"Tithonus"

"Want to know what L.H. Rice's birthday is? April 4, 1849. I'm not good at math but I'm figuring that's a lot of candles on the cake."
 Originally Aired 1/24/99

In this episode Scully is reluctantly partnered with another FBI agent who's name is Payton Ritter. I'm too lazy to check but he looks like the guy on Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place who wasn't named Ryan Reynolds. (Funny Trivia Fact- Ryan Reynolds appeared on an X-Files episode in Season 3.) "Tithonus" follows a similar pattern to Mulder's forced partnership with Alex Krycek four years ago in "Sleepless", though this is without any Syndicate shenanigans. Scully partnering with a young, go-getter agent is something that I had actually wanted to see happen last season, only with Mulder being forced to work with Jeffrey Spender. I think this scenario actually works better in the context of Season 6 since it's another way to drive a wedge between Mulder and Scully, pushing Mulder further away from his work.

This episode deals with death, specifically the curse of being unable to die and how it takes a toll on someone. I've seen a similar theme in other works like The Highlander, an early 90's vampire series titled Forever Knight, an episode of the original Twilight Zone called "Long Live Walter Jameson", even death taking a toll on someone was part of an earlier X-Files episode by Darin Morgan called "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose." Living forever could be a blessing and also a curse. You could witness new technological advances and also many historical events; though its also a lonely existence since you'd out-live your loved ones.

Even though Scully isn't the believer that Mulder is, she actually morphs into his role quite well, as she breaks away from her partner to investigate Alfred Fellig, the suspect in question, on her own. She forms somewhat of a bond with him when they have a discussion on life and death in his apartment. Fellig keeps trying to capture death so that he can actually die, and he does this through photographs making this episode a weird hybrid of X-Files episodes. Vince Gilligan is revisiting photographs from his own episode "Unruhe", and the already mentioned episodes "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and "Sleepless." I normally refrain from posting spoilers in my movie reviews and X-Files reviews, though that could be silly when you consider that this episode is now fifteen years old. Yet the spoiler is that this episode also reminded me of "Sleepless" when Agent Ritter shoots Fellig. His shooting Fellig, a man who cannot die, causes Scully to take the bullet as well and making Fellig's prophecy come true. However, Fellig has a change of heart and actually sacrifices his own life for that of Agent Scully's. Possibly that was his plan when he took her phone, so that he could be able to capture death for himself. It's a funny coincidence that a character would sacrifice their life for another in this season when the same thing happened on an episode of Millennium during this same year. In fact, that episode titled "Borrowed Time" aired just one week prior to this episode.

While this was a good episode, I feel like it had a lot to live up to. Many fans seem to have a strong fondness for this episode, and knowing that Scully played a major role, I wanted to enjoy it as well. At the moment maybe I am not able to see past its connection with other episodes, but I'm sure my enjoyment will increase over time; which seems to be the case with many episodes. Following this first time viewing of "Tithonus", I now have only 4 brand new episodes remaining for this season: "Two Fathers", "One Son", "Milagro", and "Three Of A Kind", which is another Scully-centric episode. Overall for the remainder of the series, I am left with 19 new episodes left, the bulk of those being in Season 7. Sad times indeed.

One last interesting fact about "Tithonus" is that Mulder mentions the last name of "Ermentrout" while on the phone. I know that Vince Gilligan always makes reference to his significant other named Holly in all of his works, though I'm not that much of an avid fan to spot when and where they are. I'm just going to guess this is another of his many references, one that he would later use in Breaking Bad.