"The X-Files" Recap: "My Struggle II"

​Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

There's really no two ways about it, season ten of The X-Files has been nothing short of spectacular. This revitalization of the show has turned out to be a six week highlight reel of the best elements of the series as a whole. I mean think about it, everything we ever loved about the show popped up in this short six episode run and my only concern coming into last night was whether or not the season finale would live up to expectations. 

After all, it had to be bold, it had to stay in line with the greatest hits mentality season ten has sent our way and most importantly...it had to wash away the blandness of the original "series finale", and as it turns out, "My Struggle II" not only delivered all those things, but it took us on one incredible ride, giving us everything we could possibly want in a season finale and more, by upping the stakes in an unexpected way...giving us the apocalypse the show has been eluding to for years. 

Yes, that's right, a show that has always been more than happy to give us a slow burn on its biggest storylines and do everything it can to set up the story for the future went all out last night and I'll be damned if the end of the world wasn't impressive to see on the small screen. This was through and through a terrifying episode, all thanks to the art of subtlety. It wasn't giant starships coming out of the sky and raining fire down upon humanity, or a horde of monsters unleashed to tear us to bits...it was a virus, a genetic abnormality passed down to all of us from generation to generation so that our immune systems would fail and mankind would catch basically every single cold ever.

It was a wonderful stroke of storytelling, to have us fade away quietly into the night, but what I loved most about last night was the fact that the show FINALLY gave us some answers. Now we know that Scully's abduction was to protect her from this darkest of days and that the Cigarette Smoking Man did it to try and woo Mulder to the dark side and I'm so glad it didn't work. Seeing Mulder agree to a deal with this evil son of a gun would have been nothing short of heartbreaking, like it was when we discovered that former Agent Reyes decided to join up with him to save her own hyde, but despite all of these awesome things, we do need to talk about that cliffhanger of an ending. 

I say that because it raises one big question in my mind, is that ship friend or foe? The last time we saw that ship it was more than happy to blow Sveta into a million pieces, but it's clear now that not everyone agrees with Old Smokey's plan to wipe out humanity, so is there a chance whomever is piloting that ship is there to help? Well...sadly we are going to have to wait to find out and I'm oddly okay with that. I say that simply because, this is what the series finale of the show should have looked like all those years ago. This was bold, no holds barred storytelling that upped the ante every single chance that it could and well, despite the fact that season ten has come to a close, considering how well this revival of the show has done ratings wise and considering how much we have all loved it...the wait to find out whether or not Mulder and Scully can save the world may not be that long. Until next time.

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