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mulders-too-large-shirt · 5 months ago

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s6 episode 6 "how the ghosts stole christmas" thoughts

a christmas episode!! and i shall be watching it exactly one month after christmas. this does make me a little sad; i wish i could travel back in time with what i know now and watch it then. and then maybe i’d feel all festive. but! what can you do? i shall embrace it even though there stands between me and christmas 11 months.

i haven’t watched an episode in a week-ish, so i’m excited to get back into the swing of things. let’s gooo!!

post-episode thoughts: oh my god, this episode was incredible. what if we (platonically) went to the house where two lovers famously kill other lovers each christmas? and then those ghosts tormented us with our deepest insecurities? and when they tried to trick us into killing each other, our love was simply too strong and we wouldn't fall for it? would that be festive? would you hold my hand when we walked across the rickety floorboards and found our own bodies beneath them?

love... it's alive, and well. or, in some cases, dead and well <3

PLEASE tell me what you thought of this episode. i want to go into depth on each line and do intense character analysis.

but back to past me:

well, why are they in a haunted house in maryland on christmas eve?? is kersh punishing them with a christmas assignment?

(the answer is no. it was all mulder. honestly, i should have expected that by now)

let us open with some spoooooky organ music. while mulder has christmas songs on in the car!

scully pulls in late!! she was in the checkout line, buying gifts!! “if i heard silent night one more time, i was going to start taking hostages” <- lmaoooo, i love her!!!!! she is so real for that. she truly has endured so much.

he brought her here for a stakeout?! “on christmas eve.” “it’s an important date” “no kidding” <- BAHAHA, i love when she’s a smartass. now, why are they doing this!!!

she has wrapping to do!!! he looks in her car and sees she has gifts. and he sadly says "oh...." but she acquiesces and gets in his car to hear this spooky story

SHE’S GOT HOLIDAY CHEER TO SPREAD, DAMNIT!!

(this line KILLED me. seems she does NOT play when it comes to the holiday season!)

she has FAMILY ROLL CALL at 6 am?!?! oh. god bless her poor soul.

he locks the car before she can get out and says he’ll make it fast, bahaha (loud scully sigh)

he starts talking about christmas 1917, and did he mention it was a time of “dark, dark despair?” well, it was.

oh, now she’s hooked on this story of star-crossed lovers. i heard the interest in that “go on”.

maurice was “brooding” and “heroic”, and he loved lyda, who had a “light that seemed to follow her wherever she went”; they ended their lives together so they would never be apart. and now, each christmas eve, they come back to haunt this spooky house in maryland.

AWWW, she compliments how he told the story, and says it’s a good one, but she does not believe it.

“you don’t believe in ghosts?!” “that surprises you?” <- STOP, SHE IS SO FUNNY, LMAOOOO

“well, yeah! i thought everybody believed in ghosts” ohhhh… okay. yeah, he would think that.

she has to go now, and he starts to enter the spooky house. she asks “don’t you have somewhere to be?” and to that i ask, oh, my poor, sweet scully, where would he go? to the vineyard? last time we saw his mom, he was tripping on K, accused her of having an affair, and then she slapped him and he left scully at her house. i hope they made up for that. but i haven’t seen or heard any indication either way.

she does not want to follow his ass in: “i’m not gonna do it. my new year’s resolution” <- bahaha, but where are her keys???

oooo, spooky thunder!! clocks chiming eerily!!! she just wants her keys, and he claims that he does not have them!! do we believe him?? hmm… jury’s still out on that one.

scully knows the weather said there is an 80% chance of rain!! maybe even a white christmas!! oh, but instead of letting her enjoy such a thing, the doors crash and lock them both inside!!!

(something about her wanting a white christmas made me emotional in a way i cannot quite articulate. she's kind of a romantic. and i love that for her <3)

(intro time) ooooo, sooo spOoOOoky!

oh, so just when i think we’ll never see it again, they DO hit us with the full intro!!!! chris carter, i am onto your tricks. but i much prefer the full intro. it feels so right.

back to this spooky mansion.

LET HER OUT!! he is not helping her escape and is instead telling her there is nothing to be afraid of because “ghosts are benevolent entities…. mostly”

hey man. that's not super reassuring.

she tries to check the time- and the clock strangely matches her watch, which is super weird for an abandoned old house- and then declares that she REALLY HAS TO GET HOME, when some sort of figure in white appears in a crack of thunder!!!

LMAOOOO, SHE IS JUST MONOLOGUING ABOUT HOW RIDICULOUS SOCIETY IS FOR EXPECTING GHOSTS TO BE REAL. i would have copied it down, but it just KEPT going and i kept laughing.

she admits to being afraid. and i love that. i love that her method for dealing with fear is to infodump. yeah. you tell ‘em, girl! tell them about the essence of humanity and the unconscious yearnings to live forever!!

but it’s an IRRATIONAL fear, she points out! i would be afraid, too! of spooky ghosts AND rabid bats, rotting wood, lead paint, and other dangers of creepy abandoned buildings!

she goes ahead to investigate this other room, and he says “i’ve got your back” bahaha

she asks if maybe someone lives here, because look!! the light is on in the library!! they have a LIBRARY?? woah, i don’t even know what this room is- it's got bookshelves on the walls, but almost looks like a ballroom on the floor- but it sure is cool!!

so the clock downstairs is somehow still keeping time which is super weird for an abandoned old building, and something is… smoking, it looks like? yeah, maybe it isn’t abandoned. hmm…

it’s the fireplace- it was just put out! “why would anyone want to live in a cursed house?” “mulder, it’s not enough for it to be haunted? it has to be cursed?” LMAOOO

oh, he just now CASUALLY drops that there have been 3 double murders (all of couples) in the last 80 years, and all of them were on christmas eve. GET TF OUT OF THERE!!! this seems like RELEVANT INFORMATION THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MENTIONED BEFORE YOU BROUGHT YOUR PARTNER INTO THIS DEATH TRAP!!

and then the lights go out!! and a door slams!!! and there is some weird sound and creaking floorboards…. they’re locked in!!

he’s trying to listen to the floor….

AWWW, HE SCARED HER!!!! he held the flashlight under his face and she yelled “that’s NOT funny!” <- you tell him!!

he wants to free someone from beneath the floor boards? how did he hear someone beneath the floor? but it’s just a dead body. so i guess he was half right, as he declares. looks super dead. as in dead for a very long time. oh, and there’s another!!

a man and a woman!! shot to death. and she has bright red hair. coincidence….?

well, must be not, because scully points out that the dead woman is WEARING HER OUTFIT.

(he laughs) “how embarrassing” <- LMAOOO, NOW YOU STFUUUU!!!!!

(i'm so used to his dumbass one liners, but this one really killed me for some reason)

and at first i didn’t notice, because the dead guy had a winter coat on and mulder just had a leather jacket, but he is wearing his outfit!! they put together that it is somehow them, and they RUN!!

at first i thought it was the original couple that died, but how would they get under the floor? so maybe it actually is mulder and scully in some cosmic way. don’t question it too hard.

they ran into the same room!!! well, maybe if you have one stylish room, you just make it again. and again.

nooo!! the rooms are looping!! and they get separated somehow!!

i wish the lighting was better; i want to stare at these paintings on the walls. they look so pretty. i wonder if they built this creepy house just for this episode and decorated it all spooky, or if there’s a stock studio haunted mansion set that gets used for lots of shows and movies. the frames are so pretty!

but back to the problem at hand. where is scully?? he’s yelling, but she’s not responding!!

he shoots th,e handle of the door and opens it to a brick wall???

A MAN APPEARS!! “who are you?” “that’s a question i should be asking you, being this is my house you’re standing in” <- GET HIS ASS!!

perhaps they shall finally face consequences for breaking and entering.

mysterious man flicks on the lights.

mysterious man seems to be unable to tell that the door leads straight to a brick wall, or perhaps mulder is somehow seeing that. mulder says “we”, tipping off the man that there is someone else here. but mulder goes straight to accusing him of being a ghost! a bold move…

mystery guy laughs and asks mulder if he’s a ghost hunter, saying a lot of strange folks come around. he tries to deflect with a “strange folks? like those under the floor-“ but when he turns around, there is nothing there apart from some furniture!!

you know shit is going down when the mystery old man says “why don’t you have a seat, son”

oh plot twist, mystery man reveals he is in the field of mental health and specializes in “disorders and manias related to pathological behavior as it pertains to the paranormal”. okay, yeah, now i definitely believe that this dude is a real ghost and he is just doing all this to personally torture mulder.

the type of ghost hunter this mystery man encounters, and therefore he also he believes mulder to be, is as follows: a “narcissistic, overzealous, self-righteous egomaniac”; “you kindly think of yourself as single-minded, but you’re prone to obsessive compulsiveness, workaholism, antisocialism- fertile fields for the descent into total wacko breakdown” BAHAHAHA

well. yes!

while i do support generally roasting mulder for his various qualities, i also need to know where scully is.

“you know why you think you’ve seen the things you do?” “because… i have seen them?” okay, sassy!

“‘cause you’re a lonely man” <- OH DAMN. that shut him up.

mystery man is really being mean now… OH SHIT, did mulder steal scully's car keys to get her to stick around with him??? i hope that isn't true, but knowing him, it probably is, and that behavior seems to match some of those adjectives that were tossed about moments before

“you know why you do it- listen endlessly to her droning rationalizations. ‘cause you’re afraid. afraid of the loneliness” <- oh man. now you’ve got him sad and pondering. he looks like he’s gonna cry, but he’s gonna try and be tough about it and smile. and say politely that he would like to find his partner.

(and i would like to contemplate these lines- do we think they are true? or do we think mystery man just wanted to hit him where it hurts? "droning rationalizations" is pretty harsh; seeing scully as nothing more than a beacon against being alone doesn't seem to capture their dynamic accurately, unless you interpret it in the most selfish light possible, which is probably what that mean inner voice of mulder's head does. hmm...)

and now the brick wall behind the door is gone and mystery man can just walk through…. but mulder cannot!!! it is just a real brick wall!! and he slams his beautiful nose!!!

so... did he imagine all of that???

scully is still yelling for him!!

NOOOOO, SCULLY GETS SO SCARED AND SCREAMS AND PULLS OUT HER GUN WHEN THIS LADY APPEARS LMAOOOOO she’s absolutely SHAKING “please, i’m a little on edge” <- yeah queen, we can tell 💜

ohhh, poor sweet scully, apologizing for scaring this lady; it’s just that they found bodies! and when she tries to show her where the bodies are… there is only furniture!!

she very rarely gets scared. must have been the combo of spookiness on a night she associated with being cozy and warm. and also seeing what she does not believe in. AND being separated from mulder. truly multiple things factoring into her fear here.

scully has her gun aimed at this mystery woman, and her hands are shaking as she asks “where’s my partner?” - and when she goes to open the door, there is also! just! a! brick! wall!

how can this keep happening?!

she circling the mystery woman, holding her gun, and i guess we’re getting some psychoanalysis on both ends of this brick wall:

“oh, you poor child. you must have an awful small life. spending your christmas eve with him, running around chasing things you don’t even believe in” oh, wow... that is so mean.........

LMAO, mystery woman is going on about the “subconscious desire to find fulfillment through another” and “intimacy through co-dependency” (which. okay. yeah, that one is accurate) and scully's dirty little secret that “your only joy in life is proving him wrong”.

but unlike mulder, who was taking this analysis sitting down, she seems scared, but still spits out “you don’t know me!" i LOVE that about her!! truly!!!

“and this isn’t your house” “you wouldn’t think so, the way i’m being treated” DAMN! these ghosts are gagging them 💀💀💀

“well, then, why is all of the furniture covered?” “we’re having the house painted” “well, then where’s your christmas tree?” “we’re jewish” LMAOOO

enter mystery man!!!! scully is telling him to NOT MOVE or she WILL SHOOT HIM!!!! she needs to know WHERE MULDER IS!! and these ghosts better MOVE OVER THERE!!!!!!!

“this violates our civil rights!! i have friends at the ACLU!!” LMAOOOO

well, she makes them put their hands up, and mystery woman has a hole blown completely through her belly. so. not great. and his hat is hiding the bullet hole through his head!!!

i mean, it was pretty obvious that these here ghosts were lyda and maurice, but i wanted to go along with the mystery bit until the big reveal. and now i shall use their government names.

SCULLY!!! SHE PASSED OUT!!!! OHHHHH, POOR BABY

the ghosts are lamenting that they used to get years to drive the visitors mad, but now they get just ONE NIGHT!!! i would be pissed, too!!!

BAHAHA, WHAT? “look, if we let our reputations slip, they’re going to take us off the tourist literature” <- BAHAHAHA OH MY GOD. wait, hold on, that’s so fucking funny.

she picked christmas as their one night a year because that is when people have no HOPE LMAOOOO and maurice looks down and says “these two do seem pretty miserable”

they smooch over poor scully’s fainted body as they declare they must show them how lonely christmas can be!!

mulder is climbing up the bookshelves, trying to get tf out of this trap room, when lyda arrives!! she calls him a “masher” (i don’t know what this means, so i hope it is not offensive) and he fires back with “frump”, only to be met by ANOTHER brick wall

(dictionary.com says that a masher is "a man who makes advances, especially to women he does not know, with a view to physical intimacy". so now we know! she accused him of hitting on her!)

“what happened to the star crossed lovers?” “oh, let me tell you, the romance is the first thing to go” <- that is a CRAZY thing to say about the guy you ended your life with 💀💀

he realizes that she is lyda, and the man is maurice!!

she summons books from the shelves!! and says she was young and beautiful once, just like your partner. she hands him a book telling their story. so i guess you can still age in the afterlife. who knew?

she’s sitting down and he’s standing in front of her, but the focus gets all fuzzy and weird when the camera turns to him. i can’t tell if this came from reshoots or what, but lyda is crisp and clear and he is not 💀

she assumes they came here “to be together for eternity”, which gets him giggling

“you knew this house was haunted, maybe you two should have discussed your real feelings before you came out here” OHH! SHE IS GOING THERE!!

taunt him. he just confessed his love a few episodes ago!!! do not think i forgot!!

and lyda shows him the hole in her CHEST??? i swear it was just in her belly with scully. “i don’t show my hole to just anyone” is INSANE, LMAOOO

“oh, you’re trying to tell me that scully’s going to shoot me. scully is NOT going to shoot me” AWWW, i love the certainty with which he said that

“maybe she shoots herself” “i wouldn’t let her” ohhhh…. he is so confident… but trickery is afoot, so who knows??

(also, i think lyda's line, “if you shoot first, for her, the rest is an act of faith” is a very fascinating one. one i want to unpack for years to come. but i do not have the capacity to do it now, so i am simply noting it)

OH MY GOD??? she’s trying to tell him to end their lives together???

(he sighs) “we’re not lovers”

“and this isn’t a pure science. but you’re both so attractive, and there will be a lot of time to work that out.” (she hands him the gun) “think of it as the last christmas you’ll spend alone”

she drops the gun and disappears

so, do lyda and maurice need people (couples, specifically) to either kill themselves or be killed in order to maintain their spooky reputation? and maybe their spooky power? maybe since they haven’t had a couple’s death in a long time, that is why they can only haunt people on christmas? like, they only have enough spectral energy from the blood sacrifices to show up one day a year? i’m trying to flesh this out here.

scully wakes up!!! she’s alone with her gun and flashlight, and she still can’t get the door open!! when maurice reappears!!

“i am quite capable of pulling this trigger”, she warns him, and we know that to be very true!!

OH NO!!! i see where this is going… maurice is going to try and convince her that mulder wants to kill her… so she will shoot him first, and then they can be together forever or something…

she says that it is all just a bad dream, and it’s in her head, but. well. here she is. interesting rationalization on her part. i would have expected her to pull the folie a deux card.

maurice hands her the car keys, saying that mulder is acting out "an unconscious yearning from the deep-seated terror of being alone” <- so would that make him a threat? does he genuinely want to convince her that mulder is going to kill her so they can always be together?

mulder’s pounding on the door and yelling for her. she takes the keys and tells maurice to open the door. she has her gun trained on him….

she doesn’t believe him that mulder wants to kill her!!!!

mulder opens the door… and asks where scully is… AND HE SHOOTS???????

WHAT!!!!

okay, but he’s not shooting HER!!! he's shooting nearby though, so please be careful. she’s scared!!!

why is he being crazy!!! look at that physical acting!! he's deranged!! he says all that is out there is loneliness!!! AND THEN HE SHOOTS HER FOR REAL????

she falls over as she bleeds into her white blouse…. he stands over her, saying “merry christmas, scully”

but!!! it was really lyda that took his shape to shoot her!!!!

so he didn’t REALLY do any of that???? but scully thinks he did!

he runs in, finds her bleeding out on the floor!!! “i didn’t believe that you’d do it”

OHHHH, but then it must not really be scully either, because as she is bleeding out, she shoots HIM!!!

but it was really just lyda and maurice playing around???

SO IS SCULLY HURT OR NOT????? JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!

scully is crawling away dying as "have yourself a merry little christmas" plays, and mulder is also crawling with a gaping stomach wound- or are they really the ghosts taking their forms? i don’t KNOW!!

they’re crawling toward each other, their blood and gore all over the floor, and here i ask: what the fuck is happening? mulder’s yelling after her, and they both have their guns pointed at each other.

she asks if he’s afraid, and she says she is, and he admits he is too; “i didn’t shoot you, you shot me!” so their stories diverge...

they’re rolling around in their blood and dying. hey guys. merry christmas.

but then he gets up, and says she’s not been shot, and neither has he!!! it was all a trick!!!!

they run outside, and there is no blood on them at all!!! they get into their cars and drive away!!!!

so, were they in pain like they WERE shot? did they feel like they were dying? or did mulder realize that it was weird he was in no pain despite being shot and then got up and defeated their ghostly tricks?

lyda and maurice lament how they almost had those two, and how christmas is another joyless day of the year- but not for them. “no, we haven’t forgotten the meaning of christmas”; they hold hands and then fade away

STOP! they’re making me sad!!!!

mulder’s at home, watching a christmas carol alone. and it seems to be his usual couch he has back, so i wonder if he managed to restore all of his things after the morris redecorating incident!!! he looks so sad, though!!!

there’s a knocking at his door…. he is suspicious…. it’s scully!!! she couldn’t sleep!!! oh, she asks to come in- she must be so nervous!! she never asks to come in!!! he grabs her by the shoulder

he poses a great question: “aren’t you supposed to be opening christmas gifts with your family?” (she did mention it around a billion times)

“mulder… none of that really happened out there tonight. that was all in our heads, right?” <- ohhh… what do you say to this… a proposed collective hallucination??

he waits a second. “it-it must have been”

(this, too, is FASCINATING. he never agrees with her rationalizations! why does he do it now? does he want her to have some peace for the holidays? i suppose a collective hallucination is less concerning than upending your entire belief system, but not by much!)

they’re both sleep deprived and mumbling about the ghosts poking at their biggest insecurities:

“not that, uh, my only joy in life is proving you wrong”

“when have you proved me wrong?”

“well, why else would you want me out there with you?”

“you didn’t want to be there? oh, that’s um, that’s self-righteous and… narcissistic of me to say, isn’t it?”

“no… maybe i did want to be out there with you”

AWWW, they have no idea wtf is going on, but look at the way he is LOOKING at her as she nearly falls asleep standing up, OH!!! i could cry!!!

they said they wouldn’t exchange gifts, but he has something for her!!! when did they say they wouldn’t do that?!! and he broke that promise anyway!!! look at his big stupid smile!!! look at her face when she sees it!!!!

and she has something for him too!!! and they run to the couch and open each other's gifts! but we don’t get to see what they are!!!

and as the camera pulls away, we see snow falling out of the window!!!

OHHH, MY HEART!!!!

man…

lyda and maurice might actually be the ideal relationship. because i want to haunt people romantically forever. that is so beautiful.

oh, how did we manage to get such excellent character analysis AND silly fluff in one episode??? i feel like i’m going crazy!!!

okay, my biggest question: did he really take her keys??? no one says it outright or not!! it’s implied, but not confirmed either way!! if he did take her keys, that is not a point in his favor. but it would speak to the character flaws maurice accused him of having, in a drastically oversimplified sense. did he steal her keys and make her come out there so he wouldn't be alone on christmas? how can someone be so selfless and selfish?

hold on, i need to watch them open the gifts again… he’s shaking it around, trying to figure out what it is!!! and she’s laughing as she tries to pop it open!!!

ohhh my GOD. i need to go take a nap…….

they’re not lonely!!! they have each other!!! and even the ghosts tease them about having feelings they aren't admitting!!!

scully was completely ready to just die on that floor, LMAO

oh, she was so scared!! but she still meant business! she was going to have those ghosts stand against the wall and lift their hands, even if that meant she was going to faint!!

(when faced with people with holes in their body, usually she would not faint, but alas. she is used to this on dead people and dead people alone)

there are definitely some thing in this episode i am still trying to work out logic-wise (was lyda shot in her stomach or her chest? did she change where she was shot to mess with each of them? was lyda pretending to be scully for like, the whole thing after they first met? so how much did they actually experience in their own bodies? and therefore, it was the ghosts that were shooting them, not scully and mulder shooting at each other- but they both ended up fake shot in the end, and then the ghosts hoped that if they have them real guns, they would finish the job- right? how can we analyze the different strategies the ghosts used on each of them to convince them to shoot the other- telling scully that mulder is a danger to her, and telling mulder that if he does this, he will never be alone? is that a foreplay thing for lyda and maurice?)

but overall, i got the gist of it and enjoyed it very much. i think there will be plenty to turn around in my head and analyze for many moons to come.

and i might sound like a rabid MSR truther, but i would very much like to think that they fell asleep on his stupid little couch after exchanging presents and felt each other breathe for a bit to make up for their exhausting evening before scully left to go deal with her family.

she needed to talk to him first before she did all of that family stuff… she was so bothered by it… and the way he just agreed with her that it was probably all in their heads… is he doing that to try and reassure her everything is okay, or is he agreeing because he doesn’t want to think there is any meaning to it???

GOD! i need to turn this one around in my brain for a bit.

the set was also super cool. i wanted to pause and look at stuff!!!

i am very pleased. i would have been likely even more so pleased had i watched this a month ago, but now i can go back and watch it every christmas as i desire! definitely a nice change of pace from the previous christmas episodes that shall not be spoken of in this post.

but it was a very good episode, even if i am trying to crack the specific character implications (which will continue at length in the tags). some of y'all have had 25 years to do a deep dive into every line, reflect on how the characters see themselves vs who they truly are, and so on, but given that i have had 1 day, i have a lot of catching up to do!

(i would be interested in reading an analysis on this episode, or many other episodes, but those analysis posts tend to always have spoilers in them for things that happen down the road. so i shan't)

oh, scared, shaking scully, starting out apologizing for spooking lyda, then waving her gun around until they did what she said so she could find her mulder…. lifting up maurice’s hat and then passing tf out… rambling all about human nature and irrational fears as she was spooked by the scary old house… refusing to believe mulder would hurt her, and then having to confront the vision of him doing so... UGH!!!!! i just cannot TAKE IT!!! i hope they had the merriest christmas ever after this!!

it looked like she got him a video tape?? maybe a book? but it looked more like a tape to me. and what did he get her in that tube!! a poster of some sort, maybe?? i can’t think of many things that come in tubes. maybe he got her a nice print for her apartment walls. she loves her prints.

tonight, i shall dream beautiful dreams of being a ghost with the one you love forever and making sure that you keep your scary reputation, lest the tourists stop visiting you.

#still turning things over in my mind regarding the character analysis provided by the ghosts who torture them #i mean you could see their takes as accurate if you were committed to interpreting their characters as negatively as possible #which makes sense if you consider the ghosts saying out loud what their deepest fears tell them they are #but still they don't make entire sense #like scully's only joy in life being proving him wrong just seems blatantly false even if it is a funny idea #lyda got her ass though with the whole intimacy through codependency thing. no lies were told there.#interesting that mulder seems incredibly aware that the things he does and the way he acts make him seem like a self-righteous egomaniac #and we know that scully also sees him as such thanks to the conversation on the rock #but it's like he cannot stop doing it because it's just the way he is. what does that say about a person?#much to consider. and consider it i shall.#juni's x files liveblog #6x06 #the x files #txf

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