Rewatch Extra: 5x12 Bad Blood
One time I watched "Bad Blood" and it made my terrible cramps go away. There is nothing this episode can't do.
The opening shot is gorgeous and well-composed. A wide, still shot--rolling fog, howling, skeleton-fingered trees--into which Ronnie and Mulder run. It’s pretty genius that Mulder is the bad guy in the teaser, because generally the person or thing doing the chasing/attacking at the beginning is going to be who/what Mulder and Scully are investigating. Although I guess they kind of are investigating themselves in this episode.
Ronnie Strickland is played by Patrick Renna, who delivered a tour de force performance in one of my top five movies of all time, “The Sandlot,” as Hamilton “Ham” Porter. “Hey, isn’t that your sister in left field? Naked?”
Gillian gives this priceless look of woe after she taps the fake vampire teeth out of his mouth.
I usually might think a line like “Oh, shhh---” is cheesy, but it makes me laugh every time I watch it.
Scully gingerly enters the office, like she has to be very still and slow-moving, lest she upset the beast brooding at the desk.
Mulder losing his shit and taking it out on the trashcan is hilarious, especially because Scully barely reacts.
“I’ll tell him exactly what I saw.”
“Now how is that different?”
[skeptical look]
Even though they may end up being co-defendants in the case of Strickland vs. the FBI, Scully can take comfort in the fact that at least her makeup looks great!
“I didn’t do the-- with the thing!” Her little stabbing motion is hilarious.
“OK, now you're scaring me. I wanna know exactly what you're gonna tell Skinner.”
“Oh, you want our stories straight.”
Mulder knows they’re both far too good-looking for incarceration.
“You were characteristically exuberant.”
And he is! But what’s hilarious about this is that Fox “Panic Face” Mulder is never, ever this exuberant. He practically jumps up and clicks his heels when he says “yee-haw!” On the flip side, Scully may be in a waking coma, for all she cares about his excitement. I LOVE THEM.
“So instead, this would be…”
“Classic vampirism.”
The casket we pan past is called “The Iditarod.” But what I really want to know is the name of the one with the classy Last Supper panel on the inside of the lid. Do you really want to stare at that for all eternity?
The dreamy music that starts as soon as Sheriff Hartwell enters the scene is awesome.
“Agents Mulder and *snap snap snap* Scully.” Aw, the subtext of this is that Scully just wants him to pay attention to her and treat her like she’s the center of his universe. Which she is.
Mulder knowingly and patronizingly nods when Hartwell says “I figured we’d best leave it up to the experts.”
Ha, Hartwell just sort of brushes back a gaping Mulder so he can talk to Scully.
"Well, there is a psychological fixation called hematodipsia which causes the sufferer to gain erotic satisfaction from consuming human blood.....There are also genetic afflictions which cause a heightened sensitivity to light, uh, to garlic -- porphyria, xeroderma pigmentosum."
Here’s the thing: Scully obviously thinks that all guys are turned on by long, scholarly lists. But what she doesn’t realize is it’s only Mulder, who proposed marriage two episodes earlier when she was rambling on about Santeria and hexes and witchcraft. So it’s cute that in her version of events, even yokel-y Hartwell thinks it’s hot. You know, I think people often think that Scully’s version of events is nearer the truth, but I’m pretty sure she’s as crazy as he is.
“Dana? He never even knew your first name!”
“You gonna interrupt me, or what?”
“No. Go ahead. Dana.”
It’s kind of hot when he calls her that here.
“You had your big breakthrough. Whatever.”
“Have you noticed that this man’s shoes are untied?!”
Duchovny does an awesomely Kramer-esque snap when he says “take me there now.”
“I don’t know.”
“He does that.” Does he ever.
Scully makes goo-goo eyes at Hartwell as he tips his hat and leaves, but when she turns back to the body, her face falls from a smile to her customary pissed face.
“…who is arguably having a worse time in Texas than I am…although not by much.” I love that she’s sassy on the autopsy tape.
Her little white tennis shoes are tiny. Tiny! All she’s got are these little hoooooves!
Is there anything better, ever, than Scully getting hungry while looking at the contents of a dead guy’s stomach? “Mushrooms….that sounds really good.”
The time stamp correction from Davy Crockett Motor Court to Sam Houston Motor Lodge is brilliant. I’d absolutely love to read Gilligan’s actual script for this episode.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Nothin’.”
Mulder’s so sad when he wonders aloud what kind of vampire would need to dope his victim to the gills.
“I just put money in the magic fingers!”
“I won’t let it go to waste.”
Stay, Scully, stay! I know he probably stinks like trailer park mud, but come on! It’s Mulder! Next to you! On a bed with the magic fingers!
His giggling is INSANE, and I love it.
“Forgoing both dinner and sleep--” Hee, in both versions, Scully would like us to know that she is a martyr who does, indeed, do it ALL FOR HIM.
“Gasp! Chloral hydrate’s in the pizza. The pizza guy. Gasp! Mulder!” Her concern for Mulder here is so exaggerated, complete with gasping. She really wants Mulder to know that she was worried.
Mulder is not impressed with the ending of her side of the story. “That’s it?” Not quite, Mulder
“Who’s the black private dick who’s a sex machine with all the chicks? Shaft! Can you dig it? They say this cat Shaft’s a bad mother-- Shut your mouth! I’m talkin’ bout Shaft.”
Scully's face: No, seriously. You're telling me I'm going to have this guy's kid? This guy right here?
This is one of those things that I like to pretend they turned into a cute inside joke. Because I'm a weirdo.
“You are afraid to tell the truth.”
I love how they keep it at a medium shot when Mulder comes over to her, and how they let him really loom over her a bit, without her standing on a box. It’s kinda hot when we really see their difference in height.
“You arrived at the office characteristically LESS than exuberant.”
“Why are we going to Daaaaallas?” Her whining! In Mulder’s mind, she apparently exists in a perpetual state of PMS while he is a quiet, docile gentleman.
Although it is cute how he’s working so hard to impress her, nervously arranging his slides, hoping that she doesn’t, I don‘t know, unhinge her jaw and swallow him whole for taking so long with his presentation. And there’s a kernel of truth there, because after all, she really is the only one he wants/cares about convincing. Not to get all deep on you, but he probably thinks he has to work so hard in order to keep her from leaving.
“I don’t want to jump to any hasty conclusions…”
“But, as always, I’m very eager to hear your opinion.”
“Because they don’t exist?”
Casket name alert! I zoomed in on another one and it’s called “The Velvet Fog.”
“Hoo, boy.” Mulder is so jealous of Scully’s crush on Hartwell that, in his mind, it’s become this exaggerated and obvious. I think we can all agree that Scully would never actually say this, but in Mulder’s mind, she might as well have.
“Y’all must be the guvmint people.” I would pay money to have my memory erased so I could watch this episode for the first time again. Because oh my Lord. Duchovny does this horrified, teeth baring thing while Scully just keeps on swooning. Actually, the thing he does with his teeth is very similar to this terrible face I make at my sister, which makes her go, “STOP! Wait, do it again.” And I love that Mulder apparently included the teeth in his recap to Scully, needing to diss Hartwell even when he's out of the picture.
“He had a slight overbite.”
He’s a little adorable when he’s jealous. Although, come on, this is the man who actually did fuck a vampire, so I’m not sure he has room to talk. (Do you think he ever told Scully about that?)
It’s interesting how Scully is making silly faces behind Mulder’s back, mocking his long recounting of vampire legend and lore, but in her own version of the story, she essentially gave herself a similarly wordy monologue, only one that discussed the possible scientific/biological reasons for a person to behave like a vampire. So it's not like she would actually make fun of his speech. But Mulder apparently assumes that this is what she was doing behind his back. AW.
I love his Vanna White gesture at her red hair.
I have about 500 “favorite parts” of this episode, and one of them is Luke Wilson’s pronunciation of “whhhhetlands.” Actually, pretty much any “wh-” word. It’s very Hank Hill.
“There you go. Cause I ain’t hearin’ any birds singin’. Right? Course, it’s winter, and we ain’t got no birds.”
“I mean, CIA, Secret Service, y’all run the show.”
“Oh, he’ll come.” Mulder manages to over dramatize in his own tale, making himself look silly.
“Yeah. I'll tell you what. I know I'm in law enforcement, but I'd like to take him to Vegas myself. Am I right?”
“Well, that would be illegal, right?”
“He's like a little calculator.”
“Skipping ahead.”
“Why skip ahead?”
It’s cute how every time we go back to their office, they’ve moved.
“Bird dog it!”
"I just spent hours on my feet doing an autopsy, all for you. I do it all for you, Mulder. You know, I haven't eaten since 6:00 this morning, and all that was was a half a cream cheese bagel, and it wasn't even real cream cheese, it was light cream cheese."
I love how they start tight on Mulder’s woeful, muddy face, and then slowly pull back as Scully goes on her cream cheese rampage. I know how she feels. When I haven’t eaten, I’m told that I get “fussy.”
“Finally, you left.” The painting swinging down off of one of its nails works precisely because it’s so comedically over the top in kind of a stage play way.
Mulder drops his clothes on the floor. I hope that they eventually came to a cohabitation understanding and Scully no longer has to nag him, Rob and Laura-style, about his methods of toothpaste squeezing and the like.
He looks damn good in an undershirt, though, so she probably isn't complaining about his clothes on the floor.
Hey, big spender. A classy TWO CENT tip. Perhaps, like Dwight Schrute, Mulder doesn’t tip for anything he could do himself.
I love how when he opens the pizza box, his affection for Scully is transferred to the pizza. Or vice versa. “Ahhh, Scully.” (Please note: the slats of the chair say "HOWDY PARTNER.")
“So, I ate your dinner.”
It’s cute how the olive falls on his chest and he grabs it. It makes me think of the line from “Parabiosis” about Mulder “fish[ing] a green pepper out of the neck of his T-shirt.”
Dude, his upper arms are delicious.
I love his triumphant, drugged out look after he tosses the seeds, which Ronnie will have to pick up. “You are in big trouble.”
I can't not see the hand with the stake that reaches into frame as he breaks down the chair.
He chased him over “hill and dale.” Say what you will, but he’s kind of an awesome storyteller.
“Probable cause of death: gee, that’s a tough one.”
They are so cute and awkward as they sit on Skinner’s couch. His leather couch. I bet the Monday morning after his stand-off with Scully in “Paper Clip,” Skinner came into work and told his assistant to find him a leather couch in the Corporate Express catalog. Mulder idly cracks his knuckles and Scully gets all wifely, fussing with his tie. Because a well-tied tie is going to sway Skinner in their favor. Good thinking, Scully.
“No, his throat was…bitten. It was sort of…gnawed on.”
“Daylight’s burning, agents.” Skinner + Vince Gilligan=gold. Vince, is there some way you can get Pileggi on Breaking Bad? Pretty, pretty please?
When Hartwell shows up again, and they’re able to check out his teeth, Scully taps at her own teeth while Mulder makes a face. I love things like this, because here it’s not about the everlasting love, it’s about them being best friends.
“Don’t say I never did nothing’ fer ya.” He’s obviously feeling fairly confident by now about how he stacks up to Hartwell. Although if he were completely confident, he wouldn‘t feel the need to be so snarky. “You’re good.” He gives her this look, like: I’m better than him, and I have very nice teeth. And I’ll only bite if you say it’s okay.
“As Agent Mulder says…” She can’t NOT talk about him. Not that I don’t think they’re meant to be and all of that, I do. But on a purely practical level, they could never in a million years have actually been with anyone else because they’re so completely wrapped up in each other.
I don’t think we see them read people their rights very often, so it’s awesome to see it happening while Mulder’s straddling a coffin. A coffin that’s trying to be opened from the inside.
“Come on, cut it out, Ronnie.”
“BACK!” The breadstick cross and Duchovny’s delivery are genius.
So what even happens to them? Why wouldn’t they have just killed them? I have to assume it was just a matter of wanting to get out of town as quickly as possible, which meant drugging Mulder and Scully to make their clean getaway. Draining their blood would’ve, perhaps, taken time that they didn’t have.
He adorably checks her neck, and she humors him, even though, you know, vampires don’t exist.
“Anyway. I was drugged.”
“That is…essentially, exactly the way it happened.”
“Essentially.”
“Except for the part about the buck teeth.”
The opening shot is gorgeous and well-composed. A wide, still shot--rolling fog, howling, skeleton-fingered trees--into which Ronnie and Mulder run. It’s pretty genius that Mulder is the bad guy in the teaser, because generally the person or thing doing the chasing/attacking at the beginning is going to be who/what Mulder and Scully are investigating. Although I guess they kind of are investigating themselves in this episode.
Ronnie Strickland is played by Patrick Renna, who delivered a tour de force performance in one of my top five movies of all time, “The Sandlot,” as Hamilton “Ham” Porter. “Hey, isn’t that your sister in left field? Naked?”
Gillian gives this priceless look of woe after she taps the fake vampire teeth out of his mouth.
I usually might think a line like “Oh, shhh---” is cheesy, but it makes me laugh every time I watch it.
Scully gingerly enters the office, like she has to be very still and slow-moving, lest she upset the beast brooding at the desk.
Mulder losing his shit and taking it out on the trashcan is hilarious, especially because Scully barely reacts.
“I’ll tell him exactly what I saw.”
“Now how is that different?”
[skeptical look]
Even though they may end up being co-defendants in the case of Strickland vs. the FBI, Scully can take comfort in the fact that at least her makeup looks great!
“I didn’t do the-- with the thing!” Her little stabbing motion is hilarious.
“OK, now you're scaring me. I wanna know exactly what you're gonna tell Skinner.”
“Oh, you want our stories straight.”
Mulder knows they’re both far too good-looking for incarceration.
“You were characteristically exuberant.”
And he is! But what’s hilarious about this is that Fox “Panic Face” Mulder is never, ever this exuberant. He practically jumps up and clicks his heels when he says “yee-haw!” On the flip side, Scully may be in a waking coma, for all she cares about his excitement. I LOVE THEM.
“So instead, this would be…”
“Classic vampirism.”
The casket we pan past is called “The Iditarod.” But what I really want to know is the name of the one with the classy Last Supper panel on the inside of the lid. Do you really want to stare at that for all eternity?
The dreamy music that starts as soon as Sheriff Hartwell enters the scene is awesome.
“Agents Mulder and *snap snap snap* Scully.” Aw, the subtext of this is that Scully just wants him to pay attention to her and treat her like she’s the center of his universe. Which she is.
Mulder knowingly and patronizingly nods when Hartwell says “I figured we’d best leave it up to the experts.”
Ha, Hartwell just sort of brushes back a gaping Mulder so he can talk to Scully.
"Well, there is a psychological fixation called hematodipsia which causes the sufferer to gain erotic satisfaction from consuming human blood.....There are also genetic afflictions which cause a heightened sensitivity to light, uh, to garlic -- porphyria, xeroderma pigmentosum."
Here’s the thing: Scully obviously thinks that all guys are turned on by long, scholarly lists. But what she doesn’t realize is it’s only Mulder, who proposed marriage two episodes earlier when she was rambling on about Santeria and hexes and witchcraft. So it’s cute that in her version of events, even yokel-y Hartwell thinks it’s hot. You know, I think people often think that Scully’s version of events is nearer the truth, but I’m pretty sure she’s as crazy as he is.
“Dana? He never even knew your first name!”
“You gonna interrupt me, or what?”
“No. Go ahead. Dana.”
It’s kind of hot when he calls her that here.
“You had your big breakthrough. Whatever.”
“Have you noticed that this man’s shoes are untied?!”
Duchovny does an awesomely Kramer-esque snap when he says “take me there now.”
“I don’t know.”
“He does that.” Does he ever.
Scully makes goo-goo eyes at Hartwell as he tips his hat and leaves, but when she turns back to the body, her face falls from a smile to her customary pissed face.
“…who is arguably having a worse time in Texas than I am…although not by much.” I love that she’s sassy on the autopsy tape.
Her little white tennis shoes are tiny. Tiny! All she’s got are these little hoooooves!
Is there anything better, ever, than Scully getting hungry while looking at the contents of a dead guy’s stomach? “Mushrooms….that sounds really good.”
The time stamp correction from Davy Crockett Motor Court to Sam Houston Motor Lodge is brilliant. I’d absolutely love to read Gilligan’s actual script for this episode.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Nothin’.”
Mulder’s so sad when he wonders aloud what kind of vampire would need to dope his victim to the gills.
“I just put money in the magic fingers!”
“I won’t let it go to waste.”
Stay, Scully, stay! I know he probably stinks like trailer park mud, but come on! It’s Mulder! Next to you! On a bed with the magic fingers!
His giggling is INSANE, and I love it.
“Forgoing both dinner and sleep--” Hee, in both versions, Scully would like us to know that she is a martyr who does, indeed, do it ALL FOR HIM.
“Gasp! Chloral hydrate’s in the pizza. The pizza guy. Gasp! Mulder!” Her concern for Mulder here is so exaggerated, complete with gasping. She really wants Mulder to know that she was worried.
Mulder is not impressed with the ending of her side of the story. “That’s it?” Not quite, Mulder
“Who’s the black private dick who’s a sex machine with all the chicks? Shaft! Can you dig it? They say this cat Shaft’s a bad mother-- Shut your mouth! I’m talkin’ bout Shaft.”
Scully's face: No, seriously. You're telling me I'm going to have this guy's kid? This guy right here?
This is one of those things that I like to pretend they turned into a cute inside joke. Because I'm a weirdo.
“You are afraid to tell the truth.”
I love how they keep it at a medium shot when Mulder comes over to her, and how they let him really loom over her a bit, without her standing on a box. It’s kinda hot when we really see their difference in height.
“You arrived at the office characteristically LESS than exuberant.”
“Why are we going to Daaaaallas?” Her whining! In Mulder’s mind, she apparently exists in a perpetual state of PMS while he is a quiet, docile gentleman.
Although it is cute how he’s working so hard to impress her, nervously arranging his slides, hoping that she doesn’t, I don‘t know, unhinge her jaw and swallow him whole for taking so long with his presentation. And there’s a kernel of truth there, because after all, she really is the only one he wants/cares about convincing. Not to get all deep on you, but he probably thinks he has to work so hard in order to keep her from leaving.
“I don’t want to jump to any hasty conclusions…”
“But, as always, I’m very eager to hear your opinion.”
“Because they don’t exist?”
Casket name alert! I zoomed in on another one and it’s called “The Velvet Fog.”
“Hoo, boy.” Mulder is so jealous of Scully’s crush on Hartwell that, in his mind, it’s become this exaggerated and obvious. I think we can all agree that Scully would never actually say this, but in Mulder’s mind, she might as well have.
“Y’all must be the guvmint people.” I would pay money to have my memory erased so I could watch this episode for the first time again. Because oh my Lord. Duchovny does this horrified, teeth baring thing while Scully just keeps on swooning. Actually, the thing he does with his teeth is very similar to this terrible face I make at my sister, which makes her go, “STOP! Wait, do it again.” And I love that Mulder apparently included the teeth in his recap to Scully, needing to diss Hartwell even when he's out of the picture.
“He had a slight overbite.”
He’s a little adorable when he’s jealous. Although, come on, this is the man who actually did fuck a vampire, so I’m not sure he has room to talk. (Do you think he ever told Scully about that?)
It’s interesting how Scully is making silly faces behind Mulder’s back, mocking his long recounting of vampire legend and lore, but in her own version of the story, she essentially gave herself a similarly wordy monologue, only one that discussed the possible scientific/biological reasons for a person to behave like a vampire. So it's not like she would actually make fun of his speech. But Mulder apparently assumes that this is what she was doing behind his back. AW.
I love his Vanna White gesture at her red hair.
I have about 500 “favorite parts” of this episode, and one of them is Luke Wilson’s pronunciation of “whhhhetlands.” Actually, pretty much any “wh-” word. It’s very Hank Hill.
“There you go. Cause I ain’t hearin’ any birds singin’. Right? Course, it’s winter, and we ain’t got no birds.”
“I mean, CIA, Secret Service, y’all run the show.”
“Oh, he’ll come.” Mulder manages to over dramatize in his own tale, making himself look silly.
“Yeah. I'll tell you what. I know I'm in law enforcement, but I'd like to take him to Vegas myself. Am I right?”
“Well, that would be illegal, right?”
“He's like a little calculator.”
“Skipping ahead.”
“Why skip ahead?”
It’s cute how every time we go back to their office, they’ve moved.
“Bird dog it!”
"I just spent hours on my feet doing an autopsy, all for you. I do it all for you, Mulder. You know, I haven't eaten since 6:00 this morning, and all that was was a half a cream cheese bagel, and it wasn't even real cream cheese, it was light cream cheese."
I love how they start tight on Mulder’s woeful, muddy face, and then slowly pull back as Scully goes on her cream cheese rampage. I know how she feels. When I haven’t eaten, I’m told that I get “fussy.”
“Finally, you left.” The painting swinging down off of one of its nails works precisely because it’s so comedically over the top in kind of a stage play way.
Mulder drops his clothes on the floor. I hope that they eventually came to a cohabitation understanding and Scully no longer has to nag him, Rob and Laura-style, about his methods of toothpaste squeezing and the like.
He looks damn good in an undershirt, though, so she probably isn't complaining about his clothes on the floor.
Hey, big spender. A classy TWO CENT tip. Perhaps, like Dwight Schrute, Mulder doesn’t tip for anything he could do himself.
I love how when he opens the pizza box, his affection for Scully is transferred to the pizza. Or vice versa. “Ahhh, Scully.” (Please note: the slats of the chair say "HOWDY PARTNER.")
“So, I ate your dinner.”
It’s cute how the olive falls on his chest and he grabs it. It makes me think of the line from “Parabiosis” about Mulder “fish[ing] a green pepper out of the neck of his T-shirt.”
Dude, his upper arms are delicious.
I love his triumphant, drugged out look after he tosses the seeds, which Ronnie will have to pick up. “You are in big trouble.”
I can't not see the hand with the stake that reaches into frame as he breaks down the chair.
He chased him over “hill and dale.” Say what you will, but he’s kind of an awesome storyteller.
“Probable cause of death: gee, that’s a tough one.”
They are so cute and awkward as they sit on Skinner’s couch. His leather couch. I bet the Monday morning after his stand-off with Scully in “Paper Clip,” Skinner came into work and told his assistant to find him a leather couch in the Corporate Express catalog. Mulder idly cracks his knuckles and Scully gets all wifely, fussing with his tie. Because a well-tied tie is going to sway Skinner in their favor. Good thinking, Scully.
“No, his throat was…bitten. It was sort of…gnawed on.”
“Daylight’s burning, agents.” Skinner + Vince Gilligan=gold. Vince, is there some way you can get Pileggi on Breaking Bad? Pretty, pretty please?
When Hartwell shows up again, and they’re able to check out his teeth, Scully taps at her own teeth while Mulder makes a face. I love things like this, because here it’s not about the everlasting love, it’s about them being best friends.
“Don’t say I never did nothing’ fer ya.” He’s obviously feeling fairly confident by now about how he stacks up to Hartwell. Although if he were completely confident, he wouldn‘t feel the need to be so snarky. “You’re good.” He gives her this look, like: I’m better than him, and I have very nice teeth. And I’ll only bite if you say it’s okay.
“As Agent Mulder says…” She can’t NOT talk about him. Not that I don’t think they’re meant to be and all of that, I do. But on a purely practical level, they could never in a million years have actually been with anyone else because they’re so completely wrapped up in each other.
I don’t think we see them read people their rights very often, so it’s awesome to see it happening while Mulder’s straddling a coffin. A coffin that’s trying to be opened from the inside.
“Come on, cut it out, Ronnie.”
“BACK!” The breadstick cross and Duchovny’s delivery are genius.
So what even happens to them? Why wouldn’t they have just killed them? I have to assume it was just a matter of wanting to get out of town as quickly as possible, which meant drugging Mulder and Scully to make their clean getaway. Draining their blood would’ve, perhaps, taken time that they didn’t have.
He adorably checks her neck, and she humors him, even though, you know, vampires don’t exist.
“Anyway. I was drugged.”
“That is…essentially, exactly the way it happened.”
“Essentially.”
“Except for the part about the buck teeth.”