X-Files S11E4: It's always Something

Sestra Amateur: 

Good news: We’re spared more "My Struggle" nonsense and get to experience another comedic episode. Added bonus: it’s not only written by Darin Morgan but he’s also the director! In a Twilight Zone-y time and place, a very sweaty man is freaking out over the existence of Martians. He’s trying to tell a diner cook what he saw but it turns out, HE’S the alien! And the cook is an alien too!

Special Agent Dana Scully phones Special Agent Fox Mulder, who has been Sasquatching out in the woods. She confirms their dinner plans then wisely hangs up when he starts babbling like …well, Mulder. After the call, Fox realizes someone is trying to meet with him using the ol’ X-marks-the-spot trick on his window. Mulder meets with a sweaty stranger in a parking garage. The man, played by a very entertaining Brian Huskey, thinks Fox should know who he is but “they” got to Mulder and now he -- Fox -- doesn’t remember. They talk about the first Twilight Zone episode Mulder ever saw, "The Lost Martian," but the man claims that episode doesn’t exist.

Fox returns home to prove the man wrong, but it’s true: "The Lost Martian" doesn’t exist but Mulder still remembers it. Scully shows up while Fox is going through EVERY videotape in his house. While he babbles on about the first time he saw the episode -- complete with creepy CGI flashbacks -- Dana again chooses not to listen. She also finds the sweaty man in the parking garage and he affectionately calls her “Sculls.” Too bad Dana doesn’t recognize him either. 

The man tries to get her to prove he is real and he gives her a box of gelatin with his fingerprints on it. Of course, with the way Scully's holding the “evidence,” the box should have her prints probably overlapping his. She tells Mulder about this particular gelatin dessert which she thought she enjoyed during her childhood but was later told didn’t exist the way she remembered it. Fox starts babbling about the Mandela Effect, and for the first time in this episode, she’s actually listening to him. Scully also learns the sweaty man’s fingerprints were not in the system.

Sculder go on stakeout in the parking garage, waiting for the sweaty man to return. He arrives, calls himself “Reggie Something” and tells a tale of false memories which began while he was caring for his ailing mother. Reggie claims the Mandela Effect is actually known as the Mengele Effect. He learned from a vintage resale store owner about the intentional creation of the Mengele Effect to manipulate people’s memories. Mulder thinks it’s a parallel universe situation, but Scully quickly poo-poos it in favor of Occam’s razor (aka Ozzie’s razor). Reggie presents his high school yearbook which doesn’t contain any evidence he attended the school. He also reveals the store owner died by lawn dart. Too bad Dana doesn’t know what a lawn dart is. Then it gets weird.

Do you want to know who “they” are when it comes to conspiracy theories? Introducing Dr. Thaddeus Q. They, the man who knows how to manipulate collective memory. Dr. They, played by character actor Stuart Margolin, has had his finger in every known mental manipulation pie over the past several decades. Scully isn’t impressed with the Darknet video of Dr. They’s exploits so Reggie mentions Grenada. He was there as a med student when Dr. They tried to save an alien who crash-landed nearby. Unfortunately, the soldiers arrived and took the telepathic alien away. Good thing he spoke and thought English, huh? Reggie claims this was why HE started the X-files! (Dun dun dunn!!!!) 

Now we get to see the “original” series intro featuring Fox, Dana and Reggie Something. I’ll let Sestra Pro have fun with all of the early episodes that have Reggie scenes inserted in them. But the fun has to end somewhere. When Reggie starts talking about Sculder-Something’s last case together, other FBI agents chase him away. Younger agents insult the aging Mulder and he doesn’t take it well.

Back in their office, you-know-who goes old school with his conspiracy theory analysis while Scully sits there quietly. Luckily for a flailing Fox, Dr. They calls him to arrange a meeting in a park with some of the strangest metallic sculptures you’ve ever seen. Doc claims it shouldn’t have been so hard for Mulder to learn of his existence; after all, the good doc is listed in the phone book. But people today cannot tell the differences between the truth or lies, and they choose to believe only what they want to believe. 

Afterward, Reggie waits for “Foxy” in the FBI parking garage. “Sculls” surprises them both by revealing the sweaty man’s identity as Reggie Murgatroid, a U.S. government employee. From which branch, you ask? Well, pretty much all of them. That’s how he ended up bugging Mulder’s home, listening to his babbling conversations with Scully (see paragraph 2) until being recently committed to a mental institution. (If Murgatroid really worked for all of those agencies, then his fingerprints should have been on file several times over.) Reggie admits defeat and stops running. He regales Sculder with the tale of their last case together – aliens really don’t like earthlings and they have good reason – before being carted away to the Spotnitz Sanitarium (yes, really). That’s when Assistant Director Walter Skinner enters with the episode’s best line.

Sestra Professional:   

When Darin Morgan came aboard The X-Files, he became part of its very fabric. It started with his casting as one of the most memorable "Monsters of the Week" -- the title character in "The Host" (Season 2, Episode 2). He was buried in latex as Flukeman, but then helped brother Glen craft the next episode, "Blood." That led him to a staff writing position, and "Humbug" (S2E20) expanded the boundaries of what could be done with a script for the show.

In the third season, he and The X-Files took huge leaps forward -- "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" (E4), "War of the Coprophages" (E12) and "Jose Chung's From Outer Space (E20) were fan and critical darlings alike. And I'm guessing a fair amount of the best lines in "Quagmire" (E22) came from his uncredited assistance on that episode. Even though those were his last contributions during the regular run, they opened up the canvas for everyone from Vince Gilligan to show creator Chris Carter to expand upon.

Morgan returned in front of the camera for another memorable character, Eddie Van Blundht, in "Small Potatoes" (S4E20). As a shapeshifter who impregnated unknowing women by assuming the form of someone they would want to sleep with, he deserved nothing but enmity, yet somehow inspired a measure of pathos. Morgan then delivered two thoughtful-yet-fun episodes for sister show Millennium.

Submitted for your approval: When it came time for the X-Files revival, he graced us with another pair of shows that he also directed. Morgan's trademark has always been well-developed ideas stemming from concepts that seem so obvious, but rarely get voiced in the field of entertainment. He has been a touchstone for the series, and his final effort wraps up his work in symmetrical style. We've come to expect nothing less from him.

"The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat" starts with that Twilight Zone/Outer Limits-style show and leads Mulder down a rabbit hole that perhaps many of us will admit to being familiar with. I've done that with X-Files episodes alone! Trying to remember what episode Fox gave a particular saucy response in -- and I thought it was in a comedic bottle ep, but it turned out to be from a mythology two-parter. Or there's the other option of looking for something and finding it, but then realizing it's only tangentially like what you thought it was. Morgan reminds us that memory is such a tricky thing, subject to a myriad of influences that can alter it -- not just talking anal probes and memory wipes in a Dusky Realm.

One of the treats Morgan gave the show was the opportunity for its leads, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, to show different shadings as Mulder and Scully. In Morgan's hands, Fox is a little less strident and a lot more ridiculous. Duchovny has always feasted on those opportunities. ("Confuse The Twilight Zone with The Outer Limits? Do you even know me?") Here, he gets to bounce off Brian Huskey too, and that's a treat for them and for us. 

Wait, what? I kind of wish Reggie Something had been around the whole time, but maybe that's just my brain creating a false impression of what that would have been like and it's just perfect to have him merely encapsulated here. Eagle-eyed viewers like Sestra Am may have noticed the reference to him in "This" a couple episodes ago. Just an Easter egg courtesy of the Darin Morgan machine that can impact the show in ways great and small.

The machine gave us some truly wacky bits in "Lost Art," starting with that missing episode and continuing with Mulder recounting watching his first Twilight Zone at age 8. The oversized Foxy head on the kid's body makes you think something here isn't quite right -- and it's not supposed to be, Morgan is visually able to show us the awkwardness of trying to recall something from so many years ago.

You're having a Mengele Effect about the Mandela Effect: It makes sense that Sculls' memory quest doesn't focus on something of a cult nature like Mulder, she's just looking for alternative Jell-O that forms three different layers with three different textures when it cools because it brings up memories of family vacations, fireworks, America, God and love. Foxy is right, that's some Jell-O.

Reggie's memory crisis of faith about Dr. Wuzzle's books takes him to the coolest repository of vintage garbage that has ever been seen on television. How long had Morgan been trying to get that Nixon poster into an episode? Even Darin probably can't tell us because of Mengela Effect. (Yes, I gave it a smush name.)

We were made of sterner stuff back then: Leave it to sci-fi gobbledygook nerd boy to hypothesize that the difference in collective memories should be attributed to parallel universes. Cue more random memories about watermelon slices that tasted like coconut, kids playing with the mini-javelin lawn darts and the invasion of Grenada. It had been a couple of decades, Morgan must had had a lot of random thoughts to tuck into one last X-Files episode -- like Reggie going through social feedback comments about the Dr. They video: "This jerk just says, 'Meh.'"

The subsequent recasting of the show's history -- even Mark Snow's sacred theme! -- is priceless to me. The origins of Mulder's "I Want to Believe" poster, Season 1 repeat baddie Tooms, Clyde Bruckman's Grenada callback, the killer cats of much-reviled "Teso dos Bichos" (S3E18), the in-bred Peacock family of "Home" (S4E2) and even Eddie Van Blundht ... let's just say if the whole series never addressed what happened to Mulder's sister or the end of the Syndicate, I'd be fine with this Reggie reveal montage as end game.

So Dr. They is revealed to bust the post-coverup, post-conspiracy universe in a very atmospheric setting, and he again catches us up on years of ideas that must have been rolling around Morgan's noggin. Everything from people not admitting when they're wrong even when caught on tape to the spread of online disinformation is covered. It no longer matters if the truth is out there and if Foxy can uncover and reveal it, making Mulder more obsolete than any of us (except maybe Sestra Am) are willing to believe.

I want to remember how it all was: Poor Foxy, the details of Reggie's last case with him and Sculls was an even harder burden to bear. He gets all the answers to everything in the universe in one hefty volume, but that same universe wants nothing to do with Earth any longer. Oh well, at least Mulder's free to explore Uranus all he wants. It takes Morgan (through Reggie) to say maybe the point wasn't to uncover the truth, but to find each other. The shippers certainly buy that.

I talked with Mitch Pileggi about his cameo at X-Fest in 2018. Pileggi said he talked Morgan into finally putting him into an episode. "He said, 'You're in it, but it's only one line.' I said, 'OK.' He said, 'But it's big.'" During filming, he recalled Darin saying, "'Do it really big' and I was like, 'Really?' But it worked."

One memory I do have that still holds up -- whew -- is that when "Lost Art" aired in 2018, I read an insightful Entertainment Weekly review. Darren Franich felt a bit overwhelmed by the "Trumpian art" amid the "clip show," but he still deemed the ep to be his personal X-Files series finale. While I have no problem with the dense Morgan narrative, and in hindsight with what I now know is coming up, I'm eager to agree. There's more to enjoy about upcoming episodes, but I could easily slide this to the end of the season, remember it how it all was and more joyfully consider it a wrap.

Guest star of the week: Why Brian Huskey, of course! He gives one of the most indelible comedic performances of the entire series. At X-Fest 2, he told us Morgan wanted him to deliver his lines "in a bunch of weird ways." It wound up being as satisfying for Huskey as for the audience. "This is one of my favorite life experiences I ever had," he said.

X-Files S11E3: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 is...

Sestra Amateur: 

This may be the first X-Files ep that starts at a rock concert. Enthusiastic stage diver Arkie Seavers literally sees himself but loses him/it in the crowd. Arkie drives away but his doppelganger is with him and causes a near-fatal accident. Should’ve worn your seatbelt, kid. Special Agent Fox Mulder somehow gets the call and learns several people had reported seeing themselves right before they committed suicide. Arkie is the only survivor of Doppelganger Syndrome (my term, not Chris Carter’s). Mulder and Special Agent Dana Scully interview Arkie – with his lawyer, Dean Cavalier, present – at the Henrico County Jail in Virginia. Seavers admits to driving drunk but claims he’d been seeing his double for a week. Team Sculder go out to the crash scene and the evidence supports Arkie’s version of events.

Scully and Mulder go to the hospital and interview Dr. Babsi Russel. She admits the previous victims were never treated for psychological issues but they weren’t fine upstanding citizens either. Fox is intrigued by a schizophrenic patient named Little Judy Poundstone (no relation to Paula). She’s a Hangman enthusiast who plays telepathically with her brother. She’d also played a game with Arkie’s name as the answer. Meanwhile, Arkie gets transferred into a cell where his doppelganger silently waits. Since it's getting late, Fox and Dana check into a motel room. She initially asks for two rooms but there’s only one available. (I guess they’ve regressed back to separate corners.) Too bad Mulder wakes Scully for work and nothing more; Arkie’s dead.

The next morning, Mulder interviews Chucky Poundstone (no relation to Paula), who is not only Judy’s twin brother, but was the trustee at the jail who found Arkie’s body. Chucky says some raunchy things about Scully and accuses Judy of cheating at Hangman. Chucky also has a Hangman puzzle with Arkie’s name and seems to have possible schizophrenic tendencies as well. Meanwhile, Scully meets Demon Judy, who claims Seavers killed himself. She attacks Dana’s self-esteem with words and her body with flying poop. Sculder meets at the motel to share information. It looks like Demon Judy’s mental illness may have gotten to Scully after all. And Chucky, not happy with attorney Dean Cavalier, starts a new Hangman game with his sestra.

Fox baits Chucky while Dana interviews Little Judy about her power to cause death. Judy claims she has pills to keep people safe. The nurses say they’re only pieces of bread but they take them like medication “just in case.” They encourage Scully to take them too. Meanwhile, Arkie’s attorney keeps seeing his doppelganger. He’s trying to rid his house of all lethal weapons: guns, knives, gardening tools, belts. (Wouldn’t it be easier to just leave the house, Dean?) He accidentally slashes his arm with a sword, then his doppelganger finishes the job. (Does that mean Chuck or Judy won Hangman?) 

Mulder again wakes up Scully with gruesome news. Unfortunately, Dana spots her doppelganger in the crowd outside the crime scene. She has trouble sleeping and wakes up Fox to ask him to hold her. Of course he complies. They talk and she utters my favorite line in the series, “And I’ll always be around to prove you wrong.” Scully starts worrying about hypothetical futures for their hypothetical private lives. The rest of their conversation is actually pretty frustrating: DOCTOR Scully will always have a career even if she gets fired by the FBI. DOCTOR Scully can take steps to have another child even without a boyfriend or Mulder. Then Dana’s double is there, staring at her with hatred in her eyes. Maybe the doppelganger knows their history and is also annoyed.

Team Chudy (Juck?) are playing Hangman with Fox's name now. He doesn’t react well when he sees his double in the motel shower. He wakes Scully, who’s sleeping on the other side of the bed and wearing a lot less clothing than she was during cuddle time. Dana reveals she’s also seen her doppelganger. It’s amusing how Chuck-Face is spelling Mulder (--UL--) but Judy thinks it’s Scully (--UL--). No wonder they’re both seeing doubles. But unlike Fox, Dana has a magical bread pill to keep her “safe.” 

Mulder arrives to arrest Chucky but ends up fighting himself. Luckily, Team Chudy have turned on each other and write each other’s names on the Hangman game. Scully and the nurses get terrorized by Demon Judy one last time before Dana finds Judy’s lifeless body. Fox finds the same situation with Chucky. Back in the motel room, the door is figuratively – and literally – still open for Fox and Dana’s personal relationship.

Sestra Professional:   

The X-Files has always been the "Mulder & Scully Show," somewhat to my chagrin as I found the concept to be inherently viable beyond the relationship of those two seminal characters. I think the original run could have gone on in Season 9's Twilight Zone-esque fashion with Doggett and Reyes, but I realize I'm in the minority with that one. Nevertheless, even with these restrictions, there have been episodes across the landscape in which Mulder and Scully are really the sideshow, and either the guest actors (i.e., Peter Boyle in S3E4's "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose") or the circumstances altogether (as in S3E20's "Jose Chung's From Outer Space") tend to relegate our heroes to the background.

Both of those ring somewhat true in "Plus One." Karin Konoval made a brief appearance in "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and an unforgettable impression as Mrs. Peacock in "Home" (S4E2), but she's literally four times as good here. It's a performance to feast your eyes upon over and over (and over and over) again. But lest that turn off those tuning in for the "M&S Show," there's plenty to salivate upon for the shippers.

The opening is such a TV trope, no one has ever seen another person in a gyrating throng of people rocking out. Kind of like how a wronged woman gets her cheating husband back after he's forsaken the bombshell half her age all year until a ridiculous cliffhanger. (Sorry, just finished bingeing Season 1 of Loot.) But returning to the concert, when I'm at a packed show, I barely can see the person next to me, let alone make out a complete form way back in the pack. Series creator Chris Carter recovers a point, though, for using The Fendermen song "Mule Skinner Blues." Hey, wait a minute, is that how Walter got his last name in the first place?

This is a mass phenomenon: Nice to get back to a bread-and-butter investigation. Dana explains it in what would seem to be a logical matter if we didn't happen to see Fox's version in the teaser. That sets up for an old-school X-Files ep, since Arkie Seavers is not a one-off (or two-off) and there's lots more where he/they came from.

So initially Fox and Dana are back in their separate corners personally, and Scully doth protest too much. And then Dana explains the case away again -- that really sounded kind of logical to me. But again, we saw it happen so... best to let that version of events fade away. And it's easy to do that with Mulder meeting Chucky Poundstone. I remember watching this originally, and it took me more than a minute to figure out Konoval was rocking Chucky's belligerence.

Nothing hurts like the truth: It was just fun and games until the point that Konoval assumes Demon Judy's persona. That is just some next-level dookie. Scully may not buy the telepathic game playing, but DJ pushes all Dana's buttons in just a couple minutes. And while Scully says she can't be hurt by those words, we as the Dana faithful actually can be. Luckily, our champion is picking up on the psychic transferrence while my hackles are raised. And Fox is around to remind her that she has "scoot in her boot."

Chucky No. 1 baits the threatening Mulder by saying he's seen attorneys with better cases take it on the chin in court, but good for Fox for rising to the occasion again and bringing on Chucky No. 2 in the process. Scully's doing the same with Judy No. 1 and we see some shadings of Judy No. 2, but that's circumvented by the handing over of the bread pills. Two questions spring to mind: What happened to them working on cases together and why would Dana be about to throw away evidence before the nurses stop her on a flimsy pretense?

Scully's all over the map. She makes complete sense when she explains that mass hysteria is just fear running wild. Less sense when she claims there's no such thing as ghosts or evil, two entities we've watched her experience. Another mark in the deterioration of Dana column ... and I can't figure out why in the world that would be done by someone who created the character to be an inspiration to a generation. That's a bigger mystery than the psychic transference.

Put a dimmer on that afterglow and get yourself to the hospital: We knew we'd get to the point when one or both leads would start to see his/her doppelganger. Oh well, whatever gets them in closer proximity, right? Scully seems to be having kind of a Loot crisis of conscience. Dana, I don't think you have to ever worry about Fox leaving you behind. Well, unless he starts to freak out about seeing another him. Didn't seem to get to him quite as much when it was Eddie Van Blunhdt ("Small Potatoes," S4E20) or Morris Fletcher ("Dreamland," S6E4-5).

It gets a little "Fight Club" (S7E20) in resolution -- and that was one of the series' real low points -- but at least it's more entertainingly so with actual suspense over what's going to happen to all the Mulders, Scullys and Poundstones. Consider it a real "Punch & Judy Show."

Guest star of the week: Quite obviously, it's Konoval. I don't think "Plus One" would play half as well with someone else in the roles. There's something subtle in Karin's work amidst all the flashiness required at the same time. And I'm not just saying that because she's one of the show's biggest champions, a woman who is wonderful to the fan base and works equally hard on personal pet projects such as raising awareness of the plight of orangutans and their conservation.

 

X-Files S11E2: 'This' is what we've become

Sestra Amateur: 

Whether “This” works for you or doesn't probably depends on your level of X-Phile nostalgia. Maybe this is the show’s way of saying sorry for the ickfest of the previous episode’s revisionist history. Well, maybe not a full-on apology, but here’s a bone for you/us.

A distorted voice reaches out to Special Agent Fox Mulder on his smart phone. The image on the screen appears to be Richard Langly, who died along with the other Lone Gunmen back in "Jump the Shark" (Season 9, Episode 15). This Lone Gunman wakes a sleeping Mulder and Special Agent Dana Scully with a question most people don’t get to ask: “Am I dead?” 

Meanwhile, there’s also a home invasion in progress at Mulder’s house; three would-be robbers with cool taste in music enter with guns a-blazing. Sculder kill two, but one gets away. Langly cryptically points out, “They know that I know.” Scully calls in the incident while Fox hides his phone. Dana mentions that nobody saw The Lone Gunmen’s bodies after their deaths because they were exposed to the Marburg virus and incinerated. So their caskets in Arlington Cemetery should be empty? And now we’re supposed to believe no one – not even DOCTOR Scully, who performed so many autopsies during the run of the show – autopsied Langly, Byers or Frohike? And Scully took the government’s word for it that The Lone Gunmen were dead and burned? If we hadn’t seen it actually happen in that episode, then I would definitely assume their deaths were faked. The only “evidence” that convinces me: I don’t think Frohike could have stayed away from Scully for 16 years.

Two more sinister vehicles arrive at Mulder’s house. The Russian occupants demand Sculder disarm themselves. Scully calls Assistant Director Walter Skinner for help. He knows what’s going on and he tells her to surrender. Fox is resistant but he and Dana are outnumbered and quickly subdued. They want Mulder’s phone but he isn’t giving it up. Too bad Langly won’t stop talking; they find the phone in Fox’s oven. Sculder work together and escape from the distracted soldiers. After running through the woods they find Walter, who claims a private security contracting company that works directly for the executive branch of the U.S. government came after them. Scully asks Walter if Langly is alive. He roundabout answers her.

Sculder arrive at Arlington Cemetery. They notice some inconsistencies with the information on the headstones of Langly, John Fitzgerald Byers and Melvin Frohike which leads Mulder to Deep Throat’s headstone. I still have trouble believing Fox never did any research on Deep Throat after his death. Don’t you think that MIGHT have helped Mulder's ongoing conspiracy investigation even a tiny bit?! But it appears I griped about this same lack of storyline development way, way back in "Little Green Men" (S2E1)  so I’ll let it go. By the way, Deep Throat’s name is Ronald Pakula. (Maybe it’s an homage to Alan J. Pakula?) At the grave, Fox finds a memory medallion which contains a QR code to scan. Too bad the surviving assassin has found them and is trying to finish the job. They struggle and Mulder knocks him unconscious against Deep Throat’s headstone.

Sculder end up in an internet café to scan the QR Code. It relates to a building which Mulder once investigated as an X-file, thanks to a tip from … Langly. Sculder need to get into their office in the FBI building. They approach Skinner in the parking garage. He seems frustrated by the gluttony of “intelligence” agencies in the world these days. He takes pity on them -- probably because of what he learned in the previous episode -- and explains how X-files are now accessible via computer thanks to Director Mueller. By the way, I stumbled across the perfect example of how multitasking can be detrimental to these blogs. While typing during Skinner’s exposition, I almost missed the best FBI Special Agent ID photo EVER taken. But I digress. 

It appears the Russians trying to kill Sculder have access to all of the X-files. Fox starts searching the database and learns the information he seeks has been scrubbed from the system. There are no Langly files, but the Frohike and Byers ones are visible. Luckily, Frohike’s “spank bank” is still there and contains a clue which leads Sculder to Dr. Karah Hamby. They meet with her but she claims Purlieu Services (the private security contracting company) is watching. Her explanation is very Black Mirror, specifically the San Junipero episode; she and Langly planned for a “life eternal” together. She gives them her phone to help reach Langly. Too bad her days are over; the very determined hitman kills her and Scully takes him out, finally.

Sculder relax in a diner until Langly contacts them through the smart phone. He describes heaven but he knows it’s a lie. He -- and others -- are being used as digital slaves for their knowledge and abilities. He tells Sculder to destroy the digital afterlife and sends them to Titanpointe. Sculder arrive at the FBI office in New York. They use a charade to enter: Agent Scully is bringing in an “apprehended” Mulder. Somehow, it works for a while and they almost make it. Too bad the Russian and his cronies capture Fox in the stairwell and escort him up to the 29th floor. 

Guess who’s there waiting for Mulder? Erika Price from the previous episode. She’s amused that Langly could have reached out to any one of seven billion people but he picked Fox. Does that mean Langly knew Byers and Frohike were dead too? He had to ask Mulder about his own death so that might be another plot hole. Fox tries to trick Price into thinking he wants to be uploaded with Dana. In return, Price still wants Mulder to kill Cancer Man. Meanwhile, Dana has searched every 20-something floor until she finally reaches Fox. He finishes his conversation with Erika, subdues the Russian assassin and rejoins Scully. While she disables the simulator containing everyone’s consciousness (No battery backup option? Bad planning.), Mulder fights for his life against the Russian. Eventually, Sculder escape and return with legit FBI agents. but Price is gone and so are the machines.

Back at Fox’s house, Langly contacts them again and tells Mulder to destroy the backup. (See? Told you there would be a backup option!) Then Langly disappears and the silver-haired assassin -- the one Scully shot after he killed Dr. Hamby -- takes over the screen. Poor Langly. I hope he was able to connect with Karah and have some semblance of “happily ever after.” If Black Mirror managed to allow one happy ending, then so should The X-Files. But I guess they burned their happy ending during the end credits scene of I Want to Believe.

Sestra Professional:   

The ninth season of the regular run leaned heavily into The Twilight Zone territory, and the best episodes from that year came out of that distinction. Here we see Season 11 making a foray into Black Mirror terrain, and again, I do think the series is better for it. It's kind of a boomerang effect, The X-Files can be considered an influence on shows like Black Mirror, and here it comes full circle. This playbook opens up our show in a number of ways, as we see in "This" and other upcoming episodes.

We gotta take a trip to IKEA: The opening scene carries genuine tension. We're as taken aback as Mulder and Scully upon seeing the visage of the deceased Richard "Ringo" Langly on Fox's phone, and then they have to deal with a break-in on top of that. So we get engaged directly in two distinctive ways. Episodes in the "My Struggle" arc haven't had this kind of resonance, they're more like something we've been suffering through. From the opening, we're invested here.

"What world are you living in?" the Russian aggressor asks Fox, and it's a question we could use the answer to as well. If you've misplaced your scorecard, it's tough to tell who is on what side nowadays. Skinner tells Scully that the dynamic duo should just give up, but the Russian Cold War expert was prepared to end them right then and there. How well would that have sat with you, Walter? The last thing you told them was to give up.

Who needs Google when you have Scully?: Oh well, at least Skinner showed up to give his former charges money and to clear the air about this particular collection of gun-toting radicals working for an American security contractor. That sends Mulder and Scully off to Arlington for a whirlwind round of presidential trivia supplemented with a numbers game.

As if all this actual suspense wasn't enough, we get a nice slice of life between our leads, namely Sculder's exchange about the bran muffin. That was as tasty to me as it was to them, apparently -- Mulder says he's going to open an X-file to get to the bottom of why it's so good followed by Scully's claim that she doesn't care if it came out of an alien's butt. (The latter was reportedly an adlib by Gillian Anderson.) And so in the 11th season, we get evidence that they're normal people who eat and drink just like you and me.

The world is different: Count on Skinner (and writer/director Glen Morgan) to detail for us how the backdrop has changed since Fox and Dana originally met back in 1993. It's not just dark forces in the government any more. He explains that a lot of people -- including America's enemies -- have had access to the X-Files files since Sculder took off for parts unknown. Can you imagine someone having to pore over over all those files, running across people like Cecil L'Ively from "Fire" (S1E12) and the tulpa from "Arcadia" (S6E15?)

Then we get into the Black Mirror aspect of the case -- the simulation Langly planned with a hot professor. I'm trying to get past the fact that it's unlikely those two seemingly disparate people forged that kind of connection. But that's not too tough, because I'm distracted by the fact that Dr. Karah Hamby is played by Sandrine Holt, who co-starred with Nicholas Lea (Krycek) in the entertaining Once a Thief during the prime X-Files years.

Speaking of influences, Deep Throat's real name Ronald Pakula was indeed a nod to Alan J. Pakula, who directed All the President's Men (among other things). That 1977 film and its subject matter -- Watergate -- were huge influences on Chris Carter when he began developing the show.

This guy's like Hannibal Lecter-level psycho: It's intriguing that simulated Langly can discern those in the alternate universe are living a lie that needs to be destroyed. Fits right in with the recurring Black Mirror theme that as great as technology can be, there's an underbelly that often shows something entirely different.

So it's up to our heroes to find a way to save the day and get Langly out of his purgatory, even though they keep being told point-blank that they don't understand what's going on. We've heard that every day since the show started, but Barbara Hershey's Erika Price claims life on Earth is (again) about to be crushed, making computers necessary for the evolution of species. Mulder realizes they're playing God. (Haven't thought of that David Duchovny movie in a long time.)

Despite the constantly high stakes, Fox and Dana remain particularly quippy in this episode, culminating in an instantly classic moment when they get home from the adventure and decide against dealing with cleanup of the ransacked house. Take a break, you certainly earned it! Maybe have another muffin?

Guest star of the week: Apologies to Barbara Hershey, who delivers a more relaxed and confident performance in her second appearance, because come on, we got a Lone Gunman back! Dean Haglund does a nice job as simulated Langly in limited space and time, and we feel for the loss of Ringo once again when that world is shattered.

X-Files S11E1: Where there's smoke, there's hellfire

Sestra Amateur: 

The “Struggle” continues, whether you want it to or not. Am I referring to Chris Carter’s continuing storyline in Seasons 10 and 11 of the X-Files revival? Am I referring to Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully’s quest for “the truth?” Nope, I’m referring to my never-ending annoyance with voiceovers on this show. 

The current perpetrator is the Cigarette Smoking Man. (Should I have been hyphenating his nickname all this time?) He sums up his entire existence in a couple of minutes. At some point, you almost want a superior alien race to show up on Earth, meet with CSM and smite him like an insignificant pest. And I can’t even imagine how Sestra Pro felt when it was implied that Cancer Man faked the moon landing. But enough about that evil, narcissistic string-puller; for some reason, Scully’s unconscious.

I should probably point out she and Mulder are not still on the bridge looking up at the UFO at the end of Season 10. They’re back in the basement office at FBI headquarters. Fox looks so much healthier than he did at the end of the previous episode. Dana’s rushed to the hospital and undergoes a battery of tests which reveal she’s suffering from abnormal brain activity. Luckily, her neurologist, Dr. Joyet, shows Mulder and Assistant Director Walter Skinner her live brain scan, which is dot-dashing a message Walter is able to translate: “Find him.” Skinner thinks “him” means Sculder’s son, William. Jeez, and now we have to endure a Fox voiceover? (Yep, and it’s throughout the episode.) 

Scully wakes up and, if I’m actually paying attention, reveals the events of the Season 10 finale haven’t happened yet: no Spartan virus, no exposition by former agent Monica Reyes, no confrontation between Mulder and Cancer Man. But Dana tries to convince Fox that CSM is still alive. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Spender (Cancer Man’s less-preferred son and Mulder’s half-brother) is taking out the garbage when someone tries to run him over. The would-be killer wants “the boy.”

Back in Scully’s hospital room, Dr. Joyet suggests Dana may have been subjected to experimentation. Scully denies it even though it’s all she talked about last season with her sequenced DNA, yada, yada, yada. But Dana’s now experiencing the world’s worst headache. Fox leaves the hospital and hears a warning voicemail from his half-bro. Of course Cancer Man is listening … and Monica is still lighting his cigarettes. 

Why does Chris Carter not trust his audience to know what’s going on without those wretched voiceovers?! Mulder’s being chased by Jeffrey’s attempted killer and putting innocent civilians at risk instead of dealing with the threat. (Just because they don’t show the crash victims doesn’t mean they’re OK.) Spender shows up at Scully’s bedside and she asks for her son’s location. He gives her the adopted parents’ last name, Van de Kamp, but has trouble believing his own father is still alive. (Did we know Spender knew who adopted baby William? Sestra Pro, I need a Season 9 refresher course!) Dana leaves the hospital against medical advice. Doctors truly are the worst patients.

Cancer Man is concerned, why are people after Sculder’s kid now? Probably because of you, you power-hungry madman! Meanwhile, Fox is driving to South Carolina when Scully calls with an update. She’s convinced her germ warfare vision is coming true so she’s more desperate than ever to find William. Too bad she seized her way back into unconsciousness. Back to Smoking Man and Monica, whose discussion borders on creepy; Reyes accuses him of being in love with Scully. 

Mulder follows his pursuer onto an estate. He enters without a warrant and finds – nope, not Cancer Man and Monica – but a different old man and brunette woman. Back in the X-files office, Skinner finds Scully’s cell phone. A clearly not-well Dana is on the move. Walter leaves to find her and encounters a gun-toting Reyes instead. He easily disarms her but clearly isn’t prepared for Cancer Man’s arrival. And Scully, just like Fox, selfishly puts other drivers at risk and crashes her car. She had so many safer options: Uber, Lyft, D.C. Cab.

So the other man smoking cigarettes (Mr. Y, according to closed captioning) offers some exposition for Mulder -- it’s Cancer Man’s house and they’re part of the Syndicate, but Mr. Y’s female counterpart wants to stop CSM from exterminating humanity. (Guess they’re not part of the protected elite.) Smoking Man explains the virus to Walter, who is stunned that Monica would be part of it. (So are we; so was Annabeth Gish probably.) Mr. Y and Price (really glad I use captions) are trying to use William’s safety as leverage for Fox to kill his father, as if he needed any other motivation. Cancer Man offers Skinner immunity from the Spartan virus in exchange for William. Mr. Y and Price are focused on the colonization of space. That’s pretty much where they lose Mulder. He races back home but tries to call Skinner on the way. Too bad Walter’s still busy with CSM.

Dana’s back in the hospital. Agents Miller and Einstein were the ones who rescued her from the wrecked car. Dr. Joyet calls Fox with Scully’s current location. Unfortunately, Mulder’s would-be killer finds her first. He tries to smother Dana with a pillow then choke the life out of her. Luckily, Fox arrives and slits his throat! 

Scully knows it wasn’t Cancer Man’s doing, because she thinks he would never harm her. She also believes her visions are messages from William, who will find her and Mulder. Skinner arrives at the hospital but refuses to answer Fox’s questions. Oh, and he also smells like smoke. What isn’t Walter telling him? Oh nothing, just the fact that Smoking Man, not Mulder, is William’s father. Meanwhile, poor William seems to be suffering from an awful headache. At this point, aren’t we all?

Sestra Professional: 

Another "Struggle," another voiceover. The only one I want to hear for "My Struggle IV" would be Sestra Am's. She's right on a couple of fronts. If an alien race was bent on taking over this planet, it surely would take out the most self-serving, back-stabbing being along the way. Technically, yes, we should have been hyphenating Cigarette Smoking Man all along. But since the show doesn't, we haven't been. And, yeah, the way to get me feeling good about the revival again is not in insinuating the moon landings were faked. I had a tough enough time getting behind the goings-on in "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" (Season 4, Episode 7).

I want to lie: The road to wellness isn't in pretending "My Struggle II" never happened. What is this, Dallas? It's such a cruddy way out of Season 10's cliffhanger, and we had come to expect more from this show than the X-Files' variation of Bobby Ewing in the shower. Then again, they did take the most forthright character and turn her into a stoolie for the series' biggest villain, so what do I know? So Dana Scully has become Pam Ewing. If that doesn't clue us in to what Scully is in for this season, nothing will.

It's a good thing Skinner was on hand to read the Morse code and tell us the message in Dana's brain. Uh oh, another bad sign, someone tells Mulder something outrageously paranormal and he doesn't glom onto it like a proverbial chupacabra. Fox is taking advice from Walter in the usual way, so at least something is resembling the show we all know and love and have been increasingly frustrated by.

The only one who the years have been good to is Jeffrey Spender. Remember how one-note he was when he was introduced, how much we all detested him until his father allegedly did away with him? We thought nothing would ever open his eyes. Nothing like a little filicide to do the job. He does seem to have gone to some lengths to find out where William ended up. (Nope, Sestra Am, that wasn't expressly laid out in Season 9.) We clearly can't expect miracles, though, as he's a doubting Spender about the prospect of his murderous dad being alive.

I was just talking about lazy writing and cheap tactics when we're hit with more of them in the form of Fox's voiceovers. Someone once said that using voiceovers is the laziest way of telling your story. Remember the Blade Runner debacle? It really feels egregious here. Yeah, we're used to a pretentious pre-teaser voiceover, but threading it through the entire episode, it's more than distracting, it's downright irritating.  

The beauty of a planet returned to its savage state: It's all too easy for the Cigarette Smoking Man to go off on a diatribe because what he's saying sounds like it could be true. He's saying it with all big words and pat phrases, but his central thesis that civilization seems like a joke and his plan could be the punchline passes muster. He should have come up with the idea of fake news distracting America decades ago.  

So our only saving grace is Scully. And although it feels like we're getting back into the Mulder mind-meld territory from the end of Season 6 and the start of Season 7, it's turning me around a wee bit on the use of "My Struggle II" as a glimpse at what the future could have been. I still can't get into the decimation of Monica's character, it just feels completely wrong. She's not Marita Covarrubias, if there was a polar opposite to the UNblonde during the regular run, it was Reyes.

We've got some new Syndicate members in the fold -- Mr. Y (A.C. Peterson) and Price (Barbara Hershey) -- and that's not a bad thing. Well, they're clearly bad but it's not bad in and of itself. The story they're telling is something we understand all too well about a simple pathogen killing billions and billions. The aliens won't be coming after all, for they have no interest in a warming planet with vanishing resources. That makes sense too.

The renegade Syndicate members tell Fox they want to colonize space, and Mulder realizes that only a select few -- the few they select -- will be able to take advantage. That's not their only play though, they also want the son of Scully and Mulder. Everyone wants that kid. There's clearly more at stake than the mere colonization of space.

You smell like smoke: Even after all she's been through in this episode alone, Dana realizes her visions are coming from William. As she and Fox come to grips with that fact, in comes Walter. And he's acting just like he has many times over the years when he doesn't want to tell the people he cares about the most what he knows, ostensibly because he's trying to protect them.

Then just when it seems like we've gotten back on some kind of viable track, "My Struggle III" veers into terrain that no one can conceivably get behind. Conceivably being the operative word. Look, as watchers of a long-running TV program we understand that we may not always get what we want when we want it. The shippers dealt with that fact for years as they fawned over Mulder and Scully's every look, every touch. It seemed like they finally got what they wanted at the end of Season 8. Does creator Chris Carter think we're entertained in the slightest by the revolting revisionist history? Because I have to say, even as an avid no-romo, that going back to "En Ami" (S7E15) and revealing the utterly disgusting details of what we allegedly did not see the first time around truly is the ultimate fan smackdown. Only the teaser tagline change from "I Want To Believe" to "I Want To Lie" provides the slightest comfort.

Guest star of the week: Barbara Hershey doesn't have a lot to do beyond set the framework for this previously untapped faction of the Syndicate, but it's refreshing to see her in this role. As the Beaches actress showed in The Portrait of a Lady and in glimpses here, she can play villainous mind games when called upon to do so.

X-Files S10E6: The DNA of Dana

Sestra Amateur: 

The struggle continues – literally and figuratively – as the Season 10 finale circles back to the season’s first episode. Remember Tad O’Malley? Sveta? The return of Cigarette Smoking Man? Yeah, I forgot most of it too. But let’s dive in and refresh your memory so you can forget again until we rewatch "My Struggle III." 

Unfortunately, the episode begins with a Dana Scully monologue and anyone who actually reads this blog knows how I feel about those. (Hey, I just plagiarized myself!) Doctor/Agent Scully is condensing 10 years of conspiracy theory episodes into a couple of minutes, while we view photographic evidence of the incidents she’s recalling. (Could you imagine if someone actually took pictures of these very private Scully moments: Dana abducted and tied up in a car trunk, Dana unconscious on a hospital bed, Dana being impregnated...) Then the special effects team morphs Dr. Scully into an alien and somehow the show has my attention again. But the biggest lie of all soon appears: Instead of reading “The Truth Is Out There,” we get “This Is The End.” You be the judge if you think it should have ended here or whether Chris Carter needed another season to dig his way out of the hole he created with Sculder.

Special Agent Dana Scully is watching the latest inflammatory video by Tad O’Malley. It’s been six weeks since he went off the air and Sveta was killed. He’s no longer in hiding and he’s now claiming every American citizen has some alien DNA inside them. Scully answers when Tad calls Special Agent Fox Mulder’s office phone. He tells her to come to Fox’s home, which has been ransacked. 

Mulder’s nowhere to be found, so Dana involves the local police and Assistant Director Walter Skinner, who’s hanging with Agent Einstein, the alternate “Scully” agent we met in the previous episode. Einstein naively believes no one can tamper with DNA. I guess she never read Jurassic Park. (Yes, I know it’s fiction. Yes, I know it’s about dinosaurs. Just let it go.) Drs. Scully and Einstein head to Dana’s other employers, Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital, where they encounter a sweaty, confused man who’s clearly sick. Meanwhile, Fox, who looks like he joined a fight club and keeps losing, is driving to an unknown location and ignoring Skinner’s phone calls.

Dana takes Einstein’s blood and explains how the anomaly in Scully’s blood is, by definition, alien. (Here on The X-Files, people always jump to the “extraterrestrial” definition instead of the generically accurate “strange” definition.) Einstein still isn’t on board, but lets Scully take a blood sample. (I wonder how nu-Scully would have felt about COVID-19 vaccines.) Einstein’s partner Agent Miller arrives to help with the Mulder search and to share the news that O’Malley’s conspiracy theories about killer viruses are gaining traction on the Internet. Based on their encounter with the sweaty, confused man who is a military soldier, Dana thinks it’s already begun. She believes the man has anthrax, something from which he was inoculated when he deployed to Iraq. If Dr. Scully is correct, whatever people have been vaccinated against, that’s what’s going to make them sick. She desperately calls Fox, who continues driving south and ignoring his phone. 

But you know what’s really bugging me about this episode? Mulder’s laptop in his FBI office. It’s not locked. The man who was on the TrustNo1 bandwagon for 10 years (except for Scully, and even that wasn’t 100 percent of the time) leaves a signed-in laptop open and unlocked on his desk?! So convenient when Miller uses Fox’s phone finder app to locate him in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Forced plot contrivances still run rampant on The X-Files.

Dr. Einstein and Dr. Scully are scientifically analyzing the situation at Dana’s hospital. Einstein points out how something needs to be taken away from the genome to shut down people’s immune systems, not added to it. Then Scully gets a phone call from a woman who claims she can explain what’s happening. If you read the guest star list at the beginning of the episode, then you know it’s Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), former partner of Scully and Special Agent John Doggett. 

Team Danica meet and Monica admits she left the FBI 10 years earlier because she made some not-so-great choices. Flashbacks show her being called to the bedside of one badly burned Cigarette Smoking Man, who claims to be the most powerful man in the world. His power? To depopulate the planet while the chosen few live. So Monica chose to stick around as CSM’s lackey, hoping he won’t use his weapon, but slightly comforted by the knowledge she (and Scully) are protected. 

Who the hell is this Monica Reyes?! How could she follow this path without reaching out to John Doggett or any other reliable FBI connections like Scully or Skinner? And why don’t we get at least a throwaway line about what happened to Doggett? Maybe she's an intergalactic hitman posing as her, maybe she's a clone. Nope, sorry to say this is really Monica. Anyway, Reyes also claims Cancer Man sent someone to Mulder’s house, which is why Fox looked beaten and his house got trashed. Mulder arrives at Cancer Man’s house and holds him at gunpoint. CSM wants to spare Fox’s life. Mulder wants no part of it.

Tad continues to expose his conspiracy theories, which seem to be coming true but still sound so freakin’ wacky. The hospitals are overwhelmed and losing main power. Einstein gets information but not any help from the Center for Disease Control. Dana, based on information from Monica, hopes to use her protected blood to save others from the “Spartan Virus.” Too bad the hospital doctors are now getting sick too. In fact, poor O'Malley and his crew are also ill. So are Miller and Mulder. 

Miller doesn’t seem amused by Cancer Man and rescues Fox. CSM follows them outside with a gun but instead of shooting them, he tells Miller to tell Mulder goodbye for him. Back in the hospital, Scully is working alone to create the serum since Einstein is feverish. Miller calls Dana to let her know he has Fox and is heading her way. Scully finishes the cure and prepares doses for Einstein and the other doctors. O’Malley laments mankind going out with a whimper. 

Scully tries to stop looting and encourages people to go to the hospitals for vaccines. She’s trying to get to Mulder but the roads are gridlocked. Miller and Fox are back in the D.C. area but they’re stuck in traffic. Dana finds them but thinks Mulder is too sick for her serum to save him. He needs stem cells from William, the son she gave up for adoption. But before she can even try to figure out where to start looking for him, a UFO appears because, you know, this is The X-Files.

Sestra Professional: 

My best memory of watching "My Struggle II" for the first time involves being one of the first to comment on social media about the episode's opening teaser posted during the halftime show of the 2016 Super Bowl. I had the top post on the official X-Files Facebook page, and someone from the XF team even responded to me. As it was a literal teaser, it didn't stay on the site long, disappearing like Monica Reyes' drive and determination to the annals of time.

"My Struggle II" just continuously reminded me of when and how the show used to do everything so much better. Like Sestra Am, I don't really like voiceover monologues as a plot device. Even in the heyday, they were clunky and overutilized big words no one ever uses on a day-to-day basis. I did think Morris Fletcher's in 'Dreamland II" (Season 6, Episode 5) was pretty stellar, though. Nevertheless, I did recognize the beginning teasers as serviceable tools for the greater good. Dana's to start this episode? It was just basically a more colorful way of doing "Previously on," which was also tacked on there anyway. Oh well, it had been a while since someone used the word "debunk."

So while every tried-and-true X-Files fan -- and even the most casual observer -- knew of the history that brought Scully to this point, the idea of morphing her head into an alien was something that wasn't on our radar. Here I'll insert a special caveat for any artist/fanfic writer who had done such a thing. What I mean there is just based on the standard viewing habits of your common household X-phile. I do wish the alien head was a little more shadowy, as though shown in a dearth of light, and didn't rely so heavily on CGI.

Long ago, seemingly in a galaxy far away, the mythology stories used to be the ones the fan base waited on. Whatever the Cigarette Smoking Man and his cronies were up to, that was what we wanted to see, and all the monster episodes were just stopgaps between the greater story. For me, that ended somewhere in the sixth season. I was watching more for the bottle episodes, and rolling my eyes when the Syndicate played into the action. Note: I did give it more of a pass when Alex Krycek was around, but those appearances got more sporadic as Nicholas Lea got his own series work. 

The biggest failing of "My Struggle II" is the absence of Mulder and Scully together on the canvas for most of the show. In fact, there's kind of an overall dearth of Fox period. That was all fine and dandy for Season 9, it doesn't play as well in a six-episode revival. David Duchovny does get to show off what fine shape he was still in during a fight scene that brings Mulder back into his real father's orbit. But Sestra Am made a fine point about Fox's computer and phone tracker earlier, these are certainly not footprints such a paranoid personality would leave behind.

I made certain choices: And the second biggest failing would have to be the change that's come over Monica Reyes in the ensuing years. Even with the alleged flashback to how she joined forces with Cigarette Smoking Man, we're missing the person I once deemed as the most forthright straight shooter in the show's history through the end of the regular run. This person bears little resemblance to that woman, although I suppose we get a glimmer of it in the fact that Reyes clues Scully in on what's actually going on.

This episode makes better use of Dana than we've seen in some time, although it's a little surprising she can't recognize the voice of the woman who delivered her baby on the phone. After discerning that something may have been given to each and every human being who got a smallpox vaccine, Scully listens to Einstein's input, she doesn't discount her outright. Dana is working the problem, and unlike the way Fox would play it, she does take Einstein's theory that something is being removed from DNA and not added into account.

When this first aired, the possibility of measles, mumps, rubella ... basically anything and everything at the same time seemed like some scary but outrageous science fiction. But now in the wake of coronavirus and all its variants with monkey pox coming up behind it, it seems downright prescient. I'm longing for the days when all our heroes were called upon to do was clear a building under a bomb threat.

You don't want to believe: I'm willing to buy Cigarette Smoking Man's premise of depopulating the planet with science given by aliens. Of course, there's the trademark pontifications penned by Chris Carter (with assistance from science advisor Anne Simon and Margaret Fearon) about how the hottest year on record, bird population and decimation of megafauna has nothing to do with CSM's machinations. I'm not quite sure why the master manipulator would want to restart the world with the two people who have given him the most trouble, I guess he's assuming they would fall in line the way Reyes ridiculously did.

I was today years old when I put together how close the words Dana and DNA are to each other. That seems like something I should have picked up on eons again. Scully realizes what needs to be done to literally save a world suffering from widespread depleted and/or disappeared immune systems. It all gets a little too scientific for me. Even with my advanced Orphan Black genome knowledge, the explanation starts to elude my grasp.

What I do understand is the advice to stay indoors. If only all these people had masked up and worked from home. We had knee-jerk reactions to that happening when COVID shut everything down, but it prevented an even more pervasive kind of spread happening on this episode.

And that brings us to the climactic scene. You would think Scully would try to treat Mulder with the IV she brought with her while trying to solve the greater problem of locating their child for his stem cells. But there was no time for that ultimately, as a UFO dramatically appears overhead. I didn't consider it a godsend when the episode originally aired. I thought it was the aliens having intel on what was needed and appearing at that moment. As we'll soon find out, it wasn't that. It was ... other.

Guest star of the week: When the revival started, Joel McHale gave the proceedings a jump-start with the forthright decisiveness of Tad O'Malley. We recognized his character from an array of conspiracy theorists we inevitably run across in our daily lives. That made it all the more impactful as the reality of the situation dawned upon Tad here.