The X-Files Review: My Struggle (Season 10 Episode 1)
Well, the good news is that The X-Files is back after a fourteen year hiatus.
The bad news is that it remains as frustratingly confusing as ever.
“My Struggle” opens with a voice-over montage of Mulder recounting (in very brief detail) the entire plot of the first nine seasons of The X-Files, before moving on to footage and accounts of multiple alien sightings throughout history. Mulder concludes his trip down space memory lane by declaring that the only sighting that people seem to really remember is, of course, the iconic Roswell crash.
MULDER: Are we truly alone, or are we being lied to?
It’s here that the episode establishes its back-and-forth nature, with flashbacks to the aforementioned Roswell crash interspersed amongst the main current-day story unfolding between Mulder, Scully, and Joel McHale’s Bill O’Reilly-type reporter named Tad O’Malley. O’Malley provides the fuel to throw a now broken-up Mulder and Scully back together: he’s a true believer of the extra terrestrial, and reunites the two by introducing them to a young woman, Sveta, who believes she’s been abducted and impregnated by aliens multiple times.
This isn’t a new story for The X-Files (Scully herself was abducted in season 2, and gave birth to a son, William, in season 8, whose true nature was always in question), but what follows veers sharply off course the classic alien mythology and dives deeper into what is a frankly confusing array of tin-hat government conspiracies.
Mulder concludes through discussions with Sveta, Tad, and Walter Skinner that it was the government who was orchestrating he and Scully’s ultimately dead-end search for the truth, and who have been engineering the use of alien technology ever since aliens were drawn to planet Earth after the H-Bombs were detonated and sent some sort of message through a wormhole. He pitches this idea to the doctor we see tending to the Roswell alien in the flashbacks to the crash, but the doctor tells him that he’s just not quite there yet. He hasn’t quite found the truth.
Mulder and Tad’s explanation of all of this is frankly dizzying: they jump from theory to theory, hitting on everything from 9/11, to obesity, to aliens in the space of five minutes. The only relief from their rapid and fanatical ramblings comes from Scully, who declares to Mulder, Tad, and Sveta that not only are their plans to reveal all of this on Tad’s show ridiculous, but incredibly dangerous. She then informs Sveta that the blood tests she conducted on Sveta came back negative–Sveta carries no alien DNA.
This is reversed a few scenes later when Scully reveals to Mulder that a now-missing Sveta (who denounced Tad’s quickly cancelled TV show and declared publicly that he misled her) did carry alien DNA. She tells Mulder that they have to find Sveta and continue their search for the truth. Unfortunately for Sveta, she is seemingly killed by an alien craft while stalled out in her car in a scene vaguely reminiscent of Mulder and Scully’s first alien encounter all the way back in the Pilot.
It’s easy to get plot whiplash from the episode: it jumps from point to point, never fully explaining itself or presenting a cohesive plot that even a seasoned X-Phile such as myself could follow. Chris Carter clearly crammed as much of the last twelve years of modern technology and conspiracy into the episode as possible, allowing Mulder to flit through years worth of hot-button news stories like a particularly manic bird in search of the right worm.
There’s still a lot of good going on in this episode, despite its shaky plotline–seeing Mulder and Scully back together after so many years is nothing short of delightful, and Gillian Anderson easily steals the show with a quiet, steadfast strength and faith that defined Scully from the very beginning.
It is gratifying, too, to see Mulder back in top form with his madcap quest for the truth (even if he does go from 0-60 in less than 45 minutes)–Duchovny doesn’t play him with the same all-knowing, youthful exuberance of past Mulder, but with a more exhausted, resigned air that slowly lifts as he’s thrown back into the world he’s most comfortable with, and it absolutely feels like the right choice.
Even Mulder and Scully’s strained relationship is satisfying to watch. Though the two aren’t romantically involved anymore, and though Mulder seems to resent Scully for it, there is still a deep connection and innate love for one another that builds and builds as the episode pushes both characters closer and closer to the edge. They may be broken up (for now), but they’re still Mulder and Scully, and thus their relationship is still as special as it ever was. And, of course, no review would be complete without a mention of the return of the incredibly iconic Cigarette Smoking Man.
CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN: We have a problem. They’ve re-opened The X-Files.
All in all, though “My Struggle” does, in fact, struggle, it sets up a season that promises some emotional pay-offs that have been long coming for both Mulder and Scully, and the audience themselves. The X-Files are officially back open.
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The X-Files airs Sundays at 10/9c on FOX.
Brittany Rae
Brittany is a writer and avid TV blogger hailing the infamous year of 1989. She trained at Vancouver Film School in screenwriting for television and film, and has gone on to become a graphic designer and blogger in her free time. When she’s not watching the Food Network, she’s trying to consume every bit of sci-fi television she can get her hands on (current favorites include The 100, Person of Interest, and Doctor Who). She’s always up for female-led dramas and, of course, a literal interpretation of the phrase “Netflix and chill."