Gilligan's Island of Morality

If ever proof were needed that the X Files was willing to explore the parts other TV shows couldn’t reach, a comedic episode about a serial rapist should be just about the only evidence ever needed.

‘Small Potatoes’ is a very popular episode, praised for the interaction between the two leads, Mulder and Scully, and for the comedic timing and expression of both actors. All praise deserved. Many of these glowing reviewers go on to make some excuse for the apparent dismissive manner in which the central issue is dealt with. Just one example from Doux Reviews, (a truly fantastic website if, like me, you’re into reading reviews of TV shows) in a comment to the review of this episode:

… this episode does have a side that shouldn't be, but often is, ignored. I'm guilty of it, I'm afraid. I get lost in the humor and the Mulder/Scully dynamic and tend to forget just how awful what Eddie has done really is.

That other excellent website, to which I return religiously, them0vieblog.com, after quoting Eddie’s self-justification of providing a service to women whose husbands can’t, observes:

The episode doesn’t buy into Eddie’s logic, but it treats it as a joke; the families harmed by Eddie’s crime disappear from the narrative quite quickly.

Rather than a criticism, I think this could actually be the point. Rather than treating rape as a joke, I think this episode is mirroring for us the attitude of the law and society in depicting Eddie’s victims the way it does. From the United States to Australia, and not forgetting dear old Blighty, rape victims are not taken seriously.

The same reasoning explains why Eddie Van Blundht is seen sympathetically. The article from Rolling Stone quotes one police officer as asking a woman bringing a rape charge, “Why are you messing that guy’s life up?” It goes without saying that if the female victims are not treated sympathetically, the male offender must not be seen for what he really is. Even Vince Gilligan, the writer of this episode, says of Eddie:

…I sort of feel sorry for the guy and he’s sort of a sweet-natured character for the most part, but when you get right down to it he really does need to be locked up. (cf. them0vieblog.com)

How a man who forces himself on unsuspecting women can ever be described as “sweet-natured” is beyond me. Vince Gilligan, as writer and creator of characters, seems to have a penchant for these guys, whether it be the welter of such characters he created for the X Files or the likes of Walter White in ‘Breaking Bad’ and Jimmy McGill in ‘Better Call Saul’. In creating such characters, in his ability to make us feel sympathy for them, Gilligan, intentionally or not, forces us to confront the sheer incoherent mess in which modern morality wallows.

Gilligan is a brilliant writer; these characters wouldn’t work if he wasn’t. While we watch ‘Small Potatoes’ or any other Gilligan penned piece, we cannot help but get drawn into the story being told or control our emotional reactions or resist the humour. As the end credits roll, however, we should be able to recognize our own gullibility.

Gilligan himself may only feel that “it’s probably not a bad ending that he [Eddie] winds up in the pokey,” but we the audience should be damned sure that prison is where Eddie belongs and for a very long time.

Read that last quote from Gilligan again. He’s a writer, so he likely puts some thought and care into his choice of words:

“Probably”? So, there’s a possibility of a better ending? Hopefully not one in which Eddie isn’t sent to prison. And what about “winds up in”? As if Eddie’s going to prison was a mere accident of circumstance – which for Eddie it might be, but for the viewer he should be in prison because he deserves to be. Finally, “pokey”! It is, I know, an informal American term for prison, but it lacks the sense of finality and threat of words like “pen”, “can” or even “clink”. And well it might, for “pokey”, in an earlier usage of the word, was a hostel for the needy or poorhouse. Hardly an appropriate place for a serial offender, whose crime is the abuse of innocent women.

If Vince Gilligan, gifted writer that he is, has such ambivalent feelings towards his criminal how can the audience not?