The Red and the Black (The X-Files)
Last updated
"The Red and the Black" is the fourteenth episode of the fifth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. Written by series creator Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, and directed by Carter, it aired on the Fox network on March 8, 1998. The episode continues the series' mythology arc and features the return of Mulder's belief in extraterrestrials.
Plot
In a Canadian mountain cabin, someone writes a letter addressed to "Son" expressing hope for reconciliation, then mails it to the FBI via a boy courier. Fox Mulder arrives at the Ruskin Dam to find burned corpses, including Quiet Willy and Dmitri, while Dana Scully is among about fifty survivors with minor burns. Jeffrey Spender arrives seeking his missing mother Cassandra. Mulder meets with Scully, who remembers nothing of the incident.
Jeffrey warns Mulder to stay away from his mother. The Well-Manicured Man and other Syndicate Elders administer the black oil vaccine to Marita Covarrubias, which has not yet worked. The Well-Manicured Man meets Alex Krycek, held captive on a Russian freighter, believing the Russians have a functional vaccine. A spacecraft crashes at Wiekamp Air Force Base in West Virginia; the surviving Rebel passenger is captured.
Mulder shows Scully photos of victims and finds more implants, suggesting her implant may hold answers. The Syndicate debates the Russian vaccine; the Well-Manicured Man proposes either resistance or an alliance with the Rebels, but other members consider this suicidal.
Production
Chris Carter noted that the cast list for this episode and "Patient X" was longer than typical for a TV series, making the episode substantially more expensive. The crew convinced Fox to allocate the money by arguing the plot was leading up to the release of the X-Files movie. Rob Bowman originally intended to direct but could not due to reshoots for the film, so Carter took over. Bowman recalled that Carter was angry about this.
For the medic station scene, Carter paid homage to the medical drama ER by filming entirely with a Steadicam. The opening scene was shot at Grouse Mountain north of Vancouver, British Columbia. Syndicate scenes testing the vaccine on Marita Covarrubias were filmed at an abandoned hospital in Vancouver, chosen for its observation space, which proved difficult to film in. The episode was technically demanding; Carter later described it and "Patient X" as the most challenging and logically complex projects of the season.
The scene of Cassandra Spender being elevated into a colonist craft used a stuntwoman in a wheelchair lifted by a crane, removed in post-production. Alien ship lights were created with a lighting rig and computer effects. The crashed spacecraft was sixty feet in diameter, twice the length of any previous spaceship on the show, and was dragged across the ground to create a deep gash. Twenty-five explosions simulated the crash, and the wreckage was burned and filmed over a full night.
Reception
"The Red and the Black" premiered on Fox on March 8, 1998, earning a Nielsen rating of 12.0 with an 18 share, and was viewed by 19.98 million viewers. It was later included on the DVD collection The X-Files Mythology, Volume 3 – Colonization. Critical reception was largely positive. Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A−, praising the referenced "galactic war" between colonists and rebels and noting that "shit is about to get real."
However, he criticized the series for not following through on the alien war premise, though he felt the episode worked because performances were strong and the two-parter rarely felt bogged down. Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated it three stars out of five, calling it a "typical mythology runaround" but noting that simpler confrontation scenes were well handled.
Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique awarded three stars out of four, praising the premise and calling it a second half as strong as the first. Critics also praised the hypnotism scene: Shearman called it "gorgeous" and commended Gillian Anderson's acting; Vitaris was impressed by its blocking, calling the rendition "virtually orgasmic in intensity" and concluding that "Anderson is marvelous."
More in Television Episodes About Alien Abduction
Test yourself
Three questions drawn from this entry’s sources. Pick an answer to check it.
Answers checked against the source article
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: The Red and the Black (The X-Files) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced