The summer of 1997 precluded my senior year of high school. The Spice Girls were at the height of their popularity. Disney released Hercules. Buffy the Vampire Slayer finished its first season which debuted in March. South Park introduced us to killing Kenny in every episode. Brad and Gwyneth broke up. Princess Diana died in a car crash. The Fifth Element, Men in Black, Batman & Robin, and Jurassic Park: The Lost World were the summer’s blockbusters. The Backstreet Boys’ music made our ears bleed. This was all background noise to me – well, except for Buffy.
It’s only been a day since news of Nicholas Brendon’s death broke here in the year 2026 and I’m thrown back to that summer. The beginning of an era. Sarah Michelle Gellar would appear in two horror movies towards the end of 1997 – Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer – solidifying her as a Scream Queen. I was only seventeen and had no idea what a cultural juggernaut the show would be, much in the same way The X-Files had already become. Both shows hold high ranking among my favorite series. While I mourn the loss of Nicholas Brendon today and I hope he and Michelle Trachtenberg are commiserating in the afterlife, I’m also remembering that summer of 1997 for what it was. When I wasn’t hanging at the movie theater or babysitting the neighbor kids, I was thinking of Agent Fox Mulder after that season four finale.
By the time season four of The X-Files ended on yet another cliffhanger in May of 1997, I was used to the show pretending as if they had killed off one of its leads. I knew better. What my mind circled around was how Chris Carter planned on letting us know that Mulder was alive. What conspiracy had the man gotten himself into that lead to another fake death? Turns out, it would take two more episodes to sort out the answer, and the premiere wasn’t until November.
But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Today’s blog is about that three-episode arc that was all mythology all the time. The episodes were filled with conspiracies, red herrings, and Agent Scully’s cancer landing her in the hospital. What this arc really is about, however, is Chris Carter’s general distrust in his own government. While the creator of the show inserted this into the entire series, it’s this arc that really drives the point home.
Gethsemane – Season 4 Finale
The episode begins with Scully having dinner with her mother, brother, and other family. A priest is present and Scully’s belief in god is questioned as well as her decision to be secretive about her cancer diagnosis. Her brother, who hasn’t appeared on the show since their father died in season two episode One Breath, is upset about her secretive nature and isn’t shy about telling her. She receives a call that pulls her away.
Scully arrives at the crime scene inside Mulder’s apartment where she is asked to identify his body. She then appears before an FBI panel and informs Section Chief Scott Blevins that Mulder is dead. Blevins’ character was last seen in season one episode Conduit. As she discusses her work with Mulder on the X-Files, the episode backtracks and we see where Mulder was in the days leading up to his death.
Days previously, Mulder investigates the discovery of a preserved alien body found in Canada and samples are sent to Scully who confirms the ice core samples contain alien DNA. The samples were stolen by a Defense Department employee named Michael Kritschgau. This guy tells narratives to both Mulder and Scully that convolute the plot and make the viewer not trust him. Scully, on the other hand, believes him when she says that she was given cancer to make Mulder believe.
At the end of the episode, Scully informs the panel that Mulder has died by suicide.
The exterior shots were filmed on Mount Seymour outside Vancouver, but the interiors were filmed in a refrigerated building that would be one of the most costly and elaborate sets in the series. Rumor has it that the mountain scenes were twelve minutes too long, which required Chris Carter to reedit the entire episode only days before it aired. The tagline for this episode was changed to Believe the Lie which I believe illudes to this arc’s underlying themes of debating the existence of God. These themes are explored further in the next two episodes.
Fun Fact – this episode was filmed a week before David Duchovny was to marry fiancé Tea Leoni. The two remained married until 2014.
Redux and Redux II – Two Part Season 5 Premiere
Like many other season premieres of this show, it took the cliffhanger of a main character’s death and showed us what really happened behind the scenes in the previous episode. Redux starts in Mulder’s apartment right before his supposed death. His faith in his own government, in the knowledge that they gave Scully cancer intentionally just to make him believe in a large alien conspiracy, causes him to grab his gun like he wants to kill himself. He has begun losing faith in the existence of extra-terrestrial life and finally realizes the amount of deception within the FBI.
Before Mulder pulls the trigger, Kritschgau calls him and tells him that someone is listening. Its then that Mulder notices the small camera in his ceiling next to a light fixture. Mulder runs upstairs to find government employee Scott Ostelhoff who he kills. After Scully arrives – duh duh duh, she was lying about his death – Mulder tells her that he has been monitoring him and making calls to the FBI. Later, Scully falsely identifies Ostelhoff’s body as Mulder and Skinner informs her that Blevins would like to see her which is when she met up with the FBI panel in the previous episode.
Since Mulder is believed dead, he decides to break into the Department of Defense while the Smoking Man searches his apartment for clues that Mulder really isn’t dead. Scully investigates Ostelhoff’s phone records and thinks he was calling Skinner. At the DOD, Mulder finds fake alien bodies and ends up at the Pentagon where he finds a vial he believes may contain clues to Scully’s cancer. The Lone Gunmen look at the vial who tell him its not a cure but deionized water.
Meanwhile, as Scully is giving her testimony to the panel, she gets a nosebleed and passes out. She wakes up at the hospital at the beginning of the next episode. Mulder attempts to see her, but Skinner intercepts him. He is brought before Blevins who demands why Scully lied about his death.
The Smoking Man, ever the conspirator, tries to convince the First Elder (last seen on season four episode Zero Sum) that Mulder would join their side if given the right motivation. Enter Samantha, Mulder’s missing sister. Once reunited, Samantha calls the Smoking Man her father and freaks out when Mulder wants to take her to their mother. When dangling Samantha does not work, the Smoking Man offers the truth about Samantha if he quits the FBI. Of course, Mulder refuses. The Smoking Man does manage to convince Mulder that the chip within the vial he found would cure Scully’s cancer if she had it put back in the back of her neck. Mulder visits Scully and convinces her to do this all the while she questions her faith in God. Scully’s emotion arc in this episode isn’t forgotten about as she struggles with her impending death.
Blevins speaks with Mulder again and wants him to name Skinner as the traitor within the FBI, something Mulder could easily believe after he caught Skinner covering up evidence in an X-File in season four episode Zero Sum. When Mulder finally appears in front of the FBI panel, he accuses Blevins of being the FBI traitor. Blevins ends up dead and the death is made to look like a suicide. The Smoking Man is also shot while looking at a photography of Mulder and Samantha when they were children. He survives though, because the series would not be the same without him.
At the end of the episode, Scully’s cancer has gone into remission and doubts about Skinner are mostly resolved.
Government Facilites and The X-Files, 24, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer
What these three episodes really do is give fans the conspiracies they were clamoring for while giving Mulder some much needed character development. He, like real life Chris Carter, now distrusts his own government more than he believes in the existence of aliens. Scully still has her doubts about God which this arc leans into heavily since it was the chip that gave her cancer when it was removed and put the cancer in remission when she had it put back in place. Her recovery could be attributed to standard medical care or divine intervention. The episode leaves it open to interpretation, but I’m a believer in that damn chip. That’s what is so great about this arc. It asks deep questions about faith and lets the viewer decide.
While I personally find this arc to be convoluted all around, with recurring characters popping in and out like a gopher in a hole. Upon rewatch this go-around, I also find it hard to believe that Mulder made it into the Department of Defense so easily. But maybe I’ve watched too many spy movies. And maybe I see how this paved the way for terrorists to break into the White House or CTU headquarters so easily in Fox’s series 24 (I’m still jaded by the season when the White House is overtaken in a matter of minutes with now fight whatsoever from Secret Service). But it’s just way too easy. Perhaps a simplified plot of the Smoking Man pulling the strings all the way through would have allowed for more time spent on Scully’s cancer treatments. It’s Gillian Anderson’s performance in this arc that sells the whole thing. Would have been nice to not have her in a hospital bed for most of it.
This show wasn’t the only one to break into government buildings. I’ve already mentioned 24, but Buffy and her gang also broke into several government facilities throughout its run. Most notably, they broke into the high tech facility of The Initiative to rescue captives, fight captives, or seek help from Spike. And since the mayor of Sunnydale was a demon, breaking into those offices was necessary as well. I’ll fully admit to wanting to do a rewatch now. Perhaps when I’m done with The X-Files, I’ll return to Sunnydale.
Anyhoo, season five of The X-Files is filled with some of my favorite episodes and I can’t wait to talk about them. As a whole, this is probably my favorite season.
Until next week, trust no one.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Becky Tyler Art and Photography 
The summer of 1997 precluded my senior year of high school. The Spice Girls were at the height of their popularity. Disney released Hercules. Buffy the Vampire Slayer finished its first season which debuted in March. South Park introduced us to killing Kenny in every episode. Brad and Gwyneth broke up. Princess Diana died in a car crash. The Fifth Element, Men in Black, Batman & Robin, and Jurassic Park: The Lost World were the summer’s blockbusters. The Backstreet Boys’ music made our ears bleed. This was all background noise to me – well, except for Buffy.
It’s only been a day since news of Nicholas Brendon’s death broke here in the year 2026 and I’m thrown back to that summer. The beginning of an era. Sarah Michelle Gellar would appear in two horror movies towards the end of 1997 – Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer – solidifying her as a Scream Queen. I was only seventeen and had no idea what a cultural juggernaut the show would be, much in the same way The X-Files had already become. Both shows hold high ranking among my favorite series. While I mourn the loss of Nicholas Brendon today and I hope he and Michelle Trachtenberg are commiserating in the afterlife, I’m also remembering that summer of 1997 for what it was. When I wasn’t hanging at the movie theater or babysitting the neighbor kids, I was thinking of Agent Fox Mulder after that season four finale.
By the time season four of The X-Files ended on yet another cliffhanger in May of 1997, I was used to the show pretending as if they had killed off one of its leads. I knew better. What my mind circled around was how Chris Carter planned on letting us know that Mulder was alive. What conspiracy had the man gotten himself into that lead to another fake death? Turns out, it would take two more episodes to sort out the answer, and the premiere wasn’t until November.
But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Today’s blog is about that three-episode arc that was all mythology all the time. The episodes were filled with conspiracies, red herrings, and Agent Scully’s cancer landing her in the hospital. What this arc really is about, however, is Chris Carter’s general distrust in his own government. While the creator of the show inserted this into the entire series, it’s this arc that really drives the point home.
Gethsemane – Season 4 Finale
The episode begins with Scully having dinner with her mother, brother, and other family. A priest is present and Scully’s belief in god is questioned as well as her decision to be secretive about her cancer diagnosis. Her brother, who hasn’t appeared on the show since their father died in season two episode One Breath, is upset about her secretive nature and isn’t shy about telling her. She receives a call that pulls her away.
Scully arrives at the crime scene inside Mulder’s apartment where she is asked to identify his body. She then appears before an FBI panel and informs Section Chief Scott Blevins that Mulder is dead. Blevins’ character was last seen in season one episode Conduit. As she discusses her work with Mulder on the X-Files, the episode backtracks and we see where Mulder was in the days leading up to his death.
Days previously, Mulder investigates the discovery of a preserved alien body found in Canada and samples are sent to Scully who confirms the ice core samples contain alien DNA. The samples were stolen by a Defense Department employee named Michael Kritschgau. This guy tells narratives to both Mulder and Scully that convolute the plot and make the viewer not trust him. Scully, on the other hand, believes him when she says that she was given cancer to make Mulder believe.
At the end of the episode, Scully informs the panel that Mulder has died by suicide.
The exterior shots were filmed on Mount Seymour outside Vancouver, but the interiors were filmed in a refrigerated building that would be one of the most costly and elaborate sets in the series. Rumor has it that the mountain scenes were twelve minutes too long, which required Chris Carter to reedit the entire episode only days before it aired. The tagline for this episode was changed to Believe the Lie which I believe illudes to this arc’s underlying themes of debating the existence of God. These themes are explored further in the next two episodes.
Fun Fact – this episode was filmed a week before David Duchovny was to marry fiancé Tea Leoni. The two remained married until 2014.
Redux and Redux II – Two Part Season 5 Premiere
Like many other season premieres of this show, it took the cliffhanger of a main character’s death and showed us what really happened behind the scenes in the previous episode. Redux starts in Mulder’s apartment right before his supposed death. His faith in his own government, in the knowledge that they gave Scully cancer intentionally just to make him believe in a large alien conspiracy, causes him to grab his gun like he wants to kill himself. He has begun losing faith in the existence of extra-terrestrial life and finally realizes the amount of deception within the FBI.
Before Mulder pulls the trigger, Kritschgau calls him and tells him that someone is listening. Its then that Mulder notices the small camera in his ceiling next to a light fixture. Mulder runs upstairs to find government employee Scott Ostelhoff who he kills. After Scully arrives – duh duh duh, she was lying about his death – Mulder tells her that he has been monitoring him and making calls to the FBI. Later, Scully falsely identifies Ostelhoff’s body as Mulder and Skinner informs her that Blevins would like to see her which is when she met up with the FBI panel in the previous episode.
Since Mulder is believed dead, he decides to break into the Department of Defense while the Smoking Man searches his apartment for clues that Mulder really isn’t dead. Scully investigates Ostelhoff’s phone records and thinks he was calling Skinner. At the DOD, Mulder finds fake alien bodies and ends up at the Pentagon where he finds a vial he believes may contain clues to Scully’s cancer. The Lone Gunmen look at the vial who tell him its not a cure but deionized water.
Meanwhile, as Scully is giving her testimony to the panel, she gets a nosebleed and passes out. She wakes up at the hospital at the beginning of the next episode. Mulder attempts to see her, but Skinner intercepts him. He is brought before Blevins who demands why Scully lied about his death.
The Smoking Man, ever the conspirator, tries to convince the First Elder (last seen on season four episode Zero Sum) that Mulder would join their side if given the right motivation. Enter Samantha, Mulder’s missing sister. Once reunited, Samantha calls the Smoking Man her father and freaks out when Mulder wants to take her to their mother. When dangling Samantha does not work, the Smoking Man offers the truth about Samantha if he quits the FBI. Of course, Mulder refuses. The Smoking Man does manage to convince Mulder that the chip within the vial he found would cure Scully’s cancer if she had it put back in the back of her neck. Mulder visits Scully and convinces her to do this all the while she questions her faith in God. Scully’s emotion arc in this episode isn’t forgotten about as she struggles with her impending death.
Blevins speaks with Mulder again and wants him to name Skinner as the traitor within the FBI, something Mulder could easily believe after he caught Skinner covering up evidence in an X-File in season four episode Zero Sum. When Mulder finally appears in front of the FBI panel, he accuses Blevins of being the FBI traitor. Blevins ends up dead and the death is made to look like a suicide. The Smoking Man is also shot while looking at a photography of Mulder and Samantha when they were children. He survives though, because the series would not be the same without him.
At the end of the episode, Scully’s cancer has gone into remission and doubts about Skinner are mostly resolved.
Government Facilites and The X-Files, 24, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer
What these three episodes really do is give fans the conspiracies they were clamoring for while giving Mulder some much needed character development. He, like real life Chris Carter, now distrusts his own government more than he believes in the existence of aliens. Scully still has her doubts about God which this arc leans into heavily since it was the chip that gave her cancer when it was removed and put the cancer in remission when she had it put back in place. Her recovery could be attributed to standard medical care or divine intervention. The episode leaves it open to interpretation, but I’m a believer in that damn chip. That’s what is so great about this arc. It asks deep questions about faith and lets the viewer decide.
While I personally find this arc to be convoluted all around, with recurring characters popping in and out like a gopher in a hole. Upon rewatch this go-around, I also find it hard to believe that Mulder made it into the Department of Defense so easily. But maybe I’ve watched too many spy movies. And maybe I see how this paved the way for terrorists to break into the White House or CTU headquarters so easily in Fox’s series 24 (I’m still jaded by the season when the White House is overtaken in a matter of minutes with now fight whatsoever from Secret Service). But it’s just way too easy. Perhaps a simplified plot of the Smoking Man pulling the strings all the way through would have allowed for more time spent on Scully’s cancer treatments. It’s Gillian Anderson’s performance in this arc that sells the whole thing. Would have been nice to not have her in a hospital bed for most of it.
This show wasn’t the only one to break into government buildings. I’ve already mentioned 24, but Buffy and her gang also broke into several government facilities throughout its run. Most notably, they broke into the high tech facility of The Initiative to rescue captives, fight captives, or seek help from Spike. And since the mayor of Sunnydale was a demon, breaking into those offices was necessary as well. I’ll fully admit to wanting to do a rewatch now. Perhaps when I’m done with The X-Files, I’ll return to Sunnydale.
Anyhoo, season five of The X-Files is filled with some of my favorite episodes and I can’t wait to talk about them. As a whole, this is probably my favorite season.
Until next week, trust no one.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Share this: