Movie Trailer: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

The X-Files: "My Struggle II" (February 22, 2016 )

Scully (Gillian Anderson) is disturbed to arrive at the X-Files basement office one morning and find Mulder (David Duchovny) missing.

When she checks his laptop, she sees that Mulder has been watching “Truth Squad” with Tad O’Malley (Joel McHale), a web program that has returned to broadcast after a six week hiatus.

O’Malley reports that something sinister is occurring, nationwide.

The conspiracy is on the move, through the use of a deadly contagion that will kill millions, while preserving only a handful of chosen survivors.

Scully and Agent Einstein (Lauren Ambrose) work to confirm the existence of a genetic anomaly that has its basis in Scully’s alien DNA, but a  surprise visit from Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) reveals the startling truth.

The Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) is alive, and launching the final stage of a strategy concocted in 2012 (the year of apparent alien colonization) to reshape the planet.

And the alien DNA is not the source of the contagion, but rather the only cure for the “The Spartan Virus.”

As people all over the country fall ill, and pandemonium skyrockets, Scully struggles to make a vaccine from her own blood.

Meanwhile, Mulder travels to Spartanburg, South Carolina, to confront the diabolical architect of man’s extinction.

Although Tad O’Malley (Joel McHale) broadcasts the thought that humanity will go extinct with a “deafening silence,” and a “whimper,” The X-Files revival actually goes out with one hell of a bang in “My Struggle II.”

This episode moves at a frenetic pace, is genuinely disturbing in its implications, and pushes forward the entire franchise mythology by more than a few yards. In short, “My Struggle 2” is precisely the season-ender I hoped we would get, and then some.

I believe it is safe to assume that if we had gotten an X-Files III motion picture, it would have concerned to a significant degree the unfolding of plans for impending colonization. “My Struggle 2” diagrams the equivalent in 2016 terms: the execution of CMS’s plan to remake the world, with himself as God (or the Devil, perhaps).

This is -- as the Mein Kampf allusion suggests -- his particular struggle. He is, literally, taking over the world.

Regardless of the specifics, it is clear that The X-Files is pushing the human race to the precipice of disaster in its final revival narrative. This is an admirable and courageous move on the part of Chris Carter because it suggests that The X-Files isn’t frozen in amber, always forecasting Armageddon, but never getting to it.

Nope, we’re getting to it.

Or, we’re getting to at least one iteration of it.

Right now.

Beyond the choice to push hard towards a new precipice, “My Struggle II,” is a well-constructed and apocalyptic book-end to the ideas introduced in “My Struggle” and developed throughout this mini-season.

The book-end nature of the enterprise is apparent by the episode nomenclature (returning to the title “My Struggle”), but also this episode’s introductory scene.

The first episode commenced with a montage and voice-over from Mulder’s perspective, explaining his history and beliefs. “My Struggle II” features a mirror-image voice-over and montage, but this time from Scully’s perspective.

I find it intriguing how well this structure functions in terms of the overall story arc.

Mulder’s curiosity and willingness to believe in the conspiracy “opens” both the investigation and the revival series, and Scully’s science is the thing that brings us to the end of both; to a science-based apocalypse and to the season finale.

There are several other laudable qualities here beyond the book-end structure, however.

The prologue is also brilliant for its visual punctuation: the fast transformation of Scully from human to alien. 

This is a terrifying moment, and a perfect visualization of the character's fears.  If she possesses alien DNA, does that mean she is becoming less human?  

In many ways this key idea that obsesses Scully, and which she must put to rest in "My Struggle II." 

All season long she has grappled with the loss of William...and what it has made her. Is she a mother? Did she treat her son like trash?  Is she even human anymore...or just a vehicle for guilt and shame?

The answer becomes clear in "My Struggle II." Scully may possess alien DNA, but she is "more" human than ever, it seems. She showcases courage, imagination, tenacity and other virtues in her desire to save the world.

Scully isn't alone in those qualities, and that's another reason why I loved this episode. 

“My Struggle 2” lives up to and continues the series’ history of depicting capable, and brilliant women characters. We’ve all heard of “The Scully Effect,” how the depiction of Scully (in terms of writing and performance) in the initial series run led to a generation of women pursuing and excelling in STEM careers.

This episode should have a similar impact.

Virtually every important plot point in this episode is conveyed by one of three women: Scully, Einstein, or Reyes. 

And there is a fantastic scene set in a hospital wherein Einstein and Scully debate, furiously -- and with scientific terminology I can barely understand -- the nature of the problem they face.  They talk with rapid-fire words, fully informed about every aspect of their fields of study.  They don’t fight, or bicker. They challenge assumptions. They press the logic of their viewpoint. And they imagine what could be. They build on the foundations of their knowledge, extrapolating, suggesting options, and even admitting they could be wrong. They are intense and committed, and dedicated to answers…not having a pissing contest.

I loved every minute of this scene.

Regardless of the precise details or science, one thing is absolutely plain:

Our fate is in their hands. And we are very, very lucky to have Einstein and Scully looking at this problem.

Make no mistake: the depiction of these women as committed, brilliant, imaginative, and courageous is incredibly powerful. It is also, in television, incredibly uncommon. Women may be partners, or subordinates, but they are rarely -- even today -- the ones debating science, debating a course of action, and the ones making solutions happen.

We have heard from so many damned gate-keepers in the mass media how The X-Files is “transphobic” or “Islamophobic” in recent weeks.

They are astoundingly wrong and ill-informed on both of those points, as I hope my episode reviews of the episodes in question abundantly illustrate.

But it’s strange, isn’t it, that the same gatekeepers are absolutely silent this week about the affirmative depiction of women in The X-Files?

It’s almost like those gatekeepers have a specific agenda: to paint The X-Files as somehow past-its-prime or out-of-touch, since it was originally a nineties show. .

Funny how they are so quiet now…

Until I read otherwise, I will take the gatekeepers’ “deafening silence” on “My Struggle 2’s” affirmative depiction of women as tacit recognition of their own previous wrong-headedness.

Perhaps an apology is forthcoming.

But I won’t hold my breath.

The other terrific quality which astounds throughout “My Struggle II” -- and which has not been commented upon widely -- is the installment’s strong direction.

This episode more closely resembles a feature film than it does a TV production.  The close-quarters fist fight between Mulder and the CSM’s goon is probably the best executed such sequence in series history.

It is brutal, savage, and cut brilliantly. It moves quickly and engages the senses, but it doesn’t try to hide the combatants’ moves with a herky-jerky camera.

In other words, there is a neo-classical crispness to the fight. It is modern, I suppose, in its viciousness, yes, but visualized so we can register what is happening at each moment, and to whom it is happening.

The outdoor nighttime scenes on the bridge and in and around Washington D.C. also look terrific, and move with purpose. If memory serves, Carter had to orchestrate some major chaos for the pilot of The After a few years back. He seems to have taken that fine work and improved upon it. He orchestrates this chaos with a steady hand, and a knack for making us feel tense, or uncomfortable. Carter mounts the climactic scenes with aplomb, and then hits us hard with the cliffhanger finale.

And what a finale it is!

When it was all over, my wife and I fell silent, and then I looked at her and she said, simply, “well…shit.”

The episode moved with such deftness, such swiftness, that it felt like perhaps fifteen minutes had gone by. Tops. That we still had a ways to go before having to say goodbye, once again, to this beloved universe…

In terms of mythology stories, I feel that “My Struggle” (both parts) makes for one of the best of all in terms of series history. It is so fast, so furious, so smart, that I have had to watch it three times just to pick up all the details.

I credit not only Carter for the smart writing, but also Dr. Anne Simon and Dr. Margaret Fearon, who introduce all these new (yet somehow completely faithful and appropriate-seeming…) concepts to the franchise.  Carter runs with those concepts.

There’s also a kind of caustic intelligence to the writing. Many things that CSM says in his scenes are, oddly enough, justified. He says horrible things, and he says true things, and he intersperses truth and nihilism so that he almost sounds reasonable when in fact…he’s the most evil man who has ever lived. He speaks with a forked tongue, indeed. He can justify anything.

So, in closing, the revival goes out on a strong, high note. “My Struggle 2” is both involving and scary. It is also forward-looking for the franchise. Not just in terms of the action, but how the action leads right back to the characters. William's shadow looms large over all the episodes of the revival, and especially this one.  Finding him will be a key not just to Scully's stability and mental health, but Mulder's survival.

In large part, I watch The X-Files to listen to Chris Carter’s words, to see his imagery and symbolism, and to experience his vision of the world; his philosophy. When I watch, I want to connect with his vibe, his perspective on the world.

“My Struggle 2” gives me all those things; things that I cannot get anywhere else at the moment. I cherish this opportunity to reconnect with the artist and his imagination.

Looking back on this episode, and the X-Files revival in total, I feel strongly about two factors. 

First, that the writers, directors and actors went out of their way to create a compelling and challenging set of episodes. The storytelling and ideas were ambitious, and remarkably unconventional. The episodes were all brilliant, and more-so, they were each brilliant in different ways.

“Babylon” is not only the best episode of network television this season, for example, but the best episode of network television in years. It is a genre-bender. Not exactly action, not exactly sci-fi. It thrives on how it blurs definitions such as though (as well as definitions of terms like "extremist.")

Secondly, I feel that -- in broad strokes -- some critics and audiences simply weren’t prepared, ready or even willing to engage with the series on this level of imagination and thought. 

I think they had an idea of what The X-Files was supposed to be, going in, and then attempted to categorize the episodes based on how well they fit into a pre-existing (but incomplete) perceptual set about the program.

I admire and adore the revival, I suppose, because it puts a big focus on the “X” aspect of the franchise.

X represents the unknown, like an implied question mark, 

And “X” can be person, place or a thing…anything that marks an object as mysterious.

An “X” can be the mysteries of the human soul.

This new chapter in The X-Files showed us the “X” factor behind a culture of materialism and selfishness (“Home Again”), behind extreme tribalism (“Babylon,”) behind our ability to transform and improve ourselves, even, (“Mulder and Scully Meet the Were Monster”) and much more.

The revival moved beyond mere science fiction, horror or any cult-TV tropes and really asked audiences to consider who we are, and the way we live in 2016.

May Chris Carter’s The X-Files continue to do so for many years to come.

Even if it has to be six episodes at a time...I’m there.

The X-Files Season 10 Recap: "Babylon"

In “Babylon,” a young Muslim man in Texas -- an apparent terrorist -- is involved in the suicide bombing of Ziggurat, a local art gallery displaying controversial imagery.

This young man, Shiraz (Artin John) survives the deadly blast, but does not awake from a coma afterwards. This is a grave concern because he is the only person living with information about a terror cell operating in the area.

Investigating the case, FBI agents Miller (Robbie Amell) and Einstein (Lauren Ambrose) seek the assistance of Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) in communicating with the comatose Shiraz.

Mulder proposes to Einstein a psychedelic kind of vision quest. Using “magic mushrooms,” he will go into a trance and psychically communicate with Shiraz. 

By contrast, Scully suggests to Miller a scientific possibility: communication with Shiraz via MRI imaging.

Both plans are enacted, with Mulder experiencing a strange vision involving country music, the Lone Gunmen, CSM, and Shiraz’s mother.

Meanwhile Scully and Miller attempt to create a technological base-line for communicating with Shiraz. They protect him, in the process, from those individuals seeking to end his life with extreme prejudice.

Working in conjunction, these two plans are successful, and further terror attacks are foiled.

But after the danger has past, Mulder wonders why, with Scully, that so much of human life -- in all ideological corners -- must focus on “unqualified hate.”

Although much attention in the press has been focused on Mulder’s "mystical magical tour" and David Duchovny’s (admittedly) awesome dance routine therein, such attention hides a crucial fact about “Babylon,” the latest episode of The X-Files (2016). 

That fact is, simply, that this installment is one of the most consequential and vital episodes in the 200+ X-Files catalog.  

In fact, I would rank “Babylon” right beside “Improbable” in terms of its significance in the canon, It is an episode I would therefore recommend to students hoping to glean a deeper understanding of The X-Files as a modern work of art.

I have often compared Chris Carter to Rod Serling and Gene Roddenberry, because -- like those TV artists of yesteryear -- he often uses the science fiction milieu as a vehicle for a discussion of the human condition, and of the larger culture. 

On the surface, The X-Files is about aliens and monsters. Underneath that surface, it is about philosophy, religion, and all the other big questions of human life.

“Babylon” is a clear example of this paradigm, and it offers a huge -- and welcome -- dollop of Chris Carter philosophy.

However, before the artist can move into the terrain of meaning, and commentary, he or she must universally ground the narrative in fact, in reality. And one quality I admire about “Babylon” is that Carter builds his story of “the extremes of human nature” by focusing on two concrete concepts, both legitimate fields of study in 2016.

The first concept is the study of mushrooms with hallucinogenic property to enhance extra sensory perception. 

Cult television has dealt with this concept before, actually. Memorably, the last season of One Step Beyond (1959-1961) featured a documentary episode called “The Sacred Mushroom” in which Dr. Andrija Puharch sought to test the hallucinogenic properties of mushrooms found in Mexico. The episode culminated with series host John Newland actually sampling these psychedelic mushrooms and being tested for any increase in ESP capacity. 

Ken Russell’s Altered States (1980) involves similar terrain, though on a trippier level, and the study of these mushrooms continues to this day in books such as The Sacred Mushrooms of Mexico: Assorted Texts, by Brian Akers, which I had the pleasure of consulting on (vis-à-vis One Step Beyond’s episode) in 2006-2007.

So while the mushroom subplot in "Babylon" permits Mulder to go wild (thanks to “the power of suggestion”), his psychedelic journey has a strong grounding in a long-lived field of study. It doesn’t matter what you believe about the properties of said mushrooms. It matters that The X-Files is accurate in depicting the field of inquiry surrounding them.

Scully’s scientific pathway towards truth, involving the use of MRIs to measure a comatose patient’s attention to certain words, similarly, is a legitimate field of study, going back at least to 2013.  

My point is merely that the author of the episode has taken special care to assure that the concepts which come to facilitate the meaning -- the art -- boast a basis in research and science.

From that foundation of reality, a tale is ultimately spun about human nature, and that’s what “Babylon” concerns. Once more, Carter has imagined his story in symbolic terms, so that we can meaningfully connect The X-Files to religion, philosophy and history.  

For example, “Ziggurat,” the name of the art gallery in Texas, is also the name of the legendary tower in Babylon (Gen. 11:1–9) that sought to touch Heaven itself.

One might rightly conclude that art fulfills a similar purpose in our world. 

It helps us better understand our reality and our possibilities. It activates our imagination.  

But in that attempt to reach heaven, man sometimes over-reaches too, and sometimes offends others with his or her concepts.  

In “Babylon,” that’s Ziggurat’s explicit function. Western society sees the creation of art, generally, as a high purpose. There are some cultures, by contrast, that see such artistic representation as the greatest of offenses towards God. 

Why does this disunity of ideas exist? 

Because we are all locked into different bubbles. Our languages, our cultures, our beliefs, and our religions separate and divide us.

The episode “Babylon” is so named because it refers to the Tower of Babel, and the idea that God punished man for his hubris by giving the builders of the tower different languages. Therefore, they could not understand each other; could not cooperate.

Again and again in The X-Files’ “Babylon,” we see examples of people speaking different languages; talking right past each other.

The Islamic terrorists and those that run the art gallery, Ziggurat, no doubt possess different concepts of art, and different tolerances for blasphemy.  

Similarly, we see several examples of liberal and conservative pundits battling it out on a cable TV opinion show, screaming at each other about the freedom of expression. They possess different ideas of personal responsibility, and different ideas about tolerating other cultures and different world views. The language that should bind these pundits -- the “code" they should hold in common -- instead divides them.

We also see a nurse who is willing to commit wanton murder, the same act she condemns the terrorist for, because “vengeance” or “unqualified hatred” is an accepted and acceptable part of her particular world view.

The thing I appreciate most about “Babylon” is that Chris Carter provides the audience an example about what it takes to get past the din of Babel, past the cacophony of world views that don't and can’t line up.  

He depicts Mulder and Scully doing just that in their particular choices here.

Consider, Mulder and Scully represent -- and have always represented -- opposing or dueling viewpoints.

Mulder represents the Romantic, the quest to believe in magical things beyond the realm of proven science.  

Scully represents Enlightenment values; science and evidence.  

And in “Babylon,” Mulder and Scully encounter two agents who mirror their world views, the scientist Einstein and the believer Miller.

But who does each one reach out to?

Mulder reaches out -- beyond his bubble of belief -- to the scientist. He contacts Einstein.

Identically, Scully reaches out beyond her world-view, to the believer. To Miller.

Why does this matter, and why does this brave selection on their part speak to our times so trenchantly? 

Just look at the news.  

Liberals flock to MSNBC, and in that bubble, see only their pre-existing views reinforced. 

Conservatives flock, meanwhile, to Fox, and there they hear and see only the things they already know and feel to be true. 

Each ideology has thus chosen as information sources closed-off bubbles that allow in no new information, and no examination of ideas that don’t line up with pre-programmed beliefs.

.

You can read the facts all you want about these impenetrable bubbles of reinforcing beliefs. I recommend you do so. Don't take my word for it.

But watch Fox News regularly, and you are seeing information that is demonstrably false 60% of the time. MSNBC presents information that is demonstrably false roughly 44% percent of the time. 

Yet if liberals are so tolerant, they can certainly tolerate watching a news program that disagrees with their world view once in a while, right?

And if conservatives really care so much about personal responsibility and accountability, they can take the responsibility to seek the truth beyond the official news organ of the Republican party. 

Isn't that so?

The point here is that sometimes you have to exit your bubble of selective exposure, and not just preach to the choir. 

In "Babylon," Mulder and Scully exit their ideological bubbles, and seek out the very person it would be hardest to convince of their particular case. 

That is how progress is made. 

That is how truth is transmitted. 

You don’t challenge the status quo by preaching to the choir, but by having someone who sees things differently question and test your assumptions.  

Mulder and Scully, spontaneously and independently, both do that in this episode.  

Rather than seeking a like-minded, younger counter-part who will dutifully parrot their perspective, Mulder and Scully have internalized the value of someone who thinks differently, who has a different perspective on life. 

Who challenges you to back up your bullshit.

This is very much an apotheosis for these pop-culture legends and characters, and the reason that the episode is so important, in my estimation.  

Mulder and Scully have argued about “the truth” for 23 years, but they don't seek to protect their ideas from real scrutiny inside a bubble.  Indeed, they thrive on hearing the opposite viewpoint, the uncomfortable viewpoint, on taking in data they know will disagree with their interpretation of matters.

"Babylon" asks a pointed question (through Mulder, if memory serves): Why does such unqualified hate exist in our country, and in our world? 

In large part it’s because many of us exist in a bubble of self-reinforcing belief, and don’t leave that bubble to experience other viewpoints, other ideas. 

The act of seeking out other ideas doesn’t mean we give up our ideas or beliefs willy-nilly, by the way. It means that we test our ideas and beliefs. We hold them up to scrutiny. We are stronger when they are challenged.

It is the responsibility of great art to reflect its culture; to tell the culture it concerns something about itself. “Babylon” undoubtedly fulfills that function.

But great art must go beyond that benchmark as well. It must offer a new perspective, and show the culture the way forward. It must show us a path.

Accordingly, we see in Mulder and Scully’s example of going outside the bubble, a way for us to move forward as a country, and as a people. They are an example for us to follow.  They leave behind their perceptual baggage and selective exposure to seek answers beyond the bubble.

“Babylon” goes further, however. It tells us that the din of competing, angry voices in the world -- in this modern Babel -- is actually, only a matter of perspective. We all view ourselves as different from liberals, or from conservatives, or from Islamic extremists.

But are we, really?

Where you stand, depends on where you sit, I guess, to quote communications textbook I teach from.

How can I say that?  Well, if the camera pulls back far enough -- as it does in the valedictory shot of “Babylon” -- we get a different perspective.  

We are all inhabitants of one planet.  

We all belong to this spinning ball called Earth.  

We are not many.  We are one.  

The voices of unqualified hatred and the extremes of human nature are inordinately loud, but we should not let them drown out this simple, inescapable fact.

We share not just a planet, but a fate and a future. Mulder may believe in UFOs, and Scully may be a practicing Catholic, but those differences don’t outweigh the connections that bind us together as, one human race.

Look past the line dancing, and “Babylon” reminds us that a mother’s love trumps hate, and that a planetary perspective makes ideological differences seem small.  

Through its canny use of a variety of songs, pop and otherwise (a call-back, I believe, to God’s fondness for CDs in “Improbable,”) "Babylon" cleverly reminds us too that we already possess a universal language.

It's called music.  

Music, Plato told us, "gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind," and "flight to the imagination." 

It is, in his words, a "moral law."

Perhaps music is the very terrain where listening begins anew.

Grounded in reality, and yet pointing us towards that very possibility -- that we don’t need to listen to or heed the extremes of our nature --“Babylon” is as perfect and thorough a presentation of Chris Carter philosophy as we have yet experienced.

I know we’re getting the season finale, “My Struggle 2,” next week, but today “Babylon” feels like the absolute zenith, the summit of the entire, 23-year The X-Files journey.

The truth is out there, but to hear it, see it and understand it, we must seek answers not just within, but outside..in those who see and understand the world differently.

Every Mulder needs to be tested by a Scully. And every Scully needs to be tested by a Mulder.

I love that Scully and Mulder punctured their bubbles of selective exposure in this episode. They've learned a lot from each other on this quarter-century journey.  

The question is: can we follow their lead?

The X-Files Season 10 Recap: "Home Again"

In “Home Again,” Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate the brutal murder of a HUD official, Joseph Cutler (Alessandro Juliani) who was attempting to forcibly relocate a group of homeless people in Philadelphia. 

His body was discovered… pulled apart…with his head discarded in a trash can.

While Mulder pursues a lead involving a street artist, Scully is called back to Washington D.C. because of terrible personal news.

Her mother, Margaret (Sheila Larken), has suffered a devastating heart attack and is near death. But efore slipping into unconsciousness, Margaret asks for Charlie, her estranged son, and Scully’s brother. This request mystifies Scully.

While Mulder attempts to console Scully, the murders in Philadelphia continue unabated. Those who have sought to exploit the homeless for their own gain are dying in gruesome, bloody ways.

Margaret’s final words to Scully and Mulder remind Scully of their absent son, William, and their parental responsibility to care for him; a life they brought into this world together.

While she considers that idea, Scully and Mulder confront the artist, Trash Man (Tim Armstrong), who has created from his own rage a work of art that may have come to life…

This 2016 X-Files revival is proving itself a “dark wizard” of sorts, again striking pay-dirt this week with writer/director Glen Morgan’s creepy and emotionally-affecting installment: “Home Again.” 

This tale beautifully resurrects a classic series institution -- murder-to-pop-music montage -- at the same time that it develops significantly the major character arc of these six new episodes: Scully’s crushing regret and guilt over giving up her son with Mulder, William, all those years ago.

Beyond these remarkable touches, “Home Again” reaches for and attains greatness via its careful and even-handed social commentary.

Once you pry away all the violence and pathos, Morgan’s episode concerns something quite significant: the role and responsibility of the artist in the public square.

Specifically, no one in “Home Again” will help the homeless of Philadelphia out of the goodness of their hearts. There are safety concerns and profit concerns about the homeless, but no real caring or empathy for them. We glean this understanding not only from the dialogue, but from a powerful image captured in the teaser.

After being in the proximity of the homeless, the first victim uses hand-sanitizer, washing off “the germs” he associates with those who live on the streets. The image is perfectly disdainful, and perfectly apt.  You can’t “sanitize” away a lack of conscience, can you?

Just about the only person who does see the truth about the homeless is a street artist called The Trash Man. He understands that the homeless are largely powerless to help themselves, yet are judged a problem, not people to help.

In this case, however, the artist’s indignation at the heartlessness he views in his society proves so powerful that the emotion manifests a violent life of its own. Trash Man creates a thought-form, or “tulpa” (a Tibetan word for “phantom” or “conjured thing”) that carries out his agenda of rage.

To describe it bluntly, “Home Again” gazes at art, and considers both how it can enact social change, and -- frightfully -- must simultaneously be responsible for the change it enacts. 

This is not a small or inconsequential idea. 

Indeed, I have had many interviewers in the last few weeks ask me if The X-Files “created” the culture of conspiracy and is, therefore, somehow responsible for birthers, truthers, and so on.

My answer is always negative. I accept as an axiom the notion that art reflects life, and that The X-Files simply comments on and reflects those things detectable in the culture by the artists involved. 

What this episode seems to remind audiences is that works of art such as Star Trek, The X-Files, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead must not only address social concerns, but -- in shaping the culture -- showcase a sense of responsibility for the ideas they introduce.

I have never had any concern about The X-Files walking that fine line, because it never mindlessly espouses one point of view or another. The series mantra has always been “The Truth is Out There,” not “I Know What the Truth is, and it is Liberal and/or Conservative.”

“Home Again” re-affirms the series’ long-term commitment to gazing at issues through various filters, or lenses, and asking audiences to consider -- with an open mind -- all possibilities.

Here, we understand and sympathize with the artist’s rage at what he sees as the selfishness of the culture at large. He sees the terrible people who live in their McMansions, and don’t want their precious children going to school anywhere near “riff raff” like the homeless.

But at the same time, we see that the artist’s “anger” as a point of creative inspiration boasts murderous drawbacks.

Perhaps just that anger is a legitimate response to injustice, yes, but it is not a strategy for making things better.

Instead, it is an emotional response. It is not an answer in and of itself.

Once more, The X-Files appears to have captured the national moment in which we live, both acknowledging the rage that so many people feel, and noting, simultaneously, that it isn’t a productive emotion. 

As Scully trenchantly notes in “Home Again:” “we’re all responsible” for that which we create; that which we stoke; that which we put out into the world. 

Even the yellow notices posted on the streets of Philadelphia reinforce this idea: “You are responsible,” they read.

There are some politicians out there who are running for President right now and might very well learn this idea of responsibility the hard way if they continue to play to the anger and resentment of an embittered population instead of the better angels of our country’s nature. 

Anger isn’t a strategy for governance, nor one for tightening frayed national bonds.

“Home Again” thus considers how art -- and even speech -- takes on a life of its own once it has entered the world.  

And because this is The X-Files and not some run-of-the-mill horror show, Morgan’s script also boasts the wisdom to tie the idea of societal responsibility to Scully and her sense of personal responsibility.

Morgan's direction also makes it clear that this is Scully's story; her journey. When she flees a crime scene to see her sick mother, the camera gazes at her from inside her personal "bubble," and we get a close-up, jittery look at her anxiety. It's the perfect technique to make us understand what she is going through, and that her feelings are paramount.

Before long, Scully's mother helps Scully to understand that she made a mistake when she gave up William.  He is still out there, and even if she is not with him, she is responsible for bringing him into the world.

Even “Home Again’s” murder set-piece is a comment, in a way, on responsibility, or lack of responsibility. The Band-Aid Nosed Killer (the aforementioned tulpa or phantom) stalks an obnoxious lawyer to her suburban McMansion to the tune of “Downtown,” a 1964 song performed by Petula Clark and written by Tony Hatch.

Now, The X-Files possesses a long history of coupling music with horror.  In Morgan’s “Home,” we had the Peacocks attack to the tune “Wonderful.”  The song “Twilight Time” was utilized ironically in “Kill Switch,” and “The Hokey Pokey” informed brutal murder sequences in “Chinga.”

So this approach -- like the long, personal soliloquy of the voice over narration -- is a legitimate X-Files technique. I'm happy to see it resurrected in such style.

But more importantly, the tune “Downtown” is an ode or paean to not talking responsibility. The singer urges the listener to “forget all your troubles,” “forget all your cares” and visit “downtown.”  

There, you can enjoy “the music of the city” and feel all right, ostensibly.  But -- here's the rub -- Morgan's teleplay also refers to the homeless, euphemistically as "Downtown People."   

If you say it that way, it doesn't sound like you're such an awful person, right?

Of course, the city as depicted in “Home Again” is a heartless, caustic place, where the homeless are pawns to be moved around, hidden away, and “handled.” So “Downtown” knowingly pushes up against the episode’s depiction of the modern metropolis and its callous vibe.  The city is not a place to forget troubles or cares. It’s not a place where the music is happy. 

It’s a place where bad people are harming other people, and now a monster is murdering those bad people for their trespasses.

As an aficionado of the horror genre, the “Downtown” sequence in “Home Again” is everything that I would have hoped for and dreamed about regarding an X-Files revival. It’s a ghoulish, wicked scene, that generates scares and rights the scales of cosmic justice. I love when The X-Files hits such notes of irony and humor, with plenty of blood and guts to go along. These montages are scary and cerebral at the time, and "Home Again" lives up to that tradition.

For those who aren’t in The X-Files for the horror, or the social commentary, “Home Again” works superbly in terms of its fidelity to series history and its commitment to growing the characters, particularly Scully.  

Morgan and partner Wong gave us such early episodes of the series as “Beyond the Sea” and “One Breath,” both of which went a long way towards informing our understanding of Scully’s family of origin. It’s appropriate that Morgan should return to that terrain here, and use imagery from various episodes (including “One Breath”) to help us recall what Dana and the family have endured.

Also, I must confess, I love that “Home Again” -- and indeed, episodes such as “Founder’s Mutation” -- are operating on the belief that the last two seasons of the original series are also, legitimately, The X-Files.  

Some creators or writers run away from material that didn’t meet total fan approval. The X-Files, by bringing up William, and the events of the last two seasons, reminds fans that William’s story is The X-Files too. The revived X-Files doesn’t try to shake off those last two years (which I loved).  

Instead, it embraces those years, those characters, and those stories, and has weaved one of the most heartbreaking character arcs imaginable for Scully.  She grieves, throughout these episodes, for what she has lost; for what she has given away. Her mother’s words in this episode help her to understand her responsibility, vis-à-vis William, and I hope we will see her doing everything in her power to find him, in upcoming episodes and in upcoming seasons.

Again, this dynamic, heart-felt arc for Scully -- which has left my wife bereft and in tears on at least two occasions -- would not be possible without those last two seasons. 

I am so glad the creators of the series decided to embrace series history and not run away from it, just because of stupid conventional wisdom.

“Home Again” is -- like the three preceding episodes of this revival -- a triumph in terms of its literacy, its social commentary, and its character arc. Beautifully filmed, and emotionally resonant, "Home Again" brings the revival to a four-for-four tally.