Case 09, Files 19 and 20: The Truth

AKA: We Can Definitely Handle The Truth

In the end, I don't think there was ever going to be a good ending to The X-Files, at least not going into the finale off Sunshine Days. By that point, the deck was too stacked against it, the plot too out of control and the lore too much to cobble together at the last minute to actually have a finale that holds together or ties up the series properly. The best they can really do is try to do something that the fans will like. To use a somewhat overly dramatic metaphor, the landing gear is busted, so the plane is coming down hard, the best thing you can do is try to protect the passengers.

Our story this time kicks off with our hero, no not Doggett, not Reyes, not even Scully but Mulder(!), showing up at a military base in New Mexico called Mount Weather. He sneaks in, ditches the tour and heads to a super secret room where he finds very important information that we'll reveal at the end. But, unfortunately, Knowle Rohrer is following him and after a chase (in which we get a ghost Krycek, which is uh...cool?) and a scuffle, Mulder accidentally throws Knowle off a railing and onto some wires, apparently killing him.

The military doesn't like that, so they drag Mulder off to a windowless cell and psychologically torture him until they think they've broken him, at which point they finally call Skinner and Scully, and when they meet Mulder he's acting weird and stilted. So they go and check in with Doggett and Reyes, and then head back to Mulder who reveals he was putting on a show to get his captors to let their guard down so he could actually like, you know, get a trial.

Turns out the military is not super jazzed about the idea of Mulder getting a fair trial, and they basically tell Kersh "Hey could you be part of an illegal military tribunal? That'd be rad, kthanx." And because Kersh doesn't really like Mulder (or Scully, or Doggett, or Reyes or Skinner or Brad or, jeez does he like anyone?) he agrees, and Mulder asks Skinner to be his lawyer, and despite having no law training (and also the trial being, you know, illegal) Skinner agrees.

Hey kids, it's David Duchovny! *Applause*

What follows is a clip show where they invite all the characters from the rest of the show they can round up to do a lore dump testify about how aliens are real. Also lots and lots of flashbacks, this finale is like 60% flashbacks. Scully, Doggett, Reyes, eventually Spender and Marita, even towards the end Gibson Praise (Jesus, remember him?) show up to talk about how the conspiracy is real. And basically every step of the way, the tribunal ignores them, even when Gibson says one member of it is an alien, which seems like they're not taking this seriously.

Things come to a head when Scully and Doggett get a hold of Knowle's body and finds out it's not actually his body (since Knowle is, you know, a super soldier and didn't die), and they bring this finding to the tribunal...who immediately go "lol, this is already illegal" and throw it out. And so, despite an awesome Mulder speech, the trial ends in the exact place that I think they were always planning on it ending, with Mulder found guilty and sentenced to death. Ending the show on a downer, huh?

But not really, obviously, because Skinner and Doggett and Reyes and Scully and eventually even Kersh all band together to save Mulder and let him and Scully drive off to Canada. But Mulder decides instead he's gonna drive to New Mexico to see an old wise man on former Anasazi land. And it turns out the old wise man is the Cigarette Smoking Man! So not that wise, but pretty old, and knowledgeable about the shit Mulder wants to know. Oh and back in DC, the X-Files office is cleared out and Gibson warns Doggett that they know where Mulder is.

"Yeah, I made it into the finale, even though I guess I'm a ghost?"

Specifically, he knows the date the Aliens are going to be landing (turns out it's December 12th, 2012, helping fuel 100 dumb conspiracies) and also the reason the aliens crash landed in New Mexico in the 40s was cause the rock around there is full of the metal that causes super soldiers to explode. Doggett and Reyes arrive just ahead of some army choppers and tell Mulder to run. Knowle confronts Reyes and Doggett, but turns out the metal that kills them is still there and he gets magnetized into the wall. The military guys miss Mulder but decide to blow up Cigarette Smoking Man cause uh...well we all want to.

And so, The X-Files ends, for the first time at least, in a small hopeful moment, as Mulder and Scully cuddle in a hotel room, discussing how they still have hope for the future.

Let's be blunt, as two full episodes of TV, The Truth is not very good. It bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the disappointing series finale of another 90s show that's one of my favorites (Seinfeld), with the vast majority of the episode being given over to a trial of the lead character(s) that functions mostly as a giant clip show (although in The X-Files' case it also functions as a lore dump). But while there's a lot about the plot that doesn't work, even outside the trial, it does do enough, just enough, stuff that fans wanted out of the finale to leave most of us on a warm and fuzzy note.

"I also made it to the finale, even though I was never that big a character."

It's hard to overstate how much the trial dominates these episodes though, two thirds of the double episode are basically just everyone sitting in a room while whichever character they're interviewing recites their history on The X-Files and plays flashbacks of their time on it. Even X, Krycek and the Lone Gunmen get cameos, which is considerate. I guess, in theory, it's intended to be for people who have been checked out for multiple seasons and are returning for the finale, but I have no idea how to tap into that mindset; I certainly didn't drop it several seasons ago and I don't really know anyone else who did either, so I guess I just gotta approach the rest of the finale as best I can.

The cavalcade of returning cast members is pretty impressive, although it can't help but draw attention to itself as a cavalcade of returning cast members. Gibson and Marita haven't been on screen in years, Spender was dragged back in two episodes ago, even the Cigarette Smoking Man's return feels somewhat cheap. The dude had a fairly appropriate exit a while ago, why bring him back just to get exploded? Why bring Marita back when she's not going to say anything relevant? It ceases to feel like a natural story and starts to feel like the choices of a bunch of writers trying to maximize the audience for their finale.

The rest of the episode is full of some other odd choices, although I can sort of see what they're going for. The decision to have some of our deceased characters show up as...ghosts, I guess (they read like hallucinations, but they actually interact with stuff, including giving Mulder some vital information) is an extremely odd one, and it raises a bunch of questions that never even get close to answered. For one thing, why do X and Krycek show up, but not Deep Throat? Can't tell me he was busy. It once again makes the writers appear through the character; There's no story reason for Krycek, X and the Lone Gunmen to show up, it's just the writers trying to shove in some fanservice.

"I also made it into the finale, even though the writers never knew what to do with me."

The actual flashbacks and lore dump is transparently an attempt to hammer together the existing disparate parts of the lore into something resembling coherence, and it doesn't always work. The idea that the metal that kills the super soldiers is also what caused the aliens to crash in Roswell and why the Anasazi stayed in New Mexico is among the most transparent retcons I've seen in years, but at least it makes sense. The final reveal (the date the aliens are landing) is, to coin a phrase, lame as shit, and the knots the revival seasons have to tie itself in to get around it are proof why they should never pin down anything that solidly. Kersh flipping back and forth between being a good guy and a bad guy (and everyone in the episode forgetting that he supposedly helped Mulder at the start of the season) feels a lot more arbitrary. Maybe they could have cut some of the flashbacks and given some more hints he was still good.

The weirdest thing is, once they've hammered together the plot, once they've retconned everything into whatever shape it's going to be in, once Knowle is magnetized and Cigarette Smoking Man is exploded, the episode manages to find time to refocus on Mulder and Scully, on their interactions, on their characters, and it actually becomes pretty good. The core of the series, the white hot thing that kept it together more than anything else, is the fact that Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny were great at playing Mulder and Scully, and they had incredible chemistry.

And that there is what I think makes the episode disappointing, because it's trying too hard to impress us. All of the flashbacks and cameos in the world don't feel as meaningful a callback as the shot of Mulder sitting on the hotel floor talking with Scully being a visual callback to the Pilot. All of the action beats in the world don't mean anything compared to Mulder making a Silence of the Lambs joke to indicate to Scully that he's still him. Why bother bringing back the Cigarette Smoking Man when most of the audience will feel more of a thrill seeing our heroes cuddling in bed?

This is it, the only shot from the finale that ever appears in fan compilations.

The X-Files had a rocky few seasons. Age, cast turnover and the changing era of television gradually taking their tolls until it finally coasted to a stop. But in those final moments of this episode, the series felt like it could be itself again, be the show we all fell in love with again. The landing was bumpy, but in a single scene, they seem to have gotten the plane down okay. And then, first 5 and then 14 years later, they have to try and get it back off the ground.

Case Results:

• Best Episode: 4-D
• Worst Episode: Jump the Shark

Case Notes:

• I literally had to just stare at the title for a minute before I hit play. I genuinely cannot believe I'm here. Holy shit.
• I think this is only the 2nd or 3rd time I've watched the finale, frankly.
• Mulder's appearance gets the requisite big "Holy SHIT" shot, but they don't linger on it, wisely I think.
• I like that Mulder's infiltration plan amounts to "Get in with the tour, ditch the tour." 9 Seasons in and he's still a dumbass, I love him so much.
• Hey, it's Knowle, he hasn't been in the show much lately.
• Mulder gets thrown across the room and through glass and gets a tiny cut on his cheek.
• Oh man, I'd forgotten Ghost Krycek, that sure was a Choice.
• Mulder flips Knowle over a railing and onto some electrical wires and that's kinda rad.
• Mulder is back in the opening credits, because of course he is. God it's good to see him. Although, with 5 people, including Skinner, in the opening credits, it is crowded as hell.
• We get out of the cold open into 2 minutes of the US military straight torturing Mulder until he confesses, which was uh...distressingly prescient. And then Skinner casually drops that they're keeping him indefinitely.
• Okay, Mulder and Scully's reunion is goddamn great, they both still know how to sell it.
• I like that the episode can quickly establish that something is wrong with Mulder by having him call Scully and Skinner, Dana and Walter.
• I know it's not intended as a comedy beat but going from Doggett saying "Knowle was already dead" to Reyes going "Knowle can't die" cracked me up.
• Skinner just standing there awkwardly as Mulder and Scully make out? Excellent stuff.
• Wait, is Kersh a bad guy or a good guy at this point? I forget.
• Kersh: Having the FBI try Mulder is straight up illegal. Military guy: Lol, yeah.
• Is the conversation between Scully and Mulder the first time the show has directly dealt with the emotional fallout of Scully giving up William?
• Skinner: Seriously, this is straight up illegal. Kersh: Lol, yeah.
• Hey, Marita Covarrubias reference, when was the last time we saw her, Season Six?
• So the Prosecutor guy is just gonna be a one note jackass huh?
• Oh hey, they actually let Spender come back for the finale.
• Okay I am amused that the prosecutor's way of bringing down Spender's testimony was "Hey remember when you were a jerk to Mulder for no reason? Well you wrote all that shit down."
• Oh hey, it's Gibson, how's he doing? Besides living out in the desert.
• X gets to be a ghost too? Jeez, they really brought the entire cast back for this one.
• I kinda missed Marita honestly, she was a good character they never knew what to do with. And that trend continues with Ghost Krycek telling Mulder to lay off before she can do anything cool.
• It's really hard to write case notes about this episode given how much of it is just recaps of the rest of the series. If y'all want recaps of the rest of the series, go read my other 200+ reviews.
• It's kind of hilarious that the spend like 10 minutes getting evidence that Mulder is innocent and Knowle isn't dead and Kersh just goes "Lol, no."
• Mulder does give an awesome speech, but again, it's really funny that basically everyone knows the trial is hardcore illegal and they don't care.
• They spend 2 full episodes on a trial and then Skinner and Doggett just bust him out. Hilarious.
• Honestly, I would watch 10 episodes of a Netflix spinoff about Doggett and Reyes protecting Gibson. Not more than that.
• The X-Files office being cleared out did give me a bit of a twinge of sadness.
• Another twinge of sadness comes from seeing the Ghost Lone Gunmen. They did them dirty huh?
• Heading out into the middle of nowhere to try and find the person who sent Mulder the key to mount weather rather than bolting seems like a very Mulder thing to do.
• Apparently they gotta bring the Cigarette Smoking Man back for the finale. Everyone else got brought back, and he's probably the 3rd most important character.
• Saying that the metal that kills the super soldiers also brought down the UFO in Roswell and the reason the Anasazi lived in New Mexico is the most BLATANT retcon in the series, but you know what, I'll take it.
• Aw fuck the 2012 end of the world bullshit, that was a weird moment in history wasn't it?
• Okay "Shoot me if you think it'll make a difference this time" is a pretty badass line.
• Man, they clearly spent a lot of money doing the sequence where the two helicopters blow up Cigarette Smoking Man's ruins. His face transforming into a skull when he's shot is pretty funny though.
• Just smash cut from the helicopters blowing everything up to Mulder and Scully at a hotel.
• The final scene being a quiet, calm, conversation between Mulder and Scully is probably the best thing in the finale, just an understanding of what the show has always been about.
• Goddammit, that one little bit of The X-Files theme in the final scene's music got me, this show can play me like a fiddle.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. I'm kind of considering what the future of my Patreon will be when I'm done with The X-Files, so check it out if you want a say in that.