The X-Files (TV Series) Trust No 1 (2002) User Reviews

Trustno1 loves Queequeg0925

[Muldernscully · 7/10 · 14 November 2007]

Trust No 1 is probably the best mythology episode of the final season, since it deals with Mulder mostly, and just a little bit with the silly Super Soldiers. I love the teaser. Using Tchaikovsky's bacarolle(June) on piano was different and nice for a change of pace. Using screen shots from past episodes and turning them into surveillance shots was creative as well.

The e-mails by both Mulder and Scully are out of character for them. Mulder would never say "dearest Dana" and Scully would never say "physically shaking". That is some poor writing for those e-mails. Fortunately, they make up a very small portion of the episode.

It was interesting to see the hidden camera on Scully at the train station at the beginning of the first two segments, but it was a tad confusing, which isn't good.

Scully sees this lady argue with her "husband" at the internet café, and then later "coincidentally" at her house. Scully then invites her in. I don't buy that. Scully's not that stupid. They just happen to be arguing in front of her twice in the same day? Scully would've caught on earlier.

Stupid contrived plot device warning: Doggett, Reyes, & Scully drive to the quarry. They get out. Doggett says, "Agent Scully, you drive down into the quarry. We'll meet you down there." How stupid! Why separate at that point? Simple. It was a very contrived plot device to separate Scully from Doggett & Reyes, so that Scully could confront the Shadow Man by herself. I repeat, silly.

The Shadow Man says that Mulder or William must die. He's a Super Soldier. He could bust into Scully's apartment at ANY time and kill William if he wanted to. Plus, the Super Soldiers already backed off of William in Existence. That storyline is too inconsistent.

With all my complaints, I still enjoyed this episode, despite some sloppy writing. The mysterious meeting with the Shadow Man was tense and exciting, as well as the prospect of seeing Mulder again. The suspense factor makes Trust No 1 a good episode and helps makes up for some of the discrepancies.

Mulder must die.

[Sanpaco13 · 6/10 · 18 September 2007]

Terry O'Quinn is awesome and I wish that he could have guest starred as someone more prominent than in this episode. That being said he still did an awesome job as the crazy NSA super soldier. Except he didn't get to punch any holes in cars or anything like that. Oh well. The basis of this episode is that the NSA is watching everything that Scully does through surveillance. The teaser shows this by showing voyeur shots of different scenes we recognize from earlier seasons. Then Scully gets contacted by someone at email [e-mail]. It is obvious that this is Mulder. Well NSA super soldiers of course pick up on this and realize that Scully now has a way to contact Mulder and trick her to setting up a meeting with him under the premise that they are going to give him information which will help him stop the super soldiers when in fact they are trying to find him so they can kill him. My question is if they have surveillance in all corners of the globe why can't they find him themselves? Or email him using Scully's email address? I guess there are plausible explanations but it doesn't seem very realistic. The scene where Terry O'Quinn's character leads Scully to the meeting place is kind of fun but the one problem I have is that after driving west into the night we see that Scully is still on the phone. Couldn't he just call her when she got there? What did they talk about all that time? Wouldn't the battery die sooner or later? My final frustration with this episode is the constant teasing that we might actually get to see Mulder. By the way I noticed in the episode that Scully's email address is [e-mail]. I'm not sure if this is a real email address for fans back in the day like the phone numbers on 24 or if it is even still active or not but I sent an email to the address and have not gotten any response. I will edit my review with details if this should ever occur. I give this episode a 6 out of 10.

Solid, but it did go on a bit.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 2 October 2022]

Scully encounters a woman and baby, who's having trouble with her husband, Agent Doggett receives a communication involving Mulder.

So far it's generally been monster of the week episodes, the cheesily named Trust No 1 sees a return to the story arc of The so called Super Soldiers.

For the most part it's exciting and dramatic, rumours of Mulder's presence add a little bit of spice to proceedings. Best of all is seeing Scully centre stage and back to being the integral part of the show, too often recently she's felt like a spare wheel.

Paranoia overload, is there such a thing as free will? I've heard that before somewhere.

The plan to meet Scully was so elaborate, so intricate, that the scenes at the train platform just logically didn't seem to make any sense, despite being so well staged and produced. Why didn't he just........?

I felt that there were lots of good elements here, but somehow it was just a little too complicated for its own good, 7/10.

"One day, you'll ask me to speak of the truth...."

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 26 August 2017]

I don't think I like this Scully much. She pines away for Mulder like a love sick puppy with none of the resolve that made her a fearless FBI agent during the first seven seasons of the show's run. She's also too easily manipulated by the woman Patti (Allison Smith), and the guy who says is her husband (Steven Flynn), credited in the cast list as 'The Man on the Street' since he had no name in the story. Were they really husband and wife? I guess you have to decide for yourself because within the context of the story, it could have gone either way.

The one thing I thought was pretty suspenseful was the way the Shadow Man (Terry O'Quinn) offered those ominous observations of Scully and practically everything in her personal life, right up to and including her one time invitation to Mulder to make baby William. That was never stated so obviously before, what with the sperm donor business that was alluded to in prior episodes. The tension is really palpable in those scenes, and it would have been great if a character like the Shadow Man with O'Quinn in the role had had a much bigger role in the series. I know he appeared before as different characters, but he had some of the same mysterious aura as The Smoking Man that could have been used to great effect.

So with all the mystery surrounding the concept of the 'super soldiers', it seemed kind of anti-climactic that the Shadow Man would be defeated by something as ordinary as the iron compound in the quarry where he tracked the FBI agents after getting shot by Doggett. It sort of reminds me of how the invading Martians died in "The War of the Worlds" when they succumbed to something as simple as microbial infections for which they had no immunity. With that knowledge, maybe we can get rid of the super soldiers for good. How about it?

A roller-coaster ride

[graylittlewood · 10/10 · 21 October 2010]

I'm a fan of series 9 – I might be in the minority, but I think it's considerably better than many seasons that have gone before. This is a rare series 9 Scully episode.

Fans seem to detest Monica Reyes – I don't know why, I find her character warm and genuine and just… totally likable and credible. Scully on the other hand is getting on my nerves. OK, Mulder's disappeared and she's been left alone blah blah… but I'm sick of her constant hostility to the three people who continually keep bouncing back to help and support her. Anyway, that aside, this episode had me hooked from the first moment – there are some beautifully filmic sequences in the intro, ruined only by a really syrupy and laboured narrative by Scully – people just don't talk like that – it's SO UNREALISTIC and the X Files is continually guilty of these ridiculous purple passages as voice-overs – they are vacuous and pretentious and so un-necessary. It's ham TV at its very worst, but once that's out of the way the story truly begins. For me it was an edge of seat roller-coaster ride. We're teased with an email from Mulder – we're coaxed into believing that he may reappear, though we know he won't. I love the surveillance as a motif,

My DVD is damaged and skipped a lot towards the end, so I'm not 100% sure I understand what happened, but the punch line is that Mulder is whisked past Scully on a train that doesn't stop. Ahhh… the frustration!

More cheesy narration at the end, for which it should lose a point, but – and I know I shouldn't - the good bits were so good I'm going all out 10 out of 10. Brilliant viewing. For me season 9 is an under-rated masterpiece. (So far)

Could have been better

[kahurley · 5/10 · 31 January 2007]

In the grand scheme of the series, this episode was lacking. I still enjoyed it for the plot, but I believe a lot more could have been done with it. Two types of episodes: stand-alones and conspiracy themes. This, being the latter, needed to have A.D. Skinner involved. The theme is Mulder's return, but no Skinner? Also, I enjoy everything Terry O'Quinn is in. He has appeared 3 times in the series, each as different characters. The last time we saw him was in the movie (between seasons 5 & 6) in which he allowed himself to be killed in a bomb explosion. I was disappointed in this episode that they didn't keep him as his character (Michaub) from the movie, but instead make him this Shadow Man whom Scully has never seen before. I think it would have been better had he remained the same character, which would mean Super Soldiers would have been present much earlier in the series and would also account for why he allowed himself to be blown up! At least in the end we get to find out how to kill a Super Soldier.

worst myth episode yet but some good action towards the end

[ddeboer · 5/10 · 20 August 2010]

For me this was the worst myth episode. Where do I begin? How about a list.

1. Tired of a depressed watery eyed Scully. She used to kick ass and throw her intellect around. Now she mostly engages in solemn monologues while she is on the verge of tears.

2. Tired of trying to find Mulder AGAIN. I really wouldn't care if they just dropped him all together and moved on with the new folks.

3. I liked it better when Scully and Mulder were respectful colleagues exchanging quips with one another instead of this depressed love sick separated couple.

4. Supersoldiers. Every time I hear them say that word I cringe. Just when I was already accustomed to shape shifters and black oil I have to accommodate yet another addition to the mythology that doesn't fit in.

5. Who is babysitting her son while she is out running around chasing bad guys or lecturing at Quanico?

6. What happened after she took multiple vehicles to her phone caller's destination where she changed her clothes? Suddenly its the next day and she is talking to her colleagues. Perhaps I missed something.

7. The exchange between her and the strange woman seemed unwise for Scully and the dialog sounded cheesy. "You have no one do you?" "You have no where to stay do you?" Really? Instant trust. Just like that. Yeah spend the night although I don't have a clue as to who you are.

I think the myth gets worse as the series progresses. Scully is no fun. Mulder is always gone. There are so many plot holes and new additions that don't add up.

Nevertheless I liked the team work at the train station and I liked watching the super soldier destruct. That was good stuff.

All in all I am surprised at how good season 8 and 9 are as a whole. I think Scully and Mulder were just too good to last or follow up on and all good things must come to an end. Once the main characters fall in love and/or a baby is involved that is a series kiss of death. I am still going to stick it out to the very end!

Resurrection?

[matty-irish-14 · 2/10 · 14 March 2014]

This episode makes absolutely no sense. If no one remembers, here's a reminder for you. In 1996 when "The X-Files: Fight the Future" came out, at the beginning of the movie, when they were looking for the bomb, the FBI Agent in change was this guy Michaud (Terry O'Quinn) and when Mulder found the bomb, Michaud told Mulder to leave because he wanted to defuse the bomb himself. But he had no intention to defuse the bomb because he was part of the group that put the bomb there, the "Syndicate" group. So fearing he might get caught, Michaud kill's himself when the bomb blows up. Also, he was part of the "Millennium" group going by the name "Peter Watts" but that's beside the point. Now, four years later he's miraculously back calling himself "The Future", and Suclly acts like she's never seen him before. It was an alright episode, but what I just don't understand is why they just can't hire a new actor instead of one whose already dead in the show.