Episode 1

The X-Files: Pilot 

FBI Agent Scully, a skeptic at heart, is partnered with the unconventional Agent Mulder, who investigates paranormal cases, known collectively as the X-Files. Their first investigation together takes them to a Pacific Northwest town where teenagers are winding up dead, and may possibly involve alien abduction.

As mentioned befor, the woman who was murdered is not the first firsat of her class to die under similar circumstances, but all previous investigations turned up nothing, which is why the investigation was classified as an X-File. On the way to the crime scene strange events begin to occur, and Mulder has to work his incredible charm on the local investigators to let him do his job. Things get complicated when an implant of an unidentified material is found in the nose of one of the victims, and we have our first (but not last) meeting with Billy Miles. Mulder comes to the inevitable conclusion that this is an abduction by aliens, Scully still refuses to believe, but the evidence keeps piling up...

This episode not only introduced the platonic Mulder-Scully relationship, but also the mysterious Cigarette Smoking Man, and the alien conspiracy arc.

According to the announcement at the beginning of the episode, the story is based on actual events. Well, if you believe...

Note the joke on Steven Spielberg…

Although we never saw any aliens in this episode, there was an episode of missing time normally associated with alien activity and the whirlwinds of light and leaves at the beginning and end of the episode didn't appear to be the kind of thing that the Majestic Consortium or "Purity Control" could have been responsible for.

The reason for believing thay Greys were involved in this episode is that the desicated corpse of Ray Soames, the boy whose body was exhumed, was shrunken, with a misshappen, enlarged head. Short, with an enlarged head; sort of sounds like what the little "Grey" aliens look like. 

Episode 2

Deep Throat 

When Mulder and Scully go to Idaho to investigate the mysterious deaths of test pilots, they uncover a secret government program using alien technology for developing new aircraft. Mulder is also first introduced to his first informant, a mysterious figure known as Deep Throat.

Probably not his real name, although it is the name on his Air Base Security badge. Mossinger was the local reporter who later turns out to be a security officer from Ellens Air Force Base. He certainly takes the cake for the most menacing transformation: From kindly, harmless reporter to steely nerved spy. He hardly flinched when Scully shoved a gun in his face. He also wins the award for best self-righteous indignation: "Everything you've seen here is equal to the protection we give it. It's you who've acted inappropriately." He delivers the line with such conviction you could almost believe he might be right. 

 

 

Episode 3

Squeeze 

A friend of Scully's from the academy asks for her help in investigating a series of murders whose only common denominator is the method of infiltrating the murder scene - if you don't take into account the removal of the victims' livers. Scully enlists the help of Mulder, who uncovers an X-File from the turn of the century. Scully's friend has no interest in the X-Files and little green (or gray, as Mulder is quick to correct) people. Scully joins the investigation, but Mulder can't be kept away from a good X-File...

This is our first encounter with Eugene Toomes, "Squeeze", a creature with special features and a strange appetite, who undoubtedly drew his inspiration from Dr. Hannibal Lecter...

 

Episode 4

Conduit 

Mulder's memories of his sister's abduction twenty-one years earlier surface when he and Scully investigate a boy whose sister disappeared in a similar fashion.

Once again, we never get a look at the aliens in this episode either, but the seared camper roof, burnt trees tops, beach sand at lake Okobogee fused to glass, Kevin Morris's strange psychic connection to space-born data transmissions and Ruby Morris suffering from the symptoms of prolonged weightless all point to the presence of extra-terrestrials and not to the involvement of the Majestic Consortium.

The reason the Greys are connected to this episode is simply behavioral. Abduction + experiments + safe return = Greys. 

Episode 5

The Jersey Devil 

A dismbered body is found in the forest. According to the police report, the limbs were cut off by a human. But Mulder has another explanation, which of course has its roots in old X-File. Scully claims that the "Jersey Devil" is a myth, but of course that doesn't stop Mulder, nor does the local police's resistance to the FBI's intervention in the investigation. With the help of an anthropology professor, Mulder and Scully discover the truth behind the "Jersey Devil" myth.

In this episode, Scully is still living under the illusion that she can have a normal life which includes, among other things, going out to dinner with a man.

 

Episode 6

Shadows 

Two muggers are found dead in a back alley of Philadelphia after robbing a woman, Lauren Kyte, at an automated teller machine. Mulder and Scully investigate the case when called in by a pair of agents from an unknown agency. The bodies are found to have an electrical charge and their throats have been crushed from the inside. Meanwhile, Lauren sees her boss, Robert Dorlund, and resigns from her job due to grief over the death of Dorlund's partner, Howard Graves, who supposedly committed suicide weeks before.

Mulder and Scully determine that one of the dead muggers belonged to an Islamic terrorist group, the Isfahan, and using the ATM video are able to track down Lauren. A screenshot of the video reveals a blurry figure who appears to be Howard Graves. When the agents meet with Lauren at her home, she reluctantly admits to the incident but knows nothing about the murders. Upon leaving, the agents find their car going out of control on its own, leading it to crash into another car. At a repair shop, the car is found to have no evidence of tampering, but an electrical charge is detected within it.

Upon visiting Graves' headstone, the agents learn of his purported suicide and the death of his daughter at a young age, who would have been Lauren's age were she still alive. Scully suspects that Graves faked his death, but on consulting the pathologist who examined his body and testing the organs he donated to others, it is proved that he is really dead. Meanwhile, Lauren witnesses a vision at night, including blood appearing in the bathtub, that leads her to believe that Graves was murdered. At her going-away party, Lauren is threatened by Dorlund, who believes she has knowledge of confidential information that could implicate him. Lauren calls the agents to her home, but before they can get there two assassins hired by Dorlund arrive to kill her. An invisible force kills both of them just as Mulder and Scully arrive (with Mulder witnessing the body of one assassin floating in midair).

Lauren is interrogated by Mulder, Scully, and the two unknown agents, who believe Graves and Dorlund's company sold technology to the Isfahan. Lauren admits to Mulder and Scully that the sales did indeed take place and that she believes Dorlund had Graves killed. After hearing Lauren recount the eerie circumstances that she believes are being caused by Graves' spirit, Scully - the usually reserved skeptic - readily accepts her story. Mulder is confused but, after Lauren leaves, Scully admits she was just humoring her. The agents search the company's premises, but are unable to find any evidence. When Dorlund attacks Lauren with a letter opener, Graves' spirit takes it and cuts open the wallpaper, revealing a disc with evidence. Weeks later, Lauren starts her new job, but it is implied that Graves' spirit may have followed her there.

 

Episode 7

Ghost In The Machine 

In Crystal City, Virginia, headquarters of the software company Eurisko, founder Brad Wilczek and chief executive officer Benjamin Drake argue about downsizing measures. After Wilczek leaves, Drake writes a memo proposing to shut down the Central Operating System (COS), a computer which runs the Eurisko Building. Seeing this through a surveillance camera, the COS sets up a trap and lures Drake into a bathroom, locking the door behind him. Drake tries to use his keycard to open it, but it rejects the card. When he inserts a manual override key, he is fatally electrocuted.

FBI Agent Jerry Lamana, Mulder's former partner in the Behavioral Analysis Unit, approaches him and Scully for help in investigating Drake's murder. On their way up to Drake's office, the agents' elevator stalls, causing Scully to call the front desk for help; as she identifies herself, the COS records her contact information before reactivating the elevator. While examining the crime scene, the agents meet Claude Peterson, the Eurisko Building's systems engineer. Later, Lamana steals Mulder's profile of the supposed killer and presents it under his name; an outraged Mulder confronts him afterwards.

Mulder and Scully question Wilczek, who denies any involvement in the murder. Scully initially doubts Wilczek's involvement but finds that his voice matches a speaking clock Drake received before his death; Lamana sets out to arrest him. Meanwhile, Wilczek fails to access the COS from his home computer. Concerned, he travels to the Eurisko Building, followed by Lamana. There, he is still unable to access the COS, but discovers that it has learned to talk. Lamana arrives but is killed when the COS causes his elevator to crash.

Mulder meets with Deep Throat, who explains that the COS is an artificial intelligence developed by Wilczek, and that the Department of Defense is trying to acquire it. Mulder also meets with Wilczek, who has falsely confessed to Lamana's murder. Mulder convinces Wilczek to develop a computer virus that can destroy the COS. Scully doesn't accept Mulder's belief that the COS is sentient, but later discovers the machine hacking into her computer. She joins Mulder at the Eurisko Building to help him destroy the machine.

The COS hinders the agents as they make their way inside. When it shuts down the building's power, Scully climbs through the air vents and is almost pulled into a giant fan, but manages to destroy it. Meanwhile, Mulder is permitted into the COS' control room by Peterson. However, Peterson reveals himself as a mole for the Defense Department and tries to stop Mulder uploading the virus. Scully arrives and holds Peterson at gunpoint, allowing Mulder to upload the virus and destroy the COS.

Mulder again meets with Deep Throat, who explains that Wilczek is being detained by the government at an undisclosed location.

When Mulder asks if the COS survived, Deep Throat assures him the virus left no trace of the program and that scientists from the Defense Department examined the machine to no success. At the Eurisko Building, Peterson directs a team attempting to recover the COS, but is told by his superiors to destroy the machine in six hours. Unbeknownst to Peterson, the COS comes back to life and watches as he says to himself, "I'm going to figure this thing out even if it kills me".

 

Episode 8

Ice 

A group of scientists studying the arctic ice cap is possesed by madness, and its people start behaving strangely, killing each other and finally committing suicide. Mulder and Scully go with a delegation of researchers to the facility where the scientists worked to try to find out what happened there. After a tumultuous welcome from the local dog, all kinds of facts begin to accumulate that usually point to an alien cause of the disaster, or at least an ancient creature that lay dormant in the ice for millions of years. As the creature begins to attack them one by one, they find themselves trapped in the facility with no way out. Scully wants to destroy the creature, but Mulder wants to study it with the intention of discovering its extraterrestrial roots. Which of them will be the creature's next victim, which arouses the instinct of aggression and violence in the victims?

Guest appearence by Jeff Cober, who often appears in action movies and TV series as a villain.

The plot is somewhat reminiscent of the movie "The Thing".

 

Episode 9

Space 

In 1977, after the discovery of a face sculpted into the landscape of Mars, Lt. Col. Marcus Aurelius Belt (Ed Lauter), an astronaut, is plagued by flashbacks of an encounter with the disembodied face during a spacewalk. Sixteen years later, Mulder and Scully are approached by Michelle Generoo (Susanna Thompson), a communications commander for NASA's Mission Control. Generoo believes that someone within NASA is sabotaging launch attempts. A recent Space Shuttle liftoff was aborted seconds before commencement, and Generoo fears the next launch will be similarly compromised. She also has a personal interest, as her fiancé will be aboard the next mission.

Mulder and Scully travel to NASA and meet Belt, a childhood hero of Mulder's. Belt, who now manages the Space Shuttle program, dismisses the agents' concerns and states that nothing can possibly go wrong with the mission. He allows the agents to watch the successful launch from Mission Control. As the agents are leaving, however, Generoo informs them that contact has been lost with the shuttle in orbit. While driving back to NASA, she sees the face come at her through her windshield, causing her to crash her car. The agents manage to get her out of her overturned car and, despite being injured, she manages to get back to Mission Control.

The shuttle has moved into direct sunlight and Mission Control is unable to rotate it into a safe position, putting the astronauts' lives in danger. Generoo believes that the uplink is being sabotaged. Belt orders the uplink to be cut, allowing the astronauts to rotate the craft manually. Over the objections of Generoo and the agents, he orders the mission to proceed and lies to the press about its progress. Belt tells Mulder that the shuttle program may be cancelled if the mission is not completed successfully.

Belt returns home and has another flashback. As he lies in bed in agony, an astral presence leaves his body and flies out the window, heading into the sky. The astronauts then report hearing a thump outside the shuttle and begin to experience an oxygen leak. Belt fixes the situation but orders the mission to proceed. The payload is successfully deployed, but an astronaut reports seeing a ghostlike entity outside the shuttle. Meanwhile, the agents examine NASA records and find evidence that Belt played a role in other failed missions, including the Challenger disaster.

Belt behaves irrationally and collapses screaming as he hears mention of the entity from the astronauts. Paramedics are called to attend to him and find him cowering under his desk, whimpering and begging for help. Before Belt is taken away, he tells the agents that the shuttle will not survive reentry due to sabotage by "the face", which has possessed his body since the spacewalk. At his urging, they alert the shuttle to change its trajectory and are just able to land it successfully.

In the hospital, Belt continues to wrestle with the presence, telling Mulder he wasn't responsible but also couldn't stop it, as "it came to me, it lives in me". Eventually, in a last struggle with the re-possessing entity, he leaps from the window to his death–experiencing a lengthy flashback to his last space mission as he falls. Before his funeral, Mulder theorizes that, while Belt was compelled to sabotage the launches by the entity possessing him, he was also the one who sent Generoo the evidence of what was taking place. He lauds Belt's final sacrifice, stating that in the end he gave his life for the mission, as befits a true astronaut.

We see some of the most sinister aliens at work sabotaging the U.S. Space Program. There can be no doubt that we are dealing with aliens in this episode. The "Wraith" bears a striking resemblance to the "Face on Mars." It is doubtful that the intention of this episode was that the "Wraith" was the ghost of Gus Grissom or the other astronauts who died in the Apollo launch pad fire.

The alien "Wraith" possesses Col. Marcus Aurelius Belt during his Gemini space walk and acts like a sleeper agent, waiting for critical moments to act and sabotage the Space Program: the Challenger Shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope, and two recent Shuttle launches.

These aliens seem to be connected to Cydonia, the name given to the region on Mars where the infamous "face on Mars" stares up from the surface of the red planet. The UFO-conspiracy theories about Cydonia and NASA's alleged cover up of the proof of life on Mars are too numerous to mention. There are also a number of pyramid-like rock formations in that region that have led to speculation by conspiracy theorist Richard Hoagland that the area is actually a dead alien city. Anther connection to Mars was the mention that the most recent Mars Observer probe had recently (August 23, 1993) malfunctioned and became lost in space. The implication in this episode was that the loss of the Mars Observer was due to more "alien sabotage".

These "Ghost-like" aliens seem dedicated to keeping mankind blind to what's going on among the stars. They don't want their activities in our solar system discovered by a bunch of nuclear armed monkey (that's us folks), but what activities they are particularly covering up remain unknown. Despite being immaterial, the "Ghost-like" aliens appear very anthropomorphic (two arms, two legs, one head). 

Episode 10

Fallen Angel 

While an alien crash survivor tries to outrun a USAF UFO recovery team, Mulder investigates the government cover-up and watches UFO activist Max Fenig get abducted (who returns in "Tempus Fugit")

This alien may have been a Grey using some kind of light bending camouflage. For one thing, the "Invisible" had an obviously small stature. Second of all, the "Invisible" abducted Max Fenig when its fellows came to rescue it. Later, in the episodes TEMPUS FUGIT and MAX, Max Fenig was abducted by aliens that appeared to be Greys. Unless more than one species of alien is intent on abducting the same UFO geek, I'd guess the "Invisible" was another Grey. A very well armed Grey. The radiation weapon it used to cook the Deputy Sheriff, the EMTs and later Operation Falcon's soldiers was devastatingly effective. And very similar to the weapon used by the Oilien in PIPER MARU and APOCRYPHA. The "Invisible's" only apparent goal was to get off the Earth and take Max Fenig with it. 

Episode 11

Eve 

In Greenwich, Connecticut, a jogging couple find their neighbor, a young girl named Teena Simmons, standing alone in her driveway. After she explains her father is in the yard, the couple find him sitting dead on a swing set with two incisions in his neck. When Mulder and Scully take the case, Mulder explains that he believes the death is an example of extraterrestrial cattle mutilation on a human being. The agents meet Teena, who claims to have seen "red lightning" when her father died and that "men from the clouds" had wanted to "exsanguinate him".

Leaving Teena in the state's care, the agents travel to Marin County, California, where a similar death has occurred at the Reardon residence. Mulder and Scully realize that, despite thousands of miles lying between the two crime scenes, the killings were committed on the same day and at the same moment. Meanwhile, back in Connecticut, Teena is kidnapped by a dark-clothed figure.

When Mulder and Scully meet Mrs. Reardon and her daughter, Cindy, they discover that Cindy is completely identical to Teena. Cindy's mother tells the agents that her daughter was conceived via in vitro fertilization at a fertility clinic in San Francisco. There, Scully learns that both the Simmonses and the Reardons were treated by Dr. Sally Kendrick, who was eventually fired for conducting eugenics experiments with ova from the clinic's lab.

Meanwhile, Mulder is contacted by Deep Throat, who details a Cold War-era supersoldier program that produced genetically modified clones who were identified as "Adam" or "Eve" based on their sex. Deep Throat tells Mulder of a woman connected with the project who is currently kept in a mental hospital.

Mulder and Scully travel to the hospital and meet "Eve 6", who bears an identical resemblance to Sally Kendrick. Eve 6 tells them that the Adam and Eve clones created for the program had extra chromosomes which led them to display superhuman intelligence and strength, as well as extreme homicidal psychoses. The last three Eve clones - Eves 6, 7, and 8 - were institutionalized after the project was cancelled. However, Eve 7 escaped and later joined the fertility clinic as "Sally Kendrick", modifying the ova of the clinic's patients to create new Eve clones. Eve 8, who also escaped, is still at large.

Though Mulder and Scully place Cindy's house under surveillance, they're unable to prevent one of the escaped Eves from abducting Cindy. The Eve takes Cindy to a motel where Teena is already being held captive and introduces the two girls to each other. The woman reveals herself to be Eve 7/Sally Kendrick and explains that she cloned the girls using her own genetic material to improve upon the original program's flaws, only to learn about the girls' "accelerated development" after they murdered their fathers. She asks the girls how they learned of each other's existence and how they planned the murders, to which they reply that they "just knew." The girls poison Eve 7's drink with a fatal dose of foxglove.

Mulder and Scully arrive at the motel, only to find Eve 7 dead. The girls claim that both Eve 7 and Eve 8 were trying to goad them into a mass suicide. The agents decide to take the girls with them as they leave the scene. That night, the group arrives at a roadside truck stop and order drinks at the diner. One of the girls, however, discreetly poisons the sodas the agents ordered with foxglove. After finding odd stains on the diner counter, Mulder realizes the girls' plan and manages to keep Scully from drinking more of her soda. The agents then pursue the girls through the truck stop, with Mulder eventually capturing them.

Teena and Cindy, now known as "Eve 9" and "Eve 10," end up in the same psychiatric ward as Eve 6. Eventually, a woman wearing a lab coat - and immediately recognized by Cindy and Teena as Eve 8 - comes to the ward. When Eve 8 asks the girls how they knew she would come for them, the girls again respond: "We just knew."

 

Episode 12

Fire 

In Bosham, England, a wealthy elderly man says goodbye to his wife before leaving for work, but suddenly catches fire in an apparent case of spontaneous human combustion. His family and house staff - including his Irish gardener, Cecil L'Ively - watch as he burns to death on his front lawn.

Later, in Washington, D.C., agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are met by Phoebe Green, an investigator from London's Metropolitan Police and Mulder's former lover from Oxford University. Green explains that a serial arsonist is targeting the British aristocracy, burning his victims alive while leaving no trace of evidence. The only links between the crimes are the suspect's love letters to the victims' wives. His latest target is Sir Malcolm Marsden, who is visiting Cape Cod for protection after escaping an attack by the killer. Mulder and Scully visit a pyrotechnics expert who says that only rocket fuel can burn hot enough to destroy evidence of its origins.

Mulder tells Scully that Green, with whom he had a complicated relationship, is using the case to play a mind game, exploiting his debilitating fear of fire. Meanwhile, L'Ively - having killed a caretaker and assumed his identity - greets the Marsden family as they arrive at their Cape Cod vacation home, faking an American accent. Unbeknownst to the Marsdens, L'Ively is painting a layer of rocket fuel onto the exterior of the house. L'Ively befriends the Marsdens' sick family driver, offering to go into town to get him some cough syrup. While there, he uses his pyrokinetic abilities to burn down a local bar purely for fun.

At the hospital, Mulder and Green interview a witness to the bar fire, who tells them of the assailant's apparent ability to will fire into existence. The Marsdens' driver becomes even sicker due to the poisoned cough syrup provided by L'Ively. Because of his illness, L'Ively is recruited to drive the family into Boston that night to attend a party at a luxury hotel. Mulder flies up to Boston to watch over the party with Green, hoping to set a trap for the suspect; Scully continues working on compiling a criminal profile of the killer.

Mulder and Green dance during the party and afterwards kiss; Scully arrives at the hotel and sees them. She also spots L'Ively in the lobby, watching her. A fire alarm goes off after a blaze starts in the Marsdens' room, where the children are located. Mulder attempts to rescue them but is overcome both by his phobia and the intense smoke; they are instead "saved" by L'Ively. When Mulder awakens, Scully questions "Bob" but is dismissed by Green, who believes the man is a long-time employee whose background checks out. Green tells Mulder that she will be accompanying the Marsdens when they return to England the next day.

Scully discusses her research with Mulder, suspecting that L'Ively is the arsonist; this is confirmed by a police sketch taken from the witness' description. Upon reaching the Marsdens' house, the agents find the driver's charred body in the bathroom before the second floor bursts into flames. As Scully and Green escort the Marsdens to safety, Mulder faces his phobia and is able to save the Marsden children. Scully holds L'Ively at gunpoint but is forced to hold her fire when he informs her of the rocket fuel he has painted onto the house. Green throws a can of the rocket fuel in L'Ively's face, causing him to lose control and set himself alight outside.

With the case solved, Green returns to England with the Marsden family. Despite having sustained fifth and sixth degree burns over most of his body, L'Ively survives his immolation and is held in a medical facility as he awaits trial, healing at an alarming rate. The episode's final scene shows him asking a nurse for a cigarette.

 

 

Episode 13

Beyond The Sea 

Dana Scully entertains her parents, William (Don Davis) and Margaret (Sheila Larken), shortly after Christmas. After they leave, she falls asleep on her sofa. Several hours later, she wakes up to see her father sitting across from her, speaking silently. The telephone rings, and she takes the call - from her mother, who tells her that her father died of a heart attack an hour earlier. Confused, she looks again at the chair and sees that it is empty.

In North Carolina, a young couple are kidnapped by a man impersonating a police officer. Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) tells Scully that Luther Lee Boggs (Brad Dourif), a serial killer he helped catch years before, has claimed to have had psychic revelations about the kidnapping and has offered to help police in exchange for his death sentence being commuted. Mulder is unusually skeptical about Boggs' claims..

Visiting Boggs in prison, the agents give him a piece of "evidence" from which he has a vision, only to be told it is really a piece of Mulder's T-shirt. Satisfied that he is lying, the pair prepare to leave. However, Scully looks back at Boggs and sees another vision of her father, speaking to her and singing the song that had been played at his funeral: "Beyond the Sea". Scully does not tell Mulder about this, and the pair discuss the possibility that Boggs has orchestrated the kidnapping with a partner to avoid execution.

Mulder and Scully have a fake newspaper produced which declares the couple have been found, hoping to trick Boggs into contacting his accomplice. He does not fall for the trick but gives the agents vague clues about the case. Scully, acting on these, first finds a warehouse where the couple had been held, and later leads Mulder and several other agents to a boathouse where the kidnapper is holding the couple. The girl is rescued, but the kidnapper shoots Mulder and escapes with the boyfriend. Following this, Mulder and the girl are sent to the hospital.

Boggs is then visited by Scully, to whom he gives information about the kidnapper's new location, warning her to avoid "the blue devil". Scully then leads several agents to the location Boggs gave her - a brewery - where they rescue the kidnapped boyfriend. Scully chases the kidnapper as he flees but stops in her tracks when he runs along a gantry beneath the brewery's logo - a leering blue devil. The gantry gives way, and the kidnapper falls to his death.

Scully speaks to Boggs again, suggesting that if he had orchestrated the kidnapping, the kidnapper would have been aware of the danger he warned her about. Boggs claims to be able to contact her father and offers to relay one last message from him if she will attend his execution. As he is about to be executed, Boggs sees that Scully has not attended.

Scully visits Mulder in the hospital, explaining that she changed her mind and now believes Mulder's theory that Boggs arranged everything. She cites as evidence that if Boggs knew she was Mulder's partner, Boggs could have looked up the information about her father's death and used that information to manipulate her. Mulder asks her why she was afraid of believing, even if it meant losing the chance to hear from her father again through Boggs. She tells him that she did not need to hear anything, because she already knew what her father would have said.

 

Episode 14

Genderbender 

These aliens masquerade as a reclusive and austere religious sect called "The Kindred" living in near rural Steventon MA. They don't appear to have any advanced technology, buy at one point in the episode a group of Kindred "magically" appear to take the runaway sex-killer "Marty" back to his/her people to be delt with. They disappear just as quickly. Interdimentional travel? Matter transport? Who knows?

These aliens share much in common with the Shape Shifter and the Clones. First is their ability to change sex, sometimes at will and sometimes as part of the rejuevenation of their life cycle. But they don't seem to do any more than change back and forth between a male version of their genotype and a female version. Like the Clones and Shape Shifters they also have a body chemistry which is highly toxic to humans, as was repeatedly demonstrated by the fates that befell Marty's sexual partners.

The "Kindred" seem to have only one goal - to retain their anonymity while waiting to be rescued from the earth, which is exactly what happens at the end of the episode. The only question I have is if aliens are visiting the Earth all the time and abducting people, why did the "Kindred" have to wait so long to get picked up? They apparently waited over a century! Are they a different species from the Abductor Aliens? Did it take that long for a rescue mission to reach Earth?

 

Episode 15

Lazarus 

Scully joins a task force that ambushes a pair of bank robbers. The robbers do break into the bank, and in the shootout that ensues, one of the robbers and one of the detectives, a member of the task force, are killed. At the hospital, Scully insists that efforts to revive the agent continue, while on the nearby stretcher lies the robber, also in a state of clinical death. The efforts are crowned with success, but which of the two actually returned from the dead? When Mulder joins the investigation, he discovers more details about the robber couple's past, and puts Scully on the right track. Scully refuses to believe it, but the evidence is mounting. Could it be that the robber's spirit took over the detective's body? And if so, how do you get it out of there? And the main thing - how do you convince Scully before it's too late?

When Scully is taken hostage by the robber and his accomplice, she tries to tell him the truth, and for a moment it seems that she succeeds, but in vain. He chooses the last resort available to him and is redeemed.

In the Christian tradition, by the way, Lazarus was the person that Jesus resurrected, in what is considered one of his greatest miracles.

 

Episode 16

Young At Heart 

A murderous bank robber that Mulder helped capture when he was an inexperienced rookie has returned to Surro. During his trial, the robber swore revenge on Mulder. The problem is, from all indications, the robber died in prison. Could it be that he really came back from the dead to get revenge on Mulder? Mulder is convinced that it is, despite the opposition of everyone around him. Did someone in prison stage the killer's death, or is it a much darker secret? And if not, who is the man who vowed to pursue Mulder to death and even murdered his best friend? Were the prisoners subjected to the experiment of a scientist who succeeded in reversing the aging process? As usual, Scully comes to the rescue and reveals the truth, which, as usual in the cases of scientists trying to play God, is more horrific than any imagination, and as usual in the series, it leads to a conspiracy.

CSM can be seen at the end interrogating mortally wounded sociopath John Barnet for the location of Dr. Ridley's immortality formula. 

Episode 17

E. B.E 

Deep Throat deliberately misleads Mulder on a wild goose chase as an E.B.E. is transported across the country. This episode also introduced the Lone Gunmen, Mulder's trio of conspiracy theorists.

During the First Gulf War, an Iraqi fighter pilot reports an encounter with a UFO and is shot down. At the same time, an American truck driver experiences his own strange encounter on an isolated country road. Mulder is of course convinced that it is a UFO, and Scully is of course looking for a scientific explanation. The truck driver denies any connection to the Gulf War, the local police obstruct the investigation, and Mulder gives Scully his first introduction to the "Lone Gunmen" and their conspiracy theories. Scully finds an electronic eavesdropping device in the pen. "Deep Throat" relays the Iraqi pilot's report to Mulder and Scully discovers that the truck driver lied when he claimed he did not participate in the Gulf War. Mulder insists on continuing to investigate, despite Scully's warnings and the fact that the proof "Deep Throat" gave him turned out to be fake. The two manage to evade their pursuers, locate the suspicious truck and discover the secret it carries, but again fail to obtain the conclusive evidence. Could it be that the aliens are coming to rescue their captive friend? And does "Deep Throat" finally tell the truth?

Note that Tom Braidwood (Frohike) is using his real name here for the fake security clearance he issues to Mulder...

Deep Throat relayed this incident to Mulder, but in typical Deep Throat fashion, he changed the details. In CSM's version of the event, the UFO went down in 1991. The cause of the crash wasn't specified, but while discussing the properties of the crashed UFO, Deep Throat mentions that the 1991 UFO is nearly identical to the one that the Marines couldn't shoot down over Viet Nam in 1969.

When Deep Throat used the incident of his having to execute the E.B.E. as his justification for leaking Majestic related materials he sandwiched his truth between lies. In the version Deep Throat related to Mulder, Deep Throat carried out the execution of an E.B.E. per the U.N. resolution, but the year was 1969 and the Marine fighters did shoot down the UFO over Viet Nam. Were Deep Throat's lies to Mulder deliberate? Or perhaps after a career of lies, deception and disinformation, lying was simply more natural to Deep Throat than simply telling the truth? We may never know. All we can be sure of is that once again Deep Throat concealed a lie between two truths.

While no aliens are seen in this episode, we do get to see them interact with humans. The alien spacecraft that was shot down by the Iraqi fighter acted as if it was either observing or playing cat and mouse with the fighter. After it was shot-down, the aliens continued to tail the truck transporting the crash survivor across the country. At one point they interfere with the truck, causing it to stall out, but they don't take the opportunity to rescue their captured companion.  

Episode 18

Miracle Man 

In 1983, a young boy, Samuel Hartley, appears at the scene of a car accident and pushes his way past an emergency crew. He opens a body bag and commands the severely burnt cadaver inside to "rise up and heal". Samuel's father, Calvin, convinces a fireman to let him continue. The body inside the bag comes alive, grabbing Samuel's hand.

Ten years later, Scully shows Mulder a videotape of a religious service led by the now-grown Samuel (Scott Bairstow), who has become an evangelical faith healer for a ministry run by Calvin. The video shows a supposed healing which later left the follower dead. The agents travel to Clarksville, Tennessee, where they attend a service featuring an enthusiastic sermon by Leonard Vance, the man whom Samuel raised from the dead a decade earlier. The agents learn from Calvin that Samuel has gone missing.

Samuel eventually turns up drunk at a local bar, his faith shaken by the death. He is taken into custody. The agents doubt his ability, but he is able to convince Mulder that he knows the latter has lost a sister - Samantha - at a young age. Mulder has been seeing visions of Samantha, and continues to see them. At Samuel's bail hearing, the courtroom fills with a swarm of locusts, which Samuel claims is a sign of God's wrath against him.

Once he is released, Samuel returns to his ministry and attempts to heal a woman in a wheelchair. However, she suffers a seizure and dies, which leads to Samuel's second arrest. An autopsy reveals the woman died of cyanide poisoning, while Mulder and Scully find evidence that the swarm of locusts, which were actually commongrasshoppers, was guided by someone to the courtroom through the building's ventilation system. Mulder believes Samuel to be innocent. However, the local sheriff, Maurice Daniels, allows two of his men to beat Samuel to death in his cell.

At his home, Vance is confronted by a ghostly vision of Samuel, who accuses him of betraying the church and perpetrating the murders. Vance confesses and blames his bitterness at having been resurrected with such a scarred and deformed visage. Mulder and Scully, who have been able to trace a large purchase of grasshoppers to Vance, arrive to find the man dying of cyanide poisoning from his own glass of water. He confesses to the agents before falling dead.

As the agents prepare to finish work on the case, they receive a phone call and learn that Samuel's body has gone missing from the morgue, and witnesses have seen him walking around, badly bruised. Meanwhile, Daniels is arrested by one of his deputies for questioning by the district attorney over Samuel's death. As Mulder and Scully leave Tennessee, Samuel's ministry closes down, and Mulder sees one last vision of his missing sister before he gets into his car.

The best visual representation of a traditional MIB on The X-Files was Leonard Vance, the horribly burned assistant to Rev. Hartley  

Episode 19

Shapes 

A land dispute between a white cattle rancher and his Indian neighbors leads to the killing of a young Indian. Seemingly a simple story, but who kills the animals of the cattle farm? Could it be the hand of a supernatural being in the matter, as the cattle breeder and his son claim? The Indians are reluctant to help, but Mulder utters his signature phrase, "I want to believe." The Indians have their own version of the land dispute, and Mulder tries to win the cooperation of the local lawman. It turns out that the first X-case in history, dating back to the days of Edgar Hoover, was a case that described a similar case of murder by an animal. Could it be that the murderer was a person who was able to transform himself into an animal? When it seemed that the cremation of the body would put a premature end to the investigation, the cattle breeder was also murdered in the same Circumstances. Who is the mysterious predator and who will be our next victim? And what is the meaning of the Indian legend about an evil spirit that can turn a person into a wild animal?

 

Episode 20

Darkness Falls 

A group of loggers disappears in the forest, and the main suspects are environmentalists who oppose logging. As usual, Mulder discovers that there is a precedent for such a case, dating back to 1934, and together with Scully he sets out to investigate the disappearance in the company of representatives from both hawkish camps. In the forest they discover a strange cocoon with a human body inside, one of the missing woodcutters. The leader of the environmentalists appears in the field and talks about strange insects that come down from the sky and eat whole people. He also warns everyone about the falling of darkness, as the strange insects are afraid of the light. Of course, no one believes him. But the cut trees tell a different story, is there a connection between the tree parasites and the insects? And maybe it is an unusual species of insect that originated from a volcanic eruption hundreds of years ago? And maybe this is a just punishment for the woodcutters who cut down the ancient tree? And the main thing - will help arrive before it's too late?

 

Episode 21

Toomes 

Eugene Toomes, "Squeeze", is up for release from the closed institution where he is hospitalized. The doctors believe there is no danger in releasing him, but Mulder is strongly opposed. His testimony at the parole board is ridiculed and rejected, and the board approves the release. Scully enlists the help of the detective who investigated Toomes' previous series of murders, and together they discover some new details about his exploits. Meanwhile, Mulder continues to follow Toomes, who is already looking for new victims, and convinces Scully to join him. Toomes manages to keep Mulder away from him by accusing him of assault. Mulder of course denies it, but the police actually believe Toomes, and CSM also intervenes. And once again, Scully's scientific investigation yealds results, but will they be able to stop "Squeeze" before he goes into a 30-year hibernation again?

Skinner realizes the X-Files were not a waste of manpower. 

Episode 22

Born Again 

A policeman commits suicide by jumping out of a window. There was a little girl in the room with him, and she claims there was another person in the room. Besides, the window in the room was closed. The policeman's colleague is convinced that it is a suicide, but turns to the help of Mulder and Scully. Mulder, who makes contact with the girl, is convinced that she has psychokinetic powers, but the psychiatrist treating the girl laughs at him. Meanwhile, Scully discovers that the person the girl saw in the room is another cop, but the problem is that the same cop was killed nine years before. Is there a connection between the girl and the policeman committing suicide? Or between the deaths of the two policemen? When another policeman is killed in a freak accident, the girl is once again close to the scene. The investigation reveals a nine-year corruption case involving four police officers. Could Mulder and Scully save the fourth before he too meets his death? And the most impirtant question - could it be that the spirit of the first policeman who was killed was reincarnated in the body of the little girl in order to go on a murderous revenge spree?

 

Episode 23

Roland 

At a physics research lab, intellectually disabled janitor Roland Fuller is scolded by scientist Dr. Keats for forgetting how to use the facility's keycard locks. Keats walks in on his colleagues, Frank Nollette and Ronald Surnow, arguing over a prototype jet engine. After Keats and Nollette leave, Surnow enters the facility's wind tunnel to make adjustments. However, Roland activates the tunnel's turbines, killing Surnow. Roland examines the scientists' whiteboard and changes some of its equations.

Mulder and Scully investigate Surnow's death. Scully learns another member of the research team, Arthur Grable, had died several months earlier, and suspects industrial espionage. Mulder examines the handwriting on the whiteboard and concludes it was written by at least four different people, suggesting a fourth individual was present. Keats and Nollette both inform the agents that Roland was the only one left in the facility at the time of Surnow's death, but do not believe him capable of murder.

Nevertheless, Mulder and Scully visit Roland at his care home, where he denies seeing anything unusual. He displays his mathematical prowess by rapidly counting the star designs on Scully's blouse; however, his handwriting does not match the fourth sample from the whiteboard. The discussion ends when Roland experiences a violent vision involving Keats' head being frozen and has what seems to be a fit. Later, he has another vision of someone killing Keats. Roland appears at the lab and submerges Keats' head in a tank of liquid nitrogen, shattering it before typing at a computer. The next day, the agents notice the computer was used hours after Keats' death and realize that the number Roland had written on an art project previously is the password to files containing the work of Grable, which have been worked on since his death.

Investigating Grable's death, the agents learn he had hired Roland. They suspect Grable faked his death and is killing his colleagues, using Roland as a patsy. Grable's body was never brought to the morgue, nor was a funeral held. However, Nollette brings the agents to a cryogenic facility where Grable's remains are being stored. A photo of Grable reveals he is Roland's identical twin. Mulder becomes convinced that Roland is being periodically controlled by Grable.

Nollette sneaks into the cryogenic facility and sabotages Grable's unit, thawing his remains. Roland returns to the lab and is in the process of pushing the prototype engine to mach 15 when Nollette enters. Nollette admits to stealing Grable's work and prepares to shoot Roland; when he is distracted, Roland strikes him and drags him into the wind tunnel. The agents arrive in time to convince Roland not to kill Nollette. At the same time, the rising temperatures in the cryogenic unit kill Grable. Roland is taken from his care home to a psychiatric institute for testing. As he leaves, he combs his hair in the style of his brother, suggesting he is not free of Grable's control.

 

Episode 24

The Erlenmeyer Flask 

A shocking finale for the series' first season, with Scully finding what looks to be an alien fetus, Deep Throat being killed off and the X-Files shut down. Also, the first episode to reveal the alien-human hybrid experiments.

We see CSM deposit first an alien mind- control-tracking device and later an alien fetus in a huge warehouse-vault at the Pentagon. Not at CIA HQ in Langley VA.

The Crewcut Man terrifies Dr. Berube before killing him and taunts Mulder as he lies helpless from the effects of exposure to toxic alien-hybrid blood.

The Hybrids created by Dr. Berube's experiments were immune to cancer, and perhaps a whole range of other human ailments. So perhaps the goal of the hybribization experiments using gene therapy was to create some kind of universal panacea. Of course, there were other side benefits such as the ability to extract oxygen from water, superhuman strength, and the ability to survive massive physical trauma and shock. All big plusses if the goal of the experiments is to improve the quality of your soldiers. 

Episode 25

Little Green Men 

Based on information provided by Senator Richard Matheson, Mulder rushes down to the Arecibo Radio Observatory where an alien message may have been picked up.

Mr. X tipped Mulder to the alien signal being received by the Arecibo Radio Telescope

Skinner knows CSM was not his kind of people. Skinner appears to be a man with a strong sense of right and wrong. A man who equates following the rules as the best way to ensure that "justice" will be done. Short cuts are hard for him to accept. Skinner is a man who values the law above everything. Skinner recognized that CSM was willing to fuck the law in the name of protecting "National Security," a nebulous term that CSM feels free to define as it suits his needs. Skinner could never stomach that kind of "moral expediency." Hence, his relationship with CSM has continued to deteriorate.

We see a blurry image of the alien, and it vaguely appears to be a Grey. Plus the image drawn by the Puerto Rican appeared to be the stylized face of a Grey, with the large black, almond-shaped eyes. 

Episode 26

The Host 

Mulder is called from a casual surveillance mission to a murder investigation that at first seems even more casual. Mulder believes Skinner is abusing him, until Scully volunteers to perform the autopsy. The body is that of a sailor from a Russian ship, and Scully finds a living creature inside, apparently a common parasite. At the same time, sewer workers are attacked by a strange creature. The investigation reveals that it is an X-case after all, and that there is a connection between the two creatures - a connection that leads to a genetic mutation originating from the Chernobyl reactor disaster. Meanwhile, Mulder receives a mysterious phone call from an unknown person who claims to be a friend of Mulder's at the police station.

Mr. X may be the one who sends the newspaper to Scully (although it could also have been Skinner), but beyond that, his role in that episode was just to act as a cheerleader from the sidelines, reminding Mulder "You have a friend in the FBI." Regarless, there's no information that affects the Majestic Consortium.

Mr. X demonstrates that he knows Skinner is sympathetic to Mulder's work on the X-Files. How does Mr. X know Mulder has "a friend at the FBI?" One possible answer is that if Mr. X works for Majestic, as does CSM, then perhaps Mr. X is aware of Skinner's resentment of Majestic's influence. If he has access to Majestic's files on Skinner, then Mr. X would know that Skinner is not considered 100% reliable by Majestic and may be considered Mulder's ally. 

Episode 27

Blood 

Mulder and Scully set out to find out what causes honest, law-abiding citizens to suddenly become brutal killers, and what is the source of the mysterious transmitters being picked up on the screens of various electronic devices.

 

Episode 28

Sleepless 

What is the connection between innovative treatments for sleep disorders and a chain of strange murders? Who is guilty of the crimes committed by the soldiers who did not sleep one night for 24 years and who is interested in preventing the truth from being discovered?

With the X-Files still closed, Mulder is assigned a new partner, Alex Krycek. Together, they investigate ex-soldiers who may have been part of a sleep-deprivation experiment. However, Krycek seems to be sabotaging his new partner's efforts at finding the truth. This episode also marks the first appearance of Mulder's second informant, Mr. X.

CSM's agent Alex Krycek stole the files relating to the military's "Sleepless Soldier" experiment from Mulder.

Mr. X sends a 911 tape to Mulder and later gives him a file on the Vietnam-era experiments in removing the part of the human brain which regulates sleep. A nasty government experiment, but one which didn't really affect the Majestic Consortium.

Skinner asks Mulder who sent him the 911 tape and the obituary of the Doctor who was killed by the illusionary fire. Mulder responds that the only source he ever trusted was dead, implying he has no idea who sent the tape. This scene could indicate that Skinner is aware that a new source (Mr. X) is seeking Mulder out.

We see Krycek as a confident and arrogant agent, obviously flushed with feelings of superiority over the people he's betraying.  

Episode 29

Duane Barry (1) 

Former FBI Agent Duane Barry, who claims to be an alien abductee, kidnaps Scully in the hopes that the 'aliens' will take her instead.

Krycek is sent to help Mulder find Scully, but in fact he serves as the cigarette smoker's eyes and ears. Apparently, he is not satisfied with the murder tasks assigned to him (the train operator, Dwayne Barry) and would like to know more about what happened to Scully, but when he demands answers from the cigarette smoker, he is met with a dismissive refusal. It turns out that not every employee of the Majestic Corporation has access to the corporation's secrets.

In the role of Dwayne Barry - actor Steve Railsback (from the movie "The Double").

We see (from Duane Barry's perspective) his abduction and torturous experimentation by alien Greys. But since we have since discovered that the experiments performed on Duane Barry were connected to Dr. Ishimaru/Zama and were part of the Majestic Consortium's Purity Control project. So it may be that the Greys seen by Duane Barry were implanted false memories put there to cover Barry's real memory of capture and experimentation by humans. 

Episode 30

Ascension (2) 

Mulder receives a message on his answering machine from Scully calling for help, and he goes to her apartment, but she is not there. Mulder claims that it was the piece of metal removed from Dwayne Barry's body that led him to her. Skinner orders Mulder to withdraw from the investigation (what, really?) Meanwhile Barry takes Scully to the site where he believes the aliens are waiting for him which is on top of a mountain. Mulder and Krychak continue their search for her with the cigarette smoker lurking in the background. Krychak begins to reveal his true face (the truth is, he has so many faces, it's impossible to tell which one is real...) and he tries to hinder Mulder in every possible way, from proposing a theory about a connection between lack of sleep and bio-ecological disasters to stopping Krone climbed half way to the top and attempted murder, but Mulder cannot be stopped that easily.

He manages to reach the top and finds Dwayne Barry there, who firmly claims that the aliens who were going to take him took Scully instead. Dwayne dies unexpectedly after a highly suspicious visit from Krychak in prison, and the death investigation is entrusted to the military. Mulder turns to "Mr. X" but it refuses to help. Mulder accuses Krycek of being involved in the plot to kidnap Scully and reveals his connection to the cigarette smoker, but Krycek disappears. Skinner responds by reopening the X-Files. But where is Scully?

Despite his best efforts, Mulder is unable to catch up with Barry and Scully, and finds only Barry at the top of Skyland Mountain. Scully's disappearance then prompts Assistant Director Skinner, who seems partial to Mulder's cause, to re-open the X-Files. The relationship between Krycek and CSM is also revealed here.

Mr. X warns Mulder that Senator Matheson cannot help Mulder find out who abducted Scully because the Senator is compromised in some way. Here Mr. X actually steers Mulder away from answers about the Majestic Consortium.

Mr. X indicated that Majestic had something on Matheson which, if revealed, would end the Senator's career. Unable to act directly, Matheson resorts to using Mulder to act on the information that he himself cannot. 

Episode 31

In Los Angeles, Garrett Lorre, a middle-aged businessman, embarks on a one night stand with an anonymous woman he has met at a corporate party. However, as they are having sex in his hot tub, the woman bites Lorre to drink his blood. Two other men join the woman, helping her kill Lorre by repeatedly stabbing him using hypodermic needles.

The following day, before departing for L.A., Mulder stores the missing Scully's FBI badge in an X-File under her name. At the crime scene he meets with LAPD detectives investigating the case, explaining that Lorre's murder is the latest in a series of seemingly vampiric serial killings that have spanned two other states. Because the killers write biblical passages in the victims' blood, Mulder believes that they view themselves as an "Unholy Trinity".

Mulder visits a local blood bank where a night watchman has been recently hired. Mulder has him arrested after he is caught drinking blood in the facility's storeroom. During his interrogation, the suspect tells Mulder that he belongs to a trio of vampires who desire immortality; he is known as "The Son" while the other two, a man and a woman, are called "The Father" and "The Unholy Spirit". Mulder does not believe The Son's claims. However, at sunrise, The Son is burned to death when sunlight from the window touches his flesh. Mulder is taken aback, having previously assumed vampires to be purely mythological.

During an examination of The Son's body, Mulder discovers a tattoo for Club Tepes, a local vampire club. There, he comes across a young woman named Kristen Kilar, who partakes in the consumption of blood. Mulder, having his suspicion aroused, follows Kristen after she and another club patron, David Yung, leave for an erotic liaison; he initially fears that Kristen is targeting Yung, but is beaten by Yung when he catches the agent spying on them. After Mulder leaves, Yung is murdered by the two killers, although the reason is not known.

Mulder runs a background check into Kristen, discovering that she formerly lived in Memphis and Portland - both the locations of earlier murders. Mulder assists the LAPD in searching her home, where he finds various blood-related paraphernalia. When she arrives later, Mulder is waiting for her. Kristen tells Mulder that she met The Son in Chicago and that they had engaged in "blood sports" together. Later, she fled The Son as he formed the Unholy Trinity with his accomplices and began their killing spree, following her across the country. Mulder and Kristen soon kiss while The Son, who has returned from the dead, looks on. The next morning, The Son confronts Kristen and tells her that by killing Mulder and drinking the blood of a "believer", she will become one of them.

Kristen approaches Mulder with a knife but instead stabs The Father, who is hiding in the bedroom. The Son attacks Mulder but is subdued. Mulder and Kristen try to escape using a car parked in the garage, but the Unholy Spirit jumps onto the car and attacks Mulder after smashing the windshield. Kristen jumps into the driver's seat and drives into her, impaling her on a wooden peg on the wall. Kristen tricks Mulder into running outside while she goes back into the house and pours gasoline around herself and The Son. Kristen lights a match, blowing up the house and taking her own life in order to kill the other vampires. Firefighters and police find four bodies in the ruins while Mulder stares at Scully's cross necklace.

 

Episode 32

One Breath 

While Mulder and Scully's Family mourn her death, she suddenly turns up in a local hospital, unaware of what happened to her, while an angry Mulder confronts CSM.

Note the following exchange with Mulder:

Mulder: "You should be the one to die."

CSM: "Why? Look at me. No wife. No family. Some power. I'm in the game because I believe what I'm doing is right."

Mulder: "Right? Who are you to decide what's right?"

CSM: "Who are you?" Who indeed, Agent Mulder? Who indeed?

CSM once believed he was acting for a greater good and that not merely promoting his own personal success and profit, but later episodes seem to indicate that he no longer believes in his own cause.

William B. Davis, who plays CSM, has often said in interviews that he plays CSM as a man who's "on a crusade to save the world." CSM probably was once a true believer. Tired, exhausted, and burnt out with no family or personal life, but still a fanatic who'll do whatever is necessary for the mission he's charged with. Of course, the one thing CSM has forgotten is that the ends can never justify the means. In fact, the means usually dictate the end. In fact, It can be argued that the means CSM has used over the years have been so morally questionable that now he doubts the rightness of the causes he once championed

Mr. X had no compunction about using Mulder. He tells Mulder "You're my tool, d'you understand? I come to you when I need you." Later Mr. X uses Mulder to apprehend Dr. Chester Banton, the quantum physicist with the "dark matter" shadow, and confines Dr. Barton to a lab where he will live out the rest of his life as a human lab-rat.

Mr. X discourages Mulder from continuing his investigation to find out who abducted Scully, saves Mulder's life, then returns to "give" the men responsible to Mulder so that Mulder can murder them. This does nothing to advance Mulder's cause, and in fact, if Mulder had killed Scully's abductors, there would have been no way for him to get any answers out of them.

Who was the woman at the cigarette machine who delivered CSM's whereabouts to Mulder? Skinner seemed to confirm to Mulder that he was responsible for having her contact Mulder, but the question remains: Who was she? Is she FBI? Did she merely relay the information from Skinner to Mulder? Or is she with Majestic? Did Skinner contact her and get her to pass the location of CSM's safe-house to Mulder, by-passing Skinner completely? If she is Majestic, how does Skinner know her? 

Episode 33

Firewalker 

A team of volcanologists studying an active volcano discovers a new and unknown life form that manages to survive in the fiery heart of the volcano. The team is equipped with a highly sophisticated research robot, "walking on fire". When one of the crew is found dead, Mulder and Scully are called in for help. Scully, still reeling from the effects of her kidnapping (translation: she's back from maternity leave) insists on joining Mulder. What is the connection between the creature, which managed to neutralize the robot's cameras, and the strange behavior of the crew members, and what is lurking for Mulder and Scully in the crater of the volcano?

 

Episode 34

Red Museum 

Originally meant as a crossover episode with CBS' "Picket Fences", this episode had Mulder and Scully investigating the disappearances of cattle and children. It is revealed that they have been subject to injections of alien hormones by Dr. Larson, an associate of the shadowy government conspiracy.

There's that evil, amused smirk on the Crewcut Man's face as he's about to ignite the gasoline soaked meat-packing plant and incinerate Agent Mulder. The Crew cut Man, a lethal professional, is ignominiously killed by a grieving father of one of his victims; an amateur. He died too quickly to be embarrassed, and his death delivered no satisfaction for avenging the death of Deep Throat.

The experiments Dr. Larson was performing involved treating humans and cattle with growth hormones derived from extra-terrestrials. The results were kids that quickly matured, grew extra-large and were extra-aggressive. Perfect combination if you're looking to improve your military recruits. 

Episode 35

Excelsius Dei 

Mulder and Scully set out to investigate a series of strange events at a nursing home for the elderly with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

What is the connection between the attack on the nurse and the murder of the nurses and the medical care that the elderly receive?

 

Episode 36

Aubrey 

What is the connection between murders that took place in 1942 and the disappearance of two detectives who investigated them and the strange behavior of the detective investigating character murders nowadays? Is it possible that memory is an inherited genetic trait that skips generations?

 

Episode 37

Irresistible 

A mental patiett mutilates the bodies of young women and cuts off their hair and nails, and it's only a matter of time before he starts murdering to fulfill his fetishistic delusions? Mulder and Scully try to catch him.

A guest appearence by Bruce Weitz (The Biting Detective from Hill Street Blues).

 

Episode 38

Die Hand Die Verletzt 

In the fictional town of Milford Haven, New Hampshire, a group of high school faculty members meet to discuss various social events. The adults initially appear to be socially conservative, debating the suitability of letting students perform Jesus Christ Superstar. However, when the group ends the meeting in a prayer, they recite a Satanic chant.

Later, a group of students go out into the woods at night to play with black magic, an attempt to "score" on the part of the boys in the group. The experiment causes unexplainable things to happen, and all but one of the teenagers flee. The remaining teen's mutilated body is discovered the next day, leading Mulder and Scully to investigate. Locals - including the Satanists - claim that the teens have unleashed a demonic force with their rituals; a theory which is given validity by strange occurrences, such as frogs falling from the sky and water in the drinking fountain draining counter-clockwise, contrary to the Coriolis effect. Unknown to the agents, substitute teacher Mrs. Phyllis Paddock is behind the murder, keeping the eyes and heart of the victim in her desk. One of the faculty members, Jim Ausbury, suspects one of the other Satanists killed the boy, but they believe it was an outside force.

While dissecting a pig fetus in science class, Ausbury's stepdaughter, Shannon, suffers a breakdown when she hallucinates the cadaver as alive. Meeting with Mulder and Scully, Shannon tearfully tells them that Ausbury and the other Satanists repeatedly raped and impregnated her during their rituals, sacrificing her babies. A shocked Ausbury denies the accusations. Shannon stays after school to make up her assignment of dissecting the pig. Paddock takes her bracelet and uses it as part of a spell that causes Shannon to slit her wrists. When Ausbury learns that the Satanists plan to use Shannon as a scapegoat, he admits the sect's existence to Mulder. He confirms that rituals did happen while Shannon was present, but insists that exposure to sensational media coverage led her to "remember" the sexual abuse. Meanwhile, Scully researches Paddock and finds that no one knows anything about her or her background. During a sudden power outage, Paddock steals Scully's pen and uses it to impersonate her in a call to Mulder, pretending to be in trouble. Mulder handcuffs Ausbury in the basement to prevent his possible escape, then leaves to help Scully. Soon after, a giant snake appears, controlled by Paddock, and devours Ausbury.

Mulder finds out that Scully never called him. The two find Paddock seemingly attacked by the remaining Satanists, and go to search for them. The Satanists capture the two agents, convinced that they need to perform a sacrifice to regain favor with the Devil and make up for their diluted faith before it is too late. As they are about to kill Mulder and Scully, Paddock causes them to instead kill themselves, confirming that their attempt was indeed too late. The agents escape their bonds and find Paddock missing, with only a parting message on the chalkboard stating, "Goodbye. It's been nice working with you".

 

Episode 39

Fresh Bones 

In Folkstone, North Carolina, Jack McAlpin, an agitated Marine Corps private, drives his car into a tree after several hallucinatory episodes and is apparently killed. On the tree is a veve, a drawn voodoo religious symbol.

McAlpin is the second purported suicide among troops stationed at an INS compound processing refugees from Haiti. Mulder and Scully visit the compound to investigate McAlpin's death. There, a young boy named Chester Bonaparte sells a good luck charm to Mulder. After meeting with Colonel Wharton, the head of the compound, Mulder interviews an imprisoned refugee, Pierre Bauvais, and an associate of McAlpin's, Harry Dunham. When Scully attempts to perform anautopsy on McAlpin's body, she finds a dog carcass in its place at the morgue.

While driving down the road, Mulder and Scully discover a still-living McAlpin, who doesn't remember what has happened to him. Tetrodotoxin, a chemical Mulder believes is part of Haitian zombification rituals, is found in McAlpin's blood. The agents go to the local graveyard to investigate the corpse of the other dead soldier, but find the grave robbed. They also find Chester, who collects frogs at the cemetery and sells them to Bauvais. Dunham approaches Mulder, telling him that Wharton has begun abusing the refugees as a means of retaliation against Bauvais; Wharton denies the accusations, but later has Bauvais beaten to death.

Scully cuts her hand on the thorn of a twig left in her car. When she drives off, a veve is seen on the ground under the car. Mulder has a meeting with X, who tells him that he and Scully will soon be called back to Washington and that the camp will be restricted to military personnel only. Mulder believes Wharton is persecuting the refugees after the suicide of some of his men during a previous trip to Haiti. Scully finds Dunham dead in a bathtub, and Mulder catches McAlpin with a knife nearby. Although he has no recollection of the event, McAlpin confesses to be the murderer under the influence of Wharton, who tells the agents that Bauvais committed suicide and that their investigation is over.

McAlpin's wife provides the agents with a photo of Wharton with Bauvais in Haiti, causing the agents to go through his office. They find that both Dunham and McAlpin had filed complaints against Wharton over his treatment of the detainees. The agents head to the cemetery, where Wharton is performing a voodoo rite over Bauvais' coffin. When Mulder confronts him, Wharton harms him through sympathetic magic. Meanwhile, in a hallucinatory episode, a man emerges from the small cut in Scully's hand and strangles her, but the illusion disappears when she grabs the charm Chester sold them. Bauvais appears and stops Wharton by blowing tetrodotoxin in his face. Scully arrives to assist Mulder and pronounces Wharton dead. Scully opens Bauvais' coffin and finds his body still intact.

The next day, the agents say goodbye to McAlpin, who reveals that Chester was a boy who had died in a riot six weeks earlier. The episode ends with Wharton being unwittingly buried alive by the graveyard watchman.

Mr. X appears to tell Mulder next to nothing about the intentions of Col. Warton towards the Haitian refugees, except to imply that the Military thinks Col. Warton is getting revenge for the men he lost in Haiti to Voodoo Magic. This later turns out to be false, but perhaps even Mr. X was unaware that Col. Warton was a Voodoo shaman. 

Episode 40

Colony (1) 

Mulder tracks the mysterious deaths of identical-looking abortion doctors, uncovering what appears to be an alien colonization scheme. This episode also featured the Samantha clone and the first appearance of the Alien Bounty Hunter.

These aliens first appeared in this episode and in ENDGAME. Here everything seemed simple. The "Gregors" and "Samanthas" are alien-human hybrid clones created by aliens who intend to inherit the Earth once man makes the planet uninhabitable for humans. Then a hulking shape-shifting alien assassin (originally called "The Pilot" but later refered to as "The Bounty Hunter") appears and begins slaying all the Gregors and Samanthas and destroying the abortion clinics they'd been using to harvest fetal tissue. Why? The Samantha clone claimed that she and the Gregors' project was seen as a dimunition of the alien race, an abomination. Or perhaps, it was simply an unapproved project. The Clones and the Bounty Hunter are extra-strong and durable and seem only to be able to be killed by a precise piercing of the base of the skull by a long sharp object.

The Bounty Hunter and Mulder had a similar clash on the submarine USS Alligence in this episode. There Mulder begged for information about his sister from the Bounty Hunter, who, for reasons of his own, told Mulder his sister was still alive and saved Mulder from his own toxic blood fumes after Mulder shoots him.

The Bounty Hunter displays a toxic blood chemistry, fatal to humans upon exposure, and the ability to change shape and appearance in the blink of an eye. 

Episode 41

End Game (2) 

After the colonization effort is destroyed, Mulder chases the ABH to a disabled submarine in the Arctic.

Is the woman claiming to be Samantha Mulder telling the truth? The alien bounty hunter, who can assume any form he wants, disguises himself as Mulder to get to Mulder. Scully gets the real Mulder's warning, but too late. "Samantha" reveals to Mulder the only way to destroy the bounty hunter, and tells him that the identical twins are nothing but alien clones, but Mulder is still skeptical. He enlists Skinner's help, and together they set out to make the barter deal - "Samantha" for Scully. The deal goes wrong, Samantha disappears, and Mulder has to break the hard news to his father. He still doesn't know the truth about his father's involvement in Samantha's first disappearance case. He discovers that she left him a note with the address of a meeting place, while at the same time Scully informs him that her body has been found. Mulder goes to the meeting place and finds several "Samanthas" there. They ask for his help and assure him that they know where Samantha is, but the alien bounty hunter is ahead of him, and all the "Samanthas" have disappeared. Mulder meets with the mysterious "Mr. X", who sends him back to where it all began, to the submarine stuck under the ice cap. The one who manages to get the information out of Mr. X is none other than Skinner... In the submarine, Mulder encounters the alien bounty hunter, who refuses to tell him where his sister is and throws him out of the submarine, which disappears under the ice. Scully confronts the hospital staff to give Mulder the right treatment and save his life. As usual, there is no evidence for Mulder's version, and Scully still hopes to find a scientific explanation, because according to her, it was science that saved Mulder's life...

Mr. X knows about the attempt to capture the ABH's ship.

Mr. X finally coughs up some decent information: the location of the disabled nuclear sub that the alien assassin (known as "the Pilot" or "the Bounty Hunter") is heading towards. He also passes the same information on the Assistant Director Skinner after Skinner "reasons" with him.

Skinner goes above and beyond the call of duty to help Mulder. He follows Scully, figuring that she would eventually find Mulder, and perhaps he intended to keep the goons from Majestic from interfering with her search. Watching her go to Mulder's apartment, Skinner would have seen her set up the "X" signal in Mulder's window. He also would have seen X arrive and see the lights come on in Mulder's apartment when Mr. X encountered Scully. Skinner may have had an idea that Mulder had a new informant after Mulder received the 911 tape in SLEEPLESS. He may have guessed that the "X" signal was a means of signaling Mulder's informant. It wouldn't have been hard for him to intercept Mr. X in the elevator on the way out if he'd been watching Scully's back.

The ABH who killed the "Gregor" and "Samantha" clones shows a surprising understanding for Mulder’s will to protect his sister's clone. When Mulder pleads for information about the location of his sister, the alien not only assures him that she is alive and well, but also saves Mulder from his own’s blood toxicity. 

Episode 42

Fearful Symmetry 

Mulder and Scully investigate possible alien abductions of zoo animals.

What are the aliens up to now? Artificially impregnating zoo animals and stealing their fetus? Is it an Alien administered conservation project? They sure seems different from the aliens in other projects on Earth (human-alien hybridization/ establishing colonies etc.). But then again, it seems to be the kind of activity performed by the Greys: abduction and experimentation. 

Episode 43

Dod Kalm 

A navy ship disappears in the North Sea. When the survivors are found, they are fifty years older than they were when the ship disappeared, but one of them did not age. Could the ship have traveled through time? And what causes rapid aging?

 

Episode 44

Humbug 

Mulder and Scully set out to investigate a series of murders in a town whose inhabitants are mostly former Circassians. Are the reasons for the murders natural or supernatural, or is it all an illusion?

 

Episode 45

The Calusari 

In Murray, Virginia, Maggie (Helene Clarkson) and Steve Holvey (Ric Reid) visit an amusement park with their children. During the outing, Teddy, the youngest child, loses his balloon. His father, Steve, substitutes it with Charlie's balloon. In a tragic turn of events, Teddy follows the balloon onto the tracks and is fatally struck by a train. Strangely, Charlie appears unaffected by Teddy's death.

Three months later, Mulder shows Scully a photo taken moments before Teddy's death that suggests a mysterious force lured Teddy onto the tracks. The agents later visit the Holveys, and Scully grows suspicious of Maggie's elderly Romanian mother, Golda (Lilyan Chauvin), who is seen drawing a swastika on the boy's hand. Scully hypothesizes that the Holvey children may be victims of Munchausen by proxy, perpetrated by their grandmother. As they delve deeper into the case, Steve recalls odd occurrences surrounding Golda's arrival after Teddy's birth. Concerned for Charlie's safety, Scully suggests involving the social worker named Karen Kosseff (Christine Willes). However, tragedy strikes when Steve is accidentally killed in his garage, and when the police investigate his death, they discover evidence of ritualistic sacrifices in Golda's room.

In her room, Golda initiates a ritual with several Căluşari mystics. In the meantime, Kosseff shows up at the Holveys' house and asks to meet with Charlie. Suddenly the boy begins to convulse. After noticing smoke billowing out from under Golda's door, Kosseff and Maggie interrupt the ritual. This, however, leads to Golda's demise at Charlie's hands.

Kosseff rushes off and finds Mulder, who in turn questions the Căluşari mystics. They explain that their ritual was an attempt to stop "an ancient and unrelenting evil". Kosseff later sits Charlie down and inquires about the struggle, but the boy swears that it was not him in his grandmother's room, but rather another boy named "Michael". Maggie later tells Mulder and Scully that Michael was the name of Charlie's twin brother who was a stillborn. Terrified, she insists that she and Steve never told Charlie. After Charlie was born, Golda tried to perform a ritual that would have separated the spirits of the two boys. However, Steve would not allow it.

Charlie seizes again and is taken to a hospital. However, Michael pretends to be Charlie and convinces Maggie to take him home. Scully witnesses what is happening, and informs Mulder, who is certain that the spirit of Michael, and not Charlie, is killing people. The two agents split up: Mulder tracks down the Căluşari mystics to complete the ritual, and Scully goes to Maggie's home to protect her.

Although Michael very nearly kills Scully and Maggie, Mulder and the Căluşari manage to complete the ritual, which causes Michael's spirit to disappear. Maggie then returns to the hospital and is reunited with Charlie.

 

Episode 46

F Emasculata 

CSM assists Pink Pharmaceuticals in covering up their experiments on the prisoners, but his goals weren’t that simple. I mean, why would CSM deliberately involve Mulder (Mr. "The Truth Will Out") when he's trying to cover something up?

There might be an intriguingly byzantine motive for such action. CSM may have intended to show Mulder that sometimes the truth has to be covered up in order to serve a "greater good." In this case, the panic would have spread faster than the disease and cost even more lives. Showing Mulder that the truth sometimes has to be cover-up may have been a first step toward ideologically converting Mulder, perhaps even a first step toward bringing Mulder into the Majestic conspiracy. After all, if you can't beat 'em, recruit 'em. CSM may someday offer to share the truth with Mulder, but only if Mulder will help cover it up. This may be significant later.

CSM still had enough real or apparent authority to sit in on FBI meetings and get information on Mulder's on-going investigations. He even sent Mulder an assignment when it suited him. Skinner resents CSM's presence but appears to be under political (or other) pressure to continue to cooperate with this man he clearly loathes.

The Grey Haired Man first appears as one of the two CDC doctors decontaminating Cumberland prison. In that episode he was called Dr. Simon Auerbach, and his CDC credentials turned out to be bogus. Dozens of prisoners died and were stuffed into the prison’s incinerator while "Dr. Auerbach" supervised. Of course, this may not be the same character, just the same actor playing two different roles.

Nicholas Lea had this same problem when he was cast in the first season as the near-victim of a sex-crazed alien in GENDERBENDER, before moving on the role we've grown to hate him in: Alex Krycek.

 

Episode 47

Soft Light 

At a hotel in Richmond, Virginia, Chester Ray Banton (Tony Shalhoub) reaches a room and frantically knocks on the door while shouting the name ″Morris″. Banton's shouts attract the attention of Patrick Newirth, a guest in the room across the hall. When Newirth looks through his door's peephole, Banton steps back, causing his shadow to slip beneath Newirth's door. Newirth suddenly evaporates, leaving a strange burn mark on the floor. Banton realizes what has happened and flees the scene.

The case of Newirth's death, the latest in several of its kind, is assigned to local detective Kelly Ryan. She seeks help from Scully, her former instructor at the FBI Academy. Mulder also takes part in the investigation, believing Newirth died from spontaneous human combustion. While searching the home of an earlier victim, the agents realize that both she and Newirth had recently traveled by train. Meanwhile, Banton sits in a train station, cautiously looking at the floor; because the room is lit by soft light, his shadow cannot be seen. After he leaves, Banton is confronted by two policemen patrolling the area. Despite Banton's warnings, the officers step into his shadow and disappear, leaving more burn marks.

The following day, while reviewing the station's surveillance tapes, Mulder sees footage of Banton staring at the floor. After blowing up the frame, Mulder sees the logo for a company called Polarity Magnetics on Banton's jacket. At Polarity Magnetics, the agents meet scientist Christopher Davey (Kevin McNulty), who identifies Banton, aphysicist conducting research into dark matter. Davey reveals that Banton disappeared five weeks earlier after an incident in his laboratory in which he was locked in a target room with an active particle accelerator and exposed to a large number of subatomic particles. His account is enough for Scully to consider spontaneous human combustion, but Mulder is now doubtful of this theory.


The agents find Banton at the train station, but he runs to a poorly lit area. He indicates that walking into his shadow will kill the agents, so Mulder shoots out the overhead lights. Banton allows himself to be taken to a mental hospital, where he is put in a room with soft light per his own request. He tells the agents that the accident in his lab caused his shadow to behave like a black hole, splitting atoms into component particles and reducing matter into pure energy. Banton claims that the deaths were all accidents, and that the government wants to exploit him. Ryan and her superior stop the questioning and declare the case closed, despite Mulder's objections. Mulder contacts X (Steven Williams), who assures him that the government has no interest in Banton. However, X and two associates later attempt to remove Banton from the hospital by cutting the power. In the process, X's associates are killed when the emergency lights turn on and Banton's shadow falls upon them. Banton flees from the hospital.

Banton returns to Polarity Magnetics and is confronted by Ryan, whom he reluctantly kills with his shadow when she tries to arrest him. Banton orders Davey to destroy him with the particle accelerator, but Davey reveals that he has been helping the government hunt him down. Davey locks Banton in with the particle accelerator, but is shot by X. Mulder and Scully arrive soon after, seemingly too late to save Banton from being vaporized by the accelerator; Mulder realizes that X has betrayed him, and tells X to never contact him again. The case is considered closed, but Mulder notes that Davey disappeared after the incidents. At a research facility, X watches as experiments are being performed on a despairing Banton.

Mr X manipulates Mulder and uses the information he gets from Mulder to kidnap Dr. Chester Banton for use in experiments in how to harness the dark matter that permeates Dr. Banton's atomic structure. 

Episode 48

Our Town 

In Dudley, Arkansas, government health inspector George Kearns follows his seemingly young lover, Paula Gray, into the woods. However, after losing track of Paula, George Kearns soon finds himself surrounded by approaching lights in the woods. He is then killed by an axe-wielding assailant wearing a tribal mask.

When Kearns is reported missing and a witness claims to have seen foxfire near Dudley, Mulder and Scully investigate. At the site of the alleged foxfire, the agents find the ground burnt. After visiting Kearns' wife Doris, the agents discover that he was about to recommend a local chicken plant, Chaco Chicken, to be closed down for health violations. While giving the agents a tour of the plant, floor manager Jess Harold claims that Kearns held a vendetta against Chaco Chicken. After hearing this, a hallucinating Paula, who works at the plant, grabs and holds Harold at knifepoint. Mulder and Scully attempt to reason with Paula until she is shot and killed by Arens, the local sheriff. The plant's physician, Dr. Vance Randolph, later claims that Paula was suffering from consistent headaches, which Kearns had also reported.

The agents later see Walter Chaco, Paula's grandfather and the plant's owner, who allows the agents to perform an autopsy. The agents find that while Paula's personnel file gives her age as 47, she appears no older than her mid-20s. They also discover that Paula suffered from Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, a rare and fatal illness that causes dementia. When the agents nearly collide with a Chaco Chicken truck, they learn that the driver also suffered from the disease. Noticing the plant's blood-red runoff in a nearby stream, Mulder orders a reluctant Sheriff Arens to dredge it. They quickly find the bones of nine people, including Kearns. While inspecting the remains, the agents notice that the skulls are missing and that the bones appear to have been boiled. Meanwhile, Randolph and Harold discuss the uncovered bones and the increase of Creutzfeldt–Jakob cases. While Randolph complains about Chaco's inaction, Harold assures him that he will talk to Chaco.

Using FBI records, Mulder and Scully find that eighty-seven people have vanished within a two-hundred-mile radius of Dudley over the past half-century. Mulder suspects that the town's residents are practicing cannibalism in order to prolong life, possibly explaining Paula's youthful appearance. Mulder also realizes that Kearns originally had Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, and that the other residents caught the illness after consuming his body.

The agents try to search the town's birth records for confirmation of Paula's age, but find that they have been destroyed. At Chaco's mansion, Chaco and Harold meet with Doris, who tearfully implies that she "helped" Chaco kill her husband; Chaco instructs her to obstruct the FBI's investigation.

Doris calls Mulder, believing that Chaco wants to kill her; after she hangs up, she is attacked by the masked figure. Scully goes to help Doris while Mulder searches for Chaco at his mansion. There, he finds the shrunken heads of Kearns and other victims in a cabinet. Mulder calls Scully on the phone and hears her being knocked out by Chaco. She is bound and gagged and taken to a secluded field, where Harold has started a bonfire and led the townsfolk in consuming Doris. Chaco berates them for killing one of their own, but Harold chastises him for allowing the Creutzfeldt–Jakob epidemic to occur and has Chaco executed by the masked figure. Scully herself is about to be killed when Mulder arrives and shoots the figure; he is revealed to be Sheriff Arens. Harold tries to shoot Mulder, but is trampled to death by the fleeing townsfolk.

In narration, Scully explains that Chaco's plant has been closed down by the Department of Agriculture, and that twenty-seven Dudley residents have died from Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. She reveals that Chaco was ninety-three years old at the time of his death, and had spent time with the allegedly cannibalistic "Jale tribe" after his transport plane was shot down over New Guinea during World War II. She also states that his remains have never been found; the final scene suggests that Chaco's remains are being fed to chickens at his plant.

 

Episode 49

Anasazi (1) 

The Thinker, the fourth member of the Lone Gunmen, steals the Majestic Files from a Department of Defense database and gives them to Mulder on a data tape. When Bill Mulder is about to reveal his involvement with the conspiracy, he is killed by Krycek. Mulder then travels to Arizona, where he finds a buried railcar full of alien-looking bodies. However, CSM shows up and sets the railcar ablaze, with Mulder inside.

But Krychak was demoted from an agent to a simple thug and is full of hatred towards Mulder and all his family members, as he considers Mulder responsible for his downfall. The Cigarette Smoking enjoys pitting Krycek and Mulder against each other, perhaps hoping Mulder will kill Krycek, as part of his plot to undermine Mulder's credibility as much as possible and frame him for two murders.

The Lone Gunmen tossed out the name "GARNET" during the episode ANASAZI, and claimed that GARNET was a "multi-national black-ops unit" staffed by "School of the Americas alumni... trained killers." GARNET was after the Thinker, the cyber-anarchist who hacked the MJ documents out of the DoD computer. According to UFO-Conspiracy literature (it is often contradictory) GARNET is the name of MJ-12's counter-intelligence and information security section. They go out and steal and destroy evidence of UFO encounters, intimidate witnesses to prevent them from talking about what they've seen, spread disinformation about the UFO abduction phenomena, and run covert operations to discredit and discourage civilian UFO investigators. Since CSM is obviously running the operation to retrieve the MJ documents and cover up the government's alien-studies projects, I'd have to guess that CSM is the head of GARNET and serves the Majestic Project as its chief of counter-intelligence and information security. CSM's most apparent goals are to keep Mulder away from Majestic's alien-studies projects. However, CSM has shown an interest in covering up other government black projects.

Mr. X was probably not above disposing of Mulder if he thought it was in his best interests to do so. When Scully is shot at through the window in Mulder's apartment, the shooter must have thought she was Mulder. Also, he may have been Mr. X. Why? Mulder was messing around the MJ Documents and then tried to get in touch Mr. X, thus putting Mr. X in grave danger. Mr. X may have tried to kill Mulder so Mulder couldn't lead the goons from GARNET back to him. It just doesn't seem likely that CSM and company would try for such a clumsy assassination attempt on Mulder when they were already dumping behavior altering drugs in his water to destroy his credibility and career and setting him up for the murder of his father.

CSM was telling the truth when he told Mulder that Bill Mulder approved the project and was fully cognizant of its implications.

Undoubtedly Samantha, Mulder's sister was taken as leverage to ensure Bill Mulder kept his mouth shut. The fact that Bill Mulder chose Samantha as the hostage (and the now-obvious relationship between Mrs. Mulder and CSM) casts doubts on Samantha's parentage. Did Bill Mulder pick her to be sacrificed because Samantha was CSM's daughter, not his?

When Krycek reappears, he looks like a common street thug, veritably boiling with anger toward Mulder (and any member of the Mulder family); as if Krycek holds Mulder responsible for all Krycek had lost in his fall from FBI agent to "need-to-know" thug.

CSM has always maintained that Majestic doesn't want to kill Mulder, at least not until he's been thoroughly discredited. Punching your boss and being accused of shooting your father and your ex-partner goes along way toward discrediting a person.

On the Majestic Board we have an Italian representative, a Japanese representative and a German representative (sounds familiar?) All are very concerned about the theft of the Consortium's secrets  

Episode 50

The Blessing Way (2) 

Scully first meets the Well-Manicured Man (WMM), who warns her of a possible assassination attempt. Meanwhile, Krycek shoots Melissa Scully, thinking that she is Scully. Finally, Skinner, Mulder, and Scully share a Tarantino moment, pointing their guns at one another.

The Well Manicured Man is Bill Mulder's former colleague, a deep throat and cigarette smoker. The rivalry between him and the cigarette smoker stems from differences regarding methods, not means; The The Well Manicured Man prefers more sophisticated and less blatant methods

The Well Manicured Man (or WMM) is one of the members of the council of Elders that runs the Majestic Project and (judging from the photo Mulder found among his father's personal effects) he was also a long time associate of Deep Throat, Bill Mulder and CSM. WMM warns Scully about her impending assassination at Bill Mulder's funeral. He claims to be acting out of enlightened self-interest, because Scully's death will draw too much attention to the Majestic Project. But is that really the case? He tells Scully that she will be killed either by a close friend or by two assassins waiting for her in her home. His warning makes Scully so paranoid and distrustful she almost kills the one person she should be trusting: Skinner. Was WMM's warning meant to help her or to keep her off balance and isolated so that Krycek and the hit team could take her out? WMM was probably not trying to help Scully.

A look at CSM at his worst: desperate, panicky and covering up his mistakes. We now know that he does the cold-blooded and ruthless things he does because he's protecting more than just the world's most dangerous secrets. He's protecting his life. The Majestic Project does not tolerate failure. If CSM can't do his job, then he'll be replaced, and somehow I doubt he'll be allowed to quietly retire like Bill Mulder. With no family or friends to threaten, the only way CSM can be kept quiet would be to kill him. Or worse. Purity Control is always looking for new test subjects.

That's why Skinner's bluff about the Navajos memorizing the tape worked against CSM. CSM wasn't worried about the public believing Albert Hosteen and his friends if they blabbed about the contents of the tape. He was worried his comrades on the Majestic council of Elders would hear about the Navajos and kill him for having lied to them about the breach in security.

There is one extra clue about Deep Throat's relation to Purity Control.

Deep Throat appears in a photograph taken outside the secret medical-records repository in West Virginia with Bill Mulder (Mulder's father), CSM, Nazi war criminal Victor Klemper, and The Well Manicured Man (another member of the council of Elders which runs the Majestic Project). This indicates that all four were close colleagues and that all four were intimately involved with the collection of the medical and DNA data.

What can we conclude from this? Maybe only that Deep Throat wanted Purity Control shut down enough to put his life on the line. Perhaps he was morally offended by the use of human test subjects, but didn't feel he had enough influence on the Majestic Project board of directors to shut the project down. Perhaps speaking out openly against the project would have called his loyalty to Majestic into question and endangered his life. So he goes to Mulder, figuring that if Mulder's on the trail of Purity Control either Mulder will expose the project or CSM's goons from GARNET (the Crew-Cut Man, for example) would swing into action and shut the project down before its exposed.

There's just no way to tell if Deep Throat's views represented the views of a faction within Majestic, or if he was acting alone. But with the appearance of Mr. X and his reference to Deep Throat as "my predecessor", it would seem that Deep Throat had already contacted others within the Majestic Consortium who shared his views.

The relationship between CSM and Skinner hit rock bottom as the two of them exchanged threats and insults. They let each other know exactly what they thought of each other. CSM even panicked in front of Skinner ("Where's the DAMN tape!" he screamed). After Skinner told CSM to "pucker up and kiss my ass!" it is doubtful whether CSM will be sitting in on any more Bureau meetings.

Cardinal, Alex Krycek's partner, assisted in the botched assassination attempt against Scully which resulted in the death of Melissa Scully. It's hard to tell which man, Cardinal or Krycek, pulled the trigger on Melissa. On slow-motion advance, the shooter (momentarily illuminated by the gun’s muzzle-flash) appears to be Krycek, but Cardinal drops the gun at the scene.

We never saw the results of Dr. Klemper's experiments, although the hybrids we saw gassed in the rail road car in may have been the products of Klemper's experiments. They had huge, misshapen heads, large black eyes, long fingers and leathery wrinkled skin. They may have retained the toxic biology of the aliens since they were killed by a hydrogen-cyanide gas grenade rather than by bullets, which would have exposed the trigger men to toxic alien blood. Dr. Ishimauru/Zama's hybrids were slightly more human appearing. They still had the large heads, but they were more rounded and less elongated. They still had elongated fingers, but their eyes appeared more human and their skin was not leathery. Their biology appears to be less toxic than the other hybrids since the soldiers that executed them wore no gasmasks and suffered no ill effects from their blood. Dr. Berube's hybrids, while they may have later developed alien physiological traits, appeared completely human on the surface. Their blood, nonetheless remained highly toxic.

See also PAPER CLIP. 

Episode 51

Paper Clip (3) 

Mulder learns of his late father's involvement in Operation Paper Clip, a project attempting to create an alien-human hybrid with the help of WWII war criminals. Mulder and Scully also find an abandoned West Virginia mine full of medical files.

Krycek is double-crossed by his employers, turning him into a rogue agent. Oh yeah, Skinner tells CSM "this is where you pucker up and kiss my ass!"

The First Elder orders the hit on Mulder and Scully.

The Well Manicured Man grills CSM about his ham-fisted attempts to dispose of Scully as well as CSM's covering up of his having failed to eliminate Mulder or recover the MJ documents data tape. The hostility between CSM and WMM seems real, but it may be a hostility based on differences as to means, not ends. Both want to protect the Majestic Project, but WMM is more subtle than CSM. WMM nearly got Scully, Mulder and Skinner to shoot each other just by whispering a couple of well phrased lies to Scully. Remember that "Tarentino-esque" moment at the begining of PAPERCLIP where Mulder, Scully and Skinner are all pointing guns at each other?

Imagine how well that situation would have worked out for the Majestic Consortium if just one of them had started shooting. All three of Majestic's greatest enemies undone in a split second. Anyone who survived the shootout whould be finished as an FBI agent. Meanwhile, CSM rolled out the special forces teams, covert assassins and psychotropic water supply and all he succeeded in doing was getting Mulder's neighbors to shoot each other, burning a freight car, beating up some Indians, getting Melissa Scully killed, and scorching Krycek's jacket.

The Well Manicured Man later tells Mulder and Scully that the government has been engaging in a genetic engineering project using alien DNA since the late 1940s. Not particularly useful information considering that Mulder had already convinced himself that this was indeed the case. WMM also tells Mulder that his father was duped into participating in the project and that Samantha was taken in order to keep Bill Mulder from exposing the project. Of course, when asked by Mulder why he is telling Mulder all this, WMM answers "It's what you want to know, isn't it?" Perhaps Scully is right; perhaps WMM is just telling Mulder what he wants to hear.

Mrs. Mulder's assertion that it was Bill Mulder's choice which child would be taken indicates that Bill Mulder may have had a reason to draw a distinction between Samantha and Fox. Samantha may not have been his child. Add to the way CSM obviously covets Bill Mulder's "normal" family life and the conclusion is inescapable. CSM is Samantha's father.

Krycek pulls the trigger on Melissa Scully (at least on slow forward advance the shooter looks more like Krycek than his partner "The Hispanic Man", Louis Cardinal, but it's Cardinal who drops the gun at the scene). Krycek doesn't seem particularly remorseful about shooting an innocent woman, only upset because he's flubbed the mission. Later he ambushed Skinner to recover the MJ document's data tape. While Skinner is being restrained by two trained assassins, Krycek pounds away with sadistic satisfaction, as if he's venting his anger on Skinner, who had never done anything to him prior to that point. But there is something in Krycek's expression as he sits stewing in the passenger seat of the car that's about to blow up. Maybe it's a look of disgust or contempt for his situation and his cohorts. That introspective look of self-loathing is cut short as Krycek narrowly escapes being flash-welded to the roof of the car. Perhaps Krycek is disgusted that his life-long plan to infiltrate the U.S. Intelligence community has ended with himself being reduced to a disposable, deniable asset with little access to the secrets he was hoping to steal.

What about CSM's "unprovoked" attempt on Alex Krycek's life? It always seemed unnecessary to kill Krycek. What was the purpose? Because he'd been identified because of his earlier infiltration of the X-Files? Because he failed to kill Mulder or Scully? Failure doesn't expalin the attempt on Krycek's life, otherwise Louis Cardinal would have been sitting in the car right next to Krycek when it blew up. But what if Krycek's KGB connection had been discovered by CSM? What if CSM knew he was a communist double-agent? Well, like CSM said, "Payback's a bitch, Ivan." Now, in retrospect, CSM's attempt on Krycek's life makes sense. If CSM knew, or suspected that Krycek was a mole, he wouldn't hesitate to kill him.

Krycek had the MJ documents data tape and used it to keep CSM's assassins at bay for a time, but later went into business selling the secrets on the tape to foreign powers. But why would Krycek, a KGB agent, go into business for himself? The answer is that he didn't go into business for himself. Krycek's days of selling MJ files' secrets around the globe was a KGB operation. The tape was encrypted after all, and it would have taken the assistance of the KGB's code-breakers to decrypt.

Mulder suggested that Krycek had assistance in decrypting the tape when they clashed in Hong Kong. The operation is classic KGB material: the KGB makes money off the French (and any other western powers) by selling useless and out-of-date Majestic secrets. The KGB makes money to support its operations (extremely important with the former Soviet Union being nearly broke) and spreads disinformation among its enemies. No doubt the KGB kept the pertinent information for themselves.

Cardinal, Krycek, and an un-named partner return to ambush Skinner and steal the MJ Document data tape. Cardinal and the un-named covert-ops thug later try to kill Krycek and destroy the data tape with a car-bomb, but fail.

The Greys make a quick appearance, scurrying past Scully in the dark tunnels of the West Virginia DNA data archive as she and Mulder hide from the hit team sent by the Majestic Consortium. It is unknown weather these aliens deliberately or accidentally show Mulder and Scully a back way out of the mine.

Dr. Klemper's experiments during WWII involved exposing test subjects to extreme low pressures. His experiments were designed to help pilots survive at higher altitudes (and eventually in space). Perhaps, because the alien visitors are space travelers, Klemper's hybridization experiments with aliens were meant to adapt humans to the environment of space.

See also THE BLESSING WAY 

Episode 52

D.P.O 

Can a person kill with lightning bolts? Mulder and Scully investigate a series of murders involving a boy with powerful and dangerous powers.

 

Episode 53

Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose 

Who is killing the mind readers and fortune tellers? And who really has the ability to see the future? Mulder and Scully investigate.

 

Episode 54

The List 

Napoleon "Neech" Manley, a death row inmate at a Florida prison, is brought to the electric chair. Before he is executed, Neech proclaims that he will be reincarnated and avenge himself against five men who tormented him in prison.

Shortly after the execution, Mulder and Scully investigate the prison after a guard is mysteriously found dead in Neech's cell. The agents meet the prison's warden, Brodeur (J. T. Walsh), who believes that Neech planned the guard's murder with someone on the outside before the execution. John Speranza, another inmate, believes that Neech has returned. When Scully explores the prison's showers, she meets another guard named Vincent Parmelly. He claims that another prisoner, Roque, is keeping a list of the remaining four victims.

Later, the head of another guard, Fornier, is found inside a paint can. An examination of the head shows the premature appearance of larvae. The prison coroner tells Scully that the first guard's lungs were completely infested with the larvae, belonging to the green bottle fly. Meanwhile, Mulder talks to Roque, who wants a transfer out of the prison in exchange for revealing the remaining three people on the list, but Brodeur refuses to let this happen. Brodeur later finds Fornier's headless body in his office. While searching Neech's cell, Mulder discovers evidence of his obsession with reincarnation. The agents talk to Neech's fearful widow, Danielle Manley, who is secretly seeing Parmelly. Roque is brought to the showers, where he is beaten to death by Brodeur after revealing he is the fifth person on the list.

Brodeur puts the prison under lockdown and tells Mulder that Neech had a violent history with all three victims. Mulder believes that Neech came back for revenge against the guards but doubts that Roque was on the list. He requests that he be provided with the name of Neech's executioner, who turns out to be a volunteer named Perry Simon. The agents arrive at Simon's home to discover his decomposing body in the attic. Mulder confronts Speranza about the list, but Speranza only tells him that Roque was not on it. He claims to have seen Neech "big as life" outside his cell. Based on phone records, Scully theorizes that Neech's lawyer, Danny Charez, may have engineered the murders with Speranza. The agents interview Charez, who tells them about Danielle's relationship with Parmelly; after they leave, Charez is suffocated by a resurrected Neech.

Brodeur visits Speranza in his cell and offers to have his death sentence commuted in exchange for stopping the murders. Speranza takes the offer. That night, Parmelly visits Danielle, who has become agitated since Mulder and Scully have begun staking out her house. The agents now suspect Parmelly to be behind the murders and leave to notify Brodeur, who asks that Parmelly be arrested. Soon afterward, Danielle wakes up to see Neech standing at her bedroom door. She grabs her gun and confronts Parmelly, thinking he is Neech's resurrected form. The agents and a police task force arrive to see her shoot and kill Parmelly. Meanwhile, Brodeur - assuming that Charez and Parmelly were on the list - thinks Speranza has reneged on their deal and has him taken to the showers. Before Brodeur kills him, Speranza claims that one person remains on the list.

Parmelly is blamed for the murders. The agents start to leave Florida, but Mulder soon pulls over. He remains frustrated, since Parmelly was on-duty during only one murder and was not one of the three men who knew Perry Simon's confidential identity. He also points out inconsistencies in the actions of Parmelly and Roque, who was also assumed to be part of the plot. Mulder believes that Parmelly was not responsible for the deaths, and that Neech had indeed been reincarnated to exact his revenge. However, Scully convinces Mulder that the case is over, and that they should return home. Just then, Brodeur passes them in his car. Looking in his rearview mirror, he sees Neech, who attacks Brodeur and causes his car to crash into a tree, claiming his last victim.

 

Episode 55

2Shy 

In Cleveland, a couple sit flirting in a car at night, having met over the Internet. The man, the charismatic and handsome Virgil Incanto (Timothy Carhart), suffocates his overweight date, Lauren, with a gelatinous substance he spits up. The next morning, a policeman finds Lauren's heavily dissolved body, covered in the substance.

Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate, as the victim's description seems similar to those of other victims of a lonely hearts killer still at large. Scully attempts to perform an autopsy on Lauren's body, only to find that it has liquified with only a skeleton remaining. Scully later discerns that the substance coating the body is a concentrated digestive enzyme, and that the remains are lacking in body fat.

Incanto prowls an online chatroom, arranging to meet with a similarly overweight woman named Ellen Kaminsky (Catherine Paolone). Incanto is interrupted by his landlord Monica Landis, who believes he is a writer and who is romantically interested in him. He ignores her and resumes chatting. Elsewhere, Mulder learns that Lauren met a man in a chatroom, and researches Incanto's online accounts. They find that he had started one account using a credit card taken from a previous victim.

Kaminsky stands up Incanto while he waits at a restaurant. He leaves, murdering a slightly overweight prostitute who injures him in a struggle. Incanto is forced to flee before he can fully dissolve the body. At the autopsy, Scully finds that the body's airways are choked with the same substance that dissolved Lauren. A forensic lab report reveals that the skin under the victim's nails contains no oils or fatty acids, convincing Mulder that the killer is sucking body fat from his victims.

Mulder finds passages of obscure medieval poetry in Incanto's e-mails and compiles a list of people who would have access to the texts from which these were taken. The agents, along with local detective Alan Cross (James Handy), agree to canvass everyone on the list. Meanwhile, Incanto, a translator of medieval Italian literature, receives a package while talking to Monica and her blind daughter, Jessie. He receives an e-mail from Kaminsky, asking to arrange another date; he is also questioned by Cross.

Returning home with Kaminsky, Incanto invites her inside, but quickly retracts his invitation when he sees the lights on in his apartment. After leaving Kaminsky, Incanto finds and kills Monica in his apartment after she discovers Cross' body in his bathtub. When Jessie asks Incanto about her mother's whereabouts, he denies seeing her. However, Jessie smells her mother's perfume in Incanto's apartment and calls the police. When they arrive, Incanto is gone, but his computer gives a list of women he has been in contact with. After trying to contact each woman in the given list, only two are unreachable, one being Kaminsky.

After Incanto comes to Kaminsky's apartment, she recognizes his facial composite distributed by the FBI. The agents arrive but after Mulder leaves in pursuit of who he believes to be Incanto, Scully is attacked by Incanto, who is still in the apartment; however, as they struggle, Kaminsky retrieves Scully's gun and fires on her attacker. Later, during questioning, a visibly weakened and deformed Incanto admits to the killings. He claims to have given his victims what they had wanted in return for what he needed (the fatty acids to keep him healthy). Incanto states: "I morti non sono più soli" (the dead are no longer lonely).

 

Episode 56

The Walk 

At a VA hospital in Fort Evanston, Maryland, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Stans makes his third suicide attempt; he claims that a mysterious figure will not let him die. Stans attempts to drown in a tub of scalding water, but is rescued by the hospital staff and subsequently is disfigured.

When Mulder and Scully question Stans, they learn that his wife and children died in a house fire he claims was started by the mysterious soldier he says will not allow him to die himself. Captain Janet Draper stops the questioning, as Mulder and Scully were not granted permission to see Stans by his superior officer, General Thomas Callahan. After meeting with the agents, Callahan glimpses the phantom soldier Stans described. He also finds his answering machine replaying an unintelligible message.

Later, while using the base's swimming pool, Draper is drowned by an invisible force.

Callahan tells the agents about the soldier and the voicemail, which was received twice before at his home. When they visit his house, his young son, Trevor, believes he saw someone go inside; Scully herself glimpses someone in the backyard. Fingerprints are found on the property which belong to the hospital mailman, Quinton "Roach" Freely. As Mulder and Scully take Roach into custody, Trevor is attacked and buried by the invisible force in his sandbox. Under the agent's questioning, Roach admits to his role in the deaths and states he is "Rappo's mailman".

"Rappo" turns out to be Leonard Trimble, a Gulf War veteran and quadruple amputee. Scully doesn't believe Roach, even though he insists that Rappo will kill him next. Scully later finds Roach dead in his cell with a bedsheet shoved down his throat. Scully assumes that he committed suicide, but Mulder shows her X-ray film he carried in the rehab room, the pool, Callahan's office, and Callahan's house; all show signs of radiation. Mulder thinks that Rappo is leaving his body through astral projection, doing so with a psychic connection forged through Roach's letters. He also plays the voicemail backwards; it is actually a threat from the phantom soldier.

Under questioning, an embittered Rappo states his belief that his Gulf War experiences ruined his life. Meanwhile, Callahan finds his wife's dead body. He goes to the hospital to talk to Stans, who reveals that Rappo - whom he doesn't know - is responsible for the deaths. When Callahan confronts Rappo, he openly admits his crimes. Rappo tries to goad Callahan into killing him, but Callahan decides to "stand down" and shoots over Rappo's head. Callahan tells Rappo that he will just suffer like him and the others, leaving Rappo enraged. The agents arrive and find Rappo in a trance; Scully thinks he's having a seizure, but Mulder realizes what is happening and tries to find Callahan. Rappo's apparition attacks Callahan with steam from the pipes in the hospital's basement. Stans enters Rappo's room, locks the door, and smothers Rappo with a pillow. With Rappo dead, his apparition disappears before it attacks Mulder. Callahan remains unharmed.

Since there is no physical evidence to prove that Rappo killed Callahan's wife and son, the case remains unsolved. Stans is released and becomes Callahan's mailman - both Lieutenant Colonel and General acknowledge each other before the former leaves to continue his work. Mulder's narration states that Rappo's family tried to have him buried at Arlington National Cemetery, but the Army denied their request; he was instead cremated and buried in a civilian cemetery in Pennsylvania.

 

Episode 57

Oubliette 

In Seattle, photography assistant Carl Wade (Michael Chieffo) watches as 15-year-old Amy Jacobs (Jewel Staite) is photographed for school picture day. He becomes obsessed with her following the event, eventually kidnapping her. Her younger sister is the only witness to the incident, which takes place in their bedroom in the middle of the night. At exactly the same time, fast food worker Lucy Householder (Tracey Ellis) collapses with a nosebleed. Mulder investigates Amy's disappearance, drawn to the case because his younger sister, Samantha, was kidnapped in a similar situation. The investigation leads Mulder to Lucy, who was taken from her bedroom at age eight, twenty two years before, and held in a dark basement for five years before she escaped.

Scully suspects that Lucy may be connected to Amy's disappearance, based on her long criminal record and the fact that her nosebleed contained not only her blood type, but Amy's as well. In her room at a halfway house, scratches appear on Lucy's face and she experiences temporary blindness - injuries identical to Amy's, who is being tortured in the basement of Wade's cabin. The two develop an unexplainable psychic connection; everything that happens to Amy physically also happens to Lucy. Mulder tries to convince Lucy that she can help them find Amy, but she is too afraid to assist. Scully informs Mulder of their new lead in the case, the school photography assistant Wade, who was recently fired under strange circumstances. Mulder is adamant that Lucy, who admits that Wade was the man who abducted her, is not part of the kidnapping, and snaps at Scully when she suggests that Samantha's disappearance is causing him to become too involved with the case.

The investigation team receives a tip from a tow truck driver concerning Wade's location, which corresponds to the area where Lucy was found years ago. They find Wade's cabin in the woods near Easton, Washington, discovering Lucy in the basement with no clear indication of how or why she came there. Lucy begins to feel cold and wet; Mulder deduces that because of Lucy's connection to Amy, she must be at the local river. Mulder and Scully rush there to find Wade attempting to drown Amy. Back with the police, Lucy begins to drown despite not even being near water. Mulder shoots Wade while Scully attempts to perform CPR on Amy, but because of the connection it resuscitates Lucy instead. Amy lies on the riverbank, dead. Mulder continues to attempt CPR, despite Scully's protests.

Suddenly, the process is reversed; Amy recovers and Lucy dies. Overwhelmed by Lucy's sacrifice and his inability to save her, Mulder breaks down sobbing over her body. He later tells Scully he suspects that she died not only to save Amy, but to forget what Wade did to her all those years ago.

 

Episode 58

Nisei (1) 

Scully learns more about what happened to her during her abduction, and the connection to the railcar experiments of Dr. Ishimaru/Zama.

Selling the location of the crashed spaceship to the French intelligence service (after it has already been released) makes Krycek sick of the French and they come looking for him. When Mulder catches up with Krycek in Hong Kong, he is already a hunted animal. And if all this is not enough, he is taken over by an alien being who turns him over to the cigarette smoker in exchange for access to the spaceship. After the entity is removed from his body, he is imprisoned and left to die of hunger and thirst in an abandoned hangar.

In this episode we hear for the first time about the incurable cancer from which the women are dying as a result of the experiments conducted on them.

"Nisei" is the term for a "second generation" Japanese, that is, born in the USA to parents who emigrated from Japan, but what is the connection between the Japanese scientists who allegedly performed an autopsy on an alien body in a sealed train car and were murdered? And why was the man who took the tape of the autopsy also murdered? And who sent the tape to Mulder? And what is the connection between the Japanese and the group of women who claim to have been repeatedly abducted by aliens and accept Scully as a lost sister, even though she still denies her abduction experience.

Mr. X warns Scully to keep Mulder off the train transporting the Alien-human hybrid. Once again trying to keep Mulder away from the affairs of the Majestic Consortium.

Mr. X gets Mulder the names of the four murdered colleagues of Dr. Ishimauru/Zama. He also provided Mulder with a fax of a satellite photograph of the rail car Dr. Ishimauru/Zama was using for his unauthorized experiments and to smuggle to Alien-human hybrid out of the country.

Skinner indicated that he too had been shaken by his confrontation with CSM and was not willing to push his bluff about Albert Hosteen and the 20 other Navajos having memorized the MJ documents too far.

The Red Haired Man rather neatly disposed of two Japanese "diplomats" (read: spies)

A Grey being dissected by a team of Japanese surgeons. However, the corpse could have been a hybrid rather than a full-blooded Grey.

The Red Haired Man hinted (mostly by playing on Mulder's paranoia) that the alien-human hybrids were a weapon "more valuable than `Star Wars' or nuclear weapons". The hybrids were the proto-types for a standing army immune to radiation, chemical and biological warfare agents. 

Episode 59

731 (2) 

Mulder hops on a train containing an alien-human hybrid, while Scully is given a prosaic explanation by The First Elder of her abduction-- she was the victim of secret radiation experiments. Living creatures resembling aliens are brought to a top-secret military facility. The soldiers massacre them, but one of the "aliens" was saved.

Meanwhile, the mysterious Mr. X advises Scully to take a closer look at the implant that was removed from her neck, and she discovers that it is of Japanese origin. The journey after the implant leads Scully to a former research facility, where she meets with the survivors, who tell Scully about the massacre and the horrors they went through. She discovers that these are not aliens at all, but humans suffering from a twisted genetic disease. Meanwhile, Mulder continues his efforts to penetrate the sealed car and finds the Japanese doctor dead. A resourceful train conductor saves Mulder from an assassination attempt by a man claiming to be a National Security Agency man and that the train car is rigged to explode. At the secret facility, Scully meets one of the leaders of the conspiracy, CMS's partner, who tells her about the experiments being conducted at the facility and reminds her of the experience she went through. Scully tries to convince Mulder that these are not aliens, but a cover designed to cover up an even darker plot. Mulder refuses to listen to her and insists on staying in the car with the imposter agent. Scully initiates another meeting with Mr. X, and meanwhile Mr. X shows up and pulls Mulder out of the trailer. The trailer vanishes, and as usual, all the evidence as well. And only the cigarette smoker quietly continues to plot...

Guest appearances: Japanese actor Robert Ito and Canadian actor Steven McHattie

The "sanitization" of Dr. Ishimaru/Zama's experiments.

Of course, CSM was back to his smooth, cool self by the time he reappeared to pick up the pieces. CSM was equally smooth in the way he handled the problem of the lost MJ Document data tape, his errant agent Krycek and the alien that wanted its ship back. He didn't even flinch when confronting the alien he'd been tracking since the Zeus Faber incident.

CSM's deal with the alien entity that was possessing Krycek was to trade the data tape and Kyrchek for allowing the alien access to its ship. If the alien's intention was to leave the Earth, CSM seriously disappointed it. The alien wasn't anticipating gaining access to its ship only to find itself sealed in a disused missile silo. A very slick move on CSM's part. Didn't even have to break his word either

Mr. X tells Scully that the chip from her neck is the key to unraveling the mystery of her abduction. Mr. X later pulls Mulder out of the rail car before it explodes.

The Red Haired Man beat the holy crap out of Mulder. The man sent to back him up, Mr. X, would turn out to have his own agenda.

The Leper said that Dr. Ishimauru/Zama's experiments on hybrids involved exposing them to things that resulted in "terrible burns". Perhaps Dr. Ishimauru/Zama was testing the hybrids' resistance to various terrestrial and perhaps extra-terrestrial weaponry.  

Episode 60

Revelations 

A minister named Reverend Patrick Findley (R. Lee Ermey) in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania fakes stigmatic injuries to his hands during a sermon. Afterwards, Reverend Findley is visited by a white-haired man named Simon Gates, who strangles him - his hands smoking while he does so. Mulder and Scully investigate the case. Mulder says that the minister was the eleventh fake stigmatic who has been killed over the past three years in a series of international murders. Meanwhile, at an elementary school in Loveland, Ohio, a boy, Kevin Kryder starts bleeding from the palms of his hands. The agents arrive and meet with a social worker, who claims that Kevin has suffered injuries before and that his father was institutionalized, adding that Kevin was in danger from evil forces. The agents visit Kevin's father, who claims that his son is the chosen one and that evil forces will come to kill him as part of a great war "between good and evil".

Kevin is abducted by a strange-looking bald man. Kevin's mother recognizes the man's description as that of Owen Jarvis (Michael Berryman), who had done yard work for the family in the past. Owen claims to be Kevin's guardian angel. As the agents arrive, Kevin mysteriously disappears. Owen claims he was asked by God to protect Kevin and criticizes Scully for her faith not being as strong as his. Owen jumps out the window and escapes. Kevin arrives at his home and is pursued by Gates, who kills Owen when he arrives to protect Kevin. Scully performs an autopsy and finds that Owen's corpse is not decaying, reminding her of "incorruptibles" that she learned about in Catechism. Mulder tells Scully to not let her faith cloud her judgment. Scully finds that handprints on Owen's neck belong to Simon Gates, a rich and powerful executive.

Kevin travels with his mother in a car which breaks down. Gates arrives offering to help fix the car, and Kevin, who appears in two places at once, is able to distract him and help them escape. However, Kevin's mother - becoming faint after being hurt by Gates - runs the car into a ditch and dies as a result. Scully tells Kevin she'll protect him. They bring him to a hotel where Scully notices an additional wound on Kevin's side. Scully becomes upset that Mulder will not even consider that a miracle is possible. As they talk, Gates breaks into the bathroom, kidnapping Kevin by prying an opening in the barred window. Scully returns to see Kevin's father but finds him heavily drugged.

Scully theorizes that Gates has brought Kevin to a recycling plant he owns in Jerusalem, Ohio. Mulder thinks that he has headed to the airport, as a man matching Gates' description was reported headed there. Mulder thinks Scully believes that she's been chosen to protect Kevin. Scully arrives at the recycling plant where Gates tells Kevin that he must die for the 'New Age' to come. Gates attempts to jump into a paper shredding machine with Kevin, but Kevin grabs onto the side as Gates falls into the shredder and is killed. Scully is able to pull Kevin to safety. Two days later, Scully and Kevin say goodbye; Kevin tells Scully he'll see her again.

Scully goes to confession for the first time in six years, admitting that she was raised a Catholic but has drifted away from the Church since then. She admits to being unsettled by the things she has witnessed, and even more unsettled by the fact that Mulder, usually the more credulous of the two of them, has not seen them. The priest advises her "Sometimes we must come full circle to find the truth" (unconsciously echoing the recycling symbol Scully has seen several times earlier in the episode) and ask her if she is starting to doubt her own judgment. Scully says that mostly it makes her afraid: that if miracles really do occur, then that means "God is speaking... but that no one's listening."

 

Episode 61

War Of The Coprophages 

In Miller's Grove, Massachusetts, an exterminator inspects the basement of Dr. Jeff Eckerle, having been hired to eradicate a cockroach infestation. As the exterminator attempts to crush a roach underfoot, he collapses from anaphylaxis while the roach crawls out from under his boot, unscathed. When Eckerle returns, he finds the exterminator's body covered with roaches. Mulder is coincidentally nearby, investigating reported UFO sightings in Miller's Grove. While on the phone with Scully, he is approached by the local sheriff, Frass, who reveals that a series of "roach attacks" have taken place in the town. Frass allows Mulder onto the scene at Eckerle's residence.

Elsewhere, a trio of teenagers huff fumes generated from heated manure. One of them sees a roach crawl into an open wound on his wrist. In an attempt to extricate the insect, he begins to frantically slice his skin with a razor, leading him to sever an artery and bleed to death. At the scene, Mulder talks over the phone with Scully, who explains that it is likely a case of drug-induced delusional parasitosis, though Mulder finds a roach on the underside of a piece of furniture, indicating that roaches were at least present. When he attempts to capture the roach for analysis, it crumbles in his hand and the sharp pieces cut his fingers in the process, leading him to believe that the brittle casing was made of metal.

Frass purports that the government, under the guise of the USDA, has been breeding killer roaches in a nearby facility. Immediately afterwards, the medical examiner is found dead in a bathroom stall, initially covered with roaches that disappear from the scene before more than one person can witness them. Scully attributes the medical examiner's death to a cerebral aneurysm induced by overstraining while defecating. Mulder and Frass find a seemingly dead roach on a sink in the bathroom, and Mulder again attempts to capture it, but it proves to be alive and escapes down the drain.

Mulder investigates the facility Frass mentioned. Before breaking in, he and Scully discuss the odd behavior of the roaches, with Scully hypothesizing that they could be an invasive species. Inside the facility, which resembles a typical house, Mulder sees the walls rippling and is quickly surrounded by roaches. He is then confronted by Dr. Bambi Berenbaum (Bobbie Phillips), a researcher from the USDA who is studying roaches to develop more effective methods of pest control. Berenbaum has great interest in insects and, incidentally, believes that some UFOs are actually insect swarms flying through electrically charged airspaces. Yet another death occurs in Mulder's hotel, with the individual being found covered in roaches that quickly flee. At this point, Mulder believes that the individual simply died of fright, though Scully begins to wonder what is going on and decides to visit Miller's Grove herself.

Mulder brings a roach from the hotel room to Berenbaum, who thinks it may be mechanical. He then visits Dr. Ivanov, a wheelchair-bound scientist who works on insect-like robots. The two discuss the possibility that extraterrestrial intelligences could send robotic probes to study other planets. After inspecting Mulder's specimen, Ivanov is rendered speechless; he informs Mulder that the specimen is, technology-wise, vastly superior to anything he's ever seen. Scully arrives in the town at a convenience store, finding the residents succumbing to mass hysteria over the roaches. She attempts to calm the people down, but they instead frantically flee after two scuffling patrons knock over a display of chocolate candies, believing them to be more roaches.

Mulder catches another roach to bring to Berenbaum, but this time she concludes that it is a seemingly normal insect. Scully finds out that Eckerle was researching dung-derived methane as an alternative fuel source, and had been importing animal dung that may have introduced the roaches to the area. Upon hearing this, Mulder speculates that the roaches are actually extraterrestrial robotic probes that are capable of consuming dung - an abundant resource already exploited by some species of roaches - to generate methane as a source of fuel.

Mulder goes with Berenbaum to see Eckerle at his facility. She stays in the car while he goes inside, finding Eckerle in a deeply paranoid state. Eckerle pulls a gun on Mulder, thinking that even he may somehow be a

cockroach. Scully arrives on the scene and meets Berenbaum. She then goes in the facility looking for Mulder and then phones him; when his phone rings, Eckerle believes it to be Mulder making a tone like the rest of the unusual roaches. He fires at Mulder, and his shots rupture and ignite pipes containing methane gas. The agents flee, and the facility explodes with Eckerle still inside.

The next day, Ivanov arrives at the scene to talk with Mulder and meets Berenbaum. The two leave with one another, discussing their interests in insects and robots. That night Mulder writes his report on the case, wondering how humanity would react if insect-like robots visited Earth. Mulder finds a Blaberus giganteus by his food and crushes it with an X-File.

 

Episode 62

Syzygy 

In Comity, New Hampshire, a group of high school students hold a eulogy for their dead friend, the purported victim of a local Satanic cult. Two girls, Terri Roberts (Lisa Robin Kelly) and Margi Kleinjan (Wendy Benson), get a ride home from a jock, Jay "Boom" DeBoom (Ryan Reynolds). The girls tell Boom that the cult seeks a blonde virgin as a next victim, convincing him to turn off the road. The next day, the police find Boom hanging from a cliff. Out of sight of the police, Terri and Margi sit at the top, laughing.

Mulder and Scully arrive in Comity after arguing over directions along the way. They meet a local detective, Angela White (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson), and go to Boom's funeral. Scully, in a bad mood, is skeptical of these claims. The high school principal, Bob Spitz, interrupts the funeral by ranting about Satanic cults murdering their children when suddenly the coffin starts smoking and catches on fire. Mulder and Scully go into separate rooms to interview Margi and Terri, both of whom offer an identical story about a satanic ceremony where a baby was sacrificed. Scully thinks their stories are clichéd and points out that no account of a satanic conspiracy has ever been validated. Looking at the latest victim's body, Mulder and Detective White find a burn mark in the shape of a horned beast; Scully says she doesn't see anything. Mulder goes to see White to apologize for Scully's behavior and the two visit the local astrologist Madame Zirinka, who claims the town's crazy behavior is due to the rare planetary alignment of the planets Mars, Uranus, and Mercury. Terri and Margi watch basketball practice, lusting over one of the players, Scott, whose girlfriend is fellow cheerleader Brenda (much to Terri and Margi's displeasure). One of the other players accidentally spills a table of drinks on them, so they cause the basketball to bounce underneath the bleachers and it closes when he goes to get it, killing him. Scully is angry at Mulder for ditching her to be with Detective White.

A town mob searches for a mass grave in the woods and finds a bag belonging to the town pediatrician filled with bones, which Spitz assumes belonged to a child. The angry mob goes to see the doctor, who claims that he had sold the bag to Terri Roberts. The bones turn out to belong to Terri's dog. Scully gets upset over a joke Mulder makes and tells him she's returning to Washington. Margi and Terri celebrate their birthday and Brenda uses a Ouija board to know who she will marry; everyone thinks it's Scott before the planchette veers away from the C and spells out Satan. Upset, Brenda rushes to the bathroom where Margi and Terri are chanting "Bloody Mary" and is locked in, then killed by glass from a shattered mirror. Detective White heads to Mulder's hotel room because she found a box which inside had her cat's collar, and then she attempts to seduce Mulder, but they are interrupted by Scully, who informs them about Brenda's death. Terri and Margi try to console Scott, who tells them off. Turned down, Terri is mad at him but Margi still likes him and leaves.

Mulder goes to visit Madame Zirinka again, who tells him that the planets come into alignment like this only once every 84 years, and additional alignments will cause anyone born on January 12, 1979 (Margi and Terri's birthdate) to have an abundance of cosmic energy. Margi goes to see Scott alone but an angry Terri arrives. The two argue with each other and end up accidentally killing Scott after causing one of the springs and the garage door to fly at him. Margi goes to Mulder, telling him that Terri is responsible for the murders, while Terri goes to see Scully and tells her the opposite. The agents call each other and bring both girls to the police station, where the place starts shaking, causing the furniture to move around and all the guns to go off on their own. Mulder locks the girls in a room together and their power goes away once the clock ticks midnight. When the town mob and Detective White finally see Terri and Margi as the culprits, Spitz claims it was the work of Satan. Mulder and Scully drive home, arguing again over directions; when Scully defiantly runs a stop sign, Mulder notifies her but she tells him to shut up, which he does.

 

Episode 63

Grotesque 

At George Washington University, a group of artists sketch a nude male model. However, one of the artists, John Mostow. draws a demonic creature in the model's place. While using a utility knife to sharpen his pencil, he cuts his hand and smears his blood on the drawing. When the model reaches his car after the session, he is attacked and killed by an obscured assailant. The following morning, Mostow is arrested in his apartment by an FBI task force led by Special Agent Bill Patterson (Kurtwood Smith), who finds the utility knife used in the murder covered in blood.

Mostow, an immigrant from Uzbekistan with a history of involuntary commitment, is charged with killing seven men by mutilating their faces. Mulder and Scully become involved in the investigation when Mostow insists that he was possessed during the killings; his claims are given credence when another murder occurs after his arrest. Mostow draws a gargoyle and claims it made him kill. The agents meet with Patterson, who has spent three years working the case. Mulder knows Patterson from his time in the Investigative Support Unit at Quantico. Their relationship is tense, and Patterson is skeptical of Mulder's theories. Mulder and Scully go to Mostow's studio and discover a hidden room full of gargoyle sculptures, finding corpses within them.

A glassblower is attacked and hospitalized. Special Agent Nemhauser, Patterson's partner, tells Scully that Patterson was responsible for getting Mulder assigned to the investigation and may admire him after all. Patterson finds Mulder in the library studying gargoyles and expresses disappointment in him. Scully goes to Mulder's apartment and finds it covered with gargoyle drawings. Mulder, having sculpted a gargoyle himself in Mostow's studio before falling asleep, awakens to find a figure with a gargoyle-like face standing over him; he gives chase but is attacked, his face slashed with a utility knife. Mulder refuses to explain to Scully why he was in the studio. Scully confronts Patterson, who tells her not to try and stop Mulder from doing what he's doing. Mulder again goes to see Mostow, who refuses to divulge how to find the creature that attacked him.

Scully finds a disassembled utility knife at the latest crime scene with Mulder's prints on it and discovers that the murder weapon is missing from the evidence room. She meets with Assistant Director Skinner, who is also worried about Mulder's behavior. Mulder has a nightmare about being attacked by a gargoyle that is really himself. He goes to Mostow's studio again, finding a severed arm. Scully gets a message to call Nemhauser, but his phone is answered by Mulder, who denies taking the knife. He searches Mostow's studio and finds Nemhauser's body inside a new sculpture. Mulder is then confronted by Patterson, who is unaware of how he arrived at the studio. Mulder then deduces that Patterson is the killer, based on his three-year obsession with Mostow and his request for Mulder to investigate the case. Mulder confronts him, but Patterson flees when Scully arrives. Mulder pursues him and they fight, but Mulder perceives Patterson as a demonic gargoyle creature. Patterson is shot and apprehended.

In the last scene, Patterson is pressed against the bars of his cell, screaming and pleading that he is innocent, while the camera focuses on a gargoyle drawn in blood on the wall of his cell. Earlier in the episode, Mulder told Scully that he and Patterson disagreed on the best way to investigate serial murders: Patterson always tried to empathize with the suspect, imagining himself in the killer's place. Mulder's closing narration concludes that it was this that eventually drove Patterson insane, but Mulder cannot account for what he saw while fighting Patterson.

 

Episode 64

Piper Maru (1) 

A French salvage vessel, in search of a crashed UFO in the Pacific Ocean, inadvertently picks up the Black Oil. The Black Oil then finds and possesses Krycek. Meanwhile, Scully learns from an old family friend of a failed salvage mission in the 1950s that marked the first appearance of the Black Oil.

Alex Krycek denied being the triggerman, but what else would you expect Krycek to say with an extremely angry Mulder shoving a gun in his guts. "Oh sure Fox, I popped your dad right in the head. You should have seen the Jackson Pollack his brains made on the bathroom tile." All current evidence points to Krycek having killed Bill Mulder on CSM's orders.

Was Bill Mulder killed on CSM's orders? Most likely, yes. Bill Mulder was about to spill the beans to his son Fox about the "merchandise". That's reason enough to have Bill Mulder killed. After all, what possible reason do we have for believing CSM when he told Mulder "We had nothing to do with it"?

Cardinal returns again to gut-shoot Skinner after Skinner refuses to back-off the investigation of who killed Melissa Scully. If Cardinal had wanted Skinner dead, it would have been simple to finish him off following the first shot. Since Cardinal didn't finish Skinner off, his orders must have been to wound Skinner, thus delivering a severe warning to Skinner that anyone can be gotten to; everyone is vulnerable. CSM denies his involvement in the shooting to his fellow members of the board of the Majestic Project, but there is no evidence to suggest his denials are anything but lies. After all, Cardinal was at CSM's side during CSM's confrontation with the alien-possessed Alex Krycek, so we know CSM gives Cardinal his marching orders. CSM wanted to send Skinner a message, and he used Cardinal to deliver it.

The Grey Haired Man is one of the two men "from the intelligence community" who delivered a none-too-subtle threat to Asst. Director Skinner to back off the investigation of Melissa Scully's murder.

The Oilien came to earth in 1945, and was shot down by US Army Air Corps P-51 Mustang fighters, according to the Well Manicured Man. There was a mid-air collision that brought down the fighter and the UFO. In 1945 the U.S. Submarine Zeus Faber tried to locate the downed UFO, but its mission was compromised by one of the UFOs occupants (who had somehow become separated from its craft). This Oilien took over the submarine's captain and tried to find its ship. The Oilien abandoned the Zeus Faber when the crew mutinied and turned on the captain. The UFO was salvaged by the Majestic Project in 1995 and a few months later a French salvage team from the ship Piper Maru came in contact with the Oilien which had taken up residence in the corpse of the P-51 pilot that had crashed with it's UFO.

The Oilien was highly radioactive, apparently inadvertently leaking lethal amounts of radiation, which killed the crew of the Zues Faber and the French ship Piper Maru. The Oilien could also use radiation like a weapon, which it used to deep-fry six French agents, and five of Cigarrette Smoking Man's GARNET agents. This weapon seems almost identical to the alien weapon used in FALLEN ANGEL to kill the Deputy Sheriff, EMTs and Operation Falcon's team members. It seems to have access to its hosts' memories since it found its way back to French crewman Gauthier's apartment while in that body, and found the hidden MJ file data tape and CSM while inhabiting Krycek. The Oilien's single apparent goal is to return to its ship. To do this, it cuts a deal with CSM and exchanges the stolen MJ file data tape for the location of the salvaged 1945 UFO. In the end, the Oilien and its host Krycek are sealed in a sealed missile silo in North Dakota by the double-crossing CSM. Whether the Oilien escaped its entombment with its ship at the same time Krycek did, remains unknown.

See also APOCRYPHA.  

Episode 65

Apocrypha (2) 

Black Oil-possessed Krycek makes a deal with CSM for the data tape in exchange for access to the captured alien spacecraft.

The Well Manicured Man manipulates Mulder into telling him more than he reveals to Mulder. WMM didn't know that Krycek was still alive or that the MJ Documents Data tape is the source to the leak of information to the French. Once again the information he gives Mulder is nothing Mulder didn't already know.

We see the Well Manicured Man grilling CSM about what he's doing, particularly CSM's unilateral actions (moving the salvaged UFO without permission, arranging to have Skinner gut-shot). He seems very concerned that CSM is acting with little or no accountability to the Majestic Board of Elders.

It would seem that WMM and CSM see each other as rivals and WMM fears the power CSM has acquired by being the Majestic Project's "Mr. Fixit." By doing every dirty job that needs doing, CSM may have more access to military and intelligence assets than any single member of the Board of Elders, and perhaps this concerns WMM.

Something very interesting about CSM's behavior in the episode that draws an interesting parallel to Mulder. We see CSM's colleagues in the Majestic Board of Elders questioning his unauthorized unilateral actions. He does what he wants without authorization and justifies defying procedure because he gets results. Perhaps in the context of the Majestic Project, CSM is as much of a "procedure be damned" lone wolf as Mulder is with the FBI.

They both share a fanatical and idealistic side. Mulder in his quest to prove the existance of aliens, and CSM in his quest to protect America from all threats foreign and domestic. Mulder's quest is wearing him down emotionally and morally. CSM's quest has burned out his idealism and morality. Mulder is on his way to becoming CSM, a parallel that should not be overlooked.

In a flashback to 1953 we saw a young Bill Mulder and Cigarette Smoking Man interviewing a dying sailor from the submarine Zeus Faber which was infiltrated by a radioactive alien entity. Bill Mulder, during his interview referred to the "thing" possessing the submarine's captain as an "entity." It looks like knew the sailor was not mad and was telling the truth. It would seem that the young Bill Mulder knew the Zeus Faber had been invaded by an alien "entity."

We learn that Cardinal is Nicaraguan, a graduate of the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (a school for counter-insurgency training) and an international mercenary. That probably means he was a member of Nicaraguan dictator Anastacio Somoza's National Guard prior to that country's communist revolution, and a member of the CIA supported CONTRA force afterwards. Cardinal apparently tries to finish Skinner off by arranging to have Skinner transferred to another hospital and ambushing the ambulance en route. This ambush may have been arranged in order to prevent Skinner from making a positive I.D. The Well Manicured Man warns CSM that there would be dire consequences if Skinner identified the man who shot him. However, it would seem to be simpler to eliminate Cardinal than kill Skinner, so why would CSM send Cardinal on another run at Skinner, unless, of course CSM figured either Cardinal would get Skinner, or Scully, burning with rage over her sister's death, would kill Cardinal. Either way, it would have solved CSM's problem. If Cardinal just turned up dead, it would look like he was silenced by a larger conspiracy. Having Cardinal killed trying to eliminate the witness to his "random shooting" lends credibility to the idea that he was a "lone nut" and not the errand-boy of a larger group. If Skinner was killed, that still solves the problem. However, Skully showed great restraint and strength of character and refrained from killing Cardinal. This forced CSM to arrange for Cardinal's jail-house "suicide," proving once-again that anyone can be gotten to; everyone is vulnerable.

Cardinal begs pathetically for mercy, giving up the alien-possessed Krycek's ultimate destination in exchange for Scully sparing his life (something she planned to do anyway). A classic bully, Cardinal cowers instantly when confronted with someone with power over him. 

Episode 66

Pusher 

Robert Patrick Modell (Robert Wisden) walks through a supermarket, buying a large supply of protein supplement beverages. Before he can leave, Modell is surrounded and arrested by FBI agents led by Frank Burst (Vic Polizos). While being escorted away in a police car, he repeatedly talks about the color cerulean blue, repeatedly stating "Cerulean blue is a gentle breeze." Modell's talking seemingly causes the driver to not see an approaching semi-trailer truck of that color, causing a collision. Modell escapes after the driver unlocks his handcuffs before dying.

Burst, the only surviving agent of the crash, tells Mulder and Scully about his pursuit of Modell - nicknamed "Pusher" - who has committed a series of contract killings over the past two years, making the acts appear to be suicide. Mulder spots the word "ronin" written at the crime scene, and tracks down Modell's classified advertisement in a mercenary magazine. Mulder believes that Modell has the psychic ability to "push" people to do his will. Using the phone number in the ad, the agents track down Modell to a golf course in Falls Church, Virginia, where he makes a SWAT lieutenant pour gasoline on himself and then set himself on fire. Mulder finds Modell exhausted in a car nearby, arresting him.

During his arraignment, Modell uses his ability to make the judge let him go. The agents look into Modell's past and find that he failed to enter the FBI after a psychological examination deemed him to be grossly egocentric and sociopathic.

Meanwhile, after writing the word "pass" on a piece of paper and putting it in his lapel, Modell is able to pass security and enter FBI headquarters. He "pushes" a government worker, Holly (Julia Arkos), into pulling up Mulder's file for him. When Skinner intervenes, Modell convinces Holly that he was a man who mugged her, causing her to spray Skinner with mace and beat him. Scully is unable to explain how Modell has his power, but now agrees with Mulder's theory that he can push people into doing whatever he wants.

Agents raid Modell's apartment, but find it empty. They find cans of protein drinks in the refrigerator and medicine for epilepsy. Mulder suspects that a brain tumor has given Modell his psychokinetic ability, but that using his power is physically exhausting, forcing him to constantly consume the protein supplements. Mulder believes that he is dying and wants to go out in a blaze of glory. Modell makes a taunting phone call to Agent Burst and causes him to have a fatal heart attack while they try to trace him. The agents track Modell down to a hospital, where he has compelled a guard to shoot an MRI technician and kill himself. Mulder ventures inside the hospital and is captured by Modell.

Scully finds the two sitting at a table with the dead guard's revolver. Modell forces Mulder to play Russian roulette with him. Despite Scully's pleading, Mulder pulls the trigger first at Modell and then himself, the hammer falling on an empty chamber both times. Modell then makes him aim the gun at Scully. At the last instant, Scully sees a fire alarm in a mirror and pulls it, breaking Modell's concentration. Mulder instantly switches his aim to Modell and pulls the trigger. The bullet is fired and Modell is severely wounded.

Later, Mulder and Scully visit Modell in the hospital, where he is lying in a coma from which Scully predicts he will not awaken before his brain tumor kills him. Mulder surprises her by revealing that Modell's brain tumor was operable at all times, but he refused to have it removed, even as his health deteriorated. Scully asks why, and Mulder repeats her earlier assessment of Modell - that he was always a "little man", and his psychic ability made him feel big.

 

Episode 67

Teso Dos Bichos 

At an archaeological dig in the Ecuadorian highlands, two archaeologists, Dr. Bilac and Dr. Roosevelt, get into an argument over the removal of a burial urn that contains an Amaru, or a female shaman. Roosevelt argues that the urn must be taken from the site and preserved in a museum, much to the chagrin of Bilac and the tribespeople present. Later, a native shaman distributes Yaje to the local villagers and Bilac. During this ritual, a jaguar spirit kills Roosevelt in his tent.

Later, in Boston, Mulder and Scully investigate the disappearance of Dr. Craig Horning, an archaeologist from a local history museum, after a security guard discovers a large amount of blood in Horning's lab. They interview both the curator, Dr. Lewton, and graduate student Mona Wustner. They also visit a reclusive Bilac. After closing, Lewton is killed by the jaguar spirit after his car doesn't start. During an investigation of the crime scene, Scully comes across rat corpses in the engine compartment of Lewton's vehicle. Mona denies that anything unusual has happened in the museum.

Mulder and a group of police search for Lewton's remains. Scully sees blood dripping on Mulder's face from above and, upon looking up, they see a portion of Lewton's intestine hanging from a tree. Scully, about to perform an autopsy on the intestine, is interrupted when Mona suddenly calls and reports that Bilac was under the influence of Yaje. At the museum, Mona hears noises from a restroom and, upon opening a toilet lid, she sees rats forcing their way out of the sewer. When the two agents arrive, they discover Bilac crying beside one of the toilets, saying that Mona is dead.

Later, Bilac escapes from the room in which he is being held without exiting through the only door. Mulder notices a large drag mark through the dust on the floor, discovering a hatch leading to the museum's old steam tunnels. While exploring the tunnels, the agents find the remains of the victims and are attacked by a multitude of feral cats. As they try to escape, they come across Bilac's mutilated body. The two agents make their way out and close the hatch on the pursuing cats. The episode closes with Mulder suspecting that the animal attacks were associated with the burial urn that had been removed against the wishes of the Ecuadorian tribespeople; it is shortly returned to the burial grounds, where the local shaman watches the urn's reburial with jaguar-like eyes.

 

Episode 68

Hell Money 

In San Francisco's Chinatown, a Chinese immigrant, Johnny Lo, makes his way to his apartment. There, he is confronted by someone telling him to "pay the price", and is overtaken by three figures wearing shigong masks. A security guard later finds the three figures near a crematory oven, in which Lo is being burned alive.

Mulder and Scully investigate Lo's death, the latest in a series of fatal incinerations in Chinatown; Mulder believes that ghost activity is behind the deaths, while Scully suspects a cult. The agents collaborate with Glen Chao (BD Wong), a Chinese-American detective with the SFPD. When they find a Chinese character written inside the oven, Chao translates it as meaning "ghost." Mulder also finds a scrap of burned paper in the ashes, which Chao identifies as "hell money", a symbolic offering to deceased spirits. The agents locate Lo's apartment, where they find his collection of charms, as well as bloodstains underneath the recently installed carpet.

Meanwhile, another immigrant, Hsin, tends to his leukemia-stricken daughter, Kim (Lucy Liu). To pay for her treatments, Hsin attends an underground lottery in which participants either win money or lose an organ, depending on tiles chosen from a pair of vases. One man wins the lottery but selects a bad tile, and his body is found later that day. Scully performs an autopsy and finds that he had been selling body parts, noticing his numerous surgical scars. The agents question Chao, who claims that the local community maintains a code of silence and does not reveal anything, even to him.

Chao finds information that leads them to Hsin, who installed the carpet in Lo's apartment. Hsin has a bandage over his eye, having lost it to the lottery earlier. Returning to his home, Chao is confronted by the three masked figures. Upon learning about the attack, the agents attempt to visit Chao at the hospital but find him missing. Meanwhile, Hsin is visited by the Hard Faced Man (James Hong), one of the proprietors of the lottery. Hsin tells the man that he wants to end his participation, to which the man replies that the rules cannot be broken and warns him that the ghostly fire will consume him if he leaves the lottery. The agents match the blood on the carpet in Lo's apartment with Chao. They try to visit Hsin, but find only his daughter at his apartment.

Hsin wins the lottery, but selects the tile representing his heart. Chao comes in and tries to persuade one of the lottery's organizers to let Hsin live but to no avail, causing Chao to knock over the table with the vases, which reveals the lottery to be fixed. Chao then storms in the room where the surgery on Hsin is about to be carried out and fires at the Hard Faced Man, after which the agents come in and arrest them all, including Chao for his involvement in the lottery. They interrogate the Hard Faced Man, but because no one who participated will testify against him, it is unlikely he will be prosecuted. Hsin is brought to the hospital and his daughter is placed on an organ donor list. Chao mysteriously disappears, awakening in a crematory oven before he is burned alive.

 

Episode 69

Jose Chung's From Outer Space 

Proof that when you watch "The X-Files", you never know what to expect. With its twisted sense of humor, shifting points-of-view leading to multiple interpretations, tie-in with the overall mythology arc, and Alex Trebek (!), this is one of the best episodes.

As Mulder and Scully investigate an apparent abduction, they find that the stories of those involved get weirder and more contradictory the further they get. Scully's facial expressions are hilarious as she puts up with all the inane nonsense going on around her, the alien autopsy spoof is priceless, and don't forget the plug for "Space: Above and Beyond" by the UFO-geek that said "I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons without learning anything about courage" (that same week, Duchovny appeared as an A.I. on "Space"). With respect to the conspiracy arc, it seems that some UFOs are piloted by the USAF.

A first look at traditional Men In Black as they are portrayed by the majority of UFO-conspiracy literature. Jesse "the Body" Ventura and Alex Trebek make appearances as un-earthly Men In Black, exhibiting knowledge about the people they are intimidating that no-one could possibly know, and engaging in overly complex and nonsensical, albeit threatening, conversation.

The Greys seen in this epsiode are definitely costumes or the result of false memories created by USAF psy-ops personnel to cover their real activities.

One of the main themes of JOSE CHUNG'S FROM OUTER SPACE is that perception is not necessarily reality. When someone, in this case the government, has the ability to affect your memory, what can you rely on? 

Episode 70

Avatar 

Assistant director Skinner is given divorce papers from his wife, Sharon, after seventeen years of marriage. At a bar, he meets an attractive woman named Carina Sayles (Amanda Tapping); the two engage in a one night stand. However, after the tryst, Skinner has a nightmare of an old woman in bed with him. He awakens to find Sayles dead, her head twisted completely around.

As the homicide investigation unfolds, Skinner tells Mulder not to get involved. He refuses to take a polygraph test and is viewed as a suspect. Scully examines Sayles' corpse, finding a phosphorescent glow around her nose and lips. Mulder finds out that Sayles was a prostitute and interviews her madam, who claims that Skinner's credit card number was collected the previous night.

Skinner sees the old woman looking at him on a city street. However, when he pursues the old woman, he instead finds Sharon. The agents talk to Sharon, who says that the marriage failed because of Skinner's emotional distance. Scully learns that Skinner had been receiving treatment for a sleep disorder, in which he apparently had dreams about being suffocated in bed by an old woman. She fears that Skinner may have unwittingly killed Sayles in his sleep. However, Mulder believes that Skinner may be having visions of a succubus, a female demon, with the mention of similar symptoms of people's bad dreams they've experienced

Sharon visits Skinner at his home as she is worried about him. Skinner, dismissive, freezes her out. After she leaves, he falls asleep, seeing the old woman again. He awakens as detectives enter the house, telling him Sharon has been run off the road and severely injured. Skinner admits to Mulder that he saw the woman during his experience in Vietnam, but passed it off as being due to drugs. It is revealed that The Smoking Man is observing their conversation through the one-way mirror of the interrogation room.

Mulder investigates the airbag on Skinner's car, which was the one used to hit Sharon. Scully defends Skinner to the Office of Professional Responsibility, but it does no good and he is fired. Mulder believes this was done to weaken the X-Files. Mulder, with the help of Agent Pendrell finds a face imprint in the airbag which is not Skinner's. He goes to see the prostitute's boss again but discovers that she has been murdered. The agents hope to use Judy, an employee who saw the man who actually hired the prostitute and use her to set up another meeting with him, unaware that the assassin is nearby and is aware of their plan. They agree to meet at the Ambassador Hotel in an hour.

Skinner goes to see his comatose wife, telling her why he could not sign the divorce papers. An alarm on Sharon's vital sign monitor starts sounding, but as Skinner is about to run for help, the old woman once again takes the place of Sharon, beckoning him to come closer. As Skinner leans in, he sees his wife again, now awakened from the coma; she begins to tell him something right before the scene cuts.

Mulder waits in the hotel bar while Scully guards Judy in a hotel room. The assassin enters the room to attack them but is quickly killed by Skinner, who was also there. The dead man's identity is unknown. After being rehired, Skinner returns to work, declining to say to Mulder how he knew them to be at the hotel. After Mulder leaves, he reaches into his drawer and puts his wedding ring back on.

The Grey Haired Man is CSM's chief field operative in the plan to frame Asst. Director Skinner for murder. During that operation a prostitute and her madame were killed as part of the frame up and cover up. 

Episode 71

Quagmire 

In Millikan, Georgia, biologists Paul Farraday and William Bailey discuss the decreasing frog population. Bailey goes looking for a missing beeper and ends up getting dragged into the lake by an unseen creature and killed.

Mulder and Scully drive down to Georgia to investigate. Scully is forced to bring her dog Queequeg with them due to the short notice. Mulder tells Scully that a Boy Scout Troop Leader has also disappeared near the lake. Scully soon finds that Mulder believes "Big Blue" - a plesiosaur-like cryptid - is responsible. The agents talk to Dr. Farraday and visit a local bait and tackle shop that sells Big Blue merchandise. Soon afterwards, the half-eaten body of the Scout Leader is found.

Later that night, the bait and tackle shop owner walks through the swamp in boots, making fake dinosaur tracks. However, he is attacked and killed. Mulder wants the lake to be closed but the local sheriff declines and says that he does not have enough men to cover the 48 miles of shoreline. Two teenagers, previously seen in the episode "War of the Coprophages", head to the lake to lick toads; while experimenting, a diver friend of theirs is suddenly attacked underwater and his severed head floats to the surface. Scully, still skeptical about Big Blue being the killer, thinks that a boat propeller was responsible. A photographer named Ansel is also attacked just as he was frantically taking pictures of the creature. After falling into the lake and feeling something in the water, the Sheriff orders the lake closed. While Mulder looks at Ansel's photographs later that night, Scully takes Queequeg for a walk; the dog, sensing something in the nearby woods, ends up running off and disappearing (yelping is heard), becoming the latest victim of the attacks and leaving Scully saddened. Mulder realizes that the Big Blue sightings have been occurring closer and closer to shore.

Mulder and Scully rent a boat and head out onto the lake; their boat is quickly struck by something and sinks. The two find a large rock to climb up on and talk for a while about Mulder's quest to catch Big Blue, and the book Moby-Dick. When Dr. Farraday walks by the two they realize they were close to shore all along. Mulder thinks the drop in the frog supply has caused Big Blue to move closer to shore and seek alternative food sources. Farraday is soon attacked but manages to make it out alive. Mulder chases the attacker into the woods and fires at it, revealing it to be an alligator.

Mulder is disappointed that the killer ended up being an alligator and not Big Blue. As the agents leave, Big Blue swims nearby in the lake, unnoticed.

 

Episode 72

Wetwired 

Mr. X indirectly assists Mulder in uncovering a mind control project which appears to be very similar to the mind control program in BLOOD.

Mr. X was also assigned by CSM to "sanitize" the project and it's personnel in order to remove all evidence. Mr. X sends Mulder an informant or go-between known as The Plain Clothes Man (PCM) who provides Mulder with his first leads.

Later Mr. X, after successfully eliminating all the witnesses and evidence, reports to CSM that "informant" who contacted Mulder had been eliminated. Once again Mr. X's extreme ruthlessness is demonstrated. He sent the PCM to Mulder and then murdered the PCM to cover his own ass.

CSM is cleaning up after a mind control project (makes you wonder who sent the message "ALL DONE BYE BYE" to Mulder's cell phone).

See also: BLOOD.

 

Episode 73

Talitha Cumi (1) 

When a man named Jeremiah Smith miraculously heals a gunshot victim in a thinly-disguised McDonalds, Mulder and Scully become drawn further into the conspiracy of colonization. Mulder also learns of a prior relationship between his mother and CSM.

The connection between CSM and the Mulder family was deepened. Not only were Bill Mulder and CSM colleages, but Mrs. Mulder and CSM seem to have been more than just friends. Their exchange at the Mulder's summer home was laden with sexual and emotional tensions that indicate a former physical relationship of some kind.

The confrontation between CSM and the alien Jeremiah Smith gives more insight into CSM's motives for participating in the Majestic Consortium's "Project." In MCSM, CSM is portrayed as a young idealistic "warrior poet," who is willing to do anything to "save" America. He even murdered Martin Luther King, a man he respected and admired, because his "higher purpose" demanded it. The loathsome things he has convinced himself were necessary to "save the world" no longer seem justifiable. CSM may have lost faith in his crusade. Given the opportunity, he would have given up his endless black-ops crusade to do the one thing that makes him happy: Writing. So why does he continue to do a job he doesn't believe in? Like Jeremiah Smith said, CSM is afraid. CSM "want to be one of the commandants, when the process begins." He sees the Majestic Consortium's "Project" rolling forward and he knows that if he's not part of the conspiracy, he'll be a victim of it. CSM is holding on for dear life. He truly has a tiger by the tail: He can't quit, he can't fail and he doesn't believe in the cause he serves.

Mr. X starts the ball rolling by showing Mulder the pictures of CSM and Mrs. Mulder. He sets Mulder to looking for an item his father, Bill Mulder, may have been holding onto. That item turns out to be one of the alien "ice-pick" weapons last seen in COLONY and ENDGAME. Once again, Mr. X is not there to give Mulder any answers, he just wants the weapon. Why he wants it, and for whom, it never explained but he very nearly kills Mulder to get it.

Jeremiah Smith, the renegade alien, taunts CSM by changing his shape to resemble two men, Bill Mulder and Deep Throat, both of whom were close associates of CSM. CSM reacted with discomfort to see the faces of his dead comrades accusing him from beyond the grave. Judging from CSM's reaction, he gave the order for Bill Mulder's execution.

See also: THE MUSINGS OF A CIGARRETTE SMOKING MAN

Episode 74

Herrenvolk (2) 

Mulder is taken by Jeremiah Smith to a Canadian farm where Samantha drones are harvesting an alien crop and aggressive bees with deadly stings are kept. While Scully learns that millions of human beings have been tagged via the Smallpox Eradication Program, Mr. X is assassinated, and Mulder makes contact with the assistant to the Special Representative of the Secretary General, Marita Covarrubias (also referred to as the Uniblonder).

The First Elder also ruthless in defending the integrity of the Majestic Consortium (he ordered the execution of Mr. X.)

Despite their hostile posturing, CSM seems to still have feeling for Mrs. Mulder. Otherwise, why would he have had the alien Bounty-Hunter heal Mrs. Mulder's stroke? He told the Bounty-Hunter Mrs. Mulder had to be healed in order to prevent losing the option of controlling Mulder using his mother for leverage. But there's an expression on CSM's face when Mrs. Mulder opens her eyes that looks like relief and gratitude at her recovery.

The Grey Haired Man's most reviled act, as far as most fans are concerned, has to be his assassination of Mr. X on the orders of CSM and the First Elder.

Jeremiah Smith has the Bounty Hunter's abilities of shape shifting, and would appear to be identical incapabilities. Both Jeremiah Smith and the Bounty Hunter demonstrate an miraculous ability to heal the sick and injured. More Samantha clones appear, along with some nazi-looking boy clones, but they don't appear to be anything more than mindless drones. Biological robots tending the crops which Jeremiah Smith hints may not be terrestrial in origin. Certainly, the bees which have been making honey from "alien ginsing" have become lethally toxic. There is a colonization effort afoot in these epsiodes too which the Majestic Consortium seems to be aware of and collaborating with.

Jeremiah Smith's job at the Social Security service seems to have been creating identities for hundreds of thousands of "non-persons": Alien clones slipped into human society needing electronic backgrounds in order to blend in. The Bounty Hunter returns again to kill Jerimiah Smith, but not because this project was unapproved, but because Smith drew attention to himself by healing the people wounded in a random fast-food shooting. Whether this is the same Bounty Hunter that killed the Gregors and the Samanthas cannot be known for certain, but he did seem to understand Mulder's desire to protect the clone of his sister.

Mr. X meets his untimely demise. He comes to Scully with information (false information planted by the First Elder to smoke out the traitor) that Mrs. Mulder is in danger from the Majestic Consortium. Then he is lured back to Mulder's appartment with a false "X" in the window and gunned down by The Gray Haired Man. But, even in death Mr. X has one last piece of information to impart: "SRSG" scrawled in his own blood. This last scrap of information may be the most valuable information Mr. X ever imparted since it leads Mulder to a new informant - Marita Covarrubias, the Assistant to the Special Representatice to the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Mulder contacted Marita Covarrubias after Mr. X, dying from multiple gunshot wounds, scrawled the innitials "SRSG" in his own blood. She tells Mulder that her boss, the Special Representative is unavailable, and that the farm in Alberta (which was apparently staffed by alien clones) was found abandoned, the mysterious crop the aliens were tending mearly ginsing. However, she gives Mulder a photo of the clones working the fields, telling him "Not everything dies, Agent Mulder". I believe that she was letting him know that while she can't speak freely in her office, she has answers he is seeking. 

Episode 75

Home 

In the small town of Home, Pennsylvania, a woman gives birth to a deformed baby. Three similarly-deformed men bury it near their dilapidated house during a rainstorm. Mulder and Scully are sent to investigate after the corpse is found by children during a sandlot-ball game. While talking to local sheriff Andy Taylor (Tucker Smallwood), Mulder asks whether the Peacock brothers - the inhabitants of the house nearest to the crime scene - have been questioned. Taylor informs him that the house dates to the Civil War and is without electricity, running water or heat. He also insinuates that the family has been inbreeding since the war. The three Peacock brothers watch the agents from their front porch.

During an autopsy, the agents discover that the baby suffocated by inhaling dirt - meaning that it was buried alive. Scully suggests that the baby's defects could have been caused by inbreeding. Mulder insists that this would be impossible since the Peacocks seem to live in an all-male household. Suspecting that the Peacocks have kidnapped and raped a woman, the agents investigate their now-abandoned residence and discover blood, scissors and a shovel on a table. In retaliation, the Peacocks enter Taylor's house during the night and murder him and his wife, Barbara (Judith Maxie).

Laboratory tests indicate that the baby's parents were members of the Peacock family. Believing that the three Peacock brothers must be holding the dead baby's mother hostage, the agents and Deputy Barney Paster (Sebastian Spence) go to arrest them. When Paster breaks down the front door of the house, he is decapitated by a booby-trap, before the brothers rip the body apart. Mulder and Scully then release the Peacocks' pigs to lure them out of the house before searching it.

The agents find a quadruple amputee hidden under a bed. She is revealed to be Mrs. Peacock, the mother of the boys. She was presumed dead from a car accident several years previously; however, she survived and continued to have inbred children. Mrs. Peacock reveals that neither she nor anyone in the family can feel pain. The brothers realize that Mulder and Scully are inside their house and attack. The two youngest sons withstand several gunshots before dying, one of them impaled on another booby-trap.

Afterwards, the agents discover that Mrs. Peacock and her eldest son have escaped in their car, planning to start a new family elsewhere.

 

Episode 76

Teliko 

Mulder goes to Marita Covarrubias for information about the West African seed that kept turning up around the victims of the "Menalin Vampire". At first she rebuffs him, saying she can't help, but Mulder presses on saying "You made an overture to me. You left an opening." She responds by getting him the Port Authority and FAA reports on the passenger from Burkina Faso who died under similar circumstances on a trans-atlantic flight. She also points Mulder towards the Burkina Faso Embassy and clears Mulder's way to Minister Diabira with a well-placed phone call.

 

Episode 77

Unruhe 

A woman who went in to have her passport photo taken disappears, and her friend is found dead not far from the place. Will the key to the mystery be found in photos that are not exactly standard passport photos? Mulder and Scully investigate.

A note about the name: Scully says that UNRUHE means "unrest" in German, and she would know...

After Japanese, French and Spanish, it's now the German's turn...

 

Episode 78

The Field Where I Died 

In Apison, Tennessee, authorities receive a tip from someone named Sidney alleging child abuse and weapons possession by a local cult called the Temple of the Seven Stars. The FBI and the ATF stage a raid on the Temple's compound, but are unable to find its leader, Vernon Ephesian (Michael Massee). Mulder experiences ''déjà vu'' and walks into a field on the compound, where he finds a trapdoor. Inside, he and Scully find Ephesian preparing to drink a red liquid with his six wives. Mulder stops them and handcuffs Ephesian, but he feels a strange connection to one of the wives, Melissa Riedal-Ephesian (Kristen Cloke).

Skinner warns the FBI and ATF that Ephesian and his wives will be released in a day unless they can track down Sidney and the Temple's reported weapons cache. The agents question Ephesian, who states that there is no member of the Temple named Sidney. When they interview Melissa, she suddenly begins to talk like Sidney, claiming that Harry Truman is president. Scully believes Melissa is exhibiting multiple personality disorder, but Mulder thinks she is recalling a reincarnation past life. The agents take her back to the temple, where she takes on the personality of a woman from the American Civil War Civil War period and says that the weapons were hidden in another secret bunker in the field. She also states that Mulder, in a past life, was a Confederate States of America soldier in the field with her, was her beloved, and that she watched him die.

Mulder has Melissa undergo regression hypnosis so she can recount her past lives. She implies that she and Mulder have met over their past lives, always to be separated or lost to each other. To confirm her events, Mulder has himself hypnotized and recalls a time when he was a Jewish woman with a son, who had the same soul as his sister Samantha; his deceased father, who was Scully, is dead. Melissa was his husband in this life and had been taken to a Nazi concentration camp by a Gestapo officer who was The Smoking Man. Mulder also recalls his past life from the Civil War, when he was a man named Sullivan Biddle, while Melissa was Sarah Kavanaugh; Scully, Mulder claims, was his sergeant. Scully finds pictures of Biddle and Kavanaugh in the county's hall of records and gives them to Mulder. He wears a Confederate uniform in the photo.

The FBI and ATF plan to make another search of the compound. Ephesian, realizing that he will not survive another siege, passes out poison to the cult members while his men open fire on the FBI agents. All but he and Melissa die, Melissa having feigned drinking it. Mulder surrenders in order to get into the Temple. Ephesian then forces Melissa to drink the poison, and when Mulder arrives, he finds both of them dead. Mulder caresses Melissa, looking out into the field.

 

Episode 79

Sanguinarium 

Mysterious deaths at a cosmetic surgery clinic lead Mulder to believe that this is not human error, but human sacrifice.

In the cosmetic department at Chicago Memorial Hospital, anyone can be more beautiful, for a price. The price can sometimes be very horrific, when the surgeon goes crazy during the operation. Scully and Mulder are called to investigate, and Scully thinks the cause is the effect of the sleeping pills the doctor took, then Mulder discovers a pentacle - an occult symbol of protection - on the operating room floor. Scully is skeptical, then another doctor goes crazy, and a connection between one of the nurses and previous deaths that happened at the clinic is revealed. Before the truth is revealed, she dies...

 

Episode 80

The Musings Of a Cigarette-Smoking Man 

Did CSM shoot Kennedy and King? Is he a mastermind conspirator because no one takes his writing seriously? You be the judge!

Frohike shares his suspicions with Mulder and Scully, while the cigarette smoker eavesdrops on them with a sniper rifle in his hands. He discovers that in the past the cigarette smoker was a friend of Mulder's father and even recruited him as a partner in his conspiracies, one of which was the assassination of President Kennedy. After the mission he smoked his first cigarette...

In 1968, even J. Edgar Hoover got rid of the cigarette smoker, whose existence no president suspected. He was responsible for the actions against Martin Luther King, but his hidden dream is to have the works he wrote under a pseudonym published. Since then, he has been responsible for wars, assassinations of heads of state (and why not...) but despite the tremendous power in his hands, his life is lonely and empty, and he is looking for new enemies and challenges...

When a story he wrote in the weekly is finally published, but the system dares to change its ending, he sits on a park bench and ponders the banality of his life, and we return to the room with the sniper rifle, and Frohike on the crosshairs...

We see CSM being recruited out of the U.S. Army Special Forces, where he had been working as a CIA asset for covert operations. Later he is seen wielding authority over U.S. Military forces. So CSM works for a military intelligence agency like the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, Army, Navy or Air Force Intelligence or an agency so secret we mere mortals haven't heard of it yet. Or perhaps we have?

Deep Throat executes a wounded Grey.

According to "Deep Throat", there is an agreement between East and West requiring each party to immediately destroy any captured alien (UN Resolution 1013, it is unclear if whether it was adopted by the General Assembly or the Security Council...) the corsortium has dealings with foreign military and intelligence services and with the UN, and some of these intelligence services – the Japanese (731, NISEI), the Soviet KGB (TUNGISKA, TERMA) and the French (PIPER MARU) - spy afer the Consortium and plot to steal its secrets.

An additional peek into the inner workings of Deep Throat's mind. In this episode we see CSM and Deep Throat as colleagues of long standing, maybe even friends. Its the twilight of the Cold War and these two veteran shadow warriors are examining the materials recovered from a crashed UFO, including the occupant.

Having lost a coin-toss with CSM, Deep Throat reluctantly carries out U.N. Resolution 1013 and executes the injured alien.

CSM counsels against killing a wounded Extraterrestrial Biological Entity by saying "A live E.B.E. would advance Bill Mulder's project by years".

 

Episode 81

Tunguska (1) 

Everyone's favorite backstabber, Krycek, shows up and introduces Mulder and Scully to the Black Cancer. With the help of the UNiblonder, Mulder goes with Krycek to the Tunguska crater, where he is double-crossed by Krycek and used for a Black Cancer inoculation experiment.

With diplomatic documents in his hands, including a deadly charge. Mulder and Scully capture in a raid several members of an extreme right-wing group suspected of planning a mass attack. Among the detainees is Agent Krychek, responsible for the murder of Mulder's father and Scully's sister. What is the connection between these events and the massive and unexplained devastating explosion that occurred in Tunguska in Siberia on June 13, 1903? Mulder goes to Siberia to investigate and Scully refuses to reveal his whereabouts to a congressional committee and finds herself accused of congressional misconduct. Mulder and Krycheck are captured and imprisoned in the Gulag, and Mulder discovers that Krycheck set him up again.

Krycek told Mulder that he was saved by the Militia group while they were looking for military surplus salvage at the abandoned missile silo that he was sealed in. However, when questioned by Mulder, Terry Mayhew, the Militia group's leader denies it. He claims Krycek approached him using the name "Arntzen", the code name of Russian aven and former assassin Vasili Peskow, who was reinstated.

It isn't clear how Krycek got out of that silo, but it is doubtful that the KGB or the Militia had anything to do with it. Perhaps he was inadvertently freed when the "Oilian" escaped the silo, or was rescued by other extra-terrestrials

The Well Manicured Man finds himself needing CSM's services. He begins by "killing the messenger": Hurling insults at CSM because some breach of The Project's security has occurred, namely that a diplomatic pouch containing a hunk of Martian rock containing the bio-hazardous material colloquially known as the "Black Cancer", has been intercepted by Mulder and that Mulder has run off to Tunguska to look for answers.

Later, when Russian agent Vassily Peskow murders project specialist Dr. Bonita Sayer ((moonlighting as WMM's mistress), WMM turns to CSM in order to learn the killer's identity and get revenge on him. The CMM reveals the killer's identity, but misses him before Peskow flees to Russia. This apparently makes CSM indebted to CSM, and at a significant disadvantage because CSM discovers that WMM and the late Dr. Sayer ha da sexual relationship.

Marita gives Mulder information about the source of the diplomatic bags smuggled to the USA by the corporation's emissaries, and discovers that the source of the material is in Tunguska, Siberia. She even equips Mulder with the diplomatic passport that allows Mulder to enter the former Soviet Union. In her defense, she claims that she believes he's doing the right thing..

In the first face-to-face confrontation (after 31 episodes, since Avatar) between Skinner and CSM, who has come to him to demand the diplomatic bag containing the missing Martian meteorite fragment, Skinner tells him to get lost. Skinner knew nothing about the case, but he would have told CSM nothing even if he had known.

The toxic extra-terrestrial substance found in the impact site at Tunguska Siberia does seem to be related in some ways to the "Oiien" seen in PIPER MARU and APOCRYPHA. Like the Oilien, the Black Cancer is the same color, and texture, appearing much like crude petroleum. Both substances are organic and are capable of surviving for long periods of time under extreme conditions: the Oilien at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, the Black Cancer sealed in rock beneath the Siberian tundra.

Both the Oilien and the Black Cancer seem to be able to pass through air-tight barriers. The Oilien penetrated the air-tight deep diving suit worn by the French salvage team, the Black Cancer penetrated the Level 4 Contamination Suit. Both substances cause the tell-tale signs of black cloudiness in the eyes. Both substances cause the central nervous systems to shut down in a kind of paralysis. But with the Oilien, the creature is able to impose its will upon its host and direct it. The Black Cancer cannot.

The Oilien and the Black Cancer may be related. Perhaps the Tunguska blast of 1908 was caused by the crash of an alien space-craft crewed by the creatures known as "Oiliens." The crash blew the crew into millions of pieces, shattering their consciousness and minds, leaving nothing except the indestructible fragments of their bodies imbedded in the tundra. The Black Cancer is the fragmented bodies of the Oilien crew. The fragments still act instinctually to occupy hosts, but cannot impose its consciousness because it doesn't have any.

See also: Terma 

Episode 82

Terma (2) 

Krycek, actually a KGB sleeper spy, sends retired KGB agent Vassily Peskow to the United States to single-handedly wipe out the Consortium's Black Cancer Inoculation Project. Mulder, who survived the inoculation test, escapes the gulag, while Krycek, who is not so fortunate, loses his arm.

Mulder discovers that all the prisoners in the Gulag are actually guinea pigs for the deadly poison that killed the courries at the airport and triggered a congressional investigation. He manages to escape from the Gulag and reach St. Petersburg, while Scully is imprisoned on charges of contempt of Congress. Mulder arrives at the committee hearings, but too late. All evidence that the deadly poison was developed in American-Russian cooperation was destroyed.

A whole new aspect to the character of Krycek and may help to explain some of the events in past episodes. We know know Krycek is a KGB double agent assigned to infiltrate the FBI, the Majestic Consortium, or perhaps both. He appears to have been a second generation "sleeper" agent. That is an agent that spends years, or decades inactive, working his way into secure positions and organizations until he has obtained a desired position and is "awoken" or activated. "Second generation sleeper" because in TUNGUSKA Krycek mentions that his parents were cold-war emigres from Russia. Krycek's parents were probacly KGB spies as well who came to America with a plan to create the perfect double agent: Alex Krycek. A man groomed to be the perfect recruit for the FBI, CIA or other intelligence agency.

Peskow goes on the mission, alone and with almost no support. One of the things I loved about Peskow was the image of this ultra-deadly (if a bit arthritic) KGB killer taking the bus to his first target, Dr. Bonita Sayer. It was the perfect metephor for the KGB, broke, wearing threadbare cloths, old and weary, but still ruthless, competent and deadly.

Peskow single-handedly (with perhaps some scouting and preparation for the mission performed by Krycek) murders the Majestic Consortium's expert on the Black Cancer (Dr. Sayers). He steals the Black Cancer infested meteorite from the secure NASA-Goddard Lab, kills all of the Majestic Consortium's test subjects at the Boca Raton nursing home and destroys the meteorite (and perhaps the Majestic Consortium's other Black Cancer samples). Peskow succeeds in setting the Majestic Consortium's Black Cancer immunization project back years.

Peskow has worked with Krycek before, and knew him by both the name Krycek and Arntzen, the name Krycek used to infiltrate the right wing militia group. What is curious is that Krycek seemed to outrank Peskow despite Peskow's "seniority" to Krycek. 

Episode 83

Paper Hearts 

Mulder dreams of a red light that leads him to the corpse of a young girl buried in a park in Manassas, Virginia. When he awakens, he heads to the park and finds the girl's skeleton. The girl was determined to have been murdered by John Lee Roche (Tom Noonan), a serial killer who murdered thirteen girls throughout the 1980s; his ''modus operandi'' included cutting a heart out of the clothes of each victim. Mulder had captured Roche by deducing that he committed the murders while traveling as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Roche's hearts were never found, although he confessed to all of the murders.

Scully's autopsy of the skeleton finds that the victim died in 1975, suggesting that Roche's killing spree started much earlier than the FBI had previously thought. The agents search Roche's old car, where they discover sixteen cut-out hearts. Mulder and Scully subsequently visit Roche in prison, hoping to learn the identities of the remaining two victims. Roche, however, tries to play mind games with Mulder. That night Mulder dreams of the night of Samantha Mulder Samantha's abduction, seemingly showing that his sister was abducted by Roche rather than aliens.

The next day, Mulder asks Roche where he was the night Samantha was abducted. Roche claims he was on Martha's Vineyard and had sold a vacuum cleaner to Bill Mulder Mulder's father. Mulder later finds the vacuum in his mother's house. After convincing Skinner to grant them further access to Roche, the agents question the killer and are told the location of one of his remaining victims. He also claims exactly what happened the night of Samantha's abduction. An autopsy of the body reveals it does not belong to Samantha. Roche tells Mulder the final body is Samantha's, but says that he will only reveal where it is if Mulder takes him to the scene of her abduction. Mulder secretly releases Roche from prison and brings him to Martha's Vineyard.

Upon arriving at his family's old summer house, Roche explains exactly what happened the night of Samantha's abduction. However, Mulder tells him that the house was bought by his father ''after'' Samantha's abduction, convincing him that Roche is not telling the truth. Mulder plans to bring Roche back to prison, but - following another dream about Samantha - awakens to find Roche gone, with his badge, gun, and phone stolen.

Using Mulder's credentials, Roche kidnaps a girl in Swampscott, Massachusetts, whom he met on his flight with Mulder to Boston. Scully and Skinner arrive and the agents head to the site of Roche's old apartment in Revere. They find him with the girl in an abandoned bus nearby. Roche holds a gun on the girl and tells Mulder that he'll never know for sure whether the last victim is Samantha or not if he kills him. As Roche starts to pull the trigger, Mulder shoots him dead. In his office, Mulder stares at the final cloth heart and puts it away, unsure of whether it belonged to Samantha or not.

 

Episode 84

El Mundo Gira 

In a camp of Mexican day laborers, a romantic triangle develops between two brothers and a girl. After a mysterious accident, the girl is found dead. According to the neighbor, who was an eyewitness, the one who killed the note was the mythological creature "El Chupacabra", "the Goat Sucker". One of the brothers, Soldad, accuses his brother Eladio of murder. Eladio is arrested but manages to escape, leaving behind corpses of people who died from a strange fungal infection. Mulder follows him. The brothers manage to meet, but Soldad is no longer human; He became "El Chupacabra".

 

Episode 85

Leonard Betts 

In Pittsburgh, Leonard Betts (Paul McCrane), a paramedic, is decapitated when his ambulance collides with a truck. Later, at the morgue, his headless body leaves its cold chamber, knocks out the attendant, steals his clothes, and escapes. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully visit the morgue, where they find Betts's head in a medical waste dumpster. Scully attempts a cranial examination, but the head's eyes and mouth both suddenly open when she begins the procedure. Meanwhile, Mulder goes to Betts's apartment, where he finds the attendant's discarded clothes. When Mulder leaves, Betts - who has regrown his head - rises out of his iodine-filled bathtub.

Mulder interviews Michelle Wilkes (Jennifer Clement), Betts's former partner, who recollects his ability to detect cancer. When an interior slice of Betts's polymerized head is examined, the agents discover that his frontal lobe displayed signs of pervasive cancer. Mulder has Chuck Burks (Bill Dow) subject the slice to a Kirlian photography test; the final image shows a corona discharge that takes the appearance of human shoulders.

Using fingerprint records, Scully learns that Betts shared fingerprints with a man called Albert Tanner. The agents visit his elderly mother, Elaine (Marjorie Lovett), who informs them that Albert died in a car accident six years previously. Meanwhile, Wilkes tracks down Betts at another hospital and confronts him. After an apology, he gives her a lethal injection of potassium chloride; Betts is then pursued and captured by a security guard. After he is handcuffed to his car, Betts escapes by tearing off his thumb. The agents search the car the next morning, finding disposed tumors in a cooler in the trunk. Mulder believes that Betts subsists on the tumors, and that his nature makes him the embodiment of a radical leap in evolution.

Upon learning that the car is registered to Elaine, the agents have the police search her home. Elaine recounts how her son endured bullying as a child "because he was different", and says that "he had his reasons" if he killed anybody. Meanwhile, Betts accosts a bar patron and kills him to obtain his cancerous lung. Later, in a storage unit, he seems to shed his body and create a duplicate. When the agents come across the storage unit, the duplicate Betts attempts to flee in a car, which explodes when fired upon and seemingly kills him. Scully suggests that Betts's first death as Albert Tanner was staged, but when they exhume Tanner's casket, they find his body still inside. Mulder becomes convinced that Betts can not only regenerate his body parts, but his entire body itself. Because of this, he believes that Betts is still at large.

At Elaine's behest, Betts removes a cancerous tumor from her body before summoning an ambulance. The agents, already staking out Elaine's house, encounter the paramedics when they arrive. Scully accompanies Elaine to the hospital while Mulder conducts a search of the neighborhood. However, after arriving at the hospital, Scully realizes that Betts has stowed himself away on the roof of the ambulance. Betts locks her inside the ambulance with him, calmly but apologetically telling her, like his earlier victim, that she has "something I need". After a struggle, Scully kills Betts by pressing charged defibrillator paddles against his head. Scully remains silently stunned by Betts's suggestion that she has cancer. Later, in her apartment, she wakes up with a cough and nosebleed, confirming her illness.

 

Episode 86

Never Again 

Mulder goes on vacation and asks Scully to complete an investigation he started, she agrees of necessity, and the investigation develops in an unexpected direction and brings her together with a man who has a unique tattoo address.

As of the voice of "Betty", actress Jodie Foster.

 

Episode 87

Memento Mori 

This eloquent episode has Scully hospitalized for the cancer ravaging her body, which may have been a result of her abduction two years prior. Mulder searches for a cure, and comes across a group of clones named Kurt, who identify Scully as an unwitting egg donor for the Consortium's experiments. Skinner also cuts a deal with CSM, in exchange for a cure for Scully's cancer.

The Grey Haired Man executes one of the renegade alien clones (who went by the name Kurt Crawford) with one of the Alien Ice-picks as seen in COLONY, END GAME, TALITHA CUMI and HERRENVOLK. He also very nearly blows Mulder away as Mulder is trying to escape from the alien controlled fertility clinic.

We encounter "the Kurts"; Alien-human hybrid clones almost identical in the way they die and decompose into green ooze as the Gregors and Samanthas in the episodes COLONY and END GAME. But here we have the alien clones working side by side with the same government project which harvested Scully's ova. While loyal to the project which created them, the Kurts' goal is to try to prevent the deaths of their "birth mothers" who apparently are being allowed to die so as to reduce the Majestic Consortium's exposure.

We see a second example of these aliens working with the Majestic Consortium. Since NISEI and 731, it has been obvious that Scully's (and quite probably insane FBI agent Duane Barry's) abductions were the result of a secret government experiment run by Dr. Ishimaru/Zama. Many other alien abductions seem to be cover for "Purity Control" which seeks to hybridize human and alien DNA.

Skinner comes to CSM to "sell his soul." After repeatedly pissing in CSM's eye, Skinner finds himself in the unenviable position of asking CSM for his assistance in curing Scully's terminal cancer. CSM no doubt has the ability to help Scully, his own cancer and Mrs. Mulder's stroke having been cured by the intervention of Jeremiah Smith and the alien Bounty Hunter. The question is not "can" CSM save Scully, but rather "will he?" 

Episode 88

Kaddish 

In Brooklyn, New York, a group of Hasidic Jews gather at a cemetery for the funeral of Isaac Luria (Harrison Coe), who had been beaten and shot to death by a gang of three young neo-Nazis. The last to leave is Isaac's betrothed, Ariel (Justine Miceli), and her father, Jacob Weiss (David Groh). During nightfall, a dark figure enters the cemetery and crafts a man-shaped sculpture out of mud.

When one of Isaac's assailants is found strangled with the dead man's fingerprints on his body, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are called in to investigate. Scully suggests that the murder was an act of retribution, and argues that the evidence was staged to look like revenge from beyond the grave. When the agents visit Ariel and Jacob, their request for the exhumation of Isaac's body angers the old man.

Mulder and Scully then interview Curt Brunjes (Jonathan Whittaker), the racist owner of a copy shop across the street from the market where Isaac worked. Mulder tells Brunjes that the other two boys, who work for Brunjes, are in danger. Scully mentions that there is a rumor spreading that Isaac has risen from the grave to avenge his death. The two boys, who are eavesdropping on the conversation, are terrified at this prospect.

That night, the boys dig up Isaac's grave and find his body intact. While retrieving tools from the car, one of the boys is brutally murdered. The next morning, Mulder and Scully find a Sefer Yetzirah, a book on Jewish mysticism buried with Isaac's body; it mysteriously bursts into flames. On the book is Jacob's name. The agents search for Jacob, finding him in a synagogue with the hanged body of the last remaining boy. Although Jacob admits to both of the murders, Mulder believes that a Golem - a creature from Jewish mysticism - is the true murderer.

Later, Brunjes is found murdered and Mulder and Scully watch the shop's surveillance tape. They discover that the Golem has features similar to Isaac. Mulder deduces that, because Ariel and Isaac were not officially wed in a Jewish synagogue, Ariel created the Golem out of love to serve as a surrogate for her late husband. The two agents arrive at the synagogue to find Ariel and the creature exchanging wedding vows. After an intense fight, in which Jacob and Mulder are both wounded, Ariel declares her love for Isaac and returns the creature to dust.

 

Episode 89

Unrequited 

Mulder contacts Marita again to get information about the assassinations of high-ranking Generals by the seemingly invisible assassin Nathaniel Teager.

Marita doesn't provide the information Mulder was looking for, but after getting Mulder to pony-up what he knows, she completes the missing links between the murdered Generals and the next victim. This gives Mulder insight into Teager's motives and the motives of the men who may be manipulating Teager's quest for revenge to assist in a further cover-up. Interestingly, the information she provides isn't from some shadowy "black ops" agency. She tells Mulder she gleaned the link between the Generals from a recent newspaper story

 

Episode 90

Tempus Fugit (1) 

On Scully's birthday, UFO abductee Max Fenig ("Fallen Angel") is one of the innocent victims of a plane crash instigated by the USAF, attempting to shoot down a UFO. While protecting a witness to the plane crash, the lovelorn Agent Pendrell is accidentally killed by one of Majestic's agents.

 

Episode 91

Max (2) 

A crashed UFO is recovered from a lake near the plane crash. The aliens return, taking back a stolen alien power system in mid-air.

The Greys are trying to recover the energy source stolen from the Majestic Consortium connected Defense contractor (and perhaps it was even stolen from the Greys by Majestic first). Several Greys are killed when the Air Force shoots down their spacecraft.

NTSB investigator Scott Garrett was Part of the cover-up the crash of Flight 549 and the UFO crash retrieval operation. Garrett may be one of the most reviled MIBs in X-Files history since he accidentally shoots and kills Agent Pendrell (a supporting character of long standing who has acted as a kind of avatar for those with crushes on Gillian Anderson) during a shootout with Scully.

Garrett is a true believer, or at least he portrayed himself as one. When Mulder tells Garrett that Garrett will die too if there's any gunplay on the airplane they're both on, Garrett replies "A man, if he's any man at all, knows he must be ready to sacrifice himself to that which is greater than he... Look out your window Agent Mulder. D'you see the lights? Now imagine if one of those lights flickered off. You'd hardly notice, would you? A dozen? Two dozen lights extinguished? Is it worth sacrificing the future, the lives of millions, to keep a few lights on?" With the future on the line, Garrett could morally justify any action, so long "the future, the lives of millions" was protected. So he accidentally shot the wrong target? So the USAF accidentally took out the airliner along with the alien invaders? Hey, collateral damage is to be expected.

But Garrett didn't show any remorse or empathy for his fellow agent when he recovered the plastic gun and erased the fingerprints and face of the assassin who died on Flight 549. He hardly blinked when one of the UFO recovery team's divers was (perhaps fatally) irradiated by the UFO's damaged power source. He killed Airman Armando Gonzales without compunction, and would have done the same to Airman Louis Frisch except for Scully's intervention. But he put himself on the line every time something really dangerous was called for: Making a hit on a protected target in a crowded bar; or boarding a plane with the intention of stealing an item from an armed target and making a HALO jump ala "D.B. Cooper" in order to make his escape. While he didn't hesitate to sacrifice others, he also didn't shirk from situations where he too could be sacrificed.

The E.B.E.s take Garrett and the missing power source component in a mid-flight abduction. His fate remains unknown. However, Garrett is probably due for some extensive anal probing by the E.B.E.s. And who says there's no justice? 

Episode 92

Synchrony 

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT cryogenics researchers Jason Nichols (Joseph Fuqua) and Lucas Menand (Jed Rees) become embroiled in an argument as they walk down a city street. They are approached by an old man (Michael Fairman), who warns Menand that he will be killed by a bus at 11:46 p.m. that evening, but Menand ignores him. After the man is arrested by campus security, his apparent prophecy is proven true when Jason tries, but fails, to save Menand, who is promptly run over by a bus and killed at exactly at 11:46 p.m.

Mulder and Scully investigate the case, learning that Jason was taken into custody after the bus driver told police that he (Jason) pushed Menand into the path of his vehicle. However, Jason tells authorities that he was actually trying to save Menand. The security guard who arrested the old man is found frozen to death after exposure to a chemical refrigerant. Mulder interviews Jason, who explains Menand threatened to go public with a claim that Jason had falsified data on a research paper.

The old man kills Dr. Yonechi (Hiro Kanagawa), a Japanese researcher on the topic of biological vitrification for cryopreservation, by pricking him with a metallic stylus, introducing an unknown chemical into his body. The agents approach Nichols' girlfriend and colleague, Lisa Ianelli (Susan Lee Hoffman), who recognizes the chemical compound as a rapid freezing agent that Jason had been engineering for years. (The chemical compound displayed on her computer monitor is actually glyoxal, OCHCHO, which has none of the properties portrayed in the episode.) However, she claims that the compound has not yet been invented and that if Yonechi was injected with the chemical, he may not be dead. With Lisa's help, Scully and a team of medical personnel successfully resuscitate Yonechi, only for his body temperature to rapidly increase until he bursts into flames. Police receive a tip that the old man is living at a nearby hotel. Inside the old man's room, the agents discover a faded color photograph picturing Jason, Yonechi and Lisa toasting champagne glasses in the cryonics laboratory. Mulder deduces from the picture that the old man is a time traveller who is attempting to alter that future, and that he is none other than Jason Nichols.

Lisa locates the elderly man and confronts him; however, he injects her with the chemical after explaining that Lisa will be responsible for the coming future. Scully successfully resuscitates Lisa. Jason confronts his elderly self in the computer mainframe room at the cryogenic laboratory, where the old man has erased all of Jason's files from the mainframe. The old man tells Jason that the success of their research made time travel possible, but also plunged the world into chaos. Jason lunges at the old man, choking him as he demands to travel back to save Lisa. Mulder arrives with the news that Lisa has been saved, and the elder Jason wraps his arms around his younger self and spontaneously bursts into flames, the fire consuming them both.

As Lisa is loaded on to an ambulance to receive further treatment, Scully breaks the news to her that Jason died in the mainframe room fire. Mulder then reminds Scully of a statement in her thesis in which she asserts that "... although multidimensionality suggests infinite outcomes in an infinite number of universes, each universe can produce only one outcome," which indicates that, despite Jason Nichols effectively erasing himself from the future, the rapid freezing agent compound will be discovered by someone in the current universe, resulting in the eventual discovery of time travel.

Later, Lisa sets to work at the cryonics laboratory, attempting to reconstruct the chemical compound.

 

Episode 93

Small Potatoes 

Mulder and Scully investigate the birth of five babies in the town of Martinsburg, West Virginia, who were born with tails. The mother of the most recent baby, Amanda Nelligan, tells the agents that the father of her baby is Luke Skywalker. By researching the baby's chromosomes, it is discovered that all five share the same father. The parents of the children blame the local fertility doctor, who had used insemination to impregnate all of the mothers but Nelligan. Mulder spots a janitor nearby with signs that he formerly had a tail. When he runs, Mulder chases him and catches him. The janitor, Eddie Van Blundht, is discovered to be the father of all of the children. Scully believes Eddie used a date rape drug although Mulder questions how he could be in the position to give it to the women.

Eddie escapes by transforming his face into that of the booking cop and knocking him out with a blow to the head. Mulder and Scully visit Eddie's father, a former circus performer who claims he still has his tail. Mulder and Scully soon realize the father is actually Eddie when he addresses Mulder by name without having been introduced. The agents give chase, but Eddie escapes. He then transforms into the husband of a woman he impregnated and hides out in their house. When the real husband comes home early, Eddie transforms into Mulder and leaves the couple confused. Mulder and Scully meanwhile discover the desiccated remains of Eddie's father hidden in the attic. Performing an autopsy on the body, Scully finds that he had an extra sheet of muscle under his skin, which Mulder concludes Eddie inherited and uses to transform his appearance.

As Mulder, Eddie visits Nelligan, showing her a photo of Eddie. Nelligan tells him that she went out with him in high school, but views him as a loser lacking drive and ambition. The disappointed Eddie leaves just as the real Mulder shows up. Realizing that Eddie just visited Nelligan in his guise, Mulder searches for him down the hospital corridors. He finds the fertility doctor and a security guard nearby and handcuffs them to each other, believing one of them to be Eddie. The real Eddie, however, is hiding in a vent above. He gets the jump on Mulder and locks him up in the hospital basement. Again, as Mulder, Eddie tells Scully that he feels the case is a waste of time and they should return to Washington.

Eddie returns to Washington as Mulder with Scully and presents the case to Skinner with a poorly written report. Eddie visits Mulder's office, then his apartment, being surprised at what a loser Mulder appears to be (though highly pleased with how attractive a man he now is in Mulder's face - as he admires himself and practices his 'agent moves' in the mirror). Later that evening, Eddie visits Scully with a bottle of wine and tries to get her drunk and seduce her. As a reluctant Scully is about to give in to a kiss, the real Mulder breaks in and interrupts them. Revealed, Eddie sheepishly reverts to his actual form, shocking Scully. A month later, Mulder visits Eddie in prison. Eddie complains at being given muscle relaxants to prevent him from turning into someone else, asking if that was Mulder's doing. Eddie then tells Mulder that he was born a loser, but Mulder is one by choice and that he should seriously "live a little"

 

Episode 94

Zero Sum 

Skinner repays the debt to CSM from "Memento Mori", by covering up a suspicious death resulting from Majestic's experiments. The Consortium conducts a field test of smallpox-infested bees.

The First Elder personally oversees the first trial of the genetically modified bees as a means of spreading the smallpox virus. He has no faith in of CSM's promises that is well.. The real purpose of the experiment, by the way, is not clear; is it to find a weapon, or to find a cure?

First there are her efforts to thwart the smallpox bio-warfare test and her attempts to help Skinner in his efforts to discover what he was tasked to cover-up for CSM. Her efforts seem genuine but then there is Marita's own connection to CSM. At the end of the episode it is revealed that Marita takes her orders from CSM. Whether all her actions or only some are dictated by CSM's orders remains unknown.

What is also unknown is who was standing in the background listening on Marita's other phone while she was speaking to CSM. Was it Mulder? Was it some other member of the Majestic Consortium? Perhaps an agent of the First Elder, who is growing obviously exasperated with CSM's empty reassurances that the "Mulder" situation is under control? Either way, Marita probably means trouble for both Mulder and CSM.

**She ends up becoming a victim of the experiments herself.**

Skinner finds himself morally and ethically compromised by CSM, not to mention set up for a murder charge. All together, the encounter between CSM and Skinner was a draw. Skinner slips the noose with Mulder's help, but is still made to look the fool. On the other hand, he gets his first introduction to Marita Corvarubias, who may or may not be a potential allie (despite the connection to CSM) and Skinner genuinely shocked the "black-lunged son of a bitch" when he nearly blew his head off. For half a second CSM thought Skinner had killed him. It helps to remind the bastard that he may push too far, one time too many. 

Episode 95

Elegy 

Angie Pintero (Alex Bruhanski), the owner of a bowling alley, tells one of his employees, an Autistic man named Harold Spuller (Steven M. Porter), to go home for the evening. Shortly thereafter, Angie discovers a badly-injured blond girl wedged inside of the automated pinsetter. The girl attempts to speak, but no words come out of her mouth. Angie notices police in a nearby parking lot and rushes outside to get help. He realizes a crowd has gathered around the dead body of the same girl he saw only moments earlier in the bowling alley. Angie relates his bizarre tale to Mulder and Scully. Mulder suspects that Angie encountered the dead girl's ghost; three similar encounters, and three similar murders, were reported in the area in as many weeks. The agents discover the words, "She is me" written on the bowling lane where Angie saw the spirit, but its meaning remains a mystery.

Detective Hudak (Daniel Kamin) tells Mulder and Scully that an anonymous caller phoned 911 with a message regarding Penny Timmons, one of the killer's victims. The caller claimed that Timmons' last words were "She is me." Hudak notes, however, that the victim's larynx was severed, making it impossible for her to utter dying words. The agents trace the source of the 911 call to a payphone at the New Horizon Psychiatric Center. Mulder notices one of the patients, Harold Spuller, avoiding his gaze. After viewing photographs of the murder victims, Scully comes to the conclusion that Spuller fits the killer's profile: a compulsive person consumed with the desire to organize, clean and reorder. Scully uses a rest room to attend to a nose bleed and there encounters the apparition of another young, blond girl. Moments later, Mulder tells her that the body of another victim was found nearby and Scully realizes it was the same girl she saw as an apparition. Scully decides to seek medical attention for her nosebleed but tells Mulder to remain and continue working on the case. In the meantime, the audience is made aware that Harold sees the apparitions of all of the young women recently murdered.

After having the nosebleed checked, Scully makes an appointment with an FBI psychiatrist in whom she confides that she has come to understand that she relies on Mulder far more than she ever realized and finds him to be a source of strength.

Meanwhile, Mulder brings Harold to the police station for questioning and, during his interrogation, makes a connection between long strings of numbers Harold can recall on command to the bowling alley. Along with Hudak and Harold's attorney, Harold leads Mulder to a back room accessible from the bowling alley. The walls of the room are covered with score sheets, including those of the victims, and these are the strings of numbers Harold recalls. Mulder realizes Harold met each of the murdered women at the bowling alley, but Harold becomes greatly upset and, from his point of view, Angie's ghost is seen standing behind Mulder. Harold rushes out of the room and makes his way to the bowling alley, where Angie lies dead from a heart attack. Mulder approaches Scully, asking her to examine Harold, because every person who saw the apparitions was dying or about to die, which implies Harold may be next. Mulder also believes that Harold formed some kind of profound connection to the victims but was unable to express his feelings due to his Autism so a psychic connection formed between him and the murdered women. Scully, who also saw a victim's ghost, is struck by the implication but does not tell Mulder.

Harold is escorted back to the psychiatric center where he is tormented by Nurse Innes (Nancy Fish), a bully who seems to have a particular dislike for Harold. Later, Mulder finds Innes lying on the floor, half-conscious. Innes claims Harold went berserk and attacked her. Harold's roommate, Chuck Forsch, tells Scully that Nurse Innes warned Harold that she was poisoning him. Scully slowly realizes that Harold has probably not been taking his meds and that Innes, not Harold, was responsible for the murders. When Innes attacks Scully with a scalpel, Scully draws her weapon and fires, striking her in the shoulder. While summarizing the case with Mulder, Scully explains that Innes had been taking Harold's unused medication, triggering violent and unpredictable behavior. Scully hypothesizes that Innes - out of rage for her husband having left her for a younger woman - committed the murders in order to destroy happiness and the innocent affection Harold felt towards the young women. Later, Harold's body is discovered in a nearby alley, the apparent victim of respiratory failure. Scully, however, suspects that Harold died from what Innes took away from him. Scully admits to Mulder that she saw the ghost of the fourth victim shortly after she was murdered and the two have a short but intense discussion about trust and the fear they both share. Later, Scully sees Harold's spirit sitting in the back seat of her car.

 

Episode 96

Demons 

While under the influence of drugs and hypnotherapy, Mulder recalls seeing CSM at his parents' summer house shortly before Samantha's abduction.

It turns out that Samantha isn't Mulder's sister, she's his half-sister. The speculation that CSM is Mulder's father isn't supported by any evidence. 

 

Episode 97

Gethsemane (1) 

Mulder is led to what appears to be a frozen alien corpse, but soon he finds his beliefs unraveled as he is convinced that his pursuit of the truth has been a mere Department of Defense disinformation campaign.

Scully believes that CSM and his cohorts in the Majestic Consortium are using Mulder to perpetuate disinformation and support their "Big Lie:" namely that aliens are responsible for crimes committed by rouge elements of the Intelligence Community.

Then Mulder allegedly turns up dead. Well, if the frozen alien is a fake, good enough to fool an anthropologist, then perhaps Mulder's corpse is a similar fake produced by CSM's GARNET goon-squad. But why would CSM fake Mulder's death? 

Episode 98

Redux 

After faking his own death, Mulder is convinced by Defense Department operative Michael Kritschgau that the alien hoax was a smokescreen to deflect public attention away from the military's unethical projects. Scully finds evidence of the source of her cancer, just as her condition worsens.

 

Episode 99

Redux 2 

Mulder rushes to Scully who has collapsed during her interrogation at the FBI, but he refuses to cooperate with Skinner because he suspects him to be the one who caused Scully's cancer.

CSM attempts to recruit Mulder for the Consortium's cause, a hearing into Mulder's actions uncovers a Consortium mole within the FBI, and Scully's cancer goes into remission, as a result of the 'cure' that Mulder found in the Pentagon.

The First Elder ordered the attempted assassination of Cigarette-Smoking Man.  

Episode 100

Unusual Suspects 

In 1989, the connection between Mulder and the group of "Lone Gunmen", agents Langley, Prohicki and Byers, who became Mulder's allies, was first established, and they exposed a government plot to conduct experiments with paranoia gas.

A guest appearance by Richard Beltzer, Detective Munch from "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "Law and Order".

 

Episode 101

Detour 

Mulder and Scully go to a meeting of FBI think tanks in Florida, and on the way their car veers off the road. They go out to call for help and find themselves trapped in a forest where a monster is rampaging. With the help of the local agents, they set out to find the monster

 

Episode 102

Post-Modern Prometheus 

A mystery in the style of Frankenstein ("Modern Prometheus" according to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein) involving a single mother, a boy who loves comics, a mad scientist and... Cher (who refused to participate in the episode herself and later regretted it).

 

Episode 103

Christmas Carol 

While at her brother's house for Christmas, Scully finds a girl orphaned by the murder of her parents, led by a mysterious phone call from a woman who sounds exactly like Melissa Scully. Scully is intrigued by the girl, Emily Sim, and further investigation reveals Emily to be her biological daughter, and that she is part of a mysterious clinical trial of a pharmaceutical company.

 

Episode 104

Emily 

Scully attempts to adopt Emily, while Mulder investigates the Dimsdale Convalescent home, where Emily may have been conceived artificially. A barrage of medical tests on Emily also reveals that her biology is half-alien.

 

Episode 105

Kitsunegari 

Robert Modell, AKA "Pusher" (see episode 66) is able to project his thoughts into the minds of other people and make them do things against their will, including murder. Mulder warns about this but the detectives ignore his warnings, until the murder spree begins.

 

Episode 106

Schizogeny 

Bobby Rich, a 16-year-old boy, is beaten by his stepfather. When the father is found dead, Mulder and Scully are called to investigate. Bobby is the main suspect in the murder, but when another violent father is found dead under suspicious circumstances, secrets from the past are revealed.

 

Episode 107

Chinga 

Scully goes on vacation in Maine and finds herself investigating crimes where the victims appear to have harmed themselves, at the request of a strange young girl.

Noted author Stephen King is credited with writing the screenplay.

 

Episode 108

Kill Switch 

Scully and Mulder investigate the death of a computer genius, and become targets of a killer who loves to brutally torture his victims.

Another screenplay written by writer William Gibson ("Neuromancer").

 

Episode 109

Bad Blood 

Scully and Mulder disagree as to how to explain their part in a strange death that occurred while they were investigating an X-File in Texas.

 

Episode 110

Patient X 

Former UFO abductees are mysteriously summoned to remote locations, where they await the arrival of aliens. However, groups of Faceless Men arrive and burn the congregations to death. Meanwhile, Krycek attempts to trade a witness to one of these burnings for all research and information on Majestic's Black Cancer Inoculation Project. Agent Spender, the son of an alleged abductee, is first introduced here.

 

Episode 111

The Red And The Black 

After Scully survives the most recent burning, she undergoes hypnosis to find out what happened to her.

Mulder is told by Krycek of an alien resistance leader being held prisoner by the Consortium, and when he goes to intercept a truck carrying the alien, Mulder witnesses a rescue attempt.

Meanwhile, a vaccine provided by Krycek, supposedly for use against the Black Cancer, is found to be useless on an incapacitated Marita Covarrubias.

 

Episode 112

Travrlers 

In 1990, when Mulder was still an analyst in the behavioral sciences unit, he investigates a mysterious murder case involving three people who unwillungly became guinea pigs, two and Mulder's father. What was Mulder Senior's part in the affair that happened 38 years earlier, against the background of the persecution of the communists during the McCarthy era in the USA?

 

Episode 113

Minds's Eye 

A blind woman sees visions of murders and knows details that only the killer knows about. She is arrested as a suspect in the murders but released for lack of evidence. Mulder and Scully continue to investigate, with the help of police detectives, and discover that the woman's mother was murdered while she was in the womb, and thus she acquired the special ability to see through the killer's eyes, but who is the real killer and what are his motives?

 

Episode 114

All Souls 

A priest asks for Scully's help in comforting a family who lost their daughter under strange circumstances, and she investigates and discovers that the girl was the daughter of a quartet of girls suffering from severe birth defects who were each given up for adoption to a different family. The girls die one by one in the same way, and Scully's faith is severely tested. Are good and evil fighting to the death for the girls' souls?

 

Episode 115

Pine Bluff Varient 

Mulder infiltrates undercover into an extremist militia group that threatens to use lethal weapons. The main goal is to capture the leader of the group, Jacob Haley, and Scully, unaware of this, follows Mulder, and when she discovers the truth, she helps him uncover the truth behind the activities of the dangerous group.

 

Episode 116

Follie A Deux 

Gary Lambert, a vinyl coatings salesman and an ordinary person in every way, is convinced that his boss is a monster. Mulder and Scully are sent to investigate, and Mulder is taken hostage and even finds himself hospitalized in a mental institution.

 

Episode 117

The End 

The Consortium attempts to assassinate a 12-year-old chess master. Mulder and Scully discover that the boy possesses a heightened level of activity in the brain called the 'God Module', which may unlock the mysteries of the X-Files and shed light on the link between humanity and the aliens. However, CSM abducts the boy and turns him over to WMM, and sets Mulder and Scully's basement office on fire, destroying the X-Files.

 

Episode

Fight the Future (1998) 

 

 

Episode 118

The Beginning 

In a live news report, a high-speed car chase comes to an end in the Nevada desert. Assuming it to be a kidnapping, police pull the female passenger from the car and place her in the back of a police vehicle while her husband, Patrick Crump is handcuffed. The woman begins violently banging her head against the police car window. As the news chopper catches all of this on film, the woman's head explodes, sending a spray of blood across the window.

Mulder and Scully, investigating possible domestic terrorism in Buhl, Idaho, get wind of the bizarre car chase. Mulder coerces Scully into taking a detour to Elko, Nevada, on a hunch that this may be an X-File. Meanwhile, Crump, who has started to develop symptoms of a sickness, is put in an ambulance. Mulder, wishing to speak to Crump, follows the ambulance, only to end up being kidnapped by Crump when he escapes police custody.

Mulder realizes that Crump is suffering from a painful sensation of pressure building in his head and that the only way to alleviate his symptoms is to drive west. Scully initially believes that Crump is suffering from some sort of infection, taking a hazmat team to investigate the Crumps' home. There, she finds a dog suffering similar symptoms and dead birds on a neighbor's property, although the neighbor herself, who is deaf, was unaffected. Scully then discovers that a United States Navy antenna array emitting ELF waves stretches beneath the Crump property. Scully deduces that an abnormal surge in these waves somehow caused a rising pressure in the inner ear of the nearby inhabitants. Westward motion and an increase in speed seem to be the only thing to help ease the pain of the increasing pressure.

Initially, thinking that the FBI agent is part of a government conspiracy, Crump forces Mulder at gunpoint to drive, infuriating him along the way with antisemitic remarks. Eventually, Mulder and Crump make amends and attempt to work out a solution before it is too late. Mulder explains to Crump that Scully will meet them at the Pacific Coast, the end of the highway. There, she will insert a needle into Crump's inner ear, hopefully relieving the pressure. However, by the time Mulder meets Scully and the police at a beach in California, Crump has already died from his condition.

Back in Washington D.C., Mulder and Scully are reprimanded by Assistant Director Kersh for straying from their original assignment and amassing large debts during the Crump investigation, and are forbidden from investigating any further X-Files cases.

 

Episode 119

Drive 

After the explosion in his office (in the last episode of the previous season) and the escape from the secret site in the Pole (in the movie), Mulder tries to restore the X-cases, but his superiors transfer the X-cases to Agent Spender, who may (or may not) be CSM's son.

Mulder and Scully investigate a series of nuclear reactor deaths involving the mysterious alien, but their superiors refuse to accept their report and order them to break off all contact with the X-Files.

 

Episode 120

Dreamland 

Dreamland is the nickname for Area 51, the Air Force base near Groom Lake, Nevada which is reputed to be the US Government's base for conducting experiments with alien technology. "Dreamland" actually stands for "Data Repository Establishment and Management Land".

Following an encounter with a UFO, Mulder switches identities with one of the Area 51 employees, who has a grumpy wife and two annoying teenage boys. Mulder uses the situation to gather information, but of course Scully doesn't believe him when he tries to convince her that the man she thinks is Mulder isn't Mulder at all.

 

Episode 121

Triangle 

Scully and Mulder find themselves on board a luxury liner that was lost in the Bermuda Triangle in September 1939, and the story is conducted on two levels, when in 1939 Mulder tries to save the ship from the Nazis, and in the present Scully, with the help of the Lone Gunmen, tries to reach Mulder who was lost at sea.

 

Episode 122

Dreamland-B 

"Mulder's" strange behavior finally arouses Scully's suspicions, but efforts to restore the situation are met with difficulties, as the employee who assumed Mulder's identity refuses to give it up. The real informant from Area 51, and the three Lone Gunmen come to their aid.

Fletcher comments that Saddam Hussein is really a dinner theatre actor named 'John Gillnitz'. The name is a combination of the writers' names: John Shiban, Vince Gilligan & Frank Spotnitz.

Scully says to Mulder-in-Morris's-body, "I'd kiss you if you weren't so damn ugly" which is what Kim Hunter (Zira) said to Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes.

 

Episode 123

How The Spirits Stole Xmas 

Mulder convinces Scully to come with him on Christmas Eve to this house known for generations as haunted and a place where murders and suicides abounded. Scully reluctantly agrees, and at home they experience a strange encounter with an elderly couple (Edward Asner - "Lou Grant" and Lily Tomlin - "9 to 5") who may or may not be ghosts...

 

Episode 124

Terms Of Endearment 

Mulder steals an X-File that Agent Spender throws away after a call for help accidentally reaches him, and he sets out to investigate a series of deaths of babies born with strange deformities. Is the father of the babies just a slick insurance agent and a bigamist, or is he the devil himself and the children are the devil's children?

Guest appearance: Bruce Campbell ("Brisco County" and more)

 

Episode 125

Rain King 

On Valentine's Day in Kroner, Kansas, Sheila Fontaine and Daryl Mootz get into an argument. Fontaine had put their engagement news in the paper, but Mootz had wanted to keep it a secret for as long as the drought makes business poor. After the argument, Mootz goes for a drunken drive but crashes after heart-shaped hailstones wreck his car.

Six months later, Mulder and Scully arrive in Kroner by request of the mayor. For several months a terrible drought has plagued the region. However, Mootz, now styling himself as "The Rain King", seems to have the power to control the weather. For a hefty sum, he is able to make it rain. Mulder and Scully obtain a client list and head to the local television station to talk to the weatherman, Holman Hardt. Hardt admits that while Mootz's talents are odd, he appears to truly have the power to control the weather. Mulder and Scully, both skeptical, attend one of Mootz's rituals. Despite their preconceived notions, Mulder and Scully witness Mootz apparently bring rain to a dry farm.

Mulder and Scully check into a motel, where a cow crashes through the roof of Mulder's room. After the incident, a tearful Sheila confesses that the cow might have been her fault. She admits that she's experienced a strange history of weather-related phenomena, and believes that she can unconsciously control the weather. Mulder assures her otherwise. During the conversation, Hardt overhears that Mootz was drunk the night of the accident, and is relieved. Immediately, Mootz's rain powers seem to disappear.

It is revealed that Holman Hardt is actually the one controlling the weather. All of the bizarre weather was the side-effect of his long-silent love for Sheila. He felt guilty that his weather-related problem caused Mootz to crash his car, so he would cause it to rain for Mootz. Once he realized Mootz had been drunk the night of the accident, however, he stopped.

Unfortunately, Mulder begins to unintentionally attract Sheila, resulting in a massive thunderstorm that materializes due to the meteorologist's emotions. At the town's high school reunion, however, Hardt admits his love for Sheila, who accepts him. The storm stops, and Hardt and Sheila live happily ever after.

 

Episode 126

S.R. 119 

The episode opens with Assistant Director Skinner unwell and horribly discolored in hospital. His veins are a sickly purple hue and are pulsating ominously. Suddenly, he goes into cardiac arrest and the doctors pronounce him dead.

Twenty-four hours earlier, Skinner loses a boxing match after experiencing a dizzy spell. While at the hospital, he receives a call on his cell phone from a computerized voice telling him that he has only twenty-four hours to live. He is discharged from the hospital but Mulder and Scully witness a bruise on his ribs growing. After trawling through security footage from the entrance to the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Scully recognizes a physicist named Dr. Kenneth Orgel, who advises a Senate subcommittee on ethics and new technology, and who stopped Skinner in the hall that same morning. Mulder and Skinner travel to Orgel's house but find he is being held hostage. Mulder apprehends one of the kidnappers, who does not speak English. They release him since he has papers showing diplomatic immunity.

Mulder does a background check on the kidnapper, which leads him to Senator Richard Matheson (Raymond J. Barry); this results in a dead end, however. Scully discovers Skinner's blood sample and, after checking, she finds that Skinner's blood contains some sort of multiplying carbon nanotechnology.

Meanwhile, Skinner ends up in hospital following a gunfight in the FBI parking garage. Mulder and Scully reunite at the hospital, where Mulder tells Scully that Skinner was investigating a health funding bill called S.R. 119. Mulder chases a suspicious bearded man, who sent a threatening message to Skinner's phone but escapes. Talking to Scully, Skinner remembers seeing the bearded man at the boxing club, the FBI and the hospital.

Meanwhile, Senator Matheson arrives at an old power plant where Orgel is kept and suffers from the same condition afflicting Skinner. Before Matheson can free him, Orgel dies as the bearded man maximizes the nanotechnological effects via some remote control. Later, Mulder also arrives at the power plant and confronts Matheson. At the hospital, Skinner goes into cardiac arrest but suddenly revives when the bearded man deactivates his remote control.

Later, Mulder and Scully report to Skinner, who is back in good health and claims not to recognize the bearded man. Skinner closes the case, ordering the agents to report exclusively to Assistant Director Kersh. In the final scene, the bearded man appears in Skinner's car and is revealed to have been a disguised Alex Krycek, a rogue FBI agent who formerly worked for the Syndicate, and who continues to control the potentially debilitating nanotechnology in Skinner's body.

 

Episode 127

Tithonhs 

Scully is sent to assist an FBI agent investigating a series of murders involving a police photographer, who claims to have been granted eternal life, and all he wants is to face death and die. Is he telling the truth, or is he guilty of the murders? Mulder participates in the investigation and discovers some surprising facts about the photographer.

Look out for veteran actor Jeffrey Lewis, who has worked often with Clint Eastwood.

 

Episode 128

Two Fathers 

Cassandra Spender unexpectedly returns after a year of absence, with a story that no one believes, not even Mulder, the only person she is willing to talk to. Her son, Agent Spender, has no choice but to cooperate with Mulder in the investigation. He confronts his father, CSM, and when he discovers the truth, he decides to switch sides.

 

Episode 129

One Son 

Mulder and Scully continue their efforts to find Cassandra Spender, who became the first successful human-alien hybrid, and the fate of the entire conspiracy depends on her. Agent Spender's anxiety about his mother's fate causes him to choose a course of action whose results are disastrous for him and for all the conspirators.

 

Episode 130

Aqua Mala 

Arthur Dales, the detective who discovered the X-Files 40 years ago, calls Mulder and Scully to investigate the disappearance of a family during a violent hurricane. Could it be that a sea monster, which rose from the depths because of the storm, is responsible for the disappearance?

 

Episode 131

Monday 

In the tradition of films such as Groundhog Day and 12:01, the girlfriend of a failed bank robber informs Mulder and Scully that they are stuck on a day that repeats itself over and over again, like a needle stuck in a turntable slot, and to turn things around, they must find out what was the cause and change it, otherwise they will all be killed during the bank robbery.

 

Episode 132

Arcadia 

Scully and Mulder, back in the X-Files, pose as a married couple to investigate a series of disappearances in a beautifully manicured and planned neighborhood considered the embodiment of the American dream. Is there a connection between the disappearances and the obsession with the rules and regulations of the chairman of the board of residents and the objects he imports from the Far East?

 

Episode 133

Alpha 

On a freighter in the South Pacific, two Chinese men inspect a crate with an animal inside. When the ship reaches the Port of Los Angeles, the authorities find the two men dead of vicious bite wounds inside the locked crate and the animal missing. After Fox Mulder receives word of the attack from the mysterious Karin Berquist (Melinda Culea), an expert on canine behavior, he and Dana Scully go to investigate the incident on the ship with the help of San Pedro officer Jeffrey Cahn (Thomas F. Duffy). Meanwhile, in Bellflower, California, a man hears his dog barking in the backyard and lets it in the house. He hears another dog in his backyard and chases it off. After returning to his house he finds his pet dead and is attacked by the other dog, a wolflike creature with glowing red eyes.

Mulder and Scully arrive at the port and talk to the man who imported the dog, Dr. Ian Detweiler (Andrew Robinson), a cryptozoologist. Detweiler says the dog is a Wanshang dhole, a species thought to be extinct. The two agents soon receive news of the other attack and, after investigating, Mulder believes the dhole has near-human intelligence. Mulder and Scully visit Berquist, who tells them that the species they are looking for is extinct.

Meanwhile, a dog catcher is chasing a stray through a warehouse when a man enters the building. He promptly transforms into the murderous dhole and attacks the dog catcher. Mulder and Scully arrive at the scene, followed by Berquist, who finds a paw print with five toes.

Later that night, Detweiler arrives at a vet's office to get tranquilizers. The vet goes to the office's kennel area and is attacked by the dhole, but is able to escape and lock the kennel door behind him. The dog catchers arrive and open fire, but the fallen animal turns out to be a Saint Bernard brought there by its owner. While the vet tries to operate on the hurt Saint Bernard, Scully arrives and hears screams coming from the kennels, where she discovers that the vet has been attacked. After Scully leaves, the wounded Saint Bernard on the operating table transforms into the dhole, revealing that it can mimic any shape.

Scully begins to question Berquist's motives, noting that she was the reason Mulder decided to look into this investigation. Mulder, however, begins to suspect Detweiler after learning that he had been at the vet's office; Mulder believes that he is the dhole and is tranquilizing himself in an attempt to stop killing. Mulder asks Cahn to confront Detweiler, but Cahn is attacked and severely injured by the dhole and placed in the hospital. Mulder visits Berquist and says he thinks she has not been honest with him. Berquist reveals that she first suspected Detweiler when she saw him. She also says that he will try to finish off Cahn. Mulder worriedly tells Scully, who remains skeptical.

Later, Berquist hears something in the woods while locking one of the outside kennels at her home. She goes upstairs to retrieve a tranquilizer gun, but when Detweiler, in the guise of the dhole, enters her bedroom to attack her, she sets the gun aside and challenges the dhole. He attacks, causing both of them to fall out of the window behind her. Mulder and Scully arrive and find Detweiler's and Berquist's bodies, the former impaled on a fence spike. Back at the office, Mulder receives a package from Berquist; it is her "I Want to Believe" poster, a replacement for the one he lost in the fire and last seen hanging on her home office wall.

 

Episode 134

Trevor 

Pinker Rawls, a prisoner who was left locked in a crate during a tornado, has gained the unparalleled ability to go through walls and turn metals into powder. When he disappears from the labor camp, Scully and Mulder try to find out what Rawls wants most and are in for a surprise.

 

Episode 135

Milagro 

Mulder has a mysterious new neighbor who claims to be a writer. The new neighbor develops a strange relationship with Scully, with whom he is secretly in love, but Mulder suspects that he is also the mysterious killer who kills lovers and rips out their hearts.

 

Episode 136

The Unnatural 

In this "Was or Wasn't" episode, Arthur Dales, formerly a cop in Roswell, New Mexico (who is the brother of Arthur Dales, discoverer of X-Files, and the brother of a female Arthur Dales...) tells Mulder a story about a great black baseball player, who actually was (or wasn't) an alien.

 

Episode 137

Three Of A Kind 

Byers and his friends, the Lone Gunmen, are trying to save Susan Modesky, the brilliant scientist who was kidnapped ten years before (in the first meeting between Mulder and the Lone Gunmen) whom they have been looking for ever since at every gathering where security and covert operations personnel gather. Scully, believing that Mulder is the one who called her, agrees to help them.

 

Episode 138

Field Trip 

Another "Was or Wasn't" episode in which Mulder and Scully set out to investigate the disappearance of a young couple in an area known for alien landings, and fall victim to a huge (and perhaps predatory) mushroom that secretes a hallucinogenic substance, and are kidnapped (or perhaps not) by the aliens.

 

Episode 139

Biogenesis 

In the final episode of the season, an object found on the coast of West Africa causes a chain of murders and strange phenomena. The scientists differ in their opinions regarding the meaning of the object, and of course Mulder and Scully as well. Was there really a verse from "Genesis" on an object of extraterrestrial origin? And what is the role of Skinner, Agent Paulie, Krycek and CSM in the matter? The object has a particularly severe effect on Mulder, who is hospitalized in a locked psychiatric ward.

 

Episode 140

The Sixth Extintion-A 

Scully continues her investigations in Africa, while Mulder's condition worsens and his doctors are at a loss. Despite this, he manages to contact Skinner and ask for his help, Skinner enlists the help of Michael Krichgau, a former CIA man, despite the objections of agent Diana Pauley, who confesses her love for Mulder. Scully leaves Africa and returns home to Mulder. The mysterious object found on the beach has disappeared.

 

Episode 141

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION-B: Amor Fati 

Mulder's mother accuses his doctors of incompetnce and discharges him from the hospital. Scully receives a surprise visit from Albert Holstein (Native American actor Floyd Red Crow Westerman). Meanwhile, Mulder experiences encounters with several characters from the past, including some who were thought to be dead, such as Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin), and also CSM, who makes Mulder an offer he cannot refuse.

 

Episode 142

Hungrey 

Mulder and Scully investigate a murder at a fast food restaurant, and as usual disagree about the identity of the murder suspect. The investigation puts them on the trail of a man who has a unique hunger.

 

Episode 143

Millenium 

On the eve of the millennium, Mulder and Scully follow a man who exhumes the dead to bring them back to life for the Day of Judgment and the end of days, even though according to Scully, the millennium actually only begins in 2001. They enlist the help of former agent Frank Black (Millennium's Lance Henriksen in a guest appearene) and together they are surprised to discover, like the rest of us, that the sky did not fall with the arrival of the millennium.

 

Episode 144

Rush 

A ten-year-old boy gains superhuman speed that allows him to commit crimes without being caught, but at the heavy price of addiction to thrill and physical destruction. Mulder and Scully try to help another boy who was wrongly accused of one of the crimes, and are disappointed to discover that the thing that gave the boy superhuman speed is a gift that is probably reserved only for teenagers and not for "old men" like them.

 

Episode 145

The Goldberg Variation 

Mulder and Scully are called to investigate an attempted murder in a building belonging to a mobster (actor Rami Zada) and discover that Henry Weems, who survived the attempted murder after falling from a height of 30 floors, is an extremely lucky person - both in cards, in life in general and in love.

 

Episode 146

Orison 

Orison is a charismatic priest in the prison where, among others, Donnie Faster, the man who kidnapped Scully in the episode IRRESISTIBLE (episode 13 in the second season) us doing his time. Mulder and Scully are called to investigate what the connection is between the priest and the mysterious prison breaks, including that of Donnie Paster, who has it in for Scully, in another version of the eternal struggle between good and evil.

 

Episode 147

The Amazing Maleeni 

Malini, a carnival magician, responds to the challenge of a heckler in the audience and is found decapitated. Mulder and Scully investigate how the magician was able to turn his head around 360 degrees, and was it a murder or a magic trick that went wrong, and what was the heckler's part in this.

 

Episode 148

Signs And Wonders 

The body of a man who died from snake bites is found in the car, but without the snakes. Does anyone use the snake, the symbol of original sin, as a murder weapon? And maybe the motive is much more human and earthly? And what is the role of the church whose believers worship snakes?

 

Episode 149

Sein Und Zeit 

Amber Lynn, a 5-year-old girl, disappears from her home under mysterious circumstances and her parents are suspected of murder. In prison sits a woman who was arrested on the charge of murdering her son, who also disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Mulder's mother commits suicide by swallowing pills after learning that Mulder is investigating the children's disappearance. What does all this have to do with Samantha, Mulder's sister, who disappeared so many years ago? The investigation leads Mulder and Scully to a site where many murdered children are buried, but Samantha is not among them, and neither is Amber Lynn.

 

Episode 150

Closure 

The child killer is caught, but does not confess to murdering Samantha or Amber Lynn. Mulder is approached by a man who claims to be a psychic and to be able to help find the missing children who are neither dead nor alive, but it turns out that he also had a child who disappeared under the same mysterious circumstances and is suspected of murdering him. Mulder discovers more information about the circumstances of his sister's disappearance, and about CSM's involvement in the matter, and he comes to terms, to a sense of closure, with Samantha's disappearance.

 

Episode 151

X-Cops 

Mulder and Scully investigate a report of a monster roaming a residential neighborhood and find themselves appearing live on television in a program along the lines of "Police in Action", whose cameramen follow the uniformed police officers who were also called to the scene.

 

Episode 152

First Person Shooter 

A virtual game gets out of control and the three Lone Gunmen, Langley, Frohike and Byers, come again to the aid of Mulder and Scully, who were called to the offices of the company developing the game.

The script, by the way, was written by author William Gibson (Neuromancer).

 

Episode 153

Theef 

Mulder and Scully investigate a case of harassment of the family of a respected doctor. Is it possible that the bully has supernatural powers that allow him to make any person fall ill with the disease of his choice? Things get complicated when it turns out that the bully accuses the respected doctor of murdering his daughter.

 

Episode 154

En Ami 

CSM contacts Scully and claims to have a cure for cancer. As proof of his claim, he takes it to a boy who was miraculously cured of cancer, even though his parents opposed medical treatment for reasons of faith. He tells her that he wants to atone for his wrongdoings before he dies, and his only condition is that Mulder will know nothing. Is he telling the truth, or is this another one of his schemes? The Lone Gunmen come to the rescue.

 

Episode 155

Chimera 

Is it possible that a feeling of betrayal can turn the betrayed woman into a monster who takes revenge on the women with whom her husband had an affair? And what is the part of the carrion-eating crows in the affair? Mulder investigates while Scully sits alone in a stake out investigating an X-File of her own.

 

Episode 156

All Things 

A chance meeting with an old acquaintance causes Scully to take stock and reflect on the path she has chosen in life, while Mulder sets out to investigate an appearance of crop circles in England - which turns out to be a wild goose chase.

 

Episode 157

Hollywood Ad 

A Hollywood producer wants to accompany Mulder and Scully in an X-Files investigation related to a mysterious church text, with the goal of producing a movie based on the investigation. Gary Shandling and Tia Leoni ("The Naked Truth", David Duchovny's real-life wife at the time) play Mulder and Scully in the movie, and the results...

 

Episode 158

Brand X 

In the town of Winston-Salem (Jerusalem) in northern Oregon, the center of the cigarette industry, the Morley company, which produces CSM's brand of cigarettes, conducts experiments on tobacco with devastating results. Could the beetles have turned from tobacco leaves eaters to deadly predators? Mulder and Scully investigate, and Mulder is hit by the beetles.

 

Episode 159

Fight Club 

Lulu and Betty are thw spitting images of each other, although apparently there is no connection between them. For 3 years and across 17 states they chase each other, with each encounter resembling an explosion that releases destructive energy that causes riots and fights and even worse, and the climax comes when they both fall in love with the same man, a semi-professional wrestler, and give a new meaning to the expression "This town is not big enough for both of us". Mulder and Scully investigate the roots of the relationship between the women and discover some surprising facts both about them and about the man they are both in love with.

 

Episode 160

Je Souhaite 

The dream of two brothers turns into a nightmare when a woman claiming to be a genie, as in the stories of the Arabian Nights, grants them three wishes, and the wishes begin to come true. When Mulder is granted three wishes of his own, he has a problem - how to choose the perfect wish.

 

Episode 161

Requiem 

The final episode of the season where we finally return to the stories of conspiracies, abductions and aliens, and meet old enemies and friends (and we are not always sure which is which) - CSM, Krycek, Marita Covarrubias, to name a few, in a story that begins with the investigation of a UFO crash (which as usual everyone is trying to deny and hide) and ends with a very surprising message from Scully.

See you next season!

 

Episode 162

Within 

After Mulder's disappearance, new Deputy Director Kersh puts Agent Doggett (actor Jason Patrick) in charge of the task force, much to the dismay of Scully and Skinner. After disagreements and confrontations, Scully comes to the conclusion that the real target of Mulder's kidnappers is the boy Gibson Praze, who is part alien.

 

Episode 163

Without 

Scully, Skinner and Doggett manage to rescue Gibson Praze from the aliens, after some unpleasant encounters with the alien bounty hunter, who is able to take on any form, including Mulder's or Scully's, but Mulder is still nowhere to be found.

 

Episode 164

Patience 

Scully and Doggett investigate a string of murders committed by a half-bat, half-man creature that has been patiently stalking its victims for 44 years.

 

Episode 165

Roadrunners 

Scully sets out alone to investigate the murder of a young man found in the desert after he was beaten to death and falls into the trap of a mysterious sect of people who have a special way of worshiping God. Doggett goes to the shirt. Not for the faint of heart!

 

Episode 166

Invocation 

A boy who disappeared 10 years ago suddenly returns. The problem is that he hasn't matured by a single day. Scully and Doggett investigate and try to catch the kidnapper before he can harm the boy's brother, who was born after the kidnapping. By the way, we discover more details about Doggett's past.

One of the better episodes of the season (so far)

 

Episode 167

Redrum 

A successful prosecutor is accused of murdering his wife and claims his innocence. No one believes him, because his only proof is his claim that time goes backwards for him. Doggett and Scully investigate and gradually discover the truth about the murder, and meanwhile the prosecutor also has to face a hard truth from his past.

 

Episode 168

Via Negativa 

Dogget and Skinner investigate a murder of members of a cult whose leader believes he has found the "third eye", which allows him to reach a higher level of consciousness and actually separate body and soul, with one in one place and the other in another. Scully can't help, but introduces Doggett to the Lone Gunmen for the first time.

 

Episode 169

Surekill 

In a variation on the familiar detective theme of murder in a locked room, Doggett and Scully investigate how a killer mannnaged to get to his victim while he was locked in a holding cell at a police station. The investigation leads them to a small pest control company where two twins and their beautiful and scheming assistant are partners.

 

Episode 170

Salvage 

The investigation into the death of a scrap yard owner leads Scully and Doggett to a man whose contact with a hazardous substance at the yard caused his blood to turn to metal, and he seeks revenge on those he believes were responsible.

 

Episode 171

Badlaa 

Scully and Doggett investigate the murder of a heavy-set man returning from a trip to India. When they discover that the weight of the victim after his death exceeds his weight in life, the question arises as to whether the killer may have "piggy backed" inside his victim's body. But what is the connection between the murder and the mysterious Siddhis cult of India?

 

Episode 172

The Gift 

The search for Mulder continues, and Skinner and Doggett are called to continue the investigation that Mulder was engaged in before he disappeared under mysterious circumstances. They arrive at a small community whose people hide a creature that has a special gift of its kind - it is able to take the sickness from the sick and death from the dead, as Doggett soon learns on his person. Is there a connection between the creature and the circumstances of Mulder's disappearance?

 

Episode 173

Medusa 

In Boston, an undercover cop waits for the subway, alone. Suddenly, a suspicious man appears, jumping the fare barrier. Eventually, they both get onto a train and the police officer draws his gun as the man starts to walk towards him from behind. Suddenly, the subway comes to a screeching halt, flashes of light are seen, and the train loses power. Later, when the train is back up and running, a group of commuters board the subway car and find the undercover cop with the flesh on half his face and his left arm stripped down to the bone.

Agents Scully and Doggett arrive at the operations center to investigate. However, they are rudely greeted by Deputy Chief Karras and Lieutenant Bianco of the transit police; the two eagerly want the FBI to get the job done fast so that the system can be reopened in time for the evening rush hour, and Karras is also irritated that Scully performed an autopsy on the body. Even after an autopsy, Scully has no idea what killed the man, and the CDC is unable to find any biological or chemical agents in the subway.

Doggett and Scully are soon introduced to a strike force that will be going into the subway to investigate. The group includes Steven Melnick, a structural engineer, and Dr. Hellura Lyle, a CDC employee specializing in pathogens. Scully, however, decides the plan will work better if Doggett acts as her eyes and ears while she analyzes the situation from up in the Transit Control Center. Using cameras and microphones, she will watch and hear what is happening. After the plans are made, Doggett leads the team into the dark tunnel.

While in the tunnels, Melnick gets a burn on the back of his neck suggesting a chemical leak. However, the test of the nearby puddle shows nothing dangerous: it is just salt water. Melnick mentions that the tunnels run along the harbor in some places and that they get sea water leakages from time to time. Moving ahead, the team finds an abandoned section of subway tunnel. Out of the tunnel bursts a man with his rib cage and teeth exposed who knocks Doggett down: he is the suspected robber, eaten away like the other man. His condition proves that he did not kill the man and that there may, in fact, be a contagion. While looking around, the teams discover three bodies with the same gruesome injuries, wrapped in plastic. It soon becomes clear that someone is covering up the problem in the subway.

Lyle spots an unknown person running away from them in the subway and the team follows. When the group approaches the spot where the train lost power, Melnick starts crying out in pain. Visible electrical flashes start destroying the skin on his left arm. Scully tells Doggett to pour water on it, which stops the flashes. Lyle takes the badly injured Melnick to the surface and Doggett continues onward with Bianco. When Melnick returns to the surface, he seems to be getting worse, but Lyle appears healthy. Scully then sees the three bodies being taken away by non-CDC hazmat people. When Scully confronts Karras about this, he says that he is organizing it. Scully tells Karras that she has already organized the CDC to collect the bodies and accuses Karras of attempting a cover-up. Although Karras tries to deny his involvement, he eventually allows her to send the bodies to the actual CDC.

Back in the tunnels, Doggett notices a green glow on Bianco in a dimly lit former subway station. As such, he refuses to allow the lieutenant to leave. Bianco runs away, forcing Doggett to give chase. He learns from Scully that Karras has gone ahead of plan and allowed the system to resume operation, despite the danger. After analyzing various water samples found at the scene, Scully meets with Dr. Kai Bowe, a marine biologist, who explains that the sample contains a unique microscopic sea creature called a medusa which are made out of calcium and are bioluminescent. However, Bowe does not know why the electrical reaction happens. When Doggett finds the wounded Bianco, he finds that his condition has gotten worse. Doggett then carries Bianco on his back and helps him continue through the tunnels. They soon encounter a boy with no signs of the luminous green substance on him. Scully realizes that sweat is causing the chemical electrical reaction since it is conductive to calcium ions. The boy does not have well developed sweat glands yet so the medusas are not affecting him. Doggett follows the boy to a major leak from the bay with the green glow on all the walls. Suddenly, an oncoming train approaches the group. Doggett uses Bianco's gun as an electrical conductor from the third rail to the electrolytic water, killing the medusas and preventing further exposure.

Later, Scully comes to see Doggett in the hospital. She informs him that Bianco and Melnick are with plastic surgeons, the boy has been given to social services, and no criminal charges will be pressed against Karras since the electrical discharge from the third rail destroyed the proof of the medusas in the tunnel.

 

Episode 174

Per Manum 

Pregnant Kathy McCready is undergoing an emergency caesarean. As her husband prepares, the ward is locked down, and the child delivered is seen to be an alien.

FBI special agents Doggett and Scully meet Duffy Haskell (Jay Acovone), who tells them about his wife - a multiple-abductee who he believes was killed by her doctors upon giving birth to an alien child. He also describes how his wife's cancer was both caused and cured by her abductors. Duffy refers the agents to Zeus Genetics in Maryland, and shows them an ultrasound scan that seems to vindicate his story. As the agents leave, Doggett notes similarities between the case and Scully's history, although he does not yet know that she is pregnant. In a flashback, Mulder tells Scully that her abduction has rendered her infertile, as her ova were harvested for genetic experiments. Mulder later found them in a secret facility, but they were not viable.

At Zeus Genetics, Scully overhears a pregnant woman, Mary Hendershot (Saxon Trainor), who is telling her doctor that she no longer wants to be under his care. In order to avoid being seen, Scully hides in a storeroom, finding it full of preserved fetuses that resemble the alien child born earlier, but she is discovered by a Dr. Lev. Scully leaves and phones her Doctor, Dr. Parenti, who unbeknownst to Scully is dissecting an alien fetus, and asks him to compare her ultrasound scan with the one given to her earlier. Later, while waiting to be attended to by Parenti, she has another flashback, recalling the time she sought a second opinion about her ova from Parenti and was told that her ova might be viable with a sperm donor. In the present, she is called in to be attended to, and she is then assured her scans are in order. Later, Skinner and Doggett confront Duffy about threatening letters he has sent to both Mulder and Lev. However, when the agents leave, Duffy makes a phone call to Lev, warning him that they are being investigated. In another flashback, Scully asks Mulder to be the donor, to which he happily agrees.

Scully is warned by Mary that their unborn children are in danger. Scully meets Doggett and Skinner, having requested a leave of absence from the FBI. After Doggett leaves, Skinner tries to convince Scully to reveal her pregnancy to him but she does not. Scully and Mary visit an army research hospital to have Mary's labor induced. Whilst Mary is being prepped for the operation, Scully asks to have an ultrasound performed on herself. The scan appears normal, but afterwards Scully realizes the monitor they were watching was actually a video of another woman's scan. Realizing they have been tricked, Scully finds Mary and the two sneak out of the exam room.

Meanwhile Doggett discovers that Duffy's fingerprints belong to a man who died thirty years previously. Doggett contacts an old military partner, Knowle Rohrerer (Adam Baldwin) to find his real identity.

Although Rohrerer assures Doggett he will investigate, the agent is not convinced, believing that Duffy is a CIA agent. Doggett confides this to Skinner, who tells him to aid Scully at the military hospital. As Scully and Mary sneak out of the building, they are found by Rohrerer and several marines, claiming Doggett has sent them to rescue her. The women are driven away, but Mary enters labor and it becomes clear to Scully that Rohrerer is not acting with good intentions. Scully is knocked out with drugs by Rohrerer. When she wakens, Doggett informs her that Mary's baby was delivered and is normal. However, Scully is convinced the baby was swapped out, but nothing more can be done about it. In another flashback, Scully tells Mulder that her attempt at in vitro fertilization has failed, but he tells her to "never give up on a miracle".

 

Episode 175

This Is Not Happening 

In Helena, Montana, Richie Szalay is chasing a UFO. As the UFO stops, it dumps a naked woman and cloaks itself. The woman is later revealed to be Theresa Hoese, who was abducted at the same time as Mulder, Skinner, Doggett and Scully visit Theresa in the hospital to get information about Mulder's whereabouts.

Later in a motel, the agents interrogate Richie, whose friend Gary had been abducted just before Mulder; he was investigating UFO reports in Montana in an attempt to find him. Doggett reports that fresh footprints from Nike shoes were noted in the area Theresa was found, making Doggett skeptical about Richie's claims. Meanwhile, Jeremiah Smith has assumed the form of a doctor and arranges for Theresa to be transferred. Having learned of Theresa's disappearance, Doggett calls Agent Monica Reyes. Reyes assists in the investigation, believing that Mulder may have joined a UFO cult. In a derelict compound, Smith cures Theresa of her injuries, as observed by a man called Absalom.

Reyes' car stalls just before she sees a UFO. Stopping, she sees Smith and Absalom taking a body; she also finds Gary's body. Reyes is able to retrieve the license plate number on the truck used to kidnap the abductee. It is later revealed that it belongs to Absalom, real name Travis Clayton Moberly, the leader of a doomsday cult. The FBI storms the cult's compound and arrests Absalom, but Smith is not found. Absalom tells Scully and Doggett that he has been saving abductees who had been left for dead by the aliens. Examining video of the compound raid, Scully, Reyes and Doggett watch Smith step through a doorway and transform into Doggett. Doggett is stunned, and

the agents realize that Smith is still in the compound.

Scully runs into the compound and, identifying Smith by his Nike shoes, tells him she knows who he is and what he's doing. She is distracted when Skinner tells her they've found Mulder's body in the woods. Scully sees Mulder's lifeless body and races back to the compound hoping that Smith can heal him, but a UFO directs a beam of light into the room where he is being held; when she enters the room, he is gone. Distraught, Scully yells, "This is not happening!", and weeps.

 

Episode 176

Deadalive 

Three months after Mulder's funeral, surprising facts are revealed about the circumstances surrounding the return of other abductees. Skinner opens Mulder's grave, despite Doggett's objections, and wonder of wonders, Mulder is still alive. But barely. Scully fights to find the right way of treatment. Krycek's intervention forces Skinner to make a difficult decision, but it turns out that this decision was the right one for Mulder.

 

Episode 177

Three Words 

A man tries to break into the White House claiming that he wants to give the president vital information about an alien invasion and is killed by security personnel. Absalom, who claims to be able to rescue abductees, esscapes of prison and kidnaps Doggett demanding his help to obtain the information, which is held in a well-kept database of the census bureau. Absalom is also killed by security guards, and Mulder breaks into the database with the help of the three Gunmen. Will they be able to reveal the truth this time?

 

Episode 178

Empedocles 

A man who was fired from his job finds himself at the scene of an accident where the man suspected of murdering Doggett's son was killed. He then murders the persons who fired him, and another woman who got in his way. Is the killer's evil a contagious disease that passes from person to person and from time to time? Reyes is convinced of this and enlists Mulder's aid. Doggett rejects Mulder's help, but Scully, who is hospitalized due to problems with her pregnancy, convinces Mulder to help Doggett and Reyes anyway.

 

Episode 179

Vienen 

The investigation of the death of an oil worker brings Doggett and Mulder to cooperate as much as possible when they are trapped on an offshore drilling rig where all but two of its crew are infected with the "black oil" virus. In the meantime, Scully conducts her own investigation to find out why exactly those two workers were not infected, and confronts Deputy Director Kersh, who demands that she stop the investigation due to pressure from the oil company that owns the facility.

 

Episode 180

Alone 

Scully goes on maternity leave and Doggett gets a new partner, young and enthusiastic and incredibly knowledgeable about Mulder and Scully exploits. When the two of them go out together to investigate a murder involving a new species of reptile, Scully is forced to stop her maternity leave and rescue Doggett, along with Mulder who has been dismissed from the FBI but does not let this fact prevent him from interfering in the investigation.

 

Episode 181

Essence 

While preparing for Scully's baby shower, her mother Margaret (Sheila Larken) invites a woman named Lizzy Gill to help Scully around her apartment. Unbeknownst to Scully, Gill tampers with her pregnancy medication. Meanwhile, Billy Miles (Zachary Aynsley), satisfied with the research conducted at Zeus Genetics, kills the head scientist, Dr. Lev, and burns the laboratory. All of the evidence at Zeus Genetics is destroyed, including the viable hybrid fetus. Mulder informs Doggett of the fire, and asks to go along to survey the crime scene. Mulder reveals that Lev is connected to Scully's former obstetrician, Dr. Parenti. While searching Parenti's office, the agents find another storage room containing hybrid fetuses. They confront Parenti, who denies everything.

Back at Scully's apartment, Gill leaves for the day. She gets into a car driven by Duffy Haskell, and tells him she thinks Scully trusts her. At the lab, Agent Crane derides Doggett for dealing with Mulder. Mulder and Doggett head back to Parenti's office, during which time Miles appears and decapitates Parenti. As they enter Parenti's office, they confront Miles - Mulder is thrown through a glass barrier while Doggett shoots him several times with no apparent effect. While Mulder and Doggett are distracted, Miles escapes. The two go to Scully's house to regroup. Gill overhears and contacts Haskell, who is at an illegal human cloning facility. At the other end, Haskell is also decapitated by Miles.

As Doggett, Mulder, and Skinner survey Haskell's murder scene, Scully catches Gill in the act of tampering with her medication. Later, Gill confesses that she, along with Haskell and others, have been monitoring Scully's pregnancy as part of the alien colonists' plans. However, she tells the agents that Scully's baby is a perfect human child with no human weaknesses. Mulder, fearing for Scully's safety, prepares to take her away. Doggett and Crane receive a call from Miles claiming to surrender, but this turns out to be a distraction. Miles instead goes after Scully, just as she and Mulder escape. As Miles is about to catch Mulder and Scully, Alex Krycek runs him over and takes them to Doggett and Skinner, just before Miles gets back up.

Krycek states that Miles is one of a new type of aliens that are trying to wipe out humanity's ability to survive the invasion - including Scully's baby, which Krycek states is a special child that the aliens fear. Mulder tells Doggett to send for help. Monica Reyes arrives as Miles shows up at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Scully is able to sneak out of the building with the help of Krycek, Doggett and Reyes. Mulder and Skinner, meanwhile, lead Miles to the roof, where Mulder pushes him off into a waiting garbage truck, which then compacts him. Scully and Reyes pull away. The episode ends with Crane pointing them to safety, then turning around, revealing to the camera that he is a Super Soldier.

 

Episode 182

Existence 

A metal box containing the remains of Billy Miles is brought to a coroner. The coroner examines it and notices what appears to be a metal vertebra. After he leaves the room, the metal vertebra begins to spin, growing into what looks like the beginnings of a metallic spine.

In Assistant Director Walter Skinner's office, a surveillance video shows Billy Miles leaving the morgue alive and well. Questioned by Skinner and Mulder and Doggett, Alex Krycek reveals that Miles is a "new type of alien replacement agent" and there are others like him. Doggett is called out of the office on behalf of his source Knowle Rohrerer, who claims that Miles is part of a secret military project to create "super soldiers" and that Scully had a chip put in the back of her neck during her abduction to make her pregnant with the first organic version of a super soldier.

Suddenly, Miles appears at the FBI headquarters. Sensing this, Krycek tries to escape with Skinner in pursuit, but as they manage to escape in an elevator, Miles' hand breaks through the elevator door, injuring Skinner and knocking him unconscious. At the hospital, Doggett relates Rohrerer's claims to Mulder, who rejects the story, and the two agents set out to find out how trustworthy Rohrerer really is. As they observe the FBI garage, they see Krycek and Rohrerer arriving in a car. Doggett covertly pursues Rohrerer and sees him meet with FBI Agent Crane. After learning of this, Mulder believes that Crane gave Krycek access to the FBI. Suddenly, Krycek smashes through the car window and crushes Mulder's phone. Krycek threatens Mulder with a gun, but is disarmed and eventually shot dead by Skinner. Doggett confronts Rohrerer and Crane but ends up being chased by the two. The pursuit ends violently with Crane being run over and Rohrerer crashing his car into the garage wall, going up in flames. Both men are presumed dead but later disappear.

Meanwhile, Scully and Monica Reyes have arrived in Georgia at the abandoned town to hide Scully and her unborn child. They are detected by a female trooper, who agrees to bring them supplies for the birth. At night, Miles attacks the hideout but is shot by the trooper. Scully goes into labor, while a revived Miles and other alien Super Soldiers surround the house. The trooper, revealed to be another Super Soldier, exclaims: "This baby will be born!" Monica Reyes helps Scully deliver an apparently normal baby, with the Super Soldiers witnessing the birth in a cold stare. Without explanation, the aliens leave the area as Mulder arrives.

At FBI Headquarters, Doggett and Reyes report to an enraged Deputy Director Kersh, who objects to Doggett co-opting Reyes to the X-Files without his permission. Doggett retorts by informing Kersh that he is himself under investigation after a late-night meeting between him, Rohrerer and Crane. Mulder visits Scully and her baby, William, at her apartment. After marveling over the baby and discussing recent events, the two share a long, passionate kiss.

 

Episode 183

Nothing Important Happened Today I 

In the first episode of the ninth (and very last) season, Mulder disappears again, and Scully fears for her baby, despite her insistence that he is completely normal. Doggett and Reyes confront Kersh and his henchmen, including Reyes's former suitor (actor Cary Elwes), who do everything to thwart the investigation against them. They are helped by Skinner, who at first gives them an explicit order to stop the investigation, the three Lone Gunmen, who were dismissed from their spin off series, also come to the rescue. And all this against the background of a series of murders of Doggett's friends from the army, by a human being who has adapted to life in the water (in the form of the larger-than-life Lucy Lawless, AKA the unforgettable "Xena").

 

Episode 184

Nothing Important Happened Today II 

And as usual in the series, we discover that things are never as they seem. Is Shannon McMahon telling Doggett the truth or trying to set him up? Is she part of the new conspiracy revealed in the previous episode, or is she trying to find out the truth? And is it possible that Kersh is trying to help Doggett? And is Brad Fulmer trying to help Monica Reyes? And what is the secret of Scully's baby? And the question of questions - where is Mulder? And if you think you will get answers...

 

Episode 185

D Monicus 

Scully has accepted a position as forensic science a lecturer at FBI academy, but this does not prevent her from helping Doggett and Reyes investigate a series of murders allegedly committed by a Satanist. But is the suspect really a Satan worshipper, just an impostor, or maybe Satan himself? Doggett refuses to believe the latter possibility, but Reyes has no doubts, and Scully's scientific evidence are supposed to tip the scales.

 

Episode 186

4-D 

Doggett and Reyes are ambushed by a particularly stealthy killer, Doggett is shot and Rice is the prime suspect. Rice moved house and Doggett cames bearing a housewarming gift. Could it be that both events happened at the same time? Or did the killer find a way to move between parallel universes? Scully and Skinner come to Reyes' aid.

 

Episode 187

Lord Of The Flies 

A boy who is part of a group of particularly silly stunts enthusiasts is killed while performing a stunt. When the examination reveals that he was killed by particularly violent insects. An arrogant entomologist who is immediately drawn to Scully is called in for help. Together with her, he reveals details about the violent insects that attacked the boy, while Reyes and Doggett reveal the secret of another boy, who has a strange connection between him and the insects.

 

Episode 188

Trust No 1 

Scully exchanges emails with Mulder who has gone underground, and receives a surprising offer - information that will allow Mulder to expose the super soldiers chasing him and return home safely. But can the source of the information be trusted? Doggett and Reyes object, but Scully has no choice. Even if Mulder doesn't return In the end (at least not in this episode), at least now he knows that super soldiers can be destroyed.

 

Episode 189

John Doe 

Doggett finds himself incarcerated in a Mexican prison, in a town where the police are under the control of the drug cartel. He suffers from memory loss, and can't even remember his name, how he got there and how he lost his memory. Scully, Rhys, and Skinner come to the rescue, and Kersh sabotages again.

In this episode we learn a little about Doggett and the past trauma that haunts him.

 

Episode 190

Hellbound 

What is the common denominator between the murders that took place in 1868, 1909, 1960 and 2001, apart from the fact that all the victims were skinned alive? Could this be reincarnation? And what is Reyes's part in the matter? And what does the killer know that Reyes doesn't? With the help of Scully and Doggett, she tries to find the answers.

Guest appearence by Don Swayze (brother of...)

 

Episode 191

Provenance (1) 

An investigation of an illegal border crossing leads to the discovery of another attempt to kill Scully's baby, and this time one of the killers is an undercover detective sent to infiltrate a cult of UFO enthusiasts (or freaks) in Canada. Did the cult members really find a spaceship similar to the one Scully found on the coast of Africa? And what is the connection between them and the baby? Scully recruits the three lone gunmen, but will they be able to help?

 

Episode 192

Providence (2) 

Reyes and Scully manage to uncover the kidnappers of Scully's baby with the help of information given to them by the undercover agent who tried to assassinate the baby in Scully's home. The kidnappers, members of a cult that believes that the aliens are the sons of God and that Scully's son is destined to be their leader, offer Scully a deal - the release of the baby in exchange for proof that Mulder is dead. Of course, Scully refuses. Fulmer points out to Kersh about anomalies in the investigation report of the agent's death at the hospital. But a new "villain" enters the picture, who probably also belongs to the group of super soldiers, and will be referred to below as "the toothpick man".

 

Episode 193

Audrey Pauley 

Reyes gets into an accident and is hospitalized. She is diagnosed as brain dead and the doctor informs Scully and Doggett that she has signed an organ donor card and all the preparations have already been made for her organs to be removed and transplanted. Scully accepts the evil of the decree (out of an unshakable faith in doctors, but rather puzzling, after all her encounters with doctors of various kinds...) but Doggett strongly opposes and refuses to believe that Rice is indeed dead. An encounter with a strange and eccentric woman, Audrey Foley, who lives in her own alternate world, causes him to start an investigation that reveals a murderous plot by one of the hospital's doctors.

Note the similarity to the plot of the movie Coma.

 

Episode 194

Underneath  

In a story very reminiscent of the mythological "Twin Peaks" (even the killer's name has not been changed), new DNA evidence vindicates a convicted murderer. Doggett, who arrested the murderer along with his accomplice 13 years before, embarks on a fight to prevent the murderer's release. Scully agrees Help, but how do you deal with the DNA evidence? And perhaps Rice's explanation, that this is an extreme type of split personality, is the correct one. Or in other words, how do you catch a murderer hiding in the body of an innocent person?

 

Episode 195

Scary Monsters 

Agent Layla Harrison, die-hard fan of Mulder and Scully's and well-versed in all the X-Files ins and outs (as we learned in the episode "Alone"), asks for Scully's help in investigating what she claims is an X-File. Scully brushes her off and she turns to Doggett and Reyes, and the three of them set off to investigate what begins as a fear for the safety of a cute boy and ends with them being trapped in a desolate, monster-infested house. But where do the monsters come from and who does danger really represent? The truth is revealed thanks to the scientific work of Scully and the lack of imagination of Doggett, who proves, in the style of Stephen King, that the real evil is within us and all the monsters of all kinds are only tangible embodiments of it.

Pay attention to the child who says I MADE THIS - this is the sentence that is heard in the voice of a child against the background of the end credits in all episodes of the series.

 

Episode 196

Improbable 

Rice's dabbling in numerology puts her on the trail of a serial killer who murders women in threes, but what is his true serial pattern? And who will his next victim be? Despite Scully's foernsic evidence and Doggett's unreserved support, the killer manages to escape from Reyes and Scully, but a surreal encounter with an eccentric type, a lover of music and games, puts them on the right path, but what exactly is his part in the affair?

Pay attention to a very cool performance by veteran star Burt Reynolds, charming as ever but still refusing to say goodbye to the hairpiece, and to a particularly surreal ending scene.

 

Episode 197

Jump The Shark 

Maurice Fletcher ("The Man in Black", an employee of "Area 51" who, as you recall, switched identities with Mulder in the double episode "Dreamland", and was responsible for Mulder's apartment finally having a bed...) offers Doggett and Reyes a deal - information about a super soldier in exchange for protection. The information in his hands seems dubious to them at first, and they turn to the help of the three Lone Gunmen, the conspiracy theorists. When it turns out that the alledged "super soldier" is an old friend of the three, they agree to help.

In this episode, the plots of the three lone gunmen reach their tragic climax (why, why?!) when in a final act of heroism, they save the world from a plot to spread a deadly virus. Their independent series was also finally dropped after only one season. RIP!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in my opinion, this is an unprecedented televised event - heroes of a cancelled series die in another series. But since these are the X-Files, we may still be in for some surprises...

 

Episode 198

William 

The countdown for the Mulder's return begins!

A mysterious man, whose entire body is scarred with severe burns, breaks into the X-Files offices and is captured by Doggett. He is only willing to talk to Scully, and he says that he is also one of the victims of the conspiracy that forced Mulder to flee for his life. He is taken for medical tests, and Doggett raises the possibility That the man is nothing but Mulder in his own right, but Scully refuses to believe it, despite the scientific evidence. The man claims His severe burns were caused by an injection of a chemical meant to turn him into an alien. He manages to inject William, Scully's baby, with some substance, and then it is revealed that the man is actually Agent Jeffrey Spender, the son of the cigarette smoker (or not) and Mulder's half-brother (or not). ), but did he intend to harm the baby or save him? Scully is not ready to take a chance and she makes the difficult decision of her life.

David Duchovny co-wrote the script and even directed this episode.

 

Episode 199

Release 

A cadet at the FBI academy, an apprentice of Scully, discovers incredible skills in solving crimes. One of these crimes is the murder of Luke Doggett, the son of Agent Doggett. Scully and Reyes doubt the cadet's version, but try to help. When the cadet's true identity is revealed, the relationship between the killer and Assistant Principal Fulmer is revealed, and Fulmer's dark secret is also revealed. The Luke Doggett murder mystery finally gets to be solved (unlike other mysteries that have been waiting to be solved for nine seasons...)

Note, by the way, what name the screenwriters gave the cadet - Rudolph Hayes...

 

Episode 200

Sunshine Days 

What is the connection between the two deaths that happened in the strange house, which seems to have been taken from the filming location of the famous series "The Brady Bunch", and its even stranger resident, who is endowed with miraculous powers? While Rhys and Scully show an amazing knowledge of the mythological series, Doggett chooses to go "by the book". Together, they gradually discover the man's tragic secret and manage to help him open a new page in his life, not before both Doggett and Skinner get to experience on their bodies the influence of the man's powers.

By the way, in this episode the background is already being prepared for Mulder's return, and Scully proves that she knows how to count - she states that this is the 200th case she has investigated since arriving at the "X-cases".

 

Episode 201

The Truth (1) 

He's back, he's back, he's back!

Mulder was captured while infiltrating a top-secret military facility (are there any others?). He is accused of killing Noel Rohrer, the "super soldier" and Doggett's former Marine buddy. He is on trial for murder in a special military court. The president of the court is Keresh, and in the composition sits the mysterious "man with the toothpicks", the only one Keresh is afraid of. The list of witnesses testifying in Mulder's favor is very long - Marita Cobrovias, Gibson Fries, Jeffrey Spender, and much more. The Indians, descendants of the Ansazi tribe, who are hiding Gibson Fries, also come to the rescue. Ghosts from the past of the series drop by for a visit (Krycek, X and more...) and some of them are surprising in their behavior. But the trial is just a show, and all the efforts of Skinner, who is acting as a defense attorney, to present evidence of the conspiracy of the super-soldiers are in vain, and this despite the fact that Rohrer's body has not been found. Mulder himself refuses to testify and reveal what he found in breaking into the secret facility, despite the pleas of Skinner, Scully, Doggett and Rice. He wants to turn the murder trial into the trial of truth.

During the trial we finally get answers to some of the nagging questions of the series, but many more questions remain unanswered.

In the role of the prosecutor - veteran actor William Devine

The secret facility is very reminiscent of Stargate's Mount Cheyenne facility from both the exterior and the interior. Could it be that they used the same location for the exterior shots?

Note the quote from The Silence of the Lambs (and also the amazing similarity between agents Starling and Scully) …

 

Episode 202

The Truth (2) 

Mulder's trial continues, and with it the parade of witnesses testifying on his behalf, this time it's the turn of Gibson Praze, Doggett and Reyes. The ghosts continue to appear, and the the three Lone Gunmen are also present and accounted for. Mulder himself persists in his refusal to testify. Even the proof that Scully brings that the "body" alledgedly found is not Rohrer's doesn't help. Mulder is sentenced to death, but gets help from a most unexpected source.

Doggett and Reyes try to protect Gibson Praze but discover that someone beat them to it and removed all the X-Files. Kersh and Skinner enter the Toothpick Man's office and do not leave. Mulder and Scully reach the Indians, who have kept the terrible secret for more than 2000 years, followed by Doggett and Reyes. There, Mulder discovers the truth about the person who sent him to break into the secret military facility, AKA our old friend CSM, who has also found refuge with the Indians. After a final showdown with the super soldier Rohrer that ends in his destruction by the mysterious metal, the Indian village is destroyed, and CSM is killed (hopefully this time for good...) Mulder and Scully escape together and find refuge in Roswell, New Mexico (where else?), where they await the fatal date set for the alien invasion back in Mayan times, December 23rd, 2012. Now all that remains is to wait and see...

In the series "Dark Skies" by the way, the date was the millennium; How lucky that it is already behind us... In the series "The First Wave", on the other hand, the date was determined according to the prophecies of Nostradamus.

Mulder and Scully's exploits are over and done. To be continued (maybe) in the second movie...

 

Movie II

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008) 

 

 

Episode 203

My Struggle 

Thirteen years after the original series run, the next mind-bending chapter of the thrilling series THE X-FILES has arrived. Mulder and Scully have been contacted by Tad O'Malley, a popular conspiracy theorist web-TV show host who believes he has uncovered a significant government conspiracy. With the assistance of FBI Asst. Dir. Walter Skinner, O'Malley seeks to enlist the help of former X-Files Mulder and Scully, who have since severed ties with the FBI. Through O'Malley they are introduced to Sveta, a possible alien abductee who shares shocking information with them that will challenge everything that Mulder has ever believed about the existence of aliens and the government's role in covering them up.

 

Episode 204

Founder's Mutation 

When a scientist suddenly kills himself, Mulder and Scully's investigation leads to a laboratory where extreme genetic experimentation has been breeding subjects with dangerous powers.

 

Episode 205

Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster 

Witnesses claim a strange creature was responsible for killing a person in the woods; Mulder confronts some of his own demons.

 

Episode 206

Home Again 

Mulder and Scully are sent to investigate the murder of a city official, which seems like no human was able to commit. Meanwhile, Scully deals with a personal tragedy, which brings up many old feelings about the child she gave away for adoption

 

Episode 207

Babylon 

When an art gallery that's showing potentially offensive artwork is bombed, Mulder and Scully seek some way to communicate with the comatose bomber in order to prevent a future attack. Meanwhile, a pair of younger on the case push Mulder and Scully to examine their own beliefs as Scully seeks answers from neuroscience and Mulder from mysticism.

 

Episode 208

My Struggle II 

The investigations that Mulder and Scully previously began with conspiracy theorist and web-TV show host Tad O'Malley seem to have awakened powerful enemies. A widespread panic begins as people all over the country suddenly start falling gravely ill, and Scully must look within to try and find a cure. Meanwhile, Mulder confronts the man whom he believes to be behind it all, but another figure from Mulder and Scully's past may prove to be the key to their salvation.

 

Episode 209

My Struggle III 

Picking up after the lastest cliffhangers of the season, Mulder and Scully learn that they aren't the only ones desperately searching for their long-lost son, William. The very fate of the world may depend on it.

 

Episode 210

This 

An old friend reaches out to Mulder and Scully in a seemingly impossible way, revealing a chilling secret.

 

Episode 211

Plus One 

A spate of deaths, in which the victims were plagued by their own doppelgangers, lead Mulder and Scully to a pair of twins playing a dangerous game.

 

Episode 212

The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat 

Exploring the idea of The Mandela Effect, in which large groups of people remember an alternate history, Mulder and Scully find out how the X-Files themselves may really have originated.

 

Episode 213

Ghouli 

When a pair of teenage girls attack one another, each believing the other to be a monster, Mulder and Scully find that their investigation could possibly lead back to their long-lost son, William.

 

Episode 214

Kitten 

Skinner goes AWOL when his past comes back to haunt him. As Mulder and Scully try to track him down, their growing mistrust of him reaches its apex.

 

Episode 215

Rm9sbG93ZXJz 

A voiceover recounts over a visual montage how, in 2016, a machine learning chatbot, released to the public via Twitter by a major software corporation, was shut down within a day after the bot, designed to copy and learn from human interactions, began posting racist and hateful messages; the narration ends with a warning that humans must take responsibility for the behaviour of AI.

Mulder and Scully visit a fully automated sushi restaurant, Forowā (cod-Japanese for “Follower"), but are preoccupied with their smartphones. Mulder receives a blobfish instead of the sushi he ordered but finds there is no-one to complain to, as there are no human staff and all the chefs are robots. Mulder refuses to leave a tip, but finds his credit card has become stuck in the payment slot. Mulder tries to use force to remove his card, but instead causes the restaurant to start shutting down. Scully manages to open the door with a chopstick but Mulder is forced to leave his card behind.

Mulder and Scully return home separately, Scully taking an automated taxicab that begins speeding alarmingly. Both agents are bombarded with automated notifications from services they have used. Scully tries to call Mulder but cannot get a connection and is billed $250 when her home security system rejects her password. She unexpectedly receives a drone-delivered robotic vacuum cleaner but finds it too frustrating to use. Scully’s automated appliances begin to malfunction, gas begins to flow out of her fireplace, and the lights go out.

Mulder attempts to cancel his credit card and spots a drone spying on him. Presuming the operator to be a nosy child, he demands they stop before eventually breaking it with a baseball bat. Larger drones appear and retrieve the remains, and hundreds of tiny drones break into his home, forcing him to flee.

Mulder arrives at Scully’s house but finds it has locked itself. Scully, smelling gas, breaks a screen door to escape just as the robotic vacuum cleaner runs over a dropped match and causes an explosion. Unable to call 911 on their phones and chased by drones, the agents attempt to flee, discarding their phones and other traceable electronics. They take shelter in a warehouse that turns out to be filled with quadrupedal robots and are ultimately cornered by a robot which returns Mulder’s phone. Confronted with Forowā’s tip screen, Mulder belatedly tips the restaurant 10%, causing the machines to retreat and their devices to stop harassing them.

The next morning, Mulder and Scully have breakfast in a human-operated diner, paying with paper money, and ultimately putting their phones aside, sitting in contemplation and holding hands.

 

Episode 216

Familiar 

At a park in Eastwood, Connecticut, a little boy named Andrew sings a theme song from a children's show while playing with his "Mr. Chuckleteeth" toy. While Andrew's mother, Diane, is distracted by a phone call, the boy spots a life-sized version of Mr. Chuckleteeth meandering in the forest. When she turns around, Andrew has disappeared. As Diane frantically searches for the boy, Andrew has followed Mr. Chuckleteeth into the forest. A few hours later, a group of police investigators, including Andrew’s father Rick, discover Andrew's mangled corpse.

Because the killing of a law enforcement officer's child puts the case under FBI jurisdiction, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate. While Mulder initially suggests that the culprit could be a coywolf or, more exotically, a hellhound, Scully observes during the boy's autopsy that the neck injuries which killed the boy were most consistent with being shaken to death; she suggests a profile of a serial offender. Mulder finds a substance resembling sand or salt on the boy's ankle. While the town gathers to mourn the death of the boy, Mulder goes to the house of Chief Strong, head of the local police. Mulder notes they have several books on the town's history, which includes witchcraft trials. He interviews the chief's daughter Emily, who was with Andrew at the park. Emily tells Mulder and her mother Anna that she saw Mr. Chuckleteeth in the forest before Andrew was killed.

Back at the police department, Rick searches the sex offender database and finds a man named Melvin Peter. When Scully and Chief Strong look for Rick, they spot him racing away in a patrol car. Chief Strong and Scully chase after him. Rick reaches Peter's house and breaks in, brandishing a gun. Mulder, Scully, and Chief Strong find that Peter is not home, but discover numerous pictures of Peter performing as a clown at children’s parties. Peter's closet contains a caged monkey, clown costumes, and a Mr. Chuckleteeth mask and shoes. Meanwhile, Emily is lured outside her house by a character from one of her children's programs standing on her lawn. She is later found dead, murdered in the same manner as Andrew. Mulder notices a salt circle around the body, suggesting use of witchcraft.

When Peter returns to the neighborhood, Rick attacks him. Mulder confronts Chief Strong and forces him to admit that he has been unfaithful to his wife, knows witchcraft is involved and that Peter is not their suspect. At the park, a crowd gathers to watch Rick brutally beat Peter, who denies killing the children. The police arrive and try to disperse the mob; when they fail, Mulder fires his gun into the air. Rick is taken off of Peter, but suddenly pulls his service weapon and shoots Peter in the head. After Rick is put on bail, he goes home to confront Diane about an affair she had with Chief Strong. Diane leaves the house and drives to a freeway. There, she runs into the hellhound in Andrew's form and flips her car when swerving to avoid it.

Rick breaks into Chief Strong’s house, where he encounters Mr. Chuckleteeth. Rick chases Mr. Chuckleteeth to the front of the house, where he finds Chief Strong has come home and is now pointing a gun at him. Mulder and Scully arrive to find that Chief Strong has shot Rick dead. After fleeing his house, Chief Strong finds Diane's overturned car on the road and follows what appears to be Diane into the woods, failing to notice her mauled corpse on the forest floor (having been killed by the demon).

Mulder and Scully visit the park where Andrew disappeared and head into the woods. Chief Strong finds his wife, Anna, standing in a salt circle in the woods holding a grimoire. As Strong comes to realize his wife summoned the demon to get revenge on Diane for the affair, the hellhound kills him. Mulder and Scully find Anna standing over Chief Strong's body and rush over to stop her. Anna casts another spell, attempting to seal away the entity she had summoned, but the spell instead causes her to suddenly burst into flames and die.

Afterwards, Scully delivers the grimoire (which mysteriously didn't burn) to the authorities and she and Mulder leave the town. As they drive away, a piece of playground equipment starts spinning on its own.

 

Episode 217

Nothing Lasts Forever 

At a makeshift operating theater in the Bronx, two surgeons harvest a man of his organs, killing him in the process. The operation is interrupted by Juliet, a young woman who kills the surgeons by driving metal spikes through their chests. She secures most of the organs and delivers them to a nearby hospital with a message: "I will repay".

Mulder and Dana Scully are drawn to the case because evidence suggests a ritual killing. The police believe the murders are related to an organ theft ring, pointing out that one of the surgeons had his medical license revoked and was an associate of the Russian mafia. Meeting at a church, the agents debate the nature of faith. Scully confirms that all legal organ donations have been accounted for while Mulder has found no trace of illegal sales on the dark web. Mulder links the killer's message to a psalm about God's vengeance and notices that iron bars matching the murder weapon's distinctive shape have been removed from the church fence. Because of this, he believes that the murders are driven by divine wrath instead of demonic worship.

A conversation with a priest leads them to Juliet, who tells Mulder and Scully that her sister Olivia joined a cult. Meanwhile, the missing organs are taken to the home of reclusive TV star Barbara Beaumont (based on the names of sitcom stars Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont) and her partner Randolph Luvenis. Beaumont has formed a cult, Randy Organ Harvesters (named after her partner, Randolph), which consumes human organs to offset the aging process; despite being eighty-five, Beaumont appears to be thirty. The effects are temporary, leading Luvenis to surgically conjoin himself to others, parasitically feeding off them to reverse his age. They have been feeding organs to their followers and plan to conjoin them to Barbara in the hopes of giving her eternal youth. However, the stolen organs are not enough to feed the cult. As Luvenis leaves to steal the remaining organs from the hospital, a cult member offers himself as a sacrifice to sustain the others. After he stabs himself, he is eaten alive.

Mulder and Scully arrange for a tracking device to be placed in a heart for Luvenis to retrieve, then follow the signal to Beaumont's house. Luvenis, suffering accelerated ageing without a host, undergoes surgery to attach himself to Olivia. Once inside the house, the agents are overpowered by Beaumont's followers, who throw Scully down an elevator shaft. Mulder is rescued by Juliet, who kills Beaumont with a metal stake to the chest. Her death disheartens her followers, allowing Mulder to escape. As he tries to locate Scully in the basement, he is confronted by Luvenis, who has the appearance and strength of a much younger man after being conjoined to Olivia. Luvenis boasts to Mulder that he has cured aging. Olivia proclaims her faith in Luvenis's methods, but she seizes, and when Mulder demands that she be taken to a hospital, Luvenis threatens to cut her throat. Juliet catches up with them and kills Luvenis; she then surrenders to Mulder. Scully is found safe, cushioned by trash thrown away by the cult.

In the aftermath, Olivia is shown safe at home with her mother. Mulder acknowledges the power of faith, suggesting that his atheism is because he does not need faith rather than because of a lack of it.

 

Episode 218

My Struggle IV 

Following the events of "Ghouli", William has become a fugitive from government agents as he is pivotal to CSM's plans. He resolves to find the Smoking Man to learn the truth about his nature.

Mulder and Scully receive a call from Monica Reyes, warning them that William has been taken into custody and is being escorted to a government warehouse in Maryland. Scully, who has been struggling with illness and visions of the future by way of her psychic link with William, predicts that he will not be there. Mulder infiltrates the building but is forced to kill the agents and Mr. Y before he can question them and he finds no trace of William.

Scully identifies a cluster of lottery winners in Tennessee, which she believes is a side-effect of William's presence. Mulder picks up the trail but is followed by a government agent. He quits in frustration and anticipates that William is heading for Norfolk. Meanwhile, William is picked up by the agent following Mulder.

With the help of Sarah Turner and Brianna Stapleton - the two girls at the center of the "Ghouli" episode - and Sarah's friend Maddy, Mulder locates William in Norfolk. He convinces William to talk to him as a unit of soldiers, led by Erika Price, locate the agent's car. The agent is dead, having been torn apart by William. Price's unit descends on William's hotel room and attempts to arrest him. William turns his powers on them, causing them to explode. He nearly loses control and kills Mulder but regains his composure and flees.

In a bid to buy Mulder more time, Scully contacts right-wing online webcaster Tad O'Malley and claims that the incident at the hotel was part of the project to release a man-made pathogen developed from an alien virus. Mulder is named as the source for the story, prompting Director Kersh to order Skinner to shut down the X-Files and to dismiss Mulder and Scully from duty. Scully receives a vision of Mulder's death and pleads with Skinner to help her save him.

Mulder follows William to an abandoned factory on the coast. Scully arrives, and Mulder suggests that they give up trying to find William. Scully refuses to back down, pressing Mulder for details when the real Mulder arrives; the Mulder Scully spoke to was William in disguise. As the two chase him through the factory, Skinner realizes that they have been followed by Reyes and CSM. CSM forces the car to run Skinner down. Skinner shoots at the car and kills Reyes. He then attempts to outrun the car but is crushed between two cars.

CSM confronts Mulder on the waterfront. Mulder taunts him, and the Smoking Man shoots him in the head and he falls into the water, mirroring Scully's vision of Mulder's death. The real Mulder appears, shooting CSM, who realizes that he has shot William (disguised as Mulder) as he ultimately falls into the water, and his body is carried away.

In the aftermath, Mulder and Scully comfort one another. Scully reveals that William was not their child but an experiment created by the Smoking Man and implanted into her. Mulder struggles with the knowledge until Scully reveals that she is pregnant with his child, a seeming impossibility. As the two embrace, William resurfaces from the water elsewhere, alive.