Alpha 6×16: Don’t mind him, he’ll go on forever.

Bad dog.

“Alpha” holds a special place in my heart.

I realize that probably sounds strange to you, so allow me to explain.

About a year and a half ago, after I had recently completed the rewatch that spawned this one, I was nostalgically flipping through my book of X-Files DVDs, bemoaning the fact that I had watched every episode I wanted to watch and there was nothing left. Lo and behold, my eyes dropped down and I saw something I had never noticed before.

“Alpha”… What’s an “Alpha”?

I searched my extensively detailed mental database of X-Files and I could not for the life of me remember the plot of this episode.

Did I miss this? Is that possible?? What in the heck is “Alpha”???

So of course, I popped the DVD back in the player thinking I must be having a mental block, possibly due to low levels of caffeine in the blood.

Sweet Mulder on a cracker… have I ever even seen this episode?

You see, that’s when I realized I have this habit of pulling the DVD from the player directly after “Arcadia” (6×13). Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.  Do not watch “Alpha”.

There are certainly episodes that I’ve been known to skip out of dislike, others I pass over due to impatience. But “Alpha” remains the only X-File whose actual existence I’ve wholly forgotten. It’s a dubious distinction indeed. In fact, I’m not even positive I saw this episode on its first run because my memories of it are so vague they may be retroactive counterfeits. Perhaps the VCR malfunctioned one Sunday night. I’ll have to dig out my old VHS tapes one day to be sure.

The benefit to this oversight, and there was a benefit, is that it essentially became a Lost X-File for me. Imagine waking up one day and finding out there’s another Mulder and Scully adventure out there for you to enjoy, one that you never knew about. Score!

Right?

Wrong.

I wanted to love “Alpha”. I wanted to have a new X-File to treasure. But yegads, I couldn’t. I suspected that if I couldn’t remember it there was probably a good reason and my instincts were correct.

Even on this rewatch, when I honestly tried more than ever to like it, it only got worse. Coming after the pitch perfection of “Monday” (6×16) and the fun of “Arcadia”, its failures are especially hard to accept. I found myself shaking my head involuntarily with irritated boredom before the episode was through. Frankly, it had me thinking nostalgic thoughts about “3” (2×7)…

This is our second episode in a row with an underwhelming monster. But whereas “Arcadia” had copious amounts of humor to fall back on, “Alpha” has no such crutch.

As I was watching this episode (for what may be only the second time ever), I started to smell the distinctively noxious odor that comes out of the kitchen when too many cooks are cooking in it. I wasn’t there and I can’t prove it, but I highly doubt that 70% of the script belonged to writer Jeffrey Bell, though the credits may tell me otherwise. The script feels disjointed, as if several different people worked on it, all with different points of focus. At least, that’s the excuse I’m giving because not much else can explain this fiasco.

But I’m complaining without giving any details. So… “Alpha”. This is an episode about territoriality, both human and non-human. There’s a noticeable amount of pissing and marking going on, but the hind legs being lifted up aren’t owned by any alpha male, but by a couple of frustrated women, one aggressive and the other passive-aggressive. One is Scully, the other is the newly introduced Karin Berquist, one of Mulder’s shadowy internet friends.

Karin is a socially maladapted loner who would rather be, and has been, living in the wild with wolves than walking on two legs amongst her fellow humans. Probably because he’s socially maladapted as well, and certainly as bright, she’s made a connection to Mulder and it’s because of information she feeds him that Mulder and Scully are on this case in the first place.

Karin, Karin, Karin. I’m all for geeks and losers, but Karin is a little too awkward to be sympathetic. Sadly, she’s just annoying. Which is a shame because I feel I should be rooting for this woman a little. After all, she’s dying, she has no life, and a man like Fox Mulder is giving her some attention. Can I blame her for trying to drag this situation out? However, her manner is off-putting. I realize it’s supposed to be, that she’s written that way, but I don’t believe it serves the story as well as if she had been either a clear object of empathy or a full on nemesis for Scully.

Too bad Mulder has man ears and not dog ears, or else he would have been able to hear the high pitched sounds coming from the mental catfight between Scully and Karin. Men are so oblivious to the ever-present subtext between females. Now, I know that it would be easy to interpret Scully’s actions here as the product of jealousy, but I don’t believe jealousy is what motivates her in any real sense. Mulder isn’t sexually, or even emotionally, interested in Karin and Scully knows that. Scully is being territorial, protective even, over poor, ignorant Mulder who is about to be caught in a web of womanly wiles. Scully essentially gives her the talk that big brothers give to their little sisters’ dates: I’m watching you. See, she perceives in a way that only a fellow woman can what Karin’s true motivations are and she resents them, not because they exist but because of Karin’s covert methods. Oh, and because Scully has been dragged all the way across country to California, probably on a red-eye flight since they arrived on the scene so soon, all so Karin can get the chance to moon over Mulder in person. I’d be a little resentful too.

The scene where Scully confronts her with this knowledge, where she gives her the old “I’m watching you” schtick, falls flat, however. Not because Scully isn’t a force to be messed with, but because Karin isn’t really worth having a woman-to-woman talk with. She’s no Diana Fowley. Scully’s righteous indignation is wasted on a woman who barely registers as human.

Alright. Enough griping about Karin because I’ve decided she’s not anywhere near my least favorite aspect of this episode. The next contender? Well, that would be the werewolf wannabe itself, the Wanshang Dhole. I’ve said before that The X-Files never handled exotic or foreign myths very well. It’s hard to introduce the audience to an unfamiliar legend and convince them to be afraid of it in the same 45 minute window. It can be done, of course, but it isn’t here. The playful pit bull my aunt used to own was scarier than this Wanshang Dhole, in human or in “canid” form. You can give a dog glowing eyes but you can’t make me fear it.

I was reading that one of the original ideas for this dog tale was to make the X-File about a kid who worked at a dog pound whose anger was expressed through the dogs there. Now, a pack of vicious dogs chasing Mulder and Scully down darkened streets? That could’ve worked. It could’ve been like “D.P.O.” (3×3), only with the SPCA involved.

But even the underwhelming monster in this Monster of the Week isn’t what dooms “Alpha” for me. It’s the painfully lackluster “climax” of the episode. Scully’s napping and Mulder’s reading a magazine while a mortally ill woman who tricked them into inaction with a see-thru lie uses an even more see-thru trap to easily defeat what’s supposed to be the smartest dog ever known to man.

I can’t even with this stuff.

I’ve read another draft of the script. I know there were better ideas out there both for the climax and for the episode in general. Maybe budget and time constraints forced them to resort to this nonsense, I don’t know. But it’s a doggone shame.

Verdict:

The best few minutes in “Alpha” come right after the opening credits when Mulder regales both Scully and us with a handful of bad dog jokes. Yes, even they fall flat, but this is the first time we’ve seen Mulder and Scully back in the basement office since they were reassigned to the X-Files. It looks a little bare, but Mulder’s hard at work making it feel homey again. It’s just missing one thing…

Mulder’s I Want to Believe poster.

Now, it’s about time we got it back. It’s just too bad that we get it back at the hands of a less than memorable character. If Karin Berquist is going to go down in history as the person who gave Mulder his poster back I want to have some kind of emotional connection to her. Instead, I spent the last few seconds of the episode resenting her spiritual intrusion into the basement office.

“Alpha” is still better than “Space” (1×8). I’ll give it that… and only that.

D

Claw Marks:

If the cage in the teaser hadn’t been opened and they didn’t know the animal was missing and that it had killed two of his crew, why does the captain or whoever he is say, “I don’t know how this happened. It makes no sense. We found the cage still locked. Two of our men are missing?” It makes no sense to me either.

Lupus is a disease I’ve been around a lot in my life. How Scully, a pathologist, not a rheumatologist, diagnosis this disease with so little information and such ease is beyond me.

This dog is supposed to be so smart, yet he falls into Karin’s trap so easily. And how could she have been sure they’d fall back hard enough to land on the fence post? That fence is some distance from the house.

“I think that I believed her very quickly.” Yes, Mulder, you have a tendency to do that.

Best Quotes:

Scully: Aren’t you going home?
Mulder: I am home. I’m just feathering the nest.

——————-

Scully: What happened to the dog?
Mulder: Dog gone… Dog gone… Doggone.
Scully: Yeah, I got it.

Mind’s Eye 5×16: I have the same pair of pants.

The blind leading the blind.

First off, in “Mind’s Eye” we have a great guest star in indie movie maven Lili Taylor who gives a performance as the blind yet brazen Marty Glenn that sells the entire episode. I dare say that as solid as the episode is it would have fallen apart with a lesser actress in the central role. Even Mulder and Scully come off more as supporting players in her drama than leads themselves. That’s quite an accomplishment considering the dynamic duo was at the height of their television popularity. I must not be the only one who think so since Lili Taylor was nominated for an Emmy for this performance.

This isn’t the first time Mulder has developed a bit of a platonic crush on a woman who most people would cross the street to avoid. Remember “Oubliette” (3×8)? “The Field Where I Died” (4×5)? Even as early as “Conduit” (1×3) and “3” (2×7) we see Mulder’s unique ability to relate to the women that no one else can and believe them when no one else will. It’s hard not to attribute Mulder’s sympathy toward any Little Girl Lost as a psychological byproduct of losing his sister Samantha at such a young age. It’s hard not to and I wouldn’t try not to because I have no doubt that it is. Still, I also have no doubt that that’s not all it is.

To be sure, it’s easy to see how if by some miracle Samantha returned, after the glow of reunion had faded, would resemble these socially maladapted women to no small degree. If Mowgli resented mankind after being raised by wolves how much more a girl on the cusp of puberty stolen and raised by aliens, let alone by Cigarette-Smoking Man which is another distinct possibility. I’m sure she would feel displaced and misunderstood, the way anyone would who came back from the dead.

But more than that, Mulder himself is like a male version of these women, two steps away from needing a psychiatric intervention. He’s misunderstood, emotionally isolated, jaded and dismissive of people who try to befriend him. The main differences are that Mulder is hopefully proactive, refusing to believe that he can’t change what ails him, and unlike these poor and poorly educated women Mulder is no underdog. He has the power of his position, education, and reading between the lines of his family background, grew up with a decent amount of money to fall back on as well. Maybe that’s why these kinds of women tend to resist his help and maybe that’s why he’s intent on rooting them on.

I wasn’t a big fan of “Oubliette” as it was hard to follow Mulder in his attachment and mentally rally behind a character who walked around as limp as a fish. At least in this episode Marty Glenn has some spice. There are worse emotions than wanting to slap her, like being bored by her altogether.

Verdict:

This episode reminds me of earlier seasons. The resolution is bittersweet rather than satisfying and it’s quiet, without all the typical bells and whistles that we’ve come to expect in episodes of recent seasons. It’s not the most memorable or the most exciting tale, but it is a solid showing in a season that’s especially strong.

One thing that I like is that the writers are getting better at allowing Mulder or Scully to shine for an episode without making the other partner look bad. Mulder connects to Marty without alienating Scully unlike in “Conduit” and “Oubliette” where Scully is antagonistic. In fact, this time around she accepts Mulder’s final hypothesis with in a calm and unsurprised manner. Then again, I suppose it would be disingenuous of her to be taken aback by Mulder’s theories at this late stage in the game.

As I was watching, I remembered originally wanting to dislike this episode because I disliked Marty, but I just couldn’t. True, I’m still not sure I understand Mulder’s emotional response to her, but her story is an interesting one and hey, at least she’s a proactive author of her own tale rather than a passive victim. That’s why out of all the Little Girl Lost episodes this is the only one that passes muster.

B+

Bits and Pieces:

Writer Tim Minear only has one other credit on The X-Files beside this episode, a joint effort with Vince Gilligan, “Kitsunegari” (5×8), the somewhat disappointing follow up to “Pusher” (3×17).

Actor Blu Mankuma makes his second appearance on The X-Files in this episode. He first showed up in the much-panned Season 1 episode “The Ghost in the Machine” (1×6). I wonder how surprised he was and the direction the show had taken since then…

In a rare reversal of roles, Scully runs the opening slideshow.

Coincidentally, the last time The X-Files pulled the “psychic connection” bit we were watching “Oubliette”, another episode where Mulder becomes emotionally involved with a grumpy and misunderstood woman.

Best Quotes:

Marty Glenn: So… I’m all ears.

——————

Detective Pennock: You know, the thing I find most surprising about this case is you. You are one skeptical guy, Agent Mulder.
Mulder: Skeptical?
Detective Pennock: Oh yeah!
Mulder: I’ve been called a lot of things. Skeptical, however, is not one.
Detective Pennock: Yeah, whatever.
Mulder: [Answers cell phone and mutters under his breath] Skeptical…

——————-

Detective Pennock: It looks to me like it [the glove] fits.
Marty Glenn: Somewhere, Marcia Clark weeps.

——————-

Marty Glenn: I’d never seen the ocean before. And now when I close my eyes… or even when I open them… that’s all I see.
Mulder: Well, you’re lucky he wasn’t a fan of the Ice Capades.

The Field Where I Died 4×5: I could’ve lived without that just fine.

Well, at least the shots were gorgeous.

You have no idea how I had to brace myself for this one. I seriously considered breaking my own cardinal rule and jumping ahead to “Sanguinarium” (4×6). Then I briefly considered skipping this one altogether in the hope that no one would notice, and if they notice, that they probably wouldn’t miss it. My obsessive compulsiveness has prevailed, however, so let’s get this over with…

When writers Morgan and Wong left in Season 2, Mulder and Scully were close partners. Nearly two seasons later when Morgan and Wong come back on board, Mulder and Scully’s relationship has taken on epic proportions, both within the show itself and even more so in the minds of the viewers. When they left, there had been no ultimate trade in “End Game” (2×17), no psychic connection in “The Blessing Way” (3×1), no sacrifice of the Holy Grail in “Paper Clip” (3×2), no “Pusher” (3×17), no “Wetwired” (3×23), etc. etc.

This may be blasphemous, but I think the justly praised writing team who helped shaped The X-Files into greatness had lost touch to an extent. Maybe they’d spent too much time away. All four episodes they would write for this season seemed to be forcing new ground on the audience rather than breaking it. A couple did it successfully, like the glorious “Home” (4×3), while others did not.

For this outing, I think it’s clear where Morgan and Wong stood on the topic of Mulder and Scully. Not that there’s anything wrong with their Noromo position. Heck, that was the 1013 party line at the time. But I think what they failed to take into account, maybe because they had been working on other things and didn’t understand it, was the current state of the fandom and the pseudo-sanctity of the Mulder and Scully relationship.

I’m going to set all Shipperhood aside for this one. I don’t even need it. Even under the premise that Mulder and Scully are and should remain perfectly platonic, I have to have reason to believe that Mulder has suddenly made a connection that has a gravitational pull more powerful than or at least equal to the one he has with Scully in order for this episode to work. That doesn’t happen.

Kristen Cloke, the actress who plays Melissa Reidal and who happened to be engaged to Morgan at the time, called the episode “a love letter from Glen Morgan to me” and indeed that’s what it feels like; a personal exploration of themes more so than an X-File. Darin Morgan used to do this except that somehow his themes always added to rather than subtracted from the series as a whole. He gave new dimensions and flavors to something that was already familiar.

This episode is barely connected to the rest of the series either in tone or content. As such, it feels like a personal indulgence. It fails to consider the ramifications of what it’s proposing and it fails to consider the context of the series at large. Take, for instance, this issue of continuity: In one of Mulder’s past lives CSM was a Nazi Gestapo Officer. Yet CSM would already have been alive in WWII, a fact that you would think couldn’t have escaped Mulder once he was no longer hypnotized. How could he be in both lives at the same time? Hmmm?

It’s moments like this that prove the episode doesn’t really serve the characters either. It reduces Mulder to a fool and Scully to a sidekick. “The Field Where I Died” takes place in an episodic vacuum where the events don’t make sense and it doesn’t matter anyway because the emotional ramifications of these revelations will never be dealt with. Mulder’s supposed past life and the loss of his soulmate are issues never to be seen or spoken of again.

Issues of context and continuity aside, even without that problem and taken just by itself, this episode is almost as boring as “Space” (1×9), and it would be if it didn’t get my adrenaline fired up through irritation. I tried to imagine as I watched what I would be thinking if I were watching this and it were just another TV show, not The X-Files at all. Would I have responded more favorably? I think so, but only by about 20% more. Reincarnation is a hard sell to a Western audience and the advertisements here aren’t appealing. It’s a concept that really has to be done well to be engaging, a feat that’s rarely achieved outside of anime.

Melissa’s voices are too goofy to take seriously so the performance is comical instead of affecting. Sidney in particular is way over the top. And since he’s the first voice we’re introduced to, it’s hard to climb back up from there. Then in a chain reaction, since what draws Mulder to her character is something that I find ridiculous, I find Mulder ridiculous. And if I find both Mulder and his X-File ridiculous there’s little left to enjoy. Ah, those hypnosis scenes are like pulling teeth.

Worst than anything is Mulder who is more caught up in himself than we’ve ever seen him. In fact, he’s a selfish bastard in this one. According to Morgan, in the 20 minutes of footage that had to be cut from the episode were some scenes that supported Scully’s point of view, that Mulder’s past as dredged up under hypnosis was false, a result of mixed-up memories and wishful thinking. It’s too bad they weren’t able to fit more of that plot in to balance the story out. Mulder needed a little undermining here.

Once again, he’s out to save a lost young woman who the world would rather forget than help. I’d like to love him for this, I really would, but he’s drawn to women who have already given up on life, who’d prefer to sink than struggle for air. Watching him try to save women who don’t want to be helped, knowing that his mission is doomed, is not television for the faint of heart. I’d rather watch “Oubliette” (3×8) and you know that’s saying something.

What glimpses of magic this episode does have are largely due to consummate director Rob Bowman, who makes it beautiful to watch if nothing else. In fact, I highly recommend just turning the sound of and letting it play. Oh, but then you’d miss a luscious score from Mark Snow so that won’t do. I guess you either just grit and bear it or you don’t.

As I don my Shipper cap again for a moment, let me just say that this episode feels slightly mean-spirited (an unintended slight, I’m sure). Like pouring cold water over a fresh hot meal so that no one will be able to eat it.

Just as uniting Mulder and Scully in a cloud of romance would have drained tension from the show, so too would have building an unequivocal “No” into the narrative. It would have taken away the hope of many. Indeed, I remember feeling rising panic after I first saw this episode (it was already in reruns and nobody warned me), but the fact that Season 5 had already begun to air and there was no trace of the ghost of Melissa Reidal buoyed my spirits.

“The Field Where I Died” takes itself too seriously, bloated on its own weight and import. Overwrought is a word that comes to mind and it’s probably the one episode in The X-Files’ cannon that I would willingly erase, yet…

Entertainment Weekly once famously called this episode “Stultifyingly awful.” In retrospect, I wouldn’t go quite that far. The production value is too high. All in all, it certainly has the best of intentions and you can tell a lot of effort went into this one on everyone’s part. But when I ask myself if I’ll ever watch it again… I get queasy.

It’s Over at Last:

There is that one, brief moment of lightness and joy…

Mulder: Dana, if, um, early in the four years we’ve been working together… an event occurred that suggested or somebody told you that… we’d been friends together, in other lifetimes… always… wouldn’t it have changed some of the ways we looked at one another?
Scully: Even if I knew for certain, I wouldn’t change a day. Well… maybe that Flukeman thing. I could’ve lived without that just fine.

But then…

“I wanted to sum up Mulder and Scully’s entire relationship with that question Mulder asks Scully afterwards, if we had known from the beginning that we had lived all these lives, would it change anything, how would you feel?’ ” Morgan said. “I just wanted to raise that question between the two of them. I’m not sure what the answer is. My feeling is that she is holding on to some skepticism. Her answer in the episode — “I wouldn’t change a day” – might be a little ‘tee-vee.’”

Way to quench it, dude.

D+

Keeping it Brief:

John Mark wasn’t the writer of The Book of Revelations. It was another John.

Exactly which version of Mulder was a soulmate of Sidney’s??

The quote from Kristen Cloke is nabbed from here:
http://www.littlereview.com/getcritical/interviews/cloke.htm

The quote from Glen Morgan is shamelessly lifted from here:
http://etc1013.wordpress.com/1997/10/01/cinefantastique-4/

War of the Coprophages 3×12: Dude, that’s some good crap.

"Waste is a Terrible Thing to Waste."

First of all, that opening monologue from the exterminator about the wonders of cockroaches is more satisfying than any purple prose ridden voiceover Mulder or Scully ever delivered. Once again writer Darin Morgan plays off of what we’ve come to expect from The X-Files by giving it to us and then flipping it over. But unlike the previous two Darin Morgan penned episodes, I’m not sure the underlying purpose/theme here is so clear.

“Humbug” (2×20) juxtaposed normalcy versus otherness and “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” (3×4) covered fate versus free will. “War of the Coprophages”, while it hints at the fine line between reality and insanity, doesn’t explore the themes so much as it mocks them. Since we can’t be sure of what happened, it’s hard to condemn the people of Massachusetts for panicking when they very well may have had reason to. Overall, I’d have to concede that this episode isn’t quite as successful as his other ones. But it’s still incredibly fun.

The whole episode is an exercise in glorious repetition. Mulder seeks Scully out for her insight, Mulder hangs up on Scully. Mulder comes upon another body that was attacked by cockroaches, Scully comes up with another reasonable explanation. Mulder quotes Planet of the Apes… Bambi quotes Planet of the Apes. Not only that, as I said earlier, Morgan deftly plays with X-Files stereotypes. Mulder’s always ditching Scully and leaving her hanging, well, here it’s an almost compulsive ritual. And no matter how absurd and inexplicable the death Mulder stumbles upon, Scully comes up with an even more random and infinitely more plausible explanation.

So now for the oft discussed question: Is Scully jealous? To which I answer: It’s there, ever so slightly. It’s all in the way Scully says “She?” when she finds out Dr. Berenbaum is a woman. Dana Scully, M.D. surely wasn’t surprised at the idea that a scientist could be a woman. No, never that. Instead I think there was a sudden realization of what Mulder was actually up to while she slept restlessly with her phone on her pillow. Not that there’s anything to go overboard about. Any woman would be annoyed by that. And when Mulder asks to confess something to Scully, something both she and we as the audience suspect is going to be sexual in nature, she looks worried she’s about to be grossed out. She doesn’t look jealous, sad or angry. As for Mulder, once again, he’s flirting with another woman while confessing his fears and insecurities to Scully. It’s sort of like “Fire” (1×11) all over again. Poor Mulder. Like his relationship with Phoebe Green, he should’ve known it would never work; she’s not haunted, abandoned or misunderstood. With the exception of Scully, he doesn’t have an easy time connecting with well-adjusted women.

Not that I’m on his side. I myself want to kill him for leaving Scully hanging in a state of near panic but I’m so busy laughing that I can’t stay mad. She’s thinking he’s been attacked by killer cockroaches and meanwhile he’s macking on an entomologist named Bambi. I’d say you can’t make this stuff up but Darin Morgan apparently can.

Conclusion:

If this episode has a weakness it’s the lack of resolution. I know that’s one of The X-Files’ signature moves, but here we finish watching completely unsure whether the events even really happened. There are too many cockroach swarms for it all to be a coincidence, yet all the deaths have normal explanations. More importantly, where did the metal insects come from, why did they converge on this town and what made them leave? Who created these mechanical marvels? In the end, the unanswered questions are no big deal because it’s such a jolly ride.

It’s fun to see how Scully spends her evenings for one thing. She cleans her gun, eats dinner while watching the news, gives Queequeg a bath, reads a little Truman Capote and eats a tub of ice cream by herself. It’s so hilariously domestic considering she spends her working hours chasing flukemen and such. Scully had a few off episodes not too long ago, “Oubliette” (3×8) comes to mind. But between this and “Revelations” (3×11), her character is on the fast track to respectability again. Morgan’s version of her is both loveable and feisty. What a relief.

I’ll admit that the last moment between Mulder and Scully still annoys me a bit. He has his nerve. So Mulder loses the girl and Scully rubs his nose in it. But you know what? He deserves it.

A-

Random Musings:

The area is in a panic. The townsfolk are raiding the convenience store. There’s a Sailor stocking up on… pantyhose??

Bill Dow AKA Dr. Chuck Burks is back, only this time as Dr. Newton.

Ken Kramer AKA Dr. Berube AKA Dr. Browning is back too, only this time as Dr. Ivanov.

Scully’s vehement defense of the theory of Evolution feels slightly odd coming straight off of “Revelations”.

Best Quotes:

*Editor’s Note: You know the drill. It’s a Darin Morgan episode. Quotes won’t suffice. Break out your DVDs or pull up Netflix and get started.

Scully: Hello.
Mulder: I think you better get up here.
Scully: What is it?
Mulder: It appears that cockroaches are mortally attacking people.
Scully: I’m not going to ask if you just said what I think you just said because I know it’s what you just said.

———————-

Mulder: I see the correlation, but just because I work for the federal government doesn’t mean I’m an expert on cockroaches.

———————-

Mulder: Well, that all makes perfect sense, Scully, I don’t like it at all. Did you know that the federal government, under the guise of the department of agriculture, has been conducting secret experiments up here.
Scully: Mulder, you’re not thinking about trespassing on government property again, are you? I know you’ve done it in the past but I don’t think this case warrants…
Mulder: It’s too late. I’m already inside.

———————-

Mulder: They’re conducting legitimate experiments. I met an entomologist, a Dr. Berenbaum, who agrees with your theory of an accidental importation of a new cockroach.
Scully: Did he give you any idea of how to catch them?
Mulder: No, but she did tell me everything else there was to know about insects.
Scully: She?
Mulder: Yeah, did you know that the ancient Egyptians worshipped the scarab beetle and possibly erected the pyramids to honor them? Which may be giant symbolic dung heaps?
Scully: Did you know the inventor of the flush toilet was named Thomas Crapper?
Mulder: Bambi also has a theory I’ve never come across…
Scully: Who?
Mulder: Dr. Berenbaum. Anyway her theory is…
Scully: Her name is Bambi?
Mulder: Yeah, both her parents were naturalists. Her theory is that UFOs are actually nocturnal insect swarms passing through electrical air fields.
Scully: Her name is Bambi?
Mulder: Scully, can I confess something to you?
Scully: [Wincing] Yeah, sure, okay…
Mulder: I hate insects.
Scully: You know, lots of people are afraid of insects, Mulder. It’s a natural instinctive…
Mulder: No, no, no. I’m not afraid of them. I hate them. One day, back when I was a kid, I was climbing this tree when I noticed this leaf walking towards me. It took forever for me to realize that it was no leaf.
Scully: A praying mantis?
Mulder: Yeah, I had a praying mantis epiphany and as a result, I screamed. And not, not a girlie scream, but the scream of someone being confronted by some before unknown monster that had no right existing on the same planet I inhabited. Did you ever notice how a praying mantis’ head resembles an alien’s head? The mysteries of the natural world were revealed to me that day but instead of being astounded I was repulsed.
Scully: Mulder… are you sure it wasn’t a girlie scream?

———————-

Dr. Ivanov: Anyone who thinks alien visitation will come not in the form of robots but of living beings with big eyes and grey skin has been brainwashed by too much science fiction.

———————-

Mulder: Scully, if an alien civilization were technologically advanced enough to build and send artificially intelligent robotic probes to the farthest reaches of space, might they not have also been able to perfect the extraction of methane fuel from manure? An abundant and replenishing energy source on a planet filled with dung-producing creatures?
Scully: Mulder, I think you’ve been in this town too long.

———————-

Scully: Let me guess… Bambi.
Dr. Berenbaum: Fox told me to wait out here while he checked inside first.
Scully: [Mouths] Fox.
Dr. Berenbaum: Should I come along with you?
Scully: [Loads gun] No. This is no place for an entomologist.

Oubliette 3×8: I guess she’s not too big on confined spaces.

Flash Forward or Back?

Ah, “Oubliette.” I realize I should probably love this episode and yet… a knot formed in my stomach just as my thumb touched the play button.

That’s silly, I suppose. Here The X-Files takes a brave step forward by giving us an episode slightly outside its typical formula. But it’s not the formula that concerns me, it’s the tone.

Here we have a Monster of the Week who is perfectly human and decidedly not paranormal. Since the success of Donnie Pfaster in “Irresistible” (2×13) I’m sure the writers were itching to try it again, only this time they take it a step further in that Donnie Pfaster had at least a smidgen of paranormal aura. Whether it was all in Scully’s mind or not, at this point, we don’t know. This new villain, Carl Wade, is as typical an unsupernatural pedophile as he can be. The paranormal element is introduced in his victims instead, the currently kidnapped Amy Jacobs and Lucy Householder, his former victim.

We open with something also against formula when we see Mulder already at the crime scene without so much as a strand of Scully’s titian hair in sight. It becomes clear quickly that this one is Mulder’s story. The parallels are obvious: Amy Jacobs was taken from her bed at night and spirited out the window while her little sister looked on from the other bed helpless to stop it. This sounds strikingly similar to Mulder’s account of Samantha’s abduction that we heard in “Conduit” (1×3), another episode where Mulder’s ability to relate to the case is both his strength and his weakness.

We’ve already seen in “Conduit”, “The Jersey Devil” (1×4) and even “3” (2×7) that Mulder has a soft spot for any “little girl lost” that stems from the scars of Samantha’s abduction. Even Scully agrees with me:

Scully: You don’t see what you’re doing, do you, Mulder? You are so close to this that you just don’t see it.
Mulder: What don’t I see?
Scully: The extreme rationalization that’s going on, your personal identification with the victim, or in this case the suspect. That you’ve become some kind of empath yourself, Mulder. You are so sympathetic to Lucy as a victim, like your sister, that you can’t see her as a person who is capable of committing this crime.
Mulder: You don’t think I’ve thought of that? I have. And not everything I do and say and think and feel goes back to my sister. You, of all people, should realize that sometimes motivations for behavior can be more complex and mysterious than tracing them back to one single childhood experience.

Oh, Mulder. Methinks thou doth protest too much. While I know Mulder’s right about the case, I agree with Scully. Even if he were wrong, Mulder would have a terrible time admitting that Lucy was guilty. He clearly identifies with her because of Samantha, so I don’t know who he thinks he’s kidding. He didn’t even bother to deny it in “Conduit” and I don’t know why he does here. It’s an interesting element to his character that he’s constantly trying to save all the other “Samanthas” out there since he hasn’t been able to save his own. The problem is, I’m rarely interested in the women he’s attempting to help.

Lucy Householder isn’t an exception to that rule. Mulder is going to bat for this woman and it’s hard not to feel like she doesn’t deserve it. Of course, she does, but it doesn’t feel like it. Here’s a woman that may not be living a perfect life but she’s living. And considering all that she’s been through you’d think there’d be some spark of fire in her, something that’s kept her going all these years but there’s nothing. I can see Scully’s irritation at her attitude and I find myself having the same reaction. Maybe as a woman I have a harder time seeing her as a damsel in distress.

What bothers me most is that Lucy is so devoid of hope. A woman used to believing she’s powerless. She couldn’t help herself when she was kidnapped and kept prisoner for years, she can’t help herself now in her dead-end life, why would she be able to help anyone else? Even her final sacrificial act isn’t one of empowerment but of defeat. She dies not to save Amy, but because it’s not worth it to fight anymore. That’s what Mulder is trying to explain to Scully at the end of the episode: he didn’t save her at all, she gave up. “Finally, it was the only way she could escape.”

…And the Verdict is:

As good as the acting is in this episode, and it is good, and as good as the pacing and direction is, and it’s also good, I think part of the reason I dreaded having to watch it is because it’s no fun.

I should explain. Here’s what I don’t mean when I say “fun”: something that isn’t sad or something that’s humorous. It can be scary, meaningful, thoughtful, tearful even and still be “fun.” The Godfather II isn’t exactly an uplifting film but it’s one of the most fun movies in existence. I can’t help but get excited about it.

“Oubliette” is emotionally almost oppressive. It’s not that it’s dark the way The X-Files typically is as far as its subject; not that kidnapping and pedophilia isn’t a dark topic, but this is a show that’s covered child murder and entity rape so I think its audience isn’t afraid to “go there.” No, it’s not the subject that bothers me it’s the tone and the outcome. There’s nothing to balance out the sadness and despair. Is there a single joke or sarcastic line in this episode? Any brief moment of levity?  There’s just nothing to get excited about, nothing funny or scary or otherwise.

Mulder tries to reach Lucy, to gift to her some of his strength, but he fails. Thank heavens Mulder is a Mulder and not a Lucy. The X-Files would be a very different place if he were a despairing rather than proactive individual. Heck, we wouldn’t have a hero.

Maybe this is an episode where my worldview gets too far in the way for me to appreciate it. I’m too hopeful a cynic.

C+

Nagging Questions:

That was some bogus CPR Scully pulled. But I suppose they can’t fit the truth in a 43 minute episode: they would have worked on that child for an hour.

Random Thoughts:

I didn’t mention Jewel Staite. Imagine my surprise when I looked her up for this episode and found out she’s become a star. Apparently everyone knows her from Firefly and Stargate Atlantis. Me, I remember fondly a little show on The Disney Channel called Flash Forward… http://youtu.be/LNVE9HWUxiE

Best Quotes:

Myra Jacobs: Who could do such a thing? Who could take somebody that wasn’t theirs?
Mulder: I know you must be feeling…
Myra Jacobs: I’m sorry, but how could you really know how I feel?

——————-

Scully: That’s spooky.
Mulder: That’s my name isn’t it?

——————-

Mulder: Have you ever experienced temporary blindness before?
Lucy Householder: I’ve probably experienced just about everything once or twice. It’s all been pretty temporary.

——————-

Scully: I hate to say this Mulder, but I think you just ran out of credibility.

Guest Post – X-Files: A Shipper Guide, Part 3

*Editor’s Note: Nina is a long time X-Phile and shipper extraordinaire. (Seriously. You guys thought I was rabid.) You can find more of her humorous insights into The X-Files, Supernatural, 24 and other fandoms on her tumblr at myspecialhell.tumblr.com. Here’s part 3 of her rundown on Mulder and Scully’s relationship in Season 1. You can check out parts 1 and 2 here and here. Agree/disagree with her observations? Duke it out in the comments section. We can’t wait to hear what you guys think!

And with that, take it away, Nina!

Fire a.k.a the other woman pt 1

~ Care to take me to lunch?

                                – Scully (Fire)

We know of two relationships from Mulder’s past, both of them with sassy, independent women. We know short of nothing about Mulder’s relationships before he went to Oxford, there were references to one relationship Mulder had in his teens in the original script of Genderbender, but for some strange reason it was cut out from the episode.

Fire is the 12^th episode of the first season. Up until that episode we had seen short of nothing about Mulder’s personal life. We had seen he had a passion for porn and that he was fascinated with the beast woman from New Jersey.

But we didn’t know about his actual love life…until Phoebe Greene[1] showed up.

I don’t like Phoebe Greene. I like her even less than I like Diana Fowley…and that’s saying a lot, since I used to hate Diana Fowley’s guts. At least, on some level Diana seemed to genuinely love Mulder, in a sick, twisted, very twisted way.

Phoebe Greene was a b****, pure and simple. She knew Mulder, she played him…she had hurt him in the past. She had cheated on him and from what Mulder said during the episode, he had probably seen her with other men.

Needless to say Scully hated her on sight. And for once, it wasn’t Scully being territorial, she was remarkably civil to the hag…she just plain hated her.

And I think she hated her for the same reasons I do. She was hurting Mulder: she was using his insecurities to mess with his head.

By that point, Scully knew that underneath his cocky behavior, his sometimes arrogant approach to things, Mulder was insecure. Granted, he was not the insecure mess fanon wanted him to be, but nonetheless he was insecure. Mulder needed to show he could take anything. The man had been a profiler, he had crawled inside the mind of serial killers and psychos and he had stayed strong.

He faced horrors everyday with his job on the X-Files: mutants who ate livers, brainwashings, young girls’ disappearances, beast women, intelligent computers, worms from outer space, ghosts, ghosts from Mars, OPR committees, evil kid twins….

And he was strong…he was confident; he was downright enthusiast of his job.

Until Phoebe showed up with a case, which focused on one of Mulder’s phobias: fire.

“You just keep unfolding like a flower”

I love Scully in this episode, and since there have been times where I have honestly despised her in latter seasons, that’s saying something.

She was a real partner to Mulder…and mostly a friend.

In my premise I said I’ve always believed Mulder and Scully fell for each other at first sight…but were they friends back in the first season?

One thing is what they had probably felt at first sight, something else altogether is when their rational minds caught up and smelled the coffee.

Despite what fanon claims, Mulder *is* rational. Just because his theories are a bit wild, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a rational bone in him.

So, yes, they were friends, but we’re talking about Mulder and Scully…so to have a verbal acknowledgment of their friendship, we had to wait for another season.

Before I go on talking about the events of Fire and the impact they had on M&S dynamic, there’s a digression needed to be made.

Partners, friends, constants and touchstones, lovers

Aka the impossibility to put a label on Mulder and Scully’s relationship

~ Do you have a … a significant other?

Mulder: Um, not in the widely understood definition of that term.

(From Chimera ep. 7×16)

Mulder and Scully are two private people. With their line of work, with what they went through during the series, labeling their relationship, giving a name to it, I think it would have meant to trivialize it, besides, it would be hard to do that. How can you label what they had?

I’ll try to explain and make sense of my theory.

Remember: I said I was obsessed with the X-Files, I said I am a shipper and I said I was delusional, ok?

In the first season, especially in its second half, Mulder and Scully stopped being just co-workers and became partners…and friends.

They already had strong feelings for each other, but they weren’t voiced; Scully said at the end of the season that she wouldn’t put herself on the line for anybody but Mulder (i.e. Tooms), Mulder became more and more protective of Scully…but to have a verbal acknowledgment of their friendship we had to wait for another year.

Mulder said out loud that Scully was his friend only in the second season, after her abduction, after her return. (i.e.. Firewalker). To hear Scully say the same thing, that Mulder was her friend, we had to wait another season, the third, after the events of Anasazi, Paper Clip (i.e. Revelations).

Now, you might probably think: “well, duh! They were stating the obvious!”

But when Mulder and Scully tried and put a label on their relationship, the term they used had usually deeper meanings.

They were in love with each other, but even the love they shared couldn’t fit into an established category.

Leaving aside Carter’s idiosyncrasy for the word “love”, which we have heard twice throughout the show, always said by Mulder: once playfully the other more seriously (i.e. Tooms and Triangle) I think the real reason why never the three magic words were uttered by our heroes has to do with the aforementioned possibility of trivializing such feelings.

Mulder indeed told Scully he loved her, once…but didn’t the way he cried at the end of One Breath scream of his love for her? Didn’t the way he held her in Irresistible bear the same meaning? Didn’t the Russian roulette in Pusher and how Mulder fought Modell’s grip when it came to his order to shoot at Scully? Didn’t the arm-chewing scene of Redux II? And we won’t even mention the damn hallway scene in Fight the future, shall we?

Action spoke more than words on the X-Files, and when words were said…they were always love declaration…the feelings were utterly explained.

But you saved me! As difficult and as frustrating as it’s been sometimes, your g**d*** strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You’ve kept me honest … you’ve made me a whole person. I owe you everything … Scully, and you owe me nothing.

I don’t know if I wanna do this alone… I don’t even know if I can … and if I quit now, they win[2]

And

Scully, I was like you once— I didn’t know who to trust. Then I… I chose another path… another life, another fate, where I found my sister. The end of my world was unrecognizable and upside down. There was one thing that remained the same.

You… were my friend, and you told me the truth. Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant… my touchstone.

And you are mine.[3]

And

“It’s what I saw in you when we first met. It’s what made me follow you … why I’d do it all over again[4].”

As I said I’ve always believed that when either Mulder or Scully labeled their relationship for other people’s benefits they meant something else altogether, therefore partner meant friend *and* partner at work. Friend meant: my partner, she/he I’m in love with.

Notice how from the fourth season on they rarely, if ever, addressed their relationship.

When they were finally labeled as lovers, in the series finale, they were so much more than that. They were…well, I dread the word soul mates, but if ever there is something like that, I think it’s the only word that can barely cover their relationship.

Who, me…obsessed and hopelessly shipper? Well, heck, yes!

Fire aka the other woman pt2

As I said before the digression, Scully showed some real concern for Mulder, in the episode. It’s the first time we actually saw Scully as a friend, a protector to Mulder…on a more intimate aspect. Yes, she had saved his life time and again in the first episodes, just like he had, but the events of Fire were rather…personal, in a different way than those of Conduit.

I’ve always loved the scene following Mulder’s failed attempt to save those kids, Mulder was hurt and Scully rushed at him, and tried to see how he was doing, but he didn’t let her.

On a side note, compare this scene to any other similar scene from the fourth season on, to see how Mulder’s behavior changed. But, funnily enough, it’s not Mulder I want to talk about but Scully and the way she gently brushed Mulder’s forehead and looked as Phoebe, who only a few minutes before, was exploring Mulder’s tonsils and was pretty much ignoring him, gushing instead over Cecil L’Ively (played by the magnificent Mark Sheppard).

She just ignored Mulder.

Many have seen Scully’s reaction to the ballroom scene as one of jealousy, but I disagree.

We have seen Scully being jealous and in my opinion, she wasn’t. She was annoyed, she was frustrated, maybe…but she wasn’t jealous. She actually stayed and watched, compare this scene to other in other seasons, one common denominator has always been that she ran away, she didn’t want to face those scenes (cfr. Syzygy, The End, Alpha)

I love the scene where Mulder woke up, supposedly the day after. He was embarrassed, I love how Scully looked at Mulder, how she made sure hers was the first face he saw when he woke up.

Now, in the premise of this essay, if you want to call it an essay, I said I was going to try to stay as far away as humanly possible from fanon…

I’ve tried to stay as far away as humanly possible from fanwanking the scenes and the episodes…but just this once forgive me for doing that…

1)  Who undressed Mulder?

2) Did you notice that when Phoebe entered Mulder’s room, she was actually polite to Scully? And that Scully gave her the mothership of all the cold shoulders?

3) I’ve always thought that Phoebe Greene was the unfortunate – although deserving – recipient of one of Scully’s  b****fests!

Note how Mulder wasn’t in the least uncomfortable with Scully:  he was undressed, clad only in black, silk boxers, but he felt the need to cover himself, when Phoebe entered the room.

So…was I the only one who found this scene very telling? There was already a level of ease with Scully that lacked with Phoebe. And besides Mulder felt he didn’t need to shield himself from Scully…he trusted her, same thing couldn’t be said for Phoebe.

By the end of the episode we had another confirmation of how much the two partners already knew each other….could read each other. Scully said at the beginning of the episode that Mulder kept unfolding like a flower, yet she had no troubles seeing that there was something wrong when she went to the house of the family Phoebe was supposed to protect.

She didn’t know that Mulder had had a bad case of deja vu, when, entering the house, he had seen Phoebe kissing the man whose family she was supposed to protect.

In the end, Mulder had some kind of closure: he had walked through the fire and gotten over his fear and had chosen not to listen to the tape Phoebe had sent him. In the ballroom Phoebe  had said she had thought often about him, but he realized that Phoebe hadn’t really changed and after all that time, he finally got her out of his system and chose, instead, to go out for lunch with Scully – now, if only things with Diana had been that simple we’d have been spared the whole fiasco –

Oh, and he realized something else…something which was crystallized in a line which never made it to the episode. He told Scully he was ready to walk through the fire for her. At the time he was speaking metaphorically, but we have seen it happen. Mulder walked through the fire, through the ice…for Scully

He wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

Carter? You are a bastard…but damn, a talented one!

---

[1]                Played by Amanda Pays

[2]              Fight the future

[3]              Amor Fati

[4]              The truth

3 2×7: You are really upsetting me… on several levels.

That didn't go over well, did it?

Let me start off with some positives. First, the music in this episode is awesome. I don’t believe we’ve heard this exact refrain from Mark Snow before and if we have, I doubt it was used to such great effect. It’s lovely and haunting and perfect. Second, Mulder has some great quips in this one. The scenes between him and “the son” and between him and Dr. Browning are the highlights of the episode. And in a distant third, by tying Mulder’s loss to Kristen’s, the writers do a good job of keeping the fact that Scully is out there…somewhere… in the forefront of our minds.

Now I have to confess my prejudice. I hate this episode. In fact, for the most part, it out and out disgusts me. From the blood-sucking to the body that looked like it had been through a nuclear holocaust to the club scene to watching Mulder get his freak on to the blood filled loaf of bread… I just can’t deal. It’s like the writers of this episode picked up on everything that rubs me the wrong way spiritually, emotionally and psychologically. Oh, Morgan and Wong, how could you?

Don’t get me wrong, I can watch a decent vampire flick with the best of them. But this episode taps into everything that’s gross about the myth without exploring the psychology of it with any style or substance. And when you consider the time and place in which this episode occurs, it’s amazing that we only hear Mulder mention that little word, “AIDS,” once and then that’s the end of it. Really??

Speaking of communicable diseases, this episode relies too heavily on sex.  No, it’s not that we see a whole lot. Heck, this is nothing compared to your average episode of CSI. But it’s gratuitous because it doesn’t serve a purpose. Or at least, it doesn’t achieve the purpose for which it was filmed. Think I’m wrong? This was the first episode where The X-Files got sexy and while sex usually attracts audiences, this is one of the most panned episodes in the series. Sex by itself doesn’t always sell. We also need a plot we can sink our teeth into.

Even Mulder falls prey to the sex theme. I can only reason that Mulder is in a very dark place because of Scully’s abduction and is eager for a distraction. He’s helpless to find Scully, so I suppose he wants to feel as though he’s not impotent in every single way. Though I don’t know if I could’ve gotten my thing on with my best friend lost to the wind, especially if that friend was lost because of me. But I’m not here to judge Mulder… Oh wait. Yes, I am.

In all seriousness, Mulder’s attraction to this Kristen does relate back to Scully’s abduction and even further back to Samantha’s. He sees his sister as a vulnerable victim, a “Little Girl Lost.” Surely if she had been returned she’d have ended up like the other abductees; outcast and troubled. I believe that’s why he tries so hard to rescue women who he feels are misunderstood. He believes them when no one else will. This is yet just another case of Mulder to the rescue. He’s right, of course. Kristen Kilar certainly needs saving. How did she become a vampire in the first place? Her boyfriend beat her and busted her lip so she bit through his and it was love at first taste. No, no psychological handicaps there.

Whatever her issues, Kristen does prove sympathetic in that last moment, when she sacrifices herself to save John from what he had become. In a way, she regained the loved one she thought she had lost. Will Mulder be able to do the same?

Conclusion:

Please.

D+

Extras:

There just happens to be a mirror perfect for spying around corners lying on the table? They need mirrors at blood banks?

Knowing that Perrey Reeves was David Duchovny’s girlfriend at the time is the definition of TMI. I really, really don’t want to know what they looked like when they… you know.

“Feeble, literal grasp of the Bible?” I’m going to ignore that dig, Mulder, because I love you. And by the way, big-haired preachers don’t take that passage about drinking Christ’s blood literally. You’re confusing evangelicals with Catholics. Sigh.

I would also like to point out that John 52:54 Does. Not. Exist. I can only assume that those numbers are significant to someone on the writing staff. I haven’t found any info on that bit of trivia, though.

The scene where we watch Mulder catalogue Scully’s file and store her personal effects is well done. It perfectly symbolizes the fact that she’s on his mind, but there’s nothing he can do about finding her at the moment.

Actually, why doesn’t Mulder check with MUFON or something? Hunt down Duane Barry’s abductee friends and try to pin down where they’re being taken? That’s why they put the “I” in the “FBI.”

Best Quotes:

John: When a snake eats a fly it’s not murder. It just is.
Mulder: Frogs eat flies.

—————-

John: Don’t you want to live forever?
Mulder: Well, not if drawstring pants come back into style.

—————-

Mulder: I’m familiar with proferia. It’s an affliction that causes lesions and blisters when skin is exposed to sunlight, not fourth degree burns. Sufferers may have a haema deficiency which can be supplemented by a small ingestion of blood, not the kind of blood-thirst that this man had. It’s probably ignorance of proferia as a disease that led to the creation of vampire myths in Asia in the middle ages. I had dismissed the possibility of the actual existence of such a creature as myth.
Dr. Browning: You are really upsetting me… on several levels.

The Jersey Devil 1×4: I’m not far from where you left me.

I'm hunting wabbits.

This largely ignored episode may never be completely forgotten if only for one reason: We delve into our favorite agents’ social lives… or gross lack thereof. While neither Mulder nor Scully have much of a life outside of the FBI, Scully seems to be faring better than Mulder. Still, her weekend highlight is little more than a kid’s birthday party. I suppose she’s making an effort.

Speaking of the party, Scully’s knee-jerk, “He’s a jerk” in response to her girlfriend’s suggestion of Mulder as a potential love interest shows just how thoroughly she’s ruled him out as a prospect. OK, as Scully concedes, he’s not a jerk. He’s definitely not boyfriend material either. Case in point, the way he ditched her earlier that day.

But might not there be hope? After all, she’s clearly thought about the possibility! Before we shippers tip ourselves into over-excitement, we can’t read too much into this. She considered the possibility of dating Mulder, yes. Most girls consider their prospects in regards to the men in their lives if only in passing, not necessarily with any seriousness. And Scully wisely comes to the conclusion that Mulder is in no shape for marriage or any other serious relationship. Remember that porn fixation of his?

Meanwhile, Mulder blasts Detective Thompson, with all indignation, for protecting the city’s financial interests and keeping this Jersey Devil thing under wraps. But even if that’s exactly what the detective is doing, is he supposed to cause a mass panic by claiming there’s a monster on the loose? Should he have let the Jersey Devil live to kill again or be studied in a glass cage? The Detective Thompson character is deliciously malicious, but it’s a little wasted on such a relatively benign conspiracy. I only wish his motivations had been more sinister and less pragmatic.

As for Mulder’s character evolution, we see an expansion on what we glimpsed in him during Conduit (1×3). Here is the Mulder that empathizes with monsters and outcasts, particularly the female ones. We see more of this identification in later episodes like Oubliette (3×8), yet even here he expresses fascination for this cannibalistic cave woman as if she were a piece of art in the Louvre. Nevermind the fact that she’s killing innocent strangers, why quibble over trifles? What’s a modern human or two compared to the survival of Captain Cave-man? At least Mulder’s psychology is consistent if not altogether reasonable.

Scully brings in a scientist, an anthropologist, to lecture Mulder. It’s nice to delve into the character’s history a little bit. But just like Scully’s godson, her professor goes the way of the dinosaur after this episode. Things get a little expositional at this point, but isn’t the point of The X-Files to force the audience to ponder the possibilities?

Now for one of the best parts, Scully ditches her date. For all her talk about wanting to have a life, Scully apparently isn’t as interested in a normal family life as her friend expects her to be. She enjoys her career. She displays no hankering after children, no biological clock ticking like the Tell-Tale Heart, merely a mild regret at not having time to explore the possibility of having a family. Her friend pounces on it.

Even her date seems to be entered into with some reluctance. She’s just going through the motions with this incredibly interesting accountant. And despite her statement to Mulder earlier, she’s not at all bothered when he calls and interrupts her evening. At the end of the episode, she easily turns down a domesticated day of bliss with her date and his son in order to continue her investigation with Mulder. I said it for the Pilot and I’ll say it again: Mulder, and by extension the X-Files, is the most interesting thing that’s ever come into Dana Scully’s life. At this point, she’s loathe to give it up. Ethans, accountants… they can’t compare. I’m not saying she has a thing for Mulder, I just think Scully’s more of a glutton for excitement than she would even admit to herself.

And the Verdict is…

This is as close as the series ever got to Big Foot. As the show progressed, they steered further away from urban myths and more toward the straight-up paranormal. Quagmire (3×22) is the only real exception I can think of.

Like in “Quagmire”, here we see Scully questioning the trajectory of her life and whether or not her partner needs a psychological intervention. If she doesn’t come to an ultimate conclusion, she does make a decision and happily trails after Mulder by the end of the episode. Mulder, for his part, is busy as ever writing the book on how to not make friends and alienate people. His hunches hold up, his emotions are on his sleeve. In short, it’s comforting to know that he’s quintessentially Mulder this early on in the series. He even ditches Scully with practiced aplomb.

The Jersey Devil is definitely good for some Mulder/Scully funny. Mulder lands himself in some rather amusing trouble and Scully rescues him with a self-satisfied smirk. Later on, Scully feigns innocent as she mentions her date while Mulder doesn’t feign his inability to care when he assumes she’d want to cancel.

The ending is as vague and open-ended as we come to expect from the first season. Are these Devils truly Neanderthals or a relatively modern family that happened to get lost in the forest a really, really long time ago?

All in all, it’s a little disappointing to find that The Jersey Devil is just a human. Primitively human, maybe, but merely human.

B-

Bepuzzlements:

Why is Mulder willing to infest himself with lice based on nothing more than the crude drawing of a man? Considering this is a homeless colony in a big city, what’s so strange about a wild looking man digging in the trash for food?? No one else would have entertained the possibility of their being anything to it except for Mulder and his (in)famous intuition.

Why would a “carnivorous Neanderthal” occupy a space above us on the food chain? Wouldn’t our advanced intelligence win the day?

The Jersey Devil looks distinctly Caucasian. Yet, supposedly, they’ve been hiding out from the evolutionary chain in these American woods for thousands of years. I smell inconsistency.

Even if the Jersey Devil was killing to protect her young, why cannibalize? And how does that explain the unprovoked killing of the father in the 1940s?

General Observations:

Somebody catch me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is our first glimpse into Mulder’s porn fetish.

Best Quotes:

Mulder: Hey, what do you say we grab a hotel, take in a floor show, drop a few quarters in the slots… Do a little digging on this case?
Scully: You’re kidding, right?
Mulder: OK, we can skip the floor show.

————————

Mulder: Don’t you have a life, Scully?
Scully: Keep that up, Mulder, and I’ll hurt you like that beast-woman.

Conduit 1×3: I’ll send him a bundt cake.

They're heeeere!

If the “Pilot” established that Samantha’s abduction was the driving force behind Mulder’s crusade, “Conduit” takes the idea further by proving that it’s also a deep source of emotional pain for him. While not the scariest or most inventive episode, “Conduit” successfully provides the groundwork for Fox Mulder’s character over the next 9 seasons and so it holds up over time.

There’s something touching about the way Scully, if she doesn’t directly stand up for Mulder, keeps Blevins from breaking his heart. Mulder doesn’t know it, but Scully’s trying to help him by asking her skeptical questions. She’s looking for a reason to defend this case to their superiors. Yes, Scully cares enough about Mulder’s feelings not to tell him what went on with Blevins. Apparently, she hasn’t forgotten their motel bonding in the “Pilot”. Even her later attempt to get him to stop looking for his sister was probably a well-meaning effort to end his suffering. Well-meaning. Misplaced.

Call me over-analytical, but I think this exploration of Mulder’s motivations means that other aspects of the series make more sense as well. Most notably, Mulder’s pain over Samantha’s abduction is easily identifiable with his innate empathy for anything that hurts, be it man or beast. This plays out all the way into Season 8’s “The Gift” (8×11).

In particular, Mulder has the oftentimes irritating desire to rescue maidens all forlorn. No Rapunzels, mind you. They might be in distress but the women Mulder feels drawn to are hardly damsels, they’re damaged. And they are legion… “3” (2×7), “Oubliette” (3×8), “The Field Where I Died” (4×5), “Mind’s Eye” (5×16) and we could keep going. Conduit’s Ruby Morris is the forerunner of all these. Somehow these troubled women are the way that Mulder sees his sister; left to rot, ignored or shunned by the rest of society. I won’t go too much into it here, there are still 9 seasons to go. But it’s gratifying to see the character continuity the show was able to maintain despite the army of writers that came and went.

This episode contains, for me, one of the most uncomfortable moments in the entire series. Scully crossed a line here. She had no business telling Mulder to stop looking for his sister. Who is Scully at this point, to Mulder, that she can take that kind of liberty? This isn’t her emotional battle and she hasn’t been with Mulder long enough in the trenches for her angry plea to carry any wait. I think she’s aware of it since for the rest of the episode she’s more subdued and less argumentative. The expression on Mulder’s face makes you wonder for a moment if he’ll ever forgive Scully. It’s a testament to the trust they’ve already built that he ever lets her in again. But he does, even before the end of the episode. As much as I love Scully, I hope she felt guilty. (Not too guilty, though. She did allow Mulder that illegal grave dig, after all.)

I must admit, that image of Kevin standing in the woods before the light is quite effective. But the off-roading bikers? How many fake-outs can they give in one episode without anything truly dramatic happening? The note from a mysterious stranger, the men in black, none of it panned out into anything interesting. This is a character piece loosely disguised as a mystery.

In the end, we don’t know anything other than that Ruby was abducted, which is exactly what we learned in the teaser. At least now Scully understands the little boy inside her partner better. Maybe that will cause her to be more sensitive in the future… and maybe not. Should I mention “Sein Und Zeit” (7×10)?

And the Verdict is…

Apparently, this episode had to rely on atmospheric gimmicks; a note on the car, a girl who disappears too quickly to be relieved, g-men knocking down the door, and white wolves out of nowhere. However, none of those things bring to mind alien abductions and maybe that’s why this episode doesn’t really work. It’s just a little too introspective for my taste.

It does, however, give us more insight into the psyche of Fox Mulder. It also shows us that while Scully pities him, she’s also frustrated by his annoying ability to see his sister in the face of every missing girl.

This may be where I officially got sick of Samantha Mulder, and it’s only the second episode her ghost shows up in. The obvious parallels between Samantha and Ruby exhaust rather than intrigue me. The matching swimsuit pictures, well… I must be the most cold-hearted X-Phile in the nation, but I remain unmoved.

Still, it’s good to see Mulder’s character fleshed out and explained. It’s one thing to think your sister was taken by aliens, it’s a much more powerful thing to be so consumed by guilt and loss that the only outlet for your grief is tilting at windmills. And if the series hadn’t laid the foundation early on for Mulder’s angst, this whole search for the truth would have seemed hollow, as though Mulder merely wanted to show-off.

So, is Fox Mulder crazy or crazy like a Fox?

C+

Bepuzzlements:

Why are defense satellite transmissions coming through little Kevin’s TV screen? How does he hear/see all those little ones and zeroes? And what on earth is the connection to Ruby’s disappearance? What good does it do the aliens to read our transmissions and then transmit them back to the American public? And if they aren’t defense transmissions but important pieces of high culture (where was Bugs Bunny?) then how did the NSA mistake them for defense transmissions?

Is the white wolf the new red herring? What was the point other than to freak out the audience? Oh, wait…freaking out the audience….

General Observations:

There are some series continuity errors here in regards to Samantha’s abduction, but we have to cut the writers some slack. They had no idea how big the show would be and once it was popular, they had to spice up the abduction scenario a little bit.

This is the first and probably last time we’ll see Mulder seeking solace in a church. Was the voice he mentions at the end the government, the aliens, or God? And please don’t say CC was already going all Biogenesis on me.

I do believe this is also Mulder and Scully’s first interrogation. I can’t say I pictured Mulder as the bad cop.

Love the creepy note-giving. But doesn’t their running across the street give away the charade?

The soundtrack when Tessa disappears in the library is classic Mark Snow. It gives the case an element of eeriness even though nothing special is actually going on.

Call me easy, but I really liked tough biker dude.

Best Quotes:

Blevins: In essence, Mulder is petitioning the Bureau to assign a case number to a tabloid headline. (Post-Modern Prometheus, anyone?)

———————-

Mulder: Who, me? I’m Mr. Congeniality.