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WetWired (season 3 episode 23)

Visuals appreciation post

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The superb use of foreshadowing in WetWired (Season 3 episode 23)

A small think piece by your everyday Fish

So I love WetWired! It’s one of my favorite episodes in the whole series! One of the reasons for this is the use of foreshadowing about what will happen to Scully .

The episode establishes early that the killers have some kind of psychosis. Seeing things that aren’t there. Their vision glitches. The use of the glitch signals to the audience that this probably has to do with technology. (Great effect! My favorite in the whole show)

Cut to Mulder and Scully investigating. The scene quickly show what their dynamics and fate will be in the show. It tells us that Scully thinks about what’s going on in the tv and Mulder thinks is some outside force messing with people. And they are both right but separately.

The framing in this episode is crazy! It carries a lot of the story telling.

Mulders back is to the tv. He doesn’t care. It’s all static. The information is in tv for him isn’t important. But Scully. She is looking at the tapes. She is fully engrossed. So much so that it creates a barrier between her and Mulder. (It’s the first hint about how deep Scully will become.)

Scully suggested that something in what they are watching is causing them to act violent. It is traumatizing them and causing them to lash out. (And in a way she is right! It’s what ends up happening to her.) Mulder doesn’t by it. Instead he explains his own theory, brushing hers aside (working against her. Putting her in danger. A small see for her later paranoia to latch on too!)

The next hint is the back at the motel.

It’s here I knew something was going to happen to Scully. She is completely surrounded by tapes. She insists on going through all the taps. Mulder is uninterested still. In fact we barely see him watching them. (Which I think is ironic considering how much we see him watching tapes and falling asleep to tv throughout the show.)

But still amount of tapes there are it’s overwhelming. It’s almost anxiety inducing.

The tv is the main focus of these shots. The first thing you look at. It’s intentional.

After this we see her watching the tv by herself in the dark. Completely honed into the images on that are movie too fast to even comprehend. Shes been sucked in.

It’s at this point where the paranoia starts. She thinks she see Mulder with smoking man. (Working against her. Abandoning her. Betraying her) it shakes her to her core. So much so that at the next crime seen she is weary of him. Is looking for signs that he is out to get her. (He knows something is up. That she’s off but Mulder doesn’t press. Hes looking for something else. It will cost him.)

It is also here that the show hammers home that yes something in the tv is causing people to act violently. The wife is watching tv when she sees her husbands ‘affair’. The episode choses to linger on the tv before showing how it’s affecting people’s minds.

Which bad news because the paranoia has already started for Scully. The tv has already go to her. We are visually told this by Scully once again drawn being to the tapes and tv. She is the one who finds another box of tapes. She is the one that gets absorbed with the tv playing.



It also stuck out to me that Scully actually sat down and watched the tv as soon as she saw it was playing. Almost subconsciously. It’s a big uh on.

Apart from being an incredible visual this shot was such a oh fuck moment. Because Scully is completely in the dark, you can only see a shell of her through the tv glow.

She’s completely gone!

Shot is so si-fi and technological horror. It is the kind of shot you would see before revealing that a character has there eyes keep open and is forced through a mind control. Except she is completely ‘free’. With wide eye on the tv unblinking.

Which makes this shot after her breakdown while destroying the motel room so interesting. After breaking all the technology. Here she shuts down the tv. But it doesn’t matter. She is already consumed. It doesn’t matter if the tv is on anymore. She has become a puppet. There is barely anything left of her.

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My unprompted xfiles opinions

(First watch through)🐟❤️

My second favorite episode!

WetWired (season 3 episode 23)

Omg this episode was my favorite for so long. The themes and visuals are some of my favorites in the whole show. I really enjoy media that is critical of technology, the distribution of information and visual media as a whole.

It’s a very heavy episode but it earns its weight.

The visuals in the episode were great! It explores paranoia in a very tangible and believable way. I can get an image of the specific effect I like so much but it’s the one where scullys vision glitches like a tv screen! It’s incredible! And such a grounded, translatable way to show how deep the tapes have wormed their way into their brain.

We in the audience also on edge with scully. Her thinking she sees Mulder with smoking man well done! We know he wouldn’t betray her but it’s not outside the realm of possibility that he is working with CSM for answers. The scene with scully destroying the motel room made my skin crawl in the best ways. Because her fears are this amorphous thing. They are very real possibilities. It’s the mania of her actions that really sells the scene.

Scully being right that whatever is going on is connected to the tapes that they find in people’s houses but Mulder looking for something more shows you why they need each other. Mulder spends a lot of time chasing shadows this episode but scully sees facts and possible causation.

It shows the danger in both thier view points. Mulder brushing off that it has something to do with the tv people are watching, so he doesn’t take it seriously until Scully goes missing, and Scully not seeing that there is something more to this than just the tapes which leads her to paranoia.( I also love how the show hint at scullys paranoia by the way she is also surrounded by tapes! They are towering and grow through the episode!)

It’s very interesting placement in the series bc this happens after the abduction arc and Scully disappearing really hits mulder which we see most when he thinks he has to id the body. He is freaked. But for at this Scully this place in her life she has had time stolen, is still reeling in the trauma. I think there is a part of her that is still can’t trust anything or anyone after these events.

Also a parallel that stook out to me was Scully pointing a gun at mulder, yelling about how he betrayed her - with Mulder doing the same thing a few episodes prior. Mulders was making these same accusations without any mind tampering(other than grief and his own beliefs) but where as Mulder was angry Scully is terrified. This is her worst nightmare.

Some little highlights bc this is getting long!

Scully chewing ice like popcorn.(idk it was a fun character quirk to me) Mulder telling people not so shoot Scully and that she is unwell. Mulder finally losing his shit at X because he was made to do the dirty work but Scully suffered for it! She is his line!

Mulders knowing exactly where Scully will be when her mom is mentioned. Mrs. Scully standing between her daughter and Mulder. Really her mom whole scene! It is just heartbreaking. Maggie’s whole monologue is just incredible! “It’s me I would never hurt you.” Ahhhh

I think what i really like about this episode is that it isn’t aliens or monsters or the CSM conspiracy but it is a monster of the week but monster is our worst fears and still a conspiracy, just a very real and down to earth one.

The episode emphasizes the dangers of our overly digitized world. People at home are not supposed to see war and destruction this easily, yet we do and it is damaging. It an also a brilliant metaphor of fear mongering by government through our televisions!