The X-Files S02E17: End Game Review
Medium: Television
Release date: 2/17/1995
Review date: 11/3/2024
Score: 7/10
Is Mulder the only person genuine enough in his belief in aliens to be reached out to by extra terrestrial beings, or is he just a useful, gullible tool? I think that’s the central question for me this episode - it's revealed that the person Mulder thought was his sister was actually just a clone of Mulder’s sister specifically engineered to make Mulder as willing to help the aliens as possible, and presumed that the aliens knew what the sister looked like because she had been abducted when he was a child. That’s a whole lot of extra terrestrial planning based solely around Mr. Mulder himself, and begs the question of why him? Is he just that special of an FBI alien boy that he’s the 90s best chance of reaching and understanding these extra terrestrial visitors? Or is he just an easy mark because of the missing sister? I appreciate that the show has so far been unwilling to offer up a more definitive answer to that question.
The shape changer is revealed to be a sort of alien bounty hunter this episode, apparently hunting down the clone aliens in response to the clones wasting precious alien civilization resources - one of the clones Mulder talks to states she believes her adopted parents were a breeding pair of an alien species meant to colonize Earth as the aliens thought human stewardship of the planet had failed, with the alien scientists using human fetal tissues obtained through abortion clinics they worked at to perfect their alien-human hybrids. I do think it's interesting that the show has shifted from its status quo in Season One where Mulder was the only one who saw the alien activity that would then disappear as soon as someone else showed up, to now including both Mulder and Scully in that little charade - at the end of the previous episode/the beginning of this episode Scully was kidnapped by the shape changer who at the time looked like Mulder but Scully knew was not him, and then later in the episode was exchanged in the prisoner swap with (the clone of) Mulder’s sister while the shape changer is in his generic blond guy look instead of still being Mulder, which means he at some point shape-changed during her kidnapping and that Scully was cognizant of that change. It will be interesting if that, more so than her alien abduction this season that she can’t really remember, begins to affect her position as the team’s skeptic, as at the end of this episode she’s still writing her FBI reports as an extra terrestrial doubter.
Also, while I recognize that part of the “X-Files’” appeal and vibe is its conspiratorial storytelling and worldbuilding, I did find a lot of the revelations from this episode and the last to be a bit much - I feel like the showrunners could have just had the two-parter feature the alien clones without needing to include clones of Mulder’s sister too, and the whiplash from all the different plot reveals each time the characters go to a new location does feel like a lot to follow, which certainly helps with the tone of Mulder feeling like he’s being pulled into this situation without there being enough time for him to double check everything, but that doesn’t prevent the episode’s plot from feeling kind of confusing.
But overall a good episode, and I’m curious to see how specifically Skinner and “X” (Mulder’s clandestine government contact)’s characters continue to evolve down the road, especially after their confrontation in Mulder’s apartment - I get the feeling that as a viewer I’m supposed to trust Skinner a little bit more since he helped Scully locate Mulder, but I still don’t trust him all that much.