Release wraps Doggett's running backstory up perhaps a little too fast and a little too without warning (and that's not getting into Reyes' questionable decision re: seeing people taking bribes). But. There is an answer - its bleak and awful and does not involve whatever happened to Samantha. We are however obliged to point out that supernatural force continues to drag its feet in these kinds of episodes...

We disagree on just how supernatural the episode is and discuss the implausibility of walling fresh murder victims with clay.

Sunshine Days could easily be the last episode of The X-Files ever. Sure, Mulder's not present and the whole super-soldiers - let alone alien aspects of the series - would remain unresolved, but it makes a point about the quest for the truth and the cost of that pursuit that with the whole series in mind is extremely persuasive.

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A strange description of Jimmy Bond, but accurate nonetheless.

After our hiatus, Nick is trying to be more positive about The X-Files. Each episode must have some positive points. Unfortunately, he is trying this on Jump the Shark and William of all things.

Jump the Shark does have a lot of sharks and Morris Fletcher. We get into why concluding a series in a different series feels like a terrible plan and how most of the regular X-Files lot seem to be largely absent. Still a shame to say goodbye to the Lone Gunmen, if not so much The Lone Gunmen, though some behind the scenes stuff makes the decision more comprehensible. Though... we'll be back to this in future.

William (the character) is also far from done, despite this William (the episode) seemingly determined to tie up a plot-thread before the series runs out of time. The make-up and prosthetic effects are absolutely phenomenal and we're in two minds bout how the series seemed to toy with expectations given leaving guest star names off the start, but making real clear about the writers and director being one D. Duchovny...

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At least, we're pretty sure guest star Burt Reynolds is God in Improbable at any rate. A rather stunning surprise from Chris Carter, this episode is tremendous fun, though unable to escape more questions about why Reyes isn't fired for this sequence of events.

We talk about our own life-path numbers and how relevant they are; also how Mulder crazy contrasts with Reyes crazy...

Scary Monsters sees the welcome return of Leyla Harrison to the series in a amusing if still grisly episode that can't quite hide how much it resembles a rather famous The Twilight Zone episode.

We wind up talking about fandom given how Leyla views the X-Files staff and how Mulder might be becoming Poochy...

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One of them anyway...

Audrey Pauley feels more like a Twilight Zone episode, but is an interesting contrast to Steven Maeda's previous season 9 episode of 4D. And yet, somehow we end up talking about Dark Souls and Die Hard during the course of this episode. And how familiar the villain is.

Underneath is an episode we really did completely forget existed. And this despite it being the most The X-Files episode this season! A shame that Doggett is completely correct in this episode for a succession of completely wrong reasons.

Also not clear how he trusts anything after this...

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...mostly about the current state of the conspiracy here in Season 9...

Providence, wait, Provenance. No, Providence. Dammit, its Provenance!

Provenance has the Lone Gunmen for hilariously, almost futile inclusion and seems to want to hark back to one of the series more startling reveals - a half-buried ancient UFO off the coast of Africa. Except not we have one in Calgary, Canada.

We complain at length about what has been done to Scully's character and how weirdly certain people are that Mulder has died somewhere off-screen (made pointless given Carter's reported statement that Duchovny would be appearing in the finale).

Providence doesn't get much better as a weird alien prophecy means either Mulder or William has to die for... reasons, and how everyone acts like Mulder stopped the aliens taking over when he did effectively nothing of the sort.

The episode also reminds of us of better things. Babylon 5, The Tommyknockers. Quatermass and the Pit...

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Vince Gilligan has failed us!

And apparently only us as the critical reception to John Doe is strikingly positive. We speculate how much of this is due to snobbishness around sci-fi/fantasy/horror and how much is because we're well acquainted with Gilligan's later productions.

Also a waste of a memory vampire...

Hellbound is not The X-Files take on Hellraiser, but that film inevitably comes up as a point of comparison given such focus on skinned corpses. And also ask high-brow philosophical questions such as when does the soul enter the body - and The X-Files' apparent inference being potentially hours after birth...

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With Lord of the Flies, we wonder why The X-Files is now about a group of British school-children trapped on a desert island-

Wait...

We actually get curious as to whether the show's allusion to Jackass makes any sense anymore and the horror of body lice as a concept. At least we have an unscrupulous entomologist in the form of Rocky to provide entertainment in an episode reminiscent of Rain King but... Well, things are different now.

Trust No 1 demands the question of did Chris Carter actually want to still be involved in this series? Mostly because he seems quite intent on torpedoing Scully's character in a deeply frustrating and seemingly pointless episode.

Well, there is the introduction of the super-soldier's weakness, but there's some... hilarious complications with it.

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Daemonicus is Kim's most hated episode of the entire run of The X-Files. Fun times!

A good start leads into an increasingly dissatisfying experience and we once again discover how different intent was to how we wound up interpreting the episode on both watch and re-watch. Inevitably we also end up talking about Hannibal and also Hannibal.

Also; its clear the writers don't quite know what to do with Reyes...

4-D is better though bleaker and depressing and should probably have shown up in the series later. But the series struggles to know what to do with Scully, these initial episodes seemingly written before her return was confirmed.

And really, why ask about vampires of all things?

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