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"Dr. Scully, who do you think you are?"
After seven years portraying her, it is Gillian Anderson who gets to answer that question in "all things" which she both wrote and directed. And no matter what you felt about this episode you cannot deny one thing: She did it with heart. Taken as a whole from the actress, the writer, and the director this was an hour where everything happened on screen for a reason. There were no accidents, or anything that did not make sense in the scheme of this story or serve to further it. There was a strong theme and current that pushed the episode forward with each beat making sure we, along with Scully, were paying attention.
In a season where character loose ends are being wrapped up (Mulder is now "free" of Samantha and CancerMan is off alone in a cabin waiting to die) how does Gillian Anderson the writer choose to give Scully some resolution? She stops to "examine the path" and "take stock of each precious moment." Scully's occasional dissatisfaction with her place and her life is a theme that has been revisited time and again on this show but never resolved. We see it strongly in "Never Again," but it crops up in places like wanting to stop and get out of the car in "Dreamland" or complaining about what they will gain by pursuing something or wondering if she has made the right career decisions or looking for family approval. She asks herself and has been asked, is it worth it? Has she done the right thing? Scully is also struggling with her belief system, no more strongly than this season as her skepticism has started to erode away even bringing her to tears in "Amor Fati." Anderson chooses to examine these two aspects of Scully and in doing so also illuminates her relationship with Mulder. Plus, we get a healthy dose of Psychic!Scully tossed in for fun.
I've never been one of those people who boxes in the X-Files. I like it when the show experiments with its content, style, and structure. I don't watch it for aliens or monsters. I watch it for the characters - to learn more about them and watch them grow. For this reason I enjoyed this look at Scully greatly and was thrilled at the opportunity to see her learn from mistakes and open her mind further. Anderson starts the episode with something we've seen before: Cranky!Scully. Cranky at being rushed to do an autopsy for ectoplasmic margarita mix, cranky at another crackpot theory, cranky that it is Saturday, cranky the she has to schlep over and get a chair, cranky at Mulder bopping to music, cranky at the slideshow. She (in what I thought was a very funny bit between Duchovny and Anderson) goes overboard in fixing and eating her salad while Mulder tries to gain her attention. She asks with a whiny voice "why don't you ever just stay still?" to Mulder and he tells her "I wouldn't know what I'd be missing." Just then fate or an angel or whatever you want to call it steps in and shows Scully a man in Daniel who has stood tragically still and teaches her by being with Mulder she's made the right choices. Fate starts as a nurse with a tapping pencil and a "PAY ATTENTION" sign in big red letters behind her who hands her the wrong file and we see the same woman throughout the episode at critical junctures making sure Scully is still paying attention. So she meets a man from her past with whom she shared a relationship that ultimately caused everyone pain, but who she could have chosen to stay with. Leaving the hospital, still not paying attention even to stop lights, fate steps in again to save Scully from a car crash. This time she notices her and is rewarded with a smile. However, the familiar rigid Scully is back as she visits Colleen for the first time forming her judgments over that which cannot be scientifically categorized. It's a hard habit to break even with Colleen talking about paying attention.
When Daniel's health crisis brings her back, Scully takes a huge step forward in that she finally starts trusting these "feelings" she has had all along. Anyone who has watched the show for a length of time knows that Scully is indeed more open to things than she thinks. She's amassed quite a catalog of visions over the years. Now perhaps she is ready to be more open to this phenomena and to the idea that everything happens for a reason. I had no trouble with Scully following the woman and praying in a Buddhist temple or opening herself up to these new ideas simply because there has been a journey to this point along the way. It's not like it was her first vision. It's not like she hadn't been becoming more open minded about things she does not understand.
I thought the idea of the vision was wonderful. Scully is clearly awed by the spiritual nature of the place, travels through a tunnel of important moments in time and sees a black heart beating in Daniel. She has a dream where she leaves her comfortable home for the cold room and ends up seeing herself as the sick one. Hmm. Someone is trying to tell her something. It's a nice idea that when she follows the woman who has led her for the final time she unexpectedly finds Mulder. Which is where she is supposed to be in her life.
In her attempt to do acting, writing, and directing I think that Anderson struggled most with the writing. I thought she did a great job of weaving the themes of heart and paying attention in throughout. She also had a good ear for the dialogue between Mulder and Scully. However, some of the parts with Colleen came across as a little too textbook, and even though she was just acting her little heart out during them I wished there could have been more of the fluidity she exhibited as a director in the writing of the scenes with Daniel.
What surprised me most of all in "all things" was the directing. I simply never expected something this precise from a first effort. I've always been a fan of more stylish directing. In using all the resources available to you and taking advantage of your medium to support a story. Gillian Anderson does this completely. She used inventive shots, sound, music, effects, colors, lighting, and texture all together to serve the story. I could spend pages talking about what I liked in the directing of this episode starting with the opening office scene with the slide projector clicking away first to a musical beat and in the end to a defeated Scully betrayed even by a sandwich falling. I'm torn even to decide my favorite shots - the wooden toggle tapping in the breeze beating like a metronome, that fabulous swirl through the smoky light in the temple, Scully walking out the hospital doors holding those bright red flowers, the Buddha peering over Colleen's shoulder as she speaks to Scully - they were all wonderful.
I thought the use of sound to remind us of the heartbeat of the episode gave an effective through line. I'm sure I'm missing some, but the beat of the dripping water, music, slide projector, pencil, monitors, window toggle, rattling wheel, turn signal, ratcheting sprinkler, echoing footsteps, and a swaying sign all conspired in the background as the episode progressed. Much like Morgan and Wong, who have used music effectively in their episodes, she weaves in a Moby song and even echoes some of the lyrics in her dialogue. Sometimes all the sounds but one would fall out so we could concentrate on a chiming triangle even while the busy sounds of a hospital surrounded her giving us an auditory example of Scully's complete focus.
I found that I really liked the slow motion effect as a way of underscoring what Colleen says to Scully about time expanding at important moments. I enjoyed the contrasts in lighting and color to convey mood. Daniel's hospital room was dark and cold and blue. Even the close-ups were lit harshly and sometimes unflattering. The room was filled with pain, tears, and anger. There was a noticeable difference between his room and the happy room one door down where we first meet both Colleen and the healer. Outside of his room (and especially at Colleen's) the colors were warm, rich and bright even when it rained outside.
As a director she seemed to bring out the best in those working with her as well. Director of Photography Bill Roe did some of his best work of the series on this piece between capturing the diffused gorgeous lighting of the temple or the wind blowing past Scully in slow motion as she walks. Corey Kaplan's Art Direction was fabulous in capturing the personality and feel of Colleen's home. Editor Lynne Willingham worked with Anderson to pull off some wonderful cuts. My personal favorite had Scully in the warmth and glow of her home cutting seamlessly through a lamp to the cold starkness of Daniel's hospital in a dream.
My fear is that she might enjoy directing too much because I'd hate to lose her as an actress. Truly an inspired performance of Scully at a crossroads, she gave us her all in the hospital scenes with Daniel. Especially riveting was the scene where she discovers that Daniel moved to DC for her as a myriad of emotions play across her face. There is something in how Gillian Anderson delivers "I want everything I should want at this time in my life" that allows multiple interpretations of what that might mean, none of which are really wrong. Then of course as the medical emergency happens we get to see my personal favorite Dr. BossyPants ordering nurses around and asking ironically "Who is paying attention?"
I thought David Duchovny was outstanding in his limited scenes, giving his all in this episode and playing Mulder with a sensitivity I wish we saw all the time. With the exception of Stephen Hornyak as Dr. Kopeikan who I found too mannered, the guest actors were really standouts. I had liked retread Colleen Flynn in "Detour," but I loved her even more in this episode as Colleen Azar. Looking rather like Geena Davis, she played this role with a straightforward openness and honesty that was able to crack Scully's rather tough outer shell and get her message through. Stacy Haiduk had laser-like eyes as the troubled Maggie and I loved the way she simply radiated anger at Scully throughout. Nicolas Surovy had the task of playing one of those "fathers" in Scully's life still judging her by belittling her job or her efforts to save him as "crap" and yet arrogant enough to expect her back. He pulls it off with equal parts charm and annoying selfishness. I have to say the thought of him hanging around in DC for ten years waiting for a chance meeting was creepy and sad beyond measure. All in all his presence was manipulative, as it was no doubt when they first met. Now, she knows enough to be sure when she walks away. He's "running from the truth." Mulder is running towards it.
So, in one of the nicest scenes in the series, we see Mulder and Scully really talking with a comfort we rarely witness. Scully talking about visions like it's no big deal (which is not lost on Mulder), Mulder starting to wax philosophical (I loved Duchovny's "a lot a lot a lot a lot" line reading) as she falls asleep. I thought it a nice touch that the last time we see the slow motion effect used is at an important moment for Mulder in the end as he lovingly cares for Scully. Then a UFO bobs, a Buddha smiles, and there's the teaser.
The teaser certainly was aptly named. Since Scully has shown no known tendencies to be like Seinfeld's George who for some reason felt the need to remove his clothes when he used the facilities, it seems to me that the X-Files has done what some folks have asked for all along. The "don't show us, just let us know it happened" types should be happy with this. I don't need to see it either. Personally, all I've ever wanted at the end of the series was to know that Mulder and Scully were happy, as I don't really give a flying flip about the aliens anyway. This episode seems to indicate that in the end they are.
All in all, I loved all things about this episode. And I certainly appreciated the obvious effort that went into it as a gift from Gillian to those who love Scully. Thank you Ms. Anderson.
-Perhaps someone can explain to me why in the world this episode had a violence tag on it under the PG rating. It was in my memory the only X-Files episode ever with absolutely no violence of any kind. Unless you count the way Scully was stabbing at her salad.
-It's official. Scully just expects people to break into her apartment so she's decided little things like shutting windows just delay the inevitable.
-I was delighted to see that Mulder even does that pencil in the ceiling thing at home. Check out the ceiling during the scene where the television tells us "you're breaking my heart" - which was another example of nothing in the episode being left to chance.
-OK, the visual of Scully hiding in the hallway behind a copy of "Feng Shui Life" was just too funny. To bad Melissa is no longer around to see and enjoy this one.
-Speaking of Melissa, one of the things I found interesting was that the healer in this episode was doing to Daniel essentially the same thing we saw Melissa doing to Scully in "One Breath." As we know that Scully was present in a way, that she could hear what was going on - I bought her willingness to try this technique as part of her attempt to open her mind up.
-Frank's Fashion Spot: goes to the lovely ensemble Scully was wearing at the end. With the green sweater and long skirt she looked classy again. No ill fitting blouses in this one, thank God. And I'm also thankful she decided not to wear the push-up bra to bed. Think Gillian had any say in the costuming in this episode as well? Also, while I thought Mulder looked good in this one, after seeing him in that jacket I was concerned that he might go through his own unfortunate beige period. Lets hope not. It is not his color.
-Seeing that heart chakra apparently really freaked Scully out as she practically screamed "hello" into her cellphone when it rang.
-As fascinating as I found Colleen and Carol's home and artist workshop, I just couldn't get past thinking it was also a huge fire hazard with all those candles lit up everywhere.
-Huge kudos to Gillian Anderson for doing something seen so rarely on network television: treating a gay relationship not with a fanfare or brouhaha, but just as another part of life.
-Well, it seems we have sealed the spiritual nature of Scully. All gods talk to her. Doesn't matter if they are African spirit men, Indian spirits, the Christian God or Buddha. She's got a hotline.
-In what must have been her way of getting back just a little Gillian could not resist making Mulder wrong on both "X-Files" in this episode. The crop circles were a "waste of time" and the initial mystery more of a Jose Cuervo Project than a Blair Witch.
- Unlike the "did they or didn't they" crisis in "Never Again" there was not even a pantyhose issue this time around. Scully is wearing them on the couch and she's not wearing them as she zips up her skirt. I suppose if you really think Scully undresses and redresses in Mulder's bathroom with an open door while thinking about the important paths one follows in life, you could still feel they did not sleep together. She must have been talking about choices between toothpaste instead...
Autumn
"I didn't say that God spoke back, I said I had some
kind of a vision."