Eve’n Clonegirls Get The Blues
1×10 Eve
Episode summary:
Mulder and Scully investigate a pair of identical murders involving identical but apparently unrelated young girls. They uncover a eugenics plot and manage not to be killed by diet soda. Also, Deepthroat stops by to chat in the middle of the night because he has no life whatsoever.
Greenwich, CT!
A matchy-matchy jogging couple sees a little girl standing in her driveway holding a stuffed bunny. Where is her dad, you may ask? Sitting on a swing in the backyard. DEAD.
Commence with the screaming little girl.
FBI HQ
Vocabulary word from Scully:
Mulder’s favorite pickup line:
SLIDESHOW! Apparently, lots of cows have been bled to death over the years, but this is the first time Mulder’s seen a human victim of…
Social Services
Mulder and Scully head to Connecticut to look in on the girl from the driveway, Little Orphan Tina. Scully gets nothing re: suspicious folks around the house; Mulder asks some leading questions about Strange Phenomena and gets paydirt about “red lightning” and such, with a kicker:
But then Scully gets a call — there’s been “another one”!
California
So another murder. Same cause of death, same circumstances, exact same TIME.
Meanwhile, back in Greenwich, we get a scene of little Tina trying to bar the door of her foster care room against Unknown Intruder. She hides under the bed! The door gets kicked in! Someone grabs her! The bunny–
Back in California, the next morning, Mulder and Scully pointlessly recap what we just saw happen in the previous scene. Thanks for the needless exposition, guys. We were right there.
And then they knock on the door of the 2nd murder house, to be greeted by Tina a girl named Cindy Reardon who looks exactly like Tina. Scully asks the big question: adopted? Hell no, says Mrs. Reardon. But it was in vitro fertilization! Hmm.
Luther Stapes Center for Reproductive Medicine
A genial white-haired doctor explains to Dana Scully, MD, what in vitro fertilization is.
Scully asks some pointed questions of Doctor Grandpa, hitting on the name of a Dr. Sally Kendrick. Gramps gets visibly uncomfortable…and puts on a nice VHS tape featuring Sally. Turns out that the clinic discovered that she was tampering with genetics. Eugenics! They canned her, and she disappeared.
And now, Mulder wearing glasses:
Turns out he was trying to ditch her so he could meet up with Deepthroat, and chaw on some sunflower seeds.
The what now?
He points our agents to a mental asylum, so that they can pay a visit to:
The agents follow a guard down a Hallway Of Crazy Moaning to the cell of our favorite band:
Wait, Eve is Sally Kendrick?! She sure looks like Sally, but then there’s some crazy clone stuff going on, so maybe not! Whoever she is, she expresses affection by biting eyeballs. Also, she’s aware that there’s a bunch of others like her out there. And they’ve got 56 chromosomes!
The little girls are Sally Kendrick second-generation clones!
Stakeout
Mulder and Scully camp outside young Cindy Reardon’s house, discussing the case while staring right at Cindy with binoculars — until someone snags the girl! The agents rush the house.
Aaaaaanyway, someone body-checks Scully while Mulder explores the backyard.
And then another Eve (Sally?) bursts through a pane of glass carrying chibi-Eve. Mulder pulls a gun, and then Eve does too and sort of wins by default on that front. She even takes a potshot at Mulder, and then speeds off in a car which Mulder in high labrador fashion chases on foot, futilely.
A motel north of San Francisco
Older Eve and Cindy/chibi-Eve head into a motel room, where Tina is…tied up in the bathroom. The two girls exchange CREEPY SMILES. While the agents pick up a lead on the case, Sally drops some exposition on the girls, who then sort of seem to freak Sally out by being so chilled out about magically knowing that they should kill their respective fathers.
Also, the girls totally poisoned Sally’s soda with Foxglove. Oops! Convulsing Sally grabs a kitchen knife, and then…cut to cops outside! The agents bust into the hotel room! Sally’s dead, and the window is busted out!
And the girls snowjob the agents with a like Jonestown mass-poisoning story or something and blame it all on Eve 8.
Our heroes take custody of the Red Blazer Twins and start driving back to wherever. Then they take a bathroom break at the Hi-Way 49 Cafe, where, uh…
Everybody goes into the bathrooms, but then one of the hellions sneaks back out and drops some foxglove into a couple of the sodas. Mulder takes a sip! Does he know what’s up? Is he faking them out? He converses about his soda.
But Mulder forgot his keys inside! He goes back for them…and notices a rim of green on the counter! Foxglove! So he didn’t know.
So he rushes back out but tries to play it cool while SHOUTING SCULLY’S NAME and also KNOCKING THE DRINK OUT OF HER HAND. Somehow, the evil genius clone twins manage to twig that the game is up and bolt, which leads us to a chase through a truck yard. Mulder grabs ‘em, but then they start screaming and a couple of truckers make him let the girls go.
They ask the waitress if she’s seen the twins; she says no but points out that a bunch of schoolkids just left on a bus.
Mulder and Scully tear off after the bus in the car, but the girls were hiding under a tarp in a nearby boat the whole time. But Mulder was actually waiting for them, and grabs ‘em again!
They protest!
Wrapup
Mrs. Reardon burns Cindy’s picture. Cold.
Cut to the sanitarium, where older Eve talks to the girls, creepily, as is her wont, and then they get a visit from a doctor lady in a white coat. It’s Eve 8.
for about $230. Warning: may lead to nostalgia, compulsive viewing, starting of blogs.
The Proprietors Said,
September 9, 2008 @ 8:36 pm
[Josh] Thank you all for being so goddam patient between updates.
Justin Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 1:52 am
This episode was pretty crap, but in its defense, there’s a throwaway line earlier in the episode that explains that the guards don’t know what Eve looks like because she always insists on there being no lights in her room.
So that explains why they allowed her clone in.
Sort of.
The Proprietors Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 6:43 am
Sort of.
Heh. I think I may henceforth refer to this kind of writing as Diet Soda.
rtha Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 8:40 am
This episode is high up on the list of Crap X-Files Episodes, but your write-up makes me happy that I stayed up late a few weekks ago to catch the rerun. And I always wonder what the casting call requirements for the little girls looked like – “Must be creepy!”?
mrzarquon Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 9:07 am
As someone who grew up in Greenwich, CT, I can state with quite definitiveness that nothing that interesting happened there.
However, I cannot disprove that this explains the level of total psycho bitches who live there.
Nate Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 9:25 am
Reading this has been the high point of my week. Thank you.
The Proprietors Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 10:59 am
And I always wonder what the casting call requirements for the little girls looked like
[Josh] I like to think that they girls came as a package deal with Lili Taylor but then she had to back out at the last minute.
Esmeralda Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
I used to love this episode, even though it was full of holes.
Once I climbed Mt. Tabor to find foxglove with a nerdy-anarchist freind of mine. We wanted to see if we could make digitalis from the leaves, which of course is absurd, but we thought it would be really cool to have.
I think we ended up just getting bored and seeing if we could catch a high from eating one of the leaves.
…….
…
………..
Do you ever look back on stuff you did when you were younger and feel utterly perplexed?
Chel Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
I did think that they looked eerily like Lili Taylor. And how did I not know that Eve 6 took their name from this. They couldn’t even pick a good episode?
The Proprietors Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 8:29 pm
[Josh] It’s hard to imagine Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space” making it as a commercial pop-rock success, you have to admit.
That's what she Said,
September 11, 2008 @ 8:44 pm
I thought this episode wasn’t bad. Sure its cheesy and full of plot holes but its entertaining…the same can’t be said for space.
Maxwelton Said,
September 12, 2008 @ 6:37 pm
You know, if you had two 24 hour greasy spoons right next door to each other, and each closed for half an hour once per day to put more red-hots in the vending machine, you would, in effect, have a “Open 49 Hours a Day!” truck stop.
Too far?
The Proprietors Said,
September 12, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
[Josh] That’d, uh, that’d be 47 hours. A day.
Maxwelton Said,
September 13, 2008 @ 3:10 pm
Well, sure, if you’re actually going to do the math correctly. I guess I need daylight savings time to save me, or a third restaurant and shifts…I guess the question is did they use a real location, or was “49 hours per day” some sort of joke the set guys thought up?
Suze Said,
September 13, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
I think that an “Open 49 Hours A Day” truck stop is perfectly plausible . . . after all, time may not be a universal invariant in this zip code.
…yeah, I know.
Glad you’re back.
Chel Said,
September 15, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
I’m sorry, but I think Esmerelda’s story officially wins this thread.
Chel Said,
September 15, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
And JCFOS…I would like to see someone turn that into a Top 40 hit.
Heather Said,
September 16, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
I have absolutely nothing to add to this thread other than unwavering devotion and many thanks for coming back.
Oh wait…I’m a liar already. LOVED the Google comment. Seriously Scully? Google? I could slap someone.
Calraigh Said,
September 20, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
I’m so happy you guys are back on t’interwebs. So much so that I feel the need to sing:
” You maaaaaake meee feeeelll-miiii-hiiiiighty realllllll !!!! ”
Anyway. Yea, this ep sucked the big one but for some reason, creepy twins are always compulsively watchable. Also, Mulder in glasses-epic win. I’ve found it’s impossible to watch Californication these days because of the fact that maybe it should now be called ” Compulsification ” so X-Files is getting the full attention of teh DVD player.
I’d just like to take this opportunity to say, ” Tinapalooza ‘ made me laugh for 2 and a half hours straight.
Yea, well, it’s been a long day.. :)
Shalora Said,
September 21, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
Dude, Esmeralda even TOLD me that y’all had done this ep a while back and I still didn’t read until today. I am made of fail.
As seriously plot-holed eps go, I did rather like this one. But that’s not saying much. ;) Those little girls FREAK ME OUT, man. Kinda makes you wonder if they’re really good little actresses, or if their parents have a lock on the bedroom door and sleep with a knife under the pillow… ;)
And I must agree with Calraigh – Tinapalooza is made of win!
And yes, Chel, Esmeralda’s story totally wins the thread. And if you know her at all IRL, it’s /so/ like her to do crazy stuff like that. Awesome. :)
Shalora Said,
September 22, 2008 @ 11:10 pm
Oh, and your definition of hypovolemia = ROTFL.
sunburnfreezerburn Said,
October 30, 2008 @ 11:41 am
I hope there’s an update soon.. :(
adam Said,
October 30, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
i demand one update a month, minimum.
wendelah1 Said,
November 8, 2008 @ 12:51 am
I love your episode commentaries. When is the next update?
Wednesday Said,
December 24, 2008 @ 9:11 pm
this is like the best episode EVER.
Maddie Cakes Said,
January 3, 2009 @ 12:22 am
This was one of my favorite episodes. And your commentaries are hysterical. Please keep it up.
deborah Said,
March 1, 2009 @ 11:26 am
One of my faves, too. There’s something about fascinating about twins; especially creepy twins.
Amanda Said,
June 26, 2009 @ 11:25 pm
[Josh] It’s hard to imagine Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space” making it as a commercial pop-rock success…
—
Oh, I don’t know. I think “Lord Kimbote” could have rocked the music world. I would see them live, showing up in a horribly-crafted orange-alien-thing costume, of course.
:D
Dudes Said,
August 20, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
I don’t get the hate for this one in the comments. It’s definitely one of my favourite episodes, probably topping the list in the “creepy one-hit wonders” category (as opposed to the conspiracy episodes). The inexplicable shared knowledge / telepathic communication / incredibly detailed long-term plan is the best and creepiest part of it.. and when it comes right down to it, the patricidal, scheming little girls in this one really _are_ patricidal, scheming little girls and not some sort of monsters in human suits — clones or not, they’re human. It’s a subtler sort of monster of the week that was pretty effective on me. I guess it’s not very scary when you’re snarking your way through the DVD set, but to my mind it’s worth naming a band after (though I’m afraid I’ve never heard of the band).
X-Files never felt like it was trying to be scientifically plausible to me, so the fact that cloning doesn’t work like this really didn’t bother me — suspension of disbelief and all. (In fact, I have a much harder time suspending my disbelief on less technical points, such as how Scully can stay a hardcore skeptic for so long throughout the series after all she experiences..)