“The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” is episode four of season eleven of The X-Files.
This episode opens in black and white. A man is saying that he hasn’t gone crazy, the world has gone mad and it has been invaded by Martians. He’s sitting in a diner talking to the cook, who asks what the Martians are like. The man says that they have big heads and a special ray that makes people forget what they saw. The man then says he just saw a Martian through the window – the cook says that it wasn’t a window, but a mirror. The man goes to the mirror and sees himself as a Martian with a big head – and multiple arms. Then the cook takes off his hat and reveals that he is a Martian as well.
After the credits and it’s back in colour. Bigfoot enters a room where the phone is ringing and answers it. Scully is on the other end – Bigfoot is Mulder. He has been wandering around in nature as Bigfoot to get away from the craziness. Mulder starts telling Scully one of his stories about Bigfoot but she has heard it before and hangs up.
Mulder falls asleep and wakes up. There’s a sign that shows someone wants to contact him, and Mulder goes and meets a strange man in a garage. The man tells Mulder that his memory has been erased, and that a Twilight Zone episode, “The Lost Martian” – the scene from the beginning – that Mulder remembers doesn’t exist. And never did. Another man is heard coming, the man from the clip it appears, and then the first man disappears followed by the second.
Back home, Mulder can’t find the Twilight Zone episode mentioned. He can’t find a mention of it online or anywhere else – it’s a classic episode yet it doesn’t exist. So Mulder is also going through his tapes looking to see if he recorded it at some point. It was Mulder’s first Twilight Zone episode, and he remembers seeing it – so we see a clip of Mulder’s head on a child’s body.
Then Scully, as she’s heading to her car, gets confronted by the same man. He says people are trying to erase him and gives Scully something. As two people approach, the man runs off, then he and the approaching men disappear when Scully’s back is turned. The box is a type of jello that Scully remembers making, but no-one else knows it exists. Mulder says that his fake memory is real but Scully’s is not. Even though there is a box. So Mulder and Scully go to meet the man, Reggie. Reggie Something – he can’t remember his last name.
Reggie started looking into things, as his memories didn’t match up with reality. A shop owner says that many people are suffering from the same thing, and Reggie says the government is covering things up, changing history. Scully does not agree. Mulder suggests a parallel universe instead (this is, I think, theoretical in some parts of quantum physics). Reggie and Scully object to this idea. Reggie says that They then decided to erase him from existence.
A lot of talking, some clips from early episodes and discussions on the nature of conspiracies, the loss of the ability to tell the difference between real and fake and some slightly hidden asides on current politics, together with scattered bits of changed information. A rather weird episode.