My Struggle

"My Struggle" is the first episode of the of . It first aired in the United States on January 24, 2016. Written and directed by series creator , My Struggle marks the return of the series in thirteen years, which re-introduced the arc.
‘My Struggle’ is the first installment of a four-part mythology arc story. This instalment focuses on Fox Mulder’s personal struggle. 
== Synopsis ==
Thirteen years after the original series run, the next mind-bending chapter of the thrilling series THE X-FILES has arrived. FOX MULDER (David Duchovny) and DANA SCULLY (Gillian Anderson) have been contacted by TAD O’MALLEY (guest star Joel McHale), a popular conspiracy theorist 
web-TV show host who believes he has uncovered a significant government conspiracy. With the assistance of FBI Asst. Dir. WALTER SKINNER (Mitch Pileggi), O’Malley seeks to enlist the help of former X-Files agents Mulder and Scully, who have since severed ties with the FBI. Through 
O’Malley they are introduced to SVETA (guest star Annett Mahendru), a possible alien abductee who shares shocking information with them that will challenge everything that Mulder has ever believed about the existence of aliens and the government’s role in covering them up. “My 
Struggle,” the premiere episode of THE X-FILES http://www.spoilertv.com/2015/11/the-x-files-episode-1001-my-struggle.html
==Summary==
Roswell, July 1947
A doctor approaches a downed UFO. The military discovers an alien and shoots it dead in cold blood. The doctor carries the corpse away to research the body.
Washington D.C., 2016.
Dr. prepares for a surgery when she receives an urgent call from . She contacts and requests he attend a meeting with Tad O'Malley on Skinner's request.
After earning a certain amount of their respect for his appreciation of alien phenomenon, O'Malley, a conspiracy theorist host of a popular TV and web series, takes them to the house of Sveta, a woman who claims to have memories of her many abductions. She claims that she was pregnant many times and they took her babies.
While Scully examines Sveta to see if she contains traces of alien DNA, O'Malley shows Mulder a fully functional alien craft inside a warehouse. He demonstrates that it can go entirely invisible.
Mulder visits Sveta and asks her about her alien abductions. She corrects him and tells him that it was very clearly humans who abducted her. He contacts Scully and tells her that their entire decade on the X-Files was a ruse and all part of an even larger government conspiracy.
Mulder visits his old basement office at the FBI office. Skinner enters and a frustrated Mulder rants about his entire time on the X-files being a waste of time. Skinner tells him he's one of the best agents he's ever worked with. Meanwhile, Scully tests both her and Sveta's genome for any alien DNA.
Mulder meets an old man in an empty park. The man, who contacted Mulder in 2006, will only confirm or deny conspiracies Mulder discovers, but will not lead him in any particular direction. Mulder shares the early forms of his latest conspiracy with the man who confirms most of his thoughts, adding "Roswell was a smoke screen."
At Sveta's house Mulder shares his conspiracy with Scully, O'Malley, and Sveta: that the nuclear weapons used and tested during World War 2 attracted aliens to earth. Humans captured their biology and technology for research purposes. Over the past 70 years a conspiracy of scientists and powerful individuals conducted experiments on humans using the alien technology in preparation of a takeover of the entire planet. O'Malley added to the conspiracy, saying that in recent years the increase of government surveillance, consumerism, and gluttony are purposefully desensitizing the world against the possibility of the conspiracy. The ultimate outcome of the conspiracy is to use the alien technology to grasp power over the entire population of the world, no matter the human casualties.
Sveta agrees to go public with the information. Scully thinks it is dangerous treasonous ravings.
The next day, Sveta is interviewed by the press and says that she was paid by O'Malley to spread rumors of her abductions. Men raid the warehouse with the craft and destroy it using explosives. Scully tries to look up O'Malley's website to discover that it has been taken down. Scully and Mulder talk and he is furious that the conspiracy got to both of them. Scully tells him that she's found that her DNA was tampered with so she is ready to pursue the conspiracy.
Walter Skinner texts both Scully and Mulder and requests to see them immediately.
In a remote area near her house, Sveta's car stalls on the street at night. A craft appears overhead and causes her vehicle, with Sveta inside, to explode.
A man receives a phone call. As an assistant puts a cigarette to his tracheostomy tube, the reveals to his mysterious audience that he has bad news: The X-Files have been re-opened.
==Background Information==
*This episode marked the first broadcast of The X-Files to air on the Fox Network in nearly 14 years, since the conclusion of season 9 back in 2002.
*This episode marks the first appearance by as since "The Truth".
*This is the first episode since the finale episode "Requiem" to not feature as .
*This is the first episode since the episode "Alone" to not feature Annabeth Gish as .
*There are a few elements of the plot that are presented as new to both and that have been covered extensively in the series prior to this. The idea of alien abductions being a smokescreen and UFO sightings part of a disinformation campaign has been explored in the episodes E.B.E., 731, the Redux trilogy, Patient X, The Red and the Black, and several others. 's account is very similar to the one given in this episode, yet Mulder makes no mention of these previous claims and acts as if this is new information. The concept of abductees grafted with alien DNA was likewise covered in numerous episodes, and the idea that all humans shared genetic similarities with the alien colonists was explicitly stated in The Beginning.
*This episode shows a return to the original opening titles used between and but now modified to include a credit for .
*In the Season 5 premiere "Redux", Scully discovered that she had the same DNA as that from the unclassified chimera cells found in the ice core sample.  Also, at the end of the Season 6 premiere "The Beginning", she stated that everyone has a genetic remnant or junk DNA that matches DNA found in the alien claw and the alien virus.  Now, in this episode, the fact that she has alien DNA is treated as a new discovery. There are some possible explanations for this. Mulder's belief that the alien body found in the ice was a hoax due to what Kritschgau showed him may have caused Scully to doubt that the unclassified chimera cells found in the ice score sample were alien. It is a rare instance when Mulder is the skeptic and Scully is the believer other than the cases that deal specifically with Scully's Catholic faith. Also, in the Season 6 finale "Biogenesis" and the Season 7 premiere "The Sixth Extinction" Mulder had headaches and gained telepathic abilities when the alien artifact reactivated the alien black oil virus that he had been infected with even though both he and Scully had been infected with the alien black oil virus at different points in time and they were both given the vaccine. This continued until "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" when the Cigarette Smoking Man (believing that Mulder had become an alien hybrid) has the alien genetic material surgically removed from Mulder's brain to be implanted into his own brain so that he would survive the alien apocalypse. Subsequently, in the Season 7 finale "Requiem", it is Mulder and not Scully who is abducted. This may have added to Scully's doubt that she had alien DNA.
*Scully sequences her genome and confirms that she has alien DNA. Mulder however does not have alien DNA even though the alien black oil virus that was once in him had threatened to turn him into an alien super soldier in "DeadAlive". This seems to be because Scully had used a combination of antiviral drugs to kill the alien virus in him.
===Continuity Errors===
* In the series finale, "The Truth", agents and found Mulder's office emptied with Dogget taking and rolling the famous "I want to believe" poster from the floor. But in this episode, the poster is seen still on the floor.
===Cast and Characters===
*Hiro Kanagawa (Garner) previously played Peter Tanaka in episode "Firewalker", Yung in the Millennium episode "522666", Dr. Yonechi in "Synchrony" and Team Member Lewis in "The Time is Now", Detective Rondell in "Human Essence", Shopkeeper in "Bardo Thodol" and Business Man in "Bond, Jimmy Bond".
*Gardiner Millar (Man in Suit) previously played Eugene Baiocchi in episode "Schizogeny" and Mr. Otto in the Millennium episodes "Luminary", "Owls" and "Roosters".
==Cast==
Starring
* as 
* as 
* as 
Guest Starring
*Joel McHale as Tad O'Malley (First appearance)
*Annet Mahendru as Sveta
*Giacomo Baessato as Doctor
*Hiro Kanagawa as Garner
*Rance Howard as Old Doctor
* as the 
Co-Starring
*Gardiner Millar as Man in Suit
*Aliza Vellani as Sandeep
*Shaker Paleja as O.R. Surgeon
*Sandy Da Costa as 
*Nneka Croal as Squad Leader
==References and Footnotes==
== External Links ==
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=Episode Navigation=
Category:The X-Files episodes
Category:Mythology episodes
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