The X-Files: My Struggle II

February 22, 2016 8:43 PM - Season 10, Episode 6

Scully must look within to try and find a cure when people all over the country suddenly start falling gravely ill.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth (64 comments total)

Chris Carter just pulled a bigtime Chris Carter.

Could this triangle-UFO be piloted by William?
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 8:45 PM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

More like X(position)-Files, amirite?
posted by wabbittwax at 8:54 PM on February 22, 2016

He had more story for this episode than he could fit in and he cheated by having Annabeth Gish dump a bunch of plot background in Scully's lap. Would it have been too much trouble to have just not done last week's episode at all and made this one a more coherent two-parter?
posted by wabbittwax at 8:56 PM on February 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

It's not too late for him to just come clean, call a press conference, say, "Look, I've got to be honest with myself, and the fans. I don't know how to end this fucking thing. I've had like 15 years to think about it, but I've still got nothing. How 'bout that William B. Davis though, right?"
posted by wabbittwax at 9:00 PM on February 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

I HAVE NO LOWER CASE FEELINGS ABOUT THIS EPISODE
posted by charred husk at 9:01 PM on February 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

I HAVE NO LOWER CASE FEELINGS ABOUT THIS EPISODE
posted by charred husk at 12:01 AM on February 23

eponysterical
posted by wabbittwax at 9:03 PM on February 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I will no longer invest any time or effort with any long form narrative program. The End does not justify the means.

I should have known this tonight with the opening sequence. Scully morphing into an alien? How stupidly cheap can you get?
posted by njohnson23 at 9:07 PM on February 22, 2016

"Insert tech babble here" works for Star Trek because its about stuff that is supposedly beyond us.

"INSERT TECH BABBLE HERE" DOES NOT WORK FOR STUFF WE ALFEADY KNOW A LOT ABOUT, LIKE GENETICS.

Congrats, Chris. Islamaphobia, anti-vax. You are NEVER GETTING A FOLLOW UP TO THAT STUPID FUCKING ENDING I WILL STOP YOU
posted by charred husk at 9:09 PM on February 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

Don't forget the chem trails.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:10 PM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, wow, this episode was bad on every level.
posted by Pyry at 9:19 PM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Scully to Einstein: "I got the smallpox vaccine, as I'm sure you did too." (something like that, not an exact quote)

According to the interwebs, the smallpox vaccine stopped being routinely administered to children in the US in 1972; it was gone from the developed world by then. I'm not the best judge of age, but I'm pretty sure Einstein is younger than 44.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:21 PM on February 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

Also Mulder and Scully were on a massive alien space ship in the Antarctic at one point, so "CSM is just a genocidal maniac" doesn't really hold water.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:27 PM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

That was a massive, stinking turd.
posted by eyeballkid at 9:35 PM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maybe could Disney buy the X-files from Chris Carter so that we could get a show that isn't written by INFINITE DIAHHRETIC MONKEYS SHITTING ON PAPER.
posted by charred husk at 9:44 PM on February 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ahaha, I haven't watched it yet and came over here to see if I needed to post this thread or if someone else had already gotten to it. Looks like I will be OK waiting on this one until Fox posts it online tomorrow cause it sounds like a hot mess.
posted by town of cats at 9:45 PM on February 22, 2016

Jesus H. Christ. Anti-vax and chem trails, all (apparently) unironically. Anthrax scares! Breathlessly playing out the exact type of scenario that the Fox News fear-machine has been hyping their viewers to be afraid of for decades. (I'm only surprised they didn't work in the FEMA coffins.) Tad fucking O'Malley as the cliched heroic truthteller determined to stay on the air as long as possible.

When I first heard they were bringing back the X-Files, I was not overjoyed. I had hopes, definitely, but a kind of cautious trepidation. I thought about how much the world has changed since it originally aired, and specifically I thought about how our society has fragmented and polarized along certain paths that the X-Files used to be able to manage to hold a kind of middle ground on. I was concerned, not just that it wouldn't be good, but that it wouldn't be able to find or hold that middle ground anymore, or that by trying to do so it would come across as kind of limp-wristed in a way it didn't used to.

But HOLY SHIT. This episode was not just incredibly bad on a technical level (terrible pacing, terrible exposition dumps, terrible dialogue even the rest of the time...some nice, if uninspired, camerawork I guess, is about the best I can say), it also abandoned any claims of balance, sanity, wonder, mystery, or open-endedness and went racing off into the weeds shrieking gibberish like Rush Limbaugh on PCP. It's like Chris Carter reached into my brain, ripped out everything I was afraid the new episodes might do here and there over the course of six episodes, and condensed it all down to one pure glittering hateball of an episode.

With a side "bonus" of turning Cigarette Smoking Man into a cheesy, megalomaniacal Bond villain, which was something it hadn't even occurred to me to be worried about.

This episode is going down the memory hole for me. I like the rest of the X-Files too much to allow myself to remember that this episode exists.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:59 PM on February 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

I skipped most of the last three seasons of the original show, so to actually not watch this episode will be a piece of cake. This whole experience has been so disappointing. Farewell, X Files. Again. I'll never bother again.
posted by crossoverman at 11:01 PM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

How did they not learn that we hated the "big picture" episodes before? That the Creature of the Week ones were the good ones? I knew as soon as they showed us Krychek at the beginning that it was doomed. This episode reminded me of how I kept watching back in the day out of a sense of duty, gritting my teeth and hating it but somehow not able to just quit. Ugh. Why don't they know we want fluke monsters and Tooms, not freaking black oil and CSM?
posted by biscotti at 12:14 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Man, when I read about Scully morphing into an alien I thought of The Unnatural and Exley morphing. Then I spent the entire episode thinking about the better baseball themed episode. My only highlight is imagining that William was driving the UFO to save Mulder because unicorns.
posted by toomanycurls at 1:40 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm just gonna go ahead at say it: whatever that awful bullshit was last week, and whatever that awful bullshit was tonight, I'm glad I pirated this show because I don't want my ratings counting towards an argument to make more.

I also kept a tally of how many times the word "DNA" was said in this episode, and present it below for your perusal. Have faith in my science:

DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA DNA
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:20 AM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

The only thing that could have saved this episode was at the end when Mulder was like, "Miller needs help too." Scully just turns, looks at Blando McBroller, and says, "No. Fuck that guy. I have the cure that can save the world, that means I have to make it a better place, and Amell-free place."

And then William buzzes the tower in his spaceship, blasts Miller, and Highway to the Danger Zone starts to place.

Everyone on the bridge dances, Back to School style.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:22 AM on February 23, 2016 [7 favorites]

You know the tone in Krusty's voice right after the Worker & Parasite cartoon comes to an abrupt end? Where there's a beat of shock before he asks "What the hell was that?!" That's how I feel about this episode.
posted by MarchHare at 3:37 AM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

My Facebook status posted just after it ended -

"That crunching sound you all,heard was the sound of thousands of X-Files fans kicking in their TVs and shouting 'DAMN YOU Chris Carter'."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:15 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

It was never touchstone of progressivism on TV, and the creation of one of the most memorable female characters of all time was apparently just a happy accident, but that was one of the most conservative six hours of television I've ever (sort of) voluntarily consumed.
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:30 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think I watched the same episode as everyone else. That seemed a lot more X Files than anything else we got. The lighting was right for once. Scully jumped from fact A to theory Z in less than a second (granted, that's normally Mulder's job). I don't love the idea of sensationalizing the anti-vaxxer insanity but that is definitely the conspiracy of the moment - isn't that what this show is about?
posted by double bubble at 5:11 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Although, the find my phone thing was really lame. Seriously, Mulder? Don't you know the GOVERNMENT can track you with those things?
posted by double bubble at 5:17 AM on February 23, 2016

This was just terrible television, an unpleasant episode of this show, and a mess of deeply dumb science errors.

(The polio vaccine, FFS? How did anyone not point out that no-one under 44 has that very distinctive scar? I half-expected mini-Scully to say "huh, what?")
posted by desuetude at 5:53 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, that was a well-plotted piece of non-claptrap that never made me want to retch.
posted by nubs at 5:53 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Garbage, but very X-Files-ey garbage.

I really don't mean this in a gross I'd-hit-it way, but it was interesting to see how much Gillian Anderson only really started to look like herself in her 40s. I mean, we watched _The Fall_ and I was like "Yup, that's Gillian Anderson all right. The Gillianest Anderson that ever Andered," 'cuz she's really... typey, if she were a dog. So it was odd to see the old intros throughout this series and have a moment of "Who the fuck... oh right, it's Larval Stage Gillian Anderson," but she looks only kinda like how she looks, and I'd bet there's some other actor who looks more like Wee Young Gillian Anderson than actual WYGA does (like Matt Saracen from Friday Night Lights is the ultimate larval Clancy Brown). DiCaprio is kinda the same way where he only started looking like himself once he wasn't so baby-pretty.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:59 AM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

The polio vaccine, FFS? How did anyone not point out that no-one under 44 has that very distinctive scar?

It was the smallpox vaccine. And they did explicitly handwave away the problem that almost nobody gets the smallpox vaccine anymore by having Scully speculate that the altered genetic information was introduced via the vaccine but then propogated through the human population hereditarily. The possible involvement of the smallpox eradication program in human genetic experimentation was first introduced in Season 3.
posted by AndrewInDC at 7:21 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Did you guys watch Leverage? The episode where they fool the fake Nancy Grace into believing that there's a government conspiracy to poison us all with water? The scenes with Tad made me really wish I was watching that episode again.

Anywho. Terrible episode. The revival overall was not worth the six hours of my life, but hey, I'm sure everyone deserved their salaries for making it. But I'll never stop saying it: it's okay for things to be over. Stories end and creative teams run out of ideas, Sometimes, your concept is beyond played out or you have only got the two songs in you (so no, no-one needs to hear the third). I've always hated nostalgia-based entertainment and after this dreadfully boring and sometimes stupid X-Files run, I hope I'll have to stop going along for the ride when the shows are produced or movies made.
posted by crush-onastick at 7:59 AM on February 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

So if it's Scully's DNA that saves us all...

CLYDE WAS RIGHT
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:12 AM on February 23, 2016 [10 favorites]

I really don't mean this in a gross I'd-hit-it way, but it was interesting to see how much Gillian Anderson only really started to look like herself in her 40s. I mean, we watched _The Fall_ and I was like "Yup, that's Gillian Anderson all right. The Gillianest Anderson that ever Andered," 'cuz she's really... typey, if she were a dog. So it was odd to see the old intros throughout this series and have a moment of "Who the fuck... oh right, it's Larval Stage Gillian Anderson,"....

Interestingly enough, there was a recent dust-up involving the Daily Mail (because of course it would be) claiming that she's had plastic surgery; she responded with a Twitter comment that "if this wasn't so sad, this bollocks would have made my day!" and posted a follow-up selfie with the hashtag "#agingwithoutshame".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:33 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't know. I was fully expecting to only enjoy about 50% of this revival, and I enjoyed a little more than that, so I'm good with it. It is painfully obvious that Chris Carter was trying to condense a full 22-episode season into 6 episodes, which just... did not work. Also, the fact that he didn't realize or didn't care that the sort of government conspiracy stuff that was the bread and butter of the show in the '90s would play very differently in this post-9/11 Fox News era is a worrying sign for a possible season 11.

But... I think to the Were-monster episode, or "Home Again", and think... this show can still do it. I could watch Mulder and Scully stuck in a room together for 45 minutes.

I don't know why Carter didn't just jettison the mythology, but even in the heyday of The X-Files it was obvious he never had a firm grasp on why people loved the show (MULDER AND SCULLY).

Of course, I'm also one of those people that contend that that Doggett and Reyes could have worked if they had had the courage of their convictions and had Anderson completely leave the show when Duchovny left. As it was, Scully and Doggett never really worked, and season 9 was exasperating because every time Doggett and Reyes were getting into a groove, Scully would pop up without even a cursory explanation of why she was teaching at Quantico but somehow kept finding out about the sea monster killing people in Cornburg, Nebraska.
posted by Automocar at 8:50 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

So, reading the reactions here has sold me. Just like "Babylon", I'm not watching this episode. I don't need to see this bullshit.

As far as I'm concerned, this revival season consists of two episodes, namely the Morgan & Morgan ones.

Chris Carter is a fucking hack, and I curse his fucking grave.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:03 AM on February 23, 2016

Muslim aliens aborted my baby and gave me a tainted vaccine!
posted by FallowKing at 4:11 PM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

At the end: "Mulder, I'm here"
No. I don't think you were.
They didn't co-exist in the same frame at any point during the episode.
posted by FallowKing at 4:43 PM on February 23, 2016

Carter is still trying to seek vengeance because we didn't watch that horrible Lone Gunmen show.

On the upside I have been enjoying Lucifer even if it has remotely nothing in common with the comic.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 6:56 PM on February 23, 2016

Ugh. X Files used to at least get the science bits (mostly) right, but the "science" in the finale (what? that's it?) is a mess. But I complain mostly because they used to get it (mostly) right.

Contrasting Scully doing a Southern blot like a champ in a realistic deadline-breaking amount of time in a previous season to prove that she had alien DNA puts to shame the shoddy molecular biology in this episode. It was laughable; no-one pours such ginormous slabs of agarose gels, PCR runs are done with positive and negative controls, its ridiculous that they needed so much more template DNA that they had to draw blood* for it - more than plenty from a buccal (cheek) swab.

However, I'll have to concede them the choice of technique; originally Scully only had a sample of alien DNA back in the '90s and she didn't know its sequence so a Southern blot to see if her genomic DNA had something analogous to the "voucher specimen" of alien DNA is the correct technique.

After sequencing her genome subsequently (probably via a next gen [post Sanger, ie. shotgun] sequencing that's been widely available the last few years) she'd know the sequence to design PCR amplification primers for, thus obviating having to a more laborious Southern blot. There are also ways of figuring out what the alien DNA sequence was out of a Southern blot; Scully mentions that the sequence insertion was near the centromere of chromosome 17 (?), she probably knew that by doing FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization, which is similar to a Southern blot) with with the alien DNA voucher specimen against some of her cells.

Einstein talking about CRISPR/cas9 was laughable; the actress is obviously just parroting words. Incidentally, CRISPR has only been in application for two or three years, although the system was first noticed in the 80's (?)** but it wasn't known what it was until the 2000s*** (?) and was harnessed as a tool a couple/three years ago. A few months ago, a similar system from a different bacteria was harnessed as a tool (Cpf1) and is more precise and efficient than CRISPR.

So, yeah, hey... if there's an 11th season, I'd consider a gig as a science consultant to the writers...

*there are immune cells (white blood cells) in circulation and they contain genomic DNA - and don't get me started on chimerism

**strange repetitions in a bunch of bacterial genomes

***those strange repetitions looked a lot like sequences in viruses that infect bacteria; the repetitive sequences were like "wanted posters" for viruses that have previously infected one of that bacteria's ancestors but something happened, bits of the virus' DNA got into the bacteria's DNA****, and the system uses the wanted posters to cut up any virus that looks like it that infects the bacteria

****no, I am not going to give the writer's credit; what Scully is expositing to Einstein is "human endogenous retroviruses," all humans have swatches and swatches of virus DNA inserted into our genomic DNA that gets passed on. It's a thing a bunch of viruses can do, get themselves tangled up in the host's DNA so every time the host reproduces, there's a good chance that a bit of that virus does too.
posted by porpoise at 7:27 PM on February 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

its ridiculous that they needed so much more template DNA that they had to draw blood* for it - more than plenty from a buccal (cheek) swab.

Yeah I laughed when the first test from the blood vial didn't work and then Einstein's like "WE NEED MORE DNA" and they take a pint.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 7:52 PM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

Update: I could not bring myself to watch this tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe not ever.
posted by town of cats at 10:45 PM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

This episode was bad. A lot like the season opener, it was too much explaining and not enough stuff happening. And the timeline of the episode was too compressed.

But I'm most pissed at the ending. Ignoring the whole "is William in the space ship" bit, I was really hoping that Scully would be successfully manufacturing and administering the vaccine and then realize that she was, in essence, giving everyone that alien DNA and maybe that's what the secret cabal actually wanted the whole time: to make the entire human race into alien hybrids. And of course mulder would refuse on principle and live the rest of his days suffering, while He and Scully were outwitted again by the conspiracy. Would've been a nice "same as it ever was" ending.
posted by sleeping bear at 12:07 AM on February 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Chris Carter is a fucking hack, and I curse his fucking grave.

So, same time next season?
posted by happyroach at 12:19 AM on February 24, 2016 [10 favorites]

Was really kind of disappointed that the person sent for Mulder was not Ratboy. I mean, you know, since they fixed up CSM then surely a bullet between the eyes is no big deal.

And I thought I reached my IDGAF about William a couple episodes back...but even here when he can supposedly save Mulder. I JUST DO NOT GIVE A FUCK.

High points of this ep for me - Mulder looked legit crazed in the car at the beginning. Mulder fighting back at his house - hey, Mulder has never been a great fighter but I'm glad he tried in his own way.

THIS IS THE END. OMG. NO IT'S NOT - IT NEVER IS. Chris Carter is getting punched in the junk when the next season opens with, "THIS IS THE BEGINNING"
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 1:15 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ugh. Now he's pushing anti-vaxxer theories too.

I expected the CSM (who is now probably a "moderate republican" based on his climate change stance, and is also the Phantom of the Opera) to send Krycek to get Mulder because why not. A bullet in the head is not such a great deal, apparently.

Also, "Agent Einstein" sounds dismissive as fuck, regardless of tone. When the tone is right...
posted by lmfsilva at 1:46 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Coincidentally or not, the second season of Millennium also ended with a would-be plague. (At the start of season three, it turned out only a relative handful — less than a hundred — died from it, although Catherine Black was one of them.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:03 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Truth Squad with Scully and Mulder is what that was.

Also, "Agent Einstein" sounds dismissive as fuck, regardless of tone. When the tone is right...

I did love when Skinner said: "Now hold on, agent Einstein!" Sounded like even the script knew how stupid it was being.
posted by sapagan at 2:27 AM on February 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Also, how can I convert to this "science"? Does it suffice if I simply have faith in it?
posted by sapagan at 3:40 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

What the hell did I watch?
I mean, it was everything bad about the X-Files.

And what was up with Scully's voice?
(Or, you know, anyone's motivations.)
posted by Mezentian at 6:04 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Holy shit. This episode was profoundly ignorant of basic science (and with the anti-vax bullshit thrown in, actually dangerous) on so many levels at once that I am now actively hoping Fox does not pick The X-Files up for a new regular run.

A couple months ago I was kinda sorta excited for this. Now I am just disgusted.
posted by aught at 6:09 AM on February 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

Was really kind of disappointed that the person sent for Mulder was not Ratboy.

I was so sure it was going to be him I got a little giddy. Then nope. Nothing redeeming about this episode. And no Marita Covarrubias? Bah.
posted by MaritaCov at 6:48 AM on February 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

This was hilariously bad, and that's from someone who kind of liked part 1.

So much sciencing to save the world! Now that I think about it, this reminds me of robocop is bleeding's classic House episode. We need [alien DNA] to live!

I never really got past the question of what Alien DNA even means. And Scully in full paranoia was weird.

How did Mulder end up on the ground?

Why can't CSM hold his own cigarettes?

I actually did like that CSM had a rational justification for his actions, even if he never seemed to be the one pulling the strings before. I can see him being the guy who seizes an opportunity like this. CSM in general was pretty cool in this episode.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 7:40 AM on February 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh and I liked the ending. Classic X-Files. Perfect ending for the whole series.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 8:03 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

And what was up with Scully's voice?

It really bothered me that Gillian Anderson seemed to be delivering most of her lines in a half-whisper. This was mostly not the case in the non-Carter episodes of this run. But Chris Carter has a well-established preference for heavily under-played, super-quiet, "subtle" acting. It became a thing in Vancouver for casting directors and actors way back when. "If you're up for a Chris Carter show, make sure to underplay EVERYTHING" they'd say.
posted by wabbittwax at 9:17 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's like Chris Carter's version of George Lucas' "faster, more intense" direction for actors. Except he says. "Quieter, more furtive."
posted by wabbittwax at 9:18 AM on February 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

CSM in general was pretty cool in this episode.

Y'know, William B. Davis has always been pretty good about getting the quiet, unexpected moments that draw you in. He was always supposed to be just a bit player, but he just plain lurked so well that they gave him more to do and he became The Main Big Bad Guy. He actually wrote his own episode at some point, and he had a deliciously creepy line in the original series finale -

Leaves me to tell you what Mulder's afraid to, Agent Scully. It's a scary story. ...Want to come sit on my lap?

He also managed to pull of a fantastic parody of Forrest Gump.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:47 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not gonna lie, that line was my forum sig/AIM profile for a long, long time.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:13 PM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

What the hell did I just watch? Why can't I stop watching this awful, awful show?
posted by gatorae at 6:33 PM on February 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

When Scully first finds out Mulder is gone, for a brief moment I thought this episode would be about Mulder just being off his meds and having some sort of manic or depressive break. That's how her fearful reaction read to me.

I'd like to see that episode.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 7:11 AM on February 25, 2016

Folks, pretty sure William IS the spaceship. The next stage of human/alien hybridization is not Scully's alien DNA living on in the human race. The next season will be The X-Files: The Animated Series with anthropomorphized spaceships (a la Cars), but really gross, like when Starbuck got inside the Cylon Raider. Most of Earth's population will be decimated, but a plucky band of hybrids lead by William will finally (finally!) take the battle to the enemy, fighting the greys in outer space, having whimsical adventures, finding love on a prison ship... Also, in the true series finale, Scully will fly into the sun and travel back in time, becoming Mitochondrial Eve.
posted by nequalsone at 10:30 AM on February 25, 2016 [12 favorites]

Mulder to Scully, upon meeting the evolved William: "Scully, we really Cronenberged the world up, didn’t we? Just a bunch of (bbuuuurrpp) cronenbergs flying around.”

Scully: "Aw, c'mon Mulder, that's our son you're talking about."

Mulder to William: "You're our boy, dawg, don't even trip."
posted by nequalsone at 12:07 PM on February 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

When the spaceship appeared above Mulder and Scully and shone its beam down I actually hoped that it would blow them up like it did the girl in the first episode. At least then the pain would have ended for good.
posted by charred husk at 12:41 PM on February 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

nequalsone: Folks, pretty sure William IS the spaceship.

You are a monster. A glorious, terrible monster.

And I would watch that show (over this drivel).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:48 PM on March 7, 2016

That was... not good. I don't know why Chris Carter can't see that he doesn't have the chops to write a good script anymore. The smallpox vaccination thing is as good an indication of any of how out of touch he is.

Mitch Pileggi being in the season 10 opening credits felt more like a nod to the role he used to play in the series rather than an acknowledgement of anything he did this season, in which he barely appears.

Agent Einstein was playing Old Scully to Scully's Current Scully, who is sort of like the Old Mulder, only with a science background.

Pretty good fight scene at Mulder's place. And while I hate the fact that they've brought back CSM, his facial makeup is fascinatingly grotesque.

I hate what they did to Reyes. She'd never have worked with CSM. And they didn't even have her wear any leather or suede outerwear.

Scully left the hospital, which is full of desperately ill people, to go save one man... Mulder. It wasn't realistic that she could swerve her vehicle around all the others to get through. The roads and bridges would be jammed too tight for any such nonsense.

And now they've managed to shoehorn William back into the narrative, sigh.
posted by orange swan at 5:42 PM on October 13, 2020