the Blessing Way

Blech, I feel like I've been on my own personal summer hiatus between seasons. Only, I've been watching ahead and not blogging. Watch me struggle to catch up.

You know this is one of only two episodes so far that M & S haven't shared a scene. That said, the episode is all about visitation.

The Navajo ceremony is neat, but they take too much time with his recovery for me. Also, this first scene pisses me off:



Scully, he's right there, just look for him!!!!!

Instead she goes home all defeated, telling everyone that Mulder "to the best of her knowledge" is dead. Even though she clearly doesn't buy it, she's not sure what else to make of the situation. She says it but she sure doesn't feel it.

When she finally gets back she's in even more trouble at work than when she left, and is suspended without pay or benefits. I'm sure she must have seen this coming; she has been disobeying orders left right and centre lately.



She seethes quietly and confronts Skinner, essentially accusing him of allowing this to happen, and that the investigation into Mulder/Mr.Mulder's deaths, and the poisoning of Mulder's water will be nothing more than an exercise.

Scully fumes her way down to their office; she reaches into the drawer, having affixed the digital tape out of sight, on the top of the drawer. She thought she and Mulder were being clever but they weren't; the tape is gone.



When next we see her, she arrives barefoot at her mother's door, finally letting her emotions get to her. Her job is in jeopardy and her partner is gone. Mrs Scully opens the door and is surprised to see her.



Mrs SCULLY: What did you do with your shoes?
S: They, uh, they started to give me blisters s, so...
Mrs SCULLY: You walked here at this time of night?

But he's not dead; not quite. His new Navajo friends find him and perform a ceremony to save him. It takes all freaking episode but it works.



Frohike shops up drunk at Scully's door. He's a wreck over Mulder's suspected death too, so Scully invites him in for coffee.

S: How much have you had to drink?
FROHIKE: (holding up an almost empty bottle) Do you recycle?



The talk about Mulder, and Scully being passed his torch. They talk about Scully being out of a job. And how those bastards get away with murder.

Mulder is visited by friends too. Deep Throat's speech is beautifully moving, like he's reciting Poe.



DT: I was first struck by the absence of time, having depended on it so completely as a measure of myself and my life. Moving backwards into the perpetual night that consumes purpose and deed, all passion and will. I come to you, old friend, with the dull clarity of the dead not to beckon you but to feel the fire and intensity that still live in you... and the heavy weight of your burdens which I had once borne. There is truth here, old friend, if that's all you seek but there's no justice or judgment without which truth is a vast, dead hollow. Go back. Do not look into the abyss or let the abyss look into you. Awaken the sleep of reason and fight the monsters within and without.

Mulder's father appears to him, saying " I did not dare hope to see you so soon ". Mulder asks him if Samantha is there among the dead too. He tells him 'no'. Is he lying? Or more likely, is Mulder imagining this entire encounter with the afterlife? Or maybe she really isn't there, but is stuck in some walk-in limbo.

Scully visits Skinner later on. She has to go through the public entrance and must pass through a metal detector, which goes off. Curious. Not as curious as, say, the fact that she isn't wearing her necklace for the first time since Tooms. Maybe the events of the past few days have left her feeling less than religious... Maybe she's such a mess that she just forgot to put it on in the morning. I do that with my deodorant all the time.

This is how she discovers the little metal implant in her neck. Just like Duane Barry's, and just like a group of women we will meet later in the season.



Skinner is still playing puppet to CSM, who is listening and directing when Scully comes by with the Thinker's obituary. She thinks it can help prove Mulder was not guilty of murdering his father, but Skinner rips it up and dismisses it as evidence.

SKINNER: You want to bring me a smoking gun, Scully? You bring me this tape. Otherwise, I would ask you to go home, sit tight and let us do our job.



The only evidence Skinner is interested in obtaining is the kind that CSM is demanding; the kind that will get CSM out of the doghouse with his shady group.

Scully's chip is removed but not identified. She shows it to her sister, who insists Scully undergo regression hypnosis. In addition to Melissa's concern over this very serious invasion of Scully's body, Melissa is adamant about Scully shutting herself off to the truth.

Melissa: You're carrying so much grief and fear that you can't see you, you've built up these walls around your true feelings and the memory of what really happened.



Melissa's psychic. Plus she was there. Interestingly enough, she manages to have very similar scenes with Scully and Mulder in these few episodes she's been in. Neither of them want to hear what she has to say, partly because it's kind of annoying... but also because we know and they know that they don't want to face their own personal truths.

But the sisters love each other despite their differences, and Scully agree to it. Oh, that awful denim shirt she's wearing? It's so big and ugly I just have to pretend that it's Mulder's...

Her hypnosis doesn't go too well for her (and notice she's still not wearing her necklace). She recalls the procedure and the noise, and how powerless she was. But she's not ready to face it yet. I don't know that she ever will be.



When she gets home, things are no better, because she notices Skinner sneaking out of her apartment! OK seriously, Skinner you are not winning her over. Scully has really never been given a reason to trust him, has she?

That night Scully dreams about Mulder. This may or may not be unusual in itself, but in this case, Mulder is actually visiting her from an astral plane. (hot?) He talks about them being bound together by truth, and how he's come back from the dead to return to her.



MULDER: I have been on the bridge that spans two worlds, the link between all souls by which we cross into our own true nature. You were here today, looking for truth that was taken from you, a truth that was never to be spoken but which now binds us together in dangerous purpose. I have returned from the dead to continue with you... but I fear that this danger is now close at hand... that I may be too late.

This danger he is referring to is very real; Krycek and the other hitman come after Scully in her apartment, but due to a confusion on everyone's part, Scully's on her way to her sisters when Melissa shows up at her place, and is killed in her place.

Mulder has come out of his state, and is being attended to by the Navajo group. The give him sunflower seeds, apparently having asked for them in the worst moments of his fever!



Scully visits Mrs.Mulder at Bill's funeral. With her ex husband dead and her son missing, she has had a lot to deal with, but Scully's vision has her convinced that Mulder is alive and is happy to bring Tina the good news. This is the first time they meet.



Lurking in the background is my very favourite villain, Well-Manicured Man. I am constantly amazed by how up front he is with both agents.

WMM: I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. You think the son is still alive?
S: Who are you?
WMM: I'm a member of a kind of consortium. We represent certain global interests.
S: What kind of interests?
WMM: Interests that would be extremely threatened by the digital tape that you are no longer in possession of.
S: (pause) Threatened enough to murder?
WMM: (as if that was the silliest question) Oh, my, yes.

He also has a warning for her.

WMM: They'll kill you one of two ways. They'll send someone, possibly two men. They'll kill you in your home or in the garage with an unregistered weapon which will be left at the scene. Using false documents supplied by associates of mine, they'll be out of the country in less than two hours.
S: You said there were two ways.
WMM: Yes. He or she will be someone close to you. Someone you trust. They'll arrange a meeting or come to your house unexpectedly. Do you have someplace else you might stay?

S: Why are you protecting me?
WMM: I feel my colleagues are acting... impulsively and your death will draw unnecessary attention to our group.
S: You're not protecting me, you're protecting yourself.
WMM: Why should that surprise you? Motives are rarely unselfish.



WMM helps them out so many times, however, that I start to wonder if there is more to it than just PR damage control. I am thinking of the movie, in particular, where he actually gives up his life to help Mulder save Scully.

He is just such an unlikely villain. So reasonable. Almost an anti hero.

S: What kind of business are you in?
WMM: We predict the future and the best way to predict the future is to invent it.


After Bill Mulder's funeral, Mrs Mulder comes home and looks at old pictures of Mulder when he was a boy. She is so thrilled when she turns around to find her son actually standing in her living room.



As will often be the case, Mulder is tender with his mom at first, but then gets right down to the business of asking his mother about their dark past, and she gets down the business of pretending it was too long ago to remember. As usual, he loses patience with her act, especially when he comes across a photo of his dad with Deep Throat and WMM.

Mulder will have to put the pieces together himself, but he knows he is one step closer to understanding what happened to his sister.

Meanwhile, Scully is intercepted by Skinner on the way to Melissa's house. When in doubt, head to Mulder's place, right? That seems to be where Scully always ends up.

She unlocks the door and lets Skinner enter first... so she can pull a gun on him! There are going to send someone she knows, right? And Skinner has been acting more than suspicious lately; and it's not like Scully's ever trusted him anyway. Now she bosses him around, sits him on the couch and tells him she knows whose errand boy he is.

S: You got the rest of your life to give me answers.

Kick ass!! But Skinner's got a surprise.



SKINNER: I didn't come here to kill you. I came here to give you something. I've got the digital tape.
S: You're lying.
SKINNER: I've got it in my pocket. I took it out of Mulder's desk.

Suddenly there is someone at the door. They want to get in but they can't. And suddenly... Skinner's got his gun on Scully.

We have a stand off.