The X-Files Season 7, Episode 17: all things

What can I say about 'all things'? I thought this was really good when I first watched it, and the more I let it sink in, the more amazing it becomes.

A character study of Scully by Gillian Anderson. It really doesn't get better than this.

Also, she ships Mulder/Scully.

For having never directed anything before, Gillian Anderson did a pretty amazing job on this. The way the scenes are framed; the way time slows down; the fact that pretty much every scene had some object moving with a beat - it was all very symbolic, but also very beautiful and also rather sad.

I won't call Scully's experience a mid-life crisis - she's only 36 - but it's more like those moments that people can have at any age where you wonder if everything in your life has been leading to a certain point or you start to question where you are and what you're doing with your short time on earth.

In Scully's case, it all comes down to a series of coincidences. After a small hospital mixup and a blatant violation of HIPAA, Scully realises a former teacher, and apparently former lover, is in town. And it's kind of downhill from there, except Scully clearly makes the most of it, and accepts that her life has changed since she and Dr Waterston last saw each other.

It was clear they had some sort of history from the fact that his daughter knew Scully and quite visibly did not like her - I even commented that I expected when she left the room, she would deliberately smack her shoulder into Scully's as she passed - but it wasn't until Scully addressed Waterston by his first name that I knew there was something more to the story. I've read a bit about this episode and its origins, and apparently Gillian Anderson wanted to explicitly state that Scully did not have an affair with Dr Waterston, but came close and that was why she left. Instead, I feel like the episode is pretty clear that they actually were involved, and she broke it off and left, but his family found out and blamed her anyway.

I tend to really enjoy episodes of television shows that break the mold of the show. Something artistic that explores a character or an event, but doesn't necessarily have much in the way of plot. My favourite episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is 'Restless', and in a lot of ways, 'all things' reminded me of that episode. It also reminded me of Angel's 'Soul Purpose'. Here, Scully isn't necessarily trying to find meaning or purpose in her life, but stumbles upon an old memory and is led to wonder if she may have missed out on something.

This wasn't an X-File - in fact, there wasn't even a case - and there wasn't really any sort of plot. It was just a journey for Scully, and by the end of it, which we got to see at the beginning of the episode, I think it's safe to say she had realised what she was missing out on and what she wanted in her life.

And that was a relationship with Mulder beyond their professional relationship and beyond even just the friendship they had developed over the first six seasons or so. And it's not even that she was even explicitly missing this in her life, so much that I think she realised she had been holding back and not pursuing Mulder when this was something they clearly both wanted but never acted on, and there was really no reason now not to take the next step.

She realised both in seeing what she may have given up with Dr Waterston and that he's possibly close to death, especially having had a near-death experience at the hospital while she was there (not to mention her own near-death experience while driving and talking on a cell phone - see, even thirteen years ago that was a bad idea!) there's no time to waste in life being unhappy with what you don't have. Live your life with what you do have, and don't have any regrets.

If only that advice were actually easy to follow.

Apparently most critics hated this episode. They thought the lack of a plot was a problem and that the apparent randomness made the whole thing pointless. But I think the randomness and coincidence were exactly the point. Scully's feeling aimless and this is where her life is taking her. It makes perfect sense to me, it's beautifully shot, and it's a Mulder/Scully shipper's dream come true.