“Quagmire” – Season 3 Ep. 22

Mulder: Why did you name your dog Queequeg?

Scully: It was the name of the harpoonist in Moby Dick. My father used to read to me from Moby Dick when I was a little girl, I called him Ahab and he called me Starbuck. So I named my dog Queequeg. It’s funny, I just realized something.

Mulder: It’s a bizarre name for a dog, huh?

Scully: No, how much you’re like Ahab. You’re so consumed by your personal vengeance against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or mysteries, everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology.

Mulder: Scully, are you coming on to me?

Scully: It’s the truth or a white whale. What difference does it make? I mean, both obsessions are impossible to capture, and trying to do so will only leave you dead along with everyone else you bring with you. You know Mulder, you are Ahab.

Written by: Kim Newton

Directed by: Kim Manners

Original Air Date: May 3rd, 1996

Principal Setting: Blue Ridge Mountains, Georgia

Episode Summary:

Scully and Mulder take on a case in Georgia when there are reports of people disappearing around a local lake. Scully isn’t sure why Mulder thinks this is an X-file case until she see’s a highway sign of the town’s version of the Loch Ness monster named Big Blue. The last victim was a local park ranger, but Scully thinks it’s still nonsense and not worthy of her time. The killings continue and Mulder believes there is something very real out there, whether it be Big Blue or some other creature. Scully begins to believe there is some creature in the lake when the “monster” affects her in a very personal way. Poor Queequeg.

Personal Commentary:

What I appreciated most about this episode is that we never really get to see the creature that is really killing these people until the very end. It takes the perspective of the monster a lot like what they do in Friday the 13th and Jaws. The scene on the rock is one of the best Scully and Mulder moments as she confronts Mulder on why he is so obsessed with chasing after the unknown and what it will really fulfill if he ever does find the truth. It’s a very good smoke and mirrors episode.

Episode Grade: B

Favorite Scene:

Fun Facts:

• Scully’s dog is named Queequeg after the fictional character in the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by American author Herman Melville. The chief harpooner aboard the Pequod, Queequeg is the first principal character encountered by the narrator, Ishmael. This episode displays many elements in common with Moby-Dick, particularly the obsession with a large, evasive aquatic animal. Also, in the novel, Queequeq was a cannibal which explains the correlation when the dog was eating his owner in “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”.
• Scully tells Mulder she named her dog after a character in “Moby Dick”. She then starts comparing Mulder to Captain Ahab. In 2011, Gillian Anderson (Scully) plays the part of Elizabeth, the wife of Ahab in the TV presentation of “Moby Dick”.
• The name of the lake, Heuvelmans Lake, is a tribute to famed sea-monster researcher Bernard Heuvelmans.
• The quick glimpse of Big Blue in the last scene was created at the last minute by the visual effects department after a rubber version proved unconvincing.
• The scene on the rock involved roughly 10 pages of dialogue, which is a ton for a weekly TV series, according to director Kim Manners.

Faces You May Recognize:

• Chris Ellis is famous for playing in Catch Me If You Can, Armeggedon, and The Dark Knight Rises.