By John Keegan
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With the central mystery being so simple, this episode was all about the little details. This series has always been good at keeping the details straight, so it’s no surprise that a lot of familiar theories and ideas come up along the way. That’s one of the things I really like about this series. While it would be easy to change up the rules from episode to episode, they try very hard to keep the supernatural elements within a certain set of conditions.
The episode could have relied overly much on the Linda Blair references, some of which were so good because they were so horrible, but they tried to make her character viable on its own. That can be difficult, as many fans of “X-Files” can attest. In essence, this character could have been played by anyone and it would have worked equally well, absent a few lines of dialogue.
Overall, this was a somewhat low-key episode with a well-timed guest appearance for the benefit of November sweeps. The series has been struggling in the ratings lately, but given the competition, that’s not particularly surprising. I missed some of the psychological complexities of earlier episodes this season, but it was definitely good to see previous continuity remaining at the forefront.
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