X-Files second Halloween special

[FaxModem1]

Just going to point out that Scully knows the location of a mass grave that they can use as proof of the conspiracy to show Skinner that they're not crazy/making things up.

Second, it really is weird that Mulder is always proven right on Monsters of the week stuff. All evidence points to the girl being Stockholm Syndromed and helping the killer, but Mulder believes otherwise, and is proven right by the insane logic that she had an empathic connection with the killer's future victims.

My fan theory is that Mulder is like the antichrist from Good Omens. He's a low level reality warper who changes things around him, because the universe sides with Mulder so that they fit his world view even if everything around him has to go crazy to do so. The waitress really was an accomplice for the killer, Mulder, because of his personal issues about his sister, didn't believe that, and instead she became an innocent victim who has weird empathy powers because of Mulder's headspace.

It would explain a lot of the crazy.

[PerrySimm]

The X-Files has always played fast and loose with what counts as a standard of 'proof'. A gravesite might prove an atrocity occurred, but doesn't prove what happened or why. And based on how things usually go on the show, the grave was probably gone by the time anyone could come back with a forensics team.

[Fianna]

Given it's The X-Files, they could certainly have done an episode suggesting Mulder has some sort of low level psychic ability, allowing him to intuit what weird thing is behind the mystery of the week, and not any of the hundred other weird things they've encountered. It'd explain a lot. Like, how does Mulder know it's empathic transference and not Lucy performing a blood magic ritual summoning her abductor from the spirit world to inflict her suffering on others? On this show, that could definitely happen.

As for the mythology episodes, when you're at the point where you're pretending to be conducting illegal and inhumane experiments on innocent people, then murdering them to cover it up, all to cover up your actual involvement with alien invaders? At that point, it might be better to just bite the bullet and finally kill Mulder and Scully. Or at least get them fired from the FBI so they can't go chasing you around the country on the government's dime.

[Rocketboy1313]

I enjoyed this swath of episodes.
Looking at the character of Too Shy, this relates back to some interview I saw with David Duchovny where he said something to the effect of, "Mulder is one of the worst FBI agents ever, he never caught anyone."

Which prompts me to ask, "David... Did you ever watch the show? Mulder caught bad guys all the time. He has personally shot numerous kidnappers, serial killers, and other evildoers of various flavors and intensity."

Too Shy, much like the "Fetishist" and numerous others (like from the later seasons there was a mass child grave found outside a Christmas themed amusement park), he would be a national celebrity. He would be the most famous FBI agent of our time whose eccentric beliefs would be seen as some Newton-like unique insight.

The idea of him being called "Spooky" after he took down his 15th serial killer in 2 years would be considered laughable.

[Fianna]

Never is an exaggeration, but most episodes do end with no one being officially charged with a crime. Either they escape, die, or whatever was happening was beyond human agency in the first place.

[Wolf359]

You mentioned Jewel Stait from Stargate Atlantis, but was the landlady in “Too Shy” the young Catherine Langford in “1969” of SG-1? I think the train conductor was in both too...

48:08 “Well Fed Man” - that does sound mean. Mean like oxygen.

[CharlesPhipps]

Honestly, I think the idea of "celebrity" FBI agents is mostly a product of today and I think people seriously overestimate the amount of attention people would pay to the police and FBI agents involved in taking down stories that never get on the news anyway. That's WITHOUT there being a sinister cabal that covers up the supernatural.

Mind you, I never quite bought the conspiracy wouldn't just shoot Fox and Scully.

Still, I always felt the X-Files would have been better if Scully had been right more often.

[Kendrakirai]

Honestly, I think the idea of "celebrity" FBI agents is mostly a product of today and I think people seriously overestimate the amount of attention people would pay to the police and FBI agents involved in taking down stories that never get on the news anyway. That's WITHOUT there being a sinister cabal that covers up the supernatural.

Mind you, I never quite bought the conspiracy wouldn't just shoot Fox and Scully.

Still, I always felt the X-Files would have been better if Scully had been right more often.

Maybe the public wouldn’t know them, but he’s constantly crapped on by other FBI agents and law enforcement officers he’s in semi-regular contact with. He’d *absolutely* have people watching him for more than his crackpot articles like that MUFON guy did.

And as for shooting him, that would look *unbelievably* suspicious. If somebody who is close to cracking a case, or is going to testify, or a vocal opponent or proponent of something dies under anything but *the most obviously* accidental or natural circumstances, it crystallizes in peoples minds that there *is* something there, that somebody is trying to cover up or keep quiet.

Even if he is getting closer, it’s better to let everyone think he’s a lunatic than to kill him and make people think *maybe he was right about part of it*.

Then instead of one guy, you have a dozen. And if you kill any of them, that’s a *pattern* and even more people take notice.

[SigilBreaker26]

Plenty things more blatant get covered up in the X-Files judging from the other reviews. The only way something like that really makes sense is if Mulder and Scully are being used as leverage by one faction to put pressure on another. But I don't know enough about the X-Files metaplot to comment on that.

[Rocketboy1313]

Honestly, I think the idea of "celebrity" FBI agents is mostly a product of today and I think people seriously overestimate the amount of attention people would pay to the police and FBI agents involved in taking down stories that never get on the news anyway. That's WITHOUT there being a sinister cabal that covers up the supernatural.

That is because in real life no FBI Agent is like Mulder.

This was the 90's. Dateline, 20/20, 60 minutes, 48 Hours they all had True Crime stories every week long before Tru TV was really a thing.

Mulder and Scull would be the featured hero in multiple instances of these serial killer dramas.
And all the more attention would be paid for all the reasons they make for good characters in a show.
They are attractive and have numerous interesting quirks and deep personal history.

Mulder could run for and win a Senate seat in his home state.