X-Files 6.6: "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas"

Written by Chris Carter
Directed by Chris Carter

In which Mulder twists Scully into an investigation of a supposedly haunted house, but when they become trapped by the spirits within, the results are unexpected and deadly…


Status Report

For many, this is one of the better episodes of the sixth season. After all, Chris Carter once again writes and directs, and much like “Triangle”, there’s a fair amount of character exploration at the heart of the story. In this case, Carter displays a peculiar interpretation of the characters and what makes them tick, as filtered through the somewhat biased perspective of Maurice and Lyda. In fact, this character exploration is one of the best aspects of the episode. Unfortunately, in getting to that character exploration, liberties are taken with character history.

Carter seems to start with the intention of introducing a solid ghost story, but much like “Quagmire”, it soon becomes a chance to delve into Mulder and Scully and where they stand with each other. Carter has often mentioned that the series never pulled off a good, scary ghost tale, and that switch to a more comic aspect is the reason why this episode doesn’t qualify. There’s never a sense that Mulder and Scully are truly in danger, and once the psychological material is covered, the story takes a bit of a downturn.

But the real problems start long before that point is reached. As with many of the sixth season episodes, Mulder and Scully seem to be falling into the “mythological” mode, rather than the self-consistent continuity mode. Mulder and Scully are played as archetypes of excessive belief and skepticism, when neither character lacks the self-awareness required to fulfill such “legendary” shoes.

Mulder usually comes out of this process best, but only because that lack of self-awareness and perspective is part of his personality. Mulder continually forgets about the context of his own choices, and so certain details escape his notice (like, say, investigating a paranormal claim on Christmas Eve and not seeing the scheduling conflict). Yet even Mulder has been shown as a lot more sympathetic to Scully and her holiday needs, so this episode qualifies as a case of Mulder as “obsessive believer”, playing the archetype rather than the character already established.

Scully comes out a lot worse, and for obvious reason. Mulder needs to stay relatively static in terms of characterization, because he is the background against which Scully moves over the course of her relationship with him. Slipping this story into the Christmas mode invites comparisons to the previous holiday event, and looking back on that story, Scully’s reaction to the idea of ghosts in the first act is rather silly. Scully has already reacted to a far more personal version of a haunting, and she was a lot more accepting of the possibility under those circumstances.

Recent episodes have gone a long way towards establishing the further evolution of Scully’s skepticism. Scully has long since abandoned her purely scientific soapbox, preferring a more comprehensive approach to the unknown. Rather than denying the possibility of the evidence or the phenomenon, she has developed a comfortable ability to evaluate the unusual within the context of her science and move beyond those constraints as needed. Episodes like “Drive” are a perfect example of this character evolution.

The Scully in this episode, however, remembers nothing of her unusual spiritual experiences, and slips into the iconic “fervent denier”. Scully makes a passionate speech about the psychology of “hauntings”, which outside of the context of the series’ mythology, makes a good bit of sense. Of course most of the anecdotal evidence for hauntings can be dismissed in terms of psychological responses and wishful thinking; it’s equally true that the evidence is still evidence that must be evaluated and explained, not dismissed out of hand.

But Scully’s comments, especially in terms of not being far from loved ones who have passed, fly in the face of her own experience. The X-Files universe is an active spiritual world, and Scully has been deeply involved with that world on several occasions, many involving her loved ones. For Scully to refute the idea of apparitions and sightings of the dead flies in the face of her own acceptance of such phenomenon exactly one year earlier.

Equally, her fear is completely out of proportion, as if to sell the idea that she has never considered the possibility of earth-bound sprits or haunting in general. Scully is seldom this frightened of anything; this is the same woman who diagnosed her own symptoms when dying in “Fight the Future”! Why she would suddenly act like she’s never encountered anything more terrifying than odd bumps and cold spots is beyond understanding, unless one accepts the premise that Scully is being written as an archetype.

Carter then compounds the mistake by having Mulder and Scully act in some incredibly stupid ways. Under the situation, with apparent evidence of their own possible demise sitting right in front of them, why would Mulder and Scully let themselves be separated? This is necessary, however, for the characters to be on their own for Carter’s next intended purpose.

Maurice has Mulder pinned down pretty well, and despite the fact that Mulder is being portrayed as an archetype, it’s not far from the mark. Mulder is narcissistic, he can be overzealous, and he’s certainly self-righteous. And in the end, he is afraid of fighting alone, something that has been reinforced time and again. The interesting part is the self-awareness. As bad as that assessment might be, it’s even worse in the context of Mulder’s recognition of his own worst qualities.

Lyda’s dissection of Scully is similarly cruel yet honest. Unlike Mulder’s psychological assessment, however, Scully gets an extra layer tacked on for good measure. It’s not enough to point out, once again, that Scully has a serious co-dependency problem. (And never mind that it’s more of a desire to submit to a dominant personality, as seen in “Never Again”, which is a far more interesting and disturbing aspect to the relationship.) Carter must transform that into some kind of desire to prove Mulder wrong, which is, at best, a side effect.

Scully’s history is really quite clear. Scully falls for men who represent a father figure, a strong authoritative presence. For all her strength displayed to the rest of the world, Scully will always find one individual who will slip past her defenses, and she will submit to the desires of that individual in any number of ways (and many that were never explored, except in some fan fiction!). When that relationship is established, Scully will slip into the secondary aspect of that psychology: the urge to “rebel” against that authority figure, internally and externally, but always in a way that allows her to stay within the relationship in the end. In a sense, of course, Lyda could interpret Scully’s desire to “rebel” as a desire to prove Mulder wrong, since Scully’s safest expression of “rebellion” is refutation of Mulder’s theories.

Once the psychological exploration is over and done, the plot turns towards the confusing plot to push Mulder and Scully towards death. The motivation is never explained very well, especially once it’s clear that Mulder and Scully won’t kill each other. Maurice and Lyda seem to expect Mulder and Scully to believe that they have been shot by each other, but it doesn’t even match the murder/suicide scenario set up in the teaser.

More to the point, the resolution is about as weak as it gets. Mulder realizes, with very little prompting, that it’s all an illusion, and all he needs to do is get up and walk out with Scully and everything will be all right. This is a bit too convenient, and it also absolves Mulder and Scully of the need for a solid resolution. For instance, even if one accepts Scully’s initial lack of belief, how could she deny the existence of the paranormal now? Because Scully must be the archetype of the “fervent denier”, she cannot be allowed to believe her own senses.

The final scene has been fodder for fan fiction since the moment the episode hit air. Certainly the constant allusions throughout the episode to Mulder and Scully’s barely repressed feelings for one another play into the interpretation of those packages! Mulder’s present looks a lot like a video, while Scully’s present could be a number of things that would otherwise lead to a sexual harassment suit.

Chris Carter seems to have a lot of ideas for what the episode should be, but the integration of those ideas into one story is not nearly as seamless as many would like to think. Much of the problem is the reduction of Mulder and Scully to simple archetypes, stripping away the complexities and histories in favor of a more accessible version. This could be seen as another iteration of the introduction given to new viewers, but in the process, the long-term viewers are left wondering what happened to the more complex characters they had come to adore.


Memorable Quotes

SCULLY: “The dark, gothic manor, the omnipresent low fog hugging the thicket of undergrowth...wait, is that a hound I hear baying out on the moors?”

MULDER: “Tell me you’re not afraid.”
SCULLY: “All right, I’m afraid…but it’s an irrational fear.”

MAURICE: “I’ve found you all tend to fall into pretty much the same category.”
MULDER: “And what category is that?”
MAURICE: “Narcissistic, overzealous, self-righteous egomaniac.”
MULDER: “That’s a category?”

MAURICE: “You know why you think you see the things you do?”
MULDER: “Because I have seen them?”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode was a somewhat muddled attempt at a whimsical holiday episode. Chris Carter tries to spin a somewhat comical ghost story into a psychological study of Mulder and Scully, but he relies on simplified versions of each character to pull it off. The episode itself is much beloved for certain scenes, but as a whole, it highlights the problems of the sixth season.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4

Final Rating: 6/10