I have been watching the X Files since (mostly) the beginning. It has been wonderful to rewatch now. However, when I was a kid we didn't start watching every Friday Night (I think it was originally Friday at 9pm) until they moved it to a more prime spot on Sundays) until around season 3.

To catch up, X Files released VHS tapes for each season, but the tapes didn't include every episode. So here I am, watching episodes from Season 1 - some of which episodes I had never seen. Episodes like Gender Bender and Young at Heart team up with classic favorties that move the plot along like Deep Throat and Fallen Angel. And of course, you can't forget about Eugene Victor Tooms. We'll save Boggs for another thought maybe later.

It was fun to re-watch the sequel episode "Tooms" because the second scene Skinner makes his debut, daring to push back on Scully regarding her wonderful, eloquent, and quite possibly pulitzer prize worthy reporting on Mulder and the X-Files! How dare he. She, of course, handles it perfectly. Can you believe she was only 24 when she shot Season 1....

So as I leave off to continue Season 1, the side quest becomes this movie. Released to Theaters in 2008, I wonder if I'd ever even watched it. I think by that time I was so upset with where the show went, I never truly finished it or came to peace with how it all ended. The Original Movie was great, and maybe that's how it all should have ended. But here we are, and I do want to believe.

The first reaction I had is that Chris Carter, not suprisingly, created the second movie serve as a classic "Monster of the Week" episode. However, it was a risky choice! The choice of character and story must not only summon but bait Mulder out of hiding. And for this movie, those choices were wraught with weaknesses. Amanda Peet however, was a wonderful choice to bring into the fold. Xhibit, albeit playing the most immemorable character I've seen in an X Files episode, does a good job! I dont' remember him being in that many movies.

Anyways here we are in the frozen tundra of... West Virginia? We find ourselves in a scene in the snow not too unlike the beginning fifteen minutes of the wonderful "Wind River" by Taylor Sheridan. But instead of something truly monstrous, or even X File worthy, it is two thugs kidnapping a woman who happens to be an FBI Agent.

We're panning between this and what would have been a good aftermath scene for Wind River after the lady vanishes. We're looking for something in the ICE....

We find an arm, with the markings of what the lady did when she shredded one of the thugs with a garden tool. And even after this movie I don't understand why his arm fell off. Either way, we find out the team of FBI agents is being led by a pyscic who had cold called them saying he had visions.

The problem with this guy, is that not only is a he a flawed hero, he's a convicted pedophile? That does not sit well with Scully, who brings Mulder out of his shadow to help the FBI track down the missing agent, only to interject herself immediately into the conversation when she meets him for the first time. She hates the guy, and spends most of the movie doing her "I want to believe thing" but by mulling if she should trust this convicted Felon.

There are two main issues with this movie. One, there is no way to not unsee or unthink about this pedo semi-hero whom you want nothing to do with. He offers no likeable trait whatsoever. They spend multiple scenes at his commune where he lives with.... you guessed it - Other pedos!

The second issue is that of Mulder's mission. This movie is clearly about Scully, which I have no issue with. The issue is that the beginning premise revolves around needing Mulder and after she pulls him out of darkness, she spends the entire movie trying to put him back there because she doesn't like the pedophile psychic.

Either way, they eventually find the bad guys who weren't monsters. They did however, find a way to re-attach heads to existing healthy bodies. That is the only X File worthy aspect of the movie, and it never reveals itself outside of a medical chair. No special powers, no "spooky" explanation, no scary monster. Just a russian guy with bad teeth and a truck retro fitted for organ delivery and snow removal.

The honorable mention for this movie is that it completely demonstrates that Scully deserved her own medial drama. She'd have been the best of the best in an ER type setting. You always get 110% from Gillian Anderson. I wish I'd have seen more of her movies. I know she's really different than the character she plays. She's also British. But still.

In the end, I think we all want to believe, but we'd rather believe in something worth believing in.