The X-Files - My Struggle III

** / ****

Scully impregnated by “alien science”, according to The Cigarette-Smoking Man with some of his own “DNA”. Scully having seizures because her “special” son, William, is “sending visions” to her of potential future cataclysms to be orchestrated by The Cigarette-Smoking Man’s deadly alien pathogen. Mulder locating Erica Pryce and Mr. Y (Barbara Hershey & AC Peterson) in South Carolina by following an associate of theirs, learning of their plans to “space colonize” (“a select few”). Two sides (Cigarette-Smoking Man & Gish’s Monica Reyes, wanting to “wipe the slate clean” by causing extinction except for those immune to the pathogen as opposed to Pryce and Y who want to carry some away from the planet) with Mulder and Scully pulled into the middle. Pryce and Y want CSM dead, while CSM and Reyes want Skinner to find William. CSM has the feels for Scully, so no harm will come to her (although someone does try to harm her with Mulder arriving in the nick of time to slit his throat with a scalpel), but Bender “relocated” William so he’s a target. Scully wants Bender to tell her (despite a promise between them that he wouldn’t so the child would remain safe) William’s location. Carter, shooting the eleventh season premiere like a harried Jason Bourne movie, throws a shit-ton at us which might explain why so many rejected this episode. Bender nearly gets run over, wearing bad age progression makeup, Skinner and Mulder arguing and even shoving most of the time, the proposed Scully/Mulder replacement agents offering a cameo while allowing a killer to pass by them, and the doc speaking of Scully's brain on fire as Skinner notices bleeps on her scan speaking code.

Mulder narrates in a Sam Spade voiceover, waxing concern for Scully in a prose that isn’t quite as bad as CSM, who uses the word “cant” even. I include his opening monologue below:

My name is Carl Gerhard Busch. But I've been known by many aliases during my long career with the U.S. government. It's been a humbling job, though I'm hardly known as a humble man. I've been a witness to history, much of it violent, much of it an abomination of the values Americans hold dear. I've had a privileged seat at the centers of power, held the reins of that power, making sacrifices few are capable of, of which even fewer are willing. If people knew the truth, they'd riot in the streets. Too much is made of the will to power, as if our will is free, our choices our own. Our destinies are forged in our bones, made real by a raging impulse to self-destruct. I'm not a bad man, more a practical man. I've taken certain gifts I was given and made good men great. It is my greatness. I'm a father to two men who have figured more in the future than they might ever know. Both would end up working for the FBI, both complex but dedicated men who sacrificed dearly, and in their dogged pursuits would end up paying a terrible price, searching for truths as I parceled them out, truths held only by the few who knew the levers of power and the invisible hand controlling them. Is there life out there? Good heavens. To doubt it is a failure of more than the imagination. It is a failure to recognize the limits of our own stupidity, the nascency of our science, the rudiment of our tools. We listen, we search. We hope for a sign, as if our eyes and ears are good enough, our brains large enough, our egos small enough. I'm an old man now. I will leave my own mark upon history, more than presidents or tyrants. I don't ask for loyalty and trust, the fleeting bonds of men. I ask only for the years to show my sons and their sons I was right. What their father did, had to be done.

Yeah, but CSM even talks in exposition to Monica, both of whom already know their plans but make sure to talk it out so we do as well:

My plans are airtight. And even if they were to get out, they would be dismissed as so much fake news. That's the world we live in, Monica. Everyday a new disaster, when the one thing no one is prepared for will wipe the slate clean. We refuse to imagine our impending extinction, the acceleration of the cataclysms. We've thrown science out the window in favor of scandal and opinion and cant and all manner of ridiculous untruths. Civilization a joke, and my plan merely the punchline.

So you get plenty of novelist talk. Thing is I don’t recall back in the day CSM speaking exhaustively about anything. He was of few words and they were direct and scary. His mere presence was often enough to send shivers and cause concern. In My Struggle III he is a blowhard sounding off like a comic book villain telling James Bond or a superhero his entire masterplan.

Mulder is always often driving somewhere really fast while Scully is in bed enduring suffering thanks to her apocalyptic visions. She is able to get out of bed, head for their FBI X files headquarters before collapsing once, getting back up, and behind the wheel of a car. Perhaps not smart but she was trying to get from one place to another. Seizures, though, will cause car wrecks. As expected Scully winds right back in the hospital, narrowly avoiding death thanks to a conveniently arriving Mulder. While they search for their son (Mulder doesn’t know that fucking CSM is somewhat the father of William; yuck), Scully still believes the “truth is in the X-Files”. Whatever the case, Skinner's loyalties are called into question thanks to a long-winded car conversation with CSM and Reyes. Skinner is once again under suspicion, although good will is built as the season continues.