The Ghostly True Inspiration For A Classic X-Files Episode
Needless to say, The X-Files was a show with many wild stories, some of which were more believable than others. For example, many fans are convinced that aliens are real, but predatory giant worms that attack you through the toilet seem like more of a stretch. The episode “Beyond the Sea” featured Scully getting ghostly visions of her father, and while that seemed completely farfetched to many audiences, this plot is surprisingly based on real-life research about how likely women are to see male members of their family after they pass away.
Real Statistic Fueled Scully’s Belief
In “Beyond the Sea,” Scully’s father passes away, and during the episode, she begins seeing spectral visions of the man. This was part of an ambitious episode that flip-flopped the main characters’ usual roles, with Mulder being more of a skeptic and Scully starting to be more of a believer.
For as wild as the plot seemed on paper, writer James Wong insists that it was based on a real-life statistic which “said that 75 percent of widows within three months have a vision of their husband, and 35 percent of mothers see their sons.”
Visions Of The Dead
Obviously, this was Scully’s dad and not her husband or son, but the logic still stood: the statistics claimed that many women saw deceased male family members soon after their deaths. Therefore, “Beyond the Sea” was written with that premise in mind, with the skeptical Scully beginning to see her dead dad and wondering what that might mean. Of course, in typical X-Files fashion, this was all part of a larger plot that challenged fans to determine which story they believed.
Questioning The Truth
In “Beyond the Sea,” Scully must process the death of her father at the same time that she and Mulder work with a serial killer, Luther Lee Boggs, who claims that he can help out with a recent kidnapping case using his (what else?) psychic powers.
Mulder had previously busted this guy and was very skeptical of his paranormal claims, but Scully experiences a vision of her dead father when she talks to Boggs, making her question whether there may be some truth to his fantastic claims. Near the end, Boggs enticingly offers Scully the chance to speak with her father one last time if she attends his execution, but she chooses not to do so.
A Master Manipulator
This decision surprises Mulder, who thinks it’s odd that Scully is so afraid to believe when doing so meant the chance to potentially talk to her father again. As for Scully, she eventually became convinced that Boggs was simply using knowledge of her father’s death to scam her, and she felt she didn’t need his so-called psychic powers to know what her father would have said to her. In this way, “Beyond the Sea” ends like some of the best X-Files episodes, allowing the audience, like our favorite characters, to choose what we believe.
Subverting The Yin/Yang Of The X-Files
“Beyond the Sea” was great fun largely because it flip-flopped the traditional roles, with Scully playing (at least, temporarily) a believer and Mulder (on this occasion, at least) being the skeptical one.
Thematically, this helped sell the Yin/Yang nature of their relationship and how even though “the truth is out there,” they can only arrive at it by approaching the paranormal from completely different angles. This maintained the tension the show relied on to become a pop culture phenomenon, with two attractive leads who learned to question everything except their devotion to each other.
