OK, so clearly Scully is not OK. This case, more than any of the others she's worked since 'Ascension' and 'One Breath' definitely got to her, and we even got to see some of her own flashbacks that were triggered during her abduction, though we don't necessarily know how reliable those flashbacks are.
But almost more importantly, the show is back to doing what it does best, which is telling creepy and unsettling stories. And in this episode, it did that extremely well.
So first of all, I found it hilarious that I never even considered that I had heard the name Scully before, not just in the context of The X-Files, but the baseball announcer, Vin Scully, who is legendary. As a baseball fan, I'm kind of surprised I had never made that connection. (There is also a former major league pitcher named Mark Mulder, who is now an analyst on Baseball Tonight, and I really think he should pair up with Vin Scully for Dodgers broadcasts, just because.)
Anyway. The case in this episode is immensely disturbing, and escalates very quickly from being creepy and gross to being horrifyingly unsettling.
We're treated to the calm and collected but really obsessive and disturbed character of Donnie Pfaster. And he starts right out by defiling a young girl's corpse by cutting off some of her hair (and in the process, turning her hair into the hair of a completely different actress, wtf?) and thankfully being sacked immediately. Though Mulder later explains why he wasn't likely reported to the police, which is unfortunate.
One of the things, at least regarding the case, that makes this such a brilliant episode is that it's not paranormal at all. Donnie Pfaster is just a very sick person. Not infected by alien DNA or controlled by a resurrected villain or having his visions manipulated by a sleepless person. Just human, and completely detached from reality.
It wasn't until they brought up his mother that I got a Norman Bates vibe, though in hindsight it seemed obvious. Though these 45 minutes were much more disturbing and creepy than even Psycho was, but that may be because the emotional impact was higher due to characters we've come to like being affected.
Donnie's cold, calculating manner is probably the most disturbing part of this episode, and like in a lot of other episodes, I felt a very visceral unease watching his scenes. And I think at least part of that is that we're also very specifically shown Scully's reactions. We're given this story primarily through her eyes.
She's clearly already unnerved when they reach the disturbed grave at the very beginning, which I initially found a little odd. She's a doctor, so she's seen bodies before, and even this season she's performed autopsies on some particularly unusual corpses. And she's an FBI agent, so I would think she could have become desensitised to a lot of the horrible things humans do to each other.
Which means there's something else going on.
And then she freaks out again when looking at the crime scene pictures, and again at the crime scene investigating the first murder, in which the woman's hair and fingernails, and parts of her fingers, were brutally removed. Really, I don't blame her. I'd be halfway across Wisconsin the next day if I were her. But she stays and then has trouble with the autopsy.
I suppose that having a near-death experience can make a person more sensitive to death and dying in others, so I believe this is suitably written for Scully, and amazingly acted by Gillian Anderson. She does a great job with Scully's fear and doubt in this episode.
More of this fear is revealed in her dream, where we see a flash of someone who looks distinctly non-human. But again, none of this is confirmed, so it could be a faulty or planted memory, much like Duane Barry's may have been. In either case, she lies to Mulder about it (and he sees right through it - Scully, the guy's a trained psychologist and profiler, he probably knows you're lying, because you still look deeply uncomfortable). Fortunately, Mulder appears to understand what she's going through and agrees that she can do more for the case if she returns to Washington.
The very last thing she needs, of course, is to be run off the road, tied up, and abducted by the increasingly violent Pfaster. Well, OK, that's the last thing anyone needs. But it triggers something in Scully's memories about her abduction, which freaks her out even further, and wow, more acting awards to Gillian Anderson, please, yes?
But thankfully, she's clever and strong and finds a way to fight back physically, enough to hold off Donnie until reinforcements arrive, but after the struggle she finds herself unable to fight back her emotional response to this ordeal and her abduction by Duane Barry. This has not been a good month for her, and despite telling Mulder she's fine, she finally breaks down and lets him know she's not.
Mulder is really the only person who truly gets her, and who understands better than anyone else what she's been through. And it's not just academic in his case, like it was with the therapist. He may be a trained profiler, but here, at the end of the episode, he's showing his humanity and deep caring for Scully.
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