The X-Files season 11: Witches and kids’ shows make strange companions

Witches, demons, and a very creepy children’s show made for some missed opportunities on Familiar, the latest episode of The X-Files.

It’s not that Familiar was a bad episode of The X-Files. In fact, it is a perfectly fine monster of the week episode, assuming that you’re okay with an extra level of grimness. No one should call an episode with two gruesome child deaths easy watching, anyway.

But neither was it overly silly or offensive, compared to stinkers like First Person Shooter (season 7) or the astoundingly bad Space (season 1).

What bothered me was the disjointed, half-explored nature of some plot points in Familiar. It was a shame, really, because the world of witchcraft and demons is rarely explored in The X-Files. Even more interesting, there were hints of creepypasta-style urban legends, especially with a creepy children’s show that brought to mind the popular Candle Cove story.

Take the figure of the witch. This archetype’s role in the episode was worrisome because the one sort-of “witch” that we see is motivated by pain and jealousy. That’s Anna Strong, the jilted wife of the police chief who uses magic to get her revenge. It skirts a little too closely to “a woman scorned” to sit quite right.

Furthermore, there is no commentary about women and witchcraft. Think of the complicated history of it all, of the gender politics involved and the way “witch” has been used as an insult and a death sentence throughout history. We get some brief mention of that from Mulder, referencing the history of the Connecticut town like he’s the world’s most bored history teacher.

Unfortunately, that’s all we get for gender and social commentary. The episode seemed more focused on police officers who can’t get a handle on their emotions or their firearms (a very different and all-to-real horror in real life).

Poor Anna Strong

Also, Anna’s story was oddly flat. It’s strange, really, given that she should have a pretty compelling arc, if only we spent a little more time with her. Remember that her husband commits adultery and she turns to freakin’ dark magic to get her revenge. Not divorce, or passive aggressiveness, or even keying the other woman’s car. Anna goes straight to the bookshelf full of grimoires and goes to town.

This isn’t to say that her actions are morally correct by any means, but they should make for an interesting scene or two at least. Then her actions turn against her in a near-perfect definition of hubris. It’s a classical Greek tragedy, except with way more demons.

Why, then, did we see so little of her? Should Anna be relegated to the background, only to come out into the story in abrupt fashion at the very end?

Why were the men in Familiar dominating the story? Scully gets some work done, but she’s a lonely female figure here. There are two wives, Diane and Anna, who don’t quite rise out of their “concerned wife” or “anguished mother” statuses. They spend too much of their time in anguish. Otherwise, they are stuck in “mom” tropes — fixing lunch for their progeny, drinking a glass of wine in a moment of stress, dutifully taking their children to the saddest park in all of Connecticut.

Good monsters

At least the monsters were pretty interesting. In fact, they probably saved the episode. Familiar would not have stood out if it were just a bunch of sad people meandering about the woods. Mr. Chuckleteeth is pretty memorable, for one. That said, one wonders what the deal is with that television show. Would you let a young child watch a series that included creepy Teletubbies weeping black oil? At what point in the Mr. Chuckleteeth dance do you rip the television off the wall and throw it into a dumpster?

That creepy clip of the show, seen when Eggers is breaking into Chief Strong’s home, might have worked better if we were introduced to it earlier in full force. As it is, children are low-key watching Barney from hell, with nary a peep from the adults.

Seriously, not one grown up seems put off by that awful grimace of Mr. Chuckleteeth. Andrew, the unfortunate little boy from the beginning, even had a Mr. Chuckleteeth doll. Someone must have bought that for him, right?

Wouldn’t it have been more eerie if the show, played constantly in the background as it is for many families with young kids, started normally and grown more and more frightening? Maybe there could have been a reveal, where we see Mr. Chuckleteeth menacing around in the woods, then pan down to a perfectly normal looking doll.

Or, Emily could have been calmly watching that nightmare-inducing show. Then we cut to get mother’s point of view, where we see a blandly nice children’s series. Maybe that’s a bit too much like Candle Cove or Children of the Damned, but at least it’s a step in a more complex direction.

Unexplored avenues

Heck, that could be its own episode. It’s not that I think “haunted kids show” would make it amongst the best X-Files episodes, but it’s clear that there is unmined territory.

The X-Files could engage more with the horrors of the modern world. Remember previous episodes about malicious robots and government conspiracies? So, why couldn’t it take on more with this episode? It was a great opportunity to present a spooky, thoughtful comment on gender, parenthood, and what it’s like to be a child in the modern world.

Would that have worked? Maybe.

Next: The X-Files S11E8 recap and review: Familiar

At any rate, we got a Familiar that was more than a waste of an evening, but not by much. It’s worth checking out if you haven’t seen it, again assuming that you’ve got a strong constitution.

But revisit it? There’s simply not that much to glean from a second viewing. Overall, it’s a pretty standard entry that could have been so much more.