The X-Files 4x05: The Field Where I Died
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tori_reviewsThe X-Files 4x05: The Field Where I Died
Okay, so over the years I’ve heard/read about this episode but never seen it. I don’t think I ever got enough details to judge it as its own thing, only enough to know that my shipping tastes would be pissed off by it. I’m less driven by the shipping now (something that still surprises me), but that turns out to be only one of many ways this episode is just not good.
But let’s start with the shipping, because that feels like it’s the deliberate with what it’s saying: stop shipping Mulder and Scully, they’re just friends or family, not lovers. I’m trying to divorce myself from the long view that the show doesn’t stick to that, and decide how bad it is to put that in this episode at the time. I do know that the intent of TPTB was not to have them romantically connected; that they were bonded by the work and the quest and yes loving affection, but not romance. So part of me thinks that if they had been determined to stick to that, then spelling it out isn’t so bad. It would still be kind of bad form to throw this into s4 by which time they had to know how many people did ship it (had the audience invented the term yet?) but if that was the way it was going to be, then setting a star to steer by isn’t terrible. But I also feel like no one would have ever believed it was guaranteed to stick; you don’t make that decision in an episode this disposable. Especially since you know they’re not going to stick to Melissa being Mulder’s soulmate and remove the possibility of him having other romantic/sex interests.
And as small note, I wish they hadn’t named her Melissa; Melissa Scully still casts enough shadow over things that in some of the flashbacks I was amusing myself (not that the monolog wasn’t already pretty hysterical) thinking he could mean that Melissa. Yes, in the real world multiple people have the same name and you can’t choose when the same names show up, but there are choices you don’t need to make as a writer; you’ll note I didn’t make a big deal about them having about their fourth significant Jerry last episode, but this was a bad idea.
Now let’s talk unfortunate implications. Cancerman as a Gestapo agents, sure I buy that (though I would like to point out that actual Cancerman was alive during WW2; same problem with Melissa having been around Poland circa 1940-something, then being the apparently adult Sydney in 1948), but saying stuff about how evil comes back as evil while saying that Mulder was a Confederate is a bit questionable. No, not all grunts in the Confederate army were evil, but it’s questionable used this way. Especially when combined with the Jewish story which seems to be about painting Mulder’s past lives as always being persecuted for their beliefs. Which is not only in bad taste in and of itself to compare Mulder’s renegade behavior with the holocaust, but by implication proposes that so was fighting for the South.
So far, I’ve discussed the past life stuff as if it’s real, but that’s only because the episode is so committed to framing it as if it is. But literally everything could be explained rationally, if the show gave any time to doing so. Melissa has serious mental problems obviously and maybe even dissociative personality disorder; and clearly the way her brain processes those multiple personalities/thought processes is also as different times, most likely cobbled together facts she knows about those other times. She sees herself as a man in the 1940s being ground under the heel of McCarthyism, but that personality is a little more defiant and calls in about the guns. The guns were supposedly an old Civil War cache (side note, how useful would that be in fighting modern lawmen?), so one of her personalities comes from the Civil War, there’s probably some local history that she’s subconsciously picked up on that she builds it around. And because Mulder saved her in the beginning, she casts him as her lover and brave soldier in that story.
Which does then have the implication that Mulder himself sees *himself* as a persecuted Jew and fails to incorporate what Melissa’s already told him of her view of the 40s; and that he himself sees Scully as a parental or authority figure. Back in the Civil War he’s mostly incorporating Melissa’s story so can’t give them any new relevant information. Even pulling historical names out of thin air could have been gleaned from elsewhere; we have no evidence of anything more than that they existed, not when they died, not their relationship to each other; in fact, in the story we’re told there’s no reason to assume they’re even from this area to be in the ledgers. Scully does seem super jealous to bother to go and check on them, but I’m also a little willing to call her reasoning as: if people with those names do exist it might be a way to focus Melissa’s attention.
This episode also does weird things with Scully’s religion. If we have an episode that’s about her religion she finds meaning in all kinds of things people say on the subject; but this is not a Scully and religion episode so she doesn’t take any meaning from any of it and has to look up where bible quotes come from. This show doesn’t know what Scully believes, does it?
One thing I don’t think she believes in (this time out) is Mulder. This episode isn’t just a NoRomo fest by making them not soulmates, but because they kind of seem to hate each other; this Mulder and Scully I totally believe aren’t supposed to be together. She’s frustrated with his ridiculous ideas from the start. On one hand, I’m sort of glad they did at least provide some reason why Team X-files is along on an ATF case (combined with Skinner probably just going along with it), but Scully clearly doesn’t agree with Mulder’s reasons, she follows him because they’re partners, but she probably thinks they don’t need to be here. She thinks he’s misguided and has the wrong priorities all through the case, especially when it comes to hypnosis; and she should be skeptical as the flaws in using hypnosis have been established on this show before even though the show does let them keep using it. He’s pretty quick to buy into the idea that Melissa is his soulmate and Scully’s just a recurrent friend.
I had never heard good things about this episode, but somehow its badness mostly always got filtered to me as a shipping problem, when it’s really just bad. Since I’m sure it will never come up again, I’ll be happy to pretend it never happened.
Previous status
If you couldn’t pick up on it, this is a never seen before
Vancouver spotting
I know Melissa was in SAAB; I may have forgotten most of that show (I picked up the DVDs cheap a while back, I could review it) but my brain managed to find that as why the actress is familiar.
Can DD act?
Dear god no. Granted, the writing isn’t good and they were trying to get him to cry again and those are problems, but he’s the one who looks bad.
Are we saying it’s aliens?
So past lives have been a thing on this show before, but now so are soulmates...maybe, or they’re both pretty crazy, possibly making them perfect for each other.
Revolving door of death
If past lives are a thing to this extent then everybody’s in a revolving door of death.
How crazy does Mulder sound?
He’s basing his investigation around the idea that past lives are a thing, but also lacks the conviction to take a stand for that belief; which in this case doesn’t so much make him look like he knows to limit who he says his crazy shit to, but instead kind of spineless and playing at seeming saner than he is.
Drop the catchphrase
Melissa does manage an ‘I want to believe’ reference, which I think just gets Mulder horny.
Mulder kisses
Granted he and Melissa don’t kiss, but he does buy into them being soulmates.
Mitchell of the Week spotting
Melissa may be stretching the definition, but she’s a character important to one episode that supposedly has some great connection to the hero, dies in the end and will never be mentioned again; that checks all the boxes.
The gang that’s here
Skinner
How do you not have any names?
Mostly I just wonder what the hypnotist thinks Mulder is talking about when he mentions Cancerman.
Bad investigation alert
So much. You’re using hypnosis to solve a case (you know I mistyped that closer to hypnonsense and maybe I should have left it), and it doesn’t actually do you any good (which I guess is realistic of them). Even if Mulder had known anything in his regression, how is that going to hold up in court (Yes your Honor, I remembered it from a past life.)? I don’t know the legal precedent of multiple personality issues, but at most I think her testimony could give them probable cause to hold the cult leader longer, not be truly admissible down the line. Were Mulder and Scully in charge of the interviews? Because I think this is the ATF’s case first. And if they were in charge, they really should have finished them rather than focusing on Melissa.
What’s the FBI’s travel budget?
I still don’t understand why Mulder and Scully are here, especially in the initial raid; along to help give some insight on reincarnation beliefs and general paranormal consultation maybe, but they shouldn’t be in the action. Also, I think they were looking to get Mulder killed in the end, they offer very little to protest to him walking out into the field.
Pretentious voiceovers
I suspect that’s a poem Mulder is quoting at the beginning and end, but he sounds like an asshole doing it.
Who’s your daddy?
I was all set to question which daddy Mulder had in the past, until it was Scully. Cancerman killing the person Mulder perceives as his father...yeah let’s put that in the category of Mulder making it up.
Wow that’s uncomfortable in hindsight
On the other hand, as Mulder and William are half-brothers, Scully is Mulder’s brother’s mother, making her a very convoluted parental figure in his story. Though none of that has happened yet so Mulder can’t be splicing clues to anything together.
Dana watch
He also thinks this is a good time to try calling Scully Dana. When he’s asking about them knowing they’re good friends throughout time. It’s a weird choice.
Does Chris Carter hate love?
I did a lot of this through the review, but somebody sure hates the shipping with this episode.
Other ships at sea
There is nothing that says Scully and Skinner aren’t soulmates which would make Skinner Jew-Mulder’s mother, and that kind of fits.
Scully’s convenient miss of the week
You know, if Scully was also out in the field in the Civil War (what is with Morgan and Wong and referencing the Civil War?), did she also die that day? She sure doesn’t have flashbacks or feel any draw to it or any trepidation about going out in the field where Civil War Scully probably died too.
Who’s driving?
I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, but probably Mulder.
Adventuring rules
If you’re going to do past lives in your scenario, know what the fuck you’re doing. This is less an adventuring rule as roleplaying one.
Okay, so over the years I’ve heard/read about this episode but never seen it. I don’t think I ever got enough details to judge it as its own thing, only enough to know that my shipping tastes would be pissed off by it. I’m less driven by the shipping now (something that still surprises me), but that turns out to be only one of many ways this episode is just not good.
But let’s start with the shipping, because that feels like it’s the deliberate with what it’s saying: stop shipping Mulder and Scully, they’re just friends or family, not lovers. I’m trying to divorce myself from the long view that the show doesn’t stick to that, and decide how bad it is to put that in this episode at the time. I do know that the intent of TPTB was not to have them romantically connected; that they were bonded by the work and the quest and yes loving affection, but not romance. So part of me thinks that if they had been determined to stick to that, then spelling it out isn’t so bad. It would still be kind of bad form to throw this into s4 by which time they had to know how many people did ship it (had the audience invented the term yet?) but if that was the way it was going to be, then setting a star to steer by isn’t terrible. But I also feel like no one would have ever believed it was guaranteed to stick; you don’t make that decision in an episode this disposable. Especially since you know they’re not going to stick to Melissa being Mulder’s soulmate and remove the possibility of him having other romantic/sex interests.
And as small note, I wish they hadn’t named her Melissa; Melissa Scully still casts enough shadow over things that in some of the flashbacks I was amusing myself (not that the monolog wasn’t already pretty hysterical) thinking he could mean that Melissa. Yes, in the real world multiple people have the same name and you can’t choose when the same names show up, but there are choices you don’t need to make as a writer; you’ll note I didn’t make a big deal about them having about their fourth significant Jerry last episode, but this was a bad idea.
Now let’s talk unfortunate implications. Cancerman as a Gestapo agents, sure I buy that (though I would like to point out that actual Cancerman was alive during WW2; same problem with Melissa having been around Poland circa 1940-something, then being the apparently adult Sydney in 1948), but saying stuff about how evil comes back as evil while saying that Mulder was a Confederate is a bit questionable. No, not all grunts in the Confederate army were evil, but it’s questionable used this way. Especially when combined with the Jewish story which seems to be about painting Mulder’s past lives as always being persecuted for their beliefs. Which is not only in bad taste in and of itself to compare Mulder’s renegade behavior with the holocaust, but by implication proposes that so was fighting for the South.
So far, I’ve discussed the past life stuff as if it’s real, but that’s only because the episode is so committed to framing it as if it is. But literally everything could be explained rationally, if the show gave any time to doing so. Melissa has serious mental problems obviously and maybe even dissociative personality disorder; and clearly the way her brain processes those multiple personalities/thought processes is also as different times, most likely cobbled together facts she knows about those other times. She sees herself as a man in the 1940s being ground under the heel of McCarthyism, but that personality is a little more defiant and calls in about the guns. The guns were supposedly an old Civil War cache (side note, how useful would that be in fighting modern lawmen?), so one of her personalities comes from the Civil War, there’s probably some local history that she’s subconsciously picked up on that she builds it around. And because Mulder saved her in the beginning, she casts him as her lover and brave soldier in that story.
Which does then have the implication that Mulder himself sees *himself* as a persecuted Jew and fails to incorporate what Melissa’s already told him of her view of the 40s; and that he himself sees Scully as a parental or authority figure. Back in the Civil War he’s mostly incorporating Melissa’s story so can’t give them any new relevant information. Even pulling historical names out of thin air could have been gleaned from elsewhere; we have no evidence of anything more than that they existed, not when they died, not their relationship to each other; in fact, in the story we’re told there’s no reason to assume they’re even from this area to be in the ledgers. Scully does seem super jealous to bother to go and check on them, but I’m also a little willing to call her reasoning as: if people with those names do exist it might be a way to focus Melissa’s attention.
This episode also does weird things with Scully’s religion. If we have an episode that’s about her religion she finds meaning in all kinds of things people say on the subject; but this is not a Scully and religion episode so she doesn’t take any meaning from any of it and has to look up where bible quotes come from. This show doesn’t know what Scully believes, does it?
One thing I don’t think she believes in (this time out) is Mulder. This episode isn’t just a NoRomo fest by making them not soulmates, but because they kind of seem to hate each other; this Mulder and Scully I totally believe aren’t supposed to be together. She’s frustrated with his ridiculous ideas from the start. On one hand, I’m sort of glad they did at least provide some reason why Team X-files is along on an ATF case (combined with Skinner probably just going along with it), but Scully clearly doesn’t agree with Mulder’s reasons, she follows him because they’re partners, but she probably thinks they don’t need to be here. She thinks he’s misguided and has the wrong priorities all through the case, especially when it comes to hypnosis; and she should be skeptical as the flaws in using hypnosis have been established on this show before even though the show does let them keep using it. He’s pretty quick to buy into the idea that Melissa is his soulmate and Scully’s just a recurrent friend.
I had never heard good things about this episode, but somehow its badness mostly always got filtered to me as a shipping problem, when it’s really just bad. Since I’m sure it will never come up again, I’ll be happy to pretend it never happened.
Previous status
If you couldn’t pick up on it, this is a never seen before
Vancouver spotting
I know Melissa was in SAAB; I may have forgotten most of that show (I picked up the DVDs cheap a while back, I could review it) but my brain managed to find that as why the actress is familiar.
Can DD act?
Dear god no. Granted, the writing isn’t good and they were trying to get him to cry again and those are problems, but he’s the one who looks bad.
Are we saying it’s aliens?
So past lives have been a thing on this show before, but now so are soulmates...maybe, or they’re both pretty crazy, possibly making them perfect for each other.
Revolving door of death
If past lives are a thing to this extent then everybody’s in a revolving door of death.
How crazy does Mulder sound?
He’s basing his investigation around the idea that past lives are a thing, but also lacks the conviction to take a stand for that belief; which in this case doesn’t so much make him look like he knows to limit who he says his crazy shit to, but instead kind of spineless and playing at seeming saner than he is.
Drop the catchphrase
Melissa does manage an ‘I want to believe’ reference, which I think just gets Mulder horny.
Mulder kisses
Granted he and Melissa don’t kiss, but he does buy into them being soulmates.
Mitchell of the Week spotting
Melissa may be stretching the definition, but she’s a character important to one episode that supposedly has some great connection to the hero, dies in the end and will never be mentioned again; that checks all the boxes.
The gang that’s here
Skinner
How do you not have any names?
Mostly I just wonder what the hypnotist thinks Mulder is talking about when he mentions Cancerman.
Bad investigation alert
So much. You’re using hypnosis to solve a case (you know I mistyped that closer to hypnonsense and maybe I should have left it), and it doesn’t actually do you any good (which I guess is realistic of them). Even if Mulder had known anything in his regression, how is that going to hold up in court (Yes your Honor, I remembered it from a past life.)? I don’t know the legal precedent of multiple personality issues, but at most I think her testimony could give them probable cause to hold the cult leader longer, not be truly admissible down the line. Were Mulder and Scully in charge of the interviews? Because I think this is the ATF’s case first. And if they were in charge, they really should have finished them rather than focusing on Melissa.
What’s the FBI’s travel budget?
I still don’t understand why Mulder and Scully are here, especially in the initial raid; along to help give some insight on reincarnation beliefs and general paranormal consultation maybe, but they shouldn’t be in the action. Also, I think they were looking to get Mulder killed in the end, they offer very little to protest to him walking out into the field.
Pretentious voiceovers
I suspect that’s a poem Mulder is quoting at the beginning and end, but he sounds like an asshole doing it.
Who’s your daddy?
I was all set to question which daddy Mulder had in the past, until it was Scully. Cancerman killing the person Mulder perceives as his father...yeah let’s put that in the category of Mulder making it up.
Wow that’s uncomfortable in hindsight
On the other hand, as Mulder and William are half-brothers, Scully is Mulder’s brother’s mother, making her a very convoluted parental figure in his story. Though none of that has happened yet so Mulder can’t be splicing clues to anything together.
Dana watch
He also thinks this is a good time to try calling Scully Dana. When he’s asking about them knowing they’re good friends throughout time. It’s a weird choice.
Does Chris Carter hate love?
I did a lot of this through the review, but somebody sure hates the shipping with this episode.
Other ships at sea
There is nothing that says Scully and Skinner aren’t soulmates which would make Skinner Jew-Mulder’s mother, and that kind of fits.
Scully’s convenient miss of the week
You know, if Scully was also out in the field in the Civil War (what is with Morgan and Wong and referencing the Civil War?), did she also die that day? She sure doesn’t have flashbacks or feel any draw to it or any trepidation about going out in the field where Civil War Scully probably died too.
Who’s driving?
I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, but probably Mulder.
Adventuring rules
If you’re going to do past lives in your scenario, know what the fuck you’re doing. This is less an adventuring rule as roleplaying one.
