X-Files: We still want to believe

Sestra Amateur: 

People often talk about happiness, an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment and fulfillment (courtesy of verywellmind.com). Singers sing about it (The Beatles and their “warm gun,” Lana Del Rey and her “butterfly”). Writers write about it (Charles M. Schultz and his “puppy.”) For me, right now, in this very moment, happiness is watching The X-Files: I Want to Believe on a streaming channel that does not have commercials. Thank you, HBO Max! Now, on with our irregularly scheduled blog.

I don’t remember when I first saw this movie. It was probably after the DVD release but before I finished watching the complete run of the TV series. Back then, I liked how it was more of a stand-alone flick than Fight the Future was allowed to be but I had some questions going in. I’m curious to see if I’ll know the answers this time around.

In Somerset, West Virginia, a woman arrives home and gets attacked while FBI recruits conduct a daytime search in the snow. Special Agent in Charge Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) and Father Joe Chrissman (Billy Connolly) seem to be leading the crew. The woman at night strikes back at her assailants and makes a run for it but gets tackled by one of the men. Father Joe frantically digs in the snow where Agent Whitney uncovers a severed arm. So how did Father Joe know it would be there?

Doctor (and former FBI Special Agent) Dana Scully is advocating for her patient Christian, a boy suffering from Sandhoff disease -- a rare, incurable illness that often leads to death. Later, while updating Christian and his parents, they are interrupted by FBI Agent Mosley Drummy played by Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner. (Wow, if Xzibit wasn’t a proper noun, I’d clean up with that one in Words with Friends.) He’s looking for some guy named Fox Mulder. Scully claims she doesn’t work with Fox anymore. Mosley (well, actually Whitney) hopes Mulder can save the life of missing FBI agent Monica Bannan, the woman attacked at the beginning of the movie. Dana pops over to Fox’s isolated house to let him know the FBI’s offer -- in exchange for his help, Mulder will no longer be wanted on those trumped-up murder charges from the series finale. Fox and his massive ego think it’s an elaborate scheme to trick him into coming out of hiding. I’m pretty sure the feds would just follow Dana right to his front door if they wanted him that badly. Mulder eventually agrees but only if Scully goes with him. Partners again!

Sculder meet with Agents Drummy and Whitney (Drumney? Whitmy? Nah, their last names are too similar) at FBI Headquarters, where visitor badges no longer seem to be in the budget. It’s been three days since Monica’s disappearance. The severed arm Father Joe found in the snow belongs to an unidentified male, but it matches blood evidence found at Monica’s crime scene. “Psychic” Father Joe called the FBI six hours after Bannan’s disappearance. Too bad there’s a credibility issue, not about the psychic stuff so much, more about Father Joe being a convicted child molester. Sculder and Team Mokota(!) meet with Father Joe in his home. Scully takes umbrage to him praying to the same God she does. Mulder wants to see Joe’s psychic ability in action, but the not-so-good Father asks Dana to leave the room. The feds decide to take Father Joe back to the crime scene but Joe realizes they took him to the wrong house and he walks over to the correct one. I wouldn’t credit psychic ability for that: the real house has crime scene tape all over the place. Father Joe wanders to the area where Monica was tackled by one of the men. He claims he can’t see Monica’s fate but he may mean that literally, not figuratively; he’s bleeding from his eyes!

Popping back into her real life for a spell, Dr. Scully checks on Christian in the hospital. He doesn’t seem to like Father Ybarra, who appears to be Dana’s boss. Father Ybarra doesn’t like Scully wasting time and resources on terminal cases like Christian’s. I guess that makes him the second worst priest in this movie. Meanwhile, a Somerset woman driving in the snow stupidly tries to pass a pickup truck when the driver forces her to veer off the road and crash. He had just been stalking her at the community indoor swimming pool. She made it way too easy for him to kidnap her, which is exactly what happens.

Carter and company feel the need to give us a scene of Fox and Dana in bed together. I’m amused by her choice of bedside reading material: Beautiful Wasps Having Sex by Dori Carter. (Yes, she's the show creator/movie director and co-writer's wife. If you’re interested, it’s fairly affordable on Amazon and also available on the book-trading site paperbackswap.com.) Scully wants to talk about Christian’s tragic diagnosis. Mulder thinks their son, William, is one reason why she’s so emotional. Dana puts her investigative doctor hat back on and tells Fox what she learned about the severed arm. The toxicology report showed the presence of medication related to radiation and an animal tranquilizer. Then Whitney calls with a break in the case. Sculder join the investigators and Father Joe, who wanders some more until he finds a head in the ice under the snow. Dana, ever full of faith, doesn’t know what to believe.

Monica is trying to escape but things aren’t going well for her. The severed arm man is present but completely useless. The next morning, Dr. Scully learns Father Ybarra arranged for Christian to be moved to a palliative care facility, but she claims there is a stem cell-related therapy available. Ybarra and the staff at this Catholic hospital do not support the treatment. While Dana conducts research, Fox leaves messages about the severed head and other body parts the feds recovered in the ice. (I guess people don’t swim in that lake during the other seasons or they probably would have noticed the arms, legs, etc.) Mulder and Dakota discuss the serial killer aspect of her case while Father Joe leads them to the wrecked car in Somerset. The driver, Cheryl Cunningham, is nowhere to be found. But she wore a medical alert bracelet, just like Monica Bannan. Team Mokota and Mulder link the two missing women to the same indoor swimming pool and learn they have rare AB-negative blood type.

Dr. Scully arranges for Christian to undergo the stem cell treatments and conducts the surgery herself. Afterward, Fox updates her on the case. Dana’s thinking black market organ-harvesting. She wants Mulder to let the feds handle it from there so they won’t have to deal with the darkness of humanity anymore. They wish each other good luck and part ways. Afterward, Christian’s parents tell Scully they don’t want him to undergo any more treatments, but Dana isn’t quite ready to give up on him, probably because Father Joe uttered the words, “Don’t give up” to her.

At Manners-Colonial Hospital, Cheryl’s abductor gets questioned by Richmond District Attorney Robert Cole (Castiel? Constantine? Guy in a Trenchcoat?) while transporting human organs. Don’t you love when actual investigative legwork yields a suspect? Scully shows up unannounced at Father Joe’s apartment asking questions he can’t answer. They argue until Joe suffers a seizure so Dr. Scully attempts to save a man she loathes. Everyone arrives at Father Joe’s pretty quickly. Whitney even has the identity of their suspect, courtesy of the Richmond DA: Janke Dacyshyn. (Fun fact: actor Callum Keith Rennie, who played Janke, moved on to Duchovny’s show Californication after this movie. I guess he made a good impression.) Janke’s husband and partner-in-crime is identified as Franz Tomczezyn, one of Father Joe’s altar-boy victims. Guess the feds are really doubting the alleged psychic’s credibility now. Franz is the severed arm man.

Bannan finally sees an opportunity to escape from her captors, but a guard dog gets in her way. The FBI break into Janke’s employer’s office but no one is there. Of course Janke shows up while they’re searching the place and leaves when Agent Drummy is distracted by paperwork. Mulder and Whitney see Janke leave the building and the chase is on. (Did anyone think to grab the organ transplant bag our suspect abandoned? Or to let Drummy and his team know they’re chasing someone? Nope, they did not.) Janke escapes an out-of-shape Mulder by hiding in a building under construction. Whitney and Mulder lose their tactical edge by yelling information to each other. Since Janke knows exactly where she is, he easily pushes her off the ledge and she plummets to her death. Maybe he should have asked Agent Whitney what her blood type was before he killed her. Oh, and the abandoned organ transplant bag? It has Monica’s head in it.

Mulder visits Father Joe in his hospital room. Scully discloses the molester’s terminal cancer diagnosis and Joe learns his connection to one of the killers. He thinks it’s God’s work. Then again, he also thinks Monica is still alive, so he’s either 0-2 or 1-1. Mulder still hopes to find Cheryl alive. He ends up at Nutter’s Feed, a gasoline and animal supply store. While questioning the owner, Fox sees Janke’s truck and hides. Mulder then follows Janke, and for once, actually tries to use a cell phone to update Scully. Of course, continuing Chris Carter’s tradition of cell-phone usage (or lack of cell-phone usage) driving the plot, Fox gets distracted and crashes. Janke then uses his vehicle’s front snow plow to flip Mulder’s down a steep, snow-covered hill. Fox, next time just call Dana before you start driving!

Dr. Scully continues her stem cell research and learns about treatments being done on dogs in Russia. Dana thinks that’s what the killers are doing, except on humans. She also thinks Agent Bannan is still alive. (I thought they found her head!?) Mulder is unable to take Scully’s call because he’s busy digging his injured self out of her wrecked car. Dana asks for Agent Drummy’s help in locating Fox, but he refers her to the local police. Luckily, Scully still has a trump card to play…

Mulder continues walking toward the suspect’s home and finds Janke’s disabled truck. Janke comforts husband Franz, who is the recipient of a Frankenstein’s monster situation that is meant to save his life. I guess he also has that rare AB-negative blood type. And the final piece of the puzzle? Franz’s head on Cheryl’s body, so Franz can be a woman not dying instead of a dying man. (Maybe Carter was…inspired by Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs.) Fox approaches the house but gets attacked by a two-headed dog. (Yep, you read that right.) Local troopers find Mulder’s crash scene and cell phone. You might be asking yourself, how did Scully get to the scene if Fox had her car? Well, she got a ride. From Walter Skinner!

Mulder gets past the dog(s?) and interrupts the surgery, threatening to hit the medical staff with a wrench. Too bad he gets distracted by Franz’s severed, yet conscious head and the surgeon drugs him. Team Sculner continue to search for Fox. Dana finds a link to a nearby address and scripture Father Joe had quoted to her. They hear dogs barking and head that way. And just when Janke is about to chop off Mulder’s head, Scully clobbers him! (Janke, not Fox, even though she probably had the urge.) Walter is able to stop the surgery. Dr. Scully saves Cheryl while Skinner warms up a freezing Mulder. (All together now: Awww.)

In the aftermath, Father Joe dies and Fox is convinced his death occurred simultaneously with Franz’s body. He also believes Joe’s lung cancer was brought on by Franz’s same diagnosis. For whatever reason, Joe had a psychic connection with this victim. In the end, the feds assumed Father Joe was an accomplice. As usual, Mulder rails against the inaccuracies of the story and the lack of supernatural phenomena getting recognized. Dana and Fox continue to overanalyze Joe’s words to her: “Don’t give up.” Mulder propositions Scully and she considers escaping the darkness with him. But the doctor wins out and heads back to the hospital to continue trying to save young Christian’s life.

Hope you stuck around for the end credits because they change the entire tone of the movie’s ending. First, you get a techno version of Mark Snow’s X-Files theme. Then the scene transforms from Unkle’s mix of the theme to their catchy song, "Broken." The oil and snow images change to a beautiful blue ocean. And Sculder have managed to escape the darkness after all. At least until 2016, when things reach a whole new level of WTH darkness.

Sestra Professional: 

Before diving into the movie, word broke overnight that the Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins had passed, and I wanted to offer condolences to family, friends, Foos and fans through a piece of X-Files trivia from the first film. "Walking After You" originally was performed with Dave Grohl on most of the instruments for the Foos' The Colour and the Shape album. But by the time it went on the Fight the Future soundtrack, Taylor Hawkins had joined the fold as the resident drummer extraordinaire. Such an amazing difference. 

That reminds me of my different reactions between the two movies. Fight the Future had its flaws (specifically the latter quarter of the film), but I did see it in theaters more than once because it was good fun. I did not have the same regard for I Want to Believe. In fact, I was really disappointed when I walked out of the cinema. But I do appreciate it more than I did upon release, although it has flaws as well -- the main one being that Mulder and Scully don't really get to do their thing.

I can get behind leaving the conspiracy in the dust, although we had that whole Dec. 22, 2012 alien invasion due date that was such an "important" part of the regular-run finale still looming. I always thought the first film should have been a monster-of-the-week episode and not mythology-based. But they wanted to advance the latter, which they kinda sorta did, and then summarily left behind because corn-crop Jiffy Poppers and international locations don't exactly fit a Fox TV budget.

What I pictured for I Want to Believe was a tight mystery with the comedic elements that originally set The X-Files aside from other shows of its ilk. For example, I could imagine "Beyond the Sea" (Season 1, Episode 13) and "Pusher" (S3E17) as major motion pictures. Maybe "Triangle" (S6E3) or "Monday" (S6E14) could have been expanded upon instead of just being stellar episodes from the show's first season in Hollywood. What we got in this film was an antihero so dark that jokes seemed inappropriate, a retread of Scully watching over a sick child and the aforementioned dearth of Sculder scenes.

So we start from a position of bleakness and the road just gets bleaker. It's akin to driving down one of those unlit, icy roads in the film with snow drifting down at a hypnotizing and blinding rate. If you take the proceedings at face value and don't expect a light-hearted romp, it is winds up being rather picturesque, like looking out at the horizon the morning after one of those heavy snowfalls. In that way, it's gorgeous. Kudos to returning director of photography Bill Roe for that.

What's up, Doc? My favorite scenes without a doubt revolves around our first moments with Dana and Fox. It had been so long since we saw them, thousands of hours of fan fiction were logged hypothesizing what had become of them. The charm really lies within the ease with which the dialogue's delivered by Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. There's nothing life-changing in the scene, yet it's life-affirming for those of us invested in Mulder and Scully for so long.

Fox starts by spouting the kind of dialogue that has to be simultaneously pretentious, clunky and rapid-fire. In short, the words we would expect coming out creator Chris Carter's hand and thusly Fox Mulder's mouth. I'm so charmed by that fact that I'm not even rolling my eyes about it. At least it's not done in voiceover.

It's also fun to be back in the halls of the FBI building, since we vicariously spent as much time there as Fox and Dana. Theoretically we've been there longer than Agent Drummy (Xzibit) and ASAC Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet), but we feel just as uncomfortable as Sculder does walking into bustling rooms in which other suits are trying to solve the case.

And now a few words about Monica Bannan. I remember wondering in the theater whether Annabeth Gish was contacted about returning as Monica Reyes in this movie instead of Bannan or with some slight script alteration serving the role Dakota Whitney fills, and she either declined or couldn't fit it into her schedule. Losing Reyes here would certainly have been more noble than what they put her/us through at later dates. So while, at the time, I was glad we didn't lose our precious Reyes to this case, in retrospect, I am not so sure.

I'm done chasing monsters in the dark: Scully apparently doesn't mince words anymore, because she gets right to the heart of why God might not listen to Father Joe's prayers, and leading to Mulder's supposition that maybe a deity isn't the one sending the convicted pedophile visions. And thus we come to the fork in the road, for Fox is intrigued and Dana is not interested in literally going back down these roads again.

Mulder finds something of a kindred spirit in Whitney. Luckily, there's no sort of sexual tension whatever or that might create a furor among the shippers. Dakota is part Monica Reyes, part Fox Mulder. That leaves Mosley Drummy as the Scully of the team. Back at the hospital, Dana's fighting her own battles, which means a series of futile conversations involving Father Ybarra (Adam Godley). They don't serve much purpose outside reminding us that Scully still has faith and will call upon it in order to save the child.

There's a long-awaited Fox and Dana bed scene ... and they're talking about a kid who is going to die from a brain disease and animal tranquilizer found in a severed arm. So while it's nice finally seeing them together and what not, I'm quite sure this isn't what the romance acolytes were after. I'll once again reiterate that the hottest moment we've ever seen between Sculder at this point was in the hallway during Fight the Future, right before the untimely bee sting.

I can't look into the darkness with you anymore: I could do without the references to Samantha and William. By this time, Scully certainly knows that Mulder doesn't think every single case is about saving his sister. Although I might -- and did -- buy it when it was brought up by the nouveau FBI agents. And the reverse is true re: Fox having to point out that Dana's interest in saving a charming kid has to do with William. But even that's easier to take than watching them pull away from each other, and I'm a no-romo, for Pete's sake.

At some point, we have to get into the action part, right? So while Scully waits and prays for her charge, Mulder hangs out at an unfinished high-rise construction site with Whitney. It's simultaneously surprising and not when she gets shoved to her death. But that's what you get for noticing Fox shaved his beard and touching his cheek, Dakota. If you asked Diana Fowley, she'd probably tell you that you got off easy, for shippers do not want anyone but Dana touching their guy.

There's kind of a stilted convo between Sculder about them not being able to stay together because she fell in love with him due of his stubbornness, and then we can get into running the reverse of Fight the Future -- this time with Scully (and Skinner, thank God Drummy transferred the call to someone "with some balls") saving Mulder. From an action standpoint, I'll give the latter part of this movie credit for being more interesting than Fox's retrieval of Dana in Fight the Future. (I still laugh when Cigarette-Smoking Man says, "It's all gone to hell!" and the baddies just give up on their very intricate, complex and probably expensive system.)

Mitch Pileggi isn't around for very long, but he does get the funniest line in I Want to Believe when talking about Mulder: "He wouldn't do anything crazy. ... (Then off Scully's sideways look of wonder) ... Not overly crazy." As you can see, I mean the intentionally funny line. And Walter draws the movie together for us. He's the thread we needed to make sense of the madness and fit it into The X-Files package, and maybe just smile a bit amidst all the darkness. For the shippers who don't believe that to be true, hey, you got your kiss to wrap up the proceedings and Sculder's vacay in the sun at the end of the credits.

Guest star of the week: It really is a virtuoso performance by Billy Connolly. The tendency would be to rank him alongside series baddies Brad Dourif ("Beyond the Sea"), Robert Wisden ("Pusher") and Tom Noonan ("Paper Hearts," S4E10), not to mention the kings -- Peter Boyle ("Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," S3E4) and Charles Nelson Reilly ("Jose Chung's From Outer Space, S3E20.") But that's a disservice to all involved, because Connolly gets more time to worm his way into our collective consciousness. We don't admire Father Joe in the slightest, but he does make us understand him a little better.

X-Files S9E19: To tell 'The Truth'

Sestra Amateur: 

This is where it all originally ended. Chris Carter dips into the The X-Files mythology and finds a way to bring back characters we haven’t seen in years. Too bad one of them is Fox Mulder. Carter helps David Duchovny save face by having Mulder incarcerated, which sort of explains how Fox was nowhere in sight when his son William was given away or at the Lone Gunmen’s funeral … IF this storyline overlaps with those. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Mulder is brought via helicopter to the Mount Weather complex in Bluemont, Virginia. He hops a bus into a secret military base -- Worst. Security. Ever -- then uses a key card to get into locked areas and has the right codes to access their computers. Too bad Knowle Rohrer interrupts him. (We first met Knowle, played by Adam Baldwin, in "Per Manum": Season 8, Episode 13.) Mulder, doing a great impression of the Well-Manicured Man, stupidly tries to physically overpower this Super Soldier, who throws Fox through a glass window. Luckily, Mulder is rescued by Alex Krycek! Knowle continues his pursuit and is about to choke Fox to death when Mulder turns the tables and flips Rohrer to an apparent death. As the soldiers take Fox into custody, his suit still looks impeccable.

Side-note argument: Duchovny should not have been included in the opening credits of any Season 9 episode, especially this one. All of the season’s heavy lifting – and boy, was it heavy at times – was done by the true stars of the series: Gillian Anderson, Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish. Allowing the actor who abandoned the series to waltz back in like that? I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that was one reason why Robert Patrick never returned to The X-Files, even for a bottle episode. At most, David should have been a “special guest star.”

Not sure how much time has passed, but a clean-shaven Fox is now in an orange jumpsuit, being deprived sleep and getting hit with a baton by the world’s worst interrogator. More time passes and Mulder is now naked and bearded. He admits his guilt and avoids getting hit again. FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner and Special Agent Dana Scully arrive at the military prison after someone tips off Deputy Director Alvin Kersh. They reunite with a clean-shaven-again Fox. She hugs him desperately, he barely reacts. A brainwashed Mulder acknowledges his crimes. After Walter and Dana leave, he starts talking to Krycek again, who’s only in Mulder’s head. (Sorry, Sestra Pro.)

Scully and Skinner -- Skilly? I haven’t called them that since "Redux" (S5E1) -- update Special Agents John Doggett and Monica Reyes. Doggett is especially disbelieving since he remembers Knowle dying back in "Nothing Important Happened Today" (S9E2). Reyes has a different take: Since Rohrer is a Super Soldier, he can’t die. I definitely agree with John’s exclamation: “Something stinks!” Team Skilly return to Fox’s cell where he can finally be himself. Too bad that involves an extended lip lock with Dana. Mulder knows the conspirators can’t/won’t produce Knowle’s real body. Team Johnica join them in the cell with disturbing news about the case against Fox.

At the USMC Base Brig in Quantico, Deputy Director Kersh meets with General Mark Suveg, played by William Devane, whose acting career spans 50 years. The general is out for Mulder’s blood. (Boy, Fox sure has a lot of enemies: military, the government. His neighbors probably didn’t like him either.) The general wants a conviction and he knows he’s going to get one. Meanwhile, Scully seems to have complete access to Fox in his cell. She breaks down about William. He claims he’s been in Mexico, doing what Mulder does but he won’t tell her what he found because we’re only 22 minutes into the 90-minute finale.

This should be an interesting trial. Well, it could have been an interesting trial. Prosecutor Kallenbrunner, instead of parading in 30 eyewitnesses, briskly submits their sworn statements. So much for that cross-examination nonsense defense attorneys love so much. AD Skinner, who is not a lawyer but has been assigned to defend Fox in what is clearly a pathetic sham of a trial, gets nowhere with Kersh, who is on the tribunal. Instead, he calls Dana as a witness to prove government conspiracies denying extraterrestrial existence are real. Jeffrey Spender is the next to testify. Mulder’s reaction shows he didn’t know his half-brother was still alive and horribly deformed. It’s amusing to hear nine years of overly convoluted storylines summed up so succinctly by Scully and Spender. The flashbacks are handled in an interesting fashion -- we see the past scenes but don’t hear their dialogue. Someone else wants to help Fox: Gibson Praise, who hasn’t been seen since "Without" (S8E2) is on his way.

Back in his cell, Mulder doesn’t tell Dana what she needs to hear. Luckily, Mr. X appears to give Fox the information needed to locate Marita Covarrubias. I’d like to know how an apparition can hand someone a piece of paper. So would Mulder. Meanwhile, Doggett is trying to track down Rohrer’s body when Reyes hears someone outside John’s home, another person trying to help Fox. (Team Johnica’s supporting roles in this series finale are beyond frustrating.) The next day, Marita takes the stand at the trial. Skinner is about to force her to reveal the current conspiracies when Mulder imagines Alex warning him about her safety. I guess Krycek cared for her after all.

Gibson arrives to save Fox’s butt. He says he's sheltered Mulder for the past year. He also claims one of the members of the tribunal isn’t human. We know him as Toothpick Man from "Providence" (S9E10). You know, the guy played by Alan Dale that never once had a toothpick on him. Mulder gets physically removed from the courtroom and we never get to see Gibson demonstrate his mind-reading powers to these non-believers. Fox talks with his “legal team” Skinner, Doggett and Reyes. John shows how far he’s evolved from the rigid rule follower he used to be with this bon mot: “Then let’s shove it up their ass.” He and Monica testify on behalf of Mulder. But Reyes' outrage toward Kallenbrunner and especially her boss, Kersh, articulates just how pissed she really is at this mockery.

Doggett’s doggedness pays off. He manages to get his hands on “Knowle Rohrer” or at least a corpse that is allegedly him. John stays with Gibson at Scully’s place while Reyes takes Dana to Quantico to perform the autopsy. Scully proves it isn’t Knowle and brings that information to Fox's trial the next day. Of course, her testimony gets rejected and Kersh ejects her from the courtroom. Frankly, everyone gets kicked out. By the time we return to the “trial,” Alvin and his fellow puppets have declared Fox Mulder guilty of first-degree murder. Mulder has a few words to say about that. His impassioned speech seems to reach Kersh for a split second. But the panel hands down a “death by lethal injection” sentence anyway.

Rohrer heads to the base to kill Fox and doesn’t even try to hide his identity. Luckily, Skinner and Doggett just jailbroke Mulder out of his cell. (Yes, I know jailbroke isn’t a word but I like the sound of it.) Our fugitive heroes run into Kersh, who’s finally helping them! Reyes drives the getaway car to Scully and Gibson. Sculder head south (against Alvin’s suggestion) without saying thank you to anyone. Team Johnica and Praise head to FBI headquarters to destroy Gibson’s records, but someone beats them to it and has cleaned out the X-files office. Walter goes to see Alvin, but Toothpick Man greets him at the door. Gibson realizes the Toothpick Man knows where Sculder are heading. So what happens to Skinner?!?

Somewhere near the Texas/New Mexico border, Fox talks with the spirits of The Lone Gunmen, who tell him in no uncertain terms he’s being an idiot for endangering his future with Dana. But Mulder’s all truth, truth, truth, yada, yada, yada. Sculder arrive at a pueblo and he encounters a very alive Cancer Man. Turns out, Fox’s papa is the one who sent him to Mount Weather in the first place. CSM claims the aliens have taken control. Meanwhile, Team Johnica have arrived in a helicopter to help. But when they see a sinister SUV heading their way, Monica, who is clearly the closest friend John has, refers to him as “Agent Doggett.” This one step forward, two steps back thing with their relationship is getting so old. By the way, Knowle is the one driving the vehicle. Our intrepid heroes are in deep trouble.

Cancer Man tells Scully the final alien invasion is set to occur on Dec. 22, 2012. Mulder learned about it when he broke into Mount Weather. And even though he’s protected Fox for years, CSM is now ready to watch him die. Speaking of watching someone die, Doggett is about to shoot Rohrer with a bullet when the surrounding magnetite definitely, finally takes him out of the picture. (Remember when Scully did that in "Trust No 1" (S9E6)? Does that mean John now has to go on trial for killing him too?) Sculder and Team Johnica take off in separate vehicles while more bad guys in sinister black helicopters torpedo Cancer Man’s pueblo until he dies. Again.

Later that night, Sculder are talking in a cheap motel in Roswell, New Mexico. It’s his defeatist attitude vs. her pep talk. Fox’s argument about listening to the dead is more compelling than his never-ending alien chatter. But they end the night in each other’s arms, which doesn’t seem like a win to me. We never see Doggett again. We almost wish we didn’t see Reyes again. And Chris Carter’s need to “George Lucas” his original continuity is going to reach new levels of “Eww” in the show’s revival in 2016. At least we’ll have the palate cleanser that is “I Want to Believe” before tackling the newer eps. Mulder always says “Trust no one” but you can trust me when I say my snarky tone shall return.

Sestra Professional: 

After nine years, this is what it has all come to. It's kind of disappointing that the series sputters to this conclusion. In the end, wrapping it up means the same thing it has all these years -- demean the work of Fox Mulder ... and Dana Scully. Never mind all the cases in which someone said, "This could be the key to everything in the X-files." (I should have counted that number, it definitely would be in double-digits.) The truth may be in Scully, but the key to everything remains Mulder.

Not that I have the same issues as Sestra Am with Fox's return. Clearly he had to be there. He's a face of the franchise, and with the fan base at the time largely disinterested in continuing on with John Doggett and Monica Reyes, Mulder needed to be back in the fold for the regular run's wrapup. But what's missing is everything that made this series so much fun to watch for years. The fresh-faced awe and optimism -- like every time Fox Mulder got a glimpse of his white whale -- not to mention the sense of humor.

I can't seem to locate it now, but I distinctly remember a line from my favorite review of this episode, something like "Alex Krycek returns to open a door?" And it's true. One of the seminal villains and his return is about helping Mulder. To consider that he only helped in Fox's tortured head may even be worse. Mulder has never been interested in any assistance from Alex. All he wants to do is pummel the guy. He realllllly must be out of sorts.

We can't win, we can only hope to go down fighting: The moment when Dana and Fox are reunited carries an understandable amount of weight, even though remembrances of the romance-novel email meanderings we suffered through in "Trust No 1" still linger in the mind. Now that's torture. Since it has been a year, Scully also has to clue Mulder in on William's recent departure.

And then the sham of a trial. We know it's a sham for so many reasons, chiefly because it gets underway without Knowle Rohrer's body, real or fake. So even before the testimony starts, we know how it's going to go. The prosecutor doesn't bother with witnesses, just the sworn statements from people who saw the opening teaser play out.

Human life is extraterrestrial by definition: Then it's a waltz down memory lane, from the very beginnings of Scully's assignment to the X-files to debunk Mulder's work through Samantha and Dana's abductions, the black oil, the history lesson from "Fight the Future", the government conspiracy and the Syndicate's literal conflagration.

Scully's testimony is discounted because she had his love child. Interesting. I guess there was no point in countering that the files she so thoroughly documented for the first five years were burned up in the FBI basement. Spender Fricasse lays out his portion of the program; his words are weakened by documentation that the two didn't get along and he considered Mulder unstable when the former had a face. Guess this military doesn't allow for people changing their minds. Also, their documentation didn't go up in smoke.

We never were going to win: This is all so ploddingly delivered that one can almost wish they put everyone involved out of their misery. Where are those renegade faceless aliens with the blow torches when you need them? At least Mr. X provides a voice (and piece of paper) of reason. The tribunal isn't interested in hearing what anyone has to say. Hey, didn't I say that? No one listens.

Mulder somehow makes it worse for himself by taking Krycek's counsel to let Marita Covarrubias go before she can name names on the sequel conspiracy and their Super Soldiers. Gibson Praise arrives and proves his junk DNA is no joke, but that makes it worse on Fox as well. John Doggett gets to show how he's changed by detailing what he knows of the Super Soldiers, while still doubting the paranormal on the whole. He somehow has no answer when confronted with the latter, despite all he's seen over the past two years. So the only one who really comes off well in this episode is Monica Reyes. If I was presenting my case for who the character of Reyes is, I would use this episode. She stands up to authority, no matter what the cost.

Either way, you lose: To my mind, Monica was the show's most standup character. Yes, I said it. Out of everyone. Here is my evidence: "You don't care what these people have sacrificed over the last nine years, what's been lost to their cause. You make a mockery of it, gladdened it proves your point. ... What is the point of all of this? To destroy a man who seeks the truth or to destroy the truth so no man can seek it?"

Even Mulder's pontification to that tribunal for succeeding at bringing him down when so many others failed for nine years doesn't carry the impact of Reyes' speech. Maybe because Fox is saying it for his own purposes, while Monica's actions were entirely selfless. Sure wish we could have seen that person again. 

Nevertheless, Mulder seems to have gotten through to Kersh after all this time. Yeah, the boss who wouldn't listen to reason about the most basic things for his four years on the canvas. Contrarily, now The Lone Gunmen's souls are urging him not to follow through on his instincts. So we're up to five people -- or one person and four ghosts -- behaving in a manner diametrically opposed to the way they usually behave, unless we add on the other three who somehow testified without defending their actions.

My power comes from telling you: And just like we couldn't have a finale without Fox, we certainly can't have one without the "chain-smoking son of a b*tch." We didn't really think he was rubbed out after falling down some stairs. It would be a lot tougher to bring him back from a complete hollowed-out inflagration, right? I do thank CSM for providing some words of wisdom, though -- claiming the original Roswell crash was caused by magnetite, still the only substance capable of taking down a Super Soldier, was inspired.

Guest star of the week: In spite of the insipidness, it was great to see so many of the actors who helped carry the show through the regular run back for the last hurrah. So on this occasion, I give the kudos to William B. Davis, Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund, Bruce Harwood, Steven Williams, James Pickens Jr., Laurie Holden, Chris Owens, Jeff Gulka, Adam Baldwin and -- of course -- Nicholas Lea.