 Emily VanDerWerff of "The A.V.Club" awarded the episode an "A–" and called it her "favorite episode of season seven" and that she wished that "it had been the series finale" for "The X-Files".VanDerWerff argued that the episode possessed a "warmth and tenderness" that was missing from the following two seasons, after Duchovny left the series as a full-time star.