#and there's definitely more to be said about scully RE: cycles of authority

[carefulfears]

do you have any thoughts on jack willis (and scully and mulder)?

mmm yeah i need to rewatch lazarus but i feel like jack kind of gets overshadowed by daniel a bit (in the same way that phoebe is overshadowed by diana) just because scully was a smidge older and they had a more committed relationship but like...he was still her teacher...and still significantly older than her.

WILLIS: No. It's real. I’ve been on this long enough. I know the difference. Besides, I can feel it. I can feel them. I'm inside their heads.

SCULLY: Just as long as you keep yours.

in their first interaction, willis has brought scully on to his big case, and it's clear that it's because they have an understanding of each other. they're very in-tune with each other, and they get on well.

but she quickly utilizes that understanding to express that jack perhaps has a tendency to "lose his head" (and her first line is "relax")

this is something she reestablishes later to mulder, when she claims that jack's change in personality after his near-death experience could be explained by "the stress of the case...the trauma of being shot...jack's personality..."

MULDER: How well do you know him?

SCULLY: (forced casual) We dated ... for almost a year. He was my instructor at the academy.

(SCULLY keeps walking, MULDER stops and looks at her.)

MULDER: The plot thickens.

SCULLY: (walking back toward MULDER, remembering fondly) We even had the same birthday. We used to celebrate in some dive in Statford that had a slanting pool table. But it was always so hard for Jack to relax. It was impossible for him really. He was always so intense, so relentlessly determined.

lol lol lol. do you think the syndicate knew they were sending miss "i just have to fuck my teacher" to spy on mulder

(how many times over the years does she describe mulder as "relentless"?)

it's almost cute here how she kind of slyly smiles and creeps back to tell him all about her past escapades. she's been very impatient in this episode: someone close to her is hurt. she doesn't want to go talk to mulder's wackjob scientist friends about body-swapping. and she's never told him anything this personal, or about her past, before. they're friends. it's the predecessor to seven years later, her kicking her shoes off on his couch, to tell him all about daniel over tea.

when she sees jack later (it might be dupre in jack's body, but she doesn't know that), she initially demands that he go to the hospital, but quickly acquiesces to what he wants her to do.

and she continues to defend him to mulder, unwilling to believe that there may be anything else going on, other than what she accepts as jack's erratic “personality.” (she would rather accept that jack forgot her birthday, and those times they spent it together, than that he's gone.)

when "jack" calls her to meet him, she comes, despite her misgivings. (she questions him about missing evidence that he'd been carrying). and when he holds her at gunpoint and throws her handcuffs, she restrains herself.

(it almost reminds me of small potatoes, in kind of a twisted way. scully has great instincts. sometimes she quiets them, sometimes she purposefully ignores them.)

it's pretty clear at this point that "jack" isn't actually jack. mulder's theory is most likely correct, he "swapped" with dupre when they both flatlined at the same time. when he interacts with dupre's wife, he knows every personal detail about her, and jack would have no reason to pretend.

i love this part here:

MULDER: (tense) Forget it, Bruskin.

AGENT BRUSKIN: Plus which, the manager just ID’d him and Scully.

MULDER: (really tense) I said forget it, Bruskin.

AGENT BRUSKIN: This isn't one of your X-File theories, is it?

MULDER: It doesn't matter what I think. We’re still after the same thing. 

we talk a lot about the last scene (and i will) but it's already being enforced here. it doesn't matter what i think.

this is the first time, i think, that scully might really be in serious danger?? and it just doesn't matter, it doesn't matter to be right, or to be believed. (there are different kinds, of relentless men).

SCULLY: (into phone) Mulder?

MULDER: (on phone) Dana, are you okay?

SCULLY: (into phone) Don't --- (WILLIS pulls the phone away)

MULDER: (voice, on phone) Dana?

she's "dana" here, for a moment, and i just have to point that out every single time. earlier, she was his friend on a staircase, telling him secrets about her ex-boyfriend. now, she's tied up against a radiator, and he doesn't know where, and they're afraid.

scully starts trying to reason with "jack," using personal details to try to coax him back into himself. (she also says here that he was born in '57, making him exactly 7 years older than her, and in his early 30s to her mid-20s when they dated).

when she tells the story of their fishing trip to his family cabin in a snowstorm, jack flashes to a memory of the snow. she's almost got him. it gets a little dr. jekyll/mr. hyde, as she speaks to him as a loved one, through the lens of the murderer who's overtaken his body.

i love this analysis here:

Yes, I am imagining young Scully bundled up with an older man in the mountains in a violent snow storm, letting him teach her how to fish in the ice, making love in a cabin in a cold dark woods, him wrapping her in a blanket when she got too cold. I love this image as a backstory. It’s so real and human and adds depth which prevents her from falling into the ‘uptight science nerd prude’ she could have been. She's a young woman. Her life is three-dimensional and rich in passion and mistakes.

she's a young woman. her life is so filled with whirlwind affairs. married professors that she runs from. fbi instructors who still wear her love confessions on their wrists. unfailingly relentless men that she follows into basements and alleyways forever and ever.

it makes me think of what she says in never again:

I’ve always gone around in this, uh ... this circle. It usually starts when an authoritative or controlling figure comes into my life. And part of me likes it, needs it, wants the approval. But then at a certain point, along the way, I just, you know .... (makes a STOP motion with her hand)

which....i agree with this post here, i don't think she's talking about mulder, when she says there are "other fathers." he doesn't actually have authority over her, except for what she gives him. (whole other can of worms!)

but it does drive her crazy that he doesn't fit the mold that her father built. for as similar as he is to men like jack willis and daniel waterston, there are 100 other conflicting ways that he's different, and that's what makes it so hard. (first of all, that he's not sleeping with her, even though he could be. he could've been from the motel room in bellefleur. and, especially as the years go on, it's both frustrating and entirely captivating that he's not)

being very brief on All That because i think it's another post entirely, but it's relevant here too. she admits herself, it's a cycle. she is obsessed with authority. she is eternally trying to make her father proud. and here, with jack willis, it's only been a few weeks since she admitted that he died disappointed.

since she admitted that the reason she doesn't believe, is because she's afraid.

and so, now, in lazarus, she's bleeding and handcuffed to a radiator, and she continues to negotiate with her captor as though he's an old lover ("you're my friend. you won't kill me, jack.")

(this is also when mulder listens to the tapes of jack's notes on the case he was working, where jack describes the murderous violent marriage of warren dupre and lula philips as "a love affair i almost envy," for it's disconnect from consequence)

lula reveals herself as the one who turned dupre in, and starts to let jack/dupre get very sick, taking away the insulin that could save him. as mulder starts to close in on their location ("And for those of you who don't know already...this one's important to me. So, uh, let's do it right. Thanks.")

in the morning, as jack dies, he starts to remember. snow. a red stove. wrapping dana in a blanket when the wood ran out. this is the tangible memory that their relationship is rooted in, and it's what returns him to himself, as he flickers in and out, and eventually passes.

SCULLY: (sighs, looks away and sits) What am I supposed to tell myself?

MULDER: (starts to leave) Good night.

SCULLY: (looks at watch) It's not working. It stopped. At 6:47.

MULDER: (turns back to her) The exact time that Jack went into cardiac arrest at the hospital.

SCULLY: What does that mean?

MULDER: It means ... It means whatever you want it to mean. (gently) Good night.

in the end, it doesn't matter. it means whatever you want it to mean. (keep your head.)