Forgotten X-Files Episode Is Secretly A Critique Of Western Civilization
An open secret among fans of The X-Files is that the “monster of the week” episodes tend to be more entertaining than ones focusing on government conspiracies and alien abductions. Those creature feature episodes stuck the landing better than the mythology ones, and they were more popular with general audiences because most had the straightforward plot of a short horror movie. However, showrunner Chris Carter wrote the show’s second Monster of the Week episode, and he surprisingly intended “The Jersey Devil” to be a critique of Western civilization.
Investigating The Jersey Devil
In order to understand how the X-Files creator intended this episode to be a critique of modern civilization, you need to know a bit more about what “The Jersey Devil” is about. In this episode, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) end up investigating the titular creature after the apparent death of its mate.
Mulder theorizes that the death of the one creature caused its female companion to attack and eat people in Atlantic City, though she is killed by local law enforcement before these erstwhile FBI agents can learn more about these creatures or their culture.
An Existential Monster Of The Week
On paper, this sounds like your typical X-Files Monster of the Week episode, with the Jersey Devil being an interesting follow-up to the inaugural monster, Eugene Tooms. However, Chris Carter personally wrote this episode, and he wanted it to be so much more because he was inspired by an E.O. Wilson essay about evolution. Summing up what he read, the X-Files creator said that Wilson “had written a story that posed the question of whether or not man is hellbent on his own extinction.”
The Missing Link
How does that tie back to the Jersey Devil we see onscreen? Carter later said that he did not want “to make this a monster per se, but almost a missing link.” He was very interested in the idea that something could affect human evolution, forcing all of us “to revert to our old ways.” According to the X-Files guru, the Jersey devil in this episode was meant to illustrate what that might look like.
Interestingly, even the location of this episode was meant to be part of Chris Carter’s critique. He said that Atlantic City “seemed to be an interesting place to put a de-evolved, or a less evolved character.” Also, after his own visits to this city, the X-Files creator had a pretty bleak view of the whole area. “Atlantic City almost represents the decay of Western Civilization.”
It’s A Freaky Monster Woman
Carter intended “The Jersey Devil” to be a very intelligent critique of modern society, but like most of his episodes, the meaning got a little muddled along the way. For example, he speculated that the titular monster might be a “more complete human being,” someone that could illustrate how ill-equipped humanity might be if we used up most of the planet’s energy and were no longer the “top of the food chain.”
That sounds intriguing, certainly, but in the X-Files episode as filmed, the Jersey Devil is mostly just a freaky monster woman who eats people and then gets shot.
Monster Of The Week Episodes Became Less Esoteric
Like most of the first season of The X-Files, “The Jersey Devil” was something of an experimental episode…eventually, Carter dropped his desire to slip deep meta-commentary into Monster of the Week episodes quicker than Scully dropped this episode’s prospective boyfriend.
However, we enjoyed the showrunner’s insight because it highlights the unexpected and often bonkers thought process used to create even the simplest episodes. And next time we watch this episode about a monster woman played by a woman rocking the world’s tiniest G-string, we’ll pay full attention to its commentary on the decline of Western civilization.
