The X-Files season 11 episode 4 recap and review: The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat

This week, we learned about unstable memories and what aliens really think of humans. All was revealed in “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” on The X-Files.

What’s perception, anyway? No, this isn’t some undergraduate philosophy course where you totally get it, now. Instead, we’re watching The X-Files.

While that shift in perspective can be fun, the modern world has to invade the concept. After all, the flip side of “awe-inspiring questions about reality” is “fake news”. What happens when reality shifts not just inside a classroom, but in a newsroom — or the Oval Office? Our species has always had the knack for fooling itself, to both our comfort and ruin.

Think I’m getting a little too meta? Darin Morgan, the writer, and director for “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” directly linked his work on this episode to the unreality lurching out of the White House.

“The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” opens in throwback black and white, in a similarly vintage diner. An unidentified man is sitting at the diner counter, loudly freaking out about “the Martians.” “They have a ray of some kind that makes us forget,” he exclaims.

THE X-FILES: David Duchovny in the “The Lost Art Of Forehead Sweat” episode of THE X-FILES airing Wednesday, Jan. 24 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2017 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Shane Harvey/FOX

When we return from commercial, it’s to see a huge, shaggy beast. It bursts through a doorway, picks up a phone, and starts to speak to Scully. It’s Mulder. “I was out squatchin’, ” he explains.

Scully hangs up on Mulder when he starts to wax a little too poetic about his time squatching in British Columbia. He then tries to relax on the couch but is revived by the sight of a masking tape X on his window.

Where else to go but to a parking garage? There, Mulder finds a stranger who claims to know him. Never mind that Mulder doesn’t recognize this frantic, sweaty man. “They’ve already gotten to you” the stranger groans.

Before he runs away, this man has to tell Mulder: that episode of The Twilight Zone that Mulder loved so much? You know, the one about the Martians? It never existed.

The Lost Martian

Cut to Mulder, digging through a pile of old VHS tapes. He tells Scully that the episode, “The Lost Martian,” is nowhere to be found. If Mulder can’t find this episode, then could this parking garage stranger just be right?

Soon enough, the man reaches out to Scully. He hands her a box of something called “Goop-o A-B-C”. Later, Scully tells Mulder that “I have such wonderful memories associated with it.” She recalls her mother, the Fourth of July, “America, God, love.”

“That’s some jello,” concludes Mulder.

Mulder realizes that this must be related to the “Mandela effect”. That’s a social phenomenon wherein people remember the past very different. Consider the recent flap concerning the Berenstein Bears… or, wait, was it the Berenstain Bears?

The duo decides to meet with this man, who claims to be “Reggie… Reggie Something.”

It’s hardly a promising start, but Reggie claims to have extensive knowledge of the X-Files. He believes that this Mandela Effect is the result of intentional tampering.

“The ability to manipulate memory creates unlimited power,” he tells them. What company wouldn’t want that ability, especially if it can erase memories of their defective products? One can only imagine how useful that would be in politics, too.

THE X-FILES: L-R: Guest star Dan Zukovic and guest star Alex Diakun in the “The Lost Art Of Forehead Sweat” episode of THE X-FILES airing Wednesday, Jan. 24 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2017 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Shane Harvey/FOX

Dr. They

We cut to a maybe-fake video exalting the history of “Dr. They,” the man from the photo. He was the one that developed this memory-tampering method for the government.

Reggie eventually recalls that he was a medical student in Grenada, where he witnessed a real-life Martian recovered by the government. “Now we’re dealing with recovered memories? I’m sorry, I’m out,” says Scully, who starts to retreat.

Oh, but that’s not all. See, Reggie later joined the FBI. “That’s how I started the X-Files. That’s right: we used to be partners!” he shouts.

We then revisit the X-Files of days past. Now, however, Reggie is there. He’s installing a new poster, being sexist to Scully, and commenting on liver-loving Eugene Tooms. The X-Files now has a Cousin Oliver, it seems.

“I’m Fox freaking Mulder!”

Scully and Mulder still don’t believe it — but then Dr. They’s henchmen show up. They’re followed by other FBI agents, who stop to sass Mulder and Scully. “I guess that’s how things go,” says one, looking Mulder up and down. “You start out a rebel. But then, you get fat. And the next thing you know, you’re deep state. Sad.”

“I’m Fox freaking Mulder!” he yells at them, but it’s no use.

How does Mulder unwind after such a mind-bending, soul-crushing assault? With a crazy conspiracy theory board, of course. It’s not enough, unfortunately. “The world has become too crazy for even my conspiratorial powers,” he moans.

Thankfully, Dr. They himself calls at that very moment. At his meeting with Mulder, Dr. They says that Mulder’s time has passed. He was at his peak “when people in power thought they could keep their secrets secret”. Alas, times are different now. “We’re now living in a post-coverup, post-conspiracy age.”

Isn’t it enough that the truth gets out? Of course not! No one knows what “truth” is anymore. “Believe what you want to believe,” Dr. They tells him. “That’s just what everybody does nowadays, anyway”.

Reginald Murgatroyd

If that weren’t enough, Reggie isn’t all that he seems. “His name is Reginald Murgatroyd,” Scully reveals. According to her research, Reggie received a head injury in Grenada while in the Army.

He later joined the CIA and waterboarded people in his cubicle. If that wasn’t dark enough, he later joins the Department of Defense. There, he bombs people with a video game stick, lamely whining when he discovers that he has torched yet another wedding. It’s like Office Space from hell.

Eventually, he dully works his way through the NSA, where he monitors Mulder and Scully. It all leads to a nervous breakdown, quickly followed by institutionalization for poor, complicit Reggie.

Reggie calmly goes with the mental asylum crew that’s tracked him down. But, before Reggie goes, Mulder needs to know: what was their last case together? “We found the truth that’s out there,” Reggie tells him.

Don’t get too excited, though.

A beautiful wall

It turns out that the trio — Scully, Mulder and Reggie — meet up with a Martian. “Our study is complete. We no longer wish to have any contact with you” says the alien.

The alien claims that they will be building a “beautiful” wall to keep the humans out of the rest of the galaxy. Oof.

Why the exile? “You’re not sending us your best people. You’re bringing drugs”. We’re also “bringing crime… And some, I assume, are good people”.

Mulder is crestfallen. “So, that’s the truth? We’re not alone in the universe? But nobody likes us?”

After Mulder falls to the ground in despair, the trio hug like a strange family. In the “real” world, Reggie motors off in the ambulance and out of their lives.

Skinner appears out of a nearby stairwell, looking in confusion at the ambulance. “Where the hell are they taking Reggie?” he asks. Perhaps that’s a mystery best left for another time, Skinner.

Later, Mulder has apparently found “The Lost Martian” episode. It was actually an installment from another show called “The Dusky Realm”. She serves him her not-jello, which she molded with Mulder’s treasured Sasquatch foot impression. May we all have this beautiful relationship.

But then she sets down her spoon, gelatin left quivering and uneaten. “I want to remember how it was. I want to remember how it all was,” she says.

THE X-FILES: L-R: Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny in the “The Lost Art Of Forehead Sweat” episode of THE X-FILES airing Wednesday, Jan. 24 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2017 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Shane Harvey/FOX

The verdict

This is, so far, the best episode of season 11. “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” balances the craziness of the best standalone episodes with the world-weary empathy of Clyde Bruckman.

What of the politics? This episode was willing to go for the political jugular in a way that “My Struggle III” could only grasp at. The first episode of season 11 subsisted on mere flashes of news footage. Here, Dr. They wears a MAGA hat at Trump’s inauguration while clutching to the Washington Monument. It’s both ominous and ridiculous — just like current news.

Next: The X-Files season 11 episode 3 recap and review: Plus One

This feels relevant but in a thoughtful, substantial way. It’s not so topical so that it just skims the surface, like so many news photos or catchphrases. Instead, this episode all speaks to the large, tides turning in our society. Even better, however, is the way in which it’s all thrown back in our face with equal measures of harshness and absurdity.

Somehow, it’s easier to take a joke about that terrible wall when it’s coming from a 1950s sci-fi alien. Is that because it is only the next step up from the Dadaist political experiment cluttering our newsfeeds?

Are there shaky elements? Sure. Maybe the alien’s “wall” speech was a little on-the-nose. Meanwhile, we could have gotten a little more interaction with Dr. They. It might have worked a little better to interact with him on a couple of occasions, instead of one strange encounter in a public park.

Ultimately, though, these are quibbles. “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” manages to balance modern fears and post-modern humor with grace. It’s an hour well spent.