#file received. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mulders-too-large-shirt · 5 months ago

Text

s2 episode 14 thoughts

i just finished the episode and stared at the screen for a bit and then burst into laughter because. what the hell did i just watch?

all i could think of while viewing this episode was that video of brittany broski in epcot sipping on a drink, shaking her head in confusion, and saying "heyyy! what are we doing?"

lmao. okay. so let's start from the top. man hold on i'm giggling again due to how baffled i am. okay i need to Get It Together.

(i assume that those who read this blog are already familiar with this episode so i'm not gonna list TWs and i normally don't feel the need to but we get some... interesting flavors here, like child abuse and antisemitism mention. and to be clear, i am not laughing at those- i am laughing about how utterly confused i am, and how i have no answers to anything, and only more questions than before this episode began)

so the episode title is in german and i had no idea what it meant but it was quickly explained. we'll get to that.

we start at a PTA meeting- a parent-teacher association, arguably the scariest of all settings we have yet encountered. and they're arguing about the school musical. someone wants to do jesus christ superstar (banger show) but they think that is inappropriate so i'm like oh, they're just super christian, and hippie jesus must offend them. and they also shoot down the idea of grease for language so this only reinforces my belief.

they start praying, which was in line with my earlier assumptions, but they're praying to satan. which raises the question: why does satan care if the musical grease says "fuck"?

(but this made the idea of JCS being inappropriate very very funny)

they're chanting the german that the episode is titled, which means "his is the hand that wounds" which tracks i suppose

now we're in the woods of new hampshire, with some teenagers, one of which says this girl's mittens are "giving him a gingrich". so i looked that up thinking it was some sort of 90's slang i was not versed in, but the only result was a reddit post trying to figure out what they meant in that exact episode. which did make me feel justified.

so these teens are being creepy, reciting things at a witch's altar and it looks like the boys are gonna try and be weird with the girls. they're doing some reciting and RATS BE UPON YE.

they're making a break for it, when the lead guy's neck is snapped. and we don't see by who.

enter our agents! the policeman is saying that he KNOWS they listen to that devil music, to which mulder quips, "the night chicago died?", so i had to google THAT too, and its a song about al capone. so i'll look into that i suppose.

policeman is like noooo, it's that evil METAL music

they're examining the altar, and scully asks who he was with, and the policeman says uhh we thought he was by himself? she says well, there's two six packs here, which generally suggests company, and also here's a scrap from a book. why didn't your guys notice this? and i thought this was going to be a plot point, how the cops were overlooking basic details, but they just sucked for no reason lmao

i also made a note that her hair looked really good here. a little wavy. the way i wished my hair looked.

mulder's going on about this place having a weird feeling, which i wish he would elaborate upon, but she's saying nooo, it's nothing, until...

toads fall out of the sky and onto their umbrellas.

YES BABY!!! CAMP TV!!!! TOAD SHOWERS!!!

(also gonna NEED their reactions in gif form at some point because i'm howling)

((and also how did they film that? go to the toad store to pick up some background actors?))

they go to the library to try and trace down who had the book they found the scrap from, and scully's theory is that the toads must have been brought by the tornadoes that were recently in the area. this is a scully approved theory.

they go into the school to try and talk to the surviving boy, who is sitting in science class with a sub, and when they announce they are looking for him the kid tries to jump out the window. but mulder is a track star and grabs his legs before he can fully yeet himself out. and i'm thinking to myself, if the FBI came and grabbed some kid in my science class, i think i would pass out.

our agents pull this kid and the two girls who were there aside for questioning, and the boy says he was just trying to "get some". at the witch's altar. a sick and twisted juvenile.

CUT SCENE to the PTA who say amongst themselves that one of them must have killed the boy, whose name is jerry, but they all deny it. he was killed with his heart and eyes ripped out, which is in line with their practices. so yeah that's suspicious but after that episode of trophy hunting killers, it could be anyone.

but when our agents enter the scene, the PTA say that it must have been the media that brainwashed the kids into satanic killers. and scully is like. if that were the case there would be tens of thousands of murders. and they say "okay so you get the stakes here" which had me howling. "tHe mEdiA iS bRaInWaShInG tHe cHiLdrEn" <- wow this is something i cannot say i have heard in the year of our lord 2024 (/s)

when they walk out of the school, mulder stops to get a drink at a water fountain. which is already funny because that's a grown ass man. when he notices that the water is going down the wrong way for the hemisphere they are in. and i'm laughing because why the HELL does he know which way the water is supposed to go down the drain. like i have never thought of that in my entire life and i guess now i will.

(btw this is never explained. we don't know why the water goes the other way here. witchcraft, i guess)

at this point, i'm thinking, this substitute teacher has to be the killer, and she opens up the drawer of her desk to put away the tests the students were taking, and we see a heart and eyeballs. gasp! i paused the screen here to make note of this revelation and the eyeballs on stalks looked sososo funny. and she just COVERS THEM UP with some papers which i can imagine must have been hard to grade after being soaked in blood.

they take a trip to the school therapist and mulder says boy, there are an awful lot of cases of mental health troubles here. and the doctor says, yes, this is high school. which honestly? i remember high school and yeah. that does track. it was a strange time. but mulder is not pleased with this explanation and expects that it's something deeper

scully went online and found what sounds like a report on the case- a boy killed with his eyes and heart removed- and mulder is like omg where did you get this?

well. i did not see this coming.

she then keeps reading and it is deeply antisemitic. actually allow me to do a verbatim report from the notes here:

"she went online and i was like haha she used this newfangled internet :) AND THEN SHE READS AN ARTICLE CALLING A SIMILAR CASE ACTUAL BLOOD LIBEL?? MY JAW HIT THE FLOOR IN RECORD TIME oh she found it in a Nazi newspaper from 1934... oh my gosh y'all i thought this was going in a VERY different direction"

so i thought that maybe this was framing the murder as an act of religious persecution? but it wasn't. they just threw that in there for... reasons?

mulder explaining wiccan lore... yeah that's a man who has studied religions

at this point, we are back in the science classroom, and the substitute teacher is handing out baby pigs. OUGH. i am so glad i never had to do that in school.

this poor girl is about to cut into the pig and she looks like she is going to be sick, which is in all honesty exactly what i would have been doing, but then she starts screaming and seeing things like the pig moving??? and squeaking???

she runs to the office, where the agents are serving looks in a corner, and she's told her dad is gonna come get her, but she runs away and mulder chases her and says "you're remembering!" because he is once again convinced of the reality of repressed memories due to his own personal experience

they're staring at this teenager as she sits crying on a picnic bench spilling her life story and again, the whole dealing with kids thing, who thought this was gonna be part of the fbi? not me!

this girl is crying, saying that her stepdad used to hurt her, and that they would chant and tie her and her sister up.... and well. this next part will also be best delivered from my notes verbatim:

"THEY WOULD GET ME PREGNANT AND THEN THEY WOULD KILL THE BABIES???? HUH??? I'VE HAD THREE CHILDREN AND THEY'RE ALL BURIED IN THE CELLAR??? STEPDAD KILLED HER SISTER??? WHAT THE FUCK"

and boy we do not even sort have time to unpack all of that. but it is safe to say that i was thoroughly gagged, and our agents seem only mildly surprised. in retrospect, i think they didn't believe her, which was further proved by a line like "imagine if what she is saying is true", but i, the viewer, believed her pig-induced memories

the girl is hysterical, and scully moves closer to hug her, and hold her while she sobs into her trench coat, and i'm sitting here wondering what is going on (very few answers are delivered btw)

(shoutout to scully to letting a strange teenager cry into her while confessing to all of That)

so the agents go over to the girl's parent's house, the stepdad of whom is in the PTA cult btw, and they ask about the things the daughter told them and i was shocked because. if they really WERE killing babies, telling them they knew about it could perhaps allow the parents to tamper with the evidence sitting in the basement. but the parents are shocked by the whole thing.

scully is asking why the daughter would say all this- and the mom is saying that her and stepdad have been having marriage problems- but i don't think that leads to THESE SORT OF CLAIMS?

at this point, i was deeply confused. i had no idea what to believe or where the narrative was leading me beyond the fact the substitute was evil. i wrote that i was "mentally putting up a board and there is string everywhere and i'm trying to figure out what is going on"

the girl had mentioned a sister who was killed by the stepdad at age 8- and scully says, well did you have any other kids? and the mom says yeah, one who died. and was she 8 when she died? not 8 years, but 8 weeks.

so what is going on here

scully is trying to be pretty careful and tiptoe around the situation, figure out what is real and what isn't, whereas mulder gets alone with stepdad and just asks him "did you do it?" which had me HOWLING. absolutely zero subtlety in this man.

he opens the door to the cellar and it SLAMS shut and stepdad man gets VERY angry and tells them to leave. can you do that? kick the fbi out while they're investigating you? i didn't realize that was an option

okay, so the girl is trying to make up her final, and is back with the substitute making up her pig autopsy because it's a final and of course you don't want to miss a final! the teacher takes her jewelry so it doesn't get dirty which makes sense to me, but then we see her in her office burning it over a candle??? and she's MOANING??? and it seems she's controlling the girl into CUTTING HER ARM??? she's bleeding out on the floor. and i'm still wondering what the hell is going on. but this poor girl is dead.

the agents are at the crime scene and the substitute is being weird af but i guess that's to be expected of someone who just did psychic murder

the PTA committee says the energy is very bad and they need to do a sacrifice to clear the air... so they say they're gonna frame the girl who just died as killing jerry, the og murdered boy, and say that she was jealous he liked another girl. and the stepdad seems pleased with this plot, which only made me further believe that he did the evil things he denied.

so at this point i was thinking, has anyone thought to check the cellar and see if there are in fact babies down there. no? just me? okay

mulder smells incense in the substitute's office, which she says is to cover the smell of pig, but he knows is also used in black mass, and frankly i'm shocked that it didn't set off the fire alarms, because i went to public school and i know how finicky those things are. but the situation is looking sus as hell because the actual teacher she's subbing for has only EVER missed these two days of school and also apparently he's out with... flesh-eating bacteria? that seems a bit odd, don't you think? AND no one can recall hiring this substitute.

there was a very loud and spooky clap of lightning here that felt reminiscent of the halloween specials of shows i used to watch as a kid. and i was wondering if this was perhaps meant as a halloween special of sorts. can anyone confirm.

mulder must have picked up on me telling him to go check the cellar for babies, so he gets a warrant and goes down there, but STEPDAD IS WAITING FOR HIM IN THE DARK! he's monologuing about his religion, and being raised to think that humans are no better than animals...

but then those in the PTA decided they would frame his dead daughter for jerry's murder, he realizes he IS better than an animal! better late than never for such a basic realization to hit, i suppose?

he also says that his beliefs were responsible for her being killed. so i hoped he would elaborate and surprise. he did not.

he admits to including them in ceremonies because the blood of the young is very powerful (???) but he says he never hurt them the way she claimed. and there were definitely no babies. she must have gotten that from the tabloids, and it mixed in with the repressed memories. which doesn't sound like how repressed memories work so i do not trust this guy still.

meanwhile the substitute is doing some witchery, while scully is still in the school! this cannot bode well for her!!!!

mulder is shocked by stepdad's stupidity, and says "did you really think you could call up the devil and ask him to behave?" which is objectively a banger line, even if used quite literally

the witch/substitute is moaning again and she's dialing numbers and mulder's phone rings, and scully's voice says there's something going on in the school, so he handcuffs stepdad to the cellar to get tf out of there, and locks the door behind him, but the cellar door OPENS????

A SNAKE IS COMING NOW???? he is BIG and is he gonna EAT stepdad...?

YES HE IS??? BOA AROUND THE NECK AND TORSO??? HUH?? what is going ON.

mulder arrives at the school just as the snake begins to feast, and he has his gun drawn and does his famous "scully?" yell, when he bursts in on her... just chilling in the dark and doing her work LMAO. he's all "why did you call?" and she says "i didn't?"

meanwhile the snake is doing some serious eating and the SUB HAS SNAKE EYES NOW?? HELLO?

they rush back to stepdad's place, where they find the door unlocked, and nothing but human bones on the ground and what looks like a snake track, which scully points out is impossible because it would take HOURS for a snake to eat a human and then weeks to digest...

and he makes some comment about her watching TLC and i'm thinking, well, i feel like knowing how long a snake would take to eat a human is more relevant than knowing which way the water goes down in a sink, so don't try and nerd shame her here.

but they find a snakeskin so they know it's a snake, and they remember there was a snake in the classroom, so it's time to get back there because clearly he has been consumed and there is not much that can be done to undo being eaten

the PTA folks are having a conference, talking about the death of stepdad, and how they need to make a sacrifice, and they say that if mulder knows what the sacrifice is for, it'll make it more meaningful, so ARE THEY GONNA SACRIFICE HIM??????

when mulder and scully return to the classroom, the substitute is moaning on the floor, saying she thinks the PTA folks killed the boy, and i'm like uh-huh, for sure, snake woman

scully opens her drawer and finds the eyeballs which are pretty incriminating... but as they go out to return to the substitute...

the PTA ATTACKS! a bookshelf is thrown on scully, and mulder is beaten by two men. and they are tied up and taken to the gym showers???? here i wrote "what the hell, there are two minutes left in this episode" and i was hoping it would somehow resolve itself so we didn't end up with another two parter and i could go to sleep after this in peace

(which. it did wrap up in those two minutes but i'm confused so there is little of the aforementioned peace i hoped for going on)

so the PTA crew has a dagger and a gun for sacrificial purposes, and they're about to be sacrificed in a high school gym shower, when the substitute uses her witch powers to make the PTA members turn the gun upon THEMSELVES, and frees our agents from their trouble. sort of. because they are still tied up and wet in the shower.

(does anyone know what the hell is happening.)

they stop writhing about and make it back to the classroom, where the substitute has written a note saying it's been nice working with you and then she's gone.

hey!! what ARE we doing here?

so i don't even know where to begin. i feel a lot of questions were raised and not one of them answered. what was up with that girl saying she was forced to give birth? were the parents denying it because it didn't happen or were they covering up the truth? what was with the whole eight year old vs eight weeks old dead sister? did the substitute kill jerry AND the girl, AND the PTA, and then just... leave? was she the dark force they were worshiping taking revenge on their lack of faith? but if that were the case, why would she kill the PTA members who were about to make a sacrifice? why would she kill the two kids and three adults but spare the agents? where did she go? why did she briefly have the eyes of a snake? where did the snake go? how did he eat a whole person that fast?

man. i'm not sure i've ever been so baffled.

was this an attempt to comment on the satanic panic? like, was the show pointing out how silly it was, or validating the fears of people across america?

i'm so deeply confused. can someone tell me if i'm missing something. was there some overarching theme that went over my head. is this setting up a part two where there will be answers. or is that the whole thing.

?????

#gonna need y'all to sound off in the comments on this one because. i need to know how you received this episode when you saw it #sometimes u just gotta laugh. yeah the satan cult got busted by the snake witch. catch up #conclusion: ????#juni's x files liveblog #the x files #txf

20 notes · View notes