I Only Know One Truth: It’s Time For The X-Files To End….
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It was always my intention to write a recap/review of all ten of the new episodes of The X-Files in it’s 11th season and second since returning from a hiatus of more than a decade. Unfortunately, since this entertainment blog is a labor of love (and I can’t eat love…yet), I was unable to do so. But as the final episode of the season aired last night, I want to make the case that this should be the series finale of the show that many of us grew up with and, perhaps much like its creator Chris Carter, have a hard time letting go of.
There will be light spoilers for the season and the finale below this clip of one of my all-time favorite scenes from the series. (This one’s for you Skin-Man.)
I love this show, its characters, and I’ve enjoyed every single new episode they’ve released. Of them all, only perhaps “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” belong in a list of the best episodes of the series. Yet, the tenth and 11th seasons of the show have gotten what I believe to be unduly harsh criticism. By this I am not only referring to the reviews written about the show, but rather the displeasure I’ve seen from bigger fans of the show than I am. (And, I just realized while typing this, all of them women.)
One need only look at this blog to know that if my heart burns for anything, it’s Star Wars. When in the trailer for The Last Jedi Luke Skywalker uttered the line that serves as the inspiration for this article’s headline — “I only know one truth: It’s time for the Jedi to end” — people went ape-shit. They wondered if Luke meant it; they wondered if he’d fallen to the dark side; and they wondered if it was all just a ruse. Of course it wasn’t, and people who’ve lived-and-breathed Star Wars for decades were deeply angry when they learned the answer to all of those questions in the movie.
The quibbles with the story of the latest Star Wars films are myriad, but essentially they boil down to two categories: fans who are willing to see the series go on (and take risks) and fans who are so overwhelmed by nostalgia that they want exactly what they had before…just older. When it comes to The X-Files, I think that fans of the show — especially the die-hards — are in the same place. I don’t want to get lost in the weeds defending the specific episodes of the last two seasons of the show, so I will just say that I found these new episodes did an admirable job of balancing these two demands.
As much as I love the world Carter created, I’ve still not even watched every episode of season nine. But since the 2008 “monster of the week” movie, X-Files: I Want To Believe — superfans of the show have found another parallel to Star Wars superfans: they’ve turned on the creator. My friend Emily has long argued that Chris Carter should be an in-name-only contributor to telling stories about Mulder and Scully. All of her complaints about the last act of X-Files business are laid at his feet, from (in her view) insensitive handling of the issue of terrorism to insensitive handling of witchcraft (she is a faithful neo-pagan). Even though I’ve loved every new installment of the X-Files we get, I am starting to agree with her.
The future of The X-Files was on shaky ground after the lukewarm reception season 10 received from critics and fans. But, it seemed like a well that Fox would likely return to as long as there was money in the bucket whenever they pulled it up. But the new era of truth-being-out-there seemingly came to a premature end when, during the press tour for the premiere episode, Gillian Anderson said she was finished with the character of Dana Scully for good. This news apparently came as a shock to Carter, the folks at Fox, and fans alike. Both Carter and Fox originally said that they could see no future for the show without Scully, but Carter then backtracked.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly after the season finale, he’s not only still clinging to the idea that there are “more stories” to tell, but seems to be unwilling to commit to the death of any of the characters we saw, presumably, bite it in the finale. There is William B. Davis’s Cancer Man, Mitch Pileggi’s Walter Skinner, and Annabeth Gish’s Monica Reyes, all who apparently took fatal injuries in the last act of the episode. However, Carter wouldn’t commit to any of them being actually dead. It’s one thing for fans of the show to be unwilling to accept letting go of any characters, but another thing entirely for the person shaping those stories to be so resistant to change.
When the season premiere effectively did the old “it was all but a dream” gag to get out of the hole the season 10 finale put the narrative in, I was all for it. For a show so focused on “truth” and perspective, making Scully — the rationalist and devout Catholic — a kind of Cassandra-figure tied to the fate of her son was an interesting twist. It’s still unclear if her vision of the apocalypse will come to pass. This narrative was a kind of red herring in the episode played out via Joel McHale’s not-as-crazy-as-Alex-Jones-but-definitely-Alex-Jones character Tad O’Malley. But since Mulder killed the people responsible for flying the “alien craft” that appears in the final episode of season 10, it seems that at least some of that has been averted.
But what the season 11 finale got right that it’s predecessor got wrong was that fans never really cared much about the mythology of the show, at least not in the ways you think. As we’ve learned from shows like Lost and other “mystery boxes” is that the answers to the big questions are often far less satisfying than the questions themselves. So, it’s not whether or not aliens are real or how the gears of the giant conspiracy work that is interesting to X-Files fans, it’s how those answers impact the characters that we love. Instead of a big world-ending event, the season 11 finale instead focuses on the characters and the thing that is most important to them: their long-lost son.
The final scene of the season — and possibly the entire franchise — are Mulder and Scully holding each other and reacting to the news that they get a second chance to be parents. They’ve been effectively fired from their jobs, and are now free to be together, live happy lives, and have a family. At least, they will unless Chris Carter comes back to mess with them again. And as much as I am here for more X-Files and the superfans — disappointed though they may be — are too, perhaps we should let these characters (and, arguably, the actors who’ve played them) have some peace.
In The Last Jedi, one of the things that so upset fans of Star Wars was how the characters changed as they aged. Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson, and the rest of the cast and crew gave us an original and surprising story, full of real stakes and loss. Instead of reliving the exhilarating exploits of the original trilogy characters, they brought those stories to an end. And, in this age of nostalgia and reboots, endings are things stories are severely lacking, especially where Chris Carter is concerned.
The original series finale episodes of The X-Files was a decent ending. Mulder found the truth that he was looking for — an alien colonization plot or somesuch — and faced down his greatest foe, who was then blown up by a missile. Mulder and Scully were much where this last episode left them, together, no longer FBI agents, and facing an uncertain future. It was as good an ending as one could get. But then, with the rejuvenation of the Cancer Man despite being hit center-mass with a fucking missile, Carter worked to undo that ending. It started with the second film, in which Mulder and Scully had separated, leading different lives but brought them together in the end. They were separated and reunited again for the show. All because Carter, the suits at Fox, dramatists, et al., believe that the will-they/won’t-they dynamic of their romance is necessary to the show. It’s not. It’s undoing their growth as characters in order to wring out more familiar narratives from a story that needs to move on.
For example, a crucial part of The X-Files are the files themselves, which Mulder and Scully can only access if they are FBI agents. But, probably by the end of season five, they should have realistically moved on from the agency, either hiding/surviving or keeping up the fight on their own. How many times does the government they work for have to try to kill them before they stop serving it? Their supervisors hate them, yet Mulder and Scully are somehow able to get their jobs and clearances back. In maintaining the status quo elements of the show, the writers tear at the binding threads of believability — which is saying something about a show centered on aliens, monsters, super-soldiers, and other genre madness.
Stories are how we humans try to relate to life and reality, which is oddly why we are so drawn to stories that defy those things. It’s much easier to accept that bad things happen because of the machinations of a cabal of villains than the reality that bad things often happen because of stupidity, selfishness, and general chaos. It’s also comforting to have heroes who are working to undermine those villains. If they can do it, maybe we can, too. Serial storytelling is wonderful on television and in film. But everything has a downside, and in this case it’s that we’ve forgotten the most important part of storytelling: that stories, even those we love most of all, must eventually end.
Return of the Jedi is my favorite movie, but as a kid I had conflicting emotions about it. I already knew the story so well that I could all but perform the dialogue with the actors. So, for me, my feelings of unease came not when the heroes were threatened, but as soon as those threats started to wrap up. The ending of that movie was both wonderful and terrible. I loved the happy ending, and honestly, I could live in that final shot of the whole gang sitting together having a ball while the Ewoks danced (and probably ate some Stormtroopers). What was terrible was that Star Wars was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen, but I knew in my heart that it was over. And frankly, given the reaction of some fans, perhaps that should have stayed the ending.
(Of course, it wasn’t. But from the ages of five to sixteen, I lived in a world where the only “new” Star Wars we were getting were weak novels and comics, some which literally undermined the narrative triumph of Luke Skywalker far more than a story about him retiring from Galactic bullshit. But, I digress.)
That’s why I feel that if Gillian Anderson is really through with this character, then perhaps we should let the Mulder and Scully saga come to an end. Where we leave these characters is at a perfect place: there has been resolution to the struggle that’s encompassed their lives and new beginnings for the characters (at least, the ones who aren’t dead). Carter and company could continue trying to recapture the magic of the past, or they could simply let their part of the story end. We don’t get enough endings any more, and they are as important a part of a story as any.
What do you think? Let me know what you thought of the new series, the finale, and if you want the show to continue on even without Gillian Anderson.
