X-Files Episode Guide: William

Teleplay by Chris Carter ; Written by David Duchovny, Frank Spotnitz & Chris Carter

Directed by David Duchovny

There are as many problems with this episode as there were with Jump The Shark, but with the exception of the teaser, most of them don't arrive until the last five minutes.. They're ghastly problems, one that seriously wonder how committed Carter is to the series by this point, but until the episode comes to an end, they're almost forgivable. The key word being 'almost'.

The episode sets itself up to be a failure. Much like Trust No 1, it sets itself being an episode about Mulder, and Mulder isn't here. But unlike that episode, the game at least seems fair; Duchovny has written and directed the episode and this time, 'Mulder' actually seems to be there. We can tell from the moment that 'Mulder' shows up that this isn't Duchovny, but we can see how this might be Carter's way of getting around it. And in that sense,  the episode works better than anything the mythology has tried in more than a year.  Anderson's performance has  a fair amount of weepiness that has characterized far too much of Season 9, but at least there's a real anger to it as she finally gets to demand the questions that we the audience have been trying to get a handle on for the entire season. If at times we find that Doggett and Reyes are doing the same thing, it actually seems believable in a way that the rest of the mythos hasn't.

The reason this works so well is because the Mulder we see is so hideously disfigured. The audience reaction is basically the same as the characters; we want to finally believe that this is how Ten-Thirteen is going to resolve the issue, that this is how we're going to see an old friend - and yet, any other resolution, even Mulder's death would somehow be better than what we see.  It helps too, that this is - almost unbelievably - one of the few times in the entire series that we have seen a victim of the hideous experimentations that the Syndicate and the aliens have done to a person. Seeing this finally crystallizes in a way that horrors that we have been hearing about over the years, but frankly have become old hat for the series.

And the episode plays mostly fair with the writing. 'Miller' never says that he is Mulder, never pretends to be me as such, everything is done in the base of assumption and winning the trust of our heroes in the only way that he possibly could. And for one of the only times in the series run, the X-Files manages to get mileage out of the cliche of bringing a previously thought dead character back to life.  Chris Owens was a far more gifted actor than he was allowed to portray as Jeffrey Spender (one can clearly see how he brought some of his work as the Great Mutato into his work) and his work is one of the finest performances by any actor in Season 9. Yes, it stumbles both in a scientific sense (half-brothers would never have the same DNA), and in a logical sense (Jeffrey was never told by anyone that Mulder and he were related) but the reason that it resonates far more than it should is because that Jeffrey was never given credit by anybody at the FBI. His character was mostly misunderstood, and given little authority by his father. Now, literally crawling to the end of his life, he's finally given a chance to exert power, and finally given a chance to something meaningful in a way he never was during the series.

All of this would make for a good episode. The big problem is, that it's a smokescreen for Scully to give up her child. Now, the Scully pregnancy story has always been the biggest obstacle of the last two seasons of the show. It was blundered throughout Season 8 by having her lie about half the year, and then bring up threats that ultimately seemed not to be true when she gave birth. This year, they doubled down, and tried to take already foundering mythology and put it all on the weight of a baby, something which completely wrecked Anderson's character.

Now, Scully is being told that her child is 'normal'.  And let's break that down. The savior of mankind has been rendered into a normal child by a single injection. Even by stretching the very elastic nature of the mythos, this is pretty hard to believe, particularly considering the source. And now that same source is telling Scully that the conspiracy will never give up trying to hunt down her son. And Scully takes Jeffrey Spender at his word.  For a character whose skepticism was  at times the most irritating trait about her sometimes, this is too hard to believe. She was willing to hunt down a UFO cult to get her baby back. And the son of the Cigarette-Smoking Man, someone who spent the entire episode lying to her, she takes his threat seriously. And says, I'm leaving my child with strangers who can obviously do a much better job protecting him than an FBI agent.

Scully has spent the latter half of the series trying to become a mother. It may not have been the wisest character path to take her down, but they did it. And now, she's willing to give it all up. It just doesn't seem believable, and Anderson, as great an actress as she is just can't sell it. It seems even worse now that her son is normal. She was willing to try and protect a child whose paranormal ability she was in denial about, but the minute he doesn't have them any more she's willing to give him up. This is the real reason we don't let Duchovny anywhere near the mythology.

William just seems like another path the writers are taking as they close the series down. Last episode, they killed off the Lone Gunmen. This episode, they're taking William out of play. (Admittedly, there's a chance we'll revisit that storyline again, but I'm not wild about that either.) The big question is, why? He's already rendered the show uninhabitable. One gets the feeling that they did to get rid of a storyline that the writers finally knew wasn't working. But again, this seems like worst way to do it. They may have also done it because, well, this is the X-Files, and pain and suffering is what we put our viewers through - at least these last few seasons.  And one gets the feeling that its badly done - both from the perspective of the fans and the parents out there.

My score: 2.75 stars.