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The Beginning
"Okay, forgive the scientific argument just for a moment, but you're saying this was done by something newborn?"
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by Kim Manners
Directed by Kim Manners
Scully: We have to make every effort to ensure that nothing happens to this boy because whatever he is, whatever gives him the ability to do what he does, he's your scientific evidence. It's just like we said. He could be the key to everything in the X-Files.
Mulder: We don't have the X-Files.
Scully: No, but what if he could corroborate everything that you're saying? This boy could be our last, best chance.
Mulder: We don't have the X-Files.
Scully: No, but what if he could corroborate everything that you're saying? This boy could be our last, best chance.
The X-Files division is re-opened, but with Spender and Fowley in charge, while Mulder and Scully are assigned to other duties. Thanks to a tip-off from Skinner, Mulder and Scully are still able to get in on the latest case: alien activity in Arizona.
Tropes:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite everything she went through in Fight The Future, Scully inexplicably falls back on this mindset yet again. Mulder is already fed up with it:Mulder: "What does it take? For this thing to come up and bite you on the ass?"
- As You Know: The committee reviewing Mulder's report on the events of the movie act as a way to catch up any audience members who didn't see the movie.
- Cassandra Truth: Poor Mulder thinks he's finally going to explain this to a committee, telling them of the entire Antarctica adventure and the spaceship flying off. He assures them that Scully will back him up completely, turning to her...and Gilligan Cut to a pissed-off Mulder bursting out of the room as Scully had to state under oath she never actually saw any of the stuff he was telling the committee.Mulder: Next time, I'll wear a clown suit and do balloon tricks.
- Chest Burster
- Exact Words: Mulder complains to Scully the only reason he went in there to tell the committee all that happened was that Scully assured him she'd back him up as she had a "scientific reason for what we saw." Scully has to clarify that Mulder should have talked to her before this as A) what she was was actually very little and B), she does have a scientific reason, it's just not aliens but an earth-based virus.
- Evil Gloating: Smoking Man gloating to his son Agent Spender about how they have gotten one up on Mulder at the end of the episode, that he is on thin ice. And how beautiful it is to break a man's spirit complete with a slight sadistic smile.
- Evil Is Petty: The Cigarette Smoking Man lights up in front of a no smoking sign in a medical ward, walking in on a sterile operation.
- Fingertip Drug Analysis: Mulder touches some organic alien goo in the power plant.
- Holding Hands: Almost a repeat of the hand holding at the end of The Movie.
- Idiot Ball: After their claims of extraterrestrials are ignored as baseless again, Mulder and Scully run into Gibson. As Scully points out, this is iron-clad proof of the supernatural sitting in their car, but instead of immediately taking Gibson to the safest safehouse they can find and sticking to him like glue, Mulder goes off with his ex to chase down a UFO lead, and Scully takes Gibson to a hospital and takes her eyes off him. Naturally they lose Gibson when the Conspiracy kidnaps him again.
- It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Gibson had shades of this earlier, but here it's emphasized.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Discussed by the Cigarette-Smoking Man, who while guilty of often thinking way also concedes that this isn't always applicable.
- Myth Arc: Mythology episode recapping things from season 5 and the film, plus adding some new things.
- Shout-Out:
- The name of the inattentive nuclear power plant worker? Homer.
- A member of the committee interviewing Mulder and Scully says Mulder's stories sound like Men in Black.
- Surveillance Station Slacker: Homer, just like his namesake.
- Take That!: The FBI committee's leader is named Maslin, after film critic Janet Maslin, who gave the movie a negative review.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: Alvin Kersh is introduced in this episode, who becomes a recurring pain in the ass for the X-Files unit until the finale.
- Wham Shot: The ending, where the Xenomorph-like alien molts it's flesh and is revealed to transform into the classic 'Grey' alien.
Mulder: So if that were true, that would mean that Gibson is in some part extraterrestrial.
Scully: It would mean that all of us are.
Scully: It would mean that all of us are.
