Rewatch Extra: 5x04 Detour
Despite the awesomeness of this episode as-is, I really, really would like to see an entire episode devoted to Mulder and Scully at an FBI teamwork seminar.
The Canadian woods! So green and mossy!
The mustachioed surveyor looks like a Fred Armisen character. “Ay, dios mio!”
I’m not sure why there are essentially two teasers, one before the credits and one after. The actual cold open, with the surveyors, is unnecessary. Not only is it redundant, but the kid and his dad finding the equipment and bloody clothes would actually be freakier if we didn’t already know what had happened.
“When I stood on Mike’s shoulders and I put that electric pencil sharpener on top of the pile? We both knew. We could never have done it alone.” “Kill me now.” I bet the other two agents were none too happy when they found out they'd be sharing a rental car with Mulder and Scully, you know?
Still, I love their social ineptness, sitting in the back seat together, Mulder plotting devilishly, making his smart little asides to Scully while Scully attempts (with little success) to answer small-talky questions.
There's no real point to this cap, other than the fact that he's staring at her hungrily while she licks her lips. That's a point, right?
And Scully’s so indulgent in this episode, smiling and gently rolling her eyes fondly at his childish remarks. Even when he’s telling their colleagues that he has a “severe hemorrhoidal condition,” she's finding him adorable.
When Mulder hops out of the car, Scully’s all, WHAT? I came back from the brink of death for you to automatically ditch me like this?
Yum. Sexy, rolled-sleeves stretching.
The dumb mom asks Mulder if he’s from search and rescue. Does he look like he’s from search and rescue, lady? I bet she’s the kind of person who asks anyone wearing a red shirt at Target where she can find the paper towels from this week's ad.
Here, have some triangle squinty eyes!
Ha, Scully just walks away from Agent Stonecypher (whose name I love, by the way) without saying a word in response. The way Mulder and Scully treat these two dopes is exactly how they should’ve treated Doggett and Reyes once those seasons rolled around. The real Mulder and Scully don’t suffer fools.
“We’re going to be late for the wine and cheese reception.”
I love how long Scully’s coat is. Oh, season five, you’re classic in every single way.
"How do I say this without using any negative words, Scully?"
"You want me to tell them that you’re not going to make it to this year’s teamwork seminar."
"You see that? We don’t need that conference. We have communication like that, unspoken. You know what I'm thinking."
Again, she smiles and shakes her head. It’s like she sort of half-heartedly tries to get Mulder back on track, to the conference, because she has to be able to say she tried, but doesn’t really care. She’s alive and she loves everything about it, including Mulder getting a wild hair and wanting to pursue a mothman in the Florida woods.
Her hair looks gorgeous against the green of the forest.
Did they have internet access at crappy motels in 1997? At any motels?
Par-tay!
“However, I must remind you this goes against the Bureau’s policy of male and female agents consorting in the same motel room while on assignment.” Mulder and Scully: the FBI’s most consorting-est agents. (I mean, disrobing and then curling up under a warm blanket on your new partner’s bed probably counts as consorting, yes?)
Consort, consort! Do it! You guys, pleeeease get drunk and naked and stupid right NOW. Because seriously, Mulder: she is basically throwing herself at you. This is Dana Scully, in your motel room, with minibar alcohol, making sly jokes about breaking rules about consorting. HELLO, sir. Are you blind? What else do you need? You're not going to get another chance at this for another two years or so, buster.
“You know, Mulder, sometimes I think some work on your communication skills wouldn’t be such a bad idea.” Uh...hello, kettle? This is Monica. YOU'RE BLACK.
“I’ll be back soon, and we can build a tower of furniture. ‘Kay?”
Is he a little scared? I know he loves his work and all, and he wants to go investigate, but damn. Scully--SCULLY--is pouring him a plastic glass of booze in his motel room and getting all sassy. For all of his innuendo and jokes, it’s entirely possible that the reality of actually having sex with Scully at this point scares the shit out of him. And this small window of time, where Scully’s apparently riding on some kind of “I’m not dead!” high, is pretty much their only chance to get it together before they actually do.
God DAMN, though, his smile is so charming. Look at those teeth. I want to lick them. Clearly Scully does, too, because she's bummed out that he's leaving. This is not how the night was supposed to go.
That’s it, Scully. Yes. Getting drunk by yourself on tiny bottles of alcohol will definitely make you feel better.
I love the shot of the toy dinosaur on top of the 1950s-style yellow science book.
“The Invisible Man was invisible.”
“Right.”
Another classic: the low angle crouching investigation shot.
“My dad and I were Indian guides. I know these things.”
More indulgent Scully smirking.
“Maaaaark Cohen!” Junior year was definitely the peak of my “Rent” love, so Anthony Rapp’s appearance in this episode rocked my world.
Where did Mulder and Scully get their swanky forest-tromping gear? I suppose some team building exercises might take place outside, trust falls and wall climbing and annoying things of that ilk, so I guess they could’ve packed sporty things, too. And not that I’m complaining or anything, because Mulder is looking super sexy in his gray mock turtleneck.
Ha, she gives Mark Cohen an excellent look when he attributes his quote to “When Animals Attack” on Fox.
Look at how pretty they are. So pretty.
They’re totally ignoring poor Mark Cohen, just chatting it up while he freaks out. They really, really have no use for people who are babies about little things like getting lost in the woods.
“No, The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati is in the C’s. Mothmen’s over in the M’s.”
“This is not happening!”
Scully is such a crack shot that she may or may not be able to hit invisible things.
These awesome caps of them firing their guns make it look like they either have flame-throwers or can shoot fire from their fingertips. Superheroes! (I feel, though, like it’s entirely possible that William might actually have the latter power.)
Scully: “Maybe if it rains sleeping bags you’ll get lucky.”
Mulder: Is she saying what I think she’s saying?
Everyone: YES.
Mulder is apparently ALL TALK, because once again, Scully is dishing it out and he’s got nothing but a gaping, silent look.
And then, as one does when sexual innuendo is not met with the properly enthusiastic response, Scully starts talking about dying. Obviously, right? As Tobias Funke might say: douche chillllll!
But man, look at his face when she starts talking about it. It’s like he’s been trying NOT to think about, like he’s semi-successfully tucked it all away and is operating like everything’s normal, she didn't just almost die of cancer, and now, here it is again. And he looks sad and horrified to contemplate it again, as well as sort of chastened that he’s actually been trying to forget it, that he isn’t thanking his lucky stars every single second that she’s still there with him.
“When I was fighting my cancer, I was angry at the injustice of it, at its meaninglessness. And then I realized that that was the struggle--to give it meaning. To make sense of it.” She says she was thinking about all of this while she had cancer, but she wasn’t able to tell him that then, obviously. She’s only able to open up to him about her true feelings about dying of cancer once she’s, you know, not dying of cancer anymore. Sad.
Also, this philosophy about the meaning of life is kind of repeated in “Je Souhaite”: “Maybe it's the whole point of our lives here, Mulder-- to achieve that. Maybe it's a process that one man shouldn't try and circumvent with a single wish.”
Mulder gets them back to a comfortable medium by joking about hair. Don’t worry about it, either of you. You both have many years of decent heads of hair to come.
Best exchange ever? “Ta-daa!” “Go, girl.” Somehow, those two lines sum them up perfectly for me. It’s as beautiful as a haiku.
As Scully’s trying to start the fire, it sparks with a flash before dying out, and then we cut to Mulder watching her. And shit. His face is just this raw love and lust and awe. As adinfinitum (I think? it seems likely) once said, he’s looking at her like she’s the ice cream and he’s the spoon.
“I don’t wanna wrestle.”
I love how she reaches down and grabs hold of his elbow. It’s so possessive. It also reminds me of how she grabs his elbow in the “Existence” kiss. Eleven years later (OH MY GOD), I’m still completely amazed by the loveliness of him lying quietly with his head in her lap, in the middle of the lost woods.
“I’m not gonna get taaaahrd.”
I love how his eyes open when she starts singing. But it’s not over the top. It could’ve been a really broad and slapsticky reaction, but Duchovny plays it subtle. (Surprise, surprise.) An acknowledgment of her not-the-best singing, but a sweet and small one. And then after a moment, he closes his eyes again, content, Scully singing him to sleep.
“I’m looking for food. I found some wild berries.” Berries! She's hunting and gathering and she knows which berries are safe to eat.
“Mulder, you never left my sight.” Aw, her delivery of that is very “Thanks, mom.”
“I fell down a hole.”
Scully is so calm about being in this completely creepy chamber of corpses in varying states of decay. I would be squeezing my eyes shut, flailing my arms around and screaming to be gotten out of there RIGHT FUCKING NOW. She just coolly tells him what she sees.
Scully appears to be wearing DKNY jeans, if you were wondering.
Teamwork makes the dream work!
“Too bad we don’t have any office furniture.”
“If they could see us now.”
“Go, team.”
Agent Kinsley is a huge, huge doofus: “What are you doing down there?” Mulder and Scully are all, are you fucking kidding me? Someone remind us again why we're considered the Bureau screw-ups?
“Cause you work on the X-Files and you want to write off your motel.” Dude, you have no idea.
“My jacket’s in that car!” This guy steals every scene he’s in.
I find it adorable that she’s packing up his stuff, too. It's a little thing, but I love it, the fact that it's completely natural for her to go collect his toothbrush and his deodorant and his clothes.
The rest of the episode is so great that I sometimes forget the X-File itself is pretty useless. The creatures don’t seem to be mothmen, which are described by Wikipedia as: “a winged man-sized creature with large reflective red eyes and large moth-like wings. The creature often appeared to have no head, with its eyes set into its chest.” The only similarity is the red eyes. And then at the end of the episode, Mulder vaguely suggests that the creatures might be Ponce de Leon and his men, having found the fountain of youth and adapted perfectly to the woods over 400 years. But who cares, I guess, because: consorting! singing! wrestling!