Season 1, Episode 24: “The Erlenmeyer Flask”
Original Airdate: May 13, 1994
I know they’re going to shut down the X-Files. I know this first of all because I’ve seen the show before. I know this second of all because of the bummed-out way Mulder was talking about change. And still, yet, The Erlenmeyer Flask is a gut-punch of an episode, a season-ender that leaves you with neither a desk to sit down at, nor a home to go home to. In fact, you could end the show, here, over Deep Throat’s dead body and with our agents scattered. You could end it the way it started, with a taciturn government agent, inefficiently filing evidence of extraterrestrial life. Sure. You could. But you won’t. Because there’s too much left to do.
[Seriously, a cardboard box is the best place to put that?]