Case 06, File 10: Tithonus

AKA: Do You Really Want To Live Forever

The X-Files' Monster of the Week episodes exists in this weird gray area where they definitely exist and matter, but also kind of don't. With the exception of the rare sequel episode, the elements brought up in one rarely seem to affect the others, and our intrepid heroes almost never seem to remember lessons they've learned in other episodes (you'd think Mulder would remember the incredibly convoluted way to kill a vampire he learned in 3 in Bad Blood). Normally this is fine, but when an episode touches on the same theme or subject as another, it can get...frustrating.

Our episode opens with a creepy old man stalking a mail girl in an office building. But it's okay, it turns out she was just going to die in an elevator crash and the guy just wanted to take pictures of her dead body. Wait, that doesn't seem like an improvement. Anyway, back at the FBI, Scully gets called to work an assignment where a crime photographer has a photo that seems to have been taken before the police arrived. Scully I stress, not Mulder, cause Kersh wants to split them up.

Scully arrives in NYC with Agent Ritter (the agent who discovered that the pictures were wonky) and they find...nothing. No one really seems to know the photographer (whose name is Fellig) too well. They do discover that he's worked for the police there since 1964 and has looked the same age the whole time. Weird, right? While all this is happening, Fellig follows a murderer and a murder victim and takes pictures of the victim, but then the murderer decides he's not big on that and stabs him. And then, even weirder, Fellig gets up fine.

They find the knife with Fellig's prints on it and bring him in, but after he tells what happened Scully gets a flash of intuition and ends up seeing Fellig's wounds and letting him go, which pisses Ritter off. They start following Fellig, but Scully abandons it more or less immediately to confront him. He takes her driving around the city where she learns that he can tell when someone is about to die, and also that he doesn't care to try and stop it (it's actually ambiguous whether it can be changed).

"Hey, can you be a little less creepy?"
"I could be, but I won't."

Mulder, feeling left out, does some digging on Fellig and finds that he's about 150 years old and has changed names several times, but I'm lazy and I'll keep calling him Fellig. Ritter meanwhile pulls in the murderer from earlier and makes it clear he's cool with framing Fellig for this murder if it means getting him, which disgusts Scully. Scully goes to talk to Fellig, who steals her phone and reveals his immortality.

He also reveals the source of his immortality (refusing to look at death when he was dying of yellow fever and a nurse dying in his stead) and why he takes pictures of people dying (to try and see death and finally die). Mulder discovers that Fellig is, in fact, a murderer (he took a more active role in a couple people's deaths) and tells Ritter. Fellig starts thinking Scully is gonna die and wants her to hang around, and Ritter busts in with guns blazing and accidentally hits Scully with some broken glass. She's dying, but Fellig tells her not to look and dies instead. And the episode ends with Scully in this hospital, recovering quickly. Suspiciously quickly.

Tithonus is a fine enough episode, I suppose, but one element has always bugged me. Yes, it pays off the setup from way back in Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose that Scully will live forever, but the characters never really acknowledge that or discuss it, which seems like a missed opportunity. Hell, even the nature of Fellig's powers (that he can tell when someone will die, but not how) stand in direct contrast to Bruckman's (who can see how someone will die) but again, that contrast never comes up. It's weird that a season so eager to repeat Darin Morgan's contributions seems afraid to actually acknowledge them.

"Mr. Fellig, we're gonna have you checked for the Wolverine Gene, do you enjoy cigars and calling people Bub?"

Whatever, you review the episode you've got, not the episode you want and there is a lot to like about this episode. The guy playing Fellig is high on the list, for example. He's got a great creepy vibe about him in the early parts of the episode, which keeps us engaged and interested in what he's going to do (and pays off in the third act when Mulder discovers enough of his backstory to find out that he is actually a threat) but he also comes across as a very pathetic man, completely void of any reason to live and doing the only thing he knows how to do, in order to try and die. The writing goes along with this, giving him just enough backstory to make him a dark, yet sympathetic character.

The subplot with Ritter is a little weaker. Not that it's bad, it just doesn't feel like it goes anywhere. There's a lot of talk about how Ritter is willing to break the law to get Fellig in jail, but then Mulder telling him that Fellig is dangerous renders the only point of that (giving him an excuse to recklessly fire without looking) moot. I dunno where I wanted this subplot to go, but I wanted it to go someplace, instead of just fizzling out.

Whatever, the new and never to be seen again FBI agent is dull, I can live with that, Scully does most of the heavy lifting in the character department. The third act is mostly her conversing with Fellig about the nature of his immortality and how he feels about it, so it's good that we have a strong sense of why Scully dislikes him. I actually really the 2nd act interlude where Scully joins Fellig for a drive (even if I feel like you shouldn't really get in the car with someone who is technically still a suspected murder.

"Your dark room is a curtain in the middle of your living room?"
"Hey, I'm immortal, not a genius."

Aside from the lack of a real resolution to Ritter's plot, the main issue in the episode is a lack of tension. We know from basically the cold open that Fellig isn't a murderer and while we learn that he actually is eventually, by that time the episode is almost over. I wouldn't have minded some more ambiguity about how much of a threat Fellig is.

Ultimately Tithonus isn't much of a mystery or a monster episode, being something more akin to a character study and/or a meditation on the nature of mortality, which in some ways makes it a more accurate knockoff of Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose than any of the other comedy episodes. And if the series wants to slow down and have a somber contemplative episode before the big two parter coming up next, well who am I to argue?

Case Notes:

• There's probably some commentary on the way women are treated in the work force than the woman in the cold pen has to just brush off the guy clearly following her around the hallways, but the dialogue free cold open is creepier.
• I like the color drop in the reflection, but honestly, Fellig taking pictures of the dead body is just about the weirdest thing imaginable.
• I like that Mulder is explicitly remaining at the FBI, despite the fact that Kersh is intentionally making him miserable, out of spite.
• The Agent who wants Scully's help is way too into his theory. Although I admire the dedication to measure solar shadows in photos.
• Mulder somehow gets a hold of the case Scully is working and instantly dives into insane theories.
• Mulder takes getting called Fox in stride. I guess he and Peyton Ritter can bond over having terrible first names.
• Ritter is way too quick to dismiss the fact that Fellig has looked like he's in his 60s for 35 years.
• Fellig takes getting stabbed pretty well, but I'd have waited 5 minutes to go take the pictures of the murder victim. Not thinking things through are we?
• Scully figures out that Fellig got stabbed pretty fast. I guess someone has to have the instant Mulder-revelations since he's not there.
• Mulder's phone call to Scully at the midpoint is adorable and I love it.
• I feel like surveilling a 4th floor apartment from street level is kind of pointless, which might be why Scully abandons it so fast.
• I like the scene with Scully and Fellig in the car a lot actually, but the way the woman gets hit by the truck is just a wee bit comical.
• Scully getting pissed that Ritter is bending the law to get Fellig is excellent stuff, as is their confrontation. I will always love Ritter calling her Dana and her responding "Scully."
• Mulder tracked down Fellig's old identities by...being Mulder, honestly.
• I also like that Scully seems genuinely disgusted by Fellig's detachment, it's good characterization for her.
• Mulder discovering that Fellig has actually killed people is a good way to ramp up the tension going into the third act.
• Fellig's story about how he became immortal is pretty dark but also kind of sympathetic, kind of like him as a character.
• Scully nearly dies because Ritter is an idiot and shot without looking. Good job dipshit.
• Mulder telling Ritter he's lucky that Scully lived is the kind of Mulder I live for.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Consider donating so I can afford to follow people around and take pictures-I mean, so I can keep these reviews going.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Agent Ritter is played by Richard Ruccolo, who was right in the middle of his run playing one of the main characters on Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, a show I've never watched but seen referenced a lot, so I guess it made an impression on someone.