The X-Files season 11 episode 5 preview: Ghouli
The latest episode of The X-Files, “Ghouli,” airs this Wednesday. What does Mulder and Scully’s son have to do with two monstrous teenage girls?
Being a teenager is a strange time for most people. It’s not just that your body is changing — so is your brain. Your perceptions of yourself, of the people and the world around you are all changing. Sometimes, it may feel like everything’s turned in an instant. What you thought was certain and true can crumble at the lightest touch.
The newly hatched inner workings of your brain sometimes frighten and confuse the adults around you. You, certainly, may not understand exactly what’s happening inside. It’s enough to make anyone think they’re utterly strange.
Now, imagine all of that everyday drama, but you are also a teenager in the world of The X-Files. You are changing, and the people around you are, but it’s not just a matter of perception. You might really be an alien, to start.
Then again, maybe your friend really is a monster. Not just a monster in the emotional sense, but one with fur, or sharp teeth, or supernatural powers. The matter of who you’re dating or whether or not you’ll pass your driver’s test must seem tiny in comparison.
It’s not clear how much this sense of teenage angst will be in the forefront of “Ghouli,” the fifth episode of The X-Files’ 11th season. According to the episode synopsis, two teenage girls attack one another, each believing that their opponent is a monster. Somehow, this all leads back to William.
That’s William Scully, long-lost son of Dana Scully and (maybe) Fox Mulder. William also may or may not have alien and/or government conspiracist DNA. Even if he doesn’t, his birth was somewhat miraculous. After an alien abduction and subsequent brush with cancer, Scully believed that she was infertile. The arrival of baby William, however, proved to be an exception.
We last saw William clearly as an infant headed off to adoptive parents, his potential superhuman identity concealed. We can hope that he’s got a good relationship with them, at the very least.
We’ve since seen a very blurry young man via Scully’s visions, who we can reasonably assume is William. Will we finally get a chance to see him without a filter over the camera lens? Will more be revealed about his genetic makeup?
Next: The X-Files season 11 episode 4 recap and review: The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat
Moreover, what’s up with the apparent psychic link between William and his mother? We saw bits of this on the first episode of season 11, “My Struggle III”. Will there be more of this in “Ghouli”? How, exactly, this ties in with two teenage girls suffering a psychotic delusion (or not) remains to be seen.
“Ghouli” airs Wednesday on FOX, at 8:00 p.m. ET.