AIR DATE:  December 14, 1997
Written by Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Kim Manners

	To write that "Emily" was underwhelming would be an
understatement.  So what do we get in "Emily", some Scully angst and
Mulder running around again like he did in "Memento Mori" seeing some
funky stuff which we are guaranteed he will not tell Scully since we find
out in "Emily" he never told her that her barrenness came from all of her
eggs being taken out during her abduction and not as a result of her
cancer.  We have to ask ourselves did we learn anything more in this
episode?  Yes, we did learn further what the people who took Scully and
those Allentown women are doing with their eggs though why and for what
purpose is still a mystery.  Are they a part of the Gregor's experiments
in "Colony/End Game" or somehow connected to the experiments being done
with the oily aliens in "Tunguska/Terma"? 

	I think this episode also confirms that we can be pretty sure that
Mulder hasn't told Scully about Cigarette Smoking Man supposedly bringing
Samantha back to him briefly and alluding to the fact that she is his
daughter. If he hadn't told her about her barrenness then why would he
tell her this important event in his life?  Why he isn't being more open
with Scully is beyond me.  There isn't anyone else who he trusts more than
her, but yet he is incapable of telling her these significant events. 
What does this say about their ability to communicate with each other
about the things they have gone through?  If I were Scully I would be mad
at Mulder for keeping secret such personnal information about myself.  We
know from past experience he isn't going to tell Scully about finding the
fetus in that green liquid with her name on it. Maybe Scully and Mulder
should have gone to that team seminar in "Detour"  and they would have
learned how to talk to each other.  Actually, it seems to be Mulder who
isn't telling Scully everything as if she isn't strong enough to handle
some of the things Mulder has seen, especially when it deals with her. Of
course, Scully has never been given the opporunity to find this kind of
personal information on Mulder so she never had to make the choice on what
to tell Mulder.  What does this say about Mulder's feelings towards Scully
when he is willing to keep things from her?  What does this episode say
about Scully's feelings towards Mulder when she finally calls him only
when she needs someone outside the family to be a character witness for
the adoption judge.  After all they have been through together they still
can't communicate with each other. 

	Some miscellaneous comments on "Emily": 

- Where the hell was the Scully family during all of this?  Okay, I can
understand that Bill Scully's wife was finally giving birth so the family
would be there for the birth, but for the whole episode except at Emily's
funeral?  Did it take her days to give birth?  Just once I would have
liked to have seen Mrs. Scully at the hospital with Scully, and have a
discussion about Emily. It was as if she didn't care to support her
daughter in this time of emotional crisis. It isn't every day a person
finds out they have a child they never realized they had.  Mulder was the
only one who was there for her.  He was the one who confronted Dr. 
Calderon about his lack in helping out in Emily's disease, did any of the
leg work to find out the truth behind Dr. Calderon and was there for
Scully when Emily was close to dying.  No wonder she wanted to drive with
Mulder to the graveyard, he was the only one there for her. 

- Did anyone else chuckle a little bit at the opening scene of Scully
walking through the snow or dirt (I can't decide what it was she was
walking through)?  Come on guys, aren't you just taking this symbolizing
thing just a little bit too far.  Scully's last statement of "Alone as
ever"  is totally incredulous.  What about her family?  What about Mulder? 
So her family wasn't with her in this episode, but they would have been
there at any other time.  She should know that just because you can't have
children doesn't mean you will always be alone for the rest of your life. 
She might be having doubts about her life, but Mulder will always be there
for her no matter what.

- Speaking of children isn't it kinda strange how comfortable Mulder is
around children.  He worked quite well with them in "Revelations" and in
"Emily" he gets Emily's trust by becoming Mr. Potatohead.  Hmm, I wonder
if he used to do that with Samantha. 

- Now it is official Scully was only missing for 4 weeks and not the 3
months we always suspected.  Doesn't this fact make Mrs. Scully look
foolish since she had her dead and buried by creating a tombstone for her
as we saw in the beginning of "One Breath".  3 months I can see it, but 4
weeks.  Boy, it doesn't take much for her to to give up hope. 

- Was Mulder staying at Bill Scully's house since he was still there at
10:16pm or was he waiting for Scully?  I'm sure this made Bill Scully
happy either way. 

- We see the new Mulder in action in this episode when he gets violent
with Dr. Calderon when Dr. Calderon refuses to help out with Emily's
treatment.  I have no doubt Mulder would have physically hurt Dr. Calderon
even more if he had the opportunity.  You could see during the interview
that Mulder was going to get this information from Dr. Calderon either
voluntarily or by force. Don't know what this says about Mulder's mental
state after what he did in "Redux". 

- One would think those two conspiracy guys would have worked faster to
clean up the old folks home instead of continuing the experiments as if
they weren't in danger of being exposed.  One of them goes to the hopsital
to put some green liquid into Emily for whatever reason while the other
distracts Mulder by having him follow him back to work.  Hmm, maybe this
is when they should have sent someone to clean up the old folks home of
any evidence of what they were doing.  The conspiracy people sure are not
hiring the best people to do this work.  Now the original Bounty Hunter
guy never would have left any evidence around for Mulder to find. 

- Gee, how much more does Scully have to prove to the Social Worker that
she has Emily's best interest at heart.  Talk about your cold hearted
civil servant. 

- Was anyone else reminded of the oily aliens during the scene when they
were doing whatever they were doing to Emily in that oxygen tank and we
see there are some things crawling under her arm? 

- What is the significance of the date 02/08/67 on that shipping invoice? 
There were two dates on the invoice, one of 13/10/94 which is about the
time Scully was taken since they seemed to be using the military way of
doing dates and not the American way of writing dates.  The question is
does 02/08/67 mean Feburary 8, 1967 or August 2, 1967, but either way what
does the year 1967 mean in all of this.  Heck, what does everything that
happened in this episode mean.  Let's see if I got this straight:  Emily
is a result of an experiment of human eggs and whatever (alien DNA?)  or
she is a clone of some kind where they somehow use these old women to give
birth to these babies.  For whatever reason they have these children
adopted by parents and we never find out how much they are involved in the
conspiracy.  Somehow whatever is in that green liquid helps Emily in some
way, but doesn't stop the growth of whatever was in her.  I gather the
conspiracy guys were working on Emily to figure out how to stop the growth
so they can continue on their work though it is never made clear why Mrs. 
Sims wanted to stop the experiment.  Was it the experiment that was the
cause of her problems in the first place?  Who knows, but one thing for
sure there are most likely other little Scully's running around the
country.  Can't wait to see how they work the killer bees into all this. 

- Detective Kresge must be psychic since he suddenly turned up at the
house where the conspiracy people were doing their experiment with the old
people.  There is no way he would know to go there.  Who told him?  Did it
end up on the cutting room floor?  We never saw Mulder tell Scully where
he followed Dr. Calderon.  Also, I find it hard to believe Mulder didn't
know where he was in San Diego when he told the 911 operator he didn't
know where he was. He had to find his way back there and it is hard to
believe he wouldn't have someone such as Frohike find out more information
about who lives at that address.  Also, isn't Mulder supposed to have a
photographic memory? 

- Also, I find it interesting that all the women who were abducted for
these medical experiments came from Allentown while Scully is the only one
who doesn't come from there. 

- Another strange thing, wouldn't they have performed an autopsy on Emily? 
You would think they would want to find out more about what was done to
her.  Well, maybe at this point Scully just didn't care anymore and just
wanted to give Emily some peace.  Scully did realize that no matter what
they did for Emily there would be no stopping her from dying in the end. 
It is obvious the green liquid isn't a cure, but somehow delays the
growth.  I wonder if Mulder will store that bottle of green liquid along
with the vial of Scully's eggs.

- I did like how Mulder noticed right away that Emily was wearing Scully's
cross necklace as a way to show him how important Emily was to Scully.  In
the end that is all Scully had left of Emily whose body seems to have
disappeared (dissolves? or taken by the conspiracy people, you decide).

- I couldn't help thinking of the band Fugazzi every time they mention the
name in the show. 

	"Emily" fell into the trap of a weak follow-up to an excellent
first part.  It fell short because it had Mulder doing all the action
while Scully was stuck in the hospital and Scully's family was nowhere to
be seen throughout the episode so we lost that aspect we had in "Christmas
Carol".  It wasn't bad, but it could have been much more with Mulder and
Scully and the meaning of Emily.


Claudia
E-Mail:  Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

12/15/97

Back to Top of Page