Sunday Mornings With Mulder and Scully – Extraterrestrial Biological Entities

E.B.E., or Extraterrestrial Biological Entity, was the real turning point as far as the main mythology of the show goes. It was inspired by the 1976 film All The Presidents Men. It also marked the first mythology episode written by Glen Morgan and James Wong. The two writers would leave the show during season two to write for Space Above and Beyond – one of my favorite shows from the 1990s – but would return to The X-Files for season four. Chris Carter then hired them to run season two of Millennium. Eventually, the made it into films where they created the Final Destination series (the first movie was originally thought of as an X-File), as well as the remake of Willard starring Crispin Glover. Side note – if you haven’t seen the 2006 remake of Willard, I suggest you give it a watch. Some great creature feature horror where you can see the influences of the writer’s earlier work on The X-Files coming through. Morgan and Wong also worked on the spinoff series The Lone Gunman.

Now that I’ve mentioned them, E.B.E. was the episode that introduced The Lone Gunman in the series. John Fitzgerald Byers, Richard Langly, and Melvin Frohike worked together as conspiracy theorists and were originally meant to make Mulder seem more credible. Their brand of conspiracy crazy made Mulder’s look like complete sanity. Scully’s face as they speak during their first meeting says as much when Mulder introduces them to her in this episode.

This episode is a lot to unpack. When Mulder and Scully investigate a UFO sighting in Tennessee, and Scully loans a pen to a seemingly random woman before returning to D.C., Scully later finds a tracking device in the pen. Deep Throat gives Mulder a photograph of the UFO that Mulder realizes later is fake. When confronted, Deep Throat admits his deception and Mulder and Scully are off to chase down a truck that Deep Throat says contains an E.B.E. It ends up being empty and Mulder believes it is a hoax meant to throw them off the trail.

With the help of The Lone Gunman, Mulder tracks the E.B.E. to a power plant in Washington state. Using fake IDs, Mulder and Scully enter the facility. They are nearly run out by guards when Deep Throat appears and gives them another story about the E.B.E. being killed. Mulder leaves the episode wondering how much of Deep Throat’s information is a lie.

While this episode is primarily about the paranoia and mistrust that Mulder often feels in his pursuit of the truth, it does not really give us any new information beyond establishing Deep Throat as someone who Mulder really cannot trust. Scully is more grounded in reality and still does not believe that aliens exist. It isn’t until the finale that she truly believes.

Where this episode succeeds is with The Lone Gunman. It establishes them as a great investigative tool for Mulder and Scully to use when other answers fail them. These men are hell bent on bringing truth to their conspiracies. They may be a bit out there in left field, but at the end of the day, they aided Mulder more than Deep Throat in this episode. And their likability is why they became popular enough to get their own show even if it only lasted one short season.

Until next week, trust no one.