Sunday Mornings with Mulder and Scully – Two Fathers, One Son

After five full seasons of building the mythology surrounding the Syndicate and the conspiracy of these men allowing an alien race to invade our planet and unleash an alien virus, Chris Carter thought it best to reboot the mythology within the series. Really, how many times could Mulder butt heads with these men in black suits and still want to continue his fight against the conspiracy? Eventually he was either going to give up or die trying to stop the invasion. I’ll admit during this rewatch that the conspiracy and mythology as it stood at the end of the fifth season was getting a bit stale. So, do your worst, Chris Carter.  Do. Your. Worst. In a mid-season six two part episode that essentially kills most members of the Syndicate, no less.

Two Fathers

The two part episode entitled Two Fathers and One Son saw the return of Veronica Cartright as Cassandra Spender. The alien rebels are back as well – the guys with their eyes and mouths sewn shut. These rebels begin their retaliation against the Syndicate in a train car where a doctor who just cut someone open and watched them heal themselves declares that their work is done. The rebels certainly think it is because the start burning everything in the train car. The only survivors are Cassandra Spender and a Dr. Openshaw. Skinner and her son, Agent Spender, arrive at the scene and Cassandra refuses to tell her son what happened to her. Instead, she asks for Fox Mulder. You know him. The man who actually believes in the paranormal.

Dr. Openshaw informs the Cigarette Smoking Man that his wife is the first surviving alien/human hybrid and that he needs to kill her. Instead, the good doctor ends up dad and elsewhere, a rebel alien kills a member of the Syndicate and shapeshifts into the man.

When Mulder and Scully finally meet up with Cassandra, she tells them that the aliens like to colonize planets and plan on killing all life on Earth. The rebel aliens mutilate their faces to prevent infection from the black oil that has caused so much damage throughout the series. Back at the FBI, Mulder and Scully use Spender’s computer in the X-files office to find the real identity of the Cigarette Smoking Man – C. G. B. Spender by the way. This results in their immediate suspension from the FBI because of course it does.

While all that went on, Alex Krycek makes another enigmatic appearance, and the Cigarette Smoking Man realizes that the rebel is masquerading as a member of the Syndicate. He, Smoking Man, forces Agent Spender to kill the rebel but he fails because Agent Spender is as disappointing as a son as he is as an agent. Agent Diana Fowley who had once promised Mulder that she was trying to help him by working with Agent Spender on the X-files now promises Cigarette Smoking Man that she will help him. Skinner tries to collect Cassandra Spender from the hospital at Mulder’s behest but she’s already escaped the hospital and arrives at Mulder’s apartment. She wants him to shoot her because she can’t live with being the abomination that they turned into.

One Son

Diana Fowley finds Scully, Mulder, and Cassandra Spender at Mulder’s apartment and demands they be put in quarantine with the CDC because, she says, that Cassandra is carrying a dangerous pathogen. At the CDC facility in Fort Marlene, Mulder finds Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden) looking sickly. She informs him that the Syndicate experimented on her to create a vaccine for the black oil. The Lone Gunmen help Scully investigate Agent Fowley and find she has been collecting data on alien abductees in Tunisia.

Mulder goes to confront Fowley but instead is confronted by Cigarette Smoking Man who confesses that he is Agent Spender’s father and that Bill Mulder objected to the plans for alien colonization. Mulder takes it surprisingly “well” when he hears that each member of the Syndicate had to give up family members in the agreement and it was his father Bill’s decision for Samantha to be chosen. The Smoking Man promises to reunite Mulder with Samantha if he hands over Cassandra and give him an address to the hanger where the Syndicate are meeting the alien colonists.

In a quick turn of events, Krycek informs Agent Spender that his mother will be given over to the colonists and Spender goes to get her from the CDC but she is already gone, having been put on a train that Mulder and Scully miss. Marita tells Agent Spender to go to the El Rico Air Force Base to collect her. At the air force base, the alien rebels surround the Syndicate members and destroy them with the exception of Cigarette Smoking Man and Agent Fowley who escape via car.

In the end, when Mulder, Scully, Agent Spender, and Walter Skinner are reporting to Assistant Director Kersh  that the Syndicate and Cassandra Spender are dead, Spender admits that all this could have been prevented if Mulder and Scully had been in charge of The X-Files. Spender makes his way down to his basement office and finds his father, cigarette in hand, who tells him that he wished Spender was more like Mulder. Then, BANG. Smoking Man shoots his son in the head. Just when Spender’s character actually had some redeemable qualities.

Catalyst for Super Soldiers

Writers of the series took this opportunity to wipe away the Syndicate all together so that other storylines could come to the forefront. In later seasons, Super Soldier create chaos for Scully and what will become her new partners. I’ll be honest, I’m not looking forward to the moment when Mulder’s character is significantly reduced because Duchovny’s contract had ended and he wanted to work on non-X-Files related projects. But it’s coming and I can’t stop it, much like Mulder can’t stop what’s been done to his sister.

What these two episodes really represented, at least for me, is the duality of fathers and sons. If you’ve seen the series before then you know that the Cigarette Smoking Man is not only Jeffrey Spender’s father, but Mulder’s as well. It has also been noted that Bill Mulder, the man who actually raised Mulder, chose to have Samantha be the one family member given up in the Syndicate’s agreement with the aliens and that decision was made last minute changing from Mulder being the person to go. I believe Bill Mulder raised Fox in such a way that gave him the foundation to unearth the conspiracy and find a way to stop it. Alternately, Smoking Man had no meaningful bearing on raising Jeffrey Spender and yet Agent Spender spends his time in the FBI subverting Mulder’s work at the behest of the Syndicate’s imperative. Even in doing so, he could never really earn Smoking Man’s respect in the end as the man killed Spender after telling him he wished he was Mulder. Even with Mulder’s unending need to find the truth, Smoking Man respects Mulder’s willingness to do the right thing even when the odds are stacked against him.

I have to point out that this series never gives enough time for these plot points to happen, often cramming what should have been several episodes of plotting into one or two episodes. They often seem rushed and there is never time to mourn a death before you’re onto the next scene. It couldn’t have been easy being a writer for the series when it came to the mythology episodes. The monster of the week episodes could just go at their own pace, but if the Syndicate shows up, plotting becomes a convoluted rush of shocking moments that are gone before you have time to absorb them. That said, this two-episode arc is better than most. Maybe it’s because it does away with the Syndicate who had overstayed their welcome in the series. Maybe it’s because the run of monster of the week episodes this season are so damn good that it elevated the mythology stuff. Maybe it’s because season four through six are the best of the series. Regardless, a fun rewatch with all the returning players coming back for one last hurrah.

Until next week, the truth is out there.