The X-Files: Salvage Rewatch

August 15, 2020 7:47 PM - Season 8, Episode 9

Scully and Doggett investigate the case of a salvage yard worker who died of a lengthy, debilitating, and undiagnosed illness, and reappeared as an apparently indestructible and unstoppable version of his former self, and with scores to settle.
posted by orange swan (2 comments total)

What on earth happened with the cremation? Nora was given her husband's ashes. Did the crematorium try to burn the guy, find his body wouldn't burn, and then say, screw it, let's just dump him in the nearest scrap yard and give the widow some uncollected ashes from the basement?

The gradual transformation of Ray into Metal Man was pretty cool, as was the car wrecking around him in the cold open.

Chilling denouement. The thing is, I don't know if Ray can be killed by being compacted, or even crushed to the point that he can't move.

"You're, uh... you're eating the tin foil...."
posted by orange swan at 2:31 PM on August 16, 2020

I really like that Doggett is a data-based investigator. I'm not going to run the maths on 4,300 times the density of steel, but those footprints are too shallow and probably would have crumpled a large chunk of asphalt.

(and invulnerability wouldn't extend to his shoes, which should have pulped)

But Scully going full Spooky again. I guess she's thrown in the towel and accepts the data - like a good scientist - instead of disbelieving it.

A bit of a retread of 'Trevor' (or 'The Terminator' for that matter)?

Yeah, the timing doesn't make sense or inconsistent. Like, he died/ was pronounced medically dead before he went metal whereas the metal doctor went metal and died of that.

Absolutely. The stuff of madness.
posted by porpoise at 2:52 PM on August 16, 2020