The X-Files: Fight Club (7.20)

Fight Club has one of the strongest, most absurd openings this show has ever done. Immediately we're aware that this is one of those goofier X-Files episodes, from the strange Jehovah's Witnesses riding their little bicycles to the exact same woman appearing at two separate houses one after another. Then we see two people who appear to be Mulder and Scully -- only they're not, and it's another example of the show depicting the old adage that everybody has a twin out there somewhere. Unfortunately, from that point until the closing credits, Fight Club becomes a rapidly nonsensical mess.

There's always been an awkward sense of desperation whenever Chris Carter writes one of his comedy episodes, as if he confuses Vince Gilligan's perceptive genius with simply writing scenes that are 'wacky'. The awkwardness hear spreads to Mulder and Scully, too, both behaving wildly out of character through most of the hour and notably in that initial FBI debrief that opens the show.

The story itself is convoluted and confused, Kathy Griffin giving a characteristically one-note performance as two identical twins, their presence together throwing off everything around them, resulting in irrational acts of violence. It quickly devolves into wrestling matches and counterfeit money hoodoo, the script spiraling into hysterics toward the end with boring recreations of the same scene seemingly over and over again. In the end, Mulder and Scully beat each other up and confess that the whole case was something accidental and too challenging to truly resolve. With that, Fight Club just sort of gives up.

There's promise here, but Chris Carter should have realized he couldn't at all build on an interesting foundation, and that an intriguing spark can't always be developed. Instead he actually made the damn thing regardless. Eh. D-

Credits
Guest stars Randall "Tex" Cobb (Bert Zupanic); Art Evans (Argyle Saperstein); Jack McGee (Bob Damfuse); Rob Van Dam (Opponent); Gene LeBell (Bartender); Kathy Griffin (Betty Templeton/Lulu Pfeiffer)
Writer Chris Carter Director Paul Shapiro