Look, we like Samantha here. Doesn't feel like Bill Mulder was exactly hugely invested in his daughter based on the implications Paper Clip sets up.
But that's after The Blessing Way which has some great stuff for Scully, and some... screentime for Mulder. Questions about of how Mulder got out of a (for want of a better term) hermetically sealed room, for which Camoflauge Man (no, really, we're pretty sure that's his name) can find no trace of him minutes later.
Yes, there are some explanations of how Mulder's escapology works but none are exactly satisfying. Still, this episode introduces Well-Manicured Man and 1st Elder leading to a wondering of why didn't Bill Mulder get a similarly themed name (or did he?!).
Paper Clip is back into the real conspiratorial mode however and gives us some intriguing hints of what the shadowy forces are up to as well as making Cigarette Smoking Man human in a way we've not seen previously.
Mulder remains a bit of a jerk (we could blame the lingering after-effects of being drugged I suppose) and Scully loses another family member as we try to puzzle out what the hell the presumable aliens at Strughold mining facility were trying to do.
