The X-Files S10E06: "My Struggle II" '

The X-Files revival has been a game of expectation. As fans, we charitably looked past the series' final few seasons and also that dreadful second movie and clung to an expectation that this revival would be as good as the show at its best. As it turned out, after 13 years off the air, The X-Files WAS able to meet our lofty expectations in a few crucial ways: actor chemistry, character work, visuals, and ambition. But it was also a victim of expectation in that fully half of the six episodes were not great and those were the ones written by series mastermind Chris Carter, the man we've always entrusted to keep this franchise going. It's almost been an existential dilemma: Has this show been uneven the entire time and we didn't notice? Had Chris Carter simply gotten rusty during his time off (whereas the other three writers have worked steadily since)? As much of a bummer as Carter's writing has been during this revival, would it even BE The X-Files without him? Will badness always be baked in? Unclear. But the overall tragedy is that we're even asking these questions when there should have been bigger and better things to discuss about The X-Files revival. And no, I'm not talking about that cliffhanger.

Fortunately for "My Struggle II"—the sixth and final episode of this year's revival—it aired the week after "Babylon," which was not only one of the worst episodes of The X-Files of all time, but just extremely terrible television in general. By comparison to that incident, "My Struggle II" was exciting and frightening and downright intelligent (science-wise). Yes, it still felt like the script was written in crayon the night before it was due, but again, "Babylon" set the bar so unbelievably low that this could only ever have been better. Also I'll just say this now and explain it later: I'm really glad this revival happened. I'd rather watch an uneven season of The X-Files than almost anything else. You know?

Let's talk about this finale!

We began with a walk down memory lane much like the one that started this mini-season, but from Scully's point of view. And honestly? It gave me chills.

This show really put her through a lot over the years!

Loved this brief glimpse from the time she was abducted, as it featured a cameo appearance by the REAL reason why she was off the show for a few weeks. But what was weird was they never really addressed the fact that Scully maybe was the mother of an alien fetus somewhere? The X-Files just sort of showed us this image and then pretended it didn't happen. Scully had a human baby later, but maybe somewhere out there Lil William has a half-sibling? Makes you think.

Then this happened:

It was obviously a fantasy moment, born of Scully's anxiety about having alien DNA. But I give credit to The X-Files where it's due... We all love a good WTF visual, and this was one for the ages. Cue credits:

The final phrase-over-sky was "This Is the End," not to be confused with "The End," which happened in the Season 9 "series finale." So yeah. That wasn't the end, THIS is. Except this episode was billed as a "season finale" and also these episodes had great ratings so the series will most likely be back. Look, I don't know. This was the end though.

Scully arrived at work and started snooping around on Mulder's laptop (to watch the Tad O'Malley webseries). Then the phone rang and it was Tad O'Malley! He couldn't explain what was going on over the phone, he needed her to meet him somewhere. Because television.

They were suddenly in Mulder's apartment and it was a mess! Tad had let himself in and noticed that some mysterious carnage had happened here, and now Scully had concerns. Also Tad seemed pretty upset about how the apocalypse had begun or whatever. Something along those lines.

Scully tried to explain the situation to Einstein and Skinner, and it was this: the population was infected with alien DNA, and now for some reason everyone was falling ill. Einstein was very skeptical, but decided to hang out with Scully all day anyway, I guess because she didn't have a lot of work to do.

But then when they were at the hospital, a bunch of soldiers with anthrax symptoms were running around all sickly. At this point, Scully deduced that everyone had Alien AIDS, meaning it wasn't just a disease that people were falling prey to, but EVERY disease. People's immune systems were shutting down leaving them vulnerable to the simplest germs (or their own vaccinations).

Meanwhile, Mulder wasn't looking too hot either. Somebody had beaten the sh*t out of him and he did not seem happy about it.

Tad O'Malley took a break from breaking into homes so that he could interview specialists on his webseries about the burgeoning pandemic. Just in case you were wondering if the media was ignoring this story or not... Tad O'Malley was ON IT (via his webseries).

So yeah, word was finally out about this alien DNA situation. Then Scully received a mysterious phone call from someone whose voice she did NOT recognize, but who wanted to help somehow.





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