Category: Pop Culture

THE MAGIC OF MARDI GRAS

Today, February 21st, 2023, means it is officially Mardi Gras! ♥

“Hey, mister, throw us something!”

Now, I can hear you asking it … what does Mardi Gras even mean, other than too much drinking, 100 pounds of beads draped around our necks, and not being able to find a place to use the restroom?!
Well, I’m glad you asked …

In French, Mardi means “Tuesday” and gras means “fat.”

Did that help?

We didn’t think so either 😉
Let’s try this …

Mardi Gras refers to Fat Tuesday, I know, I know, we already mentioned that, but … that means its the day before Ash Wednesday, and originally religious folks used the day to binge on rich foods, such as eggs, milk, and cheese before Lent began. This day of feasting and preparing was but a single day of celebration.
These days however, anyone who has ever attended Mardi Gras or Carnival will tell you, this celebration of magic and masks is more than a single day, it’s a state of mind.

Mardi Gras has definitely grown past it’s humble beginnings. It even helped rebuild New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. When the rest of the world may have thought those people crazy or weird for putting on the parades and parties after such a major disaster, the locals understood. They got it. This time of celebration is so deep a part of the hearts of the people there, its practically a part of their DNA. They weren’t just celebrating magic and mayhem. They were celebrating life.
Mardi Gras, as New Orleans native Arthur Hardy says, “… defines the heart and soul of our people. It is a spirit—an immortal one. It represents man’s ability to escape into dreams, to play, to laugh, and to have fun. Mardi Gras is masks, costumes, raucous fun, Cinderella balls, gluttony, love, inclusion, artistic expression, history, tradition, and new horizons.

Sounds familiar, huh? Like escaping into a world of magic and stories, books and adventures of the mind.

But how did Mardi Gras grow to become more than just a big meal before a period of fasting and repentance? Well …

Mardi Gras is a tradition that dates back thousands of years, all the way to the pagan celebrations of spring and fertility, including the raucous Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Lupercalia.

LUPERCALIA

Lupercalia was an ancient pagan festival held each year in Rome on February 15. Although Valentine’s Day shares its name with a martyred Christian saint, some historians believe the holiday is actually an offshoot of Lupercalia. Unlike Valentine’s Day, however, Lupercalia was a bloody, violent and sexually charged celebration awash with animal sacrifice, random matchmaking and coupling in the hopes of warding off evil spirits and infertility.

According to Roman legend, the ancient King Amulius ordered Romulus and Remus—his twin nephews and founders of Rome—to be thrown into the Tiber River to drown in retribution for their mother’s broken vow of celibacy.

The twins were later rescued and then adopted by a shepherd and his wife. After killing the uncle who’d ordered their death, the twins found the cave den of the she-wolf who’d nurtured them and named her Lupercal.

It’s thought Lupercalia took place to honor the she-wolf and please the Roman fertility god Lupercus.

In Ancient Rome, feasting began after the ritual sacrifice, and also during Lupercalia, men randomly chose a woman’s name from a jar to be coupled with them for the duration of the festival. Often, the couple stayed together until the following year’s festival. Many fell in love and married.

And while the Big Easy plays host to Mardi Gras in the U.S. with its food—King Cake, muffulettas, beignets, shrimp and grits for starters; and libations: hurricanes, Ramos Gin Fizzes, Dixie beer, café au lait—architecture, music, history, and its fair share of swamps, gumbo, ghosts, and alligators, this does not make New Orleans the only place where Mardi Gras is celebrated.

CARNIVAL HEARD ROUND THE WORLD
When Christianity arrived in Rome, religious leaders decided to incorporate these popular local traditions into the new faith, an easier task than abolishing them altogether. As a result, the excess and debauchery of the Mardi Gras season became a prelude to Lent, the 40 days of fasting and penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.

This means Fat Tuesday is always the day before Ash Wednesday, forty-six days before Easter Sunday which is the first Sunday after the first Full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. Which makes that period of time … Carnival Season!

That means along along with Christianity, Mardi Gras, also known as Carnival or Carnaval, spread from Rome to other European countries, including France, Germany, Spain and England.
Even Brazil and Venice play host to some of the holiday’s most famous public festivities, drawing thousands of tourists and revelers every year. It’s a party!

THE FIRST MARDI GRAS ON AMERICAN SOIL
In the late 17th Century, French King Louis XIV commissioned the French Canadian Le Moyne brothers to explore the mouth of the Mississippi to establish a colony in the Louisiana Territory. When their exploration party landed at the mouth of the Mississippi on March 3, 1699 it was Mardi Gras. In tribute to the holiday being celebrated that day in France, the brothers named the spot Pointe du Mardi Gras. This is the oldest place named of non-Native American origin in the whole Mississippi River valley.

THROW ME SOMETHING, MISTER
This is what you will hear if you attend the Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans. The trinkets and collectibles that are thrown from the floats to people lining the parade routes are called throws! Throws can be plastic beads, glass beads, toys, cups, spears and just about anything imaginable. In 1910, Zulu Krewe began throwing coconuts or “Golden Nuggets”, which was considered a very sought after throw. After several lawsuits from parade-goers who were hit in the head with coconuts, the organization could no longer get insurance coverage in 1987 and stopped this tradition. After lobbying the Louisiana Legislature, it passed SB188, the “Coconut Bill,” which excluded the coconut from liability for alleged injuries arising from the coconuts that were handed from the floats. In 1988, then-governor Edwin Edwards signed the bill into law. Today the elaborately decorated Zulu coconut is a much-coveted collector item.

GREEN, PURPLE AND YELLOW (GOLD)
If you don’t see green, purple and yellow (or gold) when you think of Mardi Gras, then you don’t know the symbolic colors seen everywhere in NOLA. Thousands upon thousands of beads in these colors decorate the necks of the revelers every year. Purple symbolizes justice, gold symbolizes power and green symbolizes faith. Now bundle up, ignore the frigid temperatures and let some jambalaya warm you up!

EARLY EFFORTS AT SUPPRESSION OF MARDI GRAS
Mardi Gras got going in New Orleans soon after the city’s founding in 1718. The Spanish, who ruled the Big Easy from 1762 to 1800, apparently cracked down on certain Mardi Gras rituals (though documentation from that period is scarce). U.S. authorities did much the same after taking control in 1803, banning both masked balls and public disguises. Nonetheless, they eventually accepted the festival’s existence. The first recorded Mardi Gras street parade in New Orleans took place in 1837, by which time the city had transformed from a small backwater into a major metropolis. Twenty years later, six men organized a secret society called the Mistick Krewe of Comus. By holding a parade with the theme of “The Demon Actors in Milton’s Paradise Lost,” along with a lavish grand ball, Comus reversed the declining popularity of Mardi Gras and helped establish New Orleans as its clear epicenter in the United States. This year, more than 1 million visitors are expected to attend.

OTHER SECRET SOCIETIES QUICKLY FOLLOWED COMUS’S LEAD
In 1872 the Krewe of Rex and the Knights of Momus began paying for parades and balls of their own. They were followed a decade later by the Krewe of Proteus. Since these early societies were exclusively male and white, women and Black residents formed their own groups, such as Les Mysterieuses and the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. Dozens of krewes of all types have proliferated since then, including the science fiction-themed Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus, whose name is a hybrid of the “Star Wars” character and the Roman god of wine. Despite being less than three years old, this krewe convinced Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca in the movies, to ride in its parade last month atop a Millennium Falcon float and alongside a mascot called Bar2D2.

[Mardi Gras Facts Info]

WHAT IS A KREWE?

“Krewe” is the term for all groups that stage balls and/or parades. They come is all shapes and sizes but all are non-profit groups funded by their membership. More than 100 exist in New Orleans—gay, straight, single gender and co-ed ones—there’s something for everyone. Some are classical, others naughty (with biting satire).

The most important part of Mardi Gras is the spirit of those that attend and keep this magic alive year after year. And as they say in New Orleans, “Laissez les bon temps rouler!” It means “Let the good times roll” in Cajun French.
Annd If someone should say that to you, the proper reply is “Oui, Cher.” Now, don’t pronounce Cher like the singer’s name, use the Cajun French pronunciation of “Sha.”

~~

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KINDRED: QUESTION THE TIES THAT BIND THROUGH TIME

While this TV show premiered in December, if you haven’t watched yet, then there’s no time like this minute to join us in celebrating Black History Month, and that these long winter days are drawing to a close, by snuggling up on the sofa of an evening and digging into some Sci-Fi TV show drama.

Kindred, Octavia E. Butler’s celebrated and critically acclaimed novel, has been adapted for television by writer and showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. This American Science Fiction TV Mini Series—available to watch on Hulu—at 8 episodes long, is perfectly binge worthy.

From FX/Hulu: Adapted from the celebrated novel Kindred, by Hugo Award-winner Octavia E. Butler, the FX series centers on “Dana James” (Mallori Johnson), a young Black woman and aspiring writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and relocated to Los Angeles, ready to claim a future that, for once, feels all her own. But, before she can settle into her new home, she finds herself being violently pulled back and forth in time. She emerges at a nineteenth-century plantation, a place remarkably and intimately linked with Dana and her family. An interracial romance threads through Dana’s past and present, and the clock is ticking as she struggles to confront secrets she never knew ran through her blood, in this genre-breaking exploration of the ties that bind.

Kindred stars Mallori Johnson as “Dana James,” Micah Stock as “Kevin Franklin,” Ryan Kwanten as “Thomas Weylin,” Gayle Rankin as “Margaret Weylin,” Austin Smith as “Luke,” David Alexander Kaplan as “Rufus Weylin,” Sophina Brown as “Sarah” and Sheria Irving as “Olivia.”

Watch the TV show trailer HERE.

~~~

And when you’ve finished the show but still want more … this worthwhile TV show is backed up by an even better novel. (yessss!)

The TV show Kindred is adapted from the celebrated 1979 novel of the same name, written by Hugo Award Winner Octavia E. Butler.

“Octavia Butler is a writer who will be with us for a long, long time, and Kindred is that rare magical artifact … the novel one returns to, again and again.” —Harlan Ellison

—A Good Morning America 2021 Top Summer Read Pick

The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

***

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THE HOLIDAYS IN SPACE

We made it! Christmas Day has come and gone here in the States, and as the Holiday season wraps up, we wondered: how did people around the world spend their holidays?

And because we’re a speculative blog, that question in turn led us to wondering: how did people not on this world spend their holidays?!

So, a-searchin’ for answers we went, and we found some fun facts about how Christmas is celebrated in Outer Space …

Continue reading “THE HOLIDAYS IN SPACE” →

5 ‘NOT SO MERRY’ CHRISTMAS MYTHS

Most of us have heard of, or are at least somewhat familiar with, the story of Santa Claus.

Popular in the US, Old Saint Nick is a jolly, red-suited fellow who’s belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly when he laughs, and on Christmas Eve night, flies around in a sleigh pulled by magic reindeer, eating cookies and delivering gifts to the children of the world. For the children on his naughty list, however, nothing in their stockings but fat lumps of coal.

For all the gift giving and magic flying, there are darker sides to this popular holiday figure.

In some parts of the world, dark creatures come out in the winter—some hungry, some mischievous—and some ‘not so merry’ myths that give new meaning to the word ‘sleigh’ …

Continue reading “5 ‘NOT SO MERRY’ CHRISTMAS MYTHS” →

Spec Fic Comic Book Review: Cold Iron Issues 1-3

It’s been a while since our last comic book review, so this time we’re tackling something a bit newer. 

Cold Iron is a Comixology original from a great team of artists and writers. This “supernatural thriller” had its first issue hit shelves in May of this year, and it was followed up by issues two and three soon after. 

While this genre is something that’s pretty over-saturated, from TV shows to novels, Cold Iron was a quick, fun read. Let’s dive a bit deeper. 

Cold Iron Background

Like we mentioned, Cold Iron had a star-lineup working hard to get this comic book out on the market. 

The writer Andy Diggle has gained some renown in the comic book scene with his work on The Green Arrow and Hellblazer. And the artist, Nick Brokenshire, has worked on all kinds of projects, including Star Wars and The Once and Future Queen. Diggle and Brokenshire have been friends for a long time and worked on projects in the past, but Cold Iron was a labor of love for both of them. 

Diggle revealed the history of his interest in Celtic and faery stories in a press release from Comixology. “The Isle of Man is a magical place, and holds a very special place in my family’s heart. From neolithic burial sites to Celtic stone circles and Viking castles, the island carries a sense of the ancient in its very bones. I learned at an early age that it’s always considered advisable to acknowledge the Other Folk when crossing the Fairy Bridge on the Port Erin to Douglas road.”

So there’s obviously a personal connection to the lore and story of Cold Iron, and it shows. The story, which is only a 4-issue limited release, is full of rich history and ancient beings. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know it was only a 4-issue story arc until I started writing this blog. There seemed like so much more that could come after issue 3! 

cold iron issue 1

Hold Your Horseshoe Tight

Cold Iron takes place on the Isle of Man, as you might have guessed, and it follows Kay, a young woman who dreams of being a world-renowned musician. Her boyfriend wants her to work at a local restaurant, but Kay’s feisty and defiant, and wants to forge her own path. 

All that changes when Kay encounters Mona, a young girl stranded in the countryside, who is seemingly from another time. Thus kicks off the wild, scary journey through the woods back to town, where Kay and Mona run into a goat-headed man, the stuff of legend. 

Mona is apparently the bride of an ancient Celtic king who resides on the “Other Side”, and she’s managed to escape into our modern world. As such, the devious creatures of the Other Side inveigle and trick, trying to bring her back to the king. But that’ll only happen over Kay’s dead body. 

Kay’s world goes sideways after that first encounter with the supernatural, and her dreams of being a famous songwriter seem all but distant as her grandmother helps her load cold iron into shotgun shells and keeps the horseshoe close. 

Verdict

Andy Diggle and Nick Brokenshire had very little space to create their world, but they still succeeded in fleshing out the setting and conflict within a few short issues. While the Celtic lore and fae mythology is a pretty popular subject for supernatural or paranormal stories, Cold Iron doesn’t seem like a copycat or contrived in any way. 

The story and the art work together to create both an idyllic, pastoral place, and a dark, creepy island of ancient myths. While reading the first few issues, there were times I felt chills, which is a hard thing to accomplish in the New Jersey summer heat. 

Despite the interesting story and unique take on the ancient faery-world trope, I definitely felt like there wasn’t enough Cold Iron. I was expecting at least a 6-issue run, but the 4-issue release is just a taste of what could have been done. 

I hope that in the future, Diggle and Brokenshire get to continue telling stories in this world, which feels like a combination of the Folklords and Monstress. I’d rate Cold Iron as a 8/10. It’s fun, easy to read, and unique. But, it’s too short, and I felt like some of the conflicts needed more time to develop. 

But, I’m interested to read the last installment, which should be out within the next week or two. You can read Cold Iron on paper from Dark Horse comics, or you can read the digital version on Comixology. 

Medieval to Modern Bestiaries

Can NFTs Deconstruct Big Media?

Every once in a while I come across some fortuitous intersection of topics I’m researching that really proves that the universe is listening. 

A while ago, I wrote a review for the 2018 sci-fi movie Prospect, which appeared on Netflix. It was a fairly good movie with a simple premise and interesting characters. Not the best sci-fi movie out there, but a good one nevertheless. 

I hadn’t seen or heard anything about Prospect since I’d done some research on it for that review, but the other day I came across this article about the Prospect filmmakers and NFTs. 

Seeing as how we’ve talked about NFTs and how they apply to science fiction on Signals from the Edge before, I figured this topic deserved further investigation. 

Understanding The Fringe

So the universe in which the Prospect film lives is called The Fringe, and it’s a collaborative universe created by Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell. 

After watching the Prospect movie–which is a far-future sci-fi movie about illegal space miners and bandits–I didn’t initially learn anything about The Fringe. 

However, after reading a few articles in the past day or so, I’ve come to see that The Fringe is much more than just an “umbrella universe” for Prospect. 

The Fringe instead is a franchise, much like Star Wars, Star Trek, or The Expanse, and Prospect was only one project in a realm of hundreds of possibilities. 

And how do Caldwell and Earl plan on funding The Fringe? With NFTs, that’s how. 

Using NFTs to Fund Art

The Fringe creators collaborated with the TAKA Artist Collective to create around 10,000 unique NFT collectibles called Drifters. The sale of these NFTs will fund The Fringe’s next project, which is another feature film. 

The allure of owning a Fringe NFT is pretty powerful. In addition to some benefits like a community Discord server and the ability to win super rare NFTs, Drifter owners have a say in the creation of new, in-franchise stories. 

nfts the fringe
A selection of Drifter NFTs, as shown on their website

For example, Drifter owners will be able to compete in various challenges to have their NFT character featured in the first film project, and have individual short-form content made about them later on in the franchise. 

As someone who loves seeing Easter Eggs and throwbacks in film and media, this is a pretty compelling opportunity. Not only will you own an NFT that grants you access to the community behind-the-scenes, but you could also become part of the cinematic universe!

Why Use NFTs?

Some of you might be thinking, “Why would the Prospect duo use NFTs to fund their projects?” After all, their first film did well-enough, they could partner with larger film companies for funding or take on more investors. 

But, as Caldwell and Earl expressed, “The dream is to keep The Fringe with the fans and out of the hands of Disney and the like.” And NFT sales allows them to tap into the community of fans, but to remain independent from media moguls. 

And for people who are gradually getting frustrated with the massive money-making machines behind Star Wars and other popular franchises, the appeal of a crowdfunded franchise is hard to pass up. 

NFTs not only act as a means for making money, however, they’re also a powerful marketing tool. I for one would love to get in on a project like this early, and have a chance to have my ideas heard. That might be one of the primary selling points for the NFTs, aside from any monetary reward you gain from selling it down the line. 

Of course, NFTs aren’t a perfect solution to ending the big media overlords. They’re powered by the Ethereum blockchain, which, as I’ve talked about before, isn’t the most environmentally friendly. If NFT-funded franchise projects become the norm, what will that do to the environment? Rampant energy use is a big problem right now, and NFTs, if unchecked or unmodified, can drastically worsen the problem. 

But, Caldwell and Earl state that they aim to make the process as carbon neutral as possible, and hopefully other creators enact the same protocols. 

Honestly, The Fringe is a project that has a lot of potential, and is already gearing up to be an alternative to mainstream media. Hopefully that’s a sign that independent artists and communities of artists can start to take back some of the power from the Disney’s of the world. That way, we can start to see content that’s not just designed to make money, but to tell a story and have a purpose. 

End-Stage Capitalism in Blackfish City

The Obi-Wan Kenobi Series is Format Star Wars

Now that Disney’s largely in charge of the Star Wars franchise, we’ve seen a lot more content hitting Disney+. In the past few years, we’ve had a few animated shows, The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian, and now, we have Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Again, the Star Wars team is sticking to their guns, relying on the popularity of their big-shot characters to carry their shows instead of exploring a story outside of the Skywalker saga.

That being said, the first half of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series isn’t bad—it’s just ordinary.

(Spoilers ahead for Parts I – III of Obi-Wan Kenobi).

Summing Up The Obi-Wan Kenobi Series

The Obi-Wan Kenobi show takes place ten years after the events of The Revenge of the Sith, with Ewan McGregor’s Ben Kenobi hiding out on Tattoine. Ben works a normal job at a meat factory-thing, taking occasional trips to watch over Luke on Owen’s farm.

The Imperial Inquisitors turn up on Tattoine looking for Jedi, and the fall onto Ben’s trail. From there, Ben manages to escape Tattoine, continuing on a journey to find a young Princess Leia, who was captured from the palace grounds on Alderaan.

Ben’s movements catch the attention of the Grand Inquisitor, and later, Darth Vader. On Mapuzo, another desert-like planet, Vader catches up with Ben, and they have a very on-sided duel, which almost ends in Ben’s demise.

Did We Need An Obi-Wan Kenobi TV Series?

I find myself asking these questions a lot: “Did we need this show? What does it add to the universe?”

For example, when watching Moon Knight, I asked that question, but largely I decided that Moon Knight was a necessary show, and it added some variation to the MCU.

But, after watching the first three episodes of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, I felt like I honestly couldn’t come up with an answer for those two questions.

And here’s why.

The Star Wars timeline places many of the TV shows and one-shot films between the large cinematic movies. The era when Obi-Wan Kenobi takes place is between The Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

But Obi-Wan Kenobi isn’t the only treat situated between the prequel films and the original trilogy. Nope, this is the area that Star Wars overloaded.

Between TRotS and ANH, we have Solo, Rogue One, Star Wars Rebels, and The Bad Batch. That’s a lot of screentime for the same era, and honestly, I think this period in Star Wars has been beaten to death. We know the Empire’s bad, we know people are still struggling with the fallout of Order 66 and looking for revenge and all that. I don’t think there’s much else to riff off in this section of Star Wars, but they continue to do so.

obi wan kenobi series

The Future Is Already Written

Another problem that I have with shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi is that as much as the series might try to create urgency, drama, or a cliffhanger, it just falls flat, at least for me.

And it falls flat because I already know what’s going to happen.

For example, in Obi-Wan Kenobi, Princess Leia gets captured and her life is in danger. But not really, because we know she lives on for at least another 60 or 70 years.

Obi-Wan struggles in a battle against Darth Vader, and the tensions are high! Well, not really. We know Obi-Wan survives (as does Vader), and they’ll resume their fight in A New Hope.

If I were a new viewer, and I had started at the very beginning of the Star Wars cinematic timeline, and Obi-Wan Kenobi was a follow-up to The Revenge of the Sith (without me having any knowledge of the future movies), I’d say it’s pretty enjoyable.

You still have cool alien characters, new places to explore, politics between peoples, and classic Star Wars stormtroopers. It’s an entertaining show, and I think it might add some value for people just getting into Star Wars.

But, as a long-time viewer, the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series is blatantly format. Pitting a beloved, outcasted hero against an infamous villain in the vein of the original Star Wars trilogy, but without the high stakes. It’s interesting, but unremarkable.

Comic Book Review: Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, Volume 1

Why “Pusher” Is The Best X-Files Episode

The X-Files is filled with great episodes, and after nine seasons (and two reboot seasons), it’s hard to pick-and-choose.

However, one episode stands out above the rest as the best X-Files episode, and that’s “Pusher”, episode 17 of season 3.

Because of its intense cloak-and-dagger plot and the uniqueness of the villain, “Pusher” has to be my favorite episode of X-Files, ranking even higher than this episode.

But there’s a lot more to it than that. Let’s get into it:

The Plot of “Pusher”

The episode kicks off with Robert Patrick Modell shuffling through a grocery store, while being tailed by FBI agents. He eventually blows their cover and is arrested for a series of murders dating back to 1994.

While in the back of the squad car, Modell, known as Pusher, uses his psychic ability to make the officer driving the car pull out in front of a speeding 18-wheeler.

As the episode progresses, Modell uses his abilities to influence a federal judge into ruling in his favor, sneak into the FBI headquarters, and prompt a secretary to assault Assistant Director Skinner. Plus, he urges a SWAT officer to set himself on fire and induces a heart attack in the lead detective on the case.

The whole episode is about Modell trying to find a worthy adversary for his games, which ends up being Fox Mulder. As Mulder and Scully start to unravel Modell’s history, they find that he has a brain tumor that has likely triggered his psychic ability.

At the end of the episode, Modell forces Mulder into a game of Russian Roulette, but when Scully pulls a fire alarm to break Modell’s concentration, Mulder shoots Modell and he’s apprehended.

Reception

“Pusher” is one of the highest rated episodes of X-Files, having made multiple lists of the best episodes. IGN ranked it the third best standalone episode, and Den of Geek puts it at number seven.

When it aired, the episode received rave reviews, and raked in over 16.2 million viewers.

It’s understandable why so many people like “Pusher”, as it certainly stands as one of the best Monster-of-the-Week episodes, even after the famous Eugene Toomes episode in season 1.

But there’s more going on in “Pusher” than a lot of people realize.

What Makes “Pusher” The Best X-Files Episode?

Up to this point in X-Files, we’ve seen monsters like Eugene Toomes, who is driven purely by his physical need to feast on the human body. Other monsters are driven by similar urges, few of which exhibit the inherently sinister nature of Patrick Modell.

By the end of the show, Mulder and Scully discover that Modell’s brain tumor developed in 1994, and remained operable for two years. However, Modell refused surgery, instead using his newfound psychic powers to wreak havoc on his community.

This dynamic solidifies a theme that Chris Carter and other writers of the show played with throughout the first few seasons, and that’s the mundane nature of evil.

Modell wasn’t a bad guy before the tumor. He was ordinary in every sense, and never managed to excel past a minimum wage job. He failed to pass the psych evaluation to become an FBI agent, and was deemed to be a narcissist in the same evaluation.

The only thing that set him apart from every other lower-class worker was his haunting ability to influence other people into hurting themselves, and he decided that instead of live out the rest of his life deep in medical debt, he’d rather, as Mulder puts it, “go out in a blaze of glory”.

In many ways, Pusher felt that he rose above the societal and class restrictions that kept him as a supermarket employee with his new powers. He described himself as a ronin, a masterless samurai. A lone ranger, or more aptly, a wolf without a pack. He carves out a new life, one of shadows and blood, as a contract killer.

This is why “Pusher” is the pinnacle of X-Files‘ societal commentary.

For many people, the corporate, governmental, and medical powers that be are the prime culprits of their misfortune. Low wages, bad housing, expensive medical treatments, and lack of mental health assistance make it difficult to rise out of the lower class of American society. Even today, we still see the same problems.

And for these people struggling to get by, sometimes their only option is to turn to darker channels: drugs, theft, fraud, and for Modell, mercenary work.

In the end, Mulder and Scully claim that Modell is just a little man who wants to feel big. I feel like their conclusion is true, but far from the whole truth. I think there were multiple factors that lead Modell to his ultimate breaking point, and the eventual murder of authority figures—police officers, doctors, security guards, and detectives.

Perhaps the conclusion should not have been “he wants to feel big”, but rather, “he’s the evil we made.” Sure, Modell made his own choices, but the tumor that brought him his abilities was perhaps one of the best things to happen to him in his life, which is sad. Could Pusher have been avoided if Modell had access to mental health treatment? Affordable healthcare? Opportunities to climb the social ladder?

The History of Time Travel: Movie Review