Case 09, File 16: William

AKA: The Conquerer?

Despite his conception being a huge massive plot point, the show has struggled to figure out what on earth it was doing with William. William's existence is a huge shift in the show's normal, and the show wasn't always on board with those changes, and they clearly had no idea where they were going with the idea that he has psychic powers. But with the finale barreling down on them like a proverbial train, the time had come to come to a decision point with his story, to as the saying goes, shit or get off the pot.

Our episode opens (after a flashforward cold open where a random couple on a farm adopt William), we check in on Scully and Doggett, bumming around their home and office, respectively. Before they can bum around too much, a dude sneaks into Doggett's office and goes looking for some files, and when Doggett returns, clonks him on the head and tries to run. He's not good at running, cause Doggett instantly catches him.

But it turns out he'll only talk to Scully and it also turns out he was horribly burned by...something? After her reveals he knows some stuff about Mulder, he gets moved to Quantico because no one but friends of Mulder knows that Samantha was abducted. Scully examines him and Doggett decides that he's probably Mulder. No I don't really know why either, but Scully briefly gets convinced and asks Doggett to run a DNA test.

Our burned buddy, who says his name is Miller, wants to see some files back at the X-Files, but they're not there. It turns out Scully moved them to her apartment for safekeeping and she thinks that's proof he's not Mulder, given that Mulder was the one who asked her to move them there. Also Miller is messing with William but that won't become important till later. Skinner also thinks it's weird since Miller is shorter than Mulder (which makes sense) but then the results of the PCR test come back and it IS Mulder. I'm gonna keep calling him Miller though.

"Why do I hear the Metal Gear Solid soundtrack?"

Upon finding that out, Miller bolts, but Doggett grabs him again and brings him back, but like 20 seconds later, he sneaks into William's room and injects him with something. They find him crying and the blood like 30 seconds later, and then the syringe like 25 seconds after THAT because he's very bad at this.  But the thing is, when they get William to the hospital he's...fine. Normal basically.

So they bring Miller back for questioning, and he admits he's not Mulder, he's actually Jeffery Spender, Mulder's half-brother (remember him?), and his injection just turned William normal, but the remaining conspiracy will still never stop looking for Willian, even though he's normal and useless to them now. So Scully, with basically no options left for how to protect William anymore, gives him up for adoption, and the episode ends with William unable to psychically move his mobile anymore.

William is an episode with a singular devotion, to get William off the board for the impending finale. In that, if nothing else, it's successful, it does manage to get William away from the plot and into his new life. It remains to be seen whether that was a worthy goal or whether the plotlines they spun out of it were worth it, but right now, in this episode, the question is whether the episode is good, whether the shortcuts they took in this episode were worth the goal they accomplished.

Let's talk about the big plotline, the massive twist being the reappearance of Jeffery Spender, and I genuinely dunno how to feel about it. On the one hand, I do find the basic elements of the twist engaging. It takes some shortcuts to get the plot there, but the DNA test fakeout works, and Chris Owens sells his role. But on the other hand, bringing back a character who died over 3 years ago (with no indication that he was alive) feels cheap and it makes those shortcuts feel all the worse. The first time I watched this episode, it got me, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

This is a goofy as shit shot, I'm sorry.

Maybe it's easier to forgive because the rest of the cast is solid. Anderson in particular is still the series MVP, and I feel like this is one of the better looks at the emotional toll Mulder being gone and her being left with William is taking on her, and she also manages to sell her bottomless contempt for Spender in their final scene. I genuinely got emotional in the final scene where Scully is choosing to give William up and that's almost entirely on Anderson, since William is...well he's a baby, obviously he's not a well written character, but I can't really hold that against him.

The rest of the episode just turns around those two elements, the Spender twist and Scully's emotional journey; It's actually a pretty event-light episode, so there's painfully little to talk about. Doggett is really solid here, even if the episode has to contort him into pretzels to make sure the episode gets where it's going, but Reyes doesn't really have anything to do, but stand around looking vaguely concerned, which is not a great role, especially since Reyes often acts as a good foil to Scully. Skinner barely even appears; I genuinely think his role in the series went down since he made opening credits, which feels kinda backward. I guess I do like the episode suddenly jerking into high gear when William gets injected by Spender, it's abrupt but in a good way.

The technical aspects are...fine? I guess? The directing goes back and forth; It's mostly good (some nice atmospheric use of shadows) but occasionally veers towards the goofy (the shot of Mulder in Scully's eye is goofy, I'm sorry) while the makeup used to create Spender's burns are pretty impressive. I really wish I had more to say about the episode, but it is so singularly devoted to its plot machinations that it barely even seems to exist outside of that arc.

"Hey kid, how do you like my Mason Verger cosplay?"

I guess, if the episode has one other role, it would be to slap the "Story by David Duchovny" and "Directed by David Duchovny," and give us that brief shot of him in Scully's eye even if it is goofy. With the end coming fast, they at least wanted to go out on a big event finale, bring back enough of their wayward audience to end on a high (or high-ish) note. Making sure we see Duchovny, both in person and in credit, is an indication that whatever rift existed between Duchovny and The X-Files has healed enough to bring him back, letting the fans who had wandered off in his absence know that he could return for the finale. It's a mercenary role, but it's one the episode fulfills.

Jump the Shark, William and the next episode Release, form a rough trilogy of episodes that exist less because the stories in them demanded to be told and more because, at this point, they knew the rapidly approaching season finale would be the series finale and they wanted to get as much of their existing plots tied up before the clock ran out. As such all of them are imperfect, with the feeling of an essay rushed out 18 minutes before the deadline. At least unlike Jump the Shark, this episode's ending feels emotionally resonant enough to make it work.

Now let's see how Release does.

Case Notes:

• The music and the over wholesomeness of the cold open make me feel like something is about to go horribly wrong or that it's a parody.
• "Why would the mother [give up her child]?" Uh there are a million reasons lady, don't fuckin' judge.
• The way the shot is arranged, I feel like the line where the kid is identified as "William" was added after they designed it to be a "Reveal" only to realize "Shit, do people recognize babies on sight?"
• Scully singing Joy to the World is my favorite kind of callback, the kind that makes sense as something someone would do, but also works great as a callback.
• I like Doggett doing pushups in the office, it's not complex but it fits with him, and him counting more than it is is a cute detail.
• Seeing David Duchovny's name on the Story By and Directed By credit is pretty shocking, you genuinely start hoping Mulder is gonna show up.
• They're building up Miller's face a lot, but I think it's a casualty of the age, with new HD TVs I can see his face pretty clearly, and he looks like a lesser version of Gary Oldman in Hannibal.
• I don't buy that Miller can get Scully's trust by telling her that Mulder's sister was abducted, everyone knows that.
• The makeup effects on Miller after he gets moved to Quantico are pretty good and while the flashbacks we see are brief, the effects look good there too.
• Doggett jumps to "Miller is Mulder" really fast for no other reason that the plot needs him to.
• The pencils STILL being stuck in the ceiling is fun.
• I get that it's intended as escalation, but the fact that Miller has to say aloud that they went from "Conspiracy to hide aliens" to "Conspiracy OF aliens" is kind of the problem with the back half of the series, isn't it?
• "Yes strange burned man, I will trust you alone in my house with these extremely sensitive files."
• Hey, it's Skinner.
• Knowing the twist of who Miller is, it's really funny that Skinner has to point out that Mulder has several inches on him.
• Skinner is the one who is the least emotionally involved so he's the one actually poking holes in Miller's story, I love it.
• I get that it's an emotionally charged scene, but I still think they gloss over the fact that Miller says Scully's baby is part alien too fast.
• I'm not gonna lie, the DNA matching Mulder's is pretty clever with the twist.
• You can tell Miller isn't Mulder cause Mulder looked like a badass running and Muller looks like shit.
• I like how Scully, who knows Mulder intimately, is basically poking 100 holes in this dude's story, while everyone else is like "Yeah but the DNA test says..."
• The reveal that Miller is Spender is okay, but they needed to make it smaller, milk it a little less, it feels like gloating.
• The better reveal is what Spender did, making William normal, especially since it properly ties into Scullly's decision to give up William and has some real emotional resonance.
• The final scene, with Scully choosing to give up William to protect him and William with his new parents is probably the best bit in the episode, or at least the bit with the most emotional resonance.
• As always these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so I won't have to give up my alien son to make ends meet.

Audio Observation:

The final scenes of the episode are set to a cover of Michael, Row the Boat Ashore by Peter, Paul and Mary, which is a really solid note to go out of.