WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.059 Imagine for a second that you are an Oxford -educated 00:00:04.059 --> 00:00:07.879 genius. OK. You're the FBI's absolute top psychological 00:00:07.879 --> 00:00:11.240 profiler, a rising star in the behavioral science 00:00:11.240 --> 00:00:14.019 unit. Right, the golden boy. Exactly. Arguably 00:00:14.019 --> 00:00:16.359 the smartest person in any room you walk into. 00:00:16.820 --> 00:00:19.539 You have this ultimate pristine career path laid 00:00:19.539 --> 00:00:21.260 out right in front of you. The world is your 00:00:21.260 --> 00:00:24.120 oyster. Yeah. Now imagine taking all of that 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:27.100 prestige and just throwing it completely out 00:00:27.100 --> 00:00:29.719 the window. Just abandoning it. Completely. choosing 00:00:29.719 --> 00:00:32.979 instead to sleep on a junk -filled couch, eat 00:00:32.979 --> 00:00:36.240 sunflower seeds all day, and literally hunt for 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:38.640 vampires in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:41.560 building. It's such a phenomenal contradiction, 00:00:41.659 --> 00:00:44.280 really. That is the career trajectory we are 00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:46.439 exploring today. Welcome to this deep dive. Thanks 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:48.899 for having me. What's fascinating here is that 00:00:48.899 --> 00:00:51.679 this isn't just a quirky setup for a television 00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:54.210 show. Right. The character we are looking at 00:00:54.210 --> 00:00:57.770 represents a much larger, very real human struggle. 00:00:57.990 --> 00:01:01.750 It's that constant grinding tension between cold, 00:01:01.990 --> 00:01:05.250 hard logic and just absolute blind faith. Yeah, 00:01:05.250 --> 00:01:08.129 and our mission today is unpack the anatomy of 00:01:08.129 --> 00:01:11.290 a genuine pop culture legend. We're looking at 00:01:11.290 --> 00:01:14.430 a huge stack of sources, including a really detailed 00:01:14.430 --> 00:01:18.150 biographical and production history of Fox William 00:01:18.150 --> 00:01:21.739 Mulder from The X -Files. Yes, okay. Let's unpack 00:01:21.739 --> 00:01:23.859 this because even if you have never seen a single 00:01:23.859 --> 00:01:26.799 frame of this show You know this architect, right? 00:01:26.799 --> 00:01:28.900 Oh, definitely everyone knows him. He's the guy 00:01:28.900 --> 00:01:31.019 staring at the I want to believe poster Yeah, 00:01:31.140 --> 00:01:34.079 we are going to explore how this fictional FBI 00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:37.060 agent fundamentally shaped our modern ideas of 00:01:37.060 --> 00:01:41.019 conspiracy belief and well obsession And we really 00:01:41.019 --> 00:01:43.560 need to figure out what actually makes a mind 00:01:43.560 --> 00:01:46.379 like that tick. To understand the psychology 00:01:46.379 --> 00:01:49.079 of Fox Mulder, we actually have to start outside 00:01:49.079 --> 00:01:51.400 the fiction. OK, outside the fiction, like in 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:53.599 the real world. Exactly. We have to look at how 00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:56.079 he was conceived back in 1993, because the reality 00:01:56.079 --> 00:01:59.989 of the casting. heavily informed the very specific 00:01:59.989 --> 00:02:01.950 flavor of the character you ended up seeing on 00:02:01.950 --> 00:02:04.329 screen. Right. And you might think a legendary 00:02:04.329 --> 00:02:07.189 television role was this highly calculated, perfectly 00:02:07.189 --> 00:02:10.750 executed master plan from day one. But it wasn't. 00:02:10.969 --> 00:02:14.310 Not at all. The real story is almost a disaster. 00:02:15.069 --> 00:02:17.990 So the actor, David Duchovny, is looking to focus 00:02:17.990 --> 00:02:20.409 on a film career. Right. Television wasn't really 00:02:20.409 --> 00:02:23.389 the goal. But his manager, Melanie Green, hands 00:02:23.389 --> 00:02:26.439 him this pilot script. They both realize it's 00:02:26.439 --> 00:02:28.800 something totally unique, so he goes into audition. 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:31.759 And during this audition, the Chauvenny makes 00:02:31.759 --> 00:02:35.180 a very distinct choice. He speaks incredibly 00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:39.259 slowly. Yes, deliberately slowly. And Chris Carter, 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:41.560 the creator of the show, watches this audition, 00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:43.939 and his immediate reaction is, uh, this guy isn't 00:02:43.939 --> 00:02:47.479 too bright. Which is so funny in hindsight. Carter 00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:49.439 actually had to stop and ask you, Chauvenny, 00:02:49.560 --> 00:02:52.199 to just try and imagine being a strict... by 00:02:52.199 --> 00:02:54.639 the book FBI agent. Wait, let me stop you there. 00:02:54.759 --> 00:02:57.879 Why did the slow talking make him seem unintelligent 00:02:57.879 --> 00:02:59.759 initially? I mean, why was that the reaction? 00:02:59.919 --> 00:03:02.219 Well, because in television, especially in the 00:03:02.219 --> 00:03:04.580 early 90s, intelligence was usually portrayed 00:03:04.580 --> 00:03:07.460 through rapid fire, snappy dialogue like Aaron 00:03:07.460 --> 00:03:09.900 Sorkin style stuff. Exactly. Think of a fast 00:03:09.900 --> 00:03:12.560 talking lawyer or a hyper energetic scientist 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:15.539 to show me was doing something much more internalized. 00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:18.020 It took Carter a little time, but he eventually 00:03:18.020 --> 00:03:21.050 realized he had made a massive misjudgment. According 00:03:21.050 --> 00:03:23.330 to Carter, De Chauveny actually turned out to 00:03:23.330 --> 00:03:25.710 be one of the best read, most intellectually 00:03:25.710 --> 00:03:29.469 curious people he knew. Wow. Yeah, executive 00:03:29.469 --> 00:03:32.530 producer Frank Spotnitz even called him amazingly 00:03:32.530 --> 00:03:35.789 smart. You know, it's like looking at a brilliantly 00:03:35.789 --> 00:03:38.569 complex piece of modern art and initially thinking 00:03:38.569 --> 00:03:41.300 a child drew it, right? That's a great way to 00:03:41.300 --> 00:03:44.379 put it. Only to realize the artist is an absolute 00:03:44.379 --> 00:03:47.719 genius. That deliberate, calculated intelligence 00:03:47.719 --> 00:03:50.439 Duchovny brought to the audition actually solves 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:52.759 a massive plot hole in the premise of the show. 00:03:53.139 --> 00:03:55.860 How so? Well, think about it. If Mulder is just 00:03:55.860 --> 00:03:58.719 a frantic, unhinged guy screaming about aliens, 00:03:59.340 --> 00:04:01.979 the FBI fires him on day one. Oh, for sure. They'd 00:04:01.979 --> 00:04:04.319 escort him right out. But they can't. Because 00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:06.400 if you look at his actual intellect, he is too 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:09.569 valuable. His slowness wasn't a lack of intelligence. 00:04:09.789 --> 00:04:12.550 It was deliberate calculation. It was the heavy 00:04:12.550 --> 00:04:15.490 burdened calculation of a guy who is always thinking 00:04:15.490 --> 00:04:17.930 five steps ahead. That is exactly it. I mean, 00:04:17.949 --> 00:04:20.149 playing an obsessed conspiracy theorist is a 00:04:20.149 --> 00:04:22.550 dangerous tightrope walk for an actor. Yeah, 00:04:22.550 --> 00:04:25.029 you could just look crazy. Right. If you lean 00:04:25.029 --> 00:04:27.930 too far into the paranoia, the character becomes 00:04:27.930 --> 00:04:31.240 a cartoon. You need a grounded, sharp intellect 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:33.779 behind the eyes to make the audience and the 00:04:33.779 --> 00:04:36.360 fictional FBI believe that this person is actually 00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:39.620 a brilliant federal agent. So his actual brain 00:04:39.620 --> 00:04:42.839 grounded the character. Exactly. Duchovny's real 00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:45.139 -world intelligence prevented Mulder from becoming 00:04:45.139 --> 00:04:48.740 a caricature. In fact, Spotnitz noted that Duchovny 00:04:48.740 --> 00:04:52.100 himself helped shape many of Mulder's core psychological 00:04:52.100 --> 00:04:54.500 characteristics. And the creative DNA of the 00:04:54.500 --> 00:04:56.730 character pulls from this really interesting 00:04:56.730 --> 00:04:59.970 lineage, too. Like, the name Mulder was Carter's 00:04:59.970 --> 00:05:03.149 mother's maiden name. Right. And Fox was just 00:05:03.149 --> 00:05:05.110 a childhood friend. It wasn't some corporate 00:05:05.110 --> 00:05:07.730 synergy thing for the Fox network, which honestly, 00:05:07.730 --> 00:05:09.970 I always assumed it was. Most people do. But 00:05:09.970 --> 00:05:13.069 no, culturally, Carter was inspired by a fictional 00:05:13.069 --> 00:05:16.470 70s character named Carl Kolchak. OK, who's that? 00:05:16.829 --> 00:05:19.009 He was a newspaper reporter who was a believer. 00:05:19.350 --> 00:05:21.449 And Kolchak was inspired by a character named 00:05:21.449 --> 00:05:24.569 Harry Picard, who was a literal vampire hunting 00:05:24.620 --> 00:05:28.120 A vampire hunting cop. That's amazing. Yeah. 00:05:28.459 --> 00:05:31.439 So there is this established tradition of investigators 00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:34.300 who use the tools of the establishment to hunt 00:05:34.300 --> 00:05:36.899 the unbelievable. Which brings us perfectly into 00:05:36.899 --> 00:05:39.819 the fictional biography of Fox Mulder. Because 00:05:39.819 --> 00:05:42.620 knowing that he is built on this foundation of 00:05:42.620 --> 00:05:45.699 high intellect is crucial to understanding his 00:05:45.699 --> 00:05:48.300 tragedy. It really is. I mean, how exactly does 00:05:48.300 --> 00:05:50.639 an elite student become the joke of the FBI? 00:05:50.970 --> 00:05:52.889 Let's look at the timeline. Let's do it. But 00:05:52.889 --> 00:05:55.430 really focus on the psychology here. He is born 00:05:55.430 --> 00:05:59.290 in 1961, Martha's Vineyard. He graduates with 00:05:59.290 --> 00:06:02.870 first class honors from Oxford. in 1983. With 00:06:02.870 --> 00:06:05.129 a degree in psychology, which is key. Right. 00:06:05.470 --> 00:06:07.910 Then he goes to the Quantico FBI training academy 00:06:07.910 --> 00:06:11.810 and graduates with honors there in 1986. He is 00:06:11.810 --> 00:06:13.829 immediately fast -tracked. He joins the behavioral 00:06:13.829 --> 00:06:16.569 science unit doing psychological profiling. Under 00:06:16.569 --> 00:06:18.250 a veteran agent named Bill Patterson, right? 00:06:18.250 --> 00:06:20.610 Yeah. And they had a pretty testy relationship, 00:06:20.970 --> 00:06:24.629 but Mulder was undeniably gifted. He moves to 00:06:24.629 --> 00:06:28.000 violent crimes in 1988. By all accounts, he is 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:31.060 the golden boy. But there is a massive defining 00:06:31.060 --> 00:06:35.199 trauma looming over his entire existence. The 00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:38.160 disappearance of his sister, Samantha, when they 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:40.560 were children. See, here's where it gets really 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:43.120 interesting to me. Look at the profound irony 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:45.519 of his background. The psychology degree. Yeah. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:48.879 He is an expert in psychological profiling. He 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:52.180 is literally trained to spot behavioral anomalies, 00:06:52.439 --> 00:06:55.870 to categorize human trauma. Yet... His entire 00:06:55.870 --> 00:06:58.930 career is driven by a childhood trauma he cannot 00:06:58.930 --> 00:07:01.790 objectively process. He's too close to it. Exactly. 00:07:01.870 --> 00:07:03.829 It's like a world -class surgeon trying to operate 00:07:03.829 --> 00:07:06.490 on their own heart. He can diagnose anyone in 00:07:06.490 --> 00:07:09.069 the world except himself. That's a profound way 00:07:09.069 --> 00:07:11.269 to look at it. And if we connect this to the 00:07:11.269 --> 00:07:13.610 bigger picture, you start to see why the FBI 00:07:13.610 --> 00:07:15.350 responds to him the way they do. What do you 00:07:15.350 --> 00:07:17.670 mean? His elite background is exactly what makes 00:07:17.670 --> 00:07:20.290 his fringe beliefs so incredibly dangerous to 00:07:20.290 --> 00:07:22.230 the establishment. Oh, because he's credible. 00:07:22.470 --> 00:07:24.910 Right. If Mulder were just a crackpot walking 00:07:24.910 --> 00:07:26.730 in off the street, the government would ignore 00:07:26.730 --> 00:07:30.110 him. But because he is an Oxford educated genius, 00:07:30.529 --> 00:07:33.430 his theories carry dangerous institutional weight. 00:07:33.569 --> 00:07:35.769 They can't just brush him off. No, and they can't 00:07:35.769 --> 00:07:37.829 just fire him without a cause either. So they 00:07:37.829 --> 00:07:39.889 try to marginalize him. They stick him in the 00:07:39.889 --> 00:07:42.470 basement with the obscure unsolved X -Files. 00:07:43.660 --> 00:07:46.699 And eventually, in March 1992, they assigned 00:07:46.699 --> 00:07:49.180 Special Agent Dana Sculler to be his partner. 00:07:49.420 --> 00:07:51.279 But they don't assign her to be his sidekick. 00:07:51.339 --> 00:07:53.540 Yeah. I mean, she is an instructor at the Forensic 00:07:53.540 --> 00:07:56.579 Science Academy. She is a medical doctor. A very 00:07:56.579 --> 00:07:58.920 grounded person. Yeah, they assign her to apply 00:07:58.920 --> 00:08:02.639 rigid scientific reasoning. to his work. Basically, 00:08:02.819 --> 00:08:05.439 they want her to scientifically debunk his obsession 00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:08.740 so they can finally shut him down. Exactly. Because 00:08:08.740 --> 00:08:12.060 the FBI knows his ultimate goal is to uncover 00:08:12.060 --> 00:08:15.379 a massive government conspiracy that is hiding 00:08:15.379 --> 00:08:18.300 the truth about alien life. And he believes this 00:08:18.300 --> 00:08:20.459 is directly tied to what happened to his sister. 00:08:20.720 --> 00:08:22.759 And reading through the sources, the journey 00:08:22.759 --> 00:08:25.060 the writers put him on to find that truth isn't 00:08:25.060 --> 00:08:28.019 just difficult. It's almost a comical gauntlet 00:08:28.019 --> 00:08:31.040 of psychological torture. They don't just throw 00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:33.759 monsters at him. They constantly aggressively 00:08:33.759 --> 00:08:36.460 destabilize his reality. Every time he thinks 00:08:36.460 --> 00:08:38.700 he has a handle on things, they flip it. The 00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:40.679 narrative mechanism here isn't just tragedy. 00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:44.580 It's that constant destabilization. Every time 00:08:44.580 --> 00:08:46.879 Mulder gets close to an empirical truth, the 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:49.440 writers rip the rug out from under him. Like 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.000 what happened in season five. Right. At one point, 00:08:52.120 --> 00:08:54.799 a government insider named Michael Kritchigow 00:08:54.799 --> 00:08:58.080 completely convinces Mulder that the entire alien 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:01.039 conspiracy is just a smokescreen. A smokescreen 00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:04.200 for what? Invented by the military to hide Cold 00:09:04.200 --> 00:09:06.879 War misdeeds. It entirely shatters his belief 00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:10.120 system. Wow. And when he finally uncovers the 00:09:10.120 --> 00:09:12.720 ultimate truth about his sister Samantha, it's 00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:14.320 just devastating. This is not a happy ending. 00:09:14.460 --> 00:09:16.620 Not at all. She wasn't just abducted and gone. 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:19.500 She was taken, experimented on, and then handed 00:09:19.500 --> 00:09:22.019 over to the syndicate. Specifically, a man known 00:09:22.019 --> 00:09:24.340 as the Smoking Man to live as a test subject. 00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:27.000 It's horrifying. And it gets weirder. She eventually 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:29.899 ran away. ended up in a hospital and was taken 00:09:29.899 --> 00:09:32.940 by what the show calls walk -ins, a kind of spiritual 00:09:32.940 --> 00:09:34.919 intervention just to save her from the endless 00:09:34.919 --> 00:09:37.860 pain. And Mulder's own life reflects that exact 00:09:37.860 --> 00:09:40.460 same chaos. He doesn't just investigate trauma, 00:09:40.820 --> 00:09:43.289 he absorbs it. Oh, physically and mentally? I 00:09:43.289 --> 00:09:44.669 mean, the list of things that happened to him 00:09:44.669 --> 00:09:47.950 is insane. He is abducted by aliens himself. 00:09:48.029 --> 00:09:50.450 Right. Infected with an extraterrestrial virus 00:09:50.450 --> 00:09:53.690 in the year 2000. Fired from the FBI for refusing 00:09:53.690 --> 00:09:55.950 to drop his crusade. He had to go into hiding 00:09:55.950 --> 00:09:58.590 in New Mexico, right? Yes, hiding in New Mexico. 00:09:59.129 --> 00:10:01.870 Put on trial by a shadow government military 00:10:01.870 --> 00:10:04.809 tribunal. Sentenced to death for the murder of 00:10:04.809 --> 00:10:08.070 a guy named Noel Rohrer. And he barely escapes 00:10:08.070 --> 00:10:10.570 that? Only escapes with the help of a reformed 00:10:10.570 --> 00:10:14.519 deputy director. Kirsch and the literal ghost 00:10:14.519 --> 00:10:17.440 of a dead double agent, Alex Kreischek. OK, so 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:19.559 let's pause there and talk about how this actually 00:10:19.559 --> 00:10:21.960 manifests in his daily life. Because if you're 00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:23.799 listening to this and you've ever gone down a 00:10:23.799 --> 00:10:26.279 3 a .m. Internet rabbit hole looking at conspiracy 00:10:26.279 --> 00:10:28.480 theories, you know how that can make you feel 00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:30.320 a little detached from reality the next day. 00:10:30.460 --> 00:10:33.000 You feel a bit unmoored. Right. Now imagine living 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:35.700 in that exact state of hypervigilant paranoia 00:10:35.700 --> 00:10:39.330 for 30 years. His personal life is an absolute 00:10:39.330 --> 00:10:42.769 disaster. It really is. Mulder's physical environment 00:10:42.769 --> 00:10:45.990 is a direct unfiltered reflection of his internal 00:10:45.990 --> 00:10:48.950 chaos. You see this in small quirks. Like what? 00:10:49.309 --> 00:10:51.690 Well, De Chauveny himself pointed out that Mulder 00:10:51.690 --> 00:10:54.330 has an oral fixation, which is why you constantly 00:10:54.330 --> 00:10:56.789 see him aggressively chewing on sunflower seeds. 00:10:57.029 --> 00:10:58.690 Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, it's a nervous habit 00:10:58.690 --> 00:11:01.269 for a mind that cannot stop spinning. But it's 00:11:01.269 --> 00:11:03.970 his apartment that really gets me. This guy is 00:11:03.970 --> 00:11:06.830 a federal agent and he doesn't even sleep in 00:11:06.830 --> 00:11:09.740 a bed. No, he doesn't. He sleeps on his couch, 00:11:09.980 --> 00:11:12.299 usually in his clothes, with the TV blaring in 00:11:12.299 --> 00:11:14.279 the background. We don't even see his bedroom 00:11:14.279 --> 00:11:16.740 until the sixth season. And when we finally do, 00:11:16.759 --> 00:11:20.460 it's shocking. It is basically a hoarder's storage 00:11:20.460 --> 00:11:25.159 unit. It's filled floor to ceiling with junk, 00:11:25.580 --> 00:11:29.120 case files, and boxes of pornographic magazines. 00:11:29.720 --> 00:11:31.980 He's living like a perpetual grad student during 00:11:31.980 --> 00:11:34.440 finals week. He essentially refuses to create 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:37.039 a place of rest for himself. And the way he finally 00:11:37.039 --> 00:11:40.200 gets a bed is so funny. In an episode called 00:11:40.200 --> 00:11:43.960 Dreamland 2, a body swapping man in black named 00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:46.820 Morris Fletcher takes over Mulder's life for 00:11:46.820 --> 00:11:48.740 a few days. Right. He swaps bodies with him. 00:11:48.779 --> 00:11:50.539 And while this guy's living in Mulder's body, 00:11:50.679 --> 00:11:53.320 he looks around the apartment, gets disgusted, 00:11:53.720 --> 00:11:56.039 renovates the bedroom, and buys a water bed. 00:11:56.379 --> 00:11:59.059 Of course it's a water bed. It literally took 00:11:59.059 --> 00:12:01.840 an extraterrestrial body swap for this man to 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:04.799 buy a piece of furniture to sleep on. And then, 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:08.379 in a later episode called Monday, that same waterbed 00:12:08.379 --> 00:12:11.360 springs a leak and ruins his apartment. It's 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:14.419 so fitting. But this raises an important question 00:12:14.419 --> 00:12:16.879 about Mulder's fundamental inability to settle. 00:12:17.470 --> 00:12:20.110 It's not just his living arrangements. It's his 00:12:20.110 --> 00:12:23.710 entire identity. How so? Look at his religious 00:12:23.710 --> 00:12:26.129 ambiguity throughout the sources. Yeah, the sources 00:12:26.129 --> 00:12:28.210 are completely all over the place on this. Yeah. 00:12:28.389 --> 00:12:30.809 In one episode, I think it's Drive, he jokes 00:12:30.809 --> 00:12:33.409 about the international Jewish conspiracy to 00:12:33.409 --> 00:12:35.250 show that he even suggested off screen that the 00:12:35.250 --> 00:12:36.950 character might be Jewish. But then in another 00:12:36.950 --> 00:12:39.789 episode, Kaddish, he explicitly states he doesn't 00:12:39.789 --> 00:12:42.570 know Hebrew and can't identify a basic Talmudic 00:12:42.570 --> 00:12:45.210 text. Exactly. And when he supposedly dies later 00:12:45.210 --> 00:12:47.950 in the series in... dead alive, he receives a 00:12:47.950 --> 00:12:50.190 traditional Christian burial. Just like his father 00:12:50.190 --> 00:12:52.490 did. Right. We also see him seeking comfort in 00:12:52.490 --> 00:12:55.230 a Christian church in the episode Conduit. And 00:12:55.230 --> 00:12:57.610 to complicate things further, under hypnosis, 00:12:57.850 --> 00:13:00.590 he remembers past lives as a Holocaust victim 00:13:00.590 --> 00:13:03.090 and a Confederate soldier. So what does this 00:13:03.090 --> 00:13:05.470 all mean? How do we synthesize all these contradictory 00:13:05.470 --> 00:13:08.350 details? I mean, what is he? What we are looking 00:13:08.350 --> 00:13:12.490 at is a man who is eternally unsettled. He cannot 00:13:12.490 --> 00:13:14.889 anchor himself to a bed, and he cannot anchor 00:13:14.889 --> 00:13:17.309 himself to a traditional religious identity. 00:13:17.429 --> 00:13:20.690 He's just floating. Yes. His manic periods and 00:13:20.690 --> 00:13:23.190 his insomnia are symptoms of a deep -seated terror. 00:13:24.029 --> 00:13:26.529 He is terrified of what happens if he stops looking 00:13:26.529 --> 00:13:28.889 for the truth. Like, if he rests, he might miss 00:13:28.889 --> 00:13:31.269 something. Precisely. If he settles down into 00:13:31.269 --> 00:13:33.950 a comfortable identity, he might miss the one 00:13:33.950 --> 00:13:36.679 clue that leads to his sister. So if his personal 00:13:36.679 --> 00:13:39.600 environment is just this chaotic whirlwind, and 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:42.879 he has no internal resting place, what keeps 00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:45.580 him tethered to reality? How does he not just 00:13:45.580 --> 00:13:47.919 float off into complete madness? His external 00:13:47.919 --> 00:13:50.440 relationships. Because he is so isolated in his 00:13:50.440 --> 00:13:53.500 own mind, his connections to other people become 00:13:53.500 --> 00:13:55.159 his only gravity. But some of those are pretty 00:13:55.159 --> 00:13:57.200 toxic, right? Extremely toxic. Let's talk about 00:13:57.200 --> 00:13:59.919 the family ties, because they are brutal. He 00:13:59.919 --> 00:14:02.460 finds out his father, Bill, was actually involved 00:14:02.460 --> 00:14:04.639 in the shadow government conspiracy that allowed 00:14:04.639 --> 00:14:06.899 Samantha to be taken. Which is a huge betrayal. 00:14:07.779 --> 00:14:10.019 And Bill eventually tries to tell Fox the truth, 00:14:10.539 --> 00:14:13.700 but before he can, he is assassinated by Alex 00:14:13.700 --> 00:14:16.360 Krejcik. And the fallout from that conspiracy 00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:19.299 destroys his mother too. Right. Tina Mulder. 00:14:19.559 --> 00:14:22.299 Tina ultimately dies by suicide because the stress 00:14:22.299 --> 00:14:24.580 and the pain of the cover -up simply become too 00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:27.360 much to bear. So his parents are destroyed by 00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:30.139 the very conspiracy he's hunting, but the twist 00:14:30.139 --> 00:14:32.500 regarding his parentage is where the narrative 00:14:32.500 --> 00:14:35.639 really pulls the floor out from under him. The 00:14:35.639 --> 00:14:38.200 smoking man, that shadowy figure who represents 00:14:38.200 --> 00:14:40.360 the entire government cover -up who constantly 00:14:40.360 --> 00:14:44.159 mocks Mulder's quest is heavily implied to be 00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:46.799 Mulder's actual biological father. Because he 00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:49.500 shares DNA with the smoking man's son, Jeffrey 00:14:49.500 --> 00:14:52.350 Spender. OK, I need to wrap my head around this 00:14:52.350 --> 00:14:54.190 family tree because it's completely unhinged. 00:14:54.269 --> 00:14:55.830 It really is. It's like trying to build a house 00:14:55.830 --> 00:14:57.509 when someone is constantly moving the property 00:14:57.509 --> 00:15:00.149 lines in the middle of the night. His brain is 00:15:00.149 --> 00:15:02.610 wired to connect dots, but the government keeps 00:15:02.610 --> 00:15:05.070 secretly erasing the dots and replacing them 00:15:05.070 --> 00:15:08.090 with new ones. And the guy erasing the dots is 00:15:08.090 --> 00:15:11.289 his dad. The betrayal there is profound. The 00:15:11.289 --> 00:15:13.309 man representing everything Mulder is fighting 00:15:13.309 --> 00:15:16.289 against is the man who gave him life. But wait, 00:15:16.429 --> 00:15:19.759 it gets even wilder. Because the one true anchor 00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:22.340 Mulder has, the one person who keeps him sane, 00:15:22.980 --> 00:15:25.820 is Dana Scully. Yes. She goes from being a skeptic, 00:15:25.919 --> 00:15:28.460 sent to ruin his career, to his closest friend, 00:15:28.500 --> 00:15:30.940 and eventually his romantic partner. They share 00:15:30.940 --> 00:15:33.019 a kiss, and in Season 7 they go on the run together. 00:15:33.179 --> 00:15:36.820 Sweet is his rock. But later in Season 11, while 00:15:36.820 --> 00:15:39.120 they are searching for their son William, they 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:41.580 get a bombshell from Assistant Director Skinner. 00:15:42.179 --> 00:15:44.379 Skinner reveals that the Smoky Man artificially 00:15:44.379 --> 00:15:47.379 impregnated Scully with alien science. which 00:15:47.379 --> 00:15:49.759 means the Smoky Man is also William's father. 00:15:50.059 --> 00:15:52.740 I know. His archenemy is his biological father 00:15:52.740 --> 00:15:54.659 and also the father of the child he thought was 00:15:54.659 --> 00:15:57.100 his. It's like a sci -fi Shakespearean tragedy 00:15:57.100 --> 00:15:59.480 crossed with a daytime soap opera. It's completely 00:15:59.480 --> 00:16:02.200 wild. This is exactly why Scully is the necessary 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:04.940 counterbalance to his entire existence. Look 00:16:04.940 --> 00:16:07.539 at what we've just discussed. Mulder's life is 00:16:07.539 --> 00:16:10.320 defined by shifting realities. His parents lied 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:13.240 to him. The government betrayed him. His own 00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:16.990 DNA is a lie. Right. Scully's unwavering loyalty, 00:16:17.330 --> 00:16:19.830 and more importantly, her strict adherence to 00:16:19.830 --> 00:16:22.750 empirical science, is the only fact that Mulder 00:16:22.750 --> 00:16:26.470 can entirely trust. Because it's real. Yes. He 00:16:26.470 --> 00:16:30.090 needs her logic to validate his intuition. Without 00:16:30.090 --> 00:16:32.710 her grounding him, he isn't a brilliant investigator. 00:16:32.830 --> 00:16:35.220 He's just a crazy guy yelling at a wall. And 00:16:35.220 --> 00:16:37.519 that intense emotional anchor between Mulder 00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:40.519 and Scully wasn't just a clever script mechanism. 00:16:40.919 --> 00:16:43.399 It bled into the real world chemistry between 00:16:43.399 --> 00:16:46.480 the actors, which is a huge part of why the character's 00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:49.059 legacy has lasted so long. Absolutely. Critics 00:16:49.059 --> 00:16:52.279 and co -stars universally praised David Duchauvny 00:16:52.279 --> 00:16:55.000 and Gillian Anderson's on -screen dynamic. Robert 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:56.659 Patrick said something about that, right? Yeah. 00:16:56.679 --> 00:16:58.779 Robert Patrick, who later joined the show, called 00:16:58.779 --> 00:17:00.919 their chemistry something that only happens once 00:17:00.919 --> 00:17:03.960 in a lifetime. But that magic didn't keep Duchauvny 00:17:03.960 --> 00:17:06.529 around forever. After season seven, Duchovny 00:17:06.529 --> 00:17:08.630 stepped away from full -time participation in 00:17:08.630 --> 00:17:11.130 the show. There were contract disputes over money, 00:17:11.430 --> 00:17:13.730 and he wanted a lighter schedule. So within the 00:17:13.730 --> 00:17:16.410 story, Mulder gets abducted by aliens, and a 00:17:16.410 --> 00:17:18.609 new skeptical agent, John Doggett, played by 00:17:18.609 --> 00:17:20.349 Robert Patrick, comes in to work with Stully. 00:17:20.769 --> 00:17:23.109 Did Duchovny come back at all during those years? 00:17:23.329 --> 00:17:26.109 He did make cameos in seasons eight and nine, 00:17:26.150 --> 00:17:28.490 but he returned fully for the series finale. 00:17:28.990 --> 00:17:31.849 He also came back for the two feature films and 00:17:31.849 --> 00:17:35.009 eventually the revival seasons 10 and 11. I love 00:17:35.009 --> 00:17:36.430 what you showed me said about playing Mulder 00:17:36.430 --> 00:17:38.990 in the second movie I want to believe. He said 00:17:38.990 --> 00:17:41.309 he wanted to play him a little differently because 00:17:41.309 --> 00:17:44.509 Mulder had lost every battle and was beaten down 00:17:44.509 --> 00:17:47.809 by life. It's a very mature perspective. It's 00:17:47.809 --> 00:17:50.710 fascinating that the actor recognized the character 00:17:50.710 --> 00:17:53.490 couldn't just stay the same eager fast walking 00:17:53.490 --> 00:17:56.450 agent forever. He had to evolve into a bruised 00:17:56.450 --> 00:17:59.140 veteran. It's the difference between a rookie 00:17:59.140 --> 00:18:01.740 detective who thinks he can save the world, and 00:18:01.740 --> 00:18:04.400 a retired cop who knows the system is rigged 00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:06.859 from the top down and is just tired. It is a 00:18:06.859 --> 00:18:09.019 brilliant acting choice that honors the trauma 00:18:09.019 --> 00:18:11.599 the character endured. And historically, De Chauveny 00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:14.059 stepping away from the show full -time actually 00:18:14.059 --> 00:18:17.000 cemented Mulder's legendary status. Also, by 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:20.140 not being there. Yeah. By removing Mulder from 00:18:20.140 --> 00:18:22.039 the narrative equation for a couple of years, 00:18:22.359 --> 00:18:25.519 the show inadvertently proved how vital his specific 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:27.960 brand of obsessive belief was to the formula. 00:18:28.759 --> 00:18:31.180 You can replace the agent... but you can't replace 00:18:31.180 --> 00:18:33.759 the obsession. That makes total sense. The accolades 00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:36.500 really reflect that cultural impact. Duchauvny 00:18:36.500 --> 00:18:40.140 won a Golden Globe in 1997, and TV Guide ranked 00:18:40.140 --> 00:18:42.980 Fox Mulder number seven in its 50 Greatest Sci 00:18:42.980 --> 00:18:46.640 -Fi Legends. He became such an icon that he voiced 00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:49.200 animated versions of Mulder and the Simpsons 00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:53.079 and Eek the Cat, even spoofed the role on Saturday 00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:55.759 Night Live. The pop culture footprint is just 00:18:55.759 --> 00:18:57.980 massive. He really became the patron saint of 00:18:57.980 --> 00:19:00.720 the paranormal investigator. He created a template 00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:03.160 that almost every sci -fi show since has borrowed 00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:04.960 from. Which brings us to the end of our deep 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:07.539 dive. So what does Fox Mulder represent to you 00:19:07.539 --> 00:19:10.339 today? We live in an era where we all have supercomputers 00:19:10.339 --> 00:19:12.380 in our pockets. We are constantly dealing with 00:19:12.380 --> 00:19:15.039 massive information overload, fake news, and 00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:17.140 algorithmic rabbit holes. It's a chaotic time. 00:19:17.420 --> 00:19:20.059 In that context, Mulder isn't just a 90s sci 00:19:20.059 --> 00:19:22.829 -fi hero. He's the embodiment of our own deep 00:19:22.829 --> 00:19:26.190 human desire to find patterns in the chaos. We 00:19:26.190 --> 00:19:28.490 want to believe that there is a truth out there, 00:19:28.750 --> 00:19:31.670 a grand design making sense of it all, even if 00:19:31.670 --> 00:19:34.069 it's hidden in the shadows. Because the alternative 00:19:34.069 --> 00:19:36.009 that the world is just random and meaningless 00:19:36.009 --> 00:19:38.769 is much scarier. That's a great point. And that 00:19:38.769 --> 00:19:41.150 leaves us with one final lingering question to 00:19:41.150 --> 00:19:43.630 consider. We've seen that Fox Mulder's entire 00:19:43.630 --> 00:19:45.970 identity, his psychological makeup, his lack 00:19:45.970 --> 00:19:48.650 of sleep, his refusal to settle all of it, was 00:19:48.650 --> 00:19:51.470 forged by the search for a singular truth. His 00:19:51.470 --> 00:19:53.990 sister's fate and the existence of aliens. Right. 00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:56.740 But what happens to a person's psyche when that 00:19:56.740 --> 00:19:59.339 defining quest is finally over? Can a mind that 00:19:59.339 --> 00:20:02.299 is literally wired for conspiracy and hypervigilance 00:20:02.299 --> 00:20:05.160 ever truly find peace in the answers? Or will 00:20:05.160 --> 00:20:07.799 it just endlessly invent a new mystery, a new 00:20:07.799 --> 00:20:10.900 shadow to dive into? Wow. That's a heavy thought 00:20:10.900 --> 00:20:13.339 to leave on. Until next time, keep searching.