X-Files S4E13: Never say 'Never Again' doesn't belong

Sestra Amateur: 

In Philadelphia, Edward Jerse is getting a divorce and pretty unhappy about it. Looks like he may have lost custody of his two adorable children. Jerse, played by Rodney Rowland -- another member of Glen Morgan and James Wong’s short-lived series Space: Above and Beyond -- drinks too much and gets a tattoo featuring the life-lesson message "Never Again." On the upside, he didn’t get it in an embarrassing place like his neck or his butt. On the downside, the lovely lady in the tattoo seems to have some special skills … like the ability to open and close her electric blue eyes. We'll call her Betty.

Sculder are in Washington, D.C. on a separate investigation involving an informant named Vsevlod Pudovkin (common spelling). Jerse, a stockbroker, is on the phone at work when he hears a woman calls him “Loser.” He thinks it’s a female coworker, so Ed confronts her and loses his temper. Jerse trashes the employee’s desk because the voice tells him to and gets sent home. 

Mulder is sent on a forced vacation, leaving Scully in charge. She focuses on the important facts, like why she doesn’t have her own desk in his office. Fox, already in a pissy mood, is unusually harsh with Dana and her inability to stay focused during their interview the night before. We know Scully received some unnerving information in the previous episode about possibly having cancer, but clearly she hasn’t mentioned it to Mulder yet. Fox gives Dana a work-related “honey do” list, but Scully talks her way out of it by comparing this particular X-File to the classic Rocky and Bullwinkle story arc "Upsidaisium." (I’ve always been partial to the "Treasure of Monte Zoom" arc, but that really has no relevance here because it doesn’t have an underlying government conspiracy theme like "Upsidaisium.") Mulder remains awfully testy with her and acts like she’s Cancer Man impeding his personal investigations. This is why normal people take yearly vacations, Fox.

Meanwhile, Ed’s bad day continues to get worse. He gets fired because of his behavior and becomes upset, so Betty taunts him. Jerse thinks it’s his downstairs neighbor, Kaye Schilling, who’s taking care of her bird and drowning out Ed's tirade with loud TV. (Hey Sestra, I’m sure the This Week in Entertainment magazine cover featuring “The Wisest Man in Hollywood” is an inside joke, but who is that supposed to be? My first thought was Chris Carter, but I didn’t recognize the photo.) Jerse gets distracted by Jehovah’s Witnesses at his door and even they think he’s crazy. Betty continues to push and push until Ed breaks into Kaye’s apartment and beats her to death and puts her body in the incinerator. Betty really has some anger toward women. Did I mention Betty is voiced by Jodie Foster? It’s definitely not one of her usual roles. 

Vacationing Mulder is experiencing one of those rare moments when he has his cell phone. Too bad he calls Scully on the office line instead of her cell phone because she’s not in the office. Plus, if he wanted her following his Russian contact, then why would he assume she’s sitting in his office doing nothing? Our heroine trails Pudovkin around Philadelphia, of course, right into the tattoo parlor where Jerse is complaining about the tattoo. It’s not like you can return it, Ed. The artist tells him “everyone gets tattoo they deserve.” Now that’s an ominous line. They ask Scully’s opinion and she is very impressed with the artwork and coloring. Betty, however, is very jealous of Dana. 

The artist gets called into the back room by Pudovkin and Jerse warns Scully to not make an impulsive decision about getting a tattoo. He invites her to dinner but she politely turns him down. He gives her his card anyway. Back at the hotel, Mulder, who’s vacationing at Graceland, calls Dana (in her hotel room this time because he finally decides to use his investigator skills) to give her the play-by-play of his vacation. Scully tells him she turned his case over to the Philadelphia branch because it’s not an X-File, just a typical case of extortion and racketeering. Dana gets annoyed enough that she calls Ed for a dinner date. Luckily, she interrupts Betty’s running monologue about women and Jerse agrees to go out with her. He tries to silence Betty by burning her -- which is actually his arm -- with his cigarette. And they say all of the good ones are taken…

Scully goes to Ed’s apartment building, where the Jehovah’s Witnesses are still trying to save Kaye’s soul, but obviously Kaye can’t come to the door. Jerse’s tattoo starts bleeding so Dana offers her medical expertise. Between the bloody arm and the burned-out photograph of Ed and his kids, you’d think a sensible person like Dana Scully would get the hell out of there. Instead, she goes with Jerse to his bar and tells him her life story, except for the FBI agent part. Ed essentially dares Scully to get her own tattoo, so she does. She chooses one of a snake eating its own tail (metaphor for your life, Dana?) and uses the same shade of red that was used for Betty’s lips. Scully seems to be having a grand old time. Jerse takes Dana back to his place and lets her crash there because of the storm. Scully is worried because Ed’s tattoo is bleeding again. She unwraps it and thinks it looks burned. Betty isn’t happy about that and lets Ed know it by threatening to kill Dana if he kisses her. Does he? Doesn’t he?

Mulder returns from vacation and tries to reach Scully from the office, but she’s not in her hotel room. Jerse wakes up and leaves the apartment to get coffee. Local detectives are looking for Ed because of Kaye’s disappearance and abnormal blood found in her apartment. Dana identifies herself as an FBI agent and a medical doctor and they share information with her – even though Scully's in the suspect’s apartment wearing only a shirt. The abnormalities in the suspect’s blood match what the Russian tattooist used for coloring in both their tattoos. 

Dana calls Fox at the office – not on his cell phone because that would make too much sense – but hangs up when he answers the phone. Jerse returns to his apartment with breakfast. Scully updates him and suggests they go to the hospital. Ed admits he’s hearing Betty in his head and "the tattoo" hates women. Jerse is convinced Scully made Betty's voice go away. He’s willing to go to the hospital until Betty has Ed hit the redial button and he learns she called the FBI. Jerse loses control and knocks Dana unconscious. He wraps her in the bed sheet and is about to put her in the incinerator when Scully, who had a pair of scissors in her hand, regains consciousness and stabs Ed in the arm. She's still trying to talk him down. Betty almost convinces Jerse to kill Dana, but Ed finally gets control and burns the tattoo off his arm. Bye, bye, Betty.

Back in their office, Mulder is putting a big red bow on an episode he wasn’t really a part of while Scully barely pays attention to him. Fox still thinks Dana's bad choices were because of him, but Scully quickly corrects him … even though she doesn’t tell him why just yet. Hopefully, Mulder will be less of an annoying narcissist next week when Dana needs him most.

Sestra Professional:

First and foremost, Gillian Anderson has always maintained that if she knew "Never Again" was going to air out of order and behind "Leonard Betts," she would have played her scenes differently. But as Sestra Am noted earlier, the early part of the ep provides good reason for Scully's malaise and general reticence in going along with the Mulder flow -- particularly since he's not there to do much heavy lifting on the case.

We have two really strong guest performances here, Rowland is very believable at Jerse. You feel the depth of Ed's pain before the physical aspects of the tattoo poisoning take hold. Jerse's downward spiral aside, I've always thought he was an intriguing match for Dana, certainly the best of her slim candidates to date. And, no, I'm not including Fox, cause ya know, they're just co-workers. But Scully backed me up, recalling that the last date she was going to see Glengarry Glen Ross, and the hard-luck characters in the movie arguably had a better time. Guess Gillian agreed about her chemistry with Rodney, they were steadies for a while following this episode. Then there's Jodie Foster, seemingly having a blast cackling and inciting bad things during the Betty voiceover.

You talk to her and I'm gonna be bad: But even better, we're getting a look at Scully beyond the mask and the surgical gloves and Anderson is phenomenal at showing us that. Dana's been in Fox's shadow for most of the four-plus seasons, we haven't gotten a prolonged look at her internal mechanism. It starts here when she wanders from an interview to investigate a leaf. She's ripe for the kind of personal status check that Ed winds up providing for her.

"Never Again" was exchanged with "Leonard Betts" for the coveted Super Bowl slot the year it aired because the latter episode looked and felt a lot more like a traditional episode of The X-Files. But that's not to take anything away from this one. It boasts a strong script by the powerhouse team Glen Morgan and James Wong -- their last contributions until the revival -- as well as some enthralling direction from Rob Bowman. The way Bowman dramatically pans and draws back the camera to the ironic use of the Partridge Family's "Doesn't Someone Want to Be Wanted" is irresistible. It lulls us, much like the alcohol and the poisoned ink does to the characters within.

I go all the way to the bone: Gillian reportedly was disappointed there was no sex scene, but the scene of Dana getting the ouroborus tattoo -- with atmospheric score by Mark Snow, of course -- was quite sensual. Not to mention the scene after it in which she's trying to explain how different it makes her feel and Ed checks it for her. I personally think we left them too early for a pan down the hall, even then, shippers seemed to be affecting the canvas. It didn't really change my impression of what happened between them.

"I thought it was a great idea," Anderson said in discussing the episode at length in the fourth-season guide. "I personally was going through a dark period at the time, and I wanted to explore Scully's dark side. ... Afterward, a lot of people told me on that episode I was so 'unlike' Scully or that 'it showed my range.' I told them I thought they were wrong. ... All of us have parts of ourselves that we don't show to other people. All of us can go home and be depressed at night -- and be smiling during the day. ... I don't think what I did here was out of character for Scully. The only thing different is that the audience hadn't seen it before." 

I have always agreed with her wholeheartedly on that front. So Scully has had personal ties to three men so far ... two of them turned psychotic thanks to a tattoo. Remember Agent Jack Willis from "Lazarus" (Season 1, Episode 15)? It's OK, if you don't. But do keep in mind that the ouroborus eventually became the symbol that represented Carter's new show, Millennium, the following year.

"Never Again" works in its own right. We have all the answers to the story, there's no particular quest for knowledge, and yet it's still interesting enough to keep our attention while it winds its way to the inevitable conclusion. "Not everything is about you, Mulder. This is my life," Scully finally gets to say in the last moments. She's right and he has no special quip response for that one. 

I always assumed that was your area: Ah, the time-honored question: "Why doesn't Scully have a desk?" This was one of the things X-Philes grabbed on to -- like Clyde Bruckman telling Dana she never dies back in the fourth episode of the third season. It's kind of a good point. I know they're hidden away in the basement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But they do still work for the FBI. They probably should have secretaries ... excuse me, assistants ... as well. 

More for your meta: Quentin Tarantino was approached to helm this episode, but he wasn't a member of the Directors Guild of America at the time of production. ... The part of Ed Jerse was written for Rowland, who escorted Anderson to the Emmy Awards that year. After Gillian won, she kissed David Duchovny and then Rodney. ... Morgan and Wong apparently named victim Kaye Schilling after Entertainment Weekly editor Mary Kaye Schilling, who had panned some of their work. ... The magazine used to line the birdcage Sestra Am mentioned earlier is a picture of beloved X-Files producer/director Bob Goodwin. 

Guest star of the week: It's really Rowland and Jodie Foster, but it's too irresistible not to give the nod to Foster here. Her Silence of the Lambs character, Clarice Starling, has long been known as the template on which Dana Scully was built. Foster was a longtime friend of casting director Randy Stone and a big fan of the show. She reportedly came in and nailed her readings in less than an hour, then returned to work on Contact. That's economy ... and talent.