"Closure"

"I have this powerful feeling and I can't explain it, but that this is the end of the road and I've been brought here to learn the truth."
Originally Aired 2/13/00

...I liked it, I truly do. After so many years of stories and "what if's", and even reading so much discussion on the internet of this episode's outcome, it seemed like it would be an impossible feat to please the majority of X-Files fans. Heck, I'm even in the camp that wished "Redux II" would be true and that perhaps Samantha had some kind of "Stockholm Syndrome" from living with the Smoking Man following her abduction as a child. It's almost like the TV series Lost, where there was just so much mystery building for 6 seasons that it toppled like a house of cards, leaving many unsatisfied when that series' finale aired in 2010 (myself included.) One friend thought for sure the island was actually a submerged space ship with an island on top and that's how it was able to move across the ocean and never appeared on any maps. Another friend had a theory that everyone was dead following the plane crash and the island was really Purgatory; he was right in a sense that the final season's alternate timeline was indeed Purgatory. My theory that I wanted to see occur was that another plane would crash and the series' events repeats itself in a cycle, given that two ancient characters on the island said it would happen again. I'm sure many other X-Files fans had their own theories too over seven seasons of television.

Like many installments on the series' mythology, Mulder and Scully have separate investigations, and in this instance Scully returns to Washington D.C., in what seemed like a reversal of a prior episode "Orison" when Mulder said the case was over. This time, she had another series villain waiting for her in her apartment, the ultimate villain in fact, the Cigarette Smoking Man. However this time he wasn't a villain, and that's what I enjoyed most of "Closure." He informs Scully that Samatha is in fact dead, and when she questions why, he says that he wanted to give Mulder hope. Everyone needs hope, which is what some find in a belief in God and religion, and Mulder is just like everyone else with a need to believe. The Cigarette Smoking Man even made mention in a previous episode that his belief is his religion. If the Cigarette Smoking Man is indeed Mulder's father, then it's unfortunate that he loved him more than Jeffrey- he gave Mulder hope but then shot his other son. Not so much of a good guy after all.

Another interesting aspect of this episode is the inclusion of the character of Harold Piller, a police psychic, played by Anthony Heald. Like Mulder, he's struggling with the disappearance of his son, and both loses are what has driven each character. At first he appears as another in a long line of reluctant psychics, like Season 3's Clyde Bruckman, and he even states maybe he was given his gift to help others cope with their loss. Instead, I've realized he serves a different purpose upon conclusion of this episode- that he is in fact the opposite of Mulder. He represents the old Mulder we're used to. Season One's "Deep Throat" had Mulder being led to an air force base only to return after dark. This time, it's Harold who leads Mulder there and they both return after dark to hop a fence and sneak in. Our Mulder has changed so much over seven years. At the beginning of the episode he said he just wanted it to end, to find his sister, and by the end he accepts her fate and moves forward. It's Harold who refuses to believe.

To add humor to a heavy episode like this, and also to further another connection to Lost, I think Lost got it's awful "flashback toupee" from The X-Files. Maybe they even bought it from one of those celebrity prop online auctions.

As for the conclusion to the Samantha storyline, I really don't see another way it could end. The events of Season 6's "One Son" spell out her fate without implicitly stating, that she was really taken by the Syndicate as a sacrifice. While Season 4's "Paper Hearts" did toy with this possibility, that she was abducted by a criminal, I think that might actually be cheating the fans in the end if that's what actually happened. That would be the ultimate bait and switch- "we've told you this happened all along, but nope, just some random murderer did it." Instead, while it wasn't aliens, being abducted by the series' true villain serves the series and it's fans much better. The Smoking Man confronting Scully even foreshadows an upcoming episode of this season, "En Ami", written by the Smoking man himself- William B. Davis. That episode was probably in scripting stages while this episode was created, so I'm sure Carter added this scene to set the stage for further events. Too bad that forward thinking was happening less and less over the years.

The only fault with "Closure" could be the "star dust/starlight" theory, especially since Samantha was taken into starlight after all of this testing at the April Air Force Base. Why not take her sooner? I don't find this 'gimmick' to be offensive though, since it allows Mulder to finally see his sister almost 30 years later when she appears with the starlight children. And isn't there a theory, the Big Bang Theory (not the tv show), that we were created from star dust? Nothing is out of the realm of possibility on The X-Files. During Season 5's "Redux" episodes, I even said I liked the smaller, more personal episodes and if anything, Season 7 has been a return to those episodes. Maybe there was forward thinking from Chris Carter after all. If Season 6 is when they "blew it up", then it makes sense for Season 7 to return to being about the core characters. Mulder was even watching Planet Of The Apes... "you blew it up, you maniacs!!"