#analysis analysis

I know this bit from Trustno1 gets in people’s craw. I get that. But to be really honest, I personally never took this to literally mean that Mulder and Scully actually spent only “one” night together -or that it was even necessarily in her literal bed. The Shadowman is trying to unnerve Scully, trying to make her feel exposed by citing intimate details about her. I always inferred that he was demonstrating to her that he knows she had a sexual relationship with Mulder, he saw them, and he knows Scully initiated it. But my personal take, particularly in the context of this episode - which is bookended by Mulder and Scully’s downright sappy emails - was never that “one lonely night” meant the only night.

If one insists that Scully was truly feeling needy (which is the part that actually does annoy me because, bitch pleeeasse - lonliness has been Scully’s “choice” for a looonnnnggg time - she knows how to cope) and this incident had to literally be in her bed, the Per Manum flashback seems a likely scenario. The timeline is uncertain, Scully is vulnerable, and the way she goes in during the hug feels like she might be...reaching for more than a hug:

But we know they also slept together in “all things.” So even if you don’t buy the entire Season of Secret Sex, we know there was more than just one night.  Maybe Mulder was better at de-bugging his apartment. Hardly a stretch, given his paranoia. ;)

"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." Friedrich Nietzsche

For anyone who finds Scully OOC in IWTB, I encourage you to revisit Uruhe. I always got the sense that men who tortured and murdered women were part of the “Darkness” she referred to in the movie.

Here’s the thing: Dana Scully never really signed up to investigate violent crimes against women. She isn’t a criminal profiler, wasn’t banging down the door of Behavioural Sciences. At the end of the day, she is a scientist, curious about the way the world works and the boundaries of physics. She studied to become a doctor, someone who helps people. Her Catholic background recognizes the existence of evil on Earth, but doesn’t necessarily give her a natural inclination to explore the why. Scully cares deeply about victims and giving them justice; she doesn’t necessarily want to explore why Donnie Pfaster killed women, cut their hair, kept their body parts, and practiced necrophilia. She doesn’t care why Gerald Schnauz lobotomizes women and why his disturbing visions are appearing on photographs. Unlike Mulder, who is curious about Schnauz’s “thought-o-graphs”, Scully is done. “What the hell does it matter?” she asks after his initial capture.

The interrogation scene is remarkably telling. Mulder and Scully have evidence against Schnauz – the godamned orbitoclast was found in his pocket. It’s Mulder and Scully’s job to get him to tell them where the missing girl is. Scully gets in his face, aggressively accusing Schnauz and laying out his crimes, with no thought or (undeserved) empathy towards him. Her thoughts are only about the victims, what they went through - what one is still going through. But Mulder gets in his head, quietly questioning him, gently probing him about his father. And it works: Schnauz talks.

When the chips are down, however, Scully smartly tries to talk her way out of her abductions - in addition to physically fighting back or trying to free herself. In Orison, she talks to Pfaster about how she let him live rather than get the death penalty. She screams at Ed that whatever is overtaking him “isn’t him” in Never Again. And, here, as she fights for her life, she tries to understand the evil that is Gerry Schnauz. That he was sick. That he couldn’t reconcile that his father abused his sister to the point that she eventually killed herself. That he beat his father, then invented a reason his sister said such things: it was “howlers.” It’s Scully’s words that ultimately convince Gerry to turn the camera on himself and buy her time.

But now…she’s been there. She’s empathized with evil. She’s looked into abyss. And it’s during these very quiet moments, that we see the toll it took on her when the abyss looked back.

Okay, so I am watching the church scene at the end of “Nothing Lasts Forever” and how different it looks from the first time I watched it. When it originally aired, I was so distracted by the stained glass, speculating about the pregnancy, and what Scully whispered in Mulder’s ear, that I neglected the best parts of the scene.

Basing the scene in a church is clever because the exchange is all about faith and belief – yet has nothing to do with religion. Mulder says, “I may not believe in God but I believe in you.”

They continue with a little banter and Mulder’s bit on reason, faith, and harmony, but shit starts getting real is when Scully asks,

“Are we together?”

Then, curiously, she lets the question go. She instead launches into all the reasons Mulder shouldn’t be with her. She talks specifically about her beliefs. That her beliefs never gave her the strength to do what she set out to do. She believed she could protect William but couldn’t. She believed she could live with Mulder but she couldn’t. No matter how much she believed, she felt she’d failed. Nothing lasts forever…right?

Enter David’s super-soft Mulder voice.

“If only you’d fled earlier.”

Mulder itemizes all Scully sacrificed for his beliefs: her health, her dog, her sister, marriage, children she could actually raise, a high-powered career.

Scully reassures him: she doesn’t have regrets. Because she believed in him. Whatever she lost, she doesn’t begrudge him. Mulder knows that. And he wants her to know – God or no God, the important thing is that they believe in each other.

“I don’t know if any God is listening but I am standing right here. I am listening. Right beside you. All ears. That’s my choice.”

In other words: I love you and I am here for you, right beside you. I choose you.

Can I answer the second question first? I think the context of my S6 viewing definitely informs my overall impression of how it played out.

I did watch Season 6 live and it was the first season of The X-Files I saw. It drew me in, it made me love the show and the MSR. I hadn’t seen a full season up till that time, I hadn’t seen FTF, I had no idea of Mulder and Scully’s history. And because I was living in SE Asia the previous five years, I wasn’t even exposed to much X-Files publicity; it was like I had walked out of a cave and this was my very first real exposure to the show (except for The Pilot, which I happened to see live before I moved).

With that said, it took me about 20 seconds to pick up on how much these people loved each other. I loved their romance, their heat, their steadfast loyalty. I had NO idea Carter had been cackling about Diana and had thrown her into the mix to wreak havoc on the MSR; I watched in total innocence - which I am so GRATEFUL for. So I didn’t see Scully as holding back with Mulder due to his betrayal. I definitely didn’t see Mulder as sleeping with Diana. Here is what I saw (ignoring Carter’s annoying mytharc bullshit but staying loyal chronologically in S6) and what I remember:

Triangle:

Everyone analyses the kiss with fake Scully and Scully’s reaction to the “I love you” at the end but remember how frantic real Scully was to get the information to find Mulder? Remember her threatening Spender, startling other people on the elevator, kissing Skinner in elation for getting the information she needed? Scully may not have said I love you to Mulder, but she showed it.

Dreamland II:

“I’d kiss you if you weren’t so damn ugly.” Scully said that. To Mulder. Just sayin’.

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas:

She got him a little something, too. Scully abandoned Christmas with her family to share it with Mulder instead.

The Rain King:

Do you ever wonder what they were talking about before Shelia said, “Not even a kiss?” In any case, we learn Scully is fully aware there is no one else she can ever see herself with. She is a woman in love.

Tithonus:

Ritter was one lucky man. Mulder makes it clear if Scully had died, Ritter would most certainly have been featured in a Fellig photo - if he had anything to do with it.

Interesting observations, anon.

Just to clarify, I never said having sex with married men was Stella’s “flaw.” I mean, she is flawed. She made mistakes in the course of the investigation, including giving too much information to Spector, which led him to Rose. But she owned up to that, which I loved.

Stella is deliberately written in a way that may not be likeable to everyone - and I think that’s a good thing. People aren’t perfect, and women should be portrayed as complex beings that aren’t always likeable to all. When I responded to the original ask, I didn’t list sleeping with married men as Stella’s “flaw” and that everyone should regard it as such; it’s merely something that doesn’t sit well with me personally, that I would dislike in someone I knew or worked with. I have a great deal of respect for marriage, and even if I were unattached I would make damn sure a dude was single before I slept with him. That’s just me. I have friends who have been crushed by infidelity and there is just no way I would do that to another woman, ever. I guess I would hope a woman who crusades for other women like Stella does would extend compassion and care to the wives of unfaithful men as well.

Whoa - hold the phone there, anon. First, femininity does not equal sexuality. Though CC initially wanted Mulder and Scully to play against typical gender stereotypes, I never felt Scully lacked femininity. And even if she did, it wouldn’t necessarily make her less sexual.

Interesting. But one could argue that Scully actually did have enough and walked away. She did leave Mulder and “that little house” and continued her career as a doctor for a period of time. I mean, S10 Scully was quite cynical, guilt-ridden, and haunted by her past decisions. Only MASMTWM revealed her lighter side, really.