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s3 episode 8 thoughts

i’m conflicted. i didn’t like this episode, and i don’t know if my reasoning is valid or not. but i guess at the end of the day it’s all subjective, right? it’s MY BLOG and i decide which episodes are good vs bad in the juni-verse.

(do not be offended if this is your favorite episode and i am slandering it. it’s not personal, pinky promise, but i explain my reasoning at the end, so let’s jump in)

((also i hear geese right now. not relevant but highkey distracting))

oooo today’s episode title looks french… i thought at first that it would mean (feminine) someone who forgets something, but it actually means “a type of dungeon with a single escape route”. the more you know!

i’m excited to watch this episode. it sounds interesting. it also sounds like it could be really really dark. so let’s see! (verdict: DARK!)

we open on high school picture day. a girl named amy is getting her pictures taken. these girls are in very cute outfits. a guy from the photography company is staring at amy though… OH! and stroking her picture in a darkroom. HELLO??? jail jail jail.

(we later learn his name is carl. he will be referred to as “the creepy man” and “carl” alternatively throughout this post)

he cut out her picture and put it next to a picture of himself??? is he making a collage? GROWN MAN! GROWN MAN DOING ALL THIS BTW!!! in what looks like a trapdoor darkroom beneath his house. is this the aforementioned oubliette….?

amy is sleeping and. SOMEONE IS COMING IN HER WINDOW. NO MA’AM. it’s carl, who says that “nobody is going to spoil us”. a little girl sees this happen!!!! noooo… but maybe she can give a clue?? i mean a witness to a kidnapping seems like it’ll help solve the case, right?

now we are at a burger place, someone is taking a while to fill up some drinks- her name tag says “lucy”. and then there is BLOOD all over her from her nose. the boss looks majorly freaked. and she FAINTS! mumbling that nobody is going to spoil us. OH… so lucy and the girl must have some sort of connection. boy, that seems it'd be disruptive to the work day…

bum bum bum bum!!!! spooky noises. spooky imagery. you know it, you love it: the intro.

mulder and a very large coat are here to investigate the kidnapping. he is looking about at various rooms and walls.

noooo, he is in a child’s bedroom :( and he finds a very sad mrs. jacobs looking out the window. he says they will do everything they can to help but she is like “how could you really know how i feel?"

well actually he is quite well versed in kidnappings!!! so please be mindful of your words. she walks away and he looks very sad. way to dig some stuff up for the guy. she didn’t mean it, i know, but still, it was a very purposeful dialogue choice.

(mulder is staring intently at dark red spots on the carpet) “it’s blood”, says a guy we have never seen before. excellent work detective. could have had me fooled. i was thinking it was jam /s

this guy thinks it was someone that knew her, mulder does not think this is the case because it was so bold. fight fight fight!

oh, he actually came on this case to talk to lucy from the burger place!!! and not for the kidnapping. we should have known that was far too conventional for our friend.

(door opens) (deep sigh) (scully’s voice from off screen) "mulder…" <- yeah this had me giggling. not even really sure why. they are reunited after a flight apart. it must have been harrowing.

so, he explains: the girl, amy, is 15 years old, and was kidnapped. and twenty miles across town, lucy was repeating the same words the kidnapper said as she passed out! “well that’s spooky”, scully notes, and mulder replies “that’s my name, isn’t it?” <- LMAO

OH GET THIS: Lucy was kidnapped when she was 8 for FIVE YEARS!!!! until she was found by the side of the road. HUH??? THE PLOT IS THICKENING. same guy…? scully seems very deep in thought

first thing lucy says upon their entrance: “i’d like a cigarette” in the hospital. queen i think there are laws against this but idk 💔

they explain that amy said those same words about spoiling it for us at the same time she did, and lucy has a thoughtful look on her face then says no, i know nothing about it. NOT BUYING IT!

paused on scully’s face to take notes and she really is just so beautiful huh.

lucy asks when she can leave and they say um probs when the doctor says you can. and she’s like, no they said it was up to you. so they’re like uh yeah you can go. this is very exciting and she doesn’t even change before she leaves.

CREEPY MAN ALERT. he’s on the side of the road with a busted tire and a tow guy offers to change it for him for $10. a screaming deal! until this fellow picks up a crowbar looking thing and screams LEAVE ME ALONE and chases him away!!! deeply suspicious behaviors. tow guy calls him a freak as he drives away. a very rare deserved case of calling someone a freak as you drive by them.

back at the station, the lead agent or whatever his title is tells mulder that lucy and her boyfriend have a criminal record, but mulder doesn’t think she’s involved. i’d have to agree, but maybe i’m easily fooled.

“mulder, i got something- something weird” scully strides in the room and announces. and i’m thinking, YEAHHHH BABY, WE LOVE THAT AROUND THESE PARTS!!!

so, here is the weird stuff: lucy had two types of blood on her shirt that night… so scully is gonna test and see if there was a match to amy’s. but mulder doesn’t want lucy treated as a suspect, so he says to try and keep that quiet.

now we’re at a halfway house. a guy is going up some stairs whilst lucy shivers in bed. she has scratches all over her face and complains about being unable to see. and it looks like she has the same scratches as the girl in the creepy guy carl’s hole!!!

mulder rolling up to the halfway house. he asks to take lucy to dinner, as the paramedics say she is probably better now after her episode.

she is going to town on some soup and insisting that she is clean, and you can even ask henry about this. she is very insistent that she CANNOT help amy, but he is trying to gently be like. well... maybe you CAN. and she says: NO.

back in the hole, amy is having pictures taken of her. and screaming

at the station. mulder is watching a video of lucy from 1978 where she is crying on the ground and also screaming. her eyes were hypersensitive to the light when she finally escaped from her kidnapping all those years ago. it’s honestly very upsetting to watch.

oh!! scully has a break in the case: all the school photos were sent out EXCEPT amy’s. and the assistant was fired THAT DAY AFTER THE SHOOT. his name is CARL. and he spent the last 15 years institutionalized “for a bipolar condition”. well would that make him not a suspect for whoever took lucy…? i can’t do math. but if she got back in ‘78 then it would be possible, right? because idk when s3 takes place. anyway, mulder’s gonna show the photo to lucy and see if she knows him.

(i groan when a story makes a villain bipolar or have any other mental health issue to enhance their ~scariness~. it’s cliche, it’s perpetuating harmful stereotypes, and it’s bad writing. i was mentally throwing tomatoes at the screen)

carl is leaving and he left amy in the basement. is this her chance to break free? or is it a trick. she finds a hole in the wall sealed with some wood and starts to rip it up

back to lucy cam. mulder is trying to get her to stop running away and he grabs her shoulder and she says “DON’T TOUCH ME. i don’t like to be touched” this is understandable and he apologizes.

anyway, he shows her carl’s photo, and she starts to run away again, indicating that she does, in fact, know who it is.

back to amy cam. she’s trying to break free, but he is coming back in his car! he hears her trying to get out and sees her running out the window. she is running!!! into the woods!!! run run run run!!!

lucy is also running.

but no!!! they both fall!!! mulder picks lucy up. nooooo, amy failed her escape attempt :(

but upon seeing the photo, lucy confirms that it IS the same guy that took her way back when. she says she feels like she’s going through it all over again.

however, scully and the cops are at the door! lucy is suspicious. reveal: THE BLOOD ON THE UNIFORM WAS AMY’S!!! mulder is saying she didn’t do it, but scully says it’s concrete evidence. unless you believe in the migration of blood.

carl is explaining to amy that she shouldn’t have run. she asks for some water. is she gonna make another break for it? no. she does not. but she does ask for her mom and also for her to please not die here. it’s very sad.

mulder throws out a theory: maybe lucy bled out amy’s blood. it’s a stretch. “i hate to say this mulder, but i think you just ran out of credibility” <- girl i think that was a while ago.

i jest, but it appears scully does not. yowch. okay, yeah, bleeding someone else’s blood is a little rough in terms of an idea, but some thoughts we try and keep inside our heads in terms of our pals having wild theories.

OHHHH... scully insinuating that he is seeing his sister in lucy, and that is why he cannot see her as the perpetrator when all the evidence points to it…. oh i felt chills... or some sort of adjacent negative experience. bad feelings washed upon me.

he says that not every single thing he does or says is traced back to his sister but… i’m actually not gonna agree with him on that one. anyway, he’s mad at her. and i would be too tbh!

someone is coming in to the station who saw carl. it’s the tow guy!! and he was spotted heading near the place lucy was found years ago!!!

carl witnesses the cops racing off to his place. but the agents go to the photo store to see if he has an account. not a bad idea on behalf of mulder.

although, we don’t even know if they go in because next they are ambushing carl’s property. and they see the trap door!!! is she in there??? and she is!!!

WAIT NO. IT’S LUCY?? everyone is confused.

okay, so they DID go to the photo store, because they have the photos of amy that were taken in the basement… i see now. i am listening and learning.

the cop guy wants to take lucy into custody because she can’t say why she is at the crime scene, but mulder is like “no i’ll take her” and scully tells the cop dude it’s alright. so now she must see what he was saying. he’s walking lucy out. and she’s saying that carl hasn’t touched amy, and then she starts shivering and coughing, saying she is cold and wet. and mulder’s touching her….

he says lucy is trying to tell them amy’s in a river, so they try to go there. and then when carl dunks amy underwater, lucy starts spitting up water!!! and then drowning in the car on land.

agents are running in the woods.

they find carl, and mulder shoots him. then he runs off holding amy. so he starts doing mouth to mouth and she’s doing chest compressions and lucy is coming back to life?? maybe?? no.

scully is trying to tell him to stop because she’s dead, but he won’t, and they actually come to blows about it. he’s sitting there all soggy and wet and crying. but then she finally starts coughing!!!

mulder learns that lucy was also dying, and he gets all freaked out and runs back to her. and lucy is, in fact, dead. he’s touching her face as water pours out of her and she’s crying. mulder is full on kneeling at her dead body and sobbing. and damn, if this moment didn't get me right in the chest.

scully shows up to the halfway house, where mulder is sitting on lucy’s bed with a bunch of pictures of her. scully says amy had NO INJURIES and she can’t explain it, but nobody wants to talk about it because everyone is relieved to have her back. and it turns out lucy drowned. despite being on land.

“mulder, whatever there was between them, you were part of that connection, did you think about that?” <- AUGH (girl who is in pain as scully tries to put into words how important he is to not just her, but the whole world)

but he says that dying was pretty much all amy could do to escape from her past. and i'm thinking, well, if this whole episode has been a way to comment on your past... what exactly are you saying? because i'm hearing things i don't like. what about the power of healing and friendship? have we tried this?

i’m not sure how i feel about this episode, so i want to hear your thoughts even more than usual. actually, i am pretty sure that i didn't like it. i love a good character-centric episode, and this was definitely a mulder episode, but i felt that scully was really sidelined. like REALLY sidelined. to the extent she felt almost mean, with the losing credibility comment and trying to get him to stop doing CPR and bringing his sister up into it. on the other hand, though, she did seem to accurately describe the situation as himself projecting his past onto these people. it was pretty clear that was the case no matter how much denial he had going on.

luckily, in long form content like this, when something is written that feels out of character, i have an ease of just ignoring it i feel is usually denied in tighter season or movies. like yeah, everyone has an episode or two where their favorite character acts weird as hell. i could already point to a couple episodes on mulder’s behalf- cough cough genderbender cough cough 3- so maybe this will even out the tally of agents doing stuff that feels wrong. and like those episodes, i can ignore them. i am the rememberer and when i need to i am also the forgetter.

(now, you may present an argument to me that these actions WERE in character for scully. and i will not deny you the chance to present that argument my way. i shall hear out cases with a fair and impartial nature. but my opinions have been voiced)

characterization aside. this was another dark episode with almost no lightheartedness. there were a few things i giggled early on, like the way she just announced his name when they’re reunited, but other than that… childhood kidnapping? a real bummer. also, their psychic connection wasn’t even explained. it didn’t seem to follow any sort of logic at all. she would just… snap into it sometimes and then out of it. but you couldn’t really tell why she’d snap into it beyond it seemed moments where amy was in danger. but like. when you’re kidnapped you’re basically in danger 24/7. so: ???

and the transmutation of physical injury. they said that amy had no injuries, but we could see she had the same face cuts and scrapes as lucy. so are they ignoring that or are we thinking that lucy dying absorbed all that damage…?

mulder also ends the episode saying that he thinks death was the only way lucy could escape her suffering, which has troubling implications for his own character and those who love him.

hmm. idk, i just don’t think i liked this one. i’m learning that i find children being hurt less campy and fun than aliens and bigfoot. a good scary episode can be that, both good and scary, but i didn’t feel scared because it still was fantastic in nature. when there was a real scary episode- i’m thinking of irresistible in s2- the reason that felt so scary was because it WAS an entirely human, no supernatural elements at all, spooky episode. and that was the whole point; that episode was used to explore scully’s greatest fears, her struggle with being unable to control every aspect of life, trying to grasp who she can and cannot trust, and the depths to which the human soul can descend. so we had something similar going on here, except that lucy was taking amy’s damage, and you can see how that sort of transmigration makes for a harder sell on the commentary of the evil things humans can accomplish, no?

hmm. again, please let me know. i actually might look this one up, because ever since i learned that there are wikipedia episodes for every single episode, i have mostly neglected that fact to avoid audience ratings sullying my own hot takes on the subject. but this one has me curious.

#i always want insight into how our character’s handle grief i just feel like this was a weird way to do it #idk chat y’all r gonna have to tell me what you think!!!#juni's x files liveblog #the x files #txf

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