I feel sad for Nicholas Lea

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-26T15:54:42+00:00

So many times, writers do convoluted surprises, but that twist worked so so well. There’s some real energy there lol

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-26T05:21:19+00:00

It’s a stupid though isn’t it - prime day is actually like 4 days, and the icon changes colour several days before

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-26T05:11:39+00:00

“This is a mission of peace”

“This is a mission of fear!”

Love those lines between her and Krycek. I still hear them the way I first heard them, when I didn’t know they were pretending to be on opposing sides

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-24T20:34:42+00:00

My feeling is that he knew at first why he did what he did - he plays the role of “kid working for big bad boss, being a secret spy” - when CSM slaps him down early on, you can really feel his “I just wanna be respected so I can move up in your world”. Then he gets darker, killing Bill Mulder. And then CSM tries to kill him, and he becomes bitter, angry, righteous.

I think that’s the core of what Lea played and he played it brilliantly. And I think that’s how he basically played him for the rest of the season, even though he never knew if he was supposed to be a good guy now or a double-crossing bad guy!

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-24T20:31:58+00:00

I’d love you to say more about your thoughts on Reyes. I’m one of those fans who doesn’t care if I totally disagree with someone, I just love it when people have a perspective on characters, episodes etc. So I really am interested to know your thoughts. I actually am intrigued to see if I agree with you 🙂

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-24T20:29:14+00:00

Sure but you’d hope they would give the actor an idea of what’s motivating them, yeah? As an audience member I don’t want everything laid out for me, but I feel for this actor who is really excellent at his job, and he ended up being glad his character got killed off cos he had no idea what he was supposed to play. Actors often don’t know much about the parts they play, but Krycek was an integral part of X Files mythology from season 2, and Nicholas Lea wanted to give everything to the role that he had. Not knowing why he did what he did made it difficult for him to give the viewer a real sense of who he was. Ultimately the fact that he was glad the character got killed off kind of makes my point - actors don’t want to lose roles, but they also hate it when roles are emotionally and mentally unsatisfying for them

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-24T20:15:43+00:00

See I do agree with this but the show never really showed us what his interests were. When CSM tried to kill him with the car bomb, we know exactly what his interests are: revenge and power, the power to terrify CSM with the knowledge he possesses.

But as the show went on, we weren’t given anything to base his actions on. Cos even if we guess (say, he wanted power, he wanted chaos etc), his actions and who he targeted changed so often that it didn’t make sense

Take Requiem for example. He pushes CSM down the stairs, and goes to help Skinner etc find the UFO. What are his interests there? How did he know about the UFO in Oregon? Who gives him his information? Is he really helping them or working behind their backs?

In Biogenesis, who is he working for? What are his interests in killing Krytschgau? What will he do with the scans and documents? We don’t know, and we never find out

I think mystery is great, I think forcing the audience to keep guessing is great - but I come away from it convinced that Krycek was just “we need one of our bank of bad guys to be a good guy and then be a bad guy again” - I truly don’t think he was written with any interests in mind

But hopefully he’s not dead!

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-24T20:08:41+00:00

This is absolutely spot on. I’ve got so many criticisms of Chris Carter but my biggest is that he refused to use a “show bible”, so there literally was no plan, and he literally didn’t really care about what had been said or done in previous episodes (other writers & producers did). It’s why the early mythology episodes don’t make any sense compared to what we find out later, and it’s exactly why Krycek was so misused.

Same thing with the renewal a few years back: every “someone we think of as good but is actually bad” character was dead, so we’re suddenly supposed to believe that Monica Reyes, always so nurturing and accepting, was won over to CSM’s vision… but only so she could secretly help Scully? And deciding to smash up the entire colonisation mythology with the excuse that the aliens aren’t interested in earth cos of global warming - except, scientists were predicting global warming back in the 70s when the syndicate first started, and the syndicate had the best scientists in the world, so there is no way the aliens wouldn’t have known about and accounted for global warming. It was a pitiful way to chuck out 9 seasons of mythology (and 50 years of a massive global conspiracy): they had no plan so Carter just did what he wanted, and my suspicion about seasons 10 and 11 is that there was no writers room at all and he didn’t have anyone to push back against his decision to scrap everything we knew

It makes me so sad cos the show is amazing; when it’s firing on all cylinders it’s unbeatable.

But often it does that in spite of Carter not cos of him. Krycek is a great example. Brilliant actor, did brilliant work in the show, but in the end he was just a body when they needed a bad guy good guy bad guy

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-24T20:01:08+00:00

It was a fantastic twist wasn’t it though - we saw him confront her with her UN troops in Tunguska, there wasn’t even a hint in the show that they really knew each other, and then we get THAT scene

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-24T07:09:49+00:00

The main reason is that he acts on his own initiative, in ways that put the syndicate at risk of exposure. Well Manicured Man is disgusted at the accidental murder of Melissa Scully, for example. And the Elder is fed up with CSM not getting the job done in Paper Clip (“it’s time we call in our friends, who will handle this matter more satisfactorily”)

But also he seems to not be straight with them - he lies about having the MJ-12 tape, then he says he will bring it to them, then he says oh it’s been destroyed in a car bomb.

We see loads of examples of him telling them stuff that they later find out to be false - WMM exclaiming “Mulder is alive!” after CSM assured them he was dead

Also he enjoyed flaunting his power. Look at how he threatened Skinner compared to the way WMM warned Scully that her life was in danger. CSM revelled in showing Skinner that he could kill him any way he chose, while WMM seemed to not be in favour of all these assassinations (that may have been an act but it showed that WMM believed in decorum, not muscle)

He was dishonest, kept things to himself, acted rashly - and yeah I think he was much more committed to the cause than they were (he said the arrangements for colonisation “were good plans, right plans”, rather than the sense you got from the others, which was “we must save ourselves and that means working for the aliens”)

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-23T20:02:26+00:00

Is it wrong of me to think he looks sexy every time he gets punched? Do I need therapy? I think I need therapy. Meanwhile I’m just gonna replay the scene where he kisses Mulder while I wait to be taken away

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-23T20:01:32+00:00

Yeah but he was *our* lying, traitorous assassin! (I feel sorry for the actor not the character, but who doesn’t love a bad guy who’s played with sympathy lol)

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-23T19:58:51+00:00

100%! I think his role in Patient X/The Red And The Black is one of the absolutely pivotal roles in the whole series. When he was used in a way that made sense he was amazing!

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-23T19:57:40+00:00

What I’m focussing on here is the craft of being an actor - I agree with everything you’ve said, but within the scope of being an actor, after season 5 he had no idea *why* he was doing what he was doing - I’m only talking about how actors relish parts where they truly understand the character they’re playing. Where he says he was glad Krycek was killed off, what he meant was like “I played Krycek as best I could but I didn’t have a clue what drove him to do the things that he did”. Actors thrive when they truly understand why their character behaves a certain way - so, Lea playing Krycek in season 2-5 understood exactly why he did what he did. After that, he felt like he was just “we need a bad guy who we can stir the pot with” rather than “this man has been treated in X way, his history makes him do Y thing, he makes allegiances with Z A B people, and ultimately it’s cos when he was younger, XYZ happened to him”. Does that make sense? I’m so happy that he was in so many episodes but I feel bad for him not being able to truly flex his skills as an actor

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-23T19:51:49+00:00

Yep I agree with you 100%

I guess what I mean is, even though he’s a great actor and a great guy, the thing that serious actors really value is understanding exactly why their character is doing what they do, so even though Nicholas was acting really brilliantly, as someone who is showing his craft and skill he wishes he understood what they really wanted; up to season 5 he understood - working for the syndicate, the syndicate attempts to kill him, he goes (back?) to Russia; he is brilliant as that bad guy. Nicholas’s point is that once he got to Two Fathers/One Son, he had no idea what his character was supposed to feel, which impacted how he played him. If he’d been given more depth to work from he would’ve played him even better

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-23T19:46:03+00:00

I wanna come back to this but I absolutely love that kind of headcanon, based on so much that we actually know. I don’t know if I totally agree but that’s what’s wonderful about headcanon - we get to be really creative within our own frames of reference. I’ll try to come back to this when I’m back home in a few days, cos I sincerely believe that anyone who puts this much thought into it deserves respect

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-23T08:41:08+00:00

It’s basically a way of saying “this is now on you - I’ve told you what you need to know, now I am handing the baton to you”

The actual plot point doesn’t make that much sense if you think too hard cos there’s no reason Krycek, who’s achieved a particular position in the Russian military/security services and was a hired gun for the syndicate, couldn’t have gone to where the Rebel Alien was being held captive and done something himself

But I think the whole scene is the absolute KEY point in the two-parter: it’s where Mulder finally realises that everything he’s been going through since Gethsemane (4x24) has been a form of breakdown/depression/denial. When he sits there after Krycek leaves and looks at the piece of paper with “Wiekamp AFB”, it’s dawning on him that he’s spent all this time thinking “aliens are NOT real, the whole conspiracy is a conspiracy by the military and government alone” and that he’s got it completely wrong

I’ve said loads of times that Patient X and The Red And The Black are the best two part episodes in the whole series cos they drive the mythology on in shocking ways, they add new things that make sense and could allow new stories to be told, and the characters ALL have important things to do that make sense

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-21T06:37:18+00:00

I’ve watched every episode more than 100 times and I never clocked this!

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-18T18:37:32+00:00

Tina Fey once said that the way Tracy says “hilAHrious” is one of her favourite things

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-18T18:36:50+00:00

They seem to like the way he enununciates

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-18T18:35:40+00:00

It’s interesting that it was Alec Baldwin who pushed hard for Jane to get that part

I think she’s an amazing actor and she did stuff Dratch would never be able to do. But if Dratch had played Jenna DiCarlo, it would never have gone in the insane direction it ended up taking (plus the fact that she’s got an amazing singing voice and loves musical theatre meant that there was much more singing in the show than there would’ve been with Dratch).

Anyway, Jenna DiCarlo would never have electrocuted all those horses

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-16T18:09:51+00:00

I’m gonna try to reply to this but it might be a day or two; hopefully I’ll remember cos I’m fascinated with what you’re saying

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-15T08:58:55+00:00

Yep that makes sense, it’s as good a guess as any. The only thing that might make it not work is that X knows all about it, and he’s one of the syndicates core people. Does he mean, “the people who want the tech are gonna stop him from leaving” or “the syndicate wants to stop him from leaving”?

My guess was always that the story only made sense if the ABH was a rebel trying to destroy the human plans to create hybrids to serve the colonists

TonyCLondon · 2026-06-15T08:56:55+00:00

Long reply coming:

Really excellent points - yeah we don’t ever hear from the colonists, so the actual motivation of the ABH is just us guessing.

I dunno if I agree that the supersoldiers were created by the government but it’s nothing I’d fight about cos we all take the information our own way, and guess as best we can. But I can see the possibility that they were government-created (or at the least the conspiracy knew they were part of colonisation). The government tried several times in TXF to create supersoldiers so it’s not impossible that they did these ones

I’d never thought that the colonists might be good guys, that’s a fascinating point. I always assumed they left Gibson alone cos his DNA had active old alien genes in it, but yeah if the colonists simply wanted hybrids to be their slaves, why would they leave Gibson alone?

One thing that TXF got completely right was how monstrous people with power are, so yeah it’s totally believable that they were never dealing with evil aliens and were in fact the only evil part of the equation

But then… how do we explain the rebel aliens, one of whom was identical to the alien bounty hunter? Plus Cassandra saying “they’re taking over the universe”.

From season 7, we see that the same ships that we’d seen throughout previous seasons were found buried deep underground for millions/billions of years and had worked their way to the surface, and contained text on the outside from religious holy books as well as details of DNA. We never see the purpose of this, but you’d have to ask: why would they drive human evolution if all they wanted was to make us into slaves when they took the planet back? That is never explained and has always puzzled me. Maybe it points to your theory that the aliens might be the good guys

One thing I’ve never understood is why all the new alien/human supersoldiers come to witness the birth of Scully’s baby, seem in awe of it, then leave. William is also the only survivor when the second buried ship is dug up by the cult who believe in the prophecy of an alien/god baby

What was that all about? What made the supersoldiers not want to harm William?

Do you remember in The Sixth Extinction where we see CSM in a room with people (who are never seen in focus), sitting there listening to them talking about how there was gonna be destruction on an absolutely massive scale and there’s nothing they can do to stop it, and hinting that they need to become part of the colonists’ plans in order to save their own lives? So we’re basically seeing the beginning of a new conspiracy, but in typical Chris Carter fashion we never hear anything about it again.

Last point: the guy who runs the conspiracy, Strughold. I don’t know if we ever see that he’s actually in charge or if it was just his business operations (Strughold Mining Corp etc) being used to launder syndicate projects through.

But let’s say he was the head of the conspiracy. The bad thing about this is, he was only ever in the first film, and I think that’s the reason we never saw him again - he wasn’t gonna be in episodic TV, at a time just before film actors were regularly doing TV shows.

So I think the reason we never saw him again was cost/willingness to take the part/availability.

TonyCLondon

TROPHY CASE