A missing child returns after a 10-year absence. He hasn't aged a day. Is this a simple miracle, or are dark forces at work?
(Originally aired on December 3, 2000)
Written by David Amann
Directed by Richard Compton
WHAT HAPPENED
September 23 1990. Seven-year-old Billy Underwood plays on the swings on the playground of Webster Elementary School in Dexter, Oklahoma. He tries to catch his very pregnant mother's attention, but she is busy talking with another woman. A mysterious young man in a trench coat pays very close attention to Billy.
When his mother finally looks over, the swing is still swinging but Billy is nowhere to be seen. As his frantic mother searches, the mysterious young man drops the boy's backpack and walks off in the other direction. (
spoilers)
 |
 |
 |  | More Stories |
| |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|  | Related Links |
| |
|
| |
 |
ANALYSIS
"Invocation" proves that no matter how traditional his methods may be, Doggett has the obsessive nature a good X-Files agent needs. We now know that there are causes he believes in -- namely, the protection of children and the punishment of those who would do them harm -- and he is willing to bend the rules where these causes are involved.
Like Mulder's search for
the truth about his sister, and Scully's own search for Mulder, Doggett is a crusader who chooses his crusades very carefully. When his quest and his assignment to the X-Files intersect, Doggett begins to understand that while he may not comprehend the forces at work and that it is no longer enough to simply deny that these forces exist.
It will be interesting to see how this new acceptance plays when Doggett comes across another
Bat-Man or slug god.
However, although this is a Doggett spotlight -- his first -- and nothing should detract from that, writer David Amann drops the ball where Scully is concerned.
Perhaps this is the parent in me, but in light of her pregnancy -- to say nothing of the fact that she knows what it is like to lose a child -- Scully seems entirely too businesslike throughout this episode. She is so focused on the impossible becoming possible that the horror Doggett carries with him fails to register.
WHAT WE LEARN
Doggett worked the Child Abduction Task Force at some point in his FBI career.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
How will Doggett reconcile this experience with his usual worldview?
Since the psychic gave them the relevant symbol, why did the investigation of Billy's disappearance never lead to the pony ride farm?
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK
A friend of Doggett's enlists the agents' help when he has a vision of his wife's impending murder in "Redrum".
advertisement
