THE X-FILES - "The Truth"

By: Arnold T. Blumberg
Review Date: Monday, May 20, 2002

We deserved so much better.

Loathe as I am to adopt the attitude of the wronged, brooding fanboy, it's hard not to feel emotionally gutted when watching the final episode of THE X-FILES. For many years, I - along with countless other viewers - remained dedicated to the series due to its all-pervading atmosphere of gloom, its charismatic (and yes, they were charismatic back then) leads, and its labyrinthine "mythology" plot of human-alien hybrid projects, conspiracies, and the impending colonization of Earth by an alien black oil virus. Somewhere around the time of the first film, or perhaps around Season Six, it all began to go horribly awry, and we realized two things: One, Fox was going to force the creators of the show - Chris Carter et al - to milk the series for all it was worth way past the point when it should have reached a natural conclusion; and two, Carter & Co. didn't actually have any answers - they were just making it up as they went along.

The show lived so long beyond its years that it even outlasted its star, David Duchovny, who finally gave up and left at the end of its seventh season, appearing sporadically at the beginning and end of its eighth year and remaining MIA for the entirety of its ninth and final season... that is, until yesterday's two-hour wrap-up episode. And as with all such departures, the loss of Duchovny's Mulder cut the heart out of the series, which was after all primarily concerned with Mulder's unwavering quest to locate his missing sister and expose the truth behind an international conspiracy to facilitate the eventual subjugation of mankind by a race of enhanced alien hybrids. The show Super-Soldiered on, but when Mulder finally did return, Duchovny played him as if were merely picking up a check between movie gigs, and even last night's final installment - featuring a decidedly older looking Mulder who again seemed weary of the whole thing - didn't feel like old times at all. It just felt old, and so did I.


Chief among the concerns of all of us long-timers who completely forsook the show in its abysmal ninth season - when the series shifted emphasis entirely, denied there ever was an impending invasion and instead focused on the efforts of newcomers Doggett and Reyes (played valiantly by Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish in what must surely be the most thankless pair of parts ever taken on by any actors) - was whether or not Carter & Co. would ever address the many dangling plot threads left behind by all those years of black oil, Purity Control projects and whispers of trusting no one. We knew it was all a lie - there was no grand plan, no master mythology. But we were ready to believe the lie, if only Carter would give us a lie to believe. For the final two-hour episode, we would get Fox Mulder back, and perhaps - just perhaps - we would finally be treated with the respect we deserve. The truth would be out.



Alas, "The Truth," as it is so ironically titled, is hardly the final episode we expected or deserved. While years of watching the show had conjured in our minds images of a massive alien invasion, with ships descending and the Cigarette Smoking Man cackling through the flames in an epic cliffhanger destined to lead into a profitable film franchise, such was not to be. This last episode instead offered up a very morose (even for him) Mulder who has now seemingly acquired the ability to speak with the dead and even receive bits of paper from them without explanation. On trial for the murder of a man who is actually one of the new alien conspirators - an unkillable Super Soldier - Mulder seizes upon this as a chance to finally draw all of the threads together and expose the heart of the X-Files.

But wait a minute? Why don't these Super Soldiers simply kill him? Why the charade of a trial? Are they trying to smoke out Mulder's allies? And why would Mulder think for even one second that recounting the last nine years would make any impression on an illegal tribunal (don't get me started on the sheer stupidity of that first hour's flimsy premise) that was already determined to eliminate him? Insulting our intelligence with every ludicrous development - Skinner is Mulder's defense attorney! Look, Marita is testifying! Hey, isn't that Alex Krycek? - the first hour of "The Truth" makes a mockery of our desire for answers and instead makes us realize that Carter was in fact right. He had laid much of this out years earlier, and it did make some kind of sense.

The principal crime here is that we should never have had to wait nine years to be told what was going on, and not in such a ham-fisted and unentertaining way. Instead of watching the revelations surrounding the conspiracy unfold naturally and organically through plot and character, we are instead sequestered in a dreary room with a bunch of men in suits (and Mulder in orange) and told what we should be seeing. In many ways, that first "revelatory" hour plays like a deliberate slap in the face from a creative team that has run out of steam and resented the treatment its "new, improved" X-Files received in its final season. 'You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!'

So be it. Things pick up in the second hour, when we finally get outside in the sun and learn that one crucial player in the vast conspiracy of old is still out there weaving his web of lies and truth. Mulder has learned one last devastating secret, one he can't even bring himself to share with Scully, and in the last fifteen minutes, the series recaptures just a hint of the foreboding mood that so enthralled us years ago. As we always felt it should, THE X-FILES concludes with Mulder and Scully reunited and at last together in every sense, but with the knowledge of a coming doom so global and inescapable that there may be no way out. The truth has been revealed, and in that truth they have found their vindication and assured destruction.

One assumes that having thrown the gauntlet down in the last show's closing moments, Carter will eventually deal with this final paranormal bombshell in a future movie - according to the timetable laid out in the episode, he has ten years to get to it. But even that last spark of the old X-FILES couldn't save this episode, or indeed the entire series. It was too late for a final show, far too late. And all we can do at the end is mourn the series that was, and the mythology that might have been. If only Duchovny hadn't left; if only the show had ended in its sixth season; if only the final story had been more dynamic, more spectacular; if only...

I could go on and on about the details of this last episode, but suffice to say it was, predictably, a major disappointment - it was never going to be anything else. I was most surprised that in the end, the mythology did dovetail well enough that I couldn't feel too cheated on that score - pay attention and you even get a better sense of why the colonization was delayed, why the black oil plan was dumped by the aliens, and how the Super Soldier plot fits into it all - but I did feel sad that I had to hear it all through a bunch of talking heads who clearly just wanted to finish their parts and head off to craft services. In the episode's final scenes, I felt one last chill as the last bit of the Truth was revealed, but now there will never be another season of the series in which to explore it. We are left with Mulder and Scully in each other's arms, contemplating the short amount of time they have left and wondering what the future will bring. Certainly not another season of a show that was long past its prime, and that's a good thing.

Mulder speaks the series' last line, suggesting that perhaps there is still hope. For most of us, that hope died - along with the Truth that never existed in the first place - many years ago. We wanted to believe, but now we know better. We wanted to trust Carter & Co., but we forgot the lesson he himself taught us - trust no one.

The Truth is Over, and all Mankind is doomed. Now who wants ice cream?

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