The X-Files Season 9, Episodes 9/10: Provenance/Providence

Nope. Big huge flaming buckets of nope.

Look, I get that William is supposed to be special. I've more or less accepted that he's not a normal baby, as much as I hate that idea. But between this and the end of season eight, it's clear that he's supposed to be some sort of Messiah. Or maybe people just think he is and he's actually normal?

But no, he can't be normal because of that thing with the piece of the space ship. We still don't know the exact circumstances of his conception, except that Mulder is surely known to be the father at this point, but the show is blending science fiction with religion in a really uncomfortable way here.

So let's focus on the good parts.

The Lone Gunmen. I should probably do a post just about them at some point. They've come so far from their introduction. I mean, they're still pretty strange, but the fact that Scully and Skinner and Doggett and Reyes trust them so completely is amazing. And really important. In a way, there's a conspiracy going on their side to unravel the conspiracy inside the FBI. Though I can't say I wasn't concerned for their safety when their van was intercepted and a gun was held to Byers's head. (Also, Scully and the Lone Gunmen and everyone should look into acquiring an armoured truck. It would have probably helped in 'Provenance'.)

And believe me, there's quite the conspiracy going on in there. I'm still convinced WestleyBrad is a bad guy (despite defying Kersh and wanting to remove his name from the report), though we now have a new player, it seems, who has more power than both him and Kersh, and is directly responsible for Comer's death. And is a super-soldier. Of course. So, OK, this is going to progress towards some climax later in the season, of course, so I'm hoping it becomes more serialised, but I'm not exactly holding my breath for it. At the rate the series normally goes, there'll probably only be one or two more mythology episodes before the finale.

Also good was the renewed connection to the plot of 'Biogenesis' and 'The Sixth Extinction', which I had really hoped would go somewhere in season seven, but kind of fizzled at the time, largely due to the show's unusual structure of never advancing or referencing the plot in the non-arc episodes. I hope they find an organic way to reveal all the real answers to us (if they even do - I'm still not sure whether they chose to end the series after nine seasons or if it was cancelled unexpectedly, which might mean they don't answer everything) rather than dropping a huge deus ex machina in the finale.

And again, because of the known structure of the show, and the fact that the next episode will almost certainly be a standalone, I knew there was basically no way the episodes would end with William still not having been returned to Scully. And because of William's strange connection to these alien artifacts, as soon as the uncovered space ship came to life, I made what I thought was a bold prediction, that the ship would kill or carry off everyone in the cult and William would remain alive and safe among a pile of charred bodies.

AND GUESS WHAT HAPPENED?

I don't normally make such specific calls, but holy shit I was spot on. I predict that I will win the lottery jackpot this week. (It's worth a try.)

Though I cannot say for sure whether that entire sequence of events was directly caused by William or if his presence simply caused the craft to come to life and begin a series of otherwise pre-programmed (or maybe predestined) events. I'm also not sure what the people digging it up expected to happen when they stood over it as it activated. That seems like a bad idea, especially since it had already charred two of their people inside.

This is also a bit of a strange two-parter because unlike many of the other ones, the two parts are of vastly different quality, with 'Provenance' being the far better episode. As soon as 'Providence' started, I was completely lost. The backstory in the cold open was entirely unimportant and kind of boring. The episode did pick up a bit, but I don't think anything in it quite compared to the tension in the first half.

I wonder if there'll be some kind of flash-forward at the end of the series finale showing which side of the prophecy ends up being fulfilled. I'm assuming for now that Mulder is still alive - well, OK, I know he's in the movie - so it sounds from this like William would be on the side of humanity in preventing the alien invasion, but obviously he's going to outlive the much older Mulder. (Actually, now that I think about it, by the time the movie comes out six years after the end of the series, William will be seven. That'll be interesting to see in the movie. No, not really.)