Case 05, File 20: The End

AKA: Not Actually The End We've Got Like Six Seasons Left

I dunno if I can really explain to readers right now, especially those who weren't there, how huge The X-Files was during its initial run. It seems to regarded as something of a niche property now, but it was big in a way TV shows really can't be anymore. The biggest show right now is The Big Bang Theory, which typically pulls in between 8 and 10 million viewers during it's current season. The X-Files season 5 regularly pulled in over 20 million. With so many viewers and the show barreling towards a movie, it comes down to the show to put up a barn burner of a finale leading into the feature. Or maybe...an Office Burner. Oh god that was awful.


So our episode opens with a kid named Gibson playing a chess game in a stadium (just roll with it) when he seems to notice something and then his opponent gets shot by a sniper, which is not how chess games are supposed to end. But the kid's opponent was a Russian guy, so the whole thing causes an international incident. And after a brief interlude in which Krycek shows up at the Cigarette Smoking Man, an FBI agent is assigned to look into the assassination. An FBI agent named...Spender!


Don't worry, it's approximately 30 seconds before Mulder has muscled his way into the investigation. He instantly notices that the kid seemed to recognize the bullet was coming and also that the shot was intended for him, and a mysterious agent named Fowley agrees with him. Mulder of course immediately hops on his theory: That the kid can read minds and that's why he saw the shot coming. And he also can read that both Fowley and Scully are crushing on Mulder. Oh and that's why he wins at chess all the time, but that seems to be less important?

Anyhoo, while all this is happening, the Conspiracy meets with the Cigarette Smoking Man and ask him to deal with the problem they're having. Mulder is currently meeting with the assassin, who refuses to talk, but Mulder starts threatening to spill the beans on the kid being psychic, which he thinks will get the assassin...assassinated? Which it turns out is a real thing to be worried about, cause the assassin almost immediately gets a threat from the Cigarette Smoking Man.

"All of you are here to watch a Chess match? Seriously? A Chess match? Okay.

While all this is going on, Scully is testing out the kid to find out if he's psychic (turns out he is) and
investigating Agent Fowley (turns out she and Mulder are exes and that they worked together on the X-Files before he was transferred and she's much more primed to believe in weird shit than Scully is). Cigarette Smoking Man is still wandering around the edges and meeting with Spender, but all that is secondary to Mulder realizing the kid has alien DNA and presenting his findings about the kiddo being psychic to Skinner.

But it's not the be: The assassin is killed by his guard, Fowley (who was guarding Gibson) gets shot, the kid gets stolen (or KIDnapped, heh, I am leaning really hard on bad jokes today for some reason) and Mulder decides to confront Spender about in public...which causes Spender to push for the X-Files to get shut down. And just to twist the knife, after the Cigarette Smoking Man delivers Gibson to the Conspiracy, he burns down Mulder's office and tells Spender that he's Spender's dad. And uh, that's it for the season. Cigarette Smoking Man is a dickbag.

Honestly, I'm kind of at a loss here. The End is nearly impossibly to approach as a standalone episode, and doing that is kind of my bread and butter. But The End is a lot of things before it even thinks about being a standalone story; The end of some existing storylines, the introduction of some new ones, an end to Season 5, the lead in to the movie (and by extension Season 6). But it is my job to take the episode on its own and try to deliver an opinion on it. My self imposed job, but my job nonetheless.

"Hahaha, he just told us the true name of god and all of us are now overwhelmed by existential fear. Please, take your guns and drive the words clawing the sides of my skull out, hahaha!

The big moment in this episode is not the introduction of Agent Fowley, it's the proper return of the Cigarette Smoking Man. Yes we've known he's alive for a while (I think he dies at least like, twice more?) and honestly, we never should have bought he was dead, show me the body or I don't buy it. But having him back is honestly just such a joy, him snapping back and forth with the Well Manicured Man is something I missed more than I can say. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to want him back at the beginning of the season.

But the return of the Cigarette Smoking Man is mostly just a sidebar in what is actually a pretty dark episode. Yeah I know that the recurring element of the Myth Arc episodes is our heroes getting their asses kicked by the Conspiracy but honestly, they haven't been this thoroughly wrecked since the end of Season 1, if then. Part of me wants to point to this as the Empire Strikes Back of The X-Files, the middle chapter where everything is darkest (since this is the middle season) but that would require me to believe the series was planned more than half a season in advance, which I refuse to believe.

Agent Fowley is our other new addition but she's one that I don't think the series ever really figured out how to use. The series would make occasional character additions throughout but Fowley is one that never really got a fair shake. She hangs around a bit but if she had any major impact on the plot, it's completely disappeared from my mind. It's not like the episode gives us a reason to want her to hang around either, all we really get out of her is that she believes in weird shit and that she wants to bone Mulder. And while I can sympathize with the latter, it does put her in the position of trying to get between Mulder and Scully. Which is uh, not the place you wanna be if you want the X-Files' fanbase to like you.

Watching Mulder's office go up in flames is still really rough for me, so all of you have to suffer with me.

Is The End a good episode? I have absolutely no idea. So much of it is built to lead into the movie, it barely even ends properly, just sort of stops after Mulder's office burns down that it's basically just an extra long prologue for the movie (which came out just about a month after this episode aired). So rather than try to figure out if this episode is good, I'm just gonna wrap this review up and start gearing up for my review of the movie.

Case Results:

• Best Episode: Bad Blood
• Worst Episode: Schizogeny

Case Notes:

• There is absolutely no world in which a chess match is played in a goddamn stadium with a sold out crowd X-Files, get real.
• I feel like being able to read minds wouldn't make you automatically good at chess. You can read the other guy's mind, but that doesn't let you know what you need to do to counter it, right? Am I overthinking it?
• Shooting the kid in front of a massive crowd is a little like overkill, right assassin dude? Like, he's a random kid who's good at chess, the security around him can't be THAT tight.
• Lot of this episode just straight up taking place in Canada. Guess they wanted to take advantage of their home before they got moved to LA for the next season.
• Dudes are parachuting into kill the Cigarette Smoking Man. That's probably overkill too, but I admire the commitment. They're really bad at it though.
• I like that it's Krycek under the mask and the CSM just rolls with it. He's got more history with Krycek than anyone other than Mulder, frankly.
• I like Skinner nosing around Mulder's office and asking him about what his plans are for the future. It's got a nice air of familiarity about it, which is nice cause Skinner doesn't get that a lot.
• Spender specifically excludes Mulder from his team but then invites Scully? They are joined at the hip Spender.
• Mulder is in the room 10 seconds and already giving Spender shit and correcting him. I love it.
• The cool globe thing in the background of the scene where Cigarette Smoking Man meets the conspiracy again fails to distract from the fact that they're meeting under the highway like they're drug dealers. It's a neat globe though.
• Agent Fowley in the back seat is just funny to me, it's like Mulder and Scully are her parents.
• I get they wanted to bring in a lady from Mulder's past, but if she was gonna be a counter terrorist lady who worked overseas, why not bring back the British lady from Fire? Was the actress busy?
• The kid is watching The Simpsons. That, everyone, is what we called Vertical Integration.
• The scene with the kid is pretty solid, from Mulder's way of testing if he's psychic, to the back and forth between the kid and Mulder and how jealous both Scully and Fowley are. It's all good stuff.
• Scully is clearly on the jealous side, but how could she be: Again, she and Mulder are joined at the hip and also she looks like...well like Scully.
• "You're insulting me when you should be taking notes." Mulder is pretty savage sometimes.
• Also good: The confrontation between Spender and Mulder. I like it when Mulder gets kinda serious.
• I like Mulder basically threatening to put the shooter on the grill by saying that the shooter told him his theory. It's very minor but it shows Mulder's ability to improvise.
• I am too old for the testing scene, it makes me think too much of the opening scene from Ghostbusters.
• Oh man, there's even a lot of character in how each of the Lone Gunmen dress for bed. They're such great characters, honestly.
• And now the kid is watching Silver Surfer, they are go in so hard on the Vertical Integration.
• Fowley is now trying to get between Mulder and Scully. Fowley I really cannot express to you how pointless that is. Although Scully sulking in the car is something.
• CSM says he gave Spender the case, but I dunno if the timeline on that lines up. Whatever, he might be lying, and it's a good exchange.
• I still find the fact that the series mostly differentiates CSM from everyone else by the fact that he smokes. Lots of people smoke X-Files.
• I love the conversation with Skinner about the kid, but I do think that Scully is overstating it. Like, quantifiable proof of everything you and Mulder have investigated? Scully, you ran into Satan like, two weeks ago, I dunno if the government can quantify that.
• Spender: "You're not gonna go out there and say the kid is part alien." Spender, have you MET Mulder?
• God I'd forgotten how much I loved the interplay between CSM and...well basically anyone, but especially the Well Manicured Man.
• Kid, on King of the Hill: "This is a great show. I wish we got this where I live." Okay Fox, it's gotten obnoxious, dial it back.
• This is a good episode for small, character driven conversations. Even Scully and the kid (Gibson, his name finally imprinted itself on me) is good.
• CSM's plan to kill the shooter is reliant on the shooter not moving to the side of the door when he gets the note.
• I'm sorry, why is Spender more credible than Mulder? Mulder has worked for the FBI for forever, Spender has worked there for like six months and he bungled the major case he worked on.
• CSM pulling Samantha's case file out before burning the office is a nice touch.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Check it out so you can support me in my journey from the seasons I've watched through 20 times to the seasons I've only watched through five times.

Future Celebrity Watch:

Mimi Rogers, who played Agent Fowley, is one of those actresses who's hung around a bunch and been in a lot of stuff without ever really properly making it big. The same year as this, she was the mom in the Lost in Space movie, which is uh...not a good movie. She was also briefly in Ash vs. Evil Dead which is a fantastic show.