“I think finally it was the only way she could escape. The only way she could forget what happened 17 years ago.” – Fox Mulder.
OUBLIETTE [Standalone] Aired November 17, 1995
Episode: 3×08 / 57 Overall
Director: Kim Manners • Writer: Charles Grant Craig
A woman experiences a psychic connection with a teenager held captive by a deranged man.
Charles Grant Craig, in his one contribution to the show, has framed his script around the theme of child abductions, though at its heart this is an episode about Mulder and his personal reaction to the case. An oubliette is a secret dungeon with access only through a trapdoor in its ceiling. This is of course in reference to the area in which young Amy Jacobs is held captive, played by the actress Jewel Staite who years later would become known for the role of Kaylee in Joss Whedon’s Firefly. As the audience of The X-Files we’re predisposed to expect the supernatural and for the most part that’s what we get to some extent. During the opening of Oubliette we watch Carl Wade manipulating photographs of himself and Jacobs, placing their likenesses in a frame together and taking pictures of the result. Perhaps it’s just me but at this point I was expecting this to imbue Wade with some psychic power over Jacobs or to somehow alter reality by this photograph joining ritual. However as it turns out I was simply reading in to something that wasn’t there. Carl Wade is, for all intents and purposes, a ‘normal’ man, deeply disturbed but unremarkably average. We learn very little about him or his psychosis, as it turns out this is not his story. Aside from the opening sequence almost the whole episode unfolds from the perspectives of the victims, those being the abductee Amy Jacobs and Wade’s former prisoner, Lucy Householder.
Lucy Householder is played by Tracey Ellis who will return to play the title character in Season Nine’s Audrey Pauley, which to this date is still Ellis’s last credited acting role in film or television. Her time as Wade’s captive has left her emotionally scarred and she has never fully recovered from the experience. It’s in this character that the supernatural element weaves its way in to the show. Lucy suffers both for and with Jacobs, eventually sacrificing herself to save Jacob’s life. Though whether this was willingly or not is uncertain. Lucy seems more than hesitant to help with the abduction and shows no conscious influence over what happens to her physically when Jacobs is hurt. Although Mulder seems to suggest that Lucy intentionally saved Jacob’s life, my impression was that these sympathetic manifestations of pain were forcibly drawn out of her unwanted yet binding connection to her abductor. A tragic story of a woman who couldn’t escape her torturous past. Her physical symptoms and eventual demise can be seen as a literal metaphor for the life-long emotional suffering which a kidnap victim would endure throughout their lifetime, long after the event had passed. Ellis has a very wispy voice which grated on me at times throughout the episode though she certainly conveyed the broken vulnerability of a victim.
Although he professes to Scully that not everything he does and thinks has to do with his sister, this case in particular resonates with him precisely because of Samantha’s abduction. He is sympathetic towards Lucy and is convinced right from the beginning that she is a victim in this story. Duchovny delivers one of his most emotional performances so far in the series and was praised by critics and fans for this, many of whom cited his acting as the element which brought the necessary weight to the story. It’s a side we haven’t seen of the character since Scully’s abduction and it’s a highlight of the show. Thankfully, Scully doesn’t attempt to provide a scientific explanation as to how Lucy drowned on dry land, seeming to agree with Mulder’s reasoning which is rare, and an element I appreciated. Although Jacobs survives her ordeal there is nothing optimistic about the closing scenes. A bleak, though moving story about living with emotional abuse and the scars we cannot see.
★★★★☆
The X-Files Retrospective Project 