The X-Files (TV Series) Providence (2002) User Reviews

"It would appear now that everything is dead but this case."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 28 August 2017]

If the intent of this episode was to keep the viewer confused as to what's going on, I think the writers largely succeeded. As explained by FBI agent Robert Comer (Neal McDonough), according to an ancient prophecy, Scully's baby William is destined to become the savior of humanity, but only if Fox Mulder is still alive. If he dies, William will instead lead the Colonists. Because Comer believes that Mulder was killed by the cult, it was his mission to kill William to prevent humanity's destruction. My question would be - how does any of this make sense?

Here's something else I don't get. The UFO cult leader in the story is revealed to be a man named Josepho, who once survived an ambush in Iraq while serving with the military. He claimed he was saved by four guardian angels, which translates into X-Files language as four super soldiers. In the cast credits for this and the prior episode, actor Denis Forest is listed as the 'Lone Man'. Why not just call him Josepho?

So then, if the cultists are kidnapping baby William in order to protect him, does it mean they are for the alien invasion and the colonists to succeed, or are they opposed to the aliens and intend to hide him? With all that, baby William is left behind when the space ship discovered by Josepho takes off, leaving the cultists dead in it's wake. Whether the baby is going to be the savior of humanity or the leader of it's destruction, why not take the kid and keep him under wraps? Totally confusing for this viewer, but I'm open to other interpretations.

With all that, Assistant Director Follmer (Carey Elwes) now opposes Deputy Director Kersh (James Pickens Jr.), Doggett's out of his coma thanks to the alien artifact, and Toothpick Man (Alan Dale) is revealed to be a super soldier. Ai, yai yai! Just a little too bizarre for me.

Bring Me The Head Of Fox Mulder

[Muldernscully · 7/10 · 21 November 2007]

Providence continues the storyline of William's life being in danger for being some kind of "Christ child". Except in this episode, some Super Soldiers is thrown in dampening the story some.

With Scully's child's life at risk, Scully chooses to revert to the creed of the X-Files of "trust no one", not even Skinner. Gillian Anderson is exemplary again in this episode. Scully gets murderous intentions when trying to get information from Agent Comer. This is a very desperate side of Scully that we rarely see. We've seen her threaten people with death before, but not choke anyone before.

When the spacecraft opens for the first time, the score by Mark Snow reminds me of the Raiders of the Lost Ark score when they see the ark for the first time. I wonder if that was intentional.

We also see a new side of Reyes in Providence when she enters the hospital chapel and prays for Doggett. And not to be outdone by Reyes, Doggett receives a revelation in his coma, hearing voices, warning him to warn Scully not to trust Josepho.

Besides continuing the possible continuity error from last episode of Mulder supposedly being dead for six months, even though we know he was alive two months ago in 'Trust No 1', another minor script error occurs when Josepho quotes scripture to Scully. He asks her if she knows the Bible. She replies that the scripture is from Ephesians. Wrong, Scully. The scripture Josepho quoted is from Ezekial. Somebody messed up there.

Besides mentioning Super Soldiers again, this episode is a step below Providence because it makes the Lone Gunmen to be completely inept. The place the cell phone in the baby's car seat but the lady is gone by the time Scully gets there. Then, they put a tracker on Josepho's truck, but lose the signal in the hilly terrain. For some unknown reason, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz wanted to make the Gunmen look absolutely useless.

The Toothpick Man appears again in this episode, is given some lines, and is revealed as a Super Soldier. He appears to hold a high position with no title. I wonder if he was intended to be the new "Cigarette Smoking Man(CSM)" before it was decided to end the series after this season, because he appears to be set up in the same manner as the "CSM" character.

Providence is still a decent mythology episode, but dragging Super Soldiers into the storyline again and ridiculing the Lone Gunmen just hurts the episode in my book and makes it not as good as Provenance.

Alien MuldScull Jesus Baby storyline 👎

[Albicky73 · 7/10 · 8 September 2021]

The main cast spend so much time in comas etc this should be reclassified as a hospital drama.

Waste of Anderson's skill with this messianic nonsense.

Salome UFO cultists asks King Kerod Scully to bring him the head of Mulder the Baptist?

[Sanpaco13 · 6/10 · 12 February 2009]

So now that Scully's baby is gone, the FBI launches a task force to find him but Scully decides to launch her own personal task force like always. I always think its funny whenever someone goes missing on this show and the FBI launches a search team seems like Mulder and/or Scully and/or Skinner is always mad. If I weren't a viewer of the show and instead an actual FBI agent busting my butt trying to find this kid then I would think Scully was a pompous ungrateful bitty because she leaves the office and starts talking about how its a joke and all. Anyway, Doggett is in the hospital and apparently Reyes thinks that because TLG were ambushed and lost the baby that they are not to be trusted. You're one to be talking little miss been on the show less than a year. Scully and Reyes go to FBI cult guy's hospital with the healer artifact from the space ship and make him talk and tell them what is going on and why and then they are caught and leave the room and Charles Widmore super soldier kills FBI cult guy making it look like Reyes and Scully probably did it. Scully slips out and goes to find the cult and save her baby. William opens the UFO they found by crying a bunch and everyone blows up except him and Scully and Reyes find him and something something blah blah blah I forget. We do get a slight indication that Brad Follmer is gonna pull a Skinner and actually turn out not being a bad guy but just a jerk face in the beginning because that's what you do at the FBI. Oh and Reyes prays to Doggett when he's sleeping and then Doggett wakes up and thanks her. 6 out of 10.

What does god need with a starship?

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 1 March 2022]

These episodes and the story actually makes sense, if you pay attention:

Not just to this episode, but to the entire arc which includes the god spaceship from S6/S7, Skully's pregnancy, Mulders brain disease, his abduction, return, recovery, and finally his disappearance (and then final reappearance), but most importantly, the last two episodes of season 8 where the super soldiers can't decide whether to kill baby William or to treat him as Jesus. They are always veering from one extreme to the other, all the way to season 11, where the William story finally gets finished. What's the one thing that the season eight finale showed us was that exactly how many super soldiers there were. These guys are all over the X-Files universe, and in this episode we get to see how one of them has gotten implanted into the FBI and is the actual reason why Kirsch does certain things, he is not an actual control of his post.

There are elements of every single one of these arcs in these two episodes, and if you paid attention to those previous episodes, then what Agent Comer (The great character actor Neal McDonough) says, Will just fall right into place and make sense.

But the thing you have to consider about both Agent Comer and the person who runs the alien cult "Josephus-o", they are both not only completely misguided, but 100% totally wrong.

And to tell the truth the only person who really understood the god spaceship was the man who had gone crazy at the beginning of season seven, when he figured out the life-giving qualities and went ape-crazy with the machete on his poor driver.

Because when you think about it, it's not the metal of the spaceship that was resurrecting these people or healing certain people- it was the words written on the spaceship, the words copied onto the rubbing, The words on the tiny slivers of alien metal that come into contact with Mulder and causes his brain to go whack, the words on the piece of metal that baby William has direct control over. The words that eventually became text for various earthly religions and which also contains our very genome. And as Skully often says about these artifacts, "they are powerful", "They are power", "They have power".

And this was the thing that Josephusio did not realize about William, because Josepho was in a big hurry trying to break in to the alien god ship using conventional tools. How well did that work out? Totally wrong approach, and apparently he didn't know about this power aspect that Skully was aware of- she knew how dangerous this thing was, how dangerous those words are. But Josepho did not.

The concurrent story here is that these super soldiers are alien replacements, but they are also a government experiment. These two theories of their existence "coexist" throughout the last two seasons of the X-Files. Why should not both be true? That's the one thing that both Mulder, who believed that they were aliens, and Doggett, who did not believe that they were aliens, never considered: that both situations were true. These guys are both aliens and government experiments. The other person who understood what the super soldiers were was Alex Krycek- Who had an opportunity to do the right thing but he just had to slip back into his duplicitous self. Remember, Krycek had access to that DAT tape from Anasazi during this whole time. So of all of the people in the X-Files, he knew the most. But he made dire mistakes with his decisions about what he wanted to do with that stuff. Particularly the decision to taunt and torment A. D. Skinner, which backfired on him spectacularly.

And although this is possibly the last we will see of the god spaceship (Sir, excuse me, what does god need with a starship?), this is not the last we will see of the power, which obviously William Mulder can tap into and control, or, will be able to control- 17 years from now...

The story develops, solid episode.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 11 October 2022]

Scully faces a desperate challenge to get her baby back, with Doggett hospitalised, she has to rely on the help of Reyes.

I wasn't crazy about the previous episode, but I felt that this was a quite satisfying conclusion to the story, for now.

For me, throughout this series, the standalone, monster of the week episodes have been so much better in general, that the mythology episodes, this one however was one of the better ones, quite exciting, well acted, with some awesome special effects.

I thought the three lead characters were all somewhat wasted, Doggett had money for old rope here.

I am intrigued to learn more about both Follmer and Kersh, and whether of not the pair have the mark on the back of their necks.

I hope this story is done for now.

7/10.