We're following the signs marked 'back to the beginning' on the X Files and touring key moments in the story of the characters now on The K Files. Our first destination: season one special effects achievement, 'Fire.'

The K Files agents return to the field to explore unseen truths in Morgan brothers' fourth season episode pairing, Small Potatoes and Home.

In a NEW podcast investigation, Agents Moeller and Lopez analyze a historic MSR episode from the pre-miniseries X-Files era, cult third season favorite, Syzygy. The episode retains its watch-ability even into this new X Files world due to a snarky script by Chris Carter and singular performances from Duchovny and Anderson, in which they more than deliver said snark. At each other.

The bon mots are plentiful (see bonus gifs below). And, for a master class in silent acting, see Gillian Anderson's mega attitude reacting to Mulder's hovering over her and Detective White during the scene following the teaser (or any of Anderson's scenes, truthfully).

We are wearing proverbial black this week at The K Files - mourning the loss of the miniseries with no new episode to discuss. So, we started the healing process with one of the most care-free, feel-good episodes in all of canon: Je Souhaite.

Tune in to the case file, then read our ancillary evidence

The tagline reads, "This is the end," and yet, the story goes on! That's The X Files for you - the end does not mean death. In fact, what constitutes "the end" for the miniseries is arguably merely the bridge to get us where we're going next: into space, if the final moment of the show means what I think.

Scully tells us in the beginning how it is to see the world from her perspective: How she, a woman devoted to science and the rational, real world, could come to understand that a world exists beyond what we can see which tests our belief and what we know of ourselves. Then she spends the rest of the episode fighting to reconcile the forces opposing human kind on behalf of nature, as per usual.

PLUS Mulder faces the scariest monster in the whole rogues gallery - an enhanced, ultra-grotesque Cigarrette Smoking Man. It gets worse when you see his real face.

Review our evidence for the full analysis

The penultimate episode of The X Files is a glorious swan song for the whole story from Chris Carter - and it felt like the breath of fresh air before the plunge that will undoubtedly be My Struggle Part 2.

The miniseries is cruising into high gear now so we have to run very fast to keep up. Review our full podcast case file for Home Again, then review the report

The X Files has some scary monsters - those of us who started watching as kids in the 90's will never forget the first time we spied the pink and white maw of the Flukeman, for example. But more than just antagonists, these creatures are actually agents of change for the characters, representing unspoken fears and anxieties.

The K Files is back with an investigation of brand new episode, Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster. Our agents trace the evidence back to an unlikely place: the interior of Mulder's psyche. Mulder is not quite himself yet - he needs to find the antidote to his recent, all-encompassing cynicism. Scully is playing very cool in this episode, acting as an agent of motivation and movement for Mulder, but doesn't overall have her own emotional journey. Instead she seems, by Mulder's reckoning, to have already achieved her final, all seeing form, and indeed, knows the answers far sooner than Mulder (if he would ever just listen to her).

The best monsters of the week on the show are those which reflect or express some emotional struggle experienced by the characters. This episode was that and more - not only an exploration of the questions Mulder is answering for himself in the miniseries, but also seemingly an ode to all the quirky things that The X Files has deposited in the collective psyche over the years. Filled with in-jokes - the red speedo, a salute to the late Kim Manners, Mulder's cell phone plays the XF theme, stoners find the supernatural a la Deep Throat, etc. - Were-Monster also shows the way the show and its subversive, consciousness-expanding notions lodged in our hearts and minds way back in the 90's and now, becomes something new.

A new episode and a new type of episode. We expected nothing less from the miniseries. Explore this case file in more detail now!

The X Files miniseries continues with episode two, Founder's Mutation. This episode was an especially personal monster of the week that owes its lineage to previous episodes like Rush and even Post Modern Prometheus (in the Goldman characters story). The case involved some of Mulder and Scully's worst fears: abducted women, stolen children, bodies taken against their will and manipulated. All the usual demons. More unusual was the so-called monster of the episode - a child who the shadow hands had inadvertently and/or vertantly crafted into an evolved member of the species. This monster didn't want anything bad, but seemed to be obeying some other force. The real monster, as usual, was the "doctor" who played god with DNA in children - his own, in fact. This stirs up emotions for Mulder and Scully, who face their separate feelings of loss and fear over their lost son, William, over the course of the episode.