The Hero’s Journey

By
LeFey

I have had a Krycek epiphany. There have been other moments when, magically, a new clarity of perception occurs and life changes. The Outer Limits episode The Architects of Fear taught me that love transcends the vanities of appearance.

Years later, Larry Bird narrowed his eyes after a particularly humiliating defeat by the Houston Rockets in the NBA finals and showed me what tenacity meant. My Mantra ever since: Narrow your eyes and don’t let Houston beat you.

Last spring I had one of those perfect, unexpected moments and Krycek altered my fantasy life, forever.

I have watched The X-Files since year one, becoming a regular viewer with the episode Miracle Man. It had all the elements that draw me to The X-Files: humor, character driven stories and a speculative spirituality. I am a student of mythology and Joseph Campbell. I believe that ordinary life is really bigger than life if you only look at it in a mythological context. Long before the creation of the mythology arcs individual X-Files episodes had moments of mythic proportions. And … Yes … I’ll admit I found David Duchovny tragically gorgeous.

I came very late to an appreciation of Alex Krycek. We’ll call it appreciation for now. I was too involved with the pregnancy watch, wondering how long 1013 could hide the obviously pregnant Anderson and what they would say to convince us that Scully suddenly liked baggy clothes. Because of this, I saw Krycek as a plot device. I was not surprised when he was revealed to be Cancer Man’s operative. In drama there is conflict and in the X-Files that conflict is a conspiracy.

Also, I found Krycek to be a transparent liar. Mulder’s suspension of disbelief towards Krycek was distracting. Alex’s duplicity was obvious but the script labored to keep Mulder gullible. (I have learned that there is a slash explanation for this but at the time I kept thinking, God, Mulder! You are so easy. Someone agrees with you and you grab your ankles. Wait! That is a slash explanation!)

And, let’s be honest. Nick Lea is a very attractive guy. Krycek. Alex Krycek as he extends his hand, salesman style, wearing a David Byrne BIG SUIT and a Mormon Missionary haircut, is not. But Alex changed and that is the quality that makes a Krycek episode more interesting than rest.

From the beginning, though, Krycek is intense. He has a barely controlled energy. Early on, the baggy suits made his gestures clumsy and exaggerated. Later we see that there is a power in him that can only be expressed in movement. He has a fluidity of motion that is stifled as he fawns over Mulder. His anxious body language as handshakes are not returned or the missteps on the train platform are like watching a bird beat its wings against a cage. When he morphs into the leather clad assassin he goes from eager to dangerous. His drive becomes manic and deadly. Alex has always been the perfect antidote for Mulder’s laconic personae.

I marvel at Krycek’s mouthy arrogance. He talks back even when silence would serve him better. Duchovny said he was attracted to the role of Mulder because of the character’s Fuck you attitude. I think Krycek is the one who embodies this. He doesn’t persuade, he confronts. When he is in harm’s way his first response is angry defiance. Alex is fearless in his anger.

And I think that anger springs from Alex’s self-centered view of the world. In my imagined backstory for Krycek, he is the grasshopper. He does not toil. Success and people come easily to him. A smile like his is not a natural occurrence, it is a tool developed from childhood. Alex is quick and clever but he does not apply himself. Things have been given to Alex, like the initial assignment with Mulder that he was not experienced enough to carry out.

The frustrated, spoiled child that surfaces frequently in Alex is both his undoing and his salvation. Alex is ill prepared to deal with his life as it disintegrates after Paper Clip. The distressed and debilitated Krycek we see in Hong Kong attests to this. He is scrambling to make a score, to reinvent himself and stay alive. But that is his strength, his fervor to survive. His troubles and his solutions are both a result of having been the pretty little boy with the long lashes who was the center of attention. He learned his value as the handsome young man who was the magnet for all good things. Krycek has always put Krycek first because the world has reinforced this. So, his life as a fugitive only intensified the self-interest that was already there. His life narrowed to truly revolve only around himself. The horrors Alex survives do not harden him but make him volatile, even more self-consumed and in the end empowered. Mulder will never reach that point. He wears the mantle of hero but he doesn’t have the heart to do whatever it takes to complete the journey.

That is why Alex Krycek is the true hero of the adventure. Alex has been called on the journey, along with Mulder, but unlike Mulder he completes the challenges and is changed. Alex has faced the trials along the way and been transformed into a primal being. It is this essential male, who gave me my Krycek epiphany.

I have a theory about art. I’m entitled to create theories since I have an Art History degree that is not good for much else. When you create art or view it, and by art I mean plastic to performance, magnet poetry on the refrigerator to No Theatre, and everything in-between, the only reward you can hope for is the elusive aesthetic moment. It is the epiphany in different clothes. Something sparks in you and synapses fire that have laid dormant and as they use to ask at EST "Do you get it?" and your whole being shouts, "Yes! Yes, I get it!" There is a harmony in that moment that is almost like falling in love. And like love, such moments are rare and precious.

We had a house built last year to replace our existing home. My husband and I spent four fun-filled months living in a twenty-two foot travel trailer with three cats, an economy size greyhound and no television.

We moved into the house in the time to see The End. I diligently watched X-Files reruns to see what I had missed during my forty years in the RV desert. And … Well… You never see the one that hits you.

Patient X.

Krycek had changed, again. You must remember I had only seen Alex the chauffeur, in The End, a cleaned-up, rather tame version of the rough trade boy. In Patient X he was emotionally damaged and lashing out. He played the arrogant spoiled child as he challenged Marita’s authority. He was abhorrent as he dealt with the boy, vacillating between brutality and tenderness. The strain of surviving had undone Krycek. He had become an unstable, manic animal capable of anything.

And then the truly unexpected happened.

Time slowed as Alex crossed the room towards Marita. In seconds, exposition was made unnecessary by a few swift movements. Questions and fears about what he would do when he reached her rose and were answered in a heartbeat. A history of conspiracy, intimacy and supremacy was created as he touched her. Alex Krycek was transformed, as no else had been on this show, into a powerful, elemental, sexual being.

I was, quite literally, on the edge of my seat. Sitting forward I let out a long held breath and was lost in the climax of the moment. I was reduced to a litany of one-syllable exclamations as I waited for the show to return

from commercial. I was transfixed and transformed from a fan to a Phile.

Now, I know that this is not the pairing most of us find appealing. That is not the point. I don’t care who Alex pushed up against a wall: Marita, Mulder or even Froheike (actually, I would draw the line with the little troll). This was amazing storytelling. This was enthralling television. And to paraphrase Gerard Manley Hopkins, Krycek was like shinning from shook foil.

I need to make an acknowledgement. I am fully aware that what happened to me was the work of Nicholas Lea. At every turn, the complexity that is Alex Krycek is due to Lea’s savvy as an actor. He may be self-effacing in interviews but he knows exactly how to showcase himself. The staging of the scenes with Marita was his idea. As that smile attests, he is familiar with all the emotional buttons and how to push them.

After Patient X I spent hours on the net trying to find out what would happen next, gleaning biographical information about Nick Lea and satisfying my new found hunger for anything Krycek. During my search I discovered fanfiction, slash and amazing things about myself.

I am immersed and enjoying the whole Escher world of X-Files websites and slash fiction. There was a time when I didn’t contemplate the background, whereabouts and the feral beauty of Alex Krycek. But he gave me that moment and now I am on my own journey.

Having a wonderful time!

Wish I had been here sooner.