At this point, should the series continue beyond season 11, The X-Files would do well to hand over the truth-seeking reins to longtime series writer Darin Morgan. The brains behind some of the most memorable hours during the series' initial run ” Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose' and Jose Chung's From Outer Space'' among them ” Morgan was also responsible for Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,' the sole episode from season 10 to approach any sort of positive consensus among critics. The hour was a standout among the five others offered by the revival, a funny and clever episode that not only made great use of its guest stars Rhys Darby and Kumail Nanjiani, but also did what all good Morgan-penned episodes of The X-Files do: It put the entire premise of the series under the microscope, poking at the conventions that made the show an overwhelming force in television and pop culture in general.That sort of thing isn't easily done, which perhaps explains why the number of episodes credited solely to Morgan wouldn't fill up a season of the average prestige cable drama. Like all things deemed exceptional but lacking in quantity, then, the relative scarcity of these episodes gives them a certain luster, and makes them deserving of frequent revisitation and reappraisal. Doing so, it becomes remarkably easy to find new things to appreciate, in addition to the sardonic tone, the self-referential nature, the narrative end points that turn the series' concept on its ear, and certainly the way the episodes almost gleefully seek to deconstruct the character of Fox Mulder ” something David Duchovny always seems up for taking part in.Related: X-Files Season 11 Premiere Review: A Messy Start Leads to Better EpisodesThe same is true of Morgan's most recent effort, season 11's The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat'. A funny, blistering take on fake news and the question of œWhat even is the truth anymore?, the episode introduces Reginald Murgatroyd, yet another quirky addition to the series that confirms Morgan has (perhaps inadvertently) created an enchantingly weird X-Files microcosm all his own.

The Episodes Alter The X-Files' Structure

The most memorable of Morgan's episodes all seem to have one thing in common: they contribute to an unexpected legacy of strange bald men, like Peter Boyle, Charles Nelson Riley, Allan Zinyk (the guy who shouts œRoswell! Roswell!), and most recently, Brian Huskey and Stuart Margolin, as Reggie and Dr. They, respectively. But, more importantly, they pivot the series' usual perspective until the story begins to look at, not through, Mulder and Scully. It's a trend in Morgan's episodes that his interest always shifts toward the new character or characters being introduced, and, moreover, the ways in which they respond to not only the craziness of their situation ” they may or may not be the cause of ” but also the craziness of the show's two main FBI agents, and often, the futility of their quest.

This seems to be Morgan's preferred way of interrogating the basic concept of show: introducing either an outsider or an extreme insider as not just a plot device but whose unique perspective within the world of the X-Files actually drives the story, taking it to unexpected places. The result of approaching the episode like this is that, regardless the story being told, it affords the writer and the viewer an opportunity to examine what The X-Files actually is as a show.

By flipping the perspective, Morgan, on the face of it all, grants an outsider control of the narrative, tacitly signifying that the narrator ” Clyde Bruckman, Jose Chung, Reggie Murgatroyd, etc. ” is ostensibly more reliable than Mulder or Scully, because they know things the other two simply cannot. For Clyde Bruckman it was the future, specifically everyone's death; for Reggie it was the Truth'; and for Jose Chung it was the utter ridiculousness of it all, up to and including Mulder's peculiar preference for and use of the infamously grainy Bigfoot footage.

The X-Files works because it deliberately limits the information given to the audience, finally filtering it though the show's primary protagonists. Morgan's episodes approach that construction from the opposite direction, opting instead to focus on those with the knowledge sought by Mulder and Scully. By upsetting the familiar structure and narrative rhythms of the show, these episodes, taken as a whole, don't so much deconstruct The X-Files universe as create a separate, uniquely funny one.

Rhys Darby David Duchovny Brian Huskey and Gillian Anderson in The X-Files

The Truth Is Out There, and It's Disappointing

Morgan's episodes frequently change the refrain of œI want to believe to œI know. They present the truth not as some indefinable endpoint doggedly pursued by the show's two leads, but as something far more tangible and, ultimately, disappointingly absurd. The best of Morgan's work walks a fine line between challenging the structural formality of the series and expressing a thinly veiled contempt for it ” or at least certain aspects of it, like Mulder himself, or the idea that there is some greater purpose or fulfillment in finding the œTruth.

But what the episodes understand and convey so well is what drives people like Mulder to seek the œTruth is often an attempt to avoid his own loneliness and the sense that the world around him is increasingly chaotic and is not presided over or controlled by some knowable truth. That is evident in Jose Chung's' twisty narrative which offers numerous conflicting first-person accounts, some of which are from people under extreme duress and hypnosis, to those experiencing madness-bordering fanaticism. Everyone explains their belief differently, but their reasons for doing so are pretty much the same.

The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat' takes this idea in a different direction, suggesting that the truth is no longer of any consequence to the average person because they will believe what they want to believe regardless the facts. And when faced with the truth, as Mulder supposedly is when Reggie recounts their final case together, it obliterates his sense of purpose. The truth is out there and it's inevitably going to disappoint and enrage people who fill their lives chasing the supposed truth of conspiracy theories.

They Understand The X-Files Pop Culture Legacy Better Than Most

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny in The X-Files

œThe Truth Is Out There and œI Want to Believe are as instantly recognizable pieces of The X-Files as Mark Snow's eerie theme music. They are elements that have come to have a life of their own in the pop culture lexicon. Over the past 25 years, Chris Carter's TV series has gone from Friday-night supernatural procedural to pop culture sensation, complete with its own feature film franchise, line of comic books, novels, and more to weirdly relevant revival series. And Morgan's episodes are most capable of pulling from the show's own twisty mythology, legacy, and seat in the echelons of popular culture to create something so weirdly self-aware.

This is best demonstrated in Jose Chung's From Outer Space'' and The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat', both of which were more about The X-Files as a television series and cultural artifact than anything else written by Morgan. There is an aspect of this in Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster', like the meta-joke of Mulder's ringtone, but that episode wasn't as focused on the show itself. Jose Chung's' and Forehead Sweat', however, are more interested with understanding what the show is by means of questioning the intent of its own (entertainingly) convoluted mythology, the pointlessness of conspiracy theories, and even the obsessiveness of the show's audience.

That idea gets turned around again in Forehead Sweat', which, yes, takes a pointed jab at Trump's racist rhetoric and the idea of fake news, but that's just the stuff that's easy to spot on the surface. What's more interesting is the way in which, like Jose Chung's', the episode rails against the boundaries of The X-Files itself, and in effect becomes (because it has to) part of a different show altogether. That's the consequence of doing episodes like this, but the upside is an accumulation of characters and story structures that results in Morgan inadvertently creating his own X-Files universe.

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The X-Files continues next Wednesday with Ghouli' @8pm on FOX.