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"In the end a man finally looks at the sum of his life to see what he'll leave behind. Most of what I worked to build is in ruins."
You almost have to wonder if this was William B. Davis' reason for writing this episode of the X-Files. The desire to pick up the pieces that the mythology has been left in, to cut out some of the maddening ambiguity of his character, and try to leave behind a little more than ruins in the end. In doing so he does the show a service and he proves himself to be a writer that actually cares about character motivation and continuity. Most of the mytharc may have been stripped away, scooped out, burnt, ruined, and walk-in'd all over, but at least the power of Scully's experience with the chip remains and so it is that he focuses on.
Sure, in some ways you could say this script is a selfish one. A case of an actor having to write resolution for his character himself, but he also proves that he understands the other characters as well. One would actually think he's been paying attention all these years. Davis has often joked about wanting to work with Gillian Anderson, so he crafts a tale of seduction in which he can. He's mentioned in interviews that he pulls from the wonderful scene in Shakespeare's "Richard III" where Richard tries to convince Lady Anne that he is more than a "lump of foul deformity." Richard eventually says enough of the right things to temper her anger, gain her wary trust, and even marry her.
So, how do you go about seducing Scully to do your bidding? The art of seduction and manipulation is interesting in this one and quite different from the way one approaches Mulder to divide and conquer. In Mulder's case for years all you had to do was whisper something about his sister in his ear and he was off, but to get to Scully you have to appeal to the unselfish part of her to get her to go along. You start with a miracle cure for a child that involves the same technology trapped in her body for better or worse. You say you're just a dying man who wants to help. You even try to get points for treating Scully like a player rather than a smudge and saying "I'm tired of Mulder's mule-headedness." However, he hits the nail on the head by using the fact that she is a "doctor and a woman of compassion" and letting her know she could save people. This is the only reason that despite feeling anger and defiance, despite saying "you think I'm fooled by this," despite standing when asked to "please sit," despite walking away several times, she always comes back. It is because the risk is too great not to. The offer has too many implications - she could use this power for good, to help, and it is just the right button to push with her.
From a character perspective with Scully it is also important to note her complete lack of denial for a change when faced with a cure for all human disease that is extraterrestrial. It really appears as if they are allowing her to not backtrack anymore. Thank God. Also I like the way that Scully plays a pivotal role for them in getting the information from their leak. She asks what her importance is, but it is obvious. She is the right person, someone who can be trusted with the information. The right hands to deliver a cure into.
So, what really was CancerMan's motivation here? I think that while yes, he was obviously using Scully, there was a lot more truth in there than he would have liked. Scully as a partner would have been a fabulous way to become a "respectable person". After all she is Mulder's human credential. There is truth in the fact that he has destroyed a lot of things, even those precious to him. He's long tried to cobble together some odd family with Mulder, but it appears that his little father-son brain surgery experiment did not even work. Scully is right to question about what he expects to receive, because I don't really think it is her trust he is truly after. He'd like the whole package. CancerMan appears to really be smitten with Scully. He makes a show out of tossing out cigarettes and switching to LifeSavers (nice touch), he admits to a "particular affection" that he quickly backtracks on as honorable when she gives him a look, and he offers her power of life and death. I think knowing that she has complex issues with male authority figures he thought he'd make a play. There's the romantic cabin, gift of the dress, calling her Dana, flirting with her by offering her the "holiest of grails," and the sincerity that Scully recognized as the truth when he said he was a lonely man. He thinks he's on a date. He was, as Scully notes "longing for something more than power" - something in a black dress. I really believe he wanted to make Scully his Queen much as Richard eventually wooed Anne.
I thought the acting was great all around in this one. I especially enjoyed the scenes between Davis and Anderson as they dance around their uneasy alliance. The scene where CancerMan pulls the not that far off "pop psychology" on her and delves into the "powerful men" (read: "Fathers" a la "Never Again") territory and her relationship with Mulder was very well done - fearless devotion and a life alone. Davis shows his character's weakness as he snaps at his henchmen to do his job when he is reminded "Scully won't stick around forever." The last scene between Anderson and Davis is priceless. She is clearly disgusted with him and leaving now that she has the disk, and his dream is deflated as he whispers "go" after sparing her life again. Duchovny has fun with his limited role as he just can't get over the fact that Scully would do something like this without telling him. I mean she ditched him. She's not supposed to do that. Ditching is his department. I especially liked the way he kept trying to get the phone from Skinner when she was on the line.
think what I liked most about this episode was that, for the first time in a long time I had fun thinking about an hour of the X-Files. It seemed to mean something. It had continuity and emotional connections. It had motivations to guess and analyze. Yes, I will admit I felt a little let down by the end - I take it we are to see CancerMan in his lonely life succeeding at getting the disk, but failing at wooing Scully deciding to toss his cure aside rather than extending a life alone. I knew Scully could not end up with the CD of everlasting life, but I wish they'd have found a tighter resolution to the plot. Still, that's my only real complaint about this entertaining and interesting hour. I'll take this look at CancerMan over "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" and the tale of a failed writer any day.
-Since they've killed off most every other consortium guy they brought back the "Black-Haired Man" (whose hair has always been gray) to kill. You may remember him as an all purpose thug following Mulder around in the movie or from "The End." As a side note fun fact this character was originally slated to die in "The Beginning" but instead some other consortium throw down bad guy got lizard aliened to death.
-I thought it a bit odd to see such a raging fire next to the sleeping child at two in the morning. Maybe they were trying to see if they could sweat the cancer right out of him.
-I guess we can be thankful for the recent spate of bad weather in the Los Angeles area as not only did we finally get an episode that was not set somewhere in California, but we actually got a little rain and mud for a change complete with overcast skies.
-Bad Liar Scully: This one was full of that particular endearing trait from her unconvincing message to Mulder to that very conspicuous attempt at mailing a letter inconspicuously to, my favorite, the pitiful excuses she was offering up when the security guards started questioning her in the building. Plus there was her need to constantly check her wiring, which brings us to...
-Frank's Fashion Spot: So there we see Scully, her blouse unbuttoned in that new season 7 way when all of a sudden the camera becomes a cleavage!cam just so the audience can get a close up of Gillian's chest. Oh, and so we could realize Scully's underwire was wired before she proves to us she does indeed know how to button a blouse. I have two suggestions for Scully: tape that thing down so you don't have to spend half the episode digging around in your bra in front of an old letch, and in this case perhaps the trademark black bra would have actually concealed the microphone better.
-Just when do things get going at the FBI in the morning? Scully is just leaving her house at 8:50? Must be nice to traipse out of the house at that hour and not even have to worry about carrying a briefcase or a laptop to the office (unless those things are hidden in her magical pockets along with all the things every other woman carries in a purse).
-I did enjoy the Roma Downey/ Della Reese joke, but judging from the cure it sounds like it might have been an episode of "Pinched By an Angel."
-Speaking of the pinch, I guess Scully is really lucky that she's always sported a rather petite, well hidden scar. Both the boy and Marjorie looked like they'd been ripped into with a staple remover.
-Our Little Sailor was busy this episode: "What the hell are you doing?", "What the hell is this?"
-I love the way CancerMan keeps implying that he somehow saved Scully himself - I guess he's trying to convince her that he let Mulder steal that chip for her since she has no other way of knowing he watched Mulder leave the building and he wants the credit.
-Nice touch: Those pencils still poked in the ceiling above Mulder's desk.
-Wow, even CancerMan has a nameplate on his door. Maybe that's the reason she was so pissed off when she entered his office.
-Kudos to the set dressers and Director of Photography for that office as it fit the character perfect. Dark, diffused lighting, dark wood and leather, smoky glass, and even the artwork is dark. Plus, I loved the fact that in his office there is an ashtray thoughtfully placed between the two visitor chairs.
-Frank's Fashion Spot II: Yes, I'm going to talk about the little black dress. So, I'm predictable. Deal with it. Pity we've had to wait this long to see Scully look so fabulous. Though I do think part of it was a deliberate challenge by CancerMan for her to just try to find a place to hide that microphone in there.
-Scully needs a little practice at Agent school on recognizing a tailing car if goon boy was that close behind them all the time and she did not notice.
-It's the little things that count department: The goofy smile on C.G.B.'s face when he says "This is Dana Scully, she's a very good friend of mine" and the look Scully shoots him at that.
-I can appreciate the fact that Marjorie really, really likes planting flowers, but perhaps her good buddy can bring her buy some more planters so she doesn't have to use old toilet bowls on her porch to hold them.
-So Scully's mother doesn't know anything about a family emergency. Would it have killed them to have let us see her say that? We miss Ma Scully.
-Why doesn't Mulder have a key to Scully's apartment? Did he just forget because he's so used to just banging the door open? What about those handy lock picks?
-If they just needed an exposition scene between Mulder and the Super, he could have spied Mulder letting himself in or something. I must admit I got quite the chuckle out of the exchange. Something tells me Mulder's neighbors don't go around saying he's a great guy or that they feel safer with him there. The whole "Do you know how many people have died in there" / "Oh we don't really talk about that" was hilarious.
-I guess the Super had seen Smoky there before during one of his many break ins to her apartment where he forged email or just hung out going through her drawers or moving her refrigerator.
-What exactly was with that email? It's the only kind I've ever seen that comes from an "ftp server" and doesn't have a date stamp.
-I know Scully can sleep almost anywhere, but even I was having a hard time buying that she would be so knocked out that she wouldn't even realize that she was being stroked (what was up with the leather glove thing - just to make us think he was going to be menacing?), carried, and undressed. True, if you do the math Scully is actually up for about 41 straight hours, but would she really be delirious at that point?
-Mulder does not like the shoe on the other foot at all. He hates being ditched, even though Scully tried to calm his fears from the start and even attempted to communicate with him by talking to her breasts. The way he was so pissed off at her at the end he could hardly look at her you'd think she'd done something like crawled out of a window to have holes drilled in her head by stealing his car and leaving him with her cranky mother or something...
-Frank's Fashion Spot III: How thoughtful was that CancerDude? Here he politely dressed Scully in her silk jammies and he even left her bra on to sleep in just the way she likes it. Hey, at least I'm not complaining about helmet hair or anything. It's growing out finally and they even gave Scully cute bed head when she woke up.
-So Cobra tells Scully "you're just as you described yourself, certainly more so last night at dinner." Just exactly what kind of messages was he being sent from fake Scully? "Hi Cobra, I can guess why you picked a snake as your code name! I'm Dana, a sexy redheaded Agent with a heart of gold and a recent propensity for really tight clothes. Will you hand over the secrets of the universe to me?"
-Frank's Fashion Spot IV: The masters of disguise are such masters all they can think to do is copy each other. Langly dressed as Frohike down to the fingerless gloves, Frohike does a Byers with bad hair, and Byers uses some of that gel they uses to slather all over Scully's head to get his 'do in his Langly rocker impression.
Autumn
"How the hell did I get out of my clothes and into bed?"