Well, the numbers are in, and the people have spoken. A resounding 60% of you, dear readers, agree that Moronica should remain "Moronica," rather than being granted the honor of being known by her given name. And so she shall be. And I'm glad. I hate change.
Moronica and Doggett are pulling up in front of Doggett's big house in Falls Church, Virginia. "Thanks for the beer," she offers. "Thanks for the lift," he tells her. Moronica asks if he has "big plans" for the weekend." Doggett grins. "Huge," he says. I'm trying so hard not to make that joke, people. "Microwave pizza, satellite TV," he clarifies. Moronica grins and bats her eyelashes flirtatiously. "Wow, thanks for making my weekend sound exciting," she says. Doggett stares at her, smiles tentatively, and blinks. Moronica wonders if the two of them ought to get some pets. Because it worked so well for Scully. "They say people with pets live longer," she says. Doggett thinks about this, and admits that he was thinking about getting a cat. Moronica directs her breasts toward his face and informs him that there are two kinds of people in the world: cat people and dog people. And he's a dog person. "How do you figure?" he asks. Maybe your name, genius? Moronica giggles. "You're faithful, you're dependable, you're without guile," she purrs. Oh, that too. "You're very comfortable to be around." She asks why he would want to get a cat. Doggett shrugs and says that they're "low-maintenance" and "hard to disappoint." Moronica makes cow eyes at him. "I don't see you disappointing anyone, John," she tells him. Since when are they all in love? Everyone knows Doggett's heart belongs to the Skinman, for better or worse, and Moronica is clearly a lover of the ladies. Moronica purses her lips, seductively. "Kiss me. Kiss meeee," she's thinking. Doggett blinks. "See you Monday?" he asks. "Yeah, see ya," Moronica coos. Doggett smiles, looks at her appraisingly, and gets out of the car. He stands on the porch and watches her drive away. He heaves a giant sigh. "She has no idea that I'm totally gay," he says, before going inside to Skinner and a nice hot cup of tea.
Moronica's driving along. "John, John, John," she says, shaking her head and gazing dreamily out the window. And then her car is totally broadsided. It spins out and flips over, in a burst of broken glass and twisted metal. It's really a rather well-executed crash, I have to say. And Moronica is surely dead, making this truly the best episode ever. I really do think that The Powers That Be are making a positive change in killing her off in a fiery blaze. This bodes well for the final episodes of the show, no?
Cut to the Hospital Where Everyone Who Ever Worked for the FBI Ends Up in a Coma Eventually. The Feds ought to be able to get a group discount on life support, don't you think? Moronica looks pretty good for someone who's just been in a horrible accident. She's got a tiny gash on her forehead, but plenty of sparkly pretty makeup. "Miss Reyes, are you with us?" the ER doctor asks, shining a light into her eyes. Oh, dammit. She's not dead. Or is she?
“ It turns out that in the afterlife, we will all be forced to wear unattractive plum lipstick, but will also be assigned flattering low-cut blouses. ”
Moronica finally opens her eyes...somewhere else. It's not of this earth, though, and you can tell because the lighting is all blue and unflattering. Also, it turns out that in the afterlife, we will all be forced to wear unattractive plum lipstick, but will also be assigned flattering low-cut blouses. Moronica sits up and looks around. The place is deserted. It looks like the hospital. But it's not the hospital. It's the Notspital. Moronica calls and calls, but no one answers. She hops off the gurney and wanders outside the Notspital. There's nothing outside. No, seriously, nothing. It's like an abyss. A void. It's like that scene in Beetlejuice where Geena Davis goes outside and it's like another planet and there's that sand demon thing, except without the sand demon and with more dark stormy clouds. I wonder if this means that, later in the episode, Moronica will strike up a friendship with a pixie-ish Goth who will later be arrested for shoplifting in Saks. As Moronica stands on the edge of the abyss with her mouth hanging open, the camera pulls back to reveal that the Notspital is floating in thin air.
Back inside the Notspital, Moronica examines her face in the reflection of a paper towel dispenser. A man walks up behind her. Let's call him Stephen. Because we'll soon find out that is his name. He's freaked out, too, he tells her. And he doesn't have any idea where they are. Moronica stutters something about going and looking outside. "Yeah. Don't do that," Stephen offers. They start walking around the Notspital, as Moronica wonders where everyone went. "I think the question is, where did we go?" Stephen asks. He's very deep no? He wonders if she was in an accident. Moronica tells him that she thinks she got hit by a car. He came in with chest pains. And there's another man there, a Mr. Guerrero. Or Berrerro. I can't tell. Let's call him Marvin. He fell at a construction site, Stephan says, and indeed, the side of Marvin's head is all screwed up. "You think we're dead!" Moronica finally says. Stephen sort of rolls his eyes, like he can't believe it took her this long to figure that out. Moronica shakes her head violently. "No, no! I don't believe that," she says. "Have you ever been dead?" Marvin asks. Moronica just stares at him. "Then how do you know you're not?" This is all way too metaphysical for Moronica, who runs out of the room
The (actual) Hospital. Scully storms inside the ER, her red hair flying. The nurse on duty is like, "Hey Dana! How's that guy you work with who was in a coma last week?" And the orderly is all, "Danes! Give your boss my best. He's recovered from almost dying from those weird remote-controlled things, right?" And a geneticist goes, "Dude! It's the Scullster! How's your weird-ass kid? We never did find those DNA test results, babe -- sorry!" And a physical therapist is all, "DKS! Wazzup? How's that tall guy who knocked you up? We haven't seen him here in months and it used to be such a nice, regular thing! Give him my best!" And a nearby Candy-Striper is like, "Hey, there, Dr. Scully! I'm so glad you're not in jail for allegedly killing that cult member here last week!" And the ER's chief resident is all, "Ms. Scully! Your hair is so much prettier than when you when here dying from inoperable nose cancer!" And then Mark Greene walks by and says, "Hey, Agent Scully," and she kicks him in the shins. Everyone hates Mark Greene. Eventually, Scully finds Doggett on a sofa looking wan and sad. "Hell of a thing to wake up to, huh?" he asks, looking up at her. Scully sits down beside him and pats his leg. "We stopped after work. She had a beer," Doggett explains. "Well, the man who hit her had fifteen," Scully says. I can not believe that Scully's left the Crown Prince alone in the middle of the night. I hope to God Skinner's watching him, and not the totally ineffectual Ma Scully, or we're all going to find ourselves in another game of Capture the Baby. Doggett sadly looks at his shoes. "Don't do this to yourself, John," Scully advises.
Moronica's room. Scully examines her chart while Doggett looks furrowed and sad. Scully shakes her head. "It's true, John. She's gone," she says. "I don't accept that," Doggett says, pointing out that Moronica's breathing on her own, and her heart's beating. "There's got to be hope," he says. Scully puts down the chart. "Brain death is indeed death, John," she tells him. "Unless you're Mulder. Or me. Or you. Or Skinner. Or Krycek. Or CSM." Staring. "I'm sorry," Scully finally whispers. The camera pulls back to reveal Moronica standing behind the two of them. But she's not really. Because she's not really there. She's in the Notspital...
...where Moronica's just walking and walking and walking. Finally, she finds a bunch of medical charts. When she flips through them, though, we see that the forms are just full of gobbledy-gook. Stephen sad-sacks his way over to her, wringing his hands. "The thing is, it's not that bad, once you get used to the idea," he offers. "This is nonsense, all of it," Moronica says, waving the charts in his face. Stephen desperately wishes she would chill. "You say we're dead," Moronica says. "This seem like heaven to you? A big deserted Catholic hospital?" she asks. Well, someone is awfully sure that she's getting through them pearly gates. Stephen and I are on the same page; he comments that, for all he knows, they're in hell. Moronica looks horrified, but doesn't point out that it can't be hell because...well, where are the skin-searing flames and the guys with the pointy sticks? Stephen shrugs and says that maybe they're at "a way station, a stop on the road to what comes ." Moronica tosses her hair and says that she doesn't care. She's going to find a way out! Stephen just sighs.
So, Moronica heads over to the edge of the abyss with an empty coffee cup. She leans over and drops the cup into the void. It crackles with electricity and then disappears forever. It's like last year, when Buffy jumped off that tower thing and died? Like that. With a cup. Also, no vampires.
Hospital. Moronica's doctor -- let's call him Dr. Evil, just because -- is real sorry for Scully's loss. Scully raises her brow calmly, like, it is so not really her loss. Doggett implores Dr. Evil to "do something." And Dr. Evil is all like, "I can't do that and I also I need all of her vital organs right now for some unnamed nefarious purpose." Doggett sputters at him to slow down! He points out that Moronica didn't suffer any damage to her skull, and comments that it doesn't make sense that she's having brain issues if her skull is intact. "Does that add up to you?" he asks. "At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. It doesn't change her diagnosis, or her prognosis," Scully says. "And I need to go now. Mulder just got back from the 7-11 with some Zingers, a twelve-pack of Amstel Light, and a carton of cigs. Bye!" And Dr. Evil is all, "No. Seriously. I really need her organs right now."
Audrey Pauley
“ 'Okay, let's concentrate on one unexplainable event at a time!' Stephen says. Someone needs to write that out and tape it over Chris Carter's computer. Or tattoo it on his forehead. ”
Dude, I was just channel-surfing whilst editing this and came across an episode of The Red Shoe Diaries. So that's where Mulder's been! Reading letters about soft-core porn! Actually, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
Notspital. Moronica catches sight of someone else wandering the halls and goes to investigate. After running through the empty halls for twenty-five minutes, she finds a woman trembling at the end of a corridor. (She's played by an actress who's previously appeared on this show -- in "Oubliette" -- but it's not the same character.) Let's call her Audrey. Because, again, it's her name. See how that works? Audrey runs away from Moronica, finally eluding her by running through a brick wall. Moronica is pounding her hands against the wall when Stephen begins calling her name. She races around to another section of the Notspital, where Marvin is slumped over in a chair getting electrocuted, like that cup. "What's happening to him?" Moronica stutters, staring. "Oh my God," she says, as Marvin just disappears. God, Marvin! We barely knew ye.
Over at the hospital, Dr. Evil has just pulled the plug on Marvin. "I am so very sorry for your loss," he tells the grieving family. "Now, get out of my way so I can get to his liver."
Outside, in the hallway, Audrey watches this exchange and looks perturbed.
Elsewhere in the hospital, Scully is staring at Moronica's brain scan and wondering if William's mentally rearranged her sock drawer while she was gone. Doggett comes in the room, looking even more forlorn. "So?" he asks. Scully just stares at him. He plaintively comments that Dr. Evil is all ready to "divvy up" Moronica. "Is there anything, anything at all?" he asks. Scully tells him that she sees evidence of some minor swelling of the brain. But that it "doesn't mean anything." Doggett makes another sad face and pulls the monitor of Moronica's brain activity from his pocket. Don't ask me where he got it. Just go with it. He shows Scully the paperwork, and points out a section where the brain activity all just stops. Scully's like, "So?" Doggett wonders if they can reverse the effects of whatever caused Moronica's brain activity just to crash, if they can figure out what crashed it in the first place. Or something. And then he runs out of the room.
Notspital. Stephen is skeptical of Moronica's I Saw a Girl But She Ran Through the Wall story. Moronica's taking him to the scene of the crime, trying to explain that Audrey's disappearance was utterly unlike Marvin's. "Okay, let's concentrate on one unexplainable event at a time!" Stephen says. Someone needs to write that out and tape it over Chris Carter's computer. Or tattoo it on his forehead. "What happened to [Marvin]?" Stephen asks. Moronica thinks Marvin is really most sincerely dead. "You can't die if you're already dead," she points out. "Which backs up my belief that you and I are alive." Stephen wonders where the hell they are, then, if they're not dead. You know, so to speak.
Audrey Pauley
“ Doggett's sitting on a bench, his head in his hands, thinking about the time he and Moronica sat in her car and talked about domesticated animals. And he cries and cries. And then I turn to stone, because in his memory of their evening, he lays a giant smooch on her. Thank God, this sick fantasy of his is interrupted by screaming. ”
Dr. Evil's office. A nurse pops her head in the door and tells him that she was going over his "code notes" for the evening, and that he missed something. He gave Moronica an injection that wasn't in the notes, she says. She assumed it was epinephrine. Dr. Evil is all, "No, you didn't see that." The nurse is all, "Yes, I did." And he's like, "Not!" And she's like, "Yeah-huh." And he's like, "Nuh-uh," and she goes, "Yes infinity." And I don't know why he didn't just say, "How did I forget to write that down? I did give her some epi in the ER. Thanks for catching that." And no one would have been the wiser. Instead, they bicker, and then he stabs her in the neck with a hypodermic needle and she falls down dead. He's not a very efficient Dr. Death, really, is he?
Elsewhere in the hospital, Doggett's sitting on a bench, his head in his hands, thinking about the time he and Moronica sat in her car and talked about domesticated animals. And he cries and cries. And then I turn to stone, because in his memory of their evening, he lays a giant smooch on her. Thank God, this sick fantasy of his is interrupted by screaming. An orderly has found the nurse's dead, dead body.
Scully and Doggett examine the nurse's body in an empty trauma room. Doggett points out that he had been asking this very nurse questions earlier, about what happened in the ER when Moronica came in. He did? I thought he was talking to the doctor. Huh. Well, whatever. Seriously, do you even care about that anymore? It's not like whomever he was talking to was wearing a shirt that said, "Hey! CSM is Mulder's Dad and Moronica is Samantha! And Also, the Winning Lotto Numbers for Wednesday Are 7, 8, 14, 32, and 61." Scully wonders if Doggett is insinuating that someone killed the nurse because she knew too much. Doggett shrugs, and asks her what she would use, if she had to kill someone and make it look like natural causes. That, by the way, is one of my favorite (if macabre) topics of cocktail party conversation: if you had to kill someone (for purposes of conversation, I generally say "your abusive spouse") and get away with it, how would you go about it? See, if you want to kill someone and flee the country, I think that would actually be fairly simple. It's getting away with it and getting to hang around and have everyone think you were innocent that mucks up the works. Anyway, Scully votes for an old favorite: some Phenobarbital and a small-bore needle. That's, natch, the doctor's choice of murder weapons. We mere mortals are generally stuck with blunt objects. I should really shut up. I'd hate for this recap to become state's evidence if I were ever to be suspected of...I mean, I never would...never mind. ["You know, I heard there was a murder in L.A. but they never caught the guy who did it. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Jessica?" -- Wing Chun] Doggett thinks they ought to run a tox screen on the nurse. Because everyone knows that anyone can run a tox screen on anyone, ever. "I'm happy to do this for you," Scully says slowly. "Just don't kid yourself that this is going to somehow bring her back." I don't understand why Doggett and Scully have been handed the body. I mean, wouldn't an autopsy be done on the nurse as a matter of course, but by someone entirely unassociated with the FBI? And why didn't Doggett remind Scully about the time they dug Mulder up after being buried alive, and how he didn't try to make her stick him back in the ground right off the bat? "Thank you," the Mulder action figure calls from inside his shoe box office. I think it was "thank you," anyway. The sound is sort of muffled when the lid is closed.