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The X-Files: “The Rain King”

Anyone else get the feeling that this should have been the last episode of the series? True, it helps on an atypical happy note -- something rarely seen in a X-Files episode. But it ends on a note of ambiguity too. True, two characters have their romantic problems resolved, but the romantic problems of the show's two lead characters -- FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully -- seem destined to continue.

And though I would like to be able to argue that the show continued to improve after this, it’s difficult to think of few episodes -- apart from an occasional exception like the Groundhog Day tribute “Monday” -- that were really all that great.

Indeed, the whole series starts going downhill after Season Six. In fact, some X-Files fans would argue that I was being excessively Pollyannaish at including Season Six in the list of good seasons.

Anyway, this is not exactly a classic episode, and in many ways, one might consider it quite forgettable. After all, the episode tells us nothing about UFOs or extraterrestrials or government conspiracies or even the whereabouts of Mulder’s missing sister. It could be argued that the morale of the story is borderline creepy -- act out in a psychotic fashion and you too can get the girl of your dreams -- and if the writer had not been so intent on creating a “comic” episode, he could very well have put a darker spin on this same material. But he doesn’t.

And yet I like this episode precisely because the writer resists the pull of his dark side. So many episodes in this series seem to toss in an unhappy ending just for the heck of it. And after a while, one gets tired of the constant reminders that yes, mankind is bad and the fight against evil is not so easily won. Most people don’t have to watch a TV show to know all that. They’ve learned it from personal experience.

And while one could argue that at this point we hardly needed yet another episode alluding to the unspoken romantic relationship between Mulder and Scully, it was nice to see an episode allude to that fact without hitting us over the head with it.

I found genuine humor in the scenes in which Mulder had to give dating advice to a guy who was even more emotionally repressed than he was. And, of course, Scully’s big soliloquy on the evolution of platonic love into romantic love was quite touching.

So should I feel happy about an episode that seems to argue in favor of a possibly lethal romantic obsession? Not really. But then one could argue that the episode is not about that at all. After all, the one guy who receives the most punishment in this episode -- the fraudulent “rain king” of the title -- is a guy who tries to be something he’s not. He pursues relationships for his own selfish reasons, and he ends up paying a price because of it.

For that matter, the emotionally obsessive weatherman who proves to be the true culprit of the episode also pays a price for not being himself. By repressing his true feelings for fear of rejection, he ends up ensuring his own loneliness. It’s only when he is encouraged by Mulder and Scully to conquer his fear that his romantic problems resolve themselves.

And if there’s hope for a guy so repressed that his very emotions can cause thunderstorms, then there just has to be hope for Mulder and Scully -- and by extension, the rest of us.