With all our favorite shows taking their usual break in the summer months, this opens up an opportunity to watch some of our old favorites. That’s where the Multiversity Summer Binge comes in. Last year, I took a look at the entire first season of my favorite show ever, The X-Files and this summer, I’m back with a vengeance covering season two. The first season of this show was more of a prelude. It teased all the things that were to come and spent a lot of time doing the ground work. In the second season, the show really kicks into gear. Truth be told, of the 11 seasons, this is easily top three for me. I’m really excited to be writing about these episodes, particularly the middle of the season. This week I’m looking at “End Game,” the second part of this season’s big mythology two parter. “End Game” is a big episode that takes Mulder deeper into his beliefs and it’s a great episode all around that shows why the show was so great.
1. The Premise
“End Game” starts off right where “Colony” left off. Scully has been taken by the Alien Bounty Hunter and now the Alien Bounty Hunter wants to make a deal. He wants Samantha for Scully. This all goes terribly wrong from the start as Mulder loses Samantha in this hostage swap and then learns even more incredibly hard truths about Samantha, the Alien Bounty Hunter and all that’s happening here. Like last week, this is not a standalone episode. This ties directly to the bigger mythology at play in the series. “End Game” is such a Mulder heavy episode but it all serves a purpose and this episode in particular is one of the very best the show has seen so far. It’s also the first one that Frank Spotnitz wrote. He would go on to become an executive producer and is one of the people you can’t imagine this show without.
2. A Colony On Earth
After getting off the phone with Scully, Mulder and Samantha talk again. Samantha explains to him that the Alien Bounty Hunter has been sent here to kill her and the clones that he’s already met. She explains that the clones are descendants of the original two clones that were sent here to start up a colony on Earth. This goes back all the way to the 1940’s and they work in abortion clinics because they have access to fetal tissue, which is apparently vital to keep this going. The Alien Bounty Hunter was sent to kill them all because the aliens apparently believe that this has “tainted” their species and now that he has Scully, his sights are set directly on Samantha. This is all really important to remember going forward because this will come up again and again. It’s still just a smaller piece of something else but it’s worth remembering.
3. This Choice
After finding out all this from Samantha, Mulder, with the help of Skinner, decides to make this hostage swap. I’ve now watched this a few times and I still maintain that there’s a distrust in Mulder in regards to her from the get go. I think that he’s torn about this and in the end, he’s proven right about her. This Samantha isn’t actually Samantha but he doesn’t know that when he gives her up so willingly in exchange for Scully. There’s some hesitance there but it feels very much to me like he just could not risk losing Scully. It was unfathomable for that to happen and so he goes along with this really willingly. My biggest issue with this episode though is how Scully is used and this is a good example of it. Scully doesn’t do a whole lot here until the end when she tells the doctors to not try and warm Mulder’s body up and we already saw that happen last week. She’s really here to just chase him around when he learns all these truths. She’s not doing the things that she’s known for and it’s a little frustrating.
4. What’s Actually Happening??
After Samantha’s death, it turns out that this wasn’t ever actually Samantha Mulder. Right after Scully hangs up after delivering the news that her body was found, the body starts to decompose the way the other clones did. Samantha isn’t Samantha but Mulder doesn’t find this out until he goes to a facility that he was told about by Samantha if something happens to her. When he gets there, he’s greeted by at least 3 more women who look identical to Samantha and is told that they manipulated him into helping them but they do know where the real Samantha is. He is about to leave but knows that he needs to help them but he fails when the Alien Bounty Hunter gets the best of him. The clones all die and there’s no trace of them. Mulder calls X and X tells him where the Alien Bounty Hunter’s ship is and that the government is already over there. He leaves Scully behind and tells her that he can’t ask her to risk her life and career for his beliefs but Scully gets with Skinner and they work to try and find him.
Continued belowAll of this is really important because again, the alien colonization plays a big part in the mythology. There’s another part here that will prove crucial but we aren’t there yet so I won’t talk about it. Mulder being manipulated by everyone through the use of his sister is another piece of this that will keep coming up. People know how to get to him and he does a bad job at hiding it.
5. Mulder’s Faith
The end of this episode is a really exciting action sequence in the Arctic as Mulder gets up there to find the US ship already getting comfortable to start investigating the Alien Bounty Hunter’s ship. Mulder and the Alien Bounty Hunter have a big fight and really Mulder never stands a chance. He gets dumped off the ship and almost gets cut in half but is ultimately found and we’re taken to the first scene in last week’s episode. Mulder gets better because of Scully’s quick thinking and insistence. This final part of the episode plays out really well. It feels like a big movie and not a television show and it’s really a good example of how far Mulder goes. He literally went all the way to the Arctic for this. When he’s feeling better, he talks to Scully and says that he didn’t get his answers and he’s still more lost than ever but his faith is renewed and that’s important.
