MovieChat Forums > The X Files (1993) Discussion > Samantha Mulder ending was terrible

Samantha Mulder ending was terrible

posted 8 years ago by MysteryRidah
35 replies | jump to latest

Just finish watching closure episode, i read some other reviews, a few i agreed with , that it was horrible. So throughout all the seasons/episodes where Samantha Mulder story-line was that she was taken by aliens( which made more sense anyway ), the bounty hunter alien knowing about her and trying to killed the clones of her, CSM showing Mulder many times his sister Samantha Mulder, for goodness sake we seen her in many episodes, alive and well. Even those taken by aliens told mulder that his sister is still alive and was a clone from her. Watching the episode closure, made no sense at all. So basically the original storyline was all a waste of time, because it would have made more sense for mulder to be reunited with her sister, then to say she was killed by some fat man and went into some stupid star light afterlife nonsense.

ugh, i have to remind myself to just never watch that episode ever again and erase it from my memory and just pretend she was taken by aliens and she's living somewhere in a nice home now. Oh wait, the CSM already proven that , remember when him and Samantha Mulder went to see mulder at the restaurant?

That's right...........

(My Entertainment)
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[–] panzermeyer44 8 years ago

Both "Closure" and the season 9 finale were big letdowns for me. Carter and Spotnitz really dropped the ball.

[–] fjk1138-731-161881 8 years ago

Didn't like it either. Would rather they left her storyline unsolved rather than how it was shown.

[–] bobbydallas (8678) 8 years ago

Yes, totally. What a let down...

[–] hungryman86 8 years ago

It did seem like a last minute cop-out from the writers. Duchovny was getting ready to leave after season 7 or the potential end of the show was also looming. They knew the story had to be wrapped up and probably couldn't spare more than a couple of episodes to wrap up this significant plot. Which is really sad if you think about it, they couldn't spare a couple more episode slots to wrap up the driving force behind the main characters actions. I can think of a few season seven episodes i could have done without (i.e. Kathy Griffin) and the writers could have utilized for a more satisfactory conclusion. But episode "Closure" and this whole starlight thing, did seem to contradict almost everything else we knew about Samantha's abduction.

[–] Samson_Lee 8 years ago

It made no sense. Truly was a last minute thing. People kept saying she was alive and had no reason to lie.

I think the original plan was for her to be alive, or even when Mulder is abducted, his sister is waiting for him. I would of had her return in season 8, and done away with Monica, had her playing a role in finding him. Then you could have Mulder and his sister going into hiding in season 9. But what we got was just a terrible ending and I hated it.

[–] Pippy-4 8 years ago

I loved Closure and thought it was a beautiful episode. The music and Mulder finally being at peace with what happened to her was beautiful.

[–] lennonforever (2453) 7 years ago

Yes, I agree. It was terribly poignant. I cried and cried.

[–] narnia4 8 years ago

I loved Closure and thought that Samantha being dead was the only thing that made sense, outside her being a basket case. No, it didn't really build off the other episodes about Samantha and her abduction, but the emotional and thematic power of the ending make up for that in my opinion.

[–] mgreen9715 8 years ago

Closure was an amazing episode and I often have trouble seeing how anyone could possibly dislike this episodes!? Oh well, opinions.

[–] Wookieebitch 8 years ago

I agree. Not only did I think it made sense, I thought it was about the only resolution that felt new.

[–] kmd11 8 years ago

I don't understand why people don't understand it. The other Samatha's that they showed him were clones of her and she was long dead. What's not to understand?

[–] baileythedog 8 years ago

I don't understand why people don't understand it. The other Samatha's that they showed him were clones of her and she was long dead. What's not to understand?

Agreed.

More than that, I can't imagine what people were actually expecting. That Mulder would find Samantha after nearly 30 years and she would just be okay? Not incredibly fvcked up? And that this reunion would somehow be enjoyable?

Of course she would have to be dead and of course she would have to be dead longer than Mulder had even been seriously looking for her. In retrospect, it's the only answer that makes sense.

[–] boy19 8 years ago

Because many characters commented to Mulder that she was alive and still out there (Cassandra, CSM, Bounty Hunter). It led the audience down a road where they wanted resolution to the build up to then be told she was dead all along in a quick two parter. It just felt flat and cheap because CC knew that season 7 may be the last and he wanted to quickly resolve it. I liked the two episodes as stand alone stories but not so much as a conclusion to the story arc throughout the show.

I would have liked Mulder to potentially find out what happened to her whilst he was abducted in season 8 although I know the writers didn't know by the end of season 7 whether they would have any longer to conclude the story.

[–] Wookieebitch 8 years ago

I think a lot of people are critical just to be critical.

[–] ThreeZs 8 years ago

The strength of the path they took was that Samantha didn't suffer anymore. We had seen the suffering of adults at the hands of the aliens and the hands of humans, too, and it was too much to see the effects of the torturous treatment on a child--even the aftereffects as an adult.
People may think the starlight story line was a turn off, but the real thing would have been a far greater turn off. The audience was let down gently.

[–] brut-50882 8 years ago

You make a good point especially when the whole story is so devastating with the killer and all those children's graves. That said, I still think the "starlight" was a little too hokey for my tastes, especially since the entire driving force behind Mulder and the XF is to find his sister....I just would have preferred a more "earthly" or realistic scenario...but it is the XF so anything goes.

[–] boy19 8 years ago

I liked the Samantha in Redux. I wish that she had been the real one and not another clone.

[–] ThreeZs 8 years ago

I'm a romantic, so of course I liked it. I hate to see suffering, especially of children. When children are hurt in a story line, it haunts me afterward.

Instant gratification takes too long.
-Carrie Fisher, RIP

[–] lennonforever (2453) 7 years ago

I agree ThreeZs. It was devastating to think of those poor children and Samantha. That she was finally at peace with the other children allowed for me to stop the grieving.

[–] jamieparsons1 8 years ago

Because people don't like continuous retcons. 'Here is your sister Samantha' 'oh sorry that was a clone, here is your real sister' 'oh nope that was a clone too, your real sister is with CSM' 'nope clone as well, your sister is still alive' 'nope sorry your sister was taken by spectral ghosts the whole time and is dead so we don't have to make any more episodes about it'

[–] baileythedog 8 years ago

Because people don't like continuous retcons. 'Here is your sister Samantha' 'oh sorry that was a clone, here is your real sister' 'oh nope that was a clone too, your real sister is with CSM' 'nope clone as well, your sister is still alive' 'nope sorry your sister was taken by spectral ghosts the whole time and is dead so we don't have to make any more episodes about it'

How are those continuous retcons? Cloning is a huge thematic element that runs through the show. And the whole point of cloning is that it could happen repeatedly, thus you'd end up with clones of different ages.

"Closure" didn't retcon anything. It told us that Samantha was, indeed, taken. That she was experimented on (i.e. cloned) and then she died. It didn't contradict anything that had come before it, only let us know that the "real" Samantha was never alive long enough for Mulder to find.

[–] jamieparsons1 8 years ago

Its continuous retconning because during the episode we are led to believe that it is the real Samantha. That happens three times. Then later it is 'no it's not the real Samantha' and characters say she is still alive. Then it turns out she was dead the whole time because of ghosts. Completely unsatisfactory, deus ex machina to resolve a 7 season-long storyline.

[–] baileythedog 8 years ago

Its continuous retconning because during the episode we are led to believe that it is the real Samantha. That happens three times.

It sounds like you just haven't grasped the concept of the show in that Mulder can never be sure what he's been told or what he's been show is "true." It's why he's had a crisis of confidence more than once. The show never said those earlier versions of Samantha were the whole truth. They were facets of what happened to Samantha. They weren't ret-conned unless you have some really bizarre working definition of what ret-conning is.

Then later it is 'no it's not the real Samantha' and characters say she is still alive.

The character who said that was literally a crazy woman that had undergone years of experimentation herself. Hardly a reliable narrator.

[–] overseas7 (5070) 4 years ago

I agree .I have watched the chapter today, it was a nice one. Of course it is not nice the way Samantha died but at least both Mulder and Samantha found their peace and they could say "goodbye " to each other.

[–] tb-sch 8 years ago

By that time Carter had been tangled up in the show's plots to the degree that there was nowhere to go. One can just pretend to resolve the mystery and then stall it one more time so often and the show was way beyond that stage. Instead of coming up with a new mystery after the movie and connecting it to the conspiracy in a loose way, they tried to ride the already dying winning horse some longer. Instead of establishing new characters, they continued to rely on the team which after half a decade wanted to follow new projects. It is 90s TV making to contiue until it falls apart, I guess in today's world one would try to keep the brand fresh and rather attempt a spin-off than wrecking the show like they did.

[–] puirt-a-beul 8 years ago

Absolutely, tb-sch.

I myself went completely off The X-Files somewhere towards the end of Season 3, because it became obvious even that early that they were just going to keep throwing complications at the screen whenever they needed to seem "mysterious", but had no schema that would ever see the plot resolved. I came back to it only because it was the best thing going in this genre, but have viewed it ever since with a certain distancing.

Other similar frustrations followed. But the final Samantha episode was simply a rip-off. To pick such a mundane resolution to a (perhaps *the*) major plot thread, and then just dismiss all the many, many previous episodes that contradicted it utterly with a lazy attitude of, "It was a conspiracy, ha-ha fooled ya!" was ... well, I found it galling.

There's a certain level of trust an audience invests in a show, and that shouldn't be so lightly discarded. I've had a tangible level of contempt for Carter as a storyteller ever since.

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[–] Karl Aksel 8 years ago

It is very clear that the solution they offered in "Closure" was not what they had in mind from the beginning. But they kept stalling, like you said, because Mulder's search for his sister was meant to be an on-going plot, spanning many seasons. Which it did, but it seems they were afraid to resolve it too early for fear the show would then run out of steam. But the plot to find Samantha was never as important to the viewers as the writers intended it to be - they stretched it out too long, and we were allowed to forget about Samantha for several episodes at a time. They should have resolved it earlier, and better.

[–] BillySlater (4281) 7 years ago

I agree with this. They should have resolved the Samantha storyline at least a season or two earlier or could have even done it in the first movie. The resolution was also a huge letdown. I agree with some of the earlier posters that they did some heavy retconning for the storyline.

[–] lukemm-90850 8 years ago

You seemed to answer your own question. Every time we saw Samantha "alive and well," she was an alien clone... old or young. BUT in the closure episode, it's quite clear that Smokey was behind her suffering and behind all the cloning. They don't need her body to keep making clones. In all of their experiments on her - as they did to Smokey's own son, Jeffrey, they could've gotten enough DNA to make as many clones as they wanted.

[–] Skullomania 8 years ago

I'm just curious if everyone who thought the conclusion was bad because of the episodes about his sister that came before it felt the same way about 'Paper Hearts'?

John Hancock

[–] Wookieebitch 8 years ago

I'm just curious if everyone who thought the conclusion was bad because of the episodes about his sister that came before it felt the same way about 'Paper Hearts'?

I'd be curious to know this myself.

[–] Kawada_Kira (7282) 5 years ago

Speaking as one of those people, yes, I did, to some extent. Paper Hearts was otherwise a really well-written episode, and the villain had a great actor who really stole the show, but I just couldn't ignore the fact that it was so contradictory and stupid that Mulder would just forget everything he's seen with his own eyes and think Samantha was kidnapped and murdered by this guy (or that he actually wanted to think so just so he could have closure; frankly, her being taken by a child molester is a far uglier and darker fate than her being taken by aliens or pro-alien conspirators, IMO). Paper Hearts would have been a great episode if it had come EARLIER, like in season 1 or so, back before it was definitively confirmed that Samantha was taken by aliens. It was a good episode, but in the wrong place in the series.

The ultimate conclusion episode that they finally settled on, though, was just stupid all around. It was just cheap BS where they dumped shallow appeals to emotion on the viewers to try and conceal the fact that the resolution made no fucking sense. And it looks like it worked, on some people. "It made me cry though!" -_-

[–] TheLovelyAnomaly (619) 7 years ago

I thought it was pretty obvious that the conclusion we got was not what was originally intended. It screamed "copout" to me. That said, the episode was too painfully beautiful for me to consider it terrible. The reveal of Samantha's death was a letdown (especially after all the searching, all the wondering and hoping), but that last scene when Samantha's spirit embraces Mulder, and then Mulder tells Scully that he's finally free, tugged at my heartstrings something fierce.

[–] lennonforever (2453) 7 years ago

so true Lovely. It was a beautiful farewell, made all the moreso because of Moby's song.