Rewatch Extra: 4x20 Small Potatoes
Yet another instance of childbirth being vaguely horrific! The baby, of course, is perfectly healthy, tail excluded. But the whole “no, no, your baby’s fine” routine, while they all make OH NO faces over her head, is pretty freaky.
So, how did these two not crash a million rental cars, the way they can’t stop looking at each other?
“So, uh, so what else about this interests you? Could it be, uh…visitors from space?”
“When you were admitted you said that the baby's father was from another planet. What did you mean by that exactly?”
“You know, that…he’s not from this planet.”
“He’s what’s known as a Jedi Knight.” Mulder is so bummed when it turns out she’s a crazy person…not someone who actually got knocked up by an alien. I love Mulder because there is a difference between those two people for him.
“Did he have his light saber?” Scully! You're so secretly funny and I love it.
368 times. That makes Mulder’s 42 times not sound so sad, after all. On the other hand, I think it’s probably a good thing I haven’t thought to keep track of how many times I’ve watched, say…"Bad Blood."
I love that Amanda’s concern about Luke Skywalker sleeping around on her actually gets Scully thinking correctly about the case.
Mulder looks at the babies inscrutably. What’s he thinking about? Does he want a monkey baby of his very own? Is he wondering if they cut a hole in the diaper for the tail? Is he considering the fact that his recent excursion to Russia may have implications for his own future ability to procreate with a certain someone who is allegedly barren?
“I think you’re right, Mulder.” Ha, he’s all stunned and she doesn’t even pay him any heed, just walking past him to the door.
“How would this happen?”
“Birds and the bees and the monkey babies, Mulder.”
MULDER. She wants to have your monkey baby. HELLO.
The IVF portion of this episode bums me out, just thinking about what’s in their future. You know your show is hard core when, during the arc where one of the main characters has terminal brain cancer, you're thinking, "Oh, if only we could stay in this happy paradise forever!"
“You, too, huh?” I am so easy. All it takes it someone mistaking them for a couple to make me happy.
The doctor is a little hilarious. I love when he’s like, well…what if....maybe it didn’t work at all? What say you to that, cheating wives? Cuckolds?
“I haven’t been with a man since 1989. I mean, not counting you, honey.”
Mulder’s eye roll when Eddie takes off running is priceless. Even he can't believe he has to chase after this guy.
“It’s like Dutch or somethin’.” Darin Morgan, you are awesome.
“Maybe I got…personality.”
He’s so doughy and harmless seeming, and then he busts out with his fucked up rationale: “Look, I'm not saying anything one way or another. I'm just saying, hypothetically, if some women wanted to have kids, their husbands weren't...capable, and everybody was happy and no one got hurt, well hypothetically, where's the crime?” It makes him all the creepier as a predator, because his whole demeanor and appearance really is just...sad sack. If he weren't, you know, going around, raping people, you'd almost feel bad for him. But I think both Gilligan and Morgan do a really great thing by making him a character who you, when you forget what he's done, almost start to feel pity for. It makes things so unsettling, but I think it's always a brave choice to create criminal, villainous characters who don't believe they're the bad guys.
Oh man, I love Scully’s terse little head nod at Mulder to get him to come talk to her in the adjoining room. He’s a little bit whipped.
“On behalf of all the women in the world, I seriously doubt this has anything to do with consensual sex.” She gets all slurry and I wonder, yet again, how they’re not totally having consensual sex by now. Seriously. The way she says “consensual sex” is, like, secret code for “Mulder, I’m open for business.” (Also, as a woman of the world, I heartily approve of Scully being our spokeswoman.)
“All right, Mr. Van Blund-ht.” The actor playing the cop does a great job.
How are they so fucking cute? He dings the bell and motions her over. She recites his theory in this bored way. “Should we be picking out china patterns, or what?” He leans against the counter in this weird, nerdy, hot way, almost…squirmy.
Mulder, in espousing his theory here, saying that it goes a long way in explaining how four married women could think Van Blundht was their husband, essentially…gives Scully an out, an excuse, for believing that Van Blundht is him. Of course, all rational theorizing will go out the window when he sees Eddie putting the moves on Scully, and ditto for Scully when she sees the real Mulder fly through her door, just as another Mulder is looming over her.
Umbrella sharing. And she’s holding it. He ducks underneath and glues his hand to her back, all the way across the street, up the stairs, onto the porch.
“Hopefully myself.” “So boring.”
“Looking like someone else, Mulder, and being someone else are completely different things.”
"Well, maybe it's not. I mean, everybody else around you would treat you like you were somebody else, and ultimately maybe it's other people's reactions to us that make us who we are."
When Scully says she'd be Eleanor Roosevelt for a day, Mulder makes this hilarious "yikes" face. See, Scully? He loves you for your brain, but he sure as shit appreciates the package it's in. Sadly, Mulder does not tell us who he'd be for a day. Guesses? Also, who would Scully really be? Because Eleanor Roosevelt is just the "I am an intelligent, competent woman" answer. It's like when someone asks you who your hero is and you say your parents.
"It can't be a dead person."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because."
I love how vehement she is about it. Like she’s deigned to play along with his stupid “what if” game, and now he’s getting cranky about the rules. And his retort is so childish and arbitrary, which is exactly what games like that should be.
Mulder really wants to see his tail. Scully does not, although she still thinks it's cute that Mulder does. He's bummed.
"Otherwise, you're just small potatoes." Van Blundht, with his delusions of grandeur (or at least delusions of being a successful, popular, handsome human being), is similar to Robert Modell. "He was always such a little man. This was finally something that made him feel big." I'm not well-versed in criminology or anything, but I like the idea that Vince Gilligan brings to both of these characters, criminals committing crimes because it makes them feel special, big, important.
“I’m all right!” “What?”
“Think the fall killed him?”
“It’s all clear.” OH SHIT. This is where things get freaky and uncomfortable. Duchovny does an AWESOME job here when he opens the bathroom door, squinting his eyes, gritting his teeth, becoming the tough-guy G-man that Van Blundht would create. His performance throughout the rest of the episode is pretty astonishing.
See, and Mulder’s kind of being slightly more of a weirdo than usual during this episode, breaking off tails and whatnot, so it isn’t THAT far-fetched that Scully isn’t immediately tipped off by Van Blundht.
“They think I’m sorta crazy.” I love how good-natured she is about people thinking she's nuts.
“You’re a damn good-looking man.” I wonder if it’s weird, as a person, to have that be a beat of the script. That you’re fucking handsome.
Duchovny changes his physicality, he isn't just running on Mulder autopilot or anything. He apes Scully’s way of sitting when they’re in Skinner’s office, glancing over at her and then crossing his legs and lacing his fingers together in his lap. Brilliant.
“You spelled Federal Bureau of Investigation wrong.”
“It was a typo.”
“Twice.”
“But he was a rapist.” Van Blundht gets this look like, “Well, not REALLY.” Like he’s offended that someone would think so poorly of him, even though it’s the absolute truth. He really doesn’t think that he’s doing anything wrong.
A question that I don’t think is ever answered: how long can he continue looking like someone?
“Well, seeing as how it's Friday, I was thinking I could get some work in on that monograph I'm writing for the penology review.”
“Oh.”
"Diminished Acetylcholine Production in Recidivist Offenders."
Sometimes I get a little carried away, loving Mulder, but then lines like this remind me why I adore Scully.
“Fox? Brother.”
This is amazing. Seriously, it no longer feels like Mulder, even though it LOOKS like him. (But even the LOOK is off.) It really does feel like a stranger is intruding on Mulder’s space. OH MY GOD, when he leans back and tumbles in the chair, kicking at the desk! The fall just seems to keep going on as he kicks the desk blotter and finally, finally lands back in the chair.
Oh, look! Like me, Mulder takes very pretty driver’s license photos.
Eddie Van Blundht bounces a basketball like Stanley Hudson. “I do not think that is funny.”
Hee, he’s scrambling for a pencil to take down a message from the phone sex lady. (Mulder actually calling a phone sex line vs. regular porn is infinitely more depressing to me. Yes?)
“F…B…I.”
“You’re a damn good looking man.” Mulder and Scully are the poster children for that not meaning a damn thing. God bless their hot, nerdy, socially inept asses.
Scully sits on the floor at her coffee table! I do that!
Please never smile like this again.
OH MY GOD, when Mulder shows up at her apartment. It’s so uncomfortable, I can barely watch it. It’s making my stomach hurt a little.
He’s so un-suave and nervous, like he just doesn’t know what to do with any part of his body. This is what’s so amazing, because David Duchovny is a person and an actor who just seems very comfortable with and at home in his own skin. He makes Mulder…expansive. He never second guesses what he’s doing with his body, stretching his long legs out, waving his hands and arms. So it’s weird and creepy to see him, like, folding himself up on the couch, arranging his legs, leaning on a pillow in his lap. A pillow in his lap! Eddie, that’s what girls do to hide their stomachs.
OKAY. God. So, DOES she want Mulder to come over and drink wine and listen to her talk about high school? Scully, you’re breaking my heart. Because seriously: if Mulder thought you wanted this, he would come listen to you, I am sure of it. I AM SURE OF IT.
“I’m seeing a whole new side of you, Mulder.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“I like it.”
ACK, nervous stomach! I feel so sad for Scully, finally opening up. To a stranger.
Their almost kiss really isn’t that hot. Scully’s just sitting there, perfectly still. She’s not pulling away from him, but she’s not going in for it or anything, either. How far would she have let this go if Mulder hadn't busted in? She's so horrified. A lot of terrible things have been done to her, but to have an attempt made using the form of the one person she trusts? To have Van Blundht breach the safety of Mulder?
Mulder looks so sad! Like a combination of relief that he’s there in time, but then it’s like a punch to the gut to see Scully almost kissing another guy. Even if it’s “him.” And I’m sure he does feel like a loser, because it’s like, this lame-o criminal’s brain has control of his body for a few hours and he’s ready to seal the deal with Scully.
“She says it’s meant to bolster my self-esteem.”
“Does it?”
“Not really.”
“I just think it’s funny. I was born a loser, but you’re one by choice.”
“You should live a little. Treat yourself. God knows I would, if I were you."
“But I’m no Eddie Van Blundht, either. Am I?”
God, who is this more embarrassing for? Mulder or Scully? Seriously, one more step back on the one step forward, twenty steps back chart. She actually opens up to him and it’s NOT EVEN HIM. And then it's just sort of the perfect "I take it all back" excuse for such a tough nut like Scully. Because Mulder doesn't know what she said to "him," she's able to sort of wipe the slate clean, probably convince herself that she should never let herself slip like this again.
While there are a lot of funny, clever, cute parts to this episode, ultimately, it's completely unsettling. This, to me, is so much creepier than any monster or slimy thing or some unknown lurking in the dark.
So, how did these two not crash a million rental cars, the way they can’t stop looking at each other?
“So, uh, so what else about this interests you? Could it be, uh…visitors from space?”
“When you were admitted you said that the baby's father was from another planet. What did you mean by that exactly?”
“You know, that…he’s not from this planet.”
“He’s what’s known as a Jedi Knight.” Mulder is so bummed when it turns out she’s a crazy person…not someone who actually got knocked up by an alien. I love Mulder because there is a difference between those two people for him.
“Did he have his light saber?” Scully! You're so secretly funny and I love it.
368 times. That makes Mulder’s 42 times not sound so sad, after all. On the other hand, I think it’s probably a good thing I haven’t thought to keep track of how many times I’ve watched, say…"Bad Blood."
I love that Amanda’s concern about Luke Skywalker sleeping around on her actually gets Scully thinking correctly about the case.
Mulder looks at the babies inscrutably. What’s he thinking about? Does he want a monkey baby of his very own? Is he wondering if they cut a hole in the diaper for the tail? Is he considering the fact that his recent excursion to Russia may have implications for his own future ability to procreate with a certain someone who is allegedly barren?
“I think you’re right, Mulder.” Ha, he’s all stunned and she doesn’t even pay him any heed, just walking past him to the door.
“How would this happen?”
“Birds and the bees and the monkey babies, Mulder.”
MULDER. She wants to have your monkey baby. HELLO.
The IVF portion of this episode bums me out, just thinking about what’s in their future. You know your show is hard core when, during the arc where one of the main characters has terminal brain cancer, you're thinking, "Oh, if only we could stay in this happy paradise forever!"
“You, too, huh?” I am so easy. All it takes it someone mistaking them for a couple to make me happy.
The doctor is a little hilarious. I love when he’s like, well…what if....maybe it didn’t work at all? What say you to that, cheating wives? Cuckolds?
“I haven’t been with a man since 1989. I mean, not counting you, honey.”
Mulder’s eye roll when Eddie takes off running is priceless. Even he can't believe he has to chase after this guy.
“It’s like Dutch or somethin’.” Darin Morgan, you are awesome.
“Maybe I got…personality.”
He’s so doughy and harmless seeming, and then he busts out with his fucked up rationale: “Look, I'm not saying anything one way or another. I'm just saying, hypothetically, if some women wanted to have kids, their husbands weren't...capable, and everybody was happy and no one got hurt, well hypothetically, where's the crime?” It makes him all the creepier as a predator, because his whole demeanor and appearance really is just...sad sack. If he weren't, you know, going around, raping people, you'd almost feel bad for him. But I think both Gilligan and Morgan do a really great thing by making him a character who you, when you forget what he's done, almost start to feel pity for. It makes things so unsettling, but I think it's always a brave choice to create criminal, villainous characters who don't believe they're the bad guys.
Oh man, I love Scully’s terse little head nod at Mulder to get him to come talk to her in the adjoining room. He’s a little bit whipped.
“On behalf of all the women in the world, I seriously doubt this has anything to do with consensual sex.” She gets all slurry and I wonder, yet again, how they’re not totally having consensual sex by now. Seriously. The way she says “consensual sex” is, like, secret code for “Mulder, I’m open for business.” (Also, as a woman of the world, I heartily approve of Scully being our spokeswoman.)
“All right, Mr. Van Blund-ht.” The actor playing the cop does a great job.
How are they so fucking cute? He dings the bell and motions her over. She recites his theory in this bored way. “Should we be picking out china patterns, or what?” He leans against the counter in this weird, nerdy, hot way, almost…squirmy.
Mulder, in espousing his theory here, saying that it goes a long way in explaining how four married women could think Van Blundht was their husband, essentially…gives Scully an out, an excuse, for believing that Van Blundht is him. Of course, all rational theorizing will go out the window when he sees Eddie putting the moves on Scully, and ditto for Scully when she sees the real Mulder fly through her door, just as another Mulder is looming over her.
Umbrella sharing. And she’s holding it. He ducks underneath and glues his hand to her back, all the way across the street, up the stairs, onto the porch.
“Hopefully myself.” “So boring.”
“Looking like someone else, Mulder, and being someone else are completely different things.”
"Well, maybe it's not. I mean, everybody else around you would treat you like you were somebody else, and ultimately maybe it's other people's reactions to us that make us who we are."
When Scully says she'd be Eleanor Roosevelt for a day, Mulder makes this hilarious "yikes" face. See, Scully? He loves you for your brain, but he sure as shit appreciates the package it's in. Sadly, Mulder does not tell us who he'd be for a day. Guesses? Also, who would Scully really be? Because Eleanor Roosevelt is just the "I am an intelligent, competent woman" answer. It's like when someone asks you who your hero is and you say your parents.
"It can't be a dead person."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because."
I love how vehement she is about it. Like she’s deigned to play along with his stupid “what if” game, and now he’s getting cranky about the rules. And his retort is so childish and arbitrary, which is exactly what games like that should be.
Mulder really wants to see his tail. Scully does not, although she still thinks it's cute that Mulder does. He's bummed.
"Otherwise, you're just small potatoes." Van Blundht, with his delusions of grandeur (or at least delusions of being a successful, popular, handsome human being), is similar to Robert Modell. "He was always such a little man. This was finally something that made him feel big." I'm not well-versed in criminology or anything, but I like the idea that Vince Gilligan brings to both of these characters, criminals committing crimes because it makes them feel special, big, important.
“I’m all right!” “What?”
“Think the fall killed him?”
“It’s all clear.” OH SHIT. This is where things get freaky and uncomfortable. Duchovny does an AWESOME job here when he opens the bathroom door, squinting his eyes, gritting his teeth, becoming the tough-guy G-man that Van Blundht would create. His performance throughout the rest of the episode is pretty astonishing.
See, and Mulder’s kind of being slightly more of a weirdo than usual during this episode, breaking off tails and whatnot, so it isn’t THAT far-fetched that Scully isn’t immediately tipped off by Van Blundht.
“They think I’m sorta crazy.” I love how good-natured she is about people thinking she's nuts.
“You’re a damn good-looking man.” I wonder if it’s weird, as a person, to have that be a beat of the script. That you’re fucking handsome.
Duchovny changes his physicality, he isn't just running on Mulder autopilot or anything. He apes Scully’s way of sitting when they’re in Skinner’s office, glancing over at her and then crossing his legs and lacing his fingers together in his lap. Brilliant.
“You spelled Federal Bureau of Investigation wrong.”
“It was a typo.”
“Twice.”
“But he was a rapist.” Van Blundht gets this look like, “Well, not REALLY.” Like he’s offended that someone would think so poorly of him, even though it’s the absolute truth. He really doesn’t think that he’s doing anything wrong.
A question that I don’t think is ever answered: how long can he continue looking like someone?
“Well, seeing as how it's Friday, I was thinking I could get some work in on that monograph I'm writing for the penology review.”
“Oh.”
"Diminished Acetylcholine Production in Recidivist Offenders."
Sometimes I get a little carried away, loving Mulder, but then lines like this remind me why I adore Scully.
“Fox? Brother.”
This is amazing. Seriously, it no longer feels like Mulder, even though it LOOKS like him. (But even the LOOK is off.) It really does feel like a stranger is intruding on Mulder’s space. OH MY GOD, when he leans back and tumbles in the chair, kicking at the desk! The fall just seems to keep going on as he kicks the desk blotter and finally, finally lands back in the chair.
Oh, look! Like me, Mulder takes very pretty driver’s license photos.
Eddie Van Blundht bounces a basketball like Stanley Hudson. “I do not think that is funny.”
Hee, he’s scrambling for a pencil to take down a message from the phone sex lady. (Mulder actually calling a phone sex line vs. regular porn is infinitely more depressing to me. Yes?)
“F…B…I.”
“You’re a damn good looking man.” Mulder and Scully are the poster children for that not meaning a damn thing. God bless their hot, nerdy, socially inept asses.
Scully sits on the floor at her coffee table! I do that!
Please never smile like this again.
OH MY GOD, when Mulder shows up at her apartment. It’s so uncomfortable, I can barely watch it. It’s making my stomach hurt a little.
He’s so un-suave and nervous, like he just doesn’t know what to do with any part of his body. This is what’s so amazing, because David Duchovny is a person and an actor who just seems very comfortable with and at home in his own skin. He makes Mulder…expansive. He never second guesses what he’s doing with his body, stretching his long legs out, waving his hands and arms. So it’s weird and creepy to see him, like, folding himself up on the couch, arranging his legs, leaning on a pillow in his lap. A pillow in his lap! Eddie, that’s what girls do to hide their stomachs.
OKAY. God. So, DOES she want Mulder to come over and drink wine and listen to her talk about high school? Scully, you’re breaking my heart. Because seriously: if Mulder thought you wanted this, he would come listen to you, I am sure of it. I AM SURE OF IT.
“I’m seeing a whole new side of you, Mulder.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“I like it.”
ACK, nervous stomach! I feel so sad for Scully, finally opening up. To a stranger.
Their almost kiss really isn’t that hot. Scully’s just sitting there, perfectly still. She’s not pulling away from him, but she’s not going in for it or anything, either. How far would she have let this go if Mulder hadn't busted in? She's so horrified. A lot of terrible things have been done to her, but to have an attempt made using the form of the one person she trusts? To have Van Blundht breach the safety of Mulder?
Mulder looks so sad! Like a combination of relief that he’s there in time, but then it’s like a punch to the gut to see Scully almost kissing another guy. Even if it’s “him.” And I’m sure he does feel like a loser, because it’s like, this lame-o criminal’s brain has control of his body for a few hours and he’s ready to seal the deal with Scully.
“She says it’s meant to bolster my self-esteem.”
“Does it?”
“Not really.”
“I just think it’s funny. I was born a loser, but you’re one by choice.”
“You should live a little. Treat yourself. God knows I would, if I were you."
“But I’m no Eddie Van Blundht, either. Am I?”
God, who is this more embarrassing for? Mulder or Scully? Seriously, one more step back on the one step forward, twenty steps back chart. She actually opens up to him and it’s NOT EVEN HIM. And then it's just sort of the perfect "I take it all back" excuse for such a tough nut like Scully. Because Mulder doesn't know what she said to "him," she's able to sort of wipe the slate clean, probably convince herself that she should never let herself slip like this again.
While there are a lot of funny, clever, cute parts to this episode, ultimately, it's completely unsettling. This, to me, is so much creepier than any monster or slimy thing or some unknown lurking in the dark.