There are plenty of shocking moments throughout The X-Files. Alien babies, Satanic cults, inbred hillbilly families. They all have their place in this 11-season series that became an undeniable cultural phenomenon throughout the ’90s. But if there is one moment that changed the course of the show, one that drastically formed the way our heroes (or, at least one of them) saw their work on the X-Files afterward, the events of Season 2’s “End Game” are certainly up there. This episode changed everything for Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), especially one scene that opened a door that the show could never close again.
“End Game” Changes Mulder’s Entire Perspective of His Crusade
Long before the first episode, Mulder’s entire quest for the truth was entirely predicated on what became of his abducted sister Samantha (Vanessa Morley). Having not seen her since they were children (when he watched her be taken directly from the window of their home), an adult woman claiming to be Samantha (played by Megan Leitch) arrived in “Colony,” only to expose the Syndicate’s cloning program and the intentions of the Alien Bounty Hunter (Brian Thompson) involved. But “Colony” is only the first part of this X-Files two-parter, and the next episode, “End Game,” picks up right where the previous left off. After Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is found and Samantha is seemingly killed by the Alien Bounty Hunter, Mulder stumbles upon a cloning facility where he runs into not just one, but several more adult clones of his long-lost sister. It’s here that Mulder realizes that the woman he hoped was his sister was never her to begin with, but rather a copy, and she wasn’t the only one.
Though the Samantha clones beg Mulder to help them, the FBI agent realizes that he’s been lied to and manipulated. Opting against being involved further, Mulder attempts to leave before being knocked out by the Alien Bounty Hunter. The alien then kills all the clones and sets the lab on fire, with Mulder only escaping due to being rescued by a firefighter. It’s a wild moment, one that fans of the show certainly didn’t see coming when the episode first aired on February 17, 1995. But it was certainly a game changer for Mulder, who was now fueled by a more intense desire to see the truth revealed. By the episode’s end, Mulder reveals to Scully that he has “found something I thought maybe I’d lost: faith to keep looking.” After so many years of trying to find his sister, it’s this moment where Mulder rediscovers his drive to rescue her, to find a way to reunite them somewhere down the line. Even if Mulder is enraged during this sequence (which is admittedly just under five minutes), it changes him on a profound level.
The Samantha Clones Are Only the Tip of ‘The X-Files’ Syndicate Iceberg
Coming in near the tail end of Season 2, “End Game” is a fan-favorite to this day for its contributions to The X-Files‘ overall mythology, not to mention the episode’s general dramatic flair. It’s a great hour of the show, but it’s only the beginning of our hero’s uncovering of the greater conspiracy that’s afoot, a conspiracy between the human Syndicate (the Deep State-like group within the U.S. government) and the alien Colonists who would invade the Earth as their own. After a rocky (but still solid) first season, the show’s mytharc was in full swing by Season 2, and would continue to largely drive the show through Season 5 and then the first feature film, often subtitled Fight the Future. The cloning angle was especially a game-changer for the show, as characters would continue to appear throughout the show who were likewise connected to the conspiracy via cloning or alien hybridization. Samantha was only the beginning.
After seeing what the Syndicate did to his sister, Mulder’s hatred towards the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) only grew, as did his determination to see the criminals being brought to justice. While Mulder himself would never see any of these men tried or convicted, many of them would eventually be killed by Alien Rebels with similar goals to Mulder’s own. But what ever became of Samantha? Was Mulder able to find his sister after all this pain? Unfortunately, that part of the story doesn’t have a happy ending. Despite the clone’s insistence that Samantha was still alive, The X-Files ultimately went in a different direction entirely.
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‘The X-Files’ Toyed With Samantha Mulder For Several More Years
For years, The X-Files teased both Mulder and the audience with questions and answers concerning his sister’s fate. Was she taken by aliens or human beings? Yes. Is she still alive? Maybe. Are any of these clones the genuine article? Definitely not. Five years after “End Game,” during The X-Files‘ seventh season, Mulder would eventually discover the truth about his sister’s disappearance. But what’s odd about this is that although it was revealed that Samantha had died many years earlier, the Season 7 episode “Closure” has little to do with aliens and a lot more to do with ghosts. Yeah, it’s a bit strange. But even after finding closure about his sister, her disappearance would always haunt him. Having never been able to actually reunite with her in this life, Mulder always sought to save her vicariously through saving others. We see this especially in the second feature film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, but also throughout the show’s later seasons as well.
Yet, it was because of this moment in “End Game” (and this series of events as a whole) that Mulder’s crusade became even more personal than before. Knowing that there was more to discover about his sister, he fought to greater ends to unravel the conspiracy that stole her from him in their youth. The X-Files may still end this storyline tragically, but it’s because of this that Mulder and Scully were able to save many others and continue their search for the unknown. Considering that both Duchovny and Anderson are now open to reprising their roles once more, perhaps we could see them on the journey yet again.
The X-Files is available for streaming on Hulu.