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cecilysass · 23 hours

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The Penultimate Partner Episode: Analyzing the Second-to-Last Episodes of Seasons 3-7

So I was thinking about the show’s tendency to do an episode that is explicitly about the Partnership—about the deep abiding bonds between Mulder and Scully—right before the season finale.

This doesn’t seem to happen in season 1 and 2 (the penultimate episodes are Roland and Our Town, respectively, which don’t seem to play the same role). And something different is happening in season 8 and 9, so I don't think they fit as well.

But during the show’s peak popularity, seasons 3-7, the second-to-last episode seems to be setting up baseline emotional stakes for whatever plotline is about to hit. These episodes are giving us the state of the partnership, reminding us how devoted they are to one another. They also tend to have to do with one or both partners having a distorted perception on reality that requires the other partner's intervention in some way. I’m calling them the Penultimate Partner episodes.

So can we look at the themes of each of these Partnership episodes and see development over time? I think yes. It’s gonna be long. I rewatched them all, so buckle up.

Season 3: Wetwired - partnership as trust Season 4: Demons - partnership as loyalty Season 5: Folie a Deux - partnership as shared madness Season 6: Field Trip - partnership as touchstones Season 7: Je Souhaite - partnership as happiness

Season 3: Wetwired (right before Talitha Cumi)

This episode, like several in the Penultimate Partner episode category, involves a X-file that distorts perception. Because Scully can’t trust her own senses due to the mind control, she also can’t trust Mulder, calling into question the key tenet of their partnership. (And by season three, they have definitely established trust as the bedrock.)

Her gradual mistrust of Mulder in this episode is tense and painful; you can see on her face how much she argues with herself about it even as her mind is tricking her. Others who fall victim to this mind control phenomenon wind up murdering their romantic partner, but in the end of the episode, when they’re discussing what happened in the hospital, they both seem pretty unsurprised that Scully’s paranoia focused on Mulder. They both know, late season three, how crucial trust is between them. They understand that it’s Scully’s worst fear that Mulder would betray her. It’s not even news to them.

What Mulder’s worst fear might be is also hinted at, although it’s unsaid. He’s furious that her life is put at risk by the mysterious informant. When Mulder believes Scully may be dead and he’s going to identify her body, his reaction is chilling. He seems to completely shut down emotionally, not even showing any reaction to the Gunmen. Tellingly, when he is offered a choice between getting answers and going to ID Scully’s body, he doesn’t hesitate—he chooses Scully. (Sometimes people claim Mulder doesn’t show this kind of commitment to her until much later, even until Home Again in season 10, so it’s interesting to see it so unequivocal here.)

I want to say that Scully’s anxiety about trusting Mulder in this episode is foreshadowing aspects of the cancer arc in the next season, but I don’t think that’s really what’s happening. This episode seems more like an entirely season 3 cap to the Anasazi / Blessing Way / Paperclip storyline, especially the murder of Melissa. Scully’s paranoia calls back Mulder’s in Anasazi, and Scully explicitly blames Mulder for her sister’s murder when she’s drawn a gun on him. Even just the fact that we're there with Maggie, who has a picture of Melissa displayed prominently, tells me that loss is supposed to be on both partners' minds. (Actually, the interaction between Mulder, Scully and Maggie is pretty amazing in this scene; they’re an emotionally complex trio who seem to be communicating on some other level. I love how when Mulder and Maggie are talking to freaked-out Scully they almost sound strangely unreal, almost like they really are speaking falsely. It allows us to imagine the scene as it looks from Scully’s point-of-view, as a massive betrayal.)

Wetwired is, technically, a mytharc episode, as this whole mind control thing seems to tie back into X and the Syndicate. Personally I think the episode’s ending, emphasizing the mytharc-related plot and X’s involvement and whatever tf was happening there, was a little misguided. For my tastes they would have done better to play up the more personal, character-based themes a little more. But I also think this episode was the first real Penultimate Partner episode, and it was setting some patterns that were going to be expanded on.

Season 4: Demons (before Gethsemane)

From the cold open, we can already tell this is already a more personal episode than Wetwired. Mulder is the one having perception problems now; he wakes from a disturbing dream, covered in blood, muddled memory. This is also technically a mytharc episode, but much more concerned with direct impact on character than Wetwired was.

Scully instantly rushes to Mulder’s aid—walks right into his shower, for heaven’s sake—and absolutely never wavers in loyalty to him, even when he looks real, real guilty and a "rational" person would be suspicious. She is in fierce, must-protect-Mulder mode throughout this entire episode, from the moment she shows up palpating his head with her hands to her back-off behavior with the cops to her badass cold “I know what you do” comment to Dr. Goldstein. She also helps Mulder see through his distorted perception, telling him "this is not the way to the truth" as he holds a gun on her.

In this Penultimate Partner episode, we see something more than simple trust going on, although there’s trust, too. Maybe the word is loyalty or devotion. We see Mulder coming apart and Scully completely and utterly devoted to him. It’s actually very clear foreshadowing for the following week’s episode, Gethsemane. Mulder isn’t stable, and he needs Scully to keep him from “los[ing] his course,” as she says in Demons’ end narration. Gethsemane will follow up on the Mulder losing-his-course idea, and also will explore the idea that Scully’s bottomless support of Mulder isn’t always good for her. (This idea is voiced especially by Bill.)

There are some ways in which this episode is a neat little bookend to Wetwired. In Wetwired, Scully flees to her mother’s house, desperate and paranoid; in Demons, Mulder, similarly unhinged, seeks out his mother at her house. In Wetwired, Scully sees things that aren’t there, and in Demons, it’s definitely implied that Mulder may be seeing things in his past that weren’t actually there. In Wetwired, Scully pulls a gun on Mulder, and in Demons, Mulder pulls one on Scully.

I adore this episode, even though it’s definitely vulnerable to the critique that Mulder acts like a self-obsessed loon and Scully a hopeless enabler lol. Especially because it comes before the Gethsemane / Redux three parter, I wish the episode would have explicitly connected his behavior to the cancer arc, as I feel like that would have made his wild choices seem more understandable. If he felt like he needed to find answers faster because he knew Scully’s time was running out and he saw it all tied together with her fate, then we would get why he was acting so rashly. It would also tie more nicely into Gethsemane, which misleads the audience into thinking Mulder has killed himself, in part, because he believes she’s been given cancer to make him believe. But again, I love this episode. Scully showing up and putting that blanket around Mulder when he’s shaking. Her hugging him at the end when he’s desolate on the floor. This shows a partnership that’s been through Paper Hearts and Memento Mori—that’s moved beyond trust alone.

Season 5: Folie a Deux (before The End)

This is another episode about perception—about one partner seeing things the other can’t. Unlike in Wetwired or Demons, however, in this episode the altered perception actually represents the real truth, something everyone else fails to understand. The episode plays around with the tropes of earlier episodes like Wetwired, at first encouraging us to think that it's a delusion that Pincus is a monster, but then convincing us, through Mulder’s eyes, that the delusion is actually reality.

As other people have observed, this episode ends up being a nice little metaphor for the whole show: Mulder knowing what no one else does, being ostracized and considered insane, asking Scully to find evidence to corroborate him and ultimately convincing her to believe him and see what he sees. Their partnership is, quite precisely, a madness shared by two.

It’s a monster of the week, not a mytharc, so there’s no distraction of elaborate mytharc plot, just characters and monster. And this is a Vince Gilligan operation, so our focus is definitely on character. From the first scene with Mulder and Scully, we sense that we’re going to be talking about the partnership. Skinner gives them an assignment in Chicago that Mulder doesn’t think is worth it, and he complains in a particularly self-centered way to Scully, which she observes (“You’re saying I a lot.”) The episode is going to be very explicit that while Mulder might be monster boy, they are in this unhinged partnership situation together. Another important moment comes later, when Scully is calling the perp crazy for thinking he saw a monster, and Mulder says, “Well, I saw it, too.” Scully’s careful about-face after that, her delicate avoidance of implying she thinks Mulder is actually crazy, is part of the dance they’re doing at this late season five stage of their partnership. She doesn’t quite believe him, but she doesn’t knee-jerk not believe him either.

And the foreshadowing of what’s to come in this one, whoo boy. Most obviously, we must acknowledge that 1013 knew exactly what they were doing when Mulder tells Scully “you’re my one in five billion.” A mere seven days from now, a mysterious beautiful ex who believes his theories is going to show up to immediately cast doubt on that claim. And this episode is also toying with the question of whether Scully actually does always back Mulder up when it’s important, when she has to accept she saw something illogical. At the end, does she tell Skinner she actually saw a giant bug in Mulder’s hospital room? We don’t know, but I think it’s implied she doesn’t. That’s all presaging what will happen in The Beginning coming off of Fight the Future. It’s Scully’s little way of resisting the madness, but it also hurts Mulder and damages the partnership, which will be a problem in season six.

Season 6: Field Trip (before Biogenesis)

Full disclosure: this is my favorite episode. So I’m going to make some big claims about it. This is the ultimate Penultimate Partner episode—the one that best knits together what it wants to say about their partnership and what it wants to establish for the finale. It's a monster-of-the-week episode (another Vince Gilligan ep, with John Shiban) but refers to the mytharc often. It’s also one of the best episodes about their partnership, period.

This is yet another episode about distorted perception. This time, however, under the influence of a giant mushroom, both partners are unable to perceive clearly, to determine what is real and what is a lie. And when they’re confused, they critically turn to one another to help them see what the truth is.

Coming off of season six, the partnership is rocky. Mulder is frustrated that after so many theories of his have borne out, he still can’t get the benefit of the doubt from Scully, something he explicitly says in the dialogue here. Scully has felt like she’s not been trusted or heard, like Mulder has turned to others (Diana Fowley, for example) rather than his partner.

This is an episode about how they absolutely need one another to be able to make sense of the world—that individually each of their points-of-view are not enough. In Mulder’s hallucination, Scully accepts his claims about alien life forms too completely, not applying enough skepticism, not pushing back against him. In Scully’s hallucination, a world without Mulder, everyone is unacceptably unquestioning of the status quo, refusing to dig deeper, lacking Mulder’s critical acumen and drive. Neither partner likes the feeling of being unopposed, and it makes both of them suspicious about the hallucination’s reality. They may think they want their own view to prevail, but they need one another to be a whole person.

The theme of what’s real and what’s not – and needing one another to discern the truth–is exactly what is picked up and developed further in the Biogenesis-Sixth Extinction-Amor Fati arc that follows this. Scully’s skepticism has to stretch to incorporate more of Mulder’s worldview to make sense of what she sees in the Ivory Coast, and of course, Mulder calls on Scully’s worldview to see through his misleading dream world in Amor Fati. In fact, you could argue Field Trip is really about the idea that Mulder and Scully are one another’s touchstones—the people they need to know what’s right and real.

Incidentally, this episode also plays around with some of season 6’s other subtextual throughlines: Mulder and Scully’s anxieties about possibly entering a non-platonic relationship, their unease about what a normal, domestic life might even be for them. For the entire episode they’re directly compared and juxtaposed with the Schiffs, a young married couple who died on Brown Mountain. The Schiffs are a tall man and a redheaded woman. They even die hallucinating lying together on a hotel bed after she asked him to “hold her” (although I do seriously doubt 1013 was intentionally foreshadowing a full year ahead). The last shot is of Mulder reaching out to take Scully’s hand across the ambulance, suggesting a kind of partnership beyond just, you know, partnership. Which takes us to the next season.

Season 7: Je Souhaite (before Requiem)

Truthfully, I don’t think this episode fits quite as well in the Penultimate Partner category. It doesn’t share some of the same traits as these other episodes—it’s not quite as notably about perception, for instance—and it’s not fundamentally about the partnership in the same way. But it does end up commenting on their partnership (even their relationship, really) as part of its theme, so I think we can include it—especially because its position right before Requiem ends up being important.

Je Souhaite (btw, written and directed by Vince Gilligan) has a bit of an unsettled feeling to it because it was kind of treading water, waiting to see what happened with DD and the series. Nothing too monumental could happen with the partnership or the plot because it wasn’t clear to anyone what would happen next with the show: whether it would end or continue, whether DD would be involved or not.

So we have a story about Mulder and Scully making peace with not having a significant impact on the world—e.g. not bringing about world peace, not introducing invisible bodies to science. Instead, they are content to delightfully share a beer and comment that they have made one another “pretty happy” (as Scully says about Mulder). Through the jinni character, they seem to take the lesson that they can enjoy being with one another, accept the simple happiness that their relationship brings them. Rather than wish for success that comes too easily, they take joy in the little things with one another.

Comparing this episode to the Penultimate Partner episodes that come before, we can really see how Mulder and Scully’s dynamic has evolved by season seven. We have a Scully who is much more open to supernatural phenomena, for example, and whose skepticism seems more like a reflex or a defense mechanism now. Scully’s move towards belief is partially reflected in the plot of the episode: the X-file here really isn’t even science fiction. It is just straight up fantasy or magical realism. Aside from Scully's brief mention of a disease to explain what happened to the mouthless man in the cold open, no plausible scientific explanation for the jinni's long life or wishes is really even floated.

Scully is delighted by the discovery of the invisible body, and Mulder is visibly delighted by her delight. He’s also frustrated by her retreat into doubt when the body disappears, of course. But even the reversal into her old skepticism is half-hearted, as she soon after she's engaging in discussion with Mulder about what his final wish was. This is consistent with the overall blurring of the old hardline believer-skeptic dynamic we see in season 7. It’s also peeking ahead to Scully’s coming role as resident basement believer in season 8.

The last scene, with the beers and Caddyshack, is meant to be a callback to djinni Jenn’s comment that she wishes she could “live my life moment by moment... enjoying it for what it is instead of... instead of worrying about what it isn't.” Mulder, we see, is taking a cue from her. (And good for him, as we almost never see these characters do this. Except on rare baseball-related occasions.)

However, this episode’s position right before Requiem—and right before the events of season 8—ends up giving this scene a real bittersweet bite. We know, after Requiem, that they were probably a romantic couple at this time. We know, after Requiem, that this time is going to be their last happy time together for a long while. Later in season 8, we learn that one lingering wish of Scully’s in season 7 is that she wanted to conceive a child with Mulder. And of course we know, after Requiem, that she gets her wish—but with a vicious catch, with a terrible side effect, much like what happens with the jinni’s wishes.

So that’s my academic thesis on that. I know others have pointed out the existence of this type of episode before. What did I miss? Do you think I am wrong to leave out seasons 1, 2, 8, and 9? Why do we think these episodes focus so much on distorted perception? Interested to hear others’ thoughts (if they make it through this lol).

#the x files #x files meta #penultimate partner episodes #wetwired #x files #demons #season 3 x files #season 4 x files #folie à deux #season 5 X files #field trip #season 6 x files #je souhaite #season 7 x files #mulder and scully #fox mulder #dana scully #MSR

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reasonsforhope · 4 months

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[Warning: Graphic (some very graphic) shark-fishing pictures at the link.]

"Suhardi isn’t your average snorkeling guide. Born on the Indonesian island of Lombok, he’s spent his life on water. While he now seeks out sharks for the enjoyment of tourists, he once hunted sharks to help earn money to feed his family and educate his two children.

Suhardi was a fisherman for more than 20 years. He first started fishing working on his parents’ boat, but was then asked to join the crew of a shark boat where he was told he could earn a lot of money. Back on deck, he looks embarrassed to divulge what a meager wage it was, but finally confesses he earned around $50 for up to a month at sea.

Now he and 12 other former shark fishermen are part of The Dorsal Effect, an ecotourism company that helps ex-shark hunters find a new vocation. Each week, the team takes groups of tourists, schoolchildren and university students to off-the-grid locations and guides them around pristine reefs. Each trip is designed to take guests on an exploratory journey of both the shark trade and marine conservation through the eyes of the Sasak people of Lombok.

Lombok is a hotspot for marine diversity, sitting just east of the Wallace Line, a biogeographical boundary separating Asia and Australia and their respective fauna. Pristine coral gardens and around 80 species of sharks can be found in its waters. The island is also part of the world’s largest shark-fishing nation. Only the whale shark (Rhincondon typus) is protected in Indonesia; all other sharks can be legally caught.

The Dorsal Effect first launched in 2013, a year after Suhardi met Singaporean ecologist Kathy Xu, who had traveled to Lombok to find out more about the shark trade. The diminutive but quietly determined Xu wanted to protect sharks, but because she knew shark fishing was poorly paid and dangerous, she wanted to hear the fishermen’s stories too. They told her how once they could fish for sharks close to shore, but now with the shark population dropping, the fishermen said they needed to travel farther out to sea, only to come home with a relatively poor catch. The reduced catch also meant reduced pay, so they often couldn’t cover their costs...

Yet, when Xu asked why fishers didn’t seek out another trade, she learned they didn’t want to be separated from the sea. They saw it as part of their heritage.

But as they spoke longer, the shark fishermen talked about the coral gardens that could be found under the waves, ones that only they knew about. Inspired by a whale shark diving trip she’d taken with scientists on the Great Barrier Reef, Xu had an idea. “If such spots exist,” she recalls telling the fishers, “I could take tourists out with you and pay you more than you earned shark fishing”.

At first, Xu guided the former shark fishermen on how to become eco-friendly tour operators. They dropped anchor away from the reef, served guests plant-based dishes, and made sure all trash was taken back to shore. But then Xu saw that something special was happening: The former fishermen had started to take the guest experience into their own hands, making sure tourists felt at home. Suhardi painted “Welcome” in large letters over the front of his boat, fitted green baize to the top deck for outdoor seating, and hung curtains in the cabin so his guests could enjoy some shade.

Suhardi has already bought a new boat with his earnings from snorkeling trips. “Every day is my best day,” laughs Suhardi, whose smile always travels from his mouth to his eyes.

While they were receiving tourists from across the globe, there was another group that Xu wanted to reach out to. “I think it was the teacher in me who felt impassioned about influencing the young,” she says. She reached out to schools and created a five-day program that would help students understand the shark trade and local conservation efforts. During the program, paid for by the school and students, participants would not only meet the ex-shark fishermen so they could ask them about their lives, but also hear from NGOs such as the Wildlife Conservation Society about their efforts to slow the trade. The Dorsal Effect also hired marine biologists to host nightly lectures and help the students with their field surveys...

The students were faced with the realities of the fishing trade, but they were also encouraged to take a balanced view by The Dorsal Effect team. The villagers weren’t just taking the fins, and throwing away the rest of the shark; they processed every piece of the animal. While they did sell the meat and fins to buyers at the market, they also sold the teeth to jewelers, and the remains for pet food.

The Dorsal Effect also takes students on an excursion to the fishermen’s village, a small island that lies off the coast of Lombok. Marine biologist Bryan Ng Sai Lin, who was hired by The Dorsal Effect team, says that on one trip with students he was surprised by how quickly the young people understood the situation. “One of them said it’s good to think about conservation, but at the same time these people don’t really have any other choice,” Lin says....

Conservation scientist Hollie Booth of Save Our Seas, which does not work directly with The Dorsal Effect, says the need to provide legal profitable alternatives to shark fishing is critical: “We are never going to solve biodiversity and environment issues unless we think about incentives and take local people’s needs into account. These kinds of programs are really important.”"

-via Mongabay, December 15, 2023

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one-time-i-dreamt · 3 months

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My whole high school went on a Disney cruise as a field trip. The Disney ride makers had made large scale versions of Disney boat rides made for the cruises to go on. Needless to say it was disastrous when the cruise full of 3000+ high school age kids was sent through the scaled up version of Splash Mountain. Also, every room on the cruise was normal except for mine, which was just the bathroom from saw 1.

#dream #high school #school #disney #cruise #field trip #boat #ride #splash mountain

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bakedbakermom · 2 months

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txf +txt posts (11/?)

#the couples therapy one is killing me #like i was giggling the entire time i was making it #txf #txf gifset #txfedit #txf edit #txf + text posts #liwl makes a gif #pilot #ebe #field trip #max #the red and the black #bad blood #txf s1 #txf s2 #txf s4 #txf s5 #txf s6

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sun-e-chips · 1 year

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@bamsara ‘s teacher Sun taking the kiddos on a field trip!

I was feeling very nostalgic of museum field trip days

#I know Sun would be an amazing chaperone/tour guide #teacher sun #solar lunacy #solar lunacy fanart #sb daycare attendant #sb sundrop #sb sun #sundrop #fnaf sundrop #daycare attendant art #daycare attendant #crunch art #field trip

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norclop · 1 year

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I'm sorry, but why have we stopped the field trips to the ghost zone tropes? I mean Peter Parker gets to go to Stark tower at least twice a week and we can't chug Danny into the infinite realms at least one a month?

And if it's because there are too many copies of the same story with slight variations, then spice it up. The realms hold an infinite amount of possibilities, hence the name.

Throw in some Amity Park is weird. Do the whole thing from the perspective of a visiting friend or relative that is just so scared and confused because this place is creepy and traumatizing and Danny's class is greeting ghosts like old friends and going around like they've been there before and surrounded by this big toxic green ocean, they look less human.

Do it like a normal field trip, but with some ghostliness. Take the class to clockworks tower or the different dead cultures for a history lesson, invite them to the beach and make it ghostly, take them to the zoo and show us every mythical creature the zone has collected over the years.

Do it with a crossover, make Danny's ghost parents stand there the whole trip and let it change the trope, what about a teachers perspective? And if it's retold to a parent after the fact how would that parent react?

There's a million things to explored that we haven't even touched upon. What are we doing wrong? Why are we wasting all this potential?

#danny phantom #field trip #field trip to the ghost zone #the ghost zone #the infinite realms #why does spiderman get to keep his field trip trope and we don't?

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ourrechte-blog · 2 months

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A Funny Take on Field Trips

You've seen this. Danny goes on a field trip and his parents are leading it. Now here's the humorous take

The Fenton parents have noticed how Danny's grades have been slipping, his chores being left undone, his lack of sleep because of ghosts. So being the loving parents they are…

Jack: Danny, pack your bags, you're going on a field trip! Danny: Considering you're having me pack and there's no notice from the school, this sounds more like a forced vacation Jack: A FIELD TRIP! Danny: Fine, were are we going? Jack: Capsule Corp! Danny: … never heard of it Jack: Of course you haven't, it's in another universe!

#danny phantom #good parents jack and maddie #danny fenton #jack fenton #field trip #a funny take

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precedex-files · 3 months

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“I abducted him. It's a gray. It speaks to me. We communicate telepathically. He told me everything.”

#the x files #x files #fox mulder #dana scully #field trip #Mulder’s excitement in this scene brings me such joy

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aloysiavirgata · 3 months

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After Field Trip:

Mulder writes this on a legal pad during a budget meeting. He passes it to Scully who glares and then smirks a little.

#field trip

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randomfoggytiger · 9 months

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All IVF Roads Lead Away from The Unnatural and to Millennium

After spending too much time batting back and forth various IVF theories (post here for the hall-of-fame-ers), I'd settled on early Season Six because of the factored-in procedure requirements.

And then a discussion with @welsharcher and @agent-troi made me reevaluate everything... and I realized, with dawning horror, that the facts concluded upon not only upended what I believed about Per Manum's time crunch but also pushed back Mulder and Scully's dating timeline from The Unnatural to Millennium.

What Canon Presents as Facts

Per Manum was a patch-on episode; and there are a few restrictions it imposes on the flashbacks with Mulder and Scully.

The IVF arc must take place after the episode Emily because that is when Scully learns her infertility was caused by medical experiments robbing her of her ova.

In Per Manum, Scully is awkward about asking Mulder for her request.

When the IVF fails, both are not stingy with their hugs-- never have been-- but Scully stops herself from fully kissing Mulder, instead placing it tentatively on his cheek.

The greater implications of points #2 and #3

Point 2: Scully's awkwardness in these flashbacks is absent from her behavior all through S7, especially after Millennium. From then on out, she flirts and pulls Mulder's tie (Rush), makes cracks about going home and making all things right with the world (The Goldberg Variation), shares a personal, traumatic story from her childhood and is unfazed that Mulder collects her and her things to go (Orison), takes it for granted that Mulder would want her to spend the night and advocate for him (Sein und Zeit), is openly jealous of his attention (Rush, First Person Shooter), keeps him guessing (Theef), denies CSM's pop psychology but not his claims about her love (En Ami), and pouts openly while calling Mulder (Chimera.) (See post here for flirty gifs (collected from @settle-down-frohike.)

Point 3: Scully's miss-kiss is how we know this precedes Amor Fati: then, she passionately and unhesitatingly gives Mulder's bandaged head a kiss after his dream recitation; but in Per Manum, though both are tender and grieving, there is still a hesitancy in her behavior. That hesitancy is born from Scully's insecurity in Mulder's life post The Beginning, after her hallway forehead blessing was replaced by his frustration at her refusal to believe. She and Mulder were in sync in S6, and she knew he loved her... but where was she in the order of importance? Still under the Truth? (It's a question she is still asking in S8's Essence.) Amor Fati was the turning point in their relationship: Mulder finally showed his partner that any better life, any better ending paled in comparison to the chaotic and brutal and beautiful one they shared together.

The Requirements for IVF (specifically the FET Timeline)

There would have had to have been a lot of downtime for Mulder and Scully to attempt IVF and continue a pregnancy.

Flying while pregnant, in the 90s and now, is not unsafe; but frequent flyers are heavily discouraged from taking as many trips because of possible health concerns (blood pressure, early risks, radiation, etc.) with mother and fetus-- particularly in the first and third trimester-- and even more so if the mother has a preexisting condition or previously challenging medical concern. Not only that, but the demands required for the IVF process would have put a further strain on travel.

Scully's ova were collected and stored (and recovered) frozen, meaning she would have had to use the FET method for her IVF cycles. Frozen Embryo Transfer takes up to 32 days from start to finish (starting the count from Day 3 of a woman's period up to the day she takes a pregnancy test); and Scully would likely have had to use the medicated FET method rather than the natural one, which is not a difference in timeline so much as convenience. Not only does the medicated FET method require additional supplementation, but the changes from estrogen and progesterone to embryo transfer-- in other words, forward progress-- hinge on how successfully the lining of the uterus thickens: if it's slow, the process drags on longer; if it's unsuccessful, the process starts from scratch. And despite all these measures, the "success rate of an untested frozen embryo transfer can go as low as 20-30%, decreasing with increasing maternal age." Hence, its failure.

The only times The X-Files had enough downtime to meet these stringent requirements were twice, and both in S6: the grounding under Kersh's disciplinary thumb and the unaccounted-for months between The Unnatural (April) and Biogenesis (September.)

The Clincher: A Purposefully Placed Family Planning Book

While the mind melding events of Biogenesis-Amor Fati are unfolding, Scully scours the office before jet-setting off to Africa. In the background is a clear glimpse of a blue family planning book amidst Mulder's various piles that he uses to feather the nest (grabbed from @dreamingofscully's post here~.)

Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, the writing team, and the actors knew David Duchovny was leaving the show after the finale of S7; and they planned for the miracle baby early on in the season. (For any lingering doubts about William's paternity, see here for Frank's own words on the subject.) Because of that, the gang split up and left some clues: not just the family planning book mentioned above, but also David and Gillian's decision to act as if Mulder and Scully were dating off-screen post Millennium and the writers request to incorporate William's conception into All Things. Because of those decisions, fertile (heh) ground was sown for anyone willing to look back and fill in the gaps... which they did in Per Manum; and which I do now.

The family planning book serves as the definitive timeline marker for Scully and Mulder's IVF journey. If they had attempted IVF early S6, then the book would have shown up with Mulder's things when he "feathered the nest" post One Son. If he and Scully had attempted IVF after Millennium or any time S7, it would have made an appearance then. But it doesn't: it only appears on the end of season six after Mulder and Scully have grown closer, when an IVF success or failure makes him clarify that it won't "come between us." When there is more that is between them but not technically enough for them to do this journey as a couple (yet.)

It also bookends the conclusion of the IVF arc: by joining Mulder's stash, the book has become another totem of his life in the vein of Samantha's picture, the cloth hearts, and Karin Berquist's "I Want to Believe" poster (and even Queequeg's collar and Scully's keychain.) It'll be packed away out of sight once he gets the cleaning bug or Scully asks him to; but, until then, it haunts the basement with the ghost of its lost potential.

Why IVF, Why Now, Why The Unnatural?

As mentioned above, there is a pocket of downtime post The Unnatural's April and Biogenesis-Amor Fati's September (thank you to @dreamingofscully for pointing that out in this post), with only one legitimate case in-between.

(With that in mind, The Lone Gunmen's ask of Scully is doubly stupid since they asked her to fly out to Las Vegas in Mulder's name sometime during her IVF process and triply stupid because Scully-- who likely went against medical precautions-- was drugged.)

But why did Scully seek a second opinion after The Unnatural?

Because Mulder's baseball date and uplifted banter reawakened that dream in her: "What you may find as you're concentrating on hitting that little ball, the rest of the world just fades away. All your nagging concerns, the ticking of your biological clock, how you probably couldn't afford that nice new coat on a g-woman's salary, how you threw away a promising career in medicine to hunt aliens with a... crackpot, albeit brilliant, partner." Because Mulder signaled that he was noticing her, her new suede coat, her ticking biological clock... and that those were important to him.

So, Scully went in for another checkup, to seek hope for both of them.

The Timeline: A Culmination

The Unnatural-- Mulder, for the first time in their partnership, turns away from the heart of the mystery to gaze at the mystery of his heart; and Scully is giggly and hopeful (having pressed hints about "a normal life" over and over since early S6.) For the first time he mentions something between them that is personal beyond near kisses and love confessions: he brings up her habits, her coats, and her fertility, showing her that he sees her. And after that night, Scully gets another checkup with her doctor and kicks off Per Manum.

Per Manum, the elevator-- Scully runs into Mulder after her appointment, depressed and down with more negative results. Seeing how devastated this fresh reminder is (despite the episode's very clunky reiteration of her infertility-- which both she and Mulder already know about and know each other knows about), he admits to having her ova on ice. Scully is both hurt he'd kept this information from her for over two years and desperately hopeful-- again-- that there is another last chance.

Per Manum, the clinic-- Doctor Parenti tells Scully there is a "good chance" that she can get pregnant if they get started right away. She's barreling onward, not thinking two steps ahead of her (noted here in some deleted lines-- thanks to @dunhamhairograpy) except for the fact that she has to ask Mulder for his participation.

Per Manum, "The answer is yes"-- "I don't want this to come between us" is pivotal. Yes, it could refer to their recent peace over Mulder's noncommunication; but that seems to have been swept aside by both of them in their heady anticipation. So, it has to refer to their personal relationship, one which just blossomed beyond loving partners into partners focused more on each other than the Truth. Mulder can't let go completely until his Closure; but he'll explore living a variation of normal with Scully post The Unnatural's moral lesson and Amor Fati's revelation and Millennium's permanent shift.

Three of a Kind-- Scully hops on the rare plane to join "Mulder" in Las Vegas, being pulled into The Lone Gunmen shenanigans and ending up getting drugged, flirting up a storm, and planning her revenge. Luckily, it seems Scully isn't too worried about what happened, meaning she was either between rounds or hadn't begun her first (or only?) cycle yet.

Field Trip-- A more personal episode for Mulder and Scully: he is unusually hurt and angered by her normal level of skepticism, which hurts her in turn as he's devalued herself as well as her abilities for the work. The two of them dance around these feelings until they fall right into hallucinogenic mushrooms. (An interesting note: @iconicscullyoutfits noticed here that Scully does not drink at Mulder's wake, slotting in perfectly both with her denial of this reality and her on-going carefulness with the IVF tries.)

Per Manum, "It was my last chance"-- Regardless if it's their first and only or last of many tries, Scully is unflinchingly scooped up by Mulder, though diffidently shy about crossing too many lines herself in grief (shying away from her impulsive smooch to instead hesitatingly place a kiss on her partner's cheek.) "Never give up on a miracle", Mulder intones; and holds onto the family planning book for a while more.

Biogenesis-- Mulder may have the book in his office; but Scully has lost hope, asking him "Look, after all you've done, after all you've uncovered... I mean, you've won. What more could you possibly hope to do or to find?" Her question is more in-character with another fruitless endeavor behind them, a wish to see this journey, too, to its end; and this informs her arc in this three parter: rebuilding herself and her identity in Africa, at the military base, in her apartment, and outside his.

Amor Fati-- Mulder dreams "another life, another world" where Scully can live safer and freer from him while he gets a built-in idyllic life, wife, and children: "Don't give up on a miracle" echoing around in his head. (An interesting note: @cecilysass's post here about the meaning behind Mulder's Temptation is amazing.)

But that miracle is a false illusion; and Scully saves him from himself ("You were my constant, my touchstone") just as he saves her from her self-distrust ("And you are mine.") It's now that Scully brands Mulder's forehead as her own just as she had in Fight the Future: diffidence gone, courage and confirmation found.

From Brain Surgery to New Years Celebrations

Mulder would have been too weak for much while recovering from invasive brain surgery, as evidenced by his and Scully's (mostly) hands-off approach in the next episode Hungry.

However, Mulder joined Scully in California for Christmas-- on a case, of course-- and got himself from one mess to another. They avoided death, saved the world from the Apocalypse, and, most importantly, patched a family back together. There might never be a child to welcome them home from a dangerous case; but they have each other.

And Mulder seals that realization as the ball drops.

And that concludes the IVF arc~!

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

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