The Cave's X-Files Commentary Archives: 
Episodes: Amor Fati (7x02)
(input from several Cave contributors)

If *The Sixth Extinction is a chronicle of Scully's struggle with the often antagonistic elements of belief and loyalty, then its sequel, *Amor Fati, presents Mulder's parallel struggle. How did I ever end up here, he must surely be wondering in his lucid moments, strapped to a bed in a hospital's psych ward. How can I go on? Do I even want to? Does it matter anymore? Did it ever? While this episode is part of a mythology trilogy and we expect to find out some of the nitty-gritty details of the alien ship/plans/invasion/effect on Mulder, as with any truly classic story, the most important activity takes place within the characters themselves.

We begin the episode with Mulder being checked out of the hospital by his mother. She seemed to me genuinely interested in him and his state, unwilling to see him endlessly sedated while no effective treatment is offered or even proposed. My guess is that, seeing no other hope, she has been easy game for CSM who, always ready to manipulate people through their emotions, convinces her he can help her son when the doctors have been unable to. Still, there is nothing she can personally do--as far as she can see--and she leaves. Moral support is invaluable at a time like this, and we hear Mulder screaming out to her as she walks away unaware of his silent cries for her help.

In this state of despair, Mulder's torment or temptation begins. He is approached by CSM who offers him a choice of life or death, to keep on his present course to its imminent end, or to escape, to cheat death by disappearing into a quiet, anonymous life rich with simple comforts--a home, a woman, caring neighbors, his long-lost sister. Of course, this seeming choice is not actually what CSM is offering at all. He has no intention of letting Mulder go anywhere; the plan is to surgically remove whatever it is Mulder holds that makes him immune to the coming alien invasion and to have it transplanted into himself. What we really see here (although it's not apparent to Mulder) is a two-pronged effort to kill our protagonist both physically and mentally. Remember that in *The Beginning CSM confides to Jeffrey Spender, "You can kill a man but you can't kill what he stands for...not unless you first break his spirit." To which he adds, "That's a beautiful thing to see." His motive here is to crush Mulder's spirit as well as steal the apparent gift his body now contains, and he attempts this by both fanning Mulder's own natural human doubts and fears, and by suggesting easy, comforting escapes from these troubles through the mouths of people from Mulder's life.

CSM's initial line to Mulder, by the way, happens to be the opening line of a sonnet by Shakespeare, which, in its entirety, reflects a startling parallel to Mulder's mental state as the episode progresses. Here it is:

Sonnet 29

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

[Thanks, Will, for another piece that stands the test of time.]

When so many things have played out badly in your life and you find yourself apparently up against that final wall, it's easy to look back on your life's history and think, 'Who would ever choose to live out this life, knowing what it would bring?'--in Mulder's case, the abduction of his sister, his icy parents, the ridicule of being an outcast with unpopular views, a partner compromised by illness because of his quest, the knowledge that he's been betrayed and used. These are Mulder's own inner doubts, but they're augmented by suggestions planted by CSM in the form of people from his life: Deep Throat, Diana Fowley, CSM himself, who, he reveals (perhaps in an effort to tarnish Mulder's own self-image--"you can't be that good, that righteous; you're *my* offspring") is actually Mulder's father. What form do these suggestions, these efforts to undermine Mulder's quest and confidence take?

CSM:

• "You're not Christ, you're not Prince Hamlet.." And yet he admits to Diana and the doctors that this is precisely what Mulder is--the potential salvation of humanity through the immunity he carries.

• "You've suffered enough"

• "You can walk out of this hospital and the world will forget you" (his quest has had no value or impact)

• "If you contact her (Scully), you'll put her in danger." (Of course CSM doesn't want him to contact Scully because he knows she'll never participate in his charade.)

• Re Samantha: "she's been living here all along, living a life you've forsaken."

• "I want you to have peace" (a false, convenient peace; he says this after Mulder asks him to open the curtain so he can see outside--reality.)

• "Close your eyes, Fox." Ignore what's happening around you and only think of yourself. You deserve it. (Seriously now, folks, if the devil needed to hire an advertising rep, he might easily consider CSM as the best-qualified candidate for the job.)

• "It's time for you to let go. They're waiting for you if you let go."

While Mulder doesn't want to trust CSM, his constant, soothing rationale nearly has Mulder sold... until Mulder realizes that the life he has supposedly 'chosen' at CSM's direction ends only in death and anonymity; in the end, everyone he cares about is dead and he has accomplished nothing more than outliving them, only to age and find himself weak and discouraged at death's door.

DEEP THROAT:

• "You can let go of all that guilt."

• "I'm here to tell you you're not the hub of the universe, the cause of life and death."

• "We're merely puppets in a master plan; no more, no less." (Mulder's efforts will have no real effect.)

• "You've suffered enough. Now you should enjoy your life."

While Mulder is overjoyed to see Deep Throat alive and the prospect of not having been guilty for all the things that have happened is no doubt extremely appealing, Mulder is also obviously disturbed at Deep Throat's presentation. He realizes that DT's evident scam--scooting off to a convenient, peaceful life--has created hardships for others, himself among them, and DT seems to be oblivious of this.

DIANA:

• "Hundreds of little joys, to have a woman open the door and beckon you in."

• She offers him the physical relationship that has eluded him with the woman he is closest to--Scully.

• "It's all just childish, Fox--dreams and fantasies" (referring to his plea of having commitments to the files and to Scully)

• "You don't know commitment until you plant yourself in the real world" ('real' being the fictitious one CSM is attempting to beguile him with)

• "You have to let go, Fox"

• (to CSM) "Allay his unhappiness with things he perceives as left undone" (You can look at everything in a new way and rationalize it away.)

Diana seems to have more success--temporarily--than the other two at convincing him to partake of her scenario. Remember that CSM tells Mulder the handcuffs will come off when he no longer wants to run, and Diana offers him the key. She gives him what he is least able to resist, though remember also that he's had a previous relationship with this woman and evidently found value in it.

The dream scenario material is generated both by CSM and by Mulder's own fears and doubts. Surely he must wonder what's been the use of everything he's done. Surely he'd like to get away from the overwhelming load of guilt he carries. But the escape he's offered holds no honor; it's simply self-centered. It would be natural for him to wonder what kind of life he might have had if he and Diana had never separated. But of course everything he encounters in this dream-world has that added barb of implying that his efforts have been for nothing, that they've been childish dreams, that he should give them up and rest, take it easy, close his eyes, give up. Especially that.

Though the imagery here is overtly Christian (the episode has been patterned after The Last Temptation of Christ), every culture has stories about the temptation of people in the position to be saviors in one way or another. This is simply another. Yes, there are definite parallels to Jesus' temptations in the desert before the beginning of his ministry, where he is urged to give up his mission for ease and comforts ('Hungry?  Turn these stones into bread') or fame ('Only bow down and worship me and I'll give you the world.') It's also reminiscent of Luke Skywalker's temptation on the Death Star in Return of the Jedi, where the Emperor shows Luke a battle where his forces are powerless against the Emperor's, and the Emperor tells him he must come to the Dark Side because 'it's unavoidable; it is your destiny'.  Yet earlier he has admitted to Vader that his only power is to suggest, that Luke can't be coerced but must make the decision to come to the Dark Side on his own. Life is full of temptations, whether they are perceived to come from the devil or from a part of your own psyche, and these are Mulder's.

There is one last visitor to Mulder's dream scenario, however, one surely not encouraged by CSM, and this, of course, is Scully. He is glad to see her, anxious for her support and worn down/lulled/weakened by CSM's presentation. However, he gets no sympathy from his partner. She has three words for him: traitor, deserter, coward. She tells him to wake up; she tells him he's not supposed to die like this; and perhaps most importantly she urges him to get up and look; when everyone else around him has urged him to close his eyes and sleep, she orders him to get up and 'fight the fight'. And she doesn't stick around to allow him to be comfortable/comforted: she leaves. If he wants to follow her, or be with her, he has to wake up, get up, make an effort to rouse himself. Being shaken by this vision of Scully is what prepares the unconscious Mulder on the operating table to respond to Scully when she enters the room.

Scully, meanwhile, has been having struggles of her own: trying to get information from reluctant associates (Skinner, whose reticence she doesn't understand), from threatening, lying others (Kritchgau threatens her--what was that all about, BTW?--hacks her files and says he hasn't given out the information, even though it's obvious he has), and having to deal with Diana, who, when Scully corners her, mounts a pre-emptive strike by suggesting Scully could have done something to prevent what has happened to Mulder. Scully holds her ground--and her composure--admirably by asking Diana to remember Mulder when he first met her, the promise that his life held, and the certainty that if she were the one in trouble, Mulder would be fighting to help her.

Scully must also deal with the mysterious appearances of Albert Hosteen, who suggests that she find Mulder by looking into her heart. In the end, something she finds disappointing/frustrating/disheartening in the extreme, her science does nothing to help, or help find, her partner. But even so, she does find him through help from an unexpected source.

This episode presents Diana Fowley with an opportunity to redeem herself and she takes advantage of it as best she can. She believes that she loves Fox Mulder, and undoubtedly she does to the extent she's capable of that, but her allegiance, as she admits in Sixth Extinction, is not solely (and obviously not primarily) to Mulder but to CSM. She wants to see Mulder come out of this okay, but she does nothing to prevent the situation he finds himself in. She has evidently known for years how he's been used and watched by the Syndicate, but she has remained silent. She does send Scully the book that explains Mulder's significance to CSM and the efforts against the aliens. And late in the proceedings, with Mulder on the operating table, she says to CSM, "It would have been nice to give him a choice", but this is very much too little too late. However reluctantly, she watches the proceedings go forward without taking any real action, until Mulder opens his eyes, looks at her and refuses to close them. This is more than she can take. First she looks away, then she leaves the room and ultimately she gives the key card to Scully, enabling Scully to do what she cannot do herself: save Mulder. Surely Diana would be aware of the consequences of her action, that the card would be traced to her and her complicity revealed. She knows her course of action is fatal, but guilt, conscience, whatever--we'll never know--drive her forward and enable Scully to reach Mulder in time.

The scene in the operating room is interesting. Mulder, of course, has been prepared by Scully's visit to his dream. Yet he still is unable to respond to her voice in spite of her pleas for him to wake up. Even the tear that falls onto his cheek doesn't do the trick; it is the actual touch of her face against his that finally rouses him and, in an interesting twist, we have the mirror image of the final *Milagro scene, with Scully gathering Mulder into her arms.

Where does all this lead? Well, if you were just waiting to find out all the outward plot details you probably went away tearing your hair and shouting as loudly as Mulder was calling for his mother in the opening scene. We found some answers--we know what was in Mulder and why--though we don't really know if it's still there, if he's merely been forced to share a portion of it with CSM (who smugly assures Diana he'll take over the 'burden' from here on out--completely selfless motives, I'm sure) or whether CSM has taken all of it from him. We have no idea who Kritchgau was working for, or why. Why did he threaten to destroy Scully? Obviously Alex Krycek has found out what Kritchgau was up to, because he steals his laptop and sets fire to his apartment in the end (it seems Krycek doesn't want any evidence of an alien-human hybrid left lying around for the wrong eyes to find, whosever they may be.) As with *Biogenesis, there were obviously parts to this story filmed and later cut (the scenes where Skinner is affected by Krycek's nanotechnology were all cut, though the pictures were out there all over the 'net--even on the front of our local TV magazine, so shortening of the story might account for some of the rough spots in the ep. As I said at the beginning, most of the 'real' action happens within the characters, and we see where all this stress of circumstances has led us in the final scene.

In the end Mulder has been through an experience very similar to Shakespeare's sonnet #29, allowing himself to want the things ordinary people have, as well as having been tempted by CSM's suggestions that weaken him psychologically and spiritually. Scully finds herself sorely frustrated by the fact that her science, her expertise, wasn't able to produce a way to save Mulder. She has seen things she can't explain and is left floating, without a secure base. In addition she realizes that her ability to save Mulder's life came in large part as a gift from Diana Fowley, a woman she never trusted.

Scully is shaken by the news of Albert Hosteen's death and the fact that his appearance at her apartment was the most likely the product of something other than the laws of physics; Mulder, in turn, is ambivalent about the death of Diana, whose efforts obviously saved his life in the end, but who could, by earlier decisive action, have kept him from the entire tortured scenario in the first place. The final word here, though, is stability in the midst of the storm, a deepening of the bond between partners, of appreciation for what they do to keep each other afloat. "Yet when my world was unrecognizable and upside down," Mulder tells Scully, "there was one thing that remained the same; you were my friend and you told me the truth. Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant, my touchstone," and, Scully adds, "You are mine."

Does this mean CC is leading into some hopelessly sappy situation? I don't think so. If, as Gwoman has suggested, Mulder has now seen into Scully and knows her heart, how she feels about him, he also knows how difficult it is for her to express that, and he doesn't press her to anything more than she offers him (though he did look, after she left, as if he could have used a lot more of that.) Scully, for her part, has taken a big, daring step in actually declaring his value to her life, something she's never done before. She even allows herself to touch his face--briefly, though then she has suddenly reached her limit and walks away down the hall. Speculating about where all this physical closeness and open admission might lead, I think, only serves to obscure the solid beauty of what's happened here. Enjoy it for what it is, a simple but profound truth, the same one the narrator of Sonnet #29 discovers in the end: that it is the support of another human being that makes him content to be who he is, to accept where his life has taken him, and who has made his life not only bearable but rich.

-bardsmaid
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Zuffy on the boy at the beach and the ship made of sand

The final scene on the beach with the boy showed that Mulder had seen the image of the beach and the ship from Scully's mind when she came to tell him of her discovery and to urge him to hold on. He then held onto it as the solution to his own puzzle, the puzzle of his mission, and his link to what he was. Scully's vision remains his last grasp at finding meaning, at remaining connected to his quest, even after he has almost fully given way. CSM claims he knows of the vision (buttressing the notion that he is reading Mulder's mind) and tries to turn it to his own ends, telling him that "We all have such places... born of memory and desire," and assuring him that the boy wants to show him what he sees if only Mulder would close his eyes. I think that Mulder has transposed himself -- the childish Mulder alluded to by Diana -- into the scene Scully brought to him knowing that it was "his" truth. The very first beach scene occurs when his mom is there and he "remembers" the occasion of himself walking between his parents (supposed parents, pseudo parents, quasi parents, surrogate parents, in loco parentis...who knows at this point). Scully does not appear on the beach, because (I think) he is wrestling with the his loss of mission caused by his own actions. BoyMulder tells AdultMulder "It's your spaceship. You're destroying it. You were supposed to help me," accentuating the destruction cause by his abandonment of mission and his loss of belief in aliens. (Note that AdultMulder does not age...he remains 39, the point at which he betrayed his quest.) The angry boy makes room for Mulder's vision of Scully, marching in with her unabashed truth: "He's made you trade your true mission for creature comforts." This is why Mulder cannot see what the boy sees and cannot help him. Only at the end, Scully's reconnection to him -- her news, confession of confusion, comfort, kiss -- allows him to regain his sense of self and mission. It is portrayed in the idiom of a child. In Diana's seductive words it is his childish self. But we know that the boy represents the Mulder of infinite capacity for wonder and imagination, the Mulder who has taken the gift of Scully's vision and used it to heal himself. It is Scully's Mulder who wins, the Mulder with the beautiful mind.
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"You were my friend" from Littljoe

Did anyone else stop to think about the way the word "friend" was used in *AF (and a little bit in *SE)? Scully says to Mulder, "I'm sorry about Diana . . . I know she was your friend." Mulder says to Scully, "You were my friend, and you told me the truth."

They seem in complete agreement here, both using the word "friend" to denote a much deeper relationship than is normally meant. Certainly Diana was more than a "friend" to Mulder, but somehow the way Scully says it, it carries more weight than if she had said "lover" or "wife." In the tent in Africa in *SE, she tells Barnes that she is here only to help "her friend," and the word just resonates. In the same way, when Mulder tells Scully she was always his "friend," it is infinitely much more touching than the ILY in Triangle. It made me think immediately of *Field Where I Died, where Mulder asks Scully what she would think if she knew they had been "friends together--forever." And of course, the numerous half-humorous references to "friendship" in *Rain King. What's going on here?

I think the deliberate use of this word, rather than any other, is used to emphasize the importance of trust and lack of self-interest in the XF universe. After all, what is the ideal of a friend? Even more than a lover, it is someone in whom you can place all your trust, a person who asks nothing more from you than that you accept and return their affection. A true friend is also someone who knows your best, and while not abandoning you if you fall short, tries to hold you to it. And most of all, a friend is someone with whom you can be completely honest. When Mulder conjured up the angry, disappointed Scully out of his own conscience, he was investing her with the best qualities of friendship. She was not a lover who would coddle and cajole him, who wanted him for her own purposes; she was not a colleague or acquaintance who would flatter him or overlook his shortcomings. She was a friend. Even Diana, who started out as a deceptive lover (who, I think, honestly loved him, however self-serving that love might have been), redeemed herself by helping to rescue Mulder for his own sake--in other words, by behaving like a friend. In saying so, Scully is paying Diana the highest compliment, and combining it with a true apology and expression of sympathy.

Friendship, CC & DD seem to be saying, is the best part of love, the part above and beyond the selfish interests that often overwhelm and subvert romantic love (using Diana as a perfect example). It is a truism that true love is based on friendship, but the emotionally loaded use of the word "friend" in this episode gives that cliche fresh vigor and meaning here.
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bardsmaid on"The child is father to the man"

We hear this phrase coming from the boy in CSM's voice, which may indicate that it begins as one of CSM's suggestions/agendas: in a very literal sense, CSM is going to take from Mulder (the son, and I'm still not convinced he's Mulder's real father, either) what CSM needs to be the man he wants to be, through surgery. However, overall, as we see the boy-on-the-beach scenario develop, I think what this statement reflects is an acknowledgement that the man, the mature adult, develops from the material or essence of what was present in the boy, and in Mulder's case this is his drive, his vision, his relentlessness. In the course of the previous episode, Mulder's identity as this person is severely shaken (remember the boy says, "it's your spaceship and you're destroying it. You were supposed to help me.") But in the end it's this core formation of Mulder's character, this germinal little boy, who comes through again (with Scully's obvious help) to reassert itself and bring him back to who he really is.
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"Scully as the boy on the beach" by faisan in az

As has been stated before, Mulder must have seen the ship on the beach in Scully's mind when she came to him in the hospital, and the beach appears to be the same beach as the one in Africa. Scully was working relentlessly on this ship, yet in his dream, Mulder has chosen the easy life, and merely gazes at the boy (Scully) as she continues her (their) work. Actually, Scully IS in his dream. She is with him throughout his entire life, as is evidenced by Mulder telling CSM that he has seen the boy in his dreams, thousands of times. CSM then tells him to close his eyes, that the boy wants to tell him something. This is when the boy declares angrily "You were supposed to help me!"

At the end, in the hallway scene, Mulder declares that Scully was his "constant, his touchstone", and in fact she was. She was a constant reminder throughout this dream-life of his true quest.

 

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