DISTRIBUTION:
RÉSUMÉ: Après avoir appris que Mulder pourrait être mort, les peurs de Scully sont accentuées lorsqu’une secte de fanatiques d’extra-terrestres enlève son fils William.
LIEU:
DATE: Hiver 2002
The episode begins with a narration by Josepho, the leader of the UFO cult - God came to him in a vision on February 26, 1991 during the Gulf War. His recon squad was ambushed and they took heavy casualties. They were about to die when he saw a vision, four soldiers who he calls angels. Viewers see the four run in and engage the enemy. When enemy fire strikes them, they are not wounded. After they defeat the enemy, they run off into the distance. Josepho quotes the Bible, "And behold, a whirlwind came out of the north and a brightness was about it and out of the midst came the likeness of four living creatures and they had the likeness of a man..." Josepho knows he was spared so he could deliver God’s message. Josepho concludes the narration, standing on the fully excavated UFO in Canada.
Brad Follmer is conducting a briefing for FBI agents who have been mobilized to find the son of FBI agent Scully. William was kidnapped by a woman. The Lone Gunmen are reviewing mug shots to try to identify her. Agent Doggett is in a coma, having been wounded trying to stop the same woman. Agent Comer, who earlier tried to kill William, remains in critical condition and his motives are unknown. Scully listens to part of the briefing, then walks into the hall to talk with Skinner. She doesn’t trust Follmer and heads out to find her son on her own. Reyes is at Doggett’s bedside when Skinner enters the room. She has been holding Doggett’s hand. Skinner says he did the same thing for wounded men in Vietnam. He doesn’t know if the wounded know what is being done, but he sees it as being like praying.
Scully phones Reyes and asks her to come to Scully’s apartment. When Reyes arrives, the Gunmen are there. They have identified the women who took William, but they did not tell the FBI. She is a wanted felon and a member of the UFO cult. Byers put a cell phone in William’s car seat before he was taken, and the Gunmen locate its signal in Warfordsburg, Pennsylvania. Workers are trying to open the top hatch on the UFO when the woman calls. The boy is safe. Josepho says he will send someone to get them. As they talk, the outer rim of the hatch begins rotating and the top of the hatch suddenly closes with two men trapped inside. Scully and Reyes run up to the vehicle in which the woman and William were traveling. It is parked at a truck stop where the woman made the phone call. Nobody is in the vehicle.
Reyes returns to the hospital to check on Doggett. He is undergoing a CAT scan, so she goes into the hospital chapel to pray. Follmer enters and is surprised to find her doing such a conventional thing. He tells her that the FBI could have been at the truck stop long before she and Scully got there and might have saved the boy. He says Comer has something to tell them. They go to Comer’s hospital room and he is still in critical condition. He has, however, written the word “jacket” on a piece of paper. Reyes goes to Scully and tells her about the note, saying that she was given the information in exchange for a promise that she will tell Follmer if she discovers the meaning of the note. Scully is reluctant to say, but admits that she found the artifact which Reyes saw earlier in Comer’s jacket. They go to the hospital and Scully holds the artifact over Comer’s body. He immediately shakes and wakes up. Scully tells Reyes to turn off the medical monitors so they do not alert the hospital personnel. Scully pulls the ventilator out of Comer’s throat. He tells her that William has to die, but it’s not what she thinks. Josepho and his followers think that aliens will rule the Earth. He took his followers a thousand miles north to uncover the UFO. Josepho believes that it is a temple that houses the physical manifestation of God. Comer adds that Josepho thinks William is a miracle child who he wants to protect, but that Josepho fears that William will follow in his father’s footsteps and oppose the aliens. This is why either William or Mulder must die. Comer thinks Mulder is dead and that William has to die too, or all mankind will perish. A nurse enters and Comer grabs the artifact. Another man enters and orders Scully and Reyes into the hall
Josepho has been unable to open the ship to save his people. The woman arrives with William and as soon as William is near the ship, it opens by itself. The men inside the hatch chamber are dead, as if burned. Scully and Reyes are in the hospital chapel. Scully is in tears. What are they going to tell the FBI about how Comer was cured? They won’t believe. Scully is horrified by Comer’s explanation but Reyes says William is not an abomination. No religion decrees the death of a child. Reyes thinks William is still alive and that the artifact can be used to save Doggett, too. Skinner finds them and tells them that Comer is dead. They go to his room and Reyes cannot find the artifact. The nurse suggests that after turning off the monitors, Reyes and Scully killed Comer. Reyes counters that only the mysterious man who ordered them into the hallway was alone with Comer. Reyes thinks he killed Comer and took the artifact. Scully has slipped away and is in Doggett’s room. As she holds his hand, Doggett awakes. He tells her that they’re going to come to her but she can’t trust them. At that moment, Josepho phones Scully. If she wants to see her son she must come alone and follow his instructions.
Near Calgary, Scully waits in a diner. Josepho enters and sits with her. He repeats the Bible quote from the opening narration and asks Scully if she recognizes it. She says it is from Ephesians (although it is actually from the first chapter of Ezekiel). Josepho says it is about giants walking the earth and tells her of the supersoldiers he saw. He calls them the true sons of God and says that William will lead this alien race. Josepho says he will take Scully to William only after Scully gives him proof that Mulder is dead. If Mulder is alive, he is the one thing preventing William’s true destiny. “You want to see your son alive, you’ll bring me the head of Fox Mulder,” he concludes as he walks out. Reyes and the Gunmen are hiding outside. Frohike has put a transponder on Josepho’s pickup and Reyes and Scully follow him, receiving instructions by phone from the Gunmen, who are tracking the signal.
The woman is holding William near the UFO when Josepho arrives. She says William started to cry and things started happening with the UFO. The bottom level of the hatch recedes lower into the ship and light bursts from the hole. Jose-pho jumps into the well of the hatch as the entire ship comes to life. Scully and Reyes have “run out of road” but in the distance see the lighted canopy covering the ship. They see the UFO fly up through the canopy, then fly off. Scully and Reyes approach and find the canopy in flames. Burned bodies are here and there around the pit where the UFO was excavated. They hear a baby crying in the distance and find William on the ground, unhurt.
Back in the hospital chapel, Reyes enters to join Doggett. She has come to take him home. She tells him that she prayed for him. He knows. A voice in his head was telling him to warn Scully about this man. Doggett wants to know if the voice was Reyes. She says she only prayed for his life. Follmer stops Kersh to talk about the report on Comer’s death. Skinner refused to sign it. Follmer did sign it, but is disturbed that before the medical monitors were turned off, they recorded Comer’s condition returning to normal. Follmer wants his name removed from the report. Kersh dismisses Follmer then enters his office where the mysterious man from the hospital is sitting. Kersh congratulates the man, saying that everything seems to be dead but this case. The man says “I’m sure I can take care of that.” Viewers see that the man has a bump on the back of his neck, indicating that he is a supersoldier.
La traduction du résumé provient du site The X-Files Timeline.
Après « Provenance » qui avait tellement d’éléments pour faire de cet épisode quelque chose à couper le souffle, « Providence » laisse à désirer. Les réponses sont données mais il manque de l’action et des éléments surprenantes pour satisfaire l’auditeur.
Commençons avec le magnifique pré-générique qui est également la meilleure scène de tout l’épisode. J’ai aimé ces images de guerre qui superposent un monologue sur la foi. Il y avait une belle poésie dans les propos. Au lieu d’avoir le cliché des anges avec des ailes à la rescousse, nous avons des soldats avec une forme humaine. Le reste est dans le déclin. Tout d’abord, le seul acteur qui ne semble pas de souffrir de léthagie est absent pour la majorité de l’épisode car son personnage est dans le coma. Scully est toujours aussi hystérique et Reyes manque d’émotions. Par contre, il est plus intéressant de voir Scully hystérique mais qui court dans tous les sens et qui bouge qu’une Scully à moitié endormie. Les Lone Gunmen apportent des éléments humouristiques à l’épisode (comme la scène où ils ont perdu contact avec le micro) et se repentissent de ce qui s’est passé dans le dernier épisode. Gish et Anderson ont une belle chimie ensemble et leurs scènes sont intéressantes mais leurs lignes sont tellement murmurées que cela gâche un peu le tout.
Un autre problème de ce épisode est qu’il semble avoir un vide incroyable durant son écoute. Avec tous les éléments de « Provenance », rien ne semble s’être produit. Tout ce nous avons c’est une course folle qui ne mène à nulle part. D’ailleurs, je ne vois pas pourquoi Scully et Reyes conduisent jusqu’en Pennsylvanie même si il est plus qu’évident que la kidnappeuse de William ne restera pas plantée devant une cabine téléphonique si elle est en fuite. J’avais vraiment la nette impression que ce n’était pas seulement Doggett qui était dans un coma. Même le gourou de la secte ne semble pas réaliser que quelque chose ne cloche lorsque le vaisseau brûle deux de ses disciples. Cette histoire que Doggett aurait entendu une voix semble boîteuse et n’est qu’une distraction et une perte de temps car il est évident que dans les prochains épisodes, cet élément sera jeté par la fenêtre. Aussi, l’histoire de Mulder qui pourrait être mort ne fonctionne tout simplement pas. Tout le monde le sait que David Duchovny retourne dans les derniers épisodes de la série. Cela gâche un peu ce qui est sensé être un élément fort de l’épisode. La phrase de Josepho d’apporter la tête de Mulder est trop risible pour faire monter la tension. Au moins, nous savons que Mulder n’est pas complètement oublié. Un point positif est le vaisseau spatial qui s’envole qui est une autre bonne image avec les corps carbonisés autour d’un William sain et sauf. Maintenant nous savons que William est plus que télékinétique. J’ai encore de la difficulté à avaler cette histoire de prophésie (aussi, on dirait que tous les bébés nés ou à naître ces deniers temps semblent devoir remplir une prophésie comme dans Angel ou Charmed). Cela commence à entrer dans le cliché. Finalement, la dernière scène avec Kersh permet d’établir le doute qui commence à grandir dans l’esprit de Follmer et l’ambiguité de Kersh sur la conspiration. Tout aurait bien fini si nous n’avons pas eu droit à la grosse bosse dans la nuque du vieil homme parlant avec Kersh. Découvrir qu’il est un super-soldat n’est pas une surprise car tout le monde semble en être un. Si Skinner ou bien Doggett avait une bosse, peut-être, mais pas un gros méchant qui semble vouloir mettre des bâtons dans les roues de Scully. S’il n’en était pas un, cela aurait été une surprise.
Bref, « Providence » n’a pas grand chose à offrir sauf des scènes disparates qui n’ont rien de surprenant à l’exception du pré-générique. Une grosse déception après le suspense créé dans « Provenance ». Au moins, nous avons eu droit à quelques réponses et un léger développement de personnages avec Reyes qui a vu des ses propres yeux un vaisseau spatial, les Lone Gunmen qui se font pardonner pour leur faute, Doggett qui a entendu une voix et Follmer qui commence à douter de ce qui se passe. Ce volet de la mythologie apporte des réponses importantes mais également un vide après le visionnement.
Note : 6.5 sur 10
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