It’s been awhile since I’ve watched any of my X-Files DVDs, so I was feeling a bit nostalgic for them today. I’m not sure why… possibly because I was noticing how few TV couples I’m rooting for these days. I remember back when I first started watching The X-Files, I thought Mulder and Scully were the perfect for each other. I watched more for their interactions than for the cases. They had such amazing, understated chemistry that it was hard not to imagine them as a couple.
Anyway, One Breath was the eighth episode of the second season, and although it’s pretty widely regarded as a wonderful ep and a fan favorite, I have to say that I appreciate it more for the last five minutes than for the preceding 37. This was filmed at a time when Gillian Anderson had just given birth to her first child, so she wasn’t really a big part of the ep until she woke up from her coma at the end. And as good as Mulder is, it’s just not the same watching him on his own — just as it wasn’t the same watching Scully without Mulder after David Duchovny left the show. The X-Files was never about one character or the other to me. It was about Mulder and Scully together. Take that dynamic away, and the show becomes rather boring.
Anyway, it’s hard to make sense of “One Breath” if you just see it as a standalone because events rely so heavily on “Duane Barry”, “Ascension”, and “3″. I recalled that Scully was abducted by Duane Barry and had tests performed on her, but I didn’t remember the details. Perhaps that affected my enjoyment of “One Breath” this time around. So all I really liked from this ep was the shot of the tombstone at the very beginning. It was made particularly jarring because the sandblaster place had its exterior shutters closed even though it was daytime, giving the whole scene a rather surreal feel. The tombstone said Dana Katherine Scully 1964-1994 Loving Daughter & Friend. “The Spirit is the truth”. I John 5:07 (which is a mistake actually, as that should be John 5:6.)
At the end, I liked how Mulder gave up the chance to question/kill the men who were after him just so he could say goodbye to Scully. That was as clear a demonstration of his love as had been shown in the series to that point, and went far beyond their FBI partnership. Oh, and who could forget the present he bought her: Superstars of the Super Bowls… and her reaction, “I knew there was a reason to live!” Ha!
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