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Monday
Directed by Kim Manners
Bernard: What the hell are you talking about?
Mulder: Every day you die in here and every day it starts all over again. You can't want this for her. It's hell!
The episode opens in a bank with Mulder shot and bleeding, while Scully tries to prevent his attacker from detonating a suicide-vest.
She fails, and they are all killed in the explosion.
And we come back from the opening titles to Mulder, waking up late after his waterbed burst and shorted out his alarm clock. He's late for a meeting, but more importantly he has to get his pay check to the bank so he can cover the check he had to write his landlord to cover the damages from the waterbed leak. A woman who claims to know Mulder tries to stop him going into the bank, but Mulder ignores her and heads in - straight into a hold-up and the opening repeats again. And again, as the woman tries again to prevent the tragedy.
Now, we ask you this: "Do you have a strange feeling of deja vu, such as reading this page before?". And if your mind has been blown from just thinking about that question, TV Tropes have officially ruined your life... in a way.
Tropes:
- And I Must Scream: Pam has shades of this from being trapped in a seemingly endless loop of time and aware of everything that is happening and going to happen while everyone else doesn't.
- Big "NO!": Scully (& Mulder on another repeated day) before the bomb explodes.
- Caught Up in a Robbery: Mulder goes to the bank to deal with a check and gets caught up in an armed robbery.
- Continuity Nod: Mulder's waterbed, acquired by Morris Fletcher while he was in Mulder's body in "Dreamland". When queried, Mulder expresses bewilderment as to why he has a waterbed in the first place.
- For Want Of A Nail: By managing to convince Mulder what's going on in the penultimate loop, Mulder ultimately decides to invoke a Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory before it restarts, which winds up being a major factor in the loop ending.
- Despair Event Horizon: Bernard accidentally shooting Pam causes him to cross it; he can't even bring himself to reach for the bomb switch.
- Go Out with a Smile: Pam having finally broken the time loop, dies contented.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: The loop ultimately ends when Pam, the looper, takes the bullet meant for Mulder. As such, he and Scully never really learn what's been going on.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: They are trapped in the time loop, and only one person is aware of it. Mulder and Scully only experience brief moments of deja-vu. Unfortunately for them, it happens to be on the very same day Scully is stuck in "the longest meeting in FBI history" and Mulder is having the best damn day of his life.
- In an interesting variant on the trope, each loop is different in very subtle ways (without Pam influencing it). For example, in the first loop we see, Mulder trips over his sneakers when trying to deal with his bed's leak. In the next loop, he takes notice of, and avoids them. He still winds up tripping over them though, but because he was walking backwards.
- Heroic Sacrifice: How Pam ultimately breaks the loop: when Bernard tries shoot Mulder, she jumps in front of him.
- Hero of Another Story: Inverted. Although Pam is the one who keeps looping, the episode primarily focuses on Mulder and Scully.
- Hope Spot: Twice in the penultimate loop: Pam talks Mulder out of going into the bank... but Scully still goes in looking for him. So Mulder shows up before Bernard can kill anyone, and partially incapacitates him. Unfortunately, Bernard opts to detonate the bomb anyway. This leads to Mulder deciding to invoke a Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: In the penultimate loop, Mulder partially incapacitates Bernard without killing him by shooting him in the shoulder, a split-second after the latter turns in his direction.
- Just Eat Gilligan: Played with. Pam seems to have tried everything she could have—drugging Bernard's coffee, calling the police, warning Mulder, Scully, and Skinner either outright or vaguely (after warning them outright didn't help). The loops finally end with her death, which she had no reason to suspect would change anything.
- Left Hanging:
- We're never given an explanation as to how Pam learned Scully and Mulder's names. Undoubtedly from an earlier loop, but still never explained.
- We're never told, despite how she is always at the house with Bernard before every robbery, how she managed to get away to take the tour of the FBI building to warn Scully.
- Poor Communication Kills: And so does good communication. Pam tells Mulder that in the loops where she explicitly warns him about the robbery, he charges in there to stop it, and "that's when things go bad." This forces her to resort to more oblique methods of warning them, which also failed.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: At the end of the penultimate loop, Mulder mutters "He's got a bomb." repeatedly as Bernard blows up the bank. As such, when he notices Bernard in the final loop, he subconsciously repeats it to himself and, acting on that hunch, calls Scully...
- Taking the Bullet: In the final loop, Bernard tries to shoot Mulder upon thinking he stalled long enough for authorities to arrive. Pam jumps in front of Mulder, dying seconds later.
- Taking You with Me: Bernard does this over and over again. Notably averted at the climax.
- The Teaser: Mulder's already bleeding to death on the floor. The Bomb explodes.
- Too Dumb to Live: The bank clerk is smart enough to surreptitiously trip the alarm during the early stages of the robbery, but apparently not smart enough to keep her mouth shut about having done this and not warn the crazy suicide bomber that he's got a police raid closing in on him. Predictable results ensue.
- You Can't Fight Fate: In spite of everything Pam tries, Bernard always ends up in the bank that morning.
- You Have to Believe Me!: What most of Pam's efforts consist of before the last cycle. She says she's tried more active ways to stop the events in the past, so she's probably just so beaten down by Fate at this point that this is all she has left in her to do. Mulder eventually does believe her and doesn't go into the bank, only to end up going there anyway on discovering that Scully has gone looking for him there.
Index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22
Monday
Directed by Kim Manners
Bernard: What the hell are you talking about?
Mulder: Every day you die in here and every day it starts all over again. You can't want this for her. It's hell!
The episode opens in a bank with Mulder shot and bleeding, while Scully tries to prevent his attacker from detonating a suicide-vest.
She fails, and they are all killed in the explosion.
And we come back from the opening titles to Mulder, waking up late after his waterbed burst and shorted out his alarm clock. He's late for a meeting, but more importantly he has to get his pay check to the bank so he can cover the check he had to write his landlord to cover the damages from the waterbed leak. A woman who claims to know Mulder tries to stop him going into the bank, but Mulder ignores her and heads in - straight into a hold-up and the opening repeats again. And again, as the woman tries again to prevent the tragedy.
Now, we ask you this: "Do you have a strange feeling of deja vu, such as reading this page before?". And if your mind has been blown from just thinking about that question, TV Tropes have officially ruined your life... in a way.
