#xf rewatch rambling

[myassbrokethefall]

xf rewatch: pilot

("Man")

This is a photo of my laptop screen. It feels oddly appropriate that Conventional Methods won't allow me to take a fucking screencap of this 30-year-old show to make a stupid tumblr post about it, but those are the times we live in, corporate overreach, erosion of data privacy, technological advances being cynically co-opted by those with selfish interests, etc.

Anyway. It seems insane to me that I have never done a deliberate rewatch of the entirety of XF from start to finish. Ironically one reason I was dragging my feet on this was I'm so sick of the pilot. And yet, I enjoyed the effort to watch it with fresh eyes, imagining I was some regular jabroni just coming across this while flipping channels in 1993. It is interesting to me that it's the procedural-ness that sucks you in, the ordinariness of the world, the deliberate banality of the setting into which extraordinary things are methodically introduced, and you (and Scully) are asked: well? How do you reconcile this? How do you explain it?

Scully starts on this ground level, and Mulder meets her there. She's braced for this legendary basement kook and ready to parry a barrage of propaganda and dig in about how aliens aren't real, but he's got a chemical formula up on a screen and he's like: so what is this? Well, it was found on all the bodies. He lures her in not by telling her a bunch of crazy stories (ok, he does a bit of that too) but by presenting her with facts and asking her to explain them. He shoves her along a few times (if it's not human, what is it?), but it really struck me on this viewing how she's the one trying to get him to tell her what he thinks, whereas he is determined to let her foot her way along the path to get there on her own, without being influenced (or vexed into kneejerk opposition) by his "theories." Scully doesn't get drawn in because she wants to prove Mulder wrong, OR right. It's sort of beautiful that once she's got the scent, it's not about Mulder at all, though he is certainly right there with her, as both a guide and an antagonist. Scully's drawn in by her own investigative instincts and her own determination that, you know, the answers are there. You just have to know where to look.

And then when they're making headway and their motel gets burned down with all the evidence inside it, Mulder doesn't have to rant paranoiacally that someone's working against them; Scully's right there fighting it with him and seeing what he's seeing. And by the time Blevins is scornfully hairsplitting her findings to make Mulder look bad, their alliance is cemented, because they've done it together, she's been in his shoes and in his head with him, on the trail, and the trail led somewhere pretty weird, and she doesn't know all the way what to make of that yet but, one thing is certain: they've got him all wrong, this Spooky Mulder.

I would like to watch a TV show of that. And so, I shall. (Again)

#pilot #xf rewatch rambling #whether i immediately lose steam on this remains to be seen #xf meta

[mlobsters]

supernatural s10e13 halt & catch fire (w. eric charmelo, nicole snyder)

maybe i should rewatch halt and catch fire. i watched it as it aired so it's been a minute. lee pace as a very messy bisexual disaster in the early pc industry through to internet times. and mackenzie davis was amazing. really well done show. i recall the first season was a little too hard on the mad men-esque feel but really got into its own stride in subsequent seasons (it was airing on amc at the end of mad men's run which was mid 2014 and this spn ep aired feb 2015. the phrase itself is an old computing term). anyway!

is the mark making him ogle the college girls too? cmon

DEAN And Trini is? SAM Ah, you have to excuse my partner. When it comes to technology, he’s a little behind. Uh…he just learned how to poke on Facebook. JANET Uh, um, Trini is the nav app we were using. It – It’s like a talking map. You’re Gen X. Right.

well, addressing the age difference of it all LOL. i think of dean/jensen as my age but he is technically 1 (2) years older than me. i'm in the no-man's land of 1980 which is claimed by neither gen x or millenial or both, depending who you ask. not for nothing, we had all this new tech stuff come in when we were young and we're not known to be technically unsavvy :P (though the earlier you get things can be different) but also like. since he and i are kind of on that cusp age of generations, i don't think it would be necessarily super obvious to this girl that he is? dear lord. what will i overthink next

SAM So – so what’s a thing? DEAN You know, the truck thing. You honor the deceased by driving their truck. Sam, they wrote a whole country song about it. Why don’t you Google it?

it's such an old, easy, dumb joke but dean being so smug over telling sam to google something made me laugh

DEAN Alright, so big brother didn’t get along with little brother, was pissed that he was driving his baby. I get it. SAM What are you saying? If you died and I drove your car, you’d kill me? DEAN If you stunk her up with tacquitos, probably.

what do you mean, IF? dean HAS died and you DID drive his car :P

cackling. didn't they have a lamp cord do this in s1 to sam?

spn s1e9 home

SAM So, what? You think we’re dealing with a “Ghost in the Machine”? DEAN Maybe. But if it is the same ghost, I mean, they usually anchor themselves to a place or a thing. How is this one jumping from one machine to the next?

was gonna mention the xfiles episodes (s1e7 ghost in the machine and s5e11 kill switch [the one written by william gibson]), which ghost in the machine i mentioned previously because spn s2e5 had an actor in that episode! and i did i hiky for kill switch when i was rewatching xf. but i'm trying to stop rambling. unsuccessfully 🫠

so this seems more like a kill switch situation vs ghost in the machine (evil building software vs ai on the internet killing people) 🤪

SAM It doesn’t matter. Now I’m going through her deleted files. DEAN You can do that? SAM Yeah. DEAN Hmm. SAM I mean, nothing ever really gets deleted from the Internet. You knew that, right? DEAN Yeah.

implied embarrassing (porn? tumblr poetry? DATING PROFILES?) dean winchester content out there somewhere. thinking about what could even embarrass dean (who currently is eating more sloppily than my kids do)

DELILAH It’s pretty crazy to obsess over someone you’ve never met. DEAN It’s not that crazy. The truth is, I can relate. DELILAH Really? DEAN I have made more mistakes than I can count. Ones that haunt me day and night. DELILAH So… how do you deal? DEAN Whiskey. Denial. I do my best to make things right, whatever that may be. For you, maybe it’s…maybe it’s coming clean. You know, finding a way to ask for forgiveness. But not breaking the bank at your local florist. I mean…real forgiveness. You can’t just bury stuff like this. You got to deal with it.

that old chestnut of opening up to a rando because their plotline mirrors enough the conflict that the boys are going through and they can't talk to anyone else about it

so, dean, my love. is this what you're doing, dealing?

also gonna skip over that whole shaky concept of the wifi business. keep on suspending that disbelief, nic. wireless speakers and wifi on an antenna tower (??), it's all the same. it's just waves in the air, man. i am a leaf on the wind 🍃

DEAN Yeah. Looks like. I think I’m gonna follow his lead, too. SAM What do you mean? DEAN My peace is helping people. Working cases. That’s all I want to do. SAM Is this about the Mark? DEAN I’m done trying to find a cure, Sammy. SAM Dean, Cas is so close. DEAN To what? We don’t even know if there is a cure. So far, we’ve got nothing. We have found nothing at the Men of Letters library. Metatron may or may not know something. And maybe Cas is on to something with Cain. SAM Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Nothing is guaranteed, Dean. So what? We can’t just stop fighting. DEAN Yes, we can. SAM So, this is it? Y-you’re just gonna – you’re just gonna give up. DEAN No. No, I’m not just gonna give up. I appreciate the effort, okay? I do. But the answer is not out there. It’s with me. I need to be the one calling the shots here, okay? I can’t keep waking up every morning with this false hope. I got to know where I stand. Otherwise, I’m gonna lose my freakin’ mind. So I’m gonna fight it til I can’t fight it anymore. And when all is said and done… I’ll go down swinging.

sam and i both getting a little panicked i think (seeing sam start breathing fast surely affects me) but hey they got a few tears out of me, feels like an accomplishment (compared to early seasons i was regularly crying my way through the show). nothing like dean being a realist but also accepting that this thing is going to kill him. i get the false hope thing, and why it's untenable. and maybe that is the best plan, to fully accept in his heart of hearts it's not gonna get fixed. and then when they figure out how to fix it, he can run with it. but it's shades of that old passive self destructive dean who doesn't value his own life (or see how him not valuing his life affects sam)

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 10x13 #halt and catch fire #the xfiles #spn 1x09 #eric charmelo #nicole snyder

[nephrosoupp]

Agjhj probably no one cares but I like doing unnecessary things and so far in this rewatch I think my favourites are:

These are the mulder - centric ish ones !

Paper Hearts 4x10or the 628267 other torturous dreams preventing our boy from sleeping tonight

I love paper hearts the visuals are fantastic heightens the plot’s eerieness and tension ;;

Blood 2x03 underrated and scary as heck! :0 the acting is 👌👌 but Mulders hair is 👎👎

Grotesque 3x14 because I love investigative procedure type crime shows and this was like that the crimes were based on an irl case too!

The Post Modern Prometheus 5x05 black and white films make me very very,, happy, the contrast in lighting and pronounced shadows make me weep as a person-sometimes-known-to-produce-drawings

Jose Chung’s from Outer Space 3x20

Ice 1xi uh I forgot and my wifi thus my vpn is slow as shi because both of them exude highly concentrated levels of ‘hot’ in that episode ok and no I can’t just pick one screencap

Bad Blood 5x12 drugs

Also End Game, Folie a deux and Kitsunegari made my eyeballs sweat

Bonus eating wings in the morgue in Aubrey and Bonus BONUS Scully prompting me to leave my body and ascend to another astral plane from the sheer power of her beauty in Sangunium Sanguniam? Sangunarium?the one where the guy does a faceoff

#scully makes #makes grown men(and mulder) weep #im not gonna talk about momento mori or redux i and ii even tho its my favourite arc #mya rambles and is dumb #the x files #txf #x files #mulder and scully #tv recs #scifi #fox mulder #dana scully #txfedit #my edits #gillian anderson #david duchovny #xf rewatch #xf musings

[amberscharming]

as much as I love Mulder leaning down and looking at those mosquito bites w a candle and the hug afterwards and the conversation they have in the motel room afterwards, I think it’s kinda fucked up to have your young female lead strip down to her underwear in the pilot of a show

#xf rewind #luna rambles #im sure someone has expressed a similar sentiment before #but i thought of it tonight while rewatching the pilot

[blackcoffeeandteardrops]

Ngl one of my favorite parts of being in the X-Files fandom is pre/post ep analysis phone chats w/@firstofoctober .

There's nothing like venting all your hopes/dreams/fears/anxieties about one of your very favorite things with someone who thinks the same way.

...Also if anyone has a show that we can dive head first into in about a week that has a compelling plot & a to die for (but not literally) otp that we haven't already watched, I for one am all ears.

#what is my life without stressing over xf honestly #maybe i should do a bones rewatch #or castle even #i just need a nice procedural otp #that has a side order of angst before everything is fine #tiffie's ramblings #txf revival

[fabulouspatsystone]

I’m rewatching My Struggle III (crazy, right?) and during the Mulder-monologues I happen to have very fond memories of the alien bounty hunter stabing device and how I would like to put into my ears...

#the things you do for the show you love #ok but why am I doing this again? #my struggle III #xf season 11 #rewatch ramblings

[ghostbustermelanieking]

i love love love field trip and have included it on my top five favorites list since sometime last year. and i just think it's funny because another one on my all-time favorites list is beyond the sea, both of which take place in north carolina. i used to live in north carolina, and i think it's funny that i love these two north carolina episodes so much because i never liked living in north carolina (although i do loves parts of it), but these two north carolina episodes range SO MUCH BETTER than the other two north carolina episodes (fresh bones and brand x), and i just think it's funny how much of a range you can get. field trip is amazing, even if it gets a lot of things wrong about north carolina.

#ignore my rambling #xf rewatch

[nostalgicphile]

2016 XF/DAVID & GILLIAN Awards...

Inspired by the upcoming awards season, I’d like to officially recognise a few notable X-Files and David & Gillian moments from 2016 (a few personal notes also included). Feel free to add to the list. ;)

MOST PERPLEXING GILLIAN (GILLOVNY-RELATED) MOMENT: “Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah.”

MOST PERPLEXING DAVID (GILLOVNY-RELATED) MOMENT: David’s apologetic cuddle followed by self-consciously and immediately releasing Gillian when Kimmel says, “What the hell went on between you two?”

BEST TALK SHOW HOST EVER THAT NEEDS TO BE WATERBOARDED FOR MORE INFORMATION: Jimmy Kimmel....which leads me to:

DRUNKEST PERSONAL RE-WATCH: Kimmel. (You can revisit my whole rambling and drunken play-by-play HERE.)

BEST OVERALL KIMMEL MOMENT: “Did you do something I didn’t see?”  Broken down in typical Cate-detail HERE.

BIGGEST GILLOVNY DISAPPOINTMENT: The Chicago Gillovny Panel. (Thank goodness all the good photo ops and stories saved the day.)

MOST “YIKES-WTF” GILLIAN (GILLOVNY-RELATED) TWEET:

BIGGEST CON LESSON OF 2016: Only Paley Guy should moderate any X-Files related panel. Leading to.....

MOST EMBARRASSING PERSONAL TWITTER CALL OUT: Paley Guy tweeting about my crush. Which he apologised for “dimming.” Which included my post about us engaging in a marathon XF rewatch and food being brought to us. And no sex. It’s fine.

MOST UNEXPECTED AND SHOCKING DISPLAY OF DAVID/GILLIAN THIRST: Obviously...

MOST INNOCENT AND RANDOM, YET WEIRDLY ENDEARING GILLOVNY MOMENT: “Do you want a crepe, David?”

WORST SEASON 10 XF EPISODE RAZZIE: The horror that was Babylon. (More of my venting on that hideousness HERE.)

BEST SEASON 10 XF EPISODE: MASMTWM

MOST RIDICULOUS XF FANDOM FREAK OUT: Anything regarding Tad.

MOST JUSTIFIED XF FANDOM FREAK OUT: Mulder and Scully breaking up.

POSSIBLY THE MOST ANNOYING ATTENTION WHORE IN THE WORLD BUT DEFINITELY IN THE X-FILES WORLD: Anne Simon

MOMENT CHRIS CARTER THOUGHT WOULD BE THE MSR MOMENT OF SEASON 10:

MOMENT THAT *ACTUALLY* WAS THE MSR MOMENT OF SEASON 10:

BEST BEHIND-THE-SCENES STORY: David’s neck brace prank on Gillian.

AND FINALLY......

SERIOUSLY THE SWEETEST GILLIAN AND DAVID PIC OF 2016:

#The X-Files #David and Gillian #Gillovny #2016 #the year that was #Cate's random rambling

[myassbrokethefall]

xf rewatch: ice/space/fallen angel

one thing about me is I know how important it is to stick to a consistent posting schedule. anyway here’s 3 more XF rewatch writeups after weeks of silence

ice

Ice doesn’t deserve to be just lumped in here, but I watched it forever ago and I’ve seen it a million times and no one needs my thoughts on it anyway. Biggest Ice takeaways this time through:

this is M&S’s, and our, first truly grownup episode. M&S have been faffing around in their shoulder pads debating about whether aliens are real and if a jersey devil could be a girl and and certainly getting in scrapes/close calls, but this shit is SERIOUS. like they could die. and they know it. and this ep feels it. they are scared, they are wild-eyed and sweaty in their casual thermals and this is not just investigating a Case or intellectual sparring. there is no remove. no one is wearing a suit or renting a car or buying an office sandwich from the cart. they keep getting in deeper and deeper and it is out of control and scary and real as shit

that exterior shot with the extremely fake Rudolph snowflakes is used, I believe my final count was, 472 times. and was hilarious to me each and every time.

ice is a magnificent ep, no notes. we knew this

space

Space is… not good, which is not news but allow me to attempt to pinpoint why:

pacing so bad. like in the beginning some stuff (conveyed mostly through stock footage) is happening and then suddenly mulder and scully are there and it’s like, a case I guess? this lady walks up to them and shows them this photo that looks like nothing and spends like an hour explaining it to them and is like the fbi has to investigate this! and mulder and scully are like oh, well we’re the fbi so we can do that. then they go to nasa and just stand around

listen I love, LOVE a good nerd infodump but even for me it was all getting deeply tedious and I ceased being able to, or having the will to, follow what was going on. And I just read and enjoyed all 864 pages of Seveneves. Having scully stand next to mulder and he has to keep explaining to her every space thing as it happens just adds this extra layer of shellac over everything. it’s like when you’re on a plane and you kind of half-voluntarily watch a movie in the row ahead of you through the seat backs. primo chris carter “tell don’t show.”

the whole car accident sequence is a facepalm from beginning to end. the car literally FLIPS OVER, michelle is in there yelling and sounding mostly just mildly pissed off, mulder keeps chirping “y’all right?” like she tumbled into a snowbank in a hallmark movie, then bodily drags her out from her flipped-over car that she is trapped under, and THEN scully goes “now, don’t try to move.” thanks doc! then michelle just goes back to NASA, with blood dripping down her face (which continues actively dripping throughout the scene, with no trace of a scar the next day). couldn’t hitting a tree have conveyed the sense of “a malevolent space monster made me lose control of my driving” just as well? presumably the car explodes as soon as they leave. and no one minds.

I realize this is not an easy thing to replicate on a budget, but my god “mission control” is sad-looking. it looks like it was filmed inside the janitor’s closet at a puppet theater. and the only person who works there is that one guy who I am informed was a canadian vj on MuchMusic and who has literally all the dialogue. (counterpoint: hard for me not to compare to For All Mankind, which does all this a million times better, but deeply unfair to do so since that's not only 25 years later but the theme on which this episode is kind of the saddest crackerjackiest variation is their show's entire job and budget.)

Mulder And Scully At The (NASA) Library: Approved. Love how they just leave the file they spent hours searching for when they run out.

what even was the motivation of the space/mars guy. to get back to space? to kill everyone? to kill everyone but only after getting back to space first? to bring down more space/mars guys to cause dramatically bad car accidents where everyone is fine? yes I know the REAL motivation is "give mulder and scully a semi-plausible paranormal reason to go to nasa and stand around"

the “everyone cheers in mission control because a scary/tense space thing was accomplished and everyone is ok” moment happened I think 3 separate times?? chris come on

this episode is still like 5x as coherent and watchable as any of CC’s revival episodes (other than Plus One).

one good thing is the space face morphing or whatever was super cool/creepy and holds up quite decently as an effect. also scully saw it!! well that’s cool! she doesn’t really seem to have any particular thoughts about that or anything though. you might think Mulder would bring that up more in the future. (morgan & wong: “well scully can’t SEE the paranormal thing so let’s have her juuuust miss it! twice!” chris carter: *file not found*)

I get that CC wanted to make a tense NASA episode, I like that genre of thing, and I appreciate that they took a stab at it but in the end, the execution was not the greatest. nor was the concept. ah well.

fallen angel

fallen angel was a friggin breath of fresh air after space, and I remembered NOTHING about it beyond a bit of Max and “the enigmatic Dr. Scully.”

the gordon/gansa ripping off of scifi classics continues apace as the whole evacuating for a “toxic spill” that is really a UFO is of course straight out of Close Encounters.

although I (correctly) complained about this in Space, I actually liked how we got sort of sideways-pulled into this one, with the scenario setup first and then we see Mulder (only Mulder) skulking around while we are flashing back to Deep Throat giving him the lowdown. immediately understandable that this is kind of an off-book adventure for him (leather jacket for forest hiking, perfect). And super satisfying when Scully gets her hero’s entrance to bail him out (and yell at him).

it was fun getting an idea of mulder as UFO Celebrity. always mobbed by fans while in air force jail. rough. (also funny to see his sheepishness at getting called out for writing an article in Omni about UFO sightings under a fake name)

Loved Scully getting pulled into some clutch doctoring. Just some great dimension for her as well/a reminder that she has her own areas of expertise and this FBI sidekick situation is not all she can do. (she is also still heartbreakingly in her "the government cannot do that! you are entitled to the truth!" phase.) I also loved when she marches glassy-eyed into Mulder’s motel room after a long rough night and wordlessly opens the fridge.

I liked the bit where mulder is talking about Max being an abductee and scully is all, mulder he's unreliable and he might be psychotic blah blah and mulder goes, scully you don’t get it, HE doesn’t think he’s an abductee, I think it. Also brings back a bit of what I liked so much in the pilot and earliest eps: scully being like mulder your crazy alien voodoo isn't gonna work on me!!! a martian didn't eat those livers!!! and mulder being like, scully, all I am asking is that you look at a scar and give me your medical opinion. he's not trying to talk her into anything and that's how he GETS YA

Interesting to see how they're still throwing out whatever alien concepts at this point. they are benevolent and send reassuring messages through the tv to loved ones? sure. they are evil spirits that possess astronauts' faces before killing them? got it. they're invisible/use cloaking devices to pass through lasers? duly noted.

I’m not sure the ending worked great but that’s ok. Gotta end it somehow. I found myself glad to know that we will be seeing Max again.

On a scale between Ice where Mulder and Scully are believably layered humans, frightened but determined, shakily wielding their authority one minute and losing their shit in realistically overlapping off-camera arguments in the next, and Space where they are sidelined Mary Sues in a half-baked NASA fanfic that could have used another beta, Fallen Angel is somewhere in the middle. Good ep, not great. But that yearning feeling that XF was so good at is present here. Something big is happening and it's JUST beyond where we can see. gotta see it. gotta keep searching. it's out there (the truth)

#xf rewatch rambling #ice #space #fallen angel

[myassbrokethefall]

xf rewatch: ghost in the machine

This one was interesting to watch in light, obviously, of the current AI moment. Like, Deep Throat goes "how much do you know about ''''artificial intelligence''''?" and Mulder says "I thought it was only theoretical." You did? And then a minute later DT describes "a learning machine….a computer that actually THINKS." like hold up there fella! There's quite the gulf between THOSE two things but I suppose we don't really know that yet back now. Even Mulder saying "could someone have ''''''''hacked'''''''' into the system?" like this is the most out-there idea of all time, and instead of going, duh yes, hacking into the system is indeed something that someone could most certainly have done, Brad says "not your average phone phreak, that's for sure." remember phone phreaking?? neither do I because I'm old but I'm not THAT old. I heard an interesting podcast ep about it semi-recently though. Like you could make a noise with your VOICE that was the same pitch as some note the phone plays and it tricks it into connecting you to a long-distance line or something. neat stuff. anyway.

The computer stuff wasn't AS ridiculous as I remembered, but I also wonder if the farther we get from the time period the more I'm like, sure that seems like it could have been true back then I guess. At least, it seemed to more or less follow from a story perspective (but maybe that's what makes it so unrealistic in a tech way). Things that DID stick out to me included the following:

1. all those security cameras seem so RICKETY. They're all just stickin out there servo-ing jerkily around out in the air, just hit that shit down with a shovel and be done with it. Mulder dramatically covers one with a cloth and I was like, great now you only have to do that 9,000 more times in this building.

2. the superintelligent AI is courteous enough to jingle Scully up on her landline at 1:31 am to screech modem noises at her in order to give her a heads up that it's hacking into her computer at that moment (for what purpose? how is reading her reports on Mulder any help to it…ehh whatever).

3. Gordon/Gansa really running through the scifi "homages" with Conduit being very heavily Contact-by-Sagan-based and this one developing a voice solely so it could say things like "program……. EXECUTED GET IT" and "sorry Dave Brad, I can't do that."

4. I did certainly feel that the computer was "thinking" QUITE a lot more outside the box than seemed even marginally realistic (and per what I have read about machine learning, not that I am remotely close to being an expert on any of that). It sure got a LOT of info from filming people with its analog(?) security cameras and like, extrapolating from what it observed. The way it halted the elevator so Scully would call security and identify herself when she did so, so that it could learn her name and start googling (forgive me) her? I mean now that is some high-level strategizing. I feel Janelle Shane would not approve.

Other notes from my "notes":

Penny Northern as the lady congratulating Jerry on his profile that he stole from Mulder.

Scully's hair is slowly getting unfortunate. That swingy little Deep Throat floofy bob remains my favorite so far.

Nancy Spiller forensics instructor at the academy, "we used to call her the iron maiden!" Every time Scully mentions or interacts with a professor now I wonder if she fucked them. Heheh (EDIT: I just realized Penny Northern IS Nancy Spiller. !!! Still wonder if Scully fucked her)

This ep contains the iconique moment of Scully emphatically circling something on a computer monitor with a physical writing implement. (Also that whole mapping the voices together situation was very goofy and also pointless — if the system had a voice why wouldn't it be Brad's voice; he invented it.)

This is the first ep thus far that I've found Scully's Scullying kind of irritating. It seems very obvious that Brad did not do it so her being like "mulder I'm sorry you're so sad about your shitty friend dying that you can't think straight" feels condescending instead of sympathetic. "maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if you talked to someone." "you're probably right." *leaves* "where are you going?" "to talk to someone." yeah you deserved that, sculls.

Failed mulderisms: "open sesame." I'm not offended by it or anything it's just so weak as to barely rise to the level of joke. Also, it has ALWAYS and I mean since the 90s grated on me that he scoffs "a politically correct elevator" because the elevator is being so outrageously, offensively woke as to… announce the floor numbers??? ok boomer!!! lord

Scully's got this book in bed with her. analyze as you will.

Pretty impressive how Mulder knows how to whip open a car hood and immediately rip the correct wire to get the horn to shut up.

Greatly enjoyed the This echo of them climbing stairs and yelling out numbers while doing so. Also, they are so young and athletic; sure they can go up 30 flights of stairs and then Scully is totally game to be hoisted into a ceiling vent and crawl around up there. J. Edgar's finest, at the top of their physical game!

I got so mad when Mulder goes "he apologized. in his own way" about Jerry. he literally did not even come close to apologizing! he said fuck you I stole your notes because you were gonna help me anyway so who cares, shut up, and then he stomped off. In no universe is that an apology of even the worst sort. Jerry sucks.

this house:

(literal photo of tv taken from couch, too lazy to even get up)

is ugly as shit, and I was making fun of it saying that it looked like a suburban convention center and bar mitzvah venue instead of a rich tech guy's sleek futuristic mansion and wondering if they filmed it at like, a Days Inn, but I was informed it was actually the home of a star Canucks player?? well he had terrible taste.

Finally, I remain FASCINATED with watching Mulder and Scully Work In An Office and interact with other people in the office and do office things like eat pastries off a cart! and hang out in what looks like the FBI archives! This set:

is so endearingly normcore-office to me. The library cart with archive boxes and also some other loose crap on it. All the haphazardly sized shelves from Staples with random mugs that no one wants so someone just sticks them on a bookshelf. Stacks of copy paper. A whole bunch of plants, some of which are dead, and also featuring at least 2 empty vases. The industrial tissue box. Someone did a very good job with this set dec is what I'm saying. Ok, the "INVOICES" folder is a little funny.

This is almost a workplace drama at this point in its life and I am a little bit obsessed with that. What is Fran gonna say about M&S smashing up that car. Smh.

#xf rewatch rambling #gitm

[myassbrokethefall]

xf rewatch: jersey devil & shadows

Two early-series stinkers (affectionate) that, at least in the case of Jersey Devil, have achieved cult status or at least meme status for generally being enjoyable as hell. I imagine Fox executives side-eyeing a little, like, what is this, bring back those Squeeze guys or that Chris Carter who wrote the first couple… Really? Uh oh.

I have a deep and abiding love for Shadows partly because I once wrote a recap of it for a fan project, and being me I watched it like 85 times while taking copious notes and turned in a probably 10,000-word analysis, so I know it very well. I DO feel my love for it is justified, partly in its campiness and general silliness (GHOST BOSS. BLOOD BATHTUB. MURDER… AT THE ATM [MACHINE]) but also because Mulder and Scully are great in it, really Detectiving the hell out of the case, interviewing a hilariously mannered and conveniently expositional cemetery groundskeeper, doing a face-to-face with the medical examiner (Howard Graves… Is Very Dead) (she is my favorite, I say this every time, RIP Lorena Gale), and really using their combined powers of Believing and Skeptical in convincing Lauren to cooperate. Yes, there are TWO entire scenes where Scully misses the paranormal thing by seconds; yes, Mr. Dorlund is transparently evil to a ridiculous degree; yes, Lauren wears A LOT of Laura Ashley-ish florals (and this is the episode of Scully's glorious Halloween outfit of black suit, orange blouse, white tights; ah I love it). But, look, at the end, the case is over, and Mulder is like, well, case is over. Should we maybe go see the Liberty Bell? How often do we get to see scenes like that?? For that bit alone I love it, and that's without the Mulder slo-mo (in all of our hearts) jacket swing, Scully's Poltergeist impression and general horror-movie knowledge at the ready, Mulder with his feet on the chair, once again Dr. Ellen Bledsoe being the greatest, Mr. Dorlund getting his uh, wrist squeezed very threateningly with his uh, gold bracelet, by a ghost, Mulder's UNNECESSARILY flirty move of swinging his arm around Scully and breathing on his glasses to show her he snagged a fingerprint… ah it's great. Forget those Squeeze guys, hire these dudes! …They what? OUTSTANDING news.

One more thing I find amusing about Shadows is, I recently was reminded of Glen's ancedote that it came out of a note they got that Mulder and Scully needed to help people. Heheh. "This bitch needs help, get in there, you jerks!" I yelled at Mulder and Scully in multiple scenes this time through. I'd say Ghost of Howard Graves ultimately did more helping in the end, with his supernatural powers, but they tried. And they managed to stop saying vaguely flirtatious dialogue while staring intensely into each other's eyes long enough to at least give her a little encouragement I guess.

I skipped right over Jersey Devil, which is also a silly episode but, honestly, I think comes off better of the two of them. On the other hand, would I say that without the legendary appearance of the Bigfoot Titties drawing? Hard to say. I should add that Mulder and Scully are CRIMINALLY adorable in these episodes, still in their rosy-cheeked (or over-blushed), round-faced big-eyed high-voiced toddler days, and it is difficult to imagine that THE UNIVERSE COULD CONTAIN anything cuter than the last scene (Who was that on the phone? A guy. Same guy as the other night? Same guy. What are you doing, Scully? Going with you to the Smithsonian.) Despite them referencing (in BOTH these episodes) the having or not having of a life (side note, I can't express how common the phrase "get a life" or "he has no life" were back then; that was like cool slang man), vestiges of said life-having remain, with Scully having girl talk with Ellen (I remain obsessed with that exchange: "I thought you said he was cute"/"He's a jerk. …He's not a jerk. He's obsessed with his work"), The Date, Scully's old professor (wonder if she fucked that one. ha), and even more subtle things like Mulder saying "Thanks, Fran" after signing out a car. (Other people work at the FBI! And Mulder and Scully know their names!) (I also found endearing the extremely quick shot of the comics that Fran has taped to her desk. Very nice little set detail.) It all feels so ordinary and workplacey, which I am finding really enjoyable; it's like, a normal government office where people work, and Mulder and Scully also work there, and it just enhances it (enhance!!) when they're working a case and suddenly like a ghost causes a car accident. Or when a hot naked lady (I was impressed with how clear her ass was in the iTunes version of this; I suppose they didn't really bother to blur it back in the standard-definition days and I guess now we are all enlightened in the seeing of asses on TV) attacks Mulder in a dramatically lit warehouse. (Hey baby, come up to Vancouver, you can be on my show! Is something I suspect DD said a lot in the early to mid 90s.)

I'm really not trying at all with this post, sorry. I will wrap up with the revelation that, at least according to the procedural forensic efforts of my friend and me, Bill Dow who plays Chuck Burks plays NOT ONE, BUT TWO DADS in this episode — the guy in the 40s, and the guy at the end hiking with his kid. (Same kid too, I think.) Yes? No? Why isn't Chuck Burks on the convention circuit? Is my question.

Anyway, The X-Files rules. Next up, Ghost in the Machine, which I haven't seen in ages so that should be fun. Sorry these posts are so incredibly lame, lmao. Send tweet

#xf rewatch rambling #jersey devil #shadows #i do know how to use paragraph breaks but sometimes i don't want to because that requires me to organize my thoughts #this blog is free ok #i also know how to use parentheses (clearly)

[myassbrokethefall]

xf rewatch: squeeze and conduit

(As if this wasn't already apparent, I'll warn you that any off-the-cuff posts I manage to spew out as I rewatch are going to be rambly, unorganized and rudderless. I am tagging all of these "xf rewatch rambling." And I will be kind to us all and put in a cut.)

Eps 3 and 4, and we're still building some real foundational XF DNA here. Squeeze of course is our first MOTW and it's all nicely laid out for us: Colton and the jackass squad are all like, hurrrr it's ol spooky mulder he thinks a flying saucer did the murders, and even Scully is like, so whaddya think, these are the stretchy fingerprints of ALIENS? And it gives him a great opportunity to say, please Scully, I have range, we don't ONLY do UFO episodes cases on this show in this basement, sometimes we might have a "week" where we are investigating a "monster"! That will keep us busy!

It's also really interesting to see Mulder interact with the rest of the federal law enforcement universe for the first time, and how he plays into it in a smartass way, but how it really is relentless (with Colton in particular like physically blocking him from the crime scene even before he calls off the stakeout). Mulder doesn't get really mad about it until it gets to the point where he knows they've let a killer go and no one will listen to him about that. He's just such a fundamentally Good man, and it's a lovely thing to once again see through Scully's eyes how he is not the unreasonable one here, that despite his willingness to connect the dots to make a picture that is Beyond the Realm of Science, he IS, in fact, connecting dots, he's not just making shit up, and none of these dudes making fun of him are actually listening to him. I am loving watching how they draw his character in these early days.

Then with Conduit we're back into UFO stuff and it's our first Gordon/Gansa ep. This is the first episode I don't know like the back of my hand, although I remember it pretty well (and I don't know Squeeze AS well as Pilot and DT). It is quite solid, and MUCH more based on Carl Sagan's Contact than I remembered. As I rambled to a friend earlier today and will now do here again probably even less coherently, this whole thing was great for me until it falls apart at the end with the pieces of paper forming the portrait of Ruby. Despite this being a nifty reveal, the portrait is just SO GOOFY!!, and it is just a step too far for me. The aliens are sending numbers through the TV to Ruby's little brother — sure. And he's compelled to write them down and they turn out to be, in binary, the aliens repeating back to the humans what they've heard in transmissions from Earth, in what is assumed to be a way of reaching out or saying hello (this is what happens in Contact). I love all that, it's very spooky, it's a fun side-swerve when M&S get interrogated by the NSA because Kevin was accidentally transcribing top-secret military info, and it is undeniably a great moment when Scully goes upstairs and looks down and has the realization that it's a picture of Ruby. But... how can the 1s and 0s be BOTH encrypted satellite transmissions AND the precise sequence that makes a physical picture of Ruby's face? Also, is it like, a school portrait? Why is she smiling so hard? Did the aliens tell her to smile and snap a photo of her on the spaceship? Are they reading Kevin's mind and that's how he pictures her, with a giant cheeseball grin? It just kind of falls apart for me and it is silly enough that it breaks the momentum of the episode. 

On the other hand, I get that they wanted to make it unequivocal that the aliens were communicating to Kevin about Ruby specifically — and to make that explicit tie between this situation and Mulder's memories, as expressed in the hypnosis in the (very emotional) last scene, about Samantha's abduction: the voice saying that she's ok and she'll be returned to him. This is a touching consistency that I never really picked up on before, that it is the aliens' MO when abducting a kid to make an effort to let a nearby loved one know that they don't have to worry. So working instructions for how to arrange the papers on the living room floor into their tv transmissions in order to make a giant Sears portrait of Ruby is another way of delivering this ultimately benevolent, hopeful message, I guess. 

You couldn't keep it this way indefinitely, but I really do feel wistful about these early days when there was such a sense of wonder with the possibility of aliens, and so much unknown, before it all got bogged down in super soldiers and magnetite and consortiums and viruses and black oil and impregnating people with science against their will. You can FEEL Mulder's agitation and urgency in wanting to get Ruby's story and his agony at being blocked from it, and yet also understand Darlene's refusal to let this crazy-sounding stuff that has branded her a kook her whole life define her daughter's life as well. Just good stuff.

I will note though that there have been 4 episodes here so far, 3 of them dealing with UFOs, and in all 3 of those they have done the thing where you think you're seeing UFO lights and then it turns out to be a vehicle Very Much Of This Earth. I think you could give that one a rest for a little while, show. 

Let's get real, this is all prelude to Jersey Devil, up next. Yeah baby. 

#xf rewatch rambling #squeeze #conduit #you wouldn't shoot a unarmed man wouldja copper

[ghostbustermelanieking]

renegade

pre xf/spoilers for the end, diana fowley fic, diana/mulder. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files.

summary: Why Diana Fowley went over to the other side.

note: Yes, I wrote a Diana fic. I was gonna wait until later in the arc, but damnit, her role in The End was intriguing. This all came pouring out so quickly I can barely believe it, and was more fun than it possibly should be. Enjoy!

When she was a little kid, the kids on the playground had called her Diana Foul when they were trying to be mean. She hated the nickname, of course, never felt it fit until she joined forces with her ex-boyfriend’s worst enemies. If this were a movie, she'd be absolutely hated. And maybe she'd deserve it.

It might’ve been honorable at first. Perhaps. She'd been called into a meeting with some section chief, and she'd thought it had something to do with how much she and Fox had fucked up some case. Or maybe the small diamond on her left hand. (They'd been engaged for a few months, with no wedding date in sight; they'd pass a court house every now and then, and he'd raise his eyebrows, and she'd laugh and remind him that they were in pursuit of some paranormal entity, and that was it.) It had nothing to do with either of those things. The man behind the desk had wolf-smiled at her across the table and slid a manila folder, the other men looking down their noses at her. Diana’s breath caught in her throat as she flipped open the top of the folder and saw what was in there: her one sign of weakness. (She had a perfect poker face, Fox had told her again and again, usually grinning; she'd been beaten up at age twelve by the same kids who used to call her Foul, gave them a blank look the entire time even as they punched her in the face and stomach, didn't look angry or cry. Don't show your cards, her father always used to tell her, and she was good at that. She couldn't remember the last time she'd cried.)

In the file was pictures, practically of Diana’s entire life. Her and Fox in their apartment, in crappy, low-lit diners. At her graduation from Quantico, running the courses through the woods, looking like The Silence of the Lambs was made about her life. College, high school, learning to drive in her father's rickety old car. Climbing trees with her sisters in the front yard. Nursing skinned knees under her skirts, reading Stephen King books on her front stoop with the end of one of her braids stuck in her mouth. Pictures of her mother when she was still alive, pushing Diana on the swings, holding her hand as they walked towards her first day of school together.

“You've been observed, Diana,” the man told her. “And we've been pleased by what we've seen.”

Diana shut the folder, smoothed it with her right, ringless hand. “And what the hell does that mean,” she said in an even voice.

They told her. They told her exactly what they wanted her to do, lest she suffer the consequences. “We have… creative methods,” the man said seriously, folding his hands. He wore a wedding band, and Diana wondered what his family had to do for their cause. (This was because of her mother's job as secretary to a senator, they told her. And the cancer that had killed her hadn't come out of nowhere.)

“Why me?” she demanded. “Why not one of my sisters?” Why ask when you never asked my mother?

“Because you have a government background,” said the man in the corner. (The one smoking.) “And because we think you'll do it.”

“It'd be a shame if one of your sisters were to suffer a car accident,” said the man behind the desk, tenting his fingers on top. “Or if your father took a spill down the stairs. Or if poor, misguided Agent Mulder were to go missing. Abducted by his ‘little green men’.”

There are some things worse than death. Diana understood. She signed the papers.

-

Reassignment, she told him. Showed him the order with a sad little smile.

She could see Fox considering weighing out the options: rock the boat and risk the files, his sister, so she could stay? Or let her go and live alone? He finally pulled her to him and gave a half-hearted, “We could file a protest…”

“No, we couldn't, and you know it,” she said, her fingers petting his stubbly jaw. “This work is too important, Fox.” More important than you know.

He knew what she was saying was true, but he didn't want to know it. He leaned down and kissed her, mumbled, “I don't want to lose you,” into her mouth.

Diana kissed him back, briskly, before pulling away, her arms around his neck. “You won't,” she said. She didn't know if she was lying or not. “We can do long-distance, right? You did long distance with that guy from England for a while.”

Fox scoffed out a laugh. “Yeah, because that went over so well,” he said. (They'd been friends before they were lovers, partners, engaged, and Diana could remember hearing one half of the breakup while sprawled out on his bed in his dorm, reading a chapter in their textbook. It had been something of a tragedy. Fox had the tendency for the dramatic; she saw it every time they got into a fight.)

“This is different.” She twisted the ring on her finger pointedly. “Once you find the truth, then we can…”

“Run away together?” Fox said bitterly.

She made a face at him and kissed him again. “Don't make this any harder than it has to be, Fox,” she said. “I have to go.”

A result of Fox’s ruined childhood, she'd thought more than once, was his childish tendencies. He had a perfect pout, one that made you want to do things for him. “I don't want you to,” he said, pushing hair behind her ear.

For a split second, she considered telling him the truth. Reconsidered. It was too dangerous. She kissed him and consoled him and convinced him. She'd write him, call him, visit him if she could. She wouldn't take off the ring. He helped her pack, drove her to the airport and kissed her at the gate. Told her he loved her with his hands at her waist.

She considered him for a moment, rose up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Remember to feed the fish, Mulder,” she said. Calling him what his friends called him. It was the beginning of the end.

-

At first, she was good about writing. He was better—he wrote her long, rambling letters, made excuses to call long distance. Fox Mulder was nothing if not a romantic. She thought she might still love him with his voice echoing in her ear, traveling the space of oceans. She'd twist the ring he gave her around her finger when she was bored.

Eventually, she stopped writing. And she'd still answer the phone when he called, but there was a distance between them outside of miles, and she let him hear it. Eventually, he stopped calling and writing, too. She took off the ring and mailed it back to him at the end of 1992. It was over.

She didn't go to Thanksgiving back home because they wouldn't let her, but she picked up the phone when her father called. She wondered if he knew he had lost a wife, and now was losing a daughter, to this. She wondered how much he understood. She pinned up the pictures her oldest sister sent of her kids over her desk. But more often than not, her family slipped through the cracks and into the hiding place she'd put Fox in. She packed away her loved ones in a box because you couldn't afford attachments. Not with this life.

-

She'd hated the work at first. She'd been met at the airport in Berlin by two men with concealed weapons, who escorted her to a car, to the facility where she'd be working, to her new apartment. She'd smoked cigarettes out on the crowded patch of roof she called a balcony every night, planning her escape. Planning how she'd sabotage them, these people who killed her mother.

But it was funny how these things change. Diana found herself doing challenging work with frightening people, learning secrets she never would've learned otherwise. It was exciting, heart-pounding thrill. The secret was that they were at war, and by signing away her life, she'd guaranteed herself a spot on the winning side.

She asked for protection for her family and they gave it. She asked for a nicer apartment and they gave it. She asked for money, glamour, advantages, and they gave it. She followed their rules and was rewarded. She was no better than a dog.

But, she was reminded again and again, she had an advantage most women did not have in this profession. Remember your mother, she was often told. Her mother was asked to help them and she refused, so they wiped her memory and gave her a terminal illness triggered by shrapnel in her neck. Diana agreed, and so she was protected, but she was reminded all too often of what could've been. Fox got a new partner in 1993, and she knew of this because she was still expected to keep tabs on him even if she wasn't communicating with him or wearing his ring. This new partner wasn't given the whole story, but she was expected to spy and she broke the rules. They had files on this girl going back through her entire life, just like Diana. She was always a planned abductee, but they moved up the date because she broke the rules, because Fox was getting too close. Diana never met the girl, but she was told the story over a crackly phone call from the smoker, the one who sent her a package of cigarettes every Christmas. That could've been me, she told herself. If I'd stayed with Fox. If I'd fought back. There are things worse than death, and she'd rather be a lapdog than a lab rat.

The years kept moving forward, one after the other, and Diana began to enjoy the work. It was challenging, exciting, to play God a little. She pulled back her hair and went to the labs, studied creatures she and Fox never could've imagined when they told each other horror stories in bed. He would like it here, she thought, if they'd recruited him the right way. If they hadn't taken his sister.

(She knew what happened to his sister. She'd known from the moment she'd arrived here.)

It wasn't all Fox. By 1994, she'd nearly forgotten him, and by 1995, he was gone from her mind completely. She'd almost married the man, but what did that mean? She stopped wondering what he'd say to things, stopped thinking about him on lonely nights, stopped thinking about his sister. She had no regrets at this point; she'd made the best choice to keep herself and her family safe. The young, green agent she'd once been who'd thought she'd prove the existence of aliens and save the world seemed naive today. She hadn't really known anything, and neither had Fox. She was so much wiser now.

She had nearly forgotten him completely when they came to her halfway through 1997. They needed her to go back to Washington, they said. They needed her to gather intel on Fox—Mulder, they called him—and they wanted her to quit smoking first. Cigarette smoke would make him suspicious, they said, think she was working with him. Nicotine stench would give her away.

It was hard, but she did manage to quit. Do what they say or there will be consequences. Sitting in her new, unguarded apartment with her feet up in the windowsill and an unlit cigarette in her left hand, Diana let herself think about Fox Mulder again. It had been years. She wondered about that new partner of his. She wondered how he'd changed.

-

In Washington, nearly a year later, she ended up partnered with Fox and his new partner—well, not so new anymore; she'd lasted five years, longer than Diana had—on the case of a boy, Gibson Praise, who Mulder believed was the subject of an assassination attempt. The new partner was Dana Scully, and she was polite to Diana until she saw the connection between them. Diana saw things, too—for example, the way that Dana looked at him, and the way Fox might’ve been looking back if he hadn't been looking at Diana, looking at the mystery laid before him. She'd heard the stories of Fox’s reactions when his partner was in danger: shoving a gun in Spender’s face,  What a fluke, she told herself. Fox Mulder has fallen in love with two women who can speak German in a period of ten years. (Because after six years in Berlin, of course she could speak it, and she knew Dana could. She knew everything about her.)

She'd told herself, again and again, that she wasn't in love with Fox anymore. And she wasn't. Six years is a long time. But she was intrigued by him, the man he had become. He had changed so much and not changed at all, all at once. His eyes lit up at the prospect of the boy being able to read minds, and Diana had to smile. It was so him, and she had forgotten. But now she was remembering: discussing X-Files in startled, excited tones late into the night, driving through small towns and breaking into government facilities, running away from things. Always running. The way he tasted like nicotine and sunflower seeds when she kissed him. (They'd used to smoke together, she hadn't understood his aversion to it until she'd heard of his excursions with the smoker—Spender, she knew his name now. Creepy motherfucker.) When Gibson said that Fox was thinking about either her or Dana, she was genuinely curious. She asked, “Which one?” innocently, like she didn't know it was her thinking about him. (She didn't know who he was thinking of. God, she was worse than a schoolgirl with a crush. She reminded herself that she had a job to do.)

The first time she talked with Fox (she was still calling him Mulder out loud, but Fox in her head), she layered on the compliments, buttering him up before letting it slip into his mind that Dana may not be the best partner for him. (If she could get him to prefer her to Dana, than it would make her job all the easier.) He laughed a little with her before clarifying, “She’s a, uh… she’s a scientist. She just makes me work for everything.”

She knew. She knew it all. “Yes,” she said, “but I’m… I’m sure there were times when two like minds on a case would have been advantageous.”

He nodded, said, “I've done okay without you.” A defense mechanism, but in defense of Dana, or himself, she couldn't tell.

An awkward silence between them for a moment. “Hey,” she said in teasing reassurance. She reached for his hand and took it, sliding her own callused fingers over his. FBI agents don't have smooth hands. “I'm on your side.”

If he knew who she had been working for all the years, he would hate her, rip away from her, shout at her with all the anger she'd seen aimed at others. He smiled, squeezing her hand. He had to believe she was on his side.

Just for a moment, holding his hand and remembering the days before she left, when she wore his ring, Diana wished she was.

#xf rewatch #xf fanfic #i wrote this