"they're not doing this you, scully, they're doing it to me" what a fucking line. mulder means it to reassure her that her reassignment isn't because she failed. he's the one who failed. but what scully hears is a complete invalidation of her work on the files. mulder is so convinced that she's too good for him that he cannot see how lost and lonely she feels, and she in turn is so blinded by her fear that no one will ever take her seriously that she can't see that he already does. shrieking and wailing
sometimes i think about how gillian anderson herself wrote the "all things" episode of the x files and then i am hit with the most insane wave of tenderness that seeps into my bones and makes a home inside my marrow bc. she spent years in her role as scully, and she wrote a script that essentially said "scully will always choose mulder. scully will choose mulder again and again and again because in her eyes, mulder is the only choice. it may seem as if there are other choices, like there are other pathways she could walk down, but there arent. mulder is the only choice she sees, and she will choose him every time." she knows her character so well and it just makes me so.. i dunno happy like. yeah, they really do love each other. they will always choose each other. they love each other so deeply that they dont see any other choice but to be with one another; there is no universe in which they wont find each other because any other choice that couldve possibly kept them apart was just wrong. there is only one choice and it is for them to be together. anyways gillian anderson i love u and adore u for writing the all things episode.
One of the major changes between TXF early and later seasons was the attempt to write the considerable height difference between Mulder and Scully into non-existence. We see it very rarely later on. I know that the Scully box is a beloved topic of discussion, and I know it was used to avoid odd framing (and, I am sure, other technical issues). Still, I thought it was a loss in terms of their dynamics.
The way we perceive our bodies and ourselves in space – and, how others perceive us – is strictly related to how tall or petite we are. My best friend is 1.97 m tall (6.46 feet, an online calculator tells me) and he is always perceived as strong, self-confident, a person you rely on, someone you instinctively respect – all the more since he’s a man. But he’s never seen as the vulnerable, very sensitive guy he is.
So, Mulder being so much taller than Scully would play a role in their relationship. I think it both increased his wish to protect her but also his respect for her – the fact that a tiny person could be so much stronger, fiercer, quicker, more self-assured than her stature would suggest. Because she’d have had to fight for it, it wasn’t something others would acknowledge freely, without her having to prove it first. Especially as a woman.
Also, I simply find their height difference endearing, aesthetically beautiful. I wish the show’s responsibles would have kept it apparent. She was mostly wearing high heels anyway. (And wouldn’t it have been heartbreakingly sweet to see them trying to find a way to kiss each other without it being completely awkward in the hallway scene or in the final scene of “Existence“?)
has anyone asked what ur favorite x-files eps are yet? i must knowwwww (and Kaddish better be one of them bc peak /hj)
no limit btw!! also if u want to give ur reasonings and analysis on them thatd be awesome too!! make it as long as u want ill read all of it!! :-]
I'm always happy to talk about my favorite x files episodes! Kaddish isn't among my favorites but I love it dearly anyway <3
okay so here's some of my most beloved:
- Ice. I love that Morgan and Wong were like hey, what if we took this famous horror movie and put Mulder and Scully there? (they did it again later in Home. I respect the dedication) Also the storage closet scene that was supposed to showcase the trust Mulder and Scully have for each other, and it of course achieved that, but it is also one of the horniest scenes on network television. let us watch it again.
- Little green men. Morgan & Wong strike again. this episode has everything: covert meetings, the powers that be using Scully as a bloodhound to track Mulder, him recording messages for Scully, "I can only trust you and they've taken you away from me", Scully petting Mulder's head like he's a very good dog, this:
I guess there's even some aliens, whatever. great episode.
- Irresistible. In a surprising move from Chris "Misogyny is a contest and I'm winning" Carter, this episode is very respectful of Scully's post-abduction trauma. I like that Donnie Pflaster is just some guy, not an actual monster or a demon (which is why I hate the sequel), and the narrative makes no attempt to empathize with him. I like the contrast between how Mulder and that other agent perceive the victims (detachedly, with no real concern for who those women were) vs how Scully does (acknowledging just how horrific their deaths were, and fearing a very real possibility of her being in their place). it is one of the very few episodes that handles the subject of gendered violence respectfully.
- War of the coprophages. I won't include Darin Morgan's other episodes because they're obviously iconic and everyone loves them, so there's nothing left to say really. but I have to include at least this one because he is, after all, my favorite xfiles writer. I love the level of codependency in this ep, Mulder constantly calling Scully to ask various cockroach related questions, and her correctly identifying the problem every time while cleaning her gun or washing her dog, or just eating ice cream as she reads up on cockroaches on her little laptop. I love that she's jealous and possessive, and acts like a macho in front of Bambi (her name is Bambi?). my affection for this ep is so strong that unfortunately it makes another fan favorite episode, Syzygy, pale in comparison. i dunno, it feels like Chris Carter's attempt at a Darin Morgan episode, and Mulder and Scully's squabble there feels cheap and forced, unlike when Darin Morgan does it.
- Wetwired. it's Scully's turn to be paranoid and turn a motel room upside down looking for bugs, and Mulder's turn to reassure Scully that he's on her side, and she's the only one he trusts. I actually like the commentary on brainwashing via television, because my grandparents watch the news religiously and blindly trust whatever propaganda gets broadcasted from there. and social media can act similarly towards younger generations, so you are not immune to propaganda etc. anyways, great episode.
- Paper Hears. Vince Gilligan & Rob Bowman combo, very beautiful, very powerful. there's no shortage of episodes exploring Mulder's childhood trauma from losing his sister, but Paper Hears is special because it gives Mulder a reality check. what if his sister wasn't abducted by aliens? what if her disappearance had a simpler, and much more tragic explanation? what if his subconscious constructed a more fantastic narrative to cope with the loss? I also love how supportive Scully is throughout all this. a Mulder centric episode that doesn't completely forget about Scully or turn her into a cardboard cutout of herself is a rare gem. she helps him dig up a grave with her bare hands. a few years ago she would've accused him of running after his sister, but now she's with him every step of the way. she lost a sister too, she knows how he feels. absolutely devastating episode, 10/10
- Demons. can't say this is a very well written episode, but it is one of my favorites nonetheless. the allure of Protective Medical Doctor Scully taking care of Shaking Wet Dog Mulder is too powerful to resist. if you're familiar with The Locked Tomb series (you should be), you know that a character getting a sketchy brain surgery as a trauma response and having false memories as a result... well, it's something that can be so personal.
- Detour. sometimes I can't believe that a 90s show gave us a scene where this 6 ft tall guy takes a nap in his tiny partner's arms in the woods. and she sings him to sleep about Jeremiah who was a bullfrog. and they hadn't even kissed by that point. the x files is peak television.
- Kill Switch. I have so much tenderness in my heart for this episode. Twilight time <3 Scully's bisexual awakening <3 Mulder being a damsel in distress <3 i really enjoy that Scully's first response to Loud Noises and Murderous Robots is to start shooting. also this episode warned us about AI. I'm baffled that some xfiles fans engage with AI "art". it's like they didn't even watch the damn show.
- The Pine Bluff variant. I'm getting tired so I probably won't include more popular episodes because we all already know they're great. I think this one is criminally underrated, it's a very solid story, and despite it being a Mulder centric episode, Scully plays an important part there. I even wrote a fic about this episode, that's how much i love it.
- How the ghosts stole Christmas. it's such an interesting concept for an episode, to only have four actors and the majority of the episode taking place at one location. it feels like watching a play, very fun. additional points for the ghost of Lily Tomlin accusing Scully of intimacy through codependency. also love that Scully just drives over to Mulder's place whenever she can't sleep (she does that again in Hollywood A.D., and Mulder being completely unfazed by her inviting herself in implies that it's a regular thing). i also wrote something about it. I am cringe and I am not even free
- Tithonus. Immortal Scully is a very popular theory in txf fandom because of this episode, but I don't subscribe to it. I like to think that in Clyde Bruckmann's final repose, Clyde telling Scully that she wouldn't die was figurative rather than literal. she's a beloved character from a popular tv show, which no doubt will be watched by generations to come, and so through us she will never die. also, seeing as she is a lead, Scully is protected by plot armor, and so she doesn't die of cancer, and she doesn't die when she is abducted/kidnapped/experimented on. Tithonus expands upon this idea, and doesn't let Scully die when she is bleeding from a gunshot wound in her stomach, it doesn't let her die when she's looking at the grim reaper. she is not immortal, but she will live. it's kinda like that Jon Pertwee quote: if no one is watching, Doctor Who will kill himself. if we're watching, Dana Scully won't be killed. I don't know if I'm making any sense, I'm tireeed. oh and I wrote a fic about this episode too lol
- All Things. ok this is the last one. admittedly this episode is quite popular among txf fans, but despite its name, people only talk about one thing that happened in the episode. what about all the other things? like Mulder and Scully getting compared to a lesbian couple? like transfem Mulder implications? (unintentional I'm sure but still). anyways I wrote about this episode here and here, as you can see I'm very normal about it
rewatched Fight the Future, and one thing to note is how much Scully enjoys nerding out. rambling about terrorism protocol, about autopsy techniques, about the nature of the virus etc. lots of unnecessary explanations, which might seem too pedantic, but not if you know my good friend Dana Scully. it's her only way of showing affection while maintaining her composure. Mulder is so devastated about the possibility of not being able to listen to her science talk during work hours that he attempts to drink himself to death. her trivia nights are so important to him that he whines like a sad dog when she tells him she's quitting her job. he's like what do you mean you won't shoot lasers from your eyes when I apologetically mumble that this virus might be extraterrestrial. please tell me more about the stages of decomposition right now or I'm killing myself
if x files ever went full camp and had mulder or scully get shrink-rayed for an episode i think mulder would actually be very chill about it. like he’d be excited that he’s tiny (scully can you believe this?!) and of course he’d still want to go scurrying around and trespassing but she would finally be able to keep track of him because she could just scoop him up whenever he was about to go do something crazy. also if scully put him on his shoulder he could whisper in her ear more easily (which is like his main activity anyway) so they’d still do their close-talking thing. also i think he would genuinely love curling up in her shirt pocket right by her heart and napping there it might finally fix his insomnia
if it happened to scully, she’d be furious and mulder would make it worse by cracking some joke about how she looked about the same size as ever. but also he’d hold her very carefully in the palm of his hand whenever she needed to supervise an autopsy or get her point across and be like ‘hey everyone listen to my tiny wife coworker’ so they’d work it out
gummygunk
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