What’s powerful about the link between Beyond the Sea and Elegy is how Scully, in both, reveals that her disbelief is driven by fear — not reason.

In Beyond the Sea, it’s the fear of letting go of her rational defenses in the face of grief. Believing Boggs could truly contact her father would mean opening herself up to emotional chaos. 

In Elegy, that same fear returns, but this time it’s about herself — about what belief would confirm regarding her illness. Accepting the supernatural forces at play would mean acknowledging her own mortality in a way she’s desperately trying to deny. 

In both episodes, she says almost the same thing: that she doesn’t want to believe. Once again, belief becomes something dangerous, not liberating. In these instances, for Scully, belief isn’t about uncovering the truth; it’s about the potential loss that truth might bring.

These moments in *Beyond the Sea* and *Elegy* show rare honesty from Scully, revealing how deeply personal in this cases her resistance to belief is. It’s not about evidence or logic, but about protecting herself emotionally. Scully’s struggle with belief isn’t simply a conflict between science and the supernatural — it’s a battle between her need for control and the unpredictable, uncontrollable aspects of life that she fears might shatter everything she’s built to cope with grief, loss, and the fear of her own mortality. Belief, for her, is a fragile and deeply emotional thing, one that she must navigate with great care.

The Cost of Belief: Scully’s Fear in Beyond the Sea (S1E13) and Elegy (S4E22)