From: seanc130@hotmail.com   
      
    wrote   
      
   > OK I have been watching that episode over, and over, and I can't figure   
   > it out. Did the writer even exist, or was it all an illusion?   
      
   I'm pretty sure the writer existed -- I don't remember any implication   
   otherwise. The Brazilian surgeon dude who did all the murders, though --   
   that probably depends on your definition of 'existence'. Obviously, he had   
   physical effects on the world -- he actually killed people, including almost   
   Scully. But apparently, he was only some sort of psychic manifestation of   
   Pagett's own imagination -- a sort of ghostly alter ego.   
      
   I think I remember one part where we saw Pagett talking to the killer, but   
   Mulder, who was spying, saw Pagett just sitting at his typewriter. The   
   implications of that are not entirely clear -- either Pagett's ability to   
   affect reality with his imagination extended to controlling Mulder's mind   
   and senses, or the communication between Pagett and the killer was purely on   
   the psychic or imaginative plane. Perhaps we were 'seeing' acted out what   
   Pagett was actually *writing* at the moment.   
      
   I don't think Pagett *knew* that the killer was all a creation of his own   
   mind until that conversation, near the end. I think his realisation of that   
   motivated him to kill himself at the end, thus saving Scully.   
      
   > By the way that was a great "GA-Scully" X-File episode, she never looked   
   > better!   
      
   Didn't you say the same thing about her on that TV Guide cover just before   
   IWTB came out?   
      
   Jeez, you have   
   waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa   
   aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay   
   fucked-up an idea of GA 'never looking better'.   
      
   Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying she didn't look 'good'. But I could   
   easily list plenty of episodes where she looked STUNNINGLY, HAUNTINGLY   
   BEAUTIFUL, to the thousandth millionth billionth googolplexth degree better   
   than in 'Milagro'.   
      
   Like 'The Erlenmeyer Flask', 'One Breath' (specifically the boat scene),   
   'Colony'/'End Game', 'Anasazi', 'Paper Clip', 'Clyde Bruckman', 'Grotesque',   
   'Piper Maru'/'Apocrypha', 'Pusher', 'Jose Chung', 'Wetwired', 'Tunguska',   
   'Paper Hearts' ... I'll stop.   
      
   Say, how about you take Scully from 'Milagro', and I'll take all those other   
   Scullys? Sounds like a good deal to me!!   
      
   No offence, but I'm starting to get the impression that you have a certain   
   level of confusion between the concepts of 'genuine beauty' and 'overly   
   glamourous, slick, self-consciously "gorgeous", magazine-cover-type looks'.   
   Not that GA ever really went all the way into the latter category -- she   
   *always* had a certain genuine personal beauty that set her apart from all   
   those put-together-by-committee supermodels. But I'd definitely say that   
   'Milagro' and the IWTB cover are two examples of her getting about as close   
   to that as she ever did.   
      
   --   
   --Sean   
   http://spclsd223.livejournal.com   
      
   'I am extremely disappointed. I send you out for exciting new designer   
   drugs, and you come back with tomato sauce.' --Dr Gregory House   
      
   'Stop, or I'll kick you in the testicles!' --Dr Temperance Brennan   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)