It's All Fine.

Also Dana Scully (the second Mulder is in danger):

*points a gun at an air base worker who has at least half a foot on her*

*locks herself in a closet with Mulder even though he might be infected and try to kill her*

*breaks into a government facility to steal top-secret science*

*tries to conduct an illegal hostage exchange on a bridge*

*gets on a plane to Puerto Rico while being followed and treks off into the middle of the jungle while being pursued by local military*

*walks into an active hostage situation and yells at the people in charge*

*jets off to Alaska without a second thought and barges into a government hospital*

*lies to a government committee and drives off to New Mexico with her unconscious partner, risking both her life and career*

*walks into a hospital where a mind controlling villain is hiding without her gun or any sort of plan beyond ‘get Mulder out of there’*

What is this? How did we get here?

There is another (worse) option, though.

"Oh brother" is definitely not what you respond if you're taking it seriously, we can probably agree on that, but i don't think potential drugs are the reasons here.

Let's look back a little. I'm working with the assumption that 'Folie a Deux' is set in May of 1998 with FtF taking place in August. 'The Beginning' happens sometime in September of the same year. If we use this as our timeline, we have a total of around five months during which a LOT of shit happens.

'Folie a Deux' is important because this is the "original" drugged up love confession Scully hears when Mulder is in the psychward. It gets to her, she thinks he is being genuine and does what he asked her to do.

More important than the act itself is what he tells her. I assume most of us have that conversation memorized, but just as a reminder:

"Scully, you have to believe me. Nobody else on this whole damn planet does or ever will. You're my one in five billion."

Even from our point of view, this makes complete sense—she IS the only one he trusts.

Except that it's a lie. I don't expect Mulder to think of Diana in that moment, and it wouldn't have been an issue at all if it weren't for the events of 'The End', which happen about 2-3 weeks later.

Suddenly, there is a person from his past that he trusts unconditionally to the point of stupidity, and he not only doesn't talk to Scully about any of it, he stops talking to her period. It's as if she has been a placeholder for Diana, and now that she's back, there is no use for her anymore.

Mulder works the case with Diana, Scully is dragging herself along and he does not care about her or her work until it is useful for him; he doesn't back her up when a room full of people (including Diana) belittle and mock her. He nods along, which, to Scully, is just the last puzzle piece slotting into place.

To summarize, Mulder's confession in Folie a Deux that she took seriously is revealed to be a lie—a means to an end to get her to do what he wants her to. Whether or not that's objectively true is a totally different matter because this is what Scully is confronted with.

Betrayal.

With that in mind, their argument in FtF in his hallway and Scully thinking of herself as redundant makes complete sense. We get yet another love confession, one she ALSO takes seriously, and if it weren't for that fucking bee, they'd have kissed. Maybe then, the whole mess that comes after could have been avoided, but here we are.

In "The Beginning", Scully repeats said confession back to him in an attempt to calm him and regain his trust in her/her science. Let's see what happens:

He implicitly tells her that none of what he confessed still applies, that the whole speech was, once again, nothing but a farce to get her to stay. Mulder confirms this at the end of the episode, and Scully asking him with tears in her eyes to trust her is a deeply painful contrast to his earlier declarations.

Two times, Mulder confesses his love to her.

Two times, he takes it back later and continues to use it against her.

In 'Triangle', Scully once again finds herself next to Mulder in a hospital bed and listens to him as he confesses his love for a third time. Does she think he's drugged up? Yeah, probably, but that's not the reason she cannot take him seriously.

Considering her track record with Mulder and big speeches, is it at all surprising that she no longer trusts what he tells her?

"Oh, brother," because she is forced to grapple with her many, many feelings for him and process it in a way that fits into everything else that has happened so far.

"Oh, brother," because it might be an attempt to placate her and nothing else.

"Oh, brother," because there is a chance he will twist his 'I love you' into a weapon to stab her with later. Because he says it and does not mean it.

This is not a "oh, he's drugged up" expression to me. This is Scully preparing to get hurt again.

The funniest part is that she's right. She is right. He couldn't have meant it because then he wouldn't be staring her down with apathy in his eyes and tell her not to make it "personal".

SHE is making it personal? After Mulder manipulated her by pulling on their connection like a leash to get her to do what he wants? After he confessed how much he loves and trusts her over and over just to throw it all away?

To ignore all of it in the moment it actually fucking matters?

The drug option is less angsty and kinda fun, and I do enjoy reading fics that interpret it as such, but with their history attached, it is so much more—and so much worse.

Pretending it never happened is one thing, but then actively denying it to her face and using her feelings to hurt her? Yeah, no.

Yes, definitely, same here. I think I just wasn’t paying as much attention to Mulder on my first watch because I was so in love with Scully. But now that I’m analysing each episode, I’m thinking about why and how she loves him, and it’s revealing how tragic and alone Mulder is, and how innocent he is in some ways. I’m also noticing a darkness to him, a hidden wrath, which I didn’t see before. I think because he becomes more jokey as the series goes on, as he starts opening up to Scully, flourishing under her friendship, I forgot how distant and defensive his charm was in earlier seasons and how angry he gets at injustice and mistruths. He’s a very difficult man, but he’s not used to having anyone in his life to make room for; Scully is patient though, and he doesn’t need to ‘make room’ for her because one day he realises they have become two halves of one whole, and its terrifying but inextricable and good.

I’m halfway through the first season now and he may like Scully, respect and admire her, but he has not let her in at all - they’re not even really friends. Scully can’t understand how anyone could mistreat a man like him; it upsets her, makes her furious sometimes. Knowing how much he’s been neglected, manipulated, traumatised, and how long he has gone without ever just like.....being loved.....like truly, properly, selflessly loved, until Scully comes along and sees something in him worth devoting herself to, is kind of tragic.  Once he realises/accepts she actually cares about him, that she’s there to stay, that - for some reason he cannot comprehend - she’s willing to sacrifice her life for him, he becomes completely devoted to her, but his devotion is coloured by guilt and shame and self-sacrifice and denial, because he just doesn’t think he deserves it. No one has made him feel he deserves it before. 

“You’re a damn good looking man.”

No one else could have played Mulder, and no other attempt to create a Mulder and Scully pair has come close to recapturing their dynamic. David didn’t play Mulder as just a goof or a wise-ass or a romantic sap. He was intelligent and petulant and too emotionally vulnerable. Other attempts to imitate Mulder come off as a romantic self-confident joker. David played it as someone who thinks quietly and talks very softly and occasionally erupts in bouts of rage and grief.

I think David’s micro-expression acting is perfect for Mulder - he has this quiet, unassuming expression, but there’s always a joke or a whirring thought or a memory of pain in his eyes. The quietness is what makes him intense and introspective, and all those times it seems like he hasn’t registered what Scully has said when she’s been vulnerable with him, or when he has a blank expression during a moment of crisis, actually strikes me as being true to Mulder’s character. He wears his heart on his sleeve, but only in a way that Scully can see, and in a way that is hidden from everyone else after years of isolation. I think David understood that Mulder’s numbness and isolation would make him act that way.

Every now and again, he did give standout dramatic performances; I’m thinking in particular of Paper Hearts, especially that scene in his mother’s basement, where he laughs to dismiss her worries, but his eyes are red and shining and he’s thrumming with grief, or when he gets choked up looking at a corpse he thinks is Samantha’s.  

One of my favourite underrated moments is when Scully calls him from the hospital in Memento Mori and asks him to bring an overnight bag, and he talks very gently with her on the phone, trying to act like he’s not worried, though you can see from his face that he is, and when he hangs up, he slams a draw shut and storms off. That anger is so real and more moving than concern. And then all of David’s improvised flood of tenderness in Redux ii, and the way he laughs whenever Mulder’s heart is breaking.

i’m obsessed with this clarification with little eyebrow raise for emphasis. like oh you mean before buffy summers, my wife, asked me to move in with her? yeah i lived somewhere else before buffy told me to move into her house with her where she lives. i live with her now though. at her house. she asked me to.