The X-Files Revival: Mulder's Fatherhood (Doesn't Matter) Is Neglected
One aspect that struck me about the latter end of The X-Files was the subtle undermining and conclusive erasure of Mulder's fatherhood.
While not intentionally malicious, it-- like the Revival's rewrite of William-Jackson's legacy and Scully's final declaration-- was poorly handled. And not solely, as one might assume, by the fandom's favorite boogieman.
January 31, 2018:
[Interviewer]: So much of the episode [Ghoulie] is Scully’s roller coaster of near-misses and grief. His biological paternity may be in question, but William is still a young man that Mulder considers to be his son. How did you go about demonstrating Mulder’s grief in the episode?
[James Wong]: Well, I really do believe that, in the case of William, Scully’s character took the brunt of the emotional journey and baggage. She was the one who had to do everything by herself, really, and she made decisions for him by herself.
To me, Mulder’s emotional journey is really through Scully. I felt like he was trying to support her; he could only connect to it through her. And that’s how I approached it.
Through her. Mulder "could only connect to it" through her.
Not "our son" that left "us both" with "an emptiness that can't be filled," ala I Want to Believe. Not "my son" and "his mother", ala The Truth. Not "That doesn't make him any less of a miracle though, does it?", ala Existence.
Mulder is mainly granted snippets of fatherly recognition via his role as an auxiliary attache to Scully's arc. Although Maggie mentions Mulder's son on her deathbed, Home Again focuses primarily on Scully's loss. Regardless, My Struggle III casts doubt on Jackson's paternity soon thereafter. Even when Ghouli attempts to patch up a few holes-- e.g. Wong crafting a scene to underscore internalized pain and shame:
The moment it felt like Mulder was able to express his grief was when he and Skinner were talking on the boat. The moment I really love is Skinner is warning him to stay away, and Mulder is like, ‘Thanks for the warning, but you’re too late.’ The moment he turns around, we saw him not saying that to Skinner, but saying that to himself. The whole thing was too late for him. So that’s the moment I liked.
--Mulder is still left outside the sacred circle (i.e. a scene explicitly exploring his parental grief), bearing witness to Scully's loss in the morgue without being able to express his own. My Struggle IV then knocks away any future examination by doubling down on My Struggle III's revelation, severing the Mulder men's connection entirely. He's allowed one smothering hug before Jackson distances himself and fakes his death, before Scully tells her partner to write off the child he's loved as his own for nearly eighteen years.
Because William-Jackson doesn't consider him a father.
Because Mulder's just there to support Scully.
As tempered as I attempt to be concerning the Revival, My Struggle IV's insistence on creating more mystery rather than answering old questions added (likely unintended) insult to injury--
March 21, 2018:
[Interviewer]: If the show returns and if Gillian returns as Scully, will Scully still be able to sense that William is alive? Or has that connection somehow been severed?
[Chris Carter]: Because he’s still alive, there is that connection. I imagine right now, that’s what she sensed at the end of the dock at the sugar factory: William might in fact not be dead.
If that be the case, canon would be justifying Scully's lie by omission: that she'd directly or indirectly deceive her partner of twenty-five years in order to nudge him to "let go" of Jackson (which would, in effect, taint her characterization.) Why?
Because the William arc isn't really about Mulder, you see-- he's an accessory to Scully's bond with William. The shoulder to cry on, the unfailingly supportive-- but passive-- man who lets her adopt William out and lives with her through the pain and waits for her after she leaves and reopens the files after she brings a case to his doorstep and agrees when she insists they find William before the world ends and caves when she asserts they stop looking-- and give Jackson
up-- because their son, their baby boy, is "an experiment."
Because Mulder "can only connect" to his personal journey of fatherhood "through her."
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Regardless of what your opinion is on my struggle iv, whether you agree or disagree with literally anything that happened in it, genuinely the most important thing about it is that mulder and scully made it out. Of everything. they made it out of the other side of their story.
I remember sitting down to watch it for the first time and i was so convinced they were going to die, or one of them was going to die, or something horrific was going to happen to pull them apart at the very last moment. but no. it didn't. they made it out. Of the labyrinth. of the conspiracy of lies. the absolute sheer relief that despite everything, in the end, the darkness didn't find them ?? that they were able to walk away from the cloud of cigarette smoke that had been hanging over them for twenty-five years ?? that they were finally free to live as they had always wanted ?? do you see why i'm SOBBING-
(you have to read multiple tweets screenshots backwards bc i did not make a thread)
i love skinner so much. mulder + scully move him to action over complacency. i fully believe this man was lost without them. the years without him wore him down again, after they had built him up. skinner held onto every little shred of dignity & hope they gave him. they reignited it upon their return, kitten was a real turning point for them.
skinner, a man of few words, tried so hard to give them his belief in them.
The one where... Mulder tracks down William and they have a final confrontation with CSM.
Tagline: Salvator Mundi
Best: Well, when I watched it when it first aired I wasn’t devastated by it the way I was by MSIII because my expectations were so low by this point, so that’s a plus?
Worst: Guys it’s so, so, so, so bad 😂 I can’t even pick out the worst part. I think GA’s reaction kind of sums it up, and I fully support her decision to never make more of CC’s X-Files.
This ending only highlights the hollowness at the core of the mytharc storyline. As the show went on the mytharc became less about discovering the truth and exposing a global conspiracy, and more about torturing our protagonists. And it’s all for nothing. Mulder and Scully never save the world, or prevent an alien invasion, or bring down the conspiracy, or even expose it to the world (Tad O’Malley ranting aside). They just suffer until neither they nor we as the audience can take it anymore.
In the final scene of The Truth, the original series finale, Scully tells Mulder that they only fail if they give up. They’re together, and they believe in the same thing, and that’s where the hope is. It’s small and personal, but it feels bigger.
Here I can’t shake the feeling that the show ends with their failure - to save their son (they even give up at being his parents, they forsake him so easily at the end), to save their old allies Reyes and Skinner, to stop the alien virus pandemic, to find the truth. And maybe the pregnancy was meant as a little ray of hope in this terrible ending, but to me it’s completely tone-deaf. Their relationship is the heart of the show and there isn’t even anything meaningful exchanged between them in the end. I just feel numb.
50 States: Tennessee x6, Virginia x23 & DC x110 (45/50)
Investigate: Apart
Solve Rate: 75%
❌ Bechdel Test: Only conversation between women was about William
MSR: 🐝🐝
Goriness: 👽👽👽👽👽
Creepiness: 👽👽👽
Humor: 👽
Rewatch Thoughts:
William check-in: William: …and then I just kinda became a criminal… Getting Jackson/William’s whole backstory in an intro monologue is… bad storytelling. I think he could have been an interesting, flawed but sympathetic character and I hate that this is the direction CC went with him - I want to love Mulder and Scully’s son!
Break-up check-in: Well, they end up in each other’s arms, and that’s the best thing I can say.
I really dislike the way the story is told bouncing around in time. It’s so choppy and disjointed 😫 Maybe to hide how little it makes sense…
So Reyes is trying to help them? It just seems like too little too late. Also it was in Scully’s vision that they met last season, we don’t even know if they’ve actually been in contact in this timeline.
In the original series finale Mulder was put on trial for the murder of a man that he supposedly killed while breaking into a government facility - something that based on 9 seasons we know he wouldn’t do. And here he just flat out shoots and kills at least 5 security guards that we see and whoever that old guy in the office was as… payback? This just isn’t my Mulder.
Once again splitting Mulder and Scully up for the last episode of the series 🙃
Oh goody more driving!
More time trickiness, showing us things like they’re happening concurrently when they’re not 🙄
Mulder getting to put his arms around his son for the first time in 17 years 🥺
I do kind of enjoy William dispatching this new conspiracy group like it’s absolutely nothing - the show has not made me fear them, or interested in them, they’re just annoying
The show apparently cares so little about Scully that we don’t even get to see Skinner tell her about CSM’s claims, or get to see her process what that might mean about her son, about what was done to her 🙃
Oh goody more running around in dark industrial sites - admittedly not something new to the show, but always my least favorite episode climax
Wiiillliiaaaaaam!!!
Reyes is unceremoniously dispatched.
Followed I guess by Skinner, although maybe he could have survived under the car?
I… how are we supposed to feel about any of this?
Even Mulder killing CSM, which should feel cathartic after everything, just feels 🤷🏻♀️ - I mean we saw his face blow up and he came back after that, so I have no faith CC wouldn’t bring him back again given the slightest opportunity!
And… in classic X-Files tradition Scully arrives after everything’s over.
I will just note once again that CSM says: That I am the one who made him? That I am William’s creator? Which supports my belief that William is absolutely still Mulder’s son.
Not that Scully gets the space to think that through after hearing CSM’s claims second hand from Skinner: William was an experiment… I carried him, and I bore him. But I was never a mother to him… WTF. I mean WHAT THE FUCK. She raised him for months. She carried him in her heart for 17 years. I guess you could put this down to shock, but I put the blame on bad writing.
Mulder: What am I now if I’m not a father… This might mean a little more if the show had actually explored what being a father meant to him a little more!
And then the pregnancy reveal. I can’t even explain to you how much I hate this. The dismissal of William as their child because now they have a chance for a real child they can raise together. The pregnancy of a 54 year old woman - even putting aside her infertility. That they only slept together in Plus One to set up this reveal. The idea that a future between them has to involve raising a child, like that’s the only way they can be a family, can be together. That a baby will solve their problems. That Scully’s only purpose on this show is to bear children for the Mulder family. Fucking hell.
We never even learned anything concrete about what William’s relationship was to the alien virus pandemic - did he stop it by killing off CSM and those other conspirators? The tagline was Salvator Mundi aka Savior of the World. But I guess we don’t even know if it’s still happening or not 🤷🏻♀️
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So, I just need to harp on one more thing that is making my head explode with respect to My Struggle IV.
What the actual fuck was going on with the timeline in this episode? So, in 15 hours, Mulder:
1) drove from Farrs Corner, VA to Braddock Heights, Maryland
2) engaged in much action and running and gunfire there in Maryland
3) ....then drove all the way to northeast Tennessee, which almost certainly took at least 6 hours (thanks Waze)
4) canvassed convenience stores there to gather information
5) THEN drove to Norfolk, VA (Waze states that's another 6+ hour drive, folks)
6) bounced from house to house to that motel where Jackson made heads roll...er, explode
And then, somehow Scully and Skinner just kind of magically catch up with Mulder after all of that, at the sugar factory. That's also at least a three hour drive, though, so...hmm. [But also, a side rant: you put Scully and Skinner in a car together for *three hours* and you still didn't take that opportunity to have a real conversation there about her medical rape? Because you HAD TIME.]
This headache was brought to you by the makers of endless car chase footage and 12 month long pregnancies. I mean, really though, why on earth did you pick Tennessee as the location for a single convenience store clerk interview? You just wasted 12 hours!
