Well, Mulder is Jewish, so… comments, probably…
The X-Files captured the zeitgeist: “The end of history,” remember? The fall of the Berlin Wall and all? America (supposedly) had no more real enemies, so The X-Files dutifully presented alternatives: aliens, “monsters of the week,” and rogue intelligence operatives—the operative word for said operatives being “rogue.” Because with a baby-boomer Democrat in the White House, one whose crimes were deemed fodder for punchlines rather than impeachment—come on: It was just a blow job, and those Waco nuts got what they deserved, right?—Government was kinda sorta…cool. And so it came to pass that post–Watergate & Woodstock America fervently embraced two clean-cut, besuited, chivalric-ly celibate FBI agents as pop culture heroes, like it was 1935 but with flip phones.
(Remember: The 1990s also gave us the equally pure-of-heart and widely beloved Agents Clarice Starling and Dale Cooper. I presume that sometime thereabouts, J. Edgar Hoover stopped turning over in his grave…)
PS: Last night’s episode had a cute touch. Did you notice it?
I still say the “whale” line…
Fair enough, but surely “Small Potatoes” should be on here:
