#the only things i'm pondering are ���did mulder actually smoke?” and “do mummies smell bad irl?”

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s5 episode 15 thoughts

long day. i want scully and mulder time.

ooh, looks like this episode will be about mr. mulder! mr. william mulder, i should specify; i am not just referring to OUR mulder with that title.

will we also see baby CSM?! will the puzzle pieces fit together, or drift further apart?!

i think mr. mulder is kinda cute. like a clean matty healy.

(WORDS I LIVED TO REGRET TYPING!!!!!)

now, what mischief has he gotten up to today? killing people? i’m not really shocked. 

so, it looks like we will not actually get any scully and mulder time, but i’m open to change after the CSM episode. it was really interesting. let’s see what is in store.

‼️HATER ALERT‼️i should not have been open to change. this episode pissed me tf off. what do you mean we are changing mr. mulder’s face and making roy cohn put spiders in your belly? HELLO? can you even hear me? did i really just watch this? 

we begin in 1990 in wisconsin. strange place to be. a sheriff is here, coming to get someone who is locked in a house.

“i don’t much enjoy evicting old folks”, says the sheriff. wow. almost a conscience there.

but the guy he is with promises this old person shall change his mind. and from the spooky music that is playing, i am inclined to also think something is about to go down.

edward skur is being evicted, and he is not opening up his door. but something in the house smells very bad. uh oh. this is never a good way to start an episode.

this house is very messy and dark, and mr. skur seems to be watching from a distance. it’s covered in bugs. icky.

the other guy sees something horrible and throws up!! let me guess: a body? 

UGH! i wasn’t technically WRONG, but it’s a MUMMY in the bathtub!!! it looks really old!!!! like, ancient kind of old!! 

which raises the question: do mummies smell bad? i kind of assumed after a few centuries it just went sort of… neutral

i need to research this later.

anyway, skur tried to grab the sheriff, but he fired his gun. he hit mr. skur, and as he dies on the ground, foaming at the mouth (??), he calls for MULDER????

huh??

idk if either of the mulders can help you with your smuggled mummy... i just really do not know 💔 i fear we may need to call the authorities to get that mummy back to its sarcophagus or perhaps bog home

(i assume it will be some kind of alien, but you have to admit it looks like the result of a tomb robbery)

intro time!!! yeah yeah yeah make some noise!!

and they shortened the intro again...! must be for a good reason?

(NO. NO GOOD REASON)

so it’s still 1990 here. and mulder is going somewhere…. to an apartment. looking for arthur dales.

he introduces himself as a profiler with the behavioral sciences unit (aww! baby mulder! he looks pretty much the same as current mulder, but with longer hair)

oooo, this dales man used to work for the bureau… he opened up a case on edward skur in 1952!!!

arthur claims he doesn’t know what went down

mulder brushes some hair out of his face (aww, the slightly different hair style, they really want us to notice it)

“do you know what an x file is?!” “it’s uh… yeah, it’s an unsolved case” <- ohohoho, do i, the viewer, ever know what an x file is!

arthur clarifies: “no, it’s a case that’s been designated unsolved” <- hmm okay. so they basically didn’t want to bother solving it because it might be incriminating. pretty important distinction if he's telling the truth.

apparently, skur disappeared many years ago after killing a bunch of strangers and removing their organs. most of the report on the matter is censored. but now he was found and shot last week, and a man in his bathroom found with all his soft tissue removed. yuck.

so NOT a stolen mummy nor an alien. for the sake of historic preservation, i am glad skur was not a guy who kept mummies in his bathtub. we need those for research purposes.

ohhh!!! arthur tries to shut him out, but mulder asks how tf skur knew his name!!! an excellent question. 

“you ever heard of HUAC, agent mulder, the house un-american activities committee?” <- not sure if i knew before this that HUAC was pronounced “hew-ack”, which is a really terrible way of pronouncing a word, but i guess it makes sense for the time.

arthur says mulder wouldn’t know about HUAC… girl, that man is a walking encyclopedia. don’t doubt him.

“they found practically nothing. you think they would have found nothing… unless nothing… was what they wanted to find?” <- very cryptic. i like the idea that the red scare was a coverup for alien stuff. makes more sense than what actually went down. but on the other hand, it kind of undermines the senseless destruction that came with mccarthyism by giving it an in-universe purpose.

so i changed my mind. maybe i don't like it.

mulder again plays with his hair (lmao) and says that he’s sorry, but doesn’t see the connection. aww, he’s a little baby! he cannot even see a connection! and then arthur slams the door on him. rude af.

mulder is watching news footage from the mccarthy era to research this case. roy cohn is mentioned, and every time i remember that roy cohn was a real person, i have to take a deep breath. 

apparently the term “fellow travelers” referred to those sympathetic to the communist cause back then? i genuinely had no idea. damn, my modern history knowledge is lacking! listen, they don't teach you much past WWII in US history 101 and 102

god. roy cohn mentioned, again. he is said to be the man who “brought the rosenbergs to justice”. this makes my skin crawl.

(little did i know what this episode had in store for me...)

mulder has a little card that identifies edward skur as a member of the communist party. now, i understand that was a controversial group to be a part of, but i fail to see how this leads to stealing organs. we’re missing some context.

look at mulder with messy hair and glasses!!! he rewinds the tape and recognizes someone in the background of the hearing!!!

good lord…. he’s attractive.

(perhaps the highlight of this episode was mulder in glasses. it gets me every time)

anyway, it’s his dad he recognizes. which is obviously very shocking.

AWW, he brings mr. dales some coffee the next morning :,) he shall not be deterred!

mr. dales tells him to go ask his father, and mulder says “my father and i don’t really speak” <- damn… are we going to get the story behind that?? i mean, we know a decent part of it. maybe that is enough.

BAHAHA dales slams the door again and i was thinking “buddy, he will subpoena you” and then mulder says just that lmaooo

and this works on him; he opens the door back up and says that edward skur worked for the state department just like mr. mulder. our mulder must have known that, but said nothing! 

OHHH he asks if his father was involved, and dales just lets out a big sigh. (shocked mulder voice) how??

and how did he remove the organs but not the skin??

is mulder smoking right now?? i guess hearing your father was involved with a bunch of murders is stressful enough to make a guy open up a pack.

(i literally could not figure it out. it just looked vaguely smoky. i didn't see a cigarette being brought up into his mouth. does anyone know? because if mulder smokes or smoked at some point, i'm going to need to add that to my internal list of facts about his character and then analyze what that says about him. please tell me, and thank you)

dales says he can tell you how the organs were removed, but not why. what do you know?!?!

in regards to the communist allegations- that is what "they" all said "they" were!! this clears up very little

way back in the olden days, dales is arresting mr. skur!! they plant a communist card on him… or else they really did find it as soon as they arrested him, which i find hard to believe. his wife and kids watch this happen :( poor kids

dales is at the bar getting a drink after busting reds all day. someone calls the bar looking for him!! it’s his partner!!! skur was found dead! 

this is stressful for dales…. he drinks his bourbon.

he has to go tell mrs. skur that her husband died, and it was his fault for arresting him. drinking and driving is not advisable, but this is not stopping dales. he’s waiting outside the skur’s house trying to find the words when he sees edward skur run by!! this ought to be impossible!! due to the dying!!

chase scene!!! WHAT THE FUCK DOES SKUR HAVE LIZARDS IN HIS MOUTH??? he pins dales down and SOMETHING emerges???

the neighbor hears them scuffling and skur runs away!!!

HUH??? MOUTH LIZARDS?

okay.

dales clocked in the next day after almost getting eaten. his partner has something to tell him. now he has pictures of the dead skur taken BEFORE dales was attacked last night!

dales clarifies he didn’t have *that* much to drink. and his partner says to leave him out of the report, but he already turned it in!

the justice department is calling him!! they need to chat! oooo dales is in trouble...

(these scenes are very bright and foggy to indicate they take place in the past and it’s a little distracting lmao)

HE’S GOING TO SEE ROY COHN?? HE’S A CHARACTER IN THIS SHOW???

woah… he sits next to dales. scarily. and asks if he knows who he is. “then you know how important my work is” yeah. they must expel the communist vermin. sure, sure. 

“everything is political, agent dales” <- very ominous. 

dales seems to be the only one that can identify the man who attacked him as skur, because his wife and the neighbors sure deny it.

does roy cohn know about the aliens???

he’s just staring at dales. he knows he has to edit skur out of his report, but he’s not sure why. “you’re not supposed to understand; you’re supposed to follow orders” <- damn. very very creepy guy.

(tbh, i don’t really know what real young-ish roy cohn looked like, so i cannot comment on if this guy is the spitting image of him or not. but he is very unsettling)

so, dales changes his report, saying the suspect is unknown. and all the information on skur is blacked out, just as we saw in present mulder’s hand!

but skur was already out doing murders, so dales cannot leave this mystery behind. they go in the murder house where they find a german song playing, and a picture of the house's owner- a doctor- shaking the president’s hand. hmm. who is this german doctor guy?

it smells like hospital in there, his partner reports. not a great smell.

and they find the german guy’s body… it’s really grotesque!!!

the cops arrive at the scene, telling the agents to put up their hands. they have no idea who tf these agents are. then who called them there?!?!

ohhh, dales finds a coaster from the bar that says “come alone”….. secret code....

he’s in this little secluded booth thing at the bar (what? i thought it was a confessional at first? did bars back then have a random little private booth section? what was the purpose of this?)

anyway, this new guy says he was trying to SAVE the dead german doctor, but he was too late, and skur killed him. and dales will be next. 

meanwhile, his partner is at home bringing in the groceries, and i can imagine what will happen next….

OHHH HE HAS A CUTE ORANGE KITTY. highlight of the episode.

back in the booth at the bar, mystery guy says that skur and “the others” are patriots who work at the state department. skur, gissing, and oberman. and now the other two are dead by their own hand!! they couldn’t live with what they’d become!!

they (cohn and the government?) had to put out a story to cover up what they did to skur…. what did they do?!

WAIT, THIS GUY IS MR. MULDER? he looks different than the other mulder actor!! did he get a new actor?? did they just change?? am i crazy? is that the same guy? is he lying?

(i was second-guessing myself so much that i went back to rewatch the part of apocrypha that had him in it and i KNEW. i KNEW that was a totally different guy. one that looked like a clean matty healy and who i had grown attached to. this dude is just someone else entirely! is it some sort of plot trick? a recasting? what is afoot?!?!?)

((if this WAS done for plot reasons, you can tell me. because it would make me feel far less annoyed. even if the reason is a later surprise like "gasp! turns out bill and william mulder were DIFFERENT PEOPLE". you don't have to specify anything. you can just say they did it for a reason. but i have a feeling this is not the case)

“mulder” (i am suspicious) claims that he cannot keep this secret any longer, and he risked his family to come here and tell dales. 

meanwhile, his partner sits down to watch mccarthy do his thing on the TV, but the cat knocks his beer down

mr. bill mulder says that mr. cohn and mccarthy are involved in this…. skur wants revenge for what they did to him. and skur thinks that dales and his partner are involved!!

dales gets up and asks for the phone, and he’s calling his partner, whose number was “klondike 5 0133”, making me realize i know nothing about how old phone numbers work. but his phone has been unplugged!!!

 and skur is going lizard or bug mode or something on the partner!!

WHAT THE HELL?? I REALLY REALLY REALLY DISLIKE HOW THOSE LEGS CAME OUT OF HIS MOUTH AUGHHHH

the next day, the coroner is trying to examine the body. and who rolls in but roy cohn! he says that they can’t take the body to the morgue. 

OH SHIT: “what are you talking about, i’m no communist” “you are if i say you are” daaaaamn. that is crazy. backed right into a corner there. 

roy cohn, how did you turn that guy into a spider on the inside…

“when your partner dies, a piece of you dies with him” <- okay so mulder and scully, take notes. you can’t die on each other, okay? thank you.

dales needs to avenge his partner’s death!! so dales must find out what happened to the other two men who mr. bill mulder said are now dead, but also had that “thing” done to them.

OH this secretary put the info on one of those guys in an x file!! “why don’t you file them under ‘u’ for unsolved?” “that’s what i did until i ran out of room” <- LMAO queen… THE x file creator!!! everyone say thank you to her

(i feel this is a definite retcon of the x file lore, but whatever. what do i care? they already changed this dude's whole face)

gissing was found dead with his doctor, but the don’t know how the doctor just… collapsed.

gissing had some recent surgery… his body is still in the morgue. dales says CUT HIM OPEN NOW even though the coroner says the family will yell at him he does, in fact, do the cutting open

waugh… something in the esophagus… EAUGH I CANNOT LOOK. IT’S A SPIDER??? SPIDER SEWN INTO HIS STOMACH?? 

i do not like that.

dales runs back to mrs. skur to try and explain her husband was discredited to cover up roy cohn putting spiders in his belly, i guess.

“it’s called xenotransplantation” <- that doesn’t sound gooooood. at all. THE GRAFTING OF ANOTHER SPECIES INTO THE HUMAN BODY??? augh. and i was going to have dessert after this. 

so it’s a nazi thing, and the german doctor must have been continuing his experiments in the US! yes, operation paper clip, we have spoken of this before on this TV program

dales wants to expose the truth, and he needs skur’s help to do so. he leaves mrs. skur the coaster with a mysterious message….

when who pulls up but mr. cohn!! telling dales to get in the car. and mr. bill mulder is there, too.

mrs. skur is sneaking out the back door, lifting up the hatch to a fallout shelter, going to find her husband. he’s in incredible pain, and he starts to go spider mode and eat his wife!!!!

roy cohn takes dales to the FBI. damn. and the lore dumping begins from mr. hoover. there are more soviets than capitalists now, btw, and this is very bad. 

dales points out that those random men who were experimented upon were not communists, which makes hoover counter that they must do even what their enemies would be afraid of. like put spiders in your belly.

dales has one chance to save himself. he is to go meet with skur and then the other men will come get him. so that is why mr. bill mulder was sent to talk to dales! not out of the kindness of his heart. “i follow my orders”, he says, and that famously is *not* a good reason to do terrible things. 

dales is alone in the bar, waiting for skur, pouring a drink. and skur arrives, saying his wife is dead. 

“they’re not coming, you know. they wanted me to kill you, or you wouldn’t be here” oh shoot… is he telling the truth…? is dales being set up?

now skur is going after dales, with mr. bill mulder having to be restrained from going in the bar to save him!!!

dales manages to handcuff skur before the spider can emerge, but he runs away and hides!!

cut to a baffled present day mulder. “i can’t believe my father threw in with these men (very deep sigh) he let them dictate his conscience” <- well, that seems to be a reoccurring theme with bill mulder

“you keep digging through the x files and they’ll bury you too” <- that is promising! /s

but how was skur able to get away and live in obscurity? was he kept in a lab? maybe someone let him go?

MR. MULDER GAVE HIM THE CAR KEYS AND LET HIM GO!!!

in the hope that the truth will someday be exposed??

the end.

huh. what am i even supposed to think here? 

well, all i can think about is how different bill mulder looked.

i can’t even fully articulate WHY this episode made me so mad beyond its sheer absurdity and the fact that i am obsessive about details and a recasting always gets under my skin. except that i am also darkly fascinated by the comic book villain level hijinks that the real roy cohn got up to, and using him as a prop in the alien show could have been kinda interesting, but i feel that making him the spider guy was NOT the move. who did this benefit? anybody? was there not another case for mulder and scully to tackle? who on the writing team said “you know what this needs? mouth spider”

and putting aside the whole new body mr. bill mulder somehow obtained- perhaps there is a good reason for that, and i am being judgemental without knowing the full story, but still, you cannot fool me- he let the spider guy go?? knowing that he would be slurping insides for the rest of his life? and is this supposed to be heartwarming? because my heart isn't warmed.

i mean, if skur managed to go most of his life without slurping, until the very end, that is... good, i guess? but then he slurped once more and an innocent guy died. so. uh.

earlier i spoke about the different categories of x files episodes, specifically the bad ones. i have copied those notes from before below:

"category a is: this is blatantly offensive. who approved this? (gender bender, excelsis dei)

category b is: this writing is so out of character i feel disgraced (3, the parts in oubliette where scully is just mean af to mulder and tells him to stop trying cpr??? and rift-era episodes)

category c is: just kinda boring af, monster isn't even camp it's just weird, also tends to be overly dark in theme to the point where no one is having fun (calusari, the walk)"

i'd place this in category c. if you were going to use some of the most notorious figures in 20th century history as plot points, DO something with them beyond "he puts spiders in their tummies to fight communism". i am not compelled by this. i do not think anyone would be. and if i am supposed to think "oh, poor mr. bill mulder, he was so morally conflicted" i guess i just don't... really care that much. at least not in this particular instance. choosing between his kids was intense and fascinating, plot-wise. choosing to free the lizard guy helped no one but lizard guy, who went on to do more murdering.

and there wasn't even scully!