And here's the real continuation of Scully's cancer storyline started in 'Leonard Betts'. And it's about as depressing as you'd expect.
About two minutes into this episode, I remembered the episode, 'Nisei', in which it was revealed that other women who had been abducted and had implants inserted and later removed were all dying of cancer, and I connected Scully to that group. Of course, what we learn later about that group is extremely scary, considering Scully is now in about the same position they were a year ago.
I do not want anything bad to happen to Scully. She has been through more than enough for one ... ever. Why must the writers insist on torturing her (and therefore us) with these new and exciting horrors? Cancer is very real. There's no X-File for it, no paranormal activity, no aliens. It's just something awful a complex living organism can do to itself.
OK, clearly not in this case. I'm pretty sure here this isn't one of those random cancers that just happens to form, given what we know of the MUFON members and Scully's abduction experience. Whether there were aliens involved or not really doesn't matter at this point.
Besides, Mulder will take care of that.
I normally say I think the best episodes are those with the best interactions between Mulder and Scully, but they were mostly separated for this one and the previous one, and they turned out to be two brilliant episodes.
Mulder is a 'fixer'. He refuses to accept that Scully's cancer is more or less untreatable. Right now, he's in denial - Scully already had her denial and anger and maybe a little bargaining in 'Never Again' (even though she wasn't even supposed to know she had cancer then). Now she's reached depression and acceptance, but Mulder is still in denial. (Skinner can take care of the bargaining, right?)
Mulder spends the episode trying to figure out what happened to Scully and why, and ends up discovering some very disturbing things. Like that Scully's ova have been harvested, presumably to help build ... I almost said 'clone army'. But I guess the point is to be able to use her DNA and others to make more clones? This genetic manipulation thing is kind of creepy. Well, extremely creepy, really.
And of course the Death Eaters are behind it. Of course! I'm still not entirely sure about Skinner, because his behaviour with respect to the Cancer Man has been very inconsistent throughout the series. Sometimes he wants to deal; sometimes he just does what he's told. And the Cancer Man is a dick in this episode. Well, more than usual. But he seems willing to bargain, and we know he has access to certain alien beings who have the ability to perform cures that are, to the human eye, no different from magic.
Perhaps that's how Scully will be cured in the end.
And speaking of Scully...
At the beginning of this episode, Scully was not in a good place. She finally had to tell other people about what she discovered two episodes earlier, and even as a doctor herself with more knowledge about cancer and the human body than most, she's still scared of this thing. The tumour is inoperable and barely even treatable. It's essentially a death sentence.
And her mother, who has lost her husband and one of her daughters in the past four years, and does not want to lose Dana, is beside herself with anger that she wasn't immediately informed, which I understand, but still, Dana is an adult and she is dealing with this in her own way. She was probably hoping she wouldn't have to tell anyone, at least at first.
Now, given what we learned about Dr Scanlon, it's possible that the premature deaths of the other women he was treating were not entirely from the cancer itself, but an intentional result from something he was doing.
Scully's life was threatened before, though, back in season 2. Then season 3 gave us the mysterious Clyde Bruckman, who seems to think that Scully doesn't actually die (though perhaps he's both right and wrong on an as yet unforeseen technicality - more on that in a minute), and now back to the depressing horror that Scully might not make it.
Since this is a science fiction/fantasy kind of show, I could see it being a rare case, like Buffy in which a character can die and still recover from it. So even having five seasons and two movies remaining doesn't necessarily guarantee that the cancer will not kill Scully.
Either way, something has to happen, and it may be resolved this season and it may not, but either way, I do know that she sticks around for a while, presumably the entire rest of the series - the ratings would surely plummet if either Scully or Mulder left, since the show is so heavily dependent on their interactions, so I can be pretty sure that's not going to happen, just like I knew Mulder wouldn't actually die at the end of season 2.
And then there was that scene.
The scene at the end where Mulder kissed Scully on her forehead, and then she looked up at him, maybe five inches from his face, I could have sworn they were about to kiss and then NO. Why must the writers do this to us? I'm not even that hardcore a Mulder/Scully shipper but dammit, I WANTED THIS. I figured this kind of experience would be the perfect thing to bring them closer together - and it did, but not that close. Not yet.
But now I suspect it's only a matter of time.
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