In which EUGENE VICTOR TOOMS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

“Do you believe them?”

“…Of course I do.”

Ohhhh my first thought when I started watching this was: ‘What if this episode isn’t about Eugene Victor Tooms?’ What if this is just the show trolling me and everyone is laughing at my hopeless naivety right now??’ Which should tell you two things. One, that I have become very paranoid since watching this show. Two, that I was really excited to see Tooms again. And let me tell you, I flat out loved this episode. Lets go!

So we start out not with Tooms escaping through the prison door hatch as we expect, but by seeing him let out on bail. I can’t even describe how much I love this twist. Because of course he never WAS connected properly to all the murders. For some reason when he attacked Scully I just assumed he was tried for the murders too but looking back…of course he wasn’t! I just love that the show threw this at me; it was completely unexpected and yet completely made sense.

But meanwhile something even more interesting is going on – Scully is being chewed out by Some Boss Guy (have we seen him before? What happened to fat dude?) in front of…THE CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN!!! Shit, we haven’t seen him in a while, have we? Look I don’t even care that he doesn’t have a name, the ONE thing I know about this show is that he is important. But that aside, it’s awesome that we see the actual fallout of the weird ass stuff that Mulder and Scully do all day at work. Especially since Scully was initially assigned to the X Files to debunk them and shut them down and I’m guessing there are some people that are pretty pissed of at her for doing basically the exact opposite. Some Boss Guy certainly seems pissed, even though Scully claims they have a success rate of about 75% which of course immediately makes me want to go through the cases we’ve seen so far and add up to see if she’s telling the truth. Or are they doing more cases we don’t see on screen at all? Maybe ones that just aren’t as interesting, investigated off camera perhaps? Intriguing thought anyway. I’ll be watching to see if Mulder references the case of the Giant Rat of Sumatra or something, then I’ll know for sure, but until then I’m assuming we see everything they work on.

Anyway, despite Mulder’s best efforts, Tooms is set free and placed with a foster family. Mulder keeps watch on him in the most hilarious way possible while Scully goes to the old Detective guy from ‘Squeeze’ to find more evidence. He tells her that one body was never found and they realise that some evidence must be on that body that would connect it to Tooms. It bothers me a little that they were just able to go and dig up the old chemical plant where the body is without any trouble, but I guess it’s not that important. It also bothers me that the old Detective just finds the body by ‘intuition’. I think they were trying to make some point about new technological methods vs. good ol’ fashioned police work, but it was somewhat lost on me.

Meanwhile, Mulder falls asleep on a stakeout and only just manages to stop Tooms from killing again. It actually reminded me of how frickin’ creepy I found the first episode with Tooms, because GOD I was on the edge of my seat the whole time he was stalking that guy in his house! In Tooms they have created a really terrifying monster. Not even a monster really but…you know what I mean. The guy can just get you. Anywhere.

So Scully joins Mulder on his stakeout and there’s this whole scene where she tries to call him ‘Fox’ but he gets all awkward about it and he makes some quip about iced tea and love and OH FUCK IT JUST MAKE OUT ALREADY YOU ARE SO CLEARLY IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER IT’S ALMOST PAINFUL TO WATCH omg seriously though how fucking cute was that whole scene?? I just KNOW some of you were waiting to see the iced tea line in the quote-of-the-episode above but NO. I will make you WAIT for validation, shippers! For I have become one of you.

But if I was nervous when watching random dude get stalked by Tooms, I was pretty much having a heart attack when he SHOWS UP AT MULDERS APARTMENT. On a side note, it’s nice to see someone other than Scully being stalked by a monster for once. But Tooms doesn’t kill Mulder, instead framing him for beating him up. Which is…pretty smart actually? This episode is so great at screwing with my expectations! I love it! Also it’s pretty terrifying to find out how smart Tooms is. He may be acting on instinct, but he’s plenty resourceful. It’s a great way to up the ante from last time, and make him an even more threatening adversary. Also, the doctor lady who examined Tooms was distractingly beautiful. Just sayin’.

Scully lies to Some Boss Guy to save Mulder (pause for awwwwwwwwww moment) and then pretty much cracks the case single handed by realising that Tooms’ teeth marks are on the skeleton they found. I haven’t said this in a while but TEAM SCULLY. So they finally have enough evidence to go after him, but it’s too late for poor Doctor Monty the psychiatrist, who Tooms kills to finish his cycle of doom.

I’m gonna straight out admit it - the endgame is pretty awesome. Tooms and Mulder have a yellow gooey battle under a new shopping mall until Tooms is escalatored to death by Mulder’s quick thinking. I swear, I used to be terrified of escalators sucking me in like that when I was a kid and CLEARLY I WAS RIGHT THE WHOLE TIME. I mean, that is GROSS. But fantastically cool all the same. There’s a kind of a weird scene at the end where Mulder stares at a cocoon and talks ambiguously of ‘change’, but I’m just gonna ignore that for now. I guess it’s foreshadowing for something. The season finale maybe? OH GOD I’M SO CLOSE TO THE END OF SEASON ONE. I WONDER IF I CAN FINISH IT BEFORE THE YEAR IS OUT??

TLDR: A brilliant episode! I loved seeing an old villain return and still be just as scary as before. This episode gave some much needed continuity, with Tooms and with seeing the official response to Mulder and Scully’s investigations so far. I was looking forward to this one and I wasn’t disappointed.

 A liverwurst flavoured 8/10