Quagmire

"How much you're like Ahab - You're so consumed by your personal 
vengeance against life whether it be its inherent cruelties or 
its mysteries that everything takes on a warped significance to 
fit your megalomaniacal cosmology."

"Scully, are you coming on to me?"

Note to Mr. Carter: Kim Newton is a keeper. Easily and hands 
down this season's best new writer. From the haunting and 
introspective "Revelations" to this darkly humorous allegorical 
character piece of an X-File, she penned two winners for the 
season - not bad at all for an X-Files rookie as we have seen 
this season. This episode had so much going for it - a mysterious
monster with a rather impressive body count and some much cherished 
moments between our agents.

Some interesting themes in this one: survival of the fittest, 
you can't turn your back on nature, and, of course, the great 
Moby Dick analogy. I was frankly pleasantly shocked at how much 
time in the episode was actually devoted to character development 
and Mulder and Scully talking about life, the universe and 
everything. (Or in this case life, quests, and cannibalism).
For those of us who love the X-Files for its characters and not 
its monsters the conversation on the rock makes this episode a 
classic. Actually the character interplay and acting by Anderson 
and Duchovny were top notch throughout. I laughed many times in 
this hour - not the laugh of a incredibly odd Darin Morgan episode, 
but rather a delighted chuckle at Mulder and Scully being just so, 
well, Mulder and Scully. For a change Mulder and Scully even laughed 
and smiled a bit too.

Ah QueeQueg, we hardly knew ye. I knew it was a bad sign when we 
saw the little fluff ball in the back seat. After all, the writers 
seem to take some sort of perverse pleasure in killing off things 
Scully cares about. Poor QueeQueg? Heck, poor Scully, now even her 
dog is dead. When Mulder said "Did you really have to bring that 
thing" I knew the dog was fish bait. Too bad, little plot device, 
uh, QueeQueg, was fun. We did learn from him that the lethal Scully 
look apparently only works on humans and not in the rest of the
animal kingdom. So when QueeQueg bites it, or rather it bites 
QueeQueg we get a bit of Scullyangst as she mumbles "Que.." and 
gets that same despondent look on her face that she had when they 
found Bruckman dead. Once again the insensitive clod award goes to 
our man Mulder who offers a distraught Scully a simple "Sorry about 
Queequeg" before launching forward. Say, is there an important FAX 
coming in? At least he did offer to walk the dog with her earlier, 
but hey, she's Scully, she's "fine", and she's packing.

This was one of those X-Files where the character lines were clear. 
To Scully the lake monster is so clearly "Oh tell me you're not 
serious" ludicrous that she doesn't even bother to hide her disdain 
for the theory as Mulder pursues with his boyish enthusiasm his 
great white whale. She's not alone in her opinion as first Dr. 
Farraday, and then the sheriff squash and ridicule Mulder's theories 
while she looks on showing us just how many faces Gillian Anderson 
can make to speak for Scully when she has no lines.

So, if you were alone on a rock in a "here be monsters" section 
of a lake what would you talk about? Mulder and Scully have never 
had great luck in the big outdoors and this was no exception, after 
all, as Scully (who mind you is not the paranoid one) says 
"everything is out to get you". They spend their evening drawing 
their guns on ducks and having an X-Files sort of heart to heart: 
"That was him Scully, that was Big Blue." "So what if it was." 
Mulder seems genuinely hurt when he asks Scully about his reasons 
for his quest being legitimate and she responds that she sometimes 
can't figure them out. Their conversation is odd and familiar at 
the same time moving from cannibalism and Scully's weight loss 
(what a classic look she gave him there when realizing the joke 
behind his compliment) to Moby Dick theories to my new all time 
favorite Mulder story - why I wish I had a peg leg. Then ah, the
humiliation as they realize they were trapped but a stone's throw 
from the shore.

Scully spends a lot of time this episode coming up with these big 
time personal insights into Mulder and his impossible obsessions 
that she believes will leave him dead along with everyone else he 
brings with him, but she never really turns that light on herself. 
If Mulder is all these things, what does that say about her? He 
isn't out there on that rock by himself. She's the one who lets 
him wake her up on a Saturday morning telling her to be ready in 
five minutes and actually is ready to go in five minutes. What 
is *she* hoping to accomplish? Does she follow Mulder with her 
dogged loyalty despite her personal beliefs because she too wants 
to believe? Is she an action junkie and adventures with Mulder fill 
that need? Or, does she simply care too much about Mulder, thinking 
that somehow if she's there with him Mulder won't end up dead or 
turn into that man "listening only to himself hoping to catch a 
glimpse of the truth for who knows what reason." I'm not even 
going to go into the possible ramifications of Scully thinking 
Mulder is like Ahab, a name she used for her father as well.

One thing that has always struck me as a very interesting dichotomy 
about Mulder is that despite his awe of and quest for the unknown 
his fears always seem to get the best of him when confronted with 
the unknown. He wants to see, to discover, this "Big Blue" and yet 
his gun is always out. I am reminded of a similar occurrence in 
"Little Green Men" where when Mulder finally sees alien life he 
attempts to fire his gun at the creature. So, he slew his monster 
this time without a peg leg to show for it.

Random Musings
-------------------------

-Retread alert. I'm sure everyone but Mulder recognized the 
stoned frog licking teens from "War of the Coprophages" as they 
were playing the exact same characters and even using the same 
dialog "swinging the doors of perception wide open". Dr. Farraday 
was an escapee from "Our Town" as well.

-Some fun frog work in this one. Nice to see the frogs are 
getting some work again as bugs seemed to be getting all the 
primo guest spots this season. I liked the teaser shot with the 
hand going under as a frog hopped off. Plus any excuse to hear 
the line "A frog holocaust is currently being executed" is worth 
it.

-Well, at least they had our dynamic duo in sensible clothes for 
this one. Not a high heel in sight and only one tie. 

-So, our photographer Ansel (too good a name for such a poor 
tooth photographer), was I the only one who thought he must 
be some distant cousin of Frohike. He stopped shooting pictures 
of the lake and started snapping them at Scully as soon as she 
arrived on the scene. Show us your bobbers indeed.

-Apparently Scully's recent spate of gun handling woes has 
prepared her for this leash dropping debacle. She's constantly 
jerked around by that small ball of fur. She should know that 
you've gotta watch out for those little redheads, they're pretty 
feisty.

-Fun moment: They see the duck, Scully pouts, Mulder is still 
tempted to fire, she shoves him.

-Only Scully would give such a scientific answer to the question 
of cannibalism. One really wonders how her mind works sometimes.

Autumn
"Poor QueeQueg"