Babylon
"Babil al Funduq." Translation
Written and directed by Chris Carter
"Agent Einstein, you have a terrorist lying in a state of existence somewhere between life and death. If he holds valuable intel on other terrorists, maybe in order to reach him, you need to expand your mind on the so-called material world."
— Fox Mulder
When an art gallery in Texas is bombed by Muslim extremists, Mulder and Scully are visited by two younger agents, Miller and Einstein, hoping to gain insight on the case through unconventional means.
Tropes
- Agent Mulder: Miller is a younger Mulder, having come to him in the hopes of finding a way of communicating with the comatose suicide bomber. It's actually Scully who ends up helping him through scientific means.
- Agent Scully: Einstein sees Miller's efforts as a waste of time, though Mulder does end up talking her into helping him.
- A Storm Is Coming: One interpretation of the "Horn of God" in the ending, especially as it precedes the finale.
- Battle Axe Nurse: An Islamophobic one attempts a Sickbed Slaying on a hospitalized terror suspect.
- Call-Back:Miller: Hello, anyone down here?
Scully Nobody here but the FBI's most unwanted. (To bewildered Mulder) Have been waiting 23 years to say that. - The Cameo: The Lone Gunmen, Agent Skinner and the Cigarette-Smoking Man all appear in Mulder's Mushroom Samba.
- Fanservice: Mulder's mushroom trip has plenty of scantily-clad dancers, a shirtless Mulder and Agent Einstein as a dominatrix.
- Holding Hands: Mulder and Scully in the final scene.
- Interservice Rivalry: Uncouth and somewhat racist Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents want to take the lead on the investigation and shut out the FBI.
- Jurisdiction Friction: The Department of Homeland Security tries to take over the case, though they're pretty transparently trying to kill the bomber and back off when Miller starts snapping pictures.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Einstein when she and Miller are waiting for their plane back to Washington.
- Monster of the Week: The unusual aspect of this episode is not that the antagonist is supernatural, but rather Mulder, Scully, Miller and Einstein's attempts to subject a regular (albeit comatose) Villain of the Week with paranormal methods of interrogation. The end reveals the terrorist has a mild psychic ability to speak to others when they are not awake, such as during the Mushroom Samba or his mother's dreams.
- Mood Whiplash: Goes from a scarily realistic terror attack to Mulder tripping balls on magic mushrooms.
- Mushroom Samba: Mulder supposedly takes a highly effective hallucinogenic extracted from mushrooms and goes on a trippy sequence which eventually lands him on the barge of the dead, where he sees the bomber and hears him repeat a phrase in Arabic.
- Placebo Effect: According to Agent Einstein, Mulder was tripping balls on niacin tablets.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The nurse who tries to kill Shiraz seems pretty xenophobic in general, not just against Islamic terrorists.
- Ripped from the Headlines:
- The attack in the beginning is based on an May 2015 incident in Texas where two gunmen attacked an art contest which featured provocative cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. In that case, the attack was a whole lot less successful; both gunmen were shot before they could hurt anyone.
- The side-plot involving the "sky trumpets" was widely reported around 2013.
- Shirtless Scene: Mulder, during his magic mushroom "trip".
- Similar Squad: Miller and Einstein are basically younger versions of Mulder and Scully.
- Suicide Attack: The episode opens with two Muslims bombing an art gallery. One survives, in a sense, and finding a way to interrogate him becomes the basis of the episode.
"Maybe we should do like the prophets and open our hearts and truly listen."
