2.06 - Ascension

“DENY EVERYTHING” is the modified tagline at the end of the credits and, however hacky it is to say this, a perfect description of how you should handle this episode and its storyline, not to mention most of the fallout from the choices Carter and the writers made here.

The open is neither cold nor good. This is part two of a story, picking up where episode 05, Duane Barry left off. There’s no elegant recap, it’s all whiplash inducing flashes of what happened last episode as Mulder sees things in Scully’s house, like some of her hair stuck in a patch of blood. It’s actually kind of confusing, unless you know the show, because it sort of looks like Mulder is psychic and having visions.

There is a righteous music cue featuring Nick Cave, which really might be the high point of the episode.

As I’ve mentioned before, thanks to information I read in X-Files Confidential by Ted Edwards, Scully’s abduction was a result of Gillian Anderson becoming pregnant and needing time off. She wanted to keep doing the show, however, so Chris Carter had to figure out how to make it all work.

Scully is turned into a regular old damsel in distress in these two episodes and the show ends up dealing with that for a long, long damn time. Actually, yeah, they still are. Anderson told Variety she’d only even consider doing more X-Files if there were an entire set of new writers. Which is a real ouch, for sure.

I have very little positive to say about this episode. It was a sloppy way to write Scully off the show for a bit and a betrayal of her character by making her so weak and helpless. It really does feel like the show struggles at some of its weakest points in all its 11 seasons because of things they did here.

That’s not to say they don’t stumble over the Monster of the Week formula on its own, but the “mytharc” limps along - or even starts to bleed out, to mix and exaggerate the metaphor - in quite a few places because they wrote themselves into a corner.

This episode does have a good ol’ “Oh no it’s a UFO—gotcha’ it’s just a helicopter with a giant light!” which is classic sci-fi. I also feel bad saying so, but Duchovny seems pretty tuned out the whole episode. Not sure if that’s his reaction to such weak material - which in all honesty could be me projecting - or his attempt to play Mulder as distraught.

“You have no rights, only orders to be carried out.” Cigarette Smoking Man says this to Agent Krycek, which is a badass line.

Another good line: “Why are you so paranoid, Mulder?” An FBI guy says this with quite a bit of sass. After this, we hear Mr. X say “They have something on everyone,” which is another good line and that high-calory X-Files snack I love.

And that’s why Skinner reopens the X-Files. Plus yeah, they can’t shut them down again if they don’t open them again.