The Review Is Out There "Bad Blood" review (Season 5 Episode 12)

 

So y'all might be wondering why this particular review is on a different page than the rest of my blog. Here's why. While finishing the "Mind's Eye" review, I was editing the Season 5 page and noticed that I hadn't updated the links from "Bad Blood" on. I was working to fix it when I discovered that my "Bad Blood" review was missing. Just poof, gone. This has never happened to me before writing these reviews or using WordPress, and I still don't know why it happened. I know it was published because I found the tweets with links to the review, plus that particular review got a lot of buzz as it's a popular episode.

I found a draft of the "Bad Blood" review that I'd saved, when I was making several working versions of the review itself. The draft was only about half complete, and this was long enough ago that I really don't remember how the rest of the review went. If I finished the review from the draft and published it, that would put the "Bad Blood" review in front of the "Mind's Eye" review on the home page, which I really didn't want, as it's a lot of trouble to pin and unpin top posts. I decided instead to post the working draft of the review here, and finish it to the best of my ability. It's not the original, nor is it complete, but hopefully it works to fill the void. This is meant to be a temporary fix until I find a way to finish the review and get it back up on the site without disrupting the upload order of the reviews. Sorry about this. It's shitty and I would have preferred it to not happen to such a popular episode and review, but there it is. As always, thanks for reading.

-Meghan (Knife Ink)

 

 

Ahem.

Hi, y'all.

How have you been? The Revival treating you well? How about that last episode, wasn't it something? No? That's not what we're here to discuss? Sigh.

Okay. Confession time. I've been terrified of this review ever since I started this blog. Like "Never Again," I've sort of been looking for ways to review it since day one. Unlike "Never Again," however, it's because of the opposite reason: opinions on this episode are so not-controversial that critiquing it is going to be difficult.

Years and years of fan praise and even the ringing endorsement of Gillian Anderson herself have made this episode basically untouchable. To suggest that "Bad Blood" is even slightly less wonderful than its reputation indicates is, I'm fairly certain, a violation of the Code of X-Phile Conduct. I'm also pretty sure it's the 11th Commandment left out of the Bible. "Thou shalt not criticize 'Bad Blood.'"

"Bad Blood" is so popular that even back when I was a newbie Phile, binge-watching alone and uninfluenced on my Kindle Fire, I knew its name from nothing more than a few initial Google searches I made after watching the Pilot. "Oh yeah," I said to myself. "That's the one where Mulder and Scully have different perspectives! I heard that one's really funny!" What I didn't know is that it was really funny and also apparently the crowning achievement of television, the comedic episode by which all other comedic episodes would forever be judged. All hail ye, mighty Vince Gilligan brainchild. 

This episode, of course, takes its place amongst the very best comedic episodes of The X-Files. But while episodes like "Small Potatoes" and "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" are all happily playing football together in the field, "Bad Blood" is the star quarterback making muscles at crowds of adoring fans. Who would dare to try and dethrone the king?

All of the hype isn't unwarranted. I'm in no way trying to say that "Bad Blood" isn't every bit as funny as people think it is. It's hilarious. It makes me laugh out loud. But, of all episodes that fans would rescue in a fire...really? This one? This is the one you'd choose?

And, um, I'm not kidding. That's the one you chose.

If this is your all-time fave, that's fine. You like what you like. But, individual preferences aside, the fandom has also placed this episode on a pedestal that it never needed to be on.

What I mean is, "Bad Blood" is a funny, clever, memorable, entertaining episode. It's not the Second Coming. It's not even Vince Gilligan's greatest comedic script (hello, "Small Potatoes").

Sigh. Here's my explanation, officer.

There is no comedic episode of The X-Files with such an obvious formula as "Bad Blood." Mulder and Scully recount their different perspectives of a case. That's it. Now, formulas aren't necessarily bad things. In fact, in comedy a good formula often works quite nicely, because it provides a nice foundation on which jokes are set up and paid off. 

Now, the joke of the jokes, if you will, is that on their own, on paper, they're not particularly hilarious. They work so well because of the delivery. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are just fantastic in this episode, and it's their performances which make everything so funny.

At this point the draft cuts off. If I recall correctly, basically the rest of the review was trying to convince you that "Bad Blood" is not the Messiah, which I still believe to be true. I'm going to find a way to finish the review eventually, but as for right now, this will have to do as I'm inching ever closer to "Fight the Future" and there might be big special plans for that. In any case, my criticisms of "Bad Blood" haven't really changed since the review was published, but I want to be clear that I still love the episode and watch it all the time. Good television is good television, and credit should be given where credit is due.

Again, sorry about this, and thanks for reading. -M

Final Score 9/10