: "You know, there 
are worse ways to go, but I can't think of a more undignified one 
than autoerotic asphyxiation."  There has been speculation whether 
Bruckman was sincere or making a joke, and whether he was referring to 
Mulder or himself; I think it's quite clear that it's a joke made at 
Mulder's expense.  
	As for Scully, when she asks him how she will die, he says "You 
don't."  And personally, I think he's being sincere.  Maybe Scully's one 
of those 'Incorruptibles', like the guy in 'Revelations', and her body 
will never decompose; or maybe she won't actually die, either to be 
whisked away to some alien civilation of horny scifi geeks who crown her 
Goddess, or to have further government experiments done to her, giving 
her eternal youth.  Or something.  
	This is what I mean -- the small moments in a Darin Morgan 
episode are so funny, curious, and inconclusive that they beg 
discussion.  But they're not the only things that make his episodes so 
good, although they certainly help.  Morgan writes some of the more 
compelling stories The X-Files has produced, with odd-ball supporting 
characters that even stand out in the X-Files universe.
	Another thing -- Morgan's episodes are generally structured as 
'Scully Episodes'.  She solves the case here, as she also does in 
Morgan's great 'Humbug'; "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" is also at 
heart a Scully Episode, and she's the rational center in 'War of the 
Coprophages'.  But now that Darin Morgan isn't returning for season 4, 
and neither is Kim Newton (author of the great 'Revelations' and 
'Quagmire', both Scully Episodes), what's Scully gonna do?  And more 
importantly, who's gonna write episodes which show that Mulder is the 
whiny, megalomaniacal, immature little brat that we all know he is?
	I must also mention the ending of CBFR, and it's rather fitting 
to do so at the end of the review.  The ending to CBFR, with Bruckman's 
prophecy about a tender moment between him and Scully, can only be 
described as poetic.  "There are hits and there are misses."  And there 
are hits, indeed.

'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose' gets 10 little-cannibalistic-mutts-that-
you-want-to punt-into-heavy-traffic out of 10.

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