7x04 The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati
Synopsis
Scully frantically searches for a way to help her ailing partner without having anyone to turn to for help, while a catatonic Mulder's dreams lead him away from his mission and the X-Files to a place which he believes is a better life.
Writer: David Duchovny, Chris Carter
Director: Michael W. Watkins
Originally aired: November 14, 1999
Quotes
Scully: This book. It's explains everything that I found in Africa... using the same symbols that I found on the ship. It's all here - a foretelling of mass extinction; a myth about a man who can save us from it. That's why they took Mulder. They think that his illness is a gift - protection against the coming plague.
Scully: Bum a cigarette, Agent Fowley?
Diana Fowley: I don't smoke.
Scully: Really? I could swear I smell cigarette smoke on you.
Diana Fowley: Let's cut the crap, shall we?
Scully: Yes. Let's.
Mulder: Scully! I knew you'd come. They told me you were dead.
Scully: And you believed them? Traitor.
Mulder: What?
Scully: Deserter. Coward.
Mulder: Scully, don't... I'm dying.
Scully: You're not supposed to die, Mulder - not here.
Mulder: What do you mean?
Scully: Not in a comfortable bed with the devil outside.
Mulder: No, you don't understand. He's taking care of me.
Scully: No, Mulder, you must get up. You must get up and fight... especially you. This isn't your place. Get up, Mulder. Get up and fight the fight.
Mulder: Scully, I was like you once - I didn't know who to trust. Then I...I chose another path... another life, another fate, where I found my sister. The end of my world was unrecognisable and upside down. There was one thing that remained the same. You...were my friend, and you told me the truth. Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant...my touchstone.
Scully: And you are mine.
Links
Episodes online and here and here
Episode transcript
Screencaps
Episodic Fanfic and here
Mods thoughts and discussion attempts
So in the third part of this, er, three-parter, it mainly focuses on Mulder's DREAM. His dream of a "wonderful" life. And I hate it.
I can't decide what it is that I hate about it, if it's that Mulder is fairly easily swayed to go into this life, that other than brief mentions he forgets all aspects of his other life (Scully, the X-Files, his mom?). I know it's a dream but he thinks it isn't!
It bothers me a lot.
I do like that it's only when in the dream, that Mulder finally "let's himself" see Scully is when she brings him back to reality, literally and figuratively. It's very nice. There's also the very famous "touchstone" conversation with Mulder and Scully at the end. *sighs* I have to admit, this time around when I watched this I bawled at this like a baby. Possibly because of a few things going on in my life at the moment, but still! Cry, cry, cry!
And then there's the end. Diana dies. OFFSCREEN. What a rip off. Yeah she helped Mulder and Scully in the end, so...good for her. Albert and Kritschgau also say their farewells.
Damn this episode was a bloodbath.
And we get a real peek of the unfortunateness unfortunaticy? misfortune of Scully's season 7 hair at the end of the ep. Hang on guys, it gets worse!
The ScreenGrab Archive
A Glimpse In the Life Of: Mulder & Scully's Bedroom
Things We Learned 101
Info
Mulder's Father: CSM explicitly states he is Mulder's father in the episode.
Extra
The tagline for this episode is changed to the subtitle: "Amor Fati". Amor Fati means "Love of Fate". It can be a religious term, having to do with our lives being divinely willed (thus we are supposed to love our lives). A relatively famous phrase, it was written about by Nietzsche ("Amor Fati: let that be my love henceforth").
The idea behind Mulder's dream sequences were largely borrowed from the last 30 minutes of the 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ (based on the Nikos Kazantzakis book of the same name). In the movie, we see Christ saved from the cross at the last minute and allowed to have a normal life. He gets married, has kids, and leads a long, normal life. As Jesus is dying of old age, he is visited by his supposedly-dead best friend Judas, who calls Jesus a traitor and shows him that Jerusalem is burning because Jesus did not die for our sins. Jesus then snaps back to reality where he is indeed dying on the cross.