e are now at the penultimate episode of the eleventh season of The X Files, so welcome to my last but one review of this season.
This season has quite literally flown by and we know that there will be another season in 2020, but we don't yet know if Scully will or won't be returning.
She has confirmed before the eleventh season aired that she would be leaving, but in what capacity and circumstances would that happen. without further ado, let's get underway with this episode.
In New York, two surgeons harvest a man of his organs in a makeshift operating theatre, fundamentally killing him. The operation is then interrupted by a young woman named Juliet (Carlena Britch), who kills them driving metal spikes through their chests. She secures most of the organs and delivers them to a nearby hospital with a message: 'I will repay'.
Mulder and Scully follow up the case as the evidence suggests a ritual killing. The police disregard Mulder's speculation and believe the murders to be related to an organ theft ring, highlighting that one of the surgeons had his medical liscence revoked and was an associate of the Russian mafia. Scully confirms all legal donations have been accounted for, while Mulder has found no trace of illegal trails on the dark web. Mulder links the killers message to a passage in the Bible then notices that iron bars matching the murder weapon's distinctive shape have been removed from the church fence.
A conversation with a priest leads them to Juliet, who tells the agents her sister Olivia (Micaela Aquilera) joined a cult. Meanwhile, the missing organs are taken to the home of reclusive TV star, Barbara Beaumont (Fiona Vroom) and her partner Dr. Randolph Luvenis (Jere Burns). Beamont has formed a cult which consumes human organs in order to slow the aging process. She's eighty-five but appears to be thirty.
The effects are only temporary leading Luvenis to surgically conjoin himself to others, parasitically feeding off them to reverse his age. They feed organs to their followers planning to conjoin them to Barbara in the hopes of giving her eternal youth, however, tensions rise when the organs are not enough to feed the cult. As Luvenis leaves to steal the remaining organs from the hospital, a cult member offers himself as a sacrifice to sustain the others. After he stabs himself, he's devoured alive.
Knowing that the stolen organs will never be used in a transplant, the agents arrange for a tracking device to be placed in a heart for Luvenis to retrieve. They follow the signal to Beaumont's house and attempt to gain access, unaware of Juliet's presence. Luvenis, who by this point has been suffering accelerated ageing without a host, undergoes surgery to attach himself to Olivia. Once in the house, the agents are overpowered by Beaumont's followers, who throw Scully down an elevator shaft.
Mulder is rescued by Juliet, who kills Beaumont with a metal stake to the chest. Beaumont's death upsets her followers, allowing Mulder and Scully to escape. As he tries to locate Scully in the basement, Mulder is confronted by Luvenis, whose appearance seems to be that of a younger, stronger man, after being conjoined with Olivia.
Everything then works out for the better - Juliet ends up killing Luvenis, Olivia also dies with Luvenis as she's now conjoined with him, Juliet surrenders to Mulder and Scully is found to be safe, having been cushioned by trash thrown away by the cult. In the aftermath, Mulder and Scully return to the church. Mulder acknowledges the power of faith, suggesting that his atheism is because he does not need faith rather than because of a lack of it.
I feel that this was a good episode and a good place to leave off before the final episode (My Struggle IV). They tackle religion vs science right from the very beginning of the show and what I find is that, it's executed very well. I give the episode a very good 7 out of 10. Stay tuned for the final episode next week.
