"The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" is the second episode of the seventh season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It was directed by Michael Watkins and written by lead actor David Duchovny and series creator Chris Carter. The installment explores the series' overarching mythology and concludes a trilogy of episodes revolving around Fox Mulder's (Duchovny) severe reaction to an alien artifact. Originally aired by the Fox network on November 14, 1999, "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" received a Nielsen rating of 10.1 and was seen by 16.15 million viewers. Initial reviews were mixed, and the plot and dialogue attracted criticism. Later critics viewed the episode in a more positive light, and several writers named it among the best in the series.
The X-Files centers on Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents Mulder and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, and the skeptical Scully was initially assigned to debunk his work, but the two have developed a deep friendship. In this episode, Scully returns from Africa to discover Mulder in a coma induced by exposure to shards from an alien spaceship wreck. After Mulder disappears from the hospital, Scully joins former government employee Michael Kritschgau (John Finn) and her boss Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) to search for him. Meanwhile, in a dream, The Smoking Man (William B. Davis) offers Mulder a new life and a fresh start. After conferring with a vision of Scully, Mulder awakens from his coma and realizes his duty to prevent alien colonization.
Carter was interested in the possibility that extraterrestrials were involved in ancient mass extinctions on Earth and used these themes in the episode. Much of the episode was also inspired by Nikos Kazantzakis's novel The Last Temptation of Christ, and a scene showing an operation on Mulder has been thematically compared to the Crucifixion of Jesus. For the dream sequences, casting director Rick Millikan brought back many actors and actresses who had been absent from the show for several years, including Jerry Hardin as Deep Throat, Rebecca Toolan as Teena Mulder, and Megan Leitch as Samantha Mulder.
Synopsis Background
In the sixth-season finale "Biogenesis", FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate an artifact inscribed with Navajo writing found in Côte d'Ivoire. While examining it in Washington, D.C., Mulder hears ringing sounds and suffers severe headaches. He turns to Agent Diana Fowley (Mimi Rogers), his former partner, for help before his mental health rapidly deteriorates and he is transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Meanwhile, Scully heads to New Mexico to ask a dying Albert Hosteen (Floyd Red Crow Westerman) to translate what is on the artifact: he discovers that the item includes passages from the Bible, and a map of the human genome.Meisler (2000), pp. 279–290.
In the seventh season premiere "The Sixth Extinction", Scully journeys to Côte d'Ivoire and discovers a wrecked alien spacecraft. After she examines the artifacts, she begins to believe that they hold the key to all of life's mysteries. Meanwhile, Mulder slips into a coma, and Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) enlists the help of former Department of Defense agent Michael Kritschgau (John Finn) to determine what is wrong with him. The two discover that while Mulder's condition has made him unresponsive, it has given him telepathic powers. Scully, working in Africa, witnesses several strange events relating to the spacecraft before returning to Washington.Shapiro (2000), pp. 7–16.
Plot Teena Mulder (Rebecca Toolan) and The Smoking Man (William B. Davis) visit a still-hospitalized Mulder. After administering a drug that alleviates his paralysis, the Smoking Man reveals himself to be Mulder's father and takes him from the hospital. Meanwhile, Kritschgau visits Scully and claims that Mulder's contact with the artifact has reawakened the extraterrestrial black oil with which he was infected three years previously; because he is infected with the virus, Mulder is proof of alien life. Skinner, who has been looking for Mulder, tells Scully that Mulder's mother signed him out of the hospital.
The Smoking Man takes Mulder to an unfamiliar neighborhood; inside a new home, he finds his former informant Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin), who claims to have faked his own death to escape the burden he was under by being a part of the Syndicate and suggests that Mulder do the same. Mulder meets Fowley, and the two have sex.
On the hospital security tapes, Scully sees Mulder's mother talking to the Smoking Man but is unable to contact her. She receives a package containing a book on Native American spiritual beliefs, which describes how one man will prevent the impending apocalypse. Again visiting Kritschgau, she notices he has a stolen copy of her information on the wrecked spacecraft. After he admits hacking her computer, she deletes the files from his laptop.
Mulder is reunited with his sister Samantha (Megan Leitch) in his new life. He marries Fowley and they have children. The years pass quickly; he grows older and Fowley dies. Mulder is revealed to be dreaming everything: in reality he is in a government facility being tended to by doctors while the Smoking Man and Fowley watch. The Smoking Man is preparing to have portions of Mulder's cranial tissue—which have been infected by the alien virus—implanted into himself. During the operation, he admits that he believes that Mulder has become an alien-human hybrid, and that by taking Mulder's genetic material he alone will survive the coming alien invasion.
Mulder becomes an old man in his dream, accompanied by an unaging Smoking Man who tells him that Fowley, Deep Throat, Samantha and Scully have all died. The Smoking Man looks out the window, revealing an alien-induced holocaust. Back in reality, Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea) kills Kritschgau, burns his papers and steals his laptop. Scully, having earlier been visited by Hosteen's spirit, awakens in her apartment to discover that someone has slipped a security card under her door. Using it, she enters the facility where Mulder is being held. In Mulder's dream, Scully meets him at his bedside and convinces him to break with his imaginary life. In reality, Scully finds Mulder and the two escape the facility. A week later, Scully meets Mulder at his apartment and tells him that Fowley has been found murdered. Mulder confides that, during his ordeal, Scully served as his "touchstone".Shapiro (2000), pp. 19–28.
Production Writing
"The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" was written by Duchovny and The X-Files creator Chris Carter, making it Duchovny's second on-screen writing credit, after the sixth-season episode "The Unnatural". He had previously co-developed the second-season finale "Anasazi" with Carter,Lowry (1995), pp. 225–227. and had received a teleplay credit for the third-season episodes "Avatar"Hurwitz and Knowles (2008), pp. 87–89. and "Talitha Cumi".Lowry (1996), pp. 219–222. Duchovny worked on his portion of the script while Carter wrote the season premiere, "The Sixth Extinction". Carter then added his remaining portions to Duchovny's script after finishing his work on the previous episode.Shapiro (2000), pp. 28–29. The tagline that appears in the opening credits for this episode is amor fati. This is a Latin phrase referring to the "love of fate",Donaldson (2007), p. 8. which is an important concept in the philosophical works of Friedrich Nietzsche.Donaldson (2007), pp. 8–9.Nietzsche (2000), p. 714. In the context of the episode, the subtitle has been interpreted by writer Charlton McIlwain in his book When Death Goes Pop: Death, Media & the Remaking of Community as a reference to the love of a predestined life, in this case, Mulder's dream.McIlwain (2005) p. 151. In her scholarly book chapter "The Last Temptation of Mulder", Amy Donaldson suggests the phrase means that Mulder must "love his suffering and passively accept it [and] actively embrace his journey ... and release his spirit to find new vigor."Donaldson (2007), p. 10.
Mulder's dream and decisions in "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" are reminiscent of Jesus's actions in Nikos Kazantzakis's novel The Last Temptation of Christ. Duchovny, a fan of the book, found parallels between its central story and Mulder's ordeal and incorporated many of the novel's concepts into the episode.Shapiro (2000), p. 28. In The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus is torn between his higher calling as the son of God and his desire towards his own humanity. Duchovny was drawn to the fact that Christ's struggle in the novel was "not only godlike, but also profoundly human" and used this template for Mulder; in the series, Mulder is destined towards greater things—in this case, stopping the oncoming alien invasion—but he also desires to have a normal, human life. Duchovny noted: "Mulder is a guy who's been given the same problem [as Jesus]. What I'm doing is using the very human model of Christ". Duchovny cautioned that he was not trying to make Mulder into a Christ-like savior figure but rather "an everyman".Donaldson (2007), p. 4. Executive producer Frank Spotnitz described the concept as a risk, but Duchovny felt that this exploration of Mulder's character was necessary.
Several of the lines in the episode proved difficult for both fans and cast members to embrace. Fans did not readily accept that The Smoking Man was Mulder's father. Davis, who portrayed The Smoking Man, noted that fans did not believe the revelation because "part of the mystique of it was that everybody had their own idea of what was going on."Hurwitz and Knowles (2008), p. 174. The dialogue in the episode proved difficult for Anderson to present believably. She was troubled that her character was arguing against the existence of extraterrestrials, when in the previous episode her character had encountered an alien shipwreck. When she talked to Carter, she said that she did not "know if [she could] do this anymore" because her character was arguing against information that had been confirmed in the first two parts of the episode. Carter explained that there must be conflict between Mulder and Scully for the show's "believer versus skeptic" dynamic to work properly.
The portions of the episode about the alien shard and Mulder's telepathic abilities allude to the ancient astronaut theory, which proposes that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity or prehistory.Hurwitz and Knowles (2008), p. 169. Spotnitz was surprised that the show received few complaints, even though the "Biogenesis"/"The Sixth Extinction"/"Amor Fati" story arc heavily suggested that aliens developed the notions of God and religion.Shapiro (2000), p. 29. He praised the manner in which the show handled this subject, saying, "Often in the past, we've done stuff where I was sure we would get angry letters. But we rarely do. And the reason is because of the way we handle things. In 'Amor Fati' we treated the religious side [of the story] with respect." Spotnitz later identified the combination of science and religion as "a conjunction of science and mysticism, of aliens and religion, that we're starting to develop. It's deliberate on our part, to help bring all the mythologies together into one story line." The ancient astronaut themes were revisited in two season nine episodes: "Provenance" and "Providence".Hurwitz and Knowles (2008), p. 202.
Casting and filming