An emotional episode which really evolves on the character of Mulder and the abduction of his sister, Conduit is hardly perfect but does make for an entertaining hour. Regardless of its quality, it's still one of those forgettable early X-Files hours, only particularly memorable for that great moment where Kevin's binary drawings are revealed to be an elaborate picture of his sister when seen from overhead.David Duchovny gives an intense, powerful performance in this episode. He never fully unleashes any real emotion until the closing moments, where you see Mulder weeping in a church looking at a photograph of him and his sister. It's a really painful scene and gives you you're first real insight into Mulder's personality.
The main case of the episode is pretty good and differs slightly from the usual abduction cases the agents work on. It isn't a straight-forward alien abduction case, as there are many questions hanging over the disappearance of Ruby Morris. Was she abducted? Was she killed by her boyfriend? Has she just run away? Is her mother crazy? The only annoyance is the amount of things left unresolved. We are only given hints that aliens target different generations of the same family and we never really get any insight into why Kevin was a conduit. Eh, it's a little frustrating.
A reasonably successful episode, Conduit elaborated on both Mulder and Scully's personalities and featured an excellent performance from the late Carrie Snodgress as Darlene. Hardly a masterpiece but pretty intriguing in places. Rating B
Credits
Guest stars Carrie Snodgress (Darlene Morris); Michael Cavanaugh (Sheriff Jack Withers); Don Gibb (Kip); Joel Palmer (Kevin Morris); Charles Cioffi (Scott Blevins)
Writers Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon Director Daniel Sackheim
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