Cigarette Smoking Man is such an awesome character, one of my favorites, and the epitome of what i think of when i think of a Top-Secret G-Man. To think, he was supposed to be a temporary character. i couldnt imagine the show without him. he is the perfect, "villain", or anti-villain depending on where you stand. "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". love this episode, cant get enough of C.S.M.
I remember hearing about the alternate ending years ago. I like this ending better because it just shows that at any given time CSM has you dead to rights. Like they say you never hear the shot that kills you. Another awesome video my dude!
The box of chocolates speech is one of my favorite speeches in media, especially to just randomly post on places where people don't know anything about The X-Files and only know Forest Gump.
Initially I wrote this episode off due to the lack of M&S, but I’ve since come to really appreciate it. I think it was smart to give CSM a “backstory”. It further complicates his character and humanizes him.
I really love your reviews man. I can tell you put a lot of work into them, and you do a great job. I've binged them a lot lately, even repeated the first couple seasons on my headphones at work. Thanks for putting the work in!
The scene where CSM is given the mission is right out of Apocalypse now I really liked this episode. One of those where you have knowledge of the history that they are trying to use for the stories. Then the twists happens. don't knock the clip on tie there is a very big safety factor you won't get strangled with a clip tie.
I was a diehard fan of this show for many years, however the older stuff like this was always better. Tooms, Home, Ice and Die Hand Die Verletzt were my favorites. As good as the alien story progression was, I think the standalone episodes were where this show really shined.
@@JBSpookyReview Dude when I was 18 from Australia I hiked through these same Washington and Oregon national parks. Tripping balls thinking about bigfoot and limpets. Jk I my mind was in place heh. I felt at home.
I actually think the cheap magazine frohickie is referring to is the story CSM had published. I think CSM was writing about his personal experiences as a shadow man, my evidence is the publisher referencing the alien and the sentence he types out earlier in the episode basically describing his situation; stuck alone on Christmas in a cheap apartment, longing for a second chance to start over. Also Second chance being the title of his story because he himself was looking for a second chance, and he was willing to walk away from the unfulfilling life he was leading to pursue his dreams of being an author. I'm likely wrong but either way this episode was amazing, I literally was telling my gf yesterday how much I hate him lol now he's one of my favorites 😂 great job on the actors part
This is one of my all time favorite episodes. Smoking man is my all time favorite tv villain and I think this episode is amazing. They are able to somehow make you feel sorry for this man who has done awful things. I know he has done terrible things and yet I'm sitting there hoping he gets his story published and wanting him to live his dream as a scifi author. I don't care about the contradictions because you can chalk that up to an unreliable narrator. No issues with that. I love how it connects so many events in history and I love how the show flows. It's just a perfect episode for me
As a blind person I thought this episode very hard to understand. It was not my favorite of the show, I love the whole series, and watched it religiously,I even had all the seasons in Blu-ray. So I like your take on the x files, keep going dude, and stay spooky.!
7:22 - "He's a cheapskate", only giving cheap ties for gifts - I think you missed the real punchline! The ties actually look kinda nice; the real gag is he gave everyone the SAME tie - this implies that he "attempted" to do the right thing (get a gift for them), but since he's unable to truly connect with any of them (with anyONE?), he was incapable of choosing something specifically for each of them, and thus just got them all the same exact thing. Especially weird to give people who work together, as they'd all be wearing the same tie at work together. But I'm just nitpickin', great vid!
Around 12:00, you mention the inconsistencies with previous episodes; good call, though I think this may have been done on purpose, so muddy the waters as to whether this truly was his origin. However - the Roman A Clef magazine epilogue certainly implies that at least SOME parts of the story WERE indeed true, such as his efforts as a failed writer. EDIT: not sure about your comment on the bible, I'm quite sure there was a bible produced for this, I've seen evidence of many TV series having a bible going back many yrs before this shos
@@HeroJournalism Knowing the x-files and the many inconsistencies in the mythology alone, i'm pretty sure they just forgot about the previous dates. It was also harder to keep track and research these things back then with no internet/ bad digital technology and a weekly schedule, so they probably just did their thing and hoped that nobody cares.
@@JBSpookyReview - I think it was more of that once the show became a hit, they began to try and stretch the mythology story to try and last as long as they could keep getting renewed by Fox. I actually think the mythology was its best before season 5; 1/2 were good, but season 3 is when it peaked. About every myth ep from end of season 2 to early season 4 is one of the best of the show. When they killed off The Consortium, I think it was a huge blow, and though some more good stuff was ahead, they never reached the heights of that run; I honestly think its one of the best stretches of ongoing story in any genre TV drama in history.
What happened to the alternate ending? Now, that's the real X-file here. Good episode, although a 9/10 is waaaaay too much I think.... Thank you again for these videos! 🥰
I either totally forgot or totally missed the line about reading it in some magazine! And I had never heard about the alternate ending with Frohike. WOW! How did I not know that all these years, despite having been eyeballs deep in this fandom for so long? That is wild!
The scene in which CSM is recruited to assassinate JFK is a riff on the recruiting/briefing scene from "Apocalypse Now". Also, CSM is actually a great admirer of Martin Luther King Jr., but when he began advocating support for Socialism/Communism in America, he had to go. The story Frohike read was the story CSM wrote and had published in that trashy magazine, Roman-a-Clef, the one he got all upset about because they meddled with the ending. This is one of the most important mythology episodes of the entire series. From here on, everything mentioned in this episode become unalterable CSM canon, there's no retconning of anything from this episode forward. All of the CSM episodes in the series, from the first episode to this one, were written by different writers who were telling different stories, and all the inconsistencies were the result of that. However, they also served to make his character murkier, more mysterious, more uncertain. Who was he, what was he, where did he come from, what does he want? From this episode, his backstory was locked in, and there were no deviations from these core elements.
Being a lifelong student of history... Poland was invaded on September 1st, 1939 during operation Case White. If they were rounding up certain individuals (YT will nuke this if I say anything too specific) in 1939 and they resisted, then they would be shot just like Mulder said in his hypnotic regression. Now, there were partisans and even the army who opposed the invaders, of which cigarette smoking man, was one of those invaders. If he was killed before 1940, that still allows nine months to pass and for him to be born in August 1940 in America. I shouldn't even be giving this idea this much thought, since I doubt Chris Carter ever did, but it's still plausible.
@@JBSpookyReview : Your analysis on past episodes, coupled with your points in episodes from this season prove it's basically impossible and that's no fault of anyone's save for Chris. He was probably too busy to read the script or completely forgot CSM was already an adult in 1953. I mean, nazis did exist prior to 1939 (obviously), but they wouldn't have been in Poland doing what Mulder said happened to him until 1939. It's yet another plot hole in this tattered blanket we love.
the ambiguous framing device that the inside of which explicitly name drops Roman à clef... is this the best episode? Or do I just think so because I was a fan of the Bills as a kid and for some reason my favorite player was kicker Scott Norwood...
I somehow missed this one and am catching up. Interesting how it lines up with my recent viewing of a video from the channel Haunted Cosmos, called, "MK Ultra: Did They Really Stop?" You might like it! Also, don't expect timeline or any other continuity on this show! I promise, it will only end in misery for you.
Making the CSM more human would've been cool, I would've liked it if he was actually a character you could sympathize with, but he made the argument that he is 'just doing his job' whereas in the show he was pretty much a psychopath.
@3:01 look at all those 3 four-legged animal statue asses pointed at the camera light just so and what are the chibi robot trio about to get up to in this imaginationing?
@@JBSpookyReview : Well, you got like five comments out of me for his oversight or laziness. That's always a positive thing. I really think it's an interesting concept, but like you said, it doesn't quite work. Scully being Mulder's dad in a past life isn't exactly a horrible concept given that she's the voice of reason in their current relationship. They never really became an item so it kind of works, but my main issue, and you perfectly summed it up too, is how this random Melissa woman has been his soulmate throughout eternity and yet he's just meeting her for the first time... and she's already married and basically about to pass... it's so... clunky an strange since it implied that they always got together but in this episode they exchange a few words and that's literally it... Cool concept. Terrible execution.
I appreciate the creativity of having an episode without the two leads, and exploring the back story of a background/side character, or mysterious villain, but I feel like if the more outrageous stuff ISN'T true, then he's a pretty boring dude. I feel like they should have leaned more into him actually being a linchpin on past events, leading up to him being behind them as his career advances. I'd say a solid 7, maybe 7.5, I just don't feel like re-watching it, like I do "Clyde Bruckman's Last Repose" or "Jose Chung's from Outer Space" or "Home".
@@JBSpookyReview I'm sure there are actually "bad" episodes of X-Files, but for most of them, they're not bad, there's typically a really good "core concept" that just needed more fleshing out, or maybe just doesn't age well viewed from what we have available for todays TV shows.
I thought maybe the Red Dwarf crew were responsible at one time. Likely not true....not now we see who really really did it! Which is also possibly not true damn it! I don't know to believe anymore. But in real life terms, I did see a video about the apparent shooter being interviewed, from Documentary Central. Grain of salt territory. The whole thing is all over the place.
Typing as I do on my six hundred and thirtieth day of being a non-cigarette smoking man, CSM is one of very few smoking characters who doesn't look cooler when smoking. This is true of Juan Travolting too, just watch Broken A Row. Idiot. I have, since that episode of Red Dwarf which simply solved the JFK conspiracy for all time, very much enjoyed the idea that there were a few dozen assassassasasssins in Dallas, all of whom ended up busily killing the others off so they'd get the kill. I was always under the impression CSM lived out of hotels, rather than he has a small apartment. Oh oh, and, I think not. Personal takes and all that, but I think the ties show something quite directly. They are the cheap perfunctory gift CSM speaks of later. He's not trying to be good, he just knows you're meant to give gifts so he gives gifts without thought or time. Then, when he's doing to epic box of chocolates thing, we see that he is almost certainly completely unaware that he is the people he hates most in the world. He is the box of chocolates giver. So, CSM doesn't know you don't go watch movies in your lunch break, he doesn't watch movies, he doesn't know what people do on their breaks, he doesn't take breaks. He's waiting for someone to give him something worth, well, anything, but it'll never happen because he is utterly incapable of interacting with any human being on any level other than a bullet. He is both the chocolate giver and the receiver of chocolate. I am getting ahead of myself. The Lone Gunmen publish 'The Lone Gunmen' magazine, they also publish 'The Magic Bullet' which is a newsletter. I have always thought, but cannot demonstrate, that what happens with TLG is this… Rum Droll… The story CSM wrote is essentially autobiographical. When Frohike is talking about the story in the magazine, he is talking about CSM's story in Roman A Clef. Frohike is listing CSM's life as CSM imagined it. This is, thuslious, the only time in this episode that anyone is talking about CSM as an individual person, this is the only bonding of sorts. This is the first half of why CSM doesn't shoot - Frohike cares who CSM is. Hates him, sure, but that's better than nothing, that's much better than being told your life is shitty and preposterous, which is what CSM is being told all the time, at least Frohike thinks CSM is important. The other half is the ending CSM says was changed. He didn't like that much, and here, at the end of the episode, CSM changes the ending himself. But also, reminding oneself that the story in RAC is CSM's imaginings of his life, the flashbacks cannot be trusted - they might well be his fantasy, so, his claim to have never killed anyone could well be perfectly true, and in fact, might well be the key to CSM in the larger picture; he has never killed anyone, or anything. He doesn't have the conviction to do so. He desperately WANTS to have been the one to whack JFK and MLK, but it wasn't him. He WANTS to be so important he has Sod 'em on speed dial, but he isn't. For all his menace, he remains just this, he's a minor bureaucrat in a great machine. The syndicate treats him as exactly that every time they deal with him. The preposterous life in the story he writes is also the preposterous claim in this episode that CSM is a big deal. it is self-referential in many ways at once. Overall, we get the greatest loop - that the real enemy, of our heroes, of The Truth, isn't villainy, it's red-tape. Endless cardboard boxes of files and forms and samples and reports, warehouses stacked with obfuscation. We go all in, in this episode, and it is, to me, up there with JC'sFOS and CB'sFR, it's a ten out of ten masterpiece. Flipping the bird at Forrest Gump is a deft shot. To the cynics, which CSM is, which I am, FG is the box of chocolates. FG is the movie that appeals to people who cynics loathe. It's a series of different but identical nuggets all crafted with bland simplicity. It's the cinematic epitome of proving the villain is bad by having them shoot a puppy in the face. There's no subtlety to FG. It's the story of a moron who grows up and then it stops. What are we meant to take from that damn thing? Nutrition? No, it's a momentary, passing (expertly fashioned) bit of fluff that doesn't matter. Just like CSM. unlike this episode, really. Because, this episode is so well crafted we don't spot some things, we don't really see that Deep Throat has a line so artlessly built it had to be deliberate. It could only be worse if it started with 'As you know…' Why is this terrible line in this magnificent episode? I don't know. I still don't know after damn near thirty years pondering it. My best bet is that it's meant to suggest that the scene of DT shooting the alien is meant to also be CSM's fantasy. And this is why I ought to write these rambles after watching through because you touched on all that jazz XD. Well, anyhoo, that's how I think it breaks down. As I said, for me this is a 10, it's just magic. I have been in a few things and had to watch myself after - it's not fun and I have never met anyone who'd done filming that says it was. Well, apart from Joe and Joe is disturbed. So, I would imagine MoaCSM would be among Anchovy and Danderson's faves simply because they get to watch that episode as an episode, rather than as something they've made. I mean, it's awesome, too, mind you. So there.
I could believe that Frohike read this in the same magazine that CSM had his story published in, but the producers even say that what he read was likely not true so I don't know.
@@JBSpookyReview yes, CSM's autobiographical story is his life but how he'd have liked it to be, which is why it's described as preposterous. it isn't true, but it is the article in RAC. All of the pieces fit together that way, otherwise you have two articles in two publications...
This is sort of a great episode. William B Davis kills it like always, but young CSM had a weak actor here, and his role as agent Spender was also weak. I think things would have been better with a stronger actor playing young CSM, and some of the whimsy cut out.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
That "box of chocolates" monologue was ELITE!
One of the best moments in the series.
Cigarette Smoking Man is such an awesome character, one of my favorites, and the epitome of what i think of when i think of a Top-Secret G-Man. To think, he was supposed to be a temporary character. i couldnt imagine the show without him. he is the perfect, "villain", or anti-villain depending on where you stand. "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". love this episode, cant get enough of C.S.M.
Yeah it's crazy he was really just supposed to be in the background and not say a thing.
I remember hearing about the alternate ending years ago. I like this ending better because it just shows that at any given time CSM has you dead to rights. Like they say you never hear the shot that kills you. Another awesome video my dude!
I'm glad they didn't use the alternate ending too.
The box of chocolates speech is one of my favorite speeches in media, especially to just randomly post on places where people don't know anything about The X-Files and only know Forest Gump.
It's a really great speech.
Initially I wrote this episode off due to the lack of M&S, but I’ve since come to really appreciate it. I think it was smart to give CSM a “backstory”. It further complicates his character and humanizes him.
It makes you see him in a different light.
I really love your reviews man. I can tell you put a lot of work into them, and you do a great job. I've binged them a lot lately, even repeated the first couple seasons on my headphones at work.
Thanks for putting the work in!
I try to make them somewhat entertaining. I'm not the best writer or editor, but I try to make each one better than the last.
The scene where CSM is given the mission is right out of Apocalypse now I really liked this episode. One of those where you have knowledge of the history that they are trying to use for the stories. Then the twists happens. don't knock the clip on tie there is a very big safety factor you won't get strangled with a clip tie.
Ohhh you're right, I never thought about that with the clip on tie.
I was a diehard fan of this show for many years, however the older stuff like this was always better. Tooms, Home, Ice and Die Hand Die Verletzt were my favorites. As good as the alien story progression was, I think the standalone episodes were where this show really shined.
I prefer the stand alone stuff too.
@@JBSpookyReview Dude when I was 18 from Australia I hiked through these same Washington and Oregon national parks. Tripping balls thinking about bigfoot and limpets. Jk I my mind was in place heh. I felt at home.
I actually think the cheap magazine frohickie is referring to is the story CSM had published. I think CSM was writing about his personal experiences as a shadow man, my evidence is the publisher referencing the alien and the sentence he types out earlier in the episode basically describing his situation; stuck alone on Christmas in a cheap apartment, longing for a second chance to start over. Also Second chance being the title of his story because he himself was looking for a second chance, and he was willing to walk away from the unfulfilling life he was leading to pursue his dreams of being an author.
I'm likely wrong but either way this episode was amazing, I literally was telling my gf yesterday how much I hate him lol now he's one of my favorites 😂 great job on the actors part
No I think you're right.
This is one of my all time favorite episodes. Smoking man is my all time favorite tv villain and I think this episode is amazing. They are able to somehow make you feel sorry for this man who has done awful things. I know he has done terrible things and yet I'm sitting there hoping he gets his story published and wanting him to live his dream as a scifi author. I don't care about the contradictions because you can chalk that up to an unreliable narrator. No issues with that. I love how it connects so many events in history and I love how the show flows. It's just a perfect episode for me
They did a really good job fleshing him out more in this one.
As a blind person I thought this episode very hard to understand. It was not my favorite of the show, I love the whole series, and watched it religiously,I even had all the seasons in Blu-ray. So I like your take on the x files, keep going dude, and stay spooky.!
I'm glad you're enjoying the videos as silly as they are.
Do you use audio description nowadays?
This video made my day! Best thing to watch after a very long day at work. Love your videos thanks again!
I'm glad you're enjoying them.
Good God, if CSM's jam would be painting I feel he would be rejected by an art school or something...
He could be the next Picasso and he would still get rejected.
I've binged all your videos so far. Can't wait for you to do season 5.
Yessss!! 🙌🏼 Been waiting for this. It just gave so much more depth to the show imo.
I agree whole heartedly.
7:22 - "He's a cheapskate", only giving cheap ties for gifts - I think you missed the real punchline! The ties actually look kinda nice; the real gag is he gave everyone the SAME tie - this implies that he "attempted" to do the right thing (get a gift for them), but since he's unable to truly connect with any of them (with anyONE?), he was incapable of choosing something specifically for each of them, and thus just got them all the same exact thing. Especially weird to give people who work together, as they'd all be wearing the same tie at work together. But I'm just nitpickin', great vid!
Around 12:00, you mention the inconsistencies with previous episodes; good call, though I think this may have been done on purpose, so muddy the waters as to whether this truly was his origin. However - the Roman A Clef magazine epilogue certainly implies that at least SOME parts of the story WERE indeed true, such as his efforts as a failed writer.
EDIT: not sure about your comment on the bible, I'm quite sure there was a bible produced for this, I've seen evidence of many TV series having a bible going back many yrs before this shos
@@HeroJournalism Knowing the x-files and the many inconsistencies in the mythology alone, i'm pretty sure they just forgot about the previous dates. It was also harder to keep track and research these things back then with no internet/ bad digital technology and a weekly schedule, so they probably just did their thing and hoped that nobody cares.
Well I know until season 5 there really was no plan with where they wanted the show to go, so maybe by that point they had one?
@@JBSpookyReview - I think it was more of that once the show became a hit, they began to try and stretch the mythology story to try and last as long as they could keep getting renewed by Fox. I actually think the mythology was its best before season 5; 1/2 were good, but season 3 is when it peaked. About every myth ep from end of season 2 to early season 4 is one of the best of the show. When they killed off The Consortium, I think it was a huge blow, and though some more good stuff was ahead, they never reached the heights of that run; I honestly think its one of the best stretches of ongoing story in any genre TV drama in history.
I always remember this as two episodes. Not sure why. Acronym madness. The martian 😂. Good stuff.
It could easily be a two parter.
What happened to the alternate ending? Now, that's the real X-file here.
Good episode, although a 9/10 is waaaaay too much I think....
Thank you again for these videos! 🥰
I would love to get my hands on it, for historical reasons at least.
James Wong knocked it out of the ballpark with this one. Up there with Griffey in the mid-1990s
He does some pretty good work. Except when it's Dragon Ball Evolution.
I either totally forgot or totally missed the line about reading it in some magazine!
And I had never heard about the alternate ending with Frohike. WOW! How did I not know that all these years, despite having been eyeballs deep in this fandom for so long? That is wild!
I learned about the ending too when I made the video lol.
The scene in which CSM is recruited to assassinate JFK is a riff on the recruiting/briefing scene from "Apocalypse Now". Also, CSM is actually a great admirer of Martin Luther King Jr., but when he began advocating support for Socialism/Communism in America, he had to go.
The story Frohike read was the story CSM wrote and had published in that trashy magazine, Roman-a-Clef, the one he got all upset about because they meddled with the ending. This is one of the most important mythology episodes of the entire series. From here on, everything mentioned in this episode become unalterable CSM canon, there's no retconning of anything from this episode forward. All of the CSM episodes in the series, from the first episode to this one, were written by different writers who were telling different stories, and all the inconsistencies were the result of that. However, they also served to make his character murkier, more mysterious, more uncertain. Who was he, what was he, where did he come from, what does he want? From this episode, his backstory was locked in, and there were no deviations from these core elements.
I like that his background is hazy, it makes him more like a shadowy figure.
Man, Deep Throat seemed old when the series aired and Jerry Hardin is still alive in 2024 👀
I felt the same way about seeing Skinner in the last 2 seasons. Dude been bald forever 😂
So is William B Davis
The 90s styles definitely helped them seem old as balls. Gillian looked younger in season 9 than season 1
People just looked older back then for whatever reason.
@@YoureNotReet He's the one that started me on finding bald guys attractive, LOL!
This is one of my favorite episodes!
It's a classic.
I love seeing CSM! This was a great episode!
CSM is a character you love to hate.
Putting off going to bed at 12:40am because this is one to watch asap!
Hahah you can always sleep, it's not going anywhere.
I still think of the Bills Superbowl line when I see them choke in the postseason annually. CGB Spender strikes from the grave!
Haha even in death he won't let them win.
9:10 my bet is he watched the pilot.. I enjoyed this episode. It was nice to see more of young Billy Mulder and young csm.
Definitely watched the pilot.
Hola from Colorado! One of if not my favorite episodes!
It's a solid episode to have as a favorite.
This is one of my favourite episodes which involves CSM, noticeable how he only started smoking like a chimney after killing probably his first murder
The smoking probably helped with the stress.
Being a lifelong student of history... Poland was invaded on September 1st, 1939 during operation Case White. If they were rounding up certain individuals (YT will nuke this if I say anything too specific) in 1939 and they resisted, then they would be shot just like Mulder said in his hypnotic regression. Now, there were partisans and even the army who opposed the invaders, of which cigarette smoking man, was one of those invaders. If he was killed before 1940, that still allows nine months to pass and for him to be born in August 1940 in America.
I shouldn't even be giving this idea this much thought, since I doubt Chris Carter ever did, but it's still plausible.
I read your other comment first, but I can still go with this.
@@JBSpookyReview : Your analysis on past episodes, coupled with your points in episodes from this season prove it's basically impossible and that's no fault of anyone's save for Chris. He was probably too busy to read the script or completely forgot CSM was already an adult in 1953. I mean, nazis did exist prior to 1939 (obviously), but they wouldn't have been in Poland doing what Mulder said happened to him until 1939. It's yet another plot hole in this tattered blanket we love.
the ambiguous framing device that the inside of which explicitly name drops Roman à clef... is this the best episode? Or do I just think so because I was a fan of the Bills as a kid and for some reason my favorite player was kicker Scott Norwood...
I think it's because you were a fan of the bills.
Best scene is the Forrest Gump monologue.
By far the best.
I love this episode so much
It's really good.
I somehow missed this one and am catching up. Interesting how it lines up with my recent viewing of a video from the channel Haunted Cosmos, called, "MK Ultra: Did They Really Stop?" You might like it!
Also, don't expect timeline or any other continuity on this show! I promise, it will only end in misery for you.
I'lll look into that video.
Looking back knowing how the story goes, it's a chore watching any of the mythology episodes 😢 nowadays I only watch monster of the week episodes 😊
I tend to stick to the monster of the week stuff too.
in my top fav favorites right here. I use Smoking Man's paraphrase of the box of chocolates quote daily
It's a great quote.
I like this episode, evil Forrest Gump gets a 8/10.
Haha evil forrest gump. I like it.
Good info. I missed a couple of things
I miss stuff all the time.
I loved seeing his dumpy apartment
Maybe he's trying to be inconspicuous?
Perfect Timing 🥰
I always try to be on time.
"Buffalo Bills will never win the Super Bowl while I'm still alive" lol
- Cigarette Smoking Man"
He must still be alive then.
SWEET, I LOVE THIS EPISODE!
It's a good one.
Love both spencers
Me too.
GREAT VIDEO BRO, THANKS! NOW IT'S TIME FOR A MORLEY BREAK. :)
You put that down, now!
@@JBSpookyReview LOL
Now that's what I call a sticky situation.
It was pretty sticky.
Remaking the series today we’d have SVB Sussy Vaping Bro.
Lol
"Takes big hit off my Vaporesso and blows a cloud of chocolate doughnut and coffee vape smoke"
Oh dear god, we cannot have that happen.
Making the CSM more human would've been cool, I would've liked it if he was actually a character you could sympathize with, but he made the argument that he is 'just doing his job' whereas in the show he was pretty much a psychopath.
I think it would have added more complexity to him.
[last lines]
[looking through a rifle sight at Frohike]
The Cigarette Smoking Man: I can kill you whenever I please... but not today.
It's such a good line.
@3:01 look at all those 3 four-legged animal statue asses pointed at the camera light just so and what are the chibi robot trio about to get up to in this imaginationing?
I have no idea.
One of my favourite episodes.. been looking forward to this one.. still love these.. 🔥👍🏼😎
Hopefully I did it justice.
The whole ep is just Froehicke's estimating about it
Pretty much.
Shoot Frohicke? Nooo 😳
I know that would have sucked.
I wonder how many cigarettes CSM has smoked in 4 seasons?
Not enough I don't think.
I LOVE CURTAIN RODS.
They're great for hunting.
CSM is like the joker her has multiple origin stories
And are any of them true? haha.
12:00 Yeah... well, ignore my previous comments. The writers obviously don't communicate with each other...still, I blame Chris. LOL
I blame Chris for everything.
@@JBSpookyReview : Well, you got like five comments out of me for his oversight or laziness. That's always a positive thing. I really think it's an interesting concept, but like you said, it doesn't quite work. Scully being Mulder's dad in a past life isn't exactly a horrible concept given that she's the voice of reason in their current relationship. They never really became an item so it kind of works, but my main issue, and you perfectly summed it up too, is how this random Melissa woman has been his soulmate throughout eternity and yet he's just meeting her for the first time... and she's already married and basically about to pass... it's so... clunky an strange since it implied that they always got together but in this episode they exchange a few words and that's literally it...
Cool concept. Terrible execution.
I appreciate the creativity of having an episode without the two leads, and exploring the back story of a background/side character, or mysterious villain, but I feel like if the more outrageous stuff ISN'T true, then he's a pretty boring dude. I feel like they should have leaned more into him actually being a linchpin on past events, leading up to him being behind them as his career advances. I'd say a solid 7, maybe 7.5, I just don't feel like re-watching it, like I do "Clyde Bruckman's Last Repose" or "Jose Chung's from Outer Space" or "Home".
I can definitely see what you're saying.
@@JBSpookyReview I'm sure there are actually "bad" episodes of X-Files, but for most of them, they're not bad, there's typically a really good "core concept" that just needed more fleshing out, or maybe just doesn't age well viewed from what we have available for todays TV shows.
Oh there are bad episodes, we just haven't gotten there yet.
Spooky CSM.
He's pretty spooky.
I know this is a fan fav, but I skip this one on replays. I want SPOOKY X Fiiles and this one is a little light on Spookiness.
That's fair enough.
👌
Hope you enjoyed it.
Yes yes yes finally
Haha hopefully you enjoyed it.
If you can’t do art there’s always politics.
Oh no, I can't do either.
PACK, NOT CARTON.
Haha I'm not a smoker.
Another great episode and another great character absolutely ruined in the last two seasons
then again, which well cultivated element wasn't ruined in the last two seasons?
Last 4 in my opinion hahaha.
@@JBSpookyReview true at least 8 and 9 weren’t just revamped out of nowhere granted they were bad.
I UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY IS TALKING ABOOT.
Oh you do eh?
@@JBSpookyReview YES BUDDAY! LOL
I thought maybe the Red Dwarf crew were responsible at one time. Likely not true....not now we see who really really did it! Which is also possibly not true damn it! I don't know to believe anymore.
But in real life terms, I did see a video about the apparent shooter being interviewed, from Documentary Central. Grain of salt territory. The whole thing is all over the place.
I don't know if we'll ever know what really happened.
Typing as I do on my six hundred and thirtieth day of being a non-cigarette smoking man, CSM is one of very few smoking characters who doesn't look cooler when smoking. This is true of Juan Travolting too, just watch Broken A Row. Idiot.
I have, since that episode of Red Dwarf which simply solved the JFK conspiracy for all time, very much enjoyed the idea that there were a few dozen assassassasasssins in Dallas, all of whom ended up busily killing the others off so they'd get the kill.
I was always under the impression CSM lived out of hotels, rather than he has a small apartment.
Oh oh, and, I think not. Personal takes and all that, but I think the ties show something quite directly. They are the cheap perfunctory gift CSM speaks of later. He's not trying to be good, he just knows you're meant to give gifts so he gives gifts without thought or time. Then, when he's doing to epic box of chocolates thing, we see that he is almost certainly completely unaware that he is the people he hates most in the world. He is the box of chocolates giver. So, CSM doesn't know you don't go watch movies in your lunch break, he doesn't watch movies, he doesn't know what people do on their breaks, he doesn't take breaks. He's waiting for someone to give him something worth, well, anything, but it'll never happen because he is utterly incapable of interacting with any human being on any level other than a bullet. He is both the chocolate giver and the receiver of chocolate. I am getting ahead of myself.
The Lone Gunmen publish 'The Lone Gunmen' magazine, they also publish 'The Magic Bullet' which is a newsletter.
I have always thought, but cannot demonstrate, that what happens with TLG is this…
Rum Droll…
The story CSM wrote is essentially autobiographical. When Frohike is talking about the story in the magazine, he is talking about CSM's story in Roman A Clef. Frohike is listing CSM's life as CSM imagined it. This is, thuslious, the only time in this episode that anyone is talking about CSM as an individual person, this is the only bonding of sorts. This is the first half of why CSM doesn't shoot - Frohike cares who CSM is. Hates him, sure, but that's better than nothing, that's much better than being told your life is shitty and preposterous, which is what CSM is being told all the time, at least Frohike thinks CSM is important. The other half is the ending CSM says was changed. He didn't like that much, and here, at the end of the episode, CSM changes the ending himself.
But also, reminding oneself that the story in RAC is CSM's imaginings of his life, the flashbacks cannot be trusted - they might well be his fantasy, so, his claim to have never killed anyone could well be perfectly true, and in fact, might well be the key to CSM in the larger picture; he has never killed anyone, or anything. He doesn't have the conviction to do so. He desperately WANTS to have been the one to whack JFK and MLK, but it wasn't him. He WANTS to be so important he has Sod 'em on speed dial, but he isn't. For all his menace, he remains just this, he's a minor bureaucrat in a great machine. The syndicate treats him as exactly that every time they deal with him. The preposterous life in the story he writes is also the preposterous claim in this episode that CSM is a big deal. it is self-referential in many ways at once.
Overall, we get the greatest loop - that the real enemy, of our heroes, of The Truth, isn't villainy, it's red-tape. Endless cardboard boxes of files and forms and samples and reports, warehouses stacked with obfuscation.
We go all in, in this episode, and it is, to me, up there with JC'sFOS and CB'sFR, it's a ten out of ten masterpiece. Flipping the bird at Forrest Gump is a deft shot. To the cynics, which CSM is, which I am, FG is the box of chocolates. FG is the movie that appeals to people who cynics loathe. It's a series of different but identical nuggets all crafted with bland simplicity. It's the cinematic epitome of proving the villain is bad by having them shoot a puppy in the face. There's no subtlety to FG. It's the story of a moron who grows up and then it stops. What are we meant to take from that damn thing? Nutrition? No, it's a momentary, passing (expertly fashioned) bit of fluff that doesn't matter. Just like CSM. unlike this episode, really. Because, this episode is so well crafted we don't spot some things, we don't really see that Deep Throat has a line so artlessly built it had to be deliberate. It could only be worse if it started with 'As you know…'
Why is this terrible line in this magnificent episode? I don't know. I still don't know after damn near thirty years pondering it. My best bet is that it's meant to suggest that the scene of DT shooting the alien is meant to also be CSM's fantasy.
And this is why I ought to write these rambles after watching through because you touched on all that jazz XD. Well, anyhoo, that's how I think it breaks down. As I said, for me this is a 10, it's just magic.
I have been in a few things and had to watch myself after - it's not fun and I have never met anyone who'd done filming that says it was. Well, apart from Joe and Joe is disturbed. So, I would imagine MoaCSM would be among Anchovy and Danderson's faves simply because they get to watch that episode as an episode, rather than as something they've made. I mean, it's awesome, too, mind you. So there.
I could believe that Frohike read this in the same magazine that CSM had his story published in, but the producers even say that what he read was likely not true so I don't know.
@@JBSpookyReview yes, CSM's autobiographical story is his life but how he'd have liked it to be, which is why it's described as preposterous. it isn't true, but it is the article in RAC. All of the pieces fit together that way, otherwise you have two articles in two publications...
you don't know bay of pigs even?
Vaguely, but I'm not the best with history.
Actor William B.Davis Play Cancer ♋️ Man X-Files Acting Teacher Lucy Lawless Student
He taught Lucy? I had no idea.
In Fact She Was in Episode X-Files She Play Alien 👽
You get a much deserved part 2 in the audiobook. ruclips.net/video/veOrL5mulwo/видео.htmlsi=Poo_P4eXOqmp-N7R
I'll have to check that out.
#31 to Like ! Go JB !
Where's number 1!?
*For nothing can seem foul to those that win*
Love it.
Think this episode is maybe the only real “American” one. As European of course I heard of the JFK assassination and all but it doesn’t really hit.
No it doesn't have the same affect on me either being Canadian.
This is sort of a great episode. William B Davis kills it like always, but young CSM had a weak actor here, and his role as agent Spender was also weak. I think things would have been better with a stronger actor playing young CSM, and some of the whimsy cut out.
I think the Whimsy was making viewers question is if was real or not.