Case 06, File 06: How The Ghosts Stole Christmas

AKA: Merry Christmas Murder Ghosts!

Season Six has the reputation of being the season where they started pushing the series to be more funny, and while I don't know if that's accurate, it certainly feels accurate, which might be worse than being accurate. The X-Files had always been funny, yes, and it had its funny episodes, but Season Six is where it started to feel like they were pushing for more comedic episodes more consistently. And the fact that we're on our fourth funny episode in a row is certainly not helping that perception.

After a brief cold open...oh wait, scratch that, no cold open, our episode kicks off with Mulder and Scully hanging outside a creepy old house on Christmas eve. Mulder explains that the house was where a pair of star-crossed lovers had a good old fashioned murder/suicide in 1918 and that the house is therefore haunted. I forget if he drops the bomb that all the subsequent owners have done the murder/suicide thing since, but I'm dropping it here.

Scully, being Scully, wants to go home and do Christmas stuff but Mulder, being Mulder, decides to go check it out. And Scully, having lost her keys, follows her in. And then, the haunted house, being a haunted house, proceeds to lock them in and start making banging noises. Mulder and Scully, undeterred, go exploring, and discover a nice library with only one issue: There's a pair of corpses under the floorboards. A male and female pair. With Mulder and Scully's clothes. And their haircuts, look it's Mulder and Scully is the point.

This naturally does not sit well with our heroes so they head on out, only to find that leaving the library just loops them back around into it. They take this in stride and try splitting up, only to find that they can't return to each other. It's here that Mulder first meets one of our other characters, a ghost named Maurice. Maurice spends a lot of time talking with Mulder about how Mulder is an obsessive weirdo and how he's damaging his own life, only to reveal he's fucking with him when Mulder tries to leave the room again.

This shot is very Insidious but I still dig it.

Scully meanwhile meets the other ghost, a woman named Lyda, who talks to Scully about how she seems to enjoy trying to prove Mulder wrong and how she too is lonely. But unlike Mulder, when Maurice shows up, she holds them at gunpoint (very Scully) and reveals that they have fatal gunshot wounds, causing her to faint. At which point the ghosts whinge about how they need to use cheap tactics to drive people insane (as they used to have more time) and that if they don't causes a Murder/Suicide soon, they'll stop being a famous haunted house.

So when we check back in with Mulder, Lyda shows up to give him a lecture on how alone he is and also how much love and trust is required for a murder/suicide pact? She's also dropped the pretense that she's not a ghost, so I dunno, this whole scene is weird. Scully meanwhile has to talk to Maurice who tells her that Mulder is nuts and might hurt her. And at first it seems he's right, as Mulder walks in, rants slightly crazily and shoots Scully, but is dragged away by Maurice before he can shoot himself.

But it turns out that didn't happen, because that was actually Lyda, and when Mulder finds Scully shot on the floor and she shoots him, it turns out that's Lyda too. When Mulder and Scully meet up (crawling across the floor, natch) it takes a little bit but Mulder realizes that neither of them were actually shot and once they realize it, they're okay and they decide they should probably leave. And then, after a brief check in with Maurice and Lyda, the episode ends with Mulder and Scully exchanging gifts and spending Christmas morning together.

How The Ghosts Stole Christmas is, more than Triangle or even Dreamland, a direct attempt to recreate the funny episodes of Darin Morgan, with a dark yet whimsical tone and searing insights into Mulder and Scully's characters. And while it's a well regarded episode, it's also one I've always been reticent about. It's not that it's a bad episode, it's demonstrably a pretty good episode, but I've never liked it on the level that some people seem to.

Mulder and Scully handle the reveal of their own bodies under the floor better than I would.

It's also a hard episode to review, because there's not a lot to it. It only has two secondary characters, one location and it's mostly dialogue. There's only so much space I can burn dissecting individual lines or critiquing acting. That doesn't make the episode bad, it just makes my job here harder. So if this review runs a little on the short side, that's why. Blame Chris Carter, not me.

One thing I will say is that I like the scene with Scully and the ghosts quite a lot. Mulder's scenes are a given, comedic episodes dragging Mulder is well trod ground, and for good reason; I love him dearly, but Mulder is demonstrably a ridiculous human being. Scully is a little closer to being a real adult, but she's got her own problems and it's nice to see the series try to dig into her issues and also show what she gets out of her relationship with Mulder.

There's also a wealth of good acting in this episode. Duchovny not only does great in his scenes with the ghost, but I love how much he goes for it in the scene where Lyda is pretending to be Mulder. Duchovny has gotten a lot of work being other people these last couple episodes and he seems to be enjoying it. And while she has less to do, Gillian Anderson does typically great work. She sells her panic in the scene where Mulder (read: Lyda) comes in with the gun excellently.

But you don't wanna hear about how good Mulder and Scully are, you know they're good. You wanna hear about the guest stars. And yes, both Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner are excellent in their roles. Neither of them are big enough for their casting to feel like a gimmick, but both of them are good enough that they can carry half the episode. Both of them have good chemistry, great rapport with Mulder as they relentlessly make fun of him and Asner does a great job of selling the hard third act turn into darkness.

I love this reveal of Lyda's bullet wound, it's just so casual.

Which actually brings up one of my few major issues with the episode: The tone is quite rough. The scenes where Mulder and Scully shoot each other are very dark scenes but the rest of the episode is silly and light, which makes their presence feel very jarring. It's not an insurmountable issue, but it kinda brings down the room a little and either makes the previous lack of stakes or the sudden arrival of stakes weird.

One of the hopes I had when I began when I started this project was to help solidify my feelings on some specific episodes that I was mixed or uncertain on, and How The Ghosts Stole Christmas was one of those. And yet, I come out the other end feeling just as mixed as I did. It's a good episode, with a funny script and some absolutely classic lines, but I've never been able to love it the same way some other people do.

Is our next episode another funny one? Our next TWO? Jesus, I used that opening paragraph too early.

Case Notes:

• Opening with the organ music is a little on the nose.
• I like that Scully's car is packed to the gills with presents actually, it kinda highlights the divide between Scully's family life and Mulder's.
• Mulder's purple-prose description of the two lovers and their suicide pact is cute, but Scully's indulgence for it is what sells it.
• See, this is why Mulder and Scully are better paranormal investigators than me. I hear thumping upstairs when I'm in an old house like that and I'm running out that door.
• I like Scully rambling aimlessly about how silly it is to believe in ghosts, it's good character stuff.
• I'm mixed on this episode as a whole but "Alright, I'm afraid, but it's an irrational fear" is an all time great Scully line.
• I'm not interested in most trappings of wealth, but I've always wanted a library with a balcony and a ladder. Or just a big library with a lot of space for books.
• Nightmare logic house is more interesting than most ghost stuff, but let me clear: If I'm in a house where I loop back into the same room when I go through a door, with someone I trust, you could not pay me to separate from the other person. I would handcuff myself to Scully in Mulder's shoes.
• Mulder instantly figures out the old dude is a ghost and says it to his face. He's right, but imagine if he was wrong. It would be quite humiliating.
• I love Mulder's indignation at "Paramasturbatory."
• Look ghost dude, you can drag Mulder or Scully separately, but don't you dare impugn their partnership, it's too pure.
• I prefer the reveal of Lyda's injury to Maurice's, since it's so casual. Maurice's has too much buildup and Scully fainting is just cheap.
• The ghosts having a discussion about how their ability to drive people insane has faltered is honestly the highlight of the episode to me. It's a unique spin on the concept and it gives them some motivation for acting the way they do.
• I like Lyda just straight up dropping the ruse that she and Maurice aren't ghosts in front of Mulder. It makes their interactions more fun.
• I don't like the implication that Mulder could have actually stolen Scully's car keys, he's not that much of a bastard.
• Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner are both really great in this episode, I just wanna make that clear.
• Mulder and Scully decide that they can't shoot each other even when they think the other one shot them. And then their bickering makes them realize it's all an illusion. Awww.
• The wrap up scene is one of the better ones in the episode, Mulder and Scully fumbling around their feelings for each other and how much they both mean to each other. Their relationship is probably what keeps it in my favorite TV show slot, so I like episodes that work with it.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so I can afford to not have to move into a haunted house.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Okay, this one is easy: Lyda is played by Lily Tomlin, an actress and comic who has been working steadily since the 60s. He career is way too extensive and varied to go over in its entirety but aside from her Oscar nominated performance in Nashville, the two roles you might be familiar with are as Frankie in the currently running Netflix series Grace and Frankie and as Ms. Frizzle in The Magic School Bus.

Ed Asner, who plays Maurice, has had an equally long (albeit not as prestigious) career. His most famous role was as Lou Grant in The Mary Tyler Moore Show. His character was apparently important enough to get a full goddamn spinoff, which ran for 5 seasons and won 13 Emmys, so naturally this is the first I'm hearing of it. He's also uh, a 9/11 Truther so we're just gonna move on.

Audio Observations:

The episode opens with Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas playing. I don't know what version and I hate that song so I'm just including it for completion's sake.