X-Files S07 E21 & Season Wrap Up

7x22 Requiem

Season Finale! M finale kinda!

As previously discussed, the idea at some point was for the show to transition to a movie franchise, and Duchovny wanted out of the weekly TV grind. This episode was to tie everything up with a bow and move onwards, to the big screen. Which of course, didn’t really happen. From here on out, M is more a presence than a a character on the show. He’s only in a few episodes of S8 and only two episodes of S9, the last of the original run.

Here we start with a police car crashing in the woods, fire, green goo, time speeding up or slowing down, alien shenanigans up the wazoo.

Bit of comedy in the opening, M is FINALLY getting dragged across the coals for the insane expense reports he’s submitted over the years. We get a recap of the entire show in about five seconds; ‘you were looking for your sister, she dead, you admitted it, investigation over.’ S claims the work they do can’t be measured, which doesn’t go down great with the FBI number cruncher, since y’know hotel bills and last minute cross country flights can be measured. And that measurement is millions of tax payer dollars wasted. M & S are like, yeah well fuck this guy, let’s go look into more vague alien shit on the other side of the country, in Oregon.

K is sprung from some middle eastern looking jail — possibly the one Batman is held in The Dark Knight rises — by blonde lady deep throat (BLDT — hmm this nickname might need work) who takes him to the nearly dead CSM. CSM lives, hilariously, nice touch, in the Watergate apartment complex. CSM sends BLDT and K off to Oregon, telling them there’s for sure an alien ship out there in them woods.

In the alien infested Oregon woods, Finch from American Pie and another kid, are turned away by the sheriff and told not to go look for aliens in the woods ‘cos there ain’t any, you hear!’ There definitely are loads of aliens, and the kids almost immediately stumble into trouble and Finch is taken! Stifler’s mom is going to be gutted.

There’s a lot of talk about seven years ago and previous characters, and back to the beginning of the XF. Billy, some kid who was abducted back near the start, and is now all grows up and a police officer is here. We’re being taken back to the start in order to get to the finish y’see? S seems to be sick and very sad about how her alien abduction left her barren and her career is kinda down the shitter because of her relationship with that loon M. It’s weird seeing M & S cuddle in bed — really interesting choice how they finally got them together in this season, yet kept it largely off camera.

Exploring in the woods, S gets vanished, doing the weird speeded up moment thing that Finch did, which is meant to be terrifying (?) but is actually hilarious looking. S doesn’t remember what happened and nobody else saw it. M knows something is up, he just needs the proof! Meanwhile, everyone in the goddamn town but M is getting some sort of first hand alien experience.

Back at HQ, Skinman (fresh from allocating FBI resources to a Hollywood movie and then signing off on the movie using his agent’s REAL NAMES) brings BLDT and K into M’s basement office and tells them, they all have to get along and look for the ship together. It’s invisible, cloaked in an energy field and surrounded by shape shifting alien bounty hunters. They can blow the lid off the whole thing and fuck over CSM before he dies. Sure!

The gang bring TLG to FBI HQ, which surely wouldn’t trigger any alerts, and share alllll the super confidential data and we’re really in end of the season, super team Avengers assemble mode here. Apart from M is like, yeah S you’re off the case, you’re sick and the bad guys are taking abductees back into space or whatever, you’re out. S understands but can’t let M go alone, even though M is def not alone, there’s literally an entire room of people working together.

As M & Skinman head to Oregon. TLG and S go over the science shit at HQ. Looking over all the data they realize it’s not S who’s in danger of being taken, it’s M! But before they can make much progress on this, S collapses and they take her to the hospital.

Skinman and M trek through the Oregon woods, having seemingly appeared on the other side of the country in the blink of an eye, someone should look into that supersonic FBI jet. They use lasers (?!) to find the alien ship in the woods but before they can fully comprehend where it is and what’s going on, M disappears! Skinman can’t see him, but M is in some weird column of light, walking towards all the other abductees. M stares up at light. Get out of there M! The alien bounty hunter is there! It’s all happening!

K and BLDT pay a visit to CSM, tell him to go fuck himself, and then chuck his barely alive, desiccated old body, down some stairs. I’d say he’s dead but that guy is functionally immortal.

Pretty crazy time for Skinman who gets to see the most crazy sight of all, a giant fucking alien spaceship, become invisible and fly off into the sky, taking M with it! M has been taken!

Skinman has to return to DC, where he tells the tale to a hospital bound S. The two of them cry together about the taken M, finally acknowledging that yes, aliens are 100% real. In return, S shares an even bigger secret than alien life — she’s pregnant! It has to belong to M, hopefully not some alien hybrid thing.

Season 7 Wrap Up

Not the best season, it sort of felt like hey, we’ve done about all we can here, maybe time to end it. But like most American network shows that means there’s time to squeeze another 50 or so episodes in. I enjoyed some of the mythology stuff and I thought they did a good job both tying it up and yet opening it up. Lots of good comedy episodes too; some night I still think about that VR game episode, good times.

Ultimately though, I think whenever a (/the) main character — in this case Duchovny — wants to leave, just end the show. That usually ties into the show having jumped several sharks, since the lead actor is over taking the ever increasing sacks of money to just be done with it. Money is great, most people love it, so it really takes a lot of frustration/boredom to walk away from a big pile of it.

For XF, it had a good run but at its absolute core it’s not truly about aliens, more about the relationship between M & S. With no M, we’re just watching an episodic monster of the week show, which is fine, but that not the magic of XF.

Best Episodes: 03, 06, 08, 12, 13, 15, 19, 21.