The X-Files Season 6, Episode 10: Tithonus

It is a testament to the great writing of this series that they can recycle ideas and turn them into a pretty spectacular episode.

'Tithonus' seemed to be maybe part 'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose', part 'Unruhe', and part 'Elegy', but was still its own episode with its own feel and its own amazing story. This season is really shaping up to be one of the best so far.

To get it out of the way a bit, I'll first talk about how awful Kersh is. He knows that separating Mulder and Scully is exactly what neither of them wants, but similarly putting them on desk duty doing background checks is what neither of them wants. Especially Mulder, though he he clearly says that quitting would only make too many people very happy.

I do not like this guy and I definitely do not trust him. He has an agenda, and it does not align with what the FBI is supposed to be for. He's actually getting in the way of finding the truth and achieving justice by taking two great agents off the job. So I'm convinced he's taking his orders from someone other than the director of the FBI. Or maybe he was before and has now been somehow placed in this position. Maybe he's what Krycek could have become if he hadn't made it so obvious so early that he was a villain.

I liked that Mulder was sneakily looking in on the case from afar, and that eventually even Scully agreed it was an X-File. Despite what the rest of the FBI thinks, Mulder really is good at his job, and he is as much as asset to Scully as she is to him. Agent Ritter notices their connection and because of his distrust of Mulder, immediately becomes suspicious of Scully, which almost gets him in huge trouble when he shoots her through Fellig.

In fact, Ritter was a pretty terrible agent. A little trigger happy, and too quick to disbelieve certain possibilities - if you're investigating something, shouldn't you only rule out a possibility when you can actually disprove it or somehow show that it can't have had anything to do with the case? I liked the implication of Mulder's threat to him at the end. If Scully had died, Ritter wouldn't have got the chance to be suspended or tried or anything, because I'm pretty sure Mulder would have killed him.

The story, especially the part where Scully went with Fellig to see the next death, reminded me a lot of the various stories where a character, attempting to avoid a prophesied fate, runs right into it. In this case, Scully thinks she has saved a woman only to watch helplessly as she is hit by a truck. I've talked about it before, but the idea of fate is kind of a tricky one. I don't believe in it, but even in the context of a show like this, how do we know that what we're seeing or hearing is the truth?

For example, when Clyde Bruckman told Scully that she didn't die, was that the truth? It now seems to be, at least for the time being (yeah, vague, I know, but that's kind of how prophecy works, right?) Fellig was able to achieve the death he sought by taking Scully's place, and in the process, he not only saved her, but based on what he said about his experience with the yellow fever, probably passed on his ability to her.

But he wasn't truly immortal, was he? He only died in a situation where he was given the opportunity to choose death, and I believe Scully will be able to do the same. In her work, she comes into contact with death so frequently, she may have ample opportunity to end her own life if she chooses. I don't think she'll seek it out the way he did - at least not yet. She's still only 35 years old and as much as she's accepted her mortality in the past, she pretty explicitly said in this episode that she's not only not ready to die, but that she wouldn't mind being immortal. At some point, though, maybe she'll get bored with it. (Really, my issue with immortality is not so much boredom, but what if, say, you get trapped in a metal box at the bottom of the ocean or something?)

And so, that's how I think immortality works best. Or would if it were possible in the first place. An immortal should be able to choose to die, but cannot otherwise be killed by another force. I don't necessarily agree with Fellig that seventy-five years is enough, but his point about love is a good one - would it be worth it if you knew that the other person's time was finite and you would definitely lose them? However, Scully's point is also well taken - there's so much to learn and discover, so many new things to experience, new people to meet. That's kind of my view of it, too. We are never 'complete' as people. The moment a person stops growing is the moment of their death. Otherwise, there's always some new experience to be had.

So yes, I think it's possible Scully is semi-immortal, or mortal by choice. We'll see if that's addressed again at some point in the future.

Also, they really need to stop hiring actresses who look like Gillian Anderson. The woman at the beginning who died in the elevator crash looked a lot like her and it was kind of jarring.