The final two episodes of The X Files 2016 miniseries reviewed by Chris Arnsby
Season 10 Episode
5 Babylon
SPOILERS IN THIS
REVIEW!
"It’s
unfortunate, then, that Carter’s noble message of transcending our fears of the
other backfires spectacularly in an hour of television that manages to traffic
in tired and dangerous stereotypes, especially of Muslims, whose beliefs and
practices are shown only in the most ominous and reductive ways." That's a
quote from an article by Ismat Sarah Mangla, The X-Files’ And Religion:
Chris Carter Wants Us To Believe, But ‘Babylon’ Traffics In Muslim Stereotypes
for The International Business Times. I agree with it. Chris Carter may
have written Babylon with the best of intentions but the episode stands
as an example of a sincere, compassionate, and well-meant message gone wrong. Could
they have lead with something else as the starting point of this episode? Of
course. They could have gone with a Christian blowing up an abortion clinic.
But that's just as bad. If not worse. A stupid obvious inversion of the
original idea. So what's the solution? I don't know. All I do know is that this
episode steers itself into narrative waters that it's not equipped to navigate.
Could Chris Carter have dodged the whole issue by using a different crime as
the starting point? Not really, because the point of this episode seems to have
been to generate whiplash between the serious bits and the funny bits. Yes, the
funny bits. This is the episode in which Fox Mulder investigates a suicide
bombing by dropping acid.
