"Weeds" & X-Files "Red Museum" Parallels

[davidmarx2000]

Has anyone ever noticed the similarities in tone and message between the Millennium episode "Weeds" and the X-Files episode "Red Museum" (Season 2)? In "Weeds," the perpetrator is punishing sons for the sins of their fathers. In "Red Museum," children are being abducted because they have been turned into "monsters" due to tests involving growth hormones, which were administered by the doctor who delivered them. Both perpetrators are correcting immorality, taking the hypocricy of the world into their own hands. Both perps are clearly delusional, despite their desire for morality; they just go about fixing things that can't be fixed by them; trying to fix wrongs the wrong way. It might be interesting to watch these episodes one after the other; in which order, I'm not sure.

[seesthru]

That's a very intriguing concept! I'll have to re-watch the xfiles one. I remember it but vaguely. Might make for a good evening, watching both!!

[Libby]

I can see similarities but also dissimilarities. Certainly the targets in both cases are children, who the perpetrators don't care about at all, they're just a means to an end. One case was vigilante justice; the other was more like eugenics. Either way, it's as you say – it's "morality" gone bad. What is right and wrong should be decided by society as a whole, not by an individual or a secret consortium.

But there are differences. In Weeds, the perpetrator is a member of the community who has taken upon himself the mantle of justice. What he sees is that one person is giving of his expertise and time to contribute to the community but his son was killed and no-one was identified as being responsible for that; whereas others are living immoral lives with seemingly no consequences.

In Red Museum, it's a much more complicated story. There's a group of vegetarians who've moved into cattle country. The finger of suspicion is pointed at those people because, in terms of their beliefs and their dress and their cult-like behaviour, they are clearly not part of the community, nor wanting to be. Yet they are, in the end, the ones who can provide sanctuary. It's a different morality story, because there are links between what the food industry does to cattle, and what the X-Files' consortium want to do with humans. In Red Museum, it's not so much about justice, it's about humans cooperating with their masters in their plan to produce a better version, and one of the main perpetrators was someone who the community should have been able to trust.

But both episodes raise the question of what is the right thing to do, and give different examples of where the notion of "right" goes horribly wrong. In my opinion, Weeds does that better.

I've relied on the episode synopses of these episodes, which I've attached as a .pdf file.

Weeds and Red Museum.pdf

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

The creepy "Peeping Tom" guy has similarities with the guy in Weeds. However, Red Museum is one of the first stories that delves into genetic experiments that involve the conspiracy group.

[davidmarx2000]

I can see similarities but also dissimilarities. Certainly the targets in both cases are children, who the perpetrators don't care about at all, they're just a means to an end. One case was vigilante justice; the other was more like eugenics. Either way, it's as you say – it's "morality" gone bad. What is right and wrong should be decided by society as a whole, not by an individual or a secret consortium.

But there are differences. In Weeds, the perpetrator is a member of the community who has taken upon himself the mantle of justice. What he sees is that one person is giving of his expertise and time to contribute to the community but his son was killed and no-one was identified as being responsible for that; whereas others are living immoral lives with seemingly no consequences.

In Red Museum, it's a much more complicated story. There's a group of vegetarians who've moved into cattle country. The finger of suspicion is pointed at those people because, in terms of their beliefs and their dress and their cult-like behaviour, they are clearly not part of the community, nor wanting to be. Yet they are, in the end, the ones who can provide sanctuary. It's a different morality story, because there are links between what the food industry does to cattle, and what the X-Files' consortium want to do with humans. In Red Museum, it's not so much about justice, it's about humans cooperating with their masters in their plan to produce a better version, and one of the main perpetrators was someone who the community should have been able to trust.

But both episodes raise the question of what is the right thing to do, and give different examples of where the notion of "right" goes horribly wrong. In my opinion, Weeds does that better.

I've relied on the episode synopses of these episodes, which I've attached as a .pdf file.

Weeds and Red Museum.pdf

This is an excellent response; the kind that makes returning to this forum worth it. This is who we are!

[seesthru]

Weeds was a nutjob case. Red Museum was more like a continuation of nazi protocols upon human subjects.