#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. ;)

(Disclaimer: I am not justifying how poorly the XF finale was written. I am not a CC apologist. I simply love the characters and I want to assume the best in and for them. Also, for the sake of argument, I am going with the “canon” thrust upon us: that William is not Mulder’s biological son. It’s 100% okay to disagree with that notion - not even sure of my stance - but that’s not what this particular post about.)

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Okay. It’s taken me three years to face The X-Files finale...but let’s talk a little bit about it. Mulder’s journey is this episode is absolutely insane when you think it about it. He is reunited with his “son” but later discovers not only does this kid have the power to implode people, he isn’t biologically related to him. I think on some level - perhaps because William wasn’t sharing his visions with him, perhaps because of Skinner, perhaps because he always suspected “interference” by someone, Mulder knew this. But that didn’t stop him from loving William. That didn’t stop him from wanting to believe.

This episode repeatedly explores what makes a “father” or “mother.” Mulder witnesses his biological father murder “him.” Mulder then kills his bio-dad. I mean, this is already more than most people could handle. He is clearly traumatized, even before Scully tells him about William -  a boy who, incidentally, just took a bullet in the head for Mulder. Some bonds are stronger than biology.

I found it particularly interesting that what struck Mulder at the end when Scully tells him the truth about William wasn’t that he isn’t William’s father; it’s that he isn’t a father at all. In other words, being a father had, on some level, become part of his identity, was solace he had been clinging to. It’s not something we saw a lot from Mulder (as compared to Scully) but only in snippets, as when he sat holding a photo of William at the end of Founder’s Mutation: 

“What am I if I’m not a father?”

In that moment, Mulder is devastated: He’s not a son. He’s not a father. His hope is clearly diminished.

Then, there is Scully. To Mulder, she immediately denies she was ever a mother in the first place. I don’t buy it. This woman, who yearned for a baby, cried in Mulder’s arms at losing her ‘last chance’ in Per Manum, carried and agonized over this baby throughout her pregnancy, gave birth to him under life-threatening circumstances, nursed and sang to him as an infant, and made the ultimate sacrifice to protect him...she didn’t feel she was a mother?

“I’m asking you to let him go. He knows that that you love him.”

Scully knew that, just as when he was an infant, she could only protect William by letting him go. It’s heartbreaking that she is forced to do this again. But this time, it’s William himself asking her, while reassuring her that he feels her love. She isn’t abandoning him.

Scully tells Mulder about William in the way she does so Mulder can let go and move forward. She is pregnant, carrying Mulder’s baby, a child that is unequivocally his. Given all she’s been through and all that lies ahead, she needs him. So she is forced to tell him the truth about William and strip away a part of him, then hand it back to him in a completely unexpected way that would change everything for him - and for them as a couple forever.  

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.

"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.

Stella’s personal choice did affect her work, the case, just like other people’s affected their lives (Spector, Burns, Breedlove, Sally Anne, etc), and that’s all an important part of the show. I’ve also disagreed with people who felt Aallan Cubitt was trying to tear Stella down and get her to fail, 1) I don’t think her failed, not getting exactly what she wanted isn’t failing, and 2) life is fucking tough sometimes, just more of what The Fall tried to say. 2/3 (sorry this is getting long)

But I do agree reducing Stella vs Scully to simple “squareness” is just too simple. If you sat down GA for an hour just to dissect the characters she will be able to say much more than that. I feel Stella just resonants with the mature GA much more, not to mention GA can actually collaborate to shape the character. The sureness GA has regarding her own talent is reflected in her involvement with developing the character the the characters own sureness. ¾ (oops getting even longer)         

Also, I think a lot of what GA feel towards Scully is filtered through whatever crap perspective CC has been feeding her, she never was as involved actively & creatively in developing the character or its growth. Even now, it’s clear it’s whatever CC says goes, and she doesn’t even try to influence. So there is a involvement compartmentalization/detachment. Stella is like a flower she planted herself, Scully is one she bought in half bloom. She does appreciate both, just not the same. 4/4            

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I agree with a lot of your comments, anon. I agree that there are brilliant, good people in real life who operate with huge blind spots in compassion and empathy. I totally agree that Stella was deliberately written as a flawed character - and that may be the most progressive aspect of The Fall, tbh. When I pointed out what I struggled with regarding Stella, I pictured her as a real person in my life that I worked with or knew socially; but her issues - however you perceive them - don’t make her any less watchable as a female character on TV. In fact, she is incredibly watchable and intriguing. I believe it’s extremely important to portray flawed women in movies and TV, not just likeable people pleasers. However, like you, I find it concerning when people lionize her because of her issues - especially if they do so just because Gillian said she likes Stella so much.

I also agree that it would be interesting to delve deeper on this “square” thing with Gillian. Further, I think you’re right that Gillian is more detached from Scully than Stella for a multitude of reasons, some of which you pointed out. That’s why I want her to get reinvested in Scully, do her homework and add layers to Scully the way she did in the original run. Gillian usually defers the brilliance of Scully to delivering “what was on the page” but, listen….I have a few XF scripts. There is so much more that she (and David, for that matter) brought to the role than is in those scripts. Sure, the director makes a huge difference, but so did Gillian herself.

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.

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.