You know that feeling when a show takes a left turn so sharp you actually feel a bit of whiplash? That’s basically the vibe of En Ami. It's the seventeenth episode of the seventh season of The X-Files, and honestly, it’s a bizarre outlier in a series that was already pretty comfortable with being strange. Most fans remember it as "the one where Scully goes on a road trip with the Smoking Man." And yeah, that’s exactly what it is. It’s awkward. It’s tense. It’s weirdly intimate in a way that makes you want to take a shower.
But here’s the thing.
En Ami (which is French for "as a friend") wasn't just another monster-of-the-week or a standard mythology dump. It was a character study wrapped in a deception. It gave us a glimpse into the ego of C.G.B. Spender—the Cigarette Smoking Man—while forcing Dana Scully into a position of extreme vulnerability. It also has a fascinating real-world backstory. Did you know William B. Davis, the actor who played the Smoking Man, actually wrote the teleplay? He did. He wanted to explore his character’s romanticized, almost delusional self-image.
The Setup: A Cure for All Diseases?
The episode kicks off with a kid named Jason Rice. He’s got cancer, and his parents are refusing treatment for religious reasons. Standard X-Files stuff, right? Wrong. The Smoking Man shows up, touches the kid, and suddenly he’s cured. This gets Scully’s attention. Usually, Scully is the skeptic, the one holding the line against the impossible. But here, the Smoking Man offers her the ultimate bait: the cure for every human disease.
He tells her he’s dying. He says he wants to do one good thing before he kicks the bucket. It's a classic manipulator move. He knows Scully’s "savior complex" is her Achilles' heel. He knows she’s still mourning her own lost time, her ova, and her father. So, she gets in the car.
They drive. They talk. They stop at a gas station where he buys her a beige jumpsuit because her clothes are too "conspicuous." It’s creepy. It’s very Lolita.
Why En Ami Still Divides the Fandom
If you go on any old-school X-Files forum, people are still arguing about this episode. Some see it as a masterpiece of tension. Others think it’s a character assassination of Scully. Why would she trust him? She’s smart. She knows he’s the devil.
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The answer lies in the nuance of the writing. Scully doesn't trust him; she trusts the possibility of the science. She’s a doctor first. If there’s a one-in-a-billion chance this man has a disk containing the sum of all medical knowledge, she has to take it. Even if it means eating dinner with a murderer in a remote cabin.
The Lone Gunmen and Mulder’s Absence
Mulder is barely in this one. He’s mostly relegated to hanging out with the Lone Gunmen, trying to figure out where Scully went. It flips the dynamic. Usually, Scully is the one worrying about Mulder’s safety. Here, Mulder is the frantic one, and the Gunmen are basically his support group. It highlights how much the show relied on the "M&S" bond even when they were apart.
The "Black Box" and the Betrayal
The climax involves a meeting with a whistle-blower (played by the late, great Brian Thompson) and a high-stakes exchange. Scully gets the disk. She thinks she’s won. She thinks she’s saved the world.
Then comes the gut-punch.
She gets back, the disk is blank (or rather, it’s been swapped), and she realizes she was just a pawn. The Smoking Man didn't want to save the world. He wanted to use Scully to flush out a traitor in his own organization. He used her integrity as a tool for his own housekeeping. It’s brutal.
Real-World Context: William B. Davis as a Writer
It’s important to talk about the meta-layer here. William B. Davis is a classically trained actor and a director. He saw the Smoking Man not as a mustache-twirling villain, but as a hero in his own mind. In Davis’s original draft, the episode was even more focused on the Smoking Man’s internal romanticism.
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Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz did some heavy rewrites to make sure it still felt like The X-Files, but Davis’s DNA is all over the final product. You can feel the character’s loneliness. You can see how he desperately wants to be respected by someone like Scully, who represents the morality he abandoned long ago.
The Legacy of the Beige Jumpsuit
Let’s talk about that outfit. It’s become a bit of a meme in the community. The fact that the Smoking Man hand-picked an outfit for Scully is such a specific, unsettling detail. It strips her of her agency. Throughout En Ami, Scully is constantly being watched, dressed, and moved around like a chess piece.
It’s an episode about power. Not just the power of the Syndicate or the power of alien tech, but the interpersonal power one person can hold over another through lies.
Technical Details and Continuity
- Director: Rob Bowman (who also directed the first movie). His cinematic style is evident in the sweeping shots of the road trip.
- Air Date: April 2, 2000.
- Season/Episode: Season 7, Episode 17.
- Key Guest Stars: Brian Thompson as the Alien Bounty Hunter/Pilot, though here he’s playing a slightly different role.
One major continuity point: this episode cements the Smoking Man’s obsession with the idea of legacy. He’s looking at the end of his life and wondering what will remain. Of course, since this is The X-Files, "dying" is a relative term for him, but at the time, it felt like the beginning of the end for the character.
What Most People Get Wrong
People often think En Ami is a "filler" episode because it doesn't involve a monster. But it’s actually crucial for understanding the final seasons. It shows the cracks in the Syndicate’s remnants. It proves that the Smoking Man is playing a much longer game than Mulder ever realized. He’s not just hiding the truth; he’s curating it.
Also, the "cure" wasn't entirely a lie. The technology existed—it was the same tech used to cure Scully’s cancer back in Season 5. The lie was the Smoking Man’s intent to share it. He held the keys to heaven and decided to stay in hell.
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Actionable Insights for Fans and Rewatchers
If you’re planning to revisit this episode, here are a few things to keep an eye on to get the most out of the experience:
- Watch the eyes. Pay attention to Scully’s eyes during the dinner scene. Gillian Anderson plays the "suppressed terror" perfectly. She’s playing along, but she’s vibrating with anxiety.
- The soundtrack. Mark Snow’s score for this episode is more melancholy than usual. It leans into the tragedy of the Smoking Man’s existence rather than just the conspiracy.
- The letters. Look at the correspondence between the Smoking Man and his "friends." It reveals a level of bureaucracy within the conspiracy that’s both boring and terrifying.
- Check the filming locations. Most of the "Pennsylvania" and "Maryland" scenes were actually filmed in California (the show moved from Vancouver in Season 6). The change in light and foliage adds to the "uncanny" feeling of the road trip.
En Ami remains a polarizing piece of television. It’s not "fun" in the way Bad Blood is fun, and it’s not epic in the way Two Fathers/One Son is epic. It’s quiet. It’s mean. It’s a reminder that in the world of The X-Files, the most dangerous monsters don't always have claws—sometimes they just have a pack of Morleys and a really convincing lie.
To truly understand the series' transition into its later years, you have to sit through the discomfort of this road trip. It’s the moment the show admitted that even its heroes could be played, and that some truths are never meant to be told.
Next time you watch, try to see it from the Smoking Man’s perspective. It’s a pathetic, lonely, and fascinating view of a world he helped destroy.
Practical Next Steps for X-Files Researchers:
- Cross-reference Season 5, Episode 2 (Redux II): Compare the Smoking Man’s offer to Scully here with his previous attempts to sway her with "cures." It reveals a consistent pattern in his manipulation of her.
- Read William B. Davis’s Memoir: Where There’s Smoke... Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man provides deeper context on how he viewed the writing process for this specific episode.
- Analyze the "Beige Jumpsuit" Subtext: Look into the costume design choices of Season 7. The shift toward more neutral, almost sterile clothing for Scully often mirrors her feelings of being trapped by the overarching conspiracy.
- Examine the Whistle-blower Arc: Compare the character of Cobra in this episode to other Syndicate defectors like the Well-Manicured Man. It highlights the internal rot that eventually led to the Syndicate's downfall.