"The truth will save you, Scully. I think it'll save both of us."
ACTUAL DOCUMENTED ACCOUNT: Scully is diagnosed with abduction cancer.
REVIEW: A fairly poignant episode as Scully deals with her long-heralded cancer. And the straight-up drama elements work quite well (in fact, Gillian Anderson won an Emmy for this episode). Mulder's emotional support, Scully's oscillation between hope and despair, and her mom's righteous anger are all well played. The letter/journal Scully writes to Mulder is as poetic as her reports to the FBI, which is to say, just a touch pretentious - a small complaint, surely. While Scully is in the hospital, Mulder follows the trail left by the Conspiracy, right to a hive of hybrid clones. Mulder and the Lone Gunmen, acting as a kind of heist team, break into the facility where they keep Scully's ova (so is she the mother of hybrids?) along with other abductees'. This is the weaker thread of the episode by far. Despite the important revelations, clues fall too easily into Mulder's lap, and the thriller elements don't quite thrill.
The real surprise is how much Skinner is ready to sacrifice for his people. He is adamant Mulder not go to the Cancerman for answers and solutions, but to save Scully's life, HE goes to the Cancerman and offers to sell his OWN soul! Well, Skinner's awesome, so maybe he thinks he has a better chance of outplaying this particular opponent, though he should probably feel a little ill-at-ease that Cancerman has to go to a higher power to secure what Skinner needs. And it should be possible, given that the Conspiracy GAVE her this strange cancer, and her doctor was, in fact, in on it and probably killing the affected women with his "treatment" (cue drill bit nightmare). After all, we know Scully has another 5 seasons in her after this (and lives to 2015), so we can expect the unsolved mystery of her remission down the line. It's just a matter of how far they'll take it before undoing it.
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: The hybrid clone that helps Mulder, Kurt Crawford, is meant to be a matured batch of the young boy clone seen in Herrenvolk. We see one of him get killed by the cover-up police, and he melts into green goo like the alien hybrids from Colony, Gregors and a woman claiming to be Samantha and her sisters. At the time, there was no way to know if that "Samantha" was in any way cloned from the original, but if the agrarian drones in Alberta were green-blooded hybrids (not true clones), then it's entirely possible there are Sams of different agents, and the ones in Colony were telling the truth about that at least. The Secret Masters in this case probably have the right idea breeding mute kids, because the adults all seem to turn against them...
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Important revelations and all that, but the plot isn't air tight. What you want to watch this one for is the strong performances from all the regular and recurring actors.
REVIEW: A fairly poignant episode as Scully deals with her long-heralded cancer. And the straight-up drama elements work quite well (in fact, Gillian Anderson won an Emmy for this episode). Mulder's emotional support, Scully's oscillation between hope and despair, and her mom's righteous anger are all well played. The letter/journal Scully writes to Mulder is as poetic as her reports to the FBI, which is to say, just a touch pretentious - a small complaint, surely. While Scully is in the hospital, Mulder follows the trail left by the Conspiracy, right to a hive of hybrid clones. Mulder and the Lone Gunmen, acting as a kind of heist team, break into the facility where they keep Scully's ova (so is she the mother of hybrids?) along with other abductees'. This is the weaker thread of the episode by far. Despite the important revelations, clues fall too easily into Mulder's lap, and the thriller elements don't quite thrill.
The real surprise is how much Skinner is ready to sacrifice for his people. He is adamant Mulder not go to the Cancerman for answers and solutions, but to save Scully's life, HE goes to the Cancerman and offers to sell his OWN soul! Well, Skinner's awesome, so maybe he thinks he has a better chance of outplaying this particular opponent, though he should probably feel a little ill-at-ease that Cancerman has to go to a higher power to secure what Skinner needs. And it should be possible, given that the Conspiracy GAVE her this strange cancer, and her doctor was, in fact, in on it and probably killing the affected women with his "treatment" (cue drill bit nightmare). After all, we know Scully has another 5 seasons in her after this (and lives to 2015), so we can expect the unsolved mystery of her remission down the line. It's just a matter of how far they'll take it before undoing it.
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: The hybrid clone that helps Mulder, Kurt Crawford, is meant to be a matured batch of the young boy clone seen in Herrenvolk. We see one of him get killed by the cover-up police, and he melts into green goo like the alien hybrids from Colony, Gregors and a woman claiming to be Samantha and her sisters. At the time, there was no way to know if that "Samantha" was in any way cloned from the original, but if the agrarian drones in Alberta were green-blooded hybrids (not true clones), then it's entirely possible there are Sams of different agents, and the ones in Colony were telling the truth about that at least. The Secret Masters in this case probably have the right idea breeding mute kids, because the adults all seem to turn against them...
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Important revelations and all that, but the plot isn't air tight. What you want to watch this one for is the strong performances from all the regular and recurring actors.
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