Fight The Future , Part I

So, the action figures haven't stopped making out since The Kiss last week. And while I'm glad they're happy and whatnot, it's starting to make me sick. I asked them to get a room; they ignored me. I turned my Water Pik on them (the hose might hurt them); nothing. I stood in front of their shelf and stared at them and hoped to shame them into, at the very least, putting their little plastic shirts back on. It's like I don't even exist. It's disgusting.

Anyway. Remember the summer of 1998? Clinton was President. I was barely out of college, young and stupid and poor, making almost no money and driving around town in the clunkiest clunker that ever rolled off the production line in Motor City -- a car so clunky that people literally pointed and laughed. I hated my job. I loathed my apartment, a cement and balsa-wood atrocity smack in the middle of the 'hood, complete with drug dealers across the street and hookers on the corner. The guy who lived door to me got arrested twice in three weeks. I passed out in the shower and ended up with a Dylan McKay-esque scar above my right eyebrow. And yet, somehow, life wasn't so bad. The action figures found their way into my life and they weren't macking, like, constantly (or, frankly, at all). My TV watching was imminently satisfying; Dawson's Creek was still a pleasurable guilty pleasure, Buffy was really starting to hit its stride, and The X-Files? The X-Files was so good. The mytharc was seemingly manageable and new plot points still felt like little pieces of a big, fascinating, juicy puzzle that we were all going to figure out one day.

And naturally, everyone -- well, everyone I knew -- was totally stoked about the movie. There was the big fat EW cover. ["I think there were actually, like, five EW covers about the movie that summer." -- Wing Chun] We had Kevin and Bean, the morning drive guys on KROQ, Los Angeles's "alternative rock" station, devoting, like, an hour every Monday morning to dissecting the show, and then, come summer, speculating about the movie, like, every single morning as I drove my shitty car to my shitty job, praying that the engine wouldn't fall out before I got there. In other words, people were counting down the days. We had such high hopes, yo. My friends and I went opening night -- and then I went two nights later and had to pretend like I hadn't already seen the movie, because my roommates and I were friends with two different groups of boys, and...you know what? Long story. Anyway. Opening weekend. The theatre -- a big fancy one on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica -- was packed, literally every seat full. And when the credits started, everyone went totally, completely silent. Are you ready to relive the memories?

So Mark Snow totally kicks out the jams, thanks to all the extra money Chris Carter poured in his lap, now they're on the big screen. He's mixed the usual theme song with what sounds like the THX fanfare. It's funky as hell. You can really dance to it. Not really. By the way, did you know that Mark Snow has over 150 credits on the IMDb, including the theme song to Starsky and Hutch? Starsky and freaking Hutch, people. I think I'm in love with him now. Be that as it may, our old friend the black oil swirls all over the credits as the theme song recedes into the distance and Mark Snow cues up the faint dinging of little wind chimes and we fade to the white of...somewhere. Antarctica? Alaska? Somewhere snowy, anyway. In the distance, two unidentifiable people hustle through the snow toward the camera. The people run. The wind howls. They run. It howls. This goes on for, like, thirty-five minutes before we learn that this is, in fact, North Texas. 35,000 BC. The running cave people scamper past another track in the snow -- the track of something with only three toes.

Grok and MaGrok enter a cave so dark that I can barely see what's happening. The deeper recesses of the cave glow with a kind of blue light that isn't actually illuminating anything. Eventually, Grok makes fire and the cavemen light their torches and sort of whoosh them around the inside of the cave. MaGrok looks sort of like Lenny Krayzelburg, American Swimming Sweetheart. If Lenny Krayzelburg were a cave man. The two of them walk through the cave, their torches reflecting off the black oil on the floor. Walking. Walking. This is so the big-screen version of the teaser before the credits, except for the part where it's taking six times as long. If this were an hour-long episode, Grok and MaGrok would be lunch meat and I'd be complaining about the stupid new credits right now. There are, by the way, some real pacing problems with this movie, which I didn't notice on first viewing -- mostly because, at that point, Chris Carter still held my soul. And now he fucking owns it. But that's another story, isn't it? Anyhoo. Grok and MaGrok trek further into the cave. They're hunting something; we get it. My Mulder action figure looks up from where he's sucking on one of the Scully action figure's toes. "Is this movie about cavemen?" he asks. Grok and MaGrok are still climbing through the cave. Eventually -- after about twenty more minutes of flinging his torch around and grunting -- Grok discovers another caveman, this one frozen in a big old block of ice. Grok stares at Iceman, slack-jawed (although that might just be the way he looks naturally, since he is, you know, a caveman), until a big scary black oily creature with claws, which looks it was taken directly from the prop locker from Aliens and onto the X-Files set, jumps him. They tussle. I have no idea what's happening because this scene is so dark, but there's screaming and eviscerating and then MaGrok comes from behind and stabs the alien with a stake, like this is MaGrok, the Vampire Slayer or something, and if Buffy is actually dead, you know, that actually might not be such a bad way to take the show to UPN, people. MaGrok looks around for a moment; Grok is dead, but the body of the alien has disappeared. MaGrok looks around the cave, for, like, a hundred more minutes. Seriously, I think this entire scene could have been cut without affecting the story line of the movie, especially since the whole "aliens have been here since the beginning of time" thing is talked about ad nauseam later, but whatever. Deeper in the cave, MaGrok finds yet another alien -- one that looks like the regular green slanty-eyed aliens we're used to and, frankly, I don't know whether the other alien also looked like this and I couldn't tell because it was dark, or if there are two kinds of alien or...for the fifth time in the first ten minutes of this movie, whatever. It's not like anything that happens in this movie turns out to affect the plot of the television show. Green Alien and MaGrok fight, and MaGrok manages to stake Green Alien, too. Dude, he is the Alien Slayer. Death is his gift. Black oil begins to spill out of the Green Alien and move across the floor. It creeps all the way up MaGrok's chest. In terror, he looks down at the oil and begins to moan.

The camera pans up to the blackness of the cave's ceiling, which is shortly broken by a small child falling through from the world above. It's clearly the present day, judging from the kid's clothing. He groans and moans and holds his chest, and a shovel falls down on top of him. Three little kid faces peer down at CaveKid, who twangs up to them that he got the wind knocked out of him. That's sort of a poetic phrase, if you really think about it. One of the kids twangs back that it looks like he's fallen into a cave. Ya think? This must be evidence of that great Texas educational system George W. Bush kept talking about last year. CaveKid spits and looks around. His friends peer over the edge of the hole until, eventually, CaveKid comes back into the light, holding a human skull. "Toss it up here, dude!" one of the kids yells. "No way, butt wipe! It's mine," CaveKid tosses back. God, what poetry in those words. CaveKid tells them that there are bones all over the place, man. He looks at the skull -- the back of which has been bashed in -- and then down at his feet. The black oil slowly seeps out from under his tennis shoes. CaveKid looks up at his friends, panicking, and drops the skull. The oil turns into those worm things, which burrow their way under his skin. "Hey, Stevie are you all right?" one of the boys calls down. Stevie looks up at him as the black oil washes ominously over his eyeballs. ("The black oil!" everyone in the movie theatre muttered simultaneously, under our respective breaths.) Freaked out, the other kids bail on Stevie and run all the way across the dusty landscape to their little row of tract houses. According to the time/date stamp at the bottom of that big wide screen, this is North Texas, Present Day.

Several fire engines come wailing onto the scene. They screech to a halt, and the fire chief runs like an uncoordinated little girl over to the hole, calling for a fourteen-foot ladder. He sends some firemen into the hole. And then some more. And then some more, despite the fact that he can't contact any of them on their two-way radios, and they're probably all getting eaten alive down there.

A big black helicopter choppers onto the scene, landing in a cloud of dust. Fire Chief and Two Random Guys (And a Pizza Place) watch as a bunch of other Random Guys in HazMat Suits unload what looks like a portable hyperbaric chamber and scamper over to the hole. Some guy in a suit climbs down out of the helicopter and watches. Townspeople mill in the distance. For all the people who just stumbled late into the movie theatre, Fire Chief recaps that he's sent four men down to check on the boy, and he's lost communication with all four of them. Also, something about someone's eyes turning black? Crazy talk, that. The Suit totally ignores him as RGIHMS scamper swiftly past him once more, Stevie all locked and loaded into the hyperbaric chamber. They lift the kid into the helicopter and take off in another swoosh of dust. A white eighteen-wheeler, with what looks like an oil tanker on the back, pulls up. "What the hell is this?" Fire Chief wonders. ("Where the hell are Mulder and Scully? Are we in the right theatre?" I whispered to my roommate in the movie theatre.) Mark Snow goes completely berserk with the Cymbals of Stretching Out the Plot and the Drums of Delaying Any Action. The Suit sneaks behind one of the tankers and pulls out his cell phone. "It's Bronschweig," he says into the phone. "Sir, the impossible scenario that we never planned for? Well, we better come up with a plan."

This is the part where, if this was an episode of the television show, the credits would roll and I would complain about how much they suck. I love that part!

Cut to downtown Los Angeles...er, "Dallas." One week later. The helicopter budget for this movie must have been astronomical, because yet another chopper whooshes around the Dallas Federal Building, finally landing on the helipad. A bald guy in an FBI windbreaker hops out of the chopper, and is met by a bunch of other guys in FBI windbreakers. I want one of those FBI windbreakers. Baldy talks to a Fed who looks vaguely like Noel Rrrrrrroroooooooaarrr, who tells him that they've evacuated the entire building, and searched it top to bottom, but they haven't found a trace of a bomb. Michaud -- for that is Baldy's name -- tells Noel NotRrrrrrrroooooooorrrrar to send the dogs through again. He walks to the edge of the roof and gazes off at the building across the street. Someone is wandering around that rooftop, as well.

That person is a very hot-looking Scully -- heat hot, although, of course, Gillian Anderson is beautiful. And this is the part where 1013 gives the people in the audience who've never watched The X-Files and just got dragged to the movie by their girlfriend or father or roommate the Cliffs Notes version of the Mulder/Scully relationship. Scully tip-taps down a staircase onto the roof of the building, cell phone in hand. "Mulder, it's me," she says. (The audience in the theatre I saw this in cheered at this line. Remember when we weren't all bitter? Yeah, good times.) ["Everyone in the theatre where I saw it burst into applause at this point, too, much as they had a few months earlier, at the Grease re-release, the first time John Travolta appears on-screen." -- Wing Chun] Scully tells Mulder that she "hasn't found anything" and she's hot and thirsty and she's wondering what she's doing up there. "You're looking for a bomb," Mulder says on the other line. Oh, yeah, because this is when the X-Files were closed! I'm so confused about the timeline, now. Was this before or after all the files got burned up? I don't remember. Anyway, Scully knows that, but she doesn't know why they're looking in this particular building when the threat was called into the building across the street. Mulder thinks that the FBI has got that building covered. Then Scully spouts a whole bunch of scientific stuff, saying the word "rational" three times, quoting several varying statistics, and using the words "accordance" and "data" and "behavioral model." Because she's the science-y one. Get it? Mulder says nothing. "Mulder? Mulder?" Scully asks, looking exasperated. "Boo," Mulder says, coming out the door behind her. She jumps. Then Mulder rattles off a bunch of hooey about playing a hunch and a world of infinite possibilities and random acts and yada nutsy yada. He eats a sunflower seed. Because he's the one with the wacky theories. And an oral fixation. I have a bit of an oral fixation, myself, so I can relate. And I still don't have a boyfriend. I know. It's a mystery. Mulder smiles at Scully. "What are we doing up here, Scully? It's hotter than hell." Scully makes a saintly amused yet exasperated face. The agents walk around the roof some more while Scully tells Mulder, basically, that she's well aware that he's bored out of his skull with this whole non-paranormal, everyday FBI stuff, but now they're no longer assigned to the X-Files, he needs to try to follow FBI rules, procedure, and protocol. Because, see, she's the practical, uptight one. "Maybe we should call in a bomb threat to Houston. I hear it's free beer night at the Astrodome," Mulder snarks. Because he's the wisecracking one. Scully gives him a dirty look. She goes to open the door leading back inside the building, but finds it locked. "So much for anticipating the unforeseen," she snarks. Mulder tries the door himself, and it opens easily. Scully smiles crookedly. "I had you, big time," she says. "You had nothing," he tells her, grinning. Get it? She's science-y. He's wacky! He's sarcastic. She's indulgent! He's funny. She's straight-laced -- but not completely. They like each other, but no one quite knows to what extent. Everyone up to speed?

Mulder and Scully file out of the elevator downstairs, still bantering about her little practical joke. A bunch of schoolchildren crowd past them into the elevator. Three or four of them are almost as tall as Gillian Anderson is. Scully teases Mulder, telling him that she saw a definite look of panic on his face when he thought they were locked on the roof. "When I panic, I make this face," Mulder says, looking deadpan. Scully says she saw that face. Mulder says she didn't. Scully grins and sends him to buy her a soda. Unlike the sunflower seeds, non-watchers, that has nothing to do with the show: everyone likes soda. And cheese. But there are no cheese vending machines. That makes me sad.

Mulder saunters past a handyman and into the vending room. When I was in college, my friends and I had this stupid joke wherein, whenever one of us got something from the snack machine, someone had to say "he's getting veeeeeending," kind of like Rob Schneider in his Copy Man role, and when we saw this in the movie theatre, my friend Phung whispered that into my ear and I laughed and laughed although, technically, that's not at all funny and I don't even know why I just shared. I suspect it's because I've lost all interior monologue and now I just say whatever comes to mind. Anyway. So Mulder plugs some change into the machine and makes his selection. No go. He peeks between the soda machine and the snack machine and sees that the soda machine is unplugged, which makes the fact that the lights in the machine are turned on totally impossible, but whatever. Yada, yada, the bomb is in the soda machine. Mulder tries the door, but this time it's really locked. He's trapped. In the room. With the bomb. Twenty minutes into the movie. (Three years ago.) What will happen? Oy, the suspense. Mulder whips out his product-placed Nokia and calls Scully, telling her that he found the bomb. She thinks he's joking. He convinces her that he is not. Banter. Eventually, Scully manages to get her ass over to the vending room and finds the door soldered shut. She stares at the doorknob. Inside the room, Mulder stares at the bomb. "Hold on, Mulder, I'm going to get you out of there," Scully says.

Scully comes bursting out of the hallway and into the building's foyer, yelling at the concierge that she needs the building evacuated in ten minutes, roads closed, and so on and so forth. "Ten minutes?" one of the concierge guys asks, slack-jawed. "Don't think, just do it," Scully barks. They jump to, immediately. Scully strides toward the front doors, getting on her cell phone to Special Agent Michaud. "You've got the wrong building," she tells him.

Fire engines and police cars screech across the street, sirens blaring. People in navy blue FBI windbreakers rush inside the building as weepy civilians pour out. Scully hustles Michaud inside.

In the vending room, Mulder sits all Zen in front of the bomb. Zen, except for the part where he's sweating bullets. His phone rings, and he flinches. "Scully? You know that face I showed you? I'm making it again," he says. Scully orders him to move away from the door; they're coming in to get him. And they do; cutting through the metal with one of those welding thingers and kicking in the door. Mulder breathes a sigh of relief. Michaud confirms that the bottles of explosives and wiring are, in fact, a bomb, and gravely orders them all out of the building. Scully's halfway out the door before Michaud finishes his sentence, but Mulder hesitates. "Someone has to stay here with you," Mulder says. Michaud will have none of Mulder's heroism, however. He assures the assembled that he can defuse the bomb all by his lonesome, and he tosses them out of the room. Mulder continues to resist, but Scully more or less strong-arms him out of there.

It's a crazy scene outside; running and blaring and shouting and crying.

Vending. Michaud calmly stares at the bomb, making no attempt to defuse it.

Scully and Mulder come running, full-tilt, out of the building. Mulder falls behind as Scully books for the street. He stops and heads back toward the building. Scully's spidey sense alerts her to the fact that he's no longer behind her, and she almost falls on her ass when she whips around to chase him. "Something's wrong," Mulder insists. "Something's not right." Scully grabs his arm. "There's no time," she screams at him, and pulls him toward the waiting squad car. Mulder reluctantly looks backwards, but follows his partner towards the vehicle.

Vennnnnddddding. Michaud's still communing with the bomb. Twelve seconds. He buries his head in his hands. I think if I were waiting for a bomb to blow up in my face, I would want to watch my last second on earth tick off. Man, that's a depressing sentence. I wonder why they haven't had a bomb scare on Passions yet. Probably because, even in the Passions world -- where houses get sucked into the depths of hell and a rubber mask can change a man's voice and height -- it isn't believable that Chief of Police Sam "Blocks of Wood Need Love, Too" Bennett would have even the foggiest idea what to do with a bomb.

Mulder and Scully pile into the police car, which peels off not a moment too soon. The agents turn around to watch the building blow sky-high. The force of the explosion propels their car up into the air and then right into a parked car, in a gale of broken glass and crunching metal.

Cue expensive building-blowing-up shots.

Mulder and Scully wearily emerge from their car, looking like hell. They silently survey the destroyed building, the front half of which has been totally obliterated. "time, you're buying," Mulder says, and walks out of the shot. Scully puts her hands on her hips and sighs to herself that Mulder's sense of humor isn't what it used to be. Then she wonders whether he meant that he wishes she would get trapped in a room with a bomb. And then she wonders whether he wishes that because he wants her to die, or because he thinks she might have been able to defuse the bomb and save them all. And then she wonders if they're ever going to be able to just cut the crap and get it on.

FBI HQ; the Office of Professional Review. Scully sits alone in front of a panel of Federal bigwigs, including Blythe "Mother of Gwyneth" Danner, who's talking about the importance of placing responsibility for loss of life and catastrophic destruction due to terrorist activities. Pan to Skinner, who looks royally pissed. Is this back when we thought he might be evil? I don't recall. I do recall that the audience clapped when he came on screen. Everyone loves the Skinman! Blythe Danner tells Scully that Janet Reno wants to know exactly what happened in Dallas; five people died in the blast, she says -- three firemen, Special Agent Michaud, and a little boy. Mulder enters the room late, just in time to catch the tail end of this. He asks whether the firemen and the boy were found in the building. Blythe Danner snappishly tells him that, because he didn't do them the courtesy of being on time for this meeting, he's going to have to wait to give his report. She wants, she says, to speak to him separately from Agent Scully. Skinner grimaces and escorts Mulder to the door; Scully doesn't look at her partner, but she does make a pained face down at the table.

Mulder sits out in the hallway, his elbows on his knees, eating sunflower seeds. Skinner comes out and tells him that Scully's telling the group her side of the story. Yada yada yada, Skinner pulls out the old "if it looks bad, it's bad for the FBI" line. They must teach that line at upper-level FBI management classes, because it's exactly what Kersh told Doggett in "Alone." Skinner looks at Mulder (who's looking at the floor) and basically tells him that, because it seems as though the blast could have been prevented, the Powers That Be are looking for someone to blame, and they're leaning toward blaming Mulder and Scully. Mulder looks harder at the floor and tells Skinner that the FBI ought to blame him, because Scully doesn't deserve it. Skinner informs Mulder that Scully's in there, telling the bigwigs the same thing about him. Mulder sighs and runs down all the reasons that he deserves the blame, including ignoring primary tactical rules and leaving Michaud alone with the bomb. Skinner glares at him and tells him that Scully just told the OPR that she was the one who ordered Mulder out of the building when he didn't want to leave Michaud.