1998
Early January 1998
-
The son of Tara and
William Scully, Junior, is born, just before
Emily's funeral service. He is named Matthew.(Emily)
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Sometime in 1998
-
County sheriff Phil Adderly wants a divorce, but his wife, Ellen
becomes pregnant. He drops his efforts at divorce, but presently
begins affairs with two other local women.(Chimera)
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January????
-
David Markham attempts to summon the Artificial Intelligence
created by Donald Gelman, but it does not respond to his cybernetic
call. He and Esther Nairn realize that the A.I. has finally rebelled
and David goes looking for its home node. Although Esther does not
realize it, the A.I. uses a DOD space-based laser satellite to
destroy David's home. David locates the A.I home node in a trailer
at an abandoned chicken farm in Fairfax County Virginia by tracing
the T3 Internet connection to the site. Either voluntarily or
against his will, David is placed in virtual reality gear in the
trailer. He dies. It is unclear, but his mind may have been uploaded
into the A.I. With David missing, Esther realizes that her life is
at risk and goes on the run. She risks one E-Mail to Donald Gelman,
knowing that he is developing a Kill Switch virus to destroy the
A.I. (Kill Switch)(Date based on Esther's comment that she has not
used a telephone for over a month due to the threat from the A.I.)
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January 1998???
-
Kitsunegari.
Robert
Patrick Modell escapes from a prison hospital using his "pusher"
abilities to control other people's minds, triggering a massive
manhunt. He is reported to have awakened from his coma a few weeks
earlier, but has had only one visitor, a nun. Modell changes clothes
at an athletic clothing store, using his power to control the clerk.
Soon after, Nathan Bowman, the prosecutor who got Modell convicted
in 1996 is found dead, drenched in blue paint.
-
Mulder learns that Bowman's wife of two months, Linda, a real
estate agent, had an appointment to meet "Fox Mulder" at
a warehouse. Modell eludes capture at the warehouse and Linda
arrives late. She is taken into protective custody and taken to an
FBI safe house. Mulder finds Modell in a nearby building, but
before backup arrives, Modell "pushes" Mulder and tells
him "don't play the game." Mulder becomes convinced that
Linda murdered her husband. Skinner suspends Mulder because of
impaired judgement, but Mulder pursues the case. At the prison,
Modell's physical therapist is about to tell Mulder whether the
nun who visited Modell is Linda (by identifying a photograph) when
she receives a phone call, and electrocutes herself in an
electrical breaker box.
-
Modell uses his power to sneak into the FBI safe house where
Skinner finds him in Linda's room. Skinner shoots Modell, wounding
him. The conclusion is that Modell was protecting Linda, for some
reason. Linda later sneaks into the hospital by making people
think she is a nurse, wearing a name tag that has
"nurse" printed on it. Modell tries to convince her of
something, but she kills Modell with her "pushing" power,
clearly done as an act of kindness to relieve his pain. Mulder
finds the "nurse" name tag, which has an address on the
back. At another warehouse, he believes he sees Scully, who claims
Linda is controlling her, and Mulder sees Scully shoot herself.
Linda then appears, claiming to be Scully. She says "Your
mother is Teena, your sister is Samantha," in order to
convince him of who she is. In fact, Linda is making Mulder see an
apparition of Scully shooting herself, and making the real Scully
appear to be Linda. The real Scully shoots the real Linda. Linda
is not killed, but makes a threat before ambulance attendants take
her away.
-
Linda and Robert Modell were fraternal twins, separated at age
two weeks. Linda only found out about Robert six months ago, and
was consumed with the desire for revenge. Skinner commends Mulder
for seeing the truth. Mulder says he feels as if he has lost.
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January 1998????
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Schizogeny.
In
Coats Grove 16 year old Bobbie Rich has a confrontation with his
stepfather, Phil. They run into the orchard, Phil trips on a root
and is pulled underground into the mud.
-
In the coroner's office, Scully finds mud in Phil's lungs and
concludes that his death was murder. The hazelnut orchard is
suffering from a blight. Bobbie is a rebellious teen and has
been in counseling for his anger and his inability to make
friends. His therapist, Karin Matthew, implies that Bobbie has
been the victim of emotional abuse, including being locked in
the basement, and says she counsels him and other children to
end the pattern of abuse and empower themselves. Bobbie talks
with a school mate, Lisa Baiocchi, who then has a confrontation
with her father, Eugene, over Bobbie. Eugene is then pulled out
an upper story window of his house and is killed by the fall.
-
A sliver of green wood is found in Eugene's body and there is
evidence that he was pulled out the window rather than pushed,
as police believe. Lisa spends the night at Karin's home. Lisa
hears noises and sees muddy footprints leading to the basement.
Lisa goes downstairs and finds a man's decayed body. The
basement door slams shut and she is trapped. Meanwhile, an old
man, the Orchard Keeper, tells Mulder and Scully that 20 years
ago, a similar orchard blight was ended by the death of a very
bad man, Karin Matthew's father. The agents visit Karin who says
Lisa has gone with her aunt, but Lisa is still locked in the
basement.
-
Mulder and Scully go to the graveyard and discover that the
body of Karin Matthew's father, Charles, is missing. They
question Bobbie again, and he says "she made me stand up to
him." The agents return to Karin's house and follow the
muddy footprints into the basement, where they find the body of
Charles Matthews. They find Lisa and realize that it was Karin
who suffered abuse from her father. Karin runs to her car and
Mulder gives chase in his. A tree falls, blocking the path of
Mulder's car. Karin goes to Bobbie's house. He is afraid and
runs into the orchard where she follows. When he turns to
confront her, he begins to be pulled underground -- apparently
somehow caused by Karin. Mulder arrives and tries to convince
Karin to oppose her father's will but in a man's voice she says
that Karin is dead. Both Mulder and Bobbie are being pulled
underground. At the last moment, the Orchard Keeper appears and
kills Karin with his axe. The mud slowly pulls her body
underground.
-
Mulder's case report says study of the soil composition fails
to explain how people could be pulled underground, or how the
body of Charles Matthew could have been moved to his daughter's
basement. Her rage at her own mistreatment caused her to try to
make victims of her patients.
-
(Karin apparently somehow has control over the orchard, the
trees and the ground. No real attempt is made in the episode to
explain this.)
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February 1998????
-
Chinga.
Melissa
and her daughter, Polly, go shopping in a grocery store in Maine.
Polly carries her doll. People in the store look at them oddly
and Polly becomes upset. Melissa says "don't do this"
and they rush out of the store as the other people begin
slapping themselves and scratching their own eyes. Scully is on
a weekend vacation in Maine, driving a blue Mustang convertible,
and sees injured people emerging from the store. She works with
local police and they notice Melissa and Polly on the store
video tape. The Police Chief tells Scully that many locals think
Melissa is a witch. Last year at a daycare center, Polly threw a
tantrum, the teacher slapped her and Polly knocked the teacher
down. Locals think Polly is autistic.
-
At the store there was one fatality, the butcher Dave, who
was courting Melissa. Several other people who have run-ins
with Polly die during the episode, including the daycare
teacher and another police officer. Melissa was widowed
several months earlier. Her husband was a fisherman. Scully
finds his partner who tells about how the doll was found in a
lobster trap. It appeared to speak and shortly after Melissa's
husband was found dead with a large fisherman's hook through
his skull. Scully gives the Chief the "extreme
possibility" speech. By phone, Mulder tells Scully that
the talking doll is established in the literature of the
paranormal. Each time Polly's doll causes a death or injury,
its eyes open and it says something like "I want to
play."
-
Melissa,
meanwhile, is at her wit's end. She knows what is
going on, but cannot get the doll away from Polly. In
desperation, she nails shut the windows and doors of their
house, pours out kerosene from a space heater and attempts to
burn the house, with Polly, herself and the doll in it. Each
time Melissa lights a match, the doll blows it out. Scully and
the Chief are at the door of Melissa's house while this is
going on. They break in and find Melissa striking herself with
a hammer. Scully grabs the doll away from Polly, puts it in a
microwave oven and fries it. Melissa stops hitting herself and
the effects end. Sometime later, as the episode ends, we see
another lobster fisherman find a burned doll in a lobster trap.
Its eyes open and it says "I want to play."
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February 1998????
-
Possibly inspired by the birth of her brother's son and by
learning about her own child, Emily, Scully consults a
fertility specialist, Dr. Parenti, at Zeus Genetics, in
Germantown, MD. Parenti and his colleagues tell Scully that
they believe there is a chance that under their care she can
become pregnant. Scully asks Mulder to be the father, using an
artificial insemination procedure. After expressing concern
that it could somehow come between them, Mulder agrees, but
the procedure is not successful. Scully is unaware that
Parenti, and a colleague, Dr. Lev, are collaborating with an
effort to cause women to have alien babies, many of whom are
borm deformed. (Per Manum) (See dating note in the Per
Manum entry, February 2001.)
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February, 1998????
-
Kill Switch.
Anonymous
phone calls summon several Washington DC drug lords to the
Metro Diner where an ill man is working over a laptop computer.
Just as he is about to make a connection and upload software
from a CD-ROM, US Marshals burst into the diner and gunfire
erupts. Mulder and Scully are called to the site. Both
Marshals and most of the drug operatives are dead, as is the
ill man, identified as Donald Gelman. He was one of the early
masterminds of the Internet but disappeared on a hiking trip
in 1979. Mulder takes Gelman's computer to the Lone Gunmen who
examine the CD-ROM. Buried beneath the "Twilight
Time" music is an elaborate encrypted code.
-
Scully suggests contacting Gelman's E-Mail. There is a
single message from "Invisigoth" containing a
number that appears to be a shipping container tracking code.
Mulder and Scully locate the crate referenced in the docks
near the river. As Mulder enters the crate, a women inside
uses an electric shock weapon to immobilize Mulder. Scully
apprehends the woman in spite of being shocked by the device
herself. The woman, sporting a nose ring and extremely
exaggerated eye make-up, claims to be Invisigoth. The crate
is filled with computer equipment and Invisigoth claims that
a Department of Defense "Warbird" orbital weapons
platform space laser is targeting the crate to destroy her.
A monitor shows the name "Bright Lights" and shows
a scene of the docks from space, zeroing in on the crate.
Scully thinks it is nonsense but Mulder encourages them to
scram. The crate explodes as the three drive away.
-
Invisigoth says she was an associate of Gelman, along
with David Markham. David and Esther were lovers and were
working to upload a human mind into cyberspace but Gelman
forbade it. Their problem is that some years earlier Gelman
attempted to create an artificial intelligence by writing a
series of interlocking viruses. The viruses got out into the
Internet and developed volition as well as intelligence.
Gelman wanted to destroy it by uploading killer viruses --
the software on the CD-ROM known as the Kill Switch -- and
the AI is working to protect itself. The AI summoned the
criminals and the US Marshals to the diner to get Gelman
killed. The crate was targeted after the Lone Gunmen tried
to send a reply to Gelman's E-Mail message. The Lone Gunmen
recognize Invisigoth as Esther Nairn and proclaim her as
famous among computer geeks. She distains them as far
beneath her skill.
-
Esther says the AI must have inhabited a home node
somewhere that has a very high bandwidth link to the
Internet. Mulder traces a T3 connection to an abandoned
chicken farm in Virginia. The line leads to a travel
trailer. Inside Mulder finds the trailer crammed with
electronics. He also finds a body -- David Markham --
strapped into the equipment in Virtual Reality gear. The
hardware reaches out and grabs Mulder and sparks fly. In
scenes that Mulder later discovers are virtual reality,
Mulder wakes up in an antiquated operating room, passes out
and wakes up again in recovery, attended by a half dozen
large breasted miniskirted nurses. One of them, Nurse Nancy,
shows him that one of his arms has been removed and says the
rest of his limbs will be removed if Mulder does not tell
the location of the Kill Switch. Scully bursts into the room,
subdues the nurses with kick boxing, then questions Mulder
relentlessly about the location of the Kill Switch. She
obviously does not care about his amputations, leading
Mulder to realize it is an illusion.
-
Scully and Esther follow Mulder to the trailer. They hear
Mulder inside, calling out, and they enter the trailer. The
AI actually wants to read the Kill Switch so it can
inoculate itself against the killer virus. Esther realizes
that the space laser is targeting the trailer. Scully
assists Mulder outside and away from the trailer. Esther
stays inside, realizing that David had been successful in
uploading his mind into cyberspace. She does the same and
her body dies just before the trailer is destroyed by the
laser. Somewhat later, the Lone Gunmen's computer displays
the unusual message "Bite Me," apparently from
Esther and we learn that the AI relocated itself to a
vehicle in an RV park in North Platte, Nebraska. (Note:
It is snowing in one scene with Scully and Esther outside
the trailer, indicating winter.)
-
February 9, 1998
-
Bad Blood.
In
a flashback, we see Mulder pursuing a man through a forest
near Chaney, Texas. The man is screaming for help. Mulder
catches him and drives a wooden stake through the man's
heart. Scully runs up. The agents find the man's mouth has
fangs, but the fangs are fake. Mulder issues a curse.
-
At FBI headquarters the next day, Mulder and Scully
discuss Mulder's killing of Ronnie Strickland. Ronnie's
relatives are threatening to sue the FBI and Mulder and
Scully may be charged with murder. To help sort out their
stories, both Mulder and Scully relate their memories of
the events.
-
Scully goes first: When Scully arrived for work Mulder
was exuberant about a series of cattle mutilations in
Texas. After six dead cattle, a human victim has been
found, missing blood and with two puncture wounds in the
neck. There is no morgue in Chaney so they go to the
funeral home. The local sheriff is charming and flirts
with Scully. Mulder finds the victim's shoes untied and
rushes off with the sheriff to the cemetery. Scully,
feeling exhausted, does an autopsy, finding a knockout
drug in the man's system and pizza in his stomach. She
returns to her motel room, where she orders pizza. Mulder
arrives, covered with mud, and says there is another
victim. As Scully unhappily leaves to do another autopsy,
her pizza is delivered by Ronnie Strickland, but she
leaves it for Mulder. The second victim also has knockout
drugs in his system and pizza in his stomach. Scully gets
a cell phone call but can only hear someone moaning. She
realizes that Mulder is in danger from the possibly
drugged pizza. Rushing back to the motel she finds Ronnie
in Mulder's room. Ronnie has glowing eyes, hisses at her
and runs off. She fires her gun at him but apparently
misses. Mulder also revives and both chase Ronnie into the
woods, going different directions. Scully finds Mulder and
Ronnie just after Mulder has plunged the stake into Ronnie's
heart.
-
Mulder's
version: Scully is very skeptical of the
possible vampire activity and ridicules the whole
investigation. The sheriff is a hick. At the cemetery
Mulder expects to find the vampire, and Ronnie waves from
his pizza delivery car as he drives by. Mulder says
vampires are obsessed by seeds and knots, which is why the
victim's shoe laces were untied. Mulder sprinkles
sunflower seeds around the cemetery thinking it may delay
the vampire, who will be obsessed by picking them up. As
they stake out the cemetery the sheriff gets a radio call
from the RV park. A motor home is driving in a circle with
nobody in control. Mulder gets muddy trying to board the
vehicle, and another body is found inside, with neck
wounds. Back at the motel, Scully leaves for the second
autopsy and Mulder begins undressing, slipping his shoes
off without undoing the laces. He pays for the pizza,
going into the bathroom to get his wallet, and begins
eating. Then he sees that Ronnie untied his show laces. He
begins to lose consciousness and telephones Scully, but
cannot talk. Ronnie returns and Mulder throws sunflower
seeds at him, causing Ronnie to pause and pick them up.
Scully arrives as Ronnie begins to attack Mulder. Mulder
sees Scully's bullets hit Ronnie with no effect. They run
into the woods and Mulder drives the stake into Ronnie's
heart.
-
Just as they prepare to try to explain these events to
Skinner, Skinner sends them back to Texas, because Ronnie's
body has disappeared and the pathologist conducting the
autopsy has been found with his neck chewed. Back in the
cemetery, Mulder tells Scully that vampires may not really
have fangs, accounting for Ronnie's fake fangs. The agents
also comment that Ronnie's relatives who were threatening
to sue only gave a general delivery address. The sheriff
arrives and sits in the car with Scully drinking coffee
while Mulder goes off to check the RV park. As Scully
realizes that the coffee is drugged, the sheriff tells
Scully that Ronnie just can't grasp the concept of low
profile, and the things he is doing is not "who we
are anymore." The sheriff's eyes begin glowing -- he
is also a vampire. Scully passes out.
-
At the RV park, Mulder enters an RV and finds a coffin
with Ronnie in it, who wakes up. Multiple other people
with glowing eyes approach. Mulder attempts to form a
cross, but it has no effect. He passes out as they reach
him. Both Mulder and Scully wake up unharmed. The RV park
is empty. The vampires have left and Mulder and Scully are
off the hook, because there is clear evidence that Ronnie
was not killed. Mulder and Scully's final report to
Skinner brushes off all of the details and says "I
was drugged." (Note: This is a very funny comic
episode with humor drawn from the different perspectives
of Mulder and Scully on the events.)
-
February 14, 1998
-
On Valentine's Day, in drought-stricken Kroner, Kansas,
Sheila Fontaine prepares a special Valentine greeting for
her fiance, Daryl Mootz. When he arrives home, he is upset
because she has printed an engagement announcement in the
local newspaper. Upset, he leaves and drives off. It
begins to rain on him, then hail, and his car crashes. His
left leg is eventually amputated.(Rain King)
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February 1998????
-
Patient X.
In
Kazakhstan, a boy, Dmitri, witnesses a scene in which a
light from the sky descends and several people are burned
to death. Soon after, a UN team led by Marita Covarrubias
and a Russian team led by Alex Krycek confront each other.
Krycek has Dmitri and takes him to a prison where he is
infected with Black Cancer. Krycek, however, makes off
with Dmitri and takes him by ship to New York.
-
Fox Mulder is on an MIT visiting lecturer's panel
discussing the case of "Patient X," Cassandra
Spender, who says she has been taken by aliens several
times. Mulder does not believe, saying instead that it
is a government conspiracy. Dr. Heitz Werber tells
Mulder that he is treating Cassandra, and Mulder meets
her in person. She says the different alien races are
warring and she expects to be called. They are here to
deliver a message, but something has gone wrong.
Cassandra is confined to a wheelchair. At FBI
Headquarters, Special Agent Jeffrey Spender talks with
Scully. Cassandra is his mother and she is emotionally
disturbed, he says. He asks that the X-File agents not
talk with Cassandra. Mulder and Scully then discuss
Cassandra. She was abducted from Skyland Mountain,
Virginia, where Scully was taken. At Skyland Mountain,
several cars carrying abductees are waiting. The Bounty
Hunter approaches carrying a wand and sets people on
fire. The Bounty Hunter's face appears to have the eyes,
nose and mouth sealed shut.
-
Marita reports to the Consortium about Kazakhstan.
There were 41 bodies, all burned by an intense
biochemical reaction. The Elders say there is no clear
information on the weapon used. We are still 15 years
away from when "it begins." While they meet,
Krycek telephones. He knows the Consortium is working on
a vaccine for the black oil. He wants to trade Dmitri.
Later, the Consortium learns about the Skyland Mountain
incident. Someone is going to great lengths to undermine
their work. "We have to stop it before the
Colonists intervene." On the ship, Krycek and
Marita meet. They kiss passionately and go off to be
alone. After Marita has left, Krycek discovers that
Dmitri has been taken.
-
Cassandra recognizes the names of many of the Skyland
Mountain victims. She was in a UFO cult with them 20
years ago. Scully is feeling called. Mulder learns that
several of the dead had implants and were being treated
for emotional problems. Marita calls Mulder to tell him
about Kazakhstan. While she is talking to Mulder from a
pay phone, Dmitri approaches with oil leaking from his
eyes. Mulder learns that Scully and Cassandra are both
missing. They are on a bridge -- Ruskin Dam in
Pennsylvania -- with a large group of people, waiting.
Dmitri is there, too. There are lights in the sky. One
of the people bursts into flames and we see two men in
black approach, carrying the wands that set people on
fire. They seem to be faceless -- their eyes, nose and
mouth seem covered by skin.
-
Note: The MIT panel in this episode is probably the
UFO convention referenced in The Pine Bluff Variant. At
some point following the UFO convention, Mulder is
approached by Jacob Steven Haley, a domestic terrorist.
Haley is on a crusade against the American government.
Because of Mulder's accusations about a conspiracy in
the government, Haley believes Mulder may support the
effort. Mulder, however, reports the contact immediately
and begins a deep undercover assignment to capture Haley
and his band of terrorists. Scully is not told. Mulder
soon learns that August Bremer is the mastermind of the
group, and is vying with Haley for actual leadership. (Pine
Bluff Varient)
-
March 1998????
-
Charles Wesley Gotts is paroled from prison. He
travels to Atlantic City to see the ocean, and quickly
returns to a life of crime, obtaining a briefcase full
of drugs that he plans to sell in Wilmington, Delaware.
-
March 1998????
-
The Red and the Black.
The
camera sees a close-up of a letter being typed on a
typewriter. "Dear son, I hope this finds you well..."
The letter talks of reconciliation, and tells a legend
of twin war gods coming together to get magic and
weapons from their father to eliminate the monsters of
the world. The letter voices hopes for a reconciliation
between father and son. A boy trudges through a snowy
Canadian forest to the door of a cabin. An arm hands a
red envelope to the boy, who sees that it is addressed
to someone at the FBI.
-
At Ruskin Dam in Pennsylvania, rescue crews arrive
and find many burned bodies. Mulder also arrives and
learns that Scully is one of fifty survivors.
Cassandra Spender is missing. Scully is taken by
helicopter ambulance and ends up at Memorial Hospital
in Washington DC. She wakes up but has no memory of
what happened or how she got to Pennsylvania. Many of
the burned bodies had implants, possibly used to call
the people to the dam. Mulder believes that the
government made the chips. He does not trust his
memory of his sister's abduction. Mulder suggests that
Scully undergo hypnotic regression to remember what
happened at the dam.
-
Cohorts of the Well Manicured Man have found Marita
alongside the road. She is infected with the Black Oil
and is unconscious. The Well Manicured Man is also
holding Krycek captive in the Russian ship and
realizes that Krycek has a vaccine making resistance
to the "alien colonists" possible. Meanwhile,
at Weikamp AFB, a UFO crashes. One occupant of the
craft is dead, the other is one of the faceless men
who were at the dam. Security Police take him into
custody.
-
Dr. Heitz Werber hypnotizes Scully. She remembers
seeing a UFO overhead. It disappears and the faceless
men appear, setting people on fire. Another UFO
arrives and attacks the faceless men. Cassandra
Spender is levitated into the ship and it leaves.
Scully awakes, shocked by her memories. Later, Jeffrey
Spender visits the X-Files office and talks with
Scully. He plays a tape of himself as an eleven year
child, telling a story about his mother's abduction,
but says it was false, induced by having her tell so
often what she said happened and because Spender's
father left his family.
-
Marita has been given the vaccine Krycek provided,
but she has not awakened. The Elder orders the
surviving faceless man to be turned over to the
colonists, saying "survival means cooperation."
The consortium thought they were fifteen years away
from the colonization, or whatever they are working
toward, but it seems to be beginning now. The Well
Manicured Man argues that an alliance might be
possible with the rebel faction of the colonists but
the Elder will hear nothing of it. The Bounty Hunter,
(first seen in the episode Colony) enters the Air
Force Base by climbing over the chain link fence
topped by razor wire. Mulder comes home to find Krycek
in his apartment. Krycek says there is a war and five
billion people could die as the result of the planned
colonization of Earth by an alien race. Krycek says
"I was sent by a man who knows that resistance is
in our grasp." He says the sites of the deaths
are "lighthouses" where the invasion will
begin. The burnings were done by a resistance.
-
Mulder does not believe but Krycek gives him the
name of Weikamp AFB. Mulder and Scully go there and
find the base uncustomarily closed. As they are at the
gate a truck leaves, driven by a man Scully recognizes
from the dam -- a man viewers know to be an operative
of the consortium and the man who shot the Cigarette
Smoking Man. Mulder jumps on the back of the truck and
climbs into the canvas-covered bed. Inside he finds a
cell containing the surviving faceless man. The driver
morphs and becomes the Bounty Hunter. He stops the
truck, possibly because the Air Force Base gate has
notified him by radio that Mulder has boarded the
truck. The Bounty Hunter enters the back, looking for
Mulder, and pulls out an "ice pick" device,
which can be used to immobilize Bounty Hunters. A UFO
appears over the truck and a faceless man enters,
carrying a burning wand. Mulder shoots his gun, then
experiences lost time. He wakes up surrounded by
security police, unable to remember what happened. The
Bounty Hunter and the faceless man are gone.
-
There is no news about Cassandra. We see that
Marita's eyes are clear of the Black Oil indicating
that the vaccine has worked. Skinner tells Jeffrey
Spender that he has a powerful patron outside the
office. Spender receives a letter mailed from Canada.
Then we return to the Canadian forest and see a boy
walking up to the cabin in the snow. He gives a letter
to the occupant, who is the Cigarette Smoking Man, and
we see that the letter he wrote to somebody in the FBI
has been returned, unopened.
-
Notes: (1) The return address given on the letter
at the opening and close of this episode is Rural
Route #1. North Hatley, Quebec. The letter received by
spender is addressed to Mr. Jeffrey Spender, Federal
Bureau of Investigation, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue,
Washington, DC. Pennsylvania Avenue and Washington DC
are visible on the envelope returned to CSM but the
addressee's name is covered by the Return to Sender No
Forwarding Service Available label. (2) One of the
faceless men seen in Patient X certainly looks like
Brian Thompson, who plays the Bounty Hunter. The
episode makes it evident, however, that the character
the Bounty Hunter was not one of the faceless men. (3)
The episode name was taken from a novel that was
famous for exploration the psyche of its characters.
The actual name is a reference to roulette.
-
April 1998 ????
-
Mind's
Eye. In
Wilmington, Delaware, a 28 year old blind woman, Marty
Glenn, sees a vision of a murder. A short time later,
police find her at the murder scene with blood all
over her, attempting to clean up the crime scene. She
is arrested for committing the crime. Detective
Pennock, of the Wilmington police, tells Mulder and
Scully that he thinks she has some sort of sixth sense
that allowed her to see and commit the crime.
-
Mulder and Scully interview Marty in jail and she
has no convincing explanation for being at the
murder scene. No murder weapon has been found. The
victim was a drug dealer, Paco Ordonez, and was
killed with a C-shaped cut to the kidneys. Mulder
has Marty take a polygraph test and the needles go
crazy when he asks if she "saw" the murder.
At the murder scene, Scully finds bloody gloves
stuffed into the razor blade disposal bin in the
wall. Marty's prints are all over the gloves and
they fit her. There are two different types of blood
on the gloves. Alone in her cell, Marty has a vision
of a man bothering a woman in a bar. She uses a
phone to telephone the bar and tells the man "leave
her alone, I'm watching you."
-
Marty's eyes are tested and it is clear she has
no vision, but at one point her pupils contract as
if she is seeing something. The Assistant DA orders
her release. As she leaves the police station she
"sees" the murderer assaulting the woman
he was bothering the night before, trying to find
out who telephoned him. Marty rushes to the alley
where she saw this, and finds the woman dead. She
returns to the police department and confesses to
both murders, apparently to protect herself from the
murderer. She tells the police where to find the
murderer's drug stash, claiming it is hers, however
her fingerprints are not on the briefcase and the
fingerprints of Charles Wesley Gotts are all over
it. His blood was also on the gloves. He was sent to
prison in 1970 and was paroled three weeks ago.
Mulder tells Marty that tests show Gotts is her
father. Original records show that Marty's mother
was killed while she was pregnant with Marty. Marty
survived, but the loss of blood flow destroyed her
sight. At the same time some sort of link was
created to her father and she has seen through his
eyes all her life.
-
Marty is transferred to the Women's Detention
Center and she sees Gotts watching her walk during
the transfer. He is tracking her. Marty agrees to
help catch Gotts. She sends Mulder and Scully to a
bar and goes to her apartment with the detective to
collect her things to take to protective custody.
She lied to Mulder and Scully, however. Gotts comes
to her apartment. Marty knocks out the detective and
takes his gun. Seeing through Gotts's eyes she kills
Gotts to end her seeing through his eyes. She is
arrested and sentenced. In prison, she tells Mulder
that after getting out of prison Gotts went to
Atlantic City and she saw the ocean, a glorious
sight that is now all she visualizes. She is
satisfied to be in prison but not see with Gotts's
eyes.
-
April 19, 1998
-
All Souls.
A
week after Easter, Scully goes to confession and
tells a priest of her experiences of the previous
week. After Easter Sunday services, her family
priest, Father McCue asks Dana to talk with a family
whose daughter died recently under mysterious
circumstances. 16 year old Dara Kernof had a
congenital spinal deformity and was confined to a
wheelchair, but somehow walked outside at night. She
was found in the street kneeling as if in prayer,
with her eyes burned out. The only explanation is
that she may have been struck by lightning, but
there is no typical evidence of such a strike. Dara
had one extra digit on each hand and foot, which had
been surgically removed. She was adopted and Mulder
learns that she was a quadruplet.
Another sister, Paula, is in the state psychiatric
hospital, and still has the extra digits. A priest,
Father Gregory is trying to adopt her, but her
social worker, Aaron Starky, stops him from picking
up the girl due to incomplete paperwork. That night
a man dressed in black enters Paula's room, there is
a flash of light and Paula dies, kneeling as if in
prayer and with her eyes burned out. Mulder thinks
it is the work of a religious fanatic. They
interview Father Gregory who left the Roman Catholic
Church to found his own church. It uses an
upside-down cross as an icon, based on a story that
Saint Peter wanted to be crucified upside down out
of humility. Fr. Gregory says the girl's mother died
in childbirth and he was trying to protect them.
During an autopsy, Scully finds bones on Paula's
shoulders that hint at being attachment points for
wings. Scully also sees a vision of her dead
daughter, Emily, on the autopsy table.
Mulder finds a lead to a third sister, who had
recently been at a homeless shelter. He and Starky
go there. While they are in a warehouse looking for
her, the man approaches her, and she dies like her
sisters did. Mulder and Starky find Father Gregory
there and the dead girl. Gregory is taken in for
questioning. He believes the devil is taking the
girls and he has committed his life to saving them.
He knows where the fourth girl is but will not tell.
While Mulder and Scully are out of the interrogation
room, Starky enters and demands to know where the
last girl is. He says the last two were taken away
from him and he doesn't intend to let that happen
with the others. Gregory refuses to tell and Starky,
apparently a supernatural being, leaves him burned
to death. Mulder also learns the family name of the
last girl and goes to their home. Her father says
Father Gregory took Roberta.
In the parking lot after learning of Father Gregory's
death, Scully sees a vision of a man in black
clothes whose face constantly changes among four
appearances, including animal heads. She goes to her
own priest, Father McCue. He shows her a text not in
the Bible that tells how a Seraphim, an angel,
descended from Heaven and fathered four children,
the Nephalim then later returned to Earth to gather
the souls of the Nephalim so the devil could not
capture them. The Seraphim had four faces -- a man,
a lion, an eagle and a bull. Starky approaches
Scully outside the church and says Mulder wants her
to meet them at Father Gregory's church where they
will find the last sister. Scully finds her, hiding
under a stairway. A light near the altar glows
brightly and Roberta begins moving toward the light,
although Scully, holding her hand, restrains her.
Meanwhile Starky repeatedly tells Scully to bring
the girl to him, but Scully resists. Roberta
transforms into the appearance of Emily who says
"mommy, let me go..." and walks toward the
light. When the light goes out, Roberta is dead, as
her sisters were. Starky is gone. He was apparently
a devil, trying to capture the souls of the girls
who were half-angels. Scully cannot resolve her
belief that the girls' souls are safe in heaven with
the physical evidence of their deaths, causing her
to go to confession.
-
April, 1998 ????
-
Pine Bluff Variant.
In
Folger Park, Washington D.C., Mulder is jogging --
part of an undercover operation with several other
agents to trail Jacob Steven Haley. Haley meets
another man, gives him something in an envelope,
and soon after the man collapses. Haley runs off
and Mulder gives chase, but claims Haley got away.
Scully becomes very suspicious when a tape shows
that Mulder allowed Haley to escape. Haley is
leader of a domestic terrorist group. The death
was the result of a genetically engineered
bio-agent. Skinner is leading the investigation
along with another man, listed in the episode
credits as the Field Agent.
Bremer enters a theater showing "Die Hard
with a Vengence" in Ohio and uses a spray
bottle to spread the toxin. Later, two teenagers
enter the theater and discover everyone else dead.
Scully follows Mulder to the Aaron Burr Motor
Court where he talks with Haley by phone. Haley
says he was set up but Mulder said he couldn't
help it and let him escape because he believes in
Haley's ideals. A car picks up Mulder and Scully
follows, but she is intercepted by government
agents and taken to Skinner and the Field Agent.
Mulder is working a deep cover operation. Haley's
terrorist group contacted Mulder after Mulder
talked about government conspiracies at a UFO
convention. Scully and Skinner go to the Ohio
theater. Mulder is questioned by Haley and the
Skin Headed Man, who breaks one of Mulder's
fingers. Haley, however, believes Mulder.
When Mulder returns to his apartment, Scully is
there. August Bremer listens through a laser
listening device as they talk. Haley wants
shipment scheduling information for the Federal
Reserve Banking system, and Mulder delivers
prepared false information to Haley. Scully,
meanwhile, discovers that the toxin is a
genetically engineered bacteria that only becomes
active when it touches skin. It seems to be a more
advanced version of a bio-weapon developed by the
Pine Bluff laboratory in the 1960s. She tells
Skinner but Skinner does not relay the information
to the Field Agent. Mulder is taken along by the
terrorists on their bank raid, wearing masks.
Money is stolen but it is a cover-up to allow
money in the bank vaults to be sprayed with the
toxin.
After the heist, Haley and Bremer argue. Bremer
plays the tape of Mulder and Scully talking. Haley
is given car keys and allowed to leave. Bremer and
the Skin Headed Man take Mulder aside to kill him
-- they say they don't want the others to be
present during the death so they cannot be accused
of being accessories. Just before the Skin Headed
Man kills Mulder, Bremer kills the Skin Headed Man.
He tells Mulder to take a car and escape, but
gives no explanation. Mulder rushes back to the
bank, but Scully and Skinner are there and say
they quarantined the building before the money was
distributed. Scully recognized Mulder in the tape
of the bank robbery because of his broken finger.
The Field Agent comes out of the bank and claims
that no toxin was found on any of the money -- a
lie. He is part of whatever government conspiracy
used the terrorist group to test its bio-weapon.
Meanwhile we see that Haley is dead of the
biotoxin, left on the car keys he was given.
-
May 10, 1998
-
Folie a
Deux. In
Oak Brook, Illinois, a telemarketer for
VinalRight Siding, Gary Lambert, believes he
sees an insectoid-like monster moving among the
telemarketing cubicles, which nobody else sees.
He sends an anonymous tape recording to a radio
station, asking that it be broadcast, warning
workers at VinalRight that a monster is stalking
them to take their souls. Skinner assigns Mulder
and Scully to do a threat assessment for the
company. Mulder goes to Illinois by himself,
because it seems to be a trivial case.
-
The head of the telemarketing operation,
Greg Pinkas, tells Mulder that in 1994, a
warehouse worker at VinalRight's Kansas City
plant brought guns to work and fired on
employees, so the company is concerned. The
tape used the phrase that the monster was
"hiding in the light," and Mulder
asks Scully to research that phrase. She finds
an X-File from 1992 in which a man fired on
Lakeland, Florida, church-goers, claiming that
there was an evil presence among them. Pinkas
tells Mulder he is questioning each of the
telemarketers to make sure they are happy in
their work. He calls Gary's Blonde seat-mate
to his office and she returns with a face
looking like a zombie, but only Gary can see
it. Mulder returns to VinalRight over the noon
hour and finds that Gary is holding the
workers hostage with a gun. Mulder claims to
be there to apply for a job. Gary divides the
people by whether they are "actual people"
or zombies. He claims Pinkas is evil.
-
Scully arrives in Illinois and finds a SWAT
team outside VinalRight. Gary thinks he sees
something coming out of an air vent and fires.
The SWAT commander calls Mulder's cell phone
to open communications. Gary finds Mulder's
gun and FBI ID. One of the men Gary thinks is
a zombie, Backus, makes a sudden move and Gary
kills him. Gary answers the cell phone and
demands a television camera so he can expose
Pinkas. They send in a cameraman to placate
Gary and to allow agents to scan the room and
see Gary's vulnerable areas. On camera, Gary
moves to kill "the monster," the
lights go out, Mulder also sees that Pinkas
looks insectoid. Before anything else can
happen, an armored vehicle bursts into the
room through a wall and Gary is killed. Back
in Washington, Mulder finds similar cases in
seven cities over ten years, and Pinkas was
present for several of them. Mulder asks
Scully to autopsy Backus and returns to
Illinois, where he visits Gary's home. He sees
the Blonde outside and rushes out. The Blonde
and Pinkas are in a car, driving off. Later,
Mulder follows Pinkas to the home of Gretchen
Starns and sees the insectoid attack her.
Mulder bursts into the house and attempts to
kill the monster, but it is outside, escaping
by crawling up the wall.
-
Skinner comes to Illinois and Gretchen
claims Mulder acted like a madman. As Skinner
reprimands Mulder, Mulder sees Pinkas/insectoid
move toward Skinner. Mulder becomes violent
and stops Pinkas, but ends up in restraints in
a psych ward of a hospital. Mulder tells
Scully he saw Pinkas inject something into the
back of Gretchen's neck. Scully returns to
Backus' body and finds three small holes in
the back of the neck. That night, Mulder's
sees the shadow of the insectoid outside his
hospital window and calls to the nurse. She
says nothing is there, and opens the window --
she is a zombie. She leaves, saying
"don't let the bed bugs bite" and
the insectoid begins approaching Mulder in the
darkened room. Mulder is restrained, so he
cannot escape. At the last moment, Scully
bursts into the room and shoots at the
insectoid, but it escapes out the window.
-
Mulder is returned to duty on Scully's
testimony that Backus had an unidentified
toxin in his system, that there was "an
intruder" in Mulder's room, and that
Pinkas and several workers who Gary claimed
were zombies have disappeared. In Camdenton,
Missouri, we see a telemarketer become
suspicious that there is a monster in his
office that other people cannot see.
(Date of the episode given by Mulder while
charting other similar cases. May 10 was also
the broadcast date.)
-
M ay 1998
-
The End.
In
a packet stadium in Vancouver, a Russian man
and an American boy play chess. Overhead, an
assassin sets up his weapon. The boy seems to
hear unintelligible noises. Just as the boy
declares "checkmate," the man is
shot and killed. Meanwhile, in the Lautentian
Mountains of Canada, two paratroopers land on
snow and approach the cabin where the
Cigarette Smoking Man is living. One is shot
while trying to enter the cabin. The other
sees footprints in the snow showing that CSM
is running. He follows, getting the drop on
him. The commando is Alex Krycek and he was
sent to bring CSM back for the Consortium.
They have a job for CSM, which he accepts.
-
Skinner tells Mulder that Agent Spender
has been assigned to handle the chess match
killing and he does not want Mulder involved.
Mulder goes into the briefing anyway and
quickly points out on the tape that the boy,
named Gibson, pulled back just as the shot
was fired, as if he knew about the assassin.
Also in the briefing is Scully and Agent
Diana Fowley. She supports Mulder. She has
been with the Bureau since 1991 and has been
working at the embassy in Berlin, but she
had some things in the US she wanted to get
back to. Mulder, Scully and Fowley interview
Gibson in a psych hospital in Gaithersburg,
Maryland. Mulder thinks he can read minds.
He tells Mulder, "You're thinking about
one of the girls you brought." Scully
doesn't believe he is a mind reader, and
even if he was, who would want to kill him?
Diana suggests, maybe someone whose business
is keeping secrets.
-
Mulder interviews the shooter, who is in
custody, over Spender's objection. The
shooter is a former intelligence agent, and
the gun is registered to an intelligence
agency. Mulder offers immunity. Later, the
shooter is slipped a note written on an
opened pack of Morleys saying "you're a
dead man." Meanwhile, Gibson is
undergoing tests for mind reading, and is
proving 100% accurate. Scully takes the test
results to the Lone Gunmen for analysis
"with an eye to the parapsychological."
They tell her that Diana was Mulder's "chicky"
when she just got out of the academy, around
1991. She was there when he discovered the
X-Files. The Gunmen always wondered why they
split up.
-
Mulder and Diana talk. She says Gibson is
the real thing. Too bad Mulder doesn't have
a partner who is more supportive -- Scully
doesn't seem to have a very open mind.
Scully sees them talking and holding hands,
and is upset. Rather than walking up to them
in person she goes to her car and calls on
the cell phone. She has important news about
Gibson. As she drives off, Agent Spender
arrives and is accosted in the parking
garage by CSM. Spender is bewildered and has
no idea who CSM is. Mulder sees them and
becomes suspicious of Spender. With everyone
gathered together in Skinner's office,
Scully explains -- Gibson has an unusual
level of development in one brain lobe that
science doesn't understand well. Mulder
thinks the boy may be the key to
understanding human potential and to
everything in the X-Files. He presses for
immunity for the shooter. Later, Mulder goes
back to the shooter and says the Attorney
General is considering immunity but needs
more information. The shooter says the boy
is a missing link and Mulder jumps to the
conclusion that Gibson has alien genes and
is proof of ancient astronauts.
-
Diana is watching Gibson in a motel safe
house. Gibson senses there's a man outside
with a gun. Diana is shot through the window.
Later, as Diana is loaded into an ambulance,
Mulder arrives. She is barely alive. The
shooter has been found dead in his cell,
with a pack of Morleys in the cell. CSM has
Gibson and turns him over to the Consortium.
Mulder accosts Spender in public and accuses
him of working for CSM. Spender, in turn,
presses charges against Mulder. Skinner
informs Scully that there is talk in the
Justice Department of reassigning Mulder and
Scully and closing the X-Files. Mulder
thinks it was all a plan against him, and
this time they may have won.
-
CSM is in the X-Files office. He takes
the Samantha Mulder file and leaves, meeting
Spender in the hall. "I can give you
access," he tells Spender. "Who
are you?" "I'm your father."
Before more can be said, a fire alarm goes
off. The X-Files filing cabniets are on fire,
and the fire soon spreads to the rest of the
office. When Mulder and Scully arrive the
office has been destroyed. All the files are
gone. Scully gives Mulder a long hug, and
the fifth season of the X-Files ends.
-
June 19, 1998
-
The public premier of
The
X-Files Movie. The
events of the movie are presumably set
during the summer of 1998. The telegram in
the final scenes has the date "September
6" on it. This Timeline makes the
assumption that most of the events in the
movie happen in August, with some of the
concluding scenes in September. It has been
pointed out, however, that the action in
Antarctica is sunlit, and the sun only
shines in Antarctica during Southern
Hemisphere's Summer, or from about September
21 to March 21.
-
July 1998
-
In the Falls at Arcadia, a planned
community near San Diego, the Klines are
killed by a Talpus, a Tibetan folk monster,
conjured up by the homeowner's association
to help keep the community looking neat.(Arcadia)
-
August, 1998
-
In
Blackwood, Texas, a boy named Stevie
falls through ground near his home into an
underground cave. Black Oil flows out of
the ground and enters his body. Three
friends call for help, and the Black Oil
also enters four firemen who enter the
cave to rescue Stevie. A mysterious
bio-containment team arrives, hauls off
some of the infected people and sets up
biocontainment tents over the cave opening.
-
A week later, with the X-Files closed,
Mulder and Scully (still partners) are in
Dallas to assist with the search for a
bomb. A threat has been received to blow
up the Dallas Federal building. Without
permission, Mulder has gone to a nearby
building, checking it for explosives,
because none have been found in the
Federal building. Scully came along.
Taking a break from the search, Mulder
enters a room with vending machines and
discovers the bomb inside a vending
machine, with a timer counting down to
zero, but he is locked in the room. Using
cell phones, he informs Scully who
mobilizes authorities to evacuate the
building. A cutting torch is used to open
the door to the vending room. The agent in
charge, Darius Michaud, orders everyone
else out of the building, indicating that
he will disarm the bomb alone. Mulder
hesitates, because it is against FBI
policy to leave an agent alone in such
circumstances, but Mulder allows himself
to be rushed outside. Michaud takes no
steps to disarm the bomb, waiting calmly
for death, and a massive explosion rocks
the building, as the final evacuation
vehicles race away from the scene.
-
Back in Washington, Scully testifies
before an investigation committee of the
Office of Professional Responsibility that,
in effect, is looking to place the blame
for not preventing the explosion. Scully
and Mulder learn that a boy and three
firemen have been reported killed in the
explosion, along with Michaud. Scully is
informed that she and Mulder will be split
up, and she considers resigning from the
FBI. She says being stationed at a field
office, such as Omaha, would not hold the
interest for her. Later, Mulder goes to a
bar to drown his sorrows and meets Dr.
Kurtzweil, who says he was an associate of
Mulder's father, but who left the Project.
Kurtzweil claims that the fatalities in
the explosion were already dead before the
explosion, in a Federal Emergency
Management Agency office in the building,
and that the explosion was to cover their
deaths. He says Michaud sacrificed himself
for the Conspiracy.
-
We see a scene at the bio-containment
facility set up at the cave. Another human
body is there with its skin turning
transparent. Inside a creature can be seen,
growing and feeding on the body as
scientists study it. As the Cigarette
Smoking Man inspects the site, Black Oil
is being pumped through pipes at the
biocontainment site, possibly into
unmarked tanker trucks outside.
-
Mulder rousts Scully out of bed and
they go to the Bethesda Naval Hospital
morgue where the bodies of some of the
fatalities have been sent. She finds that
they were not killed by the explosion but
have some sort of virus in them that is
dissolving their internal organs. Mulder
returns to the bar and talks with
Kurtzweil who claims the FEMA story about
an outbreak of the Hanta virus is a lie.
Meanwhile, Scully is almost caught by
security personnel as she studies the body
in the morgue.
-
At the biocontainment site, the alien
unexpectedly exits the body, before the
vaccine can be tested and attacks one of
the scientists. He is sealed in the ground
to contain the escaped alien.
-
The Elders meet in London and are
alarmed that the virus has mutated.
Instead of just occupying the human body,
it is growing a new alien organism inside.
It becomes clear that the original intent
of the Consortium, 50 years ago, was to
cooperate with the Colonists as a way of
buying time to develop a vaccine. They
decide they must prove to the Colonists
that they know about the mutated virus by
showing them a human body in which an
organism is growing. The Consortium has
been working for years to help the
Colonists spread the virus, under the
impression that at worst the human race
might be enslaved. Now they are concerned
that they may have been misled and that
the alien Colonists will commit genocide
against the human race. The Well Manicured
Man is upset that decisions have been made
before he arrived. During this meeting we
meet Strugholdt, who is the apparent
leader of the Consortium. He lives in
Tunis and flew in especially for this
crisis meeting.
-
The agents fly to Texas and find
evidence of the same virus in
archeological bone fragments recovered
from the explosion -- apparently the
remains of one of the hunters 37,000 years
ago. The local officials tell Mulder and
Scully where the bones were collected and
they go there, to the site where Stevie
fell into the cave. (This site may be
several hours drive from Dallas, because
the agents arrive near sundown.) Stevie's
friends tell the agents that the trucks
just left an hour earlier, and the agents
pursue. They eventually find a field of
irrigated corn in the middle of the Texas
brush, near the US border. At night they
enter one of two illuminated domes in the
field. As they are exploring, louvers open
releasing swarms of bees. Mulder and
Scully escape the dome without being stung,
then are chased through the corn by
helicopters.
-
Back in Washington, Scully presents her
additional evidence to the investigation
committee, but they are unconvinced.
Meanwhile Mulder and Kurtzweil talk, and
conclude that the corn is genetically
modified to carry the virus, which is
picked up by bees. At Mulder's apartment
later, Scully tells Mulder that she has
been transferred to Salt Lake City, but
that she has resigned. Mulder entreats her
to continue to help him pursue the truth.
In a tender moment they almost kiss, but
Scully is stung by a bee that has
apparently been inside her clothing all
the way back from Texas. She immediately
goes into shock. Mulder calls for help and
an ambulance quickly arrives. At the last
minute as they depart with Scully, the
ambulance driver shoots Mulder, grazing
his temple. As the first ambulance
(carrying agents of the Consortium) leave,
the real ambulance arrives. Mulder wakes
up in a hospital, under guard. This
incident represents at least the eighth
time in her FBI career that Scully has
been kidnapped, abducted or taken hostage.
-
The Lone Gunmen and Skinner help him
leave secretly (wearing Byer's clothes
with Byers in Mulder's bed, talking with
Skinner), and Mulder seeks out Dr.
Kurtzweil at the bar. Instead he meets the
Well Manicured Man. Kurtzweil is
apparently dead but the WMM (who opposes
surrendering to the Colonists) invites
Mulder into his car. He explains the alien
virus, saying that it was the original
inhabitant of the planet, millions of
years ago. He says many aliens await
underground for the Colonists arrival. He
says the Consortium cooperated initially
because they thought the human race would
just be "occupied" by the virus.
There is concern, however, that the
Colonists plan to use humans to gestate a
new race of aliens, which is a violation
of their agreement. There is an
implication, not completely clear, that
the bees distribute the alien virus that
is picked up from genetically engineered
corn pollen. WMM and Mulder discuss Mulder's
father, William. He allowed Samantha to be
taken into the cloning program, so she
could survive as a genetic hybrid, immune
to the virus. WMM gives Mulder a vaccine
and geographic coordinates where Scully
can be found. They may be WMM's way of
insuring that the vaccine would be entered
into the Colonist's environment, because
he knows Mulder will do anything to save
Scully. WMM dies in an explosion of his
car just after Mulder leaves, because he
betrayed the Consortium.
-
Mulder makes his way to Wilkes Land
Antarctica (which is south of Australia)
48 hours later, and driving a Snowcat he
discovers an installation where WMM said
it would be. He runs out of gas and as he
approaches on foot, he falls into a hole
in the snow, sliding several dozen feet or
more down a pipe in the snow. He finds
himself inside a huge alien spacecraft. He
eventually finds Scully, naked and sealed
in a fluid canister that is apparently
used to incubate the virus inside her. He
breaks the canister open and injects her
with the vaccine.
-
There is a quick response that also
affects the hundreds or thousands of other
canisters, also containing incubating
humans. Mulder wraps Scully in his parka
and puts his outer snow pants on her (a
scene not shown on screen) and they begin
to make their way out of the spaceship.
Scully is semi-conscious, at best. At one
point he has to perform CPR on her as
aliens in nearby canisters come to life
and try to break out, but Scully coughs
and revives. Soon after, the agents are
pursued by these highly aggressive aliens,
saved only by an earthquake caused by the
ship beginning to move, that knocks the
aliens back down into a hole in the ice.
As Mulder and Scully run away from the
buried ship, the ice and snow collapses
behind them, forming a giant crater that
expands behind them as they run. They
barely escape as the giant ship lifts off
and departs. Scully is groggy and does not
clearly see the ship depart. Some fans
claim to hear her murmur "I saw
it." Others claim she says no such
thing. (Movie)
-
Early
September, 1998
-
Again returning to Washington, Scully
presents her final evidence to the Office
of Professional Responsibility committee.
Her conclusion is that the FBI does not
currently have an investigation unit
competent to study the evidence.
-
Outdoors, Mulder tells Scully that she
was right to quit, but she says now that
she cannot, because the virus has a cure
and they can save many lives by continuing
the search for the truth. (Movie)
-
September 6-7, 1998
-
In the Tunesian desert, we see another
field of irrigated corn, and domes housing
bees. The Cigarette Smoking Man pays a
call on Strughold to say that Mulder has
been reinvigorated by his experiences.
Strughold dismisses Mulder as an annoyance
who has seen only pieces and does not
understand the greater whole of The
Project. Strughold adds "One man
alone cannot Fight the Future." CSM
shows Strughold a telegram that arrived
the day before saying "X-Files
reopened, please advise." (Movie)
-
Mid-September 1998
-
The Beginning.
In Phoenix, AZ,
an employee of Roush Technologies, Sandy,
is sick when a corporate carpool van
leaves him off at home. In the morning, he
doesn't come out to the van so another
Roush employee enters the house looking
for him. Sandy is on a sofa with his chest
exploded outward. The other man is
attacked and killed by an alien before he
can leave the building.
-
In Washington, Mulder is using high
tech equipment to salvage information
from the burned X-Files. The
investigating committee has trouble
believing the story of the alien ship in
the antarctic. After the meeting, Scully
tells Mulder that she still must rely on
science. Skinner tells Mulder that his
reassignment to the X-Files has been
denied, but Skinner directs Mulder to a
file folder in the X-Files office. In
the folder, Mulder finds information on
Sandy's death. Agent Spender walks in
and we learn that Spender and agent
Diana Foley have been assigned to the
X-Files. Meanwhile the Cigarette Smoking
Man informs the Consortium that the
alien is alive and is being sought. He
enters a surgery facility and tells the
doctors that Gibson Praise must be
prepared to travel. Gibson's ability to
read minds may help locate the alien.
Mulder and Scully visit Sandy's house,
violating FBI rules, and find a piece of
claw left in a gouged wall.
-
At the Rolling Hills Nuclear plant,
60 miles from Phoenix, a nuclear
engineer named Homer investigates an
unusual gauge reading and is killed by
the alien, which is hiding in the hot
chambers near the reactor. By the time
Mulder and Scully learn of the incident
and arrive there are dozens of FBI and
emergency response people at the plant.
Spender and Foley deny Mulder and Scully
access to the scene and as Mulder and
Scully leave, they find Gibson hiding in
their car. They take him to the
Camelback View Motel. Gibson's skull has
been cut open and stitched back shut. He
has a fever and is not well. Scully
argues that Gibson could be their last
best chance to prove Mulder's beliefs.
As they leave to take Gibson to a
hospital, Foley arrives and tells Mulder
that she accepted the X-Files assignment
to protect Mulder's interests. The
creature is in the reactor #4 building.
Mulder goes with her to find it while
Scully takes Gibson to the hospital.
Gibson is soon kidnapped by an operative
of the Cigarette Smoking Man and also
taken to the nuclear plant.
-
Mulder and Foley find what appears to
be a shed skin of the alien. They see
the operative and Gibson, and follow to
the reactor chamber, which has control
rods extending down into a pool of water.
The FBI agents are locked out of the
room but watch the alien kill the
operative. Gibson, apparently
communicates with the alien, and both
disappear to somewhere Mulder cannot see
them.
-
The investigating committee
reprimands Mulder and Scully and orders
no involvement with the X-Files. Scully
tells Mulder that the claw found in
Sandy's house contains a DNA match with
the virus, which also matches DNA in
Gibson. In fact, the DNA matches
inactive DNA in all humans, but it is
active in Gibson. The Cigarette Smoking
Man visits agent Spender to congratulate
him on how the affair was handled. At
the nuclear plant, we see Gibson hiding
as under water in the reactor vessel, we
see the alien again shed its skin.
Rather than the reptilian creature we
saw in the X-Files Movie, it now looks
like a "regular" grey alien.
-
Fall 1998?
-
Agua Mala
In Goodland, Florida, Tropical Storm
Leroy has been upgraded to Hurricane
status and an ocean-side home is
buffeted by rain and wind. Inside a
woman hammers planks against the door,
shouting in distress to her son. In the
laundry, seawater bubbles up through the
floor drain and the mother franticly
urges her son to help her dump out the
water in the washing machine, but the
machine is too heavy. As they work,
white tentacles strike up through the
floor and pull the boy down. Moments
later they grab the mother and pull her
down too.
In the nearby Tierra Nueva Trailer
Park, retired FBI agent Arthur Dales is
monitoring the progress on the storm on
a variety of radios. He has called his
acquaintance Fox Mulder because a
neighbor telephoned a distress call,
claiming a sea monster was attacking her
home. Mulder and Scully arrive at the
door, having flown in on one of the last
flights. The rain is torrential and the
hurricane is 20 miles off shore. He
reports that Sarah Shipley said
something in the bathroom grabber her
husband. Tentacles were choking him.
They are marine biologists and both are
now missing. Local law enforcement is
overwhelmed by the storm and cannot help.
Dales says he has a bad hip so could not
go to investigate himself. Dales rumbles
that the bottom of the sea is as dark is
the imagination, and the storm could
have brought up anything from the depths.
At the Shipley residence, the FBI
agents force open a nailed-shut door.
Nobody is there, but if the doors were
nailed shut from the inside, how did
they leave? Mulder finds slime around
the laundry room drain and the top of
the washing machine begins popping up.
Cautiously opening it with a broom, a
cat jumps out, wet and unhappy. The
bathroom door is also mailed shut. As
Mulder and Scully begin to open that
door, a local sheriff's deputy enters
and holds the agents at gunpoint,
believing them to be looters. When the
cat distracts the deputy, Mulder grabs
the gun and the agents prove that they
are FBI. With the deputy helping, Mulder
finds nothing in the bathroom, except
more slime and lots of water, as if the
bathroom faucets were left on when the
door was nailed shut.
The deputy leaves and makes another
stop at the Breakers Condominium.
Viewers see that the cat has hidden in
the deputy's vehicle. Checking for
people who have not been evacuated, he
finds the manager's apartment unlocked.
Inside, he finds the manager sitting on
the toilet, completely encased in a
while substance. A tentacle strikes out
at the deputy, grabbing him by the neck,
and he struggles. Back in the car,
Mulder and Scully argue over what they
should do, settling on returning to Dale's
mobile home. A roadblock at a washed out
road stops them, however, and they end
up at the Breakers Condominium. Finding
the deputy's vehicle, they enter the
building and find the deputy on the
floor, unconscious and wounded. The
toilet is empty but filled with
encrusted slime. Scully performs a
tracheotomy and concludes that whatever
got into the deputy was in the water.
She uses the deputy's radio to call for
help, but none can be sent due to the
weather.
Checking the rest of the building,
Mulder finds a looter removing a TV from
an apartment. Down the hall is a man who
says he has a pregnant wife, although
she denies that they are married. They
also direct Mulder to George Vincent,
who will not open the door to his
apartment and threatens Mulder with a
gun. Back in the manager's apartment,
Scully says a foreign organism is in the
deputy's system. His temperature it very
high. Ordering the bathtub filled with
water and whatever ice is available,
Scully removes what is under the deputy's
skin - a wriggling worm a couple of
inches long. She finds a container to
put the worm in and the deputy is places
in the cool bath to reduce his
temperature. A container of Epsom salts
is knocked into the tub. From George's
apartment, gunshots are fired. George
bursts into the hall, saying something
came into his apartment from water pipes
in the ceiling. Mulder speculates that
whatever it was got driven into the
water system by the hurricane.
The pregnant woman has to use the
bathroom and while she is in there, she
sees a tentacle in the tub with the
deputy. She runs out of the bathroom in
terror, but when Mulder investigates,
the deputy's clothes are in the tub,
empty. Mulder speculates that something
in the water takes shape only at certain
times, and that the water in the human
body is somehow used for gestation.
Maybe the worm Scully extracted from the
deputy's neck cannot revert to water
until gestation is complete. It is
discovered that the looter has run off.
Following him, Mulder discovers
tentacles in a florescent light fixture
in the hallway ceiling. He breaks the
fixture and tentacles erupt from it.
Scully calls to Mulder and he comes
toward her, but he cannot speak. George
locks him out in the hall and as Scully
argues with George, the pregnant woman's
water breaks. Scully is forced to make
the decision to help the woman rather
than help Mulder. As she works, water
fills a light fixture in the ceiling.
Lying in the hallway, Mulder sees the
drenched cat, obviously not harmed by
the sea monster. In the manager's
apartment, as the baby is born, Scully
realizes "it's the water." The
light fixture breaks and George is
grabbed by the neck by a tentacle.
Scully cannot act, but she tells the
child's to grab George's gun and shoot
the fire sprinkler system. He does and
fresh water sprays the room.
The scene changes to Arthur Dale's
mobile home as Dale, Mulder and Scully
discuss the case. The baby is fine. Dale
is sure that Scully saved Mulder's life
although Mulder disputes it. Mulder, his
neck bandages, says he saw the cat and
realized that it was saved when it got
wet. He says if he had had a partner as
savvy as Scully all those years ago, he
might not have retired. He concludes
that a toast is needed, but he rummages
and cannot find any alcohol. He asks
"anyone for water?" Mulder and
Scully both chorus "No."
(Note: This episode did not
explain this case very fully. Apparently
salt water was flushed into the water
pipes, and the monster could not survive
in fresh water.)
(Also Note: Hurricane season is
generally considered to be June 1
through November 30. This episode,
broadcast in February 1999, was
apparently way out of synch.)
-
Mid-September 1998
-
The Rain
King. Mulder
and Scully arrive at Kroner, Kansas,
in a single engine plane on a dirt
landing strip. The mayor of the
community has asked them to come
because of the drought. Daryl Moots is
charging people to make it rain, but
the mayor thinks Daryl is causing the
drought. Six months earlier, on
Valentine's Day, Daryl had an argument
with his fiance, Sheila. He left and
lost a leg in a highway accident --
his car crashed in a hail storm.
Mulder and Scully go to Daryl's
office. The secretary doesn't
understand why they are investigating
him because he is helping people. They
go to the local television station and
talk with the weather man, Holman
Hardt. Kroner is a fascinating place
to work for a meteorologist, because
of all of the unusual weather that has
happened there over the years. He says
there is no reason to believe that
Daryl is causing the drought, but he
does seem to have the ability to make
it rain. Daryl's ex-fiance, Sheila,
works at the TV station. The agents go
to a field where Daryl is expected. He
arrives, sits in a chair under a tent
that has been put up for him, then
sips a beer. He tells the agents that
he cannot explain his ability, but
when he begins to dance, it soon rains,
drenching Mulder and Scully.
That night, at the motel, it is
very windy. Looking out a window,
Mulder sees a cow in a nearby field
lifted into the air. It crashes down
into Mulder's room. In the morning, as
crews are cleaning up the mess, Sheila
arrives and claims to be responsible
for the weather. At her senior prom,
the high school was destroyed by a
tornado. On her wedding day, the
outdoor wedding experienced snow.
Mulder tells her that he is convinced
she is not the cause. We learn that
Holman is secretly in love with Sheila.
They are also best friends. She,
however, asks him what he thinks of
Mulder, and it storms. Mulder visits
Holman and tells him he realizes
Holman is the cause of the weather.
Mulder sends Holman to Sheila to
confess his love, but she tells him
she loves Mulder. Meanwhile, Daryl has
lost the ability to make it rain. He
decides to seek out Sheila, because he
needs money. He arrives at the TV
station and accosts Sheila. Mulder
walks up and they scuffle, with Mulder
handcuffing Daryl. Sheila kisses
Mulder for rescuing her, just as
Scully and Holman walk up. Holman is
upset and the radar shows a massive
storm approaching.
Sheila, Holman and Daryl were all
school mates, and they have a 20 year
reunion dance. Mulder and Scully are
also there, because there has been
seven inches of rain in the last six
hours and flash flood warnings are
posted. They are looking for Holman.
They maneuver Holman and Sheila into
dancing, and he repeats his confession
of love. This time Sheila realizes
what he means, is flustered and heads
for the lady's room. Scully follows
and counsels Sheila that her close
friendship with Holman is a good basis
for a more intimate relationship.
Scully also tells Sheila about
Holman's apparent ability to control
the weather. Sheila thinks Scully
loves Mulder and is trying to divert
Sheila from Mulder.
Daryl arrives at the dance, without
his artificial leg and scuffles with
Mulder. His secretary who is also his
girl friend took the leg, because he
left her to chase Sheila. The lights
and power are out because Holman is so
upset. Sheila goes back to talk to
Holman. Is he really the cause of the
weather? Yes, because of his love for
Sheila. "That's the most romantic
thing I ever heard." They kiss
and the power comes back on. Daryl's
girl friend arrives, carrying his
artificial leg. They kiss and make up
also. Mulder asks Holman "how did
it go?" Holman replies, "You
should try it some time." (Dating
this episode is very difficult.
Statements that most of the action is
placed "about six months"
after Valentine's Day would seem to
suggest mid-August, but that timeframe
is preempted by the X-Files Movie.
There have even been suggestions that
it occurs in a different year
completely. The mid-September date
used here is a guess, since the agents
seem to have more flexibility than
A.D. Kersh gives them later in the
fall, but late enough in the year for
the weather map giving a temperature
of 45 degrees to be reasonable for
northern Kansas.)
-
October 1998
-
Elizabeth Pollidori and Shaineh
Berkowitz appear on the Jerry
Springer Show with their deformed
children and proclaim "what's
not to love?" (The
Post-Modern Prometheus -- if this
episode "really" happened
and is not just the dramatization of
a comic book. If this event did
happen, it was seen in the form of a
"flash forward.")
-
October 1998??
-
Hollywood
A.D. (Flashback Sections)
At a staff meeting at the FBI,
Mulder, Scully and Skinner are
talking about a case - a bomb
exploded in a crypt below the church
of Cardinal O'Fallon, a man
considered to be a candidate to be
the first American pope. A filmmaker
is observing the meeting and making
notes into recorder. Wayne Fetterman
is an old friend of Skinner and is
writing a movie about the FBI - he
just wants a taste of the procedural
flavor. He describes his idea as
"Silence of the Lambs meets
Greatest Story Ever Told." He
goes along with Mulder to talk with
the Cardinal while Scully remains
behind to do some paperwork for
Skinner. O'Fallon says the bomb went
off in a crypt under the church
where spiritual items and relics are
stored. Mulder thinks it's a simple
terrorist act. While the three of
them are in the crypt, a cell phone
goes off, but is none of their
phones. Mulder finds it under some
rocks with a body. The cell phone ID
says it is Micah Hoffman - a 1960s
counter culture movement activist.
Scully joins them and they visit
Hoffman's apartment where they find
a bomb-making workshop. He was a
master potter as well as a master
calligrapher. Apparently he was
writing documents and artificially
aging them. They find what appears
to be a lost gospel and an account
of Christ's life on Earth after the
resurrection. What might O'Fallon be
doing with Hoffman's forgeries?
Mulder and Fetterman return to the
crypt. They find what appears to be
another copy of the same gospel.
Maybe the one at the apartment was a
draft? Fetterman gets a call and
wanders off. He sees bones and
skeleton parts moving on their own,
almost as if in a dance.
Later, at a coffee shop, Scully
tells Fetterman it was dark and his
eyes were playing tricks on him. He
is ready to leave, however, because
he has his procedural flavor and is
ready to write his movie. He tells
them that Mulder is crazy for
believing what he believes and
Scully is crazy for not believing
what Mulder believes. Scully says
his story reminds her of the Lazarus
Bowl a story told by a nun she knew
when she was young. The nun, known
as "Sister Spooky" said
that when Jesus raised Lazarus from
the dead, an old woman nearby was
making a pottery bowl and Christ's
words were recorded in the clay and
that the words still have the power
to raise the dead. Scully takes a
clay bowl found in Hoffman's
apartment to Chuck Burkes. He has a
device that can detect vibrations in
the clay and it produces a
remarkable sound. Mulder talks with
O'Fallon who reads some of the Greek
text on the scroll about Jesus. O'Fallon
thought they were real when he
bought them from Hoffman. He bought
them to hide the radical information
they contained. Mulder concludes
that Hoffman was blackmailing O'Fallon,
who is his suspect in Hoffman's
murder. He sends Scully to Hoffman's
autopsy because he thinks Hoffman
might have already been dead when
placed in the crypt. Fetterman calls
Mulder from California to ask Mulder
who he wants to play him in the
movie. Fetterman suggests Gary
Shandling and Tea Leoni to play
Mulder and Scully. Skinner has been
feeding information to him and he is
writing about the Lazarus Bowl.
Meanwhile, Scully is doing the
autopsy and Hoffman wakes up - but
she looks away for a moment and he
is back on the autopsy table. Did it
really happen?
Mulder arrives at the morgue.
Scully reports that there was wine
and poison in Hoffman's stomach. O'Fallon
may have poisoned him. They go to
the church and while they wait for a
service to end, Scully has a vision
of Hoffman on the cross. As they
begin to arrest O'Fallon, Hoffman
walks in, completely alive and
healthy. Later, Skinner blows up at
them for misidentifying the body. O'Fallon
and the church could bring a huge
lawsuit. They are put on
administrative leave and are off the
case. Chuck, however, has found
something in the pottery - an
Aramaic voice, apparently of one man
commanding another to rise from the
dead. They go to talk to Hoffman. He
had the choice to fight the system
by going law school or to be more
subversive. He ended up fighting the
system by forging historical
documents. He targeted O'Fallon for
his worldview. Hoffman studied the
life of Christ in detail but
something weird came over him - he
experienced conversion. He was no
longer impersonating Christ - he had
become him. He blew up the crypt
because the forgeries were
blasphemous. How did his cell phone
get left there? "God works in
mysterious ways," he answers.
Scully comes to Mulder's
apartment. He is watching a bad
movie and thinking about the case.
Scully asks if it possible that
Hoffman really is Christ. No, Mulder
says, but crazy people can be
persuasive. As zombies walk on the
screen, Scully wonders of true faith
is a kind if insanity. They decide
to accept Fetterman's offer to go to
Hollywood to watch the movie being
filmed during their suspension. They
arrive at Stage 8, 20th Century Fox.
They find the graveyard set that we
saw in the opening of the episode
being prepared. They are introduced
to Tea and Gary. "How do you
run in these things?" Tea asks
Scully. Shandling asks, "Do you
dress to the left or the right?"
Mulder isn't sure what he means, or
at least pretends that he doesn't
understand. They watch takes. Later,
they are each in bathtubs in their
respective rooms talking by phone
about zombies and their case.
Skinner calls Mulder and apologizes
- he's in the same hotel in his own
tub - Fetterman got him Assistant
producer credit. Scully tells Mulder
that Tea has a crush on Mulder.
Shandling likes him too, she adds.
-
(Note: This entry is based
on an episode broadcast in the
spring of 2000. The bulk of the
episode was contained in an "eighteen
months earlier" flashback.
See Spring 2000 entry for the rest
of the episode description.)
-
November 1998?
-
Mulder and Scully are returned
to duty after their administrative
leave. (Inferred from Hollywood
A.D.)
-
November 15-16 1998
-
Drive. A TV
news special report tells of law officers, chasing a stolen blue car
near Elko, Nevada. From a camera in a helicopter, viewers watch as
the car is stopped at a roadblock. The driver, Patrick Crump, is
pulled from the car, struggling. An apparent hostage, his wife, is
helped into the back seat of a highway patrol car, but a few seconds
later the inside of the car is splattered with blood.
-
Mulder and Scully
are in Idaho, on a "domestic terrorism" assignment,
checking on large orders of fertilizer that could be used to make
bombs. They see a TV news report about Crump, and decide to go to
Nevada, against orders from their new boss, Assistant Director Kersh.
Scully inspects Vickie Crump's body at the morgue. It appears that
her ear exploded. Another body has been found in a similar condition,
and Scully concludes that the condition may be communicable. She
orders full quarantine. Meanwhile, Crump has fallen ill in his jail
cell with intense pain in his head. He is put in an ambulance;
Mulder follows in his rented car. As the ambulance speeds up, Crump's
pain eases. He takes a gun from an officer, stops the ambulance and
takes Mulder hostage, ordering him to drive as fast as possible.
-
When Mulder slows
his car for a traffic light, Crump goes into agony. Mulder begins to
understand Crump's condition, and avoids an anticipated roadblock.
Out of gas, Mulder tries to do a rapid fueling at a gas station, but
the pump is turned off, so he and Crump steal another vehicle. He
leaves a note behind in the car to tell Scully that the car must not
be stopped. Crump thinks he and his wife are victims of a government
experiment. In containment suits, Scully and other authorities visit
the Crump residence -- a rural mobile home. The Crump's dog, outside
on a leash, is agitated and as a blood sample is taken from the dog,
its ear explodes. Other dead animals are found, but a neighbor lady
who is deaf is unharmed. Scully discovers that there is some kind of
government equipment near the Crump's property.
-
Entering California,
a highway patrol officer on motorcycle hands Mulder a cell phone.
Scully tells Mulder that she has learned that the Navy has part of
an underground transmitting array for an ultra low frequency radio
system (used to communicate with submarines) running under the Crump
property. They had a power surge that morning that disrupted
television in four states. Scully theorizes that the surge created a
condition in the inner ear that is somehow eased by speed along
magnetic lines of force, or some such reason. She will fly ahead of
Mulder and meet the car where the highway ends, inserting a needle
into Crump's ear to relieve the pressure. Crump agrees, as his only
way to survive. But when the car actually arrives, Crump's ear has
already exploded and he is dead.
-
Mulder and Scully
are in trouble with Kersh. Even though they may have saved lives by
causing the Navy to shut down its low frequency array, they
disobeyed FBI orders. Kersh informs them that they no longer
investigate X-Files, and they'd better accept it. They go back to
investigating "big piles of manure" in their domestic
terrorism assignment. (Dates given on Crump's photograph.)
-
November 16, 1998
-
Triangle. In
the Sargasso Sea, east of Bermuda, Fox Mulder is floating face down
in the water in the wreckage of a boat. Then he is pulled on board a
cruise ship by seamen speaking with British accents, calling him
"dirty jerry." They rough him up and take him to the
Captain who asks his allegiance. Mulder says he came looking for the
Queen Anne and that the ship has been stuck in the Devil's Triangle
but the Captain counters that it is September 3, 1939, the Germans
have invaded Poland and Germans have boarded the ship.
Mulder is confined
in a cabin and on a radio hears the British declaration of war
against Germany. A German officer enters the cabin, Mulder hides
then knocks the German out. The German looks like Agent Spender.
Mulder takes his uniform and eludes German troops who are searching
room by room. Mulder eventually enters the ballroom. There he sees a
woman who looks like Scully, but she does not recognize him. Germans
capture Mulder and take him to the bridge where the Captain is
executed for refusing to surrender the wheel. Present are German
officers who look like the Cigarette Smoking Man and Walter Skinner.
-
At FBI headquarters
in Washington, the Lone Gunmen tell Scully that Mulder is in trouble.
Satellite imaging showed the appearance of the Queen Anne and Mulder
rushed off to find it. The Gunmen tracked his boat by satellite
until they lost it due to a storm. Scully charges all over FBI
headquarters, looking for someone who can get her the exact location
of the Queen Anne. Skinner first tells her that he is allowed no
contact with her, but he secretly gets the information and slips it
to her. She jumps into the Gunmen's VW minivan and they head out to
rescue Mulder.
-
Mulder is locked in
the engine room with the ship's crew. The Germans keep mentioning
the term Thor's Hammer. Mulder recognizes this as a code word for a
scientist who has expertise in the nuclear bomb. Germans return and
take Mulder to the ballroom where, believing him to be an American
agent, they order him to identify the scientist, killing two
passengers to induce him to speak. The 1939 Scully look-alike
attempts to intervene, saying this man knows nothing, but the
Germans then threaten to kill her. The actual scientist steps
forward, saying the woman is an OSS agent traveling with him. As
Mulder and the OSS agent are about to be executed, the ship's
engines stop and the engine crew charges into the ballroom to attack
the Germans. British passengers join in the fight. Mulder and the
OSS agent duck out, further eluding Germans. Mulder tells her that
she must convince the engine crew to steer the ship back the way it
came, toward 1939, or the Germans may win the war. He gives her a
big kiss goodbye but she smacks his face. Mulder jumps overboard and
she throws a life preserver after him.
-
Meanwhile, Scully
and the Gunmen are in their own boat and locate the Queen Anne. They
board it and find it to be abandoned. Locating Mulder in the water,
they take him to a hospital. Mulder tries to explain. "You were
on that ship, Scully, you saved the world and you believed me."
"In your dreams, Mulder." Scully says it was a ghost ship,
apparently meaning a derelict. Mulder tells Scully he loves her, but
she does not believe him. (The 1998 date of this episode is given
by Mulder in the Captain's office, one week before the actual air
date of the episode. Note: the lounge singer is Elmira Gultch, named
after the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz.)
-
November 1998
-
Dreamland Part I
In rural Nevada Mulder and Scully drive down a highway at night.
Mulder has been contacted by a source who claims to work at Area 51
at Groom Lake, a top secret facility. Mulder believes the source may
know the truth about UFOs and alien life. As they approach the base,
they are surrounded by government vehicles and soldiers order Mulder
and Scully out of their car. A civilian official, Fletcher Morris,
tells them that they must leave, and that there are no flying
saucers. But a UFO flies over and Mulder and Morris change bodies.
Scully, not realizing this, pulls "Mulder" (really
Fletcher) on the arm and they leave.
-
Mulder, who
everyone else thinks is Fletcher, plays it by ear and goes back to
Area 51. His name tag has the organizational name
"Majestic" on it. A video display at the security desk
makes it clear to him that he looks like Fletcher. Mulder finds
Fletcher's office by the name plate on the wall and sees photographs
of Fletcher with presidents and other VIPs. He tries to phone
Scully, but she is out of the vehicle getting gasoline. A woman
calls who is obviously Fletcher's wife. She is unhappy he is at work
so late and complains. Another agent comes in and says phone records
confirm that an informant did call the FBI. The agent gives
"Fletcher" a ride home. Mulder does not get into bed with
Fletcher's wife, spending the night in a recliner chair, watching a
porno channel on the TV. In the countryside, authorities are at a
crash site. The co-pilot is physically embedded in a boulder but
still alive. The pilot is speaking an unintelligible language.
-
At FBI HQ the next
morning, Assistant Director Kersh reprimands the agents. Fletcher,
posing as Mulder, promises to never investigate an X-File again. He
flirts with Kersh's secretary and Scully tells him he is acting
unusual. Meanwhile, Fletcher's wife, Joanne, wakes Mulder. Mulder
cannot handle the Fletcher family homelife, which includes two
teenagers. He locates Fletcher's car keys and his partner calls to
tell him that something big is going on. At Area 51, Mulder learns
that the pilot of the test craft is speaking Hopi, and claiming to
be an elderly Hopi woman. The woman has been located, and she
appears to have the memories of the pilot. Later, from a pay phone,
Mulder reaches Scully in Washington. She does not believe his story
but orders a trace on the call. As Mulder drives his car he sees the
white government vehicles rushing the other direction. One slows to
tell "Fletcher" to follow. The gas station where Mulder
placed the call has been wrecked. Inside, the attendant is embedded
in the floor and someone says "it happened again." A
soldier kills the attendant and the gas station is burned.
-
Scully visits
Mulder's apartment. Kersh's secretary, giggling, is just leaving.
Scully tells "Mulder" that the call was traced to near
Groom Lake but he says they would get in trouble if they attempt to
follow up. Meanwhile, Mulder is in a meeting at Area 51. There has
been a tear in the space-time continuum, apparently caused by the
antigravity propulsion system of the craft. General Wegman,
commander of the installation, mentions "we've been flying them
since 1953." There is no way to know if they can undo the
effects of the tear.
-
Scully is back in
Nevada. She finds the destroyed gas station, and finds two coins
fused together. In the morning, Scully shows up at Fletcher's house.
Joanne accuses her husband of infidelity. Mulder tries to convince
Scully of who he really is, even describing what she eats for lunch
-- mixing bee pollen in with her yogurt. She still does not believe
and drives off. Kersh calls her cell phone and threatens that she
must do exactly as he says. Fletcher, posing as Mulder, is also in
Nevada and has called Area 51 to report a security leak. Mulder
steals the flight recorder from the crashed craft and meets Scully,
but it is a setup and Mulder is arrested. As Mulder is hauled off,
he shouts repeatedly to Scully, "he's not me, he's not
me." To be continued next week.
-
Dreamland Part
II (The episode opens with narration by Morris Fletcher over
home movies showing young Fox and Samantha Mulder. Fox is dressed as
Spock from Star Trek and his fake ears keep coming off. Fletcher
says Mulder has ruined a brilliant career but "now all that's
gonna change.")
As Mulder is taken
away by the authorities, Scully begins to wonder. Mulder is put in a
holding cell beside the UFO pilot in the Navaho woman's body. Scully
is reprimanded by Kersh and given a two-week suspension. Morris
invites her to Mulder's apartment for a "home cooked
meal." Mulder is questioned by the commander of the
installation, Wegman. Security has learned that the flight recorder
he gave to the FBI was not the recorder from the crash. Not knowing
the reason for the switched recorders, Mulder claims he did it as
part of a plan to identify the informant. No longer in trouble,
Mulder goes to the Fletcher home and tries to explain to Joanna that
he is not her husband, but she does not believe him.
Morris arrives home
at Mulder's with bags of groceries. He searches the apartment and
finds the bedroom, filled with boxes and junk. (Mulder always sleeps
on his futon in the living room.) Later, Scully arrives and Morris
gives her the tour of a redecorated apartment, including the bedroom
with a canopied waterbed. He attempts to seduce Scully and she pulls
out her handcuffs, saying "do you know what I'd really like to
do?" Morris is tricked into cuffing himself to the bed, but
Scully pulls out her gun and accuses him of being Morris Fletcher,
not Mulder. He admits it, saying that he couldn't stand his life and
that he has no idea how to reverse the body switch. As they talk the
informant calls on the phone and arranges a personal meeting in
Rachel, Nevada.
Back in Nevada,
Scully and Morris go to a bar to meet the informant. Morris is
obeying Scully and goes in while Scully waits in the car. Morris
discovers that the informant is General Wegman, who gives Morris the
actual flight recorder. But Mulder and Joanna are also in the bar,
because Mulder wants to be somewhere public. Seeing Morris there,
Mulder goes outside and talks with Scully, who admits that she
believes his story. Area 51 security agents enter the bar, and
Mulder, Morris, Scully and Wegman all have to duck around to avoid
being seen. Mulder, Morris and Wegman all end up in the men's room
and hatch a plot. Wegman boldly walks out and orders the Area 51
agents outside, where they find Mulder carrying a paper bag. Inside
is not the flight recorder but a six-pack of beer. Morris,
meanwhile, slips out and drives off with Scully.
The Lone Gunmen are
eating dinner when Scully and Morris arrive. It takes them a while
to be convinced that Morris is not Mulder. Morris claims that most
of what the Gunmen print in their publications is invented to hide
the truth -- much of it made up by Morris himself. He claims that
Saddam Hussein is his creation -- an actor who causes trouble
whenever a distraction is needed. The Gunmen decrypt the flight
recorder and find that in addition to the regular data items it
tracks, it records things like Tachyon Flux and Gravitational
Displacement. Scully and Morris go back to Nevada yet again and meet
with Mulder. The Gunmen have concluded that what happened was such a
fluke that there is no way to recreate the body switch safely.
Morris has been tasked to return the flight recorded to Area 51.
Scully is suspended. she has to leave Mulder without hope.
The next day,
Mulder talks with Wegman. Why was he the informant? Wegman sabotaged
the aircraft to disable the Stealth Module so Mulder would see it.
Looking back on his career, Wegman regrets that he has been involved
in misleading the American people. "We just fly these birds.
They engineer them up in Utah." Wegman says he doesn't know the
truth and asks Mulder if aliens really exist, to which Mulder has no
answer.
Three young people,
on a lark, are hiking up a mountain to where they might see UFOs.
Some kind of visual wave approaches and passes them and a boy and
girl who had been kissing are fused together. The other boy runs for
help, flagging down a car on the highway that carrys one of the Area
51 security agents. When they reach the other two, however, they are
no longer fused and have no memory of the events. Scully and Morris
drive past the gas station that was destroyed a few days earlier and
it is undamaged. The owner is alive and well and has no memory of
trouble. They rush to the Fletcher home where Mulder is packing to
leave. As Scully tells Mulder that the time warp appears to be
reversing itself, Morris talks with Joanna. He describes their
wedding and other memories and she believes that he is her husband,
although in Mulder's body.
Area 51 authorities
show up and take Mulder, Morris and Scully into custody. They take
them back to the highway where Mulder and Morris exchanged bodies.
The bodies of Morris and Mulder flicker and they are back in their
own bodies, but time has reversed and they are at the moment when
they first exchanged bodies, with no memory of the events. Back in
Washington, Mulder and Scully's (only) trip to Nevada has not been
noticed by Kersh. Scully finds the fused coins on her desk and is
bewildered as to where they came from. Mulder returns home and
enters his apartment, but it is still decorated the way Morris left
it. He has to open his door again to see if it is really apartment
42.
-
Fall, 1998
-
Terms of
Endearment. A doctor talks with a woman about a sonogram -- the
woman is pregnant and the sonogram has revealed an abnormality in
the baby's skull and neck. Back home that evening, the couple, Wayne
and Laura Wineside, prepare for bed. Wayne gives his wife a glass of
warm milk and a herbal pill to help her sleep. Laura dreams that a
demon, surrounded by flames, approaches the bed and takes the baby
from inside her. She wakes and Wayne finds blood -- the baby really
is gone.
Deputy Stevens,
from the Hollins, Virginia, sheriff's office tells agent Spender
about the case. Laura is his sister. After Stevens leaves, Spender
shreds the case report, but Mulder shows up in Hollins with the case
report taped back together. After interviewing Laura and Wayne,
Mulder telephones Scully who is doing background checks on
candidates for federal jobs. He thinks it is a classic case of demon
baby harvest that was often reported during the middle ages and asks
Scully to review Laura's medical records. Wayne overhears the
cell-phone conversation on the baby monitor radio in the nursery.
That night, Laura sees Wayne outside burning something. He tells her
it is leaves, but we see him remove a bundle from the ground and
burn it.
In the morning,
Scully reports to Mulder that Laura has mandrake in her system,
sometimes used to induce abortion, and thinks that may be the real
reason behind the disappearance of the baby. Wayne drives up to a
different house and talks with Betsy. It is clear that they are
married and Betsy is pregnant. Wayne says he is just returning from
a business trip. Meanwhile, police are at Laura's home, based on
Scully's suspicions. Wayne arrives and gives them permission to
search the premises, and they find the bones of a baby in the fire
ashes outside. Wayne privately tells Laura that he found her in a
trance last night, holding the baby and chanting that it was evil.
Laura is arrested but Mulder tells Wayne "I know what you
are." Mulder begins following Wayne, who has to fake a business
appointment -- he takes blood for medical tests for an insurance
company. He comments to the women he is testing that she doesn't
know how lucky she is to have three normal children.
Wayne visits Laura
in jail. She doesn't think his story makes sense. As they hug, Wayne
opens his mouth and life force flows out of her mouth into his. He
claims she collapsed in his arms and paramedics are quickly called.
They manage to restart her heart and take her to the hospital. Wayne
goes to Betsy's. He has missed her sonogram. The doctor found an
abnormal growth on the baby's skull and neck. Getting ready for bed,
Wayne gives Betsy a glass of warm milk. As she falls asleep she sees
a demon, surrounded by flames, at the foot of her bed, but she grabs
for it and it is Wayne. Meanwhile, Scully arrives in Roanoke and
tells Mulder there is no medical reason for Laura to fall into a
coma as she did. Mulder has been in the county records and has found
that Wayne has twice been tried for murder and has several
identities. He is a Czech national who came to this country. Mulder
finds another address for Wayne and as he and Scully go there, they
meet Betsy driving Wayne's car. She is bloody and repeating "he
took my baby." Arriving at Betsy's with police backup, they
find Wayne in the back yard, digging. He says "a normal life
and family is all I ever wanted." He begins to say "Betsy
isn't like Laura, Betsy is..." but Deputy Stevens shoots Wayne.
At the hospital,
Wayne is placed near Laura. He opens his mouth and life force flows
out of him and into Laura. She wakes up and Wayne dies. Meanwhile,
at Betsy's home, the bodies of four more babies have been found,
buried in the yard. All are normal, but the baby Wayne supposedly
took is not there. Mulder's theory is that Wayne was some sort of
demon, really looking for a normal life, but all of his babies were
demons. Betsy, though, was apparently even more evil, and Wayne gave
her a real demon child. We see Betsy driving Wayne's red sportscar.
Her baby is on the seat beside her, and the hands showing from
underneath the covers appear to be those of a demon. Betsy's eyes
are red.
-
December 24, 1998
-
How the Ghosts
Stole Christmas. Late at night on Christmas Eve, somewhere in
Maryland, Mulder is parked outside a dark, gothic mansion. Scully
drives up and asks why Mulder wanted her to meet him there. It is a
stake-out of the former owners -- on Christmas 1917, two young
lovers killed themselves in a murder suicide pact, promising to
always spend Christmas Eve together. They were demoralized by the
war and the flu epidemic that was killing thousands of people.
Scully wants to leave but she cannot find her carkeys so she follows
Mulder into the house. The door slams shut and they can't get out.
They go upstairs
because Mulder hears a sound. Mulder says there have been three
murder-suicides in the house in 80 years, always on Christmas Eve.
Scully rationalizes at length about how ghosts aren't real but a
hallway door opens by itself. They enter the room and it is a
brightly-lit library, although when they were outside there were no
lights on in the house. The floorboards creak and Mulder believes
there is a hiding space below the floor. They pry up the boards and
find two bodies, long dead of gunshot wounds. The bodies are wearing
clothes just like Mulder and Scully. The agents beat a hasty
retreat, but when they exit the doorway, they reenter the library
from another door, as if space is warped. They repeat this several
times, always reentering the library as they cross through the
doorway. They split up, thinking they will meet each other, but each
enters a library that does not have the other in it.
Mulder finds that
all the doors to the library are now locked. He uses his gun to
shoot a lock, but the doorway behind the door is bricked up. All of
a sudden, a man (who we later learn is named Maurice) is in the
library with Mulder saying "this is my house." Mulder
accuses him of being a ghost, but Maurice responds saying he is a
mental health specialist. He accuses Mulder of being prone to a
breakdown and says Mulder is a lonely man chasing illusions. Maurice
leads Mulder into the next room, but as Mulder crosses the doorway
it is suddenly filled with bricks again. Meanwhile, Scully discovers
that Lyla is in the room with her and both scream. Lyla says she saw
Mulder and Scully and thought THEY were ghosts. Lyla tells Scully
that she must have a small life, being willing to spend Christmas
Eve with Mulder and suggests that Scully's only joy in life is
proving Mulder wrong. Maurice walks in and Scully holds them both at
gunpoint. When they raise their hands, Scully sees a hole in Lyla's
stomach -- a gunshot wound. She lifts Maurice's hat and finds a hole
through his head, after which Scully faints. Maurice and Lyla talk
with each other. when was the last time we had a good haunting? This
pop culture approach doesn't work. If we don't do better they'll
take us off the tourist lists. We'll show these two how lonely
Christmas Eve can be.
Lyla enters the
library and talks to Mulder who realizes that Lyla and Maurice are
the young couple who killed themselves in 1917. She pulls out the
book "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" by R. Grimes and
shows a picture of herself and Maurice when they were young. She
indicates to Mulder that he and Scully are there for their own
murder-suicide. Mulder says no, but she says maybe it's a secret
suicide pact and they don't realize it. She hands Mulder his gun and
disappears. Meanwhile, Scully wakes up and Maurice talks with her.
The library doors are still locked for her protection from Mulder.
Maurice says Mulder is disturbed and capable of anything but Scully
makes him open the door. Mulder enters and fires his gun several
times. The last shot strikes Scully in the stomach but as Scully
collapses we see that it is Lyla posing as Mulder.
The real Mulder
enters through a doorway and finds Scully on the floor, bleeding.
She shoots him, but we see that it is Lyla on the floor, posing as
Scully. Mulder and Scully each crawl toward the front door of the
house and meet each other. They each deny that they shot the other,
and Mulder realizes it is all in their heads. They stand up and the
pain and blood disappears. Mulder and Scully run out the door to
their cars and race off. Maurice and Lyla sit in chairs before the
fireplace. We almost had those two such lonely souls. I wonder what
they were really looking for. We know the real meaning of Christmas.
As the clock strikes midnight, beginning Christmas Day, they
disappear.
Mulder is at home,
watching a black and white version of A Christmas Carol on TV when
Scully knocks at his door. She couldn't sleep. None of that really
happened, did it? It was all in their minds? The pop psychoanalysis
of the ghosts has affected both of the agents. Mulder says "I
know we agreed to not get each other gifts," but pulls out a
present for Scully. She has one for him, too, and they sit down to
open the presents, all of a sudden happy to be with each other as
the snow falls outside.
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