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S11.E04: The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat


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1 hour ago, festivus said:

There was so much funny stuff in it and we got a "What the hell" from Scully which is one of my very favorite things.

I always fanwanked that Scully has the filthy mouth and just drops bombs offscreen. How can you not with all the weird stuff they've gone through. 

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The waterboarding and drone scenes were super dark, and I felt like a bad person for laughing hysterically. 

I also laughed at Mulder telling Reggie how about he cant blame some kind of mystical "They" for everything that happens in the world. Pretty sure I have said literally the exact same thing about Mulder a few times throughout this show myself. Of course, Mulder has actually met his conspiracy theory several times now, so he would know I guess. 

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8 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

The waterboarding and drone scenes were super dark, and I felt like a bad person for laughing hysterically. 

I also laughed at Mulder telling Reggie how about he cant blame some kind of mystical "They" for everything that happens in the world. Pretty sure I have said literally the exact same thing about Mulder a few times throughout this show myself. Of course, Mulder has actually met his conspiracy theory several times now, so he would know I guess. 

Well, I mean, Darin Morgan just loves tearing apart Fox Mulder as a character and David Duchovney as Fox Mulder (I laughed a bit when one of the guys chasing Reggie implied that Mulder had gotten fat).  He's always thought that Mulder was self-important and always found ways to puncture Mulder's self-importance.  But I also think that at the end of the day, Morgan actually kind of identifies with Mulder - Mulder always comes off as uber-nerdy and a weirdo loner when Darin Morgan writes him, and I suspect that is because that is how Morgan sees himself.

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Just now, eleanorofaquitaine said:

Well, I mean, Darin Morgan just loves tearing apart Fox Mulder as a character and David Duchovney as Fox Mulder (I laughed a bit when one of the guys chasing Reggie implied that Mulder had gotten fat).  He's always thought that Mulder was self-important and always found ways to puncture Mulder's self-importance.  But I also think that at the end of the day, Morgan actually kind of identifies with Mulder - Mulder always comes off as uber-nerdy and a weirdo loner when Darin Morgan writes him, and I suspect that is because that is how Morgan sees himself.

Just the most handsome uber nerdy weirdo loner around.

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2 minutes ago, luna1122 said:

Just the most handsome uber nerdy weirdo loner around.

Exactly! Which is why I think that Morgan, in particular, loves taking pot shots at Mulder's looks (Humbug being the most egregious example).  Because, seriously, Mulder is an uber nerdy weirdo loner because he chooses to be - chances are, if you look like David Duchovney, you aren't going to be an uber nerdy weirdo loner by necessity.

Edited by eleanorofaquitaine
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1 hour ago, ganesh said:

I always fanwanked that Scully has the filthy mouth and just drops bombs offscreen. How can you not with all the weird stuff they've gone through. 

Yeah, I've always thought she wanted to drop some f-bombs but just can't bring herself to do it because of her upbringing by her stern Navy father. I think Hell is the best we're going to get from her and Gillian always delivers it great. As I was just typing that I remembered the Cops episode. Maybe someone with a better memory than me can tell me if they bleeped any of Scully's words.

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Scully is the same age as me and we played lawn darts every summer so yeah not remembering was odd.

 

And Scullys declaration of love to Reggie(almost). Lol.

The Doctor’s eyes remind me of old horror movies- but it could be the Mendela effect

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1 hour ago, ganesh said:

I swear GA said that she had a "fuck you, Mulder" in the first movie but they cut it out. 

There was an f-bomb deleted from that film, but it wasn't "Fuck you, Mulder."  I'm fairly certain it was "I don't fucking believe this," and I think it was near the train tracks, somewhere in the corn and the bees and the chasing part of the film.

I also love the blooper when Scully had her gun on X (I think), and was supposed to say, "Don't tell me you don't know, you lying [TV-appropriate insult,] and Gillian, caught up in the moment, said instead, "Don't tell me you don't know, you lying sack of shit."

Edited by Bastet
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Hah, I do love Gillian's potty mouth because I think it's probably the only thing I have in common with her. Okay I will stick to my fanwank on Scully because I feel like even if she does let a cuss word fly every now and then she probably feels guilty about it.

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I was distracted by the art installation because I knew it was real and in Vancouver. I wasn't sure if that was deliberate or if I was overthinking (overthinking).

Many laugh out loud moments, but the end when Skinner shows up, "Where the hell are they taking Reggie!?" DED.

Not my favourite, but it was fun and definitely an old-school episode.

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Oh my lord, I LOVED THIS so much. 

I'm in the Darin Morgan = Genius camp, for sure; I enjoyed Were-Monster last season, but the way that it had been retrofitted from some other show to shoehorn Mulder and Scully in felt a little too obvious, to me. This one, on the other hand, was pure joy. I like Darin Morgan specifically for his bleak, bittersweet outlook on life: that nostalgia can bite you in the ass; that the mundane minutiae of working and paying bills and going to the dentist and what the kids call "adulting" is both boring and hard, so disappointing that we invent narratives (or...watch them) to obsess over instead; that you should cling to love and brief delights in the moment, because they're too rare and in the end we are all alone. 

Chris Carter famously brags about not keeping a show "bible" or a proper writers' room...but it's okay because Darin knows this shit backwards and forwards, and lives to occasionally turn it inside out. This was a veritable basket of Easter eggs, for the X-Files in general and for his episodes in particular, and I need to rewatch it a few times to keep finding them. That was the Ovaltine cafe in the cold open, made famous in Jose Chung and still operating in Vancouver BC. And that cold open was a spot-on Twilight Zone...parody? satire? invocation? Twilight Zone is the first t.v. show I remember obsessing over from a...writerly point of view, I guess, even before I was quite old enough to realize that--I knew that I'd be scared, and I knew that there was a twist coming, so that only afterwards could I pick it apart in my head and see how we'd been led and lulled to that point of surprise. I'm also totally down with parallel universes; I adored Fringe too. So I was all in from the get-go, I'm saying. 

I love his episodes because they're dense and wordy and silly, underscored with genuine melancholy. I get the sense that he loves Mulder and Scully because he knows them that well, and has bothered to recognize that their lives are ridiculous and pitiful, from any rational perspective...and so he lets them have fun. His Mulder is hot, but bonkers, and everyone is a tiny bit in love with Scully, from Bruckman to Chung to Eddie Van BlundHt to Guy Mann (still cracks me up, that name) to Reggie Something. And Morgan's love for these characters lets Duchovny and Anderson bring their A-games, too. They're obviously having a blast, crackling with energy. Mulder disconsolately lying on the ground kicking just about killed me.

To me, this felt like a love letter to the fans (and our disparate opinions and favorites), and a fond farewell to the series as a whole. I LOVED IT. 

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19 hours ago, WritinMan said:

Did Scully say "leprechaun taint?"

Mulder's "Did Scully just say 'leprechaun taint'?" face was one of my favourite things about this episode.

7 hours ago, Affogato said:

Also Skinner at the end. "Where are they taking Reggie?"

This,too, along with Action!Driving!Scully in the Last X-File Case sequence.

Scully's unfamiliarity with lawn darts did make me wonder whether this season is actually supposed to be taking place in an alternate universe (as aquarian1 also pointed out) -- an idea already proposed in this season's threads.

I couldn't decide if all the yammering about alternate universe was meant to satirize the excesses of the fandom, or, well, CC's own loopier strains. I wouldn't put either past Darin Morgan.

"Spotnitz Sanitarium" was nice touch, too.

Edited by Sandman
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Well this was approximately a thousand times more enjoyable than Weremonster (sorry, fans!). 

It nailed the current distrust of knowing what can be believed and what's been made up/altered well enough, though, that I'm still too disturbed to decide if I loved it or not.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad.

 

16 hours ago, AConspiracy said:

I liked the alien talking like a game show announcer guy.

Ha ha, also taking more steps to get to his little segway thing to ride, than he would have spent just walking the two feet over to them.  I was dying.

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I realized this morning if you abbreviate the episode title (as we all do for most Darin Morgan episodes) it becomes LAFS, which sounds like laughs.  Appropriate, no?

Also, just how OLD was that gelatin Scully was about to dig into?  Probably a good idea that she didn't eat it.  I can't imagine it had a shelf life of 50 years.

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21 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

The waterboarding and drone scenes were super dark, and I felt like a bad person for laughing hysterically. 

Me too. When Reggie said "oops was that wedding cake" I was dying. And the waterboarding in the cubicle. 

I yelled OMG  and what the hell! so much watching this I woke up the dog.  

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18 minutes ago, domina89 said:

Also, just how OLD was that gelatin Scully was about to dig into?  Probably a good idea that she didn't eat it.  I can't imagine it had a shelf life of 50 years.

*cackle*  I thought about that, too.  Jello 1-2-3 was discontinued in 1996, so even being very generous that box of Goop-O A-B-C would have been 21 years old.  Leprechaun taint probably ain't got nothin' on that.

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13 minutes ago, teddysmom said:

Me too. When Reggie said "oops was that wedding cake" I was dying. And the waterboarding in the cubicle. 

Did you notice the plant in Reggie's cubicle started out as a seedling, then grew into an adult plant, then progressively looked worse as Reggie's activities grew more and more dubious in the cubicle?  Nice touch.

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1 minute ago, domina89 said:

Did you notice the plant in Reggie's cubicle started out as a seedling, then grew into an adult plant, then progressively looked worse as Reggie's activities grew more and more dubious in the cubicle?  Nice touch.

No!  I'll have to go back and rewatch. 

And I loved how they inserted Reggie into all the classic epis, Toombs, Home, Small Potatoes (my fave) . 

I had lost interest in it last season, but this one has been pretty good so far. 

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On ‎1‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 10:38 PM, roamyn said:

God-awful!  Christ on a Cracker, what the HELL was that!?

And I love the fun ones, like Were Monster and Alien Baseball Player.  The only fun parts of this, was seeing Reggie pop up in classic scenes and Skinner’s line at the end.

 I guess it was a good representation of the cheesy 50s SciFi movies - even down to the Alien’s upturned eyebrows and Fu Manchu mustache.  But really, Alien wearing an Elvis cape, Mulder Out of character, Dr. They’s eyes (his whole conversation was pointless), those horrific statues, the shoving reminder of the Orange Psychopath’s claim to millions at his inauguration (and you know he’s gonna claim it must be true, since it was on a Fox show). 

That’s an hour of my time wasted.

I totally second your posting.  As a watcher of the original, while I appreciated the call-backs and always loved the fun ones (and I did like the episode's implication that the show was timely in the 90s, but maybe not so much in 2018 with social media, Wikileaks, etc.), I was rolling my eyes at the political commentary scattered throughout about the Orange.  X-Files didn't have to stoop to that.  Something I loved about the original: it didn't matter what side of the aisle you were on, you could enjoy the show. 

And, was it really necessary to have Reggie call Scully "Sugar Tits?"  I mean, come on!  Yet another example of: "let's debase the character of Scully!"

But, I did like the commentary at the end from Scully with her Goop/Jello: certainly Scully, sometimes it's better just to remember...instead of trying to recapture the magic of the original...you know, like remaking a classic TV show and all....

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This was my favorite X-Files ever. I almost wish this had been the last episode.

When it first started, I felt like it was just trolling the audience- and to a certain extent, it was (loved all the references to parallel universes, something I've seen speculated on by fans this season). It quickly developed as a well-written bit of social satire. Very topical, timely, self-aware and humorous. Loved it.

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Loved this one. It had a bit of a slow start, but around the half way point it became all the right kinds of weird.

So where did those FBI agents and Dr. They come from? Or were those parts also just in Reggies mind?

I really really loved David Duchovny channeling Tommy Wiseau when Mulder was reading the book with all the answers to all the questions in the universe.

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2 hours ago, TheGreenWave said:

I totally second your posting.  As a watcher of the original, while I appreciated the call-backs and always loved the fun ones (and I did like the episode's implication that the show was timely in the 90s, but maybe not so much in 2018 with social media, Wikileaks, etc.), I was rolling my eyes at the political commentary scattered throughout about the Orange.  X-Files didn't have to stoop to that.  Something I loved about the original: it didn't matter what side of the aisle you were on, you could enjoy the show. 

And, was it really necessary to have Reggie call Scully "Sugar Tits?"  I mean, come on!  Yet another example of: "let's debase the character of Scully!"

But, I did like the commentary at the end from Scully with her Goop/Jello: certainly Scully, sometimes it's better just to remember...instead of trying to recapture the magic of the original...you know, like remaking a classic TV show and all....

I don't think that it was meant as that. It was dragging that kind of thing. Darin pokes at stuff via satire. It was showing that it's not a GOOD thing. I thought he was dragging that culture/CC a bit with that line.

Edited by AntiBeeSpray
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If I would have had a little beer (or another alcoholic bevarage), I would say "Wow, that was a somewhat funny episode". Now, I've got to say - what a steaming pile of shit. Good thing it is really really stand-alone episode (i.e., you can't really put it anywhere (neither MoT, neither mythology)).

 

On a side note, what happened to the ability to rate posts?

Edited by Rushmoras
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1 hour ago, AntiBeeSpray said:

I don't think that it was meant as that. It was dragging that kind of thing. Darin pokes at stuff via satire. It was showing that it's not a GOOD thing. I thought he was dragging that culture/CC a bit with that line.

Yes, Darin Morgan LOVES Scully.  There's a reason why the alien was looking at Scully when he said, "and some, I assume, are good people."  He wasn't debasing Scully with that line, he was making fun of the show, as he is wont to do with all of his episodes.

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On ‎1‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 8:41 AM, tennisgurl said:

The waterboarding and drone scenes were super dark, and I felt like a bad person for laughing hysterically. 

I also laughed at Mulder telling Reggie how about he cant blame some kind of mystical "They" for everything that happens in the world. Pretty sure I have said literally the exact same thing about Mulder a few times throughout this show myself. Of course, Mulder has actually met his conspiracy theory several times now, so he would know I guess. 

The waterboarding and all those other scenes in the cubicle were funny stuff.

 

The trio's encounter with the alien was hilarious as well. "You're free to explore Uranus all you want. ... Good luck and good riddance." The alien must have been a comedian on his home planet.

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35 minutes ago, TheGreenWave said:

Perhaps I just don't like the phrase "Sugar Tits."   I'm ok with tongue-in-cheek, satire, etc. but, perhaps it is because I watched all the horrible Nassar footage, and I just thought it was in bad taste. 

Fair enough.

I view Nassar as a far different animal for what it's worth. People like that are the real monsters.

 

37 minutes ago, spritz said:

The waterboarding and all those other scenes in the cubicle were funny stuff.

 

The trio's encounter with the alien was hilarious as well. "You're free to explore Uranus all you want. ... Good luck and good riddance." The alien must have been a comedian on his home planet.

Didn't find the waterboarding and stuff as funny. Just done in poor taste. I could see where he was going with it. That the character got driven nuts by having to do what he did. But it could have been more implied than overt.

Edited by AntiBeeSpray
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2 hours ago, Rushmoras said:

If I would have had a little beer (or another alcoholic bevarage), I would say "Wow, that was a somewhat funny episode". Now, I've got to say - what a steaming pile of shit. Good thing it is really really stand-alone episode (i.e., you can't really put it anywhere (neither MoT, neither mythology)).

 

On a side note, what happened to the ability to rate posts?

It's on the right hand side now (the heart, that is).

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56 minutes ago, TheGreenWave said:

Perhaps I just don't like the phrase "Sugar Tits."   I'm ok with tongue-in-cheek, satire, etc. but, perhaps it is because I watched all the horrible Nassar footage, and I just thought it was in bad taste. 

I don't like the phrase either. But to be fair, you're experiencing your own Mandela Effect - Reggie actually said "sugar boobs."  (Not that said phrase is much better).

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Quote

Mulder's "Did Scully just say 'leprechaun taint'?" face was one of my favourite things about this episode.

He seems to love when she says taint; he commented on it in episode 2 as well (though she was using it in its non-slang capacity).

Quote

 

And the segway. Why?

 

Hahahhahaaa! He had to walk just as far to get to and from it than he would have if he'd just skipped it!

I loved this episode, right down to Mulder kicking his feet in the dirt, haha!

Edited by TattleTeeny
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2 hours ago, TheGreenWave said:

Perhaps I just don't like the phrase "Sugar Tits." 

He didn't call her Sugar Tits; Sugar Tits is what Mel Gibson called the (female) police officer in his infamous rant (the one in which somehow only the anti-Semitism and racism gets discussed, with the sexism usually overlooked), so that was the reference, but this being network TV, he called her Sugar Boobs.

Edited by Bastet
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So I watched a YouTube recap of this episode by a girl named Candace and she perfectly defined my thoughts while watching this episode....quotes:

-"so it's 8:50 and I'm beginning to wonder what is the point of this episode and will Mulder and Scully ever go on a date?"

-"sorry to hate on you Darin but his was like  not your best work"

-" season 10 barely had Mulder and Scully existing in the same space the dynamic is so much better..I feel blessed. Everything was great. This episode was fine. I'll take it."

i think this girl is channeling me. 

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On 1/25/2018 at 12:17 AM, Ghost of TWOP Past said:

Addenda: there are people who swear on Bibles that in the old days, the children's books about the Berenstain Bears spelled it Berenstein Bears. Do not ask me why, but that was the joke there. 

I would do so as well.  I could swear it was Bernstein.  And we belonged to the Dr. Seuss Book of the Month club, ("Beginner Books") so we had all the books.

This episode was batshit weird but since I am, too, I liked it.  Especially the cheesy voice of the alien(s).  Does anyone know who voiced them? The "kidnapping" scene was a hoot, and the alien in the Elvis cape and riding the segway was as well.  And the Trump references were funny and sad simultaneously. 

Addendum:  I googled "Mandela effect" - interesting.  I have one of my own:  I could swear that in The Empire Strikes Back, when R2 is ejected from the swamp critter's mouth, Luke says while wiping  him off, "You're lucky you don't taste good".  But the last time I saw the movie, Luke says something like, "What do we do now?" or whatever, but definitely not the tasting good line.  Yet I could swear that's what I heard/saw the first time I saw the movie.  Anyone else have this?

Edited by Pippin
Adding the addendum.
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2 hours ago, Pippin said:

I could swear that in The Empire Strikes Back, when R2 is ejected from the swamp critter's mouth, Luke says while wiping  him off, "You're lucky you don't taste good".  But the last time I saw the movie, Luke says something like, "What do we do now?" or whatever, but definitely not the tasting good line. 

I actually have this same one! Weird.

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8 hours ago, Pippin said:

Addendum:  I googled "Mandela effect" - interesting.  I have one of my own:  I could swear that in The Empire Strikes Back, when R2 is ejected from the swamp critter's mouth, Luke says while wiping  him off, "You're lucky you don't taste good".  But the last time I saw the movie, Luke says something like, "What do we do now?" or whatever, but definitely not the tasting good line.  Yet I could swear that's what I heard/saw the first time I saw the movie.  Anyone else have this?

Oh wow.  Me too!  Guess I'll have to go find my original VHS set now... lol

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On 1/24/2018 at 9:27 PM, fauntleroy said:

I remember the Twilight Zone episode Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up with perfect clarity, I think.

I kept waiting for the diner worker to take off his hat and show the audience his third eye! 

OMG how I absolutely adored every second of this episode. It is never getting deleted off my DVR.

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On 1/24/2018 at 8:01 PM, chitowngirl said:

Young Fox Mulder watching TV was everything!

I roared with laughter at that scene! So delightfully unexpected. I need a gif so I can watch it at will. 

 

22 hours ago, Pippin said:

I would do so as well.  I could swear it was Bernstein.  And we belonged to the Dr. Seuss Book of the Month club, ("Beginner Books") so we had all the books.

You are from the third parallel universe with me. There's our current Berenstain universe, the Berenstein one, and the ultra rare Bernstein. My entire family remembers it this way. 

As one of the nuts who has been obsessed with The Mandela Effect for a couple of years, I enjoyed the crap out of this. Then again, Darin Morgan eps tend to be my favorites.

Also, Scully absolutely said "leprechaun taint" according to my closed captions. 

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On 1/24/2018 at 6:30 PM, lazylump said:

I thought the Dr. Wuzzle bookd were based on dr Suess but maybe it was a  Berenstein bears/Dr. Suess mash up. 

Yes, the story was definitely a mash-up.  The spelling confusion/Mandela effect and the children's book about a bear were references to Berenstain, but "Dr.", the writing style of the bear story, and the political cartoon were Seuss/Geisel.

Theodor Geisel penned a lot of anti-isolationist/anti-nationalist and anti-fascist political cartoons in the early 1940s.  Link to several anti "America First" posters.

Fun Fact: Geisel was the Berenstain's editor at Random House! He gave them their big break into children's books.

Edited by DEM
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