Veiled Vesta

Good night sillyme (Jen) Sleep tight! Don't let the freaky alien worms bite!

Alright, my thoughts of the Pilot after I watched it:

The Pilot

(**Special Note: Inspired by actual events? Somehow I doubt it. On the one hand if it was, it’d be awesome to meet Mulder and Scully's real life counterparts. On the other hand I don't wanna think that the U.S government is as evil as it is on this show.**)

Woo! The Pilot brings back such wonderful memories. The first meeting of Mulder and Scully; the No-nonsense scientist teams up with the Emotional psychoanalyst... Hmm, I should probably pay attention to the episode. So this girl is dead in the woods and now the cavalry has arrived. Something weird definitely happened to her. I mean a bright light surrounds her and a weird shadow is there in her last few moments of life. Plus when the sheriff or something says "It's happening again, isn't it?", that tends to pique your suspicions.

Opening credits! I remember how excited I was to see the opening credits when I first saw this episode. I recognized the song straight away, even whistled along. It was great to put images to the theme sing. The Truth Is Out There!

Scully looks so young and cute! There she goes, walking to the office where she's about to receive her destiny... um, new assignment, and inside the office of Chief Blevins (who I don't see much nowadays) there's Cigarette Smoking Man, aka ole' Cancer Man, aka Black-lunged Son of a Bitch - whatever you want to call him, it's the prominent villain. So Blevins is asking her about Mulder, the Believing Ying to her Skeptic Yang... She says she knows about him, rattling off all these impressive things about Mulder; Oxford educated, helped catch a guy named Monty Props (does this guy appear later on in the series, or even get mentioned?) and even though he's the best violent crimes analyst evah, he doesn't mesh well with others on account of him being known as "Spooky Mulder". I LOVE that name by the way. Seriously, it's cool and mysterious, like him. So she's asked about the X-Files (Hey, that's the name of the show! ) and we learn it's about unexplained phenomena. Scully is assigned to observe the validity of these X-Files, aka debunk it, but she's up for the challenge.

She's in the basement, knocks on the door and... "Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted" Eeeeee! His first line! Scully walks inside and sees his office in all its crazy, sci-fi alien glory. The fact that she doesn't burst out laughing proves she's a professional. She introduces herself and shakes his hand (first hand touch! Awww! I'm gonna be like this throughout the Pilot, so bear with me. Then again, this is a recap/summary for the shippy thread so I think I'm allowed to gush every so often.) Mulder's dripping with sarcasm and calls her Scully (Another first. Instead of adding "Agent" in front of "Scully" as she did for him, he's purposely calling her by simply her last name; trying to be all irritating and condescending. But you can't chase her away that easily, Mulder!) He knows alot about her and I love how he digs out her senior thesis from this messy pile of papers under a phone; do I detect some admiration in his tone when he says he liked it? (I can't help but wonder if he did some serious snooping once he found out he was getting a new partner. Alot of post-Pilot fanfics seem to suggest it.) In any case he leads us into their first case together: Mulder starts off with a slide show - somebody get the popcorn and soda pop! Oh wait, corpses and chemistry? Never mind. Three dead bodies died under mysterious circumstances (one of them is that chick from the pre-credits opener) with two bumps on each of their backs and weird chemicals found in that tissue. After the presentation, he starts in on her again, and the way he asks her if she "believes in the existence of extraterrestrials" is just, I don't know... I'm gonna go with Spooky. She, of course, does not believe and a bit of banter has them set to visit the "very plausible state of Oregon". He calls her Scully once again, and she leaves without even muttering "weirdo" or "nut". Seriously. She even smiles.

How did Mulder get all those seats to himself? It's an X-File! Or maybe not that many people planned to travel to Oregon. Do planes usually leave without filling up their cabin? That's bad business. And it denies me the possibility of seeing Scully sitting next to her partner, gripping his hand when they hit turbulence. Would she reach out for him or would he reach out for her? Okay, even I know that's not possible this early in the game. But then again, before the episode's through, she'll be half naked in his motel room and he'll be grinning like a... no, don't get your hopes up! And I shouldn't get ahead of myself.

Mmm... sunflower seeds. Mmm... salmon with a twist of lemon. I pause the DVD to get myself something to eat. (I don't have any sunflower seeds or salmon with me, which I realize is an oversight on my behalf. I know, I know; bad X-Phile! *smack* Okay, I'm done with my self pity. Potato chips and lemonade will have to do.) Scully is busy proving herself to Mulder; "That's pretty good, Scully." "Better than you expected or better that you hoped?" Yeah, he'll let her know when they "get past the easy part." I love her little laugh (she's not letting him get to her. And seriously she smiles an laughs at his jokes more in this one episode than later on in the entire first half of the series combined. I bet it's because she doesn't know him nearly as well, yet) They talk about another first for Scully: her first exhumed body. Oh! And here comes her first freaky phenomena! The radio and clock start acting all screwy and there's alot of noisy unpleasantness until Mulder pulls over and spray paints this big ole' X on the road, presumably to mark where the freakiness started. Scully asks what the hell that was about and Mulder professes his artistic dream of painting a letter of the alphabet in every state: next up, the letter Y in Nevada! (And they can do some gambling with an Elvis impersonator while hobnobbing with the characters of the future show; CSI!) ...Or maybe he doesn't give Scully an explanation at all. Hmph.

So he finally calls her Agent Scully (only when they're in public with others around. That's something, I guess) and they're ready to go grave digging - awesome! But then some party pooper comes and demands they stop. He's all mad that they're insinuating he's a crappy medical examiner and Mulder and Scully try to be all professional. The medical examiner's daughter stops him from throwin' down and he leaves. Now let's get back to digging up that corpse... whoops it's escaping! Runaway coffin! And... it stopped. The body inside is not very human looking at all. Mulder says some sarcastic stuff here and there, which at least proves he's not just that way with his new spy/partner and then orders that nobody touch the body. Way to take charge, tough guy.

Strike a pose Scully! Mulder's taking a ton of photographs of the exhumed body and since she's doing the autopsy, she happens to be in the way. No, actually Mulder is the one who's in the way and to prevent irreparable flash bulb blindness, Scully tells him to hold off on the flash photography lest he wants a camera jigsaw puzzle. Or maybe she thinks most of this. In any case, he stops the flashing (heh) but doesn't lose his excitement. Very cute. He wants everything done to examine the corpse that might be alien but seems more simian. Scully wonders why he's so insistent on finding out what the body but he insists he's not crazy, and damnit I want to believe!

Later that night in the motel (no, no, the half naked Scully comes later.) Scully is typing her little field analysis and I must say, I didn't know laptops existed this early in the 1990s. That was pretty cool to learn. So there was a metal implant in the nose of the body (Important to the plot!) and she's interrupted by "Steven Spielberg" at her door. Nice. Does that count as a first? You know, their first little joke? Nah... How about Mulder's first visit to her hotel room and actually not being all moody and sarcastic? I'll go with yes. He's wired and ready to burn off some energy with Scully if she's willing... (Scully, say yes, for the love of EBEs say yes!) And she passes on it - Aauuugh! So that's a no on the midnight jogging. What did you think Mulder wanted to do to burn off the energy? ...Ha, I wish!

The next day they're talking to a doctor at a psychiatric hospital who treated the boy who they dug up from the grave. He's also treating some of the dead boy's classmates: Billy Miles (the vegetable) and Peggy O'Dell (the crazy girl). Mulder senses a possible connection with the other mysterious "bumps on the back" deaths so they go talk to them. Which is difficult because, as I said, one is a vegetable and the other is crazy. Mulder actually seems sweet when he interacts with Crazy Peggy and promptly blows it when he suggests a medical exam for her. Crazy Peggy earns my nickname by going, you know, all crazy on the medical staff and the FBI agents. She starts bleeding from her nose while Mulder takes advantage and checks to see if she's got the two "bumps of doom" on her back. She does. Scully is not happy. We soon learn why (after another crack from Mulder); he's hiding something from his partner. Oh really? Gee, what tipped you off? Scully wants the truth but Mulder doesn't think she can handle the truth and still believes she's a spy. (Lemme get this straight: he can trust her enough to go jogging with him in the middle of the night but not enough to just tell her his theory? I mean, if she were a spy she could've stabbed him with a stiletto heel mid-run and pinned it on some salmon fisherman. Plus Blevins and the secret government would probably cackle in glee and help her cover it up like they do this case. Umm... spoiler alert? Anyway, I'm just saying...) A great little back and forth ensues with neither willing to stand down and they decide to go check out the woods, where most of these deaths seem to take place.

In the Obligatory Creepy Woods, Mulder and Scully split up (because, you know, that's always worked so well in every horror/sci-fi movie you've ever seen. ) I haven't noticed when she starts calling him plain old Mulder but here we have it, in the woods: she calls out for Mulder after finding some weird soil (I think she pockets it) then hears a loud noise and draws her gun. The weird noise comes with a bright light and when I first saw this all I could think was run for the hills Scully! To hell with Mulder, he's the one who likes UFOs! Wait a sec, that's not an alien, that's a detective I think I saw earlier! Good thing Mulder didn't hear me. Well, this detective guy isn't exactly the best alternative because he greets Scully with a shotgun and claims they're trespassing. Kind of a weak excuse but I guess shot gun trumps FBI pistol. Mulder finally reappears (presumably drawn by the bright lights rather than Scully's yells) and with two guns pointed at the detective you'd think they had the advantage but no. They grudgingly leave the crime scene and wonder what he was doing there by himself. Scully shows him the weird dirt she found and Mulder starts looking at his wacky compass, then his watch, then the compass. He looks up into the sky for good measure and just like that, they find themselves in this trippy light field thing. The colors, Duke, the colors! After this weird, and presumably cost-effective, special effect stops, they snap out of it, and find the car has stopped as well. They lose "power, brakes, steering, everything". Mulder is a bit overexcited about being stranded in the middle of nowhere in the rain. At night. It's terribly adorable to me but you gotta wonder what's going through the newbie agent's mind when he's screaming about losing nine minutes in the middle of a storm. Well, I guess Scully's courage and curiosity trumps any fear. Plus she could totally take him. So time stopped for them (in a non-romantic way) and whadd'ya know, their car stopped right near the 'X' that Mulder marked earlier. His stateside art really speaks to me. I can't wait to see what happens when they get to Vegas!

Hot diggity daffodil, it's the scene all the M/S shippers have been waiting for! (At least, I have) Okay, the scene before the scene we've been waiting for. Scully's in her motel room and her power goes out, so she decides to take a bath in candle light. But as she undresses, she notices something on her lower back. Uh oh. Scully runs to Mulder's motel room in her robe and asks for his "professional" opinion before disrobing. Woo Hoo! At this point that Mulder is mentally formulating his letter to Penthouse, which I suspect would go something like this: "Dear Penthouse, Have any of your readers ever done it with their spy partner in a tax-payer funded motel room after a freaky extraterrestrial phenomenon?" Okay, maybe not. Maybe it was Playboy. They're classier, right? And we all know that Mulder is classy. No really, he's actually quite the gentleman whilst feeling up Scully in the dark motel room. Anyway, taking much longer than necessary to determine the bumps were just mosquito bites, Mulder gives her this adorable grin and says she's fine. Scully jumps his bones in gratitude. No wait, I mean jumps into his arms. You know, a hug. But there's some kind of time lapse between this scene and the next scene that shows her lying on his bed as he spills his heart out so you're all left to wonder what prompted this intimate moment. All I know is what happens in Bellefleur, Oregon stays in Bellefleur, Oregon.

We learn about Mulder's sister, Samantha. She disappeared without a trace and it tore the family apart. Aww, poor guy. Blah blah blah, life story, blah blah blah... wait, who's that outside? Is that a Peeping Tom? Maybe it's an M/S shipper... if so, take pictures, dude! As I was saying, Blah blah blah, Mulder mentions how he came across the X-Files and now he's trying to access some classified info but some higher up is blocking him. He only keeps his job because of is connections in congress. If those connections involve blackmail, I'd do pretty much anything to see what dirt he's got on them! Seriously, a photo of a guy in a dress (and you know there's at least one out there) speaks louder than "friendship" and "trust". At least in congress. I gotta stop reading my Political Science book before watching The X-Files... Scully confronts the whole spy thing by reassuring him that she's not a spy: "You've got to trust me. I'm here just like you, to solve this." Awww, and I think he really believes her on it. He gets closer to her as he talks about his hypnotherapy and his theory on what happened to his sister. It should come as no surprise that he thinks aliens kidnapped her. What is a bit surprising, in a nice way, is how insistent he is in trying to get Scully to believe. He says that this is as close as he's ever gotten to the "Truth" and my goodness watching Scully listening with rapt attention, while Mulder's getting more intense and gets even closer to her, I can't help but think that all she needs to do is say "Mulder, I believe" or a variant thereof and he'll be putty in her hands!
*RIIINNNG* The phone!? Whhyyy!? Can't the caller see that these two FBI agents are on the verge of something crazy and wonderful here?
Mulder looks jus as annoyed as I am when he answers the phone. He asks who it is but doesn't get a name. Darn no-romo crank callers... Actually they learn that Crazy Peggy is dead. Enough of the sad back story and intimate conversation between these new partners, they've got mysteriously vague leads to follow!

Over on some Oregon road, we learn that Crazy Peggy ran out in front of a truck and that's why she's dead. Did I mention she was in a wheelchair? Yeah, that makes it all a bit more peculiar, doesn't it? Scully notices that the victim's watch is stopped at 9:03. Mulder, in the background, is not very happy with whoever he's talking to on the phone: "Damn it, stop crank calling me! I promise I'm not going to do anything with her until, like, seven years from now, and even then it'll be ambiguous!" (Hah, thanks to Wikipedia and fanfics/fanvids for the help as I'm still on season 4. But not too much help, just some basic info on "all things" important... ) It seems that someone stole their corpse and trashed their autopsy area. OH wait a second! I gotta pause the DVD! Lookie! The first "hand on back" moment! They rush to their motel only to find that it's on fire. There goes their evidence and other important things like clothes and maybe money. Suffice to say they won't be able to return to try and recreate their little moment from earlier. The medical examiner's daughter appears asking our two partners for protection. Hmm...

So the three end up at a diner where the ME's daughter, Theresa, tells them about what's been happening to her. She would often find herself in the woods with no memory of getting there and the same thing's happened to her friends. Maybe these crazy kids just drink alot of alcohol. Alcohol that gives them weird bumps on their back and causes their noses to bleed. Like now. Okay, so maybe not. While Theresa bleeds away, her dad and Sheriff Shotgun walk in, all angry and ready to take the scared girl home. Mulder and Scully find out that the trigger happy sheriff is Vegetable Billy's dad. Aha! Smelling a cover-up, they decide to check out the graves of the other two victims. It's raining, which adds to the ambience and frustration once they discover that someone got the graves first. Stuck in the rain again, our two agents go kinda crazy. Not crazy enough to make-out or something, but you know, laughing and agreeing crazy! That's right *agreeing*! I really like this scene; if it weren't for the mysterious circumstances, the insane conversation taking place, and the fact that they're in a cemetery, I'd think it was romantic. But I take what I can get. Half naked Scully in Mulder's room was great enough - this scene is a just an added bonus. I should probably mention what they talk about here since it's kinda important. Basically they suspect that the aliens are summoning these teens to the woods and Vegetable Billy helped Peggy get there but she died during the weird time freeze earlier. It's all very bizarre but cute. In any case, they go question Vegetable Billy.

Still don't know what answers they expected to get from Vegetable Billy the comatose boy, but luckily, while Mulder gets the nurse's whereabouts, Scully notices that Billy's feet are coated with that weird soil from the woods. If only her original pocket sample hadn't been destroyed in the fire! Oh! Another "Mulder's hand on Scully's back" moment! That makes two. So much physical touching after the emotionally touching scene between them. Cuteness! Alrighty, then, out in the hall, Scully is all set to believe that vegetable Billy actually did commit the murders and Mulder, in a first bout of rationality, has to remind her that she's gotta write a report on it so she should probably get some evidence to back up that crazy theory lest she be regarded as, you know, crazy. That means they need another soil sample from the Obligatory Creepy Woods. Lovely.

It's always night time in these woods. All the better to add drama! And possible UFO lights show up better in the dark. They see that Detective Trigger Happy Vegetable Daddy is there and when they hear a girl scream they start running, splitting up once more because that's also necessary in the Obligatory Creepy Woods. Anyway, the detective is not above hitting a woman with his gun (bastard!), and later on trying to attack Mulder who's only trying to help this mystery girl. Mulder and the detective, after some heated words, finally run to rescue the girl and they spot Vegetable Billy and Theresa! The detective's trying his best to get his son to leave the girl alone, and while all this happens Scully is bleeding from a head wound in the woods. Or she would be if she weren't so tough and awesome! She hears the detective's gunshot and runs towards it, while this mysterious wind gets accompanied by a bright light that envelopes Billy and Theresa. Looks like Billy also has the "bumps of doom: on his back so he's not so much a killer as he is a victim. The light gets really bright but in the end the two teens are still there. No alien abductions today! I call that a win. Plus, Billy is a vegetable no more; he's a real boy! There's some hugging between father and son, the bumps are gone from his back and Theresa is alive. At this point Mulder realizes Scully isn't around. Gee, nice of you to notice, Spooky. They reconvene in the woods and she asks what happened, all she saw was a light. He says it was incredible. You're going to have to be a bit more specific Mulder, because that ain't gonna fly on the report.

Back at the FBI, we get an interview with Billy who's talking to some doctor and Mulder about his crazy alien ordeal. Apparently he was controlled by an alien implant in his nose and "the light" told him to gather the others to do the tests on them. If I think he sounds a bit crazy, imagine what Blevins, CSM and the other guy watching behind the 3-way mirror must think! They don't have much of a case and they don't even have any dirt on Mulder. Scully is not discounting Mulder's work but she's not exactly agreeing with it. In any case Scully was smart enough to keep the weird metal nose implant from the exhumed body in her pocket. Inadmissible in court because of possible evidence tampering? Well too bad we're not in the CSI age! That little vial with the implant is enough to shut Blevins up. (I love how Scully says that "Agent Mulder believes we are not alone." Heh. Her tone is half respect and intrigue about this man, and half "Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into.") She is dismissed from the office and passes CSM in the hallway. Poignant staring!

Later that night Scully gets her first Mulder midnight call! (Okay technically it's 11:22 pm but I'll still count it) He says he can't sleep and that their case files in Oregon on Billy have mysteriously vanished. *sigh* Of course they have. He also says they should talk, hopefully not thinking that she had anything to do with. She's not a spy, Mulder. She's here to stay. Deal with it. Oh, and she's not going to talk about it at such a late hour. Geez, count some sheep or drink warm milk, don't be bothering tense Scully who got her evidence stolen, got cold cocked in the woods, and nearly got driven crazy by her new partner... all on her first field assignment. *double sigh*

And so these two survived their first assignment and their partnership would form to become one of the most... oh wait, there's one more scene. Of course! I remember this! CSM has Scully's evidence and puts it in a box with other similar looking devices. He's in a dimly lit room with hundred of files and boxes with what I assume is mysterious evidence safely hidden away. And maybe some racy photos of Mulder's mommy. Ick. And spoiler alert. Mostly ick. He leaves the room and we see it's an Emergency Exit! What? Well, how will people see that evidence if they don't know where.... ohhh... I see what he did there. I smell conspiracy, and a great hook for sci-fi nerds everywhere! You got me X-Files! Can't wait to see what's in store for these two agents!