Case 07, File 17: all things

AKA: No I Don't Know Why It's Capitalized Like That

Scully's staunch skepticism is and was her primary character trait for much of the first big chunk of the series. Early in the series, they went to great (often comical) lengths to keep Scully from witnessing the supernatural goings on so as to keep them from affecting her skepticism. But as the series went on they relaxed that standard and now, with Mulder's exit speeding toward the series, it was time for Scully to be prepared to take over his role as "Believer in the weird shit."

Our episode this time opens on a flash forward to Scully, musing about moments in life, and also getting dressed after having boinked Mulder. Yes I have to use the word boinked, why do you ask? Then we start in the story proper, with Mulder wanting to head off to England to check out some crop circles and Scully thinking that's dumb. She's right by the way, that's a dumb thing to do, but Mulder cannot be dissuaded so he jets off for England and leaves Scully behind.

Scully meanwhile heads off to the hospital to pick up some medical results and ends up accidentally getting the X-Rays for a guy named Waterson. And because the theme of the episode is fate and chance, it turns out Scully knew Waterson in med school and goes to see him. He's suffering from a heart condition and is in bad shape, and also his daughter REALLY doesn't want her there, so Scully leaves.

But after Mulder calls her and asks her to go get some files from his crop circle buddy, Scully decides to head back to see Waterson and he uh...is kind of condescending about her decision to leave medicine and go to the FBI? How romantic. After that conversation she heads out to go meet Mulder's contact, and nearly gets in a car accident, but avoids it by stopping to avoid hitting a mysterious woman. So when she gets to Mulder's friend's house (whose name is Azar) she tells Scully that she should be paying more attention to metaphysical stuff. Everyone is telling Scully what to do, huh?

"It's okay, it's been a long time for both of you. Next time it'll go for a little bit longer."

Scully goes back to see Waterson and they discuss the fact that they had an affair and also that Waterson moved to DC to try and restart his relationship with Scully but before the situation can get more awkward, he decides to have a heart attack and go into a coma. Scully goes back to Azar because uh...not sure, actually, but she does. Azar tells her about how she used to be a scientist but was deep in the closet and unhappy and got into alternative medicine when she got breast cancer, which I guess is an okay backstory?

Anyway, Waterson is in a coma and Scully ends up seeing the lady she nearly hit the other day and follows her into Chinatown and then into a Buddhist temple, where she has a vision of Waterson and his disease. This is apparently enough to convince her to bring in some alternative healers for Waterson and after a montage of some random stuff, Waterson wakes up. But despite having gone to the weird side of things to save him, Scully decides she doesn't want to be with him, links back up with Mulder and the episode ends with them hanging out in his apartment, discussing what happened to her.

all things is an episode The X-Files would not have made at the beginning of the series, which is both compliment and criticism. On the one hand, it's nice that the series has enough faith in itself and its audience to have a low key character study, especially one of Scully who normally ends up more shunted off to the side than Mulder. But on the other hand, even low key character studies need to have stakes and a pace that can't be described using some variation on the word "Languid." all things isn't a terrible episode and it's popular with the fanbase for some very specific reasons, but it's never been one that worked for.

The first and most important reason is that stakes thing I mentioned before. To put it bluntly, I do not give a shit about Waterson, and given that the entire episode is about him, that's a pretty big fucking problem. His characterization is bland, he often comes off as very condescending and it's very weird that he moved to DC to follow Scully. Centering the tangible stakes on whether he gets better from his illness just means that the entire episode is running behind right from the start.

"And you're not a doctor, but you play one in real life."

Which is a shame, because a lot of the secondary characters seem to be more interesting. Azar's backstory is interesting enough to make me want to know more about her and her girlfriend, even pushing past my instinctive disdain for alternative medicine people (I guess it's different in The X-Files universe where magic is a reality). I also found Waterson's daughter more interesting than Waterson himself, she has a recognizable emotion behind her actions. The episode might have been better if Waterson had been in the coma for the entire episode and we'd focused on the relationships left in his wake.

But the episode we got is the episode we got and there's one main reason this episode is popular with fans: The fact that it opens with the reveal that Mulder and Scully boinked. There are a large number of fans who are Quite Invested in the idea that Mulder and Scully should be together romantically (no judgement, I'm one of those people) and while I wish I could say the episode lands in that area for me, the fact that Mulder and Scully spend the whole episode apart means that it just doesn't. I'm not here to see Mulder and Scully post-coital, I'm here for banter, dammit.

The one element of the episode that does work is the acting, as Gillian Anderson is very devoted to this performance (as she ought to be, she wrote and directed it). She manages to play her scenes with Waterson the right mix of intimate and uncomfortable, that makes the feel the relationship more real than the script does. All of the secondary characters are pretty believable as well, which is one of the reasons I might not like Waterson so much: He is such a believable condescending douchebag that he comes across as someone I might know and not ever want to spend time around.

Come on episode, if we're gonna go there, let's go there. Show! Me! X-Ray! Schlong!

As I mentioned above, Gillian Anderson wrote and directed this episode, and aside from a single short film in 2015, she's never written or directed since, unlike Duchovny who is regularly directing episodes for basically every show he's starred in. And that's not because I don't think Anderson is talented, but because she doesn't seem to want to focus on that aspect of filmmaking, instead focusing more heavily on being the best damned actress she can be. And while that's fine if that's what you want to do, it does explain why all things is such an actor's episode, and why it feels out of step with what I want out of an X-Files episode.

Case Notes:

• If I had to explain to people outside The X-Files' fandom why so many fans like this episode, the fact that it opens with Scully's voice over talking about life choices while she gets dressed after banging Mulder would probably do it.
• 63 hours earlier is such an oddly specific number.
• Mulder is talking about crop circles and Scully is dismissive. I do like the "I'm not wearing pants" comment.
• Mulder wanted to fly him and Scully to England to wait for some new crop circles to appear. I wanna say that's out of character and the episode is playing up him being obnoxious, but honestly, it's not THAT far outside his usual behavior. Honestly, the England thing is the weird part, except he went to school in England, right?
• Scully getting the wrong file in the hospital is so contrived that the episode has to be about fate.
• The scene where Scully sees Dr. Waterson for the first time is so weird that it circles around from being intimate to being offputting. It's that weird repeated ringing on the soundtrack.
• Dr. Waterson's daughter is really angry at Scully for some reason. I guess if their affair blew up Waterson's marriage, it's understandable?
• Mulder being obnoxious enough to call Scully and ask her a favor IS out of character, although I guess he might be trying to apologize in a weird way.
• For some reason, the airport set Mulder is in looks nothing like an airport to me.
• Scully nearly gets in a car crash because she's on the phone with Mulder. Come on Scully, you know you shouldn't drive and talk on the phone.
• Everyone is telling Scully what to do in this episode or just being rude. The crop circles lady tells her what she should make of her accident, which is just rude.
• Waterson broke up with his wife and moved to DC to try and get back together with Scully. Which, yeah, it's Scully, I get it, but it's still SUPER weird.
• Having Scully lie on his chest gives Waterson heart attack, which, again, yeah.
• Seeing the crop circle lady's house is reallllllllllly putting me in mind of other "Alternative medicine" types.
• Are Azar and her girlfriend the first openly lesbian characters in The X-Files?
• Someone opening a sentence with "Holistic practices" is usually your cue to begin looking to end the conversation. Same goes for a white person talking about "Eastern medicine practices."
• I was wondering why they'd go out of their way to point out that Azar is gay, but her talking about how her internalized homophobia affected her is nice, especially since Anderson is openly bisexual.
• The Scully life montage followed by the X-Ray vision of Waterson is so weird and offputting, I honestly don't know what to make of it.
• "What's taking place here is a waste of time" Uh yes, him, I like him.
• The dream sequence where Scully sees herself is very odd too, although it feels a little like a cut rate moment from Legion. Y'all should watch Legion.
• Ohhhh is Scully being 100% behind alternative medicine the series loading the bases for her to take over in the Mulder role in the next season?
• Scully chasing after the random woman and it turning out to be Mulder is nice.
• I like Mulder wearing the "Stonehenge Rocks" hat. That's cute.
• At least the episode has the good sense to end on Mulder and Scully talking together.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. I don't have a lucrative grift as an alternative healer yet, so check it out so I can afford my rent.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Stacy Haiduk, who plays Maggie Waterson, was at this time best known for her main role in the 1980s Superboy TV show as Lana Lang. She floated around TV for a very long time, but has apparently settled into a pretty solid niche as a Soap Opera mainstay (she's had regular roles on All My Children, The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives).

Audio Observations:

The Moby song The Sky is Broken appears pretty regularly throughout the song. I'm not a big fan of Moby and the episode doesn't really edit to it enough for me to get a sense of what they're going for with it, but it sounds nice, so that's good.