1X03 CONDUIT ******************************************** Date: 06/25/02 08:58:08 PM Name: Nancy Spoilers, if you've never seen it. "The truth has caused me nothing but heartache." - Darlene Morris This was a good ep. :-) I like the way the ep presents different sides of the story, so to speak. There is evidence that Ruby was abducted by aliens (the symptoms of weightlessness). There is also evidence that she was abducted by the Syndicate ("They told me not to say."). There is also evidence that, like the local detective said, something bad might have happened to her ("She was no prom queen"). How come the NSA can find Scully and break into her room, but they can't find Mulder in the room next door? Why would Darlene go camping in Lake Okobogee again? Why is Scully always in a hurry to go home? The woods in Iowa look just like the woods in the Pilot, in Oregon. :) And Kevin Morris seems to be the first "key." :) At the beginning, Chief Blevins seems rather eager to impress upon Scully that Mulder's investigation may be colored by his personal problems (Samantha's abduction). He seems to have succeeded in convincing Scully. A couple times she tried to end the investigation, saying things like "It won't bring her back." But does Blevins have his own agenda? Did Blevins want Scully to see the case from a biased point of view, because he knew the agents were close to the truth? Maybe he was hoping she'd cut the investigation short, before she and Mulder found out what really happened to Ruby? What did really happen to Ruby? -Nancy ******************************************** Date: 06/27/02 05:11:22 PM Name: shadow_prophet "I want to believe." --Mulder, Conduit The last spoken words of Conduit may very well be one of the most powerful and effective endings of any X-ep. Plainspoken and beautifully honest, "I want to believe" could serve as the unofficial motto of the conspiracist movement. The so called "paranoid" could just be hyper-aware, the rest of us merely too unwilling to stretch the limits of our imagination to embrace the incomprehensible. I want to believe, indeed, that these things do exist. That they have precedence in society, are relevant and tangible, and while not easily seen, are willing to be known. Conduit is a rare hybrid, IMO, of a MOTW and Mytharc, as many of these early MOTWs are. Care is taken to advance the central theme, the quest and backstory, while succeeding as true "stand alone" entertainment. Here we have the reiteration of Mulder's past (Samantha, the abduction), a topic not truly expounded upon since introduced in the Pilot. Scully's conflict is again evident in Conduit as it was in Squeeze; to serve two masters or to follow her own instincts. Successfully she negotiates both associations without being dishonest with Mulder. He knows why she was assigned to The X-Files; but he also knows that is not the reason she's working with him. A few observations: I'm assuming Darlene Morris got her name back after the divorce, or never changed it at all, because she was Darlene Morris as a Girl Scout in the 60's. ;-) The little kid watching static on the telly is a direct throwback to Poltergeist. Whether unwitting or not, the homage works nicely. The mysterious "Danny" is given a full name in Conduit... Daniel Bernstein, as evident on the fax Mulder sends him. What the little kids was making... the patterns of numbers to form a picture... we made those in typing class! The mention of lines from the Quran being apparent in the numbered patterns is reminiscent of the Sixth Extinction, where we learn that passages from the Bible and the Quran were found on the spaceship in Africa. This further explores the underlying x-theory that our progenitors are alien. Was this continuity simply an accident, or did 1013 have this in mind when writing for 6:E? Chris Carter was quoted as saying (some years ago) that in the beginning, he knew exactly how TXF would end. Now this is a bit OT, but I wonder how far off the mark he was... or if The Truth did in fact fulfill his divine plan. *shrug* I guess we'll never know. :) Scully sleeps in her makeup! Blevins' tie is uglier than Mulder's :-). Evident also in Conduit is a mention of DD's birthday (and my mom's!): August 7, the day of Tessa's appt. with Dr. Fowler. Tessa, btw, is played by Shelley Owens, Chris Owens' sister. Chris Owens is better known as Jeffrey Spender :-) I enjoyed the M/S good cop/bad cop routine. "Bam!" :-) As police are uncovering the body of Greg Randall, notice one of the "rocks" atop the shallow grave... it rolls away too easily for its apparent girth. Fun! :-) I also noticed something peculiar. When Scully and Mulder enter the woods (near the end, where they find Darlene, the alien-chasing Hell's Angels and Ruby in a coma), there is a very noticeable red pen point on Mulder and Scully. It begins on Mulder and flashes over to Scully... think a less controlled version of the red light in "Paper Hearts." It looks exactly like those annoying laser pens. But why? Is this a camera flare? A direction device? It has no apparent source (in the episode) so it can only be coming from off-camera. Any thoughts? Has anyone else noticed this? Mulder's hypnotic regression tapes as recorded on June 16, 1989. This date is accurate as later mentioned in Closure (7X11), but Mulder's recollection is not. On the tape in Closure, Mulder remembers an entirely different abduction scenario than the one recounted on the cassette tapes Scully listens to in Conduit. The video-session in Closure speaks of the scenario we are all so familiar with: the Stratego, his dad's gun, etc.etc.. The details of the regression tapes in Conduit are significantly different, placing Mulder in bed at the time of Samantha's abduction. Even if Dr. Heitz Werber (Closure et al) is NOT proctoring both sessions, it still would not account for the discrepancies. How could Mulder recount a completely different memory on the exact same date? How is that possible? Another 1013 mystery, I suppose. I will say I have heard some fans argue that the gas Mulder was exposed to in Unusual Suspects (taking place one month before his regression) might have been responsible for the alien imagery conjured by his regression; but I've only heard this theory applied to Closure. Could memories be so skewed that Mulder would "remember" two separate scenarios on the same calendar day? In all I believe the power of Conduit lies in its unrivaled heart--the honesty of Mulder's belief, and Scully's underlying willingness to see. She will not discount him outright, and perhaps even hopes his theories are indeed true, if only for his sake. The very crux of the episode's argument is that yes, Mulder wants to believe. He is willing to compromise logic for intuition, evidence for myth, all in a blind search for that greater Truth. It is no longer to prove it to the world, but rather, to prove it to himself. --Brandi~ :-) -0-0-0- "I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons--it all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now? Reality leaves a lot to the imagination." --John Lennon //o-o\\ ********************************************