Season 2: Ascending To The Stars

[janestclair]

I actually like Sleepless too.  The idea of lack of sleep and what that would do to you physiologically is just fascinating to me.

 

Wow. If someone still gives the show a chance after only watching those doesn't prove the power of Mulder and Scully's awesomeness then nothing will. Although it could've been worse if you managed to catch, say, 3 and The Field Where I Snoozed too.

 

The Field Where I Snoozed is cracking me up right now. 

[supposebly]

I always liked Sleepless. I felt terrible for the soldiers, especially the one in the diner. They were all so lost. Just the thought of not sleeping for years affects me. And those hallucinations were supercreepy.

 

Season 2 is probably third if I had a list of favorite seasons. I will be able to make a decision once I finish my rewatch.

[MKL122788]

The rewatch to prepare for season 10 continues. Right now I am on Oubliette, but I hadn't commented on season 2 yet.

 

Season two is pretty amazing except for a few things.

 

Things I loved:

 

The Host - Kind of terrifying as far as creatures go to be honest, but pretty awesome.

One Breath - This episode was really well done. I was genuinely relieved originally when Scully returned.

Aubrey - Who doesn't love the homicidal tendencies of the fetus in your body taking over you?

Irresistible - Oh, Donnie Pfaster. The most human of terrors. This was one of the creepiest episodes because it felt potentially realistic. The devil shadow imagery was really well done to signify that.

Die Hand Die Verletzt - The awesomeness that is Paddock.

Colony/End Game - The first good, clear mythology episodes about living aliens.

The Calusari - Nothing scarier than devil ghost children.

F. Emasculata - While not a mythology episode, it really underscored the breadth of the reach of the shadow organization.

Soft Light - Every time I see it, I imagine what it would be like to be split apart into component atoms.

Our Town - The faces in the cabinet with the sewn mouths. A conspiracy of eternal youth. Watching how the guilty implode out of self-preservation.

The Anasazi - Really a lot was revealed in this and the following episodes. Spiked water, assassins, murder and craziness.

 

What I didn't like:

Duane Berry/Ascension - I despise these episodes. I can't tell if they annoy me because I blame them for 3 or because they are bad on their own. It is hard to really separate them at this point.

3 - God. Just no.

Dod Kalm - I find it boring mostly.

Humbug - This episode is supposed to be funny I think...but it never hit the mark for me. Certainly no Bad Blood.

 

Overall though, a great season.

[festivus]

I'm done binge watching season two and honestly it's kind of a blur for me right now. I just hear people yelling and when I hear Scully yelling at people to tell her things then I am yelling at the tv for them to tell her what she wants to know dammit!

 

I think my impressions are about the same as the first time I watched this season. I know originally this is the season I started shipping Mulder and Scully romantically although I didn't know that's what I was doing at the time. I can't remember when in the season I started though. I do remember yelling at the tv during 3, like Mulder what the hell are you doing?! My Scully is missing and you are getting your freak on? I had the same reaction this time around too, lol. I'm not sure I was shipping them at that point, it was more about me and how I felt the world should stop until she was found.

 

Mulder telling Scully in Humbug that now she knows how he feels got a good laugh from me.

 

I know I'm quoting an old post but I'm not wanting to read the episode threads until I'm done watching the season.

Not that it's news that Gillian is amazing, or even that she's a master of the little things, but there's a great example in this episode: when Mulder wakes up Scully at the table, Gillian sounds 100 percent like someone who has just woken up.

 

 I know. I'm tuned in to everything she does and I loved that moment. Sigh.. she's so great. 

Edited February 7, 2016 by festivus

[Jac]

I've tasked my sister with watching 3, which she hasn't seen in about 15 years without watching Duane Barry/Ascension first, so as context free as possible to try and establish whether it is really just a crap episode or if my feelings regarding its placement between Ascension and One Breath overly colour my feelings towards it.

I'll repot back when she is done. :-)

[Prevailing Wind]

3 was a crap episode, no matter where you'd place it.

[festivus]

Word.

[Jac]

I suspect that I'll confer but I need an objective opinion on the episode before I make up my mind, especially since some friends of mine do enjoy it.

[eleanorofaquitaine]

I watched Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath in the span of the last two days.  Duane Barry really is quite a good episode, but there are such great moments in Ascension.  The interrogation scene is just amazing - the way Mulder asks Duane Barry if he killed her, like he can barely ask the question but also can't bear to not know the answer; the fact that he is literally actively trying to keep himself from killing Duane Barry. It's so well done.

 

As I was watching the beginning of One Breath with my boyfriend, he's says, "he loves her." (He hasn't really watched the show before but I am slowly pulling him in).  So there you go - 23 years of people arguing about it, and my boyfriend blows right past all of the angst. Anyway, he also thought that Mulder should have been a little calmer when he was freaking out at the hospital.  That episode also has a lot of amazing moments, including the scene at her bedside and the scene where he breaks down in his apartment, but I think one that is overlooked is near the end, when they are calling him to tell him that Scully has woken up.  You can just see the dread on his face when the phone starts ringing, but that he has also determined that he owes it to Scully - and her family - to face it.  And then obviously his face totally changes when he hears the news that she's awake.

 

GA is an amazing actress, there is no doubt, but I do truly feel like DD is completely underrated as an actor, in part because the little things that he does are really overlooked.

 

ETA: I skipped over 3 because, let's face it, the reality is that we all know that Mulder spent most of the time that Scully was missing in a fetal position on his couch (watching porn, which I had to point out to my boyfriend last night).

Edited March 9, 2016 by eleanorofaquitaine

[Taryn74]

As I was watching the beginning of One Breath with my boyfriend, he's says, "he loves her." (He hasn't really watched the show before but I am slowly pulling him in).  So there you go - 23 years of people arguing about it, and my boyfriend blows right past all of the angst. 

 

Hee hee!

 

The scene where Mulder is freaking out and has to be dragged away while Mrs. Scully just sits there staring silently at her daughter.... I get chills even thinking about it.  She doesn't even look up.  It's just.....  I can't even find the words.  Powerful stuff.

[eleanorofaquitaine]

Hee hee!

 

The scene where Mulder is freaking out and has to be dragged away while Mrs. Scully just sits there staring silently at her daughter.... I get chills even thinking about it.  She doesn't even look up.  It's just.....  I can't even find the words.  Powerful stuff.

 

I almost love Mrs. Scully's relationship with Mulder as much as I love Mulder and Scully.  She's not going to stop him from getting his answers because she knows how he feels about Scully and, as importantly I think, she probably knows her daughter's respect for him.  I was also fascinated by the parallel to Home Again - she tells Mulder he's welcome to stay when the extubate Scully in One Breath, so beyond the fact that he was there for Scully when she needed him, I am glad he was there for Margaret Scully, too.

 

I always go back and forth on Melissa Scully. Her New Age-y stuff annoys me, too, just like Mulder. But on the other hand, she's not wrong about the way Mulder is acting.  I also figure that Scully probably could deal with Mulder because she was used to dealing with Melissa's crazy theories.

Edited March 12, 2016 by eleanorofaquitaine

[Taryn74]

I almost love Mrs. Scully's relationship with Mulder as much as I love Mulder and Scully.  She's not going to stop him from getting his answers because she knows how he feels about Scully and, as importantly I think, she probably knows her daughter's respect for him.  I was also fascinated by the parallel to Home Again - she tells Mulder he's welcome to stay when the extubate Scully in One Breath, so beyond the fact that he was there for Scully when she needed him, I am glad he was there for Margaret Scully, too.

 

I always go back and forth on Melissa Scully. Her New Age-y stuff annoys me, too, just like Mulder. But on the other hand, she's not wrong about the way Mulder is acting.  I also figure that Scully probably could deal with Mulder because she was used to dealing with Melissa's crazy theories.

 

Mulder's relationship with Mrs. Scully fascinates me.  I don't really agree with the 'Philes who think she loves him and they get along great, but I don't really agree with the ones who think Mrs. Scully must borderline hate Mulder (but is more polite about it than Bill Jr.).  I think her understanding of how deeply he cares for her daughter takes precedence over any personal feelings she may have about him, if that makes sense.  It's almost like how she feels about him - good or bad - is irrelevant.  She knows he loves her daughter, and she knows he would take a thousand bullets for Scully if he had to, and she respects him for that, end of story.  It's one of the reasons I love Mrs. Scully so much.

 

I was just thinking the other day about Mulder and Melissa's scenes in One Breath.  I find it fascinating that for all his open-mindedness, when Scully's life was hanging in the balance, Mulder had no patience for Melissa's "nonsense" about crystals and energies and all that.  I have a feeling if it had been his own life in jeopardy he would have been more willing to explore other alternatives, but since it was Scully he needed something REAL.  (And yet, it was his reaching out to her during her coma that made her turn the corner.)  I love that.

[eleanorofaquitaine]

Mulder's relationship with Mrs. Scully fascinates me.  I don't really agree with the 'Philes who think she loves him and they get along great, but I don't really agree with the ones who think Mrs. Scully must borderline hate Mulder (but is more polite about it than Bill Jr.).  I think her understanding of how deeply he cares for her daughter takes precedence over any personal feelings she may have about him, if that makes sense.  It's almost like how she feels about him - good or bad - is irrelevant.  She knows he loves her daughter, and she knows he would take a thousand bullets for Scully if he had to, and she respects him for that, end of story.  It's one of the reasons I love Mrs. Scully so much.

 

I was just thinking the other day about Mulder and Melissa's scenes in One Breath.  I find it fascinating that for all his open-mindedness, when Scully's life was hanging in the balance, Mulder had no patience for Melissa's "nonsense" about crystals and energies and all that.  I have a feeling if it had been his own life in jeopardy he would have been more willing to explore other alternatives, but since it was Scully he needed something REAL.  (And yet, it was his reaching out to her during her coma that made her turn the corner.)  I love that.

 

I think that Mrs. Scully's attitude towards Mulder is guided by two things - her daughter and Mulder himself. She does seem to have genuine and legitimate affection for Mulder, and it's really striking that her last words were to him, not to Scully.  With the reveal that Charlie was estranged from her, I wonder if she didn't somewhat replace Charlie with Mulder.  But beyond that, I suspect they just really bonded when Scully was missing - unlike the rest of the family, she saw exactly how in despair Mulder was, and she seemingly leaned on him, too. So you don't just forget that experience.

 

That being said, I am also sure that Mrs. Scully recognizes that her daughter's relationship with Mulder puts Scully in danger. But one of the things I love about Mrs. Scully is that she respects her daughter's choices, even if she doesn't always agree with them. She knows that Scully has made a choice of her career and sticking with Mulder and she doesn't judge her for it, even if she gets frustrated by it.

 

WRT Mulder and Melissa, I think that this is the first time we really see his frustration with spirituality - it's almost like, with Scully's abduction, something snaps within him when it comes to any kind of spirituality that posits that "you must just accept when things happen."  In Christianity, it would be thought of as "Thy will be done," but while Melissa is articulating a non-Christian version of it, the idea is the same - just accept this bad thing being done to Scully and to him. And Mulder's having none of it.

 

On another note, we watched Irresistable last night - still such a good episode, but it bothers me that Mulder didn't give Scully fair warning about the case. The episode really creeped my boyfriend out. (Also, he was all affronted about the football tickets - he was all, "he's imposing a date on her!" I just shrugged). 

[Baby Button Eyes]

Rewatching Irresistible for me was even more creepy than I remember watching as an 18 yr old. Back then, I remember the creepiness, but what really struck me was the end when Scully broke down since that was the first time in two and a half seasons she did that and it was a bit sad for me to see. However, after watching it now with my past prison work behind me, I'm almost too creeped out to bear repeated viewings even tho it's a great epidode. The feeling of unease constantly is in the episode. Donnie Pfaster just reminds me of so many inmates I spent my days with that I wonder how I avoided any harm myself! (I remember imitating Scully's mannerisms while there, lol) The actor was really great at playing creepy. I'm surprised this episode wasn't "banned" like "Home" was (I guess it's just more personal for me)... Death fetishist in 1995 wasnt seen on tv as I recall.

And you would think Mulder would warn Scully, she was still recovering from her own frightening abduction. Sometimes Mulder could be pretty blind to some things.

Edited March 13, 2016 by Baby Button Eyes

[eleanorofaquitaine]

And you would think Mulder would warn Scully, she was still recovering from her own frightening abduction. Sometimes Mulder could be pretty blind to some things.

 

To be fair to Mulder, Scully keeps a lot of things in, especially during this period of their partnership. He's obviously on pretty high alert when she does start demonstrating discomfort with the case but still, a warning would have been nice.

 

We finished Season 2 last night. There was a string of four at the end of the season that I barely remembered - I ended up skipping over The Calusari and F. Emasculata but did watch Soft Light and Our Town.  Anyway, interestingly enough, the one MOTW that sticks with me through this run of episodes is Dod Kalm. Yes, the make up is awful but it is such an eerie story.  Had it been a movie and not a tv show where we know the leads have to survive, it is clear that Mulder and Scully would have ended up dead. 

 

I like Season 2 but I do think that they went a little too much to the "Scully is in danger" well once too often - you have Duane Barry, Irresistible, Colony/End Game, and Our Town where she is abducted.  I am glad that they moved away from that trope after season 2, and of the four, they could have found another way to make the story work in Our Town (for instance, Mulder could have been the one captured by the cannibal townspeople).

 

Finally, I really love Duchovney's performance in Colony/End Game. The tenuousness of Mulder's relationship with his parents, especially his father, is really well done.  Knowing what happens eventually, it is difficult for me to not dislike Bill Mulder intensely - not only for sacrificing his daughter but for letting his son feel guilty about it for decades - but Mulder's desire for his father's approval stops me from hating him entirely. 

 

That being said and this is a total nitpick based on the fact that I am a huge fan of the Boston sports team, it drives me absolutely crazy that Mulder was raised on the Vineyard and is a fan of the Yankees and the Knicks. The only way I can justify it is that we know that his mother lives in Greenwich, CT after the divorce, so I guess he adopted the sports teams in that area. (And yes, I know that the real reason is that Duchovney is fans of those teams, more's the pity).

[Taryn74]

From One Breath, after they have "unplugged" Scully and Mulder comes to visit her -

 

 

MULDER: I feel, Scully... that you believe... you’re not ready to go. And you’ve always had the strength of your beliefs. I don’t know if my being here... will help bring you back. But I’m here.

 

And then at the end of the episode, after Scully has regained consciousness -

 

MULDER: I know you want to get some rest, I... just came by to see... how you were doing and say hi.

(He holds her hand then starts out.)

SCULLY: Mulder?

(He turns back.)

I had the strength of your beliefs.

 

 

Is this Scully's way of letting him know she heard him while she was in the coma?  Was it coincidence?  Did she maybe hear him but didn't realize she was hearing him?

[baileythedog]

 

 

Is this Scully's way of letting him know she heard him while she was in the coma?  Was it coincidence?  Did she maybe hear him but didn't realize she was hearing him?

 

That was always my take away. That despite being in a state of coma (and being metaphorically untethered) she had heard Mulder as an anchor to this world. 

I assume that Glen Morgan felt the same way since he referenced this scene in "Home Again".  Scully draws a lot on her own experiences in a coma (she tells her brother that their mom's living will was based on Scully's experience) and when she's speaking to her mom she tells her "I know you can hear me."  

 

It may also be a prompt for her in "Babylon" to help Miller/ Einstein try to reach the comatose would-be bomber, i.e., she thinks that it is actually possible to not only reach him but perhaps even hear something back. 

[eleanorofaquitaine]

I would tend to agree with that. Though, I also do wonder if Nurse Owen is supposed to be a subconscious manifestation of Mulder's belief to Scully. When Scully's sitting in the boat, she sees Mulder, Melissa and Nurse Owen standing on the dock. And then Nurse Owen whispers in her ear something about it not being her time, and IIRC, her language isn't that much different from what Mulder says to her when he finally talks to her at the hospital.

 

The thing is, while Mulder is present at the hospital, he isn't present to Scully until the very end of the episode. First he freaks out; then when Melissa wants him to wave his hands over Scully, he checks out; then he's trying to act as a protector when the guy comes to steal Scully's blood, etc. But it isn't until that scene where he talks about her having the strength of her beliefs that he is actually present to her. So maybe Nurse Owen is Scully's mind making sense of Mulder's beliefs and actions, since he himself doesn't want to do so?

 

(FWIW, I wish Morgan and Wong made whatever it is that they were trying to do with Nurse Owen a little more explicit. I can't really shake the feeling that she is supposed to be tied to Mulder somehow, but I also think that they never made that particularly clear).

[Sharna Pax]

I was just thinking about "One Breath" again, because we got a callback to it in "Kitten," with the flashback to Skinner in Vietnam. I've always loved "One Breath;" it's probably my favorite episode, and definitely the one that made me a shipper. But I've always focused on what it does with Mulder's character, and on all the nuances of Duchovny's performance. I didn't realize until now, thinking about Skinner's monologue, how much the episode manages to show us about the secondary characters without losing the focus on Mulder. It's like all the characters that we've sort of vaguely known come into focus at the same time: Skinner, Scully's mom, the Cigarette Smoking man, even Scully's dad, get these lovely self-contained moments where they show us the essence of who they are. And it's a measure of how rich the episode is that a monologue like Skinner's - beautifully written, perfectly delivered, at a pivotal moment in the episode - wasn't one of my defining memories of "One Breath." I never thought about how good it was until "Kitten" reminded me of it.

[eleanorofaquitaine]

It's a mark of how well-written the episode is - we get these small insights into Melissa Scully, Scully's dad, Skinner, CSM, Mr. X - as well as this emotional journey with both Mulder AND Scully (Scully doesn't have a lot to say in that episode but they do a great job of conveying the journey she is going through).   Part of it is that they don't try to overdo it - Skinner, X, and CSM all basically only have one monologue - and they are each trying to convey a different message to Mulder.  

[Sharna Pax]

On 2/10/2018 at 10:00 AM, eleanorofaquitaine said:

It's a mark of how well-written the episode is - we get these small insights into Melissa Scully, Scully's dad, Skinner, CSM, Mr. X - as well as this emotional journey with both Mulder AND Scully (Scully doesn't have a lot to say in that episode but they do a great job of conveying the journey she is going through).   Part of it is that they don't try to overdo it - Skinner, X, and CSM all basically only have one monologue - and they are each trying to convey a different message to Mulder.  

Yes, it's really beautifully paced, and very focused - as you say, everyone gets one scene, but they tie it to the central plot of the episode, and they make it count. I remember noticing the same thing in the Season 1 finale of Buffy, which is all about Buffy nerving herself to make a colossal sacrifice that she doesn't at all want to make, but which also has room for important and defining moments for every other character in the show. But it took me a while to notice how fantastic the pacing and organization is in "One Breath," probably because the emotional content of the episode is so real and so overwhelming that it all comes across as very natural and unstructured. And I think it's rare, in the X-Files, to get that perfect combination of sweep-you-away emotion and controlled, economical writing. I think you often end up having to go, "Ok, this doesn't really make sense, but I can understand and respond to it on an emotional level, so I'm going to go with it." Like Samantha and the starlight. Nonsense, technically, but nonsense that I find terribly moving and satisfying on some level that goes beyond logic. But "One Breath" is just an all-around great episode.

[Folk]

Season 1/2 have a level of post-early 90's angst that never came again. By season 3 it started becoming a much lighter fare of show. Mulder also changed greatly after his "spiritual journey" into a much more self-conceited, self-absorbed character.

[Sharna Pax]

So I just rewatched 3, which is a total guilty pleasure for me. I think I might be the only person on the planet who likes this episode. And I can't argue that it's a good episode, because it's objectively a terribly written PG-13 erotic thriller, and Perrey Reeves's acting is hypnotically bad. But I just love seeing what a complete trainwreck Mulder is when he's grieving for Scully. Sure, it's cliched and slushy and over-the top, what with the not sleeping and the "I work alone" and the vampire sex, but it still reels me right in.

It's interesting to see Mulder taking a more restrained, scientific approach to this case than he normally would. He assumes the killers are just playing at being vampires, he doesn't start thinking they might actually be vampires until his suspect burns to death, and even then he's very cautious about drawing conclusions. He doesn't tell the medical examiner what he's looking for because he doesn't want to prejudice his findings. It's like he's trying to compensate for Scully's absence by approaching the case the way she would.

But where you really see the effects of Scully's absence is in Mulder's total lack of boundaries when it comes to the investigation. Normally, whenever he gets too personally involved with a case, Scully's there to rein him in. Here he's so immersed he doesn't know where he ends and the case begins. There's no borderline between investigation time and personal time; it all just bleeds together. He doesn't check into a motel because he doesn't sleep anymore; he spends the night prowling around weird blood/sex clubs - maybe investigating, maybe picking up women - who knows? So of course protecting Kristen turns into sleeping with her - it's not just that she's dangerous and he's feeling self-destructive, it's not just that he's lonely and unhappy, it's also that he no longer has any sense of why he shouldn't do this.

On a shallower note, I also appreciate getting to see Mulder just straight-up make out with someone, even if it's not Scully.

[Sharna Pax]

I also rewatched One Breath, and if I let myself start talking about how much I love this episode I'll be here all night. But here's one thing I noticed this time around: in the scene at the end where Mulder gets the call, we cut away just as his face starts to light up. We never see his full smile, just the start of it. It's such a lovely little directorial choice. I'm not sure just why I find it so affecting, but it really works. 

[eleanorofaquitaine]

I love One Breath so very, very much. I love that in 1994, they could deconstruct Mulder's masculinity so thoroughly, and yet not destroy the character in any way. I am not sure if we'd see that today. I love that the episode respects both Mulder and Scully and the pain and sadness that each is experiencing individually. I think it is an episode you can watch over and over and get something new out of it every time.

As for "Three," I don't think I've seen it since it originally aired.  To be perfectly honest, I think some of that is because I experience second-hand embarrassment watching DD and Perrey Reeves acting together. It felt so much like a "very special episode" to me, and it just wasn't good.