The X-Files: Scully’s Journey (Season one- part two)

The conspiracy heats up! Sadly, our duo’s relationship doesn’t, but I’m prepared for the wait now (I wasn’t back in 93).

Yes, it’s 1993 again, when we all went crazy for dinosaurs after Jurassic Park, blasted Whitney Houston telling us she’d always love us, decided the combination of babydoll dresses and Doc Marten boots was adorable (I stand by it), and a certain duo waving around flashlights on foggy nights was smack in the middle of stealing our hearts.

In a nutshell…

Last time, I covered the start of our love affair with Mulder and Scully. Now, we come back with one of my favorite episodes. I might be alone in this, but excellent character actresses and creepy children are among my favorite things in the entire world and this episode gives me both at once! A father is found with his blood drained and foxglove in his system. Mulder (of course!) is convinced it’s alien experiments involving exsanguination. Scully is convinced it’s definitely… anything but that. The father was a widower and the girl is the only witness. She saw red lights and “men from the clouds.” Mulder is ecstatic.

They find an identical murder that occurred at the same time in a nearly identical house with a completely identical daughter, but neither of these daughters are adopted. Off to the fertility clinic! Both sets of parents were treated by a doctor played by Harriet Sansom Harris, none other than Bebe Glazer herself!

She’s suspected of experimenting on her patients. We all know she’s an unscrupulous, unprincipled viper in her double life as a talent agent, so I’d put nothing past her.

Apparently, the Department of Mysteries has an interest in this case because Deep Throat (who we no longer trust!) pops up to give Mulder intel. And Mulder oh, so subtly shoos Scully out of the room to go meet with him.

Like so.

Apparently, there’s an old project that produced genetically modified super kids named either Adam or Eve (title drop!). They visit Eve 6 (fun fact: namesake of the band) in the mental hospital. She chews the scenery delightfully and tells our duo the Eves are all super intelligent, super strong, and super psychotic. Most were institutionalized, but Doctor Bebe Glazer escaped (along with another Bebe who’s still at large) to continue and repair the Eve line. She’s also kidnapped both the creepy girls and tells them she’s onto their murdery tricks, but she’s going to drug and therapize them into normalcy. Of course, they’ve already poisoned her with foxglove by now. When our duo arrive, the girls claim the dead Doctor Bebe was trying to Jonestown them and our duo leave with the girls. They don’t want to be separated, so they convince Mulder and Scully to pull over at a truckstop. It’s all rather adorably domestic…

Maybe they can raise them to be less psychotic together!

…till the girls poison their sodas. Mulder, pretty much by chance, figures it out before they drink too much and rushes to very subtly warn Scully.

Like so.

There’s a mighty chase and our poor duo get mistaken for kidnappers at one point, but the little psychos are caught and put in with Eve 6, where that other Bebe (perhaps this is the one moonlighting as a Seattle talent agent?) comes to visit. The girls were expecting her. “We just knew.” *shudder* “THE END?” Yes, it is. We will never meet them again. Stop it, Carter!

Next, our agents are called in by some British chippie Mulder used to date (Amanda Pays/Tina McGee in two different versions of The Flash) over various UK bigwigs with pretty wives getting burned to a mysterious crisp. Mulder is fire (title drop!) phobic, but he gives Scully a break on this one to help her avoid Tina McGee’s mind games — a break which Scully ignores, doing most of the homework anyway — while Mulder and Tina circle Badger from Firefly (Mark Sheppard), who hilariously paints a swing with water during this scene:

He worked for the last family, at the least, and is with another one in Boston now. He controls fire, kills bigwigs, stalks their wives, threatens dogs, blows up a bar for funsies, and makes their driver sick so he can take over. He also encourages seven-year-olds to smoke, which somehow bothers me the most. I mean, aside from that “paint” job he has the nerve to charge for.

Proof!

So, yeah. Mulder and that chippie hightail it to Boston and investigate, where he dares to intimate he enjoys her agreeing with his crackpot theories more than Scully challenging them. Ugh! You just don’t know what you need, Mulder! They dress up and keep watch for the fireboy at some UK bigwig prom of some sort. Scully shows up with her intel and profile and has to witness this whole mess:

She catches a fire starting and breaks that shit up and Mulder’s all “Wha… how?” Anyway, he tries to run up to that fire to… hit it? I don’t know what he was thinking. But he collapses in the hall to be rescued by the firemen and touched excessively by Scully.

Also doctored while shirtless.

Everyone’s congratulating Badger for “rescuing” the children and Scully’s suspicious, especially when her homework gets her a fax of a sketch that looks just like him. She can’t tell Mulder, who’s already en route to the house he’s been “painting” at. There, he finds Tina McGee’s been smooching on other guys, like that bigwig dad, also he finds rocket fuel in the shed. Hey! Maybe that that was the paint! Doesn’t make me less outraged as a consumer, but gosh, I’m slow. Scully arrives and they find that driver’s burned corpse and some curtains and paintings spontaneously igniting, probably with help from that rocket fuel this guy keeps on hand (is it that easy to get?). Mulder tries to beat the fire with a tiny blanket. OMG, Mulder just stop trying to fight fires! You are hilariously underqualified! He still rushes to rescue those kids and the dog while this happens.

Don’t worry. He gets the kids. But what about the dog?

Well… maybe?

Tina McGee douses Badger with rocket fuel and he blindly stumbles outside and lights himself up, laughing all the way. Later, we see him healing from his burns and asking a nurse for a cigarette while ominous “THE END?” music plays. OMG, Carter stop it!

Next, we meet Scully’s parents: William (Don Davis) and Margaret (Sheila Larken). She calls her father “Ahab” and he calls her “Starbuck.” Remember this because it’s adorable, also because we won’t be seeing him again, except for when he appears to her, silently mouthing words, when she wakes from sleep right before her mother calls to say he passed.

It’s both creepy and heartbreaking.

Meanwhile, there’s a couple making out in a car in North Carolina. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know this never ends well. This is no exception. They’re kidnapped by a phony cop. Back in D.C., Scully comes in, even though Mulder wasn’t expecting her. He’s all concerned and calls her Dana, which I find super weird on this and all the other rare occasions it happens. Yes. I am one of those purists who would prefer they call each other by their last names — even in bed.

Anyway, Mulder informs her about the case: that it’s related to another case, that they’ll be dead in five days, and that Luther Lee Boggs (Brad Dourif or Grima Wormtongue, if you will), a serial killer Mulder profiled once upon time, claims a psychic connection to the kidnappings. Mulder, in this case, does not believe. He thinks Wormtongue is trying to avoid the death sentence, but the guy’s asking for him. Scully insists on going along after the funeral. Also, this happens…

Scully starts to look into a file on visitations before hastily putting it away. At the funeral, where her father’s ashes are scattered at sea while “Beyond The Sea” (sad title drop) plays, Scully wishes he had something grander to befit his naval background. She also worries that he was disappointed that she went into the F.B.I. instead of medicine and asks if her mother if he was even a little bit proud. “He was your father,” Margaret Scully says.

Later, our duo see Wormtongue and he puts on a little show with a bit of fabric that turns out to be from Mulder’s T-shirt (not the tight, gray one I will come to love). Test failed. Mulder’s seen enough, but Wormtongue launches into “Beyond the Sea” and stops Scully short. She turns and sees her father, then Wormtongue says “Did you get my message, Starbuck?” *shudder* She must think she imagined it because she doesn’t tell Mulder. Scully does find some of Wormtongue’s little production leads her to breadcrumbs the couples’ abductor left behind. Mulder doesn’t believe, still, thinking Wormtongue is working with the kidnapper. Mulder tests him again, this time with a false newspaper, saying the couple was found, thinking he’ll call his pal. He doesn’t fall for it. Scully wants to act on his clues, wherever they come from, before this couple is found dead so they let him give another show, ending with a warning to Mulder about a white cross.

Our duo and some other FBI pals find a warehouse and the girlfriend, but our sicko escapes with the boyfriend and shoots Mulder, right underneath a… kind of white cross. The police have an ID on the sicko now and suspect he may have worked with Wormtongue. Scully, more into the theory that Wormtongue is in on it than that he’s psychic now, confronts him. When he seems to morph into Mulder, she loses her shit.

He even puts on a show as her teenaged self and she tries not to let on he’s getting to her... until she says she’ll believe him if she lets her talk to her father. Wormtongue starts, then stops himself until she gets him a deal. See, Wormtongue was on the fast track to the chair before and didn’t like staring down what he’d done and what was waiting for him.

Scully does try to get that deal, but fails. Mulder doesn’t want her to keep trying to deal with him as “he could be trying to claim you as his last victim.” She lies to Wormtongue and claims she got his deal, anyway, and he directs her to another location, even though he knows she lied. But he knows she tried and warns her to “avoid the devil. Don’t follow him. Leave that to me.” Not gonna lie. I love this episode and have failed in all my attempts to be succinct in recapping it. Anyway, he’s right. Scully and her FBI pals find him at the abandoned Blue Devil Brewery and she stops short of following our sicko to his death beneath some faulty bridge under a blue devil cartoon.

Later, Wormtongue tells Scully to be at his execution and she’ll get her message from her father. She doesn’t attend, but all his victims do, shaming him on that long walk. She tends to Mulder in the hospital instead.

And they’re so pretty, as always.

Scully has, by now, rationalized everything about Wormtongue as things he could have found with research on her beforehand, due to her connection to Mulder. Mulder suddenly wants her to believe. “I’m afraid to believe,” she confesses, but she doesn’t need to know what Wormtongue would have said. “He was my father,” she says, echoing her mother.

*Ahem* Anyway, I’m going to try my damnedest to be more succinct going forward. Let’s see…

Mulder and Scully investigate a gender bender (title drop!) who attracts, seduces, and kills men and women alike by pheromone overdose.

You just turn that accusation around, Mulder!

They’re led to an Amish-like community called The Kindred. One of them tries to bewitch Scully with his pheromone power. Also, Mulder displays his competence with maps…

They visit the community, surrender their guns, get invited to dinner, where Scully’s medical help is rejected, and are kicked out pretty quickly. Meanwhile, one of their buddies is out there seducing and killing. Our duo sneak back, where Mulder witnesses a slimy, gender-bendy ceremony and Scully nearly gets seduced by this guy…

Not to hate, but…

You sure are, Mulder!

Mulder stops this madness and they get kicked out yet again while Scully pukes up some pheromones. Meanwhile, that same nightclub stalker goes after a not-yet-Krycek Nicholas Lea, but is stopped just short of killing him with the sex. Between that and some credit card theft, our duo corner our stalker in rapidly shifting form, which Mulder sees, but Scully…

Well, she does nearly get the male version, but The Kindred come and spirit him/her away. When they bring some FBI pals to The Kindred, they find the houses empty and this…

Aliens!

And they were never heard from again. Sometimes I wish Carter would just give us one kind of alien, just to keep things straight.

The next ep gives us more intel into Scully, in that she dated her instructor at Quantico, Agent McDead (for obvious reasons), who asks for her assistance on a case. This ends about as well as any other time Mulder and Scully play with the people outside the basement. McDead lives up to his name, then his body is arisen all Lazarus like (title drop!) and taken over by the bank robber/murderer he was after. He goes missing, kills a guy, acts out. Mulder is eagerly on board with that possession scenario from the start, while Scully thinks Agent McDead is acting on his obsession with the case and his near-death. Mulder even takes Scully to one of his crackpot pals (these two have an endless supply of expert pals), but she is not on board — not even when Mulder presents radically different handwriting on a birthday card for Scully, months early, from a man who shared her birthday.

Also, there are adorable gazes.

Anyway, Agent McDead joins the investigation in order to find his girlfriend and lure Scully off alone to kidnap her in revenge on Scully for tackling said girlfriend…

while barely breaking a sweat

…probably for killing that other him, too. Long story short, the girlfriend betrayed him in the first place and leaves him to die.

But he rebounds and manages to take her with him just before the agents bust in. The most important things are: Scully, while she isn’t on board with Mulder’s theory, doesn’t completely dismiss it by the end, Scully is beaten and handcuffed to a radiator, but still keeps her cool and tries to get through to her ex and have him find his humanity and that this happens:

Season one seems to have a thing for taking turns fleshing out our duo’s past, episode for episode.

It’s Mulder’s turn next, when John Barnett, a supposedly dead killer he tussled with back in the day, starts sending him creepy notes. This guy particularly bugs him because, following FBI protocol, he shot the guy too late to save a fellow agent. Anyway, no one believes him that it’s the same guy but his “death” is sketchy. Turns out he was playing around with a mad scientist whose main kink is reversing the aging process, or keeping people young at heart (title drop? Yes, I know that was terribly belabored. I’m sorry you have to deal with me). Barnett keeps sending those love notes, kills Mulder’s old boss (RIP in this world, too, Dick Anthony Williams), then starts creeping on Scully.

Who can blame him when she makes round glasses look so badass?

The use of “Satanic Chant Version Five Billion” during the scene where Barnett is in Scully’s apartment was distracting as hell and made me a little giggly. Come on, Mark Snow! She’s being quietly stalked, not ritually sacrificed. Anyway, Scully is used as bait, complete with being shot right in the bulletproof vest and, when Barnett tries to kill an innocent bystander, Mulder tosses that protocol out the window and shoots to the tune of “Satanic Chant of Redemption.”

The Department of Mysteries isn’t happy. Apparently, Barnett had stolen some of Mr. Mad Scientist’s research and they wanted him alive to get it. Smoking Man is in the O.R. as they try to revive him and as our agents discuss that research hidden somewhere. “Somehow,” Mulder says, “I feel like we haven’t heard the last from John Barnett.” Jeez! This again? Yes, we have! Stop it, Carter!

Shippiest moments, you ask? Well, there are several, but Mulder proudly introducing Scully, staring at her intently, and winking at dire moments qualify.

There’s also that wordless communication they’ve already started perfecting.

Did I mention the guy had a lizard hand? Because he did.

Anyway, we get back into mythos next. Our duo investigate a UFO crash (or swamp gas if you’re Scully). Mulder reads the area with his… alien hunting playset and finds time and atmosphere anomalies. There’s also a truck driver being held by the police for shooting at something, maybe a UFO. Our duo are suddenly blocked from investigating further, so Mulder takes Scully to meet these three magnificent weirdos…

…which I love. I especially love the moment when Frohike declares Scully hot only to say it more definitively when she starts showing off that brain of hers. Scully thinks none of their conspiracy theories are “remotely plausible.”

She also thinks people who think they’re being bugged and watched have an over-inflated idea of their own importance. Cue Scully finding the bug in her pen (which was very SUBTLY borrowed earlier at a bus station). Mulder signals Deep Throat, who gives him intel on a downed UFO in Iraq, while Scully finds out that truck driver doesn’t add up. Mulder thinks he was transporting the UFO wreckage found in Iraq. When he hints to Scully about Deep Throat, she wonders if his source is the one bugging and blocking them. Also, this…

Mulder wants to follow that truck, but Deep Throat stops by to distract Mulder with a phony photo of UFOs in Georgia, something Scully sees right off. She confronts him about his eagerness to believe his source in a moment I just love.

And, when he cools down and admits she’s right…

“Now we’re alone on this. There’s no one we can trust.”

Mulder chews out Deep Throat, who admits he was trying to divert him, that the truck was carrying an extraterrestrial biological entity, or E.B.E. (title drop!), and that Mulder is still being bugged. He tears his place apart and finds several devices.

They cleverly shake off some shady guys following them and chase that truck, ending in Seattle, where they encounter strange lights and radio interference before they find a hidden room in the trailer that suggests the E.B.E. was there. Mulder initially thinks it’s a UFO rescuing its kind, but he tests the area with his alien hunting playset and it’s all normal. Turns out it was all another distraction. The Department of Mysteries put their A-game into that production, for suresies.

Still, there is some real UFO activity following that truck, according to MUFON and NICAP. Mulder and Scully go back to Washington (not D.C.) and Langley helps them get some fake clearance into a power plant that’s not on the up-and-up. They get caught almost right away and Mulder (of course!) runs off on his own and almost gets to see the E.B.E. (not really, it’s another empty little room), but the guards stop him. Then Deep Throat appears and calls off the guards before monologuing at Mulder about how, back in the day, it was policy to kill aliens. He put one down himself and has always felt conflicted. He says that’s why he leaks stuff to Mulder, hoping he’ll be the one to expose the truth one day. Mulder thinks this could just be more flim-flammery and I don’t blame him.

At any rate, our duo is released and their next adventure is less exhaustingly twisty.

But visually creepy

Scully’s called in for her medical expertise and invites Mulder along for the ride. They’re off to deal with a faith healer whose fans are dying off from… nobody knows because his followers keep blocking autopsies. The Miracle Man (title drop!) in question thinks his gift is corrupted because he’s being punished for all the money his stage dad is raking in and wants to be punished.

He digs those sweet, sweet plagues!

The guy has something, since he’s able to read Mulder pretty easily and cause him to see visions of Samantha everywhere.

Anyway, Miracle Boy is beat to death in prison and it turns out the guy’s first miracle (seen above) has always resented living after being burnt to a crisp and trotted out during Miracle Boy’s tent revivals, so he’s been poisoning those victims, planting locust plagues, like you do. He didn’t kill the guy, though. That was the sheriff. The Jesus imagery is heavy in this one, including a crucifixion-like beating and a resurrection that makes me wonder what Christianity would be like if the tales of Jesus’ rise matched this description:

I’ve come back to make sure you never sleep again.

As for our duo, they flirtily discuss Scully’s taste in movies.

They also discuss her faith and, I might be wrong on this, but I think this is the first sighting of Scully’s tiny cross necklace.

I spent way too much time searching on whether this was the first appearance and findings are inconclusive. If any X-perts out there want to weigh in, please do.

Scully’s already an expert on Mulder’s looks and they seem awfully comfy hanging out in Mulder’s room. There’s also gaaaaazing.

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to stop here so as not to abuse my word count. My Lord, these things certainly eat up the letters! But we’ll get into the rest of season one next week.

Scully’s Journey

“Beyond The Sea” is definitely a damned amazing start to our deeper understanding of Dana Katherine Scully. We knew, from the pilot, that her parents didn’t approve of her joining the FBI over being a traditional MD, but we didn’t know she was conflicted about that choice. Maybe Scully didn’t know until her father passed, that this was something she’d have to make peace with. I think we can all relate. I personally know that feeling, going against your parents’ wishes in your career of choice, being a singer who lives on the opposite coast from her dad. Parents worry, but I’d like to think Scully has come to the same realization I have: they just want us to be happy and sometimes, to them, that translates as safe. I am living gig-to-gig, Scully’s an FBI agent risking her life. Not safe, but fulfilling (and definitely the same thing).

Scully’s faith is another issue that’s briefly touched on starting now, though not explored as it will be in later seasons. Considering she’s a skeptic in all things supernatural, it’s intriguing. Of course, her skepticism is challenged a few times this round, both in “Beyond the Sea” and “Lazarus.” She might try to rationalize the experiences, but you see she’s opening up to other possibilities.

My favorite lady this leg is definitely Eve 7 (or Doctor Bebe). She may have started out a psychotic clone and she may have implanted her clones into unwilling mothers, but I’m… Gosh, this seems like an unjustifiable choice now. Well, she tries to use her super intelligence for good before those little beasts she created unceremoniously spike her Cherry Coke. Maybe I’m just reacting to the injustice of that and the fact that I loooooove Harriet Sansom Harris! Honorable mention goes to Margaret Scully. Though we barely got to know her, it was nice to meet her.

My least favorite has to be Phoebe Green (or Tina McGee, if you prefer). She’s trying to start things back up with Mulder while mackin on a married man. Gosh darn it, my Anglophilia aside, I just don’t like that British chippie! Scully agrees with me. Don’t you, Scully?

Hair check-in

Scully’s hair is definitely settling into that straightened, polished bob we all know so well. As someone who, much like Gillian Anderson, has naturally curl hair prone to fly-aways, I’m jealous of how sleek and shiny they make her look. Of course, my favorite Scully hair is yet to come. We’ll get there.

Ship check-in

Although the gazey gifs were plentiful, I think Mulder has been less outwardly flirty this leg of the season. I think he’s dialed it down due to Scully’s refusal to respond to his extremely unprofessional behavior (while she’s secretly a bit gratified by the attention). Scully definitely displays some dismay over Phoebe Green, though I wouldn’t call it outright jealousy. They’re sorting out how they feel.

Other Notes

It’s been so long since I’ve seen some of these episodes that I’ve honestly forgotten most of the endings. It adds some mystery to the rewatch. I seriously wish (and this applies to many shows and movies) I could completely wipe the entire thing from my mind just to experience it anew, like an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind just for entertainment. I’m probably not the only one.

Next up: Season One (part three)

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All images from The X-Files are property of 20th Century Fox Television and Ten-Thirteen Productions. I can’t even begin to catalog the ways I hunt down gifs, but I get a large number of screencaps here.