I began binge-watching "The X-Files" with my dad a couple of months ago. We focused primarily on the "mytharc" episodes, skipping over most of the "monster-of-the-week" ones. Overall, I've enjoyed this series and the themes it explores, but my favorite part of it is the mysterious and malevolent villain. His official name is C.G.B. Spender, but he's known throughout the series by a variety of nicknames, most notably "Cigarette Smoking Man", "Cancer Man" and "Old Smokey".
When I first started watching the series, I didn't really notice him, but as the series progressed, he quickly evolved into my favorite character. One thing that makes him so cool is that his past is shrouded in mystery. We know practically nothing about him at the beginning of the series, but as it progresses, we learn more and more, until in this episode (S4 E7), the history of the Smoking Man is finally revealed...
...or is it?
A brief summary of the plot is this: The Cigarette Smoking Man (CSM for short) uses spy equipment to listen in on an off-screen conversation with Mulder, Scully, and their conspiracy-theorist friends, the "Lone Gunmen". One of the "Gunmen", Melvin Frohike, believes that he's possibly found everything on the CSM; his background, who he is, and who he wants to be. Frohike then proceeds to tell the CSM's story from the day of his birth. He states some details about the CSM's childhood while the CSM himself listens closely (taking some drags off his Morley, of course). The episode then travels back into the past. Whether this is Frohike's narrative continuing or the CSM having a flashback, we aren't sure. This look into the past shows many new details about the CSM's life: His relationship to Mulder's father and Deep Throat, his first top-secret assignments, and how he first got hooked on cigarettes. We also see a lot more into his inner character, and an unexpected soft side to him. We see his dream of becoming a writer being crushed, and afterward, him making a very different statement on how "life is like a box of chocolates".
After all this is revealed, Frohike says that everything he's told us is "based only on a story I read in one of my weekly subscriptions that rang a few bells" (This is allegedly a story written by the CSM himself). As he leaves to "check with a private hacker source to try to produce some definitive proof", the CSM prepares a sniper rifle to shoot Frohike, and at the last second, decides not to. This leads the viewer to wonder: "Was anything I've seen even true?"
That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question, to quote Agent Mulder, and I believe that's up for you, as the viewer, to decide. The first thing I want to mention is that "X-Files" writer and executive producer Frank Spotnitz has stated that he believes that while some of the story may be true, it has been deemed "non-canon" by the executives. As you continue to watch other episodes, you'll begin to see that the episode is not intended by the writers to be true. For example, the CSM strongly implies, though never explicitly states, that he witnessed the Roswell UFO crash in 1947, along with Bill Mulder (Fox's dad). In "Musings", he is said to have been born in 1940, which would've made him a second-grader during the Roswell incident. He's also revealed in two other episodes ("Apocrypha" - S3 E16 and "Travelers" - S5 E15) to have been an agent of the State Department since at least 1952, along with Bill Mulder, but in "Musings", he and Mulder are shown to be young army captains in 1962. So, the inconsistencies with established canon start pretty early in the episode. (It should be noted that this age controversy extends to Bill Mulder as well, as his tombstone shows him to have been born in 1936. This causes the same inconsistencies to be applied to him, as well.) Another inconsistency is that he appears to have never smoked until 1963 in "Musings", but in "Apocrypha", he is shown to have been smoking ten years earlier, in 1953.
Nevertheless, there is also some evidence to support the "Musings" storyline. In "One Breath" (S2 E8), the CSM tells Mulder that he's "watched presidents die". Also, in another episode, the CSM's superior (called the "Well-Manicured Man") tells him "This will take more than just a good aim". He is also seen using a typewriter in "The Red and the Black" (S5 E14), a possession that is very prominent in "Musings". Other evidence in support of this story is at the end of the episode, where the CSM moves to kill Frohike, then changes his mind. If this story is fake, why did the CSM want to shoot Frohike? It doesn't make sense that he would feel the need to kill him if the story was false. Also, at the end, he quotes the end of the novel he supposedly wrote: "I can kill you whenever I please, but not today." This ending, as I said before, can be interpreted lots of different ways. You could argue that he just felt that killing Frohike was unnecessary, since he's so powerful, or maybe that he did indeed have some memories triggered that night, and he felt that, just once, he didn't have to pull the trigger, and could do it another day if the need arose. This is what my mom chose to believe when I showed her this episode. The point is, the CSM planned on killing Frohike, then changed his mind for whatever reason, so perhaps there is some truth to Frohike's tale, after all.
What I love about this episode is the character development of the CSM. Writer Glen Morgan and actors William B. Davis (Old CSM) and Chris Owens (Young CSM) did a great job of showing an unexpected but very believable side to a character who has been, up to this point, pretty two-dimensional. What makes the CSM such a great character is that he believes that what he's doing is right, but in this episode, we see that he also believes that he has no choice; he feels that what he's doing has to be done, no matter how wrong it may seem. We also have a very emotional moment when the CSM thinks he'll be able to "quit the life", so to speak, and become a writer (his lifelong passion), only to find that his stories are constantly rejected, and when one finally does get published, he discovers that it's in a crappy "Playboy" knockoff and his beloved ending has been totally changed. It truly is a moment of sympathy for the devil.
You could try to reconcile the inconsistencies of this episode with the established "X-Files" canon, but my advice is: don't. You'll just end up giving yourself a headache (like I did). Whenever you have a TV series like "The X-Files" that has different writers throughout the series, you'll inevitably run into continuity problems. I don't think that's the purpose of this episode, anyway. It's just meant to be an entertaining story that's left up for you to determine whether it's true or not. My "Scully" side wants to reject the story as fake and that none of this happened. My "Mulder" side, however, wants to say that maybe, just maybe, this story is indeed true. Maybe it's just that "I WANT TO BELIEVE".
So I say, relax about the fact-for-fact legitimacy of the story, and instead, focus on what it's meant to be: A fun ride that may (or may not) be the true story of the infamous Cigarette Smoking Man. Regardless of what's "canon" or what's not, it's my favorite "X-Files" episode, and it's a must-watch for any "X-Files" fan!
When I first started watching the series, I didn't really notice him, but as the series progressed, he quickly evolved into my favorite character. One thing that makes him so cool is that his past is shrouded in mystery. We know practically nothing about him at the beginning of the series, but as it progresses, we learn more and more, until in this episode (S4 E7), the history of the Smoking Man is finally revealed...
...or is it?
A brief summary of the plot is this: The Cigarette Smoking Man (CSM for short) uses spy equipment to listen in on an off-screen conversation with Mulder, Scully, and their conspiracy-theorist friends, the "Lone Gunmen". One of the "Gunmen", Melvin Frohike, believes that he's possibly found everything on the CSM; his background, who he is, and who he wants to be. Frohike then proceeds to tell the CSM's story from the day of his birth. He states some details about the CSM's childhood while the CSM himself listens closely (taking some drags off his Morley, of course). The episode then travels back into the past. Whether this is Frohike's narrative continuing or the CSM having a flashback, we aren't sure. This look into the past shows many new details about the CSM's life: His relationship to Mulder's father and Deep Throat, his first top-secret assignments, and how he first got hooked on cigarettes. We also see a lot more into his inner character, and an unexpected soft side to him. We see his dream of becoming a writer being crushed, and afterward, him making a very different statement on how "life is like a box of chocolates".
After all this is revealed, Frohike says that everything he's told us is "based only on a story I read in one of my weekly subscriptions that rang a few bells" (This is allegedly a story written by the CSM himself). As he leaves to "check with a private hacker source to try to produce some definitive proof", the CSM prepares a sniper rifle to shoot Frohike, and at the last second, decides not to. This leads the viewer to wonder: "Was anything I've seen even true?"
That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question, to quote Agent Mulder, and I believe that's up for you, as the viewer, to decide. The first thing I want to mention is that "X-Files" writer and executive producer Frank Spotnitz has stated that he believes that while some of the story may be true, it has been deemed "non-canon" by the executives. As you continue to watch other episodes, you'll begin to see that the episode is not intended by the writers to be true. For example, the CSM strongly implies, though never explicitly states, that he witnessed the Roswell UFO crash in 1947, along with Bill Mulder (Fox's dad). In "Musings", he is said to have been born in 1940, which would've made him a second-grader during the Roswell incident. He's also revealed in two other episodes ("Apocrypha" - S3 E16 and "Travelers" - S5 E15) to have been an agent of the State Department since at least 1952, along with Bill Mulder, but in "Musings", he and Mulder are shown to be young army captains in 1962. So, the inconsistencies with established canon start pretty early in the episode. (It should be noted that this age controversy extends to Bill Mulder as well, as his tombstone shows him to have been born in 1936. This causes the same inconsistencies to be applied to him, as well.) Another inconsistency is that he appears to have never smoked until 1963 in "Musings", but in "Apocrypha", he is shown to have been smoking ten years earlier, in 1953.
Nevertheless, there is also some evidence to support the "Musings" storyline. In "One Breath" (S2 E8), the CSM tells Mulder that he's "watched presidents die". Also, in another episode, the CSM's superior (called the "Well-Manicured Man") tells him "This will take more than just a good aim". He is also seen using a typewriter in "The Red and the Black" (S5 E14), a possession that is very prominent in "Musings". Other evidence in support of this story is at the end of the episode, where the CSM moves to kill Frohike, then changes his mind. If this story is fake, why did the CSM want to shoot Frohike? It doesn't make sense that he would feel the need to kill him if the story was false. Also, at the end, he quotes the end of the novel he supposedly wrote: "I can kill you whenever I please, but not today." This ending, as I said before, can be interpreted lots of different ways. You could argue that he just felt that killing Frohike was unnecessary, since he's so powerful, or maybe that he did indeed have some memories triggered that night, and he felt that, just once, he didn't have to pull the trigger, and could do it another day if the need arose. This is what my mom chose to believe when I showed her this episode. The point is, the CSM planned on killing Frohike, then changed his mind for whatever reason, so perhaps there is some truth to Frohike's tale, after all.
What I love about this episode is the character development of the CSM. Writer Glen Morgan and actors William B. Davis (Old CSM) and Chris Owens (Young CSM) did a great job of showing an unexpected but very believable side to a character who has been, up to this point, pretty two-dimensional. What makes the CSM such a great character is that he believes that what he's doing is right, but in this episode, we see that he also believes that he has no choice; he feels that what he's doing has to be done, no matter how wrong it may seem. We also have a very emotional moment when the CSM thinks he'll be able to "quit the life", so to speak, and become a writer (his lifelong passion), only to find that his stories are constantly rejected, and when one finally does get published, he discovers that it's in a crappy "Playboy" knockoff and his beloved ending has been totally changed. It truly is a moment of sympathy for the devil.
You could try to reconcile the inconsistencies of this episode with the established "X-Files" canon, but my advice is: don't. You'll just end up giving yourself a headache (like I did). Whenever you have a TV series like "The X-Files" that has different writers throughout the series, you'll inevitably run into continuity problems. I don't think that's the purpose of this episode, anyway. It's just meant to be an entertaining story that's left up for you to determine whether it's true or not. My "Scully" side wants to reject the story as fake and that none of this happened. My "Mulder" side, however, wants to say that maybe, just maybe, this story is indeed true. Maybe it's just that "I WANT TO BELIEVE".
So I say, relax about the fact-for-fact legitimacy of the story, and instead, focus on what it's meant to be: A fun ride that may (or may not) be the true story of the infamous Cigarette Smoking Man. Regardless of what's "canon" or what's not, it's my favorite "X-Files" episode, and it's a must-watch for any "X-Files" fan!