The Cave's
X-Files Commentary Archives: Drive (6x02)
Title: Drive (and musings on early
Season 6) Author: LoneThinker
A lot of things have been squirming
around in the dark back corners of my head for some time how, and seeing
the first two episodes of the new seasons has seemed to strengthen them
and send them trooping out into the light, murmuring and waving their
little fists.
6x01 left me with an uneasiness/dissatisfaction I couldn't define at first. Then today someone posted a reply in my 'Taste the Forbidden' thread where she talked about M/S seeming out of character in 6x01 as well as in FTF. It was the first time I'd seen this mentioned, but I'd had that very same feeling since the first time I saw the movie. Something--and I'm still not sure exactly what--was just a little bit
off. It gave me a strange feeling, as if you'd gone to your mother's house and when she answered the door, it was someone slightly different and not the mom you were used to,
but who claimed to be your mother. A little tinge of the twilight zone. I've had this feeling about The Beginning, also--that somehow, things are just slightly off--but I haven't been able to put my finger on what's causing it.
I am beginning to think it's not something that can be explained away on the basis that the writers know what they're doing and we viewers are just clueless, but rather something in the writing. I don't know what it is yet, partly characterization that seems just a tad off (sort of like
novelized sequels to the Star Wars movies, where you're reading along and all of a sudden you're thinking, "But Luke wouldn't say that. He doesn't talk that way.") And part of it is the overall storytelling, I think. 6x01 gives us a chance to look at a Mulder/Scully conflict...
and yes, these things do come up in real life. But in the end we don't
seem to have really gained anything. There doesn't seem to be any real
resolution (I'm not asking for every last loose end tied up and the
floor swept, BTW.) It's as if the story were a bag of parts dumped on a
tabletop and just left there instead of being assembled into something
useful, or artistic, or interesting.
Compare this conflict in 6x01 with the Mulder/Scully conflict in Never Again. It, too, came to no real resolution, but the way it was handled was so much more satisfying than in TB, and that last out-of-sync scene, with Mulder cutting himself off mid-sentence and the stark absence of music
was masterful while 6x01 just seemed to lay there.
Partly I think it boils down to the question, What makes a good story? Drive, for instance, didn't make it into my top 10, though it wasn't in the basement along with
*The Calusari and *Sanguinarium. (Have you ever noticed that there are episodes people refer to repeatedly in discussions, and others that are never mentioned at all?) What makes for a memorable ep/story?
What does it take--what does it have to contain, what does it have to do
for us/to us--in order to be one of those we refer to over and over?
Regarding Drive:
My gut reaction was that it wasn't as unsatisfying as *The Beginning. But on the other hand, not-as-bad-as is not much to say about an episode. As Patterson has said, if you've got things you liked about this ep, please share them; I know there are eps I've thought of as
throwaways the first time that I came to see a lot more in after some thoughtful commentary by other 'philes. If I had to grade Drive, I would probably rank it along with Soft Light or Born Again. The premise was interesting if not exactly engaging, we (thankfully) got to see Mulder and Scully working as a supportive team again, though at a distance (subtract 2 points). The bigotry angle was an interesting tidbit, but somehow I came away feeling that a lot more could have been done with it--not to run it up a flagpole and wave it around, but that something of much more depth could have come from such a potentially substantial
sub-theme. As it was, I think it was just smeared on the surface, like frosting, but underneath the cake was a little dry. All of a sudden the dreaded
term 'two-dimensional' leaps to thought.
We do see some development of Scully's attitude in this one. Mulder doesn't really have to do a lot of convincing to get her to stray from their assignment and go to Nevada. Once she's there she seems a lot more in her element examining Vicky Crump and theorizing about what had caused the damage. Actually she was in fine form in that department, strong and confident. And at the end, in Kersh's office, she defends with confidence their activities and the lives they've saved by participating in this case. She really has to have come a long way--or be really fed up with the junk work, though, to have actually vocalized that "big pile of manure" remark while she was still in the office.
Though Kersh is not going to win any popularity contest with us, pitted as he is against our
protagonists, still he is just what any good administrator would look for in this situation where two agents are floating around out in left field and are not likely to stop regardless of your administrative moves. Kersh is the tough guy who will not take any guff from them. He will not let them get away with anything. He will penalize them and know which one to penalize to get the most mileage out of the punishment. He will not go mushy and become a convert to their cause. You don't have to like the guy, but you can't fault him for doing his job. Kersh did, BTW, prove to be pretty observant on several occasions. He remarked about how many times Scully played apologist for Mulder, and he knew that making Scully pay for the expenses would have more effect than making Mulder foot the bill. As he points out, Mulder is already willing to be the martyr, and beyond that, making Scully pay will doubtless give Mulder a good case of survivor guilt.
Someone in a post in the 5x20 thread (on the old Fox boards) wondered why, at the end, Scully didn't go to Mulder and comfort him, but I think this was a guy thing and Scully understood that. Mulder needed some space at that point. He'd just driven across a state and a half at gunpoint--and without a pit stop--by a guy ranting about a Jewish conspiracy.
In the end he had failed to save the man, and--reality intruding again--he must realize at this point that with this failure, he will have absolutely no ammunition with which to defend their having left their assigned work for something more interesting. Which was his idea, but whose consequences--once again--fall on his partner as well. He can handle this, but crowding will not help him, and Scully knows this.
I can't help thinking, as I look back at it, that this final scene seemed somewhat two-dimensional, too. We know David and Gillian are capable of wringing worlds of meaning out of a look, a glance, a touch. But I'm not sure the writing gave them a chance to do what they do best. All in all, an ep with a potentially interesting premise, but which could have used an extra jolt of life and energy.
