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Saturday 3 February 2018

The X-Files 11.4 "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat" Review

                                           Image result for x files season 11 episode 4
An supposed ep of The Twilight Zone plays and the man in the mirror reflection reveals himself to be an alien, or whatever.  Mulder (David Duchovny) returns from wanting to be one with nature and says he's been looking for Sasquatch, what dressed as Big Foot himself!!  Is he really Big Foot, well one could've surmized that considering this ep was all about the truth; what is perceived as real but could be all twisted, manipulated to suit or even all bitter and twisted.  After he leaves his customary 'X' in the window, he's contacted by a Man who tells him later his name is 'Reggie Something' (Brian Huskey) and telling him that episode doesn't exist and 'They' are out to get him.  As men show up he runs away.

Mulder looks for that episode and Scully (Gillian Anderson) shows up for dinner but he can't eat until he finds his video of that episode. As Scully leaves she's contacted by Reggie who gives her a box telling her his prints her on it.  Th box being a pack of Jelly which had to be made into layers.  Scully gets nostalgic as she recalls her mother used to make it and it reminds her of home.  As Mulder places the 'X' in his window again, they wait for Reggie to show up and Scully hardly calls that being romantic.  Well neither was hanging up on Mulder when he was telling her about his 35 year old Sasquatch story!  Which she's heard many times.

Reggie tells them about going back to that nostalgia shop and finding the man dead.  Since he was moving house for his mother and he found some things she kept of his, including his high school year book in which he doesn't exist.  As well as the Dr Wuzzel book he used to read.  He recalled the name was spelled with a double 'S.'  He shows them a letter which shows he was there when they invaded Grenada and the stamp was a UFO one which the president commissioned to raise funds for UFO investigation.  Then going into 'They' are after him again.  Mulder wants him to explain himself and who 'They' are.  As Reggie talks about Dr They and how he examined an alien from a downed UFO, before the government took him away.

Reggie says that it's not the Mandela Effect as Mulder explained to Scully where people believed that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the '80's instead of in 2013, so they made up memes all over the Internet.  Reggie tells him it's the Mingler effect.  Mulder then coming with the theory it's an alternate universe but some of it slipping into their reality, which Scully disagrees with as does Reggie.  He says the Mingler effect is being used more seriously and misquotes George Orwell, as Mulder corrects him, not Welles, "who controls the past, controls the future." 

Reggie finally reveals he was Mulder's partner and original member of the x-Files, as we get clips from other eps interposed with Reggie appearing with them, such as with Eugene Toombs, Josie Chung amongst others and as Scully enters Mulder's office for the first time he tells "sugar boobs" she can't be here cos it's men only!  Oh and I neglected to mention the hilarious scene with Mulder when he recalls his 8 year old self watching that Twilight Zone ep, small body but Mulder's current big head!! ha.  Reggie says the government wants them to think all conspiracy theorist are nuts and Mulder says well he's a nut too. 

Mulder meets Dr They who's not afraid to admit that conspiracy isn't the same anymore, these days anyone can say anything.  That he can post and call the news fake news.  Even Mulder's ready to throw in the towel, "the world has become too crazy for my conspiratorial powers."  All an allusion to the crazy world we are currently living in with the muddied waters of news, conspiracy and lies.  To an extent the point of this episode.  It's all going to pot!  As Reggie is taken away in a strait jacket, Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) turns up and notices it's Reggie!!  As well as Scully finding a whole dossier on who Reggie really was.  Mulder watches the episode on his video tape and tells her it wasn't The Twilight Zone but a whole other show. Even the tape gets stuck in the video and unravels as he ejects it.  Oh and Scully stops from eating the jelly she made in Mulder's Big Foot mould as she wants to remember how it was!  Oh and that birdy drinking the drink in the nostalgia shop, used to have those.  They used to have mercury in them and would bop up and down, they cracked!!  Like this ep in many ways!! Ha.

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