The X-Files (TV Series) All Souls (1998) User Reviews

a normally skeptical Scully drops all logic and reason for faith

[jai1 · 6/10 · 4 June 2013]

slight spoilers ahead* a good episode that highlights Scully's faults and a criticism of the selective bias and willing blindness of a normally skeptical woman.

Scully is almost comically reversed in her willingness to dismiss all evidence to the contrary.

You could say that this show subliminally serves as a criticism of religion and blind faith.

When it comes to aspects of faith Scully eagerly drops any coherent logic and accepts it but when it comes to any other idea,aliens or magic, Scully is generally resistant to admitting ANY ideas outside of the most mainstream ones.

Scully's Release

[Muldernscully · 7/10 · 14 December 2006]

All Souls is a poignant episode that helps resolves Scully's concerns over losing Emily, her daughter, earlier in the season. The music by Mark Snow immediately clues us in that this will be a religious episode, with the choir singing. It helps to set the mood and tone for the episode. What I like about this episode, that makes it a little different from other episodes is the misdirection. For most of the episode, you believe that Father Gregory is the villain, killing the girls, when it turns out that he is actually trying to save them. And the social worker, who appears to be helping Mulder and Scully, is actually some kind of devil, intent on taking the girls' souls. It's funny to see the little nod to Mulder's porn addiction, having him duck into an adult theater, while telling Scully that he is trailing a suspect. The one thing that gets me about these religious-themed episodes is that Mulder always suddenly becomes skeptical. He does an about-face and doesn't believe the events to be paranormal in anyway. And, of course, Scully suddenly believes that science holds no explanation for the events at hand. One more thing that bothered me about this episode was using the stereotype of a very deep distorted voice for the devil and a shadow with horns on it. Come on, we can guess that the guy is evil and demonic without reducing him to a stereotype of having red horns and a pitchfork. That being said, I still find All Souls an interesting and enjoyable episode that helps Scully come to peace with losing Emily.

Well made, but not a story I could get into.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 6/10 · 10 September 2022]

One the day of her baptism, a young disabled girl walks into the middle of the street, and is found dead by her father.

I'm not sure if the writer had a bit of a message to give here, but to me it's as if the message was that id you believe in monsters and aliens you're crazy, but it's perfectly reasonable and sensible to have blind faith.

Maybe this might be one of those episodes that resonates more so with viewers that are religious, or at least had a bit of religion in the background, for me, it was quite hard to connect with this one.

It's very well acted, and the special effects hold up well even now, The Heads of Seraphim looked very good indeed.

I can see why people really enjoyed it, it just didn't work for me, 6/10.

All Souls

[Magellan Grey · 9/10 · 12 February 2007]

All Souls is one of my most favorite episodes of the X-Files. Of course, this is the writer's spin on the legend of the Nephilim. The story of offspring of "fallen angels" go much further than what the X-Files presented. The global accounts of "giants in the Earth" is part of the Nephilim story. The writers of the bible called these "giants" the Nephilim. In other parts of the world and other cultures these "creatures" were called by other names, but described in the same manner. There is "talk" that the nephilim are still amongst us. All in all, the story is very touching and in some parts very heart wrenching. Gillian Anderson gave a stunningly superb performance here.

Father forgive me for I have sinned.

[Sanpaco13 · 9/10 · 22 July 2008]

All Souls is a story about Scully helping to save the four Nephalim from the devil. The Nephalim are a religious myth dealing with four deformed girls who have the souls of angels that were sent down from heaven to earth. The Nephalim are saved by the Seraphim, an angel with four faces of various beasts. It is literally a race between the Seraphim and the devil to find all four girls and claim their souls either for heaven or hell. Religiously this episode makes no sense and is not recognized by many as scripture. It does make for an interesting and entertaining episode about religious myth though. I like that the devil is portrayed as a social worker. This is somewhat humorous to me because my father is a social worker and I can definitely see how some might think of them as the devil occasionally (sorry Dad :)). I also enjoy the actor that plays the devil. He was great in 24.

The episode is done in the style of The Usual Suspects with Scully in confession explaining the story of what happened throughout the episode. This is a great episode for Scully emotionally and it comes right after the episodes where we learn about Scully's daughter Emily. Throughout the episode, as Scully is trying to find the girls to save them it is apparent that she is making emotional connections to saving her own daughter. At the end she finally finds that fourth girl and tries to keep her from entering the Seraphim's glory but the girl changes to a vision of Emily telling Scully to "let me go mommy, please". Scully makes the difficult decision to betray her science and give into the faith that the girl and symbolically her daughter will be safe with God and to let her go. This is Scully's struggle in the confession as well. She is already doubting whether she did the right thing and says that she let an innocent girl die because she was emotional issues.

I have one problem with this episode. If the Seraphim's glory is so great that it consumes all who behold it, then why didn't Scully burn her eyes hollow when she saw him in the parking lot? Answer me that. Otherwise a good episode. 9 out of 10.

The Devil you Know

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 30 March 2012]

This is perhaps my favorite "Religi-Files" episode - The Religious 'Sodes, usually have something to do with Skully.

And that is true here. This episode represents the two halves of Skully fighting it out. On one hand, she is a Doctor and a Scientist. On the other, a devout Catholic. I say "Catholic" as opposed to "Christian" because I was raised Catholic, and I learned painfully that "Catholic" is not necessarily "Christian." But the two do use some of the same Mythology and they both use the same Bible, and Skully herself leans toward a more Practical Faith. So in my eyes, she can represent my own personal Spiritual interests when it comes to The X-Files.

Skully is asked by her priest to talk to the parents of an unusual girl who had been killed in a mysterious way. The "talk" becomes an Investigation and what starts out as a small mystery soon becomes a large convoluted one.

It seems that the girl was 1/4 of a set of Quadruplets, all of them having 6 fingers and 6 toes, all of them having twisted spines, all of them very special girls.

Very quickly in her investigation Skully starts seeing visions of her lost daughter "Emily" from "A Christmas Carol" and "Emily." It seems that Emily is trying to tell her something, but Skully will not hear it, at least at first.

She gets Mulder involved, and where Mulder's usual easy-belief would be helpful, he puts of an unexpected wall of skepticism about religious matters- About this particular religious matter. He's usually more open, but for some reason here he is a real turd.

Now this is a great switch which Carter gives us: All long term X-Files fans know, that Usually, Mulder is the one who sees the "paranormal" events, and Skully just happens to miss them by seconds. From the Pilot Ep to "The Truth" this is so. Skully NEVER sees the events Mulder sees: But she always believes Mulder's account, because she has Faith in Mulder.

Mulder is a being of Belief, Skully is a being of FAITH. This Episode shows us exactly why the two are different and HOW they are different.

This episode is a reversal - Mulder not only is very skeptical about this matter, he simply refuses to admit the possibility of these things happening. So in this 'sode, it is Skully who sees, and Mulder who does not see.

Mulder basically cannot return the same courtesy Skully grants him when she puts her Faith in Him. It's basically why the two need each other to complete themselves. But not so here, his participation in this episode is a hindrance, because Mulder cannot render Faith the same way Skully can.

I don't want to get very deep into the Religious Mythology that is suggested in this episode, except to say that these Beings: Cherubim, Nephilim, and the Man in the Dark Clothes with the face of a man and the four animal faces, I've been familiar with these images since I was a small child. And so when in an Episode of The X Files, I SEE a graphic representation of these beings looking just as I imagined they'd look, it was almost a verification of my own Faith.

No, the stories are not in the Bible, but they are in the Apocrypha- Meaning that these stories are not neglected by the Church as a whole, the Church keeps all of these texts regardless of if they are Canon or Not. These stories are actually part of the Qaballa, the books of Hebrew Mysticism that I've been interested in for the last 20 years.

In this episode, when these matters are extrapolated, they are done in a way respectful of the subject matter, as The X-Files usually treats Religious subjects with great respect - When the Priest explains it to Skully, he is fairly accurate- I actually fished out my books of Apocrypha and checked, they did not add anything to it, they used it, just as it is in the Book of Enoch.

This was a very appropriate way for Skully to have the arc about Emily finished- It was "done" earlier in this season, but this episode answers some of Skully's "Why" questions.

The 'Social Worker" played by Glenn Morshower is a great kick in the pants. Group Him with "Donnie Pfaster."

Revelations II

[n-town-smash · 8/10 · 18 June 2008]

Picking up more or less where the third season episode "Revelations" left off (thematically; it's not a sequel or anything), we're back in X-Files Christianity Land. So, no rational explanations, ever, and Scully being persuaded to just go along with what any lunatic says, with okay maybe a little soul-searching but not much.

It's not that that's a bad thing, but these episodes really do feel like a whole other show. "All Souls" - a story about the "collection" of the souls of polydactic girls by some Heavenly agent, stemming from some part of the Book of Enoch - balances Scully's foray into open- mindedness a little more this time. The bulk of the episode takes the form of flashbacks, told by a tear-strewn Scully into the gauze of the confessional, as she struggles to reconcile her behaviour in allowing the final girl's soul to be taken.

It's actually pretty powerful stuff, if you can get over that, brilliantly acted by Gillian Anderson. The real letdown is Mulder, to be honest; for no apparent reason, he's been transformed into a total arsehole, and what makes it worse is that he's barely even needed in this episode. It would've been far easier to just use another detective, who might actually HAVE the kind of sneering, dismissive personality that Mulder displays in this episode. It's true that Mulder has shown perverse skepticism in the previous religious episodes, but it never got much less jarring over the years.

Religious - terrible episode about Scully again

[NightmareOnElmStreetFan · 2/10 · 5 July 2019]

Is this The Exorcist or End of Days? Why is this episode terrible in my opinion? I know a lot of X-Files fans will disagree with me but i hated it. In this episode Scully (Gillian Anderson) is the believer she belives in god and the devil. While Mulder (David Duchovny) is skeptical now. The roles are reverse I hated this it shoulden't have been reverse or diffrent period. The episode is hunt for 4 girls who are losing their souls. Time waster and stupid. This episode was waste of time and money. I don't get it how is this episode considerit a cult classic? Boring nonsense.

Supernatural which I once considered as a great show has religous episodes too and it sucks nowdays. This episode wasn't a monster of the week episode. Allen Coulter directed the episode he is a good director but this episode wasn't for him to direct. I don't like supernatural horror movies. I don't like The Exorcist movies they all suck. The only Exorcist movie of the franchise I like is The Exorcist III (1990) the only best movie of the franchise made. I like End of Days (1999) with Schwarzenegger and I like Jacob's Ladder (1990) those are the only good horror movies I like. All Souls is not an X-File episode and I don't get 7.7 ratings those people gaving higher votes does not know how to rate an episode. Terrible episode from start to finish. Disappointing even for an X-Files fan like me.

It's a fun episode.

[lomaran-1 · 8/10 · 10 May 2019]

Scully's faith vs Mulder's beliefs. Mulder believes in everything: from Little Green Men to the Easter Bunny - but no, not God. That's taking things too far. Angels, too or even an afterlife in Heaven are all scoffed at by him, but he DOES believe in past lives, so go figure.

The Seraphim ARE, btw, mentioned in the Bible (Isaiah), as are the Nephilim or giants of the Old Testament. The four faces represent the Four Gospels. In Matthew, the Gospel for the Jews, Jesus is depicted as a King or Lion. In Mark, the Gospel for the Romans, Jesus is depicted as servant or the Ox. In Luke, the Gospel for the Greek, He is a Man and in John, the Gospel for ALL, Jesus is depicted as God or the Eagle. I found this fascinating when I first learned it as a new Christian and others reading this, and enjoying this episode, might find it interesting, as well. The story told is apocryphal but the Nephilim being the offspring of the fallen angels and human women is generally accepted. Again, interesting, fun stuff.

"You got a bona fide, super-crazy religious wacko on your hands."

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 15 July 2017]

When Mulder offered Scully the opinion quoted in my summary line above, it was a throwback to the time the agents were investigating Robert Patrick Modell during the Third Season of the X-Files, and he contemplated that the 'Pusher' might have been placing a 'whammy' on his victims. At least that's what struck me when he talked about a religious wacko.

But you know, I got a kick out of the theater marquee where Mulder was hanging out prior to taking that first phone call with Scully. With "A Decade of Dirty Delinquents" as the feature attraction, do you think Mulder was taking in a documentary? When anything like this pops up in a film or TV show I have to check it out, but in this case, one of the few hits I got on IMDb when I typed in that title was "A Decade of Difference: A Concert Celebrating 10 Years of the William J. Clinton Foundation". So now I'm laughing even more because after all, who's more qualified to expound on the subject of dirty delinquents than Bill Clinton? Life imitates art you know.

Now on the face of it, the story here really stretches the credibility factor when it talks about quadruplets being born, all with the same congenital spinal deformities along with the extra fingers. That they all wound up pretty much in the same general area as adoptees was another stretch you have to go with, not to mention the relative ease in which they were all tracked down by Scully and Mulder. Granted, it's a forty five minute program so they have to move things along, but this was a pretty rapid pace in which to solve the case.

The episode offers some great misdirection with the character of Father Gregory (Jody Racicot), the religious wacko referred to earlier by Mulder, who actually turns out to be the one trying to track down the handicapped women to save their souls from the devil. The story is cloaked in the mystical tale of the Seraphim, an angel with four faces, and it's offspring, the Nephilim, or the Fallen Ones that the Devil seeks to claim for his domain. The episode attempts to offer some solace to Scully's grief over the death of her child Emily from earlier in Season Five, an emotional investment I haven't been able to make as a viewer so much because of the circumstances surrounding Emily's origin.

Strongest religious episode so far

[wtw-92302 · 9/10 · 3 January 2024]

I have no idea why so many viewers aren't understanding the thread between Mulder and Scully's central episodes. Personally I think this is one of the strongest Scully Faith episodes I've seen so far. Rather than dealing with just blind faith or some weird exorcism or something, Scully actually witnesses something unbelievable and is conflicted about it. I think the central framing of this episode being told retrospectively through a confessional helps square Scully's behavior with her existing characterization as "the skeptical one". Obviously constantly writing Scully as "the skeptical one" would be insanely boring which is why we're given these occasional episodes where Scully is more inclined to believe an unexplained phenomenon than Mulder is. I think the story and visual effects concerning the Seraphin are cool; I think the effects concerning the devil character are a little hokey. All-in-all though I think this is the best execution on the occasional "Scully believes Mulder doesn't" inversion episode.