One of the more notable episodes that was not directly related to the overall mythology of The X-Files from season three was Oubliette. Not because it is so great (I happen to think it is), but because of its parallels between the episode’s plot and the disappearance of Mulder’s sister. Maybe that is what makes the episode so great, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Some true story background from my teen years. In October of 1993, twelve-year-old Polly Klause had two friends over for a slumber party. A man broke into the home with a knife demanding money. He tied up Polly’s friends, put pillowcases over their heads, and took Polly with him when he left. A search went on for two months before Richard Allen Davis was arrested. He led police to the body of Polly Klause. In 1996, he was convicted of murder. On the day of his sentencing which ended up being the death penalty, he sparked national outrage by giving both middle fingers to the family and implying that he molested Polly before he murdered her. He still sits on death row, at least according to Wikipedia.
The case drew so much attention that Winona Ryder offered $200,000 in reward money for any information on Polly’s disappearance. There were few real-world cases when I was a teen that caught my attention like this one did. I can only really remember Jacob Wetterling four years prior having the same effect. Both cases struck fear into the hearts of kids, and Polly especially for girls. No one wanted to go out like that. We were officially in the stranger danger era.
It was this case that caused a change to the script of this episode right before filming started. Producers feared backlash since the girl kidnapped in the episode was scripted at the age of twelve. Polly’s age. They made a change and cast Jewel Staite so the character would look a couple years older. They wanted comparisons made to Samantha’s disappearance, not Polly’s. She was thirteen at the time, but they aged her up a bit with makeup.
Oubliette follows Amy (Jewel Staite) after she is kidnapped and imprisoned by mentally unstable photographer Carl Wade (Michael Chieffo). At the exact time of her disappearance, Lucy Householder (Tracey Ellis) collapses with a nosebleed at the fast food restaurant she works at. She escaped a similar kidnapping when she was a child, as it turns out. PTSD comes off this woman in waves and it makes her fearful and fragile.
Scully believes that Lucy has something to do with Amy’s disappearance since the blood from her nose bleed contains her own blood type as well as Amy’s. Scratches appear on Lucy’s face, and she goes temporarily blind right as Amy is tortured in the basement of her captor’s home. Everything that happens to Amy happens to Lucy. Mulder wants her to help find Amy, but she is reluctant out of fear because of her past.
When Scully learns that Wade was fired as a photography assistant after taking school photos at Amy’s school, she realizes this is their new lead. Lucy finally admits to her connection to Amy and informs the agents that Wade is the kidnapper from her own tragic experience. Scully still wants to believe that Lucy is part of the kidnapping and thinks Mulder is blinded by his history with Samantha’s disappearance.
A truck driver calls in a tip about the whereabouts of Wade’s home where he is keeping Amy, and it’s in the same area where Lucy had been held as a child. Scully finds this very convenient. The skeptic vs. the believer aspect of Mulder and Scully’s working relationship is run through a meat grinder in this episode.
Leaving Lucy with the police, Mulder and Scully attempt to intercept Amy at Wade’s home. Amy, however, is a fighter and found a way to escape. She runs through dense forest until she comes to a river where she is swept away with the current. Lucy begins to drown in the back of the police car, her lungs filling with water. When Mulder and Scully pull Amy from the river, they attempt CPR, but it resuscitates Lucy instead because of the connection they share.
Mulder continues CPR against Scully’s wishes. Then, Lucy dies, and Amy awakens and spews the excess water from her lungs. When Mulder sees that Lucy has died, he cries over her body. He tells Scully that he believes that Lucy sacrificed herself not only to save Amy, but to escape what Wade did to her as a child.
Watching this episode now, it still hits home. The fear is palpable with both Lucy and Amy as both actresses put in entirely believable performances. Mulder’s need to know what happened to Samantha strains his relationship with Scully who can’t wrap her head around two kidnapping victims being connected in that way. As an adult, the fear of kidnapping is still real in the era of social media where your movements can be tracked by anyone with a computer and basic Google skills.
Actress Tracey Ellis would return as character Aubrey Pauley in season nine of the show after playing Lucy in this episode. She had guest roles in many series including Star Trek: Voyager. Ken Ryan played a small part in this episode and was also in M.A.N.T.I.S., a short-lived 1994 sci-fi series that could thank its existence to the popularity of The X-Files, and two episodes of The Outer Limits. Michael Chieffo had a long career in both television and film including Roswell and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation both before and after his turn as Wade the kidnapper. (Told you last week there was another CSI connection.)
Who I really want to discuss is Jewel Staite. When she was cast, she was only thirteen, but they thought she looked older and used makeup to enhance that. The producers also thought showing too much of the girl’s ordeal would not go over well with censors, so it was good that they had Lucy’s character to share the trauma. Staite’s performance is one of the more memorable ones from the series as whole. It is no surprise that she has had a long career in television and film and has become a bit of a sci-fi icon. After a 26-episode run on Flash Forward and 16 episodes of Space Cases, she would have bit roles until 2002 when she landed the role of Kaylee Frye on Firefly which aired for one season on Fox. She would reprise her role in the 2005 film Serenity which is, in my opinion, one of the best sci-fi films of the 2000s, if not all time. Some of us die hard fans of the show and movie would like to see a sequel, but none have yet to transpire.
Staite’s other credits included Stargate: Atlantis, Supernatural, The Killing, Blindspot, and Castle with Firefly costar Nathan Fillion. I’ll also mention Resident Alien in which she guest starred in three episodes and it’s a reunion with Alad Tudyk, also of Firefly. She also stars in the show Family Law which currently has 40 episodes. Check out her work. There is a reason she is still around after thirty years.
Until next week, the truth is out there.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Becky Tyler Art and Photography 
One of the more notable episodes that was not directly related to the overall mythology of The X-Files from season three was Oubliette. Not because it is so great (I happen to think it is), but because of its parallels between the episode’s plot and the disappearance of Mulder’s sister. Maybe that is what makes the episode so great, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Some true story background from my teen years. In October of 1993, twelve-year-old Polly Klause had two friends over for a slumber party. A man broke into the home with a knife demanding money. He tied up Polly’s friends, put pillowcases over their heads, and took Polly with him when he left. A search went on for two months before Richard Allen Davis was arrested. He led police to the body of Polly Klause. In 1996, he was convicted of murder. On the day of his sentencing which ended up being the death penalty, he sparked national outrage by giving both middle fingers to the family and implying that he molested Polly before he murdered her. He still sits on death row, at least according to Wikipedia.
The case drew so much attention that Winona Ryder offered $200,000 in reward money for any information on Polly’s disappearance. There were few real-world cases when I was a teen that caught my attention like this one did. I can only really remember Jacob Wetterling four years prior having the same effect. Both cases struck fear into the hearts of kids, and Polly especially for girls. No one wanted to go out like that. We were officially in the stranger danger era.
It was this case that caused a change to the script of this episode right before filming started. Producers feared backlash since the girl kidnapped in the episode was scripted at the age of twelve. Polly’s age. They made a change and cast Jewel Staite so the character would look a couple years older. They wanted comparisons made to Samantha’s disappearance, not Polly’s. She was thirteen at the time, but they aged her up a bit with makeup.
Oubliette follows Amy (Jewel Staite) after she is kidnapped and imprisoned by mentally unstable photographer Carl Wade (Michael Chieffo). At the exact time of her disappearance, Lucy Householder (Tracey Ellis) collapses with a nosebleed at the fast food restaurant she works at. She escaped a similar kidnapping when she was a child, as it turns out. PTSD comes off this woman in waves and it makes her fearful and fragile.
Scully believes that Lucy has something to do with Amy’s disappearance since the blood from her nose bleed contains her own blood type as well as Amy’s. Scratches appear on Lucy’s face, and she goes temporarily blind right as Amy is tortured in the basement of her captor’s home. Everything that happens to Amy happens to Lucy. Mulder wants her to help find Amy, but she is reluctant out of fear because of her past.
When Scully learns that Wade was fired as a photography assistant after taking school photos at Amy’s school, she realizes this is their new lead. Lucy finally admits to her connection to Amy and informs the agents that Wade is the kidnapper from her own tragic experience. Scully still wants to believe that Lucy is part of the kidnapping and thinks Mulder is blinded by his history with Samantha’s disappearance.
A truck driver calls in a tip about the whereabouts of Wade’s home where he is keeping Amy, and it’s in the same area where Lucy had been held as a child. Scully finds this very convenient. The skeptic vs. the believer aspect of Mulder and Scully’s working relationship is run through a meat grinder in this episode.
Leaving Lucy with the police, Mulder and Scully attempt to intercept Amy at Wade’s home. Amy, however, is a fighter and found a way to escape. She runs through dense forest until she comes to a river where she is swept away with the current. Lucy begins to drown in the back of the police car, her lungs filling with water. When Mulder and Scully pull Amy from the river, they attempt CPR, but it resuscitates Lucy instead because of the connection they share.
Mulder continues CPR against Scully’s wishes. Then, Lucy dies, and Amy awakens and spews the excess water from her lungs. When Mulder sees that Lucy has died, he cries over her body. He tells Scully that he believes that Lucy sacrificed herself not only to save Amy, but to escape what Wade did to her as a child.
Watching this episode now, it still hits home. The fear is palpable with both Lucy and Amy as both actresses put in entirely believable performances. Mulder’s need to know what happened to Samantha strains his relationship with Scully who can’t wrap her head around two kidnapping victims being connected in that way. As an adult, the fear of kidnapping is still real in the era of social media where your movements can be tracked by anyone with a computer and basic Google skills.
Actress Tracey Ellis would return as character Aubrey Pauley in season nine of the show after playing Lucy in this episode. She had guest roles in many series including Star Trek: Voyager. Ken Ryan played a small part in this episode and was also in M.A.N.T.I.S., a short-lived 1994 sci-fi series that could thank its existence to the popularity of The X-Files, and two episodes of The Outer Limits. Michael Chieffo had a long career in both television and film including Roswell and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation both before and after his turn as Wade the kidnapper. (Told you last week there was another CSI connection.)
Who I really want to discuss is Jewel Staite. When she was cast, she was only thirteen, but they thought she looked older and used makeup to enhance that. The producers also thought showing too much of the girl’s ordeal would not go over well with censors, so it was good that they had Lucy’s character to share the trauma. Staite’s performance is one of the more memorable ones from the series as whole. It is no surprise that she has had a long career in television and film and has become a bit of a sci-fi icon. After a 26-episode run on Flash Forward and 16 episodes of Space Cases, she would have bit roles until 2002 when she landed the role of Kaylee Frye on Firefly which aired for one season on Fox. She would reprise her role in the 2005 film Serenity which is, in my opinion, one of the best sci-fi films of the 2000s, if not all time. Some of us die hard fans of the show and movie would like to see a sequel, but none have yet to transpire.
Staite’s other credits included Stargate: Atlantis, Supernatural, The Killing, Blindspot, and Castle with Firefly costar Nathan Fillion. I’ll also mention Resident Alien in which she guest starred in three episodes and it’s a reunion with Alad Tudyk, also of Firefly. She also stars in the show Family Law which currently has 40 episodes. Check out her work. There is a reason she is still around after thirty years.
Until next week, the truth is out there.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Share this: