“We’ve been given another case, Mulder. It has a monster in it.” And so starts our third episode of the revived X-Files series. A much more funny, meta and easier to understand plot line this week gave fans a bit of breathing room and to enjoy the X-Files almost as much as the actors do during this episode.

The beginning of the episode starts with Mulder being very pessimistic about monsters and such being real. How he had wasted so much time on that nonsense and how he needs to put it away. Scully then of course reveals the monster case they are to go investigate.

Our favorite duo go out to Oregon where we have already seen two very high people and one exasperated dog catcher see a monster. It’s tall, semi resembles a lizard and bites peoples necks. Mulder and Scully start digging in and have a close encounter with the monster in a parking lot along with the dog catcher again. They find two more victims as well.

Mulder goes to a psychiatrist (hah!) and is told this wacky story about a were-lizard, but it also fits as the creature can shift between a man and lizard and the show had shown a very obvious suspect. Mulder also finds out the motel owner is a voyeur and somehow does not immediately check himself and Scully out of there and instead finds out his suspect is in the next room, or was until he trashed the place and left.

Scully also finds the suspect, working at a cell phone store. This lead doesn’t pan out as he suddenly flips out, trashes the shop and leaves it as well. Scully then does another autopsy and Mulder goes searching for the monster. He finds him in a cometary and what goes down is a hilarious ‘fake’ fight and confession from the monster.

Rhys Darby plays the were-lizard and I would happily watch a series of him being the were-lizard and trying to figure out humans. I liked best that we figure out it isn’t the usual experiment gone wrong and the man turns into a beast. Instead it’s the other way around. The lizard man is somehow turning into a human and is terrified/confused about it. He doesn’t understand this need to suddenly wear clothes, or get a job because how will he pay his bills and save for retirement? He even lies about his sex life and admits he has no idea why.

Mulder wants to believe him, but ends up not being able to and it makes the man-creature mad and he runs away. Mulder is then called by Scully who is trying to tell him (as she has for the past twenty minutes of the show) what she found out from her autopsy when she is attacked. Mulder calls in backup and goes to rescue Scully. She of course handled it all herself and we find out the dog catcher is the actual killer.

The end of the episode Mulder finds the man again and while they are shaking hands he turns into his lizard self again. He runs off into the forest with a little skip in his step and we’re left with a Mulder who might just believe again.

I loved all the one liners and meta going on in this episode. For anyone who missed it here are all the ones I can remember:

• The stoners (Tyler Labine and Nicole Parker) at the beginning were seen in the regular series as well in the episodes, “War of the Coprophage” and “Quagmire.”
• Mulder and his pencils. Usually he throws them at the ceiling, but this episode he throws them at his ‘I Want to Believe’ poster. I loved that Scully was mad because it’s her poster now.
• The motel owner played by Alex Diakun has been in several of the X-Files episodes before as well as the second X-Files movie.
• Mulders still rocking those red speedos *whew*
• Mulders ringtone is the X-Files theme. Very meta of them to do. Also loved the dog catcher telling him how to use his cell phone camera properly.
• Daggoo the dog. A long running trend with Scully in the X-Files is character references from the book Moby Dick. She tells Mulder he’s like ‘Ahab’ chasing the white whale once. She was often referred to as ‘Starbuck’ by her father. Scully used to have a dog named ‘Queequeg,’ who is another character in Moby Dick and so is ‘Daggoo’ who Scully adopts at the end of the episode.
• Scully’s line about being immortal tipped me off but I couldn’t remember why. I looked it up and it seems that in a season three episode a psychic told her and Mulder how they would die. Scully was told she wouldn’t, so she was then referring to that.
• Finally in the graveyard, there are two headstones; one with the name Kim Manners and another with Jack Hardy. Both of these were real people who worked on the X-Files and have since passed away. Hardy worked a lot with creator Chris Carter and especially on the X-Files movies. Manners was the main director of episodes for the X-Files during its 9 seasons run (52 episodes total).

Here is a sneak peek at next week’s episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U16trPfgxyY