Scully is not just in, she is

'Leonard Betts' told us that Scully has cancer and, thanks to a shuffling of the production order, 'Never Again' showed us her reaction to that news with an uncharacteristic night of near passion. In 'Memento Mori' we finally see Scully begin an attempt to fight what she terms "science's demon possession".
That she does so designate her cancer in this way is rather telling for it shows the extent to which she has become immersed in Mulder's worldview. This is little less than shocking coming so soon after the near break-down of their relationship in 'Never Again'. In that episode, Mulder made the distinction between them clear:
But let me remind you that I worked my ass off to get the files reopened. You were just assigned. This work is my life.
Scully does respond that it also becoming hers, but Mulder is right when he retorts, "You don't want it to be."
Even after all the pair have been through together, it is not unfair of Mulder to recognize this difference. Scully was assigned to the X Files and to 'debunk' them no less. True she has grown to see the value of Mulder and his crusade, allowing herself to come to a belief in a conspiracy, yet it remains for her more a job, a vastly important one involving national security and the saving of humanity from alien hegemony, but a job nevertheless.
This distinction is to be seen in 'Never Again' when Scully complains,
I feel like I’ve lost sight of myself, Mulder. It’s hard to see, let alone find in the darkness of covert locations.
While it is not unreasonable for Scully to want a life, she reveals her distinction to Mulder who sees no life for himself beyond the X Files. For Mulder, the X Files are his life. They are not Scully's.
Until 'Memento Mori'.
Scully has always been reluctant to accept what happened to her in Season Two's 'Duane Barry'/'Ascension' two-parter. Even in 'Memento Mori' she apologises to Penny Northern for not sharing 'those memories'. In the very next scene, however, on the phone to Mulder asking him to bring the "overnight bag from the trunk of the car and I need you to call my mother and ask her to bring up some things at the hospital", she admits "I think that we both know that right now the truth is in me". Not a classic line, to be sure, but an important one, it being Scully's acceptance at last of what happened to her.
Mulder is wrong in his judgement of Scully. He is right that there is a clear distinction between them, but he misidentifies it. He comes close, at the end of 'Never Again' when he congratulates Scully "for making a personal appearance in the X Files for a second time". What he doesn't realise is that Scully doesn't just appear in his filing system - Scully is an X File.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nothing more than what we are

What makes a person who they are? The X Files asked this question back in Season One’s ‘ Ice ’ when Richter announced, “We’re not … who … we are.” It has continued to ask this question through Mulder and Scully, both of whom have had plenty of cause to question just who they are, who they would like to be, and whether they like being who they appear to be. Mulder’s crisis of faith has forced him to face this question, as Scully has had to face it after meeting Emily and the choices she felt she needed to make for ‘her’ child. All of us are faced with this question, probably more often than we know. In a toxic relationship, we must ask ourselves if we wish to be the person we seemed forced to be? In a job that makes us unhappy, we must ask if we wish to force ourselves to be someone we’d prefer not to be? Returning home after many years away, we must ask ourselves if we are the person remembered by those who stayed or someone who has grown beyond what they can know? Who is Alex K...
Read more

Sky Commander Winky wrote this script!

Let’s get something straight right away. I hate this episode. But, then, I hate William! It’s not the baby’s fault. He’s probably as adorable as Scully thinks him. I hate what he did to my all-time favourite TV character. I hate that he reduced her to, well - dare I say it? - a mother. I hope you women out there – if there are any who read this blog – don’t misunderstand me. I have nothing against motherhood. Or fatherhood, for that matter. My wife and I have two of the most beautiful, wonderful, gush gush children imaginable. Only in the context of the X Files, and specifically, Scully, do I hate the baby. I am gloriously happy for her as a human being. She had previously lamented her inability to have children in ‘ Home ’ and ‘ Emily ’, for instance. As a person, she is blessed by the birth of William. But, Scully isn’t a person, is she? She’s a character in a TV show. Not just any character, mind, oh no. She’s a rational female character whose job it is to rationalize the ...
Read more

Empedocles

According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Empedocles “has been regarded variously as a materialist physicist, a shamanic magician, a mystical theologian, a healer, a democratic politician, a living god, and a fraud.” Evidently not a “ stable genius ”, then, and, very likely, someone who would utilise Twitter to his own aggrandizement, but, nevertheless, someone who is regarded as “one of the most important of the philosophers working before Socrates ”, to quote, once again, the IEP. Empedocles it was who gave us the perennially popular idea of the four elements: earth, air, fire and water. Out of these four elements all things stem. According to Empedocles, all that exists is some mixture of these four, with the whole being something other than its constituents, while they, in turn, retain their own individual nature. Just think on that for a moment. Before Socrates – that is, before Athens and all that it gifted to the political, philosophical and literary world – ...
Read more