All right, so The X-Files returns for another season. I was a little apprehensive upon hearing this, unsure of how good of an idea it was to have the actors keep going when they wanted out. So, now, David Duchovny got his way with the officials at Fox -- he's only coming back for half of this season, and who the heck knows about a ninth season. Anyway, let's get to the episode.So, I know I hardly touched the second half of Season 7, but we'll jump straight to Within. In short, the season finale had Mulder and Scully returning to Oregon where the show's pilot took place because abductions were occurring again. Scully found herself feeling a little ill (which led the way to a very warm and shippy moment), and she discovered a pattern that the abductions were occurring to people experiencing abnormal brain activity like Mulder back in the Season 7 premiere. And she was right -- Mulder and A.D. Skinner went back to Oregon to do more investigating and Mulder ended up being taken away to an alien ship. And big kicker for most Shippers was at the very end when Scully told A.D. Skinner that she was pregnant!
Okay, so speculation goes flying, but I really do think the baby is Mulder's.
So, Within. The FBI launches a vigorous investigation to look for Mulder, headed by the newly promoted Kersh and led by Special Agent John Doggett. I don't like Doggett, and I imagine Chris Carter wrote him to be annoying enough to be on the bad side of most of the audience. And Scully. He makes some arrogantly presumptuous statements about Mulder to Scully, and when Scully discovers who he is, she promptly tosses a cup of water in his face. (Go Scully!)
Scully is clearly brought down by the fact that Mulder is missing. The way that she carries herself, looks at herself in the mirror, and the fact that she goes over to Mulder's apartment and falls asleep on his bed -- she wants nothing more than to find him safe. That latter one ... Scully's heart must have nearly leapt out of her chest when her landlord said that he saw Mulder in her apartment building. She runs back to her apartment, hoping to find Mulder there, but finds her computer gone. She goes over to Mulder's apartment to find the same, and wanders into his bedroom. She finds one of his shirts on the end of the bed, picks it up, and lays down his bed, cradling the shirt to her cheek.
8X02 . Without
8X04 . Patience
8X05 . Roadrunners
8X06 . Invocation
8X03 . Redrum
8X07 . Via Negativa
8X09 . Surekill
8X10 . Salvage
8X12 . Badlaa
8X11 . The Gift
8X13 . Medusa
8X08 . Per Manum
8X14 . This is Not Happening
8X15 . DeadAlive
8X18 . Three Words
8X17 . Empedocles
8X16 . Vienen
8X19 . Alone
8X20 . Essence
I know I've neglected this entire season, and I can easily blame my senior year's genetics classes. But the season finale sparked a good deal of reaction from me, and I'll post here what I posted in my journal:
The season finale. The last scene. The kiss. The ... EEEEEEEE! Well, I know it's Thursday, but I only just today saw it because I was busy studying for my Human Physiology midterm. I had it on tape from Sunday, and saved it for my reward for after the midterm. I made careful measures to avoid reading any e-mail from Cabin X, and stayed away from any web sites that might contain anything about the eighth season finale. Luckily, it worked, and I'm very very glad that I did. It would have diminished the experience had I known about any spoilers.
So, this episode. In short, Scully goes to the middle of nowhere to have her baby because she fears that the alien/human replacement(s) like Billy Miles are after her baby because of the threat it may pose to them. Mulder's tenet "Trust No One" seems to be something our protagonists should have been keeping in mind. Despite Agent Reyes' attempts to keep Scully safe, she eventually allows the alien/human replacements to crowd around Scully just as she gives birth -- and the puzzling thing is, they don't take it.
It's a boy, and Scully names him William, after Mulder's father. And this begins the return of the speculation about the nature of the baby's existence. The conversation she exchanges with Mulder (which I won't transcribe here) implies, in my opinion, that the baby is indeed Mulder's and that it was somewhat a natural conception. But that brings about a contradiction to the situation. Scully was infertile, thanks to the aliens who extracted her ova. So, how could she conceive? That's something, I guess, they're leaving for next season.
But, anyway ... Scully talks vaguely about fearing the truth, a truth that she knows Mulder feared as well. But Mulder responds, rather cryptically to us at least, "I think what we feared were the possibilities. The truth we both know." Scully asks what that is, and he doesn't answer. Instead he moves in to kiss Scully tenderly, holding her baby between them, and she kisses him back! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
So, you see why I -- a devoted 'Shipper -- am deleriously happy!
Of course, I have qualms about a ninth season, especially since David Duchovny isn't contracted. That means they're going to be getting rid of Mulder. And I don't like that implication one bit. I does not make my 'Shipper heart beat very comfortably.
I had a chance to rewatch The X-Files season finale again today and would like to add to my rant from a couple days ago. I want to address the issue about how exactly it is Scully got pregnant and whose baby it is. From the second watching, I can confidently assert that the baby IS indeed Mulder's and that its conception is on the side of natural means. This is from Agent Doggett's conversation with his "trusted" informant, Knowle Rohrer. Rohrer told him about the chip that was put in Scully's neck: "They put a chip in the back of her neck to monitor her. It was also used to make her pregnant with the first organic version of that same super-soldier."
Now, re-read that last line: "pregnant with the first organic version of that same super-soldier." Okay, so it's conceivable that she was impregnated unknowingly by a member of this super-human race. But doesn't make more sense that Mulder IS a super-human, and that they have/had been sleeping together, sometime around "all things"? Remember, Mulder is unique, as evidenced by his immunity to the black oil (from that episode in season 4, whose title escapes me at the moment) and the Cigarette-Smoking Man's attempt to extract his DNA.
This is very satisfying to me, obviously.
