lisadoris

9.7 “John Doe” Doggett searches for a missing person in Mexico and ends up having his memory extracted. It’s interesting that the essence of who Doggett is still comes through even without his memories: we see his investigative skills as he tries to figure out who he is and his moral compass. The scene where Doggett relives his son’s death was heartbreaking to watch and played brilliantly. This is also the most people of color we’ve seen in an episode in quite some time and this is only the second episode to be directed by a woman.

9.8 “Hellbound” People being sinned alive is really, really unpleasant to watch. The idea of people repeating their actions over multiple life times is interesting though I wish they would have gotten there sooner. We know Reyes has a connection to the case but she doesn’t figure it out until late in the episode. It would have been cool if we had gotten the information earlier and allowed the characters to grapple with the implications.

9.9 “Provenance” William is in danger from Neal McDonough. Once again we have a room full of men keeping vital information from Scully. McDonough’s character is an FBI agent who went undercover in a religious cult and fell off the radar. The cult uncovered a spacecraft like the one Scully found in Africa in season 7. The cult believes that aliens are going to take over and that William is the key. If Mulder is still alive then William is humanity’s savior; if Mulder is dead then William will help being about the apocalypse. Everyone believes Mulder is dead for some reason and without any proof so they want to kill the kid. The FBI higher ups knew this and didn’t think it was important to tell Scully until after she put a bullet in McDonough for trying to suffocate William.

9.10 “Providence” So with no one left to trust, Scully turns to The Lone Gunman to protect William and that doesn’t end well. The cult has William though Beyers has the wherewithal to plant a cell phone on the kid so they can track him. Scully nabs a piece of the ship from McDonough and uses it to heal him and get the story I posted in the last episode but one of the FBI higher ups turns out to be a super soldier and takes McDonough out. William can take care of himself apparently as Scully and Reyes find him alone after the ship burns all the cult members to a crisp. I know the show is moving away from alien explanations for William to more religious ones and I have to say, I’m not buying it. I don’t know if that’s because the show is doing a poor job of explaining it or if I just don’t buy it. Why does everyone believe Mulder is dead? It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve believed it and it turned out to not be true. Hell, there’s even been a body before and we don’t have that in this case. None of this explains why the super solders are involved. If they thought the kid would be a threat, why didn’t they kill him when they had the chance in “Existence”?

lisadoris

In my reveiw of "John Doe," I forgot to mention that Doggett has a great Star Trek V moment when the cartel guy asks him why he wants his crappy memories back and Doggett replies: "because they're mine."

9.11 “Aubrey Pauley” Reyes is in a car accident involving a drunk driver and ends up in a coma. She enters an in-between dollhouse world made by a patient aide at the hospital. A doctor is basically killing patients for reasons that are never explained in the episode. I’ve always been fond of this episode because of the wonderful Stan Shaw even though he doesn’t make it to the end of the episode. The health insurance premiums for the X-Files must be through the roof!

9.12 “Underneath” A case from Doggett’s time as a cop rears its head as the person he convicted is exonerated. He re-works the case and discovered he did have the right man but it was some next level, religious, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde stuff. This time around, I lost all respect for Doggett: he finds out that his partner planted evidence in the case and doesn’t report him. If the good cops cover for the bad cops, why should we trust any of the cops?

9.13 “Improbable” The numerology Burt Reynolds as God episode. It’s such a whimsical episode. Ellen Greene guests in the episode as well and that makes me look forward to re-watching Pushing Daisies for the sci-fi/fantasy challenge. This episode is just cute and that seems to be the best word to describe it and it's unlike any other episode. This episode seems to be pretty divisive among fans.

lisadoris

9.14 “Scary Monsters” This episode traffics in a long-standing, and very interesting stereotype. I’m 42 years old, and I would never in my life talk to my parents the way the kid in this episode talks to his father. I know of no black person who would talk to their parents that way even if they were possessed! Seriously, this is like “Chinga”: everything would be solved if these white parents would discipline their kids! Layla Harrison is back for what it’s worth.

9.15 “Jump the Shark” Because I like The Lone Gunman, I like this episode. However, this episode is basically a backdoor finale for their spin-off. If you didn’t watch that series, which I didn’t, things are super confusing. We have two new characters that we know nothing about and don’t really care about and we have Morris Fletcher again whose presence doesn’t add much. This doesn’t even feel like an X-Files episode and while I’m sure the writers thought they were doing good by giving the Gunman a Wrath of Khan ending, this felt so cheap and unnecessary. Burying them in Arlington didn’t make it better though it tells you a lot about Skinner that he pulled those strings. I read that in the comics, it turns out that the Gunmen faked their deaths but I’m not sure if that is still considered canon.

9.16 “William” Duchovny is inching his way back into the universe by contributing to this episode’s story. The big takeaways from the episode are the Spender is back but disfigured and Scully gives William up for adoption. Spender says he was subjected to experiments by the government in an attempt to turn him into a Super Solider. Didn’t work. Scully trusts this guy, before she knows who he is, and lets him into her home and shows him files on the Super Solider. She even lets him hold William a decision which makes no sense. I was a huge shipper when the show as on the air but once Mulder was gone, they made Scully into a careless, weak-kneed. idiot where he was concerned. They say that the DNA is a match to Mulder’s but four episodes ago, we learn that some dude with split personalities has different DNA but that fifteen years ago, the DNA would have shown a match. Today half-siblings would have a similar DNA profile, but they wouldn’t match, and the freaking FBI lab would know the difference. Spender injects William with a unknown metal which strips him of his super solider powers but given what I’ve read about season 11, the injection did not come with a lifetime guarantee.

lisadoris

9.17 “Release” I’ve always liked this episode mostly based on the performance of Jared Poe. He’s required to NOT emote and to be off-putting but without coming across as a murderer. His character joins the FBI and provides an anonymous tip to Doggett regarding a murder. Doggett and Reyes find the suspect, Regali, based on the profile provided by our wayward FBI student, Hayes. Hayes can glean info about unsolved murders from photographs and it turns out that Regali is also responsible for the murder of Doggett’s son. The first few times I watched this episode, the one critique I had about it is that Doggett seemed way too eager to believe Hayes and to ask for his help about the death of his son. This time around, it makes more sense. The events of “John Doe” weren’t that long ago and it makes sense now, given that he has to relive the death of his son so recently, that he would trust Hayes. I completely forgot that Folmer was protecting Regali and killed him after finding out that Regali was responsible for the death of Doggett’s son. That’s one way for the character to go.

9.18 “Sunshine Days” So this is the episode where Michael Emerson recreates The Brady Bunch house and family to keep him company. He kills two people who broke into his house as Emerson has psychokinetic abilities. He tries to send Doggett through the roof of his house like he did the first two victims but Doggett just ends up dancing on the ceiling. It was an odd episode to end up being the penultimate one of the series.

9.20 “The Truth” So we end the series with what is essentially a clip show? The episode begins with Mulder gaining entry to a military facility and killing Adam Baldwin’s character. He’s put on trial which is obviously a show: Kersh is told as much. We get visions of Krycek, The Lone Gunman, and X though why Mulder trusts Krycek’s ghost when the living version couldn’t be trusted I don’t know. Jeffrey Spender comes back as does Gibson Praise and the UN lady. You would think that watching him read everyone’s mind would be convincing in terms of proof but Mulder goes nuts and destroys any chance Skinner has at helping him. It also turns out that Mulder has been hiding with Gibson in the desert this past year. Mulder is found guilty and sentenced to death but Doggett and Skinner stage a jail break with Kersh’s help to boot. In the end, The X-Files office was cleaned out and Mulder confirms the date of colonization with CSM who ends up getting blowed up by a missile (allegedly). Mulder and Scully share a passionate kiss and Mulder completely underestimates Scully when he won’t tell her the date because he was afraid it would crush her. Really? I can’t decide if the writers completely misunderstand Scully, which makes sense given how her character has devolved over the past two season, or if the writers misunderstand Mulder because he just hasn’t been there. It’s not the best series finale ever but it’s not the worst.

lisadoris

I Want to Believe so I have seen this movie at least three times now and I still can’t put my finger on exactly what going on. I don’t mind that they went with a monster of the week for the subject matter, I mind that they didn’t create an interesting monster of the week. So we have a pedophile ex-priest who has visions of a missing FBI agent. Because the guy claims to be psychic, they call in Scully to find Mulder. Apparently they will forgive the whole murder investigation if they help him find the agent. That seems odd but fine. Scully is clearly not interesting in the pedophile or in diving back into the darker recesses of humanity. I’m with her on this. Mulder, as usual, gets obsessed and Scully tries, but fails to bring him back to earth. Here’s where I get confused. So the guy who kidnapped the agent, and a whole hell of a lot of other people but we only hear about that part once, is trying to save his husband who is dying of lung cancer. To cure him or keep him alive, they are turning him into a Frankenstein monster by stitching him up with other people’s parts? How on earth did they arrive at that as the solution? Why did Scully think the FBI agent was still alive when her head was found in a box? In monster of the week episodes we usually spend some time with the monster trying to figure out what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. We don’t get any of that information until the very end of the movie and by that time I didn’t care.

10.1 “My Struggle” Since I had all 9 seasons fresh in my mind, I figured I’d re-watch the first couple episodes of season 10. I remember being quite bored and uninterested in season 10 when I originally watched it. Mulder and Scully are called back in by Skinner because a big-wig internet star requests their presence. Sean Hannity lite proclaims to be a true believer in alien conspiracies and takes them to Sveta who is an abductee. After some research Mulder comes to believe that the entire alien mythology has been a hoax perpetuated by elites within the government to take over the United States. So Chris Carter basically decided to recon the previous 9 seasons and the first film? WTF? I will admit that the whole government conspiracy thing was interesting in the 1990s but is less interesting now that people who perpetuate these conspiracy theories have so much power and are so fucking dangerous to democracy. Oh and CSM survived that missile strike. To paraphrase The Joker: he’s harder to kill than a cockroach on steroids! Sean Hannity lite is discredited and Sveta is taken by aliens/government conspirators/who knows. Scully claims Sveta and herself have alien DNA and I thought it was established way back when we met Gibson Praise that everyone had alien DNA but Gibson’s was turned on.

10.2 “Founder’s Mutation” The X-Files are officially reopened and the first case is a scientist who commits suicide. I must say that the high-pitched noise that drove the scientist to plunge a letter opener in his ear was unpleasant to listen to. The scientist was working for a company that is trying to eliminate genetic disorders in children and their bosses daughter may or may not be part alien. Turns out her long lost brother was responsible for the high-pitched noise as he was trying to manipulate the scientist into finding the sister. That didn’t work. He does find the sister and they both have psychokinetic abilities. Dad, who kept sister in a locked room all these years, gets his head exploded and Scully and Mulder are sent flying across the room. Both Mulder and Scully have separate dreams about raising and losing William. Aaron Douglas make an appearance in the episode. Pet peeve: Mulder’s is the only name on the door and Scully still doesn’t have a damn desk.

10.3 “Mulder and Scully Meet a Were-Monster” I remember this being the only episode from season 10 that I enjoyed the first time around. It’s still pretty funny. I’ve been listening to Kumail Nanjani’s X-Files podcast during my re-watch and I see that he’s in this episode. Nice. I asked way back in “Millenium” if Octavia Spencer was the only Oscar winner to be in an episode. Nanjiani was nominated for an Oscar last year but for writing, not acting. The two actors playing stoners in this episode have played stoners in two previous episodes. They really need to find a 12-step program. I like the switch on the traditional were-monster tale: our monster is a lizard who turns into a human, not the other way around, and the lizard is not happy to be a human. The subtle tribute to Kim Manners was nice. Pet peeve: the scene with Scully as porn star was unnecessary. Me thinks this proves they still don’t have any women in the writers room.

lisadoris

10.4 “Home Again” no, this is not a sequel to the episode “Home,” but it is the episode where Scully’s mom dies. We have our second Battlestar Galactica alum sighting with Alessandro Juliani as well as a completely unrecognizable Antonio Bandaras. Art and anger gain sentience and exacts vengeance on people terrorizing Philly’s homeless population. It was quite the violent episode with people being torn apart but other than that, it’s not particularly memorable. We do hear from Scully’s younger brother for the first time in heartbreaking fashion and Scully waxes poetic about William.

10.5 “Babylon” There’s nothing at all subtle about this episode. We have stereotypical terrorists who are Muslim and some rabid anti-Muslim hatred as well. We meet Mulder/Scully squared with Agents Einstein and Miller. The only redeemable aspect of this episode is Mulder’s mushroom trip which was by far the funniest and most disturbing trip I’ve seen on film since Dumbo and the technicolor pachyderms . The Lone Gunman make a nice cameo in Mulder’s trip and Duchovny does some interesting country line dancing. It’s not clear in the episode whether Einstein gave Mulder actual narcotics or if he was just experiencing the placebo effect.

10.6 “My Struggle II” Sean Hannity lite is back and tells Scully that Mulder has disappeared. In true dick fashion, Mulder doesn’t tell anybody where he’s going or what he’s up to. It turns out he’s on his way to South Carolina to confront CSM about this plans for the future. Turns out, he’s unleashed a plague that will wipe out all but the chosen few. Reyes shows up and fills Scully in on CSM’s plan and to tell her that she’s immune. There is nothing in season 9 that makes me believe that Reyes would sell out the entire human race and join forces with CSM. Maybe they explain that later but yeah no, I don’t buy it. Scully and Einstein figure out a vaccine for the virus while Miller tracks Mulder down via a cell phone finder app on his laptop. Nice to know the show has entered the 21st century. Scully administers the vaccine to Einstein and Miller but Mulder is too far gone: he needs stem cells from William. The episode ends with a space ship shining a light down on Scully.

11.1 “My Struggle III” You know everything that I wrote in the previous episode review? Turns out that was all a vision given to Scully by William – guess whatever Spender injected him with wore off. When she wakes up from the seizure, she tells Mulder about the vision and that they need to find William. For reasons that I still can’t explain, Mulder doesn’t believe her. This is the man who would drop everything and fly to the farthest reaches of the planet for the flimsiest of reasons and now he won’t believe Scully. When he had his strange brain activity, she believed him and flew to Africa to try and get answers. Ugh. He eventually decides to do as she asks. Spender turns out, was taking out his trash, when someone tries to turn him into street pizza. Turns out, they’re looking for William too but Spender doesn’t budge. He does go to Scully and tell her the name of the adoptive parents. In his travels, Mulder finds some members of the Syndicate who when him to kill CSM. They aren’t any more reliable: they want to postpone the plague to give them time to perfect space colonization for the chosen few. Scully gets fed up waiting for Mulder and checks herself out of the hospital to find William. This has to be one of the dumbest things Scully has ever done. She knows she’s having seizures yet she gets behind the wheel of a car? She does cause a car accident and ends up back in the hospital. Scully, you could have killed someone! Call a damn Uber, you’re a doctor, you know better! Skinner goes to find Scully and gets sidetracked by CSM and Reyes. CSM lays out the whole story about the deceived The Syndicate to carry out his own plan to wipe out humanity and this is when I stopped watching the series the first time. CSM wants William and admits to Skinner that he raped Scully in “En Ami” so she would have his child. I need a shower just typing that sentence.

shadokitty

I’m beginning to wonder if The X-Files has any redeeming characters, lisadoris.

lisadoris

Well, it's possible that we're less tolerant of character flaws than we were 20 years ago. It's also possible that the reboot is seeking to destroy any goodwill fans had toward the original series. It's also possible that these characters were always horrible and I didn't notice it before (which I think is the case with Mulder who is kind of a jerk from episode 1). Skinner was always dubious which was fine until now: I'm still fuming over the fact that I'm 5 episodes past the premiere and he still hasn't told Scully "we really need to talk." Reyes hasn't done that either but she hasn't been in any episodes since the premiere.

11.2 “This” So Langly rises from the dead to tell the agents about a Matrix-like environment that needs to be shut down. Mulder gets pissed because the X-Files were digitized in the decade+ they were gone complaining that the files belong to them. No, the files belong to the tax payers. I will say that when the bad guys come to kill Mulder and Scully, the agents show that they have upgraded their fighting skills because they kicked all kinds of ass. If they wanted to do a Lone Gunman episode then they should have brought back all three instead of cribbing off “Kill Switch.” Oh, and someone spelling Fitzgerald wrong on Byers’ grave. Nothing gets solved at the end of the episode as there was a backup to the server Scully shut down.

11.3 “Plus One” Hey, the woman who played Mrs. Peacock in “Home” makes an appearance or makes appearances as she plays two characters at least. People are being killed by their doppelgangers and it’s being orchestrated by two very strange twins. I will say that the lawyer removing all the weapons from his home had me shaking my head. What the hell was he doing with all those guns and ammo and swords? It’s too late to find a new hobby as he went down like this was an episode of Highlander. Scully and Mulder are saved only because the twins can’t decide which agent to kill so they turn on each other. Mulder and Scully hit it while on a case, very unprofessional.

11.4 “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” deals with The Mandela Effect: when you remember something that the majority don’t and doesn’t comport with the facts. Bill Dow makes a comeback. The Nixon sign in the background that says “You Can’t Lick Our Dick” was a hilarious bridge too far. We alternate between this being about mass memory alteration or parallel universes bleeding into each other and land on some sad sack who had a mental breakdown. They recreate old episodes inserting our guest star which is cute but in the “Unusual Suspects,” I assumed Reggie was Mulder’s former partner from “Young at Heart” and that Reggie was an older black dude. I also have got to find out if those odd-looking statues Mulder and Dr. They were speaking in front of exist in our reality (and according to the wikia, it’s a real instillation in Vancouver). The alien using 45’s speech to explain why the rest of the universe didn’t want humanity venturing into the cosmos was pretty damn funny. I can imagine 45 supporters were not too happy about this episode.

11.5 “Ghouli” Two girls nearly rip each other to shreds thinking they are defending themselves from a monster attack. They each describe a vision that Scully experienced the night before. Turns out the two girls share the same boyfriend: Jackson Van decamp. That’s the same last name as William. Scully & Mulder arrive at the house just in time to hear gunshots: the adoptive parents and the son dead in an apparent murder/suicide. After Scully gives a very tearful apology and leaves to do a genetic test, William gets up and unzips himself from the body bag. The DoD is responsible for the deaths and Williams gets them to kill each other. He morphs into an older Asian American gentleman to say goodbye to Scully using a Malcolm X quote (there was a poster of X in William’s room so it makes sense).

11.6 “Kitten” a Skinner episode and we start with a flashback to Vietnam. Kersh makes a comeback and Holey Joel Osment is a guest star. One of Skinner’s comrades gets dosed with yellow powder that they were tasked with protecting and said comrade commits a massacre thinking he sees monsters. Skinner goes AWOL and it turns out somebody mailed him an ear prior to his disappearance. Someone is murdering his former military unit and the entire town they live in are losing their teeth. The son of one of Skinner’s comrades is bitter and homicidal and traps Skinner in an underground trap. He tells Mulder and Scully about a government conspiracy to create a hallucinogenic gas that will control the population. It’s the same gas we see in the flashback but they’ve had several decades to perfect the process. I did like that the sheriff wasn’t a complete ass in this episode; he was helpful and honest until he realized that Scully and Mulder were lying to him. Kid is killed by one of his own traps and one of Skinner’s teeth falls out.

lisadoris

11.7 “Rm9sbG93ZXJz” It’s just Mulder and Scully and all the AI the surrounds us on a daily basis. It’s light on dialogue and heavy on realistic fear. The agents take in a sushi restaurant without any human staff and when Mulder receives the wrong order and doesn’t tip, everything goes sideways. The car gives them the wrong directions (though I question why Mulder needed directions to his own home), the phone won’t connect, the home alarms won’t turn off, etc. This episode tells us just how pervasive technology is in our daily lives, it insures that I will not be adding any more automation to my life, and it tells me that we need to support a living wage for everyone and get away from tipping culture (they’re trying to get this measure on the ballot here in MI so I’m going to find that petition and sign it pronto before the AI chefs come after me)!

11.8 “Familiar” So man has affair with a woman and instead of calling a divorce attorney, the scorned wife unleashes hell hounds. We end up with two dead children, both cheaters are dead, an innocent man is murdered, the man who murdered the innocent man caught a bullet himself, and the scored woman went up in flames. Seriously, all she needed was a good lawyer. It was nice to see Roger Cross again playing the only person in the town who hadn’t lost their damn mind.

11.9 “Nothing Lasts Forever” Oh good lord there was way too much blood in this episode. Stolen organs that get eaten to prolong life. There are people attaching themselves to each other a la human centipede. Ugh this made me very squeamish; I mean, some things just shouldn’t be put in a blender. That was more grisly and disturbing than “Home.” The episode did feature a lovely conversation between Mulder and Scully in a church discussing faith and their futures.

For the record, I had a nasty dream about all the blood splatter in the last episode I watched. This is why I don't do horror films. Last episode coming right up!

lisadoris

Woo Hoo, I've reached the end! It took two months but I waded through all of it.

11.10 “My Struggle IV” The end is finally here and this series really needs to be put out of its misery. We start with a voice over from William outlining the fact that Spender’s injection from “William” never worked as he always had powers. The family moved around a lot to avoid suspicion and since he clearly never read a Spider-man comic, the great responsibility part never materialized and he turned into a juvenile delinquent. The feds begin keeping tabs on him which makes him suspicious and instead of laying low, he pulls the prank in “Ghouli” that nearly gets two girls killed. Mulder drives all over the place trying to find William, Kersh demands everybody’s head on a platter after Sean Hannity lite publishes a story warning about the impending plague, and Skinner finally tells Scully that she was raped and that William CSM’s science experiment. The space colonization group finds Mulder and William and William literally explodes their heads all over a hotel room. I would really hate to be the person who had to clean that up. It all comes down to a meeting at a dock. CSM and Reyes try to run over Skinner but he kills Reyes before getting crushed by CSM’s truck. William tricks CSM into killing him, Mulder shoots CSM and pushes his body into the water (I won’t say Mulder killed him because he didn’t check for a freaking pulse like he should have). Scully finally accepts that she has to let William go and she reveals to Mulder that she’s pregnant which is a neat trick since she doesn’t have any ova. William emerges from the water apparently no worse for the wear though he still had a bullet hole in his head. They never explain why William was the key to CSM’s plan and again, nobody confirms that CSM is dead. Dude survived a missile attack, being thrown down a flight of stairs, and getting shot. Mulder and Scully should have fished that body out of the water and cremated the remains on the spot before celebrating anything. Skinner deserved better than being crushed between two cars. Hell, Mulder and Scully never even go check to see what happened to him. Hopefully this is the end of the series but this finale is far less satisfying than “The Truth.”

DONE

BobO'Link

Congratulations! It's been an interesting read.

I'd always wondered about the "relaunch" of the series, basically one of those "Why bother?" rumination type things as they so rarely work out well. Based on what you've posted I'm pretty sure I'll ignore those seasons unless they happen to go on sale *very* inexpensively.

davidh777

Congrats, lisadoris!

My MYOC ran over as well. I figured all of my Tarantinos could spill over into the historical challenge, but when I got to Jackie Brown, which was the big one I hadn't yet seen, I realized it was an homage to the '70s but didn't actually take place then. I just watched it without credit. The challenge pretty much confirmed my thinking that my favorites are Inglorious Basterds, Pulp Fiction, and Reservoir Dogs, while the new ones like Django and Hateful Eight leave something to be desired.

lisadoris

Out of the 16 episodes they did for the relaunch, I enjoyed 3 of them. T-Mobile gives us $3.50 in Vudu credits every Tuesday so I'll just use those credits to buy the episodes. It used to be $5.50 but what can you do. I will say that the FOX Roku app has every single episode for free with a cable subscription and that's how I watched the relaunch. You do have to create a profile if you want to pause an episode and pick it up later which was annoying.

shadokitty

The National Geographic app does too. Fox is one of the networks that is part of that app.