One Breath

Season 2, Episode 8, Aired
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Episode Summary

Scully mysteriously appears in a Washington hospital, alive but in a coma, and Mulder must fight to keep her alive in order to find out what happened to her and who did it to her. Meanwhile, Scully fights her own personal battle as she decides whether to stay or go on to the next world.moreless
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Fan Episode Reviews (15)

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  • Nerve-wracking in a beautiful, perfect way. Mulder slowly becomes a disaster without Scully, while Scully makes a decision whether to live or die, based upon reasons that we may not be fully privy to.moreless

    10
    "Perfect"
    By ilovemulder, Nov 29, 2011 Report Abuse
    This is one of the best hours of entertainment I've ever had the privilege to consume. Everything is superb. Mulder is such a believable disaster, Scully's story is well told, the mytharc has never felt so interesting or significant, and the geust performances added so much. I wonder what would have become of Mulder if he'd never met Scully? Is he losing it because he's losing Scully, or because the conspiracy is making him lose Scully, or because it's just his time to lose it? Or is it because he's not making any progess, and Scully is a symptom of that? I don't know, but I love that the episode is so rich I can ask such questions.moreless

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  • Everything I wanted to see - happened.

    10
    "Perfect"
    By vodazz, Nov 29, 2011 Report Abuse
    The most perfect episode. Now when I think about it - so many things happened! I was waiting for three things: Mulder's resignation, Skinner's character development and the confrontation with the Cigarette Smoking Man. And all of them happened in one episode. Wow... If just Mulder would have pulled the trigger... There would have been less bad guys left. I really start to hate "Cancer Man" as Mulder called him, though the actor is terrific. Then, I really liked how the crossroads between life and death were made. Especially the boat.
    Also Scully - Mulder storyline moved on. Fox even cried - I didn't expect that. Though the very end of the episode could have been a little better. Mulder should have stayed with Dana.moreless

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  • "Don't try to threaten me, Mulder. I've watched Presidents die." The Cigarette-Smoking Man

    10
    "Perfect"
    By MattMTRUSTNO1, Aug 12, 2011 Report Abuse


    The Cigarette Smoking Man's sneer to Fox Mulder sums up the cold-blooded arrogance of the forces arrayed against Mulder and Scully. In "One Breath" we finally see the face of the real enemy--not some laughable little extraterrestrial or sideshow freak, but the ruthless amorality of a government that holds honor and justice and truth in contempt.
    Not that I give a damn, but there wasn't much about the X- Files in "One Breath": no pyrokinetics, no werewolves, no little green men, even by implication. As I suspected, Duane Barry was hallucinating. Whoever took Agent Dana Scully from Barry, they did not ride in flying saucers and they probably hold Social Security numbers. It is pretty clear from Mr. X (Steven Williams) and the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) that there is a plot here, but it is a tangled human plot manipulated by humans. Extraterrestrials need not apply. Rather, we got a good look at the human relationships involved in this series.
    There were no bad, not even any mediocre performances in this episode. Mitch Pileggi's star turn when Deputy Director Walter Skinner opens up to Mulder was believable, in character, and very humanizing. Sheila Larken as Dana Scully's mother turned in a fine-honed, low-keyed performance. Even Tom Braidwood's touching protrayal of the gnome Frohike gave us a new dimension on that marginal character. And how typical of "The X-Files" that one of the most revealing and emotional speeches is spoken by a dead man--Admiral Scully's (Don Davis) monologue to his dying daughter is eloquent and moving.
    David Duchovny has delivered no more passionate line as Fox Mulder than his "I owe her more!" to Plot Device--excuse me--Mr. X. During the scene with Mr. X in the hospital garage, Fox Mulder's rage and frustration nearly reach spontaneous combustion. Almost, almost, Mulder succumbs to the temptation of violence as an antidote to his baffled grief: Mr. X provides the opportunity, and Mulder waits in his darkened apartment to ambush, and probably murder, the men who abducted his partner. But Scully saves him from this fatal mistake--not Dana Scully but her sister Melissa.
    There are so many echoes in her character: like Mulder, Melissa Scully (Melinda McGraw) is a believer--but from the heart, not the head. Like Mulder, she is about to lose a beloved younger sister. Like Mulder, she is estranged from her family--her own mother is surprised to see her at Dana's bedside. Best of all, she sees straight through Fox Mulder to the heart; her confrontation with him in his apartment awakens Mulder to the best that is in him . This scene--Mulder edgy, bitter, tense as a coiled spring, and Melissa Scully resolute, caring, and strong--is excellent. Beneath the trendy New-Age babble is a shrewd judge of character and a heart of gold. If Fox Mulder has any brains at all, he will get this woman's phone number.
    This episode works on several levels, but it works best as a morality play. The men who hold temporal power--Mr. X, the Cigarette Smoking Man--are revealed as cardboard cutouts: shallow, corrupt, full of fear. Fox Mulder, on the other hand, even in the depths of despair, can find courage, faith and resolution. His decision to forgo revenge in order to stand by his dying partner in her need imbues the character with a power his antagonists will never know. This is a profoundly more interesting story than who kidnaped whom and why. We are learning a lot about Fox Mulder this season: Friday night he learned something about himself as well.
    As Lord John Whorfin said in Buckaroo Banzai, character is what you are in the dark. In the dark, we find that Fox Mulder is a man not only of passionate intensity, but of fundamental integrity. He will not stoop to cold-blooded murder. The struggle embodied in the X-Files is recast into a struggle for the soul of one man.
    Bravo, bravo, bravissimo.
    This one gets a perfect 10. The best yet.
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  • Mulder's Dark Night

    8.0
    "Great"
    By RJNeb2, Feb 19, 2011 Report Abuse
    Ostensibly "One Breath" is about the return of Dana Scully. But actually it serves as a deeper examination of Mulder's long dark night of the soul. This is an episode all about faith. About having it (as witnessed by Mrs Scully's and Melissa's bedside vigil), keeping it (Mulder struggles to do precisely that, despite the cards being stacked against him) and losing it (Skinner's tale of his Vietnam experience detailing this). And if you can get past the rather disconcerting sight of Gillian Anderson's ginormous boobs she'd just given birth to her daughter days before the episode takes us down some interesting avenues and throws up as many questions as there are answers.

    With the return of Scully, albeit in a vegetative state, we are forced to ask a very difficult question. Is it better to have her returned like this? Or was it better not knowing her fate? For in her current condition (and to borrow a phrase from Season 8's "This is Not Happening") she is circling the drain. Is it any wonder that Mulder freaks out, demanding to know where she came from and who found her? Then, of course, the terms of Scully's living will ups the dramatic ante, making this less an episode about watching over someone in a coma, and more a race against time to save her before she gets taken off life support. And although the appearance of the mystical Melissa is a nice touch (talk about 2 sisters being very different), we know that her chants and charms are powerless against the fate awaiting Scully. (Also quite interesting to note a coolness between mother and elder daughter, hinting at some kind of rift.)

    So Scully is poised to leave us, and the use of the boat analogy is a very simplistic but effective way of showing that. The amassed ranks of friends and family initially don't seem to be enough to pull her back in, with even Frohike getting a little upset at seeing her in this condition. The introduction of the Lone Gunmen not only injects a welcome dose of humour into a very dark episode, but it also opens a really sinister door that Scully's DNA has been messed around with, and by something of a non-human strain. This too paves the way for the conspiracy angle, first really hinted at by the appearance of a mysterious man loitering by Scully's bed, and then by the abrupt and very violent appearance of X. This character is a very different one from his predecessor, Deep Throat. When X is about, people tend to get killed, although he proves to be just as infuriatingly inconclusive about giving Mulder any real clues about what is really going on. This in turn leads us to Skinner's office and his apparent complicity with the Cigarette Smoking Man, who here steps out of the shadows really for the first time and starts to reveal more of his agenda. The scene when Mulder confronts him in his home is a very powerful one in that it truly reveals that CSM's involvement is all the more insidious in that he has nothing to lose. It also clarifies (we think) Skinner's position. Not content with re-opening the X Files, he also gave Mulder the whereabouts of CSM. If Skinner isn't an ally, then Mulder's even more paranoid than we all think. But the crux of this episode is less the conspiracies surrounding it, and more the issue of faith. While Mrs Scully wrestles with the agonising decision of terminating Dana's life support (something that Mulder simply cannot face at all, either at the decision making end or in terms of watching it being done), we have to wonder what it is that eventually brings Scully back. Is it her own faith? Is it Mulder's, never so passionate as it is here? Is it the visitation from her father, and the dutiful daughter complying with his wishes that it's too soon for her to join him? Or, most interesting of all, is it the disappeared Nurse Owens? Is she some kind of angel? Is she the physical representation of Scully's Christian faith that leads her back into the light? Who knows? The only thing we do know for certain is that Mark Snow can deliver the goods with a subtly evocative and ethereal score. I feel though that "One Breath" is essentially an episode about Mulder. He learns many truths throughout the episode, like Skinner's Vietnam experience making him more sympathetic to Mulder's quest and beliefs than he'd previously thought. He learns the true natures of CSM and X. In "3" he was suppressing his loss but he really lets rip with it now, as you can tell by his outbursts at the hospital, his increasing frustration with the doctor and his angry confrontation with CSM. But what separates CSM from Mulder is the latter's humane streak. Given the chance to exact justice on the men who did this to Scully, he ultimately chooses to sit with his partner and finally talk to her, in the vague hope that she'll hear him. Melissa astutely recognises that he is in a very dark place.

    For many, the key imagery of "One Breath" is the one of Scully sitting in a boat which ultimately drifts away. And lots of people love the reunion scene when he returns her cross to her. But for me the key image of this deep episode is of Mulder, returning from his bedside vigil to a ransacked flat, sinking to the floor, with his head in his hands, finally succumbing to the pain that he's carried inside him for so long. That, and the subsequent phone call he receives in the darkness informing him that she's woken up. And his tentative smile at the news he's been longing to receive. 8/10moreless

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  • One of the best

    10
    "Perfect"
    By OnePerCentClub, Dec 21, 2008 Report Abuse
    This is a very sad episode. And this is the first episode where Mulder is going from here to there so he can find answers to what happened to Scully. He listens to everyone and is trying to make up his mind and make a decision that could change his life. It's very nice to see the Scully family together, even in this very sad moment. I like the vulnerability Mulder shows in this episode. He would've sank in his sadness and indecision if it hadn't been for Melissa. She was right, if Scully had died, she would've known that Mulder had been there for her.
    Very nice touch when Mulder hands Scully the famous necklace, the necklace that was a key in certain situations when these two were separated. Scully's skepticism is put to the test. And I wish we could've seen more of Melissa Scully and her interaction with her sister. It would've been nice to see two women who are completely different.moreless

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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  • Trivia

    ADD TRIVIA
    • When Mulder signs his letter of resignation he signs with his right hand. David Duchovny is LEFT-handed. Edit
    • Continuity: When the man steals Scully's blood it does not have a label on it, when Mulder takes it back it does. The man was too busy being chased by Mulder to add one. Edit
    • In this episode, Agent Mulder nicknames the Cigarette Smoking Man as "Cancer Man". Edit

  • Notes

    ADD NOTES
    • The Thinker, the newest member of The Lone Gunman, was named after the online handle of X-Phile Yung Yun Kim also known as "Duh Thinker." Edit
    • Originally Melissa, Scully's sister, was considered to be a romantic interest for Mulder, however the idea was later nixed. Edit
    • The comment made by Langly about "hopping onto the internet to nit-pick the scientific inaccuracies of Earth 2" was a nod to the internet X-Philes who work tirelessly to nitpick the facts of the show. Edit

  • Quotes

    ADD QUOTES
    • (Optimistic Melissa confronts a brooding Mulder in his apartment; she wants him to visit Scully again in the hospital before Scully dies.) Mulder: Oh, enough with the harmonic convergence crap, ok? You're not saying anything to me. Melissa: Why don't you just drop your cynicism and your paranoia and your defeat? You know, just because it's positive doesn't make it silly or trite. Why is it so much easier for you to run around trying to get even than just expressing to her how you feel? I expect more from you. Dana expects more. Edit
    • Nurse Wilkins: Nurse Who? Scully: Owens. Short, with straight, light brown hair? She watched over me in intensive care. And I'd like to thank her. Nurse Wilkins: Dana, I've worked here for 10 years, and there's no Nurse Owens at this hospital. Edit
    • Nurse Owens: Dana, honey... I'm here to take care of you sweetheart. To watch over you. To help you find the way home. I know you are far from home tonight. And that where you are is peaceful. It would be nice to stay... but your time is not over. Edit

  • Allusions

    ADD ALLUSIONS
    • Literary Reference: Moby Dick In her dream, Scully's father calls her Starbuck, and himself Ahab. These are characters (seamen) from the novel by Herman Melville. Edit
    • Langly: We're all hopping on the internet to nitpick the scientific inaccuracies of Earth 2. Earth 2 was a sci-fi series that ran during the season 1994-1995 on NBC. The series focussed on the Eden Advance team who were supposed to set up a colony on a distant planet after Earth had become uninhabitable. Edit

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