YOUNG AT HEART Episode 16 Season 1

YOUNG AT HEART Episode 16 Season 1

Redemption 9/10

Synopsis: A murderer who dies whilst serving life imprisonment returns for revenge against the man that sent him there.

I was taught by my English teacher that a story must comprise of a beginning a middle and an end. What Chris Carter taught me was a story must be rich in depth and meaning, that you must have a protagonist with strong unwavering ideologies and indomitable methods and yet the mortality to question his own actions and the ability to redeem those actions and grow before our eyes. His antagonist’s motives must be comprehensible and yet his methods must remain unpredictable. The reader or in this case watcher must care about the people they meet along the way and revel in the alluring mystery as it unravels before them.

Mulder’s back story grows deeper in Young at Heart and as a result the character flourishes. We meet Agent Reggie Purdue whom Mulder considers a friend and one of the only people within the Bureau he finds worthy of trust. The pair appeared to share a warm relationship. They met whilst working in the violent crime division. Mulder playfully toys with Reggie chanting his name when they meet at the jewellery store crime scene, the first place of which a clue is left to signify John Barnett’s involvement to the surprise of agent Mulder who believed him to be dead.

Barnett, the man whom we discover has left Mulder fighting inner demons. Mulder blames himself for the death of a fellow FBI agent shot during a stand-off with Barnett. The empathy he shows towards the family of the dead agent clearly present when he notes that the man’s child is now an all-star football player, Mulder must have been watching over them due to what he perceives as his accountability. Mulder will later go on to blame himself for Purdues death claiming he should have shot Barnett when he had the chance.

Mulder appears to have met his match in the figure of Barnett. A man who knows how to enter Mulders head and push all the right buttons. The two spa throughout the episode, not in the conventional manner but via a deadly game of cat and mouse. Barnett calculated supply of clues lures Mulder closer. It would seem inevitable that the two should be draw together into a similar situation they found themselves in before, with Barnett taking a hostage and Mulder forced to make a decision with his weapon drawn. Mulder seeks for redemption, it is this incentive that drove him to Barnett and drove him to pulling the trigger. With a clean shot he puts his man down.

Barnett’s rejuvenate abilities were down to the experimental Dr Joe Ridley. Ridley had no compassion and saw his progaria patients as little more than lab rats and a great opportunity on which to perform his experiments. He was an outcast in the medical profession compounded by the loss of his medical licence for illegally performing experiments on live human test subjects. This is when the government employed Ridley to continue his work, allowing him to use prisoners as live test subjects. He confess all to Mulder and Scully, he is terminally ill and seeking his own forgiveness.

The government had known of Barnett’s existence and that he was the only successful candidate of Ripley’s treatment. Mulder meets with Deep Throat for answers. Deep Throat explains to Mulder that the government has been bargaining with Barnett for Dr Ripley’s stolen research. He tells Mulder that they need Barnett alive as his information could change the course of mankind, another interesting angle in a plot with more than just a middle, beginning and end.

Scully play her part to. Seamlessly gathering information and acting upon it. She ascertains that the account of Barnett’s death was suspicious and looking further into it discover of Dr Ridley and his work. She also finds a finger print belonging to Barnett on her answering machine that leads the agents to the theatre where he would shoot agent Scully and in turn be shoot by agent Mulder.

Young at Heart is a strong episode that draws parallels with the entire series and Chris Carters involvement in the script is ever-present. Now that’s good story telling 9/10

Musings;

Mulder shoots and kills his man in the end. He was driven to it and not offered much choice. Killing is not something Mulder takes lightly.

I never realised the man that tries to gather information from the dying Barnett was the Cigarette Smoking Man. I caught the name William B. Davis in the end credits, his first appearance since the pilot. I love discovering new information on re-watches.

Mulder seems to have the admiration of the bureaus handwriting specialist known to us only as Anderson.

Barnett is not the only one to use Fox Mulders name as a pun to describe a hunt. Fast forward to season 5 episode ‘Kitsunegari’, which means Fox hunt in Japanese.