X-Files S1E13: Turning the tide

Editors' Note: On the rewatch of The X-Files, Lorrie plays the part of Sestra Amateur and Paige serves as the resident "expert," aka Sestra Professional.
 
Sestra Amateur: 

I think "Beyond the Sea" will be the most difficult episode of The X-Files for me to watch and review. I remember when I first saw it I thought of it as a daughter’s version of Field of Dreams. 

Almost the entire episode is from Scully’s perspective. We meet her parents at the end of a dinner at her apartment. Scully calls her father Ahab -- the boat captain from Moby Dick for you non-literary types. Dad calls her Starbuck – another Moby Dick reference, or as I prefer to see it, the hotshot pilot from Battlestar Galactica for you pop-culture ignorant peeps. The X-Files was a decade ahead of its time having a female nicknamed Starbuck. 

Dad only asks Scully about work after they have already said goodbye – and after Mom silently prods him to ask. Under those circumstances, Scully can’t really go into a full dissertation about the nature of her job. Besides, Dad asked her as a closed question – one that expects little more than a yes or no reply. Makes you wonder about their conversation topics for the actual visit. Maybe they talked about Scully’s brother and sister who, continuity-wise, may not actually exist yet. 

Later that night, Scully falls asleep on the couch. She wakes up and sees her father sitting across from her in a chair. His mouth moves like he is talking, but Scully (and we) can’t hear what he is saying. Scully’s phone rings and Dad disappears. Mom tells Scully he died of a heart attack. I’m hoping Sestra Pro will have some back story about what Dad was silently saying just before she received the call that he died. 

Scully returns to work the day of her father’s funeral. Funny how awkward it sounds when Mulder calls her Dana instead of Scully. Mulder tells her about two people, Liz Hawley and Jim Summers, who were kidnapped in Raleigh, North Carolina. The case is similar to one that occurred the previous year in which another couple was kidnapped, held for a week and then murdered.

Still wondering why Sculder need to investigate? Turns out there’s a link to a Death Row inmate named Luther Lee Boggs, who claims to be psychically connected to the missing couple. Of course, Mulder is the one who profiled Boggs before he was captured, so there’s another reason. Mulder thinks Boggs is trying to con his way out of execution by working with someone on the outside. Should be pretty easy to monitor his phone calls and mail to see if that’s the case, but whatever. 

Scully says she will go with Mulder after the funeral, which ends up being a private ceremony instead of full military honors because that’s what her father wanted. (By the way, I don’t think there’s a son or another daughter there.) Dad’s ashes are scattered while "Beyond the Sea" plays in the background. Mom tells Scully that was the song playing when Dad proposed after returning home from the Cuban blockade. If you’re susceptible to earworms, that’s not a bad one to have in your head. Good thing "Surfin’ Bird" wasn’t playing when he proposed.

Sculder meet with Boggs, a man who has the ability to leak from every orifice. He also talks in third person, so if the sociopath thing isn’t enough reason to dislike Boggs then there’s always that. Boggs touches a piece of “evidence” and displays an elaborate psychic moment. Of course, Mulder was tricking him to show that Boggs is a fraud. Score one for Mulder. Then Boggs starts singing "Beyond the Sea." Scully sees her dad instead of Boggs and her dad calls her Starbuck, which clearly rattles pragmatic Scully. Score one for Boggs.

While driving back to the hotel, Scully starts to see the clues Boggs mentioned during his psychic episode. She follows the clues which lead her to Liz’s bracelet. Mulder gets angry because he thinks Scully is trying to protect her reputation by denying she believes in psychic power. Scully still hasn’t told Mulder about her visions and Boggs’s connection to her father. Mulder shows Scully a newspaper article regarding the upcoming execution. I managed to catch one of The X-Files’ infamous inside jokes when I saw the article was written by G. Morgan, one of the co-writers of this episode. He’s good, but I’m pretty sure he’s only Sestra Pro’s second favorite XF writer surnamed Morgan.

The next day Sculder try to trick Boggs, but he doesn’t fall for it. Scully convinces Mulder to work with Boggs, who warns them not to go near the white cross. Sculder locate Liz, but the suspect shoots Mulder and escapes with Jim. Mulder’s blood ends up splattered across a white cross. Can’t say Boggs didn’t warn him. 

Liz helps identify the kidnapper as Lucas Jackson Henry. Man, this show is really good about coming up with name combinations that do sound like serial killer names. Turns out, Henry was Boggs’ accomplice before the latter was captured. Scully confronts Boggs about setting up Mulder. Even when she sees Mulder instead of Boggs, Scully continues to deny what’s happening to her. Boggs calls her Starbuck then reminds her she won’t get anything else from him until he gets a deal sparing his life. Scully tries but cannot prevent Boggs’ execution, even though she tells him he has a deal.

Nevertheless, Boggs gives her information to locate Jim and Henry, then admits he knew Scully couldn’t stop his pending execution. Boggs tells Scully to avoid the devil. Scully and the other agents find Henry and save Jim. Scully shoots Henry and chases him until Henry falls to his death … in front of a mural of a blue devil. Scully meets with Boggs again and admits she does not think Boggs was working with Henry. Boggs tells Scully to come to his execution and he will give her the message from her father. Scully chooses not to go and Boggs dies in the gas chamber. Good girl.

Sestra Professional:

I've always considered this more of a variation on Silence of the Lambs than Field of Dreams, Sestra Am. It's a brilliant showcase for Gillian Anderson and also features an unparalleled guest performance by Brad Dourif. I can't lavish enough kudos on it, not only is it truly dazzling, but it also proves to be yet another example of where the show can take its character and story as well.

It's actually perfect timing for us to be up to "Beyond the Sea." I just saw Anderson crush it in person as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, and both remind me that Chris Carter can never be thanked enough for fighting the powers-that-be to get her cast on the show when network was against it. He just knew she was a little powerhouse who would make Dana Scully more than just Fox Mulder's partner, but a force to be reckoned with as well.

Another battle Carter fought was to get Brad Dourif cast as Luther Lee Boggs. I remember him saying back in the day that it cost more money to get someone like Dourif, but he was well worth it. Truer words were never spoken. He dramatically repeatedly relays kidnapping details as well as Boggs' paralyzing fears of going to the gas chamber. For extra merit, he does recreations of Scully as a 14-year-old and coyly teases the beyond-the-grave message from her father.

This episode is chock full of brilliant moments, starting with the scene before the credits in which Scully sees her dad in the chair but can not hear the what he's saying. Sestra Am, the meta on the scene according to the official episode guide, is that actor Don Davis was saying the Lord's Prayer. I don't know if it helps or hurts to know that, I prefer to think of it as Scully's father telling her everything she needed to know. (By the way, I'll add that I believe the brother and sister attend the funeral at sea -- there are four adults there with Scully and her mom.)

Everything hinges on the fact Scully really wanted to hear her father's last words in this role-reversal ep. She takes stock in the supernatural aspect of the case and Mulder just thinks it's Boggs up to his old games.

It's a very touching moment in their early relationship when Mulder calls his partner Dana. You can see Scully rolling it around in her mind and considering how awkward it seems at that point in time, and she's not wrong about that. But in addition to a top-flight investigation, the spectacular writing team of Glen Morgan and James Wong helps us get past the structured nature of the Sculder relationship. Great catch on the newspaper article, by the way, Sestra Am!

Boggs also is a character fleshed out very well. We're used to serial killers being thought of as products of society or past abuses, but as Mulder points out, Boggs killed because he liked it. The fact that Boggs thinks Mulder was the only one who got him makes us wonder if he, in fact, is playing the agents, even while he's calling our heroine Starbuck and/or singing "Beyond the Sea."

So with Scully taking Mulder's role this week and Mulder serving as de facto Scully, we tap into a lot of new areas. Mulder can't understand why this particular case gets his partner to stray from her usual path -- and it's probably a bit egoistic because he's not the one trying to get her to believe. He thinks it's because of the loss of her father, and that her guilt or uneasiness over the fact that he didn't approve of her work is making her susceptible to both Boggs and the danger he can bring her.

We've seen this before, opposing viewpoints in which the one that's ultimately wrong does have merit. That's always what has made The X-Files so special to me. Traditionally, when one character is right in movies and television, the other loses face for not seeing that viewpoint. But here, Boggs indeed could have been planning five steps ahead. "Open yourself up to extreme possibilities only when they're the truth. That goes for Luther Boggs and your father," Mulder tells her. And that's not wrong as an overriding principle.

It all comes to a head in possibly my favorite Scully scene of the entire series -- she confronts Boggs after Mulder's shooting. Gillian delivers the following paragraph seemingly without taking a breath, slowly building from the first line until the dogged threat at the end: "You set us up. You’re in on this with Lucas Henry. This was a trap for Mulder because he helped put you away. Well, I came here to tell you that if he dies because of what you’ve done, four days from now, no one will be able to stop me from being the one that will throw the switch and gas you out of this life for good, you son of a bitch!" It's not over the top, it's not hysterical. It's just Scully telling it like it is.

The ending is right on point as well. Boggs rightfully lives out his worst nightmare. We don't really know his motivations for saving Scully's life and then offering to give her that final message when he knows he won't get what he wants. It does play like the complicated Hannibal-Clarice relationship in Silence of the Lambs. But if he did intent to play one last mind game in his last moment on Earth, he wasn't given the chance, for Scully realized she knew her father's message all along. Ahhhhhh. 

GUEST STAR OF THE WEEK: Brad Dourif completely inhabits a role that will prove not only special for one week, but which will not be topped for the show's whole run -- and there is some great competition for that designation. "Leaking from every orifice" as Sestra Am humorously put it, Dourif gives it everything he has ... and then some. In a week in which one of our leads shines brightest, he helps make this more than just a landmark episode.