![]() Dana Scully ( Gillian Anderson), a physician and special agent with the FBI, is assigned the job of keeping tabs on fellow agent Fox Mulder ( David Duchovny), an odd but skilled detective whose deep obsession with the paranormal is of grave concern to his superiors. It might even be a paradigm for a new kind of X-Files story.The X-Files is an American supernatural mystery-drama series created by Chris Carter, which originally aired for nine seasons (1993≢002) on Fox, crossed into two theatrical feature films ( Fight the Future, which was The Movie, in 1998 and I Want to Believe in 2008), and saw a limited revival in the form of a six-episode 10th season in 2016 and ten-episode 11th season in 2018, both also on Fox.ĭr. REWATCHABILITY: High - It has an odd structure, but is an excellent Scully-driven character development episode. You can see her thinking of letting him down easy, and then it turns nightmarish. She knew this was a one-night stand (represented by her getting the tattoo in entirely sexual terms), and that he thought it was more. He was rough, but there was a tenderness there as well, and in Scully too. He's a self-destructive man quite capable of self-harm, and ends up with his arm in a furnace, trying to shut the tattoo up. There's a pathology at work that goes beyond ergotism. Poor Scully falls for the wrong guy, clearly. There's a certain irony in her turning someone into a demented killer. I find it interesting they got Jodie Foster to play its voice (I almost didn't recognize her in her cameo in Ed's office), seeing as her Clarice was the inspiration for Scully (they even have a similar voice). I haven't talked a whole lot about the tattoo plot, so a few words. Is it too much to hope for this won't be a one-off? If she's to be his equal, we need to see her pick some cases and solve them. Because though she's been the audience's identification figure, and has had more than her share of agency, episodes are usually structured so that Mulder chose the case, Mulder brought up the crazy theory, and Mulder turned out to be right. It makes COMPLETE sense that this episode ends with Mulder being told it's not always about HIM, and I hope the stories she drives from now on aren't limited to her space cancer. HE drags HER to various sites, he asks her to do autopsies and run background checks, and yeah, why DOESN'T she have a desk in that office? So not only is this her making a break from the fannish idea of their relationship, but she also gets to solve two cases with the help of her natural skepticism (the Russian with the outlandish story - fun use of Bullwinkle there - proves to be a con man, the talking tat is a bad case of ergotism mixed with a frail mind). Perhaps the bond isn't romantic, but she still feels the sting of his authority over her, and authority that's become part of their relationship, but isn't there on paper. Except she does treat him as part of her problem here. He has some of Mulder's boyish charm, sure, but only in the collective mind of the fans has she actually "gone for" Mulder. Falling for Ed itself is a rebellious act, since he's not, on the surface, the kind of man she usually goes for. Maybe she's embracing the cycle rather than breaking it. Perhaps that's why she gets one of her own, an Ouroboros, a cyclical symbol. Indelible, the tat is something he can't undo. He says he got his "Never Again" tattoo as a way to mark the end of something and the start of something new. ![]() She lets a man control her, rejects him, starts all over again, and she can't seem to break the cycle.Ī chance meeting with Ed in a tattoo parlor provides a possible way to do so. If she's to die - is that the symbolic value of the dry rose petal she fingers? - has she lived well enough, fully enough? And gloriously, the root cause of her malaise is never mentioned! The theme of going around in circles is invoked, but as a way to represent her own destructive and lonely cycle. She's distracted and distant towards Mulder, and wondering not only where her career is going, but her life in general. Just what the doctor ordered, in fact, because Scully is right in the middle of a mid-life crisis brought on, quite clearly, by worry over her possible cancer. and Tennessee is quite snow - oh British Columbia, can't you ever cooperate?), and gives the pair some time apart. ![]() Mulder's on vacation, see (Graceland of all things, and of course, the road between D.C. Get over it because while it gets a lot of air time, this is really a character piece about our own Agent Dana Scully. REVIEW: Space Above and Beyond alumn Rodney Rowland plays Ed Jerse, a loser with a talking tattoo. ACTUAL DOCUMENTED ACCOUNT: Scully has an affair with a man whose tattoo is jealous of her.
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