X-Files Episode Guide: Max

Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Kim Manners

Wow. They didn't screw it up.

The conclusion of two-parters are notoriously disappointing for The X-Files; after opening the toy chest in part one, and making big statements---- "All will be revealed! This will change everything!"---- nothing is revealed and very little changes. To an extent, it's true for this story too--- Mulder has proof of an extra-terrestrial life, and it slips through his grasp in the last act. But because this particular two-parter is less about aliens, and more about people, we are engaged in a way we haven't been in mytharc scripts, and smaller details are more emotional than sci-fi.

Although Max is dead, this episode is about him in a way Tempest Fugit really wasn't--- the videos we see is trailer bring to life the character that we met in Fallen Angel, and we get the picture of a man who would have given anything to be an ordinary citizen, but was left to be something important: an abductee. And so he finds himself trying to be a rebel, raging against the government and the forces against that have arrayed themselves against him. The similarities to Mulder are telling, as Scully points out, but what makes Max seem more human are the little touches--- the way that he convinced Sharon lie to pretend to be related to him, or the way the head of the trailer park says he liked Max, and was genuinely sorry to hear that he's dead.

Yes, Mulder is pulled away from an alien crash site, the cover story that the military tells ends up doing just that, despite the wishes of the men and women who tried to prove otherwise, and all the pieces of technology are spirited away by creatures that we never quite see. But what makes this episode sing are the human touches. Poor Agent Pendrell, a character used mostly for comic effect, gets killed, not heroically, trying to save the life of the woman he'd had a crush on since we met him, but just by get drunkenly in the way of her bullet.  It's an ignoble death that feels more meaningful, because of the way people care. I love how Scully has the ability to mourn him, even though she admits in the final act that she never even knew his first name. And I love how Scully tries so hard to keep Pendrell alive, even as a nosebleed comes to remind her that she can't even protect herself.

And at the center of the episode is a five-minute tour-de-force, where Mulder theorizes to us exactly what happened to Flight 549, what happened to Max, and the consequences. It is one of the most frightening things the X-Files has ever accomplished, because we are never allowed to forget for an instant that this is a disaster in the making, that none of the people in this sequence will survive. It does it's job so well that when the disaster does occur, it comes as a hell of a shock as the very human cost of how the government is determined to prevail.

Admittedly, there are some flawed elements to the story. Tom O'Brien and Joe Spano, who gave such memorable performances in the first part, are rather perfunctorily pushed to the sidelines in this episode. Considering that there was probably more that could be done, one wonders if a second draft might have helped. And poor Mitch Pileggi continues to draw the short straw when it comes to these mytharc episodes: for his second straight appearance: he is given almost nothing to do. But all of this gets made up rather well when Mulder finally encounters the representative of the conspiracy, Scott Garrett, a man we've been watching commit havoc, and ultimately murder for the last two episodes. He's seemed quite menacing because he had no baggage connected with him, and when he's actually given a chance to say something, his dialogue is remarkably clear and free of the purple prose, as for the first time, we see the cold-bloodedness of the people the conspiracy employed. His ruthlessness is even more frightening, as he makes it very clear that his life is inconsequential in pursuit of this 'greater good', and he actually bears it out in the climax, when he refuses to surrender the alien property, even at what is surely the cost of his own life. And Mulder, given a chance to confront the evils he's been facing for years, is blindingly good as well. It's a shame that this would be his only appearance; this is the first mytharc guy I've seen in awhile I wouldn't have minded turning up as a recurring character.

Even the usual summary near the end of the episode, when Scully tries to tie in everything that has happened to the Apollo 11  keychain that Mulder gave her as a birthday present, is rather charming, partly because she doesn't try as hard, and partly because Mulder deliberately punctures the seriousness with a timely gag.  (Jokes aside, this would have a certain attachment to Scully, she would hold onto it for the remainder of her time on the X-Files) The episode ends with a rather light touch, and the feeling that even though little has been accomplished, we have a concrete understanding of the journey and the loss. Not only is this episode nearly as good as Tempus Fugit, it combines to what is arguably the best two-parter the series would ever do. And that is something to be celebrated in the dialogue--- because we know that Carter didn't get there alone.

My score: 4.5 stars.