Back in Washington, D.C., Scully receives a phone call from O’Malley, who has arrived at Mulder’s house for a pre-arranged meeting and found signs of a struggle. O’Malley explains that he suspects that alien DNA has been injected into every American citizen in order to facilitate the widespread outbreak of the Spartan Virus. Designed to strip humans of their immune systems, this contagion quickly manifests itself nationwide, with Scully and Einstein noting a sharp increase in the number of patients admitted to hospitals and triage centers.
Miller finds a phone-tracking app on Mulder’s computer, notes his position in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and leaves Washington in order to track him down, while Einstein questions Scully’s medical theories. Scully, accepting that Einstein may be correct, receives a phone-call from former X-Files agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), who asks to meet, claiming that she knows how to develop a vaccine.
During their meeting, Reyes reveals that, shortly after the closure of the X-Files, she was contacted by the badly injured Cigarette Smoking Man, who had survived the confrontation in New Mexico. Cigarette Smoking Man offers to secure both Scully and Reyes a place among the designated survivors of the end-times, in exchange for Reyes’ assistance in the colonization effort. Reyes departs the FBI shortly thereafter, and is absent when Scully “looks her up” in 2015. Reyes also reveals that she has spent the past twelve years assisting Cigarette Smoking Man, but intending to halt the invasion from within the Syndicate.
Scully and Einstein attempt to develop a vaccine using Scully’s DNA. Scully realizes that she is being protected from the contagion by a combination of the alien genomes that remained after she was abducted and experimented on, and the DNA anomalies instilled within her at the request of Reyes. It is the absence of alien DNA that makes everybody else susceptible. Mulder, meanwhile, approaches Cigarette Smoking Man, who offers him a chance to survive the outbreak. Mulder declines, and is found by Miller, who returns him to Washington with the hope of finding a cure.
O’Malley tells the nation that a friend, a doctor, has informed him of the existence of a vaccine.
After administering a vaccine to Einstein, Scully travels to Mulder and Miller’s location, finding them at the 14th Street Bridge. She realizes that Mulder is too badly ill to survive without a stem cell transplant. When Miller asks how this will be possible, Scully replies that William, their son, will have to be the donor. While Scully and Miller discuss Mulder’s prognosis, Mulder begins to succumb to the virus. Suddenly, a beam of light shines down onto Miller, Scully, and Mulder, and a triangle-shaped UFO slowly descends and hovers above them.
The episode ends with Scully looking at the lights of the spacecraft, shining down directly onto her and her partners.
“My Struggle II”
The X-Files episode
Episode no. Season 10
Episode 6
Directed by Chris Carter
Story by Anne Simon
Margaret Fearon
Chris Carter
Teleplay by Chris Carter
Production code 1AYW06
Original air date February 22, 2016
Running time 43 minutes
Guest appearance(s)
Annabeth Gish as Monica Reyes
Joel McHale as Tad O’Malley
Lauren Ambrose as Agent Einstein
Robbie Amell as Agent Miller
Julian Christopher as Dr. Oscar Griffiths
William B. Davis as Cigarette Smoking Man
Aliza Vellani as Nurse Sandeep
Credit