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. Let’s start this off with “Little Green Men,” a mythology episode that tests Mulder’s belief for the first time. There will be spoilers within this.
1. The Premise
At the end of the first season of The X-Files, Deep Throat got shot, Scully held physical proof of aliens in her hand and the X-Files got disbanded. Mulder and Scully are now working separately. Mulder has been punished and is working on transcribing tapes of very simple crimes like theft and insurance fraud. This is beneath him, one of the best profilers in the F.B.I. Everyone knows this and that’s why it’s such a big punishment. Scully is at Quantico, teaching autopsy classes to a new crop of recruits. As one of the best medical minds in the F.B.I. this isn’t a huge downgrade for her (compared to Mulder) but it’s not the best use of her skills. In the wake of the F.B.I. closing down the X-Files division, Mulder has lost his spark and is no longer pursuing “the truth.” He’s resigned himself to just do what he’s told but all that changes when he’s given a tip by an elected official friend that takes him to an observatory in Puerto Rico. Years ago, NASA’s Voyager program was trying to contact extraterrestrials via the High Resolution Microwave Survey. At their observatory in Puerto Rico, the equipment has suddenly turned on which means that contact may have been made and that’s where Mulder ends up.
2. Scully Is Hooked
Scully, unlike Mulder, refuses to give up on what they were working on. She hasn’t been doing work on her own but has instead tried to persuade Mulder to keep things alive because it’s just not something she’s equipped to do on her own. Mulder, depressed, has lost that spark he once had. He hasn’t been working on pursuing anything off the information they learned in “The Erlenmeyer Flask” and it’s Scully that pushes him to get back in the game. One of the things that this show struggled with in the earliest episodes was that it stuck to the opposites dynamic. It made Scully a non believer but to the extent that she couldn’t accept the proof she was seeing in front of her. As the first season progressed, that changed and she became a reasonable skeptic who didn’t just jump to belief like Mulder. She was not against believing, she just needed the proof or hard science to back it up. What also happens over the course of that first season is she becomes a part of the X-Files. She’s no longer just a witness to report back on Mulder’s work. She’s an active part of things and this episode really cements that. Scully pushing Mulder and advising him to not give up on this is very important to the entire show on the whole. Scully is not a part of this because she has to be or feels bad for Mulder. She becomes a part of this because pursuing the truth and doing what’s right is important to her. Mulder doesn’t make her do this, Skinner doesn’t make her do this and the F.B.I. itself doesn’t make her do this. She’s here by choice and this is what bonds these two in these early episodes. As season two progresses we’ll see Scully go through some really serious stuff that tests her in every way but the most notable thing in this episode is this conversation with Mulder. She could walk away but she doesn’t and that’s a huge deal in pulling this whole show together.
Continued below3. A New Ally?
Mulder has accepted his new role but one night he’s called to a meeting by Senator Richard Matheson. Matheson is not a Deep Throat like character but he had the potential to be. Mulder was always an outsider but Matheson saw some value in his work and held some paranoia and so, he has apparently been helping Mulder and he helps him in this episode by telling him about the facility in Puerto Rico. Matheson is a character that was introduced here like he mattered but basically disappears for years as far as the show is concerned. He’s the kind of character that could have served a really interesting purpose. Having a friend in government, not just in the F.B.I. would have been an intriguing wrinkle to this story. It would have added way more drama and maybe even some unpredictability but The X-Files while political, wasn’t actually involved in what the elected officials did.
4. Adventures In Puerto Rico
Once in Puerto Rico, Mulder investigates the facility and finds that the machines have turned on. While he continues to look around, he discovers a man named Jorge Concepcion, who saw what happened here. He tries to explain in Spanish but Mulder doesn’t understand him but he does understand that he is terrified. Jorge draws what he saw and what he saw were aliens. That night, a storm sets in and Mulder gets a signal that is very likely from an alien. He goes outside and finds Jorge literally scared to death. The room begins to shake and in the doorway, we see a figure of an alien. Mulder shoots at it but ultimately does nothing. Scully finds him there in the morning and he’s excited to share what he found because in his mind, he got the proof he needs. This is a mythology episode specifically because of this. This part of the episode goes by really fast which is why it only gets the one point. It’s a teaser, an appetizer to the major stuff that will come later in this season. It’s getting us back into this world and the still very young mythos. One of the very best things that this show does so early on is tell you that there are strange, unexplainable things out there. We know there are aliens but we, like Mulder, are chasing the truth. It’s great to start the season with this because it’s a perfect way to drop us back into the story.
5. The Spark Reignited
At the end of this episode, Mulder is called into Skinner’s office and gets reprimanded by Skinner and the Cigarette Smoking Man. Mulder tells them both that not only was his wire tapping work done days ago but he knows that he’s been tapped himself. Mulder knows exactly what’s going on and refuses to back off. Skinner sends Cigarette Smoking Man away and decides that he’s not going to punish Mulder any further. Mulder goes to listen to the tapes and realizes there’s nothing on them. Scully chalks this up to the storm but Mulder suspects something else happened here. He’s back to his old self after this incident in Puerto Rico and decides to continue his work on the X-Files. It’s a weirdly hopeful note but let’s let him have this nice moment for now.
