The X Files / The Jersey Devil / Notes

 8 million years out of Africa... - Mulder

...and look who's holding the door. - Scully

"The Jersey Devil" was brought to my attention again by a user on the X Files subreddit mentioning how nice it was to see Scully out of the FBI "pants suit" and comfortably civilian, attending a godson's birthday party with lots of 8 year old kids running around. Having an actual life outside the job, that was something the user was glad to see emphasized. As the episode continues, a single father and simple businessman named Rob is recognized as a potential romantic partner for Scully. She even dresses up and goes on a date while Mulder spends the entire episode hanging out in the industrial district with the homeless looking for a cannibal wilderness Neanderthal as the Atlantic City Detective Thompson (Wayne Tippitt) makes it very clear he wants the FBI agent nowhere near his case of a half-eaten homelessman and jurisdiction. Thompson is dead serious and not to be trifled with: he's got a gambling city to keep the money flowing in and no humor for Mulder's "impeding his investigation". Mulder, nonetheless, is wholly dedicated to locating and documenting evidence of a "Jersey Devil", or at least catching proof of a living, breathing version of humans before we "became civilized". Surviving without clothes, living off the land, catching and eating food, existing in the wilderness; this version of us before "evolving" to where we are now. Of course, all throughout the episode, Mulder and Scully talk about how civilized we really are. Mulder, I think, talks about "beasts with big brains", that we have just developed better technological weapons to kill each other. 

But the episode is a fun look, to me, at Scully trying to have something outside the job, outside the FBI. Mulder, Scully tells her good friend, is "obsessed with his work". By the end, though, Scully has the chance to date Rob again, and she chooses to go with Mulder to the Smithsonian to talk about the wilderness woman. I like that this is something the episode points out: Scully chose to join Mulder when she could have went on a date with a guy who has no ties to law enforcement, the government, military, or FBI. This is early in the first season. I appreciate when the series would let us see Scully separate from the job. Mulder, so often, is so intrinsically rooted, claws in, to his pursuit of the extraordinary, his "fringe pursuits" occupying almost all his time. Scully did, though, interrupt Mulder's attentive gaze at a pictorial in a nudie mag...so Mulder obviously finds some time to take his mind of aliens and monsters.

There are times when the FBI goes to places where law enforcement have no interest or patience for "outsiders" interfering with a case/investigation. As we see in cop shows of all types, the FBI is often viewed as interlopers and intruders butting in where they don't belong. Detective Thompson is such a cop. He doesn't like Mulder, wants him out of the way, nowhere to be seen. And Mulder refusing to do that even lands him in jail at one point, with Scully having to come to take him to a restaurant for some chow. Thompson always looks as if he's had his toe stomped on...Mulder is a thorn he wants not only plucked but tosses far, far away.