#padgett

[randomfoggytiger]

Milagro In-Depth (Part I): Beating, Beating Through the Apartment Door

I confess: Milagro is a very confusing, muddying episode for me. It took a lot of reflection on other people's thoughts, some script browsing, and too much contemplation to decide... hang it all, I'm just going to treat it like the show intended: a one-off that loosely ties into the overarching theme of Mulder and Scully's creeping romance. At least there was some clarity and needed follow-up in The Unnatural; otherwise, this episode-- while crucial to Scully's loneliness (though her reasons are misdiagnosed by Padgett)-- would feel strangely out of place and unnecessary.

We first see Padgett pacing his apartment, the rhythm of his heartbeat pulsating constantly in his ears. This will soon affect not only himself but also Scully, a symptom of living in denial of human wants and needs. For Scully it's her attraction to and need for more from Mulder; for Padgett it's confusion about himself and his desires, living this meager existence in complete silence while waiting for genius to strike and his life to make sense-- putting his ear to the wall (a subtle foreshadow for the next scene), staring out into the waxing and waning afternoon sun, smoking cigarettes only to aimlessly toss them away when they fail to distract him, and finally giving in to that incessant beat.

He doesn't understand it, or himself; so he seeks to puzzle out the minds of others, looking for clues to escape the maze of his own.

He leaves the apartment briefly, staring into the fiery furnace of the basement, his heart staring back at him tauntingly elusive.

Padgett meets Scully coming up from the basement; and Scully is creeped out by his unblinking gaze at herself (not yet intrigued enough to be flattered by so much direct attention.) She is further paranoid when Padgett follows her down the hallway, unrelentingly staring even as he opens his own door next to Mulder's.

It's only after Padgett walks through his apartment door that Mulder opens his own, apologizing over a mouth full of toothpaste (which he swallows down with a cup of coffee while slapping his toothbrush on the coffee table.)

Scully casually brings up Mulder's creepy new neighbor, their rapport established enough that her partner doesn't think twice about her carefully disinterested questions-- not even noticing her interest, or queueing in enough to comment on it.

"You met him?"

"Uh, briefly, yeah. He's a writer."

"What's he write?"

"He didn't say."

She is shaken by her encounter, but Mulder doesn't pick up on it.

This becomes the core 'conflict' between he and Scully: she craves his attention; but Mulder is so consumed by his work that he takes it for granted she knows how much he cares for and values her. Scully, however, doesn't feel prioritized or valued; and that hauls up her rebellious teen spirit (smoking her mother's pack on the porch or consorting with the enemy) to refocus her partner's gaze solely on her.

Mulder, meanwhile, looks tired: brushing his teeth late in the afternoon, drinking a cup of coffee, eyes sleepy and body hunched over.

The camera shifts back to Padgett (resting purposefully on his ashtray filled with new, barely smoked cigarettes-- an habit he'd picked up from his object of study) as he steps menacingly onto a chair to overhear through the apartment's mutual ventilation system. He listens as Scully rattles off the lack of evidence in their second murder case, his tension slowly decreasing.

The camera then does a purposeful second shift: Mulder rises into frame in front of the ventilation-- Padgett's top-down observation post-- cornering Scully over her disbelief in his psychic surgery theory. He is in his element: not the sleepy eye-ed version of himself when she'd first walked in the door, but a driven detective with passion in his eyes-- something he hadn't shown for Scully (other than a peppy greeting, ready for her results.)

Scully watches as her partner sits back down and launches into an attempt to fit the square peg of psychic surgery into the round hole of medicine, squashing a brief smile to sustain her serious point: "Well, medicine-- as you're referring to it-- is about keeping people alive."

Padgett listens as his muse remains unflustered by the lack of evidence: "Well crime is only as perfect as the man or the mind that commits it." He takes this as self-confirmation that Scully's mind is ready for him to start his advances, flattered by her description of his talents-- which he is confounded by-- and further cements this opinion with her follow-up sentence: "You find his motive and you find the murderer."

Padgett retreats, parceling through his own mind in another attempt to "find the murderer" and understand his own motive. His smoking habit follows him into bed where he lays, confused, overwhelmed, awed by his own thoughts. He then shoots out of bed and types up another murder scene, attempting to conjure Naciamento and try to study himself through the work of his hands. Another fruitless murder, another dead end. Sickened by the horrors of his own mind, Padgett groups together his papers in horrified silence.

Finding no answers in words or actions, he decides to ignore what he cannot understand, setting the stage to meet his oracle.

Scully answers the basement office phone, tense and business minded, and listens to Mulder detail the crime scene. She spares a moment for the deceased before quibbling with her partner's request for her medical explanation-- "I'm not sure I could."

Both are at a loss where to start for the case-- "Well, there's got to be something, Mulder"-- an opportune moment for her to observe a lone envelope sitting brazenly in the doorway.

While filling him in on this new development, Scully tears it open and dumps out the milagro charm: "It's some kind of a pendant. Like a charm."

It's at this moment that Padgett writes over her thoughts, spewing out prose as Scully is sucked down, down, down with the words he plants into her head while Mulder waits on the phone for more information.

Padgett writes: "It would be a plain face, an average face-- a face people would be prone to trust. She knew this inherently being naturally trusting herself. But the image she conjured up was no better than the useless sketch composites that littered her files. Preconsciously she knew this wasn't her strength as an investigator: she was a marshall of cold facts, quick to organize, connect, shuffle, reorder and synthesize their relative hard values into discreet categories. Imprecision would only invite sexist criticism: that she was soft, malleable, not up to her male counterparts."

Two incorrect assessments on Philip Padgett's part:

#1. Scully is not inherently trusting, repeating Mulder's "trust no one" back to him more times than not. Her trust is in systems, order, ranks, and routines; but she has seen too much corruption by season 6 to give that trust out blindly. But from the start, she has always been wary of individuals, second-guessing victim statements and motives from the beginning; and Padgett, having read her wrong, sets himself up for failure and disappointment with his planned romantic interlude. It was not trust or sexual interest that draws Scully to his place (though he tried to draw it out of her)-- Scully is drawn to attention like a moth to a flame, hence the milagro symbolism rampant throughout.

#2. "But the image she conjured up was no better than the useless sketch composites that littered her files" is a sentence directly from Padgett's mind: empty, staring at his notes all day, ready to strike at genius but lacking anywhere to start.

It's the theme of this episode: the waiting (queued by a striking absence of most of the musical score), the dysregulation of Padgett and Scully's thoughts (Mulder peeps into that disorder when he reads Padgett's 'novel' later), the fear of being known without knowing themselves and being left behind in solitude because of that misunderstanding.

But this is Scully: "Yet the compensatory respect she commanded only deepened the yearnings of her heart,--to let it open, to let someone in."

When Mulder arrives, fiddling with the charm and listening to Scully's description from reception, his first assumption is: "It came here for me?" And while that is a reasonable assumption, it is also his and Scully's first assumption-- harkening back to Never Again's lines that were unnecessarily drawn. He flicks it in the air, creating a tinkling sound in the stillness, and denies that this guy is the killer despite his partner's difference of opinion.

His mood drops, his jaw shifts before he replies, "Maybe it's not me at all," and adds (with too quick) cheerfulness, "maybe it's for you."

Scully pauses, but before she can sort her feelings, Mulder's remark-- "Maybe you've got a secret admirer"-- forces a startled chuff out of her. She tries to disguise her growing unease in surface-level huffery, a someone-would-annoy-me-that-way-wouldn't-they? cover that her partner, of course, doesn't see through...

...since he's already focused on the next bit of leg work he wants Scully to do-- without consulting her, of course.

But Scully is not in a stable mood today, feeling vulnerable, maneuvered, and dismissed. In an echo of Never Again, Scully pauses, offended and hurt; and plants boundaries: "Thank you for making my schedule, but I think I'm going to have to be late for that appointment."

Mulder's lack of emotional nuance has placed her back in the shaky and questioning territory of the Ed Jerse fiasco, feeling like an accessory to work rather than a valuable member of the team. Even further, the original script for Milagro notes that Scully has started unbuttoning her professional garb more than usual after hours with her partner, presumably in a last-ditch attempt to draw Mulder to her. When that doesn't work, she will use Padgett as he has used her partner's apartment, the murders, and the milagro, each waving their flags uselessly for the object of their affection's attentions. It's the ouroboros of Scully's existence, a cycle she has yet to break (I HIGHLY recommend @suitablyaggrieved's essay on the ouroboros, the cycle of grief and death and failure. Phenomenal.)

Mulder is struck that Scully leaves so suddenly, following her out with his eyes for the first time.

At the church (and in a shot similar to Scully's entrance of the Buddhist Temple in All Things)

she is shadowed by a beating heart soon revealing itself to be Padgett. He seemingly steps from nowhere, as if conjured from Scully's mind, interrupting her mediation of the milagro and begins to relate his motives through a thinly veiled retelling (to Scully's initial confusion and increasing fear-- convulsively swallowing and shoulders tensing): "Christ came to Margaret Mary, his heart so inflamed with love that it was no longer able to contain its burning flames of charity.

Margaret Mary, so filled with divine love herself, asked the Lord to take her heart."

At that Scully swivels her head around, filled with premonition.

"And so he did. Placing it alongside his until it burned with the flames of passion." Padgett pauses, filling his soul with longing himself,

before continuing: "Then he restored it to Margaret Mary, sealing her wound with a touch of his blessed hand."

Scully is back to doubt, asking this strange man why he is there and answering a frank "Yes" to his own question ("You came here specifically to see this painting, didn't you?") Her terseness returns: "How did you know that?"

Padgett is delighted that Scully "knows" him, that she'd looked at him long enough to recognize him; but it's more telling that Scully still couches her relationship with Mulder as "somebody I work with" to outsiders.

"Why are you following me?"

"I'm not." Another pause. "I only imagined you'd come here today."

Scully looks away, squirming to get away as much as possible.

"I'm a writer. That's what I do: imagine how people behave."

Scully ceases all movement as the writer methodically details how he knew her beliefs by staring at her necklace, deduced her job by staring at her license, determined that she runs and where by staring at her calves, and combined all of it to predict her movements that day.

An interesting note: Padgett correctly guesses that Scully comes to the church "not as a place of worship, but because you have an appreciation or architecture and the arts."

The horrifying whole is complete when he reveals the milagro charm was from himself and that, he admits, he has "a secret attraction."

She sloughs off his mild apologies for excluding a note ("I'm sorry I didn't include a note explaining that, but you didn't know me then") with a reproof: "Yeah, and I don't know you now. And I don't care to." To his "I see this is making you uncomfortable", Scully raises her eyebrows in a shadow of her normal mockery; and to his "and I'm sorry. It's just that I'm taken with you" that she turns back, contemplating him in contempted curiosity. At his "That never happens to me", the contempt drops away to chilled fear, facing down another unstable person that has obsessed with her (a shadow of Pfaster.)

"We're alike that way," Padgett whispers.

Scully maintains a long look; then slowly and cautiously-- with both ears open in case she needs to flee-- walks away, Philip Padgett gazing after her in her wake.

Padgett the Avatar

Not only is Philip Padgett a darker version of the psychotic psychic in Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose-- creating deaths in a wandering journey of self-enlightenment-- Padgett is also a character that is a stand-in for many, many different and conflicting things: a creepy pervert who wants love, a character aware of his own meta themes, a personification for the zoned-out-zoned-in audience, a symptom of the people who spent hours writing a show about the truth while avoiding it in their real, humanly broken lives.

A cut line from the script (curtesy of @dunhamhairograpy) beats all of these ideas into one 'theme': Naciamento, fed up with Padgett's confusion, yells "No, no! You had it all right up to there. You were a tool of the truth. After all these years of misery and failure, you finally look deep into your heart and what do you get: ME! I am you, Padgett! I am all men. ...You sit here endlessly, waiting to tap into the truth. And when it arrives-- when I arrive-- you don't want to see it." This, of course, extends to Scully and trickles off onto Mulder: Scully is alone but doesn't want to face it. Why would she when her partner has avoided all serious attempts to do so, only confessing his love when something dire was happening? Mulder's not ready, may never be ready; and Scully's resigned herself to that fate-- "Loneliness is a choice"-- because she can't, won't lose him.

This leaves one Philip Padgett with a few realizations: he will never get the girl and he will never write the novel; but what he can do is offer his beating heart another way, as the benevolent god leaving a mark 'for the better' on the lives of those he's stirred up with strong emotions-- even if they weren't the emotions Padgett wanted to create. An artist will take legacy if he can't have love, no matter how selfish or damaging. A selfishly human desire mixed with heavenly self-sacrifice with hellish vainglory, a poor imitation of the milagro by a soon-to-be dead man on a dusty basement with his heart still in his hands.

Part II will be up soonish (hopefully before the week is over!)

Bonus

Here are some meta that helped clarify my ideas, if you (like me) are lost in the woods about Milagro's metacontextual narrative (aka the fluffy purple prose got you all twisted around):

@swinging-stars-from-satellites's meta;

@iconicscullyoutfits's meta and specific meta on fire, Scully, Jerse, and Padgett and this specific meta about Scully's Truth;

and @scullysflannel's meta.

Other scripts found here (@x-files-scripts) and on this website.

And, for fun, here is Carter's and Spotnitz's introduction to the episode (with hilarious Gillian Anderson commentary and reactions.)

Thank you for reading~ (and thank you to the person who requested a Milagro breakdown-- I scrounged around but couldn't find the exact message; but your push got me into dissecting and understanding it a whooooooooooole lot more, so thank you!)

Enjoy!

[rhmis-user-2020]

Helena Adam, Octavia Bicker and Padgett

[katy-kt-katie]

Part 2- Writer's Tag: Milagro Alternate Ending "The Stranger Freed Her and Himself"

Teamed up with my girl @tofuttim to do Tag team writing. She wrote part 1- What was the car ride after Padgett said "Agent Scully is already in love." Check it out here on AO3: Link

I wrote Part 2, what happens next. Here's Mine, but suggest you do read hers first! AO3: Link

They returned to Mulder’s apartment; a surveillance trap set for Padgett.

She glanced at the coffee table and saw the Milagro charm Padgett had sent to her. She picked it up and twirled it through her fingers; reminding her of how she twirled a rose petal between her fingers the last time an impulsive decision had led her heart astray; Jerse .

Her heart belonged to Mulder then as much as it does at this very minute; but she could never get an indication as to what possessed his heart.

Certainly, he loved her; she knew he did, but in what way? In the way which directs him to care for and protect her; the behavior he demonstrates for her over and over again?

Or did he love her in the way she loved him; yearning for intimacy, a way that she never saw from him. Unless she was supposed to interpret his hand on her back as sexual desire and emotional need.

Scully sighed as she heard the seconds tick by on Mulder’s kitchen clock.

Why did she have to go to Padgett’s apartment? She wondered, knowing easily that the answer was genuine curiosity and a desire for attention that she never got with her heart anchored to Mulder’s.

Her brain still stuck around the words Padgett had said, Agent Scully is already in love . Little good did his admission do. The car ride had been silent and despite holding his hand briefly, Mulder seemed no closer; his heart was always just out of her reach; her desires never fulfilled.

She sighed, slumping into his couch, and closing her eyes. She fell asleep for a moment maybe, awakened by the clack of Padgett’s typewriter through their surveillance feed.

“What’s he up to now?” Mulder asked her as he joined her on the couch.

“He just started typing again,” she replied, listening to the earphones as the typewriter continued to clack. Then the machine stopped as Padgett collected his papers and stood.

They heard a door slam and suddenly a folded paper slid under Mulder’s front door.

Scully sat motionless as Mulder grabbed the note and opened the door. She heard him talking to Padgett in the hall.

“What is this?” Mulder said, angrily.

Scully rose to her feet and tiptoed towards Mulder’s doorway so she could hear the conversation.

“It’s a note to you both. An apology for any inconvenience I’ve caused. You won’t be hearing from me again. I’ve decided to destroy my book and I’m leaving,” Padgett said, calmly.

Scully peeked out into the hallway just to see Padgett turning into the stairwell, his unfinished book in his hands.

Mulder turned and handed the note to Scully as he re-entered the apartment.

“I really don’t understand what you saw in him, Scully,” he said, with an air of judgment that she was sure he was trying to hide but that she felt heavily on her soul.

She stared at him for a moment, no words to say. She couldn’t explain rationally her choice to go into Padgett’s apartment. Would she have kissed him, or perhaps more if Mulder hadn’t stormed in? I guess she’d never know. She knew her heart belonged in this apartment, to this man and not the other way around, but she couldn’t wait for him forever, and she certainly couldn’t allow herself to be judged by him.

She sighed and shook her head. Exhausted. She turned to his kitchen and stood against the counter, opening Padgett’s letter.

The Stranger apologized for intruding; for attempting to prevent the inevitable direction in which her heart was bound. Because if the stranger knew anything about life, he knew two hearts in love were to be protected; the magnificent worth of their shared desire must be cultivated. To go against this would be to go against the tides of the ocean, the winds on the plains. To go against this would be to curse his own heart to a life of loneliness. And so, by allowing her to seek the love of her partner, the stranger freed her and himself.

Scully gasped, dropping the note to the floor. Maybe Padgett did have some sort of psychic ability. It didn’t matter now; her feelings laid bare on the page.

Mulder scooped the letter off the ground and read it; she immediately stormed out of the kitchen, grabbing her keys, and heading for the elevator.

She heard footsteps and turned to see him chasing her down, “Scully, wait…” he said as the elevator closed. She took a deep breath as tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t see him right now, not with her heart exposed; open like the psychic surgeon was pulling it from her chest .

As the elevator opened to the lobby, she fled towards her car and as she unlocked it and got in, Mulder was entering through the passenger door.

“Scully, please…don’t leave. Talk to me,” he said.

“I can’t talk,” she cried. “I need to breathe, I need to go, Mulder.”

“Where are you going?” he asked, desperately concerned.

“Home,” she whispered. She couldn’t look at him. She stared into her lap, worrying her fingers.

“I’ll ride with you, okay? You don’t have to talk. Just let me be here; next to you.”

She turned the ignition and put the car in drive. He kept his promise, not saying another word. She barely heard him breathe; he was trying so hard to be silent.  She cried a bit more. She was sure he thought she was mad at him; she wasn’t. She was incredibly frustrated at the inevitable push and pull of their relationship. That she was to spend her life next to a man that she loved more than anyone and that seemingly would never be hers, felt like life’s cruelest joke.

She pulled into her parking space and turned the ignition off. She exited the car without looking at him, but she knew he was following her inside. She opened the door to her apartment and held it for him. He went to her couch, still holding Padgett’s note and looked off in the distance. He’s just waiting for me ; how long will he just wait for me to say something? she thought.

She stepped towards her kitchen to get a glass of water, she grabbed one for him too and sat next to him on the couch, slumping back again and closing her eyes. Minutes passed; he stayed stoic. Finally, after having followed her up and down the stairs of two apartments and across town without saying a word, he handed her Padgett’s note and uttered two words.

“It’s me?”

She breathed deeply and looked at him, he looked like a shell of the beautiful confident man that she was working next to a week ago. This case had shaken him too, in a different way sure, but he looked tired and confused and hurt and yet somehow hopeful.

She hadn’t responded and he didn’t wait, his patience seeming to have dissipated from the earlier exercise in silence. “It’s me…and it’s you.” This time he said it as a statement of fact not a question.

She chewed on her lower lip and thought of how to respond. Padgett had accurately called out her love for Mulder, but was he as astute about Mulder’s supposed feelings for her?

“Please tell me it’s me, Scully,” he said, his voice shaking; unsure.

“It’s you,” she whispered. “Is he right…about us?” she asked, closing her eyes to wait for an answer.

An answer didn’t come, instead she felt a shift in the sofa and a soft, warmth faintly touching her lips; a gentle kiss.

She opened her eyes and found Mulder inches from her face, with a sweetness in his eyes he rarely shot in her direction. “He’s right.”

They sat and stared at each other for a beat; too tired for words.

“You look exhausted, Mulder,” she said softly, stroking his cheek.

“I am,” he admitted. “But this,” he paused and smiled, “this is good.” He said, pulling her closer to him. He laid down and gently dragged her with him.

He sighed and wrapped his arm around her; she pressed her back against his chest devouring every ounce of physical pressure he was offering her.

“So, love.” he stated.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

“Yeah, me too,” he said, stroking her hip now with his fingers, “for too long, and I don’t know how we got this far without accepting it from each other. I guess I was scared to have you get too close; worried you would get hurt.”

“I have been hurt by not having what I want; what I need from you.”

“Scully...” he gulped, his voice choked with remorse.

“It Doesn’t matter anymore. We’re here now,” she said, closing her eyes, pulling his arms tighter around her.

“We are here now; it’s love…” he whispered, before she felt exhaustion take them both under.

[glowstickverse]

started a new campaign w some friends !! pls enjoy my catboy

[virtualplushy]

at least once a day you should read a poem that slices you clean in half. and then you go to the post office or something

[sportu]

Alex Rodriguez’s New Girlfriend After Kathryne Padgett (Photos)

Alex Rodriguez’s New Girlfriend After Kathryne Padgett (Photos)

Alex Rodriguez’s summertime romance with Kathryne Padgett was one of the hottest stories in all of baseball this year. The pair took provocative vacation photos together, got frisky at various events and never really stopped with the PDA no matter whether it was appropriate or not. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly. And then, suddenly, as quickly as the relationship started it ended. It…

[apoemaday]

This for That

by Ron Padgett

What will I have for breakfast? I wish I had some plums like the ones in Williams’s poem. He apologized to his wife for eating them but what he did not do was apologize to those who would read his poem and also not be able to eat them. That is why I like his poem when I am not hungry. Right now I do not like him or his poem. This is just to say that.

[druidberries]

a darling baby is on the way!!

previous // next

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: I Want to Believe

Stephen King: hey did you hear that thomas wrote an x files episode? Barker: what? which one? King: oh i think King: i think it was called King: 'thomas ligotti is from outer space' or something Barker: Barker: yeah i don't think it was called that

King: i heard you wrote an x files episode Thomas Ligotti: hm King: you know, i once wrote an x files episode myself Ligotti: hm King: it was about an evil doll Ligotti: did the evil doll represent the existential void of an indifferent universe King: King: uh no King: it was the regular kind

Ligotti: they never actually made my episode Ligotti: they said it was too depressing Barker: damn! whoa! Barker: you? depressing? Barker: get outta town! Poe: clive Barker: i'm just as shocked as you are!

Barker: so thomas this depressing x-files thing you did Ligotti: hm Barker: did it have mannequins Poe: clive Ligotti: yes Barker: whoa! really defying stereotypes today huh tom?

Barker: wait wait Barker: i'm on a role Barker: i'm about to use my AWESOME PSYCHIC POWERS to make another prediction Barker: was there a ventriloquist dummy in it? Ligotti: yes Barker: whoa! 2 for 2! Koontz: are you really psychic? Poe: no dean Barker: yes dean Barker: yes i am

Barker: damn thomas i am totally SHOCKED that you'd write about ventriloquist dummies Barker: i am just so COMPLETELY SURPRISED because that's Barker: like Barker: SO out of character for you Jon Padgett: s-shut up Padgett: leave him alone Padgett: just shut up!

Ligotti: a ventriloquist dummy is a cosmic doppelganger, real and yet not real, a mocking caricature of the spark of life, a reminder of the cruel joke the universe played on mankind that is sentience RL Stine: yeah and also Stine: what if one had a knife?

Ligotti: so mulder and scully face the truth that we are all just in a cosmically indifferent universe, specks upon the tides of fate, subject to unknowable forces beyond human ken that our blinkered minds cannot ever hope to fathom Ligotti: the truth is NOT out there

[firstfullmoon]

Ron Padgett, “Tea for You, Too”

[randomfoggytiger]

Milagro In-Depth (Part II): Loneliness Is a Choice and Lamps Go Dark

We pick up where Part I left off (see post here)--

Scully stalks into the morgue, having left the church but not her unsettled feelings. Her expression mildly lifts seeing Mulder there waiting for her. 

Mulder sidles up, subdued and gentle, obviously having mulled over her earlier reproof in the office. “Hey, you weren’t joking about being late. I was about to start slicing and dicing myself.” 

He’s so caring that it melts Scully’s armor, bringing out her Starbuck guilt complex: “I’m sorry,” she offers. To her partner’s “Where were you?”, she responds “I was doing some research, and learning that I owe you an apology.” 

Intrigued but cautious, Mulder straightens his posture and purses his lips. “For what?”  

“The milagro charm,” Scully snips as she casts back on her experience, “you were right on its insignificance.” 

Mulder states, “No, I think I was wrong. I think it is very significant. I think it may be a communication from the killer.”  

She is initially frazzled that Mulder’s first response to her position-- especially in light of her “research”-- is a flat-out contradiction. Yet again, Mulder is sending the message-- accidentally-- that Scully’s ideas are always one step behind. But as he prattles on about his own research on psychic surgeons claiming to be “filled with the holy spirit” she is amused into complaisance.

Scully hands Mulder a metaphorical milagro charm of her own, giving weight to his ideas and debating them as intellectually and thoroughly as her tried and true science, expressing her repressed love in the only way he will accept.  

Mulder only has Padgett half-right-- "...most credible practitioners of psychic surgery believe themselves to be imbued with the Holy Spirit, that their hands become the miracle tools of God"-- since Padgett doesn’t dabble in his sorcery to benefit others, only to try to "heal" his own diseased heart; and Scully also has Padgett half-right in her rebuttal.

“Mulder, this--” she says, taking and brandishing the charm as a statement, “is nothing more than a tool used by a lovelorn Romeo who just happens to be your next-door neighbor.” 

Mulder’s pulled up short by this… and he’s not happy about the idea. “Who, the writer??”  

“Yes,” Scully replies distinctly, hiding her stress behind a forced smile, “my secret admirer, who claims to know the mysteries of my heart.” 

Mulder is completely blindsided but even more tender. “You’re kidding….” 

Her tearful emotions briefly break to the surface as Scully recounts, “No, I wish I were. He cornered me today and told me my life’s story. He was kind of frightening, actually.” She looks down, unused to personal admissions still connected to unprocessed emotions.  

Mulder flounders, flummoxed, shaking his head and stumbling for words. A Scully stripped from her defenses is a rare occurrence; and he is uncertain what to say. He retreats to safe ground: “Is… he… our killer?” 

“No,” Scully clarifies, “‘Frightening’ as in ‘too much information and intimate detail’.” As Mulder is left with no ground left to hop on, his partner turns away to delicately sneer at the wall-- “What kills you is his audacity” before she takes a deep, stabilizing breath.  

Dipping his head in solidarity, Mulder mulls over these new facts, toeing the line between empathizing with her shake-up and pretending not to notice how shaken Scully is. But he forms a resolution, raising his head with fire in his eyes and grim determination pulling at his mouth: “Did you get a name?” 

His little rulekeeping rebel responds: “No, but that shouldn’t be too hard to find out, should it?” She walks off to do her work, letting Mulder read her face and draw his conclusions directly from her indirect response.  

Scully knows her partner is on a vengeful hunt, giving him her unspoken blessing to do whatever he deems necessary. 

Mulder now becomes an active part of the story rather than someone who wove in and around Scully or who Scully, the main focus of Padgett’s (and the narrative through his eyes), wove herself around.  

He pulls out a lockpick set (proving everyone right on this poll about previous key or lockpick lore) and digs into his floor's mailbox. While swiping a letter, Mulder notices a pile of discarded newspapers, picking one up to pour over later for clues. In that hopelessly clueless way Mulder has, he's forced to snap out of his configurings by the harsh, cruel reality of his surroundings: needing to press an elevator button to make the door open. He makes a face, hits it, and waits. 

Two thoughts:

#1. Gaze, focus, and attention continue to play heavily in this episode: Mulder having only eyes for his work (in this case, the newspaper) to the exclusion of the world around him (“life on this planet”) is given center stage as he fumbles around the normal world like someone who wants to run through it in pursuit of the next glorious chase. 

#2. IMO, Mulder would love smart appliances and cool new innovations that cut down on minor daily decision-making (lacking the paranoia about technology and its advances as The Lone Gunmen do… or did); but they likely wouldn’t have liked him back since he’s already terrible with the conveniences he has in his “modern” world. 

Padgett pops in, needing the elevator, too; and Mulder feels busted as he palms the man’s stolen letter and uncollected newspaper. He and Hoodie face-off on the ride up before Mulder turns away, evoking the polite, unspoken social norm of “stop staring.” His neighbor doesn’t follow those codes, eyeing the paper and Mulder’s increasingly annoyed expression. 

“I’m sorry, I forgot your name,” Mulder fishes. 

“Padgett.”

“Padgett,” he fake smoozes, Rob Petrie dripping in disdain and moral superiority. 

“You’re a writer. Anything I’d know?”

Padgett is unfazed. “I don’t think so.” His story is not about Mulder-- an incidental second fiddle-- but about Scully, her motives and her heart. 

The second act concludes this scene by a slight repetition of before: Padgett encountering a character on the elevator, staring into their soul, and following them down the hallway like a shadow. At this point, his role is not as a "person" so much as a conduit, becoming lost in the liminal spaces between both worlds. It’s not until the third act when Padgett becomes a flesh and blood human being, realizing the futility of Naciamento’s madness and tearing his heart out in sacrifice. 

At his door, Padgett prods, “You’re an FBI agent. Working on anything interesting?” 

Mulder calls his bluff, becoming as obtrusive in his study as his neighbor is, purposefully trading meaningful looks. “A murder case.” 

His neighbor freezes, the rattle of his door loud in the silent hallway. To Mulder, he reveals that dichotomy of himself, the Naciamento side-- menace and meaning folded into one. “Anything I’d know?” 

Mulder’s deceptively monotoned “Possibly” isn't intended to fool. 

It’s very clear that Padgett views Mulder as a rival and a threat-- an intelligent suit who Scully buzzes around for attention while, in Padgett’s mind, bearing up, unrewarded, under neglect. 

Mulder slips into his apartment first, the door serving as the last word to these hallway interludes. The writer-- the avatar, the conduit, the theme, the symbol-- is acutely aware of this, running into his own apartment as well, hoping to beat the FBI agent in like it’s a kindergarten foot race. Mulder is the clear winner this round, upper-handing the situation by unsettling Padgett and toying with his interest; and his unconcerned confidence gives him that detached edge that allows him to drop conversations or topics at the toss of a dime, leaving the other person shortchanged and aware a second too late. 

This interaction sends Padgett into a jealous and desperate writing session that culminates with an explicit happy ending for himself and Scully, enviously hoping to rob his rival of the jewel that sits right under the other’s nose. He “directs” his FBI neighbor to listen through the vent system, deriding Mulder for his “Hegelian justification” with regards to breaking the Amendments, smug loathing pouring out of his eyes as he types out his own measure of control. 

The episode plays with free will as well as gaze and focus quite a bit: does Padgett direct Mulder to break those rules and listen? Or does he pin Mulder down in the elevator and write a piece so thoroughly correct about the other’s character that he can “predict” rather than direct what his actions will be? 

I believe Padgett is seeking control of his own life by controlling those around them; but this episode reveals that the only person he can fully control is Naciamento. Even further: his own creation reveals the truth to his creator: the writer was never in control-- the only truth his work created is something beyond himself, something that could not be bound by control; and that the unruly characters he tried so desperately to bind to a “greater” narrative whole were already free from his grip, and never wholly his to begin with (script here.) 

Philip Padgett writes his words into Scully’s head, flavoring them with sexual interest but still detailing a grain of truth: “She was flattered. His words had presented a pretty picture of herself, quite unlike the practiced mask of uprightness that mirrored back to her from the medical examiners and investigators and all the lawmen who dared no such utterances.” 

A key point is explored here: Scully pulls out the charm, a version of Padgett’s verbosity running through her own mind; but a colleague rushes by, and she drops it down out of focus in time with the writer’s “...she felt and involuntary blush; and rebuked herself for the girlish indulgence.”

Here, writer man believes his words have the power to sweep her off her feet and into his bed, two lonely souls finding love and wantonness in the company of only each other.

The camera pans back to Mulder from the on-high perspective of the vent, casting judgment and doom upon his rival (to no avail.) 

He is unaware, but suspicious, of Padgett’s unspoken intentions, finally ripping open his mail (after hours of completely silent observation) and noting “Mr. Popularity”' has no records of calls placed or received. Mulder is a lonely man himself; but his loneliness is consumed by the quest and banished by Scully’s company, however he allows himself to receive it. Padgett has no one; and choses to write a better life into existence for himself, stealing from someone else’s work.  

Collapsing back in exhaustion, Mulder contemplates his next move, this problem proving more sinister and desperate because of its subject’s stark isolationism. In his boredom, Mulder picks up the newspaper, opening it up and incidentally sending himself down a rabbit hole of clues. 

Scully arrives on the 4th floor, flustered, bewildered, intrigued, confused; but this time she pauses, hearing the click click click of Padgett’s typewriter as clearly as if she were right next to it. Typewriter clacking this loudly is unnatural; and Scully is torn between fleeing it and figuring out what it means. She is a woman of science; but all of Scully’s pragmatism is a defense against her own unscientific inclinations, a tendency to give too much credence to supernatural signs or simple gut feelings. It saved Kevin Kryder in Revelations, it saved her daughter in Emily, it guarded the girls in All Souls, and it will warn her in Orison.

Her investigator instincts win over, and she pays a visit to Room 44, unaware of how dark Padgett's intentions are. She couches her visit as a gift-return; but Padgett, delighted twofold-- that his plan is working but also that Scully is here to unwind his mind-- plainly asks her “Why?” 

Scully steels herself for his reaction-- and in reaction to his unabashed openness-- and replies, “Because I can’t return the gesture.”

Padgett lets the moment hang, playing on her kindness and natural sense of dutiful guilt; and it leaves her no choice but to further admit “I can’t.”

He, of course, misreads her denial as reluctance, not realizing that her heart has already been given;  and that Mulder has known this since at least Memento Mori (her journal describing then “That you should know my heart, look into it; finding there the memory and experience  that belong to you-- that are you….”) 

At Philip Padgett’s “You’re curious about me”, Scully huffs, struck and shaken again by his relentless dissection of her mind. There is less animal fear now as she acknowledges the truth with a slight nod; but it curdles in her gut, tears threatening to pool after her study of his Spartan apartment. She is aware that a man who has this much of nothing will be unwilling to give up what he now thinks of as his something.

But there is also pity. As Padgett’s intense investigative skills reflect Mulder’s empty personal life, so too does his apartment the howling chasm of Scully’s internal isolation-- the empty desert she retreated into after Emily’s death was an expansive emptiness, making room for the width of her loss and the intelligence of her and heart and mind. Padgett has only a desk, a lamp on the floor, and a bed; and the littleness of this life strike a chord-- though not the one he wrote to strike-- of commiseration at the emptiness of his existence and the flagrancy of his honesty. It’s a fear Scully has never admitted to, let alone lived brazenly.  

She asks about his books-- “Anything I’d know?”-- echoing Mulder’s own question.

“No. They’re all failures. Except the one I’m working on now,” Padgett triumphs. 

Scully draws back from his intensity, though she continues to question. “Why now all of a sudden?” 

Padgett unfurls his thinking, possibly even how he obtained his abilities: “Best not to question it.” 

She understands this, living that motto daily with her partner; and looks down to cover her own vulnerability. 

“See? You are curious about me.”

Denial kicks in: “Well, you lead a curious life.” 

Padgett puts his foot in the metaphorical door: “It’s not so different from yours, I imagine.” And that is all he can do: imagine, and try to unite his life with someone else who, he thinks, will understand him better than he does himself, the description of a writer he gives Scully a scene later. 

His point is accurate; and Scully allows it to sink deeper even as she quickly puts up her defensive, sarcastic guard. He breaks it back down it a pointed, “Lonely.” 

Padgett’s words sear at her wound, twisting a knife into her heart; but she manages to answer a measured “Loneliness is a choice” by rapidly blinking back tears and swallowing down her pain.  

At Padgett’s “So how about a cup of coffee?”, her eyes flash defensively; but she is drawn in by his prepossessing honesty and transparency, wanting it for herself. Perhaps if she had some for herself, perhaps if she were more forthright-- a litany of “perhapses" as maddening as Padgett’s elusive self-discovery. 

What I find interesting is the idea that this is Padgett’s Never Again and Scully is his Ed Jerse. He is unable to understand his heart or motives, the truth behind his actions; and she is alluring and broken-hearted and fearing that love will never be returned to her equally. The unbalanced nature of The Quest is her divorce court and her assurance and self-reflection is his ouroboros. 

Separated by a wall, the two agents do their own reading. Mulder has done his homework, doubling back for the rest of the neglected newspapers once he’d found a love dedication that Padgett had circled; and Scully takes a peek at Padgett's unfinished manuscript, pondering over the last sentence “How will it end?”   

Clutching the coffee cup Padgett gave her, she bows before it in confession: “My life’s not so lonely…. It’s actually anything but.”  

Padgett again hears (looks) but doesn't listen (see.)

Her questions become more pointed: “How is it you think you know so much about me?”; and to his “I’m writing about you”, she gets sick of the staring game, pointedly sticking her neck out. 

“Since when?”  

“Since I first noticed you. You live in my old neighborhood.” 

“And you moved into this building by coincidence?” 

“No.”

“You moved here because of me.” 

“There wasn’t anything available at your building. And it’s not like you spent a lot of time at home.” 

Scully is confused-- she is wired to be drawn to people that listen, truly listen, to what she has to say and notice her and her interests so closely; but she is continually reminded that Padgett is an obsessed, sick man. But the adage “physician, heal thyself” easily follows that thought; and it’s easier to run away than to dwell on them.

Padgett stumbles over her horror. “I, I should have said something; but I just couldn’t get it all down fast enough. To really write someone I have to be in their head, I have to know them more completely than they know themselves.” 

What strikes Scully is how “Mulder” that is-- getting into someone’s head and crossing lines and boundaries, asking for forgiveness rather than permission. The difference, she knows, is that her partner uses those gifts in extreme circumstances and for the ultimate good whereas this man is completely self-serving and egotistical in his mixture of self-abasing hubris. 

“This is all about me?” 

“Well, you’re an important part.” 

“May I read it?” 

When her request is denied, Scully shrinks down, pulling her shoulders up. She knows what that means: there is something in his manuscript to hide, or something that might color her against him more than she already is. Her hand shakes slightly at his “Would you sit and stay a minute?”; but she rallies in caustic suspicion (“You don’t have anywhere to sit.”) 

Padgett lures her to his room-- a completely different apartment setting than her experience had been with Ed Jerse or even Mulder this entire episode-- shutting down her warning and excuse (“I’m due next door”) with a page out of her own logical book (“You haven’t finished your coffee.”) 

Scully, left with no subtlety, cuts through her own reticence.  “I’m very uncomfortable with this.” 

“Why? You’re armed, aren’t you?” 

The light won’t turn on, something Padgett hadn’t written or anticipated. “Imagine that.” He opens the curtains further, pinning them up against the wall before pressing past (and up against) a dazed Scully who seems to be wavering, either under the spell of his words or her own dizzying indecision.

Again her pity chord is struck with Padgett’s view-- a brick wall, so different from the view one door down. Scully gives in, drawn to the powerful and unexplained (ex. Luther Lee Boggs and Clyde Bruckman and Alfred Fellig): “If you know me so well, then why am I standing here when my instincts tell me to go?” 

“Motive is never easy. Sometimes it occurs to one only later.” 

She chastises herself, disappointed with his answer and her own foolish question. At the repeated invitation, Scully almost leaves, but sits down anyway. When the light bulb burns out once again, she is startled, but Padgett is alarmed then resigned in awe (“Imagine that.”)  

They sit, waiting; and Padgett turns, knowing the precipitous moment is arriving-- but when Scully still sits, seemingly unmoved, he leans forward, shocked and hoping a change in position will end any indecision. 

It's then that Mulder busts through the apartment door.

He immediately puts up his gun at Scully’s “Mulder” but evades further questions after having confirmation she’s alright. He zips over to the typewriter and throws around the pages until he finds an incriminating one, delicately hands it to his partner and pushing Padgett against the wall to arrest him. 

Scully, startled, doesn’t attempt to stop him; and stares, horrified, at the words "warm, beating heart" staring right back at her.

Part III coming sometime soon.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

[rhmis-user-2020]

Octavia Bicker, Padgett and Helena Adam

Credits for the outfits to go noodle_studioz from tiktok and muzuki from Pinterest

[derangedrhythms]

Ron Padgett, Nothing in that Drawer

[sunflowernyx]

I really love Spender and Padgett as antagonists to Scully.

Because the way they project their own vision of Scully onto her is so completely untrue that it contrasts perfectly with her truth.

They are a specific brand of monsters in the x files, a genre, if you will, that try to enforce patriarchal views onto women, and every time, every time the story presents it as completely ridiculous that they can't see what the truth is, that their denial of it becomes their eventual downfall.

Because they don't view Scully or any other woman as anything other than a vessel for their desire, something inhuman, waiting for them to imprint their world view upon her, taking away her voice, her body autonomy, her truth.

And every time the story proves them wrong. Every time Scully proves them wrong.

Rather than just focusing on how she's a strong woman who can fight back, and has agency, they set episodes like En Ami and Milagro up to show how men are capable of creating an incorrect narrative and believing in it so deeply that when Scully fights back and proves herself a full human being with her own opinions, desires, emotions and strengths that have nothing to do with them... they resort to punishing her with violence.

And always, always they stick with the central theme for Scully's character: that the truth is there, and it's Scully's role to make it plain, it is her power to articulate it.

Characters like Spender and Padgett are perfect antagonists to a character like Scully because they construct a truth and try to project it on her, to enforce it upon her, but she always has the last word.

The truth only ever comes from Scully

[guys-moments]

Bryce

[garadinervi]

Valery Larbaud, RLDASEDLRAD LES DLCMHYPBDF, Translated by Ron Padgett with help from David Ball, Cover drawing by Lindsay Stamm Shapiro, «Adventures in Poetry», The Poetry Project, St. Mark's Church, New York, NY, 1973, Edition of 250 [Granary Books, New York, NY]