Conduit the Limerick:
A sunburn at night by the lake
Can't be a weather balloon mistake
The girl is returned
By the trees that were burned
And her mother tells her it was fake.
After watching this episode again I have a new found appreciation for it. I couldn't help but sit and marvel at how early the show's character development started. Now some may say that this just shows how unoriginal the show is 15 years later that there are so many similar elements to Mulder and Scully's relationship. I prefer to call it consistent and refreshing.
The episode is about a girl who is abducted while camping at Lake Okobogee in Iowa. Mulder requests to open a case based on a tabloid article. This is a big controversy with Director Blevens or whatever his name is and he is about to deny it but Scully asks to talk to Mulder about it first to see if she can talk him out of it. I don't know what happens but it would appear that instead she ends up talking the Director into letting them go on the case. Most likely due to the fact that there is a missing person. Mulder and Scully find a number of strange things happening such as the boy who appears to be copying "documents" from a defense satellite which end up acting as giant pixels in a huge picture of his missing sister, all of which he is receiving from the static in a TV. Weird. The NSA finds out about this and ends up arresting the boy and splitting him and his mother up. The mother is understandably angry at Mulder and Scully (although she really ought to be just mad at Scully, tattle-tale) and she decides she would rather not have their help after all. Mulder and Scully uncover a plot to murder the missing girl and her boyfriend by the boyfriend's pregnant ex-girlfriend after they find his body and Scully urges Mulder to move on and drop the case due to the fact that the ex is now a suspect in the murder of the missing girl as well. Mulder doesn't buy it.
As they leave the police station there is a scene that is very similar to a scene from the recent sequel that really got me thinking about these two characters and their history. As Mulder heads out on his way to continue searching for the missing girl Scully tells him to stop running after his sister. First of all I just have to say that this is one thing about Scully that kind of bugs me. Whenever Mulder gets really passionate about a case because of his passion to find his sister Scully is always telling him to quit, but then when Mulder starts to lose hope and passion (such as in the episode Little Green Men) she tells him to hold onto his hope of finding his sister and not to give up. Maybe its the fact that I watched these two episodes back to back but she just comes across as a little inconsistent. Anyway, Mulder turns around and tells Scully to basically p*ss off. "Come with me or don't come with me but until they find a body, I'm not giving up on that girl." This scene reminds me of the scene in "I Want To Believe" where Mulder and Scully are standing out in the snowy field at night after everyone has decided to call off the search. Scully tells Mulder to "Stop!". Even after Mulder knows that his sister is dead, it hasn't kept him from searching for her anyway.
So they go to the missing girl's house but no one is there. This is when they find the strange giant picture however. They decide to go back to the lake and they find the mother and son. There is a little creepy scene where the boy appears to be walking towards the light of an alien ship but turns out to be a bunch of Harley Davidson riders. After this they find Ruby in the woods and take her to the hospital where she recovers. As Mulder is trying to get her to accept what happened to her and help her cope, the mother takes the Agents out in the hall and tells them to get lost because she doesn't want her daughter to be ridiculed the rest of her life like she was after seeing a UFO as a child. Overprotective mother's are kind of annoying sometimes.
Overall this episode is very entertaining and although some may argue that this is not a mythology episode, I think it has some very important elements in the development of Mulder and Scully's relationship and establishing a base for Mulder's passion to find his sister. The episode makes obvious parallels to this. Mulder identifies with a boy whose sister has been abducted and he does all that he can to find her. I give the episode a 10 out of 10.
A sunburn at night by the lake
Can't be a weather balloon mistake
The girl is returned
By the trees that were burned
And her mother tells her it was fake.
After watching this episode again I have a new found appreciation for it. I couldn't help but sit and marvel at how early the show's character development started. Now some may say that this just shows how unoriginal the show is 15 years later that there are so many similar elements to Mulder and Scully's relationship. I prefer to call it consistent and refreshing.
The episode is about a girl who is abducted while camping at Lake Okobogee in Iowa. Mulder requests to open a case based on a tabloid article. This is a big controversy with Director Blevens or whatever his name is and he is about to deny it but Scully asks to talk to Mulder about it first to see if she can talk him out of it. I don't know what happens but it would appear that instead she ends up talking the Director into letting them go on the case. Most likely due to the fact that there is a missing person. Mulder and Scully find a number of strange things happening such as the boy who appears to be copying "documents" from a defense satellite which end up acting as giant pixels in a huge picture of his missing sister, all of which he is receiving from the static in a TV. Weird. The NSA finds out about this and ends up arresting the boy and splitting him and his mother up. The mother is understandably angry at Mulder and Scully (although she really ought to be just mad at Scully, tattle-tale) and she decides she would rather not have their help after all. Mulder and Scully uncover a plot to murder the missing girl and her boyfriend by the boyfriend's pregnant ex-girlfriend after they find his body and Scully urges Mulder to move on and drop the case due to the fact that the ex is now a suspect in the murder of the missing girl as well. Mulder doesn't buy it.
As they leave the police station there is a scene that is very similar to a scene from the recent sequel that really got me thinking about these two characters and their history. As Mulder heads out on his way to continue searching for the missing girl Scully tells him to stop running after his sister. First of all I just have to say that this is one thing about Scully that kind of bugs me. Whenever Mulder gets really passionate about a case because of his passion to find his sister Scully is always telling him to quit, but then when Mulder starts to lose hope and passion (such as in the episode Little Green Men) she tells him to hold onto his hope of finding his sister and not to give up. Maybe its the fact that I watched these two episodes back to back but she just comes across as a little inconsistent. Anyway, Mulder turns around and tells Scully to basically p*ss off. "Come with me or don't come with me but until they find a body, I'm not giving up on that girl." This scene reminds me of the scene in "I Want To Believe" where Mulder and Scully are standing out in the snowy field at night after everyone has decided to call off the search. Scully tells Mulder to "Stop!". Even after Mulder knows that his sister is dead, it hasn't kept him from searching for her anyway.
So they go to the missing girl's house but no one is there. This is when they find the strange giant picture however. They decide to go back to the lake and they find the mother and son. There is a little creepy scene where the boy appears to be walking towards the light of an alien ship but turns out to be a bunch of Harley Davidson riders. After this they find Ruby in the woods and take her to the hospital where she recovers. As Mulder is trying to get her to accept what happened to her and help her cope, the mother takes the Agents out in the hall and tells them to get lost because she doesn't want her daughter to be ridiculed the rest of her life like she was after seeing a UFO as a child. Overprotective mother's are kind of annoying sometimes.
Overall this episode is very entertaining and although some may argue that this is not a mythology episode, I think it has some very important elements in the development of Mulder and Scully's relationship and establishing a base for Mulder's passion to find his sister. The episode makes obvious parallels to this. Mulder identifies with a boy whose sister has been abducted and he does all that he can to find her. I give the episode a 10 out of 10.