#Gethsemane

[illustratus]

The Agony in the Garden by Gustave Doré

[blorbojudas]

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

[bakedbakermom]

it JUST hit me. in gethsemane, scully tells the panel she recently learned that her cancer had metastasized and she hadn't told mulder. in elegy, she tells mulder that her doctors told her she was fine, and he says he hopes she's telling the truth.

that's when she learned, isn't it.

how can this show still be finding new ways to hurt me 30 years later. HOW.

[jammunin]

gethsemane

[randomfoggytiger]

Even though I am personally not religious, one of my favorite character traits of Scully was her faith despite being a hard nosed scientist. If you had to define her religious beliefs how would you? Would you consider her a hard core catholic, a catholic in name only or something else?

I look forward to a 1000 word prompt XD

The Journey of Scully's Faith, in Brief

Oh, yeah, Scully and her religion.

*cracks knuckles*

Faith was Scully's albatross until all things, a tug-of-war between her initial belief and secondary rationalization.

ATHEISM, AGNOSTICISM, AND THE FEAR OF HER BELIEFS

During the first half of the 90s, religion represented, to Scully, everything she was afraid to believe in: her father's ghost mouthing The Lord's Prayer, her Catholic mother's psychic dreams, her partner's and sister's convictions running concurrent with her struggle against faith.

She began Season 1 as an atheist-- more so than Mulder, perhaps-- using the rigidity of science to explain her world. Even though she wore a cross around her neck, Mulder didn't assume Scully was religious; and Maggie backed up that assumption in S2's Ascension, explaining, "I gave" [Scully's cross] "to her for her birthday." The religious iconography, then, was a memento of Scully's mother, not of her faith... which becomes particularly telling during her Season 3 and 4 struggles.

Why?

CHILDLIKE FAITH

Scully had a proclivity to believe in the supernatural, the unnatural, and the paranormal before, as she states in Quagmire, "I grew up and became a scientist." Science, then, is a shield against the unexplained: in other words, Scully fears what she can't quantify, so turns to science to deny her problem's existence. "Mulder, it doesn't matter," she insists when he prods about the cause of her cancer; "Mulder what difference would it make?" she rebuts whenever he wanders too far into the realm of hypothesis.

Beyond the Sea and Revelations hit upon the same raw nerve. Luther Lee Boggs preyed upon her repressed doubts, calling her a liar when she denied she believes and telling her that all liars "go to hell." Kevin Kryder was saved only through her acceptance, shall we say, of God's hand working through her. In both cases, religious belief-- be it her father's ghost mouthing The Lord's Prayer or a sweet-smelling saint her partner can't detect-- terrifies her.

Why would it terrify her? Because religion isolated her.

CONFUSION AND ITS ISOLATION

We know Scully has attachment issues. We see them explored in A Christmas Carol when she poured her heart out to the social worker-- admitting she kept her heart largely unattached for fear of losing yet another person in her life-- but we know Scully isn't a detached person, either. We know that Scully's greatest fear was being betrayed by Mulder. That was explored in Wetwired, when she collapsed in her mother's arms, confused and sick at heart. We know that Scully grew more and more isolated in her partnership with Mulder; but she adapted to and respected that isolation after years of professional betrayal.

In regard to religion, why would Scully feel isolated? The Scullys are a religious family: her mother dangled reminders in her life with cross necklaces and priest visits, her father prayed as his soul departed, and Bill buried her daughter in his local church.

Because religion, Scully believed, isolates her from herself.

When Scully changed her course from medical school to the FBI, her parents heavily disapproved. That disapproval heavily affected her, even if Melissa helped her work past her hang-ups, even if Scully chose to reframe her transfer as "an act of rebellion." In truth, Scully found "other fathers" to hitch her wagon to, "rebelling" only when she spotted another patch of grass that promised greener pastures. The FBI patted Scully on the head and encouraged her to sign up (pre-Pilot); Mulder patted her on the head and encouraged her to stick around (Squeeze), Ed Jerse patted her on the head and encouraged her to take a walk on the wild side (Never Again), and Daniel Waterston patted her on the head and encouraged her to come back to him (all things.) Every decision that drew Scully away from an old belief was caused by a single-minded focus on one aspect of herself: her parents' pride and joy as a doctor, Daniel Waterston's pride and joy as his med student, the FBI's pride and joy as a field agent, Mulder's pride and joy as his partner, Ed's pride and joy as his salvation. And in each case, Scully grew isolated and paranoid because she lost touch with herself as a whole; and usually fled (if temporarily) to what she considered a 'freer' freedom.

How does this apply to religion? As a child, Scully was a good little Catholic girl who smiled at her mother's cross gift; but was also a bad little Catholic girl that smoked her mother's cigarettes for attention. In medical school, Scully was a good little med student who preened under her teacher's adoration; but was also a "bad" little Catholic woman who "grew up and became a scientist." Before recruitment, Scully was a good little scientist who fled from Daniel Waterston's deception; but was a "bad" little lapsed Catholic that (unintentionally) broke up a home. In Quantico, she was a good little field agent who learned all her lessons; but was also a "bad" little by-the-books student who openly dated her Academy instructor. And she was a good little partner who helped Mulder investigate impossible cases; but was also a "bad" little scientist for "holding" him "back."

In short, Scully hadn't allowed herself to fully accept the dichotomous nature of humanity. She must either be a good little Catholic girl or be someone who wants to explore her wild side. Until Revelations, she believed one must believe in God or science; and science gave her clearer answers that squelched her anxieties.

But then, Beyond the Sea, One Breath, and Revelations happened. Scully was unable to articulate or fully understand what her experience "beyond" had been in One Breath, only that it wasn't something to fear. It forced her to brush up against sentiments lingering from Beyond the Sea, to begin to admit there was a simmering belief she wasn't ready to acknowledge.

Revelations in particular tossed Scully from agnosticism back to belief-- and, again, she feared that belief. "Afraid that God is speaking; but that no one's listening" was a distancing tactic she acknowledged in Irresistible, a way to separate from the emotions broiling uncontrollably below the surface. But it also revealed how effortlessly Scully slipped back into a belief in God-- and that she equated that belief with missed cues and punishment.

Why did Scully think religion is tied with punishment, and how did that isolate her from her other potential believers?

MOTHER MAGGIE

Maggie is the key.

As discussed above, Scully strove for acceptance from her parents or from "other fathers"; and that played an important role in her journey towards personal growth. But Captain Scully was but one-half of the picture. Scully's father served as the cattle prod for professional approval-- he modeled complete focus on climbing rank and keeping emotional burdens out from plain sight-- while her mother served as an emotional and religious one.

Maggie was the one person she could "always trust" and truly felt safe with in Wetwired. It was her mother she turned to for reassurance in Beyond the Sea, it was her mother's sins she smoked on the porch, it was her mother's gift she continued to wear when science dominated her beliefs. But Maggie has never been particularly stringent herself in her religion-- smoking cigarettes (during a time period when everyone did, but the point remains), believing in supernatural dreams, inviting the unbeliever "Fox" to mourn with the family, embracing her son's successful IVF baby in A Christmas Carol, and celebrating her daughter's out-of-wedlock baby in Essence.

It's what Margaret Scully represented, not Maggie herself, that Scully feared: unquestioning, childlike faith.

Unfortunately, we are never given closure to the dynamic Maggie provided. Other than a brief appearance in S8's Essence-- Scully's unruffled independence and Maggie's confidence in her daughter's confidence-- we're never shown that final conclusion. Alas.

A QUESTIONER AT HEART

Again, Scully couldn't reconcile the dichotomy of human nature with her (flawed) perception of religious "good and evil." Good people who do wrong, she presumed, have faltered and must repent. By that metric, evil people who do right do it for the wrong reasons. Moreover, Scully viewed a faith in God through one lens; and thought that if one did not completely believe in everything they didn't understand-- childlike faith-- then God was "speaking to them; but that no one's listening." That she wasn't listening. And what happens to those that know better but aren't listening? They are punished, because they are evil.

Scully is a questioner at heart; and Scully came to believe that questioning her beliefs, that failing to believe in things she couldn't understand, was tantamount to disbelieving in God. That's why her religious episodes can be difficult to rewatch: when facing an Almighty God, Scully cowered into complete, blind obedience-- "Perhaps that's what faith is"-- before casting off those shackles and fleeing back to denial and avoidance. But she couldn't shirk her belief, deep down, no matter her rationalizations.

A RETURN TO BELIEF, AND LIMBO

Post Revelations, Scully left the matter largely alone, resolving to finds answers to her own questions "because of my own reasons" in Memento Mori-- a courageous step for someone who usually put her own needs second.

However, the doomed inevitability of Elegy-- another agency-robbing experience Scully couldn't explain-- set her back; and she continued dodging both her mother's priest and her partner's complicated questions in Gethsemane. Scully would feel like a coward if she ran to God for strength after her absence, but she would also feel like a heretic if she questioned the nature of God's existence.

Maggie became crucial to the cancer arc narrative: it was she who kept trying to reach her daughter, to show her that God wasn't taking account of what she had or hadn't done, what she did or didn't fully believe. Scully finally cracked in Redux II, begging her mother to explain why she still clings to God but denies him-- part of her inability to understand and quantify that dichotomy-- but Maggie didn't understand what Scully was talking about, and tried to soothe her, instead. Scully ended up clinging to Maggie, clinging to Mulder, clinging to the priest before she clung to God, viewing even Mulder as a truer believer than herself.

Season 5, Fight the Future, and Season 6 left Scully in limbo. (A Christmas Carol and Emily were about her daughter and the supernatural, not her faith or belief in God.)

The series didn't return to this topic until Biogenesis, The Sixth Extinction, and Amor Fati, a three-parter that focused on the possibility of aliens creating Earth (or having a hand in its creation.) This changed the wide interpretation of her religious texts and tossed Scully back into fearful questions and self-doubt. She cried in Amor Fati because she "doesn't know what to believe or who to trust"-- a verbal slip back into that feeling of isolation that drove her from religion in the first place. (Diana Fowley was formerly evil, but she died saving Mulder. Did that make her a good person who did wrong, or an evil person who did something right?) Mulder, transformed from his own experience, gave her courage and became her touchstone, regardless.

The answer Amor Fati underlined is that Scully had yet to believe in redemption: one could repent, she thought, but it wouldn't change who they were as a person. That thinking formed the cornerstone of her "good or evil" foundation and separated her from the capability to falter but not to fail-- to "sin" but to be "redeemed."

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Season 7 sets into motion the culmination of religious journey: Amor Fati (as we already discussed), Orison, and all things.

Orison would have been the perfect followup to Revelations: another demon, another series of supernatural signs that only Scully would understand. However, this time she would fail to put the pieces together, and resort to an action against God's will that would put into question the goodness of her soul. Problems with Orison (that it obliterated Irresistible's message, that its side plots cluttered an already cluttered episode, that Pfaster's "affect" on victims didn't match the reaction Scully experienced) aside, the episode didn't give the audience enough information to explain why Scully believed it was the Devil, not PTSD or a trauma reaction, that forced her hand. However, that was Orison's conclusion.

This, then, set Scully in motion to either follow an path of dark self-doubt or forge a new path of enlightenment. Or both.

We know she took the latter (all things) route, but another episode's potential was wasted in the journey from question to conclusion: En Ami. A road trip with the "the Devil in the flesh" would have been the perfect opportunity for Scully to try to prove the depths of her own goodness: putting her life at risk to obtain the cure for all disease. Scientific altruism and religious redemption combined. It would also prove how well CSM knew her, inside and out: using that lure to bait her away from Mulder (and, hopefully, to his own side.) En Ami could easily have discovered the lengths Scully would go to prove herself and the depths CSM's depravity and justification could sink to. Instead, it became a study in how little CSM understood his unknowing captive, and how little the writers understood why or when Scully chose to leap when told "Jump!"

Regardless, we arrive at all things.

ALL THINGS AND PEACE

all things was about enlightenment and self-love (for Daniel Waterston and his daughter-- also curiously named Maggie-- as well): Scully decides what she wants for her life, which voice she wants to hear. It's also the episode where God spoke back.

all things was a bit of a mixed message, especially considering Scully chose to remain Catholic ("my prayers were answered" in Season 8, lighting the church candles in Season 11, etc.) Gillian's episode had clear Buddhist leanings-- the god of "all things", i.e. the god in all things. God wasn't an active force so much as a peace of mind with the right choice (that choice being Mulder.) But it worked, too-- the ending, especially (which was written with the help of Chris Carter, actually. We'll give him a point for this one.) "Mm, I didn't say 'God spoke back'," Scully corrected, which illustrated that she, at last, straddled the dichotomy of her beliefs: a God that will lead but not directly speak. A God whose signs she chose to follow, not one who punished her if she went another way. "Life's just a path", Melissa told her before she ever stepped foot in the FBI (canonically after the Daniel Waterston debacle we return to in all things); and that message wound back around and stuck, seven plus years later.

But why did all things break Scully's fear of isolation through her beliefs (or religion, at large?) Her flawed perception of her mother's God was reworked, with Mulder as Maggie Scully's stand-in: God became a god of "all things", an entity that not only allowed her to make her own choices, ask her own questions, and harbor her own doubts, but also gave her space to decide and time to return.

That reframing of God then helped her to reframe humanity. Mulder came back from a wasted weekend trip to England, empty-handed; yet she simply guided him home, made him tea, and contentedly listened to him ramble about theories she might not fully believe. Scully no longer felt the need to combat his beliefs or justify her own: she knew, now, what she believed, and that was enough. (As an aside, The Unnatural and all things both end on the same note-- Mulder coming to an epiphany and long-windedly spelling it out until he realizes Scully already knows. Interesting.)

CONCLUSION

And thus, we have concluded Scully's journey of faith.

Any further point canon tried to make was simply a retread of better, more complicated resolutions.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[thedemonlady]

Tarja Turunen - Nightwish: "Gethsemane" Live "Lista Chart" TV Finland 1999 (x)

[a-queer-seminarian]

Gaza's Gethsemane

Today is Maundy Thursday, when Christians remember Jesus’s Last Supper, his final meal with his closest friends before his arrest and execution by the Roman Empire.

Meanwhile, right now, in Jesus’ own homeland, millions suffer starvation and terror, displacement and death under Western-funded Israeli colonialism and continued military assault. Israel blocks food from reaching them, leaving Palestinians in fear that any "supper" they can scrounge up might be their last.

After their meal, Jesus led his friends into the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed in anguish, fearing all he was about to endure: criminalization, torture, and a painful public death.

Jesus begs his friends to “stay awake” as he wrestles — just to be present, to make him feel a little less alone. How do we respond to Jesus’ plea by “staying awake” to Palestine’s current agony?

"Cry" (2016) by Mohammed Almadhoun.

That question also leads me to ponder another: how does God join Palestinians in their agony? Where is God in their suffering?

Palestinian Christian Mitri Raheb seeks to answer this question of where God is in his 2015 book Faith in the Face of Empire.

Raheb looks at the history of the Palestinian region, from ancient times to today, as a long chain of different empires — from the Assyrians to the Romans, Ottomans to Western-funded modern Israel.

He says that this long history of occupation is what gave Palestinians the ability to notice God where those in power do not: among the powerless. It is this revelation, Raheb declares, that has empowered Palestinians — Jewish, Christian, and Muslim — to survive and resist Empire again and again.

Raheb writes about how in ancient times, the divine was made

“...visible and omnipresent in the empire with shrines and temples that represented not only his glory but also that of the empire. God’s omnipotence and that of the empire were almost interchangeable. He was a victorious God, a fitting deity for a victorious empire. At the other end of the spectrum there was the God of the people of Palestine, whose tiny territory resembled a corridor in Middle Eastern geography. ...This God was a loser. He lost almost all wars, and his people were forced to pay the price of those defeats. In short, this God did not appear to be up to the challenge of the various empires. His people in Palestine were forced to hear the mocking voices of their neighbors who taunted them, 'Where is your God?' (Ps 42: 3, 10). The revelation the people of Palestine received was the ability to spot God where no one else was able to see him. When his people were driven as slaves into Babylon, they witnessed him accompanying them. When his capital, Jerusalem, was destroyed and his temple plundered, they saw him there. When his people were defeated, he was also present. The salient feature of this God was that he didn’t run away when his people faced their destiny but remained with them, showing solidarity and choosing to share their destiny. Consequently and ultimately, Jesus revealed this God on the cross, in a situation of terrible agony and pain, when he was brutally crushed by the empire and hung like a rebellious freedom fighter. The people of Palestine could then say with great certainty [that their God] ‘in every respect has been tested as we are’ (Heb 4:15). For the people of Palestine this meant that defeat in the face of the empire was not an ultimate defeat. It meant that after the country was devastated by the Babylonians, when everything seemed to be lost, a new beginning was possible. Even when the dwelling place of God was destroyed, God survived that destruction, developing in response a dwelling that was indestructible. And when Jesus cried on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34), that soul-rending plea was just the prelude to the resurrection…”

It is this revelation that God sides against empire, Raheb continues, that keeps the Palestinian spirit alive through horrible oppression. Though the world may call such faith foolish — how can you believe God is with you and that God will have the final say, when all evidence points to your abandonment and defeat? — it is wisdom to the oppressed. Raheb describes how this wisdom feeds Palestinian resistance, over and over across the millennia:

The art of survival and starting anew is a highly developed form of expression in Palestine, and one I see daily. People’s lives, businesses, and education are interrupted by wars and the aftermath of wars over and over again, and yet I witness people refusing to give up, taking a deep breath, and beginning again. Logically, it is foolish, and yet there is deep wisdom in such a course of action. I’m often asked by visitors how I can keep going. Everything seems to be lost, the land “settled” by Israel, the wall suffocating Palestinian land and spirit, the world silent, and hope almost gone.”

Raheb's answer to them is that God’s presence in and among the suffering, and God’s promised resurrection, of renewal in the face of all terror and death, is what keeps him and his people going.

As we enter into these final days of Lent, I pray for hearts and minds opened to witnessing God’s solidarity with and resurrection for Palestinians suffering imperial brutality. I pray that the Palestinians will survive as they always have — “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:8–9).

[cometcrystal]

saw iii (2006) || gethsemane, jesus christ superstar (1973)

[holy-duckk]

the quality is so bad 😢😢😢

[fringephile]

This is my torture for today.

[cvbarroso]

“Christ at Prayer on the Mount of Olives” by Nöel Coypel (1704)

[illustratus]

Jesus Praying in the Garden by Gustave Doré

[platadesangre]

Leo Jiménez absolutely shredding that G5, and the violin lady going "omg 👀"

[settle-down-frohike]

Correct me if I’m wrong but Scully’s cancer was created as a fail-safe to eliminate any test subject that happened to discover their chip, remove it, and investigate it’s origins. It affected multiple women. Remove the chip, and you’ll die before you can get to us. NOT created specifically for Scully as a way to convince Mulder aliens existed?!? They literally knew already that it was man-made?? Tell me how 2 genius level IQs fell for that. (Outside of desperately unhealthy coping mechanisms)

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

web-weaving – the agony in the garden

🩸 Christ in Gethsemane – Heinrich Hofmann // Rose – The Oh Hellos 🩸 Folio 122r of a Book of Hours – Masters of Zweder van Culemborg // Luke 22:42 🩸 Christ in the Garden of Olives – Gaspar de Crayer // Family Line – Conan Gray 🩸 Folio 122r of a Book of Hours – Masters of Zweder van Culemborg // Psalm 22:2 🩸 The Agony in the Garden – Ludovico Carracci // Sun Bleached Flies – Ethel Cain 🩸

[randomfoggytiger]

Gethsemane, Bill Scully Apologia, and Maggie the Emergency Contact

Dialogue and Play-By-Play Analysis:

Bill: "I picked up the phone when they called Mom. I thought you could use a change of clothes."

Scully: "Thank you... where's Mom?"

Believing her cancer is still a secret, Scully automatically places Bill's importance below her mother, wanting to talk freely with Maggie (without Bill.) Bill sees and understands this; and is hurt that she still won't open up to him despite being here, now, for her. As of yet, he doesn't act on that hurt.

Bill: "I didn't tell Mom what happened...."

Scully: "...But I'm okay. Luckily."

Bill: "You're not okay, Dana."

Scully: "I told Mom not to tell you."

Bill: "Why?"

Scully: "Because it's very personal. Because I don't want sympathy."

For all of the just criticism against Bill later in this arc, here he is holding back his anger (an expression of his hurt) and listening, really listening to his sister. He keeps quiet, giving Scully room to fully explain herself; and even sympathetically locks eyes, giving her his full attention.

Another thing of note: he is staring at Scully with the exact look of sympathy she wanted to avoid. Mulder and Maggie know her enough to acquiesce to her "I'm fine"s; but Bill is her life-long peer, and siblings can't hide truths from each other as effectively as they can their parents or partners.

"You think you can cure yourself."

Bill realizes that his sister never told her own family-- him-- about her cancer because she does, even now, believe she can cure herself. He's stunned, shocked, even appalled; and that leaks into his voice, coming across as judgmental.

Scully doesn't deny it, caught; and sighs, frustrated, that he divined and overly-simplified something she hadn't expressed to anyone and probably would not have been able to without a beautiful speech prepared ahead of time.

"Mom tells me that you've gotten worse. That your cancer's gone into your bloodstream."

This explains why Maggie told Bill in the first place: she cracked under the strain Dana's edict of secrecy put her under, watching her daughter slowly die without any apparent attempts to circumvent that death or even to bond over their shared tragedy. Bill became her only recourse... and Bill spilled the beans (as he does, again, in A Christmas Carol.)

Scully is shaken by his bluntness, unable to shy away from the truth spoken so baldly to her face.

"What are you doing at work getting knocked down? Beaten up? What are you trying to prove-- that you're going to go down fighting?"

Scully: "Now, c'mon Bill--"

Scully is deferring back to an old sibling dynamic: Bill misunderstanding, or only understanding enough to feel she's acting out of turn; and her attempting to draw him away from his preconceived notions. In this case, however, he's right; and she's avoiding the truth of that (subconsciously.)

Bill stops her by slapping down the clothes, getting her full attention.

"Y'know what Mom is going through? Why do you think I didn't tell her when they called?"

"What should be doing?"

Bill: "We have a responsibility-- not just to ourselves, but to the people in our lives."

And he's absolutely correct here: Scully has been so focused on work and its promise of a cure that she's forgotten to give space to those suffering alongside her.

"Just, just because I haven't bared my soul to you or to Father McCue or to God, it doesn't mean I'm not responsible to those important to me."

Here Scully reveals she thought emotional distance and soldiering on was her way of protecting her loved ones from her burdens, providing them strength in the face of her worsening health. In reality, it worsened their fears and burdens; and furthered their isolation... except for, ironically, Mulder, who wasn't ready to face the implications of her impending death, anyway.

"To who? This guy Mulder? But where is he, Dana? Where is he through all this?"

Bill is less right here: from his perspective, Dana has (once again) wrapped herself up with a man whose authority and work ethic supersedes Bill's love and concern for his sister-- another in the pattern of their late father and Daniel Waterston and Jack Willis. Bill isn't stupid: his above reproach also reveals he knows Mulder knows about Scully's cancer; and the fact that her partner did and still left her alone to deal with it to "pursue his career" while Bill hasn't been able to be there to support her at all eats away at him, makes him hate the man. (And still he's civil when he meets Mulder, even talks with him in terms he believes a workaholic will understand-- "Let's keep the work away from here"-- only getting rough when he misinterprets Mulder's blank face in response-- "Let her die with dignity.")

Despite being wrong here, Bill still hits the mark; because Mulder did wander off on a quest. But Scully can't argue for Mulder without betraying her own reticence, her own need to keep Mulder in the dark for Mulder's sake-- because that would betray her feelings in a way that she doesn't want to discuss with Bill, especially after Mulder has consistently dodged that serious conversation for years now. So, she picks up her clothes and ends the conversation.

In-Depth Analysis

Maggie Was Scully's Emergency Contact

The hospital called Maggie when Scully was rushed in, unconscious; and while this doesn't outright disprove the theory Mulder might also be an emergency contact, it certainly fits in with the pattern of him being called to the hospital and let into Scully's room by Maggie and not the other way around (i.e. One Breath and Wetwired.) Furthermore, Mulder isn't alerted (that I know of) to a missed call from the hospital after his return to civilization, meaning the hospital didn't notify him at all.

Bill the Bully?

Is Bill a despicable figure? Most definitely... in a deleted Memento Mori scene-- which is why I think they cut it. Though his words are brusque, even cruel in their blunt honesty, Bill, apart from that scene, doesn't seem to willfully inflict or weaponize guilt against his sister, wielding it only as a reminder of how much her family is left out of her life, how much they want to be there for her and don't understand why she won't let them in. It's a fundamental difference in how they approach life; and both are forceful about their insistence on doing things their own way.

Scully is used to being everyone's source of strength (Maggie places her on a pedestal even above her brothers in Memento Mori), which hinders her from opening up or betraying her weakness. Being "the strong one" for so long turned into a fear of failing others; but this reticence has the opposite effect, ostracizing and distancing her family (and Mulder) in her struggles to keep them unaffected. Their divide grows as the years go on (though it seems an equilibrium of sorts has been reached after Emily, since she mentions them fondly in How the Ghosts Stole Christmas and indirectly in Millennium.)

Bill Is Right (in This Instance)

On its face, Bill's speech is unrelenting and out of left field... but is it, really?

Bill is told about his sister's cancer only when it has become irredeemably terminal. He arrives on land, either before or after Maggie's revelation, and finds the rest of the family ignorant and his mother having to shoulder that burden, alone, because his sister refused to let her tell anyone else the news-- meaning, Maggie has been suffering in silence the entire cancer arc, trying to abide by her daughter's terms for space and silence on the topic. However, Scully's definitive terminal diagnosis broke her; and Maggie, having no one to turn to support because Dana still refused to talk about it, finally confessed to her priest and reached out to her son for strength. Bill sees how hard this has been on her and tries to alleviate that burden by adopting his sister's methods: keeping Maggie in the dark as much as possible. It honors what he knows to be his sister's wishes and his mother's fears.

In this scene Bill is absolutely in the right. He and his sister, while not incredibly close, have no ill will between them; and he finds out that not only has she been slowly dying for months and sworn their mother to secrecy but she also still refused to tell him, even when he dropped everything to bail her and Maggie out with this act of kindness. This is wrong-- it is-- and his speech rebuking his sister is as deserved as Scully's are to Mulder whenever he acts only in stubborn self-interest.

Bill is hurt, Bill is grieved; and Bill drives that home, peeling back his sister's denial by exposing her true intent: "You think you can cure yourself." The ludicrous nature of her expectations-- cure incurable cancer and never tell a soul so she won't have to 'suffer' the shame or embarrassment of their sympathy or pity-- galls him; and he's right. It's Scully's struggle and her burden; but it's not just her struggle or burden: her family and loved ones are losing her, too, and that pain is just as powerfully frightening. Bill wants more from her than an immovable pillar of strength-- and that's a good thing. Maggie needed her to be "the strong one", and Mulder needed her to keep fighting; but Bill just wanted his sister to tell him the truth and let him in.

A last note: Bill grew up with Dana-- he knows her propensity to get lost in father figures and demanding authorities. He probably sees Mulder as another Daniel Waterston or Jack Willis, an extension of her undisguised adoration for their late father. He's naturally protective (as we see in Redux II, though grossly misplaced) and thinks Scully is losing that stability in herself the more engrossed she becomes in her work (ex. Gethsemane-Redux II and A Christmas Carol.) These fears and concerns are expressed in overbearing finger-wagging and anger rather than communication, a (sadly) common affliction in a family growing a more distant with time and lives necessarily apart.

Scully Believed She Could Cure Herself

Since Memento Mori, Scully's modus operandi has been to avoid, avoid, avoid the topic of her cancer (and the death of her father, her abduction, etc.) The following cases rarely touched on her illness unless she had a concerning diagnosis or needed further treatment, i.e. Zero Sum and Elegy. Radiation was likely ruled out as ineffective since the skirmish with Dr. Scanlon (and was a drain of her valuable energy and health without any chance of helping, regardless); so, Scully probably opted for more obscure treatments, buying time while she and Mulder chipped away at their work.

In the back of her mind, she believed, truly, that she wouldn't die: that her cancer could be tucked away from her family and cured before Bill or the others ever found out. As we know, Maggie bore the brunt of her daughter's edict of silence alone, finally caving when the cancer reached Scully's bloodstream. When Bill waits for an explanation-- staring at his sister's defiance and stubbornness and pure conviction that she's fine and that the family shouldn't be worried about her at all-- he figures out her blind expectation and avoidance-bordering-on-denial and says, appalled: "You think you can cure yourself." Scully dips her head, exposed and embarrassed.

The beginning of Gethsemane proves Scully was still denial: "my dying wish" she professes on the one hand only to reject the priest and shake her head at Bill with the other. No, Scully did not expect to die alone without her family there. When Bill demands, "We have a responsibility-- not just to ourselves, but to the people in our lives", she parries, "Just because I don't bare my soul to you or to Father McCue or to God." Scully thought she was doing her duty by keeping her loved ones in her thoughts while carrying out her solitary battle. When Bill strips her of her further excuses-- "Who? To this guy Mulder?"-- it peels back her hyper-focused perspective, reminding Scully that it's not just her and Mulder fighting the world.

She did her family and Mulder and herself a disservice by pushing them all away to "protect them", as she realizes in Redux II: being "strong" stripped them of the ability to support each other and was damaging in the long run. In this, Bill is undeniably correct. However, where Bill is wrong is that he doesn't see that Scully believes in Mulder's ability to save her, that by following him she is doing what is best for herself.

Her partner's fervor and hope give her strength; and his inability to break under defeat keeps her fighting even in her darkest hours (and does end up saving her life.) Scully put such faith in Mulder and his abilities and his theories that she kept council only with herself (as much as possible) to keep him going, to keep the weight off his shoulders (and her mother's and her family's) so that they could move forward as a well-oiled machine, ready to snatch the cure whenever they got their hands on it. And Mulder did get his hands on it... and then it failed.

She's dying; but it's not until the cure fails that the dam breaks: everything Scully had been fearing comes rushing out of her. She gives in, crying to her mother about her crumbling lack of faith-- because the miracle cure didn't work, because her months of waiting and hoping in private were all for naught, because she's going to die and there's no possible way to escape. But it's also freeing: she can own her fear, hold onto her mother, clutch Mulder's hand, cry with the priest, finally lean into and start to heal from the weights she's been holding on her back, alone.

And she prays: death is near.

Scully Wanted to Please Bill, Too

As she told Ed Jerse in Never Again, "There are other fathers."

The ouroboros twirls on and on in her personal life, goading her to both make a stand for herself and to placate Bill's expected reactions. In this situation, she did deserve his anger; however, this dynamic continues to play out in Redux II and A Christmas Carol, separate circumstances that are outside Bill's scope of understanding or perspective. After each confrontation, her brother always backs off and begrudgingly acquiesces his sister's boundaries; but it's easy to see why he clings to his late father's behaviors-- viewing them as the only way his sister will confide in him-- and why Scully automatically responds to-- albeit with more guilt than openness-- and rejects his methods.

It's an aspect of their relationship that fell to the wayside as the series barreled onward; but there are hints of resignation on his part after the events of Emily unfolded the way they did (silent support in the courthouse and true remorse in the church.) Scully, however, is locked in grief and unwilling to open back up, yet. We're never shown on-screen what happens next; but he seems to have caused her no further problems in spite of her professional and personal scares in the future (including almost being burned alive, an unexpected trip to Antarctica, job demotion, and getting gut shot all within the span of a few months.) Perhaps he gave her up for loss, perhaps he stayed close but distant, perhaps he withdrew from the drama all together. We'll never know; and, ultimately, it's up to individual interpretation.

Conclusion

This scene sets up the hinge upon which the cancer arc (and any future Scully family drama) twists and turns.

I don't believe Bill is bad, or even malevolent: he, like any other person in a family strained with distance and death, doesn't seem to blame Scully entirely or for long; and only wishes to get through to her somehow. We saw him bully her as a child but we also saw him gift and teach her how to use a bb gun. Scully, meanwhile, balks at and softens over Bill's bluster and overstepping, always effectively putting him in his place after courteously listening to his opinion. We saw her yell and shove him as a child but we also saw her gleefully play alongside he and Charlie.

In conclusion: like all sibling relationships, there are headbutts and there are fights; but it seems, at least by their conversation here and succeeding ones in the future, that any hitch or bump in the road is smoothed over, ironed out, or fixed before it becomes permanent. Bill makes excellent points that Scully takes into consideration, changing her future dealings with Maggie and Bill and even Mulder (namely, her willingness to open up in Detour); and Bill, having said his peace, supports his sister in her decisions the rest of this arc and later in S5.

That we know about.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!