The X-Files: It All Exploded
Season 11, Episode 10
Chris Carter giveth, Chris Carter taketh away. Chris Carter is a jagweed.
My expectations for “My Struggle IV” were so low, they were underground. While this episode was not as awful as I was expecting, it still left me feeling frustrated. Especially because it’s mostly likely the series finale and the last time we’ll ever see Mulder and Scully on screen.
If you need a refresher on the season 11 premiere or were too wary to even watch, check out my thoughts here. For my thoughts on previous episodes: 11x02, 11x03, 11x04, 11x05, 11x06, 11x07, 11x08, 11x09.
[I will be referring to William as ‘Jackson’ throughout this blog, because it’s the name he knows]
The Wig Files
Here I will check in on Gillian Anderson’s Scully wig and see how it’s doing. Her season 10 wig was lackluster, but based on promos and behind the scenes photos, the season 11 wigs seem to be much better.
The “previously on” reminded me how much I miss the long wig. Sigh. But with that short hair, the moment when Scully tells Mulder about their surprise made me squint and swear it could be 1997. Gillian Anderson doesn’t age.
Shipper Moment
A good 50% of The X-Files is wondering when Mulder and Scully will finally kiss and make-up. The show’s creator, Chris Carter, is notorious for insisting that despite having a child together and sharing a few on-screen kisses, Mulder and Scully are platonic. Obviously he’s wrong. This section will track the progress made on the MSR (Mulder Scully Relationship) front.
Wow, a hug. Really?! They couldn’t even kiss, especially after the reveal that Scully is pregnant again??
Thanks to the work of someone at EW, it has come to my attention that apparently the motel Mulder and Scully got it on in during “Plus One” was called St. Rachel, who is a matriarch in the bible. Also, Scully is in fact 54 years old, which was about what I guessed. Even though a majority of the fandom has been convinced Scully is pregnant for weeks now, I really didn’t think the show would take it that far — and in thinking that, I played myself.
I never thought I would be mad at the chance for Dana Scully to actually raise a child, but this pregnancy was a lazy move — and a desperate attempt to give the show more life. Chris Carter, stop trying to make more X-Files happen. You spent years depriving Dana Scully of the chance to raise a child and this is how you decide to fix that?
Best Line or Exchange of the Episode
Depending on who wrote it, an episode of The X-Files can contain quite a few gems. The 10 seasons and 2 movies we’ve had before this point have given us iconic one-liners like “Mushrooms taste great on burgers, Mulder, but they don’t raise the dead,” and “Please explain to be the scientific nature of a whammy.” What does season 11 have in store?
“I know it must seem strange to you, but I’ve been looking for you for forever.” — Mulder to Jackson. Cue my waterworks.
It’s trash that Mulder isn’t Jackson’s real father and watching Mulder hug him and comment on his height made me really sad, because I knew (and Jackson clearly knew) that Mulder has been believing a lie.
Honorable mention: “Just come back alive,” which basically means “I love you” in the X-Files universe.
Monster Mash
How does this week’s monster square up against the rest of X-Files canon? Mulder and Scully have seen some wild creatures over the years, from the Flukeman to clones to evil dolls. Season 10 didn’t have any strong monsters, so hopefully season 11 will rectify that.
No monsters, just a shitty “conspiracy” that never got off the ground and a Syndicate that was basically unnecessary. Seriously, that storyline wasn’t even a story. What was the point of those people? They served no narrative purpose. I think they were going to colonize space? Whatever. It doesn’t matter, because the conspiracy ended before it even started when Jackson made everyone ‘splode. That was some next-level Stranger Things-style gore right there.
The Bat-Crap Crazy Corner
This section will track the craziest thing Mulder reveals his belief in this week — and the dude believes in almost anything, no matter how many times Scully rolls her eyes.
Nothing to report here.
William Dollar Baby
To those unfamiliar, William is the son Scully conceived despite believing she was barren after aliens conducted tests on her and took out her ova (I know, it sounds crazy). Mulder is his father and you can’t make me believe otherwise.
Voiceover monologues have grown tired on The X-Files, but I did like Jackson’s. I loved how he already hates the Cigarette Smoking Man, even though he’s never met him. Join the club, kid. I do feel for him, a lot. This poor kid is so lonely and confused, and says that he wishes he could ask his mother questions but for some reason doesn’t feel like he can. He thinks that this contagion CSM wants to start is all his fault and thinks he’d be better off dead than living on the run or caged in a lab. That’s tough for anyone to handle, even if they have the ability to defend themselves.
Yes, his life sucks, but does he have to be a little shit half the time? He called his Ghouli stunt a “joke,” even though it almost killed those girls. Then he turns into Ghouli and scares the living daylights out of a truck driver. And goes back to one of the girls and begs her to run away with him. No matter what special powers he has that have made him jaded, he’s obviously still a teenage boy.
It’s not fair that all Scully and Jackson got was a moment where he shape-shifted into Mulder. Those two deserved more than Jackson saying “He knows you love him,” as Mulder. It was a cowardly move, honestly. And mindblowingly inadequate. I’m also torn about Scully resigning herself to the fact that she may have been a vessel to William/Jackson, but was never truly his mother. Bull. Sh*t. She carried him, raised him for a few months and loved him. He has her DNA. She is his mother.
Thankfully, the shape-shifty moment led me to predict that Jackson was going to pretend to be Mulder and let CSM shoot him. I felt confident in that moment that Jackson wasn’t even dead, just letting CSM think he was, which was proved correct in the final seconds of the episode.
Basement Analysis
I’m just gonna rant and overanalyze like Mulder does down in the basement.
There were so many problems with this episode. For starters, Scully tells Mulder to “come back alive,” but they don’t even hug? Sounds fake to me. Furthermore, I refuse to believe that after all they’ve been through, Dana Scully would let Fox Mulder out of her sight at a time like this. She could’ve googled stuff on her phone while in the car with him. It makes no sense that she stayed behind, especially since she’s the one with the psychic connection to her son.
I’m so disappointed. Mulder and Scully deserved better. Would it have killed them to give us a flash forward of them with their child, happy and finally done with all B.S.?
Justice For Monica Reyes, You Cowards
Did Monica lie about Jackson’s whereabouts or did she think she was helping? Did she lure Mulder out to that hangar so he could kill all these people? She deserved redemption and we deserved an explanation. Add this to the list of things I’ll be bitter about his the day I die.
RIP, They Dead
Skinner and Monica are mostly likely dead, and CSM has to be. The only person I’ll pour one out for is Monica, who I will never shut up about.
Mulder’s Sudden Paternal Instincts
Mulder saying stuff to Jackson like “you hid from me and your mother,” made the three of them sound like a normal family for half a second. It was sort of cute. And then he chases Jackson through that factory like, “young man get back here and talk to your mother.”
It’s been an emotional 25 years for Fox Mulder, so I don’t want to rain on his parade, but when he was like “What am I if I’m not a father?” I was like, dude. You’re a spooky alien-loving nerd and the love of Dana Scully’s life. You’ve spent a total of 5 minutes with this kid your whole life. Being a father is far from your identifying trait. It’s not even top 10, even if Jackson/William was your biological son.
On that note, I hate that Scully had to find out that her womb was used as an incubator for CSM’s experiment from Skinner of all people. Just another reason this medical rape plot was an awful, disgusting idea.
Salvator Mundi
The message at the end of the theme song, which translates to “savior of the world.” Is William the savior for faking his death? Is Mulder, for killing CSM? Or is the savior maybe Mulder and Scully’s unborn child, who could be the miraculous answer to all prayers?
One Last “Screw You” To Chris Carter
He made have created my favorite show, but I hate that man. He really, really refuses to admit that it’s time for the show to end, probably because he knows he’ll never create anything of value again. So screw you, dude. Have fun being irrelevant for the rest of your life.
I’m going to be processing this episode for a while, but I can say this: In my mind, Mulder and Scully will leave the FBI and raise their child (I’m hoping it’s a daughter) far away from D.C. Scully will go back to being a doctor or she’ll teach, Mulder will write books that are loosely fictional and they will finally get some normalcy. Even if this finale was inadequate, it did provide me with that hope.
What did you think of the episode? Do you think The X-Files should be — and is — over for good?
