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The Truth II
The expected reactions to a chain-smoker long thought dead.
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by Kim Manners
Directed by Kim Manners
Scully: Mulder, Kersh told us to head north. You just got on a road going south.
Mulder: That's right.
Scully: Where are you going?
Mulder: To see a man about the truth.
Mulder: That's right.
Scully: Where are you going?
Mulder: To see a man about the truth.
The show trial ends badly for Mulder, but his friends bust him out with unexpected help from Deputy Director Kersh. Despite being advised to flee the country, Mulder and Scully head for New Mexico to meet with the anonymous informant who helped Mulder find the files about the alien invasion.
Tropes:
- Anywhere but Their Lips: Mulder kisses Scully's cheek in the car, while she's sleeping.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Well, the good guys don't, anyway. Sure, CSM and Rohrer are both dead and Mulder has escaped. However, many of the conspirators are still alive, our heroes have been forced into a life on the run, they have just discovered the date of a planned alien invasion and are no closer to stopping the alien takeover than they were at the beginning of the pilot.
- Back for the Finale: The Lone Gunmen and the Cigarette Smoking Man all return. The Lone Gunmen are ghosts. The CSM, despite everything he's been through, still isn't.
- Book Ends: The episode ends with a hotel room chat in which Mulder and Scully explicitly reminisce about the hotel room chat they had in the first episode of the series.
- Courtroom Episode: Continuing from the second part, the first act of the episode contains the rigged trial of Fox Mulder.
- The End of the World as We Know It: Revealed to be 22nd December, 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar by CSM.
- Heel–Face Turn: Kersh joins the good side at the very last moment that he could.
- Joker Jury: Mulder's trial is essentially this. All members bar Mulder's side are all out to see him dead, and despite Scully finding hard evidence of the electrocuted man's body not being Knowle Rohrer, Kersh calls her out for this unauthorised action and dismisses her claims. The jury all come to the conclusion that they find Mulder guilty, despite the presentations of the other testimonies.
- Killed Off for Real: Knowle Rohrer bites it, courtesy of the Anasazi ruins containing the Super Soldiers' weakness: magnetite.
- Mayan Doomsday: The alien invasion is scheduled to begin in December 2012, on the date supposedly predicted by the Mayans as the end of the world. Season 10 would later retcon it, stating that the aliens ultimately called off their invasion plans as global warming and dwindling resources was making Earth into even more of an Insignificant Little Blue Planet.
- Never Found the Body: CSM is apparently killed in an explosion intended for Mulder.
- No Ending: The series finale, "The Truth", does not actually reveal the truth or really resolve much of anything.
- Not Quite Dead: CSM is revealed to have survived his fall from a flight of stairs while wheelchair-bound, and is now hiding in the Anasazi ruins.
- One Last Smoke: Before helicopters perform an air strike on the Anasazi ruins, the Cigarette Smoking Man performs this, a sign that he isn't afraid of his death.
"Maybe there's hope."
