Regina Cannot Explain It All
I'm Regina Small. I'm a writer and editor in NYC. I have a lot of opinions.
Interests include: sci-fi/fantasy, literature, summertime daydrinking, trying to be a better person, fancy manicures, philosophy, pictures for sad children, and the role of irony in the modern world. And fandom, of course.
I have another blog dedicated exclusively to science fiction/fantasy. Read it here.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
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Let’s Get Serious For a Second
“Ghost in the Machine” serves the same function for Mulder that “Squeeze” served for Scully. Just as Scully confronted the career path she might have had, in the form of school chum and asshat ladder-climber Tom Colton, the re-entrance of Lamana into Mulder’s life signals a similar coming-to-terms. Mulder was once a brilliant (if eccentric) criminologist; he has all the natural aptitude at psychological profiling that a grunt like Lamana lacks. But Mulder doesn’t have Lamana’s conventionality and utter disinterest in the paranormal. Despite Lamana’s technical incompetence, he presents a more appealing figure to his superiors. Because even if Spooky Mulder can construct an insightful criminal profile, who wants to listen to that lunatic?
But this — again like Scully and Colton — is where Lamana’s and Mulder’s goals diverge. Lamana craves a “win,” enough to steal Mulder’s notes, and enough to tail Brad Wilczek to Eurisko, wanting to catch him red-handed, rather than just arresting him on the “ample” evidence the bureau already has. Lamana doesn’t want to be metaphorically consigned to the basement, the way Mulder literally has. But Mulder seems to take a perverse pride in his outlaw status. (“Jerry wanted the 5th floor….I was gunning for a basement office with no heat or windows.”) Pinning some indirect blame for Samantha’s abduction on the government’s persistent cover-up of alien life is a way of shifting blame from his younger self, the boy who couldn’t move to save his sister. His bosses may be the thorn in his side, but his fight to expose them is the only thing keeping him from sliding into spiritual torpor. Martyrdom is what revs his engine. It’s a subtextual stretch, but one could even argue that Mulder might’ve left his notes out with the hope that something might happen to them. In fact, the entire X-Files project, overseen and manipulated by hostile forces, could be read as a way, not to uncover the truth, but to sustain and validate Mulder’s sense that he is not and never will be in control. Nothing could’ve saved Samantha, least of all her helpless brother, if the villainous Powers That Be commanded otherwise. So where Lamana desires victory, Mulder — in some sense — desires failure.
My other blog gets very nerdshares-blog about this episode of The X-Files.
