The X-Files season 11 episode 4 live stream: Watch online
The X-Files looks like it will get back into strange, hyper form with “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat”, airing this Wednesday.
If you’ve been craving the hyper-reality of previous X-Files episodes, like “The Post-Modern Prometheus” or “Hollywood A.D.”, then it looks like you’re in luck. The fourth episode of season 11, “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat”, looks like it’s going to be a real doozy.
Don’t let the vaguely repellent name throw you off just yet. This episode was written and directed by Darin Morgan, whose dark, humorous work earned him a place as one of The X-Files’ best writers.
In fact, he won an Emmy for “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”, the fourth episode of the third season. The episode also starred Peter Boyle, who won an Emmy for his role as the sad sack psychic, Clyde Bruckman.
Morgan also wrote one of my personal favorite episode, “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”. That one, in particular, is hard to describe, but it’s like if Rashomon, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Simpsons raised a very odd child together.
So, hopes are high that “The Lost Art of Forehead” sweat will showcase some of Morgan’s talents. His best work combines dark humor with a poignant empathy. If we’re lucky, all of those weird red-string maps behind Mulder will lead to laughs and an emotional payoff.
Here’s the synopsis for “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat”, courtesy of TV Guide:
"Exploring the idea of the Mandela Effect, in which large groups of people remember an alternate history, Mulder and Scully learn how the X-Files themselves may have originated."
At least the episode’s synopsis makes more sense than its title.
The notion of the “Mandela Effect” could complicate things to an extreme level. Will Mulder and Scully’s recollection of the X-Files be correct? Will we learn that they’ve been wrong all along? Or, could it be that shifting perceptions make it all so complicated that it doesn’t matter?
Here is when and where you can watch “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat”:
"Date: Wednesday, Jan. 24Start time: 8 p.m. ETEpisode: “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat”TV Channel: FOXLive Stream: Stream 1 | Stream 2"
Given Morgan’s previous work, are we going to come out of this laughing, crying, or a bit of both? Matters of perception (or, dare we dream, time travel) are rich grounds for all of those emotions.