“My Struggle IV” is episode ten of season eleven of The X-Files and the season finale.
The episode begins with a narration by a boy who says he was named Jackson when he was adopted 17 years ago, but later discovered that the name his mother gave him was William. He talks about his early life and that, as he got older, he discovered he had powers, powers that led to him having to change schools many times over the years. Eventually, he essentially became criminal, and was sent away, where he played jokes on psychiatrists until men from the government came to see him and he returned home and started playing it straight.
Until, in the events of “Ghouli”, he played a joke on two girls and men from the government killed his adoptive parents and are hunting him. William knows that he can trust his mother, but he hates his father, a man he has only seen in visions. His father not being Mulder, as the Smoking Man revealed in “My Struggle III” , but the Smoking Man himself.
Then the Smoking Man is talking to Mulder, pointing a gun at him, saying that he never envisioned a time that he would have to kill his son, Mulder. Mulder says that he doesn’t think he can do it, but we hear a gunshot.
The opening credits phrase this episode is ‘Salvator Mundi’ – Latin for ‘Saviour of the World.’
Mulder is at a motel looking for a William. Skinner is being questioned by Kersh about Mulder’s claim regarding a contagion, and the Tad O’Malley Show. Kersh is not happy; he wants the X-Files shut down and Mulder and Scully’s badges. As Skinner leaves, he gets a call from the Smoking Man, the latter saying that he is going to deliver on his promise to unleash a global contagion. He just wants Skinner to find William.
Scully approaches Skinner after the call and asks for his help with Mulder and William, as they are being pursued. Skinner says that helping them is a problem, given that he is under orders to shut them down after Mulder made outrageous statements on an internet site. Scully says that it was her, not Mulder, that made the statements, and that they are not outrageous.
Skinner asks where Mulder and William are, then it goes back 16 hours, when Scully receives a call from Monica Reyes saying that they have William, and that this is the last good chance to get William. Because whoever controls William controls the future. And Reyes seems to be keeping secrets from the Smoking Man. Scully doesn’t believe that William is on the plane as stated by Reyes – she seems to have a connection with him – but Mulder goes anyway, just in case.
William is being hunted, but he hasn’t been caught yet. Mulder is still looking for him, as are others. Much of the episode is spent catching up to the point where Scully asks for Skinner’s help, then most of the rest to where the Smoking Man is confronting Mulder with a gun.
No true cliff-hanger ending, so will there be another season?
There’s a special guest star in this episode, West Duchovny, David Duchovny‘s daughter.