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# Fug the Show: The X-Files Recap, episode 1, "My Struggle"
- URL: https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/the-x-files-recap-episode-1-my-struggle/
- Published: 2016-01-25T21:00:01.000Z
- Updated: 2016-01-27T04:35:34.000Z
- Author: Jessica  
- Tags: #wp, #wp-gallery, #slideshow, #Import 2026-10-07 07:46

## The Paparazzi Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/b9/bfb99790-924d-4e41-a7e6-5e3c6e04fe57/content/images/static-gofugyourself-com/uploads/2016/01/img_0240.jpg)

First of all, OF COURSE the premiere episode is titled MY STRUGGLE. That’s the most Chris Carter-y thing that ever happened, and it’s also no surprise that MY STRUGGLE kicks off with a ponderous Mulder voiceover. In fact, that is so not surprising that I actually wrote this sentence on Sunday night at 6:42pm, before the episode even started. I didn’t get a screener. I’m not psychic. I’ve just watched A LOT OF THE X-FILES. I’m also amused that Mulder basically got to explain to us that the government is lying to us, and we might not be alone in the universe, and all this stuff about his sister, all whilst burning glossy 8×10 photos of him and Scully not making out, their past cases, and LITERAL PHOTOS OF ACTUAL ALIENS which he has because…uh, good question. Mulder, put that shit up on a website! HOW, I ask you, HOW is it possible that Fox Mulder does not run some highly popular blog about government conspiracies? He can tweet from @TrustNoOne. It would be good for him! He can meet like-minded crackpots!

## The Flashback Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0246.jpg)

Yes, I totally zoned out while Mulder was talking about blah blah blah Roswellcakes over footage of a UFO crash landing on earth. Trust me when I tell you that you can imagine what he said: We may not be alone, trust no one, he wants to believe, etc. I will, however, note that I am delighted that no one laid a hand on the credits and they are just as you saw them in syndication last week. Some classics ought never change. I’m likewise happy to see they let Mark Snow and his Casio come out of the shed where Chris Carter locked him. Essentially, all you need to know here at the jump is that we’ve got a lot of flashbacks to 1947, and can I just admit that I think I am too old, and too much time has passed, for me to keep straight what any of us knew about any of this in the first place? I’m sure I will mess up all kinds of mytharc details and I look forward to any kind corrections in the comments. The place where I kept information about Super Soldiers, black oil, bees, and alien abductions now holds thoughts about Lady Mary’s headbands, obscure details about the British royal family, the last season of *The Americans* and my Chex Mix recipe.

## The Big Budget Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0248.jpg)

It seems the US Government has known about — and experimented on — aliens who crash landed here since 1947, and, like, blah blah alien-human hybrid something. We knew that already, right? I honestly think parts of this episode are just FOX showing off how much money they spent. (A LOT.)

## The Scully It's Me Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0251.jpg)

As I said on Twitter — and said 10 years ago — I always laugh when the Informative Time-Date Chryon informs us that Scully is working at Our Lady of Sorrows hospital. Boy, is she ever. Always. She basically is a MOVING Lady of Our Sorrows. She also gets a phone call from someone called “Walter Skinner, Assistant Director, FBI," and he needs to her call Mulder, because of course he does. My burning question is not, "What does Skinner want with Mulder," but, "How has Skinner not gotten a promotion yet!?"

## The At Least He's Not Watching Porn? Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0252.jpg)

When Scully rings, Mulder of course is at home watching random conspiracy-theory videos about Roswell and looking at a wall in his home office that looks exactly like the old wall in his office-office.

## The WATCH OUT Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0256.jpg)

They need to meet, for REASONS, and we learn that they've broken up -- which I think we all knew was always going to happen -- and of course they're having this particular reunion in the MIDDLE OF THE STREET because...??? Isn't Mulder the sort of person who's always worried someone is going to try to mow him down and say it was an accident? Anyway, Scully tells Mulder that Skinner told HER that they need to meet with this right wing conspiracy theorist called Tad O'Malley (played by Joel McHale) because...reasons, again? None of this hangs together now that I have to explain it to you. Which should not surprise you. That, like the demise of the Mulder/Scully relationship, was always a foregone conclusion. (Although I hear that next week's Darin Morgan-penned episode is great, and I'm looking forward to it.)

## The Big Game Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0258.jpg)

So, Mulder and Scully hope into the limo of this new and exciting crackpot, and the best part of this scene is how much it reminds me of the time on *Seinfeld* that Jerry and George decided to steal someone's Town Car at the airport, and it turned out to belong to a famous white supremacist. I also love how Scully's face, the entire time, is just like, "Wow, I can't believe I took PTO to listen to ANOTHER wackjob yap at me about aliens." (Seriously, does Scully's job just let her scamper off whenever? "Hey, so I know I'm a surgeon now but I have...this dude I have to go talk to about aliens. Is that cool? I'll be back...well. We'll see. Hard to tell. Could be years.")

## The Americans Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0260.jpg)

Tad O'Malley takes Mulder and Scully off to met Sveta, who is played by Annet Mahendru of *The Americans*, who claims she's been impregnated by aliens quite a lot, and they keep stealing her babies. (I hope Sveta also lets Mulder and Scully know that she had a real complicated relationship with their coworker Stan Beeman back in the day.) McHale is a real mansplainer, at one point telling Scully about the way aliens implant false memories to override the real memories of their nefarious alien testing, and Scully is like, “UM YEAH THANKS I KNOW.” Anyway, there is a TON of yada yada about Sveta saying aliens impregnated her, filled her with alien DNA, and stole all her babies, but let’s cut to the chase: Sveta is a liar and has no alien DNA, but Scully DOES, because …of William, her MiracleAlienBaby she left on a farm, remember? Or because of that time they abducted her maybe kinda? Or because of that chip in the back of her neck? Or……???? Well, just when you've gotten a handle on that, it turns out that Sveta DOES have alien DNA because Scully messed up a test. LIKE THAT EVER HAPPENS.

## The Turn On the Lights Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0265.jpg)

Indeed, Scully is DELICIOUSLY skeptical of Sveta, who tells her she can move things with her mind (which SCULLY’S OWN CHILD could do, as you may recall), but she can’t control it. “So it just happens…WHENEVER?” Scully says, doubtfully, as is her wont, and then Sveta starts saying things like, “I can read minds… you and Mulder…used to be a couple? But now he’s…. depressed?” Just the sort of things that bad mediums say when they’re trying to get a hit.

Scully jabs a needle into her and snaps, “That’s enough.” (I STILL LOVE YOU SCULLY.) And then Sveta is like, “You just don’t KNOW what it’s like to have been ABDUCTED by aliens,” and Scully thinks, “You are a terrible mind reader” and gives her a REAL Meaningful Look and Sveta is like, “Oh. Maybe you do know!”

## The Special Effects Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0272.jpg)

This episode has SO MUCH BLAH BLAH BLAH, and you know what? Back in the day, I recapped every single line of dialogue but we’re all more than a decade older now and WHO HAS THE TIME when none of it is REALLY going to make sense, anyway. Basically, Tad O’Malley convinces Mulder that we’re about to be invaded by aliens who want to take over America -- Scully, as per usual, thinks this is BATSHIT -- and then he takes him...somewhere??...to see a Disappearing Expensive Space Ship and I cannot bring myself to either absorb any of this nor care, because nine years of *The X-Files* taught me that this show will throw a shitload of blather at you but never pull it all together nor really explain it (because they don’t understand it themselves anymore). Now, I just let the words wash over me. “The energy of the universe,” sure, fine, whatever.

## The Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0275.jpg)

While Mulder is feeling up space ships, Scully is, by the way, assisting in surgeries that gives ears to earless children. O’Malley is like, “SEEMS ALIEN-Y!!!” and she basically ignores this (it's actually a real thing, and aliens are not involved) and then she announces that she never felt so alive as when she was on the X-Files, and working with Mulder was “one of the most intense and challenging relationships I may ever have,” LIKE THAT’S A GOOD THING. Pro-tip, sister: IT AIN’T. “And, quite honestly, the most impossible,” she adds. Anyway, Tad O’Malley then hits on her, and she seems into it? Just don’t go back to her apartment, dude. Basically everyone who goes there dies.

## The Coffee Talk Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0276.jpg)

Whoops, then Sveta tells Mulder that aliens didn’t take her babies, HUMANS DID. (This entire episode is just people taking back what they already told you and explaining that actually they meant the opposite of that.) You know, the government. Are we really getting back to the whole The US Government Is Creating an Army of Super Soldiers With Alien DNA thing? Spoiler: Sure looks like it. Super! So excited to return to the most boring arm of the Mytharc!

## The HOLD MY DRINK Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0280.jpg)

Anyway, Mulder calls Scully to fill her in on this, by way of actually not telling her much of anything, and totes interrupts her date with Tad O’Malley and there is this honestly hilarious moment where he is ranting about how they’ve been mislead and she mutters, to Tad, inside Tad’s limo, “can we pull over a second? I’ve got to get out,” and HANDS HIM HER CHAMPAGNE. And I just want to live in a world where every time Mulder calls Scully in an uproar, she rolls her eyes and has to hand some dude her flute of champagne. Apparently, just because ONE PERSON tells Mulder that she was abducted by humans and not aliens, Mulder is all, “WELL, TURNS OUT THE ENTIRE X-FILES WERE A LIE SCULLY.” Poor Scully. She should really change her phone number.

## The Office Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0281.jpg)

This is cute and all, but HELLO? Doggett worked down here for like two years and then the office was destroyed! MULDER’S PENCILS WOULD NOT BE ON THE CEILING STILL. Not to mention the fact that the FBI probably would need the office space. Anyway, Skinner is all gruff and cranky about Mulder bursting back into his old office, just as we’d hope. He will never have a day of peace without the threat of Fox Mulder storming in and yelling about something absurd. Mulder's all, “YOU OWE ME SOME ANSWERS,” and Skinner is kind of like, “Sigh. It’s been a really long time, don't you think?" and Mulder kicks his I WANT TO BELIEVE poster, WHICH DOGGETT TOOK WITH HIM AT THE END OF THE SERIES FINALE (right? Whatever; it definitely shouldn’t still be on the floor there anymore) and has the classic histrionic Mulderian fit that I think Chris Carter thinks is intense and sexy but, now that Mulder is 55, is more like… crackpotty and troubling. He’s getting closer and closer to being the character Duchovny plays in Zoolander. Anyway, Skinner announces that he misses Mulder every day — WHICH I DO NOT BELIEVE; If anything, Mulder created A LOT of paperwork for the Skinman — and obviously he’s back on team X-Files. So Mulder gives him his phone number and everything about that scene was kinda dumb, EXCEPT I really love poor beleaguered overworked Skinner, so… let’s call it even.

## The Shadowy Informant Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0282.jpg)

Am I supposed to remember who this old dude is? Or is he just another one of the people who pop out of the shadows to tell Mulder half-stories and then disappear? (My whole thought process here was, “is this supposed to be Martin Landau? IS MARTIN LANDAU DEAD?” Martin Landau is not dead. I can’t remember if his character is. Probably, right? Who can remember these things?) They have a long, Chris Carterian conversation that’s half-exposition and half posturing and then we finally find out that this dude is the Young Doctor From The Flashbacks Who Knows The Truth About The Testing The Government Did On Aliens and I can believe a lot of things, but not that the government as we know it in the X-Files universe wouldn’t have killed this guy already. He's still living in DC! AT LEAST MOVE TO THE CAYMANS, MY FRIEND.

## The JUST MAKE OUT Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0284.jpg)

Anyway, Scully comes out to check on Mulder because he was such a weirdo on the phone, and he says he couldn’t call her back because he would have sounded crazy. WHEN HAS THAT EVER STOPPED YOU, DUDE? They have a very intense and yet also poorly written and clunky convo in which she literally uses the phrase, “You want to believe. YOU SO BADLY WANT TO BELIEVE,” and Mulder says he DOES believe, and it’s NOT an alien conspiracy, at all, now! Scully, finally, is like, YOU. ARE. OUT. OF. YOUR. MIND. Seriously, how can he just decide NOW to believe some rando? Does Tad O’Malley have the kavorka? Also let’s just say Scully's not best pleased to find Sveta hanging out at Mulder’s Ramshackle Cottage In the Wilderness, at which point Mulder tells Scully that Sveta is “the key to everything.” WELL, ADD HER TO THE LIST.

## The Cranky Scully Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0286.jpg)

And after the ads, it turns out that Mulder is having some meeting with Sveta and Tad to tell them about…whatever, blah blah alien/human hybrids, the H Bomb, “transducers,” “electro-gravidic propulsion,” yada yada Chris Carter got a thesaurus for Christmas. Scully spends the whole meeting sitting there looking PISSED OFF, which (a) I feel her, but (b) GIRL. You need to learn to draw some boundaries! If this were the real world and Scully and I were friends, I would be like, “Sister, YOU NEED TO STOP TAKING HIS CALLS. YOU NEED TO MOVE ON. STOP DRIVING OUT TO CHECK ON HIM.” As per usual, Mulder goes on and on and on and on, and apparently, this…whatever it is…is a way for the government to “take over America,” which…isn’t the American government already kinda in charge anyway? Like…they’re the government? PS: Chris Carter also still really hates FEMA. He’s hated FEMA for like 20 years. He hated FEMA before Katrina. WHAT DID FEMA DO TO CHRIS CARTER? At the end of Mulder's monologue, Scully is like, “Boooooring, you wackjobs. FYI, Sveta doesn’t have any alien DNA. SEE YA.” And then she leaves.

## The Huh??? Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0289.jpg)

Then Sveta tells the press that Tad O’Malley paid her to talk to the press about her alien abduction but…she….hadn’t…yet? And the Shadow Government just starts kidnapping people and blowing shit up because…I DON’T KNOW?? How do they know anyone is even on to them, since Tad O’Malley’s just been like, kinda blathering for years now? You guys, this episode does not hang together AT ALL.

## The Scully Needs To Take Advantage of the Hospital Car Wash Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0292.jpg)

Mulder, you could have just texted? Instead, he comes slitering out from behind a wall in Scully’s parking garage, and she’s like, "You look exhausted," and he’s like, “I’ve been crouching behind this pole for six hours waiting for you to come outside.” Not really. Really, they have one of those convos where neither one of them can speak at full volume -- also, seriously, how have you guys not yet learned not to loiter in parking garages?! -- and Scully says that, WHOOPS, it turns out Sveta DOES have alien DNA after all, and SO DOES SHE and “Someone needs to stop these sons of bitches,” before….what? Don’t those sons of bitches want an alien-human hybrid? Doesn’t this mean Scully is actually quite safe? I…whatever. Whatever whatever. Basically, they need to stop the Conspiracy. Some more. Just don’t wander into a bee farm again, please.

## The Skinner Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0294.jpg)

At least Skinner knows how to text. Although I wish HE had ALSO just lumbered out from behind a wall, all dusty and bored. "Hey, guys. Just thought I'd join you. What are we talking about?!"

## The BOOM Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0295.jpg)

And then poor Sveta gets stuck in the tractor beam of a mysterious flying object — the one the government (???) stole from wherever — and it blows her up. Dude, Stan Beeman's gonna be *pissed*. Skinner is going to hear about this at the next staff meeting, you guys!

## The CSM Files

![The X-Files Recap](https://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2016/01/IMG_0296.jpg)

I must admit, I AM delighted by the return of CSM. Sure, sure, last time we saw him, his skull was LITERALLY IN FLAMES, so I’m not sure how he’s alive, but I’ll take it. “We have a small problem,” he tells the person sticking his cig into his trach hole. "They’ve re-opened The X-Files.” And, in all sincerity, that's a great end to this episode — I am sure it was super satisfying for Chris Carter to type — but WHO reopened the X-Files? THE GOVERNMENT THAT’S TRYING TO CONTROL US ALL? Because THAT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL. WORDS!

[Fug the Show: The X-Files Recap, episode 1, "My Struggle"Hey! Remember how I thought I wouldn't have time to recap this episode before the second one aired tonight? Apparently, I lied. Here you go! It's my gift from me to you, and it's cranky? I kind of can't believe I am doing this again. Way back in the day, during The X-Files's first go-round, I recapped the final seasons for the late, lamented Television Without Pity (my recaps are archived at Brilliant But Cancelled, and THANK GOD because I don't remember anything that happened in the finale, except that the world was supposed to have ended by now, and I might need to consult Past Me for reminders) and it was honestly a transformative writing experience, both in the sense that it was extremely fun and satisfying for me, and because the XF community at TWoP was an awesome and wonderful one. It's nice to be back on my old beat. (PS: in case you didn't know, the people behind TWoP are now at Previously.TV, which I strongly urge you to check out, if you liked TWoP.) So, here we are. If you read my recaps back in the Ice Age, you know that they were laced with references to the adventures of my Mulder and Scully action figures (Scully, at one point, ran off with my "Oops"-era Britney Spears figurine; it was a whole thing), and said action figures would like to inform you that this reboot is wholly against their little plastic wills, and they'd personally rather be watching Downton. Which is why I had to wait to write this recap until after I wrote Downton. Scully is REALLY invested in Matthew Goode, you guys. Can you blame her? But with Lady Mary and Edith squared away for the week, let's do this. I can't WAIT to find out how Chris Carter explains the fact that CSM -- who we last saw when his body EXPLODED and HIS SKULL BURST INTO FLAMES -- is alive. (It's got to be clones, right?) Or how THE WORLD HASN'T ENDED, or...well. A lot of things. Time to stop stalling. Once more into the void.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/b9/bfb99790-924d-4e41-a7e6-5e3c6e04fe57/content/images/static-gofugyourself-com/uploads/2016/01/img_0240.jpg)](https://go-fug-yourself.ghost.io/the-x-files-recap-episode-1-my-struggle-01-2016/)