S11.E10: My Struggle IV

[Batgirl]

On 3/24/2018 at 3:10 PM, spritz said:

After all the build up about the quest to find William, it wound up being nothing more than one of the biggest letdowns ever on tv.

Scully experienced heartbreak and pain during all that time without William. And she gave that emotional speech to William's body in "Ghouli", regretting and apologizing for not being part of his life. And Scully supposedly had a psychic connection with William. But we are now to believe that Scully could just turn on a dime and didn't give a crap anymore.

It is a shame it had to end this way, if this was indeed the series finale.

I agree there’s no way Scully would suddenly be like, “oh well; he was just an experiment; who cares?”  But I could maybe buy that she was just in shock/grief and trying to make herself & M feel better. 

But about William’s origins... we never get any evidence/corroboration that M isn’t William’s father except for the CSM just saying so, right? CSM tells Skinner, who tells Scully. 

Also, about Scully not being his mother: we know from Ghouli that she’s his biological mother (DNA test). We know she carried him, gave birth, raised him for almost a year, has a psychic link with him, and pined/worried/regreted for 16 years. But she was never a mother to him? Okay...  Heck, even with Mulder, if you’ve got the emotional investment and go risking your life to find the kid, is it really the (lack of a) biological link that matters?

[WAnglais1]

Oh, Lort! That was terrible.

What with the homage to "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" in the truck riding scene ("Tell 'em Large Marge sent ya!") to the Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurock stuff ("They blowed up real good!") I was pretty disgusted. I never remember TXF being so bloody. Everyone is dead in the side cast, except Skinner (he better be alive) and you know CSM survives like Darth Vader. 

William, don't let the door hit ya where the CSM split ya! Truly an unlikable character. I haven't been this offended by a character in so long I can't remember. 

Despite having good stand alone stories this year, I'm done. I love Gillian, David, and the rest of the cast, but that's it. After all the money I spent on this show with the original DVD run, I'm not buying any of the last two seasons. 

CC, don't do any more. No more. Understand? None. Surf. Smoke. Sun. That's all you need now...the three "Ss."

[AntiBeeSpray]

Gillian's still dragging CC.

My final round of auction items with all proceeds going to @nfnetwork! #makinglemonade 

https://gillianaofficial.tumblr.com/post/172276819520/gillianandersoncharity-ebay

[Tardislass]

I’m still sad we didn’t even get a Scully autopsy for old time sake. Made the mistake of watching the end scene online. OMG it was 10x worse than reading about it. Could hardly hear GA whisper though she was probably crying tears of joy not having to recite these BS lines again. Was yelling at my screen when she told Mulder she wasn’t a mother to William. Perhaps she forgot most of Season 9 where she cared for him. And DD’s weird reading of Mulders lament about not being a father-even though he never ever seemed to care before. Finally that uplifting music after Scully tells Mulder she’s pregnant and the musics happy but they look like they just heard their house burnt down. Who are these people and might you just want to look for your pseudo sons body? Guess not.

IMO, while Spotnitz often went along with bad storytelling, he seemed to have the effect of reigning in CC a bit. My only hope is that Fox sees the reviews and puts a stake through this show never to be revived. Please just leave M&S alone..

Edited March 26, 2018 by Tardislass

[Folk]

Scully emotionally ditching "William" was something that made the most sense of the writing that occurred. Even back in season 9, Scully worried what this "child" really was and now she knows. He wasn't Mulder kids, he wasn't really CSM's kid either(I am his creator line proved that). Williams was basically half alien, created when CSM used the chip in Scully's neck to ovulate her a egg and then during En Ami, inplanted the alien "sperm" to create a organic supersoldier, which Jeffrey turned against the conspiracy when he injected him with Magnetite.

That wasn't the real problem with how the series ended. The real problem was the cash grabnomics of this and Carter not putting more out in the plot line of what has really been going on since 2002.  I bet he still dreams of that 125 million dollar budget blowoff that is never going to happen. Creating mysteriously plot points of what happened to 2012 invasion and why Monica is running with the new conspiracy, is just being a ass.

[millennium]

On 3/21/2018 at 11:24 PM, Italian Ice said:

 

Buttttt if this is indeed GA's last episode, I can't see how they do it unless they make Scully die in childbirth, which, given her age, isn't out of the realm of possibility. 

Scully doesn't die.

Just watched the finale now, been saving it (boy, do I feel like a real idiot).   I laughed at Mulder killing a squad of trained guards like he's Liam Neeson in Taken.   Gosh, that was terrible.  

Maybe the episode  could have been saved if William had morphed into the Sta-Puft Marshmallow man instead of that freaky lizard thing, but even then maybe not.

Duchovny looked better, more youthful, than at any other time in these reboots.   He looked like Mulder again.   Better late than never.

As one of the four or five people who liked John Doggett and Monica Reyes, I will never forgive Chris Carter for whoring out Monica to CSM and now, apparently, killing her off.   It seems Monica may have been working undercover, as she tipped off Mulder and refused to run Skinner down.   Doesn't do much to mitigate the damage though.

I hate those wigs Gillian wears as Scully.   I hate that raspy voice.    I hate that there were no episodes about Scully.   She was arguably the most fascinating character on the X-Files and some of the best episodes of the OS were about Dana Scully's personal crises as a mother, a scientist and a Catholic.   I think I will have to go watch some episodes of Hannibal to remind myself of what GA can do when she has good writing at her back.

That climax where CSM gets shot in the chest and falls into the water, his body carried away by the outgoing current, leaving us to wonder is he really dead  ... I'm just glad I never saw that a hundred times before in comic books and TV shows.   It would have made me think that even the word hack is too good for Chris Carter.

Like they say, you can never go home again.

[Sharna Pax]

7 hours ago, millennium said:

Like they say, you can never go home again.

I guess the old saying is true: you can't dump your father's corpse in the same river twice.

[Donder]

Carter was out of gas by season 9. He had IWTB, 16 TV episodes to fire it back up. Didn't work. Then we wonder why Anderson was miffed and quit. You can go back home again, but CC doesn't know the directions.

[Sharna Pax]

I think it's a great pity this episode was so terrible, because it's overshadowed what I think was a surprisingly good season, with excellent performances by Duchovny and Anderson (Anderson's voice is a handicap, but aside from that I thought she was much better than in the previous revival season), and some nice work from new writers and directors. I felt like this season had a much stronger reason to exist than the 2016 season. Recent political developments have made The X-Files topical again, and the show ran with that, and I thought it was great.

I was really invested in this season, and I deliberately avoided watching the finale because I didn't want that ruined. But I've been sorry to see that this season is generally regarded as a failure - because to me the X-Files has never really been about seasons or finales or the long-term story arc, it's been about tuning in once a week, knowing you're going to see Mulder and Scully investigating something wacky, but never knowing exactly what you're going to get. And with a few exceptions (and there are always exceptions, that's just part of The X-Files) the show delivered on that. I will be rewatching at least five of this season's episodes, and they're all very different from each other. To me, that's a success. I understand why people are so disappointed, and I understand why Anderson is angry. I'm angry on her behalf. But I don't want that to make everyone forget the wonderful job that she and Duchovny did in Ghouli, or how brilliant and bittersweet Forehead Sweat was, or the sublime absurdity of Mulder and Scully and the blobfish.

[Robert Lynch]

17 hours ago, Sharna Pax said:

I think it's a great pity this episode was so terrible, because it's overshadowed what I think was a surprisingly good season, with excellent performances by Duchovny and Anderson (Anderson's voice is a handicap, but aside from that I thought she was much better than in the previous revival season), and some nice work from new writers and directors. I felt like this season had a much stronger reason to exist than the 2016 season. Recent political developments have made The X-Files topical again, and the show ran with that, and I thought it was great.

I was really invested in this season, and I deliberately avoided watching the finale because I didn't want that ruined. But I've been sorry to see that this season is generally regarded as a failure - because to me the X-Files has never really been about seasons or finales or the long-term story arc, it's been about tuning in once a week, knowing you're going to see Mulder and Scully investigating something wacky, but never knowing exactly what you're going to get. And with a few exceptions (and there are always exceptions, that's just part of The X-Files) the show delivered on that. I will be rewatching at least five of this season's episodes, and they're all very different from each other. To me, that's a success. I understand why people are so disappointed, and I understand why Anderson is angry. I'm angry on her behalf. But I don't want that to make everyone forget the wonderful job that she and Duchovny did in Ghouli, or how brilliant and bittersweet Forehead Sweat was, or the sublime absurdity of Mulder and Scully and the blobfish.

So this show has been canceled as of right now?

[MissL]

On 6/4/2018 at 10:34 AM, Robert Lynch said:

So this show has been canceled as of right now?

Not technically cancelled no but Fox hasn't picked it up for a new season and Gilly says she's done done done. So without her the show is effectively cancelled for ME at least.  I felt the same with David though to be fair and didn't watch most of season 9 for that exact reason.

There was a time I thought maybe if they wanted to do a show without Mulder and Scully but with new agents who took on the xfiles since our duo was on the run trying to stop an alien invasion (maybe these new agents had an informant who occasionally emailed them info named MF Luder) I'd take a look at it but CC has squandered any good will I had left for him. Won't go near anything he writes now.  there was many a time that the chemistry between the leads saved a boring episode and it's hard to find that sort of magic again with newbies and overcome Chris' horrid writing style. 

[AudienceofOne]

Speechless

Frankly, I can only assume that it was nostalgia and good will towards the community that motivated Gillian Anderson to do this season at all. The show's treatment of her character is offensive and dressing her up as a strong, powerful woman only makes the whole thing worse.