Only a couple of weeks are left before The X-Files returns to the airwaves for Season 11. The hiatus since Season 10 ended on a killer cliffhanger hasn't been easy for diehard fans, but a new video teasing what's to come indicates that we're in for plenty of old school X-Files action. The video also reveals a look at what a long-lost character will be up to in Season 11. Jeffrey Spender himself is coming back, and he'll be in the thick of the action again. While the whole video is worth a watch, you can find Spender around the 2:50 mark if you want to see him ASAP:
In this video, we see Jeffrey Spender interacting with Scully in what appears to be a hospital. Scully and Spender have been in contact at some point since the end of Season 9, as he apparently made a promise to hide her son. She gave William up for adoption because she was afraid that he would always be hunted for so long as he was known as her and Mulder's son, and even she seemingly didn't know where William ended up. The clip from Season 11 indicates that Spender at least has known where William is, and Scully needs to find him in order to save Mulder's life.
Spender certainly looks different in the new video than he did when last seen in Season 9. After being shot in the head by his father (who also happens to be the Cigarette-Smoking Man), Spender was subjected to horrible experiments that left him burned and disfigured to the point that not even Scully or Skinner recognized him. In fact, he was so unrecognizable that Scully was almost able to believe that he was actually Mulder due to his knowledge of the X-Files and the DNA that seemed to match Mulder's. The episode ended with the confirmation that Spender and Mulder are half-brothers due to the Cigarette-Smoking Man's affair with Mulder's mom, but Spender seemed doomed to remain disfigured forever.
Of course, his skin in the video shows the kind of scarring that could indicate a lot of skin grafts, so at least we won't be expected to believe that Spender simply managed to heal his skin back to perfect health. Since William is technically Spender's biological nephew and Spender got into his fair share of dark deeds that he may now regret, perhaps he simply decided to devote his life to keeping an eye on the kid once he got his face fixed. It would make sense if Scully wanted somebody in the know keeping an eye on William, given that he was handed off to a farm couple who seemed absolutely delightful but entirely ignorant of aliens and conspiracies.
All things considered, we may want to expect some messy family drama alongside the aliens and conspiracies in Season 11. The evil Cigarette-Smoking Man is the biological father of both Mulder and Spender as well as the biological father of William. He's even shown a creepy level of interest in Scully. If CSM tries to insert himself into any of their lives, things could get very ugly very quickly. The Cigarette-Smoking Man does say in the video that Mulder will kill him if he finds him.
The good news is that we don't have too much longer to wait. Season 11 of The X-Files will premiere on Wednesday, January 3 at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. The show recently pulled an epic prank that involved scaring New Yorkers with aliens to get us hyped. Check out our midseason TV premiere guide for when other shows will hit the airwaves in the new year, and our cancellation guide for 2017 can fill you in on the shows that won't be back at all.
