Content warning: child death, forced abortions, animal abuse

After a run of comedic episodes, season 6 swerves hard into perhaps the darkest plotline The X-Files has ever had. But somehow any description of what happens in Terms of Endearment paints a picture of a bleak and thoroughly depressing episode which is somehow really fun to watch.

Some of it is probably Bruce Campbell, but the episode performs a startling trick of going so dark but somehow making everything bounce along at a good clip. It never lets go of the horror but it never gets too heavy. Not so much a comedy as extremely light-hearted.

The Rain King prompts a typical objection (why is this at this point in the season) but otherwise provides the first X-Files romcom episode. As one reviewer put it, cute but not excessively.

Aside from one dead cow, the episode is otherwise a strange deviation from the normally at least partly harrowing supernatural aspects to instead deliver an examination of Mulder and Scully's relationship reflected elsewhere.

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