Redrum (The X-Files)
"Redrum" is the sixth episode of the eighth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files.
The series centers on FBI special agents Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and her new partner John Doggett (Robert Patrick)—following the alien abduction of her former partner, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny)—who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files.
"Redrum", described as a "Twilight Zone-type thriller" by critics, heavily featured the actor Joe Morton, who had previously played a role in the 1991 sci-fi film Terminator 2: Judgment Day alongside series co-star Robert Patrick.
Martin Wells, a renowned Baltimore prosecutor, wakes up in a prison cell and notices a stitched-up wound on his right cheek.
A furious Doggett claims that he has been accused of murdering his wife, Vicky, and initially believes that Wells is faking his confusion in order to build an insanity defense.
When Wells' next court date is announced to be Thursday, he realizes that he has somehow travelled back to the day before his shooting.
While going to meet Doggett and Scully, Wells gets shoved into a dominos game and while picking them up gets slashed on his right cheek from a man with the spider web tattoo on his hand.
Wells tells Doggett and Scully that he is moving backwards in time and cannot recall the past few days.
Studying the evidence of the case, Wells has a flash of the murder that reveals the knife in a hand with a spider web tattoo.
Martin wakes up in a hotel room, having moved back to the night of the day before, a little over two hours before the murder of his wife is supposed to take place.
Desperate to save her, but unable to contact her over the phone, Martin instead visits Doggett, and admits to evidence suppression, explaining that Hector Ocampo's brother is out for revenge.
Wells notices Scully's watch once more, seeing that its hands start moving forwards again, indicating that whatever phenomenon that sent him backwards in time has reached its conclusion.
[9] Morgan criticized the episode's narrative, sardonically noting that Martin Wells was a "man who may get a second chance.
"[10] Juliette Harrisson of Den of Geek wrote positively of the episode, calling it "an excellent backwards episode, in which the audience is left satisfied that the horrific event that sparked it off has been prevented, but the guest protagonist has to pay a high price for the happy outcome.
[11] Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a moderately positive review and awarded it three stars out of four.
"[12] Vitaris, too, was critical of the ending monologue, noting that "the voiceover ruins the mood of the final shot.
[13] He concluded that the episode is "a smart that the script makes Wells in some way culpable for what happened, and tries to establish him as a merciless hard-ass" but that the "reveal is never really satisfying.
"[13] Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, gave the episode a moderately positive review and rated it three-and-a-half stars out of five.
"[14] Despite this, Shearman and Pearson noted that "with the series in flux, this is an especially unhelpful time to attempt an episode which so abandons the house style; The X-Files urgently needs to assert what it is, not what it isn't.
