Well, if this isn't 'Revelations', part two. While Mulder has been having a season-long crisis of faith of his own, now Scully gets to have her years long crisis. It's not that she's losing her faith, but it does seem that ever since her abduction in season two, there's been a lot more doubt in her mind about the things she has believed.
And meeting Emily and finding out the truth about her surely did not help.
While this is technically considered a standalone episode, there are certainly elements that tie into the larger series mythology, since much of the case and its investigation relate to Scully's grief over losing her daughter, especially knowing she cannot willingly have children of her own now.
She believes not only that Emily could have been saved, but she projects that onto the otherwise unrelated case she's working, in which young women with severe mental and physical disabilities are killed in the same mysterious way. And Scully feels guilty both for Emily's death and for the victims in 'All Souls'. Like just saving one of them would redeem her, at least in her eyes.
What's also interesting about this race against time story is that in the end, they fail, and the fourth victim is claimed. I'm not going to get into the whole bit about the girls being 'defective' or whatever, because that priest was clearly a douche. Dara's adoptive parents loved her and cared for her, and as much as I'm SO not interested in parenting, I do get the feeling that's really all that matters when it comes to children, not their physical or mental abilities or disabilities.
I don't know the origin of the story the priest told, and for all I know, it was made up for this episode - the priest even says the story is not recognised by the church. But religious mythology or not, these girls were killed, and the problem is there's no real resolution to the mystery. They died and the person who killed them got away.
And I say there's no real resolution primarily because I'm an atheist, and I neither understand nor can appreciate the religious significance of this episode. 'Revelations', at least, had some more universal answers. But here, well, I don't believe in heaven, so the idea of taking damaged souls there makes no sense to me. The existence of angels and demons also is completely foreign to me, so from my perspective, these were four human victims of something.
But I also cannot stand the notion that "everything happens for a reason." I feel like when people say that, or say that "God has a plan," they're just making excuses for their own failures, or at least for their own helplessness. But the idea that people who are dead are in a better place I find kind of repulsive. They're not in a better place. They're nowhere. They don't even exist any more. How is that better?
Maybe it doesn't matter that I can't appreciate that because it obviously matters to Scully, and she does appreciate it and it helps her make peace with herself about Emily.
I still would prefer if the show stayed away from trying to make religious mythology real in the show's universe. It just doesn't work that well, for one, and it aligns too closely with fictional things a lot of people actually think are real. I mean, sure, plenty of people think vampires are real, too, but as far as I know, they're generally laughed at, while for whatever reason, belief in things like angels is considered perfectly rational, despite having no more basis in reality than vampires.
I dunno. Stick to the vampires and aliens, guys. Especially the vampires, because 'Bad Blood' was hilarious.
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