The X Files - Beyond the Sea

At the very end, when it appears something extraordinary not so easily scientifically explained happens to Scully, Mulder asks her, when she attempts to deduce how a serial killer named Boggs (Brad Dourif, compelling and spellbinding as always, even if this character/performance echoes his Gemini killer in The Exorcist: Legion), why she can’t believe despite the evidence that was produced that might be rightfully considered. Scully admits she’s afraid. Mulder has seen Scully at her most vulnerable, as has Boggs, and it appears he will exploit her belief in his psychic powers to save himself from the “chamber”. Mulder was responsible for putting Boggs on death row through his amazing profiling abilities (the crime division, I can only imagine, miss Mulder), and he is convinced that maybe Boggs had a partner helping him commit his crimes. That partner has kidnapped a couple, while pretending to be a cop, holding them hostage in some warehouse somewhere. Boggs isn’t claiming to be this guy’s partner; instead, he is insisting the first trip to chamber (halted by executive stay) caused him to inherit psychic abilities. Boggs insists he can see the dead and the dead can speak through him. He can “channel” and see locations where the kidnapper has the hostages held. What stops Scully in her tracks is a song that was played at her dad’s funeral, harmonized by Boggs, even calling her Starbuck (daddy’s nickname for her). Coming right out of her father’s funeral, Scully is emotionally fragile and Mulder (rightfully and sympathetically) asks her if working on a new case so soon afterward is such a good idea. She just wants to work and Mulder isn’t about to deny her a reason to take her mind (or attempt to) off of such a painful loss. Then she encounters Boggs and everything changes.

The opening of the episode is quite haunting. During Christmas, one night, Scully’s parents have been over her house. They return home, with Scully awakening from sleep to find her father in a chair mumbling something inaudibly. What did her daddy say? Boggs claims he knows…but he isn’t telling until he gets his sentence committed to life in prison. So Scully debates if she should give him the pleasure. How bad does she want to know? She does attempt to get his sentence changed, but that the authority says that Boggs is due the chamber and will receive his overdue punishment. She does convince Boggs to give up some details, with him even telling her to look out for “the devil”. Just her attempt to get him out of the chamber seemed like reason enough to help Scully. Sure enough, Scully finds a warehouse and the killer, avoiding a crossing that is rigid with a wall painted with the face of a blue devil. The killer runs across the crossing, collapsing through to the floor below. Boggs gave up the killer and assisted in keeping Scully from dying. In a prior attempted arrest, Boggs tells Mulder to avoid a white cross as certain it will be covered by his blood. Mulder doesn’t pay Boggs much mind but he does get shot near a white cross, a detail Scully notices. Mulder up in a hospital bed with Scully having to follow Boggs…and this was initially his case.

Why do I truly have such regard for this episode? Well, besides it really further building upon Scully’s character, allowing us to see her vulnerability and witness her recovery from this painful experience, Mulder’s empathy—the way his hand cuffs the side of her face, acknowledging her sorrow and affectionately letting her know he really cares about her—towards her continues to illustrate that these two are more than partners…they’re friends. Through arguments about believing or not believing, skepticism and open-mindedness, these two agents debate and disagree but never fail to respect each other. And their journey together, through a lot of loss and disappointment (my write-ups often reiterate this over and over again), calls upon them to see through the disagreements and opposing viewpoints to find common ground. What this episode is recognized for is Scully and Mulder swapping “roles”, so to speak. Mulder doesn’t buy Boggs’ “act” while Scully, despite her words to the contrary, does. Mulder continues, even when on the hospital bed, to warn Scully not to trust Boggs. Boggs notices Scully’s face, and that she realizes he’s right about her dad. She even sees her dad’s face in place of Boggs’ further jolting her.

Gillian Anderson, as the first season continued, was allowed to develop her character in ways beyond just this medical genius always questioning any theory that Mulder might consider which wasn’t necessarily compatible with her scientific perception. And when that perception is challenged, Scully is moved somewhat from her often staunch position. And Mulder—at the very end, when Scully returns to that position of questioning whether or not Boggs truly had anything at all—perhaps shifting from his stance towards Boggs, just engaging Scully with just why she’d once again try and dismiss all that she had experienced. Through it all, Scully was indeed confronted with circumstances that come against her armor and put a chink in it. Mulder wasn’t there to point a finger at it, though. That is not who he is. And I am glad he isn’t like that.

Before ending this expansive piece, I had to acknowledge how good Dourif is. I can go on and on about the guy, but I will just keep it short. The way he theatrically goes into “channel mode”, as if his entire being is alternating between Boggs and the spirit that might wish to occupy his “space” is quite a dynamic bit of acting. He makes it look even painful and emotionally wrenching. When Mulder pulls a trick on him with a piece of a Knicks jersey after one of Boggs’ “channels”, the details he describes still add up to finding the kidnapper. Boggs seeing dead people and telling Scully about the agony of the chamber experience. Dourif, when given something of value, can dominate the scene (s) provided to him. This episode does give him meat on the bone and Dourif tears into it.

I don't want to finish without speaking on what also made this special to me. I lost my father at a young age so I could relate to Scully's pain. The sudden loss and her mother's recollection of when the husband proposed to her. "He was your father." That fear by Scully that he was disappointed in her for choosing the FBI, and Mulder asking her if perhaps she should "step back"; her love for the FBI and the job won't accept that. In a sense, Mulder's journey for the truth has given her own career a unique path she didn't expect.