Walk right out of here, surprise me, for a change.

Ça va, ça va

still from “Improbable”

Buried in the (mostly unwatchable) last season¹ of The X-Files is a Chris Carter–penned episode called “Improbable.” It stars Burt Reynolds as God, it plays this song over and over for no clear reason, and it ends with a musical number in Italian. It essentially concerns itself with the converging of two plotlines: first, Burt Reynolds appearing repeatedly to a serial killer and suggesting he choose differently, and second, Scully and Agent Reyes² hunting the same serial killer with the help of numerology, which Reyes believes has something to do with how he picks his victims.

“Improbable” is one of several episodes that clearly showcase Carter’s desire to do what former X-Files screenwriter Darin Morgan³ had done with his quartet of funny, meta-ish episodes—“Humbug,” “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” “War of the Coprophages”—in seasons two and three.

I mostly like Carter’s Morgan-ish episodes, and one of them (“Postmodern Prometheus”…