Throwback Thursday, a weekly article in which we look back at our favorite TV episodes from over the years.
Everyone out there that stills waits for the truth to unfold knows that The X-Files wasn't always following its mythology and the dramatic and science fiction episodes were alternated with monsters of the week, closer to horror or campy storylines that were self aware of what the show was and the possibilities it had. This series was groundbreaking because it mixed genres, not only with its scripts but how it was filmed.
Vince Gilligan's episodes worked as spooky comic relief, while remaining truth to the show. And Bad Blood is a perfect example of this.
The episode starts with Mulder and Scully running after a teenager, when Mulder catches him he sticks a wooden stake through his heart, and we discovered sharp vampire teeth, only that when Scully arrives she removes the kid's fake fangs, and awkwardness ensues.
The narrative of the episode is divided into two moments, the first part showcasing the same story but first told by Scully's perspective and then by Mulder's.
In hers Mulder talks way faster than he usually does, a bit of a steam roller, and she just tries to state scientific facts, because vampires aren't real. He gets lost in the pursuit of the truth and ignores her while Luke Wilson's sheriff looks at her as a woman. (It's interesting while rewatching that the closer we get to Scully as a sexual being is when Carter doesn't write the episodes)
In Mulder's version, Scully nonchalantly just debunks his theories, and the slightest jealousy appears when the sheriff isn't as handsome as Scully's version is.
But besides their different appreciation of moments the facts are straight, someone drugs tourist through the pizza and then exsanguinates them.
When they're call into Skinners office, and Mulder's defense is to say he was drugged therefore his criteria was tampered, the other part of the narratives starts. Told from a third person perspective. Ronnie, the kid Mulder killed, got up from the morgue and bite the M.D. The agents have to go back to the town. Mulder was right, he was a vampire, and later we found, he broke a code, the whole town was filled with these monsters but trying to lay low, paying their taxes and everything.
Gilligan's talent relays on the comic details without messing with Mulder and Scully's partnership. It shows how they see each other and how aware they are of themselves, sometimes completely missing the point. (There's a reason why it took so many season for these two to get together) But also this episode is seen as such a brilliant one, not just because it's a bit of fresh air after everything the duo goes through, is because while playing this slight changes in the agents demeanor it lets Duchovny and Anderson shine. Specially Gillian who doesn't dwell into comedy as much, but the subtlety in her performance makes it even funnier. For example when she's completely frustrated about having to do another autopsy and her anger towards Mulder gets focused on the fact that her breakfast was a bagel with cream cheese, but it wasn't even real cream cheese, it was light, and she does everything for him. Which is a reminder that is true, she would go to the ends of the earth for him (and likewise, quite literally)
The amazing way the narrative collapses works to know than the truth is relative in the eyes of the beholder, that the details are as important as the larger picture, and these two work better together, than apart.
