The X Files - Christmas Carol

This, to me, explains so much about Scully in the episode

 I'll just say that Dana Scully is my favorite female television character. I appreciate everything Gillian Anderson gave to her. Her work will exceed far past my life and I truly believe this character will endure for generations to come. "Christmas Carol" is such an example of the beauty that is Dana Scully and Anderson's big dramatic moment one of my favorites of the entire series. It comes about towards the end of the episode, when an adoption agency worker stops by to tell Scully she will be unable to adopt a child named Emily due to her high-stress, long-hours job as a FBI agent. Scully, breaking down and in tears, tells the worker that she has given her job a lot of thought since she had been diagnosed with cancer and fought it bravely, regarding priorities in life. And to her mother, Scully tells her she really hadn't thought about being a mother until the abduction and "what they did to her" had taken away her ability to conceive. This is a weighty episode for the character. You can just feel the absence of both the father and sister when Scully and her mother visit her brother, Bill, and his pregnant wife at Christmas time. Calls come to the house and they would seem to be from Melissa, directed towards the home of a supposed suicide victim, whose adopted daughter, Emily, was enduring a difficult and incurable blood disorder. The detective considers it cut and dry, open-and-shut, but Scully is driven to learn more since there were no hesitation marks and her phone was off the hook when the husband later called the police to report what he found. A needle puncture on the foot, no drugs found during the autopsy (Scully able to conduct it herself), and the husband later considered a suspect since he was involved in Emily continuing her experimental trials with a doctor trying to cure the blood disorder; Scully seems to get closer to the truth. But two curious suits continue to show up at the house of the crime or outside in a car...perhaps they later are responsible for the staged hanging in the husband's jail cell after his arrest.

Blood tests would seem to indicate that Emily is Melissa's daughter, since their DNA is very close. When Scully learns that her own DNA matches Emily, that sets up the next part, "Emily". Scully is told by the adoption agency worker that Emily is a special needs child who will need a great deal of attention and care. So this episode sets up the possibility that Scully will leave the FBI and be a mom.

Experiencing memories of a rabbit found in a box dead and a fight with her brother, Melissa speaking to Scully in a dream in front of an open fireplace as a Christmas tree shines, and Scully and Melissa as kids gathering at the tree on Christmas Day, the presence of the holiday season is very well established even as the story continues to carry Scully away to this situation with Emily. To give Scully her own big arc outside of her work with Mulder and the X-Files, I consider a big deal. It gives Anderson some real meat to sink her acting teeth into, and she just kills it. I'm in tears as Scully states her case to the adoption caseworker, as she considers this new journey as a mother. The twist at the end that Scully could be Emily's mother just really creates this, "Huh? What is that all about?" It is some real meat tossed for us to sink our teeth into as well as an audience. While I treasure the series' overarching pursuit of the truth for Mulder, I still remain so devoted and invested in Scully's character journey, too. 4/5