A two-parter like no other, penned by the trio John Gillnitz (Shiban, Gilligan, Spotnitz), Christmas Carol/Emily is the natural mythological outcome of the Scully arc. After being abducted (2X06: Ascension) and left barren because of experiments conducted on her (4X15: Memento Mori), Scully finds that her ova has been used to create children. After too many Mulder-centric episodes, we finally get a Scully one. The first part, Christmas Carol, entirely centered around Scully (Mulder barely appears), is a superb depiction of Scully’s emotional distress in an intimist atmosphere unique for the X-Files; many dream sequences and memories from the past haunt Scully in what should have been a Christmas full of joy. The second part is much more like a normal XF mythology episode, with experiments, hybrids and green ooze.

The villa of Dr. Calderon

After discovering Scully’s ova in 4X15: Memento Mori (and taking a vial), Mulder kept this information to himself; Scully discovers this in shock. The investigation in the case of Emily Sim leads Mulder to a villa full of elderly people, a kind of convalescent home run by Dr. Calderon, Emily’s doctor. There, Mulder discovers entire embryos created from Scully’s ova. He steals what looks like a liquid solution with hybrid genetic material (the same material Emily was injected with in the hospital); Mulder keeps it for himself once again. There will be no more word of this later in the series — probably the alien biological material decays after a short period (as in 2X10: Red Museum). The embryos are bathing in a green liquid and look much like the embryos from 2X16: Colony which are later placed in vats and tanks. These have to be hybrid embryos, created from the ova of the abducted women like other unsuccessful and cloned hybrids we’ve seen before. Periodically, the elderly women in Calderon’s villa are told that they’ll be put into their “beauty sleep“: they’re put to sleep and are administered a treatment that they’re told “take[s] off years from [their] appearance“. The truth is quite different; indeed, Anna Fugazzi claims she’s 71 but looks rather older. The elder women are used as biological vessels for bringing hybrid babies to maturity: the hybrid embryos are inserted in vivo during their drug-induced sleep. The women are given PMZ 200 and Duratab; these are the hormones estrogen and pretosterone, the quintessential female hormones that a normal pregnant woman have “in abundance“, only women that age would need them to be provided externally to carry out a normal pregnancy. The grown embryo in the flask that Mulder saw was perhaps another way to produce these babies, in vitro.

Second-generation hybrids

These babies are not like the hybrids encountered before (2X17: End Game or 4X15: Memento Mori). The previous ones used an enucleated ova and a hybrid nucleus made from the fusion of the DNA from another human being, and alien DNA; the Kurt Crawfords in Memento Mori were not genetically related to Scully. Emily was the genetic daughter of Dana Scully, so she wasn’t made from an enucleated egg: it was one of Scully’s eggs, with Scully’s DNA in its nucleus, that was really fertilized. Moreover, conventional blood tests and a host of other tests were made on Emily, as on any normal human being, so she didn’t have the body chemistry of the ‘green blood’ hybrids (at least, not in the beginning). She can’t have been entirely human from the beginning, because it would have been much easier to experiment on a random child of the general population rather than to go to great lengths to create a baby from abductees’ eggs. So she must have been in part alien from the beginning, only less so than the clone hybrids encountered before. Her physical similarity with Melissa Scully when she was young just comes from family ties.

This was achieved in two steps. A hybrid cell nucleus was first created, like with the cloned hybrids. Instead of replacing the nucleus of an ova and replacing it with this new nucleus, the two nuclei were fused together: the egg was fertilized by the hybrid nucleus (which acts here as a substitute to sperm). With two successive mixing of genes (one in the ‘sperm’, one in the fertilization of Scully’s egg), this is a second-generation hybrid and the resulting embryo carries less alien material than a cloned hybrid — a ‘light’ hybrid.

These babies were gestated and born to surrogate mothers, unlike the cloned hybrids, which are entirely grown in vats and tanks. The subsequent experiments conducted on the embryos, babies and children are made with the purpose to achieve a successful hybrid through gene therapy. Babies like Emily are ‘slightly’ hybrid at first, and through a gene therapy treatment — the green fluid injections — that is researched, they grow into fully successful hybrids. The real purpose of all hybridization experiments (6X12: One Son) is to turn someone who is entirely human at first into a successfully viable hybrid. Thus Dr. Calderon’s program ran as follows: First, to turn a hybrid baby into a stable and successful hybrid child. Then, to create babies with a genetic makeup less and less heavy in alien genes, and to adjust the aforementioned hybridization procedure to each case: turning light hybrids into full hybrids post-birth. In the end, it wouldn’t be nesessary to have a ‘light’ hybrid to begin with, a plain human baby would do. With many iterations and successive adjustments, the definitive gene therapy hybridization technique would be discovered. This particular experimentation method was chosen because hybridization might be easier on a younger body — in the same way desensitization to allergies is easier at a younger age.

What is also likely is that this second-generation program was research of a way to make a different kind of hybrid. Mulder becomes a one-of-a-kind hybrid at one point, from a method much different than the one ‘usually’ sought for (7X03: The Sixth Extinction). In Emily, we can sense that Dr. Calderon was trying to turn Emily into a hybrid while preventing her body to show outside signs of alien body chemistry (the cyst appears only after the treatment has stopped). Maybe the treatment aimed at limiting the alien genes only in the pineal gland, as was the case with Mulder later on. The resulting hybrid would have an entirely human body chemistry, but present certain aptitudes of hybrids: mind-reading for example, and most importantly, immunity to the Black Oil. Indeed, what determines if a gene therapy hybrid is successful or not is its immunity to the Black Oil virus. But the human and alien elements were still not in balance in Emily’s body.

Continuity error (the cost of not keeping a Series Bible): Mulder states that back in 1994, Scully “was missing for 4 weeks“; in season 2 we had the impression that she was missing much more than that, perhaps as much as 4 months (August to November), not weeks. It is also stated that Emily was born in November 1994, at which time Scully’s ova had just been taken. Either this is another error, or children like Emily have a gestation period much smaller than 9 months. The latter is possible, since developing fully adult clone hybrids takes much less time than normal human development.

The case of Emily Sim

The purpose of the experiments is double: the creation of a successful hybrid using progressive gene therapy; and to see how well a hybrid will pass unnoticed while integrated in everyday society. After delivery, the babies are given up for abductions. Their condition is such that they need constant medical attention, so when they’re in their foster family the parents are drawn to seek out medical help; through apparent random circumstances, the doctors that are appointed as the family’s treating doctors are working for the Syndicate. This way the Syndicate can closely monitor the evolution of their babies and can continue the experiments under the cover of classified medical (though legitimate) research.

This happened with the Sims and Dr. Calderon. Calderon pretended Emily Sim suffered from “a rare form of autoimmune hemolytic anemia“, a blood disorder. Emily was added to Transgen Pharmaceuticals’ program of clinical trials officially dealing with experimental cures for rare diseases. Emily’s treatment over the years seemed to control certain alien elements inside her. She was tested on often, a true hybrid living among humans going unnoticed, perfectly infiltrated. Calderon’s job is double: like the ‘Gregors’ in Colony, he works as a normal doctor for Transgen and at the same time works for the Syndicate. And like the ‘Gregors’, he’s a cloned hybrid, executed with the alien stiletto. If you watch 3X24: Talitha Cumi closely enough, one of the Cigarette-Smoking Man’s henchmen that capture Jeremiah Smith at his workplace and bring him to his detention cell is Dr. Calderon, or at least a clone of him.

Once taken away from Calderon, Emily’s health started to deteriorate. It seems Calderon’s treatment prevented the alien elements inside Emily from spreading too fast and in an uncontrolled manner. Beginning from a cyst that appeared in the back of her neck, the ‘green blood’ typical of hybrid physiology started to spread through the nervous system and into the entire body. This back of the neck is central to all aspects of the XF mythology. The pineal gland, where the Black Oil congregates when it infects a body (4X10: Terma, 7X04: Amor Fati), is around the centre of the brain but not very far from the base of the neck. It could be that the hybrid nature of Emily was concentrated in her pineal gland, that area effectively consisting of ‘green blood’ and not human tissue (the hospital doctor says: “whatever it is, it may already have been present in some amount.“).

Without her treatment, the ‘green area’ progressively started to expand and replace the human parts of Emily and “depriving it of the oxygen it needs to survive“, “anaerobic channels following the path of the nervous system” — this being interpreted by the doctor as a “necrotizing of the tissue“, the death of this tissue because of the lack of oxygen. Scully and the hospital doctor, totally inexperienced with hybrid material, are unable to hinder its growth. The human, oxygen-based body chemistry is replaced from the alien/hybrid, anaerobic (ie oxygen-less) body chemistry. Could this be the reason why hybrids can ‘breathe’ (well, survive) underwater? (1X23: The Erlenmeyer Flask)

Mulder clearly states that the ‘green blood’ of Emily is similar to that of the Alien Bounty Hunter encountered in 2X17: End Game: “If Emily was someone’s creation, then it occurred to me that she might share the same body chemistry that we’ve seen before.” Emily, the Alien Bounty Hunter, the ‘Gregors’ and Samanthas, all share a common biology, this ‘green blood’ body chemistry (the relation of all this to the Black Oil will become clearer in 5X14: The Red and the Black and 5X20: The End). Like Mulder in The Erlenmeyer Flask and End Game, the nurse who performs a biopsy on Emily’s cyst is exposed to the toxic retro-virus in the ‘green ooze’. “So I had them put the ER doctor in a cooling bath like you did when I was exposed to this“, the means to fight the toxicity devised by Scully in End Game. The nurse survives, “in and out of consciousness“. Similarly, Detective Kresge is exposed to the ‘blood’ of one of the shapeshifters (an unfortunate event: why did he come to Dr. Calderon’s villa in the first place?); in the end he recovers too.

The purpose of Emily’s treatment

Emily’s condition can be better understood through Dr. Calderon’s official description of the disease she was cured for: “a rare form of autoimmune hemolytic anemia“. Autoimmunity is an immune response against one’s own body because the immune system failed to differentiate parts that come from the body itself (cells or proteins or agents) from alien/outside bodies (bacteria or virus or other agent). The body attacks itself.

In Emily’s case, the human immunity system attacks the alien parts in Emily, and vice-versa, on the level of the retrovirus or ‘green blood’ identified by Scully in End Game. This retrovirus that was present in Emily’s body because her own hybrid genome coded for it. An anemia is a deficiency in red blood cells (or erythrocytes), the cells that carry oxygen to the different body organs (thus a consequence of anemia is hypoxia, a deficiency in oxygen, thus the necrotizing referred above). A hemolytic anemia is a deficiency caused by the destruction of reb blood cells faster than the bone marrow can produce them. In End Game, we learn that “When the body’s exposed to [the retrovirus], it triggers a massive production of red blood cells.” The production of erythrocytes is like an immune response of the body to the presence of the alien retrovirus; the retrovirus destroys erythrocytes and the body produces them in great quantities in order to compensate. In Emily’s body, the presence of the retrovirus was such that it destroyed erythrocytes faster than the body could provide for. An autoimmune hematolytic anemia caused by hybridization that was supposed to be tempered and controlled by a continuous treatment.

From Emily’s evolution over the episodes, it looks as if Emily is being converted from a normal human being to a full hybrid (ie her entire body occupied by the ‘green blood’). The Syndicate shapeshifter that took the form of Dr. Calderon performed an injection on Emily. At first, it looks like the injection made her better; but later on Emily gets worse and ultimately she doesn’t survive the process. This ‘it-is/it-isn’t’ good for her aspect is hard to interpret! When Emily is taken away, Dr. Calderon refuses to give his help (pretending “exposure to litigation“) “so she may resume her treatment [with Transgen].” Did Dr. Calderon and his supervising shapeshifters want to keep Emily alive as long as possible or accelerate her death since she had fallen into the wrong hands? What transpires from the episode is that Emily was getting worse once without her treatment. Scully: “Who are the men who would create a life whose only hope was to die?” If she was to die anyway, then why give her an injection that would kill her?

The injection was part of her treatment, to keep her alive, in hopes that after the insignificant “custody matters” regarding Scully’s adoption of Emily were taken care of, Emily would return to the hands of Transgen and the Syndicate’s experiments. To preserve a valuable test subject.

The two shapeshifters

Who are the two shapeshifters that have close ties to Mr. Sim? We see them in the Sim’s house meeting with Mr. Sim. We see them watching the arrest of Mr. Sim from afar. When they visit Mr. Sim in jail (to kill him) they say they were his lawyers. After things get out of Dr. Calderon’s control, they kill him and it is revealed that they can shapeshift. They’re not Alien Bounty Hunters (all of them appear in the guise of actor Brian Thomson, see Colony for example) and they’re not Rebels (introduced later, see 5X13: Patient X). Using Dr. Calderon’s form, they continue his work. One of them injects Emily with her treatment. The other one monitors the elderly patients in the villa. The only other person capable of shapeshifting we have seen is Jeremiah Smith, who is established to be a genetically engineered successful hybrid (3X24: Talitha Cumi). And precisely, when Scully tries to catch the shapeshifter that gave Emily the injection in the hospital, he takes the form of an elderly man that we have already seen: the face that Jeremiah used to escape from the police at the beginning of Talitha Cumi! This is the second use of an actor from that episode, with the actor of Dr. Calderon, in roles that are important if you pay enough attention.

This is no coincidence: this is a nod to the viewers that the shapeshifters are of the same breed as Jeremiah. Successful hybrids, created like Jeremiah. These two are the executive task force of the Syndicate, sent to monitor Dr. Calderon and Emily through Mr. Sim.

Following 4X01: Herrenvolk and 4X15: Memento Mori, the Alien Bounty Hunter left a stiletto to the Syndicate so that it can deal with its internal problems by itself without having to call for the help of the ABH, a Colonist. In this transfer of power, the Grey-haired Man was in possession of the tool of destruction; now it is in the hands of these two hybrids. It is still a mystery why the Syndicate would entrust two hybrids with a stiletto — hybrids are famous for their disobedience. But perhaps this rebellious disobedience came from hybrids being used as an inferior work-force; these two have a certain managing responsibility, their loyalty is ensured with a higher rank.

Who killed Roberta Sim?

Mrs. Sim protested against the heavy tests from the beginning. It is even likely that Mr. Sim was in on the nature of Emily from before the adoption: he is the one that brought Emily to Transgen and Calderon (“Her father brought her to our attention.“). Contrarily to his wife, he uses everything in his power for the experiments to happen. Dr. Calderon says “[Mrs. Sim] filed the paperwork [to pull Emily from the program], but her husband later withdrew it.” She got economical compensation from Transgen to keep her quiet, but she didn’t. The Sims’ “wasn’t a happy household“; the neighbours had complained of the couple fighting and screaming. Urged by the two shapeshifters, and possibly helped by one of them, Marshall Sim commited the murder of Roberta Sim. He injected her and drugged her with the doritriptan prescribed to him by Dr. Calderon, did the killing and staged it as a suicide.

Meanwhile, one of the shapeshifters was covering for Mr. Sim by taking his form and taking Emily to Transgen (“Mr. Sim was at the doctor’s office with his daughter. He was there all morning.“). Mr. Sim called the shapeshifter to inform him of the murder, then called the police and disconnected the phone to complete the suicide setting. Events are difficult to reconstruct.

Normally, it would all have ended there, with Mrs. Sim’s death being foldered as suicide, if not for Scully’s obsession with the case — or should we say Melissa’s phonecalls. The opening of a murder investigation led Dr. Calderon unwittingly pointing to Mr. Sim as the perpetrator (through the doritriptan prescriptions); perhaps the eventuality to frame Mr. Sim was even planned by the two shapeshifters as a plan B when things would go too far. With Mr. Sim in jail, the shapeshifters had him sign a statement that made him the killer. Then they killed him in his cell to silence him, again staging a suicide. Emily would then be sent to an orphan center and then maybe to another family; she would start being treated again without any problem. Scully blocked Dr. Calderon’s access to her and started raising questions, so the only solution was to terminate the program. Dr. Calderon, having failed to keep the program a secret and having led Mulder to the villa, was executed.

Seasons 8 & 9 addendum : Hybrid or Supersoldier?

There’s been some controversy as to what nature the experiments depicted here are all about. The feel of these episodes is quite different from other mythology episodes, and we see no member of the Syndicate at all. Could these be experiments conducted by the alien Colonists without the knowledge or consent of the Syndicate? There was even more debate when word came out that a scene that was finally cut from 8X21: Existence linked Emily to the creation of the Supersoldiers we see in seasons 8 and 9. Indeed, a series of babies are created using surrogate mothers. Emily is a child that progressively turns from human to hybrid, with a nevralgic spot on the base of her neck, placed in a normal family that doesn’t suspect anything. The exact profile of the children born from from chloramine, the growing generation of Supersoldiers which is central to seasons 8 and 9.

Furthermore, Calderon was trying to prevent the ‘green blood’ biology from appearing; like William and the baby Supersoldiers, Emily would be a hybrid with human biology. As for the cyst, we know the ‘green blood’ triggers massive production of erythrocytes. Red blood cells are known to carry iron. Iron is necessary to produce a Supersoldier. Thus the presence of the ‘green blood’ wouldn’t necessary mean conventional hybrid, but a first stage before a Supersoldier.

It can be argued that nobody had thought of all these in season 5, but the same can be said of so many other threads of the mythology, the explanation of which is invented later in the game. But we can explain Emily without having to refer to the Supersoldiers or anything else not introduced prior to 7X22: Requiem! In order to tie Emily to the Supersoldiers, one would have to go at great lengths.

– First of all, the ova used to create the babies come from the abductees; these ova are in possession of the Syndicate (Memento Mori).
– The ‘green blood’ producing the iron necessary for a Supersoldier is an attractive argument, only that Emily suffers from hematolytic anemia, a deficiency and not an overabundance. To make a Supersoldier, few alien genes are necessary, and the body chemistry is human; with too many alien genes, you get the retrovirus and a ‘green blood’ body chemistry.
– By definition the Supersoldier program is a program of the alien Colonists, hidden from the human conspirators. Then the two shapeshifters, who seem to be Calderon’s superiors, would have to be either hybrids that are manipulated, or alien Colonists themselves. Alien Bounty Hunters. In no moment do we see them taking the shape of the familiar ABH (actor Brian Thomson), the ‘original’ face of the host of the ABH (see 5X14: The Red and the Black to clear that up).

– The fact that the hybrids are mind-readers discards any possibility of manipulation: Calderon would know if those were Alien Bouny Hunters he was dealing with. And given the rebellious nature of the hybrids-as-workforce, he’d make it known at least to the Syndicate. For the same reason of mind-reading, the shapeshifting Calderon’s superiors could not be manipulated by the alien Colonists into thinking that they’re working for the Syndicate when in fact they’re working for the aliens’ secret agenda. A hybrid would know the truth.
– The Syndicate keeps a close eye on the cases of the X-Files. They would know of the presence of the Supersoldiers through this case and would have started worrying years earlier.
– The scene from Existence was cut. There was a reason for it, maybe it was because Carter himself couldn’t make sense of these two episodes.
– All of this does not exclude the Colonists from using the results of the research conducted here by the Syndicate for their own purposes later on.

Emily is a Syndicate-led effort, part of the Syndicate’s hybridization experiments. The bottom line is that Christmas Carol/Emily do not add many new mytharc elements to an otherwise everexpanding hazy Syndicate — these are emotional episodes building on pre-existing mythology ground. Couple that with a storyline that is very hard to interpret in detail, and it can be understood why these episodes are often put aside when the Syndicate mythology is described.

The pain of Scully

This is an extremely emotional arc for Scully. Mulder takes this personally more than he would like to show to Scully (see how he explodes in violence in Dr. Calderon’s office). We get to know the Scullys much better. Margaret Scully must be glad to become a grandmother with the birth of little Matthew, son of Bill Jr. and Tara; with Melissa dead and Dana barren (and Charles, well, unaccounted for), the difficulty that Bill & Tara had to conceive must have been hard. Bill & Tara Scully live in San Diego, in the same neighbourhood the Scullys lived in when Bill, Dana and Melissa were younger. Dana reminds herself of family moments, like when she had visited Commander Johansen in San Diego (3X15: Piper Maru).

This is the last time we see the Scully family because of the move from Vancouver to Los Angeles after season 5 (we do see Sheila Larken, ma Scully, in seasons 8 & 9).

What to do of Melissa’s phonecalls out of her grave? “Dana? She needs your help. She needs you, Dana. Go to her.” Melissa summons her sister Dana’s help to save a child from heavy suffering. Something that corresponds exacly to the Walk-ins of 7X10: Sein und Zeit & 7X11: Closure, the spirits that take children out of this world when they’re in terrible pain. Was the Melissa of the phonecalls a Walk-in? Was it really Melissa’s spirit, that could have ‘turned into’ a Walk-in? Both answers bring into the spotlight the subtle spiritual world only hinted at in the X-Files (1X12: Beyond the Sea, 7X04: Amor Fati…).

With Scully hearing her dead sister and considering extreme possibilities such as Emily being Melissa’s secret child, Scully takes on a role normally held by Mulder: that of the spooky workaholic. She does not spend a single day of the holidays with her family in San Diego. As the counterpoint, Mulder is very down to earth (Scully: “I can protect her too.” Mulder: “Yeah, but who’s going to protect you?“). No Syndicate member appears and the words ‘extraterrestrial’ or ‘alien’ are never mentioned here. These are signs of the twist of faith that occurred with the Redux trilogy (4X24, 5X02, 5X03): Mulder being more dubious and Scully more open to the religious and the spiritual. A trend also hinted at in 5X06: Post-Modern Prometheus for Mulder (“I don’t even know if I believe in that stuff anymore.“) and in 5X17: All Souls for Scully, where she remembers again her experience with Emily.

Religious imagery is found in Emily as well: the last time we see Scully and Emily, they embrace in Emily’s hospital bed; this cross fades to an image of the virgin Mary holding baby Jesus in a stained glass image in the church holding Emily’s funeral. Scully, like Mary, conceived Emily without any intercourse; and Emily, like Jesus, lived a sinless life halted by a painful death. Emily dies and Scully organises a funeral for her. But in the final scene, she is surprised and shocked to find the coffin empty; Mulder turns around and is surprised as well, neither of them knew. Emily’s body was stolen, replaced by sand to simulate the weight (or ashes, to keep with with death symbolism); Scully just said “There is evidence of what they did“, but she is disproven. Only Scully’s cross is left, the only thing now linking her to Emily; Scully holds it thoughtfully, as in the sand desert in the episode’s teaser.

In these episodes, Scully discovers she has a daughter she knew nothing about, fights for gaining her adoption, only to powerlessly see her suffer and die, and having her body stolen at the end. She is given something she thought she would never be able to get, a child, only to have it taken away in the worse way possible. The Syndicate, not content to have ruthlessly desecrated her own body without her consent during her abduction, meddles with things around which she would like to build a wall, to protect and care for. By reaching their hand and taking Emily away, and what’s more not even leaving her dead body as a consolation, the last wall is breached and Scully is left alone, exposed naked to the world. “Alone, as ever“, as she says in the teaser of Emily, wandering in a sand or ash desert — the symbol of Emily’s empty casket.

Christmas Carol

Melissa’s voice: “Dana. She needs your help. She needs you, Dana. Go to her.”

Detective Kresge: “Agent Scully, it’s been… what? 4 hours? I was getting worried.”

Scully: “I’ve started to question my priorities since I was first diagnosed with cancer. I feel like I was given a second chance. Ever since I was a child, I’ve never allowed to let myself get too close to people.  I’ve avoided emotional attachment. Perhaps I’ve been so afraid of death and dying that any connection just seemed like a bad thing, something that wouldn’t last. But I don’t feel that anymore.”
Chambliss: “I know you are a trained physician and are aware of Emily’s medical condition. I want to stress to you, Dana, Emily is a special-needs child. According to her doctors, her condition is incurable. She requires constant care, both medical and emotional. The good news is, you have first hand experience of grave illness. The bad news is, you’d have to relive it through the eyes of a child.”
Scully: “I realize that. And I feel like I’m ready.”

[Flashback/dream]

Melissa: “There is no right or wrong. Life is just a path. You follow your heart and it will take you where you’re supposed to go.”
Scully: “God! You sound like a greeting card. I don’t believe in fate. I think we have to choose our own path.”
Melissa: “Well, just don’t mistake the path for what is really important in life.”
Scully: “Which is what?”
Melissa: “The people you’re going to meet along the way. You don’t know who you’re going to meet when you join the FBI. You don’t know how your life is going to change or how you’re going to change the life of others.”

Scully: “It says, definitely, that Melissa is not Emily’s mother, but that they found striking genetic similarities between Emily and Melissa, so many that they ran a test against another sample that they already had.”
Margaret Scully: “What sample?”
Bill: “What are you trying to say?”
Scully: “According to this… I
am Emily’s mother.”

Emily