The X-Files - 7x16 "Chimera" Full Reaction

One of my favorite standalone episodes. I love the mystery here, and making the audience think anyone could be responsible for the killings *except* Ellen. But, yes, Ellen was unaware of her other side. Her extreme desire for a perfect life / perfect marriage caused her to repress whatever she learned or suspected about her husband's affairs, and somehow created this monster as part of her. She was unwilling to accept that it was her, why is why the mirrors break whenever she sees her other face in the reflection. When Mulder is attacked in the bathtub however, she is finally able to see her reflection clearly in the water for longer than usual, and since the reflection is not in mirror/glass, it cannot break, so her seeing it that way has an effect in that it causes her to transform back at that moment, which was good for Mulder or else he would've drowned. It's also interesting to notice that in both times Ellen sees the monster, something significant happens right prior to that. The first time it happens after she talks to Jenny ("Juliette Lewis" lol), and she tells her they have more in common than she knows, obviously referring to the affair with her husband. And the second time she sees it, it happens right after she is cleaning the house and finds the skeleton key. In both situations, her subconscious is probably making connections as to what her husband is doing, and so in both instances it causes her to see the "monster", which is really her other nature. As for the episode title, The X-Files has several ambiguous titles throughout the show, and this is one of them. There are several explanations. One definition of a Chimera, not widely discussed, is "a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve: the economic sovereignty you claim to defend is a chimera." So this could be that Ellen hoped/wished for a perfect marriage, and she actually lived in an illusion of sorts, that it's all perfect when it really wasn't. A simpler explanation is just that it refers to a "fusion" of things, in this case referring, in a weird way, to her extreme split personality. Emily was also right that a chimera was discussed in the past. It's in Gethsemane/Redux/Redux II, about hybrid cells. I don't like the fact that someone apparently told you the "En Ami" story would come back in the future in some way. But people will continue posting things like that regardless. And about "En Ami" again; we just really don't know what was on the disc. All we know is that CSM needed Scully to retrieve it for him. He used the "cure for all human disease" to lure her into it. Whether he needed the disc simply so it can be destroyed (as he throws it in the water), because of whatever secrets were on it, that the public should never know, we simply don't know. Another possibility is that he made a backup of whatever was on it and threw the original away. I implore people not to post spoilers, but it's unavoidable. There are other reactors, especially on YouTube, that post so much significant stuff in the comments, huge spoilers that you wouldn't believe. And no amount of reminding them not to do it has any effect. Anyway, I really loved this reaction. LMAO @ "it don't fit to my world view so I'm gon ignore it." :D That was awesome!

Demijan Omeragic

Re the previous episode, 'En Ami,' William B. Davis said that he wrote it because he rarely got to play scenes with Gillian Anderson. I am very much looking forward to the next episode. 👍