Gethsemane (The X-Files)

"Gethsemane" featured guest appearances by Charles Cioffi, Sheila Larken and Pat Skipper, and introduced John Finn as recurring character Michael Kritschgau.

The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files.

In the episode, Mulder is shown evidence of alien life which may actually be part of a huge government hoax designed to deflect attention from secret military programs.

"Gethsemane" was filmed on one of the series' most elaborate and costly sets, replicating an icy mountaintop inside a refrigerated building using real snow and ice.

The episode, which has been described by Carter as pondering "the existence of God", has received mixed responses from critics, with its cliffhanger ending frequently being cited as its main failing.

She subsequently appears before an FBI panel led by Section Chief Scott Blevins (Charles Cioffi), reviewing her work with Mulder on the X-Files.

[1] The icy caverns featured in the episode were constructed inside a warehouse which had previously been used for cold storage,[2] and required the use of truckloads of lumber and 10,000 square feet (930 m2) of Styrofoam.

[2] The outdoor scenes were filmed around Vancouver's Mount Seymour, with weather conditions making shooting difficult enough to require an extra day of work.

Vitaris felt that the large degree of ambiguity in the episode's script left the actors' performances "curiously neutral", adding that the cast "struggle manfully" with the material.

[12] Robert Shearman, in his book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode four stars out of five, noting that while it "attempts to do too much", it "has a passion behind it which makes it gripping".

Shearman felt that the episode's cliffhanger ending, centering on the apparent death of Mulder, was too unbelievable, noting that it would be out of character for him to grow so disillusioned as to take his own life.

[4] UGO Networks listed the episode at number 21 in a countdown of "TV's Best Season Finales", noting that it "rocked the core of the series' entire mythology".

[14] Den of Geek's John Moore felt that the episode was "one of the finest season-enders" of the series, noting that it "ended by completely pulling the carpet out from under the fans".

Moore listed the character of Michael Kritschgau as the seventh-best villain of the series, adding that he shook "what we knew about the show to its core" by "provid[ing] nourishment to a seed of doubt that had been playing on Mulder's mind for the entire season".