SEASON 1

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SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

SEASON 6

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It’s now 11.21pm and Mulder’s bursting through a door in a corridor. He looks upset and pissed. Does he ever enter a hospital like a normal person, asking politely at the desk after his friend/relative and sitting patiently in the waiting room? I think not. He quickly strides to Room 6 and opens the door, but stops immediately, gutted by the sight of his mother hooked up to a ventilator and all sorts of machines that go ‘Beep’. He walks over slowly and gently takes her hand and lays his other hand on her forehead. Scully has now turned up – I’m guessing her little feet couldn’t keep up with Mulder – and tells Mulder that the nurse said that Teena has had a stroke, they don’t know the nature or severity of it and the doctor’s on his way down. Mulder somehow intuits that his mother is cold and fusses around with her blankets, covering her. Scully is trying to be comforting, telling Mulder that people recover from these situations all the time, but Mulder only has eyes for his Mum. He strokes her hair softly and says, “Mom,” in this really broken, almost little-boy voice. The nurse pipes up and says that Teena is unable to speak. She tells Mulder that a 911 call came in and that the paramedics from Shelter Harbour found Teena on the floor of the house. Mulder keeps stroking Teena’s hair and calls to her again, but this time she opens her eyes and she wants something to write on. Kudos to Duchovny for the way he plays this scene. In fact, I love the way he makes Mulder interact with Teena – it seems like such an authentic Mother-Son relationship, even when things are bad and she slaps him in Demons.

Scully, ever prepared, hands over a notebook and a pen and Mulder holds the notebook for his mother while she scratches out the word – PALM. Over the years, I’ve heard many people assert that what she writes is PLAM, but I’m looking at the paused DVD right now and it’s definitely PALM. Mulder and Scully look puzzled by this development and Mulder says, “Palm?” but we fade to commercial.

Teena’s being wheeled down the corridor on a gurney, past Scully who’s fiddle-faddling at the nurse’s station, followed by a glum Mulder. Teena is being loaded into an ambulance, so she’s obviously being transferred to another facility. It’s a nice shot, with the ambulance lights reflected on the hospital’s glass doors, as Mulder watches his mother being driven away from him. Scully does some medico-babble, telling Mulder that his mother has had a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage, but that they’re hopeful because circulation was restored quickly. It could have been a lot worse. Mulder’s not looking very spry and Scully asks him if he’s all right. He then starts yammering on that he thinks there’s a correlation between the shooting at the fast-food restaurant and what’s happened to his mother. Yoink! Scully is going to get whiplash if he keeps changing direction so quickly. Apparently, he’s riffing on all this just because his mother used the word ‘palm’ and Distinguished Roy healed everyone with the palm of his hand. Personally, I think he’s drawing rather a long bow, but hell, the show’s about him so he gets to be right, at least 99.8% of the time. Driving, at least. Scully, however, is sceptical. She argues, using logic. She doesn’t think that ‘palm’ means anything, even though Mulder is desperate to believe it does. She explains that Teena’s brain and her thought processes have been radically changed by the stroke, but Mulder’s not having a bar of it. Scully offers to drive him to the nearest motel (you go, girl!), but Mulder, oblivious to her charms, insists on going back to DC.

Back in DC, and Mulder’s hitting the videotape (not like that – get your mind out of the gutter!). They aren’t the tapes that aren’t his (if you know what I mean), but are instead the footage shot by the news crew of the shooting incident and subsequent police investigation. There’s Distinguished Roy on tape, talking to Detective Donut. Someone walks in front of the camera, and then Distinguished Roy is just gone! Mulder rewinds the footage, and it’s clear that someone else is standing next to Detective Donut in Distinguished Roy’s clothes. How’d he manage that? Mulder tells Scully to go find out what happened to Distinguished Roy and when she asks in turn where he’s going, he tells her that if he told her, she’d never let him go. Mulder, I’m telling you, stay away from porn theatres. You’ll give your poor mother another stroke. Scully protests that he hasn’t slept in almost 24 hours, but he ignores her and tells her to call him if she finds anything. Disgruntled, Scully turns back to examining the tape.

Now there’s a crane shot of bureaucracy hell – the Social Security Administration in Washington DC. Poor clerical workers, all sitting behind computers on exactly the same desks in the most boring office space in the world. I’m glad my government work doesn’t suck this much. At least I have my Big Gay Boss to keep me amused. Enter a group of Secret Servicy-looking guys, who spread out looking for someone. No one seems to be taking much notice; if that happened in our office, everyone would have their heads up above their cubicles like meerkats. Now another door opens and more agents come in, accompanied by Old Smokey. Distinguished Roy is sitting at one of the desks, so I’m guessing it’s him they’re after. He must be this Season’s Key to the X-Files or something. He tries to slip surreptitiously out a back door, but there’s agents waiting for him there and they grab him. All of the agents leave, but no one in this office seems nonplussed by the apparent arrest of a co-worker. These public servants are either used to this, completely brain-dead or think that there is more paperwork involved. Rule One of the Public Service Code of Conduct – cover your arse. It’s one of those unwritten Australian Public Service rules. Cut to – a prison, and Distinguished Roy is being given the Hannibal Lecter treatment, I believe unfairly as it has yet to be proven that he has eaten anybody’s liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti.