Romancing the Stone.
This is one of the most oft quoted episodes for understanding Mulder and Scully’s psychology and more importantly, the dysfunctionality of their relationship. The X-File itself isn’t very good, but the episode is quite fun. I wouldn’t quite characterize it as a comedy episode, but it is “light”, possibly due to the influence of Darin Morgan on Kim Newton’s script.
Before watching this again, I was prepared to write a speech about how it’s no coincidence that the two episodes that offer the most insight into Scully’s character this season were written by a woman. After all, Kim Newton is also the writer who brought us “Revelations” (3×11) where Scully’s background of faith is explored. And yet, it turns out that Darin Morgan is an uncredited writer on “Quagmire”. Rumor has it that the famous “conversation on a rock” is entirely his. Not only that, but according to Chris Carter, Morgan also contributed a “tremendous” amount of work, uncredited, for the script for “Revelations” as well. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much time mentally dwelling on his episodes lately, but I never really appreciated how truly Darin Morgan-esque this episode is. True, it’s written by Kim Newton and Darin Morgan is only an uncredited contributor, but his stamp is unmistakable.
Is that not Morgan’s voice we’re hearing again after all? The characterization here is in keeping with his previous episodes. Mulder is chasing after the ridiculous and rather than looking like an abnormally clever investigator he’s painted as obstinately, if endearingly foolish. Scully, on the other hand, is chock full of insight. Then there are the recurring characters like the stoners, and even Queequeg, who were introduced in his earlier work. Not to mention the tone of certain characters like the Sheriff, and certain gags like Bertram‘s trashy hat are telltale signs. You can tell Morgan didn’t write the whole thing but it smacks of his scent. The tone actually reminds me of “War of the Coprophages” (3×12) in a lot of ways.
But enough about a question we’ll never know the answer to and back to the episode at hand. This is one of those episodes that everybody enjoys and yet it’s somehow not a fan favorite. I suspect that’s because the X-File itself isn’t very interesting. The charm of this episode is in watching Mulder and Scully interact in a most domesticated fashion. From their first moments on the screen in that funny little car ride, instead of having their typically clinical conversation about a mysterious case, they’re bickering over bringing the dog rather than putting him in a kennel.
It’s hilarious. And it’s a nice change of pace because it’s been a while since we’ve been reminded that Scully actually finds Mulder amusing. This was more their relationship dynamic in Season 1. Season 2 they were almost romantically devoted to each other (we’ll get to that definition in a moment) but Season 3 has been devoted to taking the bloom off the rose; all their faults are out in the open. This episode continues that theme by delving into the psychological complexities of their unusual relationship.
The X-Files itself has always been a romance on several levels. Setting aside for a moment the more obvious definition of romance as an idealized love, friendship or otherwise (which The X-Files also depicts), first it’s a literary romance, and I don’t mean the kind of fiction with Fabio on the cover. The Oxford English Dictionary defines literary “romance” as “a work of fiction depicting a setting and events remote from everyday life.” (And wouldn’t you know it, the theme of the episode, Moby Dick, is a famous romance novel from the 19th century.) Connected to that definition, “romance” is also considered “a quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life.”
Now, store that information away for a moment while we discuss Scully. The question that’s subtly addressed in this episode is why is Scully still here? After all, she clearly doesn’t believe in the work; most of it, like this case, she finds patently ridiculous. True, over the past year she’s become personally involved by a set of tragic circumstances. But the man who killed her sister has been killed and she’s shown some serious reluctance to address or even try to remember the circumstances of her abduction. By the end of the last mythology episode, “Apocrypha” (3×16), she infers that the answers aren’t sufficient because they won’t bring justice. So again I ask, what is she still doing here?
Back when I reviewed the “Pilot” (1×79) I argued that despite her protestations, Scully enjoys the mystery and excitement of the X-Files and of Fox Mulder himself. Mulder gets so much flack sometimes because he’s not a realistic character and he isn’t meant to be, that’s Scully’s job. Mulder is Don Quixote, he’s Hamlet, he’s Captain Ahab. He’s given himself a monumental, otherworldly quest, one that’s dangerous, ridiculous, and incredibly exciting all at the same time. Truth be told, there’s a fantasy element to The X-Files and Scully is the audience’s stand-in; she’s whisked away into events that can’t be possible yet suddenly are.
So how does she feel about that? Well, usually she protests that the whole situation is either too dangerous or too absurd, and yet… Notice that when Mulder brings up similar legends to Big Blue, Scully is already familiar with them! As a kid she read up on them, but then she “grew up and became a scientist.” Again when they’re on the lake in the middle of the night searching for this legendary Big Blue, Scully starts to believe herself as she sees that blip coming toward her on the boat’s monitor. The look on her face isn’t that of a clinically detached scientist.
As I said earlier, Mulder, even in the context of the reality of The X-Files, is a fictional character; he’s the type of person you meet once in a lifetime. And he’s invited Scully to chase the “white whale” of alien life with him. For all her science and practicality, it’s a proposal she can’t resist because at heart, Scully is a little girl who used to read stories about men like Mulder and live vicariously through them. He’s her childhood bedtime story come to life.
Might she not be finding in Mulder a childlike faith that she thought she’d lost? I wonder whether if she had never met Mulder or seen what she’s already seen working on the X-Files if she would have returned to the church the way she did in “Revelations”. Perhaps she would have gone through life distancing herself from what she used to believe as though faith without proof was a game for children and she was a grown up. I think Mulder’s faith inspires her even as she scoffs at what it is he has faith in.
Much is made in later seasons of the idea that Scully sees Mulder as a father figure, a jumping off point from Scully comparing Mulder to Captain Ahab in this episode and from the fact that her nickname for her father was Ahab. However, I think that to take the logical leap that since both men are “Ahab” to her that they both occupy a similar place in her life is faulty. It’s true that both Mulder and Captain Bill Scully are strong and smart, but there isn’t much to compare between them besides that.
Scully sees Mulder as Captain Ahab, a romantic and tragic figure doomed to chase something that he’ll never catch and drive himself to madness in the process. In contrast, Bill Scully’s disapproval when Scully dared do something as “reckless” as join the F.B.I. was enough to cause tension between a once close father and daughter. The man was as straight-laced as it gets. He served his country, he served his family and he came home. Despite his nickname, Bill Scully was no Ahab. Bill Scully is called Ahab but Mulder is Ahab.
Now, Captain Ahab is hardly anyone’s knight in shining armor so let’s be clear, that’s not how she sees Mulder. This whole season has been an eye-opener for Mulder and Scully’s characters in regards to each other. They’re not faultless, two-dimensional characters any longer. There’s been a tangible amount of tension as well. But it seems as though when the varnish wears off they actually love each other more, not less.
Conclusion:
Now that we know more of the history of her character, Scully’s instant like of Mulder in the “Pilot” makes sense. Rather than putting her off with his ridiculous theories the way he does most of the F.B.I. is, he intrigues her. Just because Scully realizes that Mulder is off his rocker doesn’t mean she doesn’t admire his insanity and stubbornness
Despite the danger and loss, and mostly in spite of her own disbelief, Scully sticks around because of the romance of the situation she finds herself in. Sure there are moments where she winds up wet on a rock in the middle of the night, but that’s the price that has to be paid. Her eyes are open to Mulder’s weaknesses and faults. And yet that element of romance, of mystery and excitement is still there… sometimes.
Whether they catch the whale is superfluous. It’s adventure on the high seas regardless. And if some days are more mundane than others, if more often than not she ends up stranded on a rock, at least her life isn’t mundane as long as she sticks with Mulder.
B+
P.S. Another sub-genre of Romance is the chivalric tales of knights errant. I suppose that would make Mulder the rusty armored knight and Big Blue the dragon he failed to kill.
Comments:
Oh, Queequeg, we barely knew ye!
In Moby Dick, the character of Queequeg was a cannibal. Make of that what you will.
Best Quotes:
Queequeg: [Barks]
Scully: Nature’s calling, I think we should pull over.
Mulder: Did you really have to bring that thing?
Scully: You wake me up on a Saturday morning, tell me to be ready in five minutes, my mother is out of town, all of the dog sitters are booked and you know how I feel about kennels. So, unless you want to lose your security deposit on the car, I suggest you pull over.
——————–
Dr. Farraday: See this is what always happens. This is how it starts.
Mulder: What?
Dr. Farraday: The deflection, sleight of hand… See, whenever an issue requires any real thought, any serious mental, effort people turn to UFO’s and sea serpents and Sasquatch. Afternoon talkshows and tabloid TV, they’ve reduced our attention span to the length of a soundbite so that soon our ability to think will be as extinct as the Rana sphenocephala frog.
Mulder: I’ll take that rambling diatribe to mean that you don’t believe in the existence of such a creature.
Dr. Farraday: I’m not even going to grace that statement with a reply.
——————–
Mulder: Hey Scully, do you think you could ever cannibalize someone? I mean if you really had to.
Scully: Well, as much as the very idea is abhorrent to me, I suppose under certain conditions a living entity is practically conditioned to perform whatever extreme measures are necessary to ensure its survival. I suppose I’m no different.
Mulder: You’ve lost some weight recently, haven’t you?
Scully: Yeah. So I have. Thanks for… [Glare]
———————
Scully: I called him Ahab and he called me Starbuck. So I named my dog Queequeg… It’s funny, I just realized something.
Mulder: It’s a bizarre name for a dog, huh?
Scully: No. How much you’re like Ahab. You’re so… consumed by your personal vengeance against life whether it be its inherent cruelties or its mysteries, that everything takes on a warped significance to your megalomaniacal cosmology.
Mulder: Scully, are you coming on to me?
——————–
Scully: Well, you slew the big white whale, Ahab.
Mulder: Yeah, but I still don’t have that pegleg.
Musings of an X-Phile 
I’m going to scare the rest of your peer group away by posting this much, but I did say I’d follow your rewatch and I am a woman of my word. Everybody – be not afraid, I am no stalker, nor am I a lunatic. I am however a little bit of both, which combined and balanced into perfection, makes a devoted X-phile. Like the rest of you lot, so there you go.
Let’s talk about Quagmire. I was wondering something very important, namely: How is it, that a fit woman, who is trained by the FBI, can loose hold of the leash of that tiny dog, not once – but twice!? I myself grew up with a regular size Golder Retriever in the house, which I took for walks when I was about five, and I never lost him. Oh, never mind, lets just say Queequeg was a very strong and clever dog.
Moving on: I agree – this episode is very Darin Morgan-esque. I actually had that exact thought when watching, especially in regards to Dr Farraday’s monologue about how people flee every attempt of mental effort or real thinking and turn to UFO’s and likes.
Something occured to me while watching, about the M&S relationship (well… it’s inevitable considering the talk on the rock, but this was actually earlier), When Mulder says “What about these tracks” and Scully says that something that heavy would leave considerably deeper impressions. Scully then finds the shoe and here’s the thing: There’s no, “I told you so” or “Well, anyone could’ve made that mistake”. Mulder simply leaves the thought about finding the tracks significant and moves on to what now seems important. This short scene is like the essence of the M&S relationship as investigators: Scully always makes Mulder fight for his theories, he never gets anything for free (the tracks), which makes him take it a step further than he would if he’d be on his own. But in the end he’s always right and Scully has to agree (the blood on the shoe).
I like this episode, mainly I think because of the dialogue. Even if the talk on the rock makes me think “no one talks like that” when Scully speaks of cannibalism and Ahab. But hey, no one speaks in blank verse either, and I still like Shakespeare.
OK. First, I don’t think your disclaimer’s fooling anyone.
Second, even if the leash slipped out of her hand, why did she grab for the dog that was five feet away instead of the leash handle that was just by her foot?
Third, Scully will always ultimately be wrong or else we’d have no show. It’s sad but true. Occasionally they throw her a bone of an episode a la Revelations, but this is Mulder’s party and she’s just invited to it. The truth is, though, that even though his intuition is usually right he wouldn’t actually be able to prove anything without Scully. For instance, he would’ve stopped at the tracks an gone no further. He would’ve been right, but he wouldn’t have known it. Actually, he doesn’t know and will never find out, but that’s beside the point.
Fourth, Mulder and Scully don’t speak like normal people. But the conversation on the rock is mild in comparison to some of the purple prose that comes out in some of the later voiceovers. Just absurd. Then there are those uber poetic case reports they turn in. I’m sure Skinner gets a good laugh out of those.
Fifth, there is no fifth.
Ok, only just realised I should press reply to the comment I am actually replying to, not make a new one. Boy that makes me a bit stupid, doesn’t it.
Anyway
First, you can’t blame a girl for trying.
Second, I know. Personally: this “Scully dropping leash” theme – not entirely plausible(hah!).
Third, that’s pretty much what I wanted to say, put more eloquently.
Fourth, phew – those voice overs. But those are so obviously read. And when you’re writing, or when I am writing I should say, I find it easier to, well, flower my language a little. But out on a rock in the middle of the night? Impressive.
Fifth, oh right, there was no fifth.
It’s not you, it’s poor design. But I’ll give WordPress credit because the comments section is much cleaner and nicer than it was two weeks ago.
Fourth, (let’s just jump ahead, shall we?) sometimes the writers language, and sometimes their thoughts, seep into Mulder and Scully a little too obviously, I confess. I’ll give Scully a break on this one since it’s the middle of the night and she’s waxing philosophical. But sometimes… really.
Fifth, there is no spoon.
The voiceovers are ridiculous sometimes, but that’s one of the faults that I’ve come to grow a strong affection for. The only time when it really bugs me is in the Redux two-parter. It’s too much even for me at that point.
Oh, I don’t know Hanna. I’ve had dogs all my life and have frequently walked them with a retractable leash like the one Scully uses here. I’ve dropped these on occasion but my dogs never took off the way Queequeg did. No way. To a dog, they took off looking over their shoulder wondering what that yellow thing was that was chasing them!
I think your characterization of Scully is spot on. She stays with Mulder because he brings a spark to her life. Normal bores her. That is why she did not go on the date with the divorced father at the end of Jersey Devil (1×04). Life is more fun chasing the White Whale with Mulder (even if she is not sure she believes any if it).
ITA.
I think one of the mistakes they made starting in Season 4 was to try to give real-world motivations to Scully’s character. You’ll notice they never bother to give *any* realistic motivations to Mulder. He doesn’t need any because he isn’t a realistic character. I would argue that Scully isn’t either inasmuch as she’s a part of this romantic story and she should be allowed to act like it.
Only when we see sanity attempt to take over does she ever try and leave Mulder. But what place does sanity have on a show like this? Really? She shouldn’t stay with Mulder because it’s the sane thing to do she should stay because it’s the right thing to do. Would Sancho Panza leave Don Quixote? Would Tonto leave The Lone Ranger? Anathema.
These relationships are noble, not realistic, and they should be treated as such.
Oh, and don’t forget how they had to cut her boyfriend (Ethan, was it?) from the Pilot. Her scenes with him were so boring compared to her scenes with Mulder that they had no choice, really. That sums it all up right there.
You mentioned S4 and I was thinking about that was well. Now that we agree on Scully’s motivations, I will be very interested in your thoughts about the M/S relationship in Never Again (4×13).
At last! A kindred.
I think everyone missed the forest for the trees here…
A DOG GOT EATEN BY A DINOSAUR
Good for you, X-Files.
The great unsung tragedy of Queequeg aside, I really enjoy the idea of TXF as a literary romance. That framing gives a really great context to all of the episodes (As far as the writing, regardless of the actual extent of his involvement, Quagmire will be Darin Morgan’s legacy in my book, not Jose Chung).
This episode is also one of the earlier examples of an episode that is nearly equal parts comedy and mystery. Previously, something is either a straight up conspiracy monster tale, or it’s supposed to be funny (I’m ignoring the abortive attempt of Syzygy). This hybrid type of episode, if you’ll excuse the use of the term, becomes more of a staple later on.
ROFL!! I’m sorry, you’re right. Where were our priorities??
I really hadn’t thought of it before this episode, but what with giving some thought to Scully’s Moby Dick comparisons it’s kind of a natural jump. Now that I’ve considered it, the whole series makes more sense. For that matter, Star Trek was a romance too. But that’s for another time and another blog. But really, who are Mulder and Scully if not a couple of Knights errant looking to slay an impossibly ridiculous dragon? Isn’t that what the mythology’s all about?
Speaking of hybrids, the last time something like that was successfully done was Humbug – also a Darin Morgan creation. That’s no coincidence, I’m sure. Though that was a much darker/scarier episode it its unfunny moments. This one keeps things light all the way around and like you said, paves the way for a later trend that really takes off with Small Potatoes.
Has anybody here ever seen the Simon Pegg television series Spaced. They make the most wonderful reference to this episode in its first season. Check it out.
I watched this one recently and I have always enjoyed it, but you know what, watching it made me feel sad because I realised something. This is the last time until Small Potatoes that The X Files is going to be genuinely fun. We’ve got two mythology episodes coming up to close the season and then we’re into season four, the darkest, most angst ridden season of the show.
Finally, someone admits it. Season 4 doesn’t give us much to thrive on besides the bread of angst.
P.S. I haven’t seen Spaced. Is it Netflixable in the U.S.?
Better:
http://www.hulu.com/spaced
Muchas Gracias!
I love season four, don’t get me wrong, there are so many truly great episodes that year, but some of it is emotionally and gut wrenchingly grim, just when you think it can’t get any darker, it does.
Not too sure about Spaced being Netflixable, but it’s worth watching if it is. Pegg is a big X-Phile and there are numerous, hidden references to the series throughout, including one not so well hidden.
Oh, I love it too. But it’s a little high drama, no? It pales in comparison to Season 8, however.
I’m going to have to look up Mr. Pegg and his exploits.
Surely I cannot be the only person who noticed that the stoner couple licking frogs on the jetty is actually the same stoner kids from War of the Coprophages?
uuggh. Good catch. I think I mentioned in a previous comment on some episode that I’m TERRIBLE at catching those actor reuses. I’m so unobservant.
It’s not so much that they’re the same actors, as basically (exactly even?) the same characters! It also helps that during my marathon re-watch of the entire series, I’m averaging a season a week, so it’s easier to notice these things with less time between episodes 😉
This post sings of the romance of every companion’s loyalty to the Doctor. I have been thinking a lot lately about how The X-Files and Doctor Who are alike.
Oooh, I can see that. It seems like the best sci-fi is always driven by something more familiar than mere science and technology.
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I’m a big fan of this episode. I love Mulder and Scully’s conversations in the car and on the rock. It’s a nice chance for them to just chat about small things. They have this strong bond between them, yet it is not very often that they have these little talks, and they help make the relationship feel more real within all the madness and fantasical things that go on in their lives.
Plus I find it a really funny episode. The one thing I always feel sad about is Queequeg’s death. I would have loved him to have been in more episodes to provide extra domestic scenes.
I really like how you unpack the meaning of “Romance” and apply it to Mulder and Scully’s relationship. I made a similar argument about them in this essay: https://acefilmreviews.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/the-history-of-romance/
It hadn’t occurred to me to think specifically in terms of this episode or of Moby Dick, though.