Delightful.

That was the word that popped into my head half-way through this episode as the machines made a slow but effective assault on our heroes.

The only other show I can think of that did an almost no-dialogue episode as entertaining as this one was Buffy’s “Hush,” although that one was creepy for very different reasons.

At the start of the episode, we have Mulder and Scully sitting in an empty sushi bar, waiting for some indication that someone knows they are there, sitting in companionable silence, and perusing their phones. I thought how nice it was that these two were so comfortable with each other that they seemed so at ease here,

And then the bar they’re sitting at lights up with their menu, and they happily click through, picking out the dishes they want. All the way up to when they get their orders, they both seem amused by their circumstances, and even when Mulder’s tray appears with a blobfish instead of the sushi he ordered, he takes it stride as Scully gets him to pose with the fish for some silly pics.

But things take a turn when Mulder carries his tray to the back, looking for someone to help him fix his order. Instead of people, he finds only robots. Robots who seem eerily miffed that he has interrupted them.

Having no other choice but to return to his seat, Mulder takes out his credit card (after turning down Scully’s offer to pay), and after signing his name, and declining to leave a tip, his card is captured, and the restaurant goes into lock-down.

The rest of the episode is a continuing escalation of the machines wreaking havoc on Mulder and Scully’s lives. The driverless car that takes Scully home goes too fast and won’t stop talking, Mulder’s car gps drives him in a circle, bringing him back to the restaurant, while the restaurant keeps sending him notifications on his phone, letting him know there is still time to leave a tip.

Passwords and user names stop working, alerts and notifications pop up on cell phones and various screens, “helpful” asks from all the algorithm-based things in each of their lives, including the pop-up letting Scully know about all the new and exciting colors her “personal massager” comes in. (HEE)

After a horde of neon mini-drones start filling up Mulder’s home, giving a creepy “The Birds” vibe to the place, Mulder jumps in his car and heads over to Dana’s (“Why is your place so much nicer than mine?”), just in time to find her locked in her apartment that is filling with gas, thanks to the “helpful” smart home system, and the intrepid robo-vacuum that is the most tenacious thing I would never let in my home.

At every turn, our heroes are seemingly thwarted, as the machines seem to easily corral them into an office that has a 3D printer that shoots the bullets it has made. Before it has a chance to reload, Mulder smashes it with a barrel, only to be confronted with a robot that busts through the door, and hands over his cell phone that was ditched earlier.

The final notification pops up on the screen, telling Mulder to be nice and leave a tip. It’s clear to all of us, including Dana and Fox, that tapping that 10% button on the screen will end all of this chaos, but even then, it’s very difficult for him to comply. Hilarious face from Duchovny sells the final humiliation.

When the final scene is in a crowded diner, where Mulder pays in cash, and the server tells them to take their time, there is a real sense of relief. And the topper is Scully ditching her phone to snuggle up to Mulder and hold his hand, a simple comfort that pleases me, and reminds us to forgo our devices from time to time, in a non-preachy way.

I loved how as things began to go wrong, it was easy to just shrug it off as just a series of coincidences, or someone just having a bad day. We have all had our days where technology seems to be out to get us, and many of us lament on the regs about the good old days when there were only three channels on the TV, and kids went outside to play. This episode hints at those things, but it really seems to be reminding us that our tech can be helpful, but that we need keep our wits about us too. How easily could our two heroes been swamped by the machines without quick thinking and inventive tactics, things that the machines haven’t learned yet.

The continuous playing of CSNYs “Teach Your Children” built the sundae, letting Mulder put a cherry on it by muttering “We have to be better teachers.” Something that reminds me of the cold open, the story of the AI bot that Microsoft released on Twitter back in 2016, and narrated by a robotic voice. A story that really happened, and sends chills down my back, simply because I had totally forgotten that that had happened. And if we can forget such abject failures in AI testing, how quickly will we let technology consume us as we forget to learn anything from our mistakes?

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