Lab Rat

by Kate Ancel copyright May 9, 2000

The White Room, written by Jason Katims and Thania St. John and directed by Jonathan Frakes, was an intense, disturbing episode that explored the aliens’ worst nightmare. Agent Pierce has finally captured Max and will do anything it takes to get him to reveal the secrets Pierce thinks he’s hiding. The others are desperate to rescue him and past hostilities and mistrust is put aside in their efforts to find him before it’s too late.

Random Thoughts:

It was great to see how Michael and Isabel reacted to meeting Nacedo. Michael clearly wanted more information and Isabel only trusted him to help them because she didn’t feel they had any other options.

Michael didn’t appear to be as overjoyed to finally meet Nacedo as he thought he’d be. He seemed to finally realize that embracing Nacedo means giving up his human side. I don’t think he realized until the moment that he saw how easy it was for Nacedo to kill that agent, what giving up his human side would fully entail. Nacedo is not bound by human laws or morals, but I don’t think it will be as easy for Michael to dismiss those things are he supposed it would.

At the same time, Nacedo is someone who knows exactly what Michael is capable of and is not willing to let him cop out of that. He was there to encourage Michael into using the powers he’s been engineered with, even if that encouragement was a little abrupt. Nacedo had absolute confidence that Michael was capable of transferring those fingerprints. Michael hasn’t encountered a lot of absolute confidence in himself before and I have to imagine that will be a very compelling factor when it comes time for Michael to decide his own destiny.

I love the fact that their ‘alien’ powers are actually ‘human to the max’ powers. Except for those pesky green blood cells, the humans and the aliens aren’t really so different after all. And why do you suppose the aliens bleed red blood if their blood cells are green?

It disturbed me that Tess chose an image intended to frighten Isabel when she revealed her ability to manipulate thoughts. Isabel was clearly just barely holding it together; she really didn’t need to be frightened anymore. It is just one more incident to add to the list of why Tess doesn’t fit in with the pod squad. She has yet to convey any sense of genuine caring about any of them, except for how they fit into her pre-planned future.

My heart went out to Liz as the scene in the Crashdown opens and Maria and Alex both leave her just standing there to go comfort Michael and Isabel. She looked so lost and abandoned with no one left to turn to but Tess.

It seemed strange to me that Tess uses the name Nacedo for the other alien. Do you suppose he’s gone by that name ever since River Dog started calling him that and that really is what Tess has called him all these years?

Now we know for sure that Isabel is the only one who has explored the power of dreamwalking.

According to Pierce, the government captured 4 aliens from the crash site. 2 were dead and 1 was held in captivity. What happened to the other one? Is Nacedo the one they held in captivity before he escaped? Or do they still have one locked away somewhere? Maybe there is still another alien on the run that has yet to be identified.

• Maria took the news that Max was captured entirely too calmly. They have toned down a lot of what makes her such a fun character. The ‘Maria-filter’ made her stand out from the rest of them in an entertaining way. But I think that Maria must be hiding somewhere with Kyle because we haven’t seen much of her lately.
• These kids apparently need some breaking and entering lessons. Rubber soled shoes are big plus when trying to be stealthy, I’ve heard. They would have been hard pressed to make much more noise when they broke into the research lab.
• I had a little trouble with Liz asking Valenti to just trust her. What possible reason has she given him for trusting her? She’s continually lied to him. I understand that she didn’t feel she could tell him everything, but the "Just trust me, please" was a bit much.
• We’re expected to believe that these kids can just be gone for days at a time without checking in with the parents?

1. The whole episode was incredibly intense and disturbing. It kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire hour. This has to be one of the best episodes all year. The writing was tight and solid and the acting was outstanding. The tension was drawn out well and sustained throughout the full hour.
2. I’m always glad to see episodes written by Jason Katims. I can generally count on his episodes being good ones because he has proven time and again that he knows these characters intimately.
3. I was glad they were able to use the UFO Center for information on where to find Max. Although I was a little surprised Isabel remembered the logo was something she’d seen at the UFO Center.
4. Loved the scenes where Isabel was able to connect to Max through her ability to dreamwalk. The surreal, distorted images conveyed the drugged and fragmented state of his mind powerfully.
5. Katherine Heigl was fantastic in the dream scenes, especially her absolute, abject terror for Max after she snapped out of the dreamwalk. She continues to impress me with the way she plays Isabel.
6. I thought it was great that Valenti differentiated between the two Max’s in the funhouse by referring to one of them as "the one we all care about".
7. The introduction of Nacedo in the morgue was very well done. That must have been quite a shock for Michael when the target of his energy surge gave back better than he got.
8. I actually found myself liking Nacedo in this episode. Jim Ortlieb does a great job with the character, playing him with kind of a quirky sense of humor. He’s still a little creepy, but I enjoyed it.
9. Michael in a suit was a strange sight to behold. He looked more like Mulder than ever. I laughed when Nacedo produced a comb for him to help him look the part.
10. I was glad that Valenti was able to come through for them at crunch time. He really proved his good intentions in this situation and hopefully has earned their trust.
11. Jason Behr just blew me away in this episode. His terror and pain were so unbearably real, his scenes were painful for me to watch. My heart literally hurt as I watched the torture scenes, both mental and physical. His frantic desperation when he is faced with the virtual reality image of Liz lying dead was palpable. He was simply outstanding.

• Alex: "I’m going to stay with you. If I’m holding onto you, maybe you won’t get lost."
  
• Michael: "You’re different than me?"
  Nacedo: "Biology lesson later."

• Nacedo: "Humans are weak. Which doesn’t bother me."
  
• Nacedo: "The only one stopping you is you."
  Michael: "Stop saying that! It’s not helping me."

• Nacedo: "It’s inside of you. You’re programmed."
  Michael: "Hey, I didn’t get the manual, OK?"

I give this episode a resounding 6 UFOs out of 5. This was unquestionably the best episode of the season, in my opinion.