10×01 My Struggle

The episode opens with a monologue by Fox Mulder detailing alien-related events in history, leading up to his partnership with Dana Scully and their investigations into the X-Files. The subsequent scene takes place in 1947, when an unnamed doctor is escorted by a Man in Black via bus to the site of a crashed spacecraft in the New Mexico desert. After viewing the wreck in amazement, the doctor finds a trail of blood leading to a wounded being, ostensibly an alien, crawling away from the scene. Despite the doctor’s pleas, soldiers shoot and kill the alien.

Moving to the present day, fourteen years after the closure of the X-Files, Mulder is contacted by Scully at the behest of FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner, who wants him to meet a right-wing online webcaster named Tad O’Malley. Mulder and Scully reunite in Washington, D.C., where they are picked up by O’Malley in his limousine and driven to a remote farmhouse in Low Moor, Virginia. Inside, they meet a young woman named Sveta, who claims to have fragmented memories of having her fetuses stolen from her during alien abductions and to possess alien DNA, which Scully agrees to examine. O’Malley takes Mulder to a secret location where a triangular aircraft built from alien technology is being housed. The craft is referred to as an “ARV”, or Alien Replica Vehicle.

During her medical examination, Sveta makes several astute observations which allude to Scully’s strained relationship with Mulder, making Scully uncomfortable. When the test results on Sveta’s blood come back, Scully immediately orders the sample re-tested. Meanwhile, Mulder meets with the now-aged doctor from the New Mexico crash site, a man he has known for 10 years. Mulder offers the doctor a new theory based on the “ARV”, Sveta’s memories and past hints from the doctor: Mulder now believes that Colonization and the alien invasion were all an elaborate hoax to distract.

Instead, Mulder thinks it was a “conspiracy of men” who have used extraterrestrial technology on human parties for decades, and these events were subsequently made to look like alien abductions. Mulder outlines a global conspiracy involving the hoarding and testing of alien technology which will be utilized at some future point to stage an attack on America and eventually take over the world. The doctor refers to Mulder’s previous belief in Colonization as “nonsense” and says that Mulder is now close to the truth, but refuses to disclose the purpose behind the abductions and the tests on human subjects.

Following these revelations, Mulder shares his theory with Scully that the conspiracy is a group of “über-violent ultra-fascists” armed with alien technology attempting to subvert democracy and assume power over the world. Before O’Malley can go public with his claims, his website is shut down, the “ARV” craft is destroyed and its scientists are killed by heavily armed men dressed in military uniforms, and a UFO intercepts Sveta while she is driving, she attempts to escape but is killed when her car is destroyed in an explosion. Mulder and Scully meet in a dark parking garage and Scully reveals that Sveta’s re-tested DNA sample confirms that she does in fact possess extraterrestrial DNA; a test Scully has performed on herself has revealed that she does as well. Mulder states that Sveta is the key to exposing the conspiracy and those responsible. They then receive an urgent summons from Skinner requesting them to meet him.

The episode ends revealing the Cigarette Smoking Man alive in the present day, receiving word via telephone that the X-Files have been re-opened.

“My Struggle”
The X-Files episode
Episode no. Season 10
Episode 1
Directed by Chris Carter
Written by Chris Carter
Production code 1AYW01
Original air date January 24, 2016
Running time 44 minutes
Guest appearance(s)
Joel McHale as Tad O’Malley
Annet Mahendru as Sveta
William B. Davis as Cigarette Smoking Man
Hiro Kanagawa as Garner
Aliza Vellani as Nurse Sandeep


Credit