"I hate the way you see me!"
-- Marty Glen
I think I knew I was going to like "Mind's Eye" when it opened
with Scully, for the first time in any episode that I remember, explaining
the case at hand instead of Mulder (in retrospect, I am glad I enjoyed that
scene because that was about all we got of her the entire hour!) This episode
offered many things that have made The X-files great.
For one, it featured one of the best guest stars in recent memory. Lili
Taylor brought a spunk and tenderness and fiesty attitude to her role that
I loved throughout the entire episode. I *believed* that she was blind,
something which always impresses me. And I loved that she was given a tough,
proud, independent female character who had the inner goodness to fight
to stop these murders. The fact that these traits were given to a woman,
and a handicapped one at that, made quite an impression on me (even if she
did end up in jail at the end....) Ms. Taylor was the highlight of the hour.
Mulder, who also evidently was impressed by the qualities I mentioned, champions
her cause with his singleminded determination and (rather admirable) disregard
for what others will say about him. I had begun to worry a bit if the writing
staff were not weakening his character from
the man we met in Season 1. This was a breath of fresh air, as was another
view of Mulder's unselfish, sympathetic side. Duchovny seemed to find it
so as well; one of the reasons I miss this Mulder is that Duchovny plays
him so kindly and honestly, with a gentleness he makes
you feel (and those close-ups were...appreicated.) Now if he would just
treat his partner like that more often...but then, we can't have anyone
thinking he actually cares about her, now can we?
For her part, Scully, as usual, had excellent ideas, used her skills and
intelligence to investigate...and is wrong. Again. I wonder sometimes if
she just argues with him out of habit now, or perhaps maybe Mrs. Spooky
agrees with him more than she says. Either way, she does
most of the real detective work in this episode to prove Mulder right. I
mention this, and the lack of her presence on screen, to point out that
I think the best ones are the ones in which neither Mulder nor Scully are
the protagonist, but rather the *partnership* is (thanks to Paula Graves
for this point.) The characters drive the story, not the plot. Pusher is
*the* classic example. She could have been worked in more. But, overall,
as the characterization was generally quite solid,
I am satisfied. I especially enjoyed the scenes with them bantering, as
always ("How else did she see-- bat vision?") with their heads
close together, argumentative and respectful simultaneously, feeding off
each other's ideas. Yet another reason to l love their relationship: they
*listen* to eachother (allright, usually). And as Scully proves here, they
don't have a problem admitting when they are wrong. To the untrained eye,
it might appear that these two don't even like each
other. But it really is just their brand of interaction. The mutual admiration
is understood.
The plot was not overly original but it was interesting. I particularly,
as always, loved hearing Mulder and Scully's mental wheels turn, and I enjoyed
the bit of a scientific aspect the writer (Tim Minnear) gave it, espcially
Marty's eye exam (which was Scully's idea....) For as much as I love this
show's ambiguity, I enjoy watching the writers come up with a clever, plausible
quasi-explation that have some basis in reality. I can relate to the story
and the charaters more
easily that way. The scene in which Mulder tells Marty that the killer was
her father (anyone else call that way beforehand?) and the scene in which
he explain about how she was blinded at birth as her mother died were especially
touching. I actually understood what was going on (in
fact, it could be argued that what happened was too clear for this show's
standards.) What I did NOT understand or like at all was that in the end
for all Scully's work and Mulder's crusading, nothing changed. Our heroes
are, again, ineffective. I did understand her need to have
control over her own life and choices and to be seen as she wants to be
seen so she chose to shoot her father and be jailed on her own terms rather
than allow him to get away with what he had done (to her as much as his
victims). But in the end, she had no real choice anyway; either
way, her fate was the same no matter what she, Mulder or Scully or the likeable
Det. Penik did. She ends up in the dark, in jail, extactly where she would
have been otherwise. Ah, well: at least they caught the killer. Or rather,
Marty did.
Random SWILS note: Gosh her voice sounded sexy in the episode. For a sensitive
Mulder and a great heroine, yet considering the ending that did not satisfy
and the lack of Scully, this episode gets 8 tic tacs out of 10.
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