#haven't done it in a while on main though because i hated loki s2 lmao not much to work with!

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

season 1 episode 13 thoughts

A SCULLY EPISODE!!!! i was overjoyed and then i felt deep and immeasurable grief as the minutes went by.

she wants to leave her christmas tree up all year <3 she's a good cook <3 her dad calls her starbuck <3

but her dad is being avoidant! he didn't even say i love you when he left!

! dana scully lore reveal ! her dad lowkey sucks!!!

and then he IMMEDIATELY DIED right after! that is sick and twisted. why do they make my girl endure such pain.

the next note i made for the episode was "omg windows you have to crank!" which was a brief moment of levity among the Sorrow. except even the guy doing the said window cranking was kidnapped right after. still, the novelty of it all!

when scully came into work even though her dad had just died... we see mulder call her "dana" for the first time... she was visibly taken aback by this... and mumbled her name back to herself... my heart was melting out of my body

and when i thought i was going to already collapse from the "dana" moment, he tells her she should take some time for herself and then. softly cups her cheek. and strokes it with his thumb. holy fuck i nearly sobbed. it was the softest thing i have ever seen. what the hell man.

he has this instinctive need to touch her. to use his touch to keep her safe or bring her comfort. it will be psychoanalyzed at a later date from me but for now, know i am noticing the motifs.

(also, when he finally left his office, we see that he kept the hat from the alien obsessed guy in episode 10... good to know this is a man who takes souvenirs. take him to the zoo and see what he comes back with)

so then we cutscene to her dad's funeral and we learn that her father was in the navy- perhaps this is why he is unduly harsh. and then we got ANOTHER scene that beat my heart into a pulp: scully turning to her mom and asking "was he proud of me?" her mom waits for a beat and says "he was your father". HEY! THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER!!!!!!!!!

(who wouldn't be proud of scully? i'm taking names. write them down)

when interrogating the death row psychic mulder once again said "i want to believe" and i once again wrote in my episode notes "HE SAID THE LINE!"

interesting that this is an episode where scully believes and mulder doesn't, almost immediately from the beginning of the episode. but the psychic says stuff her dad would say and therefore she gets emotionally invested even though mulder says it's nonsense, and that this guy is setting them a trap because mulder got him put on death row. and when she listens to the psychic's clue and find evidence at an abandoned warehouse, mulder yells at her for putting herself in danger. to which she said:

"i thought you'd be pleased i opened myself to extreme possibilities"

scully i am REACHING through the screen and telling you i'm proud of you in case no one ever did that before

(and MAYBE mulder yelling at her for putting herself in danger because he thinks he needs to protect her WAS deeply satisfying but still. read the room my king)

(also revealed in this scene: mulder is a jimi hendrix fan. i am tucking this knowledge in my pocket and storing it safely)

then the psychic decided to reveal some of her personal memories and we learn she stole a cigarette when she was 14 and she thought it was disgusting but she wanting to do something they would disapprove of. and she was so scared but so excited. are you kidding me? are you absolutely kidding me. the need to rebel from an assigned role in which she feels she MUST be perfect has haunted her from a young age, and when she finally did something her parents really disprove of- joined the FBI instead of working as a doctor- she's met with rejection. so now we know she's had this terrible need to do what pleases those she loves and to break that is a rush from its inherent moral Wrongness. the isolation of being the Good Child who does what She's Told vs. the isolation of being the Less Good Child who loses their parent's approval. that terrible ache of knowing you once pleased them and now you don't. the conditional nature of affection. ohhhhh good lord.

later mulder gets shot and scully thinks the psychic lured him into a trap which leads to her screaming at him (like SERIOUSLY screaming) that if mulder dies, she'll kill the psychic herself. now this was especially crazy because we have only at this point seen her yell once before which was in episode 8, but this was 10x that intensity. also wild for revealing that she will kill anyone who hurts mulder. once again i say holy FUCK.

mulder is wheeled in to the hospital and still telling her not to believe him, says that he's luring her into another trap. at this point i was yelling "TELL MULDER HE KNEW ABOUT YOUR DAD!" but she was too deep in the grief to bring it up

(throughout the entire episode she is hallucinating her dad in places he isn't, which is arguably far more impactful than just seeing her cry)

when the psychic reveals the location of the murderer and they go to check it out, scully straight up shoots the suspect. she is NOT playing around, y'all. i think this is the first time we see her shoot someone, which is already a lot to unpack. but then she doesn't follow the killer because the psychic had warned her against it and in this way he saves her life.

then she says thank you to the psychic, who says "come to my execution and i'll give your father's message to you" and she DOESN'T GO. mulder asks her why, because now he seems to think that psychic dude really WAS telling the truth, and she no longer does:

"why can't you believe?" "because i'm scared"

she's scared!! she's scared to believe. she's scared to know what is out there and she seemed scared to know what her father had to say. isn't there enough uncertainty in this world ruled by facts and science? what could the possibilities be like beyond that? why believe in what you cannot control? she says she knew what he would say because "he's my father". is that enough for her? or was she too frightened to hear that he wasn't proud of her?

overall i've said "holy fuck" like a LOT during this recap and i truly feel that those are the only words i have for the situation. getting to see more scully lore was EXACTLY what i was hoping for and i'm so pleased but also so so so sad. like she keeps her christmas tree up and she's a good cook and she has this terrible need for her father's approval that he won't give and then he goes and dies. i need about 10 beach episodes to make up for the sadness here. chris carter i'm in ur walls.