The Geometry of Hallucination
After spending an entire episode in the water, Mulder is rescued by Scully. Little wonder that it is at the end of ‘Triangle’ that Mulder finally tells Scully he loves her.
Scripturally and directorially, ‘Triangle’ is a triumph. Forty-five minutes of television made up of only 24 individual shots. them0vieblog.com is right to call it a tour de force. I’m not so sure that Todd VanDerWerff, at the A.V. Club, is entirely right in saying that the episode is “’just’ a fun episode”. I am in full agreement with VanDerWerff’s selection of Act 3, in which Scully runs around the FBI building seeking that all important piece of information, and the split screen in Act 5 when the two Scullys cross paths, pause, and look back puzzled, as being highlights of the episode.
I do ponder why Scully features so prominently in my highlights list.
To dismiss this episode as a dream is to do it a disservice.
Mulder is floating face down in the sea. The X File here is how he didn’t drown! That aside, being face down, he is likely to have imbibed or even just breathed in enough sea water to cause him to hallucinate. Sea water contains more salt than the kidneys can eliminate – to eliminate the salt from 2 litres of sea water, the kidneys will eliminate 3 litres of water from the body. Dehydration ensues. As will hallucinations.
This isn’t Bobby Ewing waking up in the shower.
Mulder hallucinating would explain how the Queen Anne is peopled by everyone he knows in life, except himself. Personally, I think a Nazi Mulder would make sense.
That the Cigarette Smoking Man is THE Nazi is hardly surprising. Spender as a willing accomplice is insightful on Mulder’s part, as the character hasn’t deliberately committed any overt act against him at this point. Unless Mulder sees everyone who doesn’t agree with him as a Nazi! Skinner is interesting. Not a Nazi but wearing the uniform of the enemy. Mulder really does have a problem with authority!
He is willing to accept that authority can, sometimes, do the right thing, as when alt.Skinner shoots the German soldier hunting Mulder and alt.Scully. In essence, however, authority is the enemy.
Mulder is one messed up dude!
He must know that the only way he is able to conduct his investigations into the paranormal and the existence of extraterrestrials is because he carries the badge of authority as an FBI agent. What are the X Files but an unwanted department of the FBI? He may be the FBI’s ‘most unwanted’, but he works under the auspices of the very authority he abhors.
Assistant Director Skinner, that most stalwart of Government appointees, has put his ass on the line so many times, even making a deal with the devil he warned Mulder against, in aid of Mulder and his cause. Yet, still, he wears the uniform of the enemy.
Though in different ways, both Scully and Mulder have authority issues. He riles against authority; she finds it strangely attractive. Makes one wonder what Chris Carter’s attitude to authority is. I imagine it is a mixture of both.
Those of us who must conform to the whims of authority find it both fascist and attractive. We might feel demeaned by our need to submit while fully cognizant of our own desires to impose ourselves upon others. Mulder’s contempt for authority only stretches as far as those above him. When he knocks on a door and flashes his badge, when he is surprised at the British sailors not knowing the FBI, he reveals an authoritarianism that he would despise in others.
Mulder shows an incredible ability to understand others, especially women subjected to the perversions of authority (cf. ‘Oubliette’ and ‘Mind’s Eye’) As Clarice Starling noticed about Hannibal Lecter, Mulder has a blind spot:
And she turns her back on him and walks away!
Scripturally and directorially, ‘Triangle’ is a triumph. Forty-five minutes of television made up of only 24 individual shots. them0vieblog.com is right to call it a tour de force. I’m not so sure that Todd VanDerWerff, at the A.V. Club, is entirely right in saying that the episode is “’just’ a fun episode”. I am in full agreement with VanDerWerff’s selection of Act 3, in which Scully runs around the FBI building seeking that all important piece of information, and the split screen in Act 5 when the two Scullys cross paths, pause, and look back puzzled, as being highlights of the episode.
I do ponder why Scully features so prominently in my highlights list.
To dismiss this episode as a dream is to do it a disservice.
Mulder is floating face down in the sea. The X File here is how he didn’t drown! That aside, being face down, he is likely to have imbibed or even just breathed in enough sea water to cause him to hallucinate. Sea water contains more salt than the kidneys can eliminate – to eliminate the salt from 2 litres of sea water, the kidneys will eliminate 3 litres of water from the body. Dehydration ensues. As will hallucinations.
This isn’t Bobby Ewing waking up in the shower.
Mulder hallucinating would explain how the Queen Anne is peopled by everyone he knows in life, except himself. Personally, I think a Nazi Mulder would make sense.
That the Cigarette Smoking Man is THE Nazi is hardly surprising. Spender as a willing accomplice is insightful on Mulder’s part, as the character hasn’t deliberately committed any overt act against him at this point. Unless Mulder sees everyone who doesn’t agree with him as a Nazi! Skinner is interesting. Not a Nazi but wearing the uniform of the enemy. Mulder really does have a problem with authority!
He is willing to accept that authority can, sometimes, do the right thing, as when alt.Skinner shoots the German soldier hunting Mulder and alt.Scully. In essence, however, authority is the enemy.
Mulder is one messed up dude!
He must know that the only way he is able to conduct his investigations into the paranormal and the existence of extraterrestrials is because he carries the badge of authority as an FBI agent. What are the X Files but an unwanted department of the FBI? He may be the FBI’s ‘most unwanted’, but he works under the auspices of the very authority he abhors.
Assistant Director Skinner, that most stalwart of Government appointees, has put his ass on the line so many times, even making a deal with the devil he warned Mulder against, in aid of Mulder and his cause. Yet, still, he wears the uniform of the enemy.
Though in different ways, both Scully and Mulder have authority issues. He riles against authority; she finds it strangely attractive. Makes one wonder what Chris Carter’s attitude to authority is. I imagine it is a mixture of both.
Those of us who must conform to the whims of authority find it both fascist and attractive. We might feel demeaned by our need to submit while fully cognizant of our own desires to impose ourselves upon others. Mulder’s contempt for authority only stretches as far as those above him. When he knocks on a door and flashes his badge, when he is surprised at the British sailors not knowing the FBI, he reveals an authoritarianism that he would despise in others.
Mulder shows an incredible ability to understand others, especially women subjected to the perversions of authority (cf. ‘Oubliette’ and ‘Mind’s Eye’) As Clarice Starling noticed about Hannibal Lecter, Mulder has a blind spot:
You see a lot, doctor. But can you point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don't you – why don't you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you're afraid to… (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991)
Mulder can no more analyse himself than Hannibal Lecter. Almost accidentally, he occasionally stumbles upon a self-realisation. After spending an entire episode in the water, he finally is able to tell the one person he needs more than any other that he loves her.And she turns her back on him and walks away!
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