Skin-man calls Mulder from a bubble bath. Film at eleven.
OK, this was kind of an amazing episode. Remember what I said about deconstruction way back in season three when I watched 'Jose Chung's From Outer Space'? Yeah, I kind of love it.
But this was different from Jose Chung in that instead of being given an unreliable narrator, it was told from the real and very reliable point of view of Mulder and Scully, and only then grotesquely transformed into what at least Mulder thought was a terrible movie.
I think this post is going to have to take a different form, because plot-wise, there's not really much here. The episode is full of references and in-jokes and just generally awesome comedy.
Oh yeah, and it was written by David Duchovny, which means he ships Mulder/Scully also. Note to other writers of the show, because I can totally influence a show that's already been written and aired over a decade ago: both your main stars want their characters to get together with each other. DO IT. DO IT NOW.
The whole time I watched this, I pretty much kept saying, out loud, "What are we watching?! What is this episode?" I sometimes do that with the bad ones, but this was so good and so bizarre I was just in amused awe the whole time.
So what were all the things I loved about 'Hollywood A.D.'? Mostly the bits that take place in the final ten minutes after Mulder and Scully go to L.A.
Scully running. I think it's hilarious that this was even a Thing in the episode, but that Téa Leoni asked Scully how she was able to run in her shoes, and then the very clompy demonstration takes place in the background while Mulder is talking to Garry Shandling is completely hilarious. It's so over the top and bizarre, but also so simple. She wears heels. She runs. And even though she isn't very visible in the foreground, she seems so earnest about the whole thing.
The fact that they had Téa Leoni playing Scully in the in-universe movie, when she was married to David Duchovny at the time. I guess David Duchovny doesn't exist in the X-Files universe, though, because really, he'd be the perfect person to play Mulder.
Speaking of fanfiction ideas, I'm pretty sure there was one particular scene in this episode that spawned dozens - no, hundreds of pieces of fanfiction. Yes, what else, but the surely infamous bubble bath scene. We've had occasional split screens and phone conversations before, and we've definitely seen Mulder and Scully talking to each other in relaxed situations before, but this was kind of epic. It was funny enough when Mulder answered the phone and both he and Scully didn't admit to being in the bubble bath, but they seriously took it to another level when Skinner called and stated outright what he was doing.
And the ending was weird, and a bit Mulder/Scully-ish, like so many episodes this season, but it fit with the amusing and strange aspects of the rest of the episode, so I'm not going to question it too much. (Also, I'm glad Mulder walked out of the movie. Just based on the bit we saw in the cold open and the scene at the end, that movie looked terrible.)
I'm also amused that they told Wayne Federman about the bee incident that happened in the X-Files movie, but I suppose that may have come up in his interviews with them. "So, have you kissed before?" "Well, there was that one time, and then a bee stung me and I almost immediately fell unconscious. Worst kiss ever."
I suppose the trip out west wasn't the only thing that happened here. There was a case and while it wasn't particularly interesting (seriously, Wayne Federman, this is the case you wanted to make a movie out of?) it amused me that Cardinal O'Fallon was played by the same actor who played Quentin Travers on Buffy. He's good at playing authority figures of questionable ethics, it seems.
But otherwise, I can't say I remember much about the actual X-File in the episode. It's not the reason I loved the episode, even though it technically took up the most time. I suppose there were amusing elements, like the dancing skeleton and Scully's awkward autopsy moment, but it was clearly just the catalyst to get Mulder and Scully suspended so they would spend more time together socially and take a trip to California.
Still, it was an awesome trip to California, even if they were horrified by the movie that was made out of their lives.
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