Theatre of the Mind ~ Salvage
1. "Salvage" is loosely based on "Tetsuo," a 1988 Japanese horror film, where a man discovers that his body is slowly being turned into scrap metal.
2. What a pal. Just when she starts to cry, he splits.
3. Very cool effect.
4. Ray don't look so dead to me.
5. TWC1: Holy Flaming Cow. Maybe the next time DD duets with the Barenaked Ladies, he can sing, "It Feels Just Like I'm Falling for the First Time." Feels like the seventh time to me. With no end in sight.
6. Muncie, Indiana, Muncie, Indiana, Muncie, Indiana let me say it once again ... It's the hometown of writer Jeff Bell's grandparents.
7. Terrific opening of the first act with a shot of Scully approaching the car's mangled windshield, then cutting to an overhead shot of Scully standing inside the wreckage.
8. ACM: The first scene is the old Mulder & Scully formula tried and true. Except that Doggett has become Scully and Scully has become Mulder. I am her and she is me and we are all together? Doggett presents the facts and says things like "I hope you're not suggesting ..." and Scully gets all the one-liners like "Or certainly no ordinary man ...". I half-expected to hear Doggett say, "Agent, why are we here?"
9. MSRM: I know, deep down, she's thinking she learned that from you. Awwwww.
10. TWC2: Did somebody say men's shoes??????????????
11. Ipso facto [by the fact itself]? Well, I won't sit idly by while you hurl Latin phrases at me. Bring it on, Agent Doggett.
12. Nora must have been sitting in her house just waiting for this dramatic moment to run out.
13. Mrs. Spooky finds the body in the first dumpster she checks. She just knew.
14. Speaking of which, did they have a block party on this street last night or is there a sanitation strike in Muncie, Indiana? Lots and lots of trash ... probably more trash per capita [equally to each individual] than any other street in the state.
15. PSC1: Squeamish!Doggett? Oooh, that's a loss of Manly Man points!
16. Prima facie [at first apperance]: "Like a bowling ball."
17. Ray left the blood and the print post mortem [after death].
18. Ouch! I'm glad I don't have to shave my legs that way.
19. A lot of bowling trophies in the Pearce house. Guess that explains where Ray got his good grip.
20. Doggett delivers the news that Ray may not be dead, ipse dixit [an assertion made but not proved].
21. PSC2: So when the crematorium discovered they had no body, they just emptied the old Dustbuster into an urn to cover their butts? They never thought to report that to anyone?
22. Larina, the Halfway House Volunteer with the Heart of Gold. (She's a goner. Count on it.)
23. Lots of fiber in tin foil.
24. Another 10:12 reference. Okay, that's too many this season to be a coincidence. (And we all know about coincidences.) I think it's an homage to the fact that this X-File universe is just slightly off.
25. PSC3: A car can drive through you and leave barely a scratch, but a shotgun blast sends you crashing through a window and severs your arm in the process?
26. But luckily, you "bowl" with your other hand.
27. I guess it had to happen eventually: she's on his speed dial. Now I know about ad nauseam [to a sickening or excessive degree].
28. The Autopsy Day Two: What is taking Scully so long? And what has she been doing all this time? When Doggett asks about blue fingernails, she has to check.
29. All that Manly Man talk about serving in the casus belli [occasion of war] seems to have jump-started Doggett's New Yawk accent.
30. PSC4: And BTW, if you've seen guys holding their insides in their hands, I don't think you should get squeamish about a dead guy in a dumpster.
31. Doggett obviously read his X-Files Phone Etiquette Handbook carefully. No goodbye.
32. Using his trusty knife to try and regain some of those lost Manly Man points.
33. Larina, Larina, Larina ... memento mori [remember that you must die].
34. Nobody likes an alloys geek, J.D.
35. The scientists at Chamber Technologies (Chambers, Clifton, and Puvogal) are named after Jeffrey Bell's friends who are engineers.
36. Dr. Pugovel is the Eddie Van Blundht of the scientific crowd - except Eddie's "H" was silent and Pugovel has none.
37. The Autopsy - The Saga Continues: Scully is *still* at the morgue. This autopsy is gong on ad infinitum [without end].
38. The "metal men only happening in the movies" line was written in homage to Robert Patrick and his best-known role as an assassin made of liquid metal in the 1991 film "Terminator 2: Judgment Day."
39. PSC5: He might have her on his speed dial, and they may have implemented the "no goodbye" rule, but these two *definitely* do not give good phone. Whew!
40. The Scully Pregnancy Watch: We get a bit of a timeline reference here, as the paper Larina is reading includes an article about Clinton preparing to leave office. So that would mean this episode takes place in December or January (when I'm sure it is balmy enough to wander around Illinois without coats on, but that's a nitpick for another day). So that would make Scully around seven to eight months pregnant. She's wearing it well.
41. Who appointed Larina in loco parentis [in place of a parent] at this Halfway House?
42. TWC3: Scully is finally released from autopsy purgatory and is mirabile visu [wonderful to see] in a lovely blue turtleneck. Good thing, cause she stays in that outfit till the end of the episode.
43. Manly Men always root for the underdog.
44. Hey! You can't change from Latin phrases to colloquial idioms in the middle of the game!
45. Although Doggett says "dollars for doughnuts," the phrase, de facto [in reality] is "dollars to doughnuts" and means most certain or most assuredly. It was first found in America in the late nineteenth century.
46. I guess the decision to stake out this place was a priori [before the fact]?
47. Camera obscura [dark chamber]. That's why they whip out the Flashlightius Minimus [little ass flashlights].
48. That's good. Put the kids without kevlar in the front row.
49. PSC6: The Metal Man has been run over by a car and been blasted with a shotgun and lived. We've just established that we may not be able to stop him. So just because he stops banging on the door *both* Doggett and Scully order the door to be opened? No wonder they didn't get any kevlar.
50. I guess he *really* didn't want to go to jail.
51. TWC4: You can take the girl out of the science but you can't take the science out of the girl. Scully is simply fascinated as the blood turns to metal.
52. MMM: I guess use of knife two times in one episode is about as Manly as we're gonna get.
53. PSC7: I know it's very Manly but isn't dumping that drum of hazardous waste just a wee bit irresponsible? Even if you do get the toy surprise?
54. Metal Man in a Drum is pretty cool! And Doggett gets to utter another Scully classic: "Oh my God!"
55. It's always those wacky mad scientists and their silly experiments.
56. Nora's not too good at breaking and entering. Keep your day job, hon.
57. Poor Larina. She is now officially persona non grata [personally unwelcome].
58. Sometimes it's not about justice, it's about vengeance.
59. This is where Nora should say, "Noli me tangere" [touch me not].
60. PSC8: We were at the Pearce's house at 2:17 a.m., so are the accountant and his family just out joyriding at this hour? They don't seem to be too fearful ... till they see the metal man, of course.
61. This "tin man" doesn't need to ask the Wizard for a heart. He already has one. :::sniff:::
62. As Scully and Doggett do the voiceovers about a flicker of humanity left in him, Ray's flame is snuffed out by his own choosing. Requiescant in pace [Rest in peace].
You know, I was really hoping for a Metal Man/Manly Man grudge match. What a letdown! And now that the X-Files is ending, I know I won't get a sequel to this episode. So I guess I'm off to rent "Tetsuo II: Body Hammer" (1992). In this one, the Iron Man transforms into a cyberkinetic gun when a gang of vicious skinheads kidnap his son. Too bad I'll never get to see what Chris and Frank et alli [and others] could have done with that one. Of course, there's always the movie ...
After reading this, I'm sure you'll say that this TOTM was no magnum opus [great work]. Nolo contendere [I do not wish to contend]. It might be your theory that I should send along apologies, give you my regrets, try to make reparation, atone for my sins, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera [and so forth]. You know, I hate to ruin your beautiful theory with ugly facts, but ...
Terminus Est [The End]
Polly