Index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
How the Ghosts Stole Christmas
"I don't show my hole to just anyone."
Written and directed by Chris Carter
Scully: Mulder, did it occur to you that there aren't ghosts here, but that somebody actually might be living in this house?
Mulder: No one lives here.
Scully: But when you and I were sitting out in the car, there was not a light on.
Mulder: No one lives here.
Scully: But when you and I were sitting out in the car, there was not a light on.
On Christmas Eve, Mulder and Scully are trapped inside a house haunted by two lovers (Edward Asner and Lily Tomlin) who died in a Suicide Pact on another Christmas Eve.
Tropes:
- Bottle Episode: It's just Mulder and Scully in a car, in a Haunted House, and in Mulder's apartment. And there are only two other characters beside them.
- Break Them by Talking: Lyda and Maurice actually consider this approach to be unsatisfying and anticlimactic; they prefer their victims to succumb to madness and murder after the long con. Apparently, thanks to public awareness of their story fading over time, their ability to materialise outside of Christmas Eve has waned and left them no choice but to rush things before midnight strikes.
- Christmas Episode: It's Christmas and Mulder and Scully spend the magical night together, chasing apparitions who make themselves known every Christmas. Cute. But Scully is somewhat uncomfortable as she is supposed to be visiting her family early in the morning.
- Dresses the Same: Played with. Mulder and Scully discover two decomposed corpses under the floor and they have the same clothes as the agents. They are of course supposed to represent them.Scully: Mulder, she's wearing my outfit.
Mulder: How embarrassing!
Scully: Yeah, well, you know what? He's wearing yours. - Genre Blindness: Maurice laments that they don't get to scare people on Halloween. Lyda immediately counters by saying people love being scared on Halloween and how it's much easier to play on a person's regrets during Christmas.
- Ghost Butler: Doors open and close by themselves several times around Mulder and Scully.
- Haunted House: The ghosts live in one. The lights switch on and off, the old clock chime, the furniture is appropriately covered with dust, brick walls keep appearing in places where doors are supposed to be; there are missing stairs and ladders in the big library room, corpses under the floor, mind-screwing multiplied rooms, Christmas music keeps playing...
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Maurice laments that he and Lyda used to have all year round to drive victims into madness. Now, they only get one day and have to rush their tricks.
- Lightning Reveal: Before her proper introduction, Lyda appears behind Scully during a lightning flash.
- New Year's Resolution: Scully resolves not to follow Mulder on his crazy quests all the time.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Scully fainting on seeing the man she's been talking to has a fatal bullethole in his head.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: They've aged since their deaths, and can assume a corporeal form to physically interact with the agents. They seem to possess some unique insight into their victims' psyches; Maurice's critique of Mulder's life and motivations is far too specific to be a shot in the dark. They're astoundingly human ghosts, ruefully lamenting how their legend has faded and left them unable to affect the world outside of Christmas Eve. They're almost mischievous in their malevolence, metaphorically shrugging their shoulders and spending the last minutes of their yearly manifestation as a happy couple when their Evil Plan doesn't pan out.
- Scary Flashlight Face: Mulder tries it on Scully. Her nerves are taut, so it works.
- Self-Deprecation: Scully initially derides the sights in the house as standard clichés. Later on, Maurice laments the stunts they pull and that their pop psychology lines run the risk of being more annoying than anything else.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Mulder telling Lyda that he and Scully "aren't lovers."
- Snow Means Love: Mulder and Scully start unwrapping their presents to one another, just as the snow starts falling. They live in the Washington-Metropolitan area, where snow doesn't usually fall until mid-January, so it's especially meaningful.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is featured heavily in the episode.
- The Stakeout: Mulder stakes out the house from a car.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Lyda and Maurice. They were together when they were alive, but they were afraid that one of them might die and leave the other alone.
- Suicide Pact: The ghosts, a couple of lovers, try to get Mulder and Scully re-enact their suicide pact.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Maurice and Lyda deliver pretty brutal ones to Mulder and Scully respectively, using some otherworldly insight into their personal lives and a very cynical interpretation of their relationship dynamic.
- Together in Death:
- The ghosts Maurice and Lyda died via Suicide Pact and are together in the afterlife.
- The ghosts try to get Mulder and Scully to re-enact their deaths. They invoke the illusion of the bodies lying together as corpses under the floorboards.
- It is implied that the ghosts drove other couples to suicide. They were people who lived in their Haunted House.
- Nearly played straight with Mulder and Scully who appear to have shot each other so that they need not to face their lonely lives. However, they recognize that it is a trick and they flee from the house.
- Torso with a View: Lyda has a see-through hole on her stomach, and Maurice has one on his head, which they show to Scully to make her Faint in Shock.
