As I alluded last week, the abbreviated 10th season of The X-Files has unfolded as if series creator Chris Carter had a complete 22-episode season in mind and tried to cram it all into six. Nowhere is this more evident than in the season finale, My Struggle II, an episode that runs at breakneck speed, pulling theories and solutions out of the air, then concludes with a cliffhanger for which I’m not sure we’ll ever see a resolution. It would all be extremely frustrating… if it weren’t so damned entertaining!
During the episode, I was frantically taking notes while trying to make sense of what was happening. At some point, I gave up. I set down my iPad, leaned back and decided to simply watch. I realized the details didn’t matter. All I needed to know was that the entire world was suddenly nearing an apocalyptic state due to genetic engineering by the “Cigarette Smoking Man” and his mysterious cabal of unseen puppeteers causing the immune systems of every person (except a chosen few) to collapse.
The fuzzy part is that the “alien” DNA Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) earlier identified in her blood may not be the thing killing the Earth’s population, but instead the thing that’s saving the few who have it. Also, the word “alien” may be more figurative than literal. It’s “alien” because it’s foreign or unique to human DNA; however, that does not necessarily mean that it’s from actual UFO aliens. Scully changes her mind a lot and makes statements such as, “We were dead wrong.”
It’s utterly ridiculous and insidiously manipulative. Mulder (David Duchovny) is afflicted and, while Scully’s cure may save the world, you feel like she’s racing against time to save only him. The action culminates on a bridge packed with cars trying to leave the city as Scully gets out of her car and fights through the crowd to get to Agent Miller (Robbie Amell), who has gotten out of the car in which he’s driving Mulder. All that’s missing is slow motion as the two run towards each other.
My Struggle II also offers laugh out loud moments, mostly dealing with the aforementioned Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis). After flashbacks explaining his miraculous survival and facial reconstruction, he somehow blackmails Agent Reyes (Annabeth Gish) into serving him, which includes the enviable task of sticking cancer sticks in his throat hole. When she tells him he’s going to die a lonely old man, he argues, no, not “now that I have you to light my smokes.”
It’s over the top and finally jumps the shark when CSM actually removes part of his face to expose the destroyed structure that lies underneath. I’d be pushing it to say it’s a metaphor for exposing the truth because if there’s one thing that’s consistent in The X-Files from season one to season ten, it’s that it never gives us a definitive answer for anything. The closest it comes is during an exchange between CSM and Mulder:
CSM, “I’ve controlled you since before you knew I existed.”
Mulder, “I don’t believe you.”
CSM, “You don’t want to believe.”
(Ah, see what they did there? It’s a play on the old “I want to believe” that drives Mulder, Scully and the entire series.)
CSM continues to tell Mulder that he’s not responsible for what’s happened to the world. Aliens predicted it; he’s just setting the timetable. He’s offering Mulder a seat at the big table. Huh? I suppose this makes strides toward an explanation, but there’s one vital piece of information missing: a reason why. Why does CSM want to wipe the planet of its population, and why now (other than the fact that it’s the season finale of The X-Files)?
In narration that opens the episode, Scully refers to a “conspiracy of men,” but asks questions about its “motives and final objectives.” I guess by the end of the episode, we know a little more about the final objectives, but not much more about the motives. Perhaps that’s because it’s driven by Scully’s scientific approach. She tells Agent Einstein (Lauren Ambrose), “I’ve come to understand that the science we were taught takes us but a distance toward the truth.”
What’s going to take us the rest of the way? What approach will finally obtain answers? In this episode, at least, it’s not Mulder’s “believer” perspective. Maybe in a follow-up episode beginning where this one ends, the focus will shift from Scully to Mulder and we’ll get closer to the truth. But do we really want it? Definitive answers will bring an end to The X-Files, both in the show as well as the show itself. Is it time? That depends on if you think the six-episode season ten was a worthwhile experiment.
Do I think it was a worthwhile experiment? Well, the anticipation for it was certainly exciting. I can’t say my expectations weren’t met, because they weren’t very high from the beginning. Season ten had its moments and one standout episode; it had its good and its bad elements. I’ll make no claim that it reached the heights of the original series, or was even good television. But I will say that it was entertaining and fun. I’d take six more.
