6x18 Milagro
Synopsis
A writer living next to Mulder becomes obsessed with Scully and confesses to her that he is using her for a character in his novel. Scully finds herself strangely drawn to him even though he is now the prime suspect in the murder case that she and Mulder are investigating.
Writer: Frank Spotnitz, John Shiban, Chris Carter
Director: Kim Manners
Originally aired: April 18, 1999
Quotes
Scully: How is it you think you know me so well, Mr. Padgett?
Padgett: I'm writing about you.
Scully: Since when?
Padgett: Since I noticed you. You live in my old neighborhood.
Scully: And you moved into this building by coincidence?
Padgett: No.
Scully: You moved here because of me.
Padgett: There wasn't anything available in your building. And it wasn't like you spent a lot of time at home.
Scully: Mulder, you are making critical assumptions without any facts. What about time of death, what about- what-Mulder, what are you doing?
Mulder: Well, you're about to argue my usual side, aren't you?
Scully: Why couldn't he have imagined it? Why couldn't he just be in the killer's head?
Mulder: You read his book. You read what he wrote about you. Are you trying to tell me he got inside your head? That what I read is true?
Scully: Mulder, of course not.
Padgett: The overture in the church had urged the beautiful agent's partner into an act of Hegelian self-justification. Expeditiously violating the Fourth Amendment against mail theft, he prepared to impudently infract the First. But if she'd predictably aroused her sly partner's suspicions, Special Agent Dana Scully had herself become simply aroused. ... What would her partner think of her?
Mulder: You weren't joking about being late. I was about to start slicing and dicing myself.
Padgett: In my book, I'd written that Agent Scully falls in love but that's obviously impossible. Agent Scully is already in love.
Links
Episodes online and here and here
Episode transcript
Screencaps
Episodic Fanfic and here
Mods thoughts and discussion attempts
Superficial Thing I Noticed Right Away
Mulder hair: Fabulous.
Scully hair: Unfabulous (I'm not a fan of the layered bob thingy on her. You're still the prettiest girl around, DK Scully!)
I really, really love the idea of this episode. The whole psychic surgery thing is really good stuff. And how horrifically awkward for Scully to have to read these things about her, her "thoughts", with Mulder reading them too. If I were Scully reading all those thoughts and insights and knowing Mulder had read them too (even if Mulder WAS skeptical about it), the next time I would have seen him I'd be like "oh hey, Starbucks run. See ya in a bit". And then leave - for the whole afternoon. But Agent Scully deals with it well and that is why she is kickass and I am not.
I quite like the creepiness of Padgett's confrontation with Scully and her thoughts (and how uncomfortable it makes her) and his later realizations about Scully's feelings for Mulder.
The scene where Scully is collapsed on the ground and Mulder embraces her hurts my heart and that's because Scully's cries make me so, so sad.
"Agent Scully is already in love." Oooh, with who? Does she have a cute pharmacist or something?
Kidding. GEE WHO COULD IT BE REFERRING TO?
The ScreenGrab Archive
Things We Learned 101
Extra
The scene where Mulder runs after the hooded man in the cemetery had to be filmed on a motorcycle because David Duchovny runs so fast. According to Kim Manners, in a previous episode (Tunguska) David ran so fast that he outran two horses.
The index cards that Phillip Padgett pins to his wall are covered with plot points from the T.S. Elliot poem "The Wasteland". 'Phillip Padgett' is also the name of the character played by Nicholas Lea in an episode of The Burning Zone titled "The Hall of the Serpent".
Angele Vacco, who played the murdered teenager Kevin, is a former X-Files production assistant. He also appeared in the season 2 episode "F. Emasculata".
John Hawkes worked with David Duchovny in the 1997 movie Playing God.
In the cemetery, the camera seems to linger on a tombstone engraved with the names "Diana and Nicholas Salinger", which are the names of the late parents of the kids on Party of Five.
Recycle-cycled Actors: Well just Angelo Vacco as previously mentioned. However he was also in Talitha Cumi as a doorman and in Burt Reynolds: God (aka Improbable) as Guido and the Bartender.