X-Files S2E8: The strength of their beliefs

Sestra Amateur: 

Glen Morgan and James Wong do their best to atone for the atrocity of the previous episode. In fact, they provide the best argument that “3” was mostly Chris Ruppenthal’s mess since he’s not one of the “One Breath” writers. Gillian Anderson is back from maternity leave, and even unconscious, Scully makes quite the impression on those around her. 

The episode begins with Scully’s mother telling Mulder a story about when Dana and her brothers were kids. The three children were taking the first steps on the path to becoming serial killers by shooting at a snake they found in the woods and laughing about it. Luckily, young Dana experienced remorse at causing the reptile’s death and changed her path. Not so sure whether the brothers learned the same lesson, but probably did eventually since there was never an episode involving a Scully sibling serial killer. The guest-star list alone tells you it’s going to be a pivotal episode: Skinner, Mr. X, Cigarette-Smoking Man. We even get The Lone Gunmen but they’re on the back end of the credits so we don’t know that straight off. 

Good news: Scully shows up alive in a hospital. Bad news: She’s in a coma. Mulder understandably goes off the rails. Worse news: Dana had a living will, and if she gets her way, will be taken off life support because she never wanted to live in that state. So everything seems hopeless for our heroine. Mulder meets Dana’s spiritual sister, Melissa “I’ve been told not to call you Fox” Scully. Melissa claims she can contact her sister through her soul. She’s clearly less of a skeptic than Dana. But they only see Scully lying unconscious on the bed, hooked up to machines that keep her alive. Dana’s perspective shows her tethered to a boat on a lake with everyone unable to reach her because they are stuck on the dock. Fox returns home and tries to contact Mr. X through their bat signal -- the X taped on Mulder’s window.

Frohike shows up at the hospital with flowers for Scully. Aw. He also smuggles out her chart so the Lone Gunmen can analyze it. Double aw. They learn someone experimented on Scully, but they can’t give Mulder any hope that she will recover. Nurse Owens talks to Scully and tries to convince her to stick around a little longer. Nurse Wilkins draws a vial of Dana’s blood, which gets stolen during an unrelated medical emergency. 

Mulder chases the blood thief – please don't let this turn into “3” all over again – and they end up in the parking garage. Mr. X intervenes, cryptically telling Mulder he used to be just like him. Mulder continues his chase and the blood thief gets the drop on Mulder, but X intervenes and shoots the guy in the head. On the upside, the hands-on informant tells Mulder he’ll deal with the cleanup. Meanwhile, Scully’s metaphorical rope/lifeline snaps and she begins to drift away from the dock. 

Back at FBI headquarters, Cancer Man meets with Skinner to complain about the assistant director's lack of control over Mulder. Skinner amusingly tries to convince CSM not to smoke in the office, but of course he marks his territory anyway. CSM leaves just before Mulder enters through another door. Mulder plays the denial game regarding what happened in the parking garage. He’s not as good at it as the other players are, but Fox is still learning. Anyway, Skinner doesn’t give Mulder any answers. 

Nurse Owens continues talking to Scully and Dana appears to be hearing the words from her father. But how does Nurse Owens know their nicknames, Ahab and Starbuck? Maybe she watched the episode, "Beyond the Sea." Back at the hospital, Mulder gets a clue in a pack of Morleys -- I wonder whether Marlboro ever sued for some type of likeness infringement. 

The address leads Mulder directly to Cancer Man, who is sitting alone in a featureless apartment. Fox is so irate he actually smacks a cigarette out of CSM’s mouth. Cancer Man points out how pathetic his own life is, but insists he does what he does because it’s the right thing to do. Of course, he tells Mulder that he will never learn “the truth” if he kills Cancer Man. It really is the only card he has left to play at this point. 

Mulder, who has really made no progress, chooses to quit the FBI, but Skinner refuses to accept his letter of resignation. The assistant director gives Mulder one hell of a pep talk and Mulder realizes Skinner is the one who led him to Cancer Man. Mr. X later helps Mulder set a trap for the men responsible for Scully’s abduction, but Fox ends up going to the hospital to try and reach Dana by talking to her. Unsuccessful, Mulder returns home to his now ransacked apartment and breaks down – pretty sure he’s not crying about the apartment. 

Things have never looked bleaker for our hero. But now that Mulder’s hit rock bottom, it’s time to let Scully wake up. And just like that, she’s conscious – and coherent. For the first time in a very long time, we see a genuine Fox Mulder smile when he hears about it. Scully seems to have heard Mulder in her comatose state, so he reached her after all. Fox returns to Dana's gold cross necklace to her. Scully later asks Nurse Wilkins about Nurse Owens, but finds out Nurse Owens doesn’t exist. Her first case back should be opening a Nurse Owens X-File.

Sestra Professional:

Too bad her first case back wasn't Nurse Owens. You'll see why next week. And by the way, thank God you're back, Scully. You'll never believe what Mulder got up to while you were away.

The voiceover teaser. These consistently wind up being my least favorite part of The X-Files. I've always found them to be quite heavy-handed and pretentious. But the end of the tag when Dana's mother sees her daughter's would-be headstone, that gets me right where I live. 

While Scully's choosing whether to remain or move on, we get lots of nice character beats from those around her. Mulder needs as many answers about the sudden reappearance as he wanted from the initial disappearance, and he's not exactly taking the even-tempered approach. Her mother is just grateful her daughter's alive. Her sister's working her trademark crystals. Even Frohike's decked out to the nines and bearing flowers.

Every life, every day is in danger. That's life: So the quiet beats are nice and a bit shippy for all the Sculder fans who need more from the show than just plot progression, but the real driving force of the episode comes from the other end of the spectrum. Skinner gets the biggest laugh with his "Thank you for not smoking" sign, unheeded though it went, and he also provides the most poignant moment during a couple of horrific stories about serving in Vietnam designed to prevent Mulder's resignation from the FBI.

Good thing the tension's there, because meta threatens to overwhelm me at almost every turn in this episode. "We're all hopping on the internet to nitpick the scientific inaccuracies of Earth 2," Langly proclaims, in a very pointed reference to how sci-fi fans tended to dissect every single aspect of shows in chat rooms the second the end credits rolled.

Thank goodness we have the Lone Gunmen to serve as our medical experts, telling us all about branched DNA now apparently inactive inside Dana. Her immune system has been compromised by experimentation -- remember the use of Gillian Anderson's full belly in our last conspiracy episode?

Gotcha: But I think you're being a little naive, Sestra Am. There's a suspicious guy in the shadows and then a convenient medical emergency? I don't think it's unrelated. Those conspiracy types are rough, inducing a code red just to steal some blood. So there's the heightened tension of Mulder trying to catch up to him and ... it's over a lot sooner if you watch the blooper reel.

Sestra Am gets a point back, I never made a connection between Nurse Owens' words and Scully's dad. Probably because I was pondering his words about life seeming to have passed by in the length of one breath, one heartbeat. Or perhaps I was thinking about exhausted Gillian reportedly falling asleep while filming comatose scenes in her quick return after giving birth. 

And maybe X is more like Mulder than we suspected, because this guy is pretty tightly wound -- shoving his high-capacity compact SIG Sauer .40-caliber weapon in Fox's face in his attempt to prevent him from going what he deems to be the wrong way with his investigation.

Don't try to threaten me, Mulder. I've watched presidents die: William B. Davis has always maintained that the real hero of The X-Files is his character, and I kind of see his point in this episode. "Who are you to decide what's right?" Mulder asks with the business end of his gun." "Who are you?" newly monikered Cancer Man responds. He respects Mulder for threatening him, but like Sestra Am says, CSM's got a more powerful secret weapon -- if Mulder kills him, he'll never learn the truth about any of it.

Even Scully's hippie-trippy sister gets good at laying the guilt trip on Fox. He derides her "harmonic convergence crap," but Melissa's the one who points out maybe sitting at Scully's bedside and speaking his peace -- about his guilt, about his feelings -- would be better than running around with his gun half-cocked. And I find myself kind of buying into the fact that her beliefs aren't silly or trite just because they are positive and good.

Guest star of the week: We're mostly running with regulars this week, but I'm going to take a moment to show some appreciation for Melinda McGraw, which I think I've never done before. Melissa Scully comes in under the worst circumstances, obviously, and she's full-on with attempts at crystal blue persuasion. But Melinda's got a couple of real nifty scenes with David Duchovny. I can see why, at the time, the shippers were getting all up in arms at the possibility of the show putting those two together. Not something anyone ever needed to see, just respect for a show newcomer shining some light. Right on, Melinda!