Scully spends a lot of this episode writing bad teenage journal entries about her feelings. I do like the part where she describes the cancer as an evil conspiracy, because she knows she needs to explain things in words that make sense to Mulder. I wish she did that all the time.
“You need to add a dollar, Mulder. This state has a 15% sales tax.”
“Huh?”
“It’s like when aliens spliced out 15% of the DNA from vaccination patients.”
“OHHhhh.”
Yes, somehow in this episode Scully goes from being a Doctor-Physicist-FBI Agent to being a maudlin 19 year old English major. But she’s getting extra cancer pumped into her by Dr. Evil, so might as well just let it slide.
One of my favorite parts is when Maggie shows up and calls Scully out for not telling her about the cancer until she needed a change of clothes. “Umm, I was really hoping to at least get a few rounds of chemo in before I told my mom, but I only packed two pairs of underwear and a bathing suit, so could you go ahead and break the news to her for me, OkthanksloveyaMulder!” Mulder: *blinks rapidly in confusion at how he got roped into giving Maggie bad news about her daughter for the second time in a couple of years*
You could have given us The Hug, though, Shannon.
I LOVED Mulder’s “I don’t believe in tumors” comment. It was funny and tender at the same time.
Yeah, I always thought if you were dying of brain cancer it’d be kinda hard to just say “screw that, I’m gonna go back to work at my dangerous and strenuous job anyway”.
I dunno, I can see work being a point of stability.
One of the writers or directors (can’t remember, but I think it was Kim Manners) said that they picked the specific tumor she had because his brother or brother in law or something was a neurologist and they asked what type of tumor would be aggressive and virtually untreatable but that doesn’t really physically affect a person until towards the very end. Apparently that’s how a nasalpharyngeal mass works. Consequently, Scully got to look Fabulous (!) up until she was on her death bed (except when Dr. Evil was trying to kill her to shut her up).
I always felt like the tattoo episode felt like it belonged after this one. If you watch them in that order it feels like Scully is acting recklessly in response to a death sentence, which seems more natural than her simply wanting a vacation and then a week later finding out she has cancer. This one also fits better as an immediate follow-up to the foreshadowing from Leonard Betts.
I just love the idea of Scully having to patiently explain normal human concepts to Mulder in alien terms he can understand. I guess half the time she really has to do that. “Don’t mind him, he has special problems.”
I love the drawer full of eggs, which appear to have the consistency of tapioca.