#morris fletcher

A small detail from a scene of “Dreamland II” I find intriguing is when Scully exposes Morris Fletcher as fake Mulder. Fletcher has just more or less dragged her onto the waterbed, and they are both lying next to each other looking at themselves in the mirror above.

“You hate it”, Fletcher/Mulder tells her, half question, half statement. There’s a significant little pause before she answers, in a pensive, (I find) somewhat sad tone: “No, I don’t hate it”. And this is revelatory, and I love it to bits, because it's so cleverly done, both visually and how GA interprets it. What she sees in the reflection is something unreal (and that’s what we see in mirrors, an inverted, alternative world, a possible threshold, think of Alice’s Looking glass), a wish: Mulder and herself together, in a bed = as lovers. But what’s meaningful, it’s what we see and hear there as well: not Fletcher, as in all the other body-switch scenes, but Mulder, speaking with his own voice. We get to see her dream-wish too.

Then Fletcher turns around, rests his face on his hand and says, “You hate it”. Scully pauses, knowing it is Fletcher but choosing to look at the “Dreamland” up there for two more heartbeats. “No, I don’t hate it”, she says in that melancholy voice and means, I wish this were real, I wish it were you here with me instead of this horrible man. Then sits up, slips back into reality (steels herself, I guess) and proceeds to unmask Fletcher.  

There is so much in this single sentence for me, it’s so subtly done and so precious to me that she reveals what she is longing for by saying it the way she does.

This got me wondering had Mulder been inclined, could he have been the FBI mimbo because the secretaries or other ladies might have found him cute?

That was Kersh's secretary! (Morris was eyeing her up after he and Scully left their boss's office.)

I don't think Mulder would have turned into a himbo: the character attracted DD because he was, essentially, a loser per traditional standards and expectations--

November 1998:

From Duchovny’s perspective, Mulder is perhaps the hero who’s best described as the anti hero. “He is a loser. He just never succeeds, basically. He doesn’t get what he wants. He doesn’t win fist fights. He doesn’t get the girl,” notes Duchovny. “I like him as a hero because I always intended to play him as a guy who doesn’t win but who seems to win. That is, I think, a difficult thing to do. People at home see that Mulder is right, so it’s all kind of skewed in his favor. We’ve seen what he sees. We know that he’s right, that his quest is good and moral and all of that. In that sense he’s more of a straight-up hero.”

In canon, he only slept with women (excepting Scully) who either: A. emotionally manipulated him or B. made the first move while he was at his lowest. In both cases, Mulder's smart enough to diagnose those complicated feelings after the fact-- which likely contributed to his low(er) self-esteem and fueled the fires of his monkhood.

Flash backward to the OG series: it's why his invitation to dance in Post Modern Prometheus (though just a daydream), his baseball lesson in The Unnatural, and his kiss in Millennium were such big deals: he moves glacially, fearing rejection despite Scully's commitment and loyalty. His "The world didn't end," smile, and glance downwards after that first kiss says it all, really: he finally did it.

(Not to mention DD and GA cheering him on in Weremonster to join Scully in her motel room. "You can do it!" "C'mon!" Spoiler: he did not.)

Now: if he were inclined, could he become the FBI himbo? Sure. He did get an undisclosed date in Little Green Men (that he ditched), after all-- perhaps an attempt to live a "normal life," since his beliefs were temporarily in the gutter. On second thought, his LGM date was probably initiated through similar patterns mentioned before (someone makes a move at his lowest, he accepts.)

Lastly, I will say: we did see firsthand what trying means to him, i.e. casting moon eyes at Dr. Bambi Berenbaum only to be stood up by another man with brains and conspiracy theories. "Gazing" at Scully for over six years. So.

This. This is tasty. Delicious.

But why would we ever WANT the Wither to stop? We love Efflorescence. It has made everything better. Consumption is just the final goal. The final step in the cycle, before it repeats again. Consumption is what we desire the most. Simply nature at its finest.

Besides, Wither won't be around forever, so they say. Why keep it safe? We can go further.

Wither. Effloresce. Consume.

-Viper Zoologist

how did scully not realize something was wrong with mulder, she literal was eddie van blundht'd not two years before.

mulder would have never said half those things to her. i mean his behavior was the opposite of himself and she didnt even remotely think it could have been anything x files related even though she got a call from the real mulder, saying that he swapped bodies!!!

like girl wtf!!!!

also morris fletcher's daughter needs serious psychological counseling because why tf did she freak tf out when mulder/morris called her by the wrong name?

After spending some time with Mulder’s partner, a few things had become glaringly obvious to Morris. For starters, these two had never bumped uglies. They might’ve investigated a lot of weird creatures in their time on the X-Files, but the beast with two backs sure as hell wasn’t one of them. Dana was so tightly wound, he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d never gotten laid — either of them for that matter. The idea that the FBI’s best and brightest were a bunch of pent-up, sexually repressed virgins really shed light on the state of affairs of this country. So much for Bill Clinton’s America.

Initially, he’d wondered if maybe they had some torrid past that they ignored. Maybe they did the deed during their fed training and then got saddled with each other as partners. That was the only thing he could think of that would explain all the touching. God, had this woman ever heard of personal space? It was like every conversation they had required her to be less than six inches from his face at minimum, but heaven forbid you tried to lean in for a kiss. Sheesh.

However, he was confident in saying that nothing had ever happened between them. What a sick joke. Why they hadn’t, Morris would never understand, but it just confirmed his theory that Fox Mulder had a talent for wasting his potential. He also felt confident saying that Special Agent Dana Scully needed to get laid. Pronto.

Poor girl was so uptight, she needed to be shown a good time, and he knew more than a few ways to help her to unwind. Sure, maybe he wasn’t the ‘real’ Fox Mulder she’d always dreamt of jumping in the sack with, but he figured a little benevolent chicanery would be mutually satisfying for both of them. 

Morris thought it would have taken some convincing. He’d been getting the impression that his particular brand of charm wasn’t endearing to her, but based on the way her eyes practically fluttered shut at his dinner invitation, she’d been wanting this for a while.

The plan was in motion, now it was all down to the execution. 

Unfortunately, even from 2,500 miles away, Fox Mulder was still managing to cockblock himself. Morris had been frozen in place ever since opening the door to the bedroom — though to call it that felt like a bastardization of the English language. He’d never seen anything quite like this. It wasn’t like the rest of the apartment was in the running to be on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens by any means, but at least it was hospitable. This just looked like the den of an insane person. 

That thought elicited a frown from Morris. If this man was crazy, did that mean Morris would inherit his neuroses? On a physical level, he’d certainly enjoyed experiencing this new level of intense virility, but he certainly didn’t want to adopt whatever mental defect it is that causes a grown man to hoard copies of PLAYPEN. As if taunting him, another box of magazines fell in the corner of the room.

With a sigh of resignation, Morris set the candles down on a nearby table and grabbed the nearest phone book, flipping his way to the garbage disposal section of the Yellow Pages and ignoring the various pages that were dogeared for adult entertainment stores. He settled on calling one of those companies specializing in the quick removal of large amounts of garbage. If anything in that room was truly important, they wouldn’t be treated like a diorama of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

The couch had been so worn-in and comfortable that he’d accidentally fallen asleep there, so he hadn’t had a chance to assess the severity of the issue until now. Thank god whatshername, the hot blonde secretary, had to go early the other day. He cringed trying to think of what he would have done if he’d tried to bring her to the bedroom, only to find all those boxes of worthless junk filling the room. Then again, Fox Mulder was so attractive to the ladies that he’d probably be forgiven for being such a slovenly pig.

Glancing at the clock, Morris took note that he still had a bit of time before Dana would be arriving for their date. Even when everything was removed, the bedroom was still an issue. How was he expected to seduce a woman in a room that smelled like stale air on a mattress that was ruined by the weight of 100 boxes?

He rubbed his hands across his face in frustration, but took some comfort in the fact he was becoming more accustomed to feeling the new ridges and planes of his face as opposed to the ones he’d spent the past 53 years with. That and the absence of a ring on his left hand revitalized his spirits. This was probably for the best. After all, if the tacky, kitsch decor in the living room was anything to judge by, the bedroom already was in need of a Morris Fletcher makeover. He’d make that room so sensual, a nun’s panties would drop just from stepping over the threshold. 

Taking a chance, he flipped through the various piles of mail on Mulder’s kitchen table until he found what he was looking for: Sears Catalog. He dialed the number on the cover and listened to the hold music play before cradling the phone against his shoulder, licking his fingers as he began flipping through the magazine. He had only flipped through a few pages in the mattress section when a full-page spread of a woman with her head thrown back in subdued ecstasy caught his attention just as the representative answered the phone. 

“Hello? Yes. I’d like to place an order for same-day delivery,” he stated, a sly grin spreading across his face as he imagined Dana in place of the woman on the ad.

TRUE PLEASURE IS…

A WATERBED

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