RUSH

AIR DATE: December 5, 1999
Written by David Amann
Directed by Robert Lieberman

        "Rush" was another solid X-Files episode. Solid in that it wasn’t "Hungry" which will always rank as one of the worse X-Files episodes ever, and it had excellent Scully and Mulder interaction which is the only way to make an X-Files episode work, especially when the Monster of the Week isn’t that interesting or compelling. So when we have supporting characters that we really don’t care about we are left hoping Scully and Mulder will at least be fun to watch which they were in "Rush". The best part of it was how they worked as a team and listened to each other because as we see in this episode when they do work as a team they are more efficient and get the job done. The best example of this is after Scully and Mulder interview Tony Reed and Mulder is going on about how it has to be ghosts in some way and Scully wants to check out Tony’s friends to see if they are involved in the murder. Mulder instead of dismissing Scully as he has in the past listens to her when she asks him to give her the benefit of the doubt. Mulder wisely agrees with Scully on this one so they go ask his friends questions because they both were right on this case. Scully was right that Tony’s friends were responsible for the murder and Mulder was right that it was some supernatural force that was responsible for the murder, too. Team work equals a good episode and a solved case. Also, this highlighted a problem with the episode where Scully and Mulder never seemed to be a part of the story as a whole. Never felt they were in any kind of danger and they seemed to be a step behind Max Harden and his cohort.

        One of the things they did differently with "Rush" was they didn’t do the old let’s put either Scully or Mulder in danger and have someone rescue them at the last minute. Of course, if they did that it would have been a repeat of last week’s episode where Scully rescued Mulder and Frank Black. The basic story is a familiar one of the new smart kid moving into town whose parents are divorced and who gets mixed up with the wrong crowd. The interrogation scene where Reed throws it back at Mulder for trying to connect to him was a good way of having Reed basically tell Mulder and Scully they are too old to understand what he is going through no matter how hard they try. The final kicker was Scully and Mulder weren’t affected by the force inside the cave because they were too old. It’s little things like this that keeps me watching the show.

        Now a few comments on "Rush":

- Okay, everytime they showed Max moving fast with him coming slightly in and out of focus I couldn’t stop thinking of the old tv show "The Flash" and to top it off I couldn’t get the theme song from the movie "Flash Gordon" out of my head. Try taking an episode serious with Queen going through your head ("Flash aha" then some mumble jumble I could never understand). One last thing with the scene was in the cafeteria where Max was killing his teacher I kept seeing Gene Wilder in "Blazing Saddles" showing how fast a gunslinger he is by not moving at all.

- Usually No Trespassing signs work if they are facing the direction people would be coming into the forest and not turned around so director Robert Lieberman can get a shot of the sign to show us Tony Reed wasn’t supposed to be there.

- This is the second episode in a row where Scully and Mulder arrive separately for a criminal investigation. Hmm, wonder what that means?

- The face being crushed in has to be one of the grossest things the X-Files people have shown us since "Home".

- Scully was too much into the old "there is no way this can be" supernatural mode. Everytime she came up with a new theory to Mulder as to why it wasn’t a ghost I just cracked up.

- Favorite line was after Tony Reed tells Scully and Mulder in not so many words that they are old, and Mulder comes back with "Bear with us…..cause we’re old and stupid." Gotta love that quick Mulder humor.

- Lucky for Max that was a multi-choice test and not an essay because it would be a lot harder to get the answers to those type of questions.

- Classic Mulder, he is the only one who notices the melted pieces of plastic on the floor so he could figure out it is the remains of Max’s shoes because he was moving so fast it melted the soles of his shoes. Oh yeah, it was quite funny when Max’s father looks into his closet and sees all those sneakers there. Good to see Max was always thinking about the little things.

- The surveillance video of the evidence room where Mulder spots the shadow of Chastity Raines getting the flashlight from the locker made me think of that old classic first season X-Files episode "Shadows". At least this explained why they made sure we saw the school jacket Chastity Raines was wearing. It was fun seeing Mulder and Scully’s old pal Charles getting all excited about something Scully and Mulder brought to him. This is one man who likes his work.

- Good tripping acting by David Wells as Mr. Babbitt in the cafeteria.

- The chair that was shown flying towards Mr. Babbitt sure didn’t look like someone who was moving fast and carrying it towards him. The director forgot that if one carries a chair they most likely will not be twirling it around as it appeared in the scene.

- Good to see "The Matrix" is influencing the X-Files with the last scene of us seeing the bullet moving slowly across the cave and having Chastity move in front of it.

- "Rush" was a decent episode though in the end there really wasn’t any meat to the episode since there wasn’t any growth in Scully and Mulder’s characters which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Claudia

E-Mail: Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

12/8/99

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