Between 1993 and 2003, then 2016 and 2018, “X-Files” was the sci-fi emblem of an entire generation. But how does it end? If you didn’t follow everything well or if your memory suddenly challenges you, we tell you the end of the series.
Warning, spoilers. The following article reveals key plot elements of “X-Files” as well as its ending.
“The following story is inspired by real documented accounts”: that was enough to pique the curiosity of millions of viewers around the world and to makeX-Files, at the borders of reality the TV legend she is today.
After all, who has never heard of Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), these two FBI agents who investigate the “X-Files”: strange unsolved cases involving potential paranormal phenomena. A true icon of pop culture, the show of Chris Carter is one of the longest running science fiction series. Originally broadcast between 1993 and 2002, X-Files has made a habit of returning to our screens, whether small or large, continuing in cinemas and then on the airwaves in 2016 and 2018 for a 10th and 11th season.
THE TRUTH IS HERE (9×19)
On May 19, 2002 in the United States – January 22, 2003 for us – The X-Files withdrew from the small screen for the first time. In this ending, Mulder travels to a forbidden military compound and discovers the date of an upcoming alien invasion. However, he is spotted and kills, in his flight, Knowle Rohrer (Adam Baldwin), a kind of enemy “super soldier”, by swinging him from a catwalk onto high-voltage wiring.
Arrested, his fate will be decided in court where he is represented by Skinner (Mitch Pileggi). But the sentence is irrevocable: he is condemned to death. Only one solution: escape. Doggett (Robert Patrick), Skinner, Reyes (Annabeth Gish) and Scully thus help him to escape.
Mulder and Scully then find themselves in New Mexico seeking answers about this alien invasion from the Cigarette Man (William B. Davis), who, still alive, is in hiding to survive the alien colonization scheduled for December 22, 2012 – the announced end of the world. In a final fight against Rohrer, who is ultimately not dead (but soon will be, just like the Cigarette Man), Mulder and Scully, Doggett and Reyes flee.
Later, in a motel room in Roswell, Mulder tells Scully of his belief that the dead can speak to the living and are part of something greater than any alien force. The couple lie down, in each other’s arms. End of X-Files…or so we thought.
THE TRUTH IS ELSEWHERE (11×10)
The Smoking Man is not dead and Mulder and Scully (beset by visions) have a son, William (Miles Robbins): these are two major events that have occurred since the first conclusion of the series. William, because of the plans of the Cigarette Man, flees the government and wishes to learn more about his mysterious powers…
Mulder and Scully thus embark on a race against time to find their son but also to prevent an orchestrated contamination via an extraterrestrial pathogen. When Mulder finds William, he follows him to an abandoned factory. Scully arrives soon after and Mulder suggests that she give up looking for their son because he doesn’t want to be found and they can’t protect him. Scully refuses to give up. That’s when the real Mulder shows up: the Mulder Scully was talking to was William in disguise.
As they chase their son through the factory, Skinner realizes that they have been followed by Reyes and the Cigarette Man who ends up knocking Skinner down. He retaliates, shoots the car and kills Reyes, before being run over in turn. The Cigarette Man and Mulder end up confronting each other: the first shoots a bullet in the head of the second who falls into the water, thus reflecting an earlier vision of Scully. But it was really William: the real Mulder kills the Smoking Man whose body is carried away by the current.
While Mulder and Scully comfort each other, the latter reveals to him that William was not their child but an experiment implanted in her by the Cigarette Man. However, she is… pregnant with Mulder for real! An apparent impossibility but in X-Files, you never know! As the two kiss, William resurfaces from the water, somewhere else, conscious and alive…
And this is how the series ends on March 21, 2018 on American screens… For a while or forever: that, only the future – and Chris Carter – will tell us.