The X-Files: 2Shy Rewatch

April 21, 2020 8:00 PM - Season 3, Episode 6

After a woman is found dead in her car in Cleveland with the body fat missing from her corpse, Mulder theorizes that her death is the work of a serial killer who preys on women via internet dating chat rooms.
posted by orange swan (2 comments total)

I remember intensely disliking this episode over the subject matter - "dating" and "seduction."

The show is usually much better at putting a fig leaf (or at least vaseline) over the filming location, but Lonsdale Quay and the Vancouver skyline are very obvious. The area around the Quay is pretty much unrecognizable now, though - development has been absolutely bonkers over the last decade.

I know it's 1995, but Mulder's sample collection kit is... not good. The scoop spatula - what did he do with the contaminated instrument after taking a sample? Wipe it off on his pants leg?

The vial looks to be polystyrene (you can tell because it scratches so easily, in the morgue scene) with a polypropylene snap cap - not the greatest chemical resistance and very brittle. I'm pretty sure that transwabs of some kind were available then (the sampling stick goes back inside the borosilicate glass vial and features a positive lock, sometimes with tamper evident protection.

Wow, that's why Glynis Davies (smitten writer-landlady) looked so familiar - she's been in everything. That and I get smitten myself everytime I see her in something.

Lol, Lauren's sister/ roommate (?)'s CRT computer monitor has a dustcover (~11:45). Can't recall ever seeing one in the wild.

Though I had the same Logitech mouse that Ellen has.

The vision impaired girl noting that 2Shy smelled like dish detergent... if he had a profound lipid synthesis impairment (we heavily break down and modify dietary lipids before incorporating them into our cells, all cells need lipids [and cholesterol!] - so cannibalism makes sense here... but even in cannibalism, dietary human lipids are broken down first, too, which obviates the cannibalism thing although there is very limited amounts of cellular scavenging that occurs, and maybe the "goo" facilitates that, but how did the "goo" arise in the first place?) and had a profound lipid degradation issue, the causative agent of the later... might?

But the severity, survivability, and "solution" is all highly implausible to say the least.

I'm certain she smelled her mom's actual scent in 2Shy's apartment - not just her perfume, that's a shortcut for viewers/ non-sight-impaired.

I'm sure she would smell the feces from recently a recently dead body, but might not realize that's what happens.

The computer recovery and forensic stuff is bad, even for '95.

Scully holds her own in close quarter fighting, but yeah, mass and reach. And she's in daily-wear heels.

Good on Ellen, but out of character for Scully to set down her service pistol (which is nickle finished and appears to be a larger caliber/ frame than her previous black .32(? - .32 ACP in most pistols meets FBI service standards; and it was good enough for James Bond until the thing with Michelle Yeoh and Jonathan Pryce)).

That he dissolved the police detective indicates that he's a specific predator, not just in general survival mode.

Scully: "You didn't just feed on their bodies, you fed on their minds."

Monster.
posted by porpoise at 9:49 PM on April 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

I really hated the way the women in this episode are written. They were so needy and easily manipulated that it felt like a misogynist's take on what women without model-perfect looks are like. I didn't think Lauren or Ellen were significantly less attractive than Virgil Incanto. His looks are well enough, I suppose, but he does indeed look like a sweaty guy who would smell bad.

As for his landlady Monica, I shared her daughter Jesse's vicarious embarrassment. She really ought to have known better than to try so hard, and to keep trying to attract him, given that he was clearly uninterested to the point of being unfriendly and barely civil towards her. Honey, you make your play, and if the other person doesn't meet you halfway, you move on. As for her going in to his apartment to leave her poems, that shocked the landlord part of my brain. I don't know what the tenancy laws are in Ohio, but in Ontario that would be an illegal entry.

It was satisfying that Ellen got to be the one who shot Virgil, so much so that I kind of hope it launched her career in crime-fighting.
posted by orange swan at 5:53 PM on April 23, 2020 [2 favorites]