Wayne is so sympathetic that there are moments in “Terms of Endearment” when Mulder seems like an asshole.
“Terms of Endearment” is a monster-of-the-week episode that strays from the show’s overarching UFO mythology, but its storyline is influenced by Mulder and Scully’s search for “the truth.”
The story follows the pair being removed from the X-Files and replaced by Agent Spender, the Smoking Man’s son, who shreds the case upon receiving it, but Mulder finds it rummaging through his trash.
So for much of “Terms of Endearment,” Mulder, without Scully in Roanoke to mediate, does things that his partner would normally stop.
In other words, he harasses Wayne. When Laura is arrested, Mulder, already convinced that Wayne is the devil, says to Wayne as he leaves the house, “I know who you are.”
Later, Mulder pursues Wayne in a car, taunting him and forcing the disguised Devil to think twice about revealing his second secret family to the agents.
