The X-Files season 11 episode 4 review: The truth is in the book!
Let’s be honest: Parallel universals are all the rage these days. With that, we cannot say that we are even remotely surprised that The X-Files season 11 episode 4 entitled “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” ended up touching on that subject matter.
Basically, this was a case for Mulder and Scully that revolved around a man named Reggie struggling with memories — whether they be real or recovered — after an alien event. He came bearing big claims that memories were collectively eras, really to the extent that, at one point, Mulder actually knew the truth about the X-Files.
Despite all of the evolution that we’ve had with the X-Files over the years, the series doesn’t quite mind touching on the same thing time and time again. Tonight, that theme was Mulder trying to find a way to believe even the most outlandish of proposals. Meanwhile, Scully went for a little bit more of a logic-based solution. While Mulder was ready to go on a wild-goose chain when it comes to figuring out the truth, she instead used logic. She found out what much of what Reginald’s history actually was, working with just about every single government organization under the sun. She got Fox on board with her and determined that really, Reggie just devolved into a difficult mental state, one in which many of his government secrets and information started to bleed together in his brain.
Ultimately, Reggie was not a parallel man living within different universes. He was just crazy and he manifested the idea of working with Mulder and Scully on the X-Files.
What we actually enjoyed about this episode more than anything was getting the “visions” from the future / his alternate universe from within Reggie’s head. The majority of these were all so over-the-top and intentionally corny that they were worthy of some laughs, including his representation of aliens and a UFO that felt almost straight out of some sort of cheesy 1960’s movie.
Was there still some sort of truth buried within here? Well, in Reggie’s vision it seemed as though it was all within a book entitled, fittingly, All the Answers. This entire scene, from the Trump jokes to the immature Uranus jabs, was all sorts of ridiculous … but also funny.
Final Verdict
The X-Files season 11 episode 4 was all sorts of entertaining — we’ll probably forget it in a few weeks’ time just because it was so silly, but after some heavy episodes at the start of the season we’re down for a little bit of camp where Reggie lives within some sort of bizarre B-movie universe.
Also, does Reggie feel like the X-Files version of Ralphie from A Christmas Story to anyone else?
What did you think about tonight’s new episode of The X-Files and the twists/turns that we got within? Be sure to share in the comments!