#luther lee boggs

[exdeputysonso]

Brad Dourif as Luther Lee Boggs | The X-Files (1994)

[first-class-feral]

Another excuse to stitch together all his pretty shots with zero regard for plot :v

(Mad props to @exdeputysonso for putting together the supercut I trimmed down for this)

[randomfoggytiger]

Developed Psychic Ability and Death

Psychics in The X-Files aren't born with their ability-- they develop it:

Luther Lee Boggs, Beyond the Sea

Meeting the souls of his victims before his near death.

Clyde Bruckman, Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose

Obsessing over the chance death of a celebrity.

Robert Modell, Pusher

Dying from a sudden, aggressive brain tumor.

Gerald Schnauz, Unruhe

Cracking under the pain of his sister's (and father's) death.

John Lee Roche, Paper Hearts

Creating a connection with Mulder through his dead victims.

Harold Spuller and his boss, Elegy

Impending death allows them to see the spirits of their bowling customers.

Linda Bowman, Kitsunegari

Her dying brother's abilities connecting to and awakening her own.

Philip Padgett, Milagro

Hyperfixating on Dr. Naciamento's death (ala Clyde Bruckman) and his confusion and displacement (ala Bruckman's psychotic foe.)

Mulder, The Sixth Extinction

Breaking down and dying because of the over acceleration of his brain via an alien "source of life" artifact (though not technically caused by death, it's tied into the mytharc which is tied to Gibson Praise which is tied to psychic ability. To be explored in the future.)

And lest she be forgotten:

Scully, Beyond the Sea/The Blessing Way/Elegy/A Christmas Carol/All Souls/Orison/Within/This Is Not Happening/etc.

Being faced with her father's posthumous spirit; and being visited by dying, dead, or returning souls.

The principle applies for Maggie and Melissa Scully as well, though we are not privy to the inciting incidents behind both of their abilities.

This pattern remains the same throughout the series... with the glaring exceptions of Gibson Praise and William. Those exceptions, however, are the lynchpins ("the key to everything", if you will) that illustrate the connection between psychic ability in human beings and their shared but repressed alien DNA.

(Meta coming soon.)

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

[tallaxia]

Writer James Wong and director David Nutter talking about X-files s01 e13 "Beyond the sea"

Cinefantastique #26 - 1995

“Dana, open yourself up to extreme possibilities only when they’re the truth.”

—Mulder

Beyond the Sea

Gillian Anderson and Scully come into their own in this first-rate script by Glen Morgan and James Wong. Scully’s personal and professional lives collide when, shortly after her father's death, she and Mulder interrogate a psychic death row convict named Boggs (Brad Dourif) who may hold the key to finding a serial killer and his latest victims. In a fascinating twist, Mulder for once is the skeptic, and Scully the unwilling believer, when Boggs claims he can locate the killer—his former partner—as well as give Scully some final words from her father. Director David Nutter drew scorching performances from Dourif. and a deeply moving one from Anderson, whose Scully tries mightily to repress both her grief and her belief, and his orchestration of the prison confrontations is masterful. The sholwhere the door closes behind Anderson, leaving Dourif centered perfectly in a narrow windowframe is quite unforgettable. The teaser is a study in how to communicate family tensions and emotions not spelled out in dialogue. Don Davis and Sheila Larkcn as William and Margaret Scully make an indelible impression.

“Beyond the Sea” originated from a number of sources, one of which, said James Wong, was “a book Glen had read which said that 75 percent of widows within three months have a vision of their husband, and 35 percent of mothers see their sons.” And comments from fans that Scully needed humanizing played their part. “Gillian needed a show to show off her talents,” Wong said. Added Morgan, "It was time to grow Scully’s character, because she was doing the same kind of thing too often.”

The character of Boggs grew out of Morgan’s desire to “do a psychic thing. And you start thinking, well, this guy’s got to have something at stake. Capital punishment was one thing I always wanted to write about.” The network executives were not high on the idea of a Scully/Boggs faceoff, and Chris Carter had to back the idea twice before the they gave the go-ahead. “They said it was too much like SILENCE OF THE LAMBS,” said Morgan, “so in order to not do Hannibal Lecter, this kind of cool intellectual, we had this manic high-strung cracker. I was directly trying not to write Hannibal Lecter.”

Noted director David Nutter, "Brad Dourif came in, and my job there was to create a setting where he could be what he really wanted to be. I would just tweak this and that, but basically I let him have the stage. In a sense, it was a static episode and it was important to let his performance be the moving element. I was also very happy with the work that Gillian and I did together. I thought she really proved herself to be quite a talented actress.”

Religious symbolism is a guiding clement in “Beyond the Sea.” The teaser opens on a Christmas tree angel and the statue of an angel also provides an important clue to locating the serial killer. Mulder's lack of faith in Boggs results in his being shot near a wooden “white cross” which Boggs had warned him about, a contrast to Scully’s evading death when she avoids a painting of a blue devil about which she had received a similar warning. “Scully has that Catholic background,” said Morgan. "I’m not a very organized religious person, but we got a lot of letters from people saying, ‘I need to see my religion portrayed positively.’ So you try to have somebody who was raised with that faith.”

The tattoos on Boggs’ hands which read “kiss” and “kill” are reminiscent of Robert Mitchum’s “love” and “hate” tattoos in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, but Morgan said that although Mitchum was in the back of his mind, the words themselves came from a song by the band X. “There’s a lyric which says, ‘It’s kiss or kill.’ I was trying to think of something other than love or hate and I thought that was kind of neat.”

[carefulfears]

thinking tonight about how much has been written over the past 30 years about the x files' subversion of gender roles, mulder as a 90s sci-fi hero who is the more emotional and open of the two, who cries on screen regularly, who is empathetic to a fault and deeply devoted to helping the vulnerable. scully as the rational one, the science brain, the person who is taken seriously. the unique view of a relationship to the paranormal and occultism, which, from its rise in the 1940s, was originally viewed as feminine and something irrational that women were comforted by. and how all of this is true and interesting but, to me, none of it is the biggest marker of gendered experiences in their characters.

at the end of the day, their characters both respond exactly as men and women in our society do, in the ways that they respond to violence.

mulder, in his mid-20s, started at the FBI working in the violent crimes division

where his profiling abilities, his way of being able to get into the mind of a killer, were revered

it's also where, in his words, he first saw monsters.

this show always deeply understood that the scariest monsters were not the vile creatures, they were violent men, and some of the most memorable villains on the show (john lee roche, luther boggs, john barnett) are resurfaced serial killers that mulder previously caught in his violent crimes days.

but mulder's background is in behavioral science, and he always wants to understand what makes someone how they are

and his positive worldview requires him to view every act of evil as the consequence of a larger cause, as not being senseless

which is why he wants to believe that men who are killing women are only doing so out of a biological imperative to survive

or out of a misguided attempt to SAVE them

meanwhile, scully is affected by the brutalization of women on an emotional level.

she hangs back at the crime scene and the police station to compose herself, while the men she's working with march up to a woman's desecrated corpse

she knows that even when mulder is right, even when the killer is acting out of a biological need for survival

that doesn't make it any better

because the impact on the women that he brutalized is more than physical, it's more than biological, it's more than any rational reasoning that he might have behind why he did it

she knows that it doesn't matter

and she doesn't need to try to understand. she doesn't need to know what the killer's reasoning is.

she already knows why men brutalize women

she's experienced it, she doesn't need to study it.

(you can read the second part of this post here)

[aloysiavirgata]

I love reading other people talking about/observing Mulder and Scully. Please please!

“Gorgeous,” Kinsley says, two tequila shots and an amaretto sour in. “Both of them.”

Stonecypher rolls her eyes. “Weird,” she says. “But nice.”

“Gorgeous,” Kinsley repeats, dreamily. “Fox Mulder smells like an anthropomorphic regatta.”

Simon Trebbins gives him an odd look. “I don’t know what the fuck that means, Mike,” he says.

Kinsley waves his hand vaguely. “Sailboat wax,” he says, without clarifying. “Dry cleaners. Bay rum.”

Trebbins downs his vodka tonic. “I can’t believe we got cheated out of a weekend with the fuckin’ Spookies. Legends abound; I wanted stories for the grandkids one day.”

Stonecypher sniffs over a piña colada. “She’s tiny, I can verify that. You don’t realize it until she’s next to you and you feel like Godzilla in Tokyo. But a great rack. Amazing hair.”

“Lobster rolls,” Kinsley adds, unhelpfully. “Sun dried rope. Clean cotton.”

Stonecypher side-eyes her partner. “Jesus, Mike.”

Liz Clayton props her chin up on her hand. “Mothman,” she chuckles. “They actually believe that shit?”

Stonecypher, pleased to be playing the role of expert, considers this. “He definitely does,” she states. “I think she goes along. She’s got it bad for him but I think he’s got it worse for her. Heard he murdered some poor bastard when she had cancer, fucking hell.”

“Who can blame her?” Kinsley asks, like it’s a Zen koan. “Or him.”

Liz smirks. “I heard she fucked Jack Willis.”

“Good for Jack,” Simon laughs. “She’s really hot.”

Kinsley sighs into a Maker’s Mark on ice. “She really is.”

Simon laughs. “You gotta pick one, Mikey.”

“Why?”

There is no obvious answer to this.

“My husband went through the Academy with Walter Skinner,” Liz says. “Couldn’t pay me enough to have that man’s job. Wrangling the Spookies should come with hazard pay.”

Stonecypher guffaws. “Can you imagine trying to have a serious debriefing with those two? I mean I heard the rumors, everyone has, but Jesus Christ they were eye-fucking while Mike drove. I saw them in the rearview.”

Kinsley sighs deeply. “They really were.”

“Didn’t she shoot him once?” Trebbins asks.

“You gotta be talking about the Spookies,” says Rachel Ward, sidling up with a handful of peanuts. “And yes she did. And they worked with Luther Lee Boggs, and Mulder caught Props to boot. Not to mention John Lee Roche. Eugene Tooms. Donnie Pfaster. Have a little fucking respect.”

There is silence at the table then. A long silence that even Kinsley does not break.

Stonecypher raises her glass after a moment. “I guess I can spot the son of a bitch a Mothman or two,” she sighs.

They all clink their glasses then, respectful.

“Scully smells like jasmine,” Kinsley adds, unhelpfully. Wistfully. “And like an A on a calculus exam.”

[xf-cases-solved]

S1E13: Beyond the Sea

Case: A young couple is kidnapped in North Carolina, and the authorities have five days to find them before they're murdered. Unfortunately, they have no leads, except for the testimony of Luther Lee Boggs—a serial killer Mulder put behind bars years ago—who is claiming to have psychic knowledge that will lead them to the missing children. In some serious turning of the tables, Mulder is skeptical of Boggs' claims, whereas Scully—whose father just died, and who is desperate for just one more message from him to know that they didn't part on bad terms—finds herself believing Boggs, much to her chagrin. After Mulder is shot, Scully is on her own to work with Boggs, leading to some sexy fucking "Silence of the Lambs" -esque scenes that make this episode not just a top tier s1 episode, but a top tier episode of all time. Mulder tears up his New York Knicks shirt (he probably has like seventeen tho, so it's okay), Scully is scared to believe, and Brad Dourif puts his entire goddamn pussy into playing Luther Boggs. A+++, fam.

Does someone die in the cold open: Yes! But it wasn't a crime. Scully gets the dreaded "middle of the night phone call" and learns that her father just died. (Even tho she just saw him sitting in her armchair across the room. Say what???) 

Does Mulder present a slideshow: No. 

Does the evidence survive the investigation: This is another where it depends on what you mean by evidence. Evidence of the actual, literal crime? Yes, that actually worked out like how normal police work is meant to go if you're good at your job. Evidence of Boggs' psychic abilities, however? Unfortunately, proof of those went with him to the gas chamber. 

Whodunit: Lucas Henry, who is either Boggs' accomplice, or somebody Boggs keeps having psychic visions of. It's up to you to decide.

Convictions: Lucas Henry would have been convicted if he hadn't crashed through several floors and fell on his face directly onto some concrete, so we'll give it to 'em.

Did they solve it: While the supernatural element remains a mystery, the crime itself is solved. This one is a resounding yes!

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

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: Confusing and upsetting your loved ones by appearing to them after your death. Look, we all die—it's a fact of life!—but just because you're dead doesn't mean you have to be dull. When accidents strike, illnesses rage, or the clock has simply run out, keep the fun going by confusing and upsetting your loved ones by appearing to them after your death. By keeping the excitement of living alive by causing trauma to those closest to you as they mourn your loss, you're guaranteeing your time in the afterlife is off to a great start!

*Confusing and upsetting your loved ones by appearing to them after your death is especially recommended for those with loved ones who are particularly skeptical, or who are looking for answers to ambiguities left behind after your departure.

Try it today! Or, well, when you die, we mean. Which might be today!

***

General Total Stats:

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

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 6 (holy shit, three in a row?? unprecedented!)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, it's me" phone calls: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 4 (Mulder was actually the one who was out of the room whenever Boggs said something that resonated with Scully)

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 5 (pew pew) 

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 3 ½ (half point bc she should have died, but she had that warning from Boggs, so it was kind of a toss up) 

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 8 (i changed the stat to add in "uncomfortably intimate" bc especially in these first few seasons, a lot of the MSR moments are more like... buddy, i get that you're going through it, but that is your coworker, why are you holding them so gently with so much love in your eyes? anyway, Mulder cupping her face in the beginning, and Mulder putting his hand on her gigantic 90s pant suit shoulder pad at the end are the ones i'm counting)

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 1

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 5 

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car are Hurt or Killed: 1 (new stat!)

Total Number of Nosebleeds: 4

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 1 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 2 (new stat! first one was actually in that snore fest "Conduit," but i didn't want to go back and add it since i just considered making it a stat now)

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 2

Total Number of Maggie Scully sightings: 1 (new stat!)

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: 0 :(

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 3 ½

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: 2 (we stan Beyond the mother fucking Sea)

[azure-firecracker]

X-Files Season 1: MVA Awards

So I’m aware that my most popular post on here is about Mulder and Scully not being the best agents in the world all the time (and I love them for it). That being said, they do have their moments, so I decided that every time I wrap up a season, I’ll be giving out MVA (most valuable agent-not motor vehicle accident) awards for each episode.

Since I basically only have 2 characters to choose from, this won’t be too surprising, but I thought it was important to acknowledge our agents’ good agent-ing.

Some of these choices will be obvious, some less so. Feel free to comment YOUR favorite MVA moments:) Awards and explanations under the cut.

Pilot: Mulder-For solving the entire case based on very little information (still don’t get how he figured it out), and for explaining UFO phenomena to Scully and, by extension, us.

Deep Throat: Scully-For taking the air base agent hostage and exchanging him for Mulder (this was iconic!)

Squeeze: Mulder-For figuring out all the supernatural weirdness (a trend across basically all episodes), and for saving Scully from Tooms.

Conduit: Honestly they weren’t doing too great this episode, but I’ll give it to Mulder for saving that kid from the motorcycles (he’s FAST).

The Jersey Devil: Scully-For bailing Mulder out of jail and for later scaring away the Jersey Devil before it could kill him.

Shadows: Honestly neither of them were doing anything in particular this episode. I guess I’ll give it to Mulder for helping find the evidence in the office.

Ghost in the Machine: Scully-For fighting her way out of the vent/fan death trap and rescuing Mulder from gunpoint.

Ice: Scully-For generally being the most levelheaded one there, and for figuring out how to neutralize the parasitic worms.

Space: Our agents didn’t do a ton in this one, so I’m going to give this MVA award to a one off character, Michelle-for basically running NASA Mission Control by herself for much of the episode, even when everything was going to shit (and after being in a car accident!)

Fallen Angel: Scully-For bailing Mulder out of jail (again), and for scrubbing in at the drop of a hat to help all of the burn victims.

Eve: Mulder-For realizing that their drinks were poisoned and for catching the twins.

Fire: Scully-For basically solving the entire case on her own while Mulder was…emotionally occupied, and for taking care of Mulder after he was fire traumatized in the middle (also for putting up with all of Phoebe’s shenanigans in a very professional manner).

Beyond the Sea: Scully (obviously), for protecting Mulder after he was shot, for striking up a potentially dangerous connection with Luther Lee Boggs, and for chasing the killer to his death. All while she was grieving her father, if you believe that.

Genderbender: Mulder-For saving Scully from the weird seductive gender transforming alien cult person (honestly the only scene in the episode where they didn’t massively fail at everything).

Lazarus: Mulder-For figuring out the body swap insanely fast, for successfully finding Scully when she was being held hostage, and for leading the charge into Lula’s apartment (it is her apartment right?)

Young at Heart: Mulder-For overcoming his trauma, shooting John Barnett, and saving the cello player.

E.B.E: Scully-For that great « the truth is out there, but so are lies » speech (this was another episode where our agents did not actually do many things).

Miracle Man: Another episode where not much was done, but I’ll give this one to Scully for her autopsy skills.

Shapes: Another one off character-this one goes to Sheriff Tskany for making sure Mulder and Scully got the information they needed, and for shooting the manitou and saving them both.

Darkness Falls: Mulder-For making his deal with Spinney, which was the only reason they all got as far out as they did and were able to be saved.

Tooms: Scully-For being simultaneously professional and snarky to FBI superiors, for keeping Mulder sane on his stakeout, and for pulling Mulder out of the escalator den just in time.

Born Again: Mulder-Once again, for figuring out all of the supernatural weirdness based on very little information and somehow getting everything right.

Roland: Scully-For getting through to Roland at the right time, and for being seemingly the only one to have any idea of how to interact with autistic people.

The Erlenmeyer Flask: Scully-For breaking into a government facility and risking her career (possibly her life) in order to steal evidence and save Mulder, and for being ready for anything during the bridge exchange. I’m convinced Mulder may have died on the bridge if she hadn’t been there.

Let me know if y’all like these, I’d love to keep doing them for season 2!

[x-files-polls]

Episode Descriptions:

Beyond the Sea: A death row inmate named Luther Lee Boggs claims that he is psychic and can lead Mulder to a serial killer in exchange for a lesser sentence of life in prison. The agents' roles are reversed in this episode, with Mulder doubting Boggs's claim and Scully believing him after she is told that she can communicate through him with her recently deceased father.

Fresh Bones: One morning, after two gruesome hallucinations, Private Jack McAlpin crashes his car into a tree that has a voodoo symbol drawn on it; the second death of a marine in two weeks that has featured that symbol. The marines in question were guarding a processing center for Haitian refugees, and when Mulder and Scully visit the center they find the deaths were not as unexpected as they seemed.

Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man: Mulder, Scully and Byers meet with Frohike, where he details what may have been Cigarette Smoking Man's real life.

Field Trip: The skeletonized remains of a young couple are found in the fields of North Carolina. When Mulder and Scully go to investigate, they find that a giant fungal life form releases an LSD-like drug into the air with spores, and then slowly digests its victims. Mulder and Scully fall into its trap and are not sure of what is reality and what is fantasy.

Brand X: While protecting a man due to testify against the Morley cigarette company, Skinner is horrified when the witness dies mysteriously. What the agents soon discover is that a new brand of cigarette has a dangerous secret.

The information from this poll is collected from Katy DeCorah's mapbox of Jane Robert's "Mapping the X-Files"

Episode Descriptions are taken from wikipedia for neutrality.

[exdeputysonso]

Brad Dourif as Luther Lee Boggs | The X-Files (1994) - pt 2

[first-class-feral]

The soul of Luther Boggs drowns in hell's sea of fire...

Couldn't resist sketching this awful X-Files prettyboy as Saint Sebastian! The pose reference is from Yukio Mishima posing for Kishin Shinoyama, plus bits from this photoset.

(you may also enjoy my Boggs music video)

[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!

[tallaxia]

Happy 73. Birthday Brad Dourif!

He had so many amazing roles in all this decades! Personally I can't decide which I like the most. He played in a few well-known movies with a bigger budget, but he has so many interesting characters in TV-Stuff and B-movies too. Lon & Jack are both my favourite, but his creepyness level in Exorcist and X-files gave me goosebumps too. And David Bell, Bud the horseplayer, Brother Edward and Billy broke my heart. I love his intense and tragic roles.

(I picked the most famous ones, but comment for other characters)

[vintagetvstars]

brad dourif propaganda!!

https://www.tumblr.com/exdeputysonso/729118795430576128/brad-dourif-as-lon-suder-star-trek-voyager

https://www.tumblr.com/exdeputysonso/721937579526832128/brad-dourif-as-hitch-hiker-tales-of-the

https://www.tumblr.com/godzillawillsaveus/184672751802/brad-dourif-as-luther-lee-boggs-in-the-x

https://www.tumblr.com/exdeputysonso/756646191027126272/brad-dourif-as-fenn-the-equalizer-1986

https://www.tumblr.com/dourifslover/616554709585657856/brad-dourif-as-chickie-levitt-in-wild-palms-1993

Thank you! We've had so much propaganda lately and don't want to flood everyone's dash so we're now putting additional propaganda in the queue so it should come out later throughout the night.

- mod vintage

[carefulfears]

i know we’re all gonna be really surprised at my “favorite character” answer for txf30 and i’m proud to have contributed a truly obscene amount of mulder apologia this year, but when i was going through tweets yesterday, i found this one

(this got vulnerable and i turned reblogs back on for now but y'all please be conscious xxx)

that's from my first week watching the show, and it's the first thing that i really connected to. it's hard to move through the world having seen the worst of it. i think you reach this point after trauma where like...you've already had to process so much of it and kind of piece a life back together, in a way, and you're just left with the damage done to your worldview. the way you see yourself, the way you see other people. and that's permanent and hard in a way that's really isolating.

and mulder knows how difficult it is, because he tries not to do it. he tries to find better. he's smart and he's aware and he was "the best" and "scary" at catching serial killers, getting in the minds of "monsters"; he knows so intimately and so completely what people are capable of. luther lee boggs "kills because he likes it," mulder is "the only one who truly understands what he is."

he just wants more, he wants more for people. he wants to believe that the world is good, that people are good, that there's some other explanation. he thinks people deserve more, and that they do want to take care of each other, all to the contrary.

when i watched sein und zeit/closure, i remember seeing this post:

the whole arc of the show was always supposed to be that Mulder would overcome his obsession with conspiracy and face the humanness of his grief, accept it, and still find hope in what was left. It was never about grand espionage, it was about living with inescapable trauma, being stuck in the worst night of your life, keeping others stuck in there with you.

and i literally just fell out crying and sobbed all night. because it is hard, but you have to make something out of the cards you were dealt. and after seven seasons of relentless hope and wishful thinking, mulder was always going to have to come to terms with grief, with loss, with trauma. it couldn't go on forever. and that's what closure, as an episode, is all about: there is no closure, but there's support, there's grace.

there are a lot of things i really love about mulder, he is a sci-fi hero whose only personality traits are crying and believing women. he wears goofy ties and talks about aliens in public. he's the best. and there are a lot of things i love about this show, a lot of convoluted reasons that i'm grateful to have watched it. but it's when i think about that night 6 months ago, literally weeping on a bathroom floor, that i feel the most moved, and connected to the things that i avoid. in a way, a lot of us create methods and worlds to escape our realities. it may not be alien abduction, but it may be professionalism, or humor, or caretaking, or academia. a lot of us are stuck in our worst nights, and have curated an image outside of it. but what struck me about mulder in the beginning, and how he grew from it by the end, is that for as much as the series was structured around his coping methods, he was always meant to lose them. and "maybe there's hope," still.

[azspot]

You know, I’m 70 years old. I’ve been at this for 55 years. And I have a calling that flows out of the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Edward Said and Chief Joseph and Dorothy Day and Grace Lee Boggs and Luisa Moreno. All of those are the best of America. And I think we’re at such a low point that America needs to be reintroduced to its best. And its best has always been the movements for justice, the struggles for freedom, the solidarity based on a fundamental commitment to the dignity of those Sly Stone calls everyday people. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the two-party system now is a major impediment for the empowerment of poor and working people. I’m thoroughly convinced that, of course, the neofascist Republican Party has already made it very clear that they’re tied to Big Business and Big Military, Big Tech and so forth. And the milquetoast neoliberal Democratic Party strikes me as being incapable of taking seriously the fundamental needs of poor and working people, not just here, but around the world — the militarism abroad, $7 billion frozen for Afghans, the brothers and sisters in Afghanistan, and what’s been AFRICOM in Africa, what’s been going on in the Middle East.

Cornel West