THE X-FILES Sure, Mulder. Your cool new look is really cool.
  • THE X-FILES "Sure, Mulder. Your 'cool new look' is 'really cool.'"

As noted in "The X-Files Is Back, and It Brought Along a Monster Who Shoots Blood Out Its Eyeball," the title of which I'm still very proud of, The X-Files has finally returned to TV, with its first episode airing last night. Its second episode airs tonight, and its third is next Monday, settling the six-episode miniseries into a Monday night time slot. So! Guess what everybody who knows me is going to have to listen to me babble about every Tuesday!

Last night was "My Struggle." A few quick thoughts:

• Truthers are creepy now. Back in the '90s, conspiracy theorists were kinda weird, kinda fun nut jobs. Like Mulder, or your uncle! But post-9/11—and in a country that feels broken down the middle—conspiracy theorists are creepy wackos. People ranting about conspiracies these days usually aren't just sad, overly imaginative weirdos—they're militia members, gun nuts, and conservative demagogues. Last night's X-Files wasn't... great*, but its most interesting stuff played off of America's cultural shift: In the '90s, Mulder's go-to conspiracy buddies were the lovable nerds who called themselves the Lone Gunmen; in 2016, Mulder finds himself in an awkward team-up with conservative blowhard Tad O'Malley (Joel McHale), who preaches on not-YouTube about how the government's coming for everybody's guns. There was no way series creator Chris Carter could ignore that anti-government paranoia has migrated from the American fringe to the American mainstream, but it remains to be seen how well the show's conspiracy elements can hold up in a very different political culture.

• A lot of stuff blew up in this episode! For better or worse (worse), this episode felt more like the X-Files movies than anything else—a lot of rushed exposition, a lot of dramatic-but-confusing allegations, and a lot of things going KA-BOOM, with the whole thing feeling both frantic and underwhelming. Don't get me wrong: I like explosions as much as anybody. But The X-Files' best episodes are usually the quieter, more focused ones. Last night's episode had a bunch of cool, expensive stuff in it (that alien replica vehicle! the Roswell flashbacks! especially that shot of the alien crawling away from the wreckage!), but I could do with fewer effects and more Mulder/Scully banter. Which leads me to....

• Mulder and Scully are still great. After rewatching the original series, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson's chemistry (of both the platonic and non-platonic varieties) reveals itself to be the one utterly unfuckwithable element of all things X-Files. And it's still here in this episode—or at least it is when Carter backs off the conspiracy stuff and just lets his two stars just be Mulder and Scully. Even if "My Struggle" (the title of which, as Devin Faraci points out, just might be worth thinking about) was a clunky return, having these two back together makes even a lousy X-Files watchable.

Tonight's episode, "Founder's Mutation," is, Dirk will be glad to know, an improvement over the first. And then, next week? Well, next week is "Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster," which is so much fun that it'll make everybody glad they stuck around despite last night's conspiracy gibberish. And that one lady's gross stomach scoop scars. Stomach scoop scars are gross.

*"It was fucking terrible. You said they get better, right? They better get better." —Mercury News Editor Dirk VanderHart, angrily, to me, 10 minutes ago