Written by Amanda, Kathy Adams
Like Chris Carter, we had a larger plan, and it was this: Watch the last four episodes of the X-Files, review them together each Monday in AIM, slap a catchy title on it (“Four for the Road”) and put it up on PopGurls for posterity. There was a major flaw in this plan. Two, even. First, we wrongly assumed that we would be able to sit down and watch the show after jettisoning it from our viewing schedules two years ago. Amanda could not sit through the first episode, and ended up cutting a deal with Kathy so *she* didn’t have to watch the second one. We both watched the second-to-last, but found it so revolting that we never wanted to speak of it again.
Our second mistake was falling into the trap of ASSumption. We assumed that the last four episodes (or at least one, two) would lead up to the series finale, and would therefore enhance our enjoyment of the very. last. X-Files episode. ever. If you watched the last four weeks, you know that wasn’t the case, and if you didn’t watch them, you’re very lucky.
We did manage to sit through the debacle of the series finale. Are the fangurls inside of us weeping with fulfillment of nine years of alien abductions, death of siblings, unresolved sexual tension and broken myth-arcs? Not at all.
Amanda: I have two words for you. Clip. Show. Nine years? And they give us a CLIP SHOW? A fucking CLIP SHOW! I swear, I kept whimpering, “clip show” into the pillow I had pressed against my face.
Kathy: Part of me was a little relieved to see some of the clips, because I’ve forgotten a lot of what happened. But there sure were an awful lot of clips, weren’t there?
Amanda: The mister says this was Chris Carter’s way of saying, “Look at me! I always knew where the arc was going! Look! I always knew! Here’s proof!”
Kathy: They probably could have done it in an hour if they hadn’t felt the need to drag out all the clips to remind us of how fucked up the arc of the story has gotten after nine years.
Amanda: And I should just get this out of the way up front. When Mulder first gave Scully the Face Cup, I sat straight up and squealed. And then I spent the next two hours insisting that there be sex. “Oh, come on. You’re in a hotel, like the “Pilot”! There’s eight minutes left! Please have sex!”
Kathy: Okay, we were thinking the same thing. I kept thinking, get up on the bed with her, stupid. What are you thinking? Get on the bed. Why are you on the floor? The bed. Now.
Amanda: He was wearing the Gray T-Shirt of Extra Hotness. He should have been on the bed, untying that robe.
Kathy: I was thinking, “So, if they may only have ten more years together, why not make them count? Let’s go.” If he can french her in front of Skinner, can’t he get on the bed with her once they’re alone?
Amanda: Well, not and have anvil of the ghosts from episodes past hit you in the head like a ton of bricks.
Kathy: I so could have written a sex segue there.
Amanda: I’m so ashamed that I wanted the sex so bad. We have denounced our ‘shipperdom! And, yet. I wanted it a lot. I don’t care how fucked up they are, or that Scully gave up the Miracle Child for adoption. I wanted them to go at it like bunnies. Because, lord help me, David Duchovny is still hot.
Kathy: I totally wanted them to do it.
Amanda: Thank god I wasn’t alone. And, also, the rest of the episode was shit. So I needed something to make it not suck for me. And what makes things not-suck better than sex! With David Duchovny! Not much.
Kathy: Why was Mulder so upset that the date for re-colonization had been set? Didn’t we sort of know this?
Amanda: Well. We sort of knew a random date. Now there is a date, date. And Mulder has to react appropriately.
Kathy: And wasn’t that the kind of information that might change some of the men on the ‘jury’s’ minds? Isn’t that the kind of alarming information that might help Mulder build a group of people to help him try to stop it? How can he possibly fight it if he won’t even tell Scully, for crissakes?
Amanda: He didn’t want to break her spirit. Weren’t you listening to his heartwarming speech at the end?
Kathy: Of course I wasn’t. I was thinking, “When are you going to shut the fuck up, get on the bed, and make with some lovin’?” And hey, Mulder? Her spirit pretty much got broken when you were abducted, killed, brought back to life, and then skipped town. Knowing that something bad is going to happen in 2012 isn’t really going to be the straw that breaks her back. Although, that was vintage Mulder, having to protect poor little Scully from herself.
Amanda: Also, correct me if I’m wrong: The Anasazi village thing was dangerous to the SuperSoldiers because of the magnetite. Not because they were large historical structures. So what, exactly, did blowing them up accomplish? Except, of course, for Chris Carter to get off with pyrotechnics.
Kathy: I would think that turning the magnetite into rubble would only make it easier to turn it into bullets and other stuff.
Amanda: How ironic! The Cigarette Smoking Man died in a fire!
Kathy: And there was a flashback of Scully shooting a SuperSoldier with a bullet I presume was made of magnetite (must have been from this past season, because I didn’t recognize it). So if Scully knew their Achilles Heel, couldn’t they have gone on a SuperSoldier killin’ rampage with magnetite bullets? (And ha, on the CSM dying in a fire.) I thought CSM was pretty dead before. As well as Spender. How dead, exactly, do you have to be before CC won’t resurrect you? Because Mulder was even buried, and they still brought him back. The lengths that he expected our credulity to stretch just got silly there at the end.
Amanda: Spender looked like Eric Stoltz, in The Mask. At LEAST CC had the good sense to make half of them ghosts.
Kathy: Why would Mulder imagine the ghost of Alex Krychek coming back to save him, though? Unless it was just so I could see that Nick Lea isn’t quite as hot as he used to be, although he’s still not bad.
Amanda: I thought he looked a little pudgy, myself.
Kathy: I tried to ignore that part and remember the good old days.
Amanda: They were haunting him, you see.
Kathy: Ah, poor haunted Mulder with the dead sister. Wah.
Amanda: They were trying to tell him, “Look, asshole. We’re all dead thanks to fighting for this cause. What in the fuck are you doing? Tell the truth. Go have sex with Scully. Make movies.”
Kathy: “Admit that it wasn’t worth leaving the last season of the show just so you could make Evolution.”
Amanda: “You could have had sex! Instead, while you were gone, they gave Scully a bad haircut.”
Kathy: Wasn’t that haircut the worst? It makes her chin look like it’s a foot long.
Amanda: Reyes should not get a better haircut than Scully. Or sassier clothes. For christsake. It’s Annabeth Gish. Does no one remember Mystic Pizza?
Kathy: I kept having to concentrate on the shape of her face, and not the overall look of her head.
Amanda: She still cries really pretty, though. And I totally buy that she missed Mulder.
Kathy: She does. She always did. I completely bought it. The only reason I accepted Mulder being back without being stuck on the fact that he was a complete asshole for leaving her was because Gillian made me believe that Scully was just happy to have him back and safe. And, honestly, I’d rather imagine them driving North, like Kirsch told them to, getting out of the country, and living happily for ten years until the obliteration of the human race, than imagine them driving South, staying mixed up with the whole mess, and trying to fight against the colonization. That first one is a better ending, somehow. They deserve the rest, really. Let Doggett, Reyes, and Skinner fight the effing future for a change.
Amanda: (Because, apparently, I’m 14, I need to also say that Skinner is really HOT.) The ending was totally unsatisfactory. “As long as we believe that the dead are trying to speak to us, and we listen to their wisdom, everything will be okay.” Huh?
Kathy: Other than the fact that Mulder finally moved to the bed and went to hold her, the ending was unsatisfactory.
Amanda: In the Gray Shirt of Extra Hotness. Oh, how I missed it.
Kathy: Part of me is kind of angry that, in the end, Mulder is the only one who really understands it all. Scully ended up just being his lab assistant, the one he gave little projects to and the one he tried to protect from the big stuff. In the final episode, all she could do is one last (pointless) autopsy, and then follow him around. That sounds familiar. That’s largely all they let her do for the nine seasons preceding it.
Amanda: Some people have being saying that Duchovny looked bored. I think it was the ridiculous speeches he was forced to give.
Kathy: Some of that dialogue was awful, and underscored how weak and insane-sounding some of the overall story elements of the X-Files has been. They all sounded like escapees from an asylum through most of the episode. Except Doggett, who couldn’t bring himself to say the SuperSoldiers were aliens, because he knew how stark raving mad it would make him sound. I mean, if he really wanted to do “anything” to keep Mulder out of the electric chair, he would have just said, “They could be aliens, for all I know, but I’ve never been able to get conclusive evidence one way or another, because there was always someone or something there to thwart us.” That look on his face, the “actually, I think that part is pretty nuts, if you know the truth” was kind of funny.
Amanda: I like that Doggett got to keep his dignity. You realize that the entire episode was designed for those 352 Terminator fans who started watching the show when Patrick joined the cast, and needed to be caught up on all the story arcs.
Kathy: Robert Patrick is actually pretty hot, too. Not as much as Skinner, but he has his moments. And Gibson was under-used, if they were going to bring him back at all.
.
Amanda: That poor Gibson kid. He’s so not cute. His nose is enormous. I feel bad for the non-attractive child he’s grown into.
Kathy: He really is spectacularly ugly, our pubescent Gibson.
Amanda: And what’s going to happen to him now? Scully pats him on the head, and they take off.
Kathy: That question could be asked of everyone other than Mulder and Scully. I think they’re all obviously in horrible danger. Is Gibson gonna hide them all in New Mexico?
Amanda: Well, no. Because his Anasazi pueblos got all blown up.
Kathy: They all testified. The alien guy knows who they all are. They’re all toast.
Amanda: Okay. That? Retarded. Gibson, honey, it’s not nice to point at the alien.
Kathy: I wonder if there’s room for Doggett, Reyes, and Skinner in the skanky trailer.
Amanda: It looked pretty small. But, since I think we’re supposed to want there to be sex between Reyes and Doggett…
Kathy: “Doggett, can you pass the salt?” Reyes will ask him one night, and that will be the end. Doggett will have had enough of her incessant need for sodium, and he’ll poke her eyes out with a plastic spork. Skinner will hide in the corner, rocking back and forth and wishing he still had his super-hot secretary to stare at when she wasn’t looking.
Amanda: Also, hee. When Kirsch helped Mulder escape? The mister made a comment about how he just wanted people to write slash fiction about him and Mulder. Because he really had no other motive.
Kathy: The Kirsch turn-around was weak. I didn’t see him wavering as the evidence was presented at the trial at all. If he had had one opportunity to show that he was being drawn into Mulder’s story, I would have bought it. Just one furrowed brow, one pointed pause at the appropriate time.
Amanda: I could maybe see it from the prosecuting attorney. Who, by the way, was in the Wedding Singer. And I kept giggling and saying “Julia Gulia. Heh. Heh. Heh.”
Kathy: But I could *totally* see that guy helping Mulder escape. He actually seemed like the case Skinner was presenting was affecting him.
Amanda: You think they’ll be able to pull off another movie? Do you think there’s anything left to say?
Kathy: I think they’ve obviously tried to set one up. Surrounding that whole 2012 colonization date thing. They left that completely open. Otherwise, the XF universe just ends in 2012 with the destruction of the human race, other than the 12 people who are going to lock themselves inside Mt. Weather.
Amanda: If they churned out one movie every two years until the supposed colonization date, they could do five movies between now and then.
Kathy: Oh my God. XF: Fight the Nearer Future, XF: Fight Some More Future, XF: Fight Another Future, ad nauseum.
Amanda: And Mulder and Scully could maybe have sex in one of them. Since, you know, “it’s true that you and Agent Mulder were lovers and that you had his love child!”
Kathy: Objection! Withdrawn!
Amanda: Sustained!
Kathy: Weak dialogue! Just awful. First, the term “love child” just bothers me. It’s so cheesy.
Amanda: The best part. The BEST dialogue. Was “It’s not like we’re here to take a walk down memory lane. This is a trial.” AHAH
Kathy: That made me laugh. Because that’s *exactly* what it was. Because, you know, CLIP SHOW.
Amanda: Clip Show. Bastards.
Kathy: We should write a rock anthem called “Clip Show Bastards”, make a tape, and send it to Chris Carter. Or maybe not.
Amanda: Even though I skipped the last two years, I still feel terribly ripped off by the whole series finale ordeal. And it’s a testament to how shitty the show became that the only magazine cover it got was TV Guide.
Kathy: This is a textbook case of a show that should have bowed out when it still had some dignity left. Instead, I had to watch an episode last season about a monster that ate Doggett and then vomited him back to life. Chris Carter owes me, like, a day of my life back. I’m glad it’s over, though. I’m relieved, somehow, even though I wasn’t watching it this past year.
Amanda: Because there was always that chance that there would be a flash of brilliance, and we would miss it. It was a very. slight. chance. But it was still there.
Kathy: And now, I don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’ll miss Gillian Anderson. I already did, but now I’m not sure when or where we’ll see her again.
Amanda: I can’t believe how much I missed David, actually. They need to do that porn together that we always talked about. I’ll buy it on DVD, for all of my friends.
Kathy: I missed him more than I wanted to. Porn for everyone!
Amanda: Viva La Porn!
Kathy: Chris, I’ll take a round of porn for my friends!
2002-05-21