2002
2002
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Circa this year,
Jason Nichols' compound that allows freezing human cells without
cellular damage makes the transition from computer design to an
actual compound. (It was estimated in 1997, in Synchrony, that it
would take another five years for this compound to become reality.)
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January 7, 2002
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Trust No 1
Scully recites an opening narration to her son - one day he will ask
her to explain the miracle of his birth. If she falters, he must
know that there is an explanation. She describes a chance meeting
with a “perfect other.” If this kind of thing should happen to
William he must seize it. The truth is not found in science or in
some unknown plain, but by looking into your own heart. The truest
truths are what hold us together or keep us painfully, desperately
apart. As she speaks we see various scenes of Scully and Mulder from
the past, ending with Scully kneeling beside a dead man on a train
platform.
Scully rolls her
stroller into the Federal Grounds Internet Cafe near her home. She
has e-mail from Mulder using a blind e-mail address, trust_no1@mail.com
- he’s lonely and uncertain of his ability to live as he is. She
replies (her address is queequag0925@hotmail.com) that she wants
badly to see him but he is still not safe there. Another woman has
entered the cyber-cafe with her own stroller. When the woman’s
baby cries, Scully looks and sees the woman outside, apparently
arguing with a man. Later, at the FBI academy, Scully is looking at
a printout of Mulder’s message when Doggett and Reyes approach her.
Doggett has been contacted by an anonymous source that claims to
have information about the super soldier program, including names of
people who are super soldiers. He will only divulge the names to
Mulder. Scully claims she has no way of contacting Mulder but
Doggett tries to talk her into trusting him.
When Scully arrives
home that evening, the same woman is on her street with the same man.
Scully sees the man take the baby and drive off. Scully invites the
woman, Patty, into her apartment to make a police report, but the
woman is reluctant. Patty has no place to go and Scully lets her
sleep on the sofa. In Bethesda, Maryland, Doggett and Reyes are on
stakeout. The cell phone call from the source could not be traced to
an exact location, but was traced to a cell phone zone. They are
watching the only significant building in that zone. The man, Patty’s
husband, drives up and enters the building. Inside is a high-tech
monitoring facility with many computer and video screens. The Shadow
Man watches on the monitor as Doggett and Reyes walk to the car
Patty’s husband drove to check it out. In the early morning
Doggett and Reyes see Patty’s husband leave the building and drive
off (in a different car from the one he arrived in).
At Scully’s
apartment, Patty wakes and turns off William’s baby monitor so
Scully will not hear noises in William’s room. Scully is awakened,
however, by a phone call from Doggett. Doggett just tailed a man to
her street and he entered her building. Scully finds Patty in the
living room, holding William. Doggett finds Patty’s husband trying
to pick the lock to Scully’s door. Doggett quickly subdues him.
Reyes calls to Scully and Scully opens the door to find that Doggett
has subdued the man. The agents question both Patty and her husband.
She claims she just wants to protect William. He says she’ll get
them killed because “they’re watching.” He claims to be a
National Security Agency operative and he was coming to get his wife.
He says that several months ago, Scully saw her son affect the
movelent of the mobile over his crib as if controlling it with his
mind. Patty says their daughter, Joy, is different, the way William
is different. Her husband says he has a limited scope but he told
his supervisor, the Shadow Man, about Joy and they have discovered
things about the super soldier program. His supervisor thinks Mulder
is the only person who can make the connections to understand. The
phone rings - it is The Shadow Man, using a disguised voice. He is
watching her and knows she is in e-mail contact with Mulder. She
asks him if he has ever heard about the US Constitution and he says
yes, it is what allows foreign terrorists to live hre and enjoy the
American Dream until the time comes to destroy it. She wants to meet
him and see his face before she can trust him. He directs her to be
outside The Federal Grounds Internet Cafe in 20 minutes. As she
waits for him, her cell phone rings. He directs her into a waiting
car and through a series of maneuvers, including changing cars. Late
at night he finally directs her to stop in an isolated rural
location and tells her to change clothes into some garments waiting
in the trunk of the car. As she completes her change, he walks up,
surprising her. He has her put her gun and her old clothes into the
vehicle, which he then explodes. She wants to know how he knows her
clothing size. He says he knows everything about her, reciting a
series of private details, including her childhood fear of clowns,
her true hair color, her college boyfriend's name, her resting heart
rate, her pet peeves, and how on one lonely night she invited Agent
Mulder into her bed. The Shadow Man says he is “the future” and
he risked his life to be there. If she doesn’t contact Mulder in
24 hours, he will disappear. He sends her off in another car,
waiting nearby.
At the Academy,
Doggett and Scully talk. He is now worried about what he has gotten
her into. She says the means of Mulder’s return has been
prearranged and she has already sent for him. Doggett wants her to
call it off but she says she cannot, plus she wants badly to see him.
She says he is already on a train and will arrive at midnight. That
night, Scully is on the train platform an hour ahead of time,
waiting for Mulder and is observed by the Shadow Man on the computer
monitors. Doggett asks a researcher in the FBI evidence lab to
examine the clothes the Shadow Man had Scully put on. He needs some
kind of identification and he has little time. Reyes is also on the
train platform, keeping an eye on Scully. Patty’s husband spray
paints the lens of the camera being used by The Shadow Man to
observe the platform. Other people gather as the train nears. Reyes
sees Patty’s husband pointing a gun, apparently at Scully. The
Shadow Man is also on the platform and Patty’s husband may be
aiming past Scully at him. The Shadow Man shoots Patty’s husband,
then takes aim on Scully. Reyes pulls Scully to the ground. Doggett
appears and shoots The Shadow Man, who falls onto the train tracks.
A railroad employee radios to the train engineers to not stop and to
keep going. The train rolls through the station without stopping, to
Scully’s anguish. Scully kneels beside Patty’s husband - he’s
dead (it is the same scene foreshadowed in the episode opening).
Police are at the
train station crime scene. An officer leads Patty past Scully. Patty
says this wasn’t supposed to happen - he only wanted to protect
Scully. They both cry and hug and the officer leads Patty off.
Doggett reports that they have not found the body of The Shadow Man.
The man’s DNA, found on Scully’s clothing, contains an unusual
Iron complex and and cannot be tested. Doggett concludes that The
Shadow Man is a super soldier. Scully urgently wants to radio the
train to warn Mulder, but a report comes back from the train that a
man has jumped from the train near a quarry. Scully, Doggett and
Reyes rush to the quarry. Doggett and Reyes climb down the slope
while Scully drives to the bottom. They see a man in the distance
running across the floor of the quarry. Doggett calls to him,
believing it to be Mulder, but the man runs the opposite direction.
Scully gets out of the car at the bottom of the quarry and calls to
Mulder. A man walks out of the mist toward her, but it is The Shadow
Man. Scully runs for her life, but finds her way blocked by heavy
equipment and the reddish quarry wall. Scully asks why he wants to
kill them. He says that Mulder must die, or her son. She demands to
know what’s wrong with William but the Shadow Man begins shaking.
He falls to the ground and his skin turns black. Finally, he flies
through the air and slams into the reddish dirt of the quarry wall,
disappearing.
Scully writes an
e-mail to Mulder. She knows that Mulder jumped off the train because
he knew what she also now knows, that the key to the destruction of
the super soldiers lies in the Iron compound in the quarry. She
signs the message “forever yours.”
The January 7
date was on Mulder's e-mail message. The episode apparently ends on
January 10.
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Early 2002?
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John Doe
DAY ONE: John Doggett wakes up on the floor of a dirty warehouse
building. A man has removed ones of his shoes and is trying to steal
the other. He runs outside after the man. They are in a small
Mexican town. Doggett catches the man but local police drive up.
Doggett claims that he is the victim, but he finds that he had no
passport or papers to show them and he cannot remember his name.
DAY TWO: Doggett is
in a holding cell with dozens of other men. He yells for the jailer,
but they ignore him. He stoops to retie the lace of his one shoe and
another man, Domingo, laughs at him and strikes up a conversation.
To get out Doggett will need to bribe the police. Doggett says he
just needs to contact the American embassy, but Domingo suggests
that the only Americans they see in that town are those who want to
disappear. Going home may not be in his best interests. Doggett has
a flashback of being in bed with his wife when his son enters the
bedroom.
DAY EIGHT: Domingo
is released from jail, bribed out by his associate, Nestor. He
pauses and asks Doggett is he wants to join him on “a job.”
Doggett agrees, but outside he begins to walk off. Nestor pulls a
gun on him, but Doggett handily disarms Nestor and takes the gun. He
picks up his second shoe, still on the ground where the police left
it. Doggett tracks down the shoe thief, demanding the other things
the man took from him, such as his papers, but the man has nothing
but a small silver charm shaped like a human skull. Doggett returns
to Domingo, who is now having a drink with Nestor in the local
cantina. What kind of job? Moving people across the border -
transporting illegals into the United States. They rent him a room
upstairs and Domingo gives him a salary advance. In his room,
Doggett inspects his body. He finds two scars near his scalp and a
Marine tattoo on his arm. Outside, a man watches his room. The man
wears a bracelet with several of the skull-shaped charms attached.
DAY TWELVE: Kersh
is holding a conference with Skinner and Scully. A task force of 40
agents has been searching southern Texas for Doggett for almost two
weeks. Yesterday, Doggett was photographed by an automatic security
camera crossing the border into Mexico. Kersh says he has to close
down the task force because the FBI resources are needed for
national security and he can’t send an army of FBI agents into
Mexico. Reyes, who is in San Antonio, can work with the Mexican
authorities to find Doggett, as long as she remains on American soil.
Reyes is talking with a Mexican businessman, Mr. Molina. He says he
is an implement dealer, but Reyes accuses him of working for a drug
cartel. Doggett was working on the case of Hollis Rice, an American
banker who was laundering money for the cartel. Molina’s lawyer
cuts off the interview. Doggett has another flashback of his son.
Doggett telephones a Marine Corp public affairs office, pretending
to be a law officer seeking to identify an injured man based on the
tattoo. When asked his name, Doggett’s eyes sweep the room he is
in and he gives a name he sees on a sign. From the description of
the tattoo, the Marine says it is a reference to the 1992 Marine
barracks bombing in Lebanon. Doggett, however, abruptly ends the
call when Mexican Federal police enter the building where he is
using the public phone.
Later, Doggett is
in a large garage, working on a school bus, when Domingo enters. He
shows Doggett a wanted posted for somebody named Henry Brock, wanted
for double murder and convinces Doggett that he fits the description
on the poster. That night, Nestor talks with a man in the cantina,
treating the man with great respect. Domingo has hired one of the
“disappeared ones.” The man says Doggett is an FBI agent. Why is
he still alive? asks Nestor. The man just takes his orders from the
cartel, but if Doggett were to die that night, it would be no
concern of his. Scully arrives in San Antonio and locates Reyes.
Kersh doesn’t know she is there and doesn’t know Skinner has
entered Mexico to coordinate with the Federal police. Scully has
received word from the Marines that someone is trying to locate a
man with the same tattoo Doggett has. Reyes recognizes the name he
gave as the brand name of a Mexican phone calling card. Maybe they
can trace it. Late at night, Doggett is under the bus, still working
on it. Nestor comes in and threatens him - “See you in hell,
FBI.” Doggett drops the jack supporting the bus, injuring
Nestor’s foot. Nestor is hurt, but still has his gun. From outside
the building, we see the flash as the gun fires.
Domingo arrives at
the garage and finds Nestor dead. Doggett has a gun and demands to
know whether Domingo sent Nestor to kill him. Domingo denies it and
says that Doggett is one of the disappeared ones. The cartel owns
the town. People who make trouble become dead. People who are more
trouble dead than alive get this, meaning amnesia. Doggett has
another flashback of his son, causing severe pain in his head.
Domingo beats him. Reyes is in the town, bribing a local police
officer for information. She was raised in Mexico, speaks the
language and knows how things function. She claims Doggett ran out
on her and her children. The officer says a man was brought in last
night, having been beaten. Reyes enters the morgue and the body
looks like Doggett, until she pulls the sheet off it. It is not him,
but she sees two small scars near the scalp of the corpse.
DAY THIRTEEN:
Domingo talks with the cartel representative in the cantina. He
reports that Nestor is dead and he left Doggett unconscious in the
garage. Nestor would not have tried to kill Doggett without
instructions. The representative wants to know what the American
told Domingo. Domingo says he was told nothing. The man finds that
hard to believe and places his hands on Domingo’s head, a finger
of each hand pressing in near the scalp and drawing blood. Doggett
wakes up. A car drives up and Reyes enters the garage. Doggett, not
recognizing her, jumps her and grabs her gun. She tries to convince
him who he is, but she says they have to leave because they are not
safe there. Several cars of the local police drive up and the
officers train their guns on the garage. Reyes and Doggett are
ordered to surrender, but Doggett is more interested in asking about
his son. He is stunned when he learns that Luke is dead, murdered.
The police shoot a gas canister into the garage, which Reyes throws
back out, but the police open fire. She pleads with Doggett to focus
and he tells her to get in the bus.
The bus crashes out
of the garage, moving backward. It looks like Reyes and Doggett
might escape, but the bus tips over onto its side. The local
officers approach, but vehicles of the Federal police drive up. The
local officers raise their hands and Skinner approaches the bus.
Later, Doggett visits the cartel representative in the cantina.
Doggett knows he makes the enemies of the cartel disappear and he
robbed Doggett of his identity. He had located the banker who was
out of his mind and didn’t know who he was. Doggett tells the man
that he failed because Doggett remembers everything. The man asks
why Doggett would want to remember. The man could feel all his pain.
Why struggle to get it back? Doggett responds, “because it’s
mine.” Doggett has another flashback of a happy memory of Luke
learning to ride a bicycle. Reyes tells Doggett that she is sorry he
had to live through remembering what happened to Luke. Doggett
replies that he’ll take the bad as long as he can remember the
good.
The episode
contains a reference to the fourth of the month, but which month is
not clear.
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Early 2002?
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Hellbound
At a church in Novi, Virigina, Dr. Lisa Holland leads an anger
management group for ex-cons. A man, Terry Pruitt, with a tattoo on
his arm saying “hellbound” talks about how he is a better man
since he joined the group and began turning his life around. Ed
Kelso is there for the first time and has nothing good to say. He
simply drove his friend, Victor. Victor has been having bad dreams
in which he sees people skinned alive. After the group Ed and Victor
talk. Ed doesn’t think much of the group meetings. Victor has a
vision, seeing Ed bloody with his skin gone.
Reyes is looking at
documents about the death of Victor Dale Potts when Doggett arrives,
late at night. Potts was murdered five days ago. Scully is nearby in
the morgue, looking at Potts’ body. She concludes that Potts was
skinned alive by somebody with significant skill, done in a way to
keep him alive as long as possible and prolong the pain. Doggett
says he has seen this kind of thing before - it is a favorite of
some Asian gangs. Reyes says it is unusual because Potts had a
vision of dieing that way. It may not be an X-Files, but Reyes feels
a strong need to solve the case.
Reyes and Doggett arrive at
the church to talk to Dr. Holland. Outside they talk with Detective
Van Allen, a local officer who obviously doesn’t care much about
the death of an ex-con. Lisa tells the agents that nobody cares much
for these men. They are haunted. Doggett discovers that Reyes first
contacted Lisa about the case, not the other way around. Outside,
Van Allen says Reyes looks familiar, but Reyes says she has never
been to Novi before. Later, Ed is at work at Maneri Meat Packing,
skinning a hog. Pruitt accuses Ed of killing Victor. Ed has nothing
to say, but as he leaves work, he has a vision of Pruitt skinned
alive. He drives off in a pickup driven by his girlfriend. Scully
looks at every case on record of a human being skinned alive. One,
from 1960, perfectly fits the details of Victor’s death. She goes
to a retirement home in Maryland where the medical examiner who did
the 1960 autopsy, Dr. Bertram Mueller, now lives. He tells her that
there were actually other deaths. The sheriff at the time was not
very interested in investigating them and killed himself shortly
afterwards. At night, Pruitt is cleaning up the meat room where many
hog carcasses are hanging. He hears a sound and investigates. He is
knocked out and comes too as he is being hung upside down, like one
of the hogs. A man (whose face we don’t see) approaches with a
knife and Pruitt screams again and again.
Monica arrives at the church
looking for Lisa. She opens a door and sees a man skinned alive…..and
wakes up from a nightmare. Doggett is at the door to her bedroom --
he was on the phone in his motel room next door when he heard her.
Dr. Holland called about the Pruitt’s death. Reyes and Doggett go
to the packing plant. When Reyes sees the body she becomes sick and
has to go outside where she meets Scully arriving with the 1960 case
files. Inside, Doggett realizes that the man is still alive. Doggett
asks him who did this and Pruitt, gagging, makes a noise that sounds
like “Ed.” Ed is packing a bad. His scantily clad girlfriend, in
bed, asks what is going on. He kicks her out and as she leaves the
house Doggett grabs her and makes her keep silent. Doggett and other
officers are raiding Ed’s house. They enter and Ed runs. Doggett
tackles him. At the police department, Reyes and Doggett talk with
Lisa. She says Ed is “in a bad place.” He has been out of prison
for four years, holding down a job and keeping sober. She doesn’t
understand why he would kill a co-worker. Reyes goes in to talk with
Ed. She tells him she knows he has been having dreams. She begins to
say that she is also having dreams when Doggett interrupts her. He
knows there’s something she is not telling him. Ed is not the
killer. His girlfriend says they were in a bar all evening and the
bartender confirms it. Ed is released and as he leaves he has a
vision of Lisa skinned alive.
Scully calls Reyes to
Quantico. She has had two of the 1960 bodies exhumed. They show
cutting patterns that are identical to the modern crimes and there
is even evidence that they were committed with the same knife. Two
of the 1960 victims were killed on the exact days that the two
current victims were born. Reyes calls Doggett saying she needs
Ed’s date of birth. Doggett is outside Ed’s house and walks up
to the building while trying to reach Van Allen by phone to ask
about Ed's birthday. Looking in a window, Doggett is shocked and
bursts into the house. Ed’s body is on a table, skinned. Later, as
Reyes arrives Doggett is talking with Detective Van Allen. Ed’s
house was supposed to be under 24-hour guard, but the officers
missed this. Reyes tells Doggett about the birthdays and is
convinced that this isn’t a case of a serial killer. Ed knew he
was going to die because of his premonition. Reyes is involved in
some way she doesn’t understand. They walk to Ed’s body, which
has been covered with a sheet. Reyes predicts that a rag has been
stuffed in Ed’s mouth that is dirty with coal dust from a mine.
She is correct, but she doesn’t know how she knew.
Doggett and Reyes drive up
to an old mine. The old files suggest that there will be a fourth
victim. Doggett enters the abandoned building while Reyes enters the
actual mine, a horizontal shaft braced with wooden beams. Doggett
finds a skeleton, apparently a law officer. Reyes finds news
articles tacked to a wooden beam - about the 1960 killings, about
killings in 1909 and about a prospector killed in 1868 as the result
of a mining claim dispute. The prospector was skinned by the other
parties to the dispute. Wandering further into the mine, Reyes finds
the skins that were removed from the current victims. A voice
whispers to her, “you shouldn’t have come here.” She draws her
gun but she is jumped by Detective Van Allen, who says, “you can’t
stop it…you never do…you always fail.” Doggett enters the mine
and finds Reyes unhurt. She says Van Allen was skinned by four men
in a mining dispute in 1868 and now he is born to kill them again
and again. Reyes thinks Lisa will be the fourth victim and calls to
warn her. Lisa has just finished with a group and is alone, but she
notices someone approaching. She hides and Van Allen enters the room.
Lisa runs and Van Allen chases her, but outside the church door Lisa
meets Reyes and Doggett. Reyes fires and wounds Van Allen.
Van Allen is in intensive
care in a hospital. Doggett says Reyes should go home and get some
rest. He reassures her that however she knew, she saved Lisa’s
life. Scully tells Reyes that understanding the events is “a long
way to go.” Reyes asks Scully if she believes that we can get
second chances to correct mistakes we made in previous lives. Reyes
believes that in a previous life Lisa was one of the men. Whoever
Reyes was in 1868, 1909 and 1960, she failed to save the men each
time. Her deepest fear is that she will fail again. Van Allen goes
into cardiac arrest and dies. At the same moment, a baby is born.
Note: Scully looks at a
document giving Victor Potts' date of birth as March 8, 1960 and
giving his age as 41. this means the document was prepared between
March 8, 2001 and March 8, 2002. It is unclear if this was a
document relating to his death or just his criminal record.
-
Early 2002?
-
Provenance
Along the U.S.-Canadian border in Burke County, North Dakota, two
border guards are on stakeout late at night. They see a man on a
motorcycle making an illegal crossing of the border and give chase.
The motorcycle jumps into a deep valley and explodes, leaving the
man burned and apparently dead. Inside a bag carried by the man are
papers bearing the symbols Scully found two years earlier on the
surface of an alien spacecraft in west Africa.
Scully is called into Kersh’s
office at the FBI and questioned by him and several other senior FBI
executives. Kersh asks her to identify the symbols on the papers. He
tells here they were carried by a man crossing the border illegally,
but he won’t tell her more. She avoids answering, then rushes down
to the X-Files office. Doggett and Reyes have not been told about
the case. Scully pulls the rubbings she made from the spacecraft two
years earlier from the files. She says the papers found in North
Dakota are an exact copy and tells Doggett and Reyes that the
characters are words, and that the words are powerful. She thinks
the FBI has a sense of their power, as well.
Doggett arrives in North
Dakota to find several FBI agents where the motorcycle exploded.
Assistant Director Brad Follmer is also there. They verbally fence
but Follmer admits that they have not found the body. Follmer warns
Doggett to not stick his nose into the case. Unseen by them, the
motorcyclist is nearby, out of sight. He is covered by leaves and
injured, but he drags himself out of the brush and pulls an artifact
from his pocket. It is a piece of an alien spacecraft with symbols
written on it. Reyes calls Scully to Reyes’ apartment to talk.
Reyes has assembled Scully’s rubbings into a mosaic. They talk
about how Scully obtained a translation and discovered that the
words include text from the Bible and the Koran, as well as
scientific information such as the periodic table of elements.
Fossils on the outside of that ship were dated to millions of years
ago. Both Scully and Reyes understand the implication that these may
not be just words, but the word of God and that everything mankind
believes may be in question. Sully believes that the text may
contain answers about her son. Scully feels that she was meant to
find the text, but if so, why would the FBI withhold information
from her?
Doggett accosts Skinner in
the FBI office late at night. Skinner hasn’t been returning calls
to Doggett or Reyes. Skinner says this is not an X-Files, even
though Doggett points out that 40 agents are combing the border for
a “dead man who’s not dead.” Later, Doggett sneaks into
Skinner’s office and finds the file, including the papers carried
by the motorcyclist. Doggett visits Reyes late at night at her
apartment, carrying the file. The motorcyclist was Robert Comer, an
FBI agent assigned undercover to infiltrate a UFO cult. Scenes are
interjected of people digging under a large canopy - they are
uncovering an alien spacecraft buried in the ground, apparently in
Canada. In Jessup, Maryland, Comer knocks out a delivery truck
driver and steals the truck, headed for Georgetown.
Scully leaves William in her
mother’s care. Maggie thinks Scully should take William on faith -
he is a miracle baby who wasn’t supposed to be possible. Scully
has to know if it is really God she has to thank for William. Scully
arrives at Reyes’ apartment where Doggett and Reyes have studied
Comer’s file in more detail. The FBI thinks Comer may have
switched his allegiance to the UFO cult. When they crossed the
border into Canada, he went along and they lost contact with him.
Scully thinks the FBI has more of a secret than that. Reyes
determines that Comer’s rubbings don’t match those Scully took
two years earlier. She concludes that the UFO cult has found another
spacecraft. Maggie arrives home with William after apparently taking
him for a walk or out shopping. Comer is inside the apartment
waiting for them. Soon after, Scully arrives home to find her
apartment door open. She enters with gun drawn to find Maggie on the
floor and Comer in William’s bedroom. Scully and Comer fight and
he overcomes her, throwing her out the bedroom door then closing and
locking the door. Scully is screaming that she will kill him if her
harms William. Maggie picks up Scully’s gun and hands it to her.
Scully shoots the door open and fires on Comer, who is holding a
pillow and is about to smother William.
Doggett and Reyes rush into
Scully’s apartment. Scully asks Reyes to take Maggie and William
to safety, then she takes Doggett into the bedroom. Comer is
bleeding, but Scully won’t help him until he tells her why he did
this. She won’t let the FBI cover its tracks. She screams
questions at Comer and he murmurs that her son has to die, then he
passes out. Doggett calls paramedics. When she is alone, Scully
searches through the pockets of Comer’s jacket and finds the
artifact from the alien ship. A woman picks up a copy of the SUN
newspaper in Calgary, Alberta, and on the cover is the story of
Comer’s disappearance. She takes it to the man leading the
spacecraft excavation, who says that it changes everything and that
there is now only one thing to do. Scully and Doggett are called
into a meeting with Kersh. Kersh says he does not question Scully
shooting Comer to save her son, but he wants to know anything Comer
may have said. The UFO cult is led by a former military officer who
is dangerous and has dangerous ideas about aliens. Skinner admits
that he asked that the case be given to somebody else because of
threats that had been received - threats on Mulder’s life. Before
they lost contact with him, Comer reported that Mulder was already
dead.
Reyes delivers William back
home to Scully. As they talk, they are interrupted by the alien
artifact, which is spinning and rattling the drawer where Scully put
it. When she opens the drawer, the artifact flies through the air
into William’s bedroom, where it hovers just over his face in the
crib. He stares up at it, as if he has a connection to it. Doggett
drives up and Reyes meets him outside. She wants to prepare him for
what is going on. Scully exits the building, carrying William. She’ll
tell them where they are going on the way. Scully and Reyes, with
William, get into one car. As Doggett prepares to follow in his car
he sees that a person in another vehicle is watching them. Scully’s
car drives off and Doggett walks over to investigate who is watching
them. It is the woman from the UFO cult. She strikes Doggett with
her vehicle, leaving him wounded on the pavement.
Scully and Reyes meet the
Lone Gunmen. Scully feels they are the only ones she can trust.
Scully gives William to them for safekeeping and they promise to
keep him safe. Langly gives Scully six scrambled cell phones with
which to contact them, telling her to use each one only once to
avoid detection. The agents return to Scully’s apartment, finding
the police there. Skinner is there and Doggett is being loaded into
an ambulance. Scully rushes back to find the Gunmen, afraid that
William is in even more danger then she realized. As the Gunmen’s
VW minibus pulls out of the alley where they had met Scully, the
vehicle driven by the woman from the UFO cult blocks their way. She
fires her gun at the minibus, causing it to hit a utility pole. She
walks up to the minibus and opens the side door to find Byers
holding William. She points her gun point blank at Byers’ face. To
be continued.
-
Early 2002?
-
Providence
The episode begins with a narration by Josepho, the leader of the
UFO cult - God came to him in a vision on February 26, 1991 during
the Gulf War. His recon squad was ambushed and they took heavy
casualties. They were about to die when he saw a vision, four
soldiers who he calls angels. Viewers see the four run in and engage
the enemy. When enemy fire strikes them, they are not wounded. After
they defeat the enemy, they run off into the distance. Josepho
quotes the Bible, "And behold, a whirlwind came out of the
north and a brightness was about it and out of the midst came the
likeness of four living creatures and they had the likeness of a man..."
Josepho knows he was spared so he could deliver God’s message.
Josepho concludes the narration, standing on the fully excavated UFO
in Canada.
Brad Follmer is conducting a
briefing for FBI agents who have been mobilized to find the son of
FBI agent Scully. William was kidnapped by a woman. The Lone Gunmen
are reviewing mug shots to try to identify her. Agent Doggett is in
a coma, having been wounded trying to stop the same woman. Agent
Comer, who earlier tried to kill William, remains in critical
condition and his motives are unknown. Scully listens to part of the
briefing, then walks into the hall to talk with Skinner. She doesn’t
trust Follmer and heads out to find her son on her own. Reyes is at
Doggett’s bedside when Skinner enters the room. She has been
holding Doggett’s hand. Skinner says he did the same thing for
wounded men in Vietnam. He doesn’t know if the wounded know what
is being done, but he sees it as being like praying.
Scully phones Reyes and asks
her to come to Scully’s apartment. When Reyes arrives, the Gunmen
are there. They have identified the women who took William, but they
did not tell the FBI. She is a wanted felon and a member of the UFO
cult. Byers put a cell phone in William’s car seat before he was
taken, and the Gunmen locate its signal in Warfordsburg,
Pennsylvania. Workers are trying to open the top hatch on the UFO
when the woman calls. The boy is safe. Josepho says he will send
someone to get them. As they talk, the outer rim of the hatch begins
rotating and the top of the hatch suddenly closes with two men
trapped inside. Scully and Reyes run up to the vehicle in which the
woman and William were traveling. It is parked at a truck stop where
the woman made the phone call. Nobody is in the vehicle.
Reyes returns to the
hospital to check on Doggett. He is undergoing a CAT scan, so she
goes into the hospital chapel to pray. Follmer enters and is
surprised to find her doing such a conventional thing. He tells her
that the FBI could have been at the truck stop long before she and
Scully got there and might have saved the boy. He says Comer has
something to tell them. They go to Comer’s hospital room and he is
still in critical condition. He has, however, written the word
“jacket” on a piece of paper. Reyes goes to Scully and tells her
about the note, saying that she was given the information in
exchange for a promise that she will tell Follmer if she discovers
the meaning of the note. Scully is reluctant to say, but admits that
she found the artifact which Reyes saw earlier in Comer’s jacket.
They go to the hospital and Scully holds the artifact over Comer’s
body. He immediately shakes and wakes up. Scully tells Reyes to turn
off the medical monitors so they do not alert the hospital personnel.
Scully pulls the ventilator out of Comer’s throat. He tells her
that William has to die, but it’s not what she thinks. Josepho and
his followers think that aliens will rule the Earth. He took his
followers a thousand miles north to uncover the UFO. Josepho
believes that it is a temple that houses the physical manifestation
of God. Comer adds that Josepho thinks William is a miracle child
who he wants to protect, but that Josepho fears that William will
follow in his father’s footsteps and oppose the aliens. This is
why either William or Mulder must die. Comer thinks Mulder is dead
and that William has to die too, or all mankind will perish. A nurse
enters and Comer grabs the artifact. Another man enters and orders
Scully and Reyes into the hall
Josepho has been unable to
open the ship to save his people. The woman arrives with William and
as soon as William is near the ship, it opens by itself. The men
inside the hatch chamber are dead, as if burned. Scully and Reyes
are in the hospital chapel. Scully is in tears. What are they going
to tell the FBI about how Comer was cured? They won’t believe.
Scully is horrified by Comer’s explanation but Reyes says William
is not an abomination. No religion decrees the death of a child.
Reyes thinks William is still alive and that the artifact can be
used to save Doggett, too. Skinner finds them and tells them that
Comer is dead. They go to his room and Reyes cannot find the
artifact. The nurse suggests that after turning off the monitors,
Reyes and Scully killed Comer. Reyes counters that only the
mysterious man who ordered them into the hallway was alone with
Comer. Reyes thinks he killed Comer and took the artifact. Scully
has slipped away and is in Doggett’s room. As she holds his hand,
Doggett awakes. He tells her that they’re going to come to her but
she can’t trust them. At that moment, Josepho phones Scully. If
she wants to see her son she must come alone and follow his
instructions.
Near Calgary, Scully waits
in a diner. Josepho enters and sits with her. He repeats the Bible
quote from the opening narration and asks Scully if she recognizes
it. She says it is from Ephesians (although it is actually from the
first chapter of Ezekiel). Josepho says it is about giants walking
the earth and tells her of the supersoldiers he saw. He calls them
the true sons of God and says that William will lead this alien race.
Josepho says he will take Scully to William only after Scully gives
him proof that Mulder is dead. If Mulder is alive, he is the one
thing preventing William’s true destiny. “You want to see your
son alive, you’ll bring me the head of Fox Mulder,” he concludes
as he walks out. Reyes and the Gunmen are hiding outside. Frohike
has put a transponder on Josepho’s pickup and Reyes and Scully
follow him, receiving instructions by phone from the Gunmen, who are
tracking the signal.
The woman is holding William
near the UFO when Josepho arrives. She says William started to cry
and things started happening with the UFO. The bottom level of the
hatch recedes lower into the ship and light bursts from the hole.
Jose-pho jumps into the well of the hatch as the entire ship comes
to life. Scully and Reyes have “run out of road” but in the
distance see the lighted canopy covering the ship. They see the UFO
fly up through the canopy, then fly off. Scully and Reyes approach
and find the canopy in flames. Burned bodies are here and there
around the pit where the UFO was excavated. They hear a baby crying
in the distance and find William on the ground, unhurt.
Back in the hospital chapel,
Reyes enters to join Doggett. She has come to take him home. She
tells him that she prayed for him. He knows. A voice in his head was
telling him to warn Scully about this man. Doggett wants to know if
the voice was Reyes. She says she only prayed for his life. Follmer
stops Kersh to talk about the report on Comer’s death. Skinner
refused to sign it. Follmer did sign it, but is disturbed that
before the medical monitors were turned off, they recorded Comer’s
condition returning to normal. Follmer wants his name removed from
the report. Kersh dismisses Follmer then enters his office where the
mysterious man from the hospital is sitting. Kersh congratulates the
man, saying that everything seems to be dead but this case. The man
says “I’m sure I can take care of that.” Viewers see that the
man has a bump on the back of his neck, indicating that he is a
supersoldier.
-
Spring 2002?
-
Audrey Pauley
A vehicle pulls up outside a Falls Church, Virginia, house in the
evening. Monica Reyes has driven John Doggett home. Each has
unexciting weekend plans. Doggett comments that he has thought about
getting a cat and Reyes tells him she thinks she is a “dog person.”
He says cats are low maintenance so you don’t disappoint them. She
says she can’t imagine him disappointing anybody. He gets out and
she drives off. A few blocks away her vehicle is broadsided by
another car. Reyes is rushed into the emergency room. She wakes up
in the hospital but the light is funny and there are no people
around. She walks to the front entrance of the hospital and it is
like the building is floating in a foggy void. Reyes finds a man in
the hospital. He is Steven Murdock and he came in because of chest
pains. He takes her to a third man he found who has a serious head
wound. Are they all dead? Reyes is disturbed and leaves the other
two.
Scully arrives at the
hospital. Doggett is in the waiting room. Reyes’ EKG is flat,
indicating no brain activity. Scully says Monica is dead. Even
though she is on life support and her body is OK, her brain is dead,
which is real death, Scully says. Doggett doesn’t accept that
nothing can be done. Reyes is still looking through the empty
hospital. The documents on clipboards are all unintelligible. Steven
finds her and they talk more. Reyes notes that there are no signs on
any of the walls. It doesn’t seem like heaven. Steven wonders if
it is hell, or maybe just a way station. Reyes intends to find out.
She picks up a mug and drops it out the front door. It falls into
the void and then sparks as if burning. The doctor talks with Scully
and Doggett. Reyes has a living will and signed an organ donor card.
There is a woman in Minnesota who can be saved by Monica’s heart.
Doggett thinks it doesn’t add up because Reyes has no head
injuries. Reyes sees someone else behind a window. It is a woman,
later identified as Audrey Pulley. Audrey is timid and runs around a
corner from Reyes. When Reyes follows, the hallway is a dead end and
Audrey is not there. Steven calls Reyes. The other man is sparkling
and fades out. In the real hospital, the doctor has turned off the
man’s life support and he dies. Audrey is there, pushing a
hospital cart carrying flowers.
Scully examines a CAT scan
of Reyes’ skull. She tells Doggett there is only some minor
swelling in the brain tissue. The hospital personnel are making
plans to take Reyes’ organs for transplant. Doggett looks at the
EKG. Reyes was conscious when she first came into the emergency room.
Her brain activity stopped at 8:11 p.m. If they could figure out
what happened at that time, they might have a clue. Reyes has
concluded that she and Steven are not dead, but the man with the
head injury actually died, which is why he disappeared. Doggett asks
the doctor what happened at 8:11 p.m. The doctor gives Doggett the
notes made in the emergency room describing details of the care
given. Audrey is at Reyes’ bedside when Doggett enters. She is a
patient aid. She appears to lack self-confidence and quickly excuses
herself, but comments to Doggett as she leaves that Reyes is not
gone, not her soul, and that she knows Doggett loves her. Audrey
goes to her room in the basement of the hospital. In it is a
detailed model of the hospital.
Reyes and Steven are
searching the empty hospital when they see Audrey again. She tells
them she works at the hospital. Reyes asks Audrey to show them a way
out but she says she cannot. She says Reyes’ friend, Doggett,
loves her very much, but everyone thinks Reyes is dead. Reyes tells
Audrey to tell Doggett “he’s a dog person.” An emergency room
nurse, Whitney, tells the doctor privately that he may need to
review the emergency room notes himself. She say he give Reyes an
injection that was not logged on the notes. That’s the kind of
missing detail the malpractice lawyers love to find. As she leaves,
the doctor injects Whitney with a drug and she collapses to the
floor. Doggett is remembering his last conversation with Reyes about
pets. He imagines kissing her. Hospital personnel run by - Whitney
has been found dead. Doggett is suspicious - the nurse worked on
Reyes but as soon as Doggett began asking questions she turned up
dead. Doggett asks Scully to do an autopsy. Audrey approaches
Doggett and gives him Reyes’ message. Reyes and Steven look at the
medical charts again. Their hospital looks complete, but there is
really a lot missing, like someone built it who can’t grasp
everything. Steven begins gasping and falls to the floor in great
distress. The doctor has convinced Steven’s family to allow life
support to be turned off. He comments that it is now just a matter
of time.
Audrey takes Doggett to her
room. The nuns allow her to stay there even though she can’t do
much. Doggett asks about the model of the hospital. Audrey likes to
visit because it is so peaceful, but lately other people have shown
up whom she recognizes as patients at the hospital. It’s inside
her head, not like they are little people inside the model. Doggett
tells Scully that Audrey gave him the names of two of the other
patients she has seen in her hospital. Both have been declared brain
dead by the same doctor. Doggett thinks the doctor is some kind of
“Doctor Death” who is poisoning the patients. Reyes is with
Steven. He is gasping and just holding on but then he begins
sparkling and disappears. As Scully and Doggett walk up to Steven's
room, they see the doctor covering Steven with a sheet. Doggett
returns to Audrey’s room. Both of the other men are dead, he tells
her. He asks Audrey to give Reyes a message that there isn’t much
time and she has to give some kind of signal that she is still alive.
The doctor sees Doggett leave Audrey’s room.
Reyes is sitting on the
floor when Audrey arrives and delivers Doggett’s message. Audrey
says something is wrong inside her head and she can’t help anyone.
Delivering flowers is all she can do and even with that she needs
help because she can’t read - words just get all jumbled up for
her. Reyes shows Audrey a medical chart and says this place was
created by Audrey’s mind - she can make the rules and help Reyes
escape. As they talk, however, Audrey retreats into the outside
world. The doctor is there. He tells Audrey that he is being accused
of doing terrible things. He pulls out a syringe. Reyes sees the
walls shimmer. Audrey is back and tells Reyes that she has to go
because there isn’t much time. She leads Reyes to the void but
Reyes protests that if she falls into the void she will burn up and
die. Audrey assures her that she will not die but must hurry. Audrey
now knows who told her to build her hospital. Reyes allows herself
to fall into the void.
In the real hospital,
Doggett is watching over Reyes when Scully enters. The transplant
team is ready but Doggett refuses to allow the operation. Scully
still hasn’t seen anything to convince her about Reyes….but as
Doggett and Scully talk, Reyes speaks, “John?” She mummers about
Audrey. The doctor is leaving Audrey’s room when Doggett stops him
and holds the doctor against the wall. Audrey is on the floor of her
room, dead.
Three days later, Doggett
delivers Reyes home from the hospital. They get out of the car and
face each other to say goodnight. It is a moment when Doggett could
kiss Reyes, but he does not, watching her enter her apartment
building then leaving.
-
Spring 2002?
-
Underneath
Thirteen years ago, a cable TV company van drives up to a house in
the rain at night. The driver, Robert Fassl, kisses a crucifix and a
voice tells him to do his job. A teenage girl, Janet, meets him at
the door. She doesn’t think that there is a problem with their
cable service, but invites him in. Dad comes downstairs and says he
was watching the game upstairs - he must have the wrong house. As
Fassl looks at the work order, it is splashed with blood. Fassl
looks up to see all three people in the house are dead, on the floor
with their heads bleeding. Two police officers burst into the room.
One of the officers is John Doggett.
Reyes enters the X-Files
office to hear Doggett on the phone. He is arguing - he was the
arresting officer and they got the right guy. Reyes reads a
newspaper clipping that says the “screwdriver killer” is being
released, due to DNA evidence. When Doggett is off the phone, Scully
enters. She has combed through the medical examiner’s report and
the DNA tests are accurate. Fassl was not the killer. Doggett asks
her to run the DNA tests again herself. He is heading for New York
because he feels that if Fassl is released, he will kill again.
Fassl is released from Sing Sing. Outside the county courthouse he
and his woman lawyer speak with a crowd of media. Fassl has a vision
of a man across the street staring at him. The man has long hair and
beard. Doggett and Scully talk with the Assistant District Attorney,
Damon Kayler, handling the case. He doesn’t want this to look like
a law enforcement vendetta, but he allows the agents to review the
case files. The arrest helped Doggett’s promotion to detective and
it was a very high profile case. Doggett isn’t ready to “clock
out” on the case until he knows he has done all he can.
The lawyer brings Fassl to
her large home where he will stay for a few days while getting ready
to begin applying for jobs. She inherited a lot of wealth from her
parents and uses it to help people. Alone in his room, Fassl preys
with his crucifix, but it leaves blood on his hands and he sees
“Kill her” written on the wall in blood. Doggett locates his
former partner, Duke Thomas, who is now retired. Duke accepts that
they must have arrested the wrong man and warns Doggett not to
pursue the case further because it could harm his career. Fassl is
praying when the lawyer looks in on him. He once attended seminary
and prays all the time. When she leaves the room, the Bearded Man
appears. Fassl pleads with him not to kill her, but a screwdriver
appears in the Bearded Man’s hand and he walks out of the room.
Doggett has been reviewing the boxes of case files and evidence all
night when Scully enters. The new DNA tests on hair samples found at
the scene show that they are not Fassl’s, but so similar that they
must be from a close relative. Doggett points out that Fassl is an
only child and his parents died when he was 13. Fassl is sleeping
when the lawyer asks him to get dressed and come downstairs. She was
away from home last night and her dresser drawers were rifled. The
lawyer leaves for work and Fassl finds the body of the housekeeper,
stuffed into a cabinet. Fassl cleans up and disposes of the body.
Reyes visits Sing Sing and
talks with an administrator. The man is eager to help get Fassl back
in jail - there is another murder that authorities don’t know
about. Fassl’s cellmate was found dead in the corridor where Fassl
was working. Security cameras showed the Bearded Man to be the
murderer, but the Bearded Man was never identified. He was neither
an inmate nor a prison employee. Reyes receives a printout of the
security camera shot. Assistant DA Kayler confronts Doggett - the
DNA retest again cleared Fassl and he says that Doggett’s
investigation is over. A settlement will be offered to Fassl today.
Reyes reports to Doggett and Scully what she has learned. It’s
like the Bearded Man just appeared out of nowhere. What if the
Bearded Man is doing Fassl’s bidding, or Fassl is doing his?
Scully reports her own findings that the hair samples used for the
DNA tests were not at the crime scene when the officers first
arrived. The hair must have been planted. Kayler calls at the home
of Fassl’s lawyer. She is not home and he talks to Fassl. Fassl
wants to go back to prison, but Kayler says they shouldn’t be
talking about the case without Fassl’s lawyer present. The Bearded
Man appears and stabs Kayler.
Doggett confronts his
ex-partner who admits planting hair samples from a previous murder.
Doggett is angry. Planting evidence is a felony, he says, and adds,
“You break my heart.” Scully enters the room and reports that
Kayler is missing. Fassl has disposed of Kayler’s body, burying it
in underground utility tunnels. Scully and Reyes meet with Fassl and
his lawyer. Reyes shows them the picture of the Bearded Man and
Fassl becomes distressed. Scully attempts to appeal to Fassl as a
Catholic after she sees him holding his crucifix. In times of
tribulation her own crucifix has been a big comfort to her and she
thinks this is such a time for Fassl. She wants him to tell about
the Bearded Man so they can make him go away, but Fassl’s lawyer
intervenes and ends the interview. Reyes now suspects that Fassl has
a dual personality and somehow transforms physically as well as
mentally. Because he won’t face his own sin he is forced to become
another man, she thinks. Bask at his lawyer’s home, the Bearded
Man appears to Fassl again, roughing Fassl up and demanding that the
lawyer be killed. She finds Fassl on the floor and he claims to have
fallen. As she gets first aid supplies from the medicine cabinet,
the Bearded Man appears in the mirror behind her.
Reyes and Doggett are in a
car, watching the lawyer’s house. Reyes’ theory doesn’t make
sense to Doggett. As they talk, the Bearded Man leaves the house and
they give chase. Reyes finds the lawyer unharmed but scared, saying
that the man in Reyes’ picture was there. Doggett follows the
Bearded Man’s trail to a metal plate that, when opened, leads to
the underground utility tunnels. Doggett and Reyes climb down and
split up to search for the Bearded Man. Reyes falls through a grate
into the water of a lower level tunnel where she finds several
bodies and parts of bodies. Doggett also climbs to the lower level
and the Bearded Man attacks him. Reyes finds them with the Bearded
Man holding the screwdriver at Doggett’s throat. She tries to talk
to Fassl and distracts the Bearded Man enough for Doggett to pull
out of his grasp. Reyes shoots the Bearded Man, who falls into the
water. When his body comes back to the surface, it is Fassl.
Later in the tunnels, Scully
and the lawyer talk. The housekeeper and Kayler are there, as well
as many more victims. The lawyer is convinced that she saw the
Bearded Man, not just Fassl. Doggett has gone without sleep for 48
hours and found that his ex-partner planted evidence. He can’t
explain how these things could be. So, Reyes asks him, what happened
was just him seeing things? He can’t accept that Fassl actually
became a different person. Reyes assures him that he closed the case
and that should be enough. But what happens next time, Doggett asks.
-
Spring 2002?
-
Improbable (Note:
This is a quirky episode with dozens of visuals that call attention
to various numbers.) In a casino, a man receives a bad hand of
cards and leaves the game. He watches an attractive blonde playing a
slot machine. He moves over to the bar and sits beside a man who is
performing card tricks on the bar. Both have ordered "7 & 7
and Morleys." (The second man is played by Burt Reynolds and
his character is not identified. For want of a better name, we will
call him "Burt" in this summary.) Burt spouts a stream
of philosophy about cards and numbers. Both look at the blonde. She
comes here every week and loses her paycheck, comments Burt. The
blonde walks into the women’s restroom and the first man follows.
As the Burt turns over the ace of spades, screams are heard from the
d irection of the restroom.
At FBI headquarters, Reyes
reads the newspaper about "casino murder offers no clues"
as she walks through the halls to the X-Files office. Scully enters
to find Reyes pondering over three case files, counting on her
fingers. Does Scully believe that the universe can be reduced to a
simple equation? Scully gives a highly scientific answer that, in
effect, says no. Reyes shows her photographs of three women, killed
in unsolved murders. Reyes has applied the techniques of numerology
to evaluate the name and birth date of the latest victim and
determined that she had a "karmic" number. The other
unsolved murder victims also had karmic numbers. Scully begins to
dispute the idea when she notices a pattern in the bruise marks on
all of the victims, possibly from a ring worn by the killer. The
pattern is three small marks like circles in a row.
The killer looks out his
window and sees Burt on the street with a small table, doing card
tricks for passersby. Everyone on the street seems to be moving in
time to the Italian music that plays as Burt does his fancy dealing.
The Killer walks up and asks if Burt is following him. Burt gives a
lengthy answer that indicates he knows the man is a killer. He says
the secret to this game is "chose better." The Killer
overturns the table and walks off. On the street he passes Reyes,
who enters a hotel and goes to a Numerologist’s office. She is
looking for help in profiling the killer from the victim’s
numerology. The women numerologist isn’t sure she has that much
skill, but agrees to try. As they talk, Doggett phones Reyes and
tells her that more victims have been identified. As she enters the
FBI office, several agents there applaud her. An FBI supervisor
tells her that she had made a breakthrough, linking these six
unsolved cases. A task force is mobilizing. Reyes is convinced that
the killer is killing based on numerology. The Numerologist calls to
report important news to Reyes, but before she can reveal what she
has found, the Killer enters her office.
The FBI, including Reyes and
Doggett, are at the Numerologist's office. She is dead. The
Supervisor wants to know how the Killer could have known that Reyes
had contacted the woman. Reyes didn't tell anyone. Burt is outside
on the street, this time doing a trick with dominoes, falling in a
spiral shaped like the number six. The Killer walks up to Burt and
claims that Burt is trying to get him caught. Scully does an autopsy
in the Numerologist's body. As she begins to make an incision, she
sees a mark like a "6" domino on the skin. Scully goes to
Reyes who is still in the Numerologist’s office. Scully has
figured out what the three marks in a row are - when inspected very
closely each is the numeral "6" - "666" is the
mark of the Devil. Reyes, meanwhile, has discovered that the
Numerologist had discovered that the Killer's number matched her own.
The Supervisor gives Doggett
a psychological profile of the killer that is not helpful. Doggett
has noticed that the locations of the killings form the shape of the
number "6" on a map. Reyes and Scully leave the
Numerologist's office and get onto an elevator with the Killer. When
they are ready to get off the elevator, the Killer holds his hand
out to hold the door and Scully sees his ring. She pulls her gun,
but the elevator doors close again before she can take the Killer
into custody. Scully and race downstairs to the parking garage, but
a car pulls out before they can stop it. They can't get cell phone
service from the basement and the doors are all locked. They are
stuck inside the garage. They discover someone in a car nearby - it
is Burt. He has no ID and says he was waiting for a friend because
they have a regular game they play - checkers. In the trunk of his
car is a checkerboard and dozens of music CDs.
They end up playing checkers
while waiting for someone to come and let them out of the garage.
Looking at a pattern of checkers causes to Reyes to realize that the
Killer kills in threes, blonde, redhead and brunette, in that order.
What if she and Scully are the next victims? Scully wonders if Burt
is part of it. Reyes observes that the numbers led them to the
killer, who led them to the garage. Burt understands that the
numbers are controlling the Killer’s actions. What if the Killer
is still in the garage? Scully and Reyes draw their guns and begin
searching the garage. The Killer jumps Reyes and they struggle. As
he is about to grab her gun, Doggett shoots him. Doggett saw a
pattern in the victims and realized that Scully and Reyes might be
the next victims. The Killer dies without saying anything and Burt
mysteriously disappears.
At home, Scully puts William
to bed then turns out the light to go to sleep herself. She turns
the light back on and phones Reyes, asking what her own number is.
Reyes responds that Scully is a "9", indicating completion.
Scully also wonders who "that man" was, to which Reyes
answers, "God knows." As the body is taken out of the
hotel, two men sing in Italian on the street. Everyone on the street
begins dancing along with them.
-
Spring 2002?
-
Scary Monsters
A boy, Tommy Conlin, is in bed at night. Noises scare him and he
calls to his father, who comes to his bedroom door. Tommy pleads
with his father to check under the bed. Something skitters by as the
man looks, but he tells his son that there is nothing there and that
it is just his imagination. Mr. Conlin closes the door, but after a
moment Tommy jump out of bed screaming. He tries to open the door,
but his father is holding the doorknob and the door will not open.
At the FBI Academy, Scully
is approached by Leila Harrison, who participated on a disastrous
X-Files mission last year. She is back in accounting, but has found
something that she is sure is an X-File. An FBI secretary from
Baltimore used a fleet vehicle without permission and was found dead
with 16 stab wounds in her stomach. Her son told his grandmother
that his mother was killed by monsters, and that his father knows
about it. Scully looks at the coroner’s report but finds nothing
to suggest an X-File. Leila continues that the family’s cat was
also killed. Scully jokes that unless Leila brings her the cat there’s
nothing she can do. That night, at home, Scully gets a call from
Reyes. Reyes, Doggett and Leila are on their way to Pennsylvania,
where Conlin has taken Tommy to a house on a remote mountain-top.
Scully tells Reyes that she thinks there is no case, here, and
Doggett begins to turn the car around. Leila argues that they came
this far to make sure that Tommy was safe and she argues that Agent
Mulder would not turn around.
Mr. Conlin is burying
something when the agents drive up. They explain why they are there
and are told that Tommy is sleeping. Tommy, however, comes to the
door. They ask him about the monsters and he replies, “No such
thing as monsters.” Conlin takes Tommy inside but Doggett is
suspicious. He wants to get a search warrant. The agents’ car will
not start, however, and what appears to be blood spatters the
windows. Under the hood, it appears that some kind of animal got
into the engine. Watching from inside, Tommy tells his father that
the monsters are not going to let the FBI agents leave. A man, Gabe
Rodder, comes to Scully’s apartment door late at night. He hands
Scully a box that smells very bad. It is the Conlin’s cat, Sparky.
Leila told him that she would only go on a date with him if he got
Scully the cat, so he sneaked onto the Conlin’s property to dig it
up. Scully wants to throw Gabe out, but notices something about the
cat’s body. The agents are inside Conlin’s house. Conlin’s
pickup also will not start and they are stuck there. They are
reassured, at least, that as long as they are there, they can keep
Tommy safe. As they talk, Tommy screams and the agents rush upstairs
to see Conlin holding the bedroom door shut as Tommy tries to get
out. They open the door and see Tommy being threatened to foot-long
insects. Doggett shoots one, but the shattered parts instantly grow
back into new insects.
Later, the insects are gone
without a trace. Tommy tells Doggett that those are the monsters
that hurt his mommy, but that his father said not to talk about it.
Doggett goes to Conlin who says he is doing his best to cope with
it. He warns that the monsters will kill every one of the agents,
and there is nothing they can do about it. Scully, meanwhile, is
doing a kitchen table autopsy on the cat with Gabe watching. It
looks like the cat tried to chew through its own stomach, similar to
the way that Mrs. Conlin stabbed herself in the stomach. There was
nothing inside the cat, however. Scully talks to the sheriff of the
county where the Conlin’s live. He says he was up to the Conlin
house a couple of weeks ago and got into a shouting match with Mr.
Conlin. He says the roads are icing up badly and have become
dangerous, but Scully is concerned about the safety of her
associates. The sheriff says he will try to get there. Doggett digs
up what Conlin was burying when the agents arrived. It is the pieces
of a broken mirror. Conlin says Tommy was afraid of it. Doggett
orders Conlin to get his things together because they are in danger
and they are going to walk out. As they prepare to leave, the
sheriff arrives. He tells them, however, that they cannot leave
because of the roads. Mr. Conlin shouts that it is not the sheriff,
and Doggett and the man struggle. When Doggett punches him, his fist
goes deep into the man’s chest and the man collapses.
Reyes determines that the
apparent sheriff has no internal organs and what appears to be blood
is not really blood. Doggett and Reyes talk about Mulder and Scully’s
experiences but they can’t figure out how to solve this case.
Doggett concludes that nothing makes sense, and maybe that’s the
thing they need to understand. Reyes takes Tommy upstairs while
Doggett and Leila talk with Conlin again. Conlin says he held
Tommy’s door shut because he knows that the monsters will not hurt
Tommy. He shows them scars on his arm where the insects almost
killed him. Tommy shows Reyes several drawings, including of the
insects. Then he shows her a drawing of Reyes with an insect inside
her. She is appalled but he says he drew it because he is afraid.
Scully and Gabe arrive at the sheriff’s office in Pennsylvania.
The sheriff just got back from trying to get to the Conlin house,
but the roads are very icy. He says there is no way to get up there.
Leila is wondering whether Tommy is at the center of this when the
agents realize that the body of the false-sheriff is gone. Reyes
stumbles downstairs with extreme pain in her stomach. Something is
moving inside her. Conlin says it’s Tommy’s imagination and he
can’t stop it. Doggett goes upstairs and finds Tommy in the hall.
When he follows Tommy into a room, the room isn’t there and
Doggett falls into a deep, dark place. The insects come out of the
darkness and cover him.
Leila is holding Reyes who
is screaming to get it out of her. Leila’s eyes begin bleeding.
Tommy has drawn a picture of Leila with her eyes bleeding. Conlin
goes upstairs to Tommy’s room, but Doggett grabs his hand before
Conlin can open the bedroom door. These things aren’t happening.
Doggett says that he couldn’t believe what was happening and as a
result, the monsters couldn’t hurt him. Tommy sees Doggett taking
the others out to the car. Doggett returns to the house, carrying a
gas can, and confronts Tommy, who has come downstairs. Tommy taunts
that Doggett will not hurt him, but Doggett splashes the liquid
around the room and drops a match into it. Fire spreads across the
room. All of a sudden, Leila’s eyes are not bleeding anymore. The
pain disappears from Reyes’ stomach. Scully drives up in a jeep
with a snowplow blade on the front. The agents all burst into the
house and Doggett is there with Tommy, who is unconscious. There is
no fire. Doggett poured water from the gas can, but that is not what
Tommy believed.
Back at the office, Leila
makes her first visit to the X-Files office, with Gabe. This is
where the magic happened, and it still is, she has concluded. She
compliments Doggett for solving the case, saying, “your lack of
imagination saved our lives.” Tommy is in a psych center. The
psychologists don’t know what to make of his case, but they have
come up with a way to stifle his imagination. Tommy is in a room
with a dozen TV sets, all tuned to different channels.
-
Spring 2002?
-
Jump the Shark
A narration by Morris Fletcher tells how the Lone Gunmen, three
unlikely heroes, hooked up with FBI agent Fox Mulder and began
publishing their newspaper - pointing fingers at evil forces. In
their own unique way, they were patriots, also providing expertise
for their friends at the FBI. For a brief time it looked as if they
might actually make a difference in this cold, crewel world. They
acquaired an intern who believed in their cause and a powerful,
beautiful nemesis who became an ally. But the world is not kind to
idealists and those who “fight the good fight” do not always win.
Twenty miles west of Harbor
Island in the Bahamas, a speed boat drifts. Morris Fletcher is in
the boat with a buxom blonde in a brief bikini. She brings him a
drink and asks why they are there. He doesn’t want to talk shop,
but explains that they are in the Bermuda Triangle and claims to
have created the Triangle in his former life, before he joined the
private sector. While spreading suntan lotion on the blonde’s
shoulders, Morris brags about being involved in national security
matters. As he begins to untie the blonde’s halter, three men
approach in another boat. They pull a gun on Morris, kidnap the
blonde and pour gasoline into Morris’ boat. The leader of the men
tells Morris that his employer has a message for him - he is fired.
With that, they toss a flare into Morris’ boat and zoom off.
Morris’ boat explodes. Floating in the water we see what appears
to be an engineering drawing - but it is for the Jupiter II
spaceship from the TV series “Lost in Space.”
At a US Coast Guard base in
Florida, Morris is waiting. Doggett and Reyes enter to talk with him.
He requested to talk with them by name because he thought they would
appreciate what he has to offer. He used to work at Area 51 leading
the Men in Black. He wants to make a deal. People are trying to kill
him and he needs protection. He can tell them everything about UFOs
and the 50-year cover-up. Morris claims that the documents floating
in the water are an example of what he has to offer, but Monica
recognizes the Jupiter II. He admits she is correct. He was
freelancing for a millionaire and told him that the Air Force lost a
flying saucer in the Bermuda Triangle. He just wanted a vacation. As
Doggett and Reyes begin to leave, Morris calls out the word “Super
Soldiers.” Doggett stops and asks what Morris knows. Morris claims
that he might be able to help them find one - a woman.
Doggett and Reyes pay a call
on the Lone Gunmen at their office in Takoma Park, Maryland. They
ask for the Gunmen’s help in tracking down the super soldier. They
show the Gunmen a picture of Yves del Harlow. They haven’t seen
her for some time. She disappeared a year ago and nobody has seen
her since. As the Gunmen begin to deny that Yves is a super soldier,
Morris enters the room. The Gunmen react strongly but Reyes and
Doggett restrain them. Morris used them to track down Yves a year
ago, which he says he knows what happened to her. At Hartwell
College in Kearny, New Jersey, Yves walks down a hallway carrying a
knapsack, as if she is a students. She slips into the office of
Professor Houghton. He begins to tell her to return during office
hours, but she pulls out a gun and fires at him. Another professor
knocks on Houghton’s office door. When there is no response, he
opens the door. The window is open with the blinds ajar. He seen
Yves running down the street and then finds Houghton on the floor.
There is a gaping hole in Houghton’s chest, as if some organ had
been removed.
The Gunmen are hacking into
various computers while Morris wanders around the office. Morris
jokes about Langly’s “Joey Ramon” t-shirt. Langly defends
Ramon as a punk musician who never sold out and never gave up, a
comment on Morris’ ethics. Morris offers to give them Yves’ real
name - Lois Runtz. There is a knock on the Gunmen’s secret door.
It is Jimmy Bond. He collapses on the floor. He wakes up and tells
them that he ran out of money and had to hitchhike there from New
Jersey. He tells them that Yves’ real name is Lois Runtz and he
has been following her all over the world. He traced her to a little
college and actually saw her. He called to her and she ran. Later,
he found out that she murdered somebody. Yves opens a furnace door
revealing flame inside. She puts on a face mask and throws a bloody
object inside a plastic bag into the fire. As it burns, she removes
the respirator and says, “one down.”
Doggett and Reyes arrive at
the college. They talk with the witness and show him a picture of
Yves. He is not sure. Houghton was researching shark immune systems
which are much stronger than other animals. Houghton wanted to save
the world. The Gunmen have called in Kimmy to help with their search
for Yves/Lois. Jimmy also learned what kind of car Yves is driving,
and cameras saw it pass through the Fort McHenry Tunnel 20 minutes
ago. The Gunmen head out, leaving Jimmy to watch Fletcher and Kimmy
to relay information to them by cell phone. The medical examiner
tells Doggett and Reyes that Houghton was injected with tiny poison
pellets. The cavity in his chest is glowing with what appears to be
bioluminescence. It appears to have bled out of him. There are also
indications of past surgeries. A chunk of living cartilage tissue
was found grafted into him, but the cartilage has a cavity as if
something was removed - whatever it was that Yves took.
Doggett and Reyes go back to
Morris, who denies knowing anything about “weird organs.” Kimmy
is having trouble because the Gunmen’s computer is junk. He revels
that the Gunmen are broke and have not published their paper in
months. They have been selling equipment to pay the rent. Jimmy
accuses Morris of putting them out of business by taking Yves. They
spent every last dime trying to find her. Byers phones Reyes and
tells her to come to the Hotel Farragut quickly. They watch as Yves
slips into a man’s room. She is about to fire at the man when the
Gunmen burst in to stop her. The man knocks Yves down and runs. She
is unconscious.
Yves is nursing her head
wound in a room with the Gunmen, including Jimmy. She prefers
“Yves” to “Lois.” She is not a super soldier and isn’t
even familiar with the term. She knows that they meant well, but
they have badly mucked things up. Doggett and Reyes enter. Nobody
has seen the man. In Yves’ bag Doggett finds the respirator,
surgical gloves and scalpel. Yves admits to killing the professor,
but says time is running short and innocent people will die unless
she can finish her work. She asks who helped them find her. Back at
the Gunmen’s office, Yves finds that Morris is carrying a tracking
device. The boat and everything was a hoax, intended to hook Doggett
and Reyes, who would in turn hook the gunmen into finding Yves again
for Morris. Yves knows that Morris works for an international arms
dealer who is also Yves father. He is a murderer and a supporter of
terrorism. She kills only those who are terrorists themselves. The
professor was researching sharks as a potential immune system weapon.
Houghton used his knowledge to create a sort of vessel to keep
himself save from an engineered virus inside him. She destroyed the
virus. The vessel inside the second man is deteriorating and when
the virus is released, the kill radius will be five or six miles,
depending on the winds. They have five hours to find the man and
destroy the virus or tens of thousands of people will die.
Kimmy goes back to work.
Morris is sorry that the Gunmen are out of money, but saving the
world is a young man’s game, or a women’s, he adds, looking at
Yves. Frohike wonders if they should give up but Byers says they
never gave up. If that’s the best people can say about them,
it’s pretty good. Kimmy finds the trail of the man. He just rented
a car and they are tracking him on the New Jersey Turnpike. Yves
thinks she knows to where he is headed. The infected man enters a
college building but people in biohazard gear take him into custody.
Doggett calls Byers. The doctors have run every kind of test they
can and there is no trace of anything unusual inside the man. Do
they trust Yves? They must have the wrong man. Yves is still
convinced that there is a second man carrying the virus but they
only have one hour to find him. Viewers see the second professor
pick up a name tag and enter a secure area.
The Gunmen and Yves try to
figure out their problem. The man from the Farragut hotel must know
something. He went straight to the lab. Morris suggests that this is
a case of “three card monte.” They knew that Yves was on their
trail and the man from the hotel was a decoy. He suggests that the
real subject is hiding in plain sight. Yves realizes that it is
probably the second professor. The professor is attending a
biohazard conference. The Gunmen, Jimmy and Yves rush up to the
conference hall, but the security man blocks them. Jimmy shouts
“John Gilnitz,” and the professor heads for a different door.
Jimmy knocks out the guard and the group rushes after the professor.
They break up to search for him. The Gunmen catch up with him and
call to Yves, but she is too far away. The virus is about to be
released. The Gunmen look at each other. “Whatever it takes,”
Byers says. Frohike pulls a fire alarm and fire doors descend from
the ceiling. The Gunmen and the professor are trapped but the virus
cannot escape. Yves and Jimmy watch through a window in a fire door
as the professor collapses and purple slime oozes out of his mouth
and chest. Jimmy tries to open the door but the Gunmen tell him not
to. They tell him to fight the good fight and to never give up.
The Gunmen are buried at
Arlington National Cemetery. Doggett, Reyes and Skinner await the
ceremony. Skinner pulled some strings to get them buried there.
Scully stands nearby with Jimmy and Yves. They meant so much to
Scully and she’s not sure they ever really knew. Morris tells them
that Langly told him that the ones who never give up never die.
Morris doesn’t know what that means. Scully knows - they’re gone
but they live on through us all.
-
Spring 2002
-
William At a
country home, a man is painting a hand-sized wooden buffalo. His
wife is nearby, pensive. She doesn’t understand how someone could
give up a child. Her husband assures her that God has reasons for
asking someone to do that. People from the adoption agency drive up
and deliver a child to the couple - an infant boy.
In Georgetown, Scully drives
up to her apartment building. A man watches in the shadows across
the street. Doggett leaves the X-Files office and the same man slips
into the office and begins searching the files. Doggett, having
forgotten something, returns and the man attacks him, and then runs.
Doggett uses his gun to stops the man in the hallway. Scully is
called to the office and talks with Doggett and Reyes. The man says
his name is Daniel Miller and says he got into the building with a
key card given to him by Fox Mulder. The man’s body is heavily
burned. Under questioning, he tells Scully that he came here to find
answers about the government conspiracy that did this to him. Miller
had taken several files relating to Fox and Samantha Mulder. Scully
has Miller transferred to Quantico, where she can do a thorough
examination. She concludes that the injuries are not from burns. He
says he was injected with something that burned his body inside and
out. Doggett determines that Miller’s ID is fake. Doggett’s
theory is that Miller is really Mulder.
Scully continues her
examination of Miller. He won’t tell her his real name. People in
the FBI would kill him is they knew he was being held there. When he
tells her that he might be able to help her, too, Scully has a flash
of Mulder saying the same words, but she tells Doggett and Reyes
that Miller is definitely not Mulder. They take Miller back to the
X-Files office where he tells them that what was done to him was a
failed attempt to make him into an alien. The plan is to do this to
everyone. He did not locate the filed he says Mulder told him about.
Someone has already removed them. Scully has them at home and the
agents take Miller there. Mulder and Scully agreed to remove the
files from the X-Files office. If Miller were really Mulder, he
would have known where they are. William cries and Scully finds
Miller in William’s room. Miller claims that Mulder has told him
so much about William. He wants to hold the boy FOR Mulder.
Doggett and Skinner talk.
The tests show that Miller’s blood type matches with Mulder but
there are physiological differences that may or may not be the
result of Miller’s condition. Mulder, however, knows those files
inside and out. Why not just tell Miller what is in them? The phone
rings and Skinner gets the DNA report on Miller. Scully talks with
Miller, who is still at her home. It’s all been a good act, she
says. He knew that the files were at her home and he was just
pretending. Miller claims that William is part alien. She demands to
know who he really is. Doggett and Reyes enter the room. Miller’s
DNA is a perfect match for Mulder’s. Scully still cannot believe
that it is really Mulder. The agents realize that Miller has slipped
out. Doggett chases Miller, finally catching him in an alley. Miller
allows himself to be taken back to Scully’s apartment, but he has
picked up a small package in the alley that Doggett does not notice.
Miller is given a
tranquilizer so that he can sleep. The agents agree to keep the
situation a secret. They talk, trying to understand what is going on.
Scully says that you get to know a person in so many ways. She still
cannot accept that Miller is Mulder. Miller, however, has palmed the
pills and is still awake. He slips into William’s room and
prepares a syringe with a very long needle. The drug he prepares was
in the package he picked up in the alley. Scully hears William cry
and rushes to his room. Miller is back in his bed, but there is
blood on William’s sheets and it is clear that Miller has done
something. Scully and Reyes rush William to a hospital emergency
room where doctors go to work on him. Doggett questions Miller and
finds the drug. After a long wait in the emergency room, Scully and
Reyes are told that William is fine. There is evidence that his skin
was broken by the injection. He has elevated levels of iron in his
blood, but there are no other effects. Scully now has everything
figured out.
Miller is in an FBI
interrogation room. Scully tells him that he is the perfect example
of all that is vile and disgusting in this world. Skinner watches
through the one-way glass. He also realizes who it is. Miller is
Jeffrey Spender. The DNA match was because Spender and Mulder are
half brothers. He injected William with a drug that is a form of
magnetite. Spender says that William is the one thing the aliens
need. The injection took William away from them, but it will never
be over because they will always know what William was and will
never accept what he now is. Spender hates his father, the Cigarette
Smoking Man. Spender says that when his father failed to prevent the
alien colonization, he wanted nothing more than to see the world
fail, too. Spender, at least, thinks he has prevented the
colonization by transforming William. It was his form of revenge on
his father. Scully says she can protect William, but Spender
disagrees, implying that the conspiracy will try again to transform
William. He asks Scully to look at him and asks if that is what she
wants for her son.
Scully is back at home,
making a choice. She and Reyes talk. Reyes tries to convince Scully
that Spender was lying. Scully asks if she can really insist that
she can protect William, only to learn too late that she can’t.
William didn’t have a choice to come into this life. Scully doesn’t
have a choice in knowing what he is but she does have a choice about
the life her son will have. Shouldn’t she choose that he will
never have to be afraid of anyone or anything? She could never
really promise him that. It is clear that Scully has decided to give
William up for adoption.
William’s new parents are
those seen in the beginning of the episode. The father finishes
preparing the painted buffalos as a new crib mobile as the mother
puts William down in his crib. The mobile is placed over the crib
and the parents turn off the light and leave the room. William gazes
up at the mobile, smiling. As the episode ends, the mobile hangs
naturally above the crib.
-
Spring 2002
-
Release John
Doggett drives up to an abandoned building in a tenement district.
He is following an anonymous tip. He climbs to the top floor and
another man knocks him down and runs. Doggett gets up and hears a
funny noise in the wall. The plaster is fresh and when Doggett digs
his fingers into the plaster, blood runs out.
The body found by Doggett in
the wall is used by Scully in her class. The agent was led to the
body by the sound of rats feeding. She questions her class about how
to proceed with the “Jane Doe,” i.e. unidentified body. One
student, FBI cadet Hayes, has profound insight into the killer. He
leads Scully to another recent death. Both, he says, were single
women who met the wrong man in a bar. Tests on the second body show
that the woman was killed with the same knife and using a similar
knife technique. Doggett wonders why someone tipped him off to the
crime, since they are not X-Files. Doggett and Reyes visit cadet
Hayes to talk in more detail. He says he “sees things.” He tells
them that the killer is an ex-con with mob connections who is on
parole in New York. The detailed description leaves Doggett with an
unusual expression on his face.
Hayes returns to his
apartment. The walls are covered with hundreds of crime scene
photographs. Among them are pictures of Doggett with his dead son,
Luke. Doggett and Reyes visit a bar and talk with Nicholas Regali,
the man described by Hayes. Reyes accuses him of the killings, which
he denies, saying that they don’t realize what they are dealing
with. That night, Doggett lies awake in bed, and then gets up to
look at his son’s file. He continues reviewing the file in the
X-Files office and Hayes enters. Doggett asks Hayes to consider
another case. At first he does not admit that it is his son, but
Doggett describes how a seven-year-old boy was riding his bicycle
around the block as his mother counted the laps. He doesn’t return
from one lap and the mother finds the bicycle with no trace of the
boy and no witnesses. Hayes tells Doggett that Luke’s case is the
same as the case they investigated yesterday. Hayes takes him to his
room and shows him the photographs. Hayes says if he looks at them
for a long time they tell him things. Doggett says that a man named
Bob Harvey is the best suspect they had in Luke’s murder. Harvey
is now dead. Hayes says Harvey kidnapped Luke, but did not kill him.
The implication is that Regali killed Luke, because Hayes claims
they were associates.
Doggett goes to Brad Follmer,
who was involved in the organized crime task force in New York
earlier in his career. Follmer recognizes Regali’s name, but it
never came up in connection with Luke’s murder. Follmer agrees to
ask around about connections between Harvey and Regali. Doggett
later tells Reyes that Regali is a suspect in Luke’s murder.
Regali and Harvey served prison time together in 1988. Reyes doesn’t
think the evidence is very strong and doesn’t want to see Doggett
disappointed. Doggett visits his ex-wife, Barbara, in Woodbury, Long
Island. She doesn’t want to become involved unless Doggett is sure
he has identified the killer. She agrees, however, to view a line up
of men, including Regali, because Doggett thinks the killer may have
driven past their house. Barbara doesn’t recognize Regali. Scully
comes to the police department and meets Barbara who says that
Doggett blames himself and can never do enough or suffer enough.
Barbara sees that Doggett and Reyes could have a relationship, but
he won’t let Reyes in emotionally. The officials are letting
Regali go, for now, because there is not enough evidence to hold him.
Scully reports to Doggett
and Reyes that the wounds on Luke and on the two dead women did have
some similarities but the weapons were different. Doggett wonders
why Regali only gets “slaps on the wrists” from the law, even
though he is implicated in major crimes. Doggett suspects bribery.
Doggett and Reyes go to Follmer. Reyes tells Follmer that when they
were both working on the organized crime task force in New York, she
saw him take a bribe, which is why she broke off their relationship
and transferred to another FBI office. He claims he was giving money
to a mob informant and that she misunderstood. Follmer reports that
cadet Hayes got into the FBI academy under an assumed name. He is
actually Stewart Mims, a man with a history is schizophrenia and
mental problems. His last known location was a mental hospital, but
Follmer reports that Mims has also been determined to have been in
New York in 1993, when Luke was killed. A SWAT team raids Mims’
apartment. He is there and submits passively to arrest, but all of
the pictures have been removed from the walls.
Outside a bar, Regali gets
into a car with Follmer. Follmer asks if Regali was involved in Luke’s
death and Regali denies it. Follmer wants to be done with “this
whole thing” but Regali makes clear that he has a videotape of
Follmer accepting a bribe many years ago. Regali says, “You’re
done when I say you’re done.” Barbara looks at a lineup
including Mims and she does recognize him. The agents question Mims
about his false identity. He realizes that Barbara recognized him,
but he says she doesn’t know from where, and he denies killing
Luke. He says he studied the case obsessively - schizophrenics
always do things obsessively. He sent the anonymous tip to Doggett
and he got into the FBI academy in order to get close to Doggett. He
wants to help solve the case. Mims concludes that he has received
another message and wants to go back to his mental hospital. Doggett
storms out of the interrogation room. Reyes and Follmer are outside.
Scully follows and tells them that Mims told them a story, but they
don’t know whether it is true.
Doggett goes to the bar and
talks to Regali, who again denies being involved in Luke’s death.
He does say, though, that he has a hypothetical explanation. He
describes a “businessman” who has many associates like Bob
Harvey who are “sickos” who like little boys. This sicko sees a
boy and grabs him. The businessman walks in on them and the boy sees
the businessman’s face, which is a problem, but every problem has
a solution. Regali walks out. After a moment, Doggett draws his guns
and follows, but a shot is heard outside. Follmer is there and he
has killed Regali.
On a beach, John and Barbara
Doggett stand in the surf. They open a container marked “Luke
Doggett January 9, 1986 - August 13, 1993” and scatter the ashes
to the wind and the waves. Barbara walks away and Doggett presently
returns to his vehicle where Reyes is waiting. They hug.
-
Spring 2002
-
Sunshine Days
In Van Nuys, California, two boys, Blake and Stanley, sit outside a
house. Blake claims it is the “Brady House,” where they shot the
TV series “The Brady Bunch.” Blake delivered a pizza there last
night and the inside of the house is clearly the Brady Bunch house.
To prove it, Blake knocks on the door. Nobody is home and his honor
is at stake. The door isn’t even locked, so they sneak inside.
Stanley is amazed that the floor plan of the house is the same as on
the TV series. As they talk, a football rolls down the stairs.
Stanley is afraid and quickly leaves the house. Blake hears a sound
and climbs the steps. He sees two children who appear to him to be
two children from the TV series. He follows them into a bedroom.
Stanley is outside, waiting impatiently. Something falls on the roof
of his car. Stanley makes his way outside and finds his friend lying
in the depression of the dented roof.
Doggett and Reyes are
looking up from the street. Doggett thinks the only explanation is
that the guy fell from a plane or a helicopter because there was
nothing above the car that he could have fallen from. Reyes points
out that he had just broken into a nearby house and had no
opportunity to get into a helicopter, to which Doggett responds, “details.”
In the depression of the dented roof, Doggett finds a small piece of
asphalt shingling. Stanley arrives, driven by a police officer.
Stanley is convinced that his friend was murdered, and calls it the
Brady Bunch House. Reyes counters that it is not the Brady Bunch
house - they shot the TV show on a sound stage in Hollywood. The
house they used for the exteriors is in Studio City. Stanley says
that the house is like a Brady Bunch museum and whatever happened to
Blake happened in the house.
The agents knock on the door
and Mr. Martin answers. He doesn’t want to let them in, but
Stanley bursts past him…and the layout of the house is completely
different. They leave, Stanley still convinced of what he saw.
Doggett has something he wants to check out. Doggett opens a garbage
can and finds old shingles. Looking at the roof of the house, he
sees a patch of new shingles. When he was inside, Doggett knew that
he smelled fresh plaster. The eyewitness placing Stanley in the
house, the piece of shingle near the body and the newly patched roof
leads Doggett to believe that the body shot up through the roof and
landed on his buddy’s car. Reyes thinks that sounds more like
something that would happen to a cartoon character.
Scully has Blake’s body at
Quantico for an autopsy. As she begins the work, medical instruments
in a tray begin rattling. When she touches a moving scalpel, Scully
gets an electrical shock and the movement stops. Later, at the FBI
field office in Los Angeles, Doggett and Reyes hold a teleconference
with Scully who reports that Blake was dead before he landed on the
car. Evidence suggests that Doggett’s theory about Blake flying
through the roof is possible. She tells them about her odd
experience. On a hunch, she wired Blake’s body to an EKG machine
and for the last few hours he has been putting off a very faint
reading, even though he is clearly dead. It is as if his brain held
some residual electricity that is slowly draining off. If Mulder
were there, he would be talking about ghosts, but Scully has no
better ideas. Stanley is outside the house again that night,
drinking a beer in tribute to his friend. He sneaks up to the house
and looks in the window. He sees the Brady’s housekeeper, Alice,
taking something out of the oven. He looks in the next window and
sees the entire Brady family eating dinner. Stanley runs around to
the front door and bursts into the house. The table is set, but
nobody is there, except Mr. Martin. Martin tells Stanley to leave,
before it is too late. Stanley feels himself being lifted into the
air. He slams into the ceiling, leaving a gaping hole.
Doggett and Reyes examine
Stanley’s body, sunken inches deep into the turf, as the media
surround the house. They knock on the door of the house and Martin
doesn’t want to talk with them, telling them to get a warrant.
Scully phones Doggett - she is watching the agents on a live TV news
feed. She is in Los Angeles. She has called in someone the agents
will want to meet. The agents are shown a videotape of a boy
performing psychokinesis - moving an object with his mind. The
parapsychologist, Dr. Reetz, who brought the tape says the boy,
Anthony Fogelman, caused four wooden blocks to rise up off the table
and fly around the room, but the image on the film was fogged, as if
by a strong electromagnetic field. The film was made in 1970 and the
boy is their suspect, who now uses the name Oliver Martin. In 1970,
he was as bewildered as everybody else, but definitely responsible
for what was happening. Over time, Anthony’s abilities faded. The
Anthony he knew in 1970 was a lonely little boy. He hasn’t seen
him for 30 years.
Mr. Martin is patching the
ceiling. The room is as it was when Doggett and Reyes saw it. He
closes his eyes and opens them again, and it is the Brady House.
Family members run down the stairs, laughing, and Mr. Martin smiles
in pleasure. The phone rings, however, and the room restores itself.
The answering machine picks up the call and Dr. Reetz leaves a
message. He wants to catch up. As Reetz records the message, the
step ladder begins to rattle and the plaster trowel flies through
the air and smashes into the phone. Scully, Doggett and Reyes are
still with Reetz. Reyes has identified the name “Oliver Martin,”
not through law enforcement channels but through a Brady Bunch
website. The character Oliver was a cousin of the Brady children. He
lived with the Bradys during the last season of the show. Reetz
recalls that Anthony did watch the Brady Bunch, but didn’t seem
particularly devoted to the show. Scully remembers that cousin
Oliver was the jinx, admitting that she watched the show, too.
Martin’s choice of a name speaks to the character and how Martin
views himself - unlucky and a danger. Scully and Reetz think that
the power Martin appears to have should be studied. Over nine years,
Scully has investigated nearly 200 paranormal cases. This may be the
incontrovertible proof The X-Files has been looking for.
Doggett and Reetz go to the
Martin home. Nobody comes to the door and Doggett looks in a window,
exclaiming. He picks the lock in the door. Inside, the house is the
Brady house. Calling to Martin, Doggett goes upstairs where Martin
is standing in the hall. He orders Doggett out of the house and
Doggett stumbles, off balance. He grabs a doorknob and his feet fly
up in the air. He loses his hold and flies through the ceiling.
Martin makes a face, as if having made a blunder. Doggett is in the
attic, stuck to the rafters at the peak of the roof. He stands, head
down, and even jumps, but it is as if gravity has been reversed.
Doggett shouts and Dr. Reetz hears him. Doggett walks to the hole
and shouts down to Martin, who doesn’t reply. Reetz enters the
house and talks with Martin. Martin swears that he cannot let
Doggett go. He doesn’t know how. Reetz councils him to relax and
focus. In a moment, Doggett falls back onto the floor.
A bit later, Doggett is
holding an ice pack to his neck as Scully and Reyes enter the house.
Reyes is astounded by the detail of the Brady House reproduction. He
thinks about it and it happens. Scully wants him to think about
another place, a nice place. The house dissolves around them and
they are sitting in a grassy field near the ocean. The Brady house
returns, however. Martin likes it best. They ask him to come to
Washington with them, to show the whole world. As Martin and Reetz
are off packing, Doggett comments to Scully and Reyes that they have
a tiger by the tail. Martin wanted Doggett out of his house, and
away he went. Scully thinks they can help him learn to control his
power. Doggett has the feeling that there is something Martin is not
telling them. When Martin is alone for a few moments, he holds the
football but receives a big electric shock from it.
Skinner is astounded when
Martin causes him to float several inches off the floor of his
office. With Martin in the outer office, the agents confer. An FBI
psychologist says he expects Reetz and Scully to win the Nobel Prize.
Skinner says that this ensures that The X-Files can’t be shut down.
They hear a bump in the outer office and the secretary runs in,
calling for Scully. Martin is having a seizure. Martin is taken to
the hospital. Reetz thinks it was just the excitement. Scully
reports that Martin has several abnormal conditions that point to a
multi-system organ failure. It has probably been progressing for
months. His power seems to be draining his body and the more he uses
it, the more his health will decline. The agents look through the
intensive care room window and see the Brady family standing around
Martin’s bed, but when the agents enter the room, the Bradys are
gone. Martin says the Bradys were there to say goodbye because he is
dieing.
At FBI headquarters in
Washington, Doggett, Scully, Reyes and Reetz meet in the X-Files
office. Doctors are trying everything then can on Martin, but
nothing seems to work. Doggett doubts that anything will work
because they are treating the symptoms, not the cause. He has one
big question. Why The Brady Bunch? Why are people still watching a
30-year-old TV show. Reyes says because they are the family everyone
wishes they had. Loving parents, lots of brothers and sisters…
Scully says Martin didn’t have that kind of family as a child, so
he created one. Doggett asks, why not The Partridge Family? Why not
Eight is Enough? Reetz says Anthony always insisted on watching the
Brady Bunch and they watched together. After thinking for a few
moments, Reetz concludes that Anthony’s power faded because for
the first time in his live, Anthony was happy. Doggett notes that
this was when Anthony was with Reetz. Doggett concludes that Martin
will die if he continues to use his power, his power goes away when
he is happy, and that Reetz is the father Martin never had and he
loved him.
Reetz returns to the
hospital in Los Angeles. Reetz apologizes to Martin that he let his
life’s work blind him and made him treat Martin like a lab rat. He
is sorry and forbids him from using his power again. But he says he
will always be there. The agents watch from the hallway. Scully
doesn’t have her proof of the paranormal, but maybe she’s had it
these past nine years - if not proof of the paranormal, than of more
important things. As Scully walks away, Reyes takes Doggett’s hand.
“I think you ARE getting the hang of this job,” she says.
-
May 2002
-
The Truth At
the Mount Weather Complex at Bluemont, Virginia, a helicopter
lands. Several men in suits exit the helicopter, including Fox
Mulder. The men board a bus that takes them through a doorway into
an underground complex. Inside, US Marine Corps officers
meet them, but Mulder
slips away. Using an electronic key card, he penetrates deeper and
deeper into secure areas. In one room he activates a computer
console and enters a password. The screen shows the text "December
22, 2012...Date for the mobilization of alien....." Knowel
Rorer enters the chamber and finds the computer that Mulder was
using. Mulder jumps him and they struggle, but Mulder breaks away
and runs. At the end of a hallway, a figure opens a door, letting
Mulder through, then locks it so Rorer can't get through. the
figure is Alex Krycek. "No -- you're dead," says Mulder.
Alarms sound and Mulder runs on. He is trapped on a catwalk and
Rorer approaches him. They struggle again and Mulder manages to
flip Rorer over a catwalk railing. Rorer falls several stories to
electrical cables below and is electrocuted. As Mulder pulls
himself back up onto the catwalk, Marine guards have their guns on
him.
Mulder is in solitary
confinement where he is being brainwashed. He is abused and kept
from sleeping by uniformed troops. They eventually get him to say
that he entered the government facility illegally to find
something that wasn’t there and that he deserves the harshest
punishment for his crime. Scully and Skinner enter the Marine
Corps brig. They don’t know how long Mulder has been there, but
he is being held for the murder of a military man. When they enter
his cell, watched by a Marine guard, Mulder is unemotional and it
seems that the brainwashing has worked. He says they are treating
him well and he is clear about the crimes he has committed. Scully
is confused by his reactions. After Scully and Skinner leave,
Krycek appears in Mulder’s cell.
Doggett and Reyes talk
with Scully and Skinner. Mulder is accused of killing Rorer, but
Doggett saw Rorer killed earlier. They know that Rorer is a
supersoldier and cannot really be killed. They won’t be able to
produce the body. Scully leaves the room, to beg for mercy with
“the man upstairs.” Kersh talks with a Marine Corps general.
The general will allow the FBI to give Mulder a hearing in a
military tribunal, but the general wants a guilty verdict. Mulder
is a crusader but a lot of people don’t like crusaders. Kersh
reluctantly agrees. Scully and Skinner return to Mulder’s cell.
There is no guard present this time and Mulder makes a Hannibal
Lector joke. Mulder says he has to put on an act because of what
they do to him if he doesn’t. Mulder and Scully engage in a long
hug and an extended kiss. Skinner then tells Mulder that he is in
big trouble. Mulder wants Skinner to represent him and says that
they can’t try him without exposing themselves. Doggett and
Reyes enter and say that they have identified where Rorer’s body
is being held, at Fort Marlene. Later, Scully returns to Mulder’s
cell. She needs him to confide in her or they will lose. Mulder
thinks he can’t win. Scully is scared, but Mulder says he knows
what he is doing. Skinner told him about William being given up
for adoption. Scully is afraid Mulder will never forgive her, but
he says he knows she had no chance. He has been in New Mexico,
looking for the truth. When Scully asks what he found, Mulder
smiles and says he cannot tell her.
The military tribunal is
ready to begin in a spartan hearing room. The prosecutor is an FBI
lawyer. The five judges are FBI executives. Kersh presides. The
prosecutor will call no witnesses, but introduces the sworn
statements of 30 scientists who witnessed Mulder killing Rorer.
Skinner moves for dismissal or delay because he can’t find his
key witness, Marita Covarubius, but Kersh tells him that it is a
military tribunal and he must proceed. Scully testifies first. As
a scientist she came to believe in extra-terrestrial life and in a
government conspiracy to hide the fact from the public. She
believes that life came to Earth millions of years ago in a meteor
from Mars, and along with it came an alien virus. It infected life
on Earth, but that life died in the last ice age. The virus lay
dormant in underground oil reservoirs. It resurfaced in
contemporary times and signaled to other aliens who crashed at
Roswell in 1947. The government captured aliens, obtained alien
technology, and learned of alien plans to retake planet Earth. She
also describes how she was abducted in 1994 by the military for
experiments. The prosecutor demonstrates that Scully has no proof
and accuses that she and Mulder were lovers and that she got
pregnant and had Mulder’s love child. Scully has no good
response to that accusation.
Skinner calls Jeffrey
Spender who testifies that his father led the conspiracy to hide
the existence of extraterrestrials. Spender and Mulder are half
brothers. He describes how Bill Mulder was killed and how Samantha
was abducted and experimented on. Spender didn’t know of his
father’s crimes when he went to work for the FBI. The prosecutor
counters with Spender’s FBI written reports about Mulder, which
are not complimentary. In Weed Hope, NM, a Native American youth
rides his motorcycle up to a shack. Gibson Praise is inside. They
have learned about Mulder. Gisbon will get ready to leave. Scully
enters Mulder’s cell. She wants Mulder to make a plea bargain
but he refuses. This is about the truth. Scully then urges Mulder
to take the stand and testify, but he refuses. Scully is not just
fighting for Mulder - she is fighting for the two of them, i.e,
their relationship. After she leaves, X appears in Mulder’s cell.
X asks what Mulder is doing and Mulder says he is putting the
truth on trial. X says “they” have too much power to be afraid.
He gives Mulder a piece of paper with Marita’s address written
on it. Doggett, meanwhile, is at home on the phone to Fort
Marlene, trying to track down the Rorer’s body, but he is
getting the run-around. Reyes, also there, tells him that somebody
is outside. They draw guns and discover that it is the Native
American youth. He didn’t want to endanger “him,” meaning
Gibson.
Marita takes the stand.
Her former position with the United Nations allowed her to further
the interests of the conspirators, who called themselves The
Syndicate. They were working to develop a vaccine against the
alien virus, tracking subjects in the human population through
their vaccination scars. She saw people in Russia actually
amputate their arms to keep from being tracked. She came to hate
the Syndicate but was found out and made a test subject. The
Syndicate was trying to save only themselves but a group of
renegade aliens who avoided infection by self-mutilation destroyed
the conspirators. She resisted testifying before the tribunal
because the conspiracy continues, conducted by others. The
supersoldiers, like Rorer, are alien replacements. Krycek appears
to Mulder, but nobody else in the room can see him. Krycek tells
Mulder that “they” will kill Marita if she testifies further.
Mulder insists that Skinner dismiss Marita, just as Skinner is
beginning to press her for more details on the identity of the
supersoldiers. Doggett enters the tribunal room and confers with
Skinner, telling him that Gibson Praise is there to testify.
Gibson testifies that he has been hiding Mulder in the desert for
the last year. Gibson asserts that he can read minds. He looks
around the room, reading the minds of everyone there. He says that
one of the judges is an alien. Mulder jumps up, shouting that he
wants the judge examined. Mulder struggles and is forcibly removed
from the room. (End of the first hour of this two-hour episode.)
Marine guards deliver
Mulder to a conference room to talk with Doggett, Reyes and
Skinner. Gibson is with Scully and is safe. Gibson feels that
three of the judges are wavering. They encourage Mulder to testify.
When he again declines, Doggett and Reyes say they will testify.
Doggett goes first. He testifies about the supersoldiers and says
that Rorer was one of them. Mulder couldn’t have killed him
because the only way to do that is with a rare metal, magnetite.
On cross examination, the prosecutor points out that it is the
basis of Mulder’s case tat these supersoldiers are aliens.
Doggett is unable to swear that he believes that the supersoldiers
are aliens. Reyes testifies. She describes how Scully was
surrounded by aliens as she was giving birth, including one that
was shot at point blank range but didn’t die. Scully was one of
many women who were used as surrogates. The child was important to
the supersoldiers because of his powers. William, of course,
cannot be produced to demonstrate these powers. When the
prosecutor dismisses Reyes, she offers an outburst - what is the
point here? To find the truth or to destroy the truth so nobody
can find it? She looks directly at Kersh and says, “either way,
you lose.”
That night, Doggett and
Reyes rush up to Scully’s apartment. Doggett finally found
somebody at Fort Marlene who didn’t know he was supposed to give
Doggett the run-around. The alleged body of Rorer has been moved
to Quantico and Scully needs to examine it. Doggett will stay with
Gibson. Scully and Reyes go to Quantico where they see the burned
body. Scully sands Reyes to get Rorer’s military medical records.
Scully goes to the tribunal and testifies that based on her tests,
the body isn’t Rorer. Kersh orders her removed from the tribunal
because she examined the body without authority. The room erupts
and Kersh shouts that the trial is adjourned. Later, the five
judges reenter the room. They have a verdict - guilty of
first-degree murder. Mulder is allowed to speak before the
sentence is passed. He congratulates them on succeeding where so
many others have failed. Liars do not fear the truth if there are
enough liars. No one lie can be buried forever. As much as they
try to bury it, the truth is out there. Mulder sees the spirits of
Krycek and X standing behind the judges as he speaks. Mulder tells
the judges that they are getting rid of their headache, but only
at the expense of cutting off their own heads. Scully, Doggett and
Reyes wait at Scully’s apartment for the news. Skinner phones.
The sentence is death by lethal injection. Scully cries.
Rorer drives up to the
Marine Corps brig and is admitted. Doggett and Skinner enter
Mulder’s cell - they are breaking him out. Skinner has keys and
they run through the hallways. Rorer enters Mulder’s cell, and
finds him missing. The alarm is sounded. As the three fugitives
try to escape, the meet Kersh who tells them that they will never
get out the way they are trying. Kersh says he is doing what he
should have done all along. He helps them get through a cut in the
chain link fence of the Marine base and into a waiting vehicle.
They drive to where Scully, Reyes and Gibson ware waiting with
another vehicle. Kersh tells them to drive north to Canada and get
an airplane. They must get off the continent to be safe. Mulder
and Scully drive off, but Mulder heads south. He is going to see a
man about the truth. Doggett and Reyes take Gibson to the X-Files
office, but the file cabinets and furniture have been removed.
Skinner knows and he is trying to get to the bottom of it. They
all go the Kersh’s office and are met at the door by an agent
previously shown to be a supersoldier. Only Skinner is allowed to
enter. Gibson says that the agent knows where Mulder and Scully
are going and “they” are going to kill them.
Mulder and Scully are on
the Texas-New Mexico border. Mulder stops the car, kissing Scully
as she sleeps. He gets out of the car to urinate. The spirits of
the Lone Gunmen greet him. They ask him why he would risk perfect
happiness. Mulder needs to know if he can change the truth. He
gets back into the car and drives on. Mulder and Scully arrive at
an ancient Anasazi pueblo. They see smoke from a fire - someone is
living on an upper level of the pueblo. Mulder and Scully climb
the ladders. A Navajo woman is cooking. Mulder says he was sent a
message and a key to the Marine facility by a wise man who lives
in the ruins - the Keeper of the Truth. Doggett and Reyes are in a
helicopter, flying across the desert, looking for Mulder and
Scully. Mulder and Scully are ushered into the presence of the
wise man - it is the Cigarette Smoking Man, with long gray hair
and still with a tracheotomy device in his throat. He says that
Mulder now knows the truth, which he found in the Marine base, but
Mulder refuses to speak it, even though it could save his life.
Indian wise men hid in this pueblo as their own culture was
destroyed by the aliens. The pueblo contains magnetite, which
makes it safe against the aliens. Those wise men were the first
“shadow government.” The Cigarette Smoking Man wants to tell
Scully his story - a story that has terrified every President
since Truman. The Mayans were so afraid that their calendar stops
on the date of the final alien invasion, December 22, 2012. Mulder
saw the date at Mount Weather where our own secret government will
be hiding when the invasion happens. The Cigarette Smoking Man
protected Mulder all those years, waiting for this final moment.
Broken and afraid, now you can die, the Smoking Man says.
As two black helicopters
fly through desert canyons, Doggett and Reyes are dropped off from
their own helicopter. As they approach the pueblo, Rorer drives up
in another vehicle. He approaches them and Doggett fires at him.
Rorer is not affected by the gunshot to the chest, but as he
continues forward, the magnetite affects him. He zooms into the
rock and explodes with a puff of dust. Doggett and Reyes run on
and meet Mulder and Scully, running out of the pueblo. They know
you are here and you have to get out, Doggett tells them. Mulder
and Scully won’t get into their own vehicle, but grab Rorer’s
and drive off. Doggett and Reyes leave in Mulder and Scully’s
original vehicle. The black helicopters arrive and use rockets to
destroy the pueblo. One rocket impacts directly on the room where
the Smoking Man sits, exploding the chamber in a ball of flame.
In Roswell, New Mexico,
Mulder and Scully are in a motel room. It isn’t said, but the
implication is that the government thinks they are dead, killed at
the pueblo. Scully, in a bathrobe, is on the bed. Mulder sits on
the floor. Mulder recalls sitting in a motel room like this when
they first met. He wanted to convince her of the truth and he
eventually did, but he has been chasing after monsters with a
butterfly net. He didn’t tell her what he had learned because he
didn’t want to accept defeat. He was afraid it would crush her
spirit. She asks why she would accept it if he won’t. You only
fail if you give up and Scully knows Mulder won’t give up, even
now. If this is the truth he has been looking for, what else is to
believe, she asks. He replies that he wants to believe that the
dead are not lost to us, and if we listen to them they can give us
the power to save ourselves. Scully says, “we believe the same
thing.” Mulder moves to the bed and they hold each other.
“Maybe there’s hope,” he says as the episode and the TV
series ends.
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