Everyone that has reviewed "Jersey Devil" so far has missed what the episode is all about, and on top of that, it has a criminally low rating. Although it does contain Mulder and Scully's first flirtations, Chris Carter was really trying to send messages about mankind's destructive tendencies.
The episode was full of people doing animalistic, uncivilized activity, like a bunch of young kids running around a house, wearing gorilla masks and running into walls. There were several mentionings that destruction is mankind's oldest and most prominent attribute. There was a chart on the wall of an anthropologists office that showed the decline of other animal species in all of the continents that people have moved onto.
There were two major groups of people pursuing the cannibals. One group was led by Mulder, Scully, an old park ranger and an anthropologist. This group seemed to have the monsters best interest in mind, carrying around a tranquilizer gun, hardly ever drawing their weapons. They represented the group of people that are trying to evolve past their primal instinct of destructive behavior.
The other group was led by a disgruntled police chief and the local police, who covered up scenes of crimes and disregarded evidence that suggested anything paranormal. In the introduction to the episode, that group ended up shooting the father of the cavemen/primates. They also went out of their way to keep Mulder and Scully from continuing their case and carried around rifles, with the intention of shooting the mother on sight. They represented mankind's tendency to be destructive beyond reason.
The mother ambushes Mulder in one scene but does not kill him, because she did not see him as a threat, unlike the other group. In the moment of reason and peace between them, he actually recognized her as being beautiful - something the destructive group was incapable of. She ended up killing several police from the other group who ran into her. In the end, Mulder's group ends up shooting the mother with a tranquilizer dart, but the other police catch up to her first and shoot to kill, since the mother was attacking one of the officers. The message, to me, seemed to be that mankind always ends up being destructive, even when it tries not to be.
The problem with Chris Carter episodes is that they often contain deep philosophy that can benefit any person, but they carry themselves in an awkward manner. As viewers, the best we can do is to try and look past those stylistic issues and get to the real content beneath.
The episode was full of people doing animalistic, uncivilized activity, like a bunch of young kids running around a house, wearing gorilla masks and running into walls. There were several mentionings that destruction is mankind's oldest and most prominent attribute. There was a chart on the wall of an anthropologists office that showed the decline of other animal species in all of the continents that people have moved onto.
There were two major groups of people pursuing the cannibals. One group was led by Mulder, Scully, an old park ranger and an anthropologist. This group seemed to have the monsters best interest in mind, carrying around a tranquilizer gun, hardly ever drawing their weapons. They represented the group of people that are trying to evolve past their primal instinct of destructive behavior.
The other group was led by a disgruntled police chief and the local police, who covered up scenes of crimes and disregarded evidence that suggested anything paranormal. In the introduction to the episode, that group ended up shooting the father of the cavemen/primates. They also went out of their way to keep Mulder and Scully from continuing their case and carried around rifles, with the intention of shooting the mother on sight. They represented mankind's tendency to be destructive beyond reason.
The mother ambushes Mulder in one scene but does not kill him, because she did not see him as a threat, unlike the other group. In the moment of reason and peace between them, he actually recognized her as being beautiful - something the destructive group was incapable of. She ended up killing several police from the other group who ran into her. In the end, Mulder's group ends up shooting the mother with a tranquilizer dart, but the other police catch up to her first and shoot to kill, since the mother was attacking one of the officers. The message, to me, seemed to be that mankind always ends up being destructive, even when it tries not to be.
The problem with Chris Carter episodes is that they often contain deep philosophy that can benefit any person, but they carry themselves in an awkward manner. As viewers, the best we can do is to try and look past those stylistic issues and get to the real content beneath.