Deep Throat: Season 1 Episode 2
Written by Chris Carter, Directed by Daniel Sackheim
First aired September 17, 1993

 

For those of us born in my generation and after, the title of this episode refers not to porn don’t be scared to the government employee who took evidence of Nixon’s corruption to the Washington Post, which resulted in the Watergate scandal. To protect his safety the Post referred to him only as Deep Throat. At the time this episode aired, the real Deep Throat was still a figure very much shrouded in mystery. No one knew who he was or what his motives had been, or even what government agency he worked for. The significance of the Watergate scandal in American history and its specific impact on Chris Carter and The X-Files has been commented upon very skillfully elsewhere, so I’ll be brief. Distrusting and rebelling against authority (especially the government) may be the one truly universal American trait; after all, it’s how we became a nation in the first place. But it clashes very painfully with our American idealism, patriotism, and exceptionalism. Watergate—like the Vietnam war, which the show later addresses more than once—is a very good example of that clash. The X-Files explores that space to great effect.

Carter once said in a “Deep Throat” commentary that if could do it all over again, he wouldn’t have had three of the first four episodes be alien-centric. From a producer’s standpoint, I understand that: you don’t want your audience thinking the show is only about aliens when it isn’t, or thinking that the monsters of the week are throwaways when they’re not. (I’m one of those who like the MOTWs more than the mytharc myself.) Even so, the three-four ratio is not a big deal. The first four episodes do an excellent job of introducing the series. I would also argue that, weird though it may sound, none of these episodes are actually about aliens.

The similarities between the pilot and “Deep Throat” in the larger narrative of the season have often been remarked on. The main differences are the tone and weight of the episodes. The pilot comes down like a hammer on an anvil: boom, this is who we are, and we’re not fucking around about it either. “Deep Throat” is more like the start of a journey: where are we beginning, and where will we go? Which is understandable, given that this second episode was filmed more than a year later, after the show had been approved for a first season. Carter and the actors are finding themselves again in these roles, these characters, this world. This is especially evident in Scully continually whining about her field report, sounding a bit like Luke Skywalker whining about power converters in A New Hope. Everyone, Anderson included, is still trying to figure out just how much Scully is really on board with this Mulder weirdo. After all, who can blame her? He may brilliant and charismatic and mysterious and inordinately beautiful but he also spends his time standing in the middle of landing strips and then being surprised when he gets caught. For fuck’s sake, Mulder. You’re giving Oxford a bad name.

Yikes.

We start off the episode with a SWAT team bursting in on a Colonel who’s suffered some sort of psychological and physical trauma. Then we meet up with Scully and Mulder four months later. There’s a great moment of rapport establishment as they flirt without flirting; he wants to buy her a drink, she is gently scandalized. The time stamps are, as others have mentioned, wonky as regards these two episodes. If we’re to believe them, Mulder and Scully have already been working together full time for more than a year. Obviously that’s not the case. I do like to think that they’ve handled a couple cases together between the pilot and “Deep Throat,” though. Maybe some mundane non-supernatural stuff here and there.

Scully’s about to wonder what a paranormal bouquet smells like.

Then we meet the title character, who corners Mulder to warn him off the case. Naturally this has precisely the opposite effect Deep Throat was aiming for. Although, could it be that our new friend “warned” Mulder knowing full well that it would only egg him on? I quite like Deep Throat; he is my absolute favorite of all Mulder’s informants, and one of only two who pass The Tea Test.* When I came back to the series for my rewatch this summer I had forgotten a lot of details in the intervening years, but not him. Like many characters in The X-Files, his motivations are never completely clear. Darren at m0vieblog goes in (with spoilers) on of the possibilities of Deep Throat’s alliances in ways that I never considered, and his analysis is fascinating. For me I’ve always been content to believe that, apart from his function as a plot device, he genuinely cares about Mulder and tells him the truth as often as he can. Which is not always, but them’s the breaks on this show.

*JK Rowling once referred to Snape as a character she loved because he was interesting, even if he wasn’t a nice person with whom she’d want to have tea. “Passing” The Tea Test to me means that I both like a character and would spend time with them. “Failing” it just means I wouldn’t drink tea with them, not that I dislike the character.

“Exposing yourself and Agent Scully to unnecessary risk…”

In Mulder and Scully’s first meeting with Mrs. Budahas we get one of Carter’s principal strengths: a good hard look at the juxtaposition between the people in power and those the powerful have chewed up and spit out. Contrast Deep Throat in his impeccable three piece suit and air of absolute easy authority with Mrs. Budahas. She is a frumpy unsophisticated housewife in a cheap ugly dress. She spends the entire episode clinging to the fringed end of her rope with oiled fingers. She tells Mulder and Scully that her husband showed more devotion and loyalty to the military than he did to her. And look where it got him.

“He took loyalty to his country as an oath.” So do we all. We’re certainly expected to, anyway. Even in the 90s, an era before the hysterical patriotism immediately after 9/11, I remember a kid at my school getting detention for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance. (The school broke the law and violated his rights in doing so, by the way.) I think that in the United States we forget how much blind authority we’re culturally conditioned to give the government. So much so that it’s jarring to think about how realistic this scene is. Because, to circle back to my “it’s not about aliens” point, look. Mulder believes that the aircraft these guys were flying was developed using alien technology, and that that’s the reason all these pilots have gone bats. Unlike other episodes, in which Mulder is definitely proven to be right, this one…not so much. This episode could absolutely be about government technology developed by regular old humans, which the government then asks test pilots to fly before it’s safe. The government has a long history of treating human life casually. We are like Mulder in this episode, wanting to believe. But unlike him, we want to believe that there’s something alien going on only because it allows us to say our government would never really do this—after all, this is a show about aliens! Like Scully, we also want to believe that the government is not above the law. This episode demonstrates our naïveté.

“And now they treat us like strangers.”

We do get some fun, surface stuff about aliens to satisfy our inner nerd. My personal favorite is the hilltop scene, which is just wonderful. Quiet, intimate, iconic X-Files. The recapper As An Amoeba at Key of X sums up my feelings on the matter: “Now we have what is, quite honestly, one of my favorite scenes in the whole series. It really epitomizes the show for me — the two of them, staring at something crazy, both awed by it in their different ways, he trying to soak it in, she trying to figure it out, not fighting, not eye rolling, just standing on a hill together and staring at something incredible.”

Every shot in this scene is perfect.

Other fun alien elements are the Flying Saucer diner with the quirky waitress and the later scenes with the teenagers. Both diner scenes establish Mulder’s willingness to credit anyone who believes in aliens. These scenes also demonstrate the show’s love of the proletariat. It’s surprising and refreshing because this is a complex, intellectual show that bandies about terms like “stereotypy” and “Immelman turn.” ‘Course, the reference to stereotpy isn’t exactly on point (stereotypy and Immelman for the curious) but it’s a smart show by smart people for smart people. I could very easily imagine The X-Files diving into superiority and deciding that small town whackos are not worth the time and compassion of our heroes. But not so: the guest stars (and even the extras) look like real people, and what happens to them matters.

Not only do they look normal, they act normal, too. I’ve met people like that waitress, who scoffs at the arrogance of military pilots but has no problem telling us all about the alien spacecraft she photographed when taking out her trash one night. She’s charming, as are the adorable stoner teenagers. Confession, though: I’m sure I’m the only one, but I totally didn’t realize they were high until Scully said something. I thought they were giggly and vaguely guilty when Scully asked what they’d been doing because they’d been making out. Oops.

I love the exchange in the car about the photographs, except for one element. Mulder says, “Hoo, if you were that high, what?” when Scully question’s Seth Green’s credibility. I can see what they were going for with it—playful curiosity is my best guess anyway—but it comes off condescending and…I dunno, a bit uncomfortably gendered. Mulder would never crack that joke to a male colleague. I think the worst thing is that he cuts her off to say it.

Past that it gets much better. Exchanges like this are what makes The X-Files so awesome, and so sexy. This is not just a friendly debate between colleagues. This is an emotionally engaged intellectual sparring match, with an underlying erotic charge. These two like each other, they want to impress each other and they’re flirting like Chris Carter isn’t watching, an MSR triumph considering Carter wrote the episode. I think possibly my favorite exchange is when Mulder looks at her very earnestly after delivering his but-aliens-Scully speech and says, “Tell me I’m crazy.” It’s such a different tone from their discussions of Mulder’s sanity in the pilot. He’s still asking her to give his ideas a chance, but there’s enough rapport built up that he knows she doesn’t think he’s truly insane. It’s gentler and more affectionate, and her equally affectionate tone when she responds, “Mulder, you’re crazy” is in keeping with their budding partnership.

The rest of the episode pushes on the idea of too-powerful government not once, but twice. It happens first when Mulder and Scully are stopped, manhandled, and given dire warnings about “intense indiscretion,” whatever in God’s name that means. Mulder has, I grant you, a reputation for not knowing when to keep his mouth shut. But he is within his rights to ask why he’s being detained. For his curiosity he’s punched in what looks like the kidneys. It’s interesting to me that, contrasted with her behavior later in the episode, Scully’s reaction is to purse her lips and look away, apparently half in frustration with Mulder.

The government versus people theme is raised again when Mulder and Scully discuss whether they should continue to pursue the case, given that Col. Budahas is now no longer a missing person. In fact, it is this scene that summarizes the philosophy of the show as explicitly as I’ve ever seen it. Scully asks, “Doesn’t the government have a right and a responsibility to protect its secrets?” This sounds reasonable, and I know that like Mulder our knee-jerk reaction is supposed to be yes, even if it’s a qualified “yes but.” Still I find that to be a very troubling statement. When we give the government the right to “keep secrets” but stop asking what secrets, and from whom, and why—when any society waives the right to hold its government accountable—corruption and oppression are sure to follow (Guantanamo, police brutality). Mulder touches on that in his response, citing the unacceptable human cost of building a better machine.

“These are questions we have no business asking.”

Again this is really not about aliens. It’s about our responsibility to protect each other from a corrupt system, even if that means putting ourselves at risk. As viewers we instinctively know that we should not abandon the Budahas’ case. It’s easy and tempting (for those of us with privilege anyway) to accept the idea that the government is just fine and everyone in power behaves appropriately. But we all know that’s a lie. Now, look: The X-Files is of course merely a television show. It’s twenty years old and it does not interrogate issues like race, class, sexuality, and gender as much as it should or even at all. Still, if it is about any one thing, The X-Files is about two people brave enough to take on that responsibility, even in the face of ridicule and peril. That is why Mulder wants to pursue the case, and at least in part why Scully later rescues him. It’s not about aliens, it’s not about whether Mulder and Scully have sex.* It’s about two people brave enough to walk into the dark.

*They are in love with each other whether they have sex or not. I’m afraid that’s not negotiable. Whether their relationship is healthy is, I grant you, sometimes another question. This issue deserves and will get its own post.

Immediately thereafter we’re treated to our very first MulderDitch! This is possibly my most hated type of C³, because it presents Mulder in such a dickish light. And it’s so unnecessary! There’s no reason for this bullshit. If Mulder suddenly has renewed doubts about Scully’s agenda and thinks she’s spying on him, the text should actually make that clear. Instead he bold-faced lies to her and then fucks off into the night without explanation. This makes him look demanding, childish, and reactive. What’s really going on here is that Carter needs to separate the two of them so that only Mulder sees the UFO and only Mulder gets abducted. There are a gazillion ways to accomplish that without turning Mulder into a Grade A douche-canoe. He pays for his sins by getting kidnapped and tortured by whoever it is doing whatever it was on the mysterious airstrip.

I’m sure they respected his constitutional rights; it’s fine.

But fear not! The greatest of all badasses in the universe, the hero of the ages, the best in the west by actual test, Dana Scully, Our Lady of Skepticism and Ferocity, is here to watch over us. First of all let’s just talk about how fucking amazing she is: diving into that car, scratching the guy’s eye, shoving the gun in his back, and screaming about bringing the media down on him. He’s around six foot and she’s five-three but she owns him. Can you imagine what kind of impression that would make to someone like a tiny four-ten teenager watching some weird alien show in the dark? Second, let’s remember that she didn’t have to do any of that. Mulder ditched her like she was a subpar prom date, and he hasn’t even been gone that long. She would be well within her rights to shrug and say “fuck that guy, he’s on his own” even if she did think something was wrong. She risks everything to save him: her job, her freedom, even her life. I think the only reason she survived that scene is because she got to the gun first. I don’t want to put too much motivation on her, because she never explicitly states why she goes so hard to get him back. But the fact that potentially losing him activates her like that and turns her into this unrelenting, ferocious creature is just fascinating. Because as much as she may not believe in Mulder’s theories, she believes in Mulder, and will not accept losing him.

Scully, I love you! You are my sunshine. (Also please observe Seth Green’s face.)

“Yeah, I’ve seen what you get with tears and a sad story,” she snarls at Whats His Face in the car.  I feel a simultaneous adoration for Scully when she says this and a sharp pang of sympathy for Mrs. Budahas. Comparing the two diminishes our respect for Mrs. Budahas, if we ever had any. But it also establishes Scully as no mere sidekick to Mulder. She is a hero in her own right.

…Then they crash the landing with Scully scolding Mulder like an overwrought preschool teacher and dropping mentions of her goddamn field report again.

I do love the scene with Deep Throat and Mulder at the very end, though. It hits exactly the right note for further establishing Deep Throat’s place in Mulder’s life, and honestly I just love Mulder’s response to Deep Throat’s question: why does Mulder believe in extraterrestrials? “Because all the evidence to the contrary is not entirely dissuasive.” That’s the reason anyone believes in anything: God, aliens, soul mates, politics.

Deep Throat has such a lovely air about him, like a grandfatherly spy.