Revisiting The X-Files: season 1 episode 13

13. Beyond the Sea

Things get personal, as Scully's father dies at Christmas, and a man on death row purports to be a psychic capable of channelling the voices of the dead. Incidentally, Scully's father is played by the late Don S. Davis, an actor I have never once seen NOT wearing a military uniform (with the exception of Stephen King's Needful Things, where he played a priest). From Twin Peaks to the Outer Limits, the man defines the word "typecast." Here, however, he provides the episode's most affecting moment. Just before Scully receives the news that her father has died, she stirs from her sleep and sees her father sitting in the armchair opposite her; his lips are moving, but no sound is coming out. A truly spine-tingling moment.

So Dana's lost her daddy, and the tides turn as, for once, she is the believer and Mulder becomes the sceptic. When two teenagers are kidnapped, the agents pay a visit to Luther Lee Boggs, a man who claims to have gained psychic powers from his encounter with the electric chair some years ago. Boggs, incidentally, is played by Brad Dourif, on his usual creepy form. Eyes closed, teeth clenched, thrashing about, he claims to be channelling vital information on the whereabouts of the missing teens. Mulder outright disbelieves anything Boggs has to say, but when Boggs starts singing "Somewhere Beyond the Sea" (the same song that was playing the day Scully's father proposed to her mother), Scully starts to believe this man may indeed have the power to contact the dead.

This is really Dana's episode, then, as she struggles to balance her usual scepticism with her emotional vulnerability. Normally, Anderson plays Scully as something of a wry, oft-smirking robot; so it's nice that here she lets a little emotion filter through and show us that Scully is only human, after all. Thanks to the information spouted by Boggs in his displays of psychic ability, Scully eventually manages to track down the missing teenagers, but not without Mulder incurring a gunshot wound from the kidnapper. Obviously we know that nothing very terrible is going to happen to our protagonists here, and yes, Mulder pulls through. Scully, meanwhile, demands to speak with her father, something Boggs will only do if she manages to get him off the hook for his previous crimes.

In the end, Scully is unable to make a deal, and Boggs faces the gas chamber anyway. He agrees to let her speak with her father all the same, but at the last minute she changes her mind. She does not need to hear the message her father has for her from beyond the grave (or beyond the sea), simply because "he is her father." Aw. A much more involving episode than usual - both dramatically and emotionally - and a firm favourite in the series so far.

Check out Matt's review of the preceding episode here.