"The Unnatural"

How about hips and hands?

Okay, who votes we make David Duchovny the designated writer on X-Files.? Him and Vince Gilligan shall from this point forth be the only writers allowed...  Wow!!!  What a talented mind that man has...and just a knack for those short but flirtatiously sweet and sexy scenes that very few writers can dig up without a strain.  This episode was visually amazing and electrifying (even the scenes actually connected to the plot!)

The rarity of this episode was what struck me the most.  When was the last time we saw Scully laugh...I mean any kind of genuine outward expression of delight?  I'm conjuring up memories of the pilot here, people.  In one scene involving the battling of metaphors and an ice cream cone ("I scream, you scream, we all scream for non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicles") we see a playfulness that is so genuine and joyful and yet it does so without spanning the beliefs and limitations (what limitations?) of their characters that we have come to know so well.  You know what I mean.  Mulder grabs Scully's ice cream for a bite which he had been agonizingly watching her eat in front of him and causes a delightful reaction of, "Nooo!" and infectious giggles that only he could bring out.  (Did you notice she bites her ice cream?)  If you had put Scully and giggling in the same sentence together during season two I would have committed you to a psych ward.

Scully asks Mulder, smiling, whether she can ask him a personal question.  "Of course not," he replies - both of them knowing that personal questions are always comfortable between them.  The scene ends with Mulder's discovery of the anomoly that he was searching for and him feigning a sneeze in order to rip out the page.  Scully retorts with her classic sensibility, "Mulder, you just defaced property of the US Government..." but ends with an admiring, "...you rebel."  Hmmm...something tells me she enjoys this side of Mulder, especially with that tone of voice.

The final scene was the one I'm sure we were all waiting for and we were not to be disappointed.  With the beautifully soft harmony of gospel music playing in the background, Scully arrives at the baseball diamond, where Mulder has decided to teach her how to hit a baseball for her very early or very late birthday present.  Mulder isn't a big birthday person, so I don't need to tell you that this can easily be seen for what it really was: an excuse to be with Scully alone having fun and being phsically close.

Quote

(well, more like scene)

of the Week:

Mulder: Get over here, Scully.

< Scully walks over and Mulder wraps his arms around her, his hands outside of hers on the bat >

Scully: Is this my birthday present, Mulder?  You shouldn't have.

Mulder: This ain't cheap.  I'm paying that kid ten dollars an hour to shag balls...  Hey, it's not a bad piece of ash huh?  <Scully looks at Mulder> The bat.  I'm talking about the bat.

Mulder: Now don't strangle it, you just wanna shake hands with it.  "Hello, Mr. Bat.  It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."  "Oh, no-no Miss Scully, the pleasure is all mine."  Okay, now we want to go hips before hands, okay?  And we want to stride forward and turn, that's all we're thinking about.  Okay, so we go hips before hands. One more time, hips before hands.  Alright?  What is it?

Scully: Hips before hands.

Mulder: We're going to wait on the pitch and we're going to keep our eye on the ball and then we're just going to make contact.  We're not going to think...we're just going to let it fly, Scully.  Ready?

< Mulder keeps trying playfully to put his hands over top of Scully's on the bat >

Scully: I'm in the middle.

Mulder: Alright, fire away, Poor Boy.

< They hit the ball >

Mulder: That's good.  Alright, what you may find is that as you're concentrating on hitting that little ball, the rest of the world just fades away.  All your everyday nagging concerns.  The ticking of your biological clock...how you probably couldn't afford that nice new suede coat on a G-woman’s salary...  How you threw away a promising career in medicine to hunt aliens with your crackpot, albeit brilliant, partner.  Getting to the heart of a global conspiracy...your obscenely overdue triple-x bill.  Oh, I'm sorry Scully, those last two problems were mine, not yours.

Scully: Shut up Mulder. I'm playing baseball.

This scene was remarkable not only for the fact that it was humming with UST and that Mulder drilled into Scully (with a lingering touch) the idea of hips before hands, but also the fact that they were having fun and laughing together and sharing an intimate moment without someone near death or something tragic just occurring.  It was true, unmanipulable, quality time together.  From the moment when Mulder first put his arms around her, to his bat introduction speech, to his hips-before-hands speech (complete with touch), to his attempts to put his hands over hers on the bat, to her ecstatic giggles...this was the ultimate defining moment.  You could almost call it a turning point.  Let's hope that's what we truly can call it.


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