2000
January 1, 2000
-
In spite of great concern, no major
problems result from the "Y2K" computer bug, resulting
from software that uses two digits for the date year, rather than
four.
The cult leader calling himself Absalom is
disappointed when the alien invasion he predicted did not occur at
the beginning of what he believes to be the new millennium. His cult
disbands and he pursues other activities, some of which cause him to
be accused of credit card fraud. He eventually makes contact with
Jeremiah Smith. (This Is Not Happening)
-
Spring 2000??
-
Orison At a prison in Illinois,
Reverend Orison is preaching to a group of prisoners, including mass
murder Donnie Pfaster. Orison says things like "god's love is a
promise," and "God's love will set you free." As the
prisoners respond to Orison, Donnie doesn't participate. Later, in
the prison garment shop, a prisoner screams because a blade used to
cut materials has cut his fingers off. In the commotion, Donnie is
able to walk out of the prison. The time is 6:06 AM.
In her bedroom, Scully wakes up at 6:06 AM,
but the digital clock briefly reads 6:66. The electricity then
flickers and the clock returns to normal. In the next scene, she is
with Mulder at the prison in Illinois to help determine how Donnie
escaped. She claims that the case does not bother her, but she is
clearly affected by her memory of how Donnie kidnapped her years
earlier. In the prison room where Orison preached to the prisoners
Scully hears a song that she recognizes from her childhood coming
from an air vent. Mulder interviews the man whose fingers were cut
off -- in reality they weren't, even though he felt the blade.
Mulder believes that Donnie escaped as the result of mass hypnosis,
but doubts that Donnie did it. Two other prisoners at other
prisoners have escaped in the same way, never to be heard from again.
Mulder observe that the prison chaplain had contact with all three
missing men.
At a bus stop coffee shop, a prostitute
propositions Donnie. He offers to manicure her, but Orison
interrupts -- the grace of God got Donnie out of prison and it is
the only thing that will keep him out. US Marshals arrive, orison
flicks his keys and chants a prayer, and the Marshals discover that
Donnie and Orison have disappeared. Outside, Donnie runs Orison down
with Orison's car, then drives off with the prostitute in the car
with him. When Mulder and Scully arrive at the coffee shop, the US
Marshals are very confused. They thought they saw Donnie, but then
he wasn't there. On a radio in the coffee shop, Scully hears the
same song again, "Don't Look any Farther." At the
hospital, Scully talks with Orison. He tells Scully that she heard
God calling, but doesn't know what to do and says, "Everything
has a reason, Scout."
Mulder arrives, with a picture of the dead
prostitute. Orison is shocked. Mulder concludes that Orison managed
to get the prisoners out in order to kill them. Orison was convicted
of murder in 1959 and served 22 years in prison. Scully tells Mulder
that she is confused by hearing that song repeatedly. She hasn't
heard it for years. When she was 13 and her father was stationed in
San Diego, she was listening to that song when her mother told her
that her Sunday school teacher had been murdered. That was when
Scully first believed that there is true evil in the world. The
Sunday school teacher used to call her "Scout." Mulder
shows Scully that an MRI scan or orison's head shows what appears to
be a self-inflicted brain wound that given Orison greatly increased
blood flow to the brain. Mulder believes that this given Orison
mental powers, such as the ability to impose mass hypnosis. Later,
Orison causes the US Marshall guarding him to not notice as Orison
leaves the hospital. Orison leaves a note by the bed that Scully
later finds, saying "Don't look any farther."
Donnie is at Orison's apartment. A
redheaded call girl arrives. Donnie goes through his usual routine
of having her get in the tub so he can shampoo her. She soon decides
that he is too weird and begins to leave, but Donnie discovers that
her red hair is a wig, and becomes mad. The girl knocks him down and
runs, escaping. When Donnie wakes up, Orison is there, with the
Marshall's gun. When Donnie asks what he is doing, Orison answers,
"Taking you home -- the wicked shall be punished." Outside,
Donnie kneels as Orison digs a grave. Donnie cries, but says he is
crying for Orison because "you cannot kill me." Donnie's
face appears to transform into that of a demon.
Orison's body is found, buried where Orison
intended to bury Donnie. Donnie had actually called to tell then
where to find Orison's body. Mulder and Scully go home because the
X-File, Orison's special powers, is concluded and the US Marshals
can handle the search for Donnie. Donnie, however, precedes them and
enters Scully's apartment to wait for her. Scully arrives home and
after changing into her flannel pajamas discovers Donnie hiding in
her closet. They fight and she almost defeats him, but Donnie he
managed to bind her. "You're the one who got away," he
said. "The only thing I think about." She screams when he
says, "I'm going to run you a bath." At Mulder's apartment,
a US Marshall has left him a message that the call girl who escaped
Donnie reported him. But Mulder does not check his messages
immediately upon returning home.
While Donnie is filling the bathtub he
leaves Scully in a closet with her wrists tied behind her. She gets
out of the closet and begins making her way across the floor to
where her gun was knocked onto the floor. She has a couple of close
calls in which Donnie almost sees her and she manages to work her
legs through her bound wrists so her hands are in front of her. With
scenes moving in slow motion, Mulder bursts into the apartment door
and holds Donnie at gunpoint. Scully walks into view, carrying her
gun, raises the gun and shoots Donnie. The scene fades out and fades
back in to show several law officers in Scully's apartment. Mulder
tells Scully that his report will make clear that Donnie gave her no
choice. He says she cannot judge herself. She tells Mulder that she
is sure that Donnie was evil but she wonders who or what was at work
in her that made her pull the trigger. Her concern is what if it was
NOT God?
(Note: This
episode was broadcast in January, but at 6:06 AM there was plenty of
light streaming through Scully's bedroom window, suggesting that the
episode takes place later in the year.)
-
January 12, 2000
-
The Amazing
Maleeni At
the Santa Monica Pier amusement park, a magician, The Amazing
Maleeni, puts on a sideshow but does fairly basic tricks and talks a
lot. A heckler complains that the tricks are 100 years old and
demands something big. Maleeni announces a trick to reattach a
severed head and rotates his head 360 degrees. Later, when the park
employee comes to his van to pay him, he finds Maleeni sitting in
his van and his head rolls off his body and onto the pavement.
Mulder & Scully
are at the park looking at the van. Scully is not intrigued. She
thinks the trick is unrelated to the subsequent murder. Mulder
thinks it is a magic trick gone wrong. A tourist videotaped the
performance. On the tape the agents see the heckler. They find a
soda cup seen thrown away on the tape and track him down from finger
prints. His name is Billy Labonge and he has a criminal record for
pick pocketing. He also does sleight of hand and claims that Maleeni
was a bad magician. Labonge demonstrates a similar trick, rotating
his hand 360 degrees, and says Maleeni had little originality or
style. He also says Maleeni racked up some big gambling debts. As
they leave, Labonge returns both of their badge holders, which he
has pick pocketed. Scully does an autopsy on Maleeni, identified as
Herman Pinchbeck, and is bewildered. His head was carefully sawed
off and reattached with spirit gum. But he apparently died of a
heart attack and had been dead for over a month and refrigerated.
Labonge goes to a North Hollywood pool hall and talks to a man named
Cissy Alvarez, whose body is covered with tattoos. They were in
prison together. Labonge asks if he wants to get back the money
Maleeni owed him and Alvarez is intrigued.
At the Cradok
Marine Bank, Mulder and Scully talk to a banker who looks just like
Pinchbeck - with a cervical collar around his neck. He is Herman's
twin brother, named Albert Pinchbeck. He does a card trick for
Mulder and explains that years ago he and his brother worked as a
magic act. He was in a recent car accident but Mulder wonders if he
was the magician who appeared at Santa Monica Pier as one last act
for which his brother would always been remembered. It is revealed
that Pinchback is in a wheelchair with no legs as a result of the
accident. The agents go back to Labonge for advice. He looks through
Maleeni's van but does not find where the body might have been
hidden. Mulder finds a gambling marker in the van. Meanwhile,
Pinchbeck visits the bank vault and asks the guard about his gun,
examining it briefly. Alvarez walks in and threatens Pinchbeck,
saying he wants him to pay his brother's gambling debt. An armored
car stops along the street when the guards hear a noise. They open
the back and a masked and tattooed man is there. The guard shoots
but the man disappears. It was Labonge - he had fake tattoos on his
hands and cleans them off.
The agents question
Alvarez about the marker and he denies being involved with the
murder. Mulder tells Scully he thinks they are subject to a case of
misdirection. Labonge watches them as they drive off. He places an
emergency call to police then enters the pool hall where Alvarez
threatens him. Labonge runs out, police arrive and arrest him.
Mulder and Scully return to talk to Pinchbeck. Mulder pushes him out
of the wheelchair - and it turns out that he does have legs. He is
Herman and was afraid for his life because he owes a lot of money.
He went to his brother, the banker, for a loan and found him dead.
He saw it as an opportunity to become someone else. He faked the car
accident and his loss of legs. He is arrested but Mulder doesn't
believe his explanation about why. The bank president is concerned
that Herman may have accessed the Electronic Funds Transfer system,
but he has not. The president comments that for Mulder to
investigate the EFT system in more detail would take his badge
number, thumbprint and possibly a court order. Scully learns about
the armored car robbery attempt - Pinchbeck was the authorizing
signature that signed out the truck. In the jail cell at the North
Hollywood police station, Labonge is next door to Pinchbeck - they
are obviously in league with each other and everything is going
perfectly.
At the bank the
next morning the vault is found empty. The security footage is blank,
but from a couple of days earlier they find footage of Alvarez in
the bank and the guard recognizes his tattoos as the guy who
attempted to rob the armored car. At the pool hall, the money is
found and Alverez is arrested, but he claims it's a frame-up by
Labonge. Mulder and Scully suspect that Labonge and Pinchbeck may be
working together. As they are to be released on bail the agents
question them. They think that Labonge was Maleeni's protegee and it
was a setup from the beginning. It was Albert, the banker, who died
and Herman, the magician, who took his place. He switched the
bullets in the guard's gun clip to be blanks. They used escape
artist techniques to get out of jail, stole the money, planted it to
frame Alvarez, and got back into jail. But Mulder says they will go
free, because it can't be proven. Pinchbeck says, "The great
ones always know when to leave the stage." It turns out, though,
that Mulder has Pinchbeck's wallet, taken from the evidence room.
Why have so elaborate a con game? Mulder says it was really about
Electronic Funds Transfers, and an FBI agent has the authority to
get into the bank EFT system. The magicians had Mulder's badge
number from when Labonge pick pocketed it and thumb print from
Pinchbeck's card trick, but the playing card is in the wallet, so
they will not be able to steal via EFT. The final question is how
did Maleeni turn his head all the way around. Scully demonstrates
how she can turn her arm all the way around, as Labonge did. Mulder
is left wondering how she did it. Magic, she replies. (Note:
Date taken from armored car log.)
-
Early 2000
-
Signs and
Wonders In
Blessing, TN, a young man, Jared Chirp, is in an old house in the
rain. He looks at papers concerning medical tests, tears them up and
packs a suitcase, all the time muttering religious statements. A
figure can be seen outside watching, in the rain. Jared has a gun.
He goes outside and gets in a car but a rattlesnake is in the car -
in fact there are several. The door won't open so Jared grabs the
gun and begins shooting the snakes.
Mulder has the
report on Jared's death. He had 116 different bite marks from 50
snakes. The car was closed but when he was found there was no
evidence of snakes at all, plus these snakes hibernate in the winter.
It looks like murder, but why? Scully says that serpents and
religion go hand in hand so maybe there's something symbolic in the
mind of the murderer. Mulder says maybe these snakes really did
serve evil.
At the Blessing
Community Church, a teenage girl, Gracie and an older woman, Iris,
Jared. Iris owns the boarding house where Gracie lives. Gracie is
pregnant. Mulder and Scully talk with the minister, Samuel Mackey.
Mackey had his suspicions. His church is founded on acceptance of
all people and all beliefs but Jared had belonged to a
fundamentalist congregation that practiced snake handling. Jared and
his girl friend Gracie left together and Mackey says their former
church, and its leader Enoch O'Connor, has persecuted them. Mulder
and Scully visit O'Connor's "Church of God with Signs and
Wonders." The door is open so they enter. There is no
electricity and snakes are loose in the building. The agents are
uptight about the snakes but O'Connor enters and moves the snakes
out of the way. He says Jared strayed from the path and his death
was a test of faith. "I don't think you people realize which
side you're on." He seems like a suspect, but the sheriff has
ruled O'Connor out. At the church, Iris tells Mackey that on the
night he died, Jared called very late and wanted to talk to Gracie.
He sounded very strange but Mackey asks to wait until after Bible
class to hear more. Both Mackey's class and O'Connor's snake
handling service go on simultaneously. Meanwhile, Iris works on
stapling bulletins for a church service. As she works, her staple
remover turns into a snakehead and bites her. Iris goes into the
bathroom to wash the wound and suddenly the bathroom seems filled
with snakes.
Mulder and Scully
talk with Mackey as Iris' body is taken away. Nobody saw or heard
anything until Iris screamed. Mackey tells Mulder about what Iris
told him - something about Jared paying for his sins. The agents go
to talk with Gracie. She is convinced that O'Connor didn't do this
but rather that it was Satan's work. It is revealed that Enoch O'Connor
is Gracie's father. When Gracie got pregnant her father kicked her
out of the church and his home. They go back to O'Connor's and split
up to look around. In an outbuilding, Scully finds mice in cages and
lots of snakes in boxes. O'Connor enters and grabs her, forcing her
head down onto a snake box. O'Connor forces Scully's hand inside a
snake box, but she is not bitten. Mulder appears with his gun and
makes O'Connor release Scully. O'Connor is arrested. "Your
partner could have learned something about herself if you hadn't
stopped me," he says. His wife, Alice, died in June 1994 of
snakebites, supposedly during a church service. O'Connor claims that
Satan is near and says Mulder can't see it. In jail at night, O'Connor
awakes. He kneels and snakes slither in between the bars.
O'Connor is in
Intensive Care, covered with snakebites. Gracie has prevented the
doctors from giving him anti-venom on religious grounds. Scully
wonders if Gracie tried to kill her father - she grew up amid snakes
and told Scully her father would be judged. Visiting Jared's room,
the agents find the medical tests showing that Jared was sterile. He
could not be the father of Gracie's child. Scully says maybe he was
killed because he discovered the truth. Reverend Mackey counsels
Gracie that you can trust God by trusting in the miracles of doctors
and medicine and she eventually agrees to treatment. Later, Mulder
and Scully arrive at the hospital. O'Connor and Gracie are both gone
and nobody knows how. Mackey tells them Enoch is the father, which
is why Gracie wanted to get away from him. O'Connor brings Gracie to
his church, where his congregation waits. She struggles but they
begin to deliver the baby. Snakes slither out from under her dress.
In the morning,
Mulder and Scully arrive at O'Connor's church. Gracie is in deep
shock and has loss of blood. From the pool of blood on the floor,
snake tracks can be seen. Scully goes in the ambulance with Gracie
while Mulder heads for Mackey's church, feeling that O'Connor may
now threaten Reverend Mackey. O'Connor confronts Mackey and pulls
out a knife but Mulder enters and shoots O'Connor in the shoulder,
saving Mackey. In the ambulance, Gracie tells Scully that her father
saved her, rather than threatened her harm. AS Mackey is in the
other room, calling for an ambulance, O'Connor repeats to Mulder
that Mulder doesn't know which side he's on. "Be smart down
here," O'Connor says, pointing to Mulder's heart. Mulder pulls
his gun on Mackey, claiming Mackey is the father of Gracie's baby.
Maybe he wanted to destroy O'Connor by any conceivable means. Mackey
asks if Mulder were put to the test, how would he do? Snakes appear
and surround Mulder, even crawling out of his sleeves and pant legs.
Scully arrives at the church and hears Mulder cry out. When she
finally breaks down the door, Mulder has been bitten and the last
snake is seen leaving.
At the hospital,
Scully reports that police have not found Mackey. If it was test,
Scully thinks Mulder passed - he is alive. Mackey is seen at another
church, in Hamden, CT, now calling himself Reverend Wells. In his
desk he has a box of mice. He opens his mouth, a snake emerges and
grabs the mouse, then retreats back into his mouth.
(Note: No firm
date is given in this episode. The statement is made that the snakes
should be hibernating, indicating winter. In one scene Mulder is
outside in his shirtsleeves, but for most of the episode he wears a
coat which is probably typical for Tennessee in winter.)
-
Early 2000?
-
Sein Und Zeit
Amber Lynn LaPierre, a young girl, says her prayers before going to
bed. Mom and Dad watch from the door then tuck her in. Later, as Dad
watches TV, Billie LaPierre is seen in a daze, writing an abduction
note concluding with the cryptic statement "no one shoots at
Santa Claus." Amber's door slams shut. Mr. LaPierre breaks in
the door and the child is gone.
-
At FBI HQ in
Washington at around 3 am, the investigation is under way on the
LaPierre kidnapping in Sacramento. Mulder enters and wants the case.
Skinner doesn't think it's an X-File but ends up allowing Mulder to
fly out and investigate. Mulder arrives at the LaPierre home and
questions the LaPierres about the note. They lie about the
circumstances. At 10 pm, Scully arrives at Mulder's motel, sent by
Skinner to find out why he hasn't reported. As they talk, Mulder's
mother calls. She has been watching the news about Amber Lynn and
wants him to call when he gets back to the east coast.
-
In Washington,
Skinner is doing a briefing when Mulder and Scully enter. The note
may have been written in Mrs. LaPierre's handwriting and the
evidence is pointing at the parents but Mulder says none of the
theories explain what happened to the little girl. Scully thinks
Mulder is personalizing the case, thinking about his abducted sister
but Mulder recognizes something in the note. In a Pocatella, Idaho
kidnapping in 1987 a note with the same "no one shoots at Santa
Claus" signature was found. The agents go to the Idaho state
women's prison and talk to Kathy Lee Tencate. She was convicted of
the murder of her six year old son Dean, taken from his room with
the note found her handwriting. Dean was never found. Mulder thinks
she is innocent. She refuses to help, but when they leave she has a
vision of her son and calls them back.
-
Mrs. Mulder calls
Fox again, leaving a message on his answering machine. There is so
much she has left unsaid that she hopes he will someday understand.
She burns pictures of her family. Mulder, meanwhile, is in
California and shows the LaPierre's a video of Tencate telling part
of her story. It was like the words of the note wrote themselves,
she says. She knows her son is safe and protected. The LaPierre's
make a private statement to authorities and are released for lack of
evidence. A chubby man is seen watching news video.
-
In Washington,
Mulder is discussing the case with Skinner when Scully enters.
Mulder's mother has committed suicide. Mulder and Scully arrive at
her home in Greenwich, CT, where police are still reviewing scene.
The room was sealed and the gas oven opened. She also took sleeping
pills. Mulder says it doesn't make sense that she would do this. Why
are the family pictures gone? Mulder suspects that whoever took his
sister did this to her. He is grasping at straws. He demands that
Scully do an autopsy. Mulder returns to Kathy Lee Tencate, who opens
up this time. His mother has seen them, she says - the "walk-ins"
-- old souls looking for new homes. She can see them sometimes but
it is hard because they live in the starlight. "They" took
Samantha to protect her soul from the harm it would suffer in life
but Tencate doesn't know where the children are taken. At Santa's
North Pole Village children's park, kids look at a pen with reindeer.
The proprietor says Santa is just flying in. He goes inside and
enters a locked room filled with video tape boxes and equipment
where he prepares to put on a Santa suit.
-
Mulder finally
hears the answering machine tape. Scully arrives and he plays the
tape for her. He thinks his mother knew what he would find in the
Amber Lynn case. The parents have had psychic visions of their
children. His mother must have written a similar note when Samantha
was taken. He's been looking in the wrong place. She was trying to
warn him, that's why they killed her, he claims, but Scully's
autopsy shows Teena Mulder was suffering from a terminal disease.
She knew and didn't want to live. Mulder still believes she was
trying to tell him something. Scully thinks his Mom wanted him to
stop looking for Samantha - to take away his pain.
-
At the LaPierre
residence, Mrs. LaPierre sees a vision of Amber Lynn standing next
to her bed at night. In the morning, Skinner arrives at Mulder's
apartment where he is greeted by Scully. Mulder has had a rough
night. Mrs. LaPierre is asking to talk to Mulder. All three go to
California and Mulder talks to Billie LaPierre who describes seeing
her daughter in pajamas, trying to say something to her -- possibly
the words "seventy four." Mulder does an unexpected turn
around and tells Skinner and Scully that Amber Lynn is dead and that
he wants off the case so he can take some leave time. As they drive
off, Scully sees a highway sign for route 74. She realizes the Santa
Village connection. They drive to the establishment and enter.
Mulder and Scully find the inner room with the video equipment. Some
of the tapes go back to the 60s. Scully puts one in a machine and
finds images of Amber Lynn at a playground, dated two days before
her disappearance. The owner of Santa's Village enters and locks
Mulder and Scully inside. He runs and Skinner chases. Mulder and
Scully break down the door and also give chase. Skinner fires into
the air and Santa stops. The man, who says his name is Scruloff, is
arrested and nearby the agents find what appear to be several
shallow graves. To be continued.
-
(Note: Dating
this episode is difficult. The episode shows a television broadcast
recapping the State of the Union Address, which was given on January
27, 2000. On the other hand, there are television clips from the
Chris Carter series Harsh Realm, which premiered October 8, 1999,
and was canceled after three weeks. The FX cable network announced
plans to rerun all eight filmed episodes of Harsh Realm in March
2000, but that is late for a recap of the State of the Union Address.
If the episode actually does depict the original Harsh Realm
broadcasts, this probably places the beginning of the episode on
October 22 or 29, 1999.)
-
Early 2000
-
Teena Mulder is
buried in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Within)
-
Early 2000
-
Closure
In an opening narration, Mulder describes the bodies being uncovered
from the shallow graves, one by one. Are they still dreaming the
dreams of children or was their innocence taken along with their
lives? We see a scene of children getting up from their graves and
forming a ghostly circle, as the narration describes them waiting in
the starlight to be born again at God's behest.
Mulder and Scully
are at the technical services room of the Sacramento police
department. Scruloff was 19 when he committed his first murder, the
first time he was asked to portray Santa Claus. He has admitted to
24 murders but he refuses to take blame for Amber Lynn. Her body was
not found in the graves. Hard as it is, Mulder wanted one of the
graves to be Samantha. Harold Piller comes to see the agents. He is
a psychic who has gotten some strong "hits" from this case
- about Amber Lynn. He has worked with police around the world and
has seen children's bodies in previous incidents transported away
from an accident scene by walk-ins. Scully doesn't want to involve
Piller because Mulder is vulnerable right now. Scully goes back to
Washington because she feels she can't do anymore in California.
Mulder takes Piller to the grave site. Piller's son disappeared
under strange circumstances, then one day he started to see visions
of him. Piller believes that the walk-ins are good spirits, saving
the children from some terrible fate about to happen. They transform
matter into energy - starlight. But Piller senses that Scruloff's
victims all died suffering. Amber Lynn wasn't here, Piller says, but
he senses a connection between her and Mulder. Piller knows about
Samantha - what is the connection between Samantha and Amber Lynn?
Scully and an FBI
expert watch a videotape of Mulder's June 16, 1989 hypnotic
regression, telling the story of Samantha's disappearance. The
expert doubts Mulder's story because it seems to be typical guilt
fantasies. Mulder's delusion is playing into his unconscious hope
that his sister is still alive. There was a huge search for Samantha
in 1973. Even the Treasury Department was involved. The expert
advises Scully to leave it be, because Mulder's wound may be too
painful to reopen, but Scully feels she owes it to Mulder. Late at
night, Mulder is watching Planet of the Apes when Piller knocks at
his motel door. In a trance Piller says Mulder's mother is present
and we see a ghostly image of Mrs. Mulder in the room. Piller says
she wants to tell about Samantha, but then he "loses" her.
They then find the words "April Base" written on a paper
pad.
Scully visits Mrs.
Mulder's home and searches. In the wastepaper basket where pictures
were burned she finds part of a document. Scully phones Mulder to
tell him that the document scrap matches a document in Samantha's
Treasury investigation file. It is a copy of the document signed
with the initials CGBS calling off the investigation. Both agents
recognize the initials as belonging to the Cigarette Smoking Man and
Scully is astounded when Mulder doesn't want to press the Smoking
Man on the issue. Mulder is pursuing the matter in his own way. He
and Piller arrive at the decommissioned April Air Force Base, where
Piller senses something. A security guard drives up and tells them
to move along. Meanwhile, Scully arrives home to find the Smoking
Man waiting for her. He seems not well and he mentions having had an
operation. He wants her to stop looking. He admits to signing the
order because he believed Samantha was dead. He didn't tell Mulder
for so long because there was so much to protect before that is all
gone now. He leaves, sadly.
Mulder and Piller
return to the base at night and climb the fence. In a residential
area, Piller senses that Samantha was present. They hide as a police
car drives by, then Mulder finds the name Samantha and a handprint
in the cement of a sidewalk of a home. Beside it is another
handprint and the name Jeffrey, a reference to Jeffrey Spender, the
Smoking Man's son. Later, Scully arrives back in California. Mulder
doesn't believe what the Smoking Man said because of the handprint.
Scully thinks Piller was just leading Mulder along. The agents go
and confront Piller -- he is the subject of a criminal investigation
into the disappearance of his son and he has a history of mental
problems, which he claims he has under control. He makes a
compelling case that he is no different from Mulder and just wants
to find his son. All three sneak back into the base and enter the
house where Samantha apparently lived. It has been vacant for a long
time. Piller asks them to hold hands so he can try to summon the
spirits of the residents. We see ghostly visions of many people. One
boy takes Mulder by the hand and leads him down the hall. Scully and
Piller realize Mulder is missing and find him in another room.
Mulder finds a diary that is apparently Samantha's. They read it in
a restaurant. It is dated 1979, when Samantha would have been 14. It
describes tests. Samantha lies and tells "them" what they
want to hear because she hates them. She suspects her memories were
taken by the doctors. She vaguely remembers a brother and she hopes
he someday reads the diary. In the final entry she talks about
running away. Outside the restaurant, Mulder looks up at the stars
and says maybe the starlight really is made up of old souls, because
there is nothing as ancient in the universe as starlight. Later, as
Mulder sleeps, his mother appears in his room and speaks to him, but
we can't hear what she says.
Scully finds a 1979
police report with a description matching Samantha. They visit a
hospital to read reports of a "Jane Doe" admitted. Her
mental state exhibited signs of paranoia and there were marks,
possibly from the tests. Mulder is convinced that the Smoking Man
knew about this. The agents and Piller go to visit the emergency
room nurse who signed Samantha in. Outside the house, Mulder has the
feeling that this is the end of the road, that he has been brought
here to learn the truth. He waits outside as Scully and Piller to go
the door and talk to the woman, named Arbutus Ray. She remembers the
pretty young girl. She had a vision of the girl dead, but nobody
believed her, then she blinked and the vision was gone and the girl
was sleeping safely. There were men who came to pick her up. One
appeared to be her father and as she describes him it is clear that
he was the Smoking Man. When the men went to Samantha's locked room,
she had vanished. Scully turns and finds that Mulder is no longer
waiting by the car. The same spirit boy, Piller's son, leads Mulder
to a field where other spirit children play. The lighting of the
scene looks as if they might be made of starlight. Amber Lynn is
there, as is Samantha who runs up and hugs Mulder. Mulder returns to
Scully and Piller. It is the end of the road and they are all dead,
he says, with conviction. Piller sees so much but he refuses to see
his son. They are all at a better place, Mulder says, but Piller
refuses to believe. Scully asks Mulder if he is OK. He replies,
"I'm fine - free," and looks up at the stars as the
episode ends.
(Note: Closed
captioning in this episode gave the name of the killer as "Ed
Truelove" while in Sein Und Zeit closed captioning gave it as
"Scruloff.")
-
Early 2000
-
X-COPS
(This episode, the 150th of the series, was shot on video using
the handheld camera style of the FOX network series "COPS."
In the episode "tease," before the opening credits, we see
the standard "COPS" intro, with the "Bad Boys"
music, and see Mulder and Scully among the law enforcement officers
seen in the opening credits. A "viewer discretion" warning
is also included.)
Los Angeles sheriff's
deputy Keith Wetzel, on patrol, talks about how crazy stuff happens
under a full moon. A prowler call is received of a reported monster
lurking around a high-crime neighborhood. Exiting his car the
officer searches the neighborhood. Claw scratches are found on the
door of the woman who reported the monster. She is hysterical. He
walks behind the house to search further then runs back toward the
cameraman - "run, get back in the car, 10-33 officer needs
assistance." Something attacks the car.
Assistance arrives
to find the police car overturned. Wetzel is disoriented but tells
other officers that it must have been "gang bangers." A
report of armed suspects nearby is received and the officers run off
to find Mulder and Scully. They are first held at gunpoint but then
released when the deputies find the agent's FBI IDs. They're working
on the same case as the officers. Mulder says it is not a question
of who did this, but what. There have been a half-dozen similar
sightings in the last 60 days and only on nights with a full moon.
Based on previous descriptions, Mulder says it was large, stood on
hind legs, and was covered with fur. Mulder discovers that the
deputy was bitten. Mulder thinks it was a werewolf. 29 days ago a
man was bitten and gave a full description before he died. Mulder
says the deputy will have to be isolated. Scully doesn't like the
camera crew, but Mulder think that finding proof of the paranormal
on national television would be good. Scully takes deputy Wetzel to
the hospital.
The Hispanic lady
is still distraught, talking about a claw monster. The sergeant
overseeing the scene is highly skeptical. Mulder's previous witness
provided a sketch that looks like a werewolf but a sketch artist
works with this lady and produces a sketch that looks like Freddie
Krueger. Scully returns. The deputy's wounds turned out to be insect
bites. Scully checked with Skinner who told her to cooperate with
the crew from COPS because the FBI has nothing to hide. Another
incident is reported and everybody races off to find the sketch
artist who had left a few minutes earlier. He has claw marks across
his chest. Scully finds a pink artificial fingernail on the ground
nearby. They talk to the men in the nearby residence who are
homosexual. They didn't see the attacker but heard all of the
screaming. They recognize the color of the fingernail as belonging
to a streetwalker, Chantara Gomez.
Mulder tells the
camera that there have been so many conflicting reports that it is
hard to tell what they are looking for but he is certain that it is
paranormal. Driving around they see Chantara, identifying her by her
description of bubblegum pink hair. She runs but they corner her -
with her face blurred on the video. She is crying. She heard
screaming and went to help but ran away when she heard the sirens.
She says the attacker was "Chuko," her boyfriend who has
been chasing her for a week. He told her he was going to twist her
neck off like a chicken if she didn't give him more money. Police
know him - he is a drug dealer. With a warrant they go to his crack
house but Mulder doesn't think he is responsible because no matter
how bad his reputation he can't turn over a squad car. Officers raid
the crack house. They find Chuko's body. He died of a drug overdose,
probably a couple of days ago and could not have been who Chantara
saw. Shots are soon fired outside. The officers rush outside to find
Deputy Wetzel who says that whatever it was came back. Chantara, who
was in one of the squad cars, is dead.
The sergeant doesn't
understand what is going on but Mulder finally gets Wetzel to admit
what he saw. He says it looked like the "wasp man" quoting
a horror story his brother told him when he was little. That fits
with his wounds being insect bites, but he can't explain and doesn't
know what it really was. Mulder wonders if all of the attacks are
all by one creature that appears as your worst nightmare. The only
way to find it must be to determine it's pattern. Scully realizes
that the two homosexuals, who were witnesses, could also be in the
pattern of attack. The agents return to their home and find them
fighting about their relationship. Mulder and Scully stay with them
for some time to keep watch but eventually leave, stationing a
couple of deputies there to protect them. There are only 4-5 hours
until the moon sets. Scully goes to examine Chantara's body while
Mulder rides with Wetzel, the only person to have seen it twice.
Deputy is surprised that Mulder believes him. He's been on the job
for 18 months and is worried about being considered crazy. It's hard
to get on the law enforcement fast track when people think you're
nuts, he says, and Mulder agrees.
At the morgue a
second film crew watches Scully do the autopsy, blurring the open
body. The morgue attendant is disturbed, asking a series of
questions about possible disease. Scully says there is no suspicion
of disease here, mentioning the Hanta virus in passing. The
attendant becomes even more upset, suddenly sneezing. Blood comes
out her nose and she collapses and dies. When Mulder arrives, Scully
says it was certainly not the Hanta virus, which doesn't kill that
fast. It was like the power of suggestion. She was afraid and her
fear killed her, says Mulder, claiming that it is the same MO as the
other attacks. Scully didn't see anything, Mulder says, because she
wasn't afraid. This thing is attracted to mortal fear. A high crime
neighborhood would attract it. Meanwhile the other camera crew is
with Wetzel, back at the crack house. They've checked every place
else for this thing to reappear, so they'd better check here. They
go inside but hear a noise and Wetzel and the camera crew panic,
then the screen goes to static. Mulder and Scully arrive at the
crack house with other officers and find the door locked. The FBI
agents go around and enter a back door while the deputies continue
hammering at the front door with a battering ram. They find the
camera crew that was with Wetzel hiding in a closet. Proceeding
upstairs they hear Wetzel behind a locked door, is crying for help.
Mulder calls to him "it can't hurt you." when Mulder
finally breaks down the door they find Wetzel on the floor, injured
but alive. The sergeant enters, deputies having finally broken open
the front door. "What happened?" she asks. "The sun
just came up," Mulder responds. Whatever it was just went away
until the next full moon. It's going to be a hard one to write up,
concludes Scully.
(No exact date
reference is given in this episode, however it was first broadcast
on the full moon date of February 20, 2000.)
-
Early 2000
-
First Person
Shooter
Three men, dressed in armor and carrying futuristic looking weapons
enter a street between buildings and are attacked by a gang on
motorcycles. They fire and each of the motorcycles explodes as it is
hit. In a control room, Ivan and Phoebe are watching on computer
monitors and monitoring their vital signs. The team, calling
themselves "Geeks" is fired on by men from the building
windows. One makes his way into a basement and meets a woman wearing
black mesh and leather cat suit and spike heels. She says her name
is Maitreya and this is her game, her hand morphs into a flintlock
pistol and she fires.
At FPS corporate
headquarters, Mulder and Scully arrive, passing through heavy
security, including retinal scans and signing nondisclosure
agreements. FPS stands for the First Person Shooter -- an innovative
video game that uses projectors to fill a large game space with the
virtual scenery and characters. The Lone Gunmen greet the agents --
they are consultants for the company and there has been an accident.
The game is scheduled to ship on Friday but there is a dead body -
he has been shot, but there was no gun, other than the guns of the
game that do not actually work. They work with the computer and
eventually find the image of Maitreya, which Mulder has printed out.
Scully calls the police over objections from Ivan Martinez, the game
developer who doesn't want to hurt their business deal. A game
player enters who is identified as Darryl Musashi, a virtual game
guru who also sometimes contracts with the CIA. He enters the game
space as the others watch from the control room. The bikers attack
and he blows them up. He easily reaches the basement and Maitreya,
dressed differently this time, attacks, cutting off his hands, then
killing him with a broadsword.
Scully performs an
autopsy on "Retro," the first dead man. There is no trace
of the projectile. The suit they were wearing is high tech,
including electric charges to simulate shots. Scully thinks it's
great technology wasted on a stupid game. In spite of her attitude,
Mulder and the Gunmen love the idea of the game. "Men feel the
need to blast the crap out of stuff," Scully says. The LA
Sheriff's Department notifies Mulder that they have picked up a
suspect who perfectly fits the description of the virtual suspect.
She is a sultry brunette calling herself Jade Blue Afterglow, picked
up outside a strip club. She meets a lot of men but had no idea
about FPS. When Mulder shows her the computer image, she says she
got paid to let a medical imaging facility do a body scan.
The agents return
to FPS. Ivan is with the money guys, trying to save his deal. Scully
thinks he scanned Afterglow. The Gunmen are on a monitor screen,
doing a test, but all of a sudden they are in the game - the program
is somehow running itself and they are in trouble. Mulder suits up
and enters the game. Byers was shot, but says he's OK. Mulder sees
Maitreya and is not willing to leave with the Gunmen. He follows her
into the basement and she approaches with the sword, now dressed in
a skintight black quasi-Ninja outfit. The Gunmen hear Mulder fire
but as they run to help him, the game appears to shut down, with
Mulder still in it.
Although they can't
find Mulder, in the control room Phoebe is still getting his
telemetry. He's alive and still in the game, even though they can't
figure out where the game is running. Mulder wakes up and finds the
sword but no Maitreya. Returning to the avenue between the buildings,
Maitreya approaches in a series of back flips, then disappears again.
Ivan returns from meeting with his financial backers -- FBI
investigating an unsolved death will be great marketing material.
Phoebe, it turns out, knew about Afterglow. She had Maitreya on her
computer, developing her own video game. Phoebe has been choking in
a haze of testosterone. Maitreya was everything mousy Phoebe couldn't
be. Somehow Maitreya jumped programs and is feeding on the male
aggression. Phoebe says Scully, being a woman, is the only one who
can understand. Meanwhile, in the game, Mulder's gun says out of
ammo. Maitreya returns and kicks Mulder around. When he escapes and
returns to the basement to get the sword, the program transforms and
he finds himself on a western town street.
Diagnostics finally
locate Mulder - the western street is level two of the game, which
nobody has ever beaten. They can't power down the game. Maitreya,
dressed in white as a halter-topped and chapped western gunfighter,
appears multiplied into many copies. Scully enters the game to
rescue Mulder, wearing the standard black kevlar and body armor suit
of the game players. She fires, eliminating the multiple copies of
Maitreya. As they continue to fight, Phoebe and Ivan argue - she
knows about a kill switch that can end the game, but it will
completely erase the game. Maitreya returns on a tank. Phoebe
provides the kill command and Frohike ends the game. Mulder and
Scully are shaken but OK. "That's entertainment," Mulder
quips. Later, Maitreya appears to Ivan on his computer screen, but
with Scully's face and hair. He laughs, very pleased.
(Note: Pinning
down a date for this episode is difficult. Mulder mentions jokingly
that he has "a birthday coming up." Because of the context,
his birthday in October may have no relevance. At 5:42 AM the skies
are still dark in California, suggesting a generally winter date.)
-
Spring 2000??
-
Theef In
Marin County, California, a family arrives home at a mansion. Robert
Wieder, MD, has just won the Bay Area Doctor of the year. He and his
wife, Nan, are there, as well as their daughter Lucy and Mrs. Welder's
father, Irv, who agrees to spend the night. In his bedroom, Irv
opens the covers of his bed and finds dirt in the shape of a person.
We see a man later identified as Oral Peattie in the room behind him.
In the Wieder's bedroom, Robert hears a signal from the downstairs
motion sensor. He goes downstairs to investigate and finds Irv
hanging from a rope, dead, his throat cut, with the word "theef"
written in blood on the wall.
Mulder and Scully
are at the mansion, trying to understand the word "theef."
It appears to be a wrong spelling of "thief," as if
written by an uneducated person. If Irv killed himself, how did the
word get scrawled in the wall? Mulder observes that the dirt in the
bed is a powerful element in hex-craft. Scully admits that she can
accept hex-craft as the intent, although she doesn't believe he has
actual power. Robert says neither he nor his father-in-law had any
enemies.
In a low rent
rooming house, a landlady is cleaning when she hears a noise in an
apartment. She talks with a man inside and complains about the smell
but he says it's medicine and offers her a poultice for her bad back.
Inside his room we see that he is making little rough-cloth dolls
that look almost like voodoo dolls. At the Marin County morgue,
Mulder says the dirt contained signs of decay which could be a
powerful hex component. Irv's brain was filled with a disease once
known to New Guinea tribesmen who were cannibals. The disease causes
progressive dementia but is very rare. Mulder wonders if Irv was
given the dirt to drive him crazy and kill himself.
Nan Wieder finds a
frame with a picture of the family missing and wonders why someone
would take their photograph. Peattie is in their house with one of
his dolls. He stabs a pin into it. Robert turns down the bed and
finds dirt in the shape of a human. Nan begins convulsing and Robert
orders Lucy to call 911. At the hospital, Nan is in treatment and is
diagnosed with a very rare condition. Mulder says someone directed
the disease to her. Robert brushes off Mulder's claim of folk.
Scully says at least there was an intruder in their home and the
family needs protection. Robert can't believe that all of modern
medicine arrayed against a pile of magic dirt will lose. Later, as
Robert looks at his wife's x-rays, Peattie enters and says the truth
always hurts. He mentions Lynette Peattie but Robert doesn't
recognize the name. Peattie says, "ponder it awhile and it
gonna come to you. After Peattie leaves, Robert determines that
Lynette is not in his patient file. He does find a Jane Doe in his
file that he identifies as Lynette.
The landlady knocks
on Peattie's door -- the poultice worked a miracle on her back and
she wants more. Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully visit an occult shop.
Mulder shows a sample of the hex dust. The shop owner says the dust
can be spread on or near the victim to bring misfortune. Giving them
an exact disease, however, would require much more skill, as well as
a doll with several specific items inside, including a picture of
the victim. The owner says the person the agents are looking for
must be drawing on the energy of a charm - a source of magic power
that has great meaning for him. Unless you can separate him from the
charm you are out of luck, she says.
The drug therapy
being used on Nan is working well and she feels much better,
although she has contracted a very rare disease. She is about to
have an MRI and her husband says it is no more radiation than a
dental x-ray. Peattie is in the hospital and buys microwave popcorn
from a vending machine in the hospital. He then puts a doll into the
microwave and Nan is burned t death by radiation. Man removes the
doll - removes a picture of Nan from it and say "all done."
Robert talks with
the agents and wonders how somebody orchestrate this. There was no
malfunction and he now believes his wife was murdered. "THEEF"
was found written on his wife's chest. He tells Mulder and Scully
about Lynette Peattie. He treated her last October after she was
brought to the hospital with many other people injured in a bus
rollover. She was the worst hurt and in triage everyone knew she was
dying. When he saw that he could not help her and that she was in
agony, he gave her morphine. In effect, he shortened her life by 20
minutes, because of the condition she was in. Mulder thinks the
murderer must be Lynette's father. He thinks Robert robbed him of
her daughter and now he's robbing him of her family. Scully
determines that Lynette had no Social Security number and only
showed up once in the public records, in 1981 when her father
refused to allow her to inoculated for Polio in the Allegheny
Mountains of West Virginia.
Lynette's grave is
exhumed. Mulder thinks Peattie's magic charm is her body - as long
as it is there in the bay area he remains powerful, but if they ship
it off the Quantico, he will lose his power. When the coffin is
opened, however, there is no body in it. The landlady returns to
Peattie's apartment for another poultice - he doesn't come to the
door so she enters. There is a lump on the bed under the sheet -
suspicious, she looks and it is a long-dead body. Peattie sneaks up
behind her.
Scully takes Robert
and Lucy to a cabin to get them out of their mansion and protect
them. While Mulder waits at the mansion for Peattie to arrive he
sees a news account of a 56 year old woman who contracted a rare
flesh-eating disease. Mulder's suspicion is triggered by the rare
disease and rushes to Peattie's apartment. Peattie is gone but the
body is still in the bed, missing the head. Mulder alerts Scully
that Peattie took as much of the magic charm with him as he could
carry. Mulder promises that he is on his way to join Scully and the
Wieders. Peattie, however, is already outside the cabin and tells
his daughter's head, "soon." He breaks a window of Scully's
car. Inside the cabin, Scully hears the noise and draws her gun to
guard the door. Peattie finds Scully's FBI security pass in the
glove compartment and sews her picture into a doll. He pokes nails
into the doll and immediately Scully can't see. Peattie breaks down
t he door and Scully fires but misses him. He takes her gun away and
she is helpless. Peattie Robert and Lucy. He stabs a knife into a
doll and Robert experiences intense pain. Scully has her gun and
fires at Peattie, disabling him. Mulder has driven up, found the
broken window of Scully's car and found the doll of her inside. He
removed the nails, allowing her to see again, find the gun and aim
it.
At the medical
center, Mulder and Scully talk. Lynette's body is on it's way back
to West Virginia. Her father is in Intensive Care. Scully admits
that would have done the same as Robert if she was sure she couldn't
save Lynette's life. The agents are left with the unanswered
question of whether Peattie's magic could have saved his daughter's
life.
-
Spring 2000
-
En Ami In
Goochland, Virginia, the McPeck family drives home in car with an
eleven year old boy in back seat. Their car runs a gauntlet of
people who are shouting and holding signs. The boy, Jason, has
cancer and the religious beliefs of the family prevent them from
seeking medical help. At night, a storm comes up, a light glows
outside the window and Jason sees men in black approach out of the
light.
As Scully leaves
her apartment she finds a newspaper outside her door - the Goochland
newspaper describing Jason's miracle cure. The family claims the
cure was by angels. Mulder also got an anonymous e-mail about it.
Someone wants them to investigate. While Mulder checks other sources,
Scully visits the family. They believe that it was God's work. Jason
says the angels looked like men, told him not to be afraid and
pinched him hard on the back of the neck. Scully realizes that Jason
has a neck wound and possibly has a chip implanted there, just as a
chip cured her own cancer. Scully returns to her car to find the
Smoking Man waiting for her. He claims to have saved both Jason's
and Scully's lives and left the newspaper and the e-mail. He says he
is dying himself and wants to bequeath his cure to her. (He's tired
of Mulder's mule headedness.) He leaves a paper on the seat as she
drives off.
The paper has a
phone number. Scully traces the number and gets the address. Going
to the building she finds high security but they send her to the
third floor where she finds an office labeled "CGB Spender."
The Smoking Man awaits her and tells her that as he looks at the sum
of his life, most of his work is in ruins. As the darkness descends,
he finds that he has no legacy. He is dying of cerebral inflammation
resulting from his brain surgery and has only a few months. He is
willing to give her the science that provides the miracle cure, but
she has to travel with him - it will take a few days and she must
not tell Mulder. She is reluctant, but her interest overcomes her
and she leaves word for Mulder that she will be out of town for a
few days, claiming a family emergency. She is carrying a microphone,
hidden in her bra.
Scully and the
Smoking Man talk as they drive. He has always had a sort of
affection for her and Mulder. He held her life in his hands when he
cured her of cancer. The Smoking Man thinks Scully is drawn to
powerful men but also keeps distant from them, which is why she
would die for Mulder but won't allow herself to love him. She
dismisses his comments as "pop psychology." He takes her
down a dirt road, and we see that they are being followed. They
arrive at a pleasant country home where a woman named Marjorie
Butters lives, who the Smoking Man claims is 118 years old, although
she is as vital as a much younger woman. She is gardening and greets
CSM with a hug. Scully sees that Marjorie has a scar on the back of
her neck - apparent evidence of the validity of the Smoking Man's
claims for his science.
Scully's apartment
manager tells Mulder about Scully leaving with a "driver,"
who Mulder recognizes as the Smoking Man. Skinner and Mulder are
concerned but can't find Scully. She took an FBI vehicle and her
mother knows nothing about an emergency. Scully phones Skinner and
says everything is OK, but she won't talk directly to Mulder. Mulder
becomes convinces that she is in trouble. Scully and the Smoking Man
stop for gas and she goes to the bathroom, talking on the tape to
Mulder. She secretly mails the tape to Mulder but as they drive off
the man following them is seen to have gotten the envelope out of
the mailbox.
They end up at a
lake home, late at night. Scully is asleep in the car and the
Smoking Man puts on gloves, brushing a lock of hair out of her face.
Scully wakes up to find herself in satin pajamas. She thinks the
Smoking Man drugged her but he says he just carried her in so that
she would be comfortable. They are in Milford, Pennsylvania. She is
upset and ready to leave, but finally decides she has to know the
answers. The Lone Gunmen arrive at Mulder's apartment, in disguise.
They got into Scully's apartment and found e-mails on her computer
to somebody named "Cobra." Mulder and the Gunmen barge
into Skinner's office carrying Scully's laptop. For the last 6
months Cobra has been e-mailing Scully from the department of
defense, but she is unaware of it. Somebody has been posing as
Scully to win Cobra's trust. Mulder is convinced that the Smoking
Man is doing this and Scully's life is in danger. Meanwhile, the
Smoking Man tells Scully that they'll be meeting their contact for
dinner and provides her an evening dress. At a fancy restaurant,
Smoking Man says that their contact, Cobra, is to human genetic
science what the early nuclear scientists were to nuclear warfare.
The Smoking Man says that if Cobra receives assurances, the science
he turns over will be not just a cure for cancer but a cure for all
human disease. How? From the final frontier - largely
extraterrestrial. Theoretically the Smoking Man can be cured but it
appears that he doesn't really want to be. He is a lonely man. The
Smoking Man goes outside for a smoke. The man who has been following
them approaches and points out that Cobra hasn't shown up, so they
have to wait, but Scully won't stick around for ever. The Smoking
Man tells him, "Just do your damn job.
Cobra, however, has
slipped Scully a note about where she should meet him. The Smoking
Man lets her take a small motorboat to the Calico Cove inlet, down
the lake. Another boat approaches hers. Cobra comments that they are
finally meeting and that she is just as she described herself. He
hands her a CD-ROM. She denies that they have spoken before - but he
is shot and dies before they can say more. The sniper then targets
Scully, but the Smoking Man kills him before he can fire at her. She
returns to the lake home where the Smoking Man meets her. Because
she still believes him, she gives him the CD-ROM but he gives it
back. Later, Scully is at Mulder's apartment where the Lone Gunmen
help examine the content of the disk. It is empty. They return to
the building where Spender's office was, but it is vacant. Mulder
says that the Smoking Man used Scully. Marjorie Butters was a fake.
Jason has a chip in his neck but the parents probably won't let them
examine him. Scully believed the Smoking Man but Mulder thinks he
used her to save himself, to get the science on that disk - saving
himself at the expense of the human race. Scully says that for a
moment she saw something in the Smoking Man's eyes, a longing for
something more than power - something he could never have. Realizing
what he is doing, the Smoking Man throws the real CD into the lake,
apparently dooming himself and keeping the cure for all disease from
the human race.
-
April 23, 2000 (and
two weeks later)
-
Chimera At
an Easter egg hunt, two mothers, Ellen Adderly and Martha Critterdon,
talk. It is a perfect event, but they are unhappy that Jenny Uphouse
showed up with her son. She is from the other side of town, and they
don't like her. Martha's daughter, Michelle, wanders off a bit as
she looks for Easter egg and is frightened by a raven and then by
Jenny. At night, Martha talks with her husband on the phone - he is
on a trip and Martha wants him to come home a day early to be with
his daughter. Later she sees the raven in her living room, a mirror
shatters and she screams.
-
Mulder and Scully
are conducting surveillance in a red-light district of Washington DC.
There is some kind of mystery woman - six women were seen with her
at the Dirty Dames club, but each disappeared. Scully dislikes the
round-the-clock exposure to the underbelly of society. Mulder is
called away to FBI HQ, leaving Scully behind. Skinner assigns Mulder
to look into the case of Martha's disappearance two weeks earlier.
Ravens are involved, which are mythological symbols. Mulder thinks
it is a punishment duty, but Martha is the daughter of a federal
judge and the case has high priority. skinner thinks that the
elements of the case speak to Mulder's strengths as an investigator.
Mulder arrives at the home of Martha and Howard Critterdon and meets
the sheriff, Phil Adderly, who is Ellen's husband. The whole town is
very concerned. There was no ransom note or evidence. The daughter,
Michelle, mentioned a raven. Mulder finds scratches on the mantel
that might be talon scratches, as well as the broken mirrors. When
Howard was straightening up he found Martha's birth control pills,
ordered off the Internet. He thinks she was having an affair because
he had a vasectomy some years earlier. He also found an old-looking
door key in her things that he doesn't recognize. He thinks that
whoever she is with, they don't want to be found.
-
Ellen is putting
out missing person flyers when she sees a raven and Jenny talks with
her, displaying hostility. When Jenny leaves, Ellen sees a
reflection of something in the window of a nearby car and the glass
shatters. Mulder recalls that in folklore, ravens are companions of
evil, and mirrors are considers items of enchantment. He dines with
Ellen and Phil and they also offer that he spend the night with them.
They sit down to dinner when Mulder's phone rings. It is Scully,
still on the stakeout - no mystery woman has appeared. Howard and
his daughter are also eating. Michelle is unhappy because her mother
is gone. She sees a raven outside the window. Howard goes outside to
investigate and finds several ravens pecking at the ground - it is
Martha's buried body. Her body has claw marks on it. Mulder and the
sheriff agree that Howard didn't kill her. Ellen arrives and tells
about seeing the reflection of some kind of creature in the car
window, but when she turned, there was nothing there. If this is a
spiritual creature summoned to kill Martha, who called it? Did
Martha have enemies? Mulder and Phil goes to see Jenny, who is a
waitress. Jenny is hostile toward Martha and thinks that Martha was
"so above the rest of us." They don't think she killed
Martha, but Mulder thinks Jenny lied about having been home all
evening the night Martha died.
-
Scully calls and
complains again, but notices that the same van with "Jesus
Saves" painted on it return to the intersection that she saw
earlier. Mulder wants her help on an autopsy, but she puts him off
to check out the van. Ellen is sweeping the floor and finds a key
like the one found in Martha's things. A raven flies into her home.
She picks up her daughter and runs. Two mirrors shatter. She hides
in a closet until her husband arrives. Ellen tells Mulder that the
creature came back and chased her. That night, Phil slips out of the
house and goes to a local motel. He enters cabin six using the key
found in his home and Jenny meets him there - they are having an
affair. He wants to end the affair but she is only interested in
lovemaking. The room has mirrors on the ceiling.
-
Mulder gets up in
the morning to find that Ellen has fixed eggs benedict for breakfast
and has laundered Mulder's shirt. Phil is apparently out on a call,
she says. She asks if Mulder has a significant other. "Not in
the widely understood definition of that term," he says. Phil
arrives home. Mulder tell Phil he slept well, only waking up once,
when Phil went out. The autopsy says Martha was pregnant. Mulder is
suspicious about Phil. At the motel, Jenny is getting dressed,
talking with her son on the phone. A raven is at the window -
several are on the fence. The ceiling mirrors shatter and the
creature attacks Jenny. Jenny is killed, but not before stabbing the
creature near the back of the neck with a shard of glass. Later,
authorities are at the motel crime scene. Phil confesses the he was
having affairs with both Martha and Jenny, but he left Jenny
sleeping. Jenny and Martha knew about each other but Ellen didn't.
He wanted a divorce two years ago but Ellen got pregnant with Katie.
Mulder still thinks it was an entity summoned. Phil wonders if he is
the cause and doesn't even know about it.
-
At home, Ellen puts
Katie down for a nap, draws a bath for herself and finds a stab
wound on her neck. She remembers struggling with the Jenny. Mulder
arrives at the home but doesn't find Ellen immediately. Scully calls
- she is free - she solved the case. They arrested a male
cross-dresser. The six missing prostitutes are in a halfway house
for recovering prostitutes. He dresses up as a prostitute to make
the prostitutes feel at ease while he convinces them to seek help.
He was sort of a wolf in sheep's clothing - or a sheep in wolf's
clothing. That makes Mulder think. He knocks on the closed bathroom
door. Ellen tells him to go away. Mulder tells her that Phil is in
custody, suspected of murder. Mulder notes that Ellen went out after
breakfast and wants to know where she went. "It can't be
me," she says. When she opens the door, it is the monster. It
attacks Mulder, dragging him into the bathroom and holding his head
in the bathtub, but when it sees its reflection in the water it
leaves. Mulder gets out of the tub to find Ellen naked, huddled on
the floor.
Ellen is in a
sanatorium, under observation. Doctors say she has some kind of
split personality. Mulder notes to Phil that some alternate
personalities display things like high blood pressure that their
host personalities don't have. Ellen's alternate personality appears
to be more extreme. Mulder thinks she found out about Phil's affairs
and did what she did to protect her family. Ellen still sees ravens.
-
May 2000
-
On each of the four
weekends in May, Mulder rents a car and drives to Raleigh, North
Carolina, where his mother is buried. He uses his VISA credit card
to arrange periodic placement of flowers on his mother's grave.
Knowing that he is terminally ill, he also has his name added to a
marker stone that has Bill, Samantha and Teena Mulder's names on it.
(Within) (Note: An alternate interpretation might be that
somebody else had Fox's name added to the stone to make it look like
he did it.)
-
Spring 2000
-
all things As
Scully gets dressed we hear an opening narration about time passing
and about how rarely we stop to examine the paths we have taken in
life to see if our path in life is that of our own making."
Careful study of the scene reveals that she is at Mulder's apartment.
As she dresses in the bathroom, he is sleeping in the next room.
63 hours earlier -
Mulder is flipping the slides of a projector to the beat of music
from a radio or tape player. Mulder is working in his office. Scully
enters and turns the music off. They discuss an autopsy in a case in
which Mulder turns out to be wrong. He changes the subject, showing
her a slide of a computer generated crop circle that he says proves
that crop circles are fractals. As he speaks, Scully eats lunch and
largely ignores him. She doesn't see the point. He has two tickets
in a flight to England, where he expects that more crop circles will
be created, but she doesn't want to go. He cancels her ticket and
heads off on his own. Scully returns to the hospital to finish
paperwork on the autopsy. On an x-ray mistakenly given to her she
finds the name D. Waterston - a name she knows. Dr. Daniel Waterston
was admitted yesterday in coronary care. She goes to his room where
the doctor walks off with a woman who we later learn is Waterston's
daughter, Maggie. Scully enters and finds Waterston asleep. His
cardiologist tells her that he had severe chest pains the day before.
He has a serious but treatable condition. Scully was one of
Waterston's students some years earlier. At home Scully receives a
phone call from Maggie Waterston. Daniel wants to see Scully, but
Maggie is clearly resentful of Scully. "If you come it doesn't
mean I accept you in his life," she says.
Scully goes to the
hospital. Maggie leaves immediately when Scully arrives at Waterston's
room. They are restrained in their greeting. When he takes her hand
she is troubled. She asks does he want to remind her again that her
choice to enter the FBI was wrong and says that he never accepted
her reason for leaving. The viewer may wonder at this point whether
they are they talking about medicine or a relationship. She is sorry
she came. But he says the fact that she did come means something.
Talking to Mulder on the phone while driving, Scully has a close
call with a semi, saved only by a women with a blonde pony tail who
crossed the street and made her stop her car. It is as if the women
knew she was saving Scully.
Scully arrives at
an address Mulder asked her to visit and finds a women Scully saw at
the hospital. Colleen knows that Mulder has sent Scully for
information on her Taoist research. Colleen says that there is a
greater intelligence in all things and accidents or near accidents,
such as Scully had, often remind us that we have to slow down and
keep our minds open. Waterston calls Scully back to consult with the
cardiologist. Her informed opinion agrees with Waterston on his
treatment. When they are alone, Scully asks Waterston how Maggie
found out about them (the word "affair" is never used in
the episode). Things got bad at home after Scully left. Their
breakup was hard for Daniel. He shut down, got a divorce and came to
Washington. She is stunned that he would move there to be close to
her but not contact her. What does she want right now? Everything
she should want at this time in life - maybe the life she did not
choose. She takes his hand again and cries. He comforts her and she
rests her head against his chest. Sometime later she is awakened by
the flatline sound of the heart monitor -- he has had a heart attack
and goes into arrest. Scully performs CPR then works with the
hospital staff the staff to restart his heart.
Later, Scully
returns to talk to Colleen. Scully wants to ask about what Colleen
said about slowing down. Scully had a strange feeling that Daniel
may have a more serious condition than anyone realizes. Colleen says
that holistic practitioners believe that people have an aura, an
energy field that extends beyond the body. Scully maybe sensed pain
in this aura. Colleen says that when we hold on to shame and guilt
and fear it creates an imbalance and affects who we are. Scully
admits that she has had moments when time appears to extend and
things become very clear. Colleen says Scully may be more open to
things than she thinks - it's just a matter of what she does with
it. Colleen says everything happens for a reason.
Scully returns to
the hospital. Daniel is in a coma. Maggie resents Scully's
involvement. Scully moved on but Daniel's family had to live with
what she left behind. In slow motion, Scully walks down the street,
thinking. She sees the woman with the ponytail who appeared to save
her from the accident and follows her into an oriental courtyard.
Entering a building she finds a Buddhist shrine. She kneels and
closes her eyes and has a vision of people in her life. Then sees
Daniel's body, transparent, with the whole heart and surrounding
tissues black, indicating disease. When he opens his eyes she
flashes back to awareness, stunned by her vision.
Scully asks Colleen
and a healer to help Daniel but the cardiologist belittles the idea.
Maggie instructs the cardiologist to allow the session to continue.
The healer says Daniel is ready to move on, but unfinished business
is holding him back. It is implied that the business is Scully. At
home at night she has a dream, seeing herself in the hospital bed.
Maggie calls her back to the hospital. Daniel is awake. He denies
that the ritual helped him, promises to get well and wants to talk
about what happens next. She says it's time for him to take
responsibility for the hurt he caused in his family. He's been
running for the truth for 10 years. Maybe the reason he's still
alive is so he can make up with Maggie. Scully isn't the same person
she was. She leaves Daniel and Maggie together. Outside, Scully sees
the woman who saved her from the accident and follows her again, but
it turns out to be Mulder. He is supposed to be in England but he is
back - there was no crop circle. Maybe sometimes nothing happens for
a reason, she tells him. They go off together. Talking in his
apartment, Mulder finds it hard to believe that he goes away for two
days and her life changes. He says God talked to her, but she says
it was only a vision. Saying that she had a vision is still radical
for her. She considered spending her life with this man but she is
astounded at what she would have missed if she had done that. Mulder
says that all of those choices lead to this very moment and they
wouldn't be sitting there together if any one of those choices had
been made differently. She falls asleep with her head on his
shoulder. He tenderly covers her with a blanket. The camera pans and
we see that there is a little Buddha statue in his apartment.
-
Spring 2000
-
Brand X The
FBI has a man and wife in protective custody in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, and Skinner is supervising the scene. The husband, Jim
Scobee, is a biochemist with Morley Tobacco Company, and is getting
ready to testify against the company before a grand jury. During the
evening, he coughs frequently and viewers see that a bug slips out
of his mouth and into a water glass. After 4 am the wife wakes up
and Jim is not in bed. He is found in the bathroom, dead, with blood
all over his neck and upper chest and the flesh in those areas
seemingly eaten away.
Mulder and Scully
arrive at the scene the next day. Skinner is taking heat from his
superiors. From his photo it looks as is his skin had been stripped
or eaten away. Mulder finds the dead bug in the water glass. While
Scully does an autopsy, Mulder and Skinner go to talk to Scobee's
supervisor, Dr. Peter Voss. Daniel Brimley, head of corporate
security, escorts them to a conference room where Voss is flanked
with corporate lawyers who won't let him talk. Voss, however,
identifies the bug as a common tobacco beetle. Later, Voss arrives
home and a man accosts him. We later learn that this man is named
Weaver. He and Scobee had an arrangement and now that Scobee is gone,
the arrangement slides over to Voss. Voss gives him 2 cartons of
cigarettes. Weaver taunts Voss about how people are wondering how
Scobee died, but Voss asks him to leave. "We'll be seeing a lot
of each other," Weaver says.
Scully does the
autopsy. The tissue damage goes all the way into Voss' lungs. There
is no evidence of acid of chemical reaction. The airways have been
Scobee essentially choked to death. There was no evidence of tobacco
beetles in his body, but Mulder thinks that judging from Voss's
reaction, they need to investigate further. In a rundown apartment
house, Weaver has an argument with a neighbor about a loud TV after
which the neighbor starts coughing and bleeding. He collapses and we
see bugs all over his face, with flesh around his month missing.
Skinner, Mulder and
Scully are at the apartment house, investigating the death. He was a
transient and appears to have died of the same thing as Scobee.
Mulder thinks that the beetles killed him. Scully speculates that
some sort of insect-carried bacteria might have done it. They go
door to door in the building and Mulder talks with Weaver. Weaver
lights up as they speak and says that the dead man yelled a lot and
claimed Weaver smoked too much but beyond that Weaver won't say much.
Mulder goes to the Voss residence and talks him about the second
victim. Voss won't talk, even though Mulder asks, "how many
people have to die before you do the right thing?" As Mulder
drives off, Voss takes a phone call from Brimley asking what Mulder
wanted. Voss wants to come forward but Brimley talks him out of it.
Meanwhile, Scully talks with an entomologist at the university who
confirms that the bug is a tobacco beetle, but with variations.
Scully wonders of there have been genetic changes. Tobacco companies
have been experimenting with genetically modified tobacco. Maybe the
in the tobacco itself might have resulted in changes to the beetles.
Voss goes to talk to Weaver - Voss wants him to leave town and gives
him money but Weaver says he has a good thing going here - cash,
cigarettes - and he sends Voss away. As Voss leaves, we see that
Brimley has followed Voss.
Scully finds insect
larvae filling the lungs of the transient. Scobee's lungs were
apparently empty because the bugs exited the lungs, getting out the
bathroom window. Mulder begins to cough and spits up blood. Mulder
undergoes an operation using special equipment to suck the larvae
out of his lungs, but there is concern because for every larva they
get there are probably dozens of eggs still in his lungs. He must
have inhaled the eggs originally. Maybe the genetically modified
eggs survived processing into cigarettes and got into his lungs from
somebody who smoked. Skinner serves a search warrant on Morley
Tobacco. Against the lawyer's advice, Voss confesses. They thought
they were doing a good thing. Why not genetically engineer a safer
cigarette? After a few months…three of the test subjects in a
focus group died. Scobee was monitoring the focus group and got
infected. Weaver was the fourth focus group member. Skinner leads a
team that breaks down Weaver's door and finds Brimley bound, with
bugs coming out of his mouth. Weaver has Brimley's car. He lights up
before entering a convenience store. A sheriff's car stops to check
out the stolen car and Weaver disappears from the store.
Scully talks with
Mulder in recovery. Scully hopes that when they find Weaver they
will be able to figure out how to treat Mulder. As they talk, Mulder
has trouble breathing again and quickly becomes critical, with a bug
crawling out of his nose. After a commercial break, Mulder is stable
again, but they can't maintain him for long. His lungs are still
filled with larvae. The doctor wants to do surgery. But Scully
thinks he is too weak and wants to wait. Skinner arrives at Voss's
house to protect the family, but Voss is not there. Skinner tracks
him down at his office, but Weaver is there. Voss says Weaver took
the test cigarettes. Weaver claims Skinner won't do anything because
you need me. He lights up (although this is apparently a regular
cigarette and not one of the infectious "test" cigarettes)
and after delaying to the last moment, Skinner shoots Weaver,
wounding him. Skinner arrives back at the hospital as Weaver is
brought in by paramedics. Scully looks at Weaver's hands and
promptly orders that Mulder be injected with a drug that has a high
nicotine content.
Some time later, in
Mulder's office, the two talk. Mulder is well, but is hoarse from
the lung suction treatment. When Scully looked at Weaver's fingers,
she saw that they were stained yellow with Nicotine. He apparently
already smoked much more than the other test subjects. Nicotine is
actually one of the oldest known insecticides. A high level of
nicotine in the body protected Weaver, and it was essentially a kind
of chemotherapy that killed the larvae in Mulder's lungs. In the
final scene, we see that Mulder now has a craving for nicotine.
-
Spring 2000
-
Hollywood A.D.
A man runs through a graveyard. Another man, later identified as the
Cigarette Smoking Pontiff, wearing what appears to be a Catholic
Cardinal's garb, shouts, "Give it up Mulder, my sniper zombies
are everywhere." He tells Mulder to give him the Lazarus Bowl
and he will release Scully, who he is holding captive. We see,
however, that it is not Mulder but actor Gary Shandling. Scully is
not Scully but Tea Leoni. "Mulder" stands and holds the
bowl above his head. He orders the man to release Scully or he will
break the bowl and send all the zombies back to being corpses. A
zombie tries to talk him out of breaking the bowl, but "Mulder"
tosses it up and there is a scuffle, at the end of which "Mulder"
and "Scully" roll down an embankment and into an open
grave hole. They find themselves in each other's arms in a casket,
and the casket lid slams shut on them. "Mulder" confesses
that he loves "Scully" and they kiss. We see that it is a
movie. Mulder and Scully are in the audience, as is Skinner. The
agents display emotions that appear to be embarrassment. Skinner is
really enjoying it.
The screening
continues and during the love scene..."Scully" confesses
that she is in love with Assistant Director Skinner. Mulder walks
out. Outside in the graveyard set, Mulder is sitting, eating the
rest of his popcorn. (Apparently as a promotion, everyone in the
theater is eating popcorn from ceramic bowls.) Scully finds him. She
got a message from Washington - Hoffman was killed by O'Fallon who
then hanged himself. Skinner was so tickled by the movie that he
gave Scully a bureau credit card to use for the evening. They walk
off chuckling. Mulder leaves his pottery popcorn bowl (that has a
label "made in Israel") behind and ghosts rise out of the
ground, dance, and enjoy themselves as they would have in life.
(Note: See the
October 1998 entry for the flashback sections of this episode.)
-
Spring 2000
-
Fight Club
Two men ride bicycles in Kansas City. They are making religious
calls. They call on a woman who says she is just moving in and
brushes them off. Outside her house is a red car with the license
plate "Betty." At another house, a few blocks away, they
call on another woman who has a car with the license plate
"Lulu," and who looks just like Betty. She closes the door
on them and the two men begin to fight, which they continue until
police arrive.
One day later,
Mulder and Scully call on Betty Tempelton - they are investigating a
possible hate crime. But they are not Mulder and Scully - just
look-alike FBI agents. As they talk, Lulu drives by and the two
agents begin fighting. The real Mulder and Scully talk about the
case -- it is as if they temporarily lost control of their minds.
Scully bristles at the game of Mulder dropping clues but holding
things back. She keeps guessing, throwing out wild ideas that could
have come from Mulder, eventually hitting on the "right"
solution. In downtown Kansas City, Lulu Pfeiffer enters a Koko's
Copy store, where she has applied for a sales job. She has had 17
jobs in 17 states in 3 years, which raises a red flag. While she is
there, the copy machines begin malfunctioning. Betty has applied for
a similar job at a Koko's Copy and her resume lists a similar number
of jobs.
In a hotel, a man,
Burt, is packing money into a small suitcase. M&S arrive at his
door, looking for Betty Templeton. They have a newspaper clipping of
him with Betty in last year's Fourth of July parade. He denies
knowing Betty, but mentions an address where he thinks she lived. At
Fogy's bar, Burt meets Betty and is surprised that she doesn't seem
to know him. Lulu also arrives - she is the one who is Burt's girl
friend. The bar begins to shake when they see each other, with
glasses and bottles exploding.
At Pat Devine's
Kansas City Auditorium, Scully arrives to find Mulder sitting with
an older man who we learn is a fight promoter and Burt is a wrestler.
Scully tells about Lulu and the path of destruction that has
followed her. The two women have trailed each other for the past
twelve years with things like fights, house fires, explosions, and
riots everywhere they go. When the agents leave, the promoter calls
Burt asking for his money. Betty is in bed with him. She goes into
the bathroom to dress and Lulu comes to the door, asking where Burt
was last night and if he is two-timing her. He calms her down and
eases her out the door but Betty comes out of the bathroom. Suddenly
shots pierce the ceiling from above. Burt goes to a bar to deliver
money to the promoter but both Betty and Lulu walk in and another
series of explosions racks the bar. Flying glass knocks out Burt and
the promoter walks off with his suitcase of money. When he wakes up,
Mulder and Scully are there. Scully says Betty and Lulu caused this
and they'll do it again of we don't find them. Mulder tracks down
Betty at her copy shop job and she says it's Lulu's fault. She
follows her around but "it's her or me this time. I don't want
to leave Kansas." Scully has just talked with Lulu, who also
works in a copy shop and says the same thing about Betty. There is
some kind of a psychic connection between them. Outside Betty's work
place, Lulu drives up and in the mayhem, Mulder is sucked into an
open manhole.
Scully drives up
and enters Koko's Copy, looking for Mulder. Scully uses the copy
shop Internet access, then goes to the Kansas State Penitentiary to
talk to Mr. Damphousse. He appears to be the father of Betty and
Lulu, via a sperm bank. She wants to collect information about his
family tree. He is angry and insulting. Betty goes to Burt's - he
has one more shot at the big time, but his money disappeared when he
was unconscious. She says maybe she can help, and leaves. A moment
later, Lulu comes to his door and they hold the same conversation.
Betty breaks into the copy shop and makes color copies of money.
Lulu does the same thing at her shop. Mulder finally manages to get
the manhole cover off and escape the storm drain. Scully is still at
the penitentiary when Mulder calls her. Scully says the father is
the angriest man in the world. Mulder explains that both Betty and
Lulu love Burt and don't want to leave. The agents agree that they
have to get to the fight and keep the two women apart, but Scully
notices that there's is a man who looks just like Burt is in a cell
at the penitentiary.
Burt is at the
auditorium in a WWF-type wrestling costume, complete with cape. He
is known as "The Titanic." One of the women delivers the
money, which Burt uses to pay for the fight, and the fight begins.
Mulder approaches Betty in the audience when Lulu walks up. Mulder
tries to drag Betty off, but the entire audience begins fighting.
Scully arrives with the other Burt. The two women are astounded, and
the fighting stops. Scully grins but when the two Burts see each
other, the fighting resumes. The fighting fades out, and we hear an
explanation by Scully - there have been millions of donations to
sperm banks and maybe nature has just so many creations. The odds of
meeting your double are incalculable, but neither Burt and his
sibling nor Betty and Lulu could avoid their two compulsive
mannerisms. When two original copies meet the results are
unpredictable. We see that both Mulder and Scully have extensive
wounds and stitches from the fight at the arena.
-
April 29, 2001
-
The date Bo Merkle's
driver's license would have expired, if he had not been killed by
Pinker Rawls in 1999.(Trevor)
-
Spring 2000
-
Je Souhaite
In Missouri, at a self-storage business, Jay Gillmore drives a golf
cart among the storage garages, calling Anson on the radio. He
eventually finds Anson sitting in an empty storage garage, reading a
magazine about pleasure yachts. Jay berates Anson for not cleaning
garage 407. Anson opens the overhead door of 407 and finds plastic
covered furniture. Inside a rolled up Arabic rug, something moves.
Anson unrolls the rug and inside finds a woman. Jim is again calling
for Anson on the radio. He drives up to 407 calls out more critical
comments. All of a sudden he has no mouth, just unbroken skin where
his lips should be.
In the X-Files
office, Mulder is talking with Jim when Scully enters. A mouth has
been surgically opened for him, but it is gruesome to look at. Jim
is convinced that Anson Stokes did this. Anson resurfaced several
days later but refused to talk with police. The agents go to the
Mark Twain Trailer Court, where Anson lives with his brother,
Leslie. Anson now has a huge yacht by his mobile home. Anson is
afraid that Mulder and Scully are IRS agents, investigating how
Anson could afford the yacht. Anson hides and Leslie tells the
agents that they are just taking care of the yacht for somebody.
Mulder sees the women from the rug inside the mobile home. Leslie
claims that Jim stored chemicals that caused "the mouth thing."
Mulder and Scully visit 407 but find odd chemical smells. A calendar
is dated 1978. The furniture is expensive and high quality. Might
Anson have taken something and sold it to pay for the yacht? They
find a picture of the woman Mulder saw at the trailer. Anson talks
to the woman - she gave him the yacht because he asked for it. He's
upset that it's not in water - and he can't afford it. He makes
clear that he has wasted two wishes and only has one left. He doesn't
want to wish it until he is completely ready. Leslie suggests a wish
for money. Leslie cannot walk and rides in a motorized chair - but
is doesn't occur to the brothers to wish for him to be able to walk.
Anson finally wishes that he can turn invisible at will. The woman
says it's unoriginal, but grants the wish. Anson tests it and fades
out. He strips and runs around the trailer court. Then he approaches
a couple of pretty girls, but while crossing the street is hit by a
truck and killed.
Scully waits in an
autopsy room as the invisible body is brought in. She is astounded.
She uses power to outline the face, then the entire body. Mulder
arrives. Dental records identify the body as Anson Stokes. This is
the most amazing thing Scully has ever seen. Mulder agrees that it
is amazing but says it probably has nothing to do with science. The
previous owner of the items stored in 407 an overnight success, but
he died in a very unusual way. Mulder thinks that the mystery woman
is the link, but he can find out nothing about her. Scully stays to
guard the body while Mulder goes to the mobile home. Leslie says the
woman is gone. Mulder thinks she is a genie, a spirit from Middle
Eastern folklore. They live in inanimate objects and grant wishes
for the people who find them. Leslie agrees to hand over the object
and gives Mulder an ornamental box. Later, however, Leslie gores to
407 for the rug.
Mulder goes back to
Scully at the autopsy room. Mulder shows her the box, but it
obviously has no genie in it - just marijuana. Mulder, meanwhile,
has found pictures of the mystery woman using FBI software that
matches faces in photograph databases. She is seen in pictures of
Benito Mussolini and Richard Nixon, men who got all the power they
wished for, then lost it. Leslie talks with the genie. He wants
Anson back and the genie grants the wish. Scully leads a team of
scientific experts into the autopsy room, but Anson's body is gone,
making her very embarrassed. Leslie's wish backfired, because Anson
is back, but still with a decayed body and unable to talk. Leslie
wishes Anson can talk, and Anson begins scream. Mulder and Scully
can't find Anson's body anywhere in the lab. Scully now doesn't know
what she saw. Mulder thinks the body disappeared because of a wish
being granted. Anson finally stops screaming. Anson can't feel his
heart beat and he's cold. As Leslie struggles to think of his last
wish, Anson fumbles to light the gas oven, to warm the mobile home.
As Mulder and Scully pull up and the mobile home explodes from the
ignited gas. The carpet falls to earth near the agents.
The woman is taken
into custody. Mulder calls her Gen, short for the female form of the
word "genie." The fire department recovers two bodies,
including Anson, now visible. Mulder's conclusion is that Gen is
evil, or the victim of a curse, but Gen says the only thing people
are cursed with is stupidity. In 500 years people have not changed a
bit. Greed still reigns. She used to be human, born in 15th century
France. A genie offered her three wishes. Her first two were
inconsequential. Her third was to wish for great power and long life,
which made her a genie. It is forever, like a prison tattoo, and it
is clear that she regrets her wish, so many years ago. Scully can't
come up with any reason to hold her, but she will not leave. Mulder
unrolled the carpet so he gets three wishes.
Mulder and Gen are
back at Mulder's apartment. Scully left the airport quickly. Mulder
asks what Gen would wish for and she answers to wish that she had
never heard the work "wish," and that she could live day
to day, relaxing over coffee, etc. Mulder theorizes that in order to
avoid problems, his wishes should be totally altruistic, for
everyone. He wishes for peace on Earth. She grants the wish, but
when Mulder looks outside, he finds that he is the last man on Earth.
AT FBI headquarters he walks into Skinner's office and calls Gen.
She explains that it is what he wanted - he wasn't specific about
how world peace should be established. She accuses him of having a
huge ego, to want her to change the hearts of six billion people in
his name. He wishes to undo his first wish, and Skinner and a staff
meeting appears in the room, causing Mulder much embarrassment. He
goes to his office and begins typing a wish, in intricate detail, so
that he can get all of the specifics and details correct. Scully
enters. She doesn't remembering disappearing of the face of the
Earth. Scully says that if Gen really is what she says, the power to
make wishes is extraordinarily dangerous. Scully suggests that the
meaning of life is to find peace and happiness, and that one man
shouldn't try to circumvent the process with a single wish. Scully
leaves and Mulder wipes the screen. He is finally ready to make his
last wish.
Mulder entertains
Scully at his apartment - they are going to watch the movie
Caddyshack. Scully observes that Mulder never made the world a
happier place. What was his final wish? We see Gen smiling and
relaxing in a coffee shop - presumably not a genie anymore.
-
May 7, 2000
-
In rural
Pennsylvania, Mulder shoots a creature that has the power to consume
illness from other people. The shooting is in the home of a couple
who Mulder had questioned earlier. The creature, possibly once a
Native American Shaman, cannot die and lives in great pain as the
result of the illness he has consumed. members of the public who
know about the power of the creature bury it and report it as the
death of a transient. After th burial, however, the creature tunnels
out of the grave and escapes. (The Gift)
(Does Mulder
know that the creature cannot die? Maybe he is conspiring with the
human friend of the creature to fake its death.)
-
May 2000
-
According to rental
car receipts, Mulder takes road trips of identical length on each of
the four weekends in May. Scully and Doggett come to believe that he
visits his Mother's grave in North Carolina, although on the first
weekend in May he is reported to be in Pennsylvania. (Within and the
Gift)
-
June 2000? (See
date comments in "Without" listing)
-
Requiem
In Bellefleur, OR - a police car races down highway. Driving
is Detective Miles, who fans first met in the pilot episode of The
X-Files. He radios to a deputy to wait for backup, but Miles'
car loses power and coasts, then strikes another police car that is
stopped on the highway in the dark. The forest is glowing.
The dials on Miles' watch are spinning. The deputy in the
other car, Ray Hoese, appears to be dead and green acid is on the
ground. As Miles gets out of the car, another man with the
same face as the deputy stands there, unspeaking.
An auditor is in
the X-Files office. Mulder and Scully have spent a huge amount
on travel - by FBI standards these numbers are out of control.
The auditor says that Mulder's two big issues, the conspiracy and
the disappearance of his sister, have been resolved, but Mulder
points out that nothing the agents have been investigating has been
resolved. Acknowledging that Mulder's sister was a major
motivation for Mulder, the auditor asks that given the case report
saying that Samantha is dead, what is left to investigate?
Scully also has to defend the investigation of the conspiracy to the
auditor. The auditor tells Mulder that he is evaluating what
The X-Files does, so if they go forward they can do it more
responsibly. He tells Mulder that if he is going to spend so much
time looking for aliens, he should narrow his search to where they
are. Meanwhile, in a "hellhole" middle eastern
prison, Marita Covarrubias gets Alex Krycek released. She
tells him that the Smoking Man sent her to find him. The
Cigarette Smoking Man is dying.
Two teenagers, Gary
and Richie, approach Detective Miles in the woods. They heard
that there was an airplane collision with a UFO. He tells them
that the Navy found their plane and there is no evidence of another
craft. Miles sends them away. As Mulder and Scully are
talking in the X-Files office, Billy Miles telephones Mulder.
Mulder and Scully immediately remember the name. Billy was
abducted seven years earlier and Mulder and Scully investigated the
case. He tells them that it is happening again, but not to him
this time. The implication is that he thinks his father has
been abducted.
Even though the
auditor would say they couldn't justify the expense, the agents head
out to Oregon to investigate. Alex and Marita visit the
Cigarette Smoking Man's apartment, in Washington DCC's Watergate
Apartments. He is in a wheelchair, attended by a nurse, Greta,
and has to smoke through a tracheotomy hole in his throat.
Krycek accuses that the Smoking Man had him thrown in that prison.
The Smoking Man agrees that it was for trying to sell something that
was the Smoking Man's. The Smoking Man counters that they have
a singular opportunity now. A crash in Oregon -- an alien ship
has collided with a military aircraft. It is Roswell and
Corona again, the chance to rebuild the project. Meanwhile,
Richie and Gary are back in the Oregon forest at night, looking for
the UFO. Gary has an incident in which he shakes violently,
then disappears. Richie sees lights glowing in the forest and
his flashlight bursts into flame. He runs off.
Mulder and Scully
arrive in Oregon. Billy has been a sheriff's deputy for three
years. He got over the abductions, but other people in the
area didn't and don't believe it. Billy is divorced and back
living with his father. He tells about the crash. The
other unidentified craft hasn't been found. His father has
been no help, even though a deputy is missing. Detective Miles
drives up. He claims that he has been working with the FAA and
it looks like there was no second craft. As they drive to the
scene, Mulder finds that the collision of the two police cars
happened at the same place Mulder painted an X on the pavement seven
years earlier. Scully finds an ammunition clip, likely from
the missing deputy's gun, but there is no indication of what he
might have been shooting at. As Mulder and Scully drive off to
see the missing man's wife, Detective Miles places the evidence bag
with the shells in his car trunk, and viewers see that the body of
the real Detective Miles is in the trunk. A Bounty Hunter is
masquerading as Miles. Mulder and Scully are surprised that
the missing man's wife is Teresa Nemmen, now Teresa Hoese, an
abduction victim who seven years ago approached the agents for help.
Her husband is also an abductee, but they keep it a secret because
people in the community don't understand. His experiences were
more terrifying than hers. He was taken many times and tested.
Teresa has medical files and as she gets them, Mulder watches Scully
plays with Teresa's baby.
That evening, as
Mulder study the files, Scully comes to Mulder's door, uneasy but
she doesn't know what is wrong. She felt dizzy and got chills.
Mulder covers her up in his bed and puts an arm around her to warm
her. Mulder says it's not worth it. He wants her to go
home. Seeing her holding the baby shows him what has been
taken away from her - including her health and the chance to be a
mother. (Recall that Scully cannot have children, because of
the procedures done during her abduction.) Maybe what the FBI
says is true, Mulder speculates. The personal costs are too
high. There is so much she needs to do in her life - so much
more than this. There has to be an end. Meanwhile,
Krycek is in Oregon, too. He reports by phone to the Smoking
Man that in spite of lots of effort, nobody can find the UFO.
He is told that it must be there, hidden in plain site. Find
the deputy and you'll find the ship. Teresa is awakened in the
night. Her husband, Ray, is home, but when he doesn't speak
she realizes that it is not her husband. She runs upstairs and
he follows. She stabs him with a knife and noxious gas comes
out of his body, overcoming her.
Mulder and Scully
arrive at Teresa's home. Billy reports that Teresa is gone,
apparently taken because the door was open. Inside they find
the mark they immediately recognize as acid burns from what Scully
describes as "arguably an alien." Scully feels faint
again for a moment. Marita, who has stayed with the Smoking Man,
asks him why bring Krycek into this matter and then play with him by
feeding him incomplete information. The Smoking Man says that
he has great faith that Krycek will find the ship, but if the
Smoking Man tells him exactly how, Krycek will be tempted to sell
the information. The ship is rebuilding itself, the Smoking
Man says. What we call God is an alien intelligence. Marita
states her conclusion that the aliens are coming and the Smoking Man
corrects her that they are coming back. Mulder approaches
Richie, who is watching the crime scene where Teresa disappeared.
He claims that "they" took his friend, Gary. Billy
is surprised when Richie states that Billy's father was in the woods
and knows what is going on. Richie takes Mulder and Scully to
where Gary disappeared. Richie claims that his flashlight beam
hit a spot and bent the light. As Scully walks nearby she is
lifted up in the air and shakes rapidly. Mulder realizes
Scully is out of sight and finds her on the ground, groggy.
She doesn't understand why this is happening to her. Mulder
also doesn't know, but is sure that these aren't just random
abductions and that the abductees won't be coming back this time.
Billy goes to his father's home and draws his gun, confronting
Detective Miles. Billy says, "I don't know who you are
but you are not going to take me." His father eventually
calms him and Billy gives up his gun, but we see that Detective
Miles is the Bounty Hunter. Mulder and Scully walk up to the
door and, finding it open, walk in. Billy and the Bounty
Hunter are gone.
Two days later at
the FBI building in Washington, Skinner visits Mulder's office.
Mulder thinks he is in trouble and says that if the higher-ups are
coming down on Skinner, he is sorry. Skinner, however, has
Krycek and Marita with him. They explain that they have a
singular opportunity. The Cancer Man is dying. His last
wish is to rebuild the conspiracy. There is a ship in those woods,
cloaked in an energy field. The alien is eliminating proof of
all the abductions. This is Mulder's chance to change all that
and find the proof. Krycek will cooperate because he wants to
Damn the Smoking Man's soul. Scully finds them talking and
joins the effort. They call the Lone Gunmen in to consult and
they determine that the ship is so well cloaked that even military
satellites don't detect it, but the Gunmen have detected it, because
they know exactly what to look for. It's not going to be there
forever, however. As they talk it is rebuilding itself.
Scully can't handle it and leaves the room. Mulder follows
into the hall. Mulder won't let her go back to Oregon.
They're taking abductees, he points out, and Scully is an abductee.
Mulder won't risk losing her. They hug and she vows that she
won't let him go alone.
Skinner accompanies
Mulder into the Oregon woods, wondering if it is just a "snipe
hunt." Scully looks at the medical records with the Lone
Gunmen and realizes that all of the abductees experienced the same
kind of elevated brain activity that Mulder had a few months ago.
They realize that it is Mulder who is in danger, but Scully
collapses. Mulder and Skinner lay out a network of laser beams
to detect the energy field of the ship. Mulder walks up to the
field and puts his hand into it, causing the hand to vibrate rapidly.
Skinner realizes he can't see Mulder. Mulder is inside the
energy field with many of the other abductees, including some that
we thought were dead, like Detective Miles, the deputy, Teresa and
Billy. Mulder enters a glowing circle with them and sees a
ship overhead. The Bounty Hunter walks up and joins them in
the circle, ready to be transported up to the UFO, which is hovering
overhead. Skinner sees the ship. It departs and all of the
people are gone.
Krycek reports to
the Smoking Man and Marita that he failed. The Smoking Man
speculates that perhaps Krycek never wanted to succeed? "The
hour is at hand?" the Smoking Man asks, and Krycek agrees that
it is time "to send the devil back to hell." The
Smoking Man's final words are, "As you do to Mulder and to me
you do to all mankind." Krycek pushes the wheelchair down
the stairs and the Smoking Man lies at the bottom, apparently dead.
Skinner visits Scully in her hospital room. She feels OK -
they're just running some tests. She already heard about
Mulder's disappearance. Skinner knows that he will be asked
what he saw and says he can't deny it. He vows that he won't.
They are both crying. Scully says, "we will find him,"
and Skinner nods. "I have to," she adds.
Scully tells Skinner that there is something else she has to tell
him, that he must keep to himself. She can't explain or
believe it, but she is pregnant.
(Note: This is
the season finale episode of the seventh season of The X-Files.)
-
June 2000? (See
date comments in "Without" listing)
-
Within
It is the day after Scully discovers she is pregnant. She dreams
both of her baby and of Mulder (or possibly receives psychic
impressions from him?). Her visions of him are disturbing.
At work, she finds men in the X-Files office who tell her that they
are looking for anything that might be pertinent for the manhunt.
She thinks a conventional search for Mulder is crazy. She goes
to Skinner -- they agree that they won't find Mulder that way. Kersh
has been named Deputy Director and is now Skinner's superior.
Kersh tells Scully and Skinner that the only acceptable solution is
to find Mulder safe and alive. Scully feels she and Skinner
should be directing the search. Kersh says FBI agent John
Doggett has been named the leader of the search. Kersh warns
that of anything gets out about aliens or abductions, Scully and
Skinner will be fired.
Skinner is called
to give a statement about Mulder's disappearance. : He vows to
Scully that he will tell the truth, but Scully says that he won't be
any good to Mulder if he gives them the power to ruin his career.
Scully sits while Sinner gives his statement. Another agent is
near her and strikes up a conversation. He claims to have known
Mulder. He always took the rumors with a grain of salt - that
from the beginning Mulder never trusted Scully. : She says she
doesn't think he knew Mulder at all, and checks his badge -- it is
Doggett. She throws a cup of water in his face and walks out.
Later, at home, she checks Doggett's computer file, but runs to the
bathroom because she has to vomit. She calls her mom, but gets
an answering machine - she leaves a message that she needs to talk,
but hears sounds on the line indicating that the line is tapped. She
sees someone outside watching her apartment. She calls Doggett
and tells him to keep away from her, but he appears perplexed.
She sees the shadow of someone outside her apartment door, grabs a
gun and pursues, but sees no one but her landlord. He claims
he saw Mulder in her building a few moments earlier. She runs
back to her apartment and finds that her computer is gone.
Scully goes to
Mulder's apartment. His computer is also gone. His bed
still has some of his clothes on it. She lies down. In a
dream (?) we see Mulder with his face skin stretched by mechanical
claws. A drill enters his mouth and begins cutting. The
Lone Gunmen are with Skinner at a satellite dish field - they are
pulling down UFO information from the Pacific Northwest, but can't
determine where the UFO went. Doggett calls on Kersh and asks
if anyone else is also assigned to look for Mulder that Doggett
doesn't know about. Kersh denies it. Scully wakes up in
Mulder's bed and finds Doggett in the apartment. They verbally fence
- she wants respect and he thinks she just sees him as "the big
bad wolf." He finds it hard to swallow that a scientist
would accept Mulder being taken by aliens. She tells him that
she has seen things she cannot explain and as a scientist it is a
badge of honor to not dismiss these things because somebody else
thinks it's BS. Doggett found car rental receipts for a series
of 370-mile trips Mulder took over four weekends in May without
telling anyone.
As they talk,
Doggett gets a call about Mulder at FBI headquarters. Skinner and
Scully are called to the task force room -- somebody removed files
after hours. Skinner is questioned -- it was Mulder's pass
card that was used to enter the room and Skinner was at the building
until 10pm the night before. They wonder if Skinner is helping
Mulder and used Mulder's pass card. Doggett tells Scully that he
believes Skinner, but finds that Mulder's credit card was used two
days ago in Raleigh, NC. Scully realizes that Raleigh is where
Teena Mulder is buried, which explains the rental car trips.
Doggett has also found that the Mulder family cemetery marker is
newly engraved to say "Fox Mulder 1961-2000." Scully
doesn't know what to think. Doggett finds medical records of
additional treatment Scully knew nothing about following Mulder's
hospitalization a year ago for unusual brain activity. It
appears that Mulder knew that he was dying but didn't tell Scully.
How far would he go for his truth, Doggett asks? His life and work
were threatened and nothing was proven, unless Mulder took one last
big chance. Doggett asks if Mulder is trying to create doubt
and leave a mark. Would he stage his own disappearance?
Skinner, though, knows that he saw a UFO at close range. Scully asks
Doggett to not report Skinner's statement. Doggett says he
just wants help to find Mulder.
Skinner and Scully
go back to the Gunmen - there was lots of microburst activity in the
Arizona desert meaning that is probably where the UFO took Mulder.
Scully concludes that it is the aliens removing evidence and that
they are in Arizona because they are looking for Gibson Andrew
Praise, who is hard proof of alien DNA. Doggett also finds a
file (slipped under his door by an unknown person) on Gibson -- they
believe Gibson's file is what was stolen. The boy was last seen in
Arizona and the general consensus is that to find Mulder they need
to find Gibson. We see another scene of Mulder undergoing medical
tests -- a medical saw cutting into his chest -- and Scully wakes up.
She is in a vehicle with Skinner in Arizona. Satellite data
shows UFO activity 100 miles north of Phoenix. Doggett and his
task force are also there, flying helicopters. An agent reports that
Gibson has been found at a school for the deaf. Scully and Skinner
also head for the school. School officials pull Gibson out of
class pending arrival of the FBI, and Gibson gives a meaningful look
at a girl also attending the school. Doggett, Scully and Skinner all
arrive at the school at the same time. Gibson went out the
window of the office where he was being held. The task force
agents spread out. Gibson walks up to a man (we don't see who it is)
and Doggett soon after finds their footprints lead off into the
mountains. Doggett chases and finds Mulder pulling Gibson toward a
cliff......to be continued.
-
June 2000?
-
Without
Scully provides an opening narration about how we live in a darkness
of our own making. Who are these beings we do not understand? If
they know our secrets, why can't we know theirs? We see a UFO
landing, but as the narration concludes, the image of the ship
dissolves.
After Doggett
repeatedly shouts orders, Mulder releases Gibson, who runs away.
Mulder doesn't otherwise speak or react. Mulder backs away from
Doggett toward the cliff. Doggett runs forward to stop him, but
Mulder falls off the cliff and strikes the ground far below. In a
close-up we see that Mulder almost immediately awakes with a start.
Scully & Skinner drive up, but Doggett and the other the agents
now present don't know where Mulder is. His body is not where it
fell. Doggett can't explain it, but says cops see amazing things
sometimes. A set of tracks leads down into a gully and provide clear
evidence that Mulder ran away from where he fell.
Scully is convinced
that it may have looked like Mulder, but it wasn't. Scully has seen
what looks like a man transform into another man. When pressed for
details by Doggett, Scully answers that what appeared to be Mulder
was an alien bounty hunter, come to collect a bounty on Gibson,
because he is part alien. The Bounty Hunter wanted to take Gibson
back to his ship, where she believes Mulder is. Doggett says she is
starting to remind him of Mulder. The other agents gather back at
the school with the children outside. Doggett drives up. Gibson
cannot be found, so they search the school building. The Bounty
Hunter, still looking like Mulder, is inside, but he transforms to
look like the principal to talk to Doggett. Scully thinks Gibson is
long gone. She and Skinner see the girl Gibson looked at earlier get
on a bicycle and ride off. Scully follows on foot, having to trot to
keep up. Scully finds the bicycle abandoned, and soon finds a
sand-covered trapdoor. Gibson and the girl are there. He tells
Scully that she shouldn't have come. Scully promises to protect him.
They only reason the aliens want to take him is because he is
special. The girl is the only one at the school he told. Gibson
broke his leg while running away. Scully sets his leg but has to go
get a car to transport him.
Kersh phones
Doggett. Doggett says he saw Mulder, but does not have him in
custody. Kersh can't understand how Doggett could find Mulder then
lose him. Doggett and Skinner talk - Skinner tells Doggett that he
is a pawn in a rigged game. Doggett asks for specifics. Skinner says
Doggett has a good reputation, and could even become the FBI
Director some day, which is why he has been set up to fail. Skinner
tells him that the only way to find Mulder is to listen to Scully
and find the truth, but even then he can lose, because if Doggett
puts anything about aliens in his report, Kersh will ruin him. The
Bounty Hunter is inside the school, now looking like Scully, but
Scully also walks up to Skinner and Doggett, who are standing
outside. They are bemused to see Scully in person at the same time
that an agent radios that she is inside the building. The Bounty
Hunter attacks the agent indoors. The real Scully and company rush
in and chase the Bounty Hunter, but they are eluded. Doggett can't
deny that he saw two Scullys. Scully realizes that the Bounty Hunter
is masquerading again, as someone in the room. The deaf girl knows
which it is, but slips away and does not tell anyone. As Gibson
sleeps in his underground hiding place, he has a vision of Mulder,
still in the alien's medical examination restraints.
An ambulance
arrives to transport the injured agent. Scully wants to sneak away
in a vehicle to get Gibson, but Skinner intercepts her. They soon
end up with guns pulled on each other because they each suspect the
other of being a shape changer. Skinner exhibits trust first and
lowers his weapon. When he reveals that he knows Scully is pregnant,
they know they can trust each other. Scully can't take the chance
that she will never see Mulder again. She has to do whatever it
takes. She tells Skinner that she knows where Gibson is, and Skinner
accompanies her. The deaf girl (or is it the Bounty Hunter?) has
observed their conversation. When they get to Gibson's hiding place,
he is not there. They find him several yards away. He says he can
"hear" Mulder, somewhere out there. "You're so close
now," he tells Scully. Skinner carries Gibson to the vehicle
but Scully remains behind.
Skinner delivers
Gibson to a hospital. Later, in his room with Skinner watching over
him, Gibson wakes up. The deaf girl enters the room and shuts the
door. Meanwhile, Scully walks the desert in the night, calling for
Mulder. She sees the lights of what seems to be a UFO flying in the
distance. It illuminates her, but it is a helicopter. It lands and
Doggett gets out. She accuses him of following her, but he responds
that she is where the action is. Doggett knows that Skinner took
Gibson to the hospital. Doggett's men followed Skinner to the
hospital. Scully is concerned that the Bounty Hunter may have
infiltrated Doggett's men? They get into the helicopter and fly to
the hospital. Unseen by them, there is a cloaked UFO nearby. Mulder
is inside and senses Scully's nearness.
Scully arrives at
the hospital. Doggett is now ready to question his own security.
Doggett and Scully go to Gibson's room and Gibson is gone. Scully
runs out and quickly begins a search. Still in the room, Doggett
realizes that the only way they could have gotten past the security
is to crawl through the suspended ceiling. Above the ceiling they
find Skinner, unconscious. Down the hall, the Bounty Hunter, posing
as Skinner, flags Scully down. She is again suspicious, but the
Bounty Hunter attacks Scully. She ends up shooting him. Green blood
fizzes out and the body quickly dissolves. Doggett bursts in and
Scully cries as Gibson looks on.
Back in Washington,
Kersh reviews the pictures of the injured Skinner and the green
slime. There must have been hazardous chemicals that caused the body
to dissolve, Kersh muses. Kersh belittles many of the facts of
Doggett's report but Doggett counters that the report reads like an
X-File. Doggett accuses that it's what Kersh intended when he
assigned Doggett to he case. Kersh says he assigned Doggett to give
him some answers and that Doggett should not come back until he has
those answers. Doggett visits Scully in her hospital room. She
doubts that he believes her, but he provides her several bits of
information on case. Gibson is a ward of the state and Doggett has
asked for special protection. Doggett tells Scully that keeping her
apprised of the case is his job now - he is assigned to the X-Files.
Scully is surprised. Doggett promises that no mater what their
differences, he will find Mulder. In the final scene, we see Mulder,
still in the alien medical facility, surrounded by Bounty Hunters in
the nearby darkness.
(Note: The date
of June 2000 for Requiem, Within and Without is based on the events
of the three episodes having taken place not long after Mulder's
rental car trips during four weekends in May, as noted in Within.
Note that the first of these four road trips may have been to
Pennsylvania instead of North Carolina, as reported in The Gift.)
-
Summer 2000
-
In India, an
American chemical plant accidentally releases a cloud of gas that
kills 118 people. One of the dead is a child whose father is a
siddhi mystic, capable of using mental powers to change other people's
perceptions of reality. (Badlaa)
-
Summer 2000?
-
Patience
An old car drives up to a house at night and a tall, slender man
gets out and enters the darkened house. A woman in bed awakes and
calls to her husband, George. He is a mortician and smells of
embalming fluid. She tells him to go outside and undress. Going onto
a porch to change clothes, George sees what appears to be a
man-creature, hanging from the porch roof. When the women comes to
check on her husband, the creature is on top of him, snarling.
In the X-Files
office, Scully is looking at Mulders desk name plate away as Doggett
arrives. He has been there all weekend, reviewing the files. He
wants to know how they will arrange their desks but Scully tells him
that this is Mulder's office and they will just be using it for
awhile. Scully lists the details of a case of two deaths in Idaho.
The cause of death is blood loss from numerous bites that appear to
be human. There is no motive or pattern. Doggett is at a loss to
understand it. They arrive at the home in Burley, Idaho. The local
detective pays more attention to Doggett than Scully. They aren't
sure now that these bites are human, he tells them. They look at one
footprint that has four toes and doesn't appear to be quite human or
animal. Scully points out that there is only one print, and if it
was an animal, there should be many prints around the yard.
Inside the house,
Doggett finds a second print. Maybe there are no more prints in the
yard because it didn't go through the yard. Doggett thinks there is
a human criminal with a deformed foot. In a closet, Scully finds an
open trap door to the attic. Using a chair, the agents enter the
attic, used for storage. They find two fingers, missing from
George's body. There is also a ceiling beam with marks as if
something had hung by huge claws. Meanwhile, another women is
attacked.
Scully does
autopsies and concludes that the bite marks are not exactly human.
The bites contain enzymes with anticoagulants typical of bats.
Doggett has found newspaper articles from Montana in 1956 reporting
similar events in which five people died or disappeared, in some
cases with body parts being found later at other locations. A hunter
killed the creature which seemed to be half man, half bat. At the
home of the new victim the agents examine the claw marks. Scully
learns that the woman's dead daughter had been found in the river,
terribly burned, the week earlier -- a daughter the woman had not
seen since 1956. These killings only started when the body was found,
Scully points out. Scully confesses to Doggett that she is making a
leap. Doggett says his conclusion is that most X-Files have been
solved with a leap, but that he thinks leaps get people killed.
Scully counters by suggesting that Doggett's article, describing a
human bat, is also a leap.
Scully succeeds in
getting the daughter's body exhumed, but when the workers arrive,
the grave is open and the lid of the coffin scratched. As the truck
drives the coffin off, the detective, now alone in the nighttime
graveyard, is attacked by a man-like creature that flys at him. The
detective's body is brought to the morgue where the other officers
confront Doggett. If they had not listened to the FBI agents, they
could have been out tracking this thing down. Scully, with her
far-out theories, is not welcome here. Scully, meanwhile, finds that
the daughter died of congestive heart failure and was only burned
afterward, apparently to hide something. Scully is convinced that
"it" is killing like an animal, but with a purpose. Each
of the victims had contact with the burned body. They head off to
find the man who found the body in the river. They talk with Myron
Stefaniuk near the river, but he wants to be left alone. Doggett
determines that Myron's brother, Ernie, was one of three hunters who
killed a half man-half bat in 1956. The newspaper says the brother
disappeared, but Myron just wants to be left alone.
The agents spend
several hours watching as Myron putters around the equipment in the
yard. Scully doubts herself. Maybe she's trying to force the facts
into a theory. Doggett wonders if she is trying to be Mulder, but he
doesn't think she is wrong. He can tell that Myron is hiding
something and he hopes that their "good cop work" with
tell them what it is. In Myron's barn/workshop we see the man-bat
hanging from the ceiling. Late at night the agents see Myron sending
gasoline cans on a little ferry raft across the river to an island.
The agents investigate in a rowboat. On the island they find the
Ernie, who has been living alone in a cabin because his fear became
an obsession. His face is scored with deep scratch marks, long
healed. He knows that bats are near the apes in the evolutionary
ladder. He suggests that a man may have sprung from bats. The burned
body was his wife, who had lived with him in isolation for 44 years.
Scully thinks the man-bat is following Ernie's scent, detected
through the burned body, because everyone killed had contact with
the body. Ernie warns the agents that it only attacks at night.
Doggett goes off to find Myron and at the shore he is attacked by
the man-bat. They struggle in the water but Doggett drives it off,
after being injured.
Scully and Ernie
talk. The moment the agents stepped foot in the cabin they became
marked, he says. It will wait as long as it has to. A security
system beeps -- something is coming in through the trees. They hear
noise on the roof. Scully fires her gun through the ceiling and the
noise stops. She ventures outside but Ernie realizes that the thing
is inside. Scully hears Ernie's gun fire and enters -- it's up in
the cabin rafters. Doggett appears and the man-bat attacks. The
agents drive it off with their guns, but Doggett is injured. Ernie
is dead.
Back in Washington,
Doggett receives a FAX from Myron -- he is going into hiding. Does
Doggett believe that the thing is out there and will come after them?
Doggett is pretty sure that both he and Scully hit it with their gun
fire. FBI agents who are friends of Doggett are making some noise
about the field report on this case. "Get used to it,"
Scully tells him. She thanks him for watching her back but he says
he never saw it as an option. Scully says she will make sure Doggett
has a desk in the X-Files office. Scully puts Mulder's nametag into
a desk drawer.
-
Summer 2000?
-
RoadRunners
In rural Utah, a man (later identified as Hank) waits at a lonely
country bus stop. A bus approaches in the distance and he flags it
down, but it drives past him, finally stopping down the road a bit.
He gets on board the crowded bus, which has a women driver. Almost
immediately after it begins moving, however, the bus stops again and
all of the passengers disembark, including one man on crutches. Hank
is bewildered as they walk away from the road into the brush, then
is frightened as the driver begins striking the man on crutches on
the head with a rock. Several of the passengers close in on Hank as
he screams.
Scully is at the
scene, examining footprints and other evidence. She uses a nearby
pay phone at the RoadRunner Bus Lines rural bus stop to phone Agent
Doggett, because there is no cell phone coverage in the area.
Doggett is surprised to learn that she is in Utah but she says the
call came in over the weekend from the local coroner who asked for
her help because the body shows the spinal characteristics of an
elderly person, although the victim was a 22 year old. Scully
remembers a file that is similar, but she can't remember details.
Doggett agrees to search the files. As they talk, a bus drives by.
Scully sees it turn onto a side road, and drives after it. She stops
at a country store and talks with the proprietor, who has a hand
wound. She tells him that she is a doctor. He can't sell her gas,
because he is out, but gives her some from a gas can. It isn't
really a town, he tells her, just a few like minded people trying to
keep the modern world at bay. He enters a house and the bus driver
is there, with Hank, apparently ill, on a bed.
Scully's car dies
and she has to walk back to the store. She demands to see the gas
can -- it contains water. The proprietor says it must have gotten
rain in it. The store doesn't have a phone, but there is one up the
street at Mr. Milsap's house. She goes there, but there is no dial
tone and it's anybody's guess when it might be back. Scully is
immediately suspicious that somebody doesn't want her to leave.
Milsap denies that a bus come through. Viewers recognize him as one
of the people who were on the bus. The state road is 18 miles away,
and another 20 to the next town -- too far to walk. Scully follows
another woman she sees walking in town, but there appears to be a
Bible group meeting in the woman's house, and nobody comes to the
door. Scully knocks on other doors, without being answered. She ends
up taking a room with Milsap -- his place used to be a boarding
house, but she readies her gun. Outdoors, people gather with
lanterns.
There is a knock on
Scully's door -- Milsap says it is an emergency. There is a man
downstairs who needs help. She finds Hank on the bed, having a
convulsion. As she cares for him she finds a poorly bandaged back
wound. She says he needs to get to a hospital immediately but is
told that nobody there has a car. Meanwhile, Doggett calls the
sheriff's department and is surprised to learn that Scully has not
checked in. He requests that a car be sent out to look for her.
Doggett asks for a trace on Scully's call from the previous day.
Scully's cell phone is still not working and there isn't much more
she can do for Hank without medication. Hank awakes and asks to talk
to Scully alone. He doesn't recall his name. The people there seem
to take very good care of him, even to the point of stranding her
there to help him. Scully feels that a dozen people committed the
murder, by stoning, and suspects it is the work of a cult. She needs
to get her patient out of there, but as she checks his back wound
she finds something moving under his skin. With a pocket tool she
grabs part of it through the wound, but the rest crawls deeper under
the skin.
Doggett learns that
the phone Scully called from was near the crime scene. The previous
call from that payphone was on the night of the murder -- a man
named Hank called his sister to say he was on his way to her home,
but never arrived. Doggett informs the sheriff's office that he is
on his way to Utah to help look for Scully. Scully feels that the
wound on her patient's back is a point of entry for a parasite that
has taken up residence along his spine. She thinks that these people
put the parasite in him and thinks that they killed the last person
who was in his condition. She will try to get them both out of there.
She crawls out the window to scout around, leaving her gun so that
Hank can defend himself. As soon as she leaves the room, the bus
driver and Mr. Milsap enters, and Hank tells them "we need
another swap." Doggett arrives in Utah with a photo with
information on several previous similar murders -- all victims had
their brains beaten out and all remain unsolved. The murders range
throughout the desert southwest, the more remote the location the
better.
Scully enters a
barn and finds the bus, but Hank is there, too, limping after her.
The other townspeople enter. They stalk her and she runs, but they
catch her. Her life is about to take a wonderful turn, Hank tells
her. She is about to become part of something larger, about to
become very loved. The people chant Amen. They kill Hank with a
hammer, smashing his skull. From his back the bus driver takes a
bloody, writhing parasite and advances on Scully. She pleads that
she is pregnant, but they bare her back and close in on her.
Scully awakes, tied
face down on the bed. The townspeople tell her that she will love
them, protect them and make them better than they are. She will soon
be one with him. That last man just wasn't a suitable tabernacle.
Scully sees the lights of a car drive up but they gag her so she
cannot call for help. It is Doggett. He shows Scully's picture but
the people deny having seen her. Scully uses her tied foot to knock
over a kerosene lamp, which burns on the floor, but Doggett doesn't
notice the fire. Doggett drives off but soon stops and radios the
sheriff's department. He got a definite "vibe" from the
situation. The man he talked to had a gun in his pocket. (While not
mentioned, might Doggett also have seen Scully's rental car on the
outskirts of the community?) The sheriff's department will send
everybody they've got, but Doggett can't wait. He locates where
Scully is being held, possibly by hearing her moans, and knocks out
the man attending her. Her cuts her bonds. She can't walk as far as
his car, so at her direction, he assists her to the bus. He hotwires
it, but she feels the parasite moving. She demands that he cut it
out of her because it his heading for her brain. He does, slicing
into the skin at the back of her neck, as the townspeople enter the
barn and try to get into the bus. They break windows. Doggett
extracts the parasite and kills it. Immediately the people stop
moving and become silent. Doggett carries Scully off the bus and the
people do not interfere. As he walks out of the barn, several
sheriff's vehicles drive up.
A week later, at
the hospital, Scully packs her bags, ready to leave. Doggett reports
that the grand jury convenes today. The people will claim that they
are being persecuted for the religious beliefs. They apparently
thought the parasite was the second coming. Scully apologizes for
leaving Doggett out of the case and vows she won't do it again.
The parasite in
this episode is somewhat similar to the parasite seen in the episode
Travelers, set in June 1952, except that in Travelers, it entered
and exited the human body through the mouth.
-
Fall 2000?
-
Baltimore
prosecutor Martin Wells withholds evidence of the innocence of a man
he is prosecuting on a drug arrest, resulting in the conviction of
the man, who later commits suicide in prison. The man's brother vows
revenge. (Redrum)
FBI Deputy director
Kersh moves to a new office ona top floor of the FBI building. (Deadalive)
-
Fall 2000?
-
Invocation
At an outdoor elementary school fair in Dexter, Oklahoma, in 1990,
children play, ride on a pony carousel and have fun. A boy on a
swing calls to his Mom to watch him, but she is talking with a
friend. When Mom looks again, the boy is gone from the swing. She
looks, calling to him in distress, but can't find him. A young man
has been watching the boy, and is seen to dispose of the child's
backpack.
Ten years later --
Mrs. Underwood arrives at school and her son, Josh, tells her "they
are looking for you." Several men in suits are standing near
the swings. They separate and she sees her first son, Billy, in the
swing. He is no older then he was when he disappeared and will not
speak. Scully and Doggett arrive to investigate. There was never
even a suspect in Billy's disappearance. He is healthy and seven
years old. Billy's parents want to take him home, but Doggett goes
in to talk with Billy first. Doggett tells Billy he's talked with
many children who have been hurt. Sometimes the hurt starts to go
away when you start talking about it. Doggett asks about the man who
took Billy and shows him the backpack. Billy reaches for the
backpack but Doggett holds onto the backpack, asking for the name
first. Mrs. Underwood intervenes and takes Billy away. Doggett
continues to insist that Billy can help the investigation.
At the Underwood
home, the family dog, a German Sheppard named Sparky, becomes
agitated around Billy. At the hospital, Scully concludes that Billy
is the same boy who was taken, with no evidence of even the
slightest medical changes from his last medical examination ten
years ago. Scully cites X-Files of alien abductions. Doggett gains
access to juvenile records of the young man, a high school dropout
named Ronnie Pernell, who was questioned and released ten years ago.
At Billy's home at night, Billy leaves his bed and hears his parents
talking about him. Josh is afraid of Billy. Billy enters Josh's room
carrying a knife.
Doggett approaches
the mobile home where Ronnie lives with his mother. Ronnie drives up
as he is there. Ronnie remembers being questioned about Billy.
Doggett wants to take him to see Billy now and "see what Billy
says." Ronnie is confused and wants to be left alone. Back in
his car, Doggett takes a photograph of a young boy out of his wallet
and contemplates it. Mrs. Underwood finds Josh - the knife is stuck
in the bed and there is blood, but Josh is OK. Investigation shows
that the blood is Billy's, although neither child was cut. The
parents have never seen the knife before. Scully thinks that Billy
should be removed from the household so that he can be observed.
Doggett, however, thinks Billy should stay at home. The knife has a
symbol on it that was identified by a police psychic ten years ago
during the investigation. Scully recognizes the symbol immediately
as a shape Billy has been drawing repeatedly. It has five lines
radiating out from a central point in a star shape. Mrs Underwood
gently asks Billy to help them understand what he is going through.
She wants him to see a child psychologist, but as Dad begins to back
the family van out of the driveway, Billy is suddenly not in the van
anymore. He is upstairs in Josh's room.
Ronnie leaves his
mother's trailer home. A boyfriend drives up and hassles Ronnie.
Ronnie walks through the woods. He digs with a spade that is buried
under leaves and finds a human skull. At the Underwood home, Scully
and Doggett bring in the psychic, Sharon Pearl. When she meets Billy
she gets an immediate impression of powerful forces working through
Billy and drawing him to his brother. She also feels a force, coming
through Doggett. He lost someone just like Billy. The psychic
convulses and the star mark appears on her forehead. An ambulance
takes Sharon away. Scully asks Doggett about what she said. He
thinks it was an act. Scully taped the psychic readings and when she
plays the tape backwards, you can hear singing. Ronnie is threatened
by his mother's boyfriend, who says he knows what Ronnie has buried
in the woods. Ronnie drives to the Underwood residence where Scully
and Doggett observe him arrive. Suddenly Billy is in the car with
Ronnie. Doggett approaches the car to find out what Ronnie is doing
there and sees Billy in the car, assuming a kidnapping. Ronnie
drives off and Scully, in the agent's car pursues, soon stopping
Ronnie's car. Doggett runs up. Ronnie gets out of the car but Billy
is not there. Ronnie can't explain it. Meanwhile, Josh is on the
Underwood's van with his dad, who goes into a gas station to pay.
Josh sees a man leading a pony to a horse trailer and walks over to
see the pony. He reaches into the trailer and someone grabs his
hands and holds him.
Ronnie is
questioned at the police station. Doggett is convinced that Billy
was in the car, even though he was also known to be in his home at
the time. Police report to the agents that Josh has disappeared.
Doggett questions Ronnie again, who says he knows what Doggett is
going to ask, but he has no answer. He went to the house because he
didn't believe that Billy was there. Ronnie claims that he took care
of Billy and sang to him, so he wouldn't be afraid. Doggett asks
more questions. Who was Billy afraid of? Is Ronnie a victim, too?
Police, including
Scully and Doggett, raid the home of the operator of the pony
carousel that night. We see that the star symbol is the shape of the
pony carousel and also the logo of the pony business. Josh is found,
tied up but safe. The owner runs and Doggett chases him. We see that
the owner is Ronnie's mother's boyfriend. When Doggett stops him,
the man denies that he has Billy Underwood. Billy appears nearby,
then disappears and Doggett finds the skull in the ground.
Scully says that
the clothes, age and condition of the bones makes clear that the
body is Billy's and she is sure that the forensic tests will reach
the same conclusion. Doggett can't accept that it is justice from
beyond the grave. Scully says not everything can be explained. Josh
is safe, she says, and at least Doggett succeeded in that goal,
whether Doggett can accept it or not.
-
December 4-8, 2000
-
Redrum
On Friday, December 8, Baltimore prosecutor Martin Wells is in jail.
His face is wounded. A guard enters and tells him it is time to go.
As Wells is escorted out, Scully and Doggett are there and Doggett
clearly knows Wells. As Wells is taken outside through a crowd of
reporters, and a man pulls a gun and shoots Wells. As Wells lies
there, given emergency care by Scully, he sees Scully's wristwatch
stop and begin moving backwards.
On Thursday,
December 7, Wells awakes in jail. He is surprised that he is not
wounded. Scully and Doggett enter. Wells doesn't understand what is
going on. Scully shows him a magnetic key card from Wells' apartment
building, found in a dumpster. Wells is taken to Baltimore circuit
court for a hearing. He is charged with murdering his wife. Wells'
father-in-law is there - he is the man we saw shoot Wells. Wells
slowly understands that it is not Saturday, but Thursday. He knows
the judge on a first name basis, but the judge feels compelled by
the facts of the case to deny bail. When he orders Wells moved to a
more secure facility to protect him from being harmed by other
prisoners he has prosecuted, Wells claims that if he is transferred,
his father in law will kill him.
Wells talks with
Scully and Doggett and tries to explain what is happening to him.
Wells remembers nothing of the last three days, but can offer no
evidence. Later, alone in his cell, he has brief visions of the
murder, but nothing clear. Wells children, two young girls, are
brought to see him by their nanny, Trina. "Grandpa says they
won't let you come home," they say. He asks for a child's doll
from his home - it has a "nanny cam" in it that is
activated by motion. He and his attorney play the tape. They find
his wife on the tape - and see Martin, also.
Wells wakes up on
Wednesday, December 6. Wells is taken to an interview room to talk
with his family attorney, who introduces his defense attorney. Wells
realizes that it is, again, a day earlier. His face is no t wounded.
The attorneys tell Wells that police have not been able to find the
key card, and as a result, they have a weak case. Later in the jail
exercise yard, another prisoner who Wells prosecuted accosts him. A
third prisoner who has a spider web tattoo on his hand beats him.
Scully and Doggett come to see him - from their perspective it is
the first time they have talked. Wells attempts to explain. Every
morning he wakes up it is the day before. He doesn't remember the
day his wife was killed because for him it hasn't happened yet.
Doggett walks out in disgust. As Scully leaves, she suggests that
maybe Wells already has the answer within him. Wells reviews the
evidence files. He is taunted again by another prisoner. It is
painful for him, but he looks at the pictures of his dead wife, and
has another vision of the events. He sees the spider tattoo and now
knows who killed his wife.
On Tuesday,
December 5, Wells wakes up at Doggett's home. The news is reporting
his wife's death and the search for the key card. Wells describes
the man and Doggett calls the Baltimore city jail. No prisoner is
there with that description - he must not have been arrested yet.
Wells and Doggett go to the Wells home and retrieve the nanny cam.
There is nobody on the tape between his wife and the police. The sun
in a window shows that when Wells is seen on the tape, the sun is
wrong for Wells to be the murderer. Wells explains that there was a
remote control on the nanny cam - their housekeeper, Trina, knew
about it. They go to her home and the man with the spider web hand
is there and Doggett arrests him after a scuffle. The man had
threatened the housekeeper and Trina is so scared that she will not
testify. Wells talks with the man alone. Wells prosecuted his
brother for possession of drugs and got him jailed for life. The man
accuses Wells of withholding evidence that could have exonerated his
brother, in order to get an easy conviction. The brother later hung
himself in his jail cell. Although the man, in effect, admitted his
guilt to Wells, nobody else heard it and Wells is arrested because
police feel that they have a case against him.
On Monday, December
4, Wells awakes up at 2:08 am in a Washington DC hotel room. He
tries to call his wife, but gets an answering machine. It is two
hours to the murder. He goes to Doggett's and asks for help - they
haven't seen each other for three years. Wells thinks he has been
given a second chance. He telephones Baltimore police but they
thought he was a crackpot. He asks Doggett to call police using his
FBI status and ask that they go to the Wells residence. Wells doesn't
wait for Doggett to complete the call and hurries home to Baltimore.
Police are already at the apartment when he arrives, but Vickie is
not there. It is a few minutes past the murder time. The officers
say they will sweep the neighborhood, and leave. Wells calls his
father in law - Vickie is not there. Vickie arrives home and Wells
is agitated -- they have to get out of there right now. Before they
can leave, the murderer enters and he and Wells fight. Knocking
Wells down, the man grabs Vickie. As he is about to slit her throat,
he is shot...by Doggett who enters with Scully. Wells sees Scully's
wristwatch -- the second hand is frozen, but then it begins moving
forward again.
Three months later,
at the penitentiary, Wells is in prison. A narration by Wells makes
clear that he has confessed that he withheld evidence and this time
he has been jailed as the result of his own action, having been
given the second chance.
Note: The title
of the episode, "Redrum," is "Murder" spelled
backwards, as noted in the Stephen King novel "The Shining."
-
December 2000??
-
Via Negativa
A man is sleeping in a car - he is FBI agent Leads, on a stakeout.
Another agent, Stedman, wakes him up. The front door of the house
they are watching is wide open and the lights are out. They go to
check it out and find bloody footprints in the front hall of the
house. Over the door an eye is painted. The officers find multiple
bloody dead bodies on cots in a bedroom. Stedman follows the
footsteps further, and Leads hears him discharge his gun.
Following to assist, Leads finds Stedman dead of a wound to the
head.
At his home in
Falls Church Virginia, Agent Doggett gets a call from Scully. An
FBI agent is dead but Scully can't go due to something unexpected
- she doesn't tell Doggett she is at the emergency room seeing a
doctor. Doggett arrives at the crime scene, which is in
Pittsburgh. Skinner briefs Doggett that they had a tip that the
cult was dealing drugs. In the officer's car they find Leads body,
with a forehead wound. Doggett thinks the murder happened
someplace else because the car does not have enough room to swing
a weapon. Leads' gun is still holstered and keys are in the
ignition. Inside the house they look at the other bodies, all dead
of a single wound in the forehead, but the leader of the cult,
Tipets, is missing. There are insignias of the eye around the
house. The other agent, Stedman, is missing. Doggett happens to
know that Stebben is from Pittsburgh and keeps a condo there that
belonged to his parents. They go to the condo where they find
Stedman, dead of a wound to the forehead.
Doggett watches a
videotape of Tipets, a convicted criminal who became a cult leader.
Tipets believes that Via Negativa, the path of darkness, is the
way to reach God, and uses drugs. Nothing in FBI research suggests
that Tipets was ready to kill his followers. Skinner and Doggett
brief Kersch that there were no fingerprints and doors were also
locked from inside. Skinner speculates that maybe Tipets'
consciousness was there, but not his body. Kersch grumbles that he
is not hearing conclusions, and he puts Doggett on the spot to
come up with answers. In a rundown area of Pittsburgh that night,
Tipets has an encounter with a panhandler, then phones Andre.
Andre listens as Tipets leaves a message on the answering machine.
Tipets claims that Andre is responsible for the deaths. Andre
picks up a raiser blade and presses it into his forehead.
Doggett receives
the coroner's report - all the victims were killed with an axe
blade in a single blow to the forehead. Readings required for
Tipets' followers include reference to a ceremonial axe, but it is
on display in a museum in India. Scully has told Skinner that she
is taking some "personal time." In Pittsburgh, the
panhandler is sleeping on the street. He sees Tipets again, with a
third eye in his forehead, and Tipets kills him with a ceremonial
axe. Skinner goes to Doggett's house to tell him about the similar
death in Pittsburgh, with Tipets seen making a pay phone call
nearby. Skinner speculates that maybe the drug Tipets was
promoting finally allowed him to reach another plain of reality.
His phone call was traced to Andre Bormanis, a convicted drug
dealer. Skinner and Doggett go to see him and find that Andre has
cut marks in his forehead. His home includes a science lab with
caged rats and Andre claims to be a doctor. Andre says
hallucinogens were Tipets' route into other realms. Nobody took
the trips but Tipets, because only he was strong enough. Andre
hopes that the cut on his forehead is protection.
The agents take
Andre in for questioning, leaving him in a jail cell in spite of
his protests that he needs the drugs he was working on. In a dream
sequence, Doggett sees bloody footprints in the jail hallway and
sees Tipets floating, with a third eye in his forehead. Doggett
realizes that the footprints are his own. Skinner wakes him up -
Doggett was sitting on a bench in the hall, dozing. Scully is on
the phone for Doggett. She appreciates his discretion, even though
he still doesn't know what is going on. Scully has asked Skinner
to contact some friends of Mulder's and she encourages Doggett to
get some rest, because she has heard that he has been working
around the clock on this case. Skinner and Doggett realize that
the drugs Andre was cooking up were to keep him from going to
sleep. In the cell, Andre has fallen asleep and sees Tipets. A
plague of rats enters Andre's cell. When Doggett and Skinner run
up to the cell, Andre is dead.
Doggett finds the
Lone Gunmen in the X-Files office. Doggett has heard of them from
reading the files. They show him a slide show, depicting the eye
image seen at Tipets' house - is it an eastern symbol representing
opening of the soul. Doggett says that placement of the wounds on
Tipets' victims suggests that he has opened his eye but he is
trying to keep his victims from opening theirs. The Gunmen relate
CIA efforts to create psychic assassins and speculate that Tipets
has apparently accomplished that. Doggett doesn't believe it, but
thinks Tipets may, and concludes that Tipets will need more drugs
so that he can keep killing. Doggett and Skinner go to Andre's lab.
Tipets is there, hiding. Tipets apologizes for what is about to
happen. He slams his forehead into a laboratory saw. They rush him
to the hospital, where Doggett happens to see that Scully was
admitted for acute abdominal pain. She is in a hospital room, but
he does not talk with her.
Doggett reports
to Skinner and Kersch about Tipets' beliefs. Kersch commends them
on an excellent job, but Doggett feels that the case isn't over
yet. There is no murder weapon and no forensic evidence and no way
to know how Tipets killed his victims. Kersch is firm that the
case is over. Doggett leaves a message on Scully's answering
machine that they caught the guy but that the case doesn't add up.
There is part of him that asks what if Tipets did contact
something, but it may not have been God? Doggett needs some sleep.
He concludes his message, saying that when Scully gets the message,
she should give him a call, if she feels up to it. As Doggett goes
upstairs to bed, viewers see a man with an axe watching him.
Doggett awakes
and dresses for work, but in a mirror sees himself with a third
eye in his forehead. At FBI HQ, Doggett visit's Skinner's office.
Doggett is disoriented. He's not sure he is awake. Last night he
dreamed that Tipets was inside his house, holding an axe. The dead
FBI agents may have experienced the same thing. Tipets knows
Doggett now and can enter his dreams in spite of being in a coma.
Skinner thinks Doggett is just tired and sends him home to rest.
It becomes clear that it is a dream sequence. The ends of the
hallways retreat and Tipets approaches Doggett. "She" is
going to die, Tipets says, but it is Doggett who is going to kill
her. Doggett finds himself in Scully's apartment, holding the axe.
He enters Scully's bedroom where she is sleeping, raises the axe
as if to strike her, then lowers it and prepares to slam it into
his own forehead.....and Scully wakes him up. She is at his home
and his door was unlocked. She tells him that Tipets is dead,
having never regained consciousness. Scully is feeling OK. The
images Doggett saw in his dreams are terrible, and scared him.
Maybe they didn't come from him, he speculates, but Scully thinks
it was just a bad dream.
Notes: This
episode gives Lone Gunman Langley's first name as
"Richard." The name "Andre Bormanis" is
apparently taken from Dr. Andre Bormanis, science consultant to
the Star Trek films and television series and a consultant to The
Planetary Society.
-
December 31, 2000
-
The actual end of
the millennium, with the completion of the 2000th year AD of the
Julian calendar system, in spite of the misunderstanding of many
people, who think that the millennium ended a year earlier.
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