Sein Und Zeit

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PLOT: A young girl's disappearance opens up new information that may give Mulder a clue about his sister's abduction.

"Mulderangst" is a term that is used very often in fan fiction stories among X-Philes on the net. It helps explain the inner struggles and emotional longings of our favorite male hero. Two common "Mulderangst" themes in many fan fiction stories (mine included) is his need to find his sister, Samantha, and his obvious "confusion" regarding his feelings for his beautiful partner. In regards to the series, Season 4's "Paper Hearts" is a great example of the former theme while the X-Files movie is a perfect example of the latter. These very deep sides of Mulder also explains why he finds it so difficult to trust anyone except Scully. They show his vulnerablity and his paranoia, both of which he chooses to hide behind sarcasm and his inner drive to solve the X-Files.

"Sein Und Zeit" is brimming with Mulderangst. It has been a long while since an episode centered around Samantha. This episode indirectly focuses on her through Mulder. As Season 3's "Oubliette" has shown, Mulder takes child abductions very much to heart. This case with Amber Lynn LaPierre is no different. Even though her abduction is not initially ruled an X-File, he literally bullies his way into her abduction case without even letting Scully know what is going on. The moment he meets Amber Lynn's parents, he has a haunted look about him that reverberates throughout the rest of the episode.

Since a majority of the episode had Mulder speculating on Amber Lynn's whereabouts, a very significant sub-plot developed midway through with Mulder's mother. First of all, it was highly unusual that his mother would be calling him out of the blue, especially while he was in the middle of an investigation. Two elements were important to note from this seemingly minor incident. It is obvious from the way they talked with each other that the channels of communication are very strained between mother and son. And expanding on that first point, Mrs. Mulder obviously knows more about Samantha's disappearance than she ever let on to her son. It was sad enough to see Mulder feeling uncomfortable talking to his own mother. This is a hurt boy inside of a grown man. For someone who hated what her husband did to the family, Mrs. Mulder isn't doing any better by closing off Mulder to her inner demons. There were so many obvious skeletons hiding in her closet. Her last remarks on his answering machine about so much she has "left unsaid" and hoping that Mulder will "someday understand," provided just enough clues to reveal that she knew much more about Mr. Mulder's actions than she ever admitted to her son.

Unfortunately, we might never know how involved, since she ended up killing herself. I have yet to figure out how significant this is to the overall mythos of the show. In one respect, Mulder has been a loner most of his life. As soon as Samantha disappeared, his family crumbled apart; he went to college in another country; he is often ridiculed by his own peers; and he has no life outside of his life's work. It's amazing that Mulder hadn't killed himself already. However, the obvious denial he displayed upon hearing of his mother's death shows that he does harbor an ideal family life that will never surface. He clings to the idea that his mother left him a clue to Samantha's whereabouts from her cryptic message on his answering machine. Yet, in reality, she was basically admitting her guilt for leaving her son with so much guilt to carry most of his life and not doing anything to relieve it. Ironically, her death may have garnered the relief that she never offered to him while living. Scully affirmed this when she told him that his mother "was trying to tell you to stop; to stop looking for your sister."

However, that is not in Mulder's nature. He has been haunted for almost 30 years regarding Samantha. His inner desire to find out about everything he can on her whereabouts has been his driving force for most of his adult life. The correlation with Amber Lynn's case and his mother's sudden death is not lost on him. It is so obvious that his mind isn't on the case when Mrs.LaPierre is retelling her experience about seeing her daughter in her bedroom. Mulder does something that is so bizarre for him to do: ask to be taken off a case and take time off. He has finally been hit with the realization that he is truly alone in the world. If I were Scully or Skinner, I would make sure that he wasn't alone during his time off. People have committed suicide on lesser emotional pain.

I did find the ending a bit contrite. If there was another case that involved "Santa Claus," why didn't anyone in the Bureau correlate that with Amber Lynn? The number of tapes dating back to the 1960s and the horrific amount of little graves makes at least a few other distressed parents with missing children like the LaPierres a tad more likely. I'm still unsure what Kathy Lee meant regarding the "walk-ins." Even Mulder seemed a bit perplexed at the reference, since it was obvious that it was the first time he had ever heard of it. However, he somehow believes that Kathy Lee's experience may have been similar to his own mother's experience with Samantha's disappearance. Also, I've read other people's comments on how Mulder could have caught a flight so early in D.C. and got to California and the LaPierre's residence by 10a.m. Remember that the west coast is three hours behind? That means that when Mulder barged into Skinner's office at 3a.m., it was only midnight on the west coast. So he could have easily caught a 7am flight from D.C. when it was only 4a.m. back in California and landed an hour before driving up to the residence. It would have been 1p.m. in D.C. I'm impressed that people find so much discrepancy over something so trivial as the time of a flight when the story is so much more compelling.

Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with the drama and the emotional impact of the episode. Carter and Spotnitz often write about mytharc conspiracies during sweeps time, but this was a much more personal episode, particularly for Mulder. They made sure that he would be bombarded with more painful emotions than any human should ever have to endure at once. Duchovny met the challenge and then some. These types of episodes only affirm that noone can pour on the Mulderangst quite as well as Duchovny. For her part, Gillian showed Scully's quiet strength in her obvious concern and protectiveness of her partner. While Mitch Pileggi made sure that he didn't have Skinner treading on anyone's parade but still showing that he is the boss of our two heroes. The supporting cast didn't too bad a job themselves, particularly Kim Darby as the convicted mom, Kathy Lee Tencate, and Shareen Mitchell as the emotionally spent mother, Billie LaPierre.

Next week's episode is called "Closure." With the promos shown, it is very likely that Samantha will finally be laid to rest. Hint. Hint.

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