Providence (The X-Files)
The show centers on FBI special agents who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files; this season focuses on the investigations of John Doggett (Robert Patrick), Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson).
In this episode, Scully, distrustful of both Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) and Brad Follmer (Cary Elwes), circumvents the FBI's investigation into William's kidnapping and performs her own, assisted by Reyes and The Lone Gunmen.
Co-written and directed by Carter, the episode opens with a shot of a fire fight during the Gulf War and the Super Soldiers' involvement therein.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Zeke Josepho recounts a strange experience during the Persian Gulf War and how he claims it brought him to God: as his squad was ambushed during the Battle of Al Busayyah and on the verge of defeat, four mysterious men showed up and defeated the enemy with astonishing ease.
[2] At the FBI, Brad Follmer (Cary Elwes) discloses to a room of agents that Dana Scully’s (Gillian Anderson) son William has been abducted.
Follmer notes that The Lone Gunmen are identifying the woman who took the child and ran over John Doggett (Robert Patrick).
Byers (Bruce Harwood) reveals that he put a cell phone in the baby's belongings so they can track the Overcoat Woman; Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) and Scully head out to find William.
Scully meets Agent Robert Comer, whom she was forced to shoot after his attempt on William's life, and uses the alien artifact to heal him.
Josepho claims to be protecting William, but demands Mulder's head as collateral in exchange for the baby's release.
When Josepho returns to the wreck site, the Overcoat Woman relates that the aperture of the craft began to glow when William started crying.
Looking on the site from a distance, Scully and Reyes see the craft burst out of an enclosure and into space, lighting the ground beneath it on fire as it goes.
He's very even tempered, and he's quiet and gentle and quite nice to have as a director, because that energy can't help but pervade the rest of the set […] He's got a clear vision, and he's good at communicating that.
This was unusual for the show; usually, a small portion of the ship would have been buried in the ground and the rest would have been filled in either via digital graphics, or with a scale model.
[11] Jeffrey Robinson from DVD Talk concluded that "Providence", along with the previous episode "Provenance", "does a fairly good job without including Duchovny" due to its adherence to "the series' main storyline [about] the government conspiracies.
"[12] Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode one star out of five.
Crang, in his book Denying the Truth: Revisiting The X-Files after 9/11, also complimented the teaser sequence, calling it "glorious", but was heavily critical of the rest of the episode's "confused and impenetrable" story.
He wrote that "as this series winds down, you would think Carter and Spotnitz would be in a hurry to resolve some of the myriad of questions they've posed.
