‘The X-Files’ Team on Those Major Season 11 Premiere Twists
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: This post contains major, major, major spoilers for the Season 11 premiere of The X-Files. Please do not read further until you’ve watched “My Struggle III.”]
The X-Files ended its tenth season with the world on the verge of falling apart. Scully (Gillian Anderson) determined to save the gravely ill Mulder (David Duchovny)—and find their MIA son William—and a UFO hovered above.
But, surprise, none of that actually happened!
Scully went through *a lot*. (Photo: Robert Falconer/FOX)
Instead, when Season 11 of Fox drama kicked off, we saw flashes of what happened in the finale, with Scully collapsed on the floor of the X-Files’ office. Scully envisioning the future caused her to seize, with her brain figuratively on fire. When she woke up, she told Mulder about what was to come, warning him, “I know how it begins.” On the bright side, at least she had a plan to save his life…and the rest of the world.
Series creator Chris Carter laid the groundwork for the twist in the Season 10 finale, “My Struggle II”—the only hour that was part of Scully’s future vision. “If you watch the shots [in that episode], there are indicators that this is [in] Scully’s head,” he says. “We go into her eyes and then pull quickly out, and then we go into her eye, deep into her eye. That is all a part of the larger two-part mystery.”
In the nearly two years between seasons, Carter was able to keep the secret—and says that no one guessed the cliffhanger resolution to him—and the cast jumped onboard when they found out where things were going.
“It’s Bobby Ewing coming out of the shower, man!” Mitch Pileggi (Skinner) says, comparing it to the famous Dallas twist. (Pileggi should know—he appeared on both the original and reboot version of the iconic soap.) “I love it. I think it once again is a mindf–k for everyone who watched the last episode and have been freaking out for the last two years. I think where they take it from that is brilliant. It opens up so many avenues to go down with that. We’re not restricted to all of the stuff that happened or didn’t happen.”
But that wasn’t the only twist of the premiere: At the end of the hour, in the midst of a tense reunion with Skinner, the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) claimed paternity of William. “My actor sense set in: ‘What a great line,’” Davis admits of his first reaction to the script.
The potential backstory for that reveal—if true—was originally set up in the Season 7 installment, “En Ami,” which Davis penned, but he notes this was never brought up to him there. “There was a kind of ambiguity to the fact that she was asleep and woke up in different clothes,” he acknowledges. “But I certainly at the time never thought [it would go here].”
And even Davis is unsure whether CSM meant he was literally or figuratively William’s father. “What I have found with this character and this series over time is that I need a backstory that makes each scene work,” he says with laugh. “If I try to find a backstory that makes all the scenes work with the same backstory, I would submit it for a PhD thesis somewhere. So for today, I think I’m the biological father. But I don’t guarantee I’m the biological father.”
Carter was also coy about whether fans should take the Cigarette Smoking Man literally. “He worked in a clandestine service,” he points out. “They are all a bunch of liars and propagandists and altered the course of elections in plenty of places. So they were merchant of lies. While you have come to trust his evil intent, he still is a character who is either lying purposefully or telling the hard truths.”
In the meantime, that leaves Skinner—a longtime ally of Mulder and Scully—in the middle, unsure of what to do next. Teases Carter, “He struggles. We’ll see that his loyalty is in question. It seems resolved, and then it seems compromised again. There are peaks and valleys.”
“It frustrates him more,” Pileggi adds. “It brings out more of his fury. It just kind of snowballs and explodes in all kinds of different directions.”
The X-Files…reminding us to trust no one since 1993.
The X-Files, Wednesdays, 8/7c, Fox
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Watched it last night....and was just FLOORED. I\'m a long time fan of X-Files and would watch it every night if I could. Season 11 has started off with a bang.
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My favorite episodes.
thrillist. com/entertainment/nation/the-x-files-episodes-all-201-episodes-ranked
Ranked, 138. \"D.P.O.\"
Season 3
A delinquent ne\'er-do-well who can control lightning wreaks havoc in his small town. This lesser Monster-of-the-Week episode is noteworthy mainly for its two lead guest stars: Giovanni Ribisi and a pre-stardom Jack Black.
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Ranked, 74. \"Sleepless\"
Season 2
Tony \"Candyman\" Todd makes a memorable guest turn as a former soldier subjected to experiments that leave him without the need to sleep. This atmospheric installment also marks the first appearances of both the duplicitous Alex Krycek and Mulder\'s terse new informant X (Steven Williams).
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Ranked, 73. \"Dreamland\"
Season 6
The first installment of a hilarious two-parter sees Mulder mysteriously switch bodies with a low-level Man in Black named Morris Fletcher (Michael McKean), who works at Area 51. The episode\'s highlight is a Duck Soup-inspired bit of lunacy between Duchovny and McKean in front of a full-length vanity mirror.
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Ranked, 65. \"How the Ghosts Stole Christmas\"
Season 6
Mulder and Scully spend Christmas exploring a haunted house lorded over by two ghosts who interrogate them about their \"paramasturbatory\" pursuits and generally try to drive them crazy. A boisterous episode elevated by the presence of guest stars Edward Asner and Lily Tomlin as the mischievous spectres.
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Ranked, 40. \"E.B.E.\"
Season 1
Information from Mulder\'s contact Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin) leads Mulder and Scully on a cross-country chase after a truck that may be carrying an extraterrestrial biological entity. The first truly perfect mythology episode, notable for the haunting shades added to Hardin\'s character and the introduction of that beloved trio of conspiracy theorists, The Lone Gunmen.
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Ranked, 35. \"Squeeze\"
Season 1
The first standalone episode of the series tells the tale of a liver-eating mutant, Eugene Victor Tooms (Doug Hutchison), who can contort his body to fit into the smallest spaces. Excellent in almost every way, and a nice solidification of Mulder and Scully\'s beguiling believer-skeptic dynamic.
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Ranked, 34. \"Tooms\"
Season 1
This sequel to \"Squeeze\" is even better than its predecessor, with Mulder and Scully forced to stake out liver-eating mutant Eugene Victor Tooms (Doug Hutchison) after he is released from a mental hospital. The gory escalator finale is especially satisfying.
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Ranked, 29. \"Home\"
Season 4
Mulder and Scully head to a small Pennsylvania town where a family of inbred boys called \'The Peacocks\" is keeping a woman prisoner, impregnating her, and then killing the children. There\'s more to the story than that. This terrifying standalone -- which features a brutal extended murder sequence set to a cover of Johnny Mathis\' \"Wonderful! Wonderful!\" -- was so controversial when it first aired that Fox insisted it would never broadcast it again. They changed their minds many years later.
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Ranked, 16. \"Pilot\"
Season 1
The one that started it all. Even in the context of all that follows, the pilot episode of The X-Files, in which the freshly partnered Mulder and Scully investigate a series of abductions in Oregon, still manages to intrigue and inspire. The two actors\' chemistry is immediately evident, nowhere more so than in the intimate motel room scene where Mulder lays out the particulars of his obsessive crusade.
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Ranked,15. \"War of the Coprophages\"
Season 3
Even the \"worst\" Darin Morgan-penned episode is close to a masterpiece. What this installment -- in which Mulder and Scully investigate reports of killer cockroaches -- lacks in Morgan\'s keenly bleak insights into human nature, it makes up for in the sheer hilarity of its sight gags, from a buxom scientist named Bambi to the image of Mulder and Scully covered head to toe in dung.
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Ranked, 3. \"Beyond the Sea\"
Season 1
The first episode that gave Gillian Anderson a real showcase was this Season 1 standalone from Glen Morgan and James Wong in which Scully\'s father passes away, and her grief carries over to her and Mulder\'s interrogation of a serial killer (Brad Dourif, magnificently unhinged) with potentially psychic insights into their latest case. The sheer range of Anderson\'s emotional expression in this episode (from quiet anguish to despairing rage and back again) proved she was no second banana, but the series\' bona fide star.
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As crazy as Carter makes me, I\'ll bow to his knowledge of thse characters he created. Still, if Mulder and Scully odn\'t at least end up together, or having some type of happy ending, I will be very disappointed. What other characters deserve some happiness more than these two?
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