"In our investigations you may not always agree with me, but 
at least you respect the journey."

In watching this episode I realized, once again, how much I miss 
writers Morgan and Wong on the X-Files. They had a gift for telling 
a story on so many levels and giving the characters layers that 
lazy writing often forgets. In "Squeeze" they not only set an 
initial high standard for all the Monster of the Week episodes 
to come, but they managed to say some very important things about 
the characters of Mulder and Scully and their partnership in only 
the third episode of the series. I absolutely love the characters 
they draw here and the way they mold the partnership early on. If 
only all standalone episodes to follow had as much depth as what 
Morgan and Wong were able to give us and still deliver a creepy, 
scary episode we'd know much more about Mulder and Scully than we 
do today after six years.

From a pure "X-File" perspective, "Squeeze" succeeds as a scary and 
interesting story. It is still a tape I drag out to show an X-Files 
novice what the show is all about. Doug Hutchison manages to create 
a very frightening character simply by doing little and letting our 
imaginations take control. Donal Logue as Tom Colton is one of my 
all time favorite "love to hate them" characters. I've often wished 
we would see Tom Colton sparring with Mulder and Scully again. 
Unfortunately the only real FBI continuity we get from this episode 
is the snarky Agent Fuller who later shows up in "Apocrypha". 

The special effects in "Squeeze" were simple yet extremely effective. 
I liked the focus drawing leaching out of all color except that of 
the victim, and though by now we all know how it was done, there's 
something about the way Tooms looked shooting out of that vent at 
Scully's that still scares me. Sometimes it is the simple things 
that count, and a single shot of a face with glowing eyes in the 
gutter can be a lot more scary than a multi-million dollar lizard 
alien. 

However, what is most interesting to me in "Squeeze" is not 
the effects or the monster, but the character interplay. This 
is actually a landmark episode for establishing Scully. We learn 
that she already has a reputation of sorts by default through her 
dealings with Mulder - she's now known as "Mrs. Spooky". This was 
still back in the days when she had outside friends and was 
obviously liked and respected. What a treat to seeing her dishing 
with a pal in an upscale eatery (even calling other people's cases 
X-Files when Mulder is not around), bothered by what others might 
think the job she is starting to love really is. Scully spends a 
lot of time in this episode clearly establishing her place with 
Mulder. She defends him immediately as a "great agent" and is 
uncomfortable with the mocking that is going on even as the other 
agents accept her. Later, when offered an out first by Colton 
("Tom, I can look out for myself") and later by Mulder (which she 
playfully turns down) it is obvious she has decided her role is 
with Mulder and the X-Files. One of my favorite Scully moments of 
all time is in this episode when she first subtly threatens Colton 
for impeding their investigation and then, in classic Scully 
fashion, answers the "Whose side are you on?" question with "The 
victim's". That's a moment from the beginning of the series that 
defined Scully's integrity for me. Another grand moment was when 
they find a creepy hole in the wall and no bones are made about 
Scully calmly tucking her gun in and going down first. It was a 
case early on where the writers did something special by NOT 
treating the woman character special. 

It's also fun to see how this episode deals with the Mulder 
recognizing and establishing his partnership with Scully. We see 
the start of the interplay where Mulder tries to get a rise out 
of Scully ("do you think I'm spooky?") and she learns to steadfastly 
ignore this behavior. One of the most important moments, in my 
opinion, is that first parking garage stake out. Mulder shows up 
jeopardizing her stake out and offering seeds for no other reason 
than to taunt Scully - tell her she is wasting her time - that she 
is wrong. However, it turns out she is indeed right. Her profile 
was 100% correct and he admits it - more than once. I think that 
having this string of events happen early on in the series is 
critical because it teaches Mulder the Maverick that he has to 
listen to Scully, that she too can be right. It helps establish a 
balance to the partnership and provides the audience a reason to 
listen to the logical explanations along with Mulder. There's a 
certain jazz to the two of them later when they puzzle the case 
out together. I especially like the scene where Scully comes into 
share what she found about Tooms excited to tell Mulder. They are 
a team. 

By the end of the episode Mulder and Scully are firm in their 
partnership. While earlier Scully had the respect of her peers 
now Colton refers to her as a good agent in the past tense. She 
meanwhile continues to fight Colton on Mulder's behalf. During 
the Tooms struggle they apprehend him together. It isn't just a 
case of "Mulder saves Scully" - she's putting up a good fight as 
well and even quickly cuffs Tooms' hand before he attacks Mulder. 
The whole episode spoke of cooperation between these two - a 
wonderful dynamic to set the tone of the partnership early. 

Sometimes I think we glorify the early seasons of the X-Files 
because everything was fresh and new then, but in this case 
"Squeeze" deserves all the praise it has received over the years. 
It is so much more than a simple Monster of the Week. 

Random Musings
--------------

-Date stamp (from Tooms' arrest report): July 23, 1993. This was 
actually one of the initial timing brouhahas when we found if the 
Pilot date stamp were to be believed Mulder and Scully had been 
already working together a year. Later it became obvious because 
of multiple references that either Scully was completely incapable 
of counting how many years she and Mulder had been partnered or 
that the Pilot date was the problem and we should consider them 
partners since 1993, not 1992. 

-Most forgotten line from "Squeeze" by the 1013 staff: "You're 
down here too." 

-That George Usher really was a sad sack. How pitiful that his last 
moments were spent drinking old coffee out of a Baltimore Colts mug. 

-I always thought it was dorky the way that door handle jumped up 
and down repeatedly during the teaser attack. It's like they were 
hard pressed to make it look like something was happening behind 
to door and so were just doing anything. 

-As the coffee cup bleeds on to the floor we are treated to a 
keen reflection of Usher. The odd thing is that while there is 
blood splattered all over his office the only blood we see on 
the body is on his neck. That must have been pretty difficult 
ripping out his liver through his neck and managing to keep his 
shirt spotless. 

-Frank's Fashion Spot #1: It's tie wars in "Squeeze" between Mulder 
and Colton and Colton takes this round. His oh-so-hip neckwear is 
a riot and he even matched his polka dot lunch tie with the diner 
seated behind him in the cafe - now THAT is coordination. 

-I've often heard that the director of this episode, Henry 
Longstreet, did a terrible job of not giving the editor many 
choices and undershooting stuff. If this it true, they did a 
fabulous job of putting together the episode in editing. I was 
always surprised that what looks like a flubbed line by Gillian 
is kept in the final episode and perhaps this is the reason. When 
Scully is introducing Colton and Mulder for the first time she 
starts to call Mulder "Tom" then stops and corrects herself. 

-Frank's Fashion Spot #2: Scully fashion in this episode is all 
over the map and all over the color spectrum. While she looks 
very sharp in that gray suit she wears for the meeting and the 
lovely tan double-breasted number, this is still the days of the 
mix and match wardrobe as well. We get the patriotic outfit: red 
slacks, white top, blue blazer and the dressing in the dark outfit: 
green jacket and blue pants. Plus, they even have her in low heeled 
shoes almost the whole time and keep playing with her hair. 

-That clip of Scully typing up her profile at home is used at 
least twice more during the first season which is why it always 
seems very familiar. 

-Speaking of profiles this is one of the rare instances where we 
see Scully preparing a profile, and in this case she absolutely 
nails it. Too bad we don't get more of this in the series. 

-Our Little Sailor: "Mulder, what the hell are you doing here?" 

-I've always wondered why in the world Mulder was unarmed in that 
parking garage. I can only guess it was a writer's mistake before 
they found out FBI agents carry weapons off duty as well. 

-I guess that lie detector test snafu sent Mulder and Scully 
looking for comfort food. She goes through the scene following 
grasping a candy bar and he a bag of seeds. 

-The whole "look at me I'm Scully's plot device necklace" grab by 
Mulder never really worked for me. It just seems a pretty intimate 
gesture to have a fairly new coworker of the opposite sex playing 
with a bauble at your chest when you were just talking about him 
being territorial. 

-I always thought it was cute that in the scene after this we see 
Scully sucking on sunflower seeds along with Mulder as they continue 
their investigation. 

-There's also a nice early SRE in "Squeeze" when Scully tries out 
her "anti-Waltons" explanation to describe the time frame of the 
murders. 

-I'm glad even Mulder realizes that Scully is going to be head of 
the Bureau some day. My bet is it could be a lot earlier than 2023 
once they get this pesky alien invasion thing out of the way. 

-Speaking of timeframes, I just cannot swallow that Frank Briggs 
is as old as the script insinuates. He tells us he called it quits 
in 1968 after 45 years as a cop. Given the episode takes place 25 
years later this would put him at over 90 years old. Sorry, sticking 
a younger actor in a wheelchair does not make them look 90. 

-I also find it amusing that Mulder and Scully have to come up 
some stairs to what appears to be the second floor to find room 
103 and yet the hole in the wall leads to the coal cellar. Is 
the lobby entrance for the building at the coal cellar level 
as well? At least their entry into apartment 103 has been forever 
burned on our brains via the credits. 

-Boy that Tooms has a seriously scary sense of "trophies" - he has 
an obvious taste for ugly knickknacks: a snow globe, fan, pipe, etc. 
all share the space with a miniature trophy cup. 

-Mulder starts his long held tradition of shoving his fingers into 
any old foul smelling goo here. You would think the bile would have 
taught him a lesson. 

-In nitpicky trivia the building they use as an establishing 
shot for Scully's apartment is not the one they settle on later 
on in the series (plus how nice for Scully to find a spot right 
in front - I'm sure parking in the DC area is a snap, right?). 
Well, her apartment has undergone a lot of transformations over 
the years. I'm most sorry to see that lovely window over the bed 
go. 

-It's awfully dark in DC at 7:25pm in July, especially as an early 
time stamp in the episode around the same time frame showed it as 
still bright out. 

-Early Big Clunky White Cordless Phone Sighting. I don't know why 
I love that phone. I just do. 

-Insert film that never made sense: close up of the wires and 
number 403 with the word "Scully" written. We are expected to 
believe that our phone cords are labeled by name in the box and 
some sort of odd coding system is used in which 403 somehow means 
Apt 35. Whatever. 

-Frank's Fashion Spot #3: Guess this took place before Scully 
started her odd black bras with white shirts habit. During the 
gratuitous Scully tummy scene she's actually wearing a white bra. 

-Dinner at the institution is a scary scary time. It looks like 
Tooms is being served ranch beans, cream corn, a biscuit, and a 
urine sample. 

Autumn 
"Then I can't wait until you fall off and land on your ass."