The X-Files: Scully’s Journey (Season 7)
Yes, I’m back. After my big giant rant, I am still coming back to finish what I started in the (possibly vain) hopes that Carter will give us a good, cohesive, coherent Season 11. I last finished these grueling, season-long recaps with Season 6. I did want to recap all of the series before season 10, but the combination of these being very hard and Season 10 being awful, that left me full of rage-quit. I promised, though, that I would come back once Season 11 was on the horizon and they ONLY JUST announced it would be coming back January 3rd. WTF, Carter? Give a girl more notice!
Incidentally, if anyone is just joining this party and wants to brush up before the new season, I still stand by my Officially Unofficial X-Files Cheat Sheet, where I tell you what episodes to bother with to suit your different needs, whether you want to see just the good stuff, just the character arc stuff, ride the good ship MSR, or if you want to watch all the mythos arc to see the very clear plan Carter has been flawlessly executing all along and definitely not pulling out of his rectum.
Anyway, I last left off with season 6, so let’s travel back in time. It’s 1999 and the millennium is nearly upon us! People actually think computers going up a year will rend the fabric of society somehow because computers can’t count past 1999 or something.
To be fair, people are always looking for the thing that will destroy the world and, I suppose, make their lives more interesting. I have a family member (he knows who he is) who once got super excited and survivalist about a meteor or some such other object from spaaaaace that was totally going to hit the earth and wipe out California last year. The government was hiding the evidence to save themselves and decrease the surplus population (note: this person listens to Alex Jones). He urged me to get to a mountain somehow before that date to escape the monster waves while excitedly outlining his own disaster plans. What I’m saying is… I guess some of us almost enjoy the idea of the world’s end, but always with the idea that we are the heroes escaping against all odds, never the poor saps left to rot.
But the former was kind of what I expected back in the bygone X-Files days of 1999. We would have a front row seat to Mulder and Scully as they fought the alien invasion that was surely coming with the conspiracy wiped out. Our beloved duo would take us through a balls-out war against our alien overlords in the hopes we would all survive. Instead, we were all left to rot and fester and wither and dream of what could have been.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In a nutshell…
So there’s something I forgot to address last season. At one point, Scully asks Mulder, with the conspiracy gone and all, what does he hope to find? He says, “My sister.”
You know, I would add something more to that — maybe incontrovertible, scientific proof of the existence of extraterrestrials that cannot be brushed away, maybe a way to fight the coming invasion, maybe the FBI taking the X-Files and its journeys into the unexplained more seriously. These are all still obstacles and even huge, glaring problems that stand in their way. You would think, with the conspiracy gone and an entire season to explore them, just one of these things would be addressed. None of them were. Even Samantha was only… But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
So, we last left off with Mulder suffering from sudden onset brainitis of the brain and Scully gazing upon a ship embedded in the African coast, covered in the writings of every major religion. Perhaps this season will explore that or reveal to us that aliens have been our gods this entire time...
No. It won’t. We need to stop thinking the mythology will tie things together. We just need to stop waiting for things to make sense or we’re never going to get through this.
So our season opener (The Sixth Extinction) has Scully spending all her time in Africa, making rubbings and getting attacked by biblical plagues like locusts and blood red seas, also by a crazed scientists. She does finally escape home to see Mulder and tell him that she’s found things, pieces to puzzles and they will figure them out together (spoiler: they won’t. They will barely even talk about it).
Meanwhile, Mulder descends further into crazy town, even though Skinner and Kritschgau (remember him?) had been injecting him with chemicals to keep him lucid. They find he’s kind of psychic before he goes comatose again. Gosh, I wonder how his psychic abilities will impact the rest of the season as he uses this new…
No, I’m kidding. None of this will come into play later. NONE! But let’s go into part two anyway.
Mulder spends the entire episode in an extended fantasyland, where he’s neighbors with Old Smoky, Deep Throat and Samantha, and married to Fowley, imagining a life where he sets aside his quest for truth and just accepts suburbia and blind contentment, with side dreams of a tiny Mulderish kid building spaceships in the sand.
It’s all really, really pointless and doesn’t include Scully until the very end and is, hence, a waste of our time. Except that Mulderless alien-infested future looks pretty cool.
Also, all that temptation looks pretty wrong.
I mean, Fowley appears all in red and looks creepy as hell. I hate the idea that Mulder’s “Last Temptation of Mulder” involves barely any Scully. I mean, just try to know your audience, Show! At this point, the people banking on a good story are gone and all you have left is the shippers! Why are you having Mulder make out with Fowley? Does anyone want this?
Meanwhile, in “reality,” Scully confronts Kritschgau and Fowley…
Oh, but there’s more.
*Sigh* Almost makes this episode worth my time. Well, that and the last scene. First, we have to suffer through more of the so-called plot. Scully also finds time to pray with Albert Hosteen’s spirit, appearing to her in corporeal form (RIP, Hosteen). Old Smoky and Fowley are trying to take bits of Mulder’s brain to help Smoky survive the coming alien… whatever the hell they’re going to do that’s coming whenever the hell they’re going to do it. Mulder’s fantasy land goes awry and dream!Scully snaps him out of it. Real Scully finds Mulder with a tip from Fowley.
I mean, Fowley is killed for her betrayal (offscreen), but I am having such trouble caring about that. Maybe if I’d seen her speak to Scully, give her that keycard, decide to be less of an Old Smoky stooge on screen, I’d care more. But Fowley has never been written well enough for me to consider her death a tragedy. More a relief. RIP, though, I guess.
Anyway, our duo escape Mulder’s crucifixion lab and the show hits the reset button. The following exchange almost makes it worth it…
But only almost.
As I said, the show has hit the reset button and our duo are back to investigating like none of the above ever happened. Their first case back, they aren’t even the stars of the episode. The villain is. But you know what? Hungry has aged well for me.
I remember being annoyed with it when it aired, probably annoyance carried over from the above. But it’s a good idea, exploring an episode from the villain’s perspective, an MOTW that tries to be better than his nature would allow. I’m not saying it’s perfectly executed or anything. I’m just saying it was innovative for its time and shows that have tried similar approaches since (a few episodes of Buffy and Angel come to mind) owe a lot to it.
Then we have Millennium. If not for that last scene, this episode would be remembered as one of the worst attempts, both at bringing another show’s universe into The X-Files and at bringing closure to a show that ended abruptly. If you didn’t watch Chris Carter’s Millenium (and I assume you didn’t as it didn’t succeed), it ended without closure. This episode attempts to bring it home with our duo teaming up with the hero of the above show to stop a very rinky-dink zombie apocalypse. I would trash the whole thing as just an all-around failure of an episode, but then…
Our duo have now touched lips! Also, we have in-show confirmation that the world didn’t end as a result…
See?
The next episodes (some of which we’ll be going into in the top tens) are an exercise in flirtation. You just know they’re exploring other ways of not ending the world in their free time. Just look at them!
I mean, we’ve got Mulder grinning like a fool when he sees her and Scully playing with his tie and wheedling with an adorable pout!
Look at how smiley and giggly these two are!
Rush is an okay episode and The Goldberg Variation is a much better episode, which we’ll be getting into in the top tens. Either way, both are very light-hearted in terms of how our flirty duo interact.
Of course, then we descend into angst land, when we and Scully (especially Scully) meet with Donnie Pfaster again. Here’s the thing. It’s not bad. It’s just tone deaf to what made Donnie Pfaster terrifying in the first place. Donnie Pfaster is a fetishist serial killer and those exist. His first episode was a reminder that we don’t need to look to the paranormal to be scared out of our gourds. There are monsters to battle here. The demonic imagery in the first episode was something I just put down to Scully’s state of mind. In this episode — an otherwise well-done take involving a preacher, Reverend Orison (title drop!) who uses hypnosis on prisoners, then releases, tests, and ultimately executes killers if they prove they’ll kill again — they make that demonic imagery explicit and it diminishes the episode. So does the “Don’t Look Any Further” story Scully tells, which seems kind of shoved in, though it tries to tie it all together.
I don’t know. I guess I just wish they’d played this episode more straight. One of the best things about Irresistible was the lack of paranormal phenomena. Once again, this show misreads its audience. Enjoy Pusher because he is pure evil and ego? Make him all remorseful now while his sister is killing everyone! Enjoy Donnie Pfaster for being a monster who truly exists? Morph him into a demon — for real this time! At least the show never ruined Tooms (though the actor certainly did, marrying that teenager and all).
At least Scully had a lot more drive in her struggle to survive this time. It was a harrowing scene. Also, on a ship level, that last scene is confirmation that Scully is going to stay at Mulder’s place like that’s no big deal. I’m just saying. Wouldn’t that be a bigger deal if they weren’t in some kind of relationship limbo?
Next, much like Goldberg, we have another clever and light outing (The Amazing Maleeni), where our duo squares off against a pair of magicians. It’s cute and twisty and I’ll surely be talking about it more in the top tens. In the meantime, enjoy some adorableness…
Next, we have Signs and Wonders, which starts off interesting and then gets hopelessly confusing as to what we are supposed to take away. If I were the kind of person to get my moral compass from only TV lessons, I would be very confused. We have a cultish, snake charming church juxtaposed with an inclusive, modern church. But it turns out the more polite, less judgmental church is run by the snake!devil and the creepy cult is A-OK? I mean, I get it. Super TWISTY! But in the real world, the version of religion that doesn’t shun and judge and cut themselves off from the world is the one less likely to commit mass suicide. So… just work on your messages, Show!
And then comes Sein Und Zeit, which is basically just a long and drawn out set up for Closure. It’s just Mulder torture in the form of missing girls and his mother offing herself. Yeah. Remember her? She’s that person the show would have him wake up in the middle of the night to look for vacuum cleaners or answer weird questions. Well, now she’s killed herself because she had a sudden fatal disease, much like Mulder’s sudden brainitis of the brain. And it’s so obviously pulled out of someone’s ass that not even Gillian and David acting the hell out of it makes it better…
…though they try.
You know, Closure could make for an interesting and creepy MOTW, much in the vein of Paper Hearts, if you can take away what it led to. But you can’t. And you can’t try to tell me differently. I know it’s well done and poignant and has all kind of good qualities and maybe it would be remembered fondly if it weren’t for one thing: It was a cheat. And it screwed both Mulder and all of us viewers royally.
Not even all the MSR bonding helps. I loathe Closure. Remember Mulder’s sister? The tragedy that defined his life? Remember how she was dangled like the sweetest, shiniest carrot by Old Smoky, by those clones, by countless others? Oh, she’s been dead the whole time. “What a great twist,” said nobody ever. And if anyone did say it, they deserve to be slapped with a rancid fish just so they could get the tiniest inkling of what this episode was like for someone like me.
Well, it’s a good thing Mulder is at peace, because I’m certainly not! And the worst part is that all the glowing, dead starlight kids would be fine if this were an episode about parents learning to let go of their lost children, if you remove Samantha. I’d have even cried for them. But all I can feel with this being Samantha’s ending is cheated. Because you cannot and will never convince me that this was the plan. Throughout all the clones and Megan Leitch trying her damnedest to play a conflicted Samantha in Redux II and the general feeling of “I’m sorry, Mario, the princess is in another castle” that defined this quest, you don’t just tell us she’s been dead for over twenty years, Carter. There was no way, back in seasons 2–5, even moments in season 6, when you were dangling Samantha in front of Mulder, when you had Old Smoky tease him over and over, that you planned to have her dead all along.
It’s an asspull. It’s a retcon. That’s what pisses me off, Carter. You had years to come up with an answer to why Samantha was so elusive and you decided there was no answer. It was all clones and lying and a wizard did it. Or starlight did it. WTFever. I hate you right now, Carter, even years later. It’s a damned good thing X-Cops came along right after or I’d have been done with you.
As much as I get tired of the reset button on this show, this episode just letting our duo get back to chasing monsters worked for me. I guess I just needed it to remind me that the base of the show is just Twilight Zone with two pretty investigators. Why did I expect more? Can’t I just be happy that I get these awesome characters exploring the weird and unexplained for my amusement? I need to stop expecting sense out of this show and just enjoy the ride.
That ride would be much easier without the mythos and my silly expectations of it tying together or being coherent. I just need to let go and enjoy Scully hiding from and hating on reality show camera crews. Because that is delightful.
She’s even better when she hides her vitriol.
I’ll get into this episode more in the top tens, obviously, since it pretty much saved the show for me. The next episode, though it had those ace-in-the-hole Gunmen and Constance Zimmer (OMG, watch UnReal!), fared worse on rewatch. Though it had its cute moments.
Just try to tell me they aren’t in some kind of relationship with Scully running that kind of extremely casual male-gaze interference. I dare you!
You know Mulder is going to try to get Scully to wear this again later in their (totally happening) boudoir activities. Possibly unsuccessfully.
We get a much better outing next, also an Emmy Winner for Best Makeup. Theef has all the right ingredients: a creepily good actor playing our hexing hillbilly (Billy Drago), writings in blood, carvings in skin, odd diseases, eerie little burlap dolls and, of course, our duo continuing to flirt outrageously.
I’ll go into the gushing more below. Basically, this hillbilly decides a doctor is responsible for his daughter’s death because he made her “comfortable,” as they say, with morphine after a tragic accident, thinking she couldn’t be saved. So Hillbilly decides to murder his whole family and then him. Look, that’s all well and good until he tries to blind our Scully with one of his dolls! I kid, I kid (mostly). See, Scully is trying to protect the doc and his daughter and Hillbilly is not having that. He blinds her then stabs the doc’s doll, while the doc tries to convince him he’s doing all this to escape his own guilt. Luckily, Mulder comes to join the watch and happens upon the Scully doll outside and takes the needles from its eyes, leaving Scully free to shoot our baddie into a coma.
In the end, Scully (having experienced blindness from all that Hillbilly magic) wonders if the man could have saved his daughter if given the chance, which is a point in her believer column. Speaking of points, I give Mulder a half of a rescue point for de-blinding Scully, leaving our running rescue tally at 18/12.5.
Next, we have one of the better episodes of the season. I mean, it does have mythos ties, but it at least doesn’t muddy the waters too badly, taking the question back to cancer and healing and those things our alien friends can supposedly help us with. Unfortunately, these things are in the hands of this guy...
A Christian Scientist boy has terminal cancer and people are protesting his parents refusing to have him treated with medicine. But it’s all moot when the bright lights come and Scully is mysteriously delivered a paper saying the kid was miraculously healed by angels “I just gotta know if it was Roma Downey or Della Reese,” Mulder quips (heh. But also RIP, Della, since you’ve been mentioned). Mulder has been tipped off on the same story. “Someone wants us on this case.”
Mulder checks his sources while Scully travels to meet the family, finding that the boy has a scar like hers on the back of his neck, then also finding Old Smoky stinking up her rental car. Good luck getting that deposit back now. He says he’s dying and wants to cure as many people as possible before the end. He wants to give Scully the cure, but only Scully. Her empathy wins out over her suspicion. Mostly. She tracks him down at his new office and he tells her, if she wants this cure, they’ll need to take a road trip.
She fibs to Mulder and takes off with Smoky, who actually agrees not to smoke in the car. He also tries to win her with his words, telling her how he had power over her, how he’s studied her for years, how he totally gets her and Mulder.
He takes her to see one of his cured patients, takes her to dinner, tells her he can cure all human disease, practically ruins his work so far by changing her to pajamas at one point, for which she suspects drugging.
“How do you take your coffee?”
“Unadulterated.”
Heh. Yeah. Smoky and the cameraman perv on her a lot.
Scully has one foot out of this scenario the whole time, wearing a wire and recording tapes for Mulder, leaving coded messages for Mulder with Skinner.
Mulder hasn’t bought her little fib from the start. He’s been chatting up her landlord, her mother (!!!), Skinner, and the Gunmen. He finds that Smoky or one of his goons has been posing as Scully and emailing someone named Cobra. Scully is sent in a boat to rendezvous with Cobra and get a disk — or is it just to give Old Smoky’s goon a clear shot at him? It is. RIP, Cobra. And the guy almost shoots Scully but for Smoky shooting him. Scully doesn’t know this and, though she berates Smoky for putting her and this man in danger, she gives him the disk, but he says it’s for her. Back at Casa Mulder with the Gunmen, it’s pretty tense.
Especially when they find the disk is empty and so are Old Smoky’s offices. Our duo debate about how much of Smoky’s ruse was on the level while Smoky tosses what we can assume is the real disk in a river.
Then we’re back to our duo chasing monsters… except not together. Well, they start out together, but Scully is left staking out a prostitute killer while Mulder is sent off to Vermont to investigate a missing WASP woman. I’d be all butthurt about them being split up, but they do keep in touch.
Basically, there are creepy doings and a creature that looks like Samara from The Ring and The Babadook had a giant, naked baby and mirrors break and ravens lurk just everywhere. It’s better than it sounds. WASP Woman 1 is found dead with claw marks on her face. Everyone seems to want to blame the local wrong-side-of-the-tracks soccer mom, but she’s not summoning murderous entities, just sleeping with married men. But the sheriff is an even bigger slut, turns out he’s been running around with all kinds of women and his wife, unable to grant him a divorce or handle her jealousy, has summoned this creepy entity. Look, I can barely concentrate on all that when this happens.
Anyway, Chimera is a good episode. Not a great one, but a good one and I kind of needed it to get through the next. Don’t get me wrong. All Things did some excellent things for my ship. I mean, noromos can say what they want, but between the beginning and the ending, I think the status of Mulder and Scully’s relationship was sealed firmly in the “doing it” category. I mean, there is room to disagree, but the episode ends with this…
And the next morning seems to go like this…
These things are not in sync with time, but it’s an even bigger old mess in the middle. Apparently, Scully had an affair with a mentor some time ago and he was more into it than she was to the point that it broke up his family. She didn’t know all this, but she decides to see him when it seems he’s dying and goes on this journey to find Buddhist healers to help him accompanied by a Moby-esque soundtrack. In the end, he’s healed and she thinks that makes up for what she unwittingly did to his family. He thinks it means a second chance for them, but Scully rejects his offer to get together again and… Look, it’s not a good episode for many reasons. I think it’s out of character for Scully (both on the sudden leap to faith-healing and the spotty past). Gillian Anderson wrote and directed it and I think she was trying to push something of herself onto Scully that just didn’t mesh. You’re free to disagree, but most critics and viewers weren’t into it. I mean, us shippers were all…
… but only about the first and last scenes. Our squee had nothing to do with the meat of the episode, which turned out to be under-cooked tofu. Sadly, it gets no better on the next outing on an episode which is, I assume, supposed to tell us about the dangers of smoking. Is it about lung cancer? No. Emphysema? No. Really? How about COPD?
No. None of those. Not even hyper-fictionalized versions of those. This is about tiny bugs in your lungs killing you because of the greed of Morley (TM), putting out smokes with unhatched eggs mixed into their tobacco. Look, smoking is terrible for you and no good can come of it. Full disclosure, I am an on/off smoker who grew up in a family of smokers. Yes, I know it’s terrible, but give me a family funeral or one of my many relatives on a dramatic voicemail rampage and there I am: smoking away my stress.
What I’m saying is that I am a member of the target audience for this episode and it is not effective in the least. Look, the war on drugs was a failure, the commercials are now punchlines or memes. You cannot shame people into stopping something like this. They know it’s wrong. They know it’s bad for them. They don’t need to be told. What they need is strong positive incentive to stop and grossing them out with bugs is too far-fetched to work. I will also put out there that I think aversion doesn’t work at all. Dear creative types, please think less Brand X (title drop!) and more Rat Park.
For this to be the basis of an episode was weak as hell and, on an XF rewatch, I’d recommend a skip on this one. But I will say that Tobin Bell as our smoky-voiced villain does a good job, despite the material, and our duo did still manage to be cute when Mulder was all sick and puppyish…
Hollywood A.D. fares much better on rewatch. It’s not an amazing episode in and of itself, but its willingness to embrace silliness makes me happy.
But it gets better…
It’s just so cute! The actual plot involves artifacts, both real and fake, that ends in a murder/suicide of a bishop and a counter-culture figure who thinks he is Jesus reincarnated. It’s kind of a mess and not worth recapping. But the rest of it is F.U.N.
See, I’m trying to separate myself from the idea of X-files+sense=ship. I am perfectly fine with just accepting a silly, fun ride when I get it. I mean, we have a feature film where Tea Leoni (Duchovny’s then-wife) getting lessons from Scully on running in heels (and why not? Who does it better?) where Garry Shandling is playing Mulder and Skinner is a consultant. Also, do you see our duo here? They are just too adorable for words!
To comfort themselves when they can’t stand the on-screen interpretation of themselves, they go off with an FBI credit card and matching goofy grins. If All Things hadn’t cemented their status, this would have hammered it in. There is also a Hollywood zombie tango, but I can’t find gifs for that because everyone is too obsessed with our duo having bubble baths (with Skinner!) and M&S flirting outrageously!
I really hoped you liked that episode, like a lot, because you are going to need that good will to get you through this next. It’s bad. It’s famously bad. Then again, watching Fight Club (why would you name your terrible episode after a good movie? It only makes it look worse!) after all these years might do it favors. Maybe it’s not such a piece of shhh….
Nope. Nevermind. I mean, there’s doppelgangers (Including Kathy Griffin — not a point in the episode’s favor, for me. YMMV, but I find her only mildly funny as a comic and severely lacking as an actress) who cause fighting and mayhem if they’re within a certain amount of feet of each other. But not just any mayhem —supposedly HILARIOUS mayhem. I guess we’re supposed to find this ham-fisted crap funny, but it’s just a waste of our time and patience. Not even our duo being adorable in their first scene can save it.
I will forever wish for an alternate universe where XF did a creepy, disturbing doppelganger story. I mean, this is one of their last chances to deal with mythical phenomena before everything changes forever and they wasted it. And no, not even our duo goofily grinning and gazing at each other comes close to saving it.
I mean, we JUST had a goofy episode. Usually, X-Files is better about balancing the serious and the silly. Are we seriously looking at two silly eps in a row and next… Oh, FFS! A genie episode now? Where are the monsters, the ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go “bump” in the… Oh, wait, this episode doesn’t suck, you guys!
This episode is awesome! The only criticism I have for Je Souhaite is timing. If we take away the fact that it came in a three-episode-run of hijinks and hilarity (dubious for Fight Club), it’s excellent! Here’s the gist: two very... let’s call them under-educated brothers break into a storage locker and find an old rug containing a genie (in her case, a french woman cursed when she tried to utilize a genie in the past). They have wreaked havoc with their careless wishes, leaving a boss with no mouth, which is how our duo first find them…
These brothers keep screwing up their wishes, leaving one dead and invisible, to Scully’s delight, finally finding an X-File with solid evidence…
… only for it to be snatched away later, when the other idiot brother summons his zombified, yellow corpse back from the dead. Eventually, we end up with the genie in Mulder’s possession. He has three wishes and he tries to find that perfect formula. He tries for peace on Earth first…
Spoiler: peace on Earth just means no one’s home and that includes Scully, so he has no choice but the waste a wish on un-wishing. In the end, though Mulder tries to draft a perfect, altruistic wish. The one that works is the one that breaks the cycle and sets the genie free to drink lattes and live her life, leaving Mulder free to hang out with Scully at the end of a long day…
Absorb those smiles, kids, because they’re about to disappear. “What? An X-Files finale that makes me sad? They are usually such happy affairs,” you say. And, truth be told, you are not saying that at all. Because XF finales are evil cliffhangers and we all know it. But I can’t help feeling like this one is especially evil, especially hard to take. It set off two seasons where the show we came to know and love was just… gone. Love it or hate it, season 8/9 was not the same show. You could call it a reboot or reimagining (that’s the lingo right now), but you can’t call it the same show. I’ve been dreading this episode. It’s the monster at the end of this book even if it’s well done, poignant, and manages to take people we’ve met only once and make them into nostalgic figures, it’s still the end of an era.
They say that good shows, mindful shows, in the finale, take it back, full circle, to the pilot. If so, The X-Files knows what it’s doing with Requiem.
Remember Bellefleur, Oregon? Strange things are happening in the forest again — an air crash, a fire, loss of power near the site, shape-shifting Alien Bounty Hunters (ah, the good old days!). Back in DC, Mulder and Scully are facing a more heinous threat: auditing. Apparently, the X-files is an expensive endeavor and the special effects, not to mention Mulder’s Armani suits, are just bankrupting the FBI!
In a discussion that gets a little meta, the agent auditing them points out that Mulder’s reason for starting The X-Files (the conspiracy and Samantha’s abduction) has been investigated fully and resolved.
Scully also tries to justify the X-Files expenses and reminds us of her own suffering (cancer and being barren). Mulder and Scully both try to tell the auditor they need to be in the field, not just surfing the net. Meanwhile, somewhere in Tunisia, Marita Covarubytuesdays breaks Krycek out of jail at the request of Old Smoky, who is dying.
Smoky doesn’t look too hot when Krycek and Marita get an audience, but he insists this new crash in Oregon will help them recapture the glory days or something (still so meta!). In Bellefleur, The Alien Bounty Hunter seems to be doing double duty as Deputy Miles and one of his officers. Billy Miles (a vegetable in the Pilot) calls Mulder and Scully about the strange doings. They snark about wasting FBI money before they, of course, go there.
Our duo meet Billy and the Alien Bounty Hunter wearing his dad, who’s trying to cover up the crash. But our duo investigate the site and find some weird stuff: the site being familiar, bullet casings in trees. When they investigate the missing deputy’s wife, they find she was Theresa Nemman (!!!) and her missing husband was also an abductee. She leaves her baby with Scully for a sec and we get this…
Later, Scully goes to Mulder’s room — not for the reasons we want, but because she feels dizzy and chilled. She doesn’t want a doctor, just wants get warm and, with almost no preamble, slips under Mulder’s blankets. He, with no fanfare, cuddles and kisses her and, I’m just saying, this would be bigger deal if they were just friends.
After looking at Scully and that baby, knowing all she’s lost, Mulder wants Scully to go home. He thinks the FBI audit is right, “but for all the wrong reasons. Maybe it’s the personal costs that are too high.”
He can’t watch her suffer anymore because… Look, I don’t even know why I’m trying to sell “M&S=LOVE” so hard now. We all know it. We all know the reveal that is coming at the end of season 8 and, even if the show tries to play it coy, we all know that Scully and Mulder have done something to the point where the reveal that is coming could be the result of the natural way of things just as much as from alien interference. If there are newbies reading and I’ve spoiled it for you, then… you’re welcome. I can’t even pretend you aren’t happy at the thought of our duo extending their love and trust to the bedroom because I have to believe you love them well enough by now that you can’t imagine them with anyone else. But I digress…
Please ignore me and my shipping. It means nothing!
Anyway, Krycek and Old Smoky, who looks to be at death’s door by now, talk about M&S being there, searching for the missing deputy, as meaning something big. He later tells Marita that the ship is the answer to all things. Neither of us (her or me: the audience) are fooled by now. There is no answer when, by now, it’s obvious that Chris Carter is pulling “all things” out of his ass as needed to keep the drama going. I hate to say it so baldly here, but aren’t we all thinking it? I, personally, have been thinking it since Closure. The mythos means nothing now and the only thing I care about in this finale is Mulder and Scully as characters and as a couple. Hell, these deleted scenes give us more insight than the episode does…
Anyway, Theresa’s missing husband comes back — well, the ABH is wearing him, at least. She tries to fight him off, but he drags her away from her baby. Our duo investigate the site and, later, the woods with a witness. Scully, who has been light-headed as well, falls behind and is suddenly lifted off the ground as she seizes in the air. When Mulder finds her, he thinks she is being gathered with the others. Meanwhile, Billy and his father/ABH confront each other and Billy falls for the ruse. Both disappear by the time our duo come looking for them.
Our duo end up back in DC with all their witnesses missing now. Mulder is griping to Skinner, who tells him it doesn’t matter what he finds or doesn’t when certain people have it in for him. Cue Krycek (who Skinner stops Mulder from killing) and Marita to confirm that, also that Old Smoky is dying and wants to contact that ship to restart the Department of Mysteries but good. Krycek says that the ship is in Oregon, cloaked in an energy field and that ABH is playing dress-up and eliminating abductees. Scully and The Gunmen join in (yay!), trying to figure out how they can find the UFO. Mulder wants Scully out of this, since she’ll be hoovered up as well.
She sends Skinner with Mulder and looks over medical records, finding all the abductees suffered the same brainitis that Mulder had, meaning he’s the one in danger. She faints. Kind of wish she’d made a call first. I also kind of wish Carter hadn’t pulled this brainitis business out of his… I’ll stop now. But there’s no stopping this train, not when Duchovny wants a break. Mulder shows off his newest alien hunting playset to Skinner. This one has lasers! Lasers that seem to bend in mid-air. Looks like we found the ship and Mulder, of course, as in whenever he sees something strange, puts his hand in it. He gets sucked in while Skinner calls for him outside the forcefield. It’s actually strangely poignant, seeing him walk into the crowd of abductees — who are all staring at him, resigned and sad — experiencing something he’s only studied and never seen, before a powerless Skinner watches the ship take off.
Back in DC, Marita Covarootcanal (going to miss playing with her name) and Krycek inform Old Smoky he has failed, then make quick, unceremonious work of him, wheeling him down the stairs to his “death.” Meanwhile, Scully and Skinner mourn over Mulder’s abduction and Skinner promises they will find him. Scully says they have to because…
Top Ten…
10. Closure — Yes, I whined and whined about what it did to the mythos. But it is a well done episode. It deserved to be on the list, which shows you how hit-or-miss this season was. With time and distance, I can give it credit for direction, script, and subject.
9. Sein Und Zeit —The X-Files has always done well with child-abduction stories, giving them the gravity and urgency they need, so these do deserve praise. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded these episodes if, like Paper Hearts, they were just another “I’m sorry, Mulder, the Princess is in another castle.” But I have to admit, they make a good X-file even if they tick me off.
8. Hollywood, A.D. — It’s silly, but I like how playful it is. It’s nice to see our duo and Skinner (Oh, Skinner!) let loose even if the X-file itself was underwhelming.
7. En Ami — God, Old Smoky is creepy in this. But he’s also compelling and, after the years of back and forth between him and Mulder, it’s nice to see him interact with Scully.
6. The Amazing Maleeni — I know this episode received mixed reviews at the time, but I found it very engaging on rewatch.
5. Theef — I’m going to go out on a limb (though not by much) and say this was the only scary episode in a season of hijinks. It was almost like a season 4 ep, good and creepy, but with bonus Mulder/Scully flirtation.
4. Requiem — Yes, it took Mulder away, but it’s a damned good finale. I gushed about it above, so I won’t subject you to more here.
3. The Goldberg Variation — Just a clever, fun little outing for our duo. Good guest cast, a sweet, quirky energy, and great chemistry between our flirty duo.
2. Je Souhaite — Same as above, just amped up. Very funny, very weird, and definitely made better by the terrible episode that came before (If I was doing a worst list, Fight Club would be number one with a bullet).
1. X-Cops — I don’t know if this would be everyone’s number one, but it is mine. I have rewatched it more than any other episode this season and, for me, that’s a measure of greatness — whether something can keep me interested even after multiple viewings. It has sweet moments, creepy moments and, obviously, hilarious moments. I also love how creative it is, showing Mulder and Scully through a different lens. Usually, Mulder is the MVP in funny episodes, but this time it was all about Scully and her undisguised hatred for the cameras that win the episode. Just a good time and a great “cross-over.”
Scully’s Journey…
I think, despite how uneven this season has been, it did push Scully further along from skeptic to believer than ever before. She ended season 6 a bit more open to finding evidence and moves to entertaining Mulder’s theories even while countering them and being meticulous about capturing evidence when she does find it. She’s, on the whole, more open to unexplained phenomena as a possibility. As a duo, without the conspiracy or Fowley creating tension between them after the season openers, Scully and Mulder seem to be working more efficiently. If this had been the final season, I would have been content with this being where they ended up before the cliffhanger — just partners and possibly more with balance. Obviously, things are going in a different direction now. As for the ending, I can’t help but join Scully in her dual feelings of sadness, joy, and terror. Her inability to have children has haunted her for a long time, but I don’t think she ever wanted it this way: alone and unsure of just what she’s carrying. The next season will keep both her and us in suspense about that.
Hair Check-in…
I have no complaints. Scully’s hair, whether shorter or longer, was styled very well — sleek, classy, professional and perhaps the best it’s looked since Fight the Future. Enjoy it for now, because The Scully will start to disappear slowly next season and beyond. Not that it’s terrible, but it’s not The Scully. Then again, we won’t be watching the same show from here on out, so I guess it fits. Mulder, however, is still dealing with a weed-whacked mess and it’s only going to get worse in the rare occasions we will see him.
Ship Check-in…
So I know some shippers think the secret sex was on from beginning to end in this season, but I think it started some time between Millenium and First Person Shooter. Every episode between our duo are either flirting or otherwise demonstrative in ways never seen before and, considering how casual Scully is leaving Mulder in bed in All Things, I just can’t help thinking it happened before that. Sure, they stay in separate rooms still, but those are work-related trips and we see more of them hanging out casually or staying the night together in times of trouble. This is a relationship and you can’t tell me differently!
Other notes…
I’m just going to say it right now: I was along for the ride at the time, but I am not a fan of the Smoking Man being Mulder’s biological father. It hasn’t added much to the story except some peripheral angst. It’s not talked over with any kind of depth. And there’s no way you can tell me this was in the cards at the start. I think Chris Carter has great ideas, but they are constantly ruined by his much worse ideas along the way. Mulder’s personal tragedy being Samantha’s abduction? Very poignant and wonderful idea. 500 Samantha clones to torture Mulder along the way only to lead to a dead end? Stupid and pointless. There’s no way this was the plan all along.
Now, sometimes his retcons and asspulls work. Old Smoky started out as an extra. He was elevated and it turned out to be a great move. But I’m starting to think that that is the sum of Chris Carter’s genius. It’s a combination of great premises, and “hey, I think this would be cool,” and things just worked out or they didn’t.
That being said, The X-Files did work out longer than most. But that’s not all on the strength of Carter and his great idea. That was on the strength of the characters and actors, performance carrying the day over bad plotting, writers giving us innovative episodes whenever we got a (now blessedly welcome!) mythos break. But the enthusiasm was worn thin by the end of season 7, I think. With FOX not wanting to kill their cash cow, the show went on past the time it should have resolved its mythos.
I could possibly forgive it going on with less Duchovny. I could even forgive it trying out this premise with other performers — even though Scully without Mulder works as well as Mulder without Scully (as in barely to not at all). But I can’t forgive the mythos having no end in sight, even now. But let’s save some of that angst for season 8 and beyond…
Up Next: Season 8
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