The X-Files – Season 1, Episode 13 – “Beyond the Sea”

“Scully believes that the psychic predications of a death row inmate are the only hope in apprehending a vicious murderer.“

Oh, ok, THIS is what you choose to believe, Scully? Mulder’s gonna call you nuts!

I completely forgot the Scully’s father is General Hammond from Stargate SG-1. He’s just as much of a bald bastard here as he is there, that’s for sure. Scully’s mom looks like she’s wearing a Gary Spivey wig. Scully is treating her parents to lovely home-cooked meal when Dad suddenly says “WE GOTTA GO, ANCHOR’S AWEIGH!”

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 13 - Beyond the Sea

Open the Iris!

Later, she falls asleep watching a Rob Popeil infomercial and has a dream (OR IS IT??) that her dad is silently mouthing something on the couch across from her. She’s waken up by a phone call. Dad’s dead. Mulder’s going to say that an alien abducted his aorta.

JACKSON UNIVERSITY, RALEIGH, NC. A couple of youngins are making out in a car in the dead of night. A policeman raps on the window and tells the young man to step out of the car and keep his hands down. “Let’s see your ID,” the cop tells him, sounding vaguely like SpongeBob. When the kid asks to see his, the “cop” pops him in the head with his gun and walks away. lolol

Mulder thumbs through a report back at the office. Kidnapped kids from Jackson University! Earlier, there were kidnapped kids from Duke University who were tortured for five days and killed. If the pattern continues, they’ve got less than a week to find these kids. Oh, and by the way, some dude named Luther Lee Boggs is on death row so let’s go talk to him. He has special spooky psychic powers!… you know, speaking of Gary Spivey.

You can expect nothing but kindness and compassion from a guy with a name like “Luther Lee Boggs”, Scully.

Mulder is skeptical of Boggs’ psychic powers, which Scully would have never guessed. “I believe in psychic ability without a doubt,” Mulder defends. “But not in this case. Not Boggs.” He thinks Boggs is orchestrating the kidnappings from the inside.

Mulder’s going to shove off to the penitentiary that afternoon, and even though Scully’s dad’s funeral is at noon, she wants to go with Mulder right afterward. She needs to work to take her mind off of Dead Dad Problems and keep working. The funeral is in the rain, as most funerals are. Scully asks her mother at the funeral if Pops was proud of her even though she chose a career path that they weren’t entirely on board with. Wouldn’t be funny if it were a hard NO? It’s not though, that’s disappointing.

Luther Boggs is a Charles Manson creep. All like “THE DEAD AND THE LIVING, ALL SOULS ARE CONNECTED” and “MR. BOGGS MUST BE MADE REDEMPTIVE FOR HIS TRANSGRESSIONS”. Mulder is like “uh huh” and “yes”. Boggs wants to strike a deal: he gets out of death row, the kids stay safe? Mulder asks him to prove his powers and hands him a little blue scrap of fabric. Boggs touches it and gets all “UAHHAUAH HUAHAUHHA OH GOD HAHRHERRHEUHHUUHGHG” and tells them to check a cold, dark place. A cellar or a warehouse. A stone angel. A waterfall. Are you writing this down?

Check a cavernous opening. Stretch it wide. Squat over a mirror if you have to.

Mulder picks up the little blue fabric and shoves it in Boggs’ face. “I tore this off my New York Knicks t-shirt.” He storms out of the interrogation room. Scully is about to follow suit, but Boggs starts singing “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin and then he calls her “Starbuck”, Mr. Scully’s pet name for his daughter. Consider Scully a little bit spooked. She wants to believe!

On her drive back to the hotel, Scully spots an angel statue in front of a condemned building and drives around to the back to investigate. The floor of the very cellar-like warehouse -like facility is littered with lit candles and séance objects.

Later, Scully spaces out on the bed thinking of her father when Mulder raps on her room door. Positive ID of the kidnapped girl based on the found objects. Scully takes this moment to admit that she found the warehouse based on Boggs’ vision, which really pisses Mulder off. “That’s exactly what Boggs wanted, he could’ve been setting you up! You could be dead by now!”

RAWR! Out come the claws!

Well let’s not get all high and mighty, Loose Cannon Alien Boy. Why would she lie on her police report? That’s Mulder’s thing! Open your mind to the truth Scully, not this hodge-podge of supernatural bullshit! Get it together. Boggs is getting killed in a few days and we need to SQUEEZE the info out of him like he’s a delicious orange!

Mulder fakes a newspaper headline: KIDNAPPED COLLEGE STUDENTS FOUND SAFE. Boggs is gonna shit! Let’s watch…

Over the surveillance tape, Mulder and Scully confirm that Boggs picked up his newspaper. Phone privilege in two hours, let’s listen in when it happens!…

Remember when the Cubs beat the Indians in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series? This is just as exciting.

Mulder’s phone starts ringing and he tells everyone in the room to silence their damn phones! Then when Scully tells him it’s his phone, he answers and starts chatting with Boggsy. “How come you don’t believe me? Agent Scully does…”

Fuckin’ Mulder. You suck. It’s time to get some real business done. Boggs gives the duo some more vague hints about where to find the students and they head out. “Mulder,” Boggs says, “don’t go near the white cross.” Mulder makes a hrmpt face and they leave.

The police do find the girl in a boathouse and rescue her, but Mulder gets a chest full of lead from the kidnapper and then the boat putt-putts away. While calling out for help, Scully looks up and sees a smear of blood on two white poles shaped into a cross. Ooooh. Ahhhh.

Remember when Mulder got shot? This is just as exciting.

The wounded girl gives a positive ID on the kidnapper, who is confirmed to be Boggs’ partner in crime. Scully confronts Boggs and screams at him, telling him that he set Mulder up, calls him a son of a bitch! You go gurl. He’s not phased, but at least she got it out of her system. She starts crying, and asks Boggs, if he’s for real, to channel her dad. And he does for a hot second. And it’s really creepy. But then he snaps out of it. “NOBODY GETS TO TALK TO ANYBODY UNTIL I GET A DEAL.” There’s a whole sob story here about his first trip to the electric chair. Something about being possessed by demons here. Pretty spiritual stuff. It’s not clear. At least not to me because I’m hopped up on fentanyl.

Scully tries to strike a deal with the warden, but he’s like “over my dead body will he walk free, let’s kill the bastard”. Mulder is recovering in intensive care, looking sexy with his tube hook-ups, and reminds Scully to avoid dealing with Boggs. He’s dangerous and manipulative and, oh yeah, he kills people. Remember? Sure.

Later, she walks into Boggs’ cell and tells him that he has his deal, which is a big stinkin’ lie. Boggs has another vision. “I see, like, uh… circles… I don’t know… with barrels… no, bigger… like… uh… huge… uh… vats…” It’s pretty funny how bullshit this all sounds, but he’s describing a brewery where the kidnapper is getting ready to kill the boyfriend. He also knows she lied about the deal, and then warns her not to “follow the devil”.

Oh lawdy, lawdy! Don’t follow the devil! Praise be to Gawd! Hallelujah!

The kidnapper is in the brewery hitting random things with an axe while this young man is hogtied. Before he has a chance to axe him a question, Scully and backup bursts into the place to apprehend him. He falls to his death through some flimsy scaffolding, which is a nice secondary outcome at any rate! It’s right in front of a painting of a blue devil. Whom she followed, you see, at least inadvertently.

Time to visit Boggs again. Scully believes that there’s no way the kidnapper would have crossed over the scaffolding if he was truly in cahoots with Boggs. Ergo, she believes him. And she’s grateful that she’s not dead. Boggs promises to deliver her dad’s message… but not now. Only when he’s free as a bird. Only when the coast is clear. Only when he’s at the Red Lobster down the street will she get her message. Eating a big plate of fried fucking shrimp.

So there he is again, about to get killed, priest reading him the church version of Miranda rights. He’s gonna die, Scully betrayed him.

In the end, Scully keeps her skepticism. There must have been an explanation for everything. She even sacrificed the possibility of hearing her dad’s message. When Mulder asks why, after all the evidence in front of her all the time, why she chooses not to believe.

“I’m scared to. I’m scared to believe.”