X-Files Episode Guide: Field Trip

Teleplay by John Shiban & Vince Gilligan ; story by Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Kim Manners

When I initially saw the tease for this episode, which in May of 1999 seemed to be yet another one of the mythology,  I thought that this might finally be the episode where we started to get answers for the series. (You'd think I'd have known better by now). But what I didn't realize at the time, and in fact appreciate more even now, was that the trailer was in fact part of the point. Field Trip is really an episode that takes all of the perspective-shifting ones we've seen throughout Season 6, and brings it to its most logical conclusion.

 Indeed, for part of the episode, it seems like Gilligan is trying to rip off himself. The idea of telling a story from the perspectives of Mulder and Scully is one that was done to spectacular comic effect last year with Bad Blood.  He even has Mulder hint at it a bit in the first act, perhaps also giving Mulder a chance to finally vent a little about how frustrated he must feel at what has become the formula for the X-Files. And given the nature of the teaser, we feel we might be getting the same thing, albeit in a far grimmer fashion. But as Field Trip unfolds, we see that Gilligan, is going to be a lot more serious with the way he does thing this time. (Not that there's anything wrong with that; serious Gilligan can be just as good as the comic one)

Mulder and Scully go out to Brown Mountain to investigate the fate of Wallace and Angela Schiff, each with their own theories in mind. Mulder goes out to a rock formation and finds the Schiffs there, somehow both alive. Even more remarkably, they seem to be willing to follow his original theory as to what happened to them - that they were abducted and experimented on by aliens. But even as he hears his theories validated, we see that Mulder has finally started to absorb (pun not intended) Scully's voice of reason, so that he seems unwilling to believe what he's hearing. That kind of thinking has him go right into the white lights of the aliens (a pattern that we will see repeated when we get to the conclusion of Season 7) When he arrives back in his apartment and brings Scully to tell them what he has found, the childlike joy on his face when he reveals that he has retrieved a grey is one of the most remarkable things we've seen Duchovny do this year. But when Scully finally tells him exactly what he's wanted to hear after six years of partnering, he finds that he can not accept it, and forces himself to realize the veracity of the situation.

Similarly, Scully finds Mulder's body in the same field that the Schiff's are found in, and finds that everybody is parroting her original conclusion of what happened to them. But as she deals with something that is infinitely more devastating than what happened to Mulder, she keeps trying to bring out her inner Mulder; finally yelling at the Lone Gunmen for accepting what she can not. (One wonders if the writers would use this particular scenario when they would have to deal with Season 8). It's one of the more astonishing sequences in the year, and when it ends with Mulder ending up in his apartment after what appears to be his wake, we are really astounded.

Scully and Mulder then manage to put together what seems to have happened to them based on a digestive enzyme that was discovered on the corpses of the Schiffs  - that they are trapped in a cave with a giant fungal organism that is holding them dormant as it digests them. Given the traditional way these formulas work (and let's face it, in its lesser days, the X-Files would be just as likely to use them as anybody), one would expect our heroes having to embrace the other's point of view in order to survive. The writers don't do anything nearly as pat her, and it's honestly hard to tell whose more shocked - our protagonists or the viewers - when during what appears to be the closing scene with Skinner that Mulder realizes that they're still underground, that this is just another part of the hallucination. Mulder and Scully are saved purely by the fact that for once the FBI had smarter people on its staff than it usually does, that analyzed the situation, and realized they were in danger. The last seconds of the episode show our barely alive heroes finding the strength to reach for each other, but for all their valiant efforts, their salvation didn't come from each other.

How much of this episodes brilliance is due to the part of Gilligan, and how much the more traditional work of Shiban and Spotnitz is hard to say. The end result, however, is one of the more astonishing works in Season 6. There's also some interesting side notes by the guest cast; its interesting to see the mostly comic actors Robyn Lively and David Denman playing mostly against type as the doomed Schiffs, and brilliant character actor Jim Beaver doing solid work as the coroner. But mostly this is one of the more brilliant episodes because it deals with the ultimate unreliable narrator; we've had to deal with so many on this series that's almost astounding that such a good story could be told of one where our heroes can't even trust themselves. Not bad for an episode that seemed to be promising us answers in its coming attractions. One wonders how much the  writers had to do with that.

My score: 5 stars.