Scully: This isn’t about you. Or maybe it is, indirectly. I don’t know. I feel like I’ve lost sight of myself, Mulder. It’s hard to see, let alone find in the darkness of covert locations. I mean, I wish I could say that we were going in circles, but we’re not. We’re going in an endless line — two steps forwards and three steps back. While my own life is… standing still.
Written by: Glen Morgan & James Wong
Directed by: Rob Bowman
Original Air Date: February 2nd, 1997
Principal Setting: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Episode Summary:
When Mulder tells Scully he is going on a week’s mandatory leave, he gives her a lead and travel plans to go investigate a case he’s been working on. A frustrated Scully feels like she is just Mulder’s errand girl, even bringing up the fact that she doesn’t have a proper desk to do her job. She reluctantly goes to Philadelphia to stakeout Mulder’s lead but is sidetracked by a tattoo shop. She curiously drawn in and meets Edward Jerse who asks her out to dinner.
Before all this has happened, Ed has recently gone through a nasty divorce. Depressed and despondent from drinking, he decides to get a tattoo on a whim. When he gets home, he begins to hear a woman’s voice causing him to be violent and irritated. He lashes out at work and loses his job, and also gets quickly irate with his downstairs neighbor’s loud bird. Thinking she is the source of the voice, he kills her and disposes the body in the apartment’s basement incinerator.
After drinks, Scully gets persuaded to get a tattoo of her own. She has a little romantic fling with Ed at his place, but wakes up to police officers knocking on the door suspecting Ed of his neighbor’s disappearance. Scully discovers a link to the dye in Ed’s tattoo and his violent outbreaks. Not before it’s too late to run away from him and his jealous lady tattoo.
Personal Commentary:
This one was a unique Scully-centric episode. I liked how Scully finally voices her frustrations to Mulder that she’s not only fed up with the lies and the cover-ups happening because of the Syndicate, but also her lack of respect she’s gotten from Mulder feeling like a subordinate below him. I mean she doesn’t even have an official desk yet, Mulder. That is whack!
I also liked seeing her drop her usual business-like, scientist personality and make her own decision. It’s partly due to the tattoo that affects her judgement, but she is feeling vulnerable to live her own life on her terms. I think this is only her second actual date she’s been on since joining up with Mulder, so it’s nice to see her be a bit rebellious, even though it ends badly.
That tattoo voice though. Super eerie. I thought it sounded kind of like Gillian Anderson, then realized it was voiced by the talented Jodie Foster.
Episode Grade: B
Favorite Scene:
Fun Facts:
- Quentin Tarantino was reportedly offered the chance to direct this episode, but was unable to do so as he was not a member of the Director’s Guild of America at the time of its production.
- The voice of Betty the tattoo is spoken by Jodie Foster. During the first scene in which we hear Betty convince the man (who has the tattoo) to assault his neighbor, the music playing in the background is “Doesn’t Somebody Want to be Wanted” by the Partridge Family. One of Jodie Foster’s earlier roles was in episode 3.18 of The Partridge Family(1970), “The Eleven Year Itch” in which she punches Danny.
- The tattoo that Scully got is called “ouroboros”. The serpent or drake who bites its tail forming a circle is a symbol of infinity, continuity, death-and-rebirth cycle in many ancient cultures, from Hindu to Greek-Roman, from Norse-Finnish to Aztec.
- Gillian Anderson dated Rodney Rowland for a while during season four. Actor Rodney Rowland was Gillian Anderson’s date at the Emmy awards. She kissed David Duchovny first upon winning the Emmy then Rodney.
Voices You May Recognize:
- She’s not in this episode, but her voice is very recognizable. Jodie Foster has been in numerous films, although most famous for being Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. Also lead roles in Panic Room, Elysium, and Inside Man.
201 Days of the X-Files Blog 