The search for Mulder begins.
While Scully clashes with the agent in charge of the Mulder manhunt, Skinner
takes a meeting with the Lone Gunmen.
(Originally aired on November
5, 2000)
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by Kim Manners
GUEST STARS
Mitch Pileggi - Assistant
Director Walter Skinner
James Pickens, Jr. - Deputy
Director Alvin Kersh
Tom Braidwood - Frohike
Dean Haglund - Langly
Bruce Harwood - Byers
Jeff Gulka - Gibson Praise
WHAT HAPPENED
The season opens with a reddish,
miasmic, amniotic haze and the pulsing lub-dub of a heart beating. A hand
pulls away this veil, revealing Mulder covered in clear slime and gasping
for breath.
Scully wakes from this nightmarish
vision of Mulder's fate. (spoilers)
NEW CREDITS
The credits begin with the
classic X-Files music and imagery. Things begin to change with the casting
information. Mulder and Scully's FBI ID badge credits feature updated photos,
followed by Robert Patrick's John Doggett ID. The credits continue with
an image of a fetus that becomes a sun, which is in turn eclipsed by a
full moon. The sequence concludes with Mulder falling into the familiar
blinking eye.
The "Truth" is still out
there.
ANALYSIS
We hear a lot about Mulder
in this episode. As is par for The X-Files course, it is important
to consider the source of that information.
Is Mulder really dying? Although
Scully apparently verified the information in his medical records, we have
to consider where those records came from. At this point, John Doggett
remains an unknown
quantity. As such, there is every reason to suspect that the records
he provided are nothing more than convincing fakes.
If the records are fake,
who planted them? Doggett? Skinner? What about Mulder himself?
Is it possible that Mulder
engineered his own abduction/disappearance? Once he knew what to look for,
why couldn't he have hitched a ride on a UFO?
Consider the fact that the
overriding obsessive focus in Mulder's life is his sister's abduction.
Long-time viewers know that Mulder's father made his mother choose which
of their children to sacrifice, and she chose to give up her daughter.
Thus, the overriding obsession
in Mulder's life becomes a case of "there but for the grace of God" survivor
guilt. Perhaps Mulder decided to take God out of the equation and atone
for being passed over as a sacrifice years before? Is he paying his debt
to Samantha now?
Even if these quasi-Biblical
machinations are too outlandish even for The X-Files, the news of
Mulder's impending demise has the decided whiff of red herring. Personality
clashes aside, even if Doggett is on the level, he works for Kersh, making
him guilty by association.
Next page: roles shift,
and what it all may mean
~
Musical chairs
Years ago, Scully joined
the X-Files to monitor and debunk Mulder's work. In "Within", Doggett seems
intent on debunking not Mulder's work, but rather the man himself.
Seen in this light, it appears
that the tension between Scully and Doggett - at least in the early going
- will not be phenomenological, but personal. Doggett the skeptic doubts
Mulder's basic motivations while Scully has become the true believer, the
faithful steward of Mulder's legacy if not necessarily his methods.
Although this relationship
may evolve as the agents move from the search for Mulder to the inevitable
non-mythology "monster" episodes, Scully's time with Mulder has opened
the door -- and at times, pushed her kicking and screaming through it --
for her to believe in the validity of phenomena she cannot deny.
Like the early Scully, Doggett
lacks the frame of reference that true belief requires. He simply hasn't
seen with his own eyes.
Ultimately, it is Skinner
who comes into "Within" as the true believer. He is unshaken in his conviction
that Mulder was abducted, and is the one who seeks out the Lone Gunmen.
It seems that Mulder's abduction
turned Skinner into the ally the agents have always needed him to be. Is
he a center that can hold, or will his tendency to make disastrous compromises
reassert itself when Mulder and Scully need him most?
Stranger than fiction
If Scully is correct, then
the guiding principle of the season is this: The truth is out there, and
it's up to us to find it before the aliens do.
Again, it's always important
to consider the source of information revealed in The X-Files. This
is especially true when the author's voice is so clearly present in a character's
lines.
Chris Carter's voice comes
through loud and clear in Scully's comments about aliens cleaning up evidence
of their presence. This authorial voice raises the question of whether
this is a real agenda, or just something Carter wants viewers to get comfortable
believing while he plots the bait and switch.
Assuming these comments are
on the level, then the action this season will move beyond human skepticism,
apathy or self-interest to explore the aliens' own intentions.
Without a human cabal to
bury evidence of UFOs, it's up to the aliens to clean up their own messes.
Thus, the struggle to find the truth becomes a race not against conflicting
human agencies, but a wrestling match between human agents and the aliens
themselves.
WHAT WE LEARN
Meet John Doggett! Before
joining the FBI, he worked for the NYPD.
Deputy Director Kersh flew
plans for the Navy during the Vietnam War.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Who is Kersh working for
this time?
Who stole the computers and
files? While we're at it, who's tapping Scully's phone?
How and when did Gibson Praise
get out of a nuclear reactor and into a school for the deaf ?
Is that really Mulder?
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK
"Without". The search for
Mulder continues.
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