Fox Mulder
Character File
| Full Name
Eye Colour Weight Height Hair Colour Date of Birth Father Mother Sister Marital Status Address Phone # Badge # Password Social Security Weapon Nickname Blood Group Rank |
Fox William Mulder
Green 170 Pounds 6 ft. Brown 13th October 1961 (In Chilmark) William Bill Mulder (died April 14, 1995) Teena Mulder Samantha Mulder (abducted Nov 27 1973) Single Apt. 42, 2630 Hegal Place Alexandria, VA 23242 (202) 555-9355 JTT047101111 Trustno1 (Little Green Men) 123-32-1321 Smith and Wesson 1056 (9mm rounds) Spooky, Spooky Mulder! O Negative Special Agent |
Pre X-Files Career
Starting The X-Files
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I n May 1989 (Unusual Suspects) Mulder was a normal FBI agent, until he was sprayed with an experimental drug that caused hallucinations and paranoia. He started raving about aliens. At this point he had never thought about conspiracies and things, hence his incredulous "what?" as Byers begins to tell his tale.The following month he underwent hypnotic regression to find out what happened to Samantha, suggesting there is some relationship between the two. The X-Files themselves seem not to have been opened until the end of 1991, suggesting that Mulder has a good 2 years as an agent in Violent Crimes, working on his paranormal theories in his spare time, and, perhaps, getting more and more impatient with his work and nagging on and on to be freed up to investiagate what he really wanted to. |
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("Kill Switch" says that Mulder started the X-Files in 1990, but this contradicts both "Musings of a CSM" (the opening of the X-Files is discussed as a new and recent problem at the end of 1991) and the Pilot episode itself when Scully is assigned in March 1992, with Mulder's obtaining of the X-Files again described as "recent".)
At the time he started the X-Files, in 1991, he had a girlfriend called Diana Fowley, who was an FBI agent with knowledge about, and belief in, parapsychology. They did a few cases together. She later went abroad after they split up.
Mulder's Frequently Asked Questions
In "Fire" he explains his fear of fire, and says that "for years" he used to have nightmares about being trapped in a burning building. It's spoken in the past tense, as if he no longer has the nightmares, but he clearly is still scared of fire, so it's possible to read it as him being defensive, not wanting to tell Scully he still has such nightmares.
In "Aubrey" he tells Scully how he used to have nightmares and wake up in the middle of the night convinced he was the only person left alive in the world. Only the sound of his father crunching sunflower seeds told him it was only a dream.
In "Little Green Men," Mulder relives his sister's abduction in a dream. He starts awake at the end, and buries his head in his hands.
In "Aubrey", Mulder says to BJ Morrow "I've often felt that dreams are answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask." Scully repeats this line to him in "Paper Hearts."
Mulder shows Scully a video in "Our Town," in which an insane man talks about being taken away by the fire demons. He says he saw it in college and it gave him nightmares. "I thought nothing gave you nightmares," Scully says. "I was young," Mulder replies.
"Grotesque" shows a Mulder nightmare. Mulder is in Mostow's studio, in the darkness, surrounded by the gargoyle sculptures, just as he has been so often in his waking life. Suddenly he is knocked to the floor by the figure that chased him the previous night, and looks up to see Paterson and Nemhauser looking down at him dispassionately. Just as his face is slashed deeply with the craft knife, he wakes up, fully clothed and covered with sweat, on his couch.
"Paper Hearts" is very much centered around Mulder's dreams. He dreams of a red light leading him towards the bodies of little girls. The suggestion is that these dreams are somehow being put into his head by Roche, the killer - but also that Roche has been able to see into Mulder's own existing nightmares, such as of Samantha's abduction. When he dreams of her abduction, he stands in the dream and repeats the lines of dialogue with a very weary air as if thinking "not again!", suggesting it is a recurring nightmare. He awakens screaming "Samantha!". Elsewhere in the same episode he dreams of finding a young Samantha, and hugs her, smiling with joy.
"Triangle" is also (probably) a glimpse into Mulder's subconscious. While a few people wonder if the whole thing really did happen (reincarnation explaining why so many people in 1939 look just like Mulder's acquaintances) most take it as a dream. (At the end, Mulder has a bruise just where "Scully" hit him, in 1939, but it is to be assumed that he was floating around lots of wreckage. People often incorporate real noises and things into dreams, so maybe his dream took all the bruises and bashes he was suffering and turned them into beating from Germans, and from Scully.)
As a dream, it can reveal interesting things about how Mulder sees the people around him. Spender and CSM as evil; Skinner looking like an enemy but turning out good in the end; Kersh as independent but out for himself; Scully as heroic, feisty and desirable.
But did Mulder also dream the Scully scenes, set in 1998? Scully and the LGM did find Mulder, but did it happen as we saw it? Scully was very hyperactive, rushing around utterly focused on finding Mulder, acting unlike her normal restraint. This is rather like she was in Mulder's version of "Bad Blood", and the dream Scully in "Kill Switch". If Mulder dreamt this too, it shows he sees Scully as heroically saving him, brooking no opposition. It also shows that he sees CSM, Spender, Fowley and (maybe) Kersh as all in league against him - Mulder's paranoia showing itself again.
On more sure ground, "Dreamland I" shows that, once again, Mulder dreams about Scully. When stuck in a MIB's body, he falls asleep in front of soft porn, and calls out for Scully in his sleep...
"Pilot" has him out jogging at some utterly unearthly hour of the morning. Scully is up too, working, though she tells him she's not losing any sleep over the case. Not insomnia, as such, but a severe case of being up and bouncing with energy at some ungodly hour.
He is frequently up all night on cases, but that's not so much insomnia as hyperactivity, perhaps. However, in "3", when he doesn't bother checking into a hotel, he says he no longer sleeps at all - presumably a reaction to Scully's disappearance, and patently untrue anyway, as we see him asleep later in the same episode.
In "War of the Coprophages," he called Scully complaining that he couldn't sleep, due to imagining cockroaches up his nose. In "Clyde Bruckman" he doesn't sleep, due to Clyde's gruesome bedtime story, and looks pretty rough the next morning.
This whole sleeping on the couch thing: It is said by insomniacs that a good method they use to fall asleep in to slowly relax in front of the television, letting sleep slowly take them, rather than actually going to bed. Mulder is seen asleep, fully clothed, in front of the television several times. In "Tooms" we know that he spent the whole night there, right through to morning. He does the same, in "Dreamland I", when stuck in a MIB's body. He falls asleep in front of soft porn on the TV, calls out Scully's name, and is found by his "wife" in the morning, with the TV still on. (Of course, he could very well be sleeping on the couch to avoid having to get into bed with someone who is really another man's wife, even though she thnks Mulder is a her husband.)
He apparently doesn't even have a bed. He is seen sleeping all night on the couch several times (Tooms is just one example) and there is an alarm clock beside the couch, on a small round table to its left (End Game). However, Mulder is seen in bed in "Jose Chung's From Outer Space", though much debate has centred on whether this is really his bed, or just Chung's imagining. Chris Carter has said this is really Mulder's bed . Certainly the decor (cream walls, dark brown wooden strip) is the same as the rest of his apartment complex. However, if this was his real bedroom, he must have got rid of the bed and filled the room up with junk within the next year (as it is in "Dreamland II"), when Eddie Van Blundht muttered "where do I sleep?" after surveying Mulder's apartment.
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In season six, though, the person who assumes Mulder's
body (in Dreamland) empties out the bedroom and puts in a waterbed, with
pillars and canopies and a mirrored ceiling. At the end of the episode,
everything goes back to normal, as if nothing in the episode ever happened,
but the waterbed (somehow) survives. Although Mulder is pretty vague about
how he got it ("it was a gift", he mumbles vaguely. ), he sleeps
on it, up until "Monday", anyway, some months later, when he
is made horribly late for a meeting by a waterbed leak. The following
night he sleeps on the couch again. |
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"Deep Throat:" Strapped to a gurney, forcibly injected with drugs, has his memory drained.
"Jersey Devil:" A beast woman tries to eat him. Ends up treated in the back of an ambulance.
"Fallen Angel:" Bopped over the head with a gun. From the fact that the screen goes black suddenly at the same time as the impact, I'd assume he's knocked unconscious. Then, at the end, he gets thrown across the room by an alien force and end up on crutches.
"Fire:" A little smoke inhalation, requiring him to be half-carried down stairs, oxygen mask clutched to his face, and pass out for the rest of the night.
"Beyond the Sea:" A small matter of a bullet in the thigh, which, by the fact that the blood spurts onto the white cross above him, seems to go through an artery.
"Darkness Falls:" Mulder and Scully both end up in the hospital in a very serious condition after being attacked by the killer virus. Scully is in a worse condition than Mulder in this one
"The Erlenmeyer Flask:" An interesting encounter with green "blood" leads Mulder to suffer from painful-looking eyes, nose and mouth. When Scully gets him back, he's unconscious, or, at least, barely conscious.
"Little Green Men:" After seeing the aliens, Mulder is unconscious right through the night until Scully comes.
"Blood": Slashed in the arm by a woman under the influence of a killer microwave oven.
"Aubrey": Bopped on the head rather hard with a fire extinguisher, then nearly killed with a razor blade.
"Colony" and "End Game:" Hit by a car, winded, and suffers serious damage to the cell phone. Then hospitalized for smoke inhalation, before getting released, then going off to get severe hypothermia and blood-thickening alien retroviruses. His heart even stops.
"Fearful Symmetry:" Knocked unconscious by a combination of gorilla attack and close encounters with a UFO. Still unconscious the nest morning when Scully finds him, but runs off hale and hearty as soon as she calls for the paramedics.
"Dod Kalm:" Nearly dies again. Once again, only just saved in the nick of time by Scully's research, as written in her log.
"Anasazi" trilogy: Poisoned by his own water supply and ends up with a high fever. Shot in the shoulder by Scully. Nearly frazzled to death in a burning boxcar, then spends a day out in the desert. Life saved only by Navajo mysticism.
"Clyde Bruckman:" Cut in the hand by the killer.
"Nisei" and "731": Beaten into unconsciousness by Red-Haired Man, who also tries earlier to garrote him.
"War of the Coprophages:" Cuts his fingers. Does require medical attention, though.
"Grotesque:" Slashed on the face with a craft knife, and requires medical attention.
"Piper Maru" and "Apocrypha": Hospitalized after crashing into a ditch and witnessing a bright light.
"Talitha Cumi" and "Herrenvolk:" Beaten up by X and the Alien Bounty Hunter, who drives a car at him then throws him hard against the car. Ends up muttering incoherently, in shock, though still on two feet.
"Teliko:" Felled by a poisoned dart in his neck, paralyzed and dragged through dark passages. What fun!
"Tunguska" and "Terma:" Whipped into unconsciousness. Injected in the back of his neck into unconsciousness. Glooped by black stuff into unconsciousness. Crashes a car with lots of blood everywhere, then spends the night unconscious in the undergrowth. Blown up by an oil well. Still ends up with only one small scrape to show for this.
"Unusual Suspects" (set in 1989): Sprayed with an interesting gas, and ends up naked and raving. Confined to the hospital in five-point restraints.
"Detour": Attacked by a tree-like creature and cut in the face and shoulder/chest area. Later he is shivery and cold (in shock, Scully says) and she has to snuggle him close to keep him warm. He gets medical treatment the next day, but doesn't need hospitalizations and is still on two feet at the end.
"Kill Switch:" Well.... After being shocked by a killer computer, he is hospitalized, described as a "crispy critter." His rather radical "treatment" involves chopping both his arms off..... Yes, it's not a real hospital, but a virtual simulation, designed to torture him into revealing information. In reality, though, he does receive the shocks, so is presumably hurt in some way in real life too
"Pine Bluff Variant": Broken finger. When it's broken, he yells and cries out, but later in the same episode he is very stoical when facing death. Scully deals with his finger, taping it up, so he doesn't go to the hospital.
"Folie a Deux": Hospitalized, but it's in the psychiatric ward, after his "delusion".
The Movie: Hospitalized after a gunshot to the head, though it only grazes him. It's a Scully special - that graze to the left temple that she always gets. It does, though, put him on an nasal cannula for oxygen, and he loses consciousness the second he's shot. Much later, after escaping hospital and running around and hanging off things, he faints.
"Triangle": He starts the episode floating upside-down in the sea, and ends up in hospital, with an IV, though able to sit up in bed. In the dream sequence, he gets quite a lot of beatings - perhaps his subconscious's attempts to explain away the bruises from wreckage hitting him.
"How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" - Shot in the chest - but it's not real.
"Agua Mala" - attacked by sea monster, almost suffocated, and ends up with weals on neck.
"Monday" - shot in the chest, but, once again, it's not real.
Mulder's attitude to hospitals
"Jersey Devil" and "Fearful Symmetry" both show him
running away from paramedics in order to react to a pressing lead on a case.
"Grotesque" shows him utterly unresponsive to a paramedic's advice on how to deal with his injury, and stomping off the second the paramedic has done the bare minimum necessary. But then he was not supposed to be acting normally in this episode.
At the end of "Darkness Falls", he is out of bed, still attached to machines and things, and asking about Scully.
In "Folie a Deux", when he is in a psychiatric ward under what he is sure are false pretences, he is very placid even when he is restrained, and when being injected with some drug.
Interestingly, people with medical experience have debated what was on Mulder's wrist at the end of "Triangle." Some have speculated that it's a sort of wandering tag, which works on a radio frequency and sets off an alarm when the patient wanders over a set point. They use them for old wandering patients, and patients known to get out of bed before they're supposed to. Given Mulder's sneaking out of hospital in the movie (for very good reasons, of course, since he had to get Scully back) it would be a lovely touch if they'd fitted a tag to stop him wandering.
In "Fire" he says, "I hate fire - hate it - scared to death of it." He explains how when he was a child his best friend's house burnt down and he had to spend the night in the wreckage to help guard it from looters. For years afterwards he had nightmares about being trapped in a burning building.
Does he face and overcome his fear in "Fire"? He certainly intends to but freezes in terror the first time he encounters the flames, even though he believes the safety of two boys depends on him carrying on. Later, when things start bursting into flames around them in the room, he seems to panic, lashing madly at the flames while everyone else.... well, stands uselessly doing nothing. He does manage to walk through fire to save the children in the end.
In "Firewalker" he walks into a volcano without looking particularly terrified, and in "Hell Money" he looks without shuddering at the bodies of people burnt alive in crematoria ovens.
5. Does Mulder believe everything?
"I have the same doubts you do", he says, in the pilot, and his poster says "I want to believe", not, as Blane has if "Jose Chung", "I believe." After all, the whole basis of the X-Files is finding proof for his ideas - confirmation for his belief.
He has a problem with religion, especially Scully's religion in "Revelations" and "All Souls". He is openly skeptical of what he calls fanaticism, saying they use the name of religion to support their wild ideas, and give people like him a bad name. "Religion masquerading as the paranormal has hidden some of the most heinous acts in history" he says in "All Souls", when he also questions whether God would let bad things happen to good people.
He also isn't so much the blind believer that he believes everything. As he explains in "Beyond the Sea", he doesn't believe that Boggs has psychic powers, even though he believes that psychic powers such as he describes do exist.
In "Gethsemene", though, when he is told that aliens don't exist and that he's been manipulated, his world collapses. He seems to genuinely consider suicide at this point. He emerges from the other side convinced that what he's been told is the truth, and aliens are made-up by the government. The irony is that he asserts these views at the same time as Scully, and even Skinner, believe that the evidence makes his new lack of faith even more insane and stupid that they ever thought his belief was in the first place.
This lack of faith in aliens, though, doesn't stop him from believing in vampires and such like. He is still the believer in MOTW episodes.
In "Drive", Crump, the man holding Mulder hostage, says angrily that the name "Mulder" sounds Jewish. Mulder refuses to answer this. Later, after Crump has raved about the Jewish-FBI-Government conspiracy, Mulder says "on behalf of the International Jewish Conspiracy, I just need to inform you that we're almost out of gas." Irony? Really, nothing is answered. What a surprise!
But then "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" shows that Mulder does hang up a stocking, watch Christmas movies, give Christmas gifts, and that Scully expects him to be finding someone to be with, to celebrate Christmas with.
7. Does Mulder have a photographic memory?
Another one that comes from "Fire." His old
flame Phoebe, playing with his mind, asks him to remember certain things about
their ten-year old relationship. "I'm cursed with a photographic memory,"
Mulder tells her, saying he can't forget what happened.
He's constantly able to go straight to the right X-File or book to find
exactly what he needs to show Scully at any particular time. There are occasions
when this memory seems particularly visual, if not photographic - such as in
"Genderbender" when he glances at some old photographs then, hours
later, can recognize people from these pictures, or in "731" when
he can say instantly that the book of Japanese found at the end of the episode
is not the one he saw earlier. Also, in "Synchrony", he is able to
quote verbatim passages from Scully's thesis, despite the fact that there is
no reason for him to have read it just recently before coming on the case.
In the other hand, in "Folie a Deux", the phrase "hiding
in the light" rang a bell with him, but he was unable to remember the context,
having to ask Scully to look it up for him. He didn't remember anything particularly
visual, like knowing it was on the top right corner of a page, or anything.
And does the fact that, in "Monday", stuck in a time loop in which the same day keeps repeating over and over, he seems to remember more than Scully does about the previous occurrences of the events have something to do with his better memory, or just due to his greater sensitivity to the paranormal, and his greater willingness to believe?
In "Wetwired." Mulder is unaffected by the television signals that have driven various people to murder and Scully to disappear, convinced Mulder is trying to kill her. The Lone Gunmen, having worked out the cause for people's strange behavior, are trying to work out why Mulder wasn't affected. "I'm red-green colour blind," Mulder says, holding up his tie as if in confirmation.
Of course, there are other reasons why Mulder could have evaded the effects of the television signals. He watched far fewer tapes than Scully did, for a start. Also, how can we tell he really watched the tapes, rather than some other <g> videos in his collection, assuming he'd carried them with him to the motel.
Now, in real life, all FBI agents have to have pretty rigorous vision tests before being allowed to join the FBI. No-one who is colour blind is allowed to be an agent. The only way round this one is to assume that Mulder was so brilliant that they were prepared to bend the rules to let him in. After all, as Skinner says in "Tooms", they were all talking about him even while he was in the Academy, and was rather exceptional right from the start - the "fair-haired boy", as Scully says in "Grotesque".
In "Roland", he grabs the correct shirt out of Roland's closet when Roland tells Mulder he wants to wear the green shirt; in "Nisei", Mulder points to the fluid issuing from the alien body on the video, correctly identifying it as green, and in "Paper Hearts" he has no trouble with identifying a red light.
9. Does Mulder keep dropping his gun?
He gets it kicked out of his hands during fights - Nisei, for example - or lets it fly from his hands as he is knocked over by baddies - e.g. Grotesque, when we see him desperately groping for his gun while Patterson is on top of him. He gets it stolen while he is asleep in "Paper Hearts", while sometimes he voluntarily puts it down to show that he wants to talk to the baddy he has cornered, not kill him - e.g. Sleepless.
"Nisei" shows that Mulder has finally noticed his problems with keeping hold of guns. When he loses one, he reaches down to an ankle holster and pulls out another gun, saying "I got tired of losing my gun." He still has this ankle holster in "Paper Hearts", when we see him surrendering it in order to get into the prison to see Roche. In "Folie a Deux", though, when he had his gun taken from him, he acted as if that was it, making no move to his ankel holster, implying that he wasn't carrying it at that point.
(In real-life, remember, for a law enforcement officer to lose a gun is a huge offense, especially if the gun later ends up in the hands of a criminal and is used in a crime.)
Though Mulder isn't a bad shot. We see him shooting on the range in "Pusher", and his shots are all very close to the center of the target. We seldom see him miss what he was aiming it, except in "Detour", when no-one seems to be able to hit those creatures. In "Soft Light", he shoots out the lights without any problems, while, in the dark in "Shapes," he hits the stuffed bear right in the middle of the head.
10. What does Mulder eat and drink?
Alcohol: Mulder seldom drinks alcohol. While he does drink in Syzygy, the whole point of that scene is to show that Mulder and Scully, like everyone else, is behaving out of character. Mulder tells Detective White that he seldom drinks. He was shown drinking in the bathtub scene in "Hollywood A.D.".
He does drink in War of the Coprophages. When the Professor has seen the fantastic robot insects he drains a bottle of whisky, or something. Mulder has a glass, which he does empty, though he is clearly drinking in a social way as he soon gets up and leaves the Professor to his bottle.
In Deep Throat, Mulder and Scully meet in a bar at lunchtime, and it is Scully that expresses her disapproval of drinking at lunch time. Neither of them appear to drink alcohol, though.
In the movie, After a bad day, he does get-pretty drunk, then - though perhaps not as much as the bar tender thinks. He tells her the entire background of the conspiracy. Not surprisingly, she thinks this is the ravings of a very drunken man, and throws him out. He seems sober enough when talking to Kurtzweil, though Scully, some hours later, can still detect that he has been drinking.
Other drink: "If there's an iced tea in that bag, it could be love." ("Tooms") Mulder likes iced tea, but drinks root beer if he has to. He buys orange juice and keeps it in his refrigerator, but doesn't necessarily drink it on time. ("Chinga")
Food: Mulder is an incessant muncher on sunflower seeds, right from the first episode. In "Aubrey" he tells Scully that his father used to eat them to, and theorizes that his own taste could be some sort of genetic memory. In "Anasazi" he asks for seeds while in his fever.
In "Jersey Devil" he tucks in to a huge meal, but he has been in the drunk tank all weekend. In "Red Museum" both Mulder and Scully have a large meal. Intense scrutiny of the sandwiches bought in "Ghost in the Machine" reveals that Mulder and Scully both have white bread, but that Scully, but not Mulder, also has a plate of salad.
What he is not, though, is a gourmet chef. In "Chinga" he goes to his refrigerator and opens it, finding no food at all in there, not even old cold slices of pizza or anything. There is, however, a carton of orange juice that is several months past its sell-by date.
11. What about Mulder's Women?
Was Mulder ever married? Mulder was wearing a wedding
ring in "Unusual Suspects", set in 1989, even though his personal file was seen as his marital status was shown as "single." We just
assumed it was an oversight and that, as Mulder was in so few scenes, DD forgot
to take it off. But, then, in "Travelers", set in 1990, he had that
ring on again, and went to great pains to show us.
It can't be an oversight on behalf of DD, and the crew - not twice. Mulder's
been in episodes in only a few scenes before ("Chinga", for example)
and didn't forget to take his ring off then. And it can't really be coincidence
that the ring appears only in those episodes which are set pre-X-Files. (Maybe
it was an accident in "Unusual Suspects", but, rather than trying
to forget it, they decided to go with it, either as a future plot, or just to
tease us.)
Other women, who definitely do exist, include:
Inspector Phoebe Green is seen in "Fire",
where he introduces her as an "old friend." He admits that he got
in too deep with her and paid the price. Clearly she hurt him in the past, though
it's not made clear quite how, and she continues to hurt him. "Sooner or
later a man's got to face his demons," seems to refer as much to Phoebe
as to his fear of fire, after she turns up bringing a case she knows will disturb
him. Yet just the next day he's looking at a double-bed, telling Scully not
to come up as he anticipates having his "hands full," and then kissing
Phoebe. He seems utterly shocked to find her in the arms of another man. We
don't know much about what they did in their relationship, apart from their
rather unconventional sexual encounter atop Arthur Conan Doyle's tomb in Windlesham.
Diana Fowley is seen in "The End", and,
like Phoebe, is another old flame. She has longish dark hair, and she was his
"chickadee" in 1991, when he discovered the X-Files. She was also
an FBI agent, with an interest in parapsychology. She calls herself a believer,
and she and Mulder did some investigations together. The Lonegunmen say they
don't know why they split up, but, whatever the reason, Diana took a posting
in Europe. At the time of "The End" (1998), she has only recently
returned, saying that there are things she wants to get back to. "Things"
seem to include Mulder, whom she calls Fox, since she muses on how much nicer
it would have been for him if he had had a believer as a partner.
Kristen Kilar is a vampire wannabe from "3" with whom
Mulder has a one night stand. He seems to be attracted to her as soon as he
sees her, but, from conversation, it seems as if his later interest derives
mainly from a desire to protect her. She kills herself in a logic-defying attempt
to become a vampire, as this is the only way she feels she can destroy the pesky
vampires who are troubling her.
Detective Angela White is an attraction based on the
rather odd planetary alignments, or, if you prefer, on the influence of alcohol.
Her cat is missing, presumed dead, and he gives her a comfort hug, which turns
into a neck nuzzle and perfume sniff. She then starts to strip off, at which
he looks truly terrified, and then jumps on him. He struggles, but it doesn't
look like it to Scully when she enters.
Bambi Berembaum: Pure animal attraction here. From the moment
he first sees her he's open-mouthed with lust, and behaves towards her in a
way that can only be described as Bimbo-esque. "Ooh, you are clever. How
fascinating!" he coos, primping his curls. Okay, not quite like that, but
pretty much so. She disappears into the sunset with a quadriplegic professor.
Melissa Ephesian: Allegedly his soulmate in past lifetimes in
"The Field Where I Died".
Marita Corruvubias: is not his woman. In "Tunguska,"
when she looks as if she's going all out to seduce him, he kindly shows us his
watch so we know he was only in there for under three minutes after she purrs
"how long do you have?" while dressed in her bathrobe.
Kersh's secretary: is not Mulder's woman. However, since she sleeps with the MIB who is inhabiting Mulder's body (Dreamland I) it is to be assumed that she thinks she is.
Plus, in "Little Green Men" there is a female voice on his
answering machine complaining that, after ages of asking her out, he has stood
her up on a lunch date.
"Jersey Devil:" Scully: "Unlike you, Mulder, I want to have a life." Mulder: "I have a life."
Mulder's work is his life. "Nothing else matters to me," he says in the "Pilot" and in "Never Again," he tells Scully the X-Files are his life. The occasions when he arrives at the office after Scully are few and far between. So many episodes start with Scully arriving in the morning to find Mulder already there. Episodes like "Jersey Devil" show him still working in the late evening, and the "Erlenmeyer Flask" shows him lounging on the couch at home, X-Files on his lap. Even as late as "The End," he is still saying that the X-Files are everything to him. He tells Skinner that his whole future is the X-Files, and tells Diana that they are his life, though he wryly adds that he doesn't really have a life.
In "Never Again" we learn that Mulder hasn't taken a day's vacation in four years. When he is forced to, he only takes a day or two before he is back. His choice of vacation? A pilgrimage to Graceland.
Scully phones him in "Christmas Carol" on December 23rd. While she has gone to stay with her family, he is still at home, alone, and has been out running. No sign on him going home to his mother, then. "Emily" doesn't start until December 28th, though, so that still leaves several days unaccounted for in which he could have done anything.
In "Chinga", he tries so hard to have a weekend off without work, but seems bored stiff. He stays in the office and watches dodgy videos and tries to insinuate himself into the case she's found for herself. He bounces a ball. He throws pencils at the ceiling. Although he pretends to Scully that he had a wonderful time getting on with work without distractions, no-one, least of all Scully, is taken in.
However, in "Dreamland", he says that the sort of life he has (always driving on dark roads following tenuous leads) is a normal life. He certainly seems more suited to it than the family-from-hell life he's landed with when he swaps with the Morris. Even when given the chance to live as a MIB, finding out the truth from the inside, he never once wants to take it. He only wants to get back to his normal life, suggesting that he does have a life, and it's more important to him than getting the truth at the sacrifice of his identity.
Does he have friends? The Lone Gunmen, perhaps, though we have no idea if he sees them socially, apart from discussing conspiracy theory over cheese steaks. Reggie Purdue, his old ASAC, was close enough for Mulder to be the only person Purdue wanted to read his unfinished novel. His old partner, Jerry Lamanna, embraces him, but Mulder seems rather uncomfortable with this.
But then, given how he runs away when Scully comes into his room with wine in "Detour", and how Scully seems surprised (in "Small Potatoes") at the thought that Mulder would want to talk to her about anything other than a case, it is questionable whether even those friends he does have are really friends - I mean, whether he talks about anything that resembles "normal" topics of conversation with them.
His interests include sport. He's a runner ("Pilot", "Deep Throat", "Blood", "Humbug" etc) and also swims ("Duane Barry"). He likes to watch football ("Irresistible," when his main reason for taking a case was for its proximity to a football match) and laments with Deep Throat that they could never catch a game together. Judging from the fact that he appears to use football tickets as currency ("Conduit"), one wonders if he ever actually gets to a match. He supports New York Mets in basketball (Mulder actually tears up that t-shirt for Boggs) and Washington Redskins in football ("Irresistible") He knows about football from when he was quite young, discussing the 1968 Superbowl with Colonel Budahas in "Deep Throat." When bored, or waiting for informants, he likes bouncing a ball in his apartment. And of course, not to forget Baseball (The Unnatural)
He watches old science fiction movies - or, rather, sleeps in front of them. He fell asleep in front of the original The Fly in "Tooms" and The Journey to the Center of the Earth in "The Erlenmeyer Flask" and in "Little Green Men" the young Mulder wanted to watch the 1970s series The Magician. He was shown watching 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' in Hollywood A.D.
He has never been seen to read a fiction book unlike Scully, though he can at least quote from "Moby Dick" ("Quagmire"), refer obliquely to TS Eliot ("Pusher" - "not with a whimper but a bang" and "DPO" - "April is the cruelest month") and more or less quote Browning ("The Field where I Died").
He seems to like classic rock. When testing Boggs's skills, he asked him to "channel" Jimi Hendrix. We never hear him listening to music at other times, though he does seem to enjoy the music on the tape the teenagers gave him in "Deep Throat."
He is a great fan of Elvis, judging from his pilgrimage to Graceland in "Never Again." Earlier, in "Home", he expressed great horror at the discovery of the newspaper announcing Elvis's death.
13. What does Mulder like to be called?
In "Tooms," he stops Scully from calling him "Fox" by saying "I even made my parents call me Mulder." Not true, actually. His parents both call him "Fox" ("Colony", "Anasazi" etc) Skinner calls him "Fox" in "Tooms," though this is the only time he does so. Senator Matheson, his "connection in Congress" calls him Fox in "Little Green Men". Perhaps he's shy of correcting his elders about his name. In "One Breath," he corrects Scully's sister Melissa but not Scully's mother.
However, Bambi also calls him "Fox", and his Diana Fowley does too.
Mulder also introduces himself as "Fox" when talking to children. When trying to put the girl at ease in "Paper Hearts" he says his name is "Fox", but maybe that was because Roche, the kidnapper, had used Mulder's name and already told the girl that he was "Agent Mulder." In "The End", though, he tells the boy, Gibson, that he is "Fox", and that the women with him are "Dana" and "Diana".
As for "Spooky": In the "Pilot" Scully says that's his nickname at the Academy. Whether this is from his interest in the paranormal or from his ability to be "three jumps ahead" on every case, which Purdue says was "scary" ("Young at Heart") is never explained. This nickname is used derogatively by Tom Colton in "Squeeze" (where Scully is also called Mrs. Spooky), by Reggie Purdue, saying he's heard the rumors about Mulder's paranoia. The nickname is widely known - enough for the nasty man in "Blood" to do a little research and hear of it.
Not content with nasty nicknames from other people, he bitterly calls himself "Monster Boy", in "Folie a Deux", when complaining about how he's seen as the person to look into any old boring vaguely weird case.
He seems to have a thing about first names. He only calls Scully "Dana" a very small number of times, usually when he's trying to establish some personal connection with her, or comfort her. ("Lazarus," "Beyond the Sea". "The Field Where I Died"), even calling her "Scully" to her own family. But then he does call Reggie Purdue "Reggie" and Jerry Lamana "Jerry". He even calls Krycek "Alex" once or twice, such as in "Ascension," when asking to borrow his car.
"Gethsemene", of course, asked us to believe that Mulder had killed himself, shooting himself in the head after learning that his whole life was a lie and that he had caused Scully's cancer.
"Redux" quickly showed us that he hadn't, after all. However, the fact that Mulder and Scully, when faking the death, chose suicide as a cause of death shows that it was not seen as being out of character. No-one, not even the skeptical Skinner, ever said anything along the lines of "Mulder? Killing himself? Never!" Moreover, "Redux" suggests that he was really considering suicide. Although we only see him with the gun to his head in the trailers, not the show itself, his voice-over, heard while he is loading his gun and crying, speaks thus: "My folly revealed by facts which illuminate both my arrogance and self-deception. If only the tragedy had been mine alone. It might have been easier tonight to bring this journey to its end."
We have no other evidence that Mulder has considered suicide, though he has certainly got very depressed. He blames himself for his sister's disappearance, and "One Breath" shows how he also blames himself for what happened to Scully. When he wanted to resign, gives up the chance of revenge, and then has reason to believe that Scully would die, he collapses in tears, then sits on the couch staring at nothing, a look of dead despair on his face. Later, when Scully is dying of cancer and her brother blames Mulder, Mulder accepts the blame, adding also that his sister and father were also casualties to his quest.
"Little Green Men" is his other lowest ebb, when the X-Files are closed down and he loses faith in himself and wonders if his whole life was about nothing more than illusionary "elves" - or "little green men."
Sense of direction: In "Genderbender" he wrestles with a map, holding it upside down then turning it around anxiously. He later gets so utterly lost that he crumples the map up and throws it away. (Scully catches it deftly) In "Roland" he starts to go the wrong way in the research building, and Scully corrects him. "Syzygy" starts with Mulder and Scully arguing over directions, and the opening scenes of "Quagmire" are based around the fact that Mulder has got lost and has to stop and ask for directions, thus meeting various locals who will play a part in the drama. Also in "Quagmire," Mulder seems to be rather out of place in the country, commenting on how dark it seems after the city, suggesting he's not a rugged outdoor sort of man. He repeats this sentiment in "Detour". Despite saying that he and his father were "Indian guides" back in the woods at home, he gets attacked, offers no helpful suggestions when Scully can't get a fire to light, and says that he's convinced that the whole of nature is out to get us.
Squeamishness: In "Ice," Mulder seems very unhappy with the operation to take the worm out of Bear's neck. He rushes off as if he is going to be sick, but presumably doesn't since he just brings a jar to put the worm in. In other episodes, however, he attends Scully's autopsies without any sign of being disturbed. Maybe he's got used to such things.
Then we have "Irresistible," when Mulder is quite untroubled by things that Scully finds horrible. This is perhaps the sort of thing Scully means when she says, in "Our Town," that she thought nothing gave him nightmares.
However, even in the fourth season, he's still more squeamish than Scully. In Leonard Betts, he appears rather unhappy (making faces and shifting from foot to foot) when Scully digs through the human waste disposal unit, looking for Betts' head, and downright appalled when she says she needs him to do it, as his arms are longer. In "Brand X" he doesn't look too happy at the corpse Scully's autopsying.
(Strangely, though, Scully seems more bothered by eau de corpse than Mulder does. There are several episodes when she covers her nose and Mulder doesn't - such as in the Pilot episode when the coffin opens up. )
Smoking: In "Dreamland", the MIB inhabiting Mulder's body asks Scully to buy him cigarettes - Morleys. "Since when did you smoke?" she asks, showing that Mulder has never smoked while she knew him. However, in "travelers, set in 1990, Mulder apparently was smoking. -In "Brand X" he buys a pack of Morleys on his way to work because the nicotine that had to be injected into him to kill the tobacco beetle got him addicted. (Scully makes him throw it away and the last shot is Mulder looking longingly into the trash can)
Writing reports: Mulder is fond of writing reports long hand, while Scully seems to prefer the computer. In "Folie a Deux" he is seen profiling, writing in pen on a yellow note pad.
Seasick: Mulder gets seasick ("Dod Kalm") Though he doesn't seem to be sea-sick in "Triangle"
Languages: Mulder can't speak Spanish at all well. ("Little Green Men"). He took French at high school, but wishes he could read Japanese ("731")
Going by the book: His tendency to break every rule going perhaps dates back to his first case when a fellow agent, Steve Wallenberg, died because Mulder went by the book. ("Young at Heart")
David Duchovny has appeared in this movies & shows:
New Years Day 1988
Working Girl 1988
Bad Influence 1988
1989 "Twin Peaks" 1990
The Rapture 1991
Julia Has Two Lovers 1991
Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead 1991
Denial 1991
Venice/Venice 1992
Ruby 1992
"Red Shoe Diaries" 1992
Chaplin 1992
Beethoven 1992
"Baby Snatcher" 1992
Kalifornia 1993
"The X Files" 1993-present
"The Simpsons" (cartoon) 1997
Playing God 1997
Evolution 2001
