The File Room

5.18 - The Pine Bluff Variant

This week Michaela reveals a big life change ahead, AI tries to turn Ed's D&D campaign into a business memo, and we discuss 'The Pine Bluff Variant', an episode of The X-Files with more double-agent turns than the last series of The Traitors*.
 
 
*or what I'd assume. Paul only made me watch the last episode.

5.17 - All Souls

The X-Files abruptly remembers that Scully's daughter died and tries to examine her grief through the prism of a case involving angels, with mixed results. Michaela and Ed try to make sense of it all, while also discussing video stores and spoiling the hell out of the forgotten Robert Pattinson vehicle Remember Me and the novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh, so consider this a spoiler warning.

5.16 - Mind's Eye

A major milestone in the UK year has been met with celebrations, meanwhile Ed has joined the Flimsy Wrist Brigade... Is this episode of the X Files a blinder? Did we see too much? 

5.15 - Travelers

Like R.E.M., The X-Files is exhuming McCarthy this week in an episode that goes back to the 1950s, an era of paranoia and persecution, when absolute psychopaths ran the American government. Hard to imagine such a thing, right? Michaela and Ed also talk about Ed "Velma-ing" on a late night run.

5.14 - The Red and the Black

Michaela is mildly annoyed by holiday admin, Ed is uncomfortable about discussing BDSM and Mulder and Scully complete their Freaky Friday plot line. 

5.13 - Patient X

The X-Files tries to grapple seriously with Mulder's loss of faith but he just comes off as really moody, and the show introduces a couple of characters who will be important for the mythology. Elsewhere, Michaela goes under the sea and Ed accidentally steals valor.

5.12 - Bad Blood

This week, Michaela recounts her experience of a precarious mix of sound baths, 100 press-ups, and enough high-octane coffee to power a small city. Meanwhile, Ed discusses the entry to his D&D era and the harsh reality that adult friendship is mostly just planning sessions that never actually happen.
Then we get on to discuss this week's episode, the undisputed heavyweight champion of X-Files comedies: "Bad Blood". It’s a Rashomon-style masterpiece featuring Luke Wilson’s dreamy (or buck-toothed) face, a runaway RV, and maybe the most iconic use of sunflower seeds in television history. The true conspiracy of the X-Files might actually be the secret behind those glowing green eyes... listen in to find out more.

5.11 - Kill Switch

Michaela and Ed convene in CYBERSPACE to discuss the first episode of The X-Files written by acclaimed sci-fi authors William Gibson and Tom Maddox. They discuss the episode's place within Gibson's body of work, how its vision of A.I. looks now versus in 1998, and the many ways that The Matrix managed to make cyberpunk cool.