Closure (The X-Files) - Reception

Reception

"Closure" first aired in the United States on February 13, 2000. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 9.1, with a 13 share, meaning that roughly 9.1 percent of all television-equipped households, and 13 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 15.35 million viewers. On May 28, 2000 the episode debuted on Sky 1 in the United Kingdom and gathered 0.68 million viewers, making it the eighth most watched program shown on Sky 1 that week, in front of Angel and The Simpsons. Fox promoted the episode with the tagline "His search is finally over." The episode was later included on The X-Files Mythology, Volume 3 – Colonization, a DVD collection that contains episodes involved with the alien Colonist's plans to take over the earth.

The episode received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club awarded the episode an "A–". He argued that the episode worked due to two scenes: the sequence in which Mulder reads aloud from Samantha's diary, and the final shot of Mulder being reunited with his sister. He wrote that the "stark simplicity" of the former made it emotionally power, and that the latter was "a bit sappy, a bit surreal, a bit lovely" but nonetheless "a beautiful moment". Kenneth Silber from Space.com was pleased with the episode, and wrote, "'Closure' is a satisfying episode, one that puts to bed the now-tiresome search for Mulder's sister Samantha." Jeremy Conrad from IGN referred to the episode as "excellent" and noted that a large portion of The X-Files mythology ended with the resolution of Samantha's abduction, saying, " a final, and concrete, answer to the single thing that was driving Mulder for the entire run of the series. In some ways, when he got that answer a major part of The X-Files story ended."

However, Rich Rosell from DigitallyObsessed.com awarded the episode 3 out of 5 stars and wrote that "The payoff is just never quite as good as the buildup, and in this second of two parts, Chris Carter turns Mulder's search for the answers to his sister's disappearance into an ultimately hokey resolution that conveniently never really answers all the questions I had. Carter might call it closure, but I just call it anti-climactic." Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a negative review and awarded it one-and-a-half stars out of four. She wrote, "Instead of a grand, breath-taking, heart-breaking finale that should be the climax of Mulder's search for Samantha, the story expires limply with some nonsense about Samantha being of the starlight children."