X-Files S2E6: Buying a stairway to heaven

Sestra Amateur: 

This episode should have been titled “Things one has to endure to get maternity leave.” As we pick up from the "Duane Barry" cliffhanger, Mulder is listening to the phone message Scully left at the end of the previous episode. Local cops are already on scene, crime tape and all, by the time Mulder gets to her apartment. Dana’s mom arrives, and Fox doesn’t have any answers for her. Maybe he should take the advice from the opening credits and “deny everything."

Skinner arranges a meeting at FBI Headquarters to discuss Scully’s abduction by Duane Barry while the Cigarette-Smoking Man lurks (aka sits quietly and puffs in a chair) in the background. Skinner sends Mulder home to get some sleep. 

Duane Barry is out for a lovely drive in Virginia, presumably in Scully’s car. Turns out she’s in the trunk. Duane is trying to get to his original abduction site. Must be using some intuitive form of alien GPS since he told Mulder last episode he didn’t know how to get there. His crappy driving draws the attention of a local trooper. This officer is a little too polite for his own good. He knows something is really wrong, but Barry keeps passively resisting his lawful requests. When Trunk Scully accidentally distracts him, Duane shoots and kills the trooper. 

Four hours later, Mulder is viewing the camera footage from the trooper’s car and sees Scully is still alive. Mulder realizes they are heading to Skyland Mountain. Of course, Krycek relays that information to CSM even though Mulder chooses not to tell Skinner. So the boys head that way, but Mulder almost kills them when he falls asleep at the wheel. That would have sent this episode in an entirely different direction, wouldn’t it?

The tram that goes up the mountain is out of service. Duane Barry (and Scully) took the scenic route, but Mulder coerces the tram operator into letting him take the tram. Fox leaves Alex alone with the operator as he races to try and save Dana. Krycek waits until Mulder is almost at the top, then incapacitates the tram operator. He stops the tram so Fox is just dangling near the mountain top, but with a lovely view. Mulder can’t raise anyone on the radio, so he climbs out of the tram. Krycek calls CSM to say Mulder’s been stopped, but Alex starts up the tram again ... with Mulder on the outside. Dick move, Alex. Is this because Mulder has two Titan vinyl figures and you don’t have any? I’m sure Sestra Pro will point out the duality of Krycek, friend and/or foe. 

Mulder gets to the top of the mountain safe and sound and finds Scully’s gold cross necklace on the ground. He then sees a UFO -- this description applies because the object that is currently flying is also unidentified -- and hears Duane Barry’s maniacal laughter. Barry tells Mulder “they” took Scully, so now Barry is free. Then the Feds arrive and Duane gets taken into custody again. Not so free. 

Mulder, who still hasn’t slept, loses control during the interrogation and stars to choke Barry. This is the perfect example of why it’s good to have more than one friend in your life. If you only have the one. then you kind of go off the rails when something happens to him/her. Duane Barry tells Mulder he’s sorry, but they “had” to take her. It also seems Mulder still doesn’t know Krycek was the one who initially stranded him in the tram. 

Gazing out a window, Mulder imagines Scully undergoing weird alien experiments. For the first time this season, Gillian Anderson doesn’t have to hide her pregnant belly. Then Fox sees Alex interviewing Duane and interrupts. Clearly, Mulder is the type of person who doesn’t want other kids playing with his toys. Krycek says Duane claims Mulder choked him. Do you think third person-obsessed Duane said, “Mulder choked me” or “Mulder choked Duane Barry?” Skinner arrives and is understandably pissed. Duane goes into another choking frenzy and dies. Krycek, what did you do?!?

In the FBI morgue at Quantico, Mulder meets with a military pathologist to discuss  Barry’s autopsy results. We know that’s normally Scully’s job, but given the circumstances, it probably wouldn’t be prudent to postpone the autopsy of her abductor until her return. Krycek discreetly meets with CSM in the parking garage. If they’re actually in the FBI garage, then I’m thinking it’s not so discreet after all. CSM tells Alex to write the truth in his report and Krycek’s reply is probably the best way to sum up the entire X-Files run: “What do you mean?” CSM says the Scully situation has been addressed (technically it was taken care of, but I really, really hate ending sentences with prepositions). CSM puts Alex back in his lackey place while continuing to expose him to second-hand smoke. If Krycek died of lung cancer, could CSM be held accountable? 

Skinner confronts Mulder about Duane’s death. Mulder takes Krycek’s car and tries to meet with Senator Matheson, one of his few supporters. Mr. X intervenes and tells Mulder the government’s policy is to deny everything. Makes you wonder if one or more government agencies opened a file on Chris Carter because of this show. Mulder finds cigarettes in Krycek’s ashtray and links them to CSM. He gives Skinner a complete report that essentially accuses Alex of murder and conspiracy. Skinner sides with Mulder and they learn Krycek has disappeared. Skinner can’t do anything about that but he does reopen the X-Files. Go Skinner! 

Mulder meets with Scully’s mom, but doesn’t have any new information for her. He tries to give her Dana's gold cross necklace but Mama Scully tells him to hold on to it until he finds her. But he does pose an interesting question: “If she was such a skeptic, why did she wear that?” Maybe she was still in her '80s Madonna phase.

Sestra Professional:

Actually the question of Scully's faith is addressed in later episodes, but as it stands here, I think it gives her more character. We're all more complicated than the nouns or adjectives we can use to describe us, here's another example of the show fleshing out their lead female. It's amazing how ever-present Dana is in this episode, when we see so little of her during it.

There couldn't have been a more powerful way for Gillian Anderson to go on her maternity leave. The atmosphere has been heightened in this arc, we're invested like never before. The conspiracy has been taken to a different level -- who has been after Duane Barry the whole time and why? Whatever the answer to that question,  now Scully's in that web.

Bravo for Mulder's detective work under personal strain and lack of sleep. He knows there's a reason Duane was able to find Scully -- it wasn't random and it wasn't bad scripting. It could have been the tracking device. Or, for once, Fox is even willing to believe the most plausible explanation -- someone told him where he could grab her.

Can't recall a better adventure sequence on the show to date than Mulder getting up the mountain on the tram. First, Fox disobeys operator orders (which he didn't hear much of since he took off before he heard them all) and revs the car past the recommended speed. That definitely quickens the pulse. Then there's the acrobatic routine just short of the summit, when Krycek's treachery comes in to play. Well, you did your best, Alex. Oh yeah, supposed to be rooting for Fox. Way to go, Mulder. Major kudos to David Duchovny for doing stunt work on this set piece -- he said at the time that if he was going to risk life and limb, we should at least be able to tell it was him getting the job done.

The military's in on it: It's another knockout performance by Steve Railsback, particularly atop Skyland Mountain when Duane's shouting to the heavens about pulling one over on the aliens by getting them to take Scully instead. "You can't touch Duane Barry any more! ... They took her! ... Them!!!!" He so completely disappears into character that it's not difficult to bemoan his fate, even after serving up Dana on a platter.

But all props to Gillian Anderson --  whose appearances are brief, but oh-so-suspenseful.  She's bound and gagged in the trunk of a car in one scene, and in the other, apparently undergoing experiments -- with her full belly.

You have no rights, only orders to be carried out: The show had looked to be maneuvering Krycek into a solid good guy/bad guy position, with Alex corroborating Mulder's story while still undermining him whenever he could do so. But then the plot point which has stuck in my craw lo these many years, Fox makes the connection to the Cigarette-Smoking Man when he spies the butts in the car ashtray. So that story ends before it can truly get under way. 

Mulder thinks Krycek is responsible for everything -- gave away the whereabouts of Scully, killed the tram operator, killed Duane Barry. Perhaps he also took the Lindbergh baby. And Mulder's basing that on a few stubbed cigarettes found in a car? The same kind smoked by a guy who sat in Skinner's office and listened to Fox and Alex reporting in on Duane Barry? Wouldn't Skinner be under suspicion by his own agent under that reasoning?

The back story is that Nicholas Lea was just hired to do this storyline --  they didn't plan on utilizing Krycek again. So much the pity, there was a lot more there to be mined. And going in that direction would have been a lot more interesting than what goes on in the next episode, one of the most abhorred in the show's lexicon. 

But back to the good stuff, some meta on the CSM-Krycek discussion/dress down, the head baddie explains why the conspiracy doesn't just kill Mulder -- "Kill Mulder and you risk turning one man's religion into a crusade." Fans had been wondering why he's allowed to continue his investigations, this was Chris Carter's way of addressing that issue. An example of how interactive the show could be from time to time, just not on the greatest question of all -- to ship or not to ship.