'The X-Files' Season 11, Episode 8: 'Familiar'

After the last episode broke the mold and went the avant-garde route, this episode brings viewers back to the well, with an episode focusing on two FBI agents investigating the death of a young child in a small town.

Not surprisingly, Mulder thinks supernatural forces are at work, while Scully thinks that the monster in question is all too human.  Unlike a lot of their cases, both seemed equally plausible.  In fact, I was convinced that this would be an episode where the monster did turn out to just be a run of the mill human.  Not knowing which way the plot was going to go was a pretty welcome addition.  It made it more engaging for the viewer.

Ultimately, this episode gets to have its cake and eat it too.  It does showcase the horrors of mob mentality and rushes to judgment, but we also get some creepiness of the more supernatural variety, as witchcraft and demonic entities are at play.  The fact that the episode pulls off both as well as it does is one of its major strengths.

That being said, I'm torn on Mr. Chuckleteeth, the children's show character that acts as the primary form of the titular familiar.  It's effective enough, but it does fall in to that "Annabelle" trap of being so creepy that you wonder why any parent would want their kid anywhere near it.  For that matter, how are the kids themselves not weirded out?  Even those Teletubbie expies were freakish.

The climax itself was exciting and tense, but it in hindsight it did seem a little anticlimactic.  With all the talk of a door to Hell being opened, you'd expect something bigger than what we got.  As complex as things seemed, it all wrapped up very quickly. The fact that the agents didn't really do anything also ends up being a negative as ultimately, they were just along for the ride.

By and large, the script and acting are solid.  Characters act in a believable fashion.  Even when one of the cops goes off the rails and attempts a roaring rampage of revenge, you get why he's doing it.  The scenes of family members (and the town as a whole) being distraught over the deaths adds a bit of poignancy to the episode as well. 

This episode is not as strong as its predecessor, but it works well for what it is.  With only a handful of episodes remaining, seeing some forward momentum on the ongoing story would have been nice, but I'm not going to complain about getting a solid stand alone monster of the week episode. 

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