The X-Files: The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati (Part 3/3)   Rewatch 
July 17, 2020 2:01 PM - Season 7, Episode 2 - Subscribe

Mulder is taken from the hospital by the Cigarette Smoking Man, who offers him a new life free from the pressures of his quest for the truth, while Scully continues to search for an explanation for Mulder's neurological condition.
posted by orange swan (4 comments total)
 
The "witness protection" scam was super obvious and kind of hokey. oldMulder makeup was terribad.

Fowley does deny being a smoker.

"All these years, all the questioning why... why keep Mulder alive, when it was so simple to remove the threat that he posed?"
"There was no way you could have predicted this."


Indeed.

I had a terrible thought. Are CSM and Fowley supposed to be sleeping together?

The looks, the touching. CSM's super gross lip licking on the operating table. Fowley confessing to Mulder about her divided loyalties while Mulder was telepathic, but professing her undying love for him. That CSM used her as his confessor a while back...

Dunno why, but the CE mark on the 'Lerman MRI Halo SIZE 6' amused me.
posted by porpoise at 4:19 PM on July 17, 2020


oldMulder makeup was terribad

He looked like a withered kumquat.

Are CSM and Fowley supposed to be sleeping together?

THANK YOU FOR THAT ABSOLUTELY WRETCHED THOUGHT.

It has always seemed so weird to me that Diana Fowley doesn't get a death scene. Kritschgau got one, and he was less important than her. Diana's send-off is Scully telling Mulder very abruptly, "Hey, your ex-girlfriend that I couldn't stand has been murdered -- LET ME COMFORT YOU," and Mulder doesn't even seem to care much. I never got what Diana's purpose was supposed to be, or what her motivations were. The show made her look like a snake in the grass (yes, she even lied about smoking) and then killed her off, apparently in response to fan hatred of her. Such a bizarre misdirect.

Mulder's fantasy alternate life, that he doesn't question at all (though even in "Field Trip" he came to realize his hallucinogenic fantasy didn't add up) and the entire heavy-handed Christ analogy was such an eye-roller. Come on, he's just a weird guy on a quest.

Why would CSM need Mulder's genetic material when he has Samantha?

I did like the shot of CSM smoking and looking out on an alien apocalypse. It was both cool and very him.
posted by orange swan at 6:12 PM on July 19, 2020 [1 favorite]


so weird to me that Diana Fowley doesn't get a death scene

I always thought it was a bit of insurance to "revive" the character later (like Spender), but it definitely turned into a withered plot branch.

Fowley's throwaway was a bit strange, but I read it as that she was Mulder's succubus, the easy path to pleasure/ rest-from-pain. The weird thing for me was that there was zero chemistry between Rogers and Duchovny and they kept forcing it - making it read like Mulder feels that Fowley's a crazy ex to best be avoided, but in moments of weakness appeals to.

iirc, at least having the Fowley arc/ character, it made the introduction of the Reyes character more interesting.

Kinda always been sympathetic to Kritschgau; imo he has the, relatively, purest - or at least most transparent - reason to help Mulder.

Mulder's genetic material

I think that they talked about how the artifact activated the "vaccine"/ black oil in Mulder that (inadvertently) made Mulder a "hybrid" that was "immune to the coming virus." That this was something different than the Samanthas and Chads. None of that makes a lick of sense. So, yep, the mytharc becomes complete garbage.

At the time, yeah!, that 'Apocalypse (happening) Now' was pretty expensive (and time consuming) CGI.
posted by porpoise at 9:34 PM on July 19, 2020


The "Mulder as Jesus" and CSM looking out the window at the Apocalypse was such a direct ripoff of Scorcese's Last Temptation of Christ that I wonder how they avoided getting sued into another dimension.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:12 PM on July 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


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