This is a momentous occasion, not only because we’ve reached the last episode of Season 5 and will be tackling Fight the Future next. The X-Files is on Amazon Prime, so now I don’t have to watch on Hulu with commercials! (You’d understand my enthusiasm if you knew just how often I rewind each episode to replay scenes for this and how frustrating those pop-up blocks of commercials can be. I almost resorted to checking the DVDs out of the library!) We open this episode in Vancouver’s version of …Vancouver, British Columbia. (That’s a nice twist.) It’s a chess tournament, grown man vs. 12-year-old prodigy. Somewhere in the crowded auditorium, a would-be assassin is loading a rifle. Gibson Praise, the boy, hears garbled voices but can’t pinpoint the location. Boy Wonder declares checkmate and his opponent gets shot in the chest. Not sure which shocked him more, the chess move or the bullet. “The End” indeed. 
In Quebec, Canada, Cancer Man, whom you may recall has been living in a mountain cabin, has a couple of guests drop in for a visit. He shoots one and gets chased by another, who turns out to be Alex Krycek. The Syndicate members seem annoyed that he’s still alive, but want his assistance in cleaning up the chess mess. Assistant Director Skinner asks Mulder about his long-term plans, then lets Fox know Special Agent Jeffrey Spender has been given the chess player assassination case. You know, the one that occurred in a foreign country. Seriously, how does that happen, Canadian authorities just handed it over? It wasn’t even an American citizen who was killed. Unfortunately, it appears the apprehended shooter is an American, and even worse, a former government agent ... go figure. I like Skinner when he’s helping Mulder push buttons. Scully is already listening to Spender’s briefing when Fox and Walter show up. Mulder disproves Jeffrey's theories and gains support from fellow agent Diana Fowley, played by Mimi Rogers, the star of David Duchovny’s 1991 movie The Rapture. Sculder and Fowley head to a psychiatric hospital in Maryland to see Gibson. Diana mentions knowing Fox since 1991. Maybe that was a nod to their movie. If not, nice coincidence. Mulder plays the mean adult by turning off Gibson’s Simpsons cartoons (nice plug, FOX network) and trying to make him play chess, which is clearly the one thing he does not want to do. Turns out, Gibson is a mind reader and he has some fun by putting Fox on the spot with both Dana and Diana. Unfortunately, Scully is back in full denial mode regarding psychic abilities.
Mulder goes to interview the shooter, played by actor Martin Ferrero, best known to me as Gennaro from Jurassic Park, the lawyer who died on the toilet. (“I think this was Gennaro.” “I think this was too.”) Spender blocks his path, but Fox talks his way into the cell and plays good agent to Jeffrey’s bad agent. Mulder plants the seed of cooperation, then eats the shooter’s food. Back in the motel (safe house), Gibson watches The Silver Surfer, a FOX Kids Network TV series (had to do a little research to find that one). Poor Praise had to undergo a battery of tests while feeding the female agents’ green machines. A little rattled by Gibson’s psychic ability, Scully visits the Lone Gunmen while Cancer Man gets a death threat to the shooter. Dana initially wants information on Gibson, but zeroes in on her real concern -- Mulder’s “chickadee,” Diana, who was with Fox after he finished the FBI academy and when he created the X-Files. Mulder and Fowley discuss their past and Dana’s inflexibility when it comes to the paranormal.
Scully heads to Mulder and Fowley -- Fowder? Mulley? See, they wouldn’t work as a couple because the shipper names don’t flow -- sees them holding hands and leaves quietly. Dana chooses to call Fox from the car outside to arrange a meeting. While leaving, Scully almost backs into Spender’s vehicle. Jeffrey, meanwhile, gets sidetracked by Cancer Man, who offers some pretty self-serving advice. Mulder sees them talking but CSM gets away. Yes, the old, chronic smoker successfully ran away from young, healthy Mulder.
The next morning, Dana reveals her medical findings of Praise's brain to a roomful of agents. She discusses how Gibson is able to access parts of his brain that others cannot. Mulder is more succinct -- the boy may be the key to “all spiritual unexplained paranormal phenomena.” (That still doesn’t explain the existence of aliens, Fox.) The shooter wants immunity in exchange for revealing who wants to kill the boy and why. Spender and Mulder revisit the shooter who describes Gibson as “the missing link.” Well-Manicured Man is not happy about Mulder going to the Justice Department. CSM insists it’s just another part of the chess game. Poor Krycek is relegated to chauffeur duty. That must be driving him nuts.Gibson is up to King of the Hill episodes now. (Boy, the FOX plugs never end. Maybe that’s the real reason Mulder’s first name is Fox.) An insightful Praise points out how people think one thing but say something different. When Fowley arrives to relieve Scully, Gibson reveals he knows they want to kill him. Scully promises that won’t happen. (I guess that means it is definitely going to happen.) Meanwhile, the shooter gets shot to death. How’s that for irony? Someone also blasts Diana into a coma and kidnaps Gibson (at night).
When Sculder arrive at the hotel (in the daytime, what took them so long??), Skinner shows Mulder the Morley wrapper found in the shooter’s cell. Cancer Man hands Gibson off to the Well-Manicured Man, who refuses to let Krycek shoot CSM. Fox confronts Jeffrey and assaults him with the Morley wrapper. Skinner tries to do damage control, but it’s not looking good for Mulder’s future at the FBI. Meanwhile, Cancer Man has gotten into the FBI building, into Fox's basement office and into the unlocked file cabinets which contain all of Mulder’s investigation files. (Really, Fox? Your file cabinets are unlocked??? You had way too much faith in your office door lock.) CSM takes the Samantha Mulder file, runs into Spender, reveals he is Jeffrey’s father (in a way less dramatic way than Darth Vader revealed it to Luke Skywalker) and burns down Mulder’s office. Fox stares in shock at the charred remains while Dana tries to comfort him. Now let’s go see what other cartoon programming Gibson could watch on FOX in 1998 while he’s being held against his will: Ooh, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation! Toonsylvania! Ned’s Newt! Yep, never heard of any of these. Of course, if The Syndicate keeps him for a year then he can start watching Family Guy!
Sestra Professional:
So we've come to the end of The X-Files in Vancouver for the original run, and with that we lose a lot of the atmosphere that was such an integral part of the show. We will gain a lot of bright sunshine and a host of guest stars (no longer will Canadian actors such as Larry Musser play four different parts in the show over several seasons). But much like Mark Snow's music, that setting -- and its seemingly endless options -- proved invaluable in getting the cult favorite to this point.I still remember the excitement over fans in the region getting to be part of that last episode of the season as extras in the teaser, the chess match at Rogers Arena. Producers expected around 5,000 to attend; 12,000 showed up. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson took part in a Q&A as the company made a point to thank all of the crew whose tenure on the production was coming to a close with this ep.
But back to the actual meat of "The End." Characters are introduced who won't be part of the movie (Gibson and Diana), but will return for the sixth-season premiere. That's mainly because, as we've documented through Season 5, filming was done the previous summer with post-production occasionally intruding upon the ongoing serial. At least they figured out a fairly clean way to take Fowley out of the mix -- bullet + coma = no problem.
Let's say all is forgiven: We do get the Smoking Man back and how fortuitous that Krycek was the one hanging back on the initial assault on the cabin and not the one moving in right away. It makes for a nice little action sequence in the snow, though. (You reallllly should have taken the shot, Alex. You could have explained it away to The Syndicate like you did all your other screwups.)Ick to the knowing looks passing between Fox and Diana. Dana doesn't seem to be that aware of the vibes, at least not until she connects the dots on Mulder's FBI timeline. It feels both jarring and stilted to be playing a soapy angle after all Fox and Dana have been through, more personally than professionally. I'm really not interested, and I'm not even a shipper. One point given for Mulder telling her he's done all right without her and that Scully makes him work for everything.
You're insulting me when you should be taking notes: Then there's Spender. We just can't take this guy's side on anything. He not only goes against Mulder's theories, he doesn't even give our hero time and space to make his argument. As Fox aptly put, Jeffrey seems ambitious and arrogant. He spends six hours with the shooter and gets nothing, but still won't accept any help. Mulder smacks him in the face with a cigarette wrapper for something Spender hasn't done and we're still not on his side. This creates a hole in the foundation that won't serve the show as it strives to build up from here.Having said that, it's good to see Cigarette Smoking Man with a little bit of a weakness, namely that he wants Spender to pick up the game on his side of the board. He's putting his considerable powers on the side of a weakling, who is basically the opposite of an assassin willing to do exactly what he's told. And Sestra Am's right, Alex is just a glorified driver at this point. Albeit one whose instinct to take out the Smoking Man feels a lot truer to The X-Files than anything Jeffrey is doing or saying. The Well-Manicured Man also has lost a lot of the cache he used to have, his increasing dissatisfaction with CSM's methods -- which haven't exactly changed over time -- don't bode well for his future.
How's Little Carnac doing? The kid regrettably advances the course of the personal storyline -- "I know you're thinking about one of the girls you brought. One of them is thinking about you." We didn't need him to tell us Mulder has a dirty mind, we knew that already. Fox is right on target about him winning chess matches because he reads opponents' thoughts, it's a nice little moment later when Dana gets Gibson to admit he also likes the game because it's quiet.While decrying the psychic ability angle as a parlor magic trick, Dana gets a lot more traction by wondering who would want to kill a kid with that kind of advantage. Why wouldn't that boy be of interest to factions seeking to rule the world? I too have a problem with them whittling down the X-files to just Gibson Praise, although I believe the opposite of Sestra Am. There's something kind of alien about Gibson's brain having activity that was previously unheard of. Maybe the testing that the extraterrestrials do on humans has manifested itself within this boy and he is a missing link. But everything they've been working on for five years? What do Eugene Victor Tooms and Luther Lee Boggs and killer cats and chupacabras have to do with him?
The stage had been set for the movie throughout the season, all that was left in the finale was for the Bureau to officially shut down the X-files. Smoking Man, perhaps not surprisingly a raging pyromaniac, adds the final indignity by setting Mulder's precious files ablaze. The last move in "The End" merely caps off a heavy-handed chess strategy analogy overwhelming this episode beyond the means for working Fowley and Praise into the mix.
Guest star of the week: We have those two new characters factoring heavily into the action, but it's Martin Ferrero as the shooter who surprisingly makes the biggest impression. (In addition to the legal bits and pieces in Jurassic Park, he made a fine legendary director George Cukor in Gods and Monsters.) Arguably, the episode's resonance comes not from Gibson or Diana, but from this nameless shooter's emotions. He's cold and calculating before hesitatingly providing Mulder with the confirmation of his beliefs and ultimately suffering his expected demise.
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