#Duane Barry episode

[farminglesbian]

me checking in with the mutuals on tumblr dot com

[the-spooky-alien]

Obssessed with the fact that Mulder barged in Scully's flat in Orison because she didn't answer his phone call. Not only does it imply that he knows her well enough to know that something is wrong, but also that Scully never ignores one of his phone call unless she literally can't because she's busy being traumatized again. These two, I swear...

[xf-cases-solved]

i fucking love how watching xfiles in order gives you such insane emotional whiplash

like for example, s1 you have ice, this amazing "the thing"-esque thriller, immediately followed by space, which is probably top ten least memorable episodes in the world. beyond the sea has so many emotional beats and insane levels of acting skill, immediately followed by fucking gender bender lmfao. the absolute mindfuck of having the duane barry/ascension/one breath trio interrupted by the 14 year old emo kid's vampiric wet dream that is 3??? unparalleled levels of unhinged decision making in that production room

anyway, i just watched colony/end game, and it ends with that poignant scene between mulder and scully in the hospital, after she put on such a demonstration of loyalty and love by ignoring his wishes and going after him and saving his life, and mulder finishes the scene by talking about how he has renewed faith in his search for truth despite his heartbreak, and it's beautiful bc in the end, isn't loyalty, love, and faith what this show is all about? -cue credits-

then "watch next episode" pops up and

it is the one with the invisible gorilla

this shit sure does keep you on your toes, huh?

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

my favorite scully and mulder moments from s2

when they aren’t supposed to talk to each other anymore in the first episode because the x files were disbanded, so they came up with a code to know when to meet up

(and mulder at first is very annoyed that she wants to risk being seen with him because she’s deeply concerned about how distant he’s acting… “so what did you want?” “to see if you’re alright”. him trying to grapple with being cared for vs her trying to figure out why he won’t let her in. yeah.)

((and she runs her fingers through his hair at this covert meeting, after he confesses he’s lost all faith))

when she finds him, in the same episode, passed out on the floor of a random puerto rican jungle compound, and he grabs her by the shoulders, saying he saw the same aliens that took his sister

another covert meeting in episode 2, after moody mulder thinks he was moved to a case just to keep him busy: “is this seat taken?” she asks. “no, but I should warn you I am experiencing violent impulses” “well, i’m armed, so I’ll take my chances”

(and right after, when he said he wants to leave the FBI, but working with her is his only reason to stay)

“i’d consider it more than a professional loss if you decided to leave” <- sobbing. for ten thousand years.

episode 3, when she flew 300 miles in the middle of the night to draw his blood. couldn’t anyone else have done that? no. it needed to be Her.

(there’s another, very brief scene towards the end of episode 3, where she peeks over his shoulder and the height difference is incredible)

scully stopping her class because she gets a call from him, then flying up to New York to do an autopsy for him. and when they see each other they both smile SO big it’s adorable, even as she is holding a human stomach. krychek seems confused. he wouldn't understand, would he?

and then flying in AGAIN to try and help mulder during his hostage negotiation with duane barry in episode 5, getting furious when she is told to “calm down” while he is in danger

when she finally wakes up from her coma in episode 8- how she yells at her mom for calling him “fox”, how he brings her a VHS tape of superbowl highlights and she deadpans “i knew there was a reason to live”

(and he finally gives her necklace back- but then he leaves, despite wanting nothing more than to stay by her side, to let her be with family)

in episode 9, when they are finally back together, mulder tries to get her to stay home from this investigation to keep her safe, because he's terrified of her getting hurt again: “scully, i don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go”, he says, but she’s too stubborn to be stopped, and he realizes it’s an impossible fight

(later, they engage in an intense scientific argument over the existence of silicon based life forms, and it feels deeply charged)

another reassurance in episode 9 that she is okay despite what she has gone through: “i’m back and I’m not going anywhere” (shoulder grab!!!!) “i'm counting on you” (lingering eye contact!!!!)

when he returns from his mission to find scully handcuffed, having just saved herself with some quick thinking, and she has to comfort HIM at the sight of her in distress: “i'm okay, i’m okay”, she repeats, while he gently grabs her face, and seems to ignore everything she is saying to ask if she’s alright

(and the month long quarantine that ensued, which we saw none of, but the fact that it happened at all is lovely to me)

sharing an umbrella in episode 10!!!!! it’s really the simple things in life you know!!!

going out on a rib date… he wipes the sauce off of her face, then goes into explaining how a new spirit can take over a body

when mulder’s sense of injustice is going off that episode, so he leaves the restaurant to defend a kid being bullied, and when scully follows the mean kid taunts him by saying “why don’t you run along with the little wife?” and neither of them react (except for a few moments later when he’s staring intently at her, and it looks like he is considering the possibility)

(bursting into her motel room) “scully? you’re not gonna believe this” <- he said the line!!!! (and she could believe it, because she had figured it out on her own)

exchanging theories on murders and repression of memories: “i seem to recall you having some pretty extreme hunches”, she says, and he replies “i never have”. they both smile in the quiet of driving along a small town road.

when mulder narrowly escapes having his throat slit, and after scully nearly shot the woman holding him hostage, she runs to him and carefully cradles his head while he’s still on the floor…. oh the tenderness. i actually might fall apart.

thinking they will have free time on their trip to Minnesota in episode 13, he bought them tickets to a football game <3 and they didn’t get to go but it was SUCH a nice thought

mulder noticing that scully is in extreme distress while looking at the victims of the killings in episode 13,  but trying to give her space to admit that she is terrified; “scully, if you’re having trouble with this case, I want you to tell me” “I’m not having trouble”, she lies, and he answers “i just don’t want you to think you have to hide anything from me” oughhh.... </3

and when the killer who terrified her so awfully kidnaps her, and mulder arrives to find her, she insists that she’s okay despite shaking like a leaf, until he lifts her chin up. only then does she start sobbing into his chest, while he mumbles “it’s alright, it’s alright” to her. ohhh, the vulnerability hits hard here, especially because she had just said she didn’t want him to feel like he had to protect her! as if there was ever going to be any other option; he is the protector and he will protect what he loves, it’s all he knows

taking the little kid they meet at the refugee camp in episode 15 to get lunch, because one thing these two are gonna do is get any youth they encounter some food. and mulder gives him money for extra fries because he WILL spoil any random child.

she cuts her hand on a thorny branch left in their car, and when mulder says “let me see that”, she replies that it is nothing, trying to deny him any chance to be concerned. then when she starts feeling very ill, she keeps telling him its fine, because for some reason the doctor cannot doctor herself.

(he goes off to get the bad guy, and she is in the car hallucinating. when she finally breaks free from the clutches of evil, he’s lying on the ground, having been… like, psychically stabbed? and still. his first question when he sees her is. “you’re okay?” aughhhhhhhhh)

that time mulder was actively dying of alien poison in episode 17, so she barged in and started yelling at the doctor to get his shit together, because she knew what to do and he didn’t. and she manages to save him.

mulder agreeing to trade who he thought was his sister for scully in a hostage deal, then saying he couldn’t have told her it was his sister because he knew scully would never have let him go through with it... the terrible pain of knowing somebody so well, you know they'd endanger themselves for you...

after scully saves his life by figuring out how to treat his alien poison, she stays by his bed and gently strokes his hair. and when he opens his eyes, she was holding his arm. she smiles and says “thanks for ditching me”, to which he replies that he found his faith again (<3)

seasick mulder fumbling for words in episode 19, while she tries to see if he's feeling any better: “you’re lucky you inherited your father’s legs” “what?” “his SEA legs” (scully laughs while he is in ocean-induced misery)

when they take shifts watching the suspicious guy on the boat that makes you old, his alarm goes off to indicate his shift was over. he goes to wake scully up and switch off, she mumbles something about having just fallen asleep, and he offers to give her a little bit longer to rest. so sweet.

exchanging magic tricks while investigating the sideshow performers in florida in episode 20- her making it look like the cricket came from behind his ear, him pretending to make the nail suddenly appear

“we’re exhuming your potato” “may i ask why?” (she goes into a convincing explanation on searching for evidence, he ruins it by interrupting to say “we found out you used to be a dog-faced boy”)

episode 21: “see, this is a helium balloon, and the one thing i did learn in kindergarten is that when you let them go, they float up, up, and away” “did you learn about wind in kindergarten?” (she is funny and she doesn’t get enough credit for that!)

and episode 24: iI just came up with a sick theory, mulder” “ooh, I’m listening”

mulder brushing her hair back, asking if she is okay after nearly getting decapitated

and who can forget episode 25, the season finale, when mulder is collapsing into her arms, delirious with fever and covered in his father’s blood; she lays him down in her bed, placing a cold compress on his forehead. “we’ve got to find out who killed my father” “right now you need to rest. it’s okay” what if i started yelling

him waking up after she had to put him in a coma for damage control: “you shot me >:(” “yes, i did” (patiently explains how she saved his life about 3 times in 72 hours, including by shooting him)

him thanking her for taking care of him; her asking him to find out what the files he's determined to understand say about her disappearance

[thursdayinspace]

So much to say about the Duane Barry episodes and Scully's abduction, but mostly I find it amazing how much relationship development they managed to pack into a handful of episodes that Scully is barely in at all. It's already set up nicely: the hostage negotiation, Mulder being frustrated because first he's asked to help and then has to find out they're withholding information from him. Once again, he's not being taken seriously; he has to turn to Scully again even though they're not even partners anymore. He still relies on her, she's still the only one he can really trust. She comes all the way out there with the information she digs up when she can't reach him. She talks into his ear to help him resolve the situation. Afterwards, when they find that implant in Duane Barry, they try to figure that out together as well. As we've seen throughout all the episodes before, they fall back into their partnership easily, like it's the most natural thing in the world for them. And then she's abducted and everything falls apart. That's where it really picks up and it becomes clear that everything up to this point has been little more than a (very well done and important) prologue.

Mulder's silence at the beginning of "Ascension" is almost frightening. It's certainly intense. Somewhere between withdrawn and hyperfocused, with a good dose of fear mixed in. He tells Scully's mother that she's not in her apartment, and after that we don't hear him speak again until a good way into the conversation in Skinner's office the next morning, a good five minutes into the episode even though he's in every scene before then. And when he barely puts up a fight when Skinner tells him to go home, you know he's going rogue. He does not trust them to find Scully, and he certainly can't sit and wait while she's out there with Duane Barry.

He pushes himself beyond his limits, almost falling asleep at the wheel but refusing to let Krycek drive -- he doesn't give up the tiniest sliver of control. When the tram operator won't let them take the tram up the mountain, Mulder has no problem showing him his gun. He pushes the tram beyond safety limits. Does his acrobatics out in the open who knows how high up in the air -- risking his life -- after Krycek stops the tram.

And holy shit the way he loses it when he spots Scully's blood and hair on Duane Barry's hospital band is truly scary, I don't think we've ever seen him that angry before. But on second thought, maybe angry is the wrong word. He's acting out of fear and panic. I don't think even an angry Mulder would choke anyone. He isn't thinking straight anymore, his responses are almost primal at this point. He hasn't slept, he's running on adrenaline, he's no closer to finding Scully and now he knows she's injured.

Finding out about Krycek, Skinner reopening the x files . . . it all seems almost secondary. Not as important as his meeting with Scully's mother and her telling him to keep the cross necklace. He didn't have anyone this entire time to lean on or to talk to. And he still doesn't, but this is the closest he gets. He and Scully's mom are in similar places. For them, this is personal. I love that they're bonding over this, over their love for Scully and their worry about her. (Whatever meaning you want to read into the word "love" between Mulder and Scully at this point.)

The beginning of "One Breath" is so intense, Mulder running into that room in the hospital to find her lying there unconscious, hooked up to a respirator. Anger fueled by blind panic. "Who brought her here?" "How did she get here?" "Who did this to her?" "Listen, if you’re hiding anything, I swear, I will do anything, whatever it takes, I will find out what they did to her!" I love the scene and I absolutely love the way it's acted, big thumbs up to DD. Getting her back could have been the emotional release of that arc, but she comes back in a coma. It spikes the angst to a whole new level. Before, he didn't know whether she was okay or not, he could hold onto hope. Now he knows she's not okay. Getting her back does not let him finally sit down and take a deep breath and process any of it. Nothing is resolved, the fight is just taken elsewhere.

I just want to take a second to think about the fact that he sigend her living will as her witness. That is. A very intimate thing to do. And that moment needs to get the credit it deserves. Knowing that they have talked about the event of her being unable to decide for herself, knowing she let him in, let him sign it, and the fact that he did it? That is a huge HUGE thing.

What is really intriguing is that Mulder and Melissa clash in the way they do, because you'd expect them to get along. I wonder if they would have gotten along better had they met under different circumstances. But here, Mulder is in a very different place. He tends to go to extremes when the stakes are high, his single-minded focus in this moment doesn't allow for anything but action. He still believes he can do something. He doesn't even go in with them when they decide to pull the plug -- he refuses to accept a reality where she dies. We see that again in the cancer arc, where he tells her as much when she tells him her cancer is untreatable.

If anyone would go to the trouble of putting together a list of the top ten most heartbreaking moments from the entire show, Mulder's visit to CSM and the way his voice breaks when he asks "Why her?" would have to be on it. "Why her and not me?" It's the way he says it, but it's also what's in that question that makes it so heartbreaking. Because that's what it all boils down to. He feels guilty. He asked in the hospital "Who did this to her?" And throughout these episodes, in his head, he has always considered that person to be himself. He did this to her. Something we get to hear again and again all the way into the revival when he tells her he wishes she'd left that basement earlier so she'd have been spared from all the things that happened to her. He feels responsible.

(Just a short digression: He is not responsible. I feel like that's a very important thing to remember. Something her brother should have been told in the cancer arc too. Holding Mulder responsible robs Scully of all agency and makes her nothing more than a loyal puppy. But unpacking Bill Jr.'s implicit misogyny, and why the way Mulder feels responisble for everything is not the same thing, that is for another post. If anyone has thoughts on that though, I'd love to hear them.)

A real Mulder moment is him choosing not to take revenge on the men responsible for Scully's abduction, after X pretty much hand-delivers them to him on a silver tray, but rather to go to the hospital after Melissa tells him it might be his last chance, that Scully is dying. He will choose Scully over everything every time. Sitting at her bedside, taking her hand, the way he speaks to her -- it becomes clear how deep the feelings go but also how fragile and undefined it all is between them. They're friends, they're partners, they've flirted, they've told each other some of their deepest secrets, and he has no idea how to be around her now. "I don’t know if my being here . . . will help bring you back. But I’m here." His pause there before "will help bring you back" kills me. He honestly has no idea. He can hope, but he just doesn't know if he'd be a contributing factor in her decision to come back or move on, if she even hears him, if it's even in her control. (I've always wondered when he says in the revival that he invented wishing someone back to life when she was in the hospital, whether he was talking about her cancer or about this moment, or maybe both.)

He gets his breakdown once he comes back home to his destroyed apartment. Sliding down the wall crying -- such a moment. There's no anger in that anymore. No action. He expects to be losing her at that point and all the fight has left him. Until he gets the phone call that she's okay.

Could the episode have benefited from a slightly longer scene at the end? Maybe. It seems a bit anticlimactic, after all he's been through, that he walks into her room, gives her that silly tape (such a Mulder thing to do), hands her the cross necklace back, and that's pretty much it. On the other hand, considering the scene by her bedside before, maybe it fits. He doesn't know where he stands with her, and she's with her family.

I do think the ending is a bit abrupt, but that can easily be forgiven with all that those episodes provided before that. If anyone can see more in that ending than I do, I'd love to hear it because I really don't quite know what to make of it. But they seriously sent Mulder on a journey there, and it worked. And it sets so many things in motion, for the plot and for their relationship.

[georgeharris0n]

everything X-Files related I notice in Supernatural: pilot 1x1

1. we have a first of many Mulder/Scully FBI Agent jokes (my beloveds <3) in this case Dean poking fun at the real FBI agents who show up to a crime scene.

2. The husband of the spirit is Joseph Welsh (right), played by Steve Railsback, who played Duane Barry (left) in the X-Files for the two-parter episodes "Duane Barry" 2x5 and "Ascension" 2x6.

[deathsbestgirl]

Tell me everything about how insane Scully is please!

how insane is scully????

you guys. i mad it through a lot of s1-3 and then started doing random episodes. this is LONG and incomplete. but you've been waiting so long already. so, under the cut:

my favorite crazy thing about scully is in the pilot, she's assigned to debunk mulder's work, and in the middle she's ready to run back to the fbi to tell them he's right because of dirt. she's known the man a few days and runs to his room to undress in front of him & run into his arms!! her face buried in his chest. she has him whipped on the first day, chasing after her. and she'll follow him anywhere.

in deep throat, mulder runs off on his own and next thing you know, scully takes another government agent hostage at gunpoint (with his own gun??) to get mulder back. she teases him, calls him crazy. he likes it so much she never stops. sucker.

in squeeze, scully just has to stick with mulder because he said she was right & played with her necklace. she has to know every thought in his head. she calls him to gossip about colton because now they're best friends.

in the jersey devil, scully whines when mulder sends her home alone, bails mulder out of jail, ditches her date the moment mulder pages her, turns down a second date & follows mulder...threatening to hurt him for teasing her. she's told her friends he's cute and tries to justify why he isn't an option. and it isn't because they work together. (as much as we say she's not getting into another relationship with a superior / colleague...she would, also insane behavior)

in ghost in the machine, scully meets jerry and dislikes him instantaneously just because he was mulder's partner (she's his partner). she knows mulder's profile without any doubt in her mind, but she still asks mulder to confirm. she tells mulder to go get a beer, as if she doesn't already know he can't stop (and even if he could, he wouldn't)

in ice, she very nearly attacks hodge for suggesting she's been infected because she was yelling at mulder. she pulls a gun on mulder and refuses to give up on him, she goes in to talk to him alone. she tackles a man twice her size with no hesitation.

in eve, she answers the phone in mulder's room!!! (this is silly but clearly, they never gave a second thought to being in each other's rooms lol)

in fire, she hates phoebe right off the bat. scully knew her game before mulder told her anything, but she asks him questions anyway. she single-handedly solves the case and gets that woman back out of his life...then scares him with a fake accent. she takes the sherlock joke and makes it hers & mulder's. phoebe who?

in e.b.e. she meets the lone gunmen, calls them the most paranoid people she's ever met, then proceeds to become the most paranoid person you've ever met, most paranoid person in the world.

in tooms, she lies to skinner to give mulder an alibi. she participated in an illegal stakeout so mulder wouldn't get himself killed. she calls him fox and tells him he's the only person she'd put herself on the line for. she is completely devoted.

in erlenmeyer flask, she teams up with a man she doesn't trust to get mulder back. she goes into a top security government facility to steal an alien fetus, and figures out the password deep throat didn't tell her about.

in little green men, she sets up a secret meeting with mulder using their little code. she talks about george hale, lets herself into mulder's apartment, hacks his computer, and tracks him down to puerto rico. where they end up running from the military. she can barely keep her hands off him.

when krycek shows up, scully snubs him because he's working with mulder. scully is his partner, she's his friend. she doesn't trust anyone else with him — and she's right.

in duane barry, she inserts herself into the hostage situation, to the point they let her talk to mulder to guide him...as the rest of them have failed. she finds the metal implant, scans it at the grocery check out, correctly surmises what it's for (at least one purpose), and screams for mulder. i also think she manages to get her necklace off so mulder will know he's on the right path when he finds it (someone else pointed this out, idr who i'm sorry!!) she remembers squeeze.

in end game, mulder knows he couldn't tell her about his sister because she would have sacrificed herself. while he's in martha's vineyard (?) she's running around d.c. on her own as she's being followed. doing all the things he taught her to evade them.

in dod kalm, she goes on his unsanctioned trip to the middle of the ocean and forces him to drink the little water they have, refusing to take it for herself. the entire time they're stuck there, she figures out what's happening and that's how the doctors save them & reverse the aging effects.

in anasazi/the blessing way, she's nearly shot and makes sure mulder doesn't go back to his apartment and instead comes to hers. she undresses him and puts him in her bed while she investigates to exonerate him. she shoots mulder and drives him across the country to albert hosteen. she tells teena mulder that mulder is okay, after walking to her mother's house with no shoes to tell maggie mulder is dead and argue with her sister. she attempts regression hypnosis but she can't do it because she doesn't have mulder.

in revelations, god is sending her signs and she believes she's supposed to protect kevin. she gets defensive at mulder's derisiveness toward religion and she doesn't hold it against him. in the end, she doesn't push and goes to confession instead, accepts his help with her coat. it's enough.

in war of the coprophages, she calls mulder all day on their day off. she rationalizes everything he finds. when he starts talking about bambi, she sleeps with the phone in her hand for when he calls again. she doesn't want to hear him talk about another woman but she does it anyway. "are you sure it wasn't a girly scream?" and then she just drives out to meet him because no one investigates with mulder except her. smart is sexy. after he asked her what she was wearing after she spouted off about darwin.

in syzygy, i don't even think i need to say anything here. she's just so insane and i love it. she's jealous & petty & mean, but also very honest about how she's feeling. in the end, they're still in sync but she is going to drive like a maniac because she's still mad.

in grotesque, scully is once again prepared to hate mulder's former boss. she doesn't need to know anything and she yells at this man for how he treats mulder. this is a woman who grew up with brothers for sure.

in pusher, scully doesn't believe mulder when he theorizes about modell's abilities. but the second he's the target, she believes. she doesn't hide her fear for him and she walks into that hospital room blind with only a bulletproof vest on. she doesn't run when he tells her too. she will never leave him.

in home, she's thinking about motherhood and having kids and asks mulder about his family. when he swings his head around to her at the question, she stares right back. i swear it's a challenge.

in the field where i died, she yells at mulder for not telling skinner the truth (she never rats on him). she still goes with him to his regression. she doesn't believe these are past lives, but she takes the information he shared and digs into the archives. she finds the american revolution era names. she tells him she wouldn't change a day.

tunguska/terma: she is held in contempt of congress to give mulder time. she trusts his instincts and not her own. she tells the court about the government conspiracy of men and continuously avoids their questions, pushing forward about the lawless men.

in never again, she likes ed because he's interested, because she can talk openly with him without consequences, because he's a sad man & a little dangerous. but then he's really dangerous. she only goes out with ed because she thinks mulder only cares about the work and not her. she gets a tattoo.

in memento mori, she only tells mulder about her cancer. she chooses to investigate instead of pursue treatment right away. she apologize to skinner. she rights letter after letter to mulder, begging forgiveness & asking him to go on. talking about how she feels him close. when she decides to start treatment, she asks mulder to bring her things & call her mother. in the end, she decides to abandon typical treatment and live with cancer.

in gethsemane/reduxes, she doesn't tell mulder he cancer has metastasized. she continues to work, getting injured on the job. she tells police the dead man in his apartment is mulder, she lies to skinner & the fbi. she runs herself ragged to the point she collapses. she begs mulder to blame her & save himself. she's adamant mulder can't trust skinner, even after skinner was shot because he tried to keep melissa's case open.

in chinga, she has no idea how to take a vacation anymore. she can't ignore the x file she stumbles into and she believes it's the doll. she microwaves a little girl's doll to save a woman.

in pine bluff variant, scully chases after mulder when they lose contact. some unknown pathogen just killed someone. she rewatches the tapes after she's sure she saw mulder let whatshisname get away, but stays silent in the meeting. he won't tell her anything but it doesn't stop her from investigating. she can't believe that he's betraying his country, and hiding anything so big from her. it gets to the point skinner has to tell her and she rails at him & that other guy for endangering mulder. she's his partner!! and she makes more headway in a few days than these other idiots did in weeks. she's relentless.

in tithonus, scully has to work a case without mulder and she hates it. she insists it isn't an x file but i think she knows. she's endeared toward fellig despite herself. she asks 'how can you have too much life?' she knows the pain of dying, of leaving people behind, of not being able to finish everything you started. she can't get enough despite all the pain & struggle. she has things to do, someone she wants to be with & they aren't there yet. and when she's got, and fellig tells her to close her eyes, don't look at him — she does it!! in this vulnerable moment, on the cusp of death, she believes. she believed him almost instantly.

in mulder & scully meet the weremonster, she approaches suspects ALONE. mulder scolds her for it both times. she tells him 'you forget, i'm immortal'

in home again, maggie dies and she loses it. she's sobbing, refusing to let them take maggie, mulder tries to get her to take time and she refuses. it's a stark contrast to her grief in beyond the sea. he can't stop her but he can be with her. we hear her call mulder 'fox' for the first time since tooms.

in the my struggles (idk which one lol) scully is desperate to save mulder. she knows what's coming and she can't lose him. "you need him, and i neee you." the truth is she needs william too, and he's so close now. she never tried to find him to keep him safe (supposedly) but for mulder, she'll take the risk. and maybe stop fighting herself for once. she's unbearably good, but her & mulder are the only ones who can save the world and she can't do it alone. (crazy, crazy, crazy)

other things: scully thinks mulder's porn habit is funny, endearing. she doesn't seem to have any (real) negative thoughts or feelings about it. she argues with him relentlessly about his theories/actions/decisions, but never in front of other people. in front of others, she backs him up, defends him, or stays silent (pine bluff variant). but she will good-naturedly make fun of him to strangers ('he chews the furniture' and something in humbug & quagmire). on friday nights, she stays home cleaning her gun, reading books, reading medical journals & writing for them. she loves jose chung. she believes in the possibility of time travel but not in science's current abilities to achieve it. she remembers every word mulder has ever said (dreams, ftf hallway speech). she literally hangs in his every word and incorporates it into her worldview, her behavior, who she is as a person. scully dedicated herself to mulder in the pilot, before she knew what it meant. and once she did know what it meant, she stayed and stayed and stayed. she believes in him so much, in what he can achieve that it drives her to do crazy things herself. something she always had in her, but now she can let it out. it has a purpose. and dana scully with a purpose is someone you don't mess with and can't be hidden in the shadows (despite the effort of a global conspiracy).

[bakedbakermom]

okay @deathsbestgirl asked so here is my little essay on why folie a deux is THE quintessential x-files episode. the distillation of everything that made it great.

so. first of all. imho, the best episodes/monsters are the ones who draw from a genuine human fear, turning our small private anxieties into full-blown paranormal horror. who among us hasn't felt like our job was sucking the life out of us, our boss was a monster, and every day in the office you inch closer and closer to being a zombie? in folie, it's TRUE. imagine the terror of seeing your coworkers reduced to walking corpses, no one believing you, knowing your turn is coming. the skittering noises creeping closer and closer. you, helpless at your desk. (also the late-stage capitalism certainty that somehow your corpse will be forced to work even after you're dead.)

then we get profiler!mulder, gently mocking himself ("monsters? i'm your boy") - showing off his brilliant mind as he dissects lambert's manifesto, empathizing with him to protect the hostages even as he endangers himself. he goes even further after lambert dies, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he was written off as a madman, putting together the pieces that no one else even cared enough to look for. this is mulder at his CORE. the man who believes, who wants to believe, who doesn't let the label of "crazy" stop him from opening the box to see what's inside and decide for himself, who puts justice and truth above reputation and even personal safety. no one takes him seriously, he knows EXACTLY how it feels to be labelled and dismissed, and that makes it all the more important to find the answers.

meanwhile scully is doing the exact same thing, but in her particular flavor. digging through the files to find the phrases that rang out in the manifesto. protecting mulder during the hostage situation by sending in disguised SWAT cameramen (because she remembers duane barry Very Well, and if she can't be in his ear this time, she'll send in someone else to be her eyes). she doesn't want to do the autopsy, she doesn't want to see; but she is so curious and so unself-consciously committed to understanding the world through the lens of science that once she starts to see the pieces, she cannot not start putting them together. THAT is scully at HER core. she also covers for mulder when he goes off on his own, because while she may not believe him or stand behind his methods, she knows he only does this because his heart is in the right place. and if there's one thing she has to protect, its his heart.

then. oh. then. we get the msr-iest line to ever msr. one in five billion. if ever there was a beating heart to the x-files, it is that. i trust you, you trust me, and when we trust in each other god himself cannot stand against. in an episode about not knowing if what you're seeing is what is true, the way they SEE each other, understand each other in this scene is almost painfully poignant.

(i hope when pincus looks back at the time he was nearly caught, he recognizes the poetry inherent in stumbling across the only two coworkers he could never divide.)

finally, the ending. what always makes this show work, to me, is the way mulder and scully come together, bringing their disparate viewpoints and opposing investigation methods and ultimately synthesizing one truth, one solution that saves the day. seeing things the way the other sees, so both can understand. here, it is literal. scully comes to it from her own direction, finding the science to support mulder's theories, and that is what allows her to see the truth of what he sees. (field trip does something similar, but that time it goes both ways, buuuuut that is also an essay of its own.)

so, yeah, what makes this episode x-files condensed into its purest form: our characters charactering perfectly, a premise that is both grounded and terrifying, the idea that it is only ever the two of them who could figure this shit out because they're so perfectly matched.

even the phrase folie a deux IS the x-files. that basement office is a bedlam, population: 2. a madness only two can ever hope to share.

[azure-firecracker]

My One Big Problem with Season 2

I touched on this in my Season 2 Review, but I wanted to take the opportunity to go more in-depth with it. As I said, I absolutely adored Season 2, but I took issue with the way it handled Scully and Mulder saving each other. As I’ve always said, mutual rescuing is my absolute favorite trope so long as it’s balanced. For all the things Season 2 did well, it absolutely fell short in terms of feeling balanced in that regard, and I (along with seemingly many others) ended the season frustrated, feeling as though Scully was always being snatched up and Mulder was always rushing to save her. I wanted to explore the ways in which Season 2 creates that impression (it’s not as simple as you might think!) and talk about what I think they could have done differently to avoid leaving this damsel-in-distress impression on so many viewers.

By the Numbers

For the purposes of this analysis, here are the times in Season 2 where Scully rescues Mulder (some of these are a bit ambiguous, so if you don’t count them, that’s totally valid):

Little Green Men

Red Museum

Excelsis Dei (this barely counts)

Aubrey

End Game

Anasazi

And here are the times where Mulder rescues Scully:

Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath (technically he fails, but this arc is so instrumental to Scully’s damsel-in-distress vibe throughout the season that I had to include it).

Irresistible

End Game

Our Town

Now, if your viewing experience was anything like mine, these numbers will surprise you. I would have 100% guessed that Mulder’s numbers (as in, the number of times he saved Scully) would be higher. So clearly something is at play here besides just “number of times saved.” Let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?

Here is Mulder’s total time spent in peril throughout the season. This was a bit hard to quantify, as most of his times in danger are slow descents into trouble rather than abrupt transitions, so the moments when he goes from “not in danger” to “in danger” are a bit ambiguous. Take these numbers with a grain of salt.

Little Green Men (From the time he finds the body until Scully wakes him up): 08:40

Red Museum: 00:15 (!!!)

Excelsis Dei: 03:14

Aubrey (Including the time after Scully arrives before BJ drops the razor): 01:13

End Game (From the time the Alien Bounty Hunter starts beating him up until Scully begins her voiceover): 04:00

Anasazi (From the moment his dad is shot until he wakes up in New Mexico): 08:39

Total: 26:01

Average time per episode (out of all episodes in peril): 04:20

Here is Scully’s total time in peril. This was much easier to quanitfy. Since Duane Barry’s scene was more or less repeated in Ascension, I didn’t count it. I didn’t include One Breath in this calculation, but I wouldn’t fault you if you did.

Ascension: 45:10 (The whole episode!)

Irresistible: 06:37

End Game: 08:41

Our Town: 04:21

Total: 1:04:49 - A 149% increase from Mulder’s time!

Average time per episode in peril: 16:12 - A 274% increase from Mulder’s time!

I am aware that Ascension skews this last statistic, so if we exclude that entirely, Scully’s average time in peril per episode is 06:33 - still a 51% increase from Mulder’s time.

If we assume that every episode is 45 minutes long, this means that:

For every episode featuring Mulder in peril, he spends on average 9.6% of that episode actively in danger.

For every episode featuring Scully in peril, she spends on average 36% of that episode actively in danger (14.5% if you exclude Ascension entirely).

So despite technically being saved fewer times, Scully spends a lot more time actively in peril than Mulder does throughout the season, both in total and per episode featuring her needing rescuing, by a pretty significant margin. This is one of the major factors in my next point.

Central to the Episode

Let’s explore how relevant Scully and Mulder’s damsel-in-distress moments are to the episodes they feature in, as well as how that might impact our viewer perception of these moments, and the impressions they leave in our memory.

For Mulder:

Little Green Men: This is an episode about Mulder’s desperate search for the truth against all obstacles, and how Scully will continue to follow him even after they’ve been separated. While the Puerto Rican government is a looming threat, I wouldn’t consider this a “Mulder in danger” episode.

Red Museum: This episode features a VERY brief moment of Mulder in danger. You could remove the moment and the episode would change very little.

Excelsis Dei: Same as Red Museum.

Aubrey: Same as Red Museum and Excelsis Dei.

End Game: Given that Scully has to go searching for Mulder, this is probably the closest thing we get to a direct role reversal for them. I would call this a “Mulder in danger” episode, but I do have other issues with it which I’ll get into later.

Anasazi: Also a “Mulder in danger” episode, but I would argue that it’s just as much about the alien lore, the plot, and the mystery as it is about Mulder being in peril/needing saving.

Now for Scully:

Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath: This is an entire arc about her being in danger. Her being in danger is the story.

Irresistible: This is an episode about Scully’s trauma and the emotional walls she builds up as a result. Her being taken is instrumental to the episode’s arc as well as her character development. It is the center of the episode.

End Game: You could rewrite this episode without her being kidnapped, but her kidnapping propels much of the episode’s plot. Many of the episode’s emotional threads are tied to her kidnapping and the resulting hostage exchange. It would be difficult to rewrite this episode without her kidnapping.

Our Town: You could rewrite this episode without Scully being taken, but her kidnapping is absolutely central to the episode’s climax rather than tangential.

So, in general, when Mulder is in peril, it is tangential to the episode’s plot (there are two exceptions: we’ll get there). When Scully is in peril, it is the episode’s plot. This creates a much stronger impression in the viewer’s mind, and makes us much more likely to remember these episodes and these damsel-in-distress moments for Scully rather than Mulder.

But this isn’t the only reason why these moments resonate so much more when they happen to our favorite medical doctor/FBI agent/badass. Which leads me to my next point…

Agency and Bodily Autonomy

Both Mulder and Scully’s moments in peril tend to follow trends, but these trends are often opposites of each other. You’ll see what I mean.

Here is what (generally) happens when Mulder is in danger:

He makes the choice to seek out the episode’s villain wherever they’re currently hiding out (Red Museum, Aubrey, End Game)

He either tells someone where he’s going (Red Museum, Aubrey) or he doesn’t (Little Green Men, End Game) Either way, it’s his choice.

He willingly enters a fight with the episode’s villain and is overpowered either very briefly (Red Museum, Aubrey) or maybe for a bit longer (End Game).

Even when overpowered, he usually maintains some level of bodily autonomy. The only exceptions are Little Green Men and End Game while he’s unconscious, but he maintains bodily autonomy up until that point.

The only significant exception to this formula is Anasazi.

Here is what (generally) happens when Scully is in danger:

She begins somewhere completely ordinary (her apartment, her car, a motel room, a civilian’s house).

She is forcibly taken from this ordinary place by the episode’s villain and moved somewhere else against her will. She doesn’t know where she is, and couldn’t tell someone where she’s going even if she wanted to.

Here are some images of Scully throughout season 2:

Wow, you think, she must be having a rough day. Wrong! These are from 4 separate episodes. Notice how her bodily autonomy is taken away in all 4 of these photos. Her hands are also bound in 3 of these, you just can’t see it.

So, to recap, Mulder usually has free choice when he seeks out danger, while Scully rarely does. Of course her work is dangerous, but the moments when she is in the most danger are never due to her own choices. And Mulder always maintains his bodily autonomy even when in peril, while Scully doesn’t. This creates the impression that she is in more danger, more in need of rescuing, more powerless, and less able to handle herself.

Not to be the loud feminist in the room (just kidding-always be the loud feminist in the room!), but when your female character is always the one having her choice and bodily autonomy taken away, you have a problem. And I didn’t even touch on what it’s implied she went through while she was abducted.

On the topic of trends…

Variety vs. Repetition

So despite the trends in Mulder’s damsel-in-distress moments that I just listed, there are also several differences. Let’s explore what technically happens to him in each instance.

Little Green Men: Encounters aliens in Puerto Rico and passes out while the military is coming to kill him.

Red Museum: Locked in the meat processing plant as it’s about to be set on fire.

Excelsis Dei: Locked in the bathroom filling with water.

Aubrey: BJ knocks him over and holds a razor to his throat.

End Game: Gets beaten up by the Alien Bounty Hunter, encounters an alien retrovirus, is left on the ice to freeze, and nearly dies from exposure to said retrovirus.

Anasazi: Starts acting irrationally due to drugged water and becomes a murder suspect. Is very nearly implicated in said murder, and it’s strongly implied that he would have died had he been convicted.

Now, there are patterns in here (as discussed above), but for the most part, these are different enough that they didn’t feel repetitive while I was watching. In fact, Red Museum, Excelsis Dei, and Aubrey are consecutive episodes, and I didn’t realize Mulder had been in danger 3 times in a row until I went back and reviewed the episode list.

Scully, on the other hand:

Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath: Kidnapped by Duane Barry/aliens or maybe the government.

Irresistible: Kidnapped by Donnie Pfaster.

End Game: Kidnapped by the Alien Bounty Hunter.

Our Town: Kidnapped by Chaco and the cannibalistic cult.

*sigh* This would be laughable if it didn’t play so hard into the female character damsel-in-distress trope. Part of the reason it feels like Scully is in danger so much is because every time she is in danger it’s exactly the same (refer to the photos above again for more proof if you need it).

Another irritating thing about this is that Scully’s kidnappings get less necessary as they go along. So not only do viewers become sick of seeing the same thing over and over again, they also get annoyed because it didn’t need to happen and yet they’re seeing it again. At least, I did. To be clear on this:

Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath: Necessary for offscreen reasons which trumps all else. We support maternity leave on this blog! I also read that Gillian Anderson went back to work very quickly, so even though I missed Scully during this arc, I wouldn’t have minded if had been longer solely for that reason.

Irresistible: A very important follow-up to Scully’s abduction. Was (in my opinion) crucial to Scully’s character arc. Maybe she didn’t need to get kidnapped, but the episode is much stronger because of it.

End Game: The point where I started to get annoyed. Central to the episode? Yes. Necessary from a writing standpoint? No.

Our Town: Now, they could have done another Irresistible-esque parallel here, but they didn’t. So I was left feeling like you could exchange Scully and Mulder’s roles and very little would change.

Suffice to say, I was very annoyed by the end of Our Town.

So, to recap what we have thus far:

Scully spends more time, overall and per episode, in danger than Mulder does.

When Scully is in danger, it is more central to the episode’s plot than when Mulder is in danger, making her moments in peril more memorable to the audience.

When Scully is in danger, she loses her agency and bodily autonomy, making her seem weaker in comparison to Mulder than she actually is.

Scully’s damsel-in-distress moments all follow the same pattern, making their repetition more noticeable than when Mulder is in danger multiple times.

There are, however, two exceptions to these rules. Let’s get into them.

End Game and Anasazi

As I said a while back, these are the season’s only two “Mulder in danger” episodes (in my opinion. You could make a case for Little Green Men, too).

To recap:

The Colony/End Game two-parter begins with Mulder dying in the hospital, and we spend the rest of the story figuring out how he got there. Scully has to use every resource in her arsenal to track him down (despite him actively trying to ditch her). She then rushes to Alaska, realizes he’s been exposed to the retrovirus, and basically brings him back from the dead all on her own.

Anasazi features an obviously unwell Mulder descending into madness, and we as viewers are right there with Scully as she tries to figure out what’s happening to him. She figures out that his water is being poisoned, shoots him to stop him from killing Krycek (which would have led to a murder conviction and probably death), and drives him to New Mexico, risking her career and probably her life.

Now, I don’t want to downplay the awesomeness of these moments, because they’re undoubtedly badass and fantastic! But there is a through line between them that gave me pause.

I’m sure many of us remember what Mulder says to Scully in Anasazi. But in case we’ve forgotten, here it is:

Thank you for taking care of me.

And that’s the commonality. In both of her biggest instances of saving Mulder, Scully fills the role of the caretaker in at least some capacity. When Mulder saves her, he usually has to chase after some bad guys with a gun in a more traditionally heroic style.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Doctor Scully just as much as the next person, and I’m not even saying that one form of rescuing is inherently better than the other.

But when your male character is always being the traditionally heroic one and your female character is always caretaking in their most significant instances of saving one another…

Again, not to be the loud feminist in the room *waves in proud loud feminist*, but there’s some gender stereotypes at play there that I’m not the biggest fan of.

Don’t misunderstand me. I think that Scully, both as a character and as a female character specifically, is much stronger than these flaws. But that doesn’t mean I won’t point them out.

But Phoebe, What Should They Have Done Differently?

So glad you asked! Now, I’m not going to pretend I’m aware of all the network restrictions, budget stuff, external factors etc. that they were dealing with, but here’s a few ideas off the top of my head.

Now, I’m going to start this section by saying this: I am aware that Scully being repeatedly taken away was a major theme of this season. I don’t think that theme needs to disappear, but I think there are better ways of incorporating it than having her get kidnapped the same way four times.

I read this excellent post by @bakedbakermom about how every episode of S2 after Scully’s abduction is about her abduction in some way. I agree, and I think the show could have developed those parallels more overtly if they wanted to keep the theme of “there is this constant threat of Scully being taken away and what does it mean for our pair?” Here are some ways they could have done that:

More conversations like the one in Firewalker: Mulder wanting to protect Scully from everything, Scully insisting on going back anyway. There’s lots of good conflict there that could have led to some very tense episodes while still keeping the theme alive without Scully actually getting kidnapped.

Any one of the episodes could have been interspersed with abduction flashbacks or something of the like, further highlighting the parallels.

I am of the belief that Mulder needs to heal from the abduction trauma just as much as Scully, but in a very different way. You could have an episode where he sees another person he has to protect, there’s some sort of parallel and Scully knows why he cares so much. She tries to pull him back but all he remembers is her crying for help over the answering machine and he gets in too deep. That would have been such a good episode😫

And if you’re hell bent on putting Scully in danger, here are some new ways to do that:

Maybe she gets infected with a parasite thingy and she has to figure out how to cure herself and it brings up both her worst fears of being powerless and needing help and Mulder’s fears of not being able to help her.

Let her step into Mulder’s shoes! Maybe she meets someone whose trauma parallels her own and she gets too invested in helping them and she knows the risks but runs into danger anyway. Our girl can still have agency, even if she needs saving!

Maybe she chases some bad guys into the woods and gets knocked out or something and Mulder just kind of has to watch over her until help comes and it’s a good way to have her in danger plus Mulder angst without kidnapping her again.

And this doesn’t fit into the theme but for fuck’s sake, you can have the theme of Scully being taken and still let Mulder get kidnapped or be a traditional damsel-in-distress! It won’t ruin the theming! In fact, I think it would strengthen it. It would be an awesome Scully moment, and I think it would be an interesting character study, because Mulder is always so worried about Scully that he never stops to think about himself. Who knows how a brush with death like that would affect him? Or how having to rush after him while the clock is ticking would affect Scully? All would provide interesting perspectives on the season’s theme! (Plus, Anasazi confirmed to me that Mulder is such a good damsel-in-distress. It’s the puppy energy).

(Shameless self-promo time. I did write a fic switching Scully and Mulder’s roles in Our Town for this exact purpose. You can read it here on Ao3).

Like I said, I’m not saying the season needed to do all of these things, or even any of them. These are just some ideas, off the top of my head, of how they could have mixed it up a little. If you have more ideas, please share them with me! I’d love to hear!

Conclusion

So, I don’t hate the number of times Scully needs saving this season, but I do take issue with how it’s done. A little more variety, some more switching up Mulder and Scully’s roles, and closer attention to the gender stereotypes they were touching on, all would have made all the difference.

Like I said, I loved Season 2. So many things about it were wonderful, and like Scully, I think the season is stronger than its flaws. This was an in-depth analysis on where the season faltered (in my opinion) and what I might have done differently. It is not hate towards any of the X-Files writers, actors, crew, etc.

Now that I’ve gotten my thoughts out there, I would love to continue discussing this with all of you, so if you disagree with me and want to talk it out (respectfully!), or if you just have something to add, or if you just think I’m really smart and want to tell me (lol), feel free to leave a comment or reblog with your own addictions! I love nothing more than talking with y’all.

This is probably the longest meta I’ll do for a while, but I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts on the show once I enter Season 3. I’ll see you then:)

[foxwmulder]

I just found my list of when I categorized every xf episode (mostly through s7) during quarantine lmao

MONSTER OF THE WEEK CATEGORIES

Cultural

Shapes

Fresh Bones

The Calusari

Teso Dos Bichos

Hell Money

Teliko

El Munda Gira

Theef

Prison or Military

Deep Throat

Space

Sleepless

The List

The Walk

Unrequited

Trevor

Religious

Miracle Man

Revelations

Grotesque

Kaddish

All Souls

Signs and Wonders

Millennium

Cult or Satanists

Gender Bender

Red Museum

Our Town

3

Syzygy

Die Hand Die Verletzt

Sanguinarium

Terms of Endearment

Nothing Lasts Forever

Lone Gunmen- or CSM-Centric

Musings of a CSM

Unusual Suspects

Three of a Kind

First Person Shooter

This

Skinner-Centric

Avatar

Zero Sum

SR 819

Brand X

Hollywood AD

Kitten

Arthur Dales’s Tales

Travelers

The Unnatural

Agua Mala

Scully Side Quest

Irresistible / Orison

Chinga

Never Again

Milagro

En Ami

all things

Home Again

Ghouli

Mulder, They Already Destroyed the Evidence!

Ice

Firewalker

Dod Kalm

F. Emasculata

Wetwired

The Pine Bluff Variant

Drive

Wait, It’s Actually Aliens?

Pilot

Jose Chung

Control the Elements

Fire

DPO

Soft Light

Schizogeny

Rush

The Rain King

Medical Anomalies

Young at Heart

Eve

Home

Small Potatoes

Postmodern Prometheus

Founder’s Mutation

Guys Who Need to Eat Weird Stuff

Squeeze / Tooms

2Shy

Pusher / Kitsunegari

Leonard Betts

Hungry

Switch Lives or Linked Brains

Lazarus

Roland

Oubliette

Paper Hearts

Mind’s Eye

Dreamland I and II

Fight Club

Plus One

Time Travel or Warp

Synchrony

Monday

Lost Art of the Forehead Sweat

Ghosts or Past Lives

Shadows

Born Again

Excelsis Dei

Elegy

Aubrey

The Field Where I Died

Triangle

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas

AI Is Out To Get Us

Blood

Ghost in the Machine

Kill Switch

Rm9sbG93ZXJs

Half Man, Half Monster

The Host

Jersey Devil

Humbug

Detour

Bad Blood

Folie a Duex

Chimera

Mulder and Scully Meet the Weremonster

All Monster, No Man

Darkness Falls

Fearful Symmetry

Quagmire

War of the Coprophages

Alpha

Arcadia

Field Trip

X-Cops

Magic, Psychic, or Lucky

Beyond the Sea

Clyde Bruckman

Unruhe

Tithonus

The Amazing Maleeni

Je Souaite

The Goldberg Variation

MYTHOLOGY CATEGORIES

They’re Closing The X-Files!

The Erlenmeyer Flask / Little Green Men

The End / The Beginning

Fight the Future

Uh…Samantha?

Colony / End Game

Talitha Cumi / Herrenvolk

Sein Und Zeit / Closure

I’m Literally On Board Already, Scully

Fallen Angel

EBE

Nisei / 731

Piper Maru / Apocrypha

Tempus Fugit / Max

Tunguska / Terma

Agent Mulder Is Dead! Or Is He?

Anasazi / The Blessing Way / Paper Clip

Redux I and II

This Is Not Happening / Dead Alive

Mulder…You Good?

Demons / Gethsemane

Biogenesis / The Sixth Extinction

The Syndicate Hates Scully

Duane Barry / Ascension / One Breath

Memento Mori

Christmas Carol / Emily

Patient X / The Red and the Black

Why Was This Made

I Want to Believe

Discarded Categories

Creepy White Guy Predator

This Is a Small Town, We Don’t Lock Our Doors

A Nice Trip to the Forest

[thanx-files]

SEASON 2 WRAP UP:

GUESS WHO JUST FINISHED ANASAZI AND FEELS SOOOOO TOTALLY NORMAL ABOUT IT? HAPPY X-FILES-IVERSARY, MY FRIENDS.

Finale and s2 thoughts below the cut.

Anasazi:

First of all, how dare you?

I went into this ep wondering how we could possibly escalate from cannibaltown, but I was a FOOL. If you remember, I wasn’t exactly impressed with Erlenmeyer Flask. But this? This was depraved, and I absorbed it.

Punch your boss and wear a tank top! Fight your nemesis in an alley! Learn your father’s darkest secret before being framed for his murder! Disappear off the face of the earth!

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY: SHOOT YOUR BEST FRIEND, DRIVE ACROSS THE COUNTRY, AND LEARN THAT YOU WERE LIKELY ABDUCTED BY ALIENS!!!

I LOVE THIS FUCKING SHOW!!!

Was that a review? No?

Here, have a review: This episode took things to a new level. And I’m not just talking about “ah, aliens are real.” Yeah, in the “aliens are real” show? I know. I’m talking about the fact that Fox Mulder YELLED at Dana Scully. Sure he was in an artificially induced psychosis, but still. I could not believe what I was witnessing. Every single second of this episode upped the ante. Is that a good thing? I think it was here. For so long, there have been seemingly empty threats from the likes of X and Cancer Man. Now, the dominoes are falling. And we’re right back where we came from: Trust no one.

Season 2:

This show fucks. I’m not sure what else to say about it. I keep waiting for a point at which I might enjoy it less for whatever reason, but I honestly think I liked s2 more than s1. (Maybe.) We’re reaching further into these characters, and that’s fun. The audience is bought into Mulder and Scully now, so ideally they get to be weird(er) and even mean sometimes. I still want more Scully content, though. Give me that religious conflict! I need it!

Favorite episodes: Little Green Men (“They’ve taken you away from me”), Blood (DO IT), Irresistible (Not sure I’ll be able to watch it again tbh), Humbug (I’m sorry, WHAT?), Anasazi (“Nothing disappears without a trace”)

Least favorite episodes: Sleepless, Duane Barry, Fresh Bones, Fearful Symmetry, Død Kalm

[randomfoggytiger]

How Scully Taught Mulder to Hug

I've noted once before what a profound effect Scully has on Mulder's emotional journey with healing and grief (see here how One Breath transforms him and his emotional outlet); but there is a key part of that healing process that is just as important.

Fox Mulder is known for his softer side: a masculine man comfortable with feminine displays of affection and empathy. However, even though it was always his nature-- reaching out to Scully often, pulling at her necklace, smoothing her hair, engaging her eye contact-- Mulder never physically comforted someone in their distress or immense grief before Scully.

I broke down his dynamics with his mother (see here) but, in short, he was her caretaker since Samantha's disappearance: tucking her in, speaking calmly and gently to soothe her nerves, and other minute mannerisms that bled into his other human interactions. But there was always an affectionate distance.

It wasn't until Scully that he learned how to sweep a vulnerable, distressed, or grieving person into a comforting hug.

TLDR

Scully is used to exchanging physical affection with her family and friends, and she will usually reach out to Mulder first to change an aspect of their relationship: a hug, a hand grip, letting Mulder sweat over root bear, pining in Season 2, hinting at genes in Season 4, and bringing a cheese plate for recovery fun fun times in Season 5. (It's why she was so shocked in The Little Green Men, Small Potatoes, The Unnatural, and Millennium: she doesn't expect Mulder to make any moves.)

Mulder is, despite being a physically affectionate person, stunned by her abrupt hug in the Pilot, having maintained an emotional distance from others for a long, long time (even from his mother and father-- despite being his mother's emotional and even physical caretaker, the two Mulders were not volubly affectionate.)

The MOST PIVOTAL hug is the follow-up in Irresistible-- Mulder shadows Scully the whole case, but it's she who finally cracks and burrows into his coat, needing comfort. The tenderness they've both cultivated in the aftermath of Duane Barry is kicked up a notch; and there is no going back for Mulder. From now on, he will repeatedly body-shield Scully: from literal danger (in the very next episode Die Hand Die Verletzt) and from very intense fear or grief.

In fact, that part of Mulder has been blown so wide open that he swoops in to greet his father with a hug in Colony, kicking himself when he remembers that the Mulders don't hug.

The first time Mulder reaches out to hug Scully is in Paper Clip while she struggles after her sister's death. It's a full-on, no-holds-barred hug that envelops and fully comforts. This is when The Mulder Hug TM is born; and Mulder will use this for the rest of his life, finally able to comfort and cheer and grieve openly.

Because Scully, his human credential, taught him how.

Housekeeping now firmly aside:

Pictures and In-Depth Analysis Below

The First Hug

In the Pilot, Scully is terrified of malicious looking bumps on her back, knocking on Mulder's door and begging him to figure out if they are nefarious or not; and when he good-naturedly assures her they're just mosquito bites, she whirls around and clings to him.

It's demonstrated multiple times in the series to be second nature to Scully to hug her loved ones (returning her father's bear hug in Beyond the Sea, letting Maggie cling to her in Memento Mori, greeting Bill Scully in Gethsemane, etc.); but the opposite is shown for her new partner.

Mulder is shocked by her hug, frozen in his former gregarious reassurance as he processes what just happened.

Finally, Mulder's face shifts to bewilderment, snapping back his head in confusion-- he hasn't had a real hug in how long... why now?

More warmth seeps in, wonder and concern rising to the top of his conflicted emotions as he asks "You okay?" tenderly, beeping his nose into her hair.

He tries to reassure his new barnacle-to-a-hull clingy partner, awkwardly (and this makes me laugh) patting her on the shoulder as if she were a baby.

When Scully pulls back to collect herself, Mulder dazedly focuses on her, tracking her eyes and blandly noting "You're shaking."

Scully helps herself to his seat with Mulder unfazed and telling her to take her time, poking out an arm so she doesn't ram into the chair. He then sits across from her, studying this new (ab)normal specimen, trying to puzzle her out.

This leads Mulder to share his vulnerability over Samantha's abduction, a quid pro quo if you will. It's not private information since he's already categorized her as an X-File; but the revelation is not his trauma : it's his neck-on-the-chopping-block move he makes, revealing how much he knows about the upper office shenanigans and what they've been doing to stop him ("You're part of that agenda. You know that.") Scully honors this , asking for his trust.

(An aside: this is referenced later in Anasazi when Mulder screams over the phone about her betrayal: "Look, you have my files and my gun. Don't ask me for my trust.")

The Second Hug

There isn't another hug until Irresistible. Although Mulder is far from distant, he only ever goes so far with his physical affection (a hand at his partner's back while walking, sitting as close as humanly possible, dragging her away from dangerous scenarios, etc.), leaving it up to Scully to cross the lines between them (tending to him and camping out in his hotel room in Fire, "I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you" in Tooms, petting his hair in Little Green Men, etc.) Mulder yearns to be closer, but he is the one drawing the lines, another self-protective measure (like talking in riddles, keeping few friends, sleeping on his couch, and running so he never has to stop.)

But their S2 separation and Scully's abduction followed so closely by her near death in Firewalker leaves a space for Scully's increasing vulnerability. Her anxiety and stress continue to heighten as Pfaster's case hits closer and closer home; and, by the end of that disaster, she is a wreck. When Mulder and the police rescue her from her newest kidnapping, Scully vainly tries to hold onto her control until the dam bursts, Mulder's empathetic chin-touch undoing her.

She slowly steps closer, seeking a hiding spot to fall apart in; and Mulder just as slowly scoops her up, facing the middle distance briefly to assess what this moment means for Scully (who strove to be unbreakable after her abduction) before turning his focus back to his partner.

When a cry escapes Scully, Mulder instinctively pets and cradles her head for the first time (to my knowledge), transforming from an empathetic but awkward partner to a fully-fledged comforter.

It's here when he links his ability to convey love through touch with his soothing, calming presence: by holding another person, he can wordlessly offer both. This changes everything for Mulder-- he now engulfs Scully, TLG, his family, even other victims in hugs, unlocking that side of himself that he'd never tapped into before.

Scully worms in closer, too far gone to care about preserving whatever scrap of dignity she has left; and Mulder, who gets it now, swarms her in a tighter hug-- his hand stretched to its fullest and his arms wound in a stronger grip.

Mulder then steps it up a notch: he focuses entirely on her (briefly closing his eyes), trying to empathetically collect all of Scully's pain and fear like a dreamcatcher and shield her from all the negative emotions and traumas and nightmares that will plague her. Despite the torment on his face, Mulder's assurance is measured and strong: "It's alright." Simple, but powerfully reassuring.

The very next episode, Mulder throws himself over Scully to protect her from being shot first in the Die Hand Die Verleztz shower, a first for him and one he doesn't flinch at. Of course, he has always been protective; but there is no uncertainty that sometimes lurked when he'd previously hovered around her like a nervous fly.

And this new unlocking of himself led to his aborted hug in--

Colony

When Mulder arrives at his father's, he runs up to the house and almost misses Bill Mulder in the shadows. He steps over, opening his arms for a hug... and is promptly greeted by Bill Mulder's hand.

I already have a series detailing Mulder's complicated relationships with his family (The Mulder Family In-Depth Series is found on this master list); the importance here is that Mulder is so caught up in his new mindset that he forgot the barriers that existed between himself and his father.

Two theories that don't mean anything really:

#1. Mulder had broken down a huge psychological barrier; and he naturally included his father in this change... which was promptly rejected. His face registers an "ah, of course" expression instead of shock or grief, meaning this is an established habit of his father's. Just because he's changed, Bill Mulder has not (yet. See post here.)

#2. Mulder's father has hugged Mulder before, since it's a go-to greeting from his son in this time of crisis. He was a doting father at one point, so maybe he reverts back to his warmer behavior in exteme times of celebration or trouble? Who knows.

Whatever the case may be, this is the first hug Mulder has ever initiated for comfort (not counting bro-hugs or hello-hugs)... and it was rejected. Mulder being Mulder, though, never gives up.

Paper Clip

Paper Clip is the turn of the tide.

Mulder has learned how to marry his unending empathy and true compassion with his natural way of bonding, physical touch. This is when he gives it all back to Scully, the woman who showed him the way. In a demonstration of "I owe you everything, Scully. And you owe me nothing", Mulder stoops down to listen to Scully's heartrending pain about Melissa Scully's murder, giving her as much courage and hope as he can. When Scully cracks, he leans away briefly to better balance himself-- which makes his partner grab for his hands in a panic (2nd pic)-- before scooping her up into a tight hug, allowing his human credential to cry onto his shoulder.

Scully sweeps her arm around Mulder as well (you can see her hand on Mulder's left shoulder.)

The last piece of Mulder's puzzle comes in Herrenvolk:

Herrenvolk

I've discussed this episode in depth here, but it's important to comb back through with this context in mind.

Mulder's mother is on her deathbed, and he has failed to bring back the one person who could heal her. In tatters, he stumbles through the hospital in shock, relying on Scully to get him to Tena (or Teena) Mulder's room. At her bedside, Mulder crashes. For the first time, Mulder leans into Scully, indirectly asking her for a hug. Scully reads his body language and makes the first decisive move, showing Mulder that his emotions won't be rejected. He then falls apart, sobbing into her shoulder.

The last barrier for Mulder's emotional distance has melted away; and Scully is there to give back the comfort he always gave her.

A Summary and Mini-Analysis on Future Hugs

Finally, this aspect of Mulder's emotional journey has come to a healthy completion: from now on, he and Scully give and receive hugs freely, leaning in for affection and anticipating each others' needs and varying moods.

Season 5, interestingly, is filled mostly with hugs-but-not-hugs moments-- i.e., Scully didn't hug Mulder in the woods, they cuddled for warmth; and Mulder didn't hug Scully in All Souls, they whispered with arms in the police station.

But Scully does hug Mulder after the files burn down, since he is too emotionally hewn to reciprocate. FTF is an addendum to that moment, with Mulder proving to Scully that she does, indeed, mean more to him than his life's work (she is his life.)

Sseason 6 is sparing on hugs, though filled to the brim with romantic overtones (subtle they are not); instead, it gives Mulder two kisses that are not from Scully: Triangle's spy Scully and One Son's manipulative Diana Fowley. It's not until Arcadia that the two agents full-on hug-- multiple ones at that-- which is befitting for a season that practically shoves them together while baiting the audience.

(Note: Sometime around Seasons 6-7 there are the events of Per Manum, featuring very huggy Mulder and Scully. I set this sometime before Two Fathers/One Son; but do as you wish.)

The hugs really pick up significant meaning after the episode tag-team of Milagro and The Unnatural. There is no going back now; but whatever deal they struck in those episodes (whether RST or a new understanding between them) is solidified after Mulder's spiritual experience in Amor Fati.

From then on, hugs become casual side pieces to the main affection: Millennium kisses, unabashed flirting, comfort after maternal suicides, familiar and familial habits and routines, and farewells in hallways and hellos from old friends.

The last hug (as of S8 where my X-Files journey stops) is given by Frohike embracing Mulder on his return.

Mulder arrives at Scully's apartment, glad to see his old friend; but he immediately sticks his arm out to shake hands, an unfortunate shadow of his own traumatized father Bill Mulder. Frohike, fortunately, is having NONE of it, sweeping his friend into a tight, firm hug. Mulder is delighted and touched, zinging out his first quip devoid of bitterness.

Grateful and overwhelmed, Mulder gives his friend a back pat (and many happy Mulder noises) as well, harkening back to his first awkward hug with Scully.

A fitting conclusion to Mulder's hug arc.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

[xf-cases-solved]

S2E6: Ascension

Case: Part two of our three part (+ one fever dream) arc begins with a very Will Graham-esque "this is my design" bit with Mulder visiting Scully's apartment, which has now become a crime scene. (Ik X-Files predates Hannibal, it's just what it reminded me of, leave me alone. Plus, Red Dragon predates X-Files by over a decade, soooo) 

Anyway, Scully has been kidnapped by Duane Barry, oopsie daisy! He needs someone to take his place for the next abduction, and he has selected Scully for the job. Good thing Mulder and Krycek are on the case and manage to get her home safe and sound before the end credits roll!

Or... maybe actually they do the opposite of that.

Mulder gets progressively scruffier throughout the episode and nearly kills himself and Krycek on the road bc he hasn't been sleeping since Scully got kidnapped; Scully loses her necklace for the first, but CERTAINLY not last time; Mulder and Krycek take a couple's vacation to a ski resort and Mulder holds a tram operator at gunpoint for suggesting that the tram is "not safe"; Krycek messes up his carefully slicked back hair while pistol whipping the tram operator and then fails to murder Mulder in what may or may not end up being just one of many assassination failures in his pathetic assassin career; Scully is taken by "THEM!" (whoever they are); Duane Barry is dead and the military performs the autopsy bc "there wasn't an FBI pathologist available this morning" (☹️); and Assistant Director Skinner apparently has had the power to reopen the X-Files this whole time??

Does someone die in the cold open: No, but Mulder does do the worst consoling job ever by approaching Scully's mom with Scully's blood on his outstretched hand and then staring blankly at her when she asks where her daughter is.

Does Mulder present a slideshow: This man should not be operating any sort of heavy machinery be it a car, a tram, or an early 1990s projector. (Of the three, though, the only one he doesn't operate during this episode is the projector.)

Does the evidence survive the investigation: Loooool. Nah. Scully's gone, Duane Barry is dead, Krycek has disappeared, and Mulder is left with nothing but some overgrown stubble, scruffy hair, and a worsening of his already substantial insomnia problem.

Whodunit: THEM!!! (Aliens? The shadow government? Both? Neither? Who's to say?)

Convictions: Oh hon. You had to have known Duane Barry was never getting out of this alive, right?

Did they solve it: I am going to go with "no, but." No, but Mulder (and Skinner) are at least aware that they have been massively screwed over, and so Skinner reopens the X-Files in retaliation, and I'll consider that a leveling up. You may have lost all your evidence, almost got framed for murder (tho tbf you did strangle the shit out of him), and got your only real friend in the world abducted by aliens/the shadow government/THEM, but at least you got your special files back, Mulder! I'm sure the first X-Files case you take on after their reopening will be very important, and not one that is just a fourteen year old emo kid's wet/fever dream fantasy...

But, ah, you know what? I'm getting ahead of myself. Ad break! 

[how do i determine if a case is solved? check the scale here: x]

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: Quitting your job and disconnecting your home phone number. Are you currently leading a double life, pretending to be someone you're not in order to gain the trust of someone you intend to royally fuck over for your bosses in the shadow government? Have you completed your mission and are ready to move onto bigger and better* things? Well, then that means it's time for you to try quitting your job and disconnecting your home phone number! Don't worry, it's the 90s, you don't have a cell phone with a tracker on it, nobody will be able to find you. Go live your life, free as a bird. I mean, at least for now... *We do not guarantee that the things you move onto will be bigger, and we CERTAINLY don't guarantee that the things you move onto will be better. In fact, they might be worse. There's actually a high likelihood that they will indeed be worse. But don't worry about that right now. Everything is going to be probably possibly maybe just fine.

***

General Total Stats:

(green means stat has changed since last ep; red means new stat added to list)

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 15 (streak not broken bc i didn't bother to restart it in the first place 👉🏽😎👉🏽)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, It's Me": 9 (teeeechnically she does say "mulder, it's me" in this episode, but it's the same one from the end of the previous episode, so counting it felt like cheating)

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 6

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 10 ½ (if only krycek were competent 😔) 

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 10 (i think as long as we don't know her whereabouts it's valid to consider her as being in mortal danger)

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably Intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 15 (mulder climbing a hill and staring longingly at the sky is so insanely melodramatic that i'm counting it)

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 5 (ngl the line "there wasn't an fbi pathologist available this morning" hits the feels a bit)

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 2

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 19!! (and he was extremely unhelpful 😃)

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car Are Hurt or Killed: 2

Total Number of Times Someone Correctly Guesses a Password: 3 

Total Number of (Plot Relevant) Nosebleeds: 5

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Tasted/Sniffed/Touched Something Questionable Without Following Proper Safety Procedures: 3 (no, but he did completely ignore all warnings in regards to using the unstable tram thing, which is similar in spirit, if not in practice)

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 3 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 4 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "The Truth is Out There": 2 

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 13 (but he NEVER. FUCKING. FINISHES THEM. look at that fucking ashtray at the end of the episode. he takes like one drag and then puts them out. why? why not smoke the whole thing?? drives me insane)

Total Number of Maggie Scully Sightings: 2! (she's not having a good time!)

Total Number of Lone Gunmen Sightings: 2

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: 3!!!!!! (get outta town, rat boy! no, seriously, get outta town. we'll call you when we need you to fuck something up later)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 11½ (ascend to the stars, mother fucker)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look at an Episode's Wikipedia Page to Fill This Out Because It Was Fucking Confusing and/or Too Boring for Me to Pay Attention: 5

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

my favorite mulder moments from s2

him having no faith in episode 1 after the x files are terminated, not even believing what he knows to be true regarding his sister’s disappearance

(and then being the moodiest motherfucker for the foreseeable future)

the fact that he got a fish in between s1 and s2. this brought me so much joy, you don’t even know

his monologue in episode 1, addressed to scully, who was not present: “before I could only trust myself, now I can only trust you, and they’ve taken you away from me… my life up until this point has been about seeing her again, but what would I do if they really come?” <- dear goddddddd. sometimes you get some lines that cut right to the heart of a character and this is one such example.

seeing his horrific workspace where he listened to audio recordings, a job he loathed- it was covered in sunflower seeds, pages with doodles, him stabbing an empty cup. truly a man with no fucks to give.

very very very fluffy hair in the early episodes

when episode 5 opens on him swimming in a big pool. there really was no narrative reason for that except we now know he swims recreationally and that is exactly the kind of thing i’m interested in knowing.

in episode 6, when he meets scully’s mom after her kidnapping, he listens to her say she dreamt of her being taken away, and hugs her

(and all throughout that episode, how he was told to go home because he was too close to the case, but instead got more and more involved. he even drove out to try and find her while falling asleep behind the wheel. dangerous behavior)

((and when he thinks scully is at the top of the mountain, he pulls his gun on the man who runs the ski lift to MAKE SURE he can get to the top as quick as possible. this one was WILD to me. pulling a gun on someone, just to get to her as fast as he can!!!!! he did not care about proper protocol! job be damned he was getting her HOME))

(and when they finally DO get duane barry, he sees scully's blood and hair on his wristband, and starts CHOKING him. you do NOT want to mess around with this man. he tells krychek that NO ONE is to interrogate the suspect but him. NO ONE. he is in what i affectionately refer to as bloodhound mode; there shall be no rest until an answer is sleuthed out)

trying to return scully’s necklace to her mother, who refuses to take it, so he can give it back to her

he has a lot of really emotional moments with scully’s mom, such as telling her she can’t give up hope even as they are picking up her gravestone in episode 8, which he cannot bear to look at

when scully is found, he bursts into the hospital, screaming at the doctor and saying he’ll do anything to figure out what they did to her, to the point where he had to be escorted from the room

(also love when he’s waiting to hear news on how she is doing, and he’s pacing his apartment, bouncing a ball, entirely unable to sit still, he’s so terrified)

after she is found, x tells him to walk away and never look back, and he immediately disregards this information to go chase down whoever knew anything about scully’s disappearance

when her family decides its time to remove her life support, he refuses to go in with them, looking the saddest and wettest a man has ever been

“you could spend the rest of your life finding every person that’s responsible, and it’s still not gonna bring her back”, says melissa. “including myself?” he asks. always taking the blame.

breaking into CIGARETTE MAN’S HOUSE. gun to his head. why her, he asks.

his confrontation scene with skinner, who refuses to accept his one-sentence resignation letter, and who tells him of his own demons. allowing for some skinner lore and deep connections to be made.

again in episode 8, he’s waiting in his apartment for the folks who took scully to arrive so he can kill them, but melissa puts him into his place- “why is it so much easier for you to run around trying to get even than just expressing to her how you feel? i expect more from you. dana expects more from you”

so he leaves his apartment and the one chance he’ll ever have to know who did this to her, and instead goes to sit by her bedside, holds her hand, and talks to her comatose body

(then, we he returns to his apartment, which has been ransacked by those involved with the crime, he falls to the ground, sobbing)

but how BIG he smiled when he heard that her eyes were open!!

in episode 9, when he finally has her back, how he helps her out of the helicopter when they fly to a distant volcano research base <3

also, in episode 10, when they’re being driven to a farm, and he lets her take shotgun so he can lounge about in the back

when he drops this banger line while sitting at a picnic table in episode 12: “i’ve often felt that dreams are the answers to questions we haven’t yet figured out how to ask” (and then does not elaborate)

at the aforementioned picnic table, the detective vaguely describes seeing some sort of symbol, and he immediately realizes it was the logo for the 1939 world’s fair, which is SO funny to me. because WHY does he know that!

when he lifts the caution tape over scully so she can bring her umbrella to the rainy crime scene in episode 13 <3

talking to a random guy in a town they’re visiting for an investigation: “you know andy” “no, I don’t” “well, andy knows you” <- another instance of him being famous in the nerd community

all the times he starts rambling about different belief systems, like the idea of obtaining a new soul in the ep 13, or the concept of wicca in episode 14

when they go to the refugee camp in episode 15, and a child tries to sell them a good luck charm, which he pays a nice $5 bill for

getting hit by a car in episode 16, and then making some dumbass quip about how he should have used the crosswalk

going back home when his "sister" is found, tucking his mom into bed with a kiss

then his dad confronting him, blaming him for losing his sister in episode 17,  leaving him crying as he tries to process the grief of getting her back just to feel guilty for her death

(don’t worry though- it wasn’t really her. but damn, he thought it was, and this scene was devastating)

finding his faith again with scully at his bedside after almost dying of alien poison

when he goes for a jog in florida (episode 20), arguably the hottest and most miserable of all continental US states, in a sweatshirt and sweatpants. and i cannot explain this behavior. he is deeply peculiar.

on the investigation of the sideshow performers, he flirts with the man fixing scully’s pipes to get him to leave. or as i call it: “weaponized bisexuality”

when he slides through a tiny trap door in a haunted house to come and find scully. great visual gag. i chuckled.

feeling sick at home, taking advil in his slutty little tanktop in episode 25. then proceeding to go wild because he was being drugged. don’t worry, he ends up okay. thanks only to scully.

[carefulfears]

sometimes i think about how different their lives could have been if scully was never abducted. but then, i think that her abduction was inevitable the first moment she walked into that basement office. they were always doomed.

that's what makes ascension so effective as an episode: it's a race to stop something that cannot be stopped. this show drops mulder right back in the night he never escaped, listening to the person closest to him scream his name for help. and then it tells him: fix it. get there in time. you're not a kid anymore.

but the central tragedy of the x-files is that you cannot go back and you do not have the power to change and mulder spends his entire life searching for something that he will never ever find, trying to save people that he will never ever save. samantha has been dead from the beginning. there is no truth. "i've been chasing monsters with a butterfly net." (there is no other end to this story.)

ascension drops mulder into the night he never escaped, tells him "fix it," and then proves: there's nothing to be done. what if scully didn't scan the chip? barry could've been given her address. we don't know that's how he found her. what if mulder hadn't trusted krycek? he would've hit the truck. what if the cop had looked in the trunk? what if the tram had been working? what if mulder hadn't stopped to pick up the necklace?

you can run it a million different ways, he always walks up that mountain just two minutes too late. there is no other end to this story.

ascension isn't really about scully, you never hear her speak. it's about mulder and duane barry. both ascending, both trying to rewrite history. barry is desperate to not be the one taken, to be free. mulder is desperate to not be the one left behind. both trying to avoid living their worst night over and over and over. but ultimately, they are both little more than "microscopic cogs in the catastrophic plan," and there is no man with the red right hand. (x)

scully's abduction changes everything. every single shift and downfall and tragedy of the rest of the series can be traced back to it. it's why season one is a time capsule. she will never be that curious and fresh and open again. he will never be that excited and joyful and trusting. they spend the rest of their lives wanting to be back in that graveyard in bellefleur, over that hill in idaho, wide-eyed and awe-struck. and they never will be again.

and no matter which way you run it (just like no matter which way you run november 27th 1973), it can't be fixed.

[scullysflannel]

helllooo! may i ask for your recommendations on x files episodes to watch for fall/spooky season? 🙂‍↕️

yes!! (I'm assuming you're rewatching, but if you're asking as someone who's never watched the x-files before, please let me know because that changes everything.)

every x-files episode is seasonally appropriate in my opinion, but some that really feel like fall and/or halloween to me are (in airing order): 

pilot, ice, beyond the sea, duane barry/ascension/one breath (if you want a trilogy), irresistible, colony/end game, humbug, grotesque, pusher, jose chung's from outer space, quagmire, home, post-modern prometheus, kill switch, bad blood, triangle (I'm assigning it halloween because it's like a costume party to me), roadrunners (hello roadrunners gang).

if a favorite isn't on here, it's because I assigned it a different season just now <3 it's about the vibes.