Youre about to have your memories, as you know them, taken away from you.
Youre an alien; maybe everyone is.
Your waiters name is not Buddy.
Credit: Shane Harvey/FOX
is the sound of every episode written by Darin Morgan, but especially this one.
Shes been calling him all day; she wants to confirm theyre still on for dinner tomorrow.
At least one relationship is getting better while the world falls apart.
The man (a terrific Brian Huskey) leads with Scullys favorite greeting: Mulder, its me.
The first episode ofThe Twilight ZoneMulder ever saw?
According to this guy, it doesnt exist.
The Lost Martian doesnt exist, notreally(or does it?!
I know you think Im crazy, but but!he says its not me.
But of course its him.
He thinks hes looking through a window at everyone else when hes actually looking in the mirror.
This is the episode of television that changed young Mulder, made him the man he is today.
It cant be that good of an episode!
But this isnt about the quality of the episode.
Its about how Mulder felt while watching it.
Nothing can bethatgreat until nostalgia makes it great.
And no one is immune to nostalgia.
Color both agents intrigued.
They meet the man in the parking garage; he tells them his name is Reggie…Something.
(That window is a mirror, Mulder.)
So Reggie names his scapegoat: an actual man named Dr.
They, a neuroscientist who erases minds.
Mulder dismisses the idea until They gives him a call.
As handshakes go, Dr. Theys is less reassuring.
Whats a show about conspiracy theories to do in a world where proving them true or false changes nothing?
Scully and Reggie both think thats bunk.
How does Reggies alternate X-Files history account for the Doggett-Reyes years, anyway?
There doesnt seem to be room for them in his version of events.
Some fans can probably relate.
When it comes to the TV shows we love, we might all be Dr.
The tagline is skeptical, as if written by Dr.
They: The truth is out there?
He greets Scully in the pilot: Move along, sugar boobs.
This is the X-Files.
He complains about the widely mocked case in season 3 flop Teso Dos Bichos.
Reggie is a gatekeeper, an internet commenter, a self-insert.
And so Darin Morgan was shot in his own episode.
Waterboarding for the CIA?
Maybe Reggie was everything he imagined Dr.
They to be a government figure controlling what the public knows and he couldnt handle it.
Fight for truth and justice.
No one mythologizes the legacy of Mulder and Scully better than Mulder and Scully do.
We found the truth thats out there, Reggie declares.
Oh, is that all?
We are never, ever, ever getting back together.
The references get plainer: Were bringing drugs, the alien says.
Some of us are good people.
History repeats itself, maybe because we keep trying to rewrite it rather than face it.
Mulder never wanted the answers as much as he wanted the search for them.
Whats the point of the X-Files now?
The wording is comedically cheesy, but the sentiment is vintage Darin Morgan.
As Jose Chung told us, its a rare and lucky thing to find meaning in others.
Its easy to want to dismiss Reggies story.
Is Reggies story true?
There are holes in it it cant account for William, for example.
(But there are holes in Williams story as we know it, too.
Every writer of this show is Dr.
The bigger question: Would it matter if Reggies story were true?
But theres still a lot of love in the details here for the aspects ofThe X-Filesthat stick.
Sometimes the truth bends around our words, and not the other way around.
Does it even matter that he began as a hoax?
Meanwhile, Scullys in the kitchen with her Mandela Effect, setting some Goop-O A-B-C in Mulders Bigfoot mold.
I want to remember how it was, she says.
I want to remember how it all was.
That malfunctioning VCR had to intervene to let Mulder move forward, but Scully does it on her own.
The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat holds up against his best.
But theres a difference between empty nostalgia and a story with life still in it.
Maybe its just important to be choosy about which memories are worth bringing into the present.
