The X-Files: Conspiracy, Controversy, and That Season Premiere Reveal
Help fund my independent work: https://www.paypal.me/joshuampatton
In the latter-half of the Oh-Tens, nostalgia has been the most powerful motivating factor in the biggest pop culture “moments” of late. There is, of course, the Star Wars resurgence, which we often forget was preceded by a rebooted Star Trek that did a delicate dance with embracing nostalgia and fully deconstructing it. In this respect, The X-Files reboot — because that is what it is — has to seemingly fight for relevance in this crowded niche and when it does touch on social issues, the response has been overwhelmingly negative. As with all returning properties, the issue lies with what fans expect and the right of a “franchise” to try to grow and change.
There will be spoilers for the season premiere, so if you’ve not yet watched it, bookmark this and return afterwards. Just know going in that this episode is polarizing in certain ways and unsatisfying in others. While it’s an important part of the story, it does make me look forward to the Monster-of-the-Week episodes coming until the season finale.
There are two key mythology points made in this episode, and a storytelling choice that some may call “a cheat.” There is also the larger question that some fans should ask themselves about whether or not this series even should continue, given the way the world has changed.
Our heroes, David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson’s Dana Scully are not in a great place when we find them. It is revealed that the event of the previous season’s finale were all a vision of what is to come, which provides showrunner Chris Carter and his writers’ room an easy “out” of explaining how after a mass pandemic and a seemingly public alien ship arrival, Mulder and Scully can get back to chasing spooky things for the next eight episodes. While some might call this a cheat, it could represent a key change in how viewers watch this show and accept what “truth” is precisely “out there.”
For most of the show’s run, all the weird shit we’ve seen has been tied to either the narrative viewpoint of Mulder or Mitch Pileggi’s Walter (the “Skin-Man”) Skinner. When we’re tied to Scully, things are always a little more ambiguous. Like our erstwhile paranormal investigators, audiences have to consider the source of the information our characters get and is shown on-screen. The best episodes that explains this is my all-time favorite episode Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space” or “Bad Blood.” In each, the story unfolds showing us how what we see isn’t always what happened. It establishes that no narrator is completely reliable.
However, until now, it was safe to assume what we saw on the show did happen in one way or another. Yet, the decision to give Scully visions of the future is not just weird (even for X-Files) it puts at least the entirety of Season 10 into question. Was just the season finale a vision of the future or the entirety of Season 10 as some seem to believe? (My money, for what it’s worth, is on the former.) The larger implication of this — witting or unwitting on the part of the creators — is that we can’t even trust what we see on the show. Now, the audience gets to simply choose which parts of the show it believes and which it doesn’t.
This begs the question about whether or not this iteration of The X-Files even should exist. When the show first premiered, it was nearly 20 years since the events of the Vietnam War and Watergate caused America to lose faith in its institutions. The internet embraced the show early on, because the ethos that the democratization of information was the only way to ensure that the “truth” is known. Yet 25 years after the show premiered, the public has shown itself to be incapable arbiters of the truth and, arguably, our disdain for American institutions handed the presidency to Donald Trump (who made an appearance in the opening of the show via public footage).
Was it an awareness of this irony that inspired Chris Carter to open the show with a scene of the Cigarette-Smoking Man (played by William B. Davis and a younger stand-in) faking the moon landing. This is a ludicrous conspiracy theory that couldn’t possibly be true, but our unreliable narrator (a vituperative liar) insists he orchestrated. This isn’t the first-time we’ve opened an episode from the CSM’s perspective, but now that an entire episode (or season) didn’t actually happen (yet) it’s entirely possible that it’s untrustworthy all around. Personally, I’d be delighted if CSM was shown to be less all-powerful than he claims to be. Still a bastard and still connected, but mostly a con-man who’d rather burn down the world than be caught in his lie.
This brings us to the most controversial part of the episode: the revelation that in the episode “En Ami” from late in the first run of the series, CSM drugged Scully and impregnated her “with science.” He then makes the admission that instead of Mulder being the father of the mysterious William — Scully’s son — CSM is. Now, he could be saying that the child of the love of Mulder’s life is biologically his half-brother. However, I think that he (and by extension Carter) are being metaphorical. He’s his “father” in that he engineered his creation.
On a mythology level, this is an interesting reveal but one that tracks with the story so far. Carter used whole scenes from “En Ami” in the last act, as if to show fans that this had been “planned” from long ago. Yet, despite the fact that Scully was told that she could not become pregnant by conventional means, fans hoped against hope that Mulder’s love (both figurative and, uh, literal) beat back that biological restriction. All told, this is a good reveal and one that makes the story of William much more interesting than just the straight up child-in-hiding story it was thought to be.
However, as per usual, on a social level this reveal is ill-timed, given the current focus on powerful men abusing and violating women. Already on social media, I’ve seen some fans saying that not only is this “rape” but it’s also a bad storytelling choice and insensitive at that. Many are content to blame Chris Carter, who enjoys the rarefied status as a creator of a fictional world that is inhabited by uber-passionate fans who hate his fucking guts. (Perhaps he, George Lucas, and George R.R. Martin can start a support group?)
To be fair, the critics are right that this violation is different only in detail to the real-world violations women in the entertainment industry, journalism, and basically everywhere else have been dealing with forever. Yet, to suggest that this is a new concept in the series is just ludicrous. The whole “alien abduction” mythos that helped frame this show is one of a similar violation. Human beings are taken against their will, violated, and then tossed aside to await neither belief of their claims or any justice at all. In a way — again, witting or unwitting — the whole thing is an allegory to real-world sexual assault and how it’s be perceived by far too many in positions of power.
So, while the conspiracy element of the X-Files is perhaps outdated and reinforces the worst of what people believe is true about the world today, perhaps there is a reason this iteration of the show should exist. Like sci-fi has done for generations, if we go beyond the silly surface details of aliens and shady government conspirators this is a tale about people who were wronged and unable to get justice because no one believes them when they admit it. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just one last chance to see characters we loved from a bygone era having adventures and reconciling the passion of their youth, their perceived destiny, with aging and, ultimately, failing to make that much of a difference.
