Back in the day, Mulder would have put the kibosh on the killing. ItвЂ™s almost as if because odious people are the only ones losing their lives, thereвЂ™s no need for a conclusion. Band-Aid Nose Man is sinister and apparently very smelly, but heвЂ™s not exactly scary, and his targets, while maybe not deserving of death, are selfish and unlikable. Because the killings are secondary, that story line feels a bit incomplete. The point underlying the murders is the thread that leads us back to the dark lives that Mulder and Scully have tried unsuccessfully to leave behind.

Despite his efforts, Scully tells him, and herself, that we are responsible for the things we make (whether they be children or murderous phantoms). This is a man convincingly afraid of his creation but unable to stop the killing. The creature, weвЂ™re told, took a violent thought from his maker and adopted it as his purpose. The Band-Aid Nose Man, as heвЂ™s known, also appears sometimes as a graffiti figure, and heвЂ™s revealed to be the вЂњthought formвЂќ ( tulpa or tulku) of a street artist. He rips apart a couple of developers, some art thieves and a snooty school board president, carefully disposing of some of the body parts in nearby waste receptacles (though, as Mulder drolly points out, not in the proper recycling bins). Their guardian arrives in a garbage truck. The message вЂњYouвЂ™re Responsible,вЂќ emblazoned on a yellow poster, is the first image we see, which sets up gentrification and environmental apathy as villains and the homeless as victims in need of an avenging angel. The weight of responsibility - and the price of neglecting it - is also the theme tying together the two halves of this episode: ScullyвЂ™s torment and loss and the fly-swarmed trash monster terrorizing downtown Philadelphia. With the death of her mother, sheвЂ™s feeling her sonвЂ™s absence - and her own guilt over that absence - even more keenly. вЂњHomeвЂќ began the rumination, which continued with вЂњNever Again,вЂќ where Scully seemed to be turning away from the idea of motherhood to find herself, вЂњonly to discover a dark sideвЂќ she had been unfamiliar with, and ends with this episode, вЂњHome Again.вЂќ The story line is woven together by the thread of personal responsibility, something Scully fears she has abandoned in putting William up for adoption. Anderson had just given birth to her first baby, a daughter named Piper Maru, whose name would grace an episode in Season 3 and who lent her artwork to last weekвЂ™s episode). bedside, we flash back to ScullyвЂ™s own coma in Season 2вЂ™s вЂњOne Breath.вЂќ We see a much younger Mulder attending her as she fights her way back from the aftermath of what they thought was an alien abduction.

We are pulled swiftly and painfully back in the day and into вЂњX-FilesвЂќ mythology, with the death of Margaret Scully (a role reprised very briefly by Sheila Larken, whose stoical performances match Gillian AndersonвЂ™s, suggesting the origin of ScullyвЂ™s inner strength and reserve).ДЄfter Scully rushes from a horrific crime scene in Philadelphia to her motherвЂ™s I.C.U. Scully lost her husband (Season 1, вЂњBeyond the Sea,вЂќ which is also beyond creepy), and her other daughter, Melissa (Season 3, вЂњPaper ClipвЂќ). Scully was about the only person who called Mulder Fox. And she never pushed Mulder away, even when his exploits repeatedly put her daughter in peril. She supported her choice to leave behind a medical career and pursue her work in the F.B.I. Back in the day, ScullyвЂ™s mother was her rock. вЂњBack in the day,вЂќ both the concept and the actual phrase, are prominent in this episode of вЂњThe X-Files.вЂќ So letвЂ™s begin there.

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