any of the people who semi-regularly work with scully and mulder probably have an introductory x files speech ready to go for any newbies

"...and last but not least, take a look at the two agents over there"

"we're all waiting for the day they finally make out at a crime scene, but until then, if you want to keep your sanity, do NOT interact with both of them at once. you WILL be traumatized for life. any questions?"

"...are they. married?"

"fuck if i know, but talk to carl and you can join the betting pool."

# WHOEVER MADE THIS IS GOING TO BE FUCKING TAKEN OUT BY THE GODDAMN KGB

oh so mulder is wearing dana's cross necklace ohhhh okay got it cool. what if i started screaming

i actually can't fucking stand mulder and scully they drive me cuckoo crazy bonkers insane

🫣

if you lose your friend in the woods, is it inappropriate to do the classic Mulder “SCULLAYYYYYY” cry of panic

Mulder's Sport Obsession: a Note

We all know Mulder decorates around his current obsession: an alien mug in the basement, a UFO lamp in his hallway, a painting of a galaxy in his living room--

--gargoyles he threw up on his walls in Grotesque--

--etc., etc.

It just... hadn't occurred to me how obsessed Mulder is with sports. More accurately, how obsessed he is with sports.

The man not only ingested them through a screen, not only fondly remembered them in his childhood, not only tried to take Scully to a football game (perhaps twice) and succeeded with an improv baseball game instead, but also stuffed all his old sports memorabilia into his bedroom (I theorize why in a previous post here)--

--and went the extra mile to purchase and bring home a prominent, unavoidable cueball coat hanger.

As a sidenote: although I can't definitively confirm either way, I'm pretty positive Mulder's hoarded basketball hoop was the one he dragged along into suburbia during Arcadia. A full circle, if that was indeed a remnant from his childhood (discussed in the aforementioned post.)

And if, of course, Morris Fletcher didn't toss out his stuff for good.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

(x)

Guess The Ep (24/04)

NO WAY IN HELL DID MULDER JUST WALK IN ON SCULLY ABOUT TO KISS FAKE-MULDER I'M GOING TO TURN INTO A WEREWOLF

The Sympathizer Review: Park Chan-wook Reframes The Vietnam War With Duality and Duplicity - That Shelf

Other supporting characters are equally terrific. The always wonderful Sandra Oh delivers again as a university secretary who is frustrated by her boss’ racism and unearned authority. But it’s David Duchovny who stands out with a scary-hilarious turn as a psychotic actor whose method acting goes terribly wrong in a film that can only be described as Apocalypse Now meets Last Tango In Paris.

i'm being forced to read moby-dick, so i think its only right that i get to come on here and talk about it in relation to the x-files. the first order of business i want to bring up is the curious relationship first shared between the characters ahab and starbuck. after ahab announces to the whole crew that his motivations for this three year whale voyage is so he can find and defeat moby-dick, starbuck is a little perturbed. later, to himself, he muses, "my soul is more than matched; she's overmanned; and by a madman!…but [ahab] drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! i think i see his impious end; but feel that i must help him to it." starbuck is seemingly possessed by ahab's mission, though he can't entirely understand it and doesn't readily want to dedicate himself and all the ship to it. like dana scully, our life-long starbuck, we see starbuck become enraptured in a quest that is not entirely his own for a purpose he cannot express.

later still, we get an insight into ahab's thoughts on starbuck. melville writes, "starbuck's body and starkbuck's coerced will were ahab's, so long as ahab kept his magnet at starbuck's brain; still he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his captain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself from it, or even frustrate it." in episode one, dana scully and fox mulder share this relationship: she is presented to him as someone who could, if she'd like, effectively destroy him and his mission. he understands the importance of psychology and--dare i say it--manipulation the way ahab understands it with starbuck here. in order to continue his mission, ahab and mulder both know they must capture and hold the interest of their starbuck, lest their starbuck turn against them. while their white whales make sense to an ardent few, ahab and mulder know that it is starbuck alone who will make or break them. and starbuck, beyond all reason or doubt, commits.

It’s been a few days since I’ve watched “Irresistible” and I’ve been trying to figure out what to say about it since, because there’s so much. This is, of course, entirely Scully’s episode, and what really stands out to me are two things: the way she protects herself by demanding too much of herself, and the way she’s working on figuring out her role in her professional relationship and friendship with Mulder.

She struggles hard with this case right from the beginning. It gets to her in a way we have never seen before; she’s visibly affected by what they’re dealing with. It’s obvious in the graveyard already, and then in the field office later, she has to put the file down and leave the room after looking at the pictures. When Mulder tells her he will cancel their flights out you can see the nausea on her face. We get a glimpse into what’s going on inside her in her voice over when she’s writing her report: “It is somehow easier to believe, as Agent Bocks does, in aliens and UFOs, than in the kind of cold blooded inhuman monster who could prey on the living to scavenge from the dead.” She is horrified. But of course she keeps going. She knows dealing with gruesome things is part of the job. In a rare show of vulnerability, she hangs back a moment when they find the dead prostitute. She tells Mulder she needs a minute. Mulder looks surprised, concerned, but doesn’t comment on it. Scully turns away from the scene, looking sick and at the same time like she has no idea what’s happening to her. Of course she does the autopsy. Scully does her job. Even though it’s clear from her expression and her voice in the voice over how shaken she is. She goes on later to call the murder angry and dehumanizing . . . It’s getting to her more than we’ve ever seen before.

Being Scully, she looks for a strategy to continue on with their investigation without having to admit that – and taking the body back to Washington where she will have the better equipment is a really good excuse, and one that a different partner might have simply accepted at face value. GA does an excellent job here (as always), making Scully sound like she’s really just doing what’s best for their investigation, rational and pragmatic as always, but with the subtle hints of her struggle still noticeable in her face and in her voice. Any partner who didn’t know her as well might miss it. But Mulder knows her, which is exactly what she’s afraid of, and most likely also a reason she wants to leave. He can’t see her struggling over this.

Mulder’s reaction is such an important moment in the episode and in their relationship. Of course he knows there is more going on, and he’s so gentle with her, giving her a way out that is completely sincere, and utterly respectful. “I think it's a good idea. I just don't want you to think you have to hide anything from me, Scully. I've seen agents with twenty years in the field fall apart on cases like this.” His voice is soft, but that’s as much because this is just how they talk with each other as it is because he doesn’t want anyone else to hear. And he’s basically telling her that having a hard time with this is nothing to be ashamed of, it happens to literally anyone. He won’t think any differently of her if she has to withdraw from this. And that she can talk to him. He lets her know that they’re partners, but not just work partners. They’re friends. It’s a reminder that she can trust him, that he’s there for her if she needs him. The way she looks at him when he says that is telling: she knows that he knows. And I think she knows his concern is genuine and she knows she doesn’t have to hide this from him. And then her “I'm fine, Mulder. I can handle it.” She’s close to breaking there, but she leaves and he lets her, and this is where we have to talk about Mulder for a second.

Mulder knows she’s struggling hard with this. He can see it. He would understand if she couldn’t do it, he tells her as much. He knows she’s lying when she says she’s okay. We know how much he cares about her and how much he wants to protect her. But she says she’s fine, she says she can do it. She wants to go to Washington and continue working on the case from there. Whatever he may think, however many doubts he may have about her emotional well-being here, he knows it’s not his job to decide how she handles this. He offers his support, and if she needs him he will be there, but he has way too much respect for her to push her on this and request that she step back. She makes her own decisions. I want to talk about this because I’ve been thinking about her brother in the cancer arc, who blames Mulder for everything that happened to Scully, as if she’s nothing but a blind follower with no agency. A sidekick. A woman who lets a man direct her life choices. And that contrast seems to me like a good way to examine Mulder’s behavior here: He doesn’t think of her that way. Never. Scully is there because she wants to be and she can decide that for herself. He worries about her. He feels guilty for the things that happen to her all throughout the show all the way into the revival. But he never once robs her of her agency. I think this is important because it’s a core element of their relationship. Look at how women still get treated in the workplace these days. Look at how women still are seen as the weaker than men. Mulder never does that to her. She is his equal. I firmly believe, and this is a hill I will die on, that he would have given the same out and offered the same support to a male partner. End of digression.

We see Scully talking to a councilor back in Washington, and this comes back to what I said above about Scully protecting herself by demanding too much of herself: Being asked why she’s talking about herself in the second person, she guesses it’s another way of detaching herself from it. She says she knows it’s her job to protect people from predators. “And I've counted on that fact to give me faith in my ability to do what I do. I want that faith back. I need it back.” Scully believes in the work, it’s more important to her than anything. She can’t fail. She says about Mulder: “I know it sounds crazy, but I don't want him to know how much this is bothering me. I don't want him to think he has to protect me.” She has walls built up around her as we all do, she presents a certain picture of herself to the world, and she needs that firmly in place for a million reasons. It protects her. She’s still relatively new to this work, she’s a woman in a strongly male-dominated field, and working on the x files they’re always under special scrutiny anyway, they can’t slip up. Pushing beyond her limits seems absolutely necessary to her. She has to prove that she can do it. Self-care is not on her agenda. She shares that with Mulder. Soldiering on despite the absolute horror she feels and the way this case is making her physically sick is the only way she knows how to protect herself from showing any cracks in her armor. Because she knows, she one hundred percent knows that if she shows any weakness, she will never live it down. I think that is something very relatable and something that’s as relevant today as it was in the 90s.

Briefly touching on what this means in terms of her relationship with Mulder, because that is an important part of the episode and season 2 in general: I don’t believe she thinks it would change his opinion of her. I think she knows he respects her too much. But she can’t even take the tiniest chance that’s she’s wrong about that. His approval and his respect are important to her. Being seen as his equal is important to her. She wants him to know that he can rely on her and she won’t break under pressure. She still thinks she needs to prove herself. If he can do it, then she will too. At the same time, yes, she knows that he knows. And a part of why she doesn’t want him to know is that she wants to protect him too. She must know what he did when she was abducted, all the rules he broke to get her back. So she is well aware of the lengths he’d go to for her. The last thing she wants to do is give him any more reason to worry. She wants to protect both of them.

The exchange between them on the phone when she decides to go join him again in Minneapolis is the closest we get to a resolution of this emotional arc between the two of them in this episode:

Mulder: “Are you staying on there, Scully?”

Scully: “No. I'm coming back tonight.”

Mulder: “Look, Scully. I know this is a pretty horrific case -”

Scully: “I'm okay with it, Mulder. You can use my help.”

Mulder: “Always!”

She sounds so much better after getting some distance, after talking to the councilor. She is not okay. But she understands herself a little better. “You can use my help,” there is almost a teasing note in there. Mulder’s “Always!” is so sincere, a reassurance that he believes her she’s ready to come back.

Everything that happens with Pfaster . . . good god. She’s only just back from one abduction and then that. It’s really hard to watch. Equally hard to watch is Mulder’s worry. That has to give him some flashbacks. Of course it’s a hunch of his that lets them find her, and just in time too. And we get an emotional reunion that we didn’t truly get after the abduction. Scully insists she’s fine, but this time she can’t keep the walls in place – who could, in her situation?? You know how in fanfiction people let out the breath they hadn’t even known they were holding after an emotional situation is resolved? That’s Scully finally allowing herself to cry. She doesn’t want to, but sometimes holding the feelings in is worse than breaking in front of someone. Mulder’s face in that hug doesn’t show the relief that might have been expected, and I like DD’s acting choice there. He looks almost worried. It makes sense to me; she’s alive and has all her fingers, but this has really taken it out of her. And after everything she’s been through too. There isn’t any real emotional release for them at the end of this episode, and after the horror of it, I think leaving them shaken up and very much Not Okay is exactly the right thing to do.

It’s a hard episode to watch, but one Scully needed in season 2.

Hank challenge Stella into a game of pool.

Hank: “Winner takes all.”

Stella: “You’re on.”

Guess The Ep (21/04)