Chris Carter described the opening scene—in which Scully discovers the truth about death, sadness, and sorrow—as "a way he would never imagined an "X-Files" episode to begin with", and that the related scene with Scully's tombstone was "a soft but beautiful opening" that "sets up the episode in a frightening way". The image of Scully in the boat was meant to symbolize "being tethered to something very tenuously, and that there was a chance for you to be cut adrift and slip into the unknown". Skinner facing the Smoking Man placed the character as "both an antagonistic and institutional figure" that tries to be both an FBI agent and an ally of Mulder and Scully—his refusal to allow the Smoking Man to smoke in his office "speaks of [Skinner's] alliances and allegiances to Agent Scully and his hatred of this man he cannot vanquish, he cannot get rid of, but he has to tolerate".