The Cave's X-Files
Commentary Archives: Episodes: Millenium (A conversation)
Post: This is the way the world ends... From: Zuffy
Date: 12/1/99
Thanks for 0516 and others for bringing up the end of the world scenarios.
I especially like this from 0516: Scully asks Frank to postulate 'what-if'
the dead can come back to life and what if there is a war between good and
evil (whatever that is)? 'Who would win?' Frank's soft, subtly exasperated
reply is the best acting in the entire episode. 'I'm sorry.'"
(I did not watch the Millennium series, so what I say here is based only
on this one episode.)
11-13 asks why we need The Four Horsemen when we have aliens. Although I
know the idea of a cross-over episode was somewhat contrived and certainly
rushed, I liked the juxtaposition of different ways of the world ending in
these first episodes of season 7. Isn't that what The X-Files is about?
Yes, the scenarios differ -- the end by alien science versus the
religious/magical -- but common themes also stand out. There is a neat
parallel here between the Millennium conspirators who seek to trigger the
apocalypse through revival of the four dead-by-suicide "horsemen" and the
syndicate members who would precipitate our great extinction through the
alien masters. In both cases, those bringing doom are sure of its
necessity or inevitability, even, for the Millennium group, of its
desirability. Both sets of conspirators seem confident of their own fates,
perhaps, and find meaning in the arrival of end time. In the transition,
they become something other than men, either hybrids or undead, abandoning
a human state that no longer seems tenable against the greater force,
religious or alien. They are opposed by men (the obvious parallel between
Mulder and Frank) who are obsessive, single-minded, and ostracized. Both
men having wrestled with whether they should save themselves rather than
pursue their quest… and whether saving themselves might not turn out to be
a hollow act. (Scully is in her own way just as obsessed, only people
rarely call her that. I liked the way Mulder included her saying "Just
three people talking…")
In both apocalyptic visions, the future prospect is evil -- as Scully asks
and Frank responds, confirming her own pessimistic take (as LJ has pointed
out in other contexts) and her own sense that the Millennium group's
beliefs are a hopeless distortion of religion. In Mulder's *AF dream, his
own end came amidst the alien Armageddon -- a hint to us that despite his
fascination with the existence of aliens, he knows they are not benign.
The two scenarios also take us back to a question raised LJ's commentary
on The Last Temptation of Christ: Is it necessary that the human race
betray itself to bring about its own end? Is it inevitable? No answers
here, but frightening questions.
The kiss at midnight also had an important symbolic element to it: the
moment for the apocalypse is replaced by a gesture of simple commitment/
friendship/love, an affirmation of what life force prevails -- at least
temporarily -- against doom and the void. Of what makes it worth fighting
for.
One final thought: The line "This is the way the world ends" comes from TS
Elliot poem, "The Hollow Men." For me, *Millennium carried the same gloomy
mood as the poem, the same vision of hollow men with hollow souls and a
bleak invocation of religion. Check out the whole thing, formatted at
http://members.tripod.com/~Zuffy/hollow.htm , or here is the end:
Between the idea/ And the reality/ Between the motion/ And the act/ Falls
the Shadow/
For thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception/ And the creation/ Between the emotion/ And the
response/ Falls the Shadow/
Life is very long
Between the desire/ And the spasm/ Between the potency/ And the existence/
Between the essence/ And the descent/ Falls the Shadow/
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is/ Life is/ For Thine is the /
This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ This is
the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but with a whimper.
.................. The bigger (thematic) picture
From: Listen
Frank Black had parallel goals - on a macrocosmic scale, to 'save the
world', and on a microcosmic scale, to save his own soul through the
preservation of what is left of his family - as Mulder and Scully do.
Therefore the reunion of Frank and his daughter is thematically important
because it reaffirms that the larger quest is meaningless without the
grounding provided by a close connection to another person (or persons) of
importance in one's life.
So in my view, 'the kiss' in *M is at heart a device meant to illustrate
that Mulder and Scully both recognize and value their importance to each
other. They acknowledge that without the support of someone else they can
trust and rely on, their larger quest becomes meaningless. Ultimately, the
kiss serves as a profound statement of what really matters in life; it is
a gentle, non-sexual exchange that speaks of trust and comfort and
sanctuary, of something precious that has slowly built between them. This
profound connection they have forged is well worth the effort of
sustaining.
For Mulder to take this initiative speaks to the continuity from *6E/AF.
The kiss is part of the continuum of their connection, part of a natural
progression based on the cumulation of their years of partnership; years
packed with tension and change and sorrow, years that they have managed to
weather, together.
I agree with LJ that the subtle awkwardness after the kiss is the right
note for Mulder and Scully in this new situation, as they have remained
scrupulously cautious for six long years. Perhaps I was able to overlook
the seeming stiffness between them because I saw tangible evidence of the
value they place on their connection. However, I found Mulder slipping his
arm around Scully's shoulders, and keeping it there as they walked
off-screen, most telling, as was Scully's passive acceptance of that arm
(as LJ pointed out, a big step for her, perhaps equivalent to a reciprocal
arm from anyone else). This action extended the pervading sense of
acceptance; extended it out of frame and into the future.
Scully's smile may have seemed a trifle stiff, but to me it seemed more a
poignant acknowledgement of the road they've traveled to reach this moment
in time -- IMHO, a gentle acceptance fraught with a residue of pain. After
all, the Christmas season will never be easy for this woman. She has lost
a father, then found and lost a daughter, both significant sorrows in a
time normally associated with joy. Naturally introspective, she is even
more likely to turn inwards during this season that must remind her of
loss.
However, as LT has said, "some things are more significant than pain". And
that is what we are seeing here - the triumph of the hopefulness of the
human spirit over the pitfalls of life. At least that's my take on this
episode.
............... Parallel apocalypses
From: Littljoe
Really nice connections, Zuffy, between the Millennial apocalypse and the
alien apocalypse. I love the points you make: that in both cases the end
of our world is hastened by humans whose warped world view makes them
unable to see how anyone would want to continue with this world as it is,
and that in both cases bringing about the apocalypse involves becoming
other than human. It makes me think again about how Mulder was
deliberately--and very pointedly, I thought--returned to the fully human
state at the end of *Amor Fati, so that he could continue to "fight the
fight." He will now be continuing the fight against the man who claims to
be his father, who now--we can anticipate--is no longer fully human.
I, too, noticed that the tone of the episode was not what one would
expect, given throat-gnawing zombies and cell phones in caskets. Instead
of being creepy and scary, or even gloomy, this whole story had a
pervasive air of intense sadness, almost (thought not as well-done) like *Tithonius
at times. This was really emphasized by Mark Snow's music, which often was
very reminiscent of his music for *Paper Hearts (listen in particular
during the scene where Mulder drives up to the necromancer's gate and
climbs over the fence.) Your connection with T. S. Eliot is particularly
apt; even though our characters were talking about all the dead rising
from their graves, and Armageddon, and the final battle, this was not what
the music and the style of the acting conveyed to us at all.
