A.K.A.- Our Kid Is Out There
To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to think of the new miniseries style season (number 10) of The X-Files. It took me watching this to realize how much Fox put into BONES, which picked up where X-Files left off in a way, but with a fuller story arc. They took it one step
further- they fell in love, admitted it, had kids, got married, tried to leave
the FBI behind, and came crawling back to solve crime (Booth and Bones, not Mulder and Scully).
In its essence, I liked the new season, which ended last Monday. Still it lacked a district style of storytelling, almost like they had a group of writers throw some ideas at the wall, and then they used all of the ideas, and went home and realized they had to tie the initial story back together. Let it be known, I
like the monster of the week concept of storytelling with a longer issue/villain at work (See Buffy, Charmed etc..), but it’s tough to do in a month+ of episodes. The overall (and barely legitimate) story tying things together is that first Scully and then Mulder realize they might have made a big mistake in giving up their son, William. Little William could have had a normal life with them (as normal as a kid of alien hunting FBI agents can do), but they were worried for his safety and they gave him up. He is a teenager now and they desperately need him to fill the hole in their hearts and (SPOILER ALERT!!) to save Mulder from dying of a weird apocalyptic disease. Also, from the last scene setup, it is clear something else (another season or a third X-Files movie) is in the works with their son making his first real appearance since birth.
Season 1’s opening episode My Struggle: Part 1 was truly Fox Mulder's (David Duchovny) story. The last 14 years have not been
kind to him. It looks like he has struggled with drinking and got thrown out of
any respect in the FBI, and he still lurks in a basement office. He and ex-partner (in more ways than one) Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) have not seen each other in a while, and they have not lived happily
ever after as a couple like one might hope. Scully is doing what she does best, running a hospital lab. Joel McHale’s TV pundit Tad O'Malley brings a
case to them: a possible government conspiracy and a woman who claims she was abducted by aliens.
In today’s society, government
cover-ups seem less like the idea of a sci-fi story and more like an everyday
practice. What could it be this time? This one's a doozy. People may have been abducted by UFOs
(real alien technology borrowed by the government) and unwillingly become part
of secret experiment s that gives them alien DNA. Now that we’re all caught up,
Mulder and Scully get back to working for Agent Skinner and trying to make
sense of this seemingly bogus threat. As Tad points out; the world has
changed. All of our seemingly private conversations are listened to, everything
is hacked, and biological warfare threatens the very existence of civilization.
EP 2: Founder’s Mutation
A series of events lands the duo in trouble with the department of defense for investigating a creepy clinic where pregnant teen girls seek haven. It turns out their babies are being stolen from girls' wombs and experimented on by a doctor (Goldman, a.k.a "The Founder") who did the very same experiments on his own kids' genetics, keeping his daughter locked up for years in a facility and his wife convinced she's crazy. This girl has Alex Mack style powers. She's just about the same age as William. Goldman's son ends up locating his daughter and they use their super powers to kill their dad and escape. Ah, the joys of parenting...
EP3: Mulder and Scully Meet The Were-Monster
A dead boy is found in the woods. Maybe he was killed by a bear, a wolf, a vampire... or a were-monster? Yes, there's a difference. This is one of the odder episodes and it veered way off course from even the alien mythology. Mulder and Scully meet the monster and Mulder gets his whole story: "Guy" was bitten by a human, changing his lizard-like appearance human for certain hours until he turns back into a flesh-eating monster. The only legitimate thing about this episode was Mulder getting some renewed faith in his wacky theories. This is barely a plot point. This episode was really frivolous.
EP4: Home Again
Scully's mom is ill and she rushes to be by her side. Mulder handles most of the investigating for the case, a murder of a city official bent on getting the homeless out of a particular area of town. "Trahman", a street artist made a creation of garbage and it came to life, murdering the city official and others. This is heavy on metaphor here- what you build may come back and destroy everything. Scully's mom was heavy on straight talk. She calls of for Scully's long-lost brother William, and tells Mulder, "I have a son named William. You do too." before her final breath.
EP 5: Babylon
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| Mulder in "Babylon"- from Fox |
Mulder reluctantly gets Dr. Einstein to go with his plan, where she administers him a psychotropic drug and he dream walks into the bomber's subconscious. The reality of the situation is that Mulder thinks he takes 'shrooms and ends up having a fake trip (or was it somehow real?) in Texas, dancing in a honky tonk to the best of Billy Ray Cyrus. This scene was very amusing and I loved it, but it really did eat away at some valuable minutes of the show. Mulder gets in big trouble with Agent Skinner, but his trippy dream led him to the answer : a hotel name in Arabic and some much needed to closure to the bomber's mom that he was coerced into joining the group. Mulder may have seen God in his dreams, depending on how you interpret the white clouds and trippy sense of peace he found. Maybe he became more of Scully's believer, one of faith versus one of aliens and conspiracies.
EP6: My Struggle (Part 2)
Episode 6 is Scully's struggle. Gillian Anderson carries most of the episode, with Mulder kidnapped by the "Smoking Man" (who is his birth father, and still alive after all these years?!). Mulder is pretty beaten and bruised and according to his phone, somewhere in South Carolina. Agent Miller goes off to rescue him while Agent Einstein helps Scully try to make sense of the rapid illnesses taking control of the population. Deadly outbreaks of disease start spreading and Tad O'Malley finally has the courage to go on TV and announce all of his crazy theories about aliens and government cover-ups because everyone is probably dying. Everyone except Scully. Why? She was given alien D.N.A. when she was abducted years ago (in Season 6). Agent Reyes started helping the Cigarette Smoking Man (his proper name) almost 14 years ago with this terrible plan to wipe all the crappy people off the earth, leaving only people with alien D.N.A. alive. Why? No reason, he's just evil.... How did people get alien D.N.A? Abductions like Scully. How did they get sick, vaccinations (score one for Jennie McCarthy here).CSM asks Mulder is he wants some alien D.N.A. to survive, and he says no. Mulder is rescued by Agent Miller and they drive back to D.C. Scully chases them through the beltway, which is stopped dead with traffic because so many people are ill. Scully has a plan, we'll find William, their long-lost son, who will have her same resistant alien D.N.A., and give some to his dad, Mulder. Then a space ship appears overhead and shines its lights on them. END SCENE....
THE END
This is how they're leaving it... for now. All of these silly monsters and telekinetic kids and dancing to Honky Tonk Badonkadonk, and then a possible alien invasion and cute kids playing Mulder and Skully junior. Now the pair want to go find their son, and Mulder is half-dead. Way to go Scully..... This brings an end to my rant. I can't believe where this trajectory landed. I'm also happy to report the advent of cell phones makes things so much easier in these police/emergency drama/ evil creature shows now. #TruthIsOutThere
