Severed Review: "Orison"
By Skullhead

"Orison" was an episode that did not live up to our high expectations. It
sounded promising: Scullycentricity, CHarc compliance, and the inclusion
of the good ol' Scully-Nearly-Gets-Killed-But-Kicks-Ass-Instead ending
seemed to guarantee Gillian an Emmy nomination and the OBSSE
mailing list some drool. But it flopped. After it aired, there was much
wailing and gnashing of teeth on the list. At each other, mainly.

Aderyn: Hoo boy yes. I took to wearing a flame-resistant suit after a
couple of days.
Skull: Well, that would've been better than what you're wearing
now...what's with all the black?
Aderyn: <dignified sniff> I'm in mourning.
Skull: Oh, I'm sorry. Who for?
Aderyn: For Scully's hair.
Skull: What about her soul?
Aderyn: It's the same thing.
Skull: Well, what's that monstrosity on your head? It looks like a
conservatory fell on you.
Aderyn: Don't you know anything? It's a floral wreath. A certified
mourning accessory, according to my Bereaved Barbie packet.
Skull: You look like freaking Titania. Or even worse, Jean.
Aderyn: <gasp> How rude! Flowers aren't prancy. They're merely
decorative.
Skull: Well, don't come running to me when you find yourself
hoppity-skipping around, dressed in pink and chucking daisies out of a
basket.
Aderyn: ENOUGH. This is just the final straw. I will not be insulted like
this in such a public forum. I'm leaving this review and the entire
SVYRDMUL organisation. You don't have to bother unsubbing me, I
know the way out.
Skull: See ya!

I regret to admit that I am a little vague as to what occurred during the
first three acts of the episode. I know there were candles, and shampoo,
and I'm almost positive that someone mentioned something about a
priest. But all this has little relevance. The *real* episode began when
Donnie Pfaster, that freak from "Irresistible", talked his way into Scully's
apartment with a convincing impersonation of the Avon lady. The CHarc
desecration had begun.

Aderyn: <sob> Hold me.
Skull: Oh, you're back. Couldn't find your way out, huh?
Aderyn: Shaddup.
Skull: Do you want me to give you directions? I'll draw you a little map if
you like.
Aderyn: I've decided to stay ackshually. *Someone's* got to keep you
under control, Little Miss Elder-In-Waiting.

Abbey members watched in horror as Pfaster convinced Scully, clad in
jammies with no underwire and a very wrong pair of fuzzy bunny slippers,
to buy strawberry shampoo. And the situation only got worse - he then
proceeded to hypnotize our saint into thinking she was a Boy Scout. In a
heartbreaking moment, Scully took a pair of scissors and whacked off her
fiery tresses, a sure way to disguise oneself as a boy as long as one
does not have boobs or hips. She then crawled over broken glass in a
rite of initiation.

Aderyn: For a Boy Scout? Sheesh.
Skull: <sad sigh> Kids these days.

The final stage of Scully's transformation involved her perfecting the art
of tying a reef knot. Unfortunately she had run out of rope, so our
resourceful saint decided to use her arms and legs instead. Her butt got
in the way at one point, but chiefly her performance was extremely
commendable.

Aderyn: <sniffle> There's nothing that girl can't do.

Scully was so proud of her achievements that she attempted to call
Mulder in order to brag. Unfortunately, the punk was eating a gourmet
lunch of peppermint and fluoride at the time, so was unable to answer his
phone. Opting not to follow the logical route and try his cell phone, Scully
decided to ring another friend instead - Ted Danson, who delights
audiences everywhere with his detailed portrayals of another guy who,
coincidentally, is also called Ted Danson but is really a completely
different person. This is when the episode really got ugly. Ted hightailed
it over to Scully's apartment, quieting some baby sheep on the way, and
donned a red wig to distract Pfaster. Unimpressed, Pfaster demanded
that Ted demonstrate his machismo by changing all the light bulbs in the
vicinity and then smashing them. It is still open to debate whether it took
one Ted or two to complete this task.

Aderyn: Definitely only one. We only heard one bump as he fell off the
ladder.
Skull: I still think it was two. We saw the filament fall, remember?
Aderyn: There are some people who think Scully changed the bulbs for
him so that nobody would see her hair.
Skull: Not a bad idea, considering.

Pfaster's reign of evil continued as he used Scully's recent bulk-buy of
candles to light a fire, in which he intended to burn our saint as a
punishment for saving her country from certain doom. It was an
extremely dramatic moment: the room, very d'Arc due to the lack of light,
suddenly lit up in a blaze of flame, engulfing Scully in what was
undoubtedly a metaphor for the fire of her soul.

Aderyn: Oh, that's neat.
Skull: Good, ain't it? I just thought of it. It came to me in a flash of
inspiration and illuminated my brain with its heavenly light.
Aderyn: Must've been a short flash.

However, Scully was saved from this untimely death by a vision of
Abraham, who told her to attend both Sunday School and Catechism,
take communion in both an actual and a metaphorical sense, and let her
hair grow very, very soon if she had any expectation of going to heaven.
He then turned on the radio and disappeared through the phone in the
bathroom.

Aderyn: There was a phone in the bathroom?
Skull: Yeah. I guess Scully figured that other people had as much right to
call as nature did.
Aderyn: Oh, great. You've started with the bathroom humour. Wrap it up
before you organize a farting contest, okay?

Scully turned her attention to the radio and forgot her pain as the
heartrending strains of "Great Balls of Fire" reached her ears. She
became lost in a trance, amazed by how appropriate the song was to her
present situation. And meanwhile, across the miles, Mulder was listening
to the same song. "Goodness gracious!" he cried, leaping to his feet,
"Scully!" Running frantically towards his Porsche, Mulder suddenly
realised how much Scully meant to him, and that he wanted to have lots
of babies with her called Fox and Dana.

A short while later, Mulder rushed into Scully's apartment, extinguished
the fire with his tears, grabbed the evil Pfaster and shoved him into a
chair, tying him to it with several lengths of rope. He then seized a safe
from Scully's bedroom, pushed Pfaster into it, and locked it. Then he
arranged for a squad of police to surround the safe with several
bazookas at the ready. Scully, since she was emotional and traumatised,
didn't notice this situation until she had unlocked the safe and blown
Pfaster's head off. It was a questionable thing for her to do, but
completely understandable since she has a daughter who is dead.

Aderyn: Yeah, and besides, the freaky demon face made her do it.
Skull: Demon face?
Aderyn: Yeah, you know the one who grinned at her then disappeared?
Skull: Oh, the Cheshire cat. Gotcha.

The most unfortunate thing about Scully's crime was that she and Mulder
decided to mount a conspiracy about it, deceiving the entire American
public about what really happened. This had a false ring to it, in my
opinion. In real life, an uncannily attractive F.B.I. agent who chases aliens
and genetic mutants and freaky monsters and nearly dies a lot and gets
abducted by little green men and gets impregnated with hybrids and finds
spaceships buried in the sand and gets tubes with green goo in them
stuck down her throat would *never* be able to get away with shooting
somebody like that. It's a totally unrealistic premise.

"Orison" served to raise many pertinent issues, not the least of which was
how a pseudo-religious order that worships a fictional character can
justify its existence in the face of such morally questionable behaviour...

<Aderyn rushes over to the SVYRDMUL weapons arsenal>

...Indeed it remains to be seen whether the Abbey will ever recover from
such poorly conceived recent events. It may well be the case that XF is
just a TV show, but can the masses ever really reconcile themselves to
the fact that they worship a bald saint?

Aderyn: Hey Skull, hold still for a moment would ya?
Skull: Sure. Erm, whatcha doing with that spear?
Aderyn: Fear not my dear, this will be toootally painless.

<Aderyn trepans Skull>

Skull: OUCH! Now look what you've done, you stoopid moron.
Aderyn: Oopsie, I forgot the anaesthetic.
Skull: You've totally ruined my nice smooth cranium, wench. I'm going to
get you for this.
Aderyn: I do it all for you, Skull. Just give this a moment, I know it's
going to work. Any minute now those negative thoughts, the odd demon,
images of Bald!Scully, and quandaries over TBO's little lie will vanish like
a puff of smoke. Any minute now.
Skull: All that's vanishing is my blood supply.
Aderyn: Erm, why don't you go and lie down for a while. I'll finish off the
review for ya.
Skull: Okay, but maybe you should call the paramedics first?
Aderyn: Nah, I'll do that later...

...In conclusion, "Orison" was the ep that never happened. The Severed
reviewers deny all knowledge of its very existence. It wasn't televised, it
wasn't discussed, and Scully still has hair.

-end