The X-Files: Oubliette   Rewatch 
April 23, 2020 7:19 PM - Season 3, Episode 8 - Subscribe

When a young teenage girl is abducted from her bedroom at night, a fast food worker miles away collapses on the job, and the girl's blood is found on her clothes. When Mulder learns that the woman was kidnapped and held hostage for years as a child, he begins to believe that she may have a psychic connection to the missing girl.
posted by orange swan (3 comments total)
 
Another difficult episode, but respectfully-enough done? Like, they didn't resort to exploiting and yet still managed get some seriously heavy imagery?

Mulder's empathy throbbing full on, on his sleeve.

IMDB trivia reports that the girl was originally written as 12, but Fox's 'standards and practices department' made them rewrite her as 15. Jewel Staite was 13 at the time.

The small town settings really help the X Files "reset" - local law enforcement haven't yet been awed by Mulder and Scully and treat them like the kooks that they would appear to be.

The sheriff dude did a great job of that hiding fear with performative caring for what's happening in his town and figuratively puching some kooks as a stress outlet.

Tracey Ellis' (Lucy) was outstanding. She looks familiar, but I don't think I've seen her in anything else.
posted by porpoise at 8:56 PM on April 23, 2020 [2 favorites]


Agreed that Tracey Ellis was excellent as Lucy. I can barely remember some of The X-Files episodes, but I certainly remembered Lucy. So heartbreaking and tragic.

Tracey Ellis appears in the episode "Audrey Pauley" in the titular role. Well, I'll be damned. I remember that role clearly too, and never realized it was the same actress. "Audrey Pauley", which was filmed in 2002, seems to have been her last role, so Ellis may have left the business, which is a shame.

Amy's little sister said that her sister's abductor had said, "Nothing's going to spoil us," but she woke up after Carl Wade had said that -- as he was escaping out the window with Amy.

Why did everyone have such a difficult time figuring out where Carl Wade lived? He was still living in the same place in which he'd held Lucy captive, back in the 1970s. And there was no address on file for him? Also, they'd identified him as a person of interest, yet no one went to talk him, and Mulder opted instead to go press Lucy some more.

Scully tends to lecture Mulder every time he gets involved in a "young girl missing" case, and I find it out of line on her part. I mean, yes, those cases are particularly loaded for him given Samantha's abduction, and he tends to get more involved emotionally, but he doesn't lose his objectivity or behave inappropriately.
posted by orange swan at 4:58 PM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


but he doesn't lose his objectivity or behave inappropriately.

Certainly not, but I wonder how much Scully is trying to de-emotion situations for Mulder. Like, Mulder goes deep and gets emotionally involved; Scully as a medical doctor sees that it's mentally and physically unhealthy that Mulder gets so deeply involved and recommends a re-assessment?

Preventative medicine.
posted by porpoise at 9:55 PM on April 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


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