Wine and an X-Phile #X-01004: Conduit

“Do you believe the voice? I want to believe.”

Air Date: October 1, 1993
Directed by: Daniel Sackheim
Written by: Alex Gansa & Howard Gordon

Filed Under: Monster of the Week

Synopsis:

After a teen girl goes missing in Iowa whose mother believes has been abducted by aliens, Mulder and Scully investigate while Mulder tries to find more clues that may tie with his sister’s abduction.

Review:

While the episode is technically regarded as a Monster of the Week episode, I’d argue that it leans more into the mythology especially as we start to learn in later seasons how connected his sister’s abduction is in relation with the overarching mythology. We get more of a look at how deeply the abduction has affected him and his work and starts to solidify some of Scully’s understanding that goes past knowing the basic storyline. One of the biggest things that I thought the story did right was how the central story with Ruby and her mother mirrors that of Samantha and Mulder. Mulder sees so much of the investigation that resonates with his story and connects with the investigation because of it. You can see his desperation to find answers because of the possibility of it being a clue to him reuniting with her.

When Darlene Morris refuses to investigate more about her daughter’s disappearance, you can see the desperation in Mulder as he tries to convince her, mostly because Ruby may hold some clues as to where Samantha is and it’s a devastating blow for Mulder to be cut off like that. We already know that Scully knows the basic story behind what happened, but this event prompts Scully to dive a bit deeper into the file and the tapes of Mulder’s hypnosis because she understands the need to learn more. The ending scene with Mulder at the church enforces his pain and his want to understand what is going on and believe that everything will be fine and that he will find Samantha, but has started to finally lose hope. In a way, Scully learning more and Mulder starting to lose faith in finding Samantha further push the audience to understand the differences in the way that they choose to believe in faith. Scully’s religious faith hasn’t been discussed at depth yet and we still have at least an episode or two before the discussion begins, but this is the beginning of that. The series plays with faith in a lot of ways, and this is one of the times they flip the narrative of Mulder the believer, and Scully the skeptic.

I also wanted to quickly bring up another issue that the episode deals with. Whether intentional or not, the episode highlights some major problems with law enforcement and missing persons cases that is still a problem almost thirty years later. Ruby is seen as a nuisance and immoral and because of this, the sheriff is unwilling to care or spend much time on her disappearance. He spends most of the episode making snide remarks or just shrugging off evidence that could lead to her being found. Her mother has to constantly hound investigators and make noise for anyone to listen to her. We see this a lot in society, specifically with troubled females, and how detrimental it is in recovery. The episode also pushes the problem one step further with the mother’s background with UFO sightings. She is already seen as mentally unwell, and not many believe her.

Extras:

Daniel Sackheim was last seen as director for the episode Deep Throat, and Gansa and Gordon will show up a few more times this season as a writing team. I noticed when I was going through my screenshots a goof on the tabloid clipping. The one that was attached to the file Scully is given at the beginning of the episode says Desiree, and the one Mulder uses for his projector has her correct name, Darlene.

This isn’t any sort of extra or Easter Egg as this happened a good 7 years after this episode aired, but I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the scene where Scully encounters the wolves, and not mention her role as the voice of Moro, the white wolf spirit, in the English dub of my favorite Ghibli film, Princess Mononoke. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly suggest you do. The dub is actually one of the better ones that I’ve seen (and no, it’s not my favorite because of her. It’s just an added bonus).

Favorite Prop(s):

Based on last week’s post and my favorite prop being a newspaper…are you sensing a theme? I just love paper props, I can’t help it. I might have to do an entire post on them at this rate. I remember the first time I watched this episode and how amazing it was to see the reveal of this. Especially at that time when graphics were new and we didn’t have access to so many easy editing software, this just seemed really cool.

MSR:

Not many moments in this episode as Scully’s main role is to be more of a silent support for Mulder and to hold him back from letting the investigation take him over. It really highlights their support for each other.

Rating:

4/5. This episode is one of my favorites of the alien episodes, and a top favorite of the season. It’s creepy but also heartbreaking and shows us more of a vulnerable side of Mudler. “Rubaaaay” will forever be etched in my brain.

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