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"How much you're like Ahab - You're so consumed by your personal vengeance against life whether it be its inherent cruelties or its mysteries that everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology."
"Scully, are you coming on to me?"
Note to Mr. Carter: Kim Newton is a keeper. Easily and hands down this season's best new writer. From the haunting and introspective "Revelations" to this darkly humorous allegorical character piece of an X-File, she penned two winners for the season - not bad at all for an X-Files rookie as we have seen this season. This episode had so much going for it - a mysterious monster with a rather impressive body count and some much cherished moments between our agents.
Some interesting themes in this one: survival of the fittest, you can't turn your back on nature, and, of course, the great Moby Dick analogy. I was frankly pleasantly shocked at how much time in the episode was actually devoted to character development and Mulder and Scully talking about life, the universe and everything. (Or in this case life, quests, and cannibalism). For those of us who love the X-Files for its characters and not its monsters the conversation on the rock makes this episode a classic. Actually the character interplay and acting by Anderson and Duchovny were top notch throughout. I laughed many times in this hour - not the laugh of a incredibly odd Darin Morgan episode, but rather a delighted chuckle at Mulder and Scully being just so, well, Mulder and Scully. For a change Mulder and Scully even laughed and smiled a bit too.
Ah QueeQueg, we hardly knew ye. I knew it was a bad sign when we saw the little fluff ball in the back seat. After all, the writers seem to take some sort of perverse pleasure in killing off things Scully cares about. Poor QueeQueg? Heck, poor Scully, now even her dog is dead. When Mulder said "Did you really have to bring that thing" I knew the dog was fish bait. Too bad, little plot device, uh, QueeQueg, was fun. We did learn from him that the lethal Scully look apparently only works on humans and not in the rest of the animal kingdom. So when QueeQueg bites it, or rather it bites QueeQueg we get a bit of Scullyangst as she mumbles "Que.." and gets that same despondent look on her face that she had when they found Bruckman dead. Once again the insensitive clod award goes to our man Mulder who offers a distraught Scully a simple "Sorry about Queequeg" before launching forward. Say, is there an important FAX coming in? At least he did offer to walk the dog with her earlier, but hey, she's Scully, she's "fine", and she's packing.
This was one of those X-Files where the character lines were clear. To Scully the lake monster is so clearly "Oh tell me you're not serious" ludicrous that she doesn't even bother to hide her disdain for the theory as Mulder pursues with his boyish enthusiasm his great white whale. She's not alone in her opinion as first Dr. Farraday, and then the sheriff squash and ridicule Mulder's theories while she looks on showing us just how many faces Gillian Anderson can make to speak for Scully when she has no lines.
So, if you were alone on a rock in a "here be monsters" section of a lake what would you talk about? Mulder and Scully have never had great luck in the big outdoors and this was no exception, after all, as Scully (who mind you is not the paranoid one) says "everything is out to get you". They spend their evening drawing their guns on ducks and having an X-Files sort of heart to heart: "That was him Scully, that was Big Blue." "So what if it was." Mulder seems genuinely hurt when he asks Scully about his reasons for his quest being legitimate and she responds that she sometimes can't figure them out. Their conversation is odd and familiar at the same time moving from cannibalism and Scully's weight loss (what a classic look she gave him there when realizing the joke behind his compliment) to Moby Dick theories to my new all time favorite Mulder story - why I wish I had a peg leg. Then ah, the humiliation as they realize they were trapped but a stone's throw from the shore.
Scully spends a lot of time this episode coming up with these big time personal insights into Mulder and his impossible obsessions that she believes will leave him dead along with everyone else he brings with him, but she never really turns that light on herself. If Mulder is all these things, what does that say about her? He isn't out there on that rock by himself. She's the one who lets him wake her up on a Saturday morning telling her to be ready in five minutes and actually is ready to go in five minutes. What is *she* hoping to accomplish? Does she follow Mulder with her dogged loyalty despite her personal beliefs because she too wants to believe? Is she an action junkie and adventures with Mulder fill that need? Or, does she simply care too much about Mulder, thinking that somehow if she's there with him Mulder won't end up dead or turn into that man "listening only to himself hoping to catch a glimpse of the truth for who knows what reason." I'm not even going to go into the possible ramifications of Scully thinking Mulder is like Ahab, a name she used for her father as well.
One thing that has always struck me as a very interesting dichotomy about Mulder is that despite his awe of and quest for the unknown his fears always seem to get the best of him when confronted with the unknown. He wants to see, to discover, this "Big Blue" and yet his gun is always out. I am reminded of a similar occurrence in "Little Green Men" where when Mulder finally sees alien life he attempts to fire his gun at the creature. So, he slew his monster this time without a peg leg to show for it.
-Retread alert. I'm sure everyone but Mulder recognized the stoned frog licking teens from "War of the Coprophages" as they were playing the exact same characters and even using the same dialog "swinging the doors of perception wide open". Dr. Farraday was an escapee from "Our Town" as well.
-Some fun frog work in this one. Nice to see the frogs are getting some work again as bugs seemed to be getting all the primo guest spots this season. I liked the teaser shot with the hand going under as a frog hopped off. Plus any excuse to hear the line "A frog holocaust is currently being executed" is worth it.
-Well, at least they had our dynamic duo in sensible clothes for this one. Not a high heel in sight and only one tie.
-So, our photographer Ansel (too good a name for such a poor tooth photographer), was I the only one who thought he must be some distant cousin of Frohike. He stopped shooting pictures of the lake and started snapping them at Scully as soon as she arrived on the scene. Show us your bobbers indeed.
-Apparently Scully's recent spate of gun handling woes has prepared her for this leash dropping debacle. She's constantly jerked around by that small ball of fur. She should know that you've gotta watch out for those little redheads, they're pretty feisty.
-Fun moment: They see the duck, Scully pouts, Mulder is still tempted to fire, she shoves him.
-Only Scully would give such a scientific answer to the question of cannibalism. One really wonders how her mind works sometimes.
Autumn
"Poor QueeQueg"