Zack Handlen > Quotes

“It’s not as though the show couldn’t end story lines when it needed to. The biggest emotional payoff of “Aprocrypha” comes in the resolution of the murder of Scully’s sister. The episode does a fine job of both “solving” the mystery and yet showing the complete lack of satisfaction that the solution provides our heroine. Melissa is still dead. A scene at the cemetery drives the point home, and it’s during that scene that we learn that Melissa’s killer died in his jail cell. There’s no vengeance or catharsis or relief, and the forces that ordered the hit remain unpunished and unidentified.”
― Zack Handlen, Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to The X-Files

“Even when you no longer believe in ghosts, you can still believe in being haunted.”
― Zack Handlen, Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to The X-Files

“One of Carter's strengths as a writer—the strength that arguably made this entire show possible—is his ability to write absolute bullshit with a straight face. And he keeps on writing it, with such conviction that you might start doubting yourself for doubting him.”
― Zack Handlen, Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to The X-Files

“Mulder and Scully have risked their lives to get closer to the truth, and they know more than they ever did before, but each new piece of information sends them down another rabbit hole, falling through space as they search for the ground. The X-Files creates grand import out of eerie moments and a lack of closure. Eventually that lack of closure would become a detriment, but in the third season, images like Krycek pounding on a door where no one can hear him still have the power to haunt you.”
― Zack Handlen, Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to The X-Files