The son of Tara and William Scully, Junior, is born, just before Emily's funeral service. He is named Matthew.(Emily)

County sheriff Phil Adderly wants a divorce, but his wife, Ellen becomes pregnant. He drops his efforts at divorce, but presently begins affairs with two other local women.(Chimera)

David Markham attempts to summon the Artificial Intelligence created by Donald Gelman, but it does not respond to his cybernetic call. He and Esther Nairn realize that the A.I. has finally rebelled and David goes looking for its home node. Although Esther does not realize it, the A.I. uses a DOD space-based laser satellite to destroy David's home. David locates the A.I home node in a trailer at an abandoned chicken farm in Fairfax County Virginia by tracing the T3 Internet connection to the site. Either voluntarily or against his will, David is placed in virtual reality gear in the trailer. He dies. It is unclear, but his mind may have been uploaded into the A.I. With David missing, Esther realizes that her life is at risk and goes on the run. She risks one E-Mail to Donald Gelman, knowing that he is developing a Kill Switch virus to destroy the A.I. (Kill Switch)(Date based on Esther's comment that she has not used a telephone for over a month due to the threat from the A.I.)

Kitsunegari. Robert Patrick Modell escapes from a prison hospital using his "pusher" abilities to control other people's minds, triggering a massive manhunt. He is reported to have awakened from his coma a few weeks earlier, but has had only one visitor, a nun. Modell changes clothes at an athletic clothing store, using his power to control the clerk. Soon after, Nathan Bowman, the prosecutor who got Modell convicted in 1996 is found dead, drenched in blue paint.

Mulder learns that Bowman's wife of two months, Linda, a real estate agent, had an appointment to meet "Fox Mulder" at a warehouse. Modell eludes capture at the warehouse and Linda arrives late. She is taken into protective custody and taken to an FBI safe house. Mulder finds Modell in a nearby building, but before backup arrives, Modell "pushes" Mulder and tells him "don't play the game." Mulder becomes convinced that Linda murdered her husband. Skinner suspends Mulder because of impaired judgement, but Mulder pursues the case. At the prison, Modell's physical therapist is about to tell Mulder whether the nun who visited Modell is Linda (by identifying a photograph) when she receives a phone call, and electrocutes herself in an electrical breaker box.

Modell uses his power to sneak into the FBI safe house where Skinner finds him in Linda's room. Skinner shoots Modell, wounding him. The conclusion is that Modell was protecting Linda, for some reason. Linda later sneaks into the hospital by making people think she is a nurse, wearing a name tag that has "nurse" printed on it. Modell tries to convince her of something, but she kills Modell with her "pushing" power, clearly done as an act of kindness to relieve his pain. Mulder finds the "nurse" name tag, which has an address on the back. At another warehouse, he believes he sees Scully, who claims Linda is controlling her, and Mulder sees Scully shoot herself. Linda then appears, claiming to be Scully. She says "Your mother is Teena, your sister is Samantha," in order to convince him of who she is. In fact, Linda is making Mulder see an apparition of Scully shooting herself, and making the real Scully appear to be Linda. The real Scully shoots the real Linda. Linda is not killed, but makes a threat before ambulance attendants take her away.

Linda and Robert Modell were fraternal twins, separated at age two weeks. Linda only found out about Robert six months ago, and was consumed with the desire for revenge. Skinner commends Mulder for seeing the truth. Mulder says he feels as if he has lost.

Schizogeny. In Coats Grove 16 year old Bobbie Rich has a confrontation with his stepfather, Phil. They run into the orchard, Phil trips on a root and is pulled underground into the mud.

In the coroner's office, Scully finds mud in Phil's lungs and concludes that his death was murder. The hazelnut orchard is suffering from a blight. Bobbie is a rebellious teen and has been in counseling for his anger and his inability to make friends. His therapist, Karin Matthew, implies that Bobbie has been the victim of emotional abuse, including being locked in the basement, and says she counsels him and other children to end the pattern of abuse and empower themselves. Bobbie talks with a school mate, Lisa Baiocchi, who then has a confrontation with her father, Eugene, over Bobbie. Eugene is then pulled out an upper story window of his house and is killed by the fall.

A sliver of green wood is found in Eugene's body and there is evidence that he was pulled out the window rather than pushed, as police believe. Lisa spends the night at Karin's home. Lisa hears noises and sees muddy footprints leading to the basement. Lisa goes downstairs and finds a man's decayed body. The basement door slams shut and she is trapped. Meanwhile, an old man, the Orchard Keeper, tells Mulder and Scully that 20 years ago, a similar orchard blight was ended by the death of a very bad man, Karin Matthew's father. The agents visit Karin who says Lisa has gone with her aunt, but Lisa is still locked in the basement.

Mulder and Scully go to the graveyard and discover that the body of Karin Matthew's father, Charles, is missing. They question Bobbie again, and he says "she made me stand up to him." The agents return to Karin's house and follow the muddy footprints into the basement, where they find the body of Charles Matthews. They find Lisa and realize that it was Karin who suffered abuse from her father. Karin runs to her car and Mulder gives chase in his. A tree falls, blocking the path of Mulder's car. Karin goes to Bobbie's house. He is afraid and runs into the orchard where she follows. When he turns to confront her, he begins to be pulled underground -- apparently somehow caused by Karin. Mulder arrives and tries to convince Karin to oppose her father's will but in a man's voice she says that Karin is dead. Both Mulder and Bobbie are being pulled underground. At the last moment, the Orchard Keeper appears and kills Karin with his axe. The mud slowly pulls her body underground.

Mulder's case report says study of the soil composition fails to explain how people could be pulled underground, or how the body of Charles Matthew could have been moved to his daughter's basement. Her rage at her own mistreatment caused her to try to make victims of her patients.

(Karin apparently somehow has control over the orchard, the trees and the ground. No real attempt is made in the episode to explain this.)

Chinga. Melissa and her daughter, Polly, go shopping in a grocery store in Maine. Polly carries her doll. People in the store look at them oddly and Polly becomes upset. Melissa says "don't do this" and they rush out of the store as the other people begin slapping themselves and scratching their own eyes. Scully is on a weekend vacation in Maine, driving a blue Mustang convertible, and sees injured people emerging from the store. She works with local police and they notice Melissa and Polly on the store video tape. The Police Chief tells Scully that many locals think Melissa is a witch. Last year at a daycare center, Polly threw a tantrum, the teacher slapped her and Polly knocked the teacher down. Locals think Polly is autistic.

At the store there was one fatality, the butcher Dave, who was courting Melissa. Several other people who have run-ins with Polly die during the episode, including the daycare teacher and another police officer. Melissa was widowed several months earlier. Her husband was a fisherman. Scully finds his partner who tells about how the doll was found in a lobster trap. It appeared to speak and shortly after Melissa's husband was found dead with a large fisherman's hook through his skull. Scully gives the Chief the "extreme possibility" speech. By phone, Mulder tells Scully that the talking doll is established in the literature of the paranormal. Each time Polly's doll causes a death or injury, its eyes open and it says something like "I want to play."

Melissa, meanwhile, is at her wit's end. She knows what is going on, but cannot get the doll away from Polly. In desperation, she nails shut the windows and doors of their house, pours out kerosene from a space heater and attempts to burn the house, with Polly, herself and the doll in it. Each time Melissa lights a match, the doll blows it out. Scully and the Chief are at the door of Melissa's house while this is going on. They break in and find Melissa striking herself with a hammer. Scully grabs the doll away from Polly, puts it in a microwave oven and fries it. Melissa stops hitting herself and the effects end. Sometime later, as the episode ends, we see another lobster fisherman find a burned doll in a lobster trap. Its eyes open and it says "I want to play."

Possibly inspired by the birth of her brother's son and by learning about her own child, Emily, Scully consults a fertility specialist, Dr. Parenti, at Zeus Genetics, in Germantown, MD. Parenti and his colleagues tell Scully that they believe there is a chance that under their care she can become pregnant. Scully asks Mulder to be the father, using an artificial insemination procedure. After expressing concern that it could somehow come between them, Mulder agrees, but the procedure is not successful. Scully is unaware that Parenti, and a colleague, Dr. Lev, are collaborating with an effort to cause women to have alien babies, many of whom are borm deformed. (Per Manum) (See dating note in the Per Manum entry, February 2001.)

Kill Switch. Anonymous phone calls summon several Washington DC drug lords to the Metro Diner where an ill man is working over a laptop computer. Just as he is about to make a connection and upload software from a CD-ROM, US Marshals burst into the diner and gunfire erupts. Mulder and Scully are called to the site. Both Marshals and most of the drug operatives are dead, as is the ill man, identified as Donald Gelman. He was one of the early masterminds of the Internet but disappeared on a hiking trip in 1979. Mulder takes Gelman's computer to the Lone Gunmen who examine the CD-ROM. Buried beneath the "Twilight Time" music is an elaborate encrypted code.

Scully suggests contacting Gelman's E-Mail. There is a single message from "Invisigoth" containing a number that appears to be a shipping container tracking code. Mulder and Scully locate the crate referenced in the docks near the river. As Mulder enters the crate, a women inside uses an electric shock weapon to immobilize Mulder. Scully apprehends the woman in spite of being shocked by the device herself. The woman, sporting a nose ring and extremely exaggerated eye make-up, claims to be Invisigoth. The crate is filled with computer equipment and Invisigoth claims that a Department of Defense "Warbird" orbital weapons platform space laser is targeting the crate to destroy her. A monitor shows the name "Bright Lights" and shows a scene of the docks from space, zeroing in on the crate. Scully thinks it is nonsense but Mulder encourages them to scram. The crate explodes as the three drive away.

Invisigoth says she was an associate of Gelman, along with David Markham. David and Esther were lovers and were working to upload a human mind into cyberspace but Gelman forbade it. Their problem is that some years earlier Gelman attempted to create an artificial intelligence by writing a series of interlocking viruses. The viruses got out into the Internet and developed volition as well as intelligence. Gelman wanted to destroy it by uploading killer viruses -- the software on the CD-ROM known as the Kill Switch -- and the AI is working to protect itself. The AI summoned the criminals and the US Marshals to the diner to get Gelman killed. The crate was targeted after the Lone Gunmen tried to send a reply to Gelman's E-Mail message. The Lone Gunmen recognize Invisigoth as Esther Nairn and proclaim her as famous among computer geeks. She distains them as far beneath her skill.

Esther says the AI must have inhabited a home node somewhere that has a very high bandwidth link to the Internet. Mulder traces a T3 connection to an abandoned chicken farm in Virginia. The line leads to a travel trailer. Inside Mulder finds the trailer crammed with electronics. He also finds a body -- David Markham -- strapped into the equipment in Virtual Reality gear. The hardware reaches out and grabs Mulder and sparks fly. In scenes that Mulder later discovers are virtual reality, Mulder wakes up in an antiquated operating room, passes out and wakes up again in recovery, attended by a half dozen large breasted miniskirted nurses. One of them, Nurse Nancy, shows him that one of his arms has been removed and says the rest of his limbs will be removed if Mulder does not tell the location of the Kill Switch. Scully bursts into the room, subdues the nurses with kick boxing, then questions Mulder relentlessly about the location of the Kill Switch. She obviously does not care about his amputations, leading Mulder to realize it is an illusion.

Scully and Esther follow Mulder to the trailer. They hear Mulder inside, calling out, and they enter the trailer. The AI actually wants to read the Kill Switch so it can inoculate itself against the killer virus. Esther realizes that the space laser is targeting the trailer. Scully assists Mulder outside and away from the trailer. Esther stays inside, realizing that David had been successful in uploading his mind into cyberspace. She does the same and her body dies just before the trailer is destroyed by the laser. Somewhat later, the Lone Gunmen's computer displays the unusual message "Bite Me," apparently from Esther and we learn that the AI relocated itself to a vehicle in an RV park in North Platte, Nebraska. (Note: It is snowing in one scene with Scully and Esther outside the trailer, indicating winter.)

Bad Blood. In a flashback, we see Mulder pursuing a man through a forest near Chaney, Texas. The man is screaming for help. Mulder catches him and drives a wooden stake through the man's heart. Scully runs up. The agents find the man's mouth has fangs, but the fangs are fake. Mulder issues a curse.

At FBI headquarters the next day, Mulder and Scully discuss Mulder's killing of Ronnie Strickland. Ronnie's relatives are threatening to sue the FBI and Mulder and Scully may be charged with murder. To help sort out their stories, both Mulder and Scully relate their memories of the events.

Scully goes first: When Scully arrived for work Mulder was exuberant about a series of cattle mutilations in Texas. After six dead cattle, a human victim has been found, missing blood and with two puncture wounds in the neck. There is no morgue in Chaney so they go to the funeral home. The local sheriff is charming and flirts with Scully. Mulder finds the victim's shoes untied and rushes off with the sheriff to the cemetery. Scully, feeling exhausted, does an autopsy, finding a knockout drug in the man's system and pizza in his stomach. She returns to her motel room, where she orders pizza. Mulder arrives, covered with mud, and says there is another victim. As Scully unhappily leaves to do another autopsy, her pizza is delivered by Ronnie Strickland, but she leaves it for Mulder. The second victim also has knockout drugs in his system and pizza in his stomach. Scully gets a cell phone call but can only hear someone moaning. She realizes that Mulder is in danger from the possibly drugged pizza. Rushing back to the motel she finds Ronnie in Mulder's room. Ronnie has glowing eyes, hisses at her and runs off. She fires her gun at him but apparently misses. Mulder also revives and both chase Ronnie into the woods, going different directions. Scully finds Mulder and Ronnie just after Mulder has plunged the stake into Ronnie's heart.

Mulder's version: Scully is very skeptical of the possible vampire activity and ridicules the whole investigation. The sheriff is a hick. At the cemetery Mulder expects to find the vampire, and Ronnie waves from his pizza delivery car as he drives by. Mulder says vampires are obsessed by seeds and knots, which is why the victim's shoe laces were untied. Mulder sprinkles sunflower seeds around the cemetery thinking it may delay the vampire, who will be obsessed by picking them up. As they stake out the cemetery the sheriff gets a radio call from the RV park. A motor home is driving in a circle with nobody in control. Mulder gets muddy trying to board the vehicle, and another body is found inside, with neck wounds. Back at the motel, Scully leaves for the second autopsy and Mulder begins undressing, slipping his shoes off without undoing the laces. He pays for the pizza, going into the bathroom to get his wallet, and begins eating. Then he sees that Ronnie untied his show laces. He begins to lose consciousness and telephones Scully, but cannot talk. Ronnie returns and Mulder throws sunflower seeds at him, causing Ronnie to pause and pick them up. Scully arrives as Ronnie begins to attack Mulder. Mulder sees Scully's bullets hit Ronnie with no effect. They run into the woods and Mulder drives the stake into Ronnie's heart.

Just as they prepare to try to explain these events to Skinner, Skinner sends them back to Texas, because Ronnie's body has disappeared and the pathologist conducting the autopsy has been found with his neck chewed. Back in the cemetery, Mulder tells Scully that vampires may not really have fangs, accounting for Ronnie's fake fangs. The agents also comment that Ronnie's relatives who were threatening to sue only gave a general delivery address. The sheriff arrives and sits in the car with Scully drinking coffee while Mulder goes off to check the RV park. As Scully realizes that the coffee is drugged, the sheriff tells Scully that Ronnie just can't grasp the concept of low profile, and the things he is doing is not "who we are anymore." The sheriff's eyes begin glowing -- he is also a vampire. Scully passes out.

At the RV park, Mulder enters an RV and finds a coffin with Ronnie in it, who wakes up. Multiple other people with glowing eyes approach. Mulder attempts to form a cross, but it has no effect. He passes out as they reach him. Both Mulder and Scully wake up unharmed. The RV park is empty. The vampires have left and Mulder and Scully are off the hook, because there is clear evidence that Ronnie was not killed. Mulder and Scully's final report to Skinner brushes off all of the details and says "I was drugged." (Note: This is a very funny comic episode with humor drawn from the different perspectives of Mulder and Scully on the events.)

On Valentine's Day, in drought-stricken Kroner, Kansas, Sheila Fontaine prepares a special Valentine greeting for her fiance, Daryl Mootz. When he arrives home, he is upset because she has printed an engagement announcement in the local newspaper. Upset, he leaves and drives off. It begins to rain on him, then hail, and his car crashes. His left leg is eventually amputated.(Rain King)

Patient X. In Kazakhstan, a boy, Dmitri, witnesses a scene in which a light from the sky descends and several people are burned to death. Soon after, a UN team led by Marita Covarrubias and a Russian team led by Alex Krycek confront each other. Krycek has Dmitri and takes him to a prison where he is infected with Black Cancer. Krycek, however, makes off with Dmitri and takes him by ship to New York.

Fox Mulder is on an MIT visiting lecturer's panel discussing the case of "Patient X," Cassandra Spender, who says she has been taken by aliens several times. Mulder does not believe, saying instead that it is a government conspiracy. Dr. Heitz Werber tells Mulder that he is treating Cassandra, and Mulder meets her in person. She says the different alien races are warring and she expects to be called. They are here to deliver a message, but something has gone wrong. Cassandra is confined to a wheelchair. At FBI Headquarters, Special Agent Jeffrey Spender talks with Scully. Cassandra is his mother and she is emotionally disturbed, he says. He asks that the X-File agents not talk with Cassandra. Mulder and Scully then discuss Cassandra. She was abducted from Skyland Mountain, Virginia, where Scully was taken. At Skyland Mountain, several cars carrying abductees are waiting. The Bounty Hunter approaches carrying a wand and sets people on fire. The Bounty Hunter's face appears to have the eyes, nose and mouth sealed shut.

Marita reports to the Consortium about Kazakhstan. There were 41 bodies, all burned by an intense biochemical reaction. The Elders say there is no clear information on the weapon used. We are still 15 years away from when "it begins." While they meet, Krycek telephones. He knows the Consortium is working on a vaccine for the black oil. He wants to trade Dmitri. Later, the Consortium learns about the Skyland Mountain incident. Someone is going to great lengths to undermine their work. "We have to stop it before the Colonists intervene." On the ship, Krycek and Marita meet. They kiss passionately and go off to be alone. After Marita has left, Krycek discovers that Dmitri has been taken.

Cassandra recognizes the names of many of the Skyland Mountain victims. She was in a UFO cult with them 20 years ago. Scully is feeling called. Mulder learns that several of the dead had implants and were being treated for emotional problems. Marita calls Mulder to tell him about Kazakhstan. While she is talking to Mulder from a pay phone, Dmitri approaches with oil leaking from his eyes. Mulder learns that Scully and Cassandra are both missing. They are on a bridge -- Ruskin Dam in Pennsylvania -- with a large group of people, waiting. Dmitri is there, too. There are lights in the sky. One of the people bursts into flames and we see two men in black approach, carrying the wands that set people on fire. They seem to be faceless -- their eyes, nose and mouth seem covered by skin.

Note: The MIT panel in this episode is probably the UFO convention referenced in The Pine Bluff Variant. At some point following the UFO convention, Mulder is approached by Jacob Steven Haley, a domestic terrorist. Haley is on a crusade against the American government. Because of Mulder's accusations about a conspiracy in the government, Haley believes Mulder may support the effort. Mulder, however, reports the contact immediately and begins a deep undercover assignment to capture Haley and his band of terrorists. Scully is not told. Mulder soon learns that August Bremer is the mastermind of the group, and is vying with Haley for actual leadership. (Pine Bluff Varient)

Charles Wesley Gotts is paroled from prison. He travels to Atlantic City to see the ocean, and quickly returns to a life of crime, obtaining a briefcase full of drugs that he plans to sell in Wilmington, Delaware.

The Red and the Black. The camera sees a close-up of a letter being typed on a typewriter. "Dear son, I hope this finds you well..." The letter talks of reconciliation, and tells a legend of twin war gods coming together to get magic and weapons from their father to eliminate the monsters of the world. The letter voices hopes for a reconciliation between father and son. A boy trudges through a snowy Canadian forest to the door of a cabin. An arm hands a red envelope to the boy, who sees that it is addressed to someone at the FBI.

At Ruskin Dam in Pennsylvania, rescue crews arrive and find many burned bodies. Mulder also arrives and learns that Scully is one of fifty survivors. Cassandra Spender is missing. Scully is taken by helicopter ambulance and ends up at Memorial Hospital in Washington DC. She wakes up but has no memory of what happened or how she got to Pennsylvania. Many of the burned bodies had implants, possibly used to call the people to the dam. Mulder believes that the government made the chips. He does not trust his memory of his sister's abduction. Mulder suggests that Scully undergo hypnotic regression to remember what happened at the dam.

Cohorts of the Well Manicured Man have found Marita alongside the road. She is infected with the Black Oil and is unconscious. The Well Manicured Man is also holding Krycek captive in the Russian ship and realizes that Krycek has a vaccine making resistance to the "alien colonists" possible. Meanwhile, at Weikamp AFB, a UFO crashes. One occupant of the craft is dead, the other is one of the faceless men who were at the dam. Security Police take him into custody.

Dr. Heitz Werber hypnotizes Scully. She remembers seeing a UFO overhead. It disappears and the faceless men appear, setting people on fire. Another UFO arrives and attacks the faceless men. Cassandra Spender is levitated into the ship and it leaves. Scully awakes, shocked by her memories. Later, Jeffrey Spender visits the X-Files office and talks with Scully. He plays a tape of himself as an eleven year child, telling a story about his mother's abduction, but says it was false, induced by having her tell so often what she said happened and because Spender's father left his family.

Marita has been given the vaccine Krycek provided, but she has not awakened. The Elder orders the surviving faceless man to be turned over to the colonists, saying "survival means cooperation." The consortium thought they were fifteen years away from the colonization, or whatever they are working toward, but it seems to be beginning now. The Well Manicured Man argues that an alliance might be possible with the rebel faction of the colonists but the Elder will hear nothing of it. The Bounty Hunter, (first seen in the episode Colony) enters the Air Force Base by climbing over the chain link fence topped by razor wire. Mulder comes home to find Krycek in his apartment. Krycek says there is a war and five billion people could die as the result of the planned colonization of Earth by an alien race. Krycek says "I was sent by a man who knows that resistance is in our grasp." He says the sites of the deaths are "lighthouses" where the invasion will begin. The burnings were done by a resistance.

Mulder does not believe but Krycek gives him the name of Weikamp AFB. Mulder and Scully go there and find the base uncustomarily closed. As they are at the gate a truck leaves, driven by a man Scully recognizes from the dam -- a man viewers know to be an operative of the consortium and the man who shot the Cigarette Smoking Man. Mulder jumps on the back of the truck and climbs into the canvas-covered bed. Inside he finds a cell containing the surviving faceless man. The driver morphs and becomes the Bounty Hunter. He stops the truck, possibly because the Air Force Base gate has notified him by radio that Mulder has boarded the truck. The Bounty Hunter enters the back, looking for Mulder, and pulls out an "ice pick" device, which can be used to immobilize Bounty Hunters. A UFO appears over the truck and a faceless man enters, carrying a burning wand. Mulder shoots his gun, then experiences lost time. He wakes up surrounded by security police, unable to remember what happened. The Bounty Hunter and the faceless man are gone.

There is no news about Cassandra. We see that Marita's eyes are clear of the Black Oil indicating that the vaccine has worked. Skinner tells Jeffrey Spender that he has a powerful patron outside the office. Spender receives a letter mailed from Canada. Then we return to the Canadian forest and see a boy walking up to the cabin in the snow. He gives a letter to the occupant, who is the Cigarette Smoking Man, and we see that the letter he wrote to somebody in the FBI has been returned, unopened.

Notes: (1) The return address given on the letter at the opening and close of this episode is Rural Route #1. North Hatley, Quebec. The letter received by spender is addressed to Mr. Jeffrey Spender, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC. Pennsylvania Avenue and Washington DC are visible on the envelope returned to CSM but the addressee's name is covered by the Return to Sender No Forwarding Service Available label. (2) One of the faceless men seen in Patient X certainly looks like Brian Thompson, who plays the Bounty Hunter. The episode makes it evident, however, that the character the Bounty Hunter was not one of the faceless men. (3) The episode name was taken from a novel that was famous for exploration the psyche of its characters. The actual name is a reference to roulette.

Mind's Eye. In Wilmington, Delaware, a 28 year old blind woman, Marty Glenn, sees a vision of a murder. A short time later, police find her at the murder scene with blood all over her, attempting to clean up the crime scene. She is arrested for committing the crime. Detective Pennock, of the Wilmington police, tells Mulder and Scully that he thinks she has some sort of sixth sense that allowed her to see and commit the crime.

Mulder and Scully interview Marty in jail and she has no convincing explanation for being at the murder scene. No murder weapon has been found. The victim was a drug dealer, Paco Ordonez, and was killed with a C-shaped cut to the kidneys. Mulder has Marty take a polygraph test and the needles go crazy when he asks if she "saw" the murder. At the murder scene, Scully finds bloody gloves stuffed into the razor blade disposal bin in the wall. Marty's prints are all over the gloves and they fit her. There are two different types of blood on the gloves. Alone in her cell, Marty has a vision of a man bothering a woman in a bar. She uses a phone to telephone the bar and tells the man "leave her alone, I'm watching you."

Marty's eyes are tested and it is clear she has no vision, but at one point her pupils contract as if she is seeing something. The Assistant DA orders her release. As she leaves the police station she "sees" the murderer assaulting the woman he was bothering the night before, trying to find out who telephoned him. Marty rushes to the alley where she saw this, and finds the woman dead. She returns to the police department and confesses to both murders, apparently to protect herself from the murderer. She tells the police where to find the murderer's drug stash, claiming it is hers, however her fingerprints are not on the briefcase and the fingerprints of Charles Wesley Gotts are all over it. His blood was also on the gloves. He was sent to prison in 1970 and was paroled three weeks ago. Mulder tells Marty that tests show Gotts is her father. Original records show that Marty's mother was killed while she was pregnant with Marty. Marty survived, but the loss of blood flow destroyed her sight. At the same time some sort of link was created to her father and she has seen through his eyes all her life.

Marty is transferred to the Women's Detention Center and she sees Gotts watching her walk during the transfer. He is tracking her. Marty agrees to help catch Gotts. She sends Mulder and Scully to a bar and goes to her apartment with the detective to collect her things to take to protective custody. She lied to Mulder and Scully, however. Gotts comes to her apartment. Marty knocks out the detective and takes his gun. Seeing through Gotts's eyes she kills Gotts to end her seeing through his eyes. She is arrested and sentenced. In prison, she tells Mulder that after getting out of prison Gotts went to Atlantic City and she saw the ocean, a glorious sight that is now all she visualizes. She is satisfied to be in prison but not see with Gotts's eyes.

All Souls. A week after Easter, Scully goes to confession and tells a priest of her experiences of the previous week. After Easter Sunday services, her family priest, Father McCue asks Dana to talk with a family whose daughter died recently under mysterious circumstances. 16 year old Dara Kernof had a congenital spinal deformity and was confined to a wheelchair, but somehow walked outside at night. She was found in the street kneeling as if in prayer, with her eyes burned out. The only explanation is that she may have been struck by lightning, but there is no typical evidence of such a strike. Dara had one extra digit on each hand and foot, which had been surgically removed. She was adopted and Mulder learns that she was a quadruplet.

Pine Bluff Variant. In Folger Park, Washington D.C., Mulder is jogging -- part of an undercover operation with several other agents to trail Jacob Steven Haley. Haley meets another man, gives him something in an envelope, and soon after the man collapses. Haley runs off and Mulder gives chase, but claims Haley got away. Scully becomes very suspicious when a tape shows that Mulder allowed Haley to escape. Haley is leader of a domestic terrorist group. The death was the result of a genetically engineered bio-agent. Skinner is leading the investigation along with another man, listed in the episode credits as the Field Agent.

Folie a Deux. In Oak Brook, Illinois, a telemarketer for VinalRight Siding, Gary Lambert, believes he sees an insectoid-like monster moving among the telemarketing cubicles, which nobody else sees. He sends an anonymous tape recording to a radio station, asking that it be broadcast, warning workers at VinalRight that a monster is stalking them to take their souls. Skinner assigns Mulder and Scully to do a threat assessment for the company. Mulder goes to Illinois by himself, because it seems to be a trivial case.

The head of the telemarketing operation, Greg Pinkas, tells Mulder that in 1994, a warehouse worker at VinalRight's Kansas City plant brought guns to work and fired on employees, so the company is concerned. The tape used the phrase that the monster was "hiding in the light," and Mulder asks Scully to research that phrase. She finds an X-File from 1992 in which a man fired on Lakeland, Florida, church-goers, claiming that there was an evil presence among them. Pinkas tells Mulder he is questioning each of the telemarketers to make sure they are happy in their work. He calls Gary's Blonde seat-mate to his office and she returns with a face looking like a zombie, but only Gary can see it. Mulder returns to VinalRight over the noon hour and finds that Gary is holding the workers hostage with a gun. Mulder claims to be there to apply for a job. Gary divides the people by whether they are "actual people" or zombies. He claims Pinkas is evil.

Scully arrives in Illinois and finds a SWAT team outside VinalRight. Gary thinks he sees something coming out of an air vent and fires. The SWAT commander calls Mulder's cell phone to open communications. Gary finds Mulder's gun and FBI ID. One of the men Gary thinks is a zombie, Backus, makes a sudden move and Gary kills him. Gary answers the cell phone and demands a television camera so he can expose Pinkas. They send in a cameraman to placate Gary and to allow agents to scan the room and see Gary's vulnerable areas. On camera, Gary moves to kill "the monster," the lights go out, Mulder also sees that Pinkas looks insectoid. Before anything else can happen, an armored vehicle bursts into the room through a wall and Gary is killed. Back in Washington, Mulder finds similar cases in seven cities over ten years, and Pinkas was present for several of them. Mulder asks Scully to autopsy Backus and returns to Illinois, where he visits Gary's home. He sees the Blonde outside and rushes out. The Blonde and Pinkas are in a car, driving off. Later, Mulder follows Pinkas to the home of Gretchen Starns and sees the insectoid attack her. Mulder bursts into the house and attempts to kill the monster, but it is outside, escaping by crawling up the wall.

Skinner comes to Illinois and Gretchen claims Mulder acted like a madman. As Skinner reprimands Mulder, Mulder sees Pinkas/insectoid move toward Skinner. Mulder becomes violent and stops Pinkas, but ends up in restraints in a psych ward of a hospital. Mulder tells Scully he saw Pinkas inject something into the back of Gretchen's neck. Scully returns to Backus' body and finds three small holes in the back of the neck. That night, Mulder's sees the shadow of the insectoid outside his hospital window and calls to the nurse. She says nothing is there, and opens the window -- she is a zombie. She leaves, saying "don't let the bed bugs bite" and the insectoid begins approaching Mulder in the darkened room. Mulder is restrained, so he cannot escape. At the last moment, Scully bursts into the room and shoots at the insectoid, but it escapes out the window.

Mulder is returned to duty on Scully's testimony that Backus had an unidentified toxin in his system, that there was "an intruder" in Mulder's room, and that Pinkas and several workers who Gary claimed were zombies have disappeared. In Camdenton, Missouri, we see a telemarketer become suspicious that there is a monster in his office that other people cannot see.

The End. In a packet stadium in Vancouver, a Russian man and an American boy play chess. Overhead, an assassin sets up his weapon. The boy seems to hear unintelligible noises. Just as the boy declares "checkmate," the man is shot and killed. Meanwhile, in the Lautentian Mountains of Canada, two paratroopers land on snow and approach the cabin where the Cigarette Smoking Man is living. One is shot while trying to enter the cabin. The other sees footprints in the snow showing that CSM is running. He follows, getting the drop on him. The commando is Alex Krycek and he was sent to bring CSM back for the Consortium. They have a job for CSM, which he accepts.

Skinner tells Mulder that Agent Spender has been assigned to handle the chess match killing and he does not want Mulder involved. Mulder goes into the briefing anyway and quickly points out on the tape that the boy, named Gibson, pulled back just as the shot was fired, as if he knew about the assassin. Also in the briefing is Scully and Agent Diana Fowley. She supports Mulder. She has been with the Bureau since 1991 and has been working at the embassy in Berlin, but she had some things in the US she wanted to get back to. Mulder, Scully and Fowley interview Gibson in a psych hospital in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Mulder thinks he can read minds. He tells Mulder, "You're thinking about one of the girls you brought." Scully doesn't believe he is a mind reader, and even if he was, who would want to kill him? Diana suggests, maybe someone whose business is keeping secrets.

Mulder interviews the shooter, who is in custody, over Spender's objection. The shooter is a former intelligence agent, and the gun is registered to an intelligence agency. Mulder offers immunity. Later, the shooter is slipped a note written on an opened pack of Morleys saying "you're a dead man." Meanwhile, Gibson is undergoing tests for mind reading, and is proving 100% accurate. Scully takes the test results to the Lone Gunmen for analysis "with an eye to the parapsychological." They tell her that Diana was Mulder's "chicky" when she just got out of the academy, around 1991. She was there when he discovered the X-Files. The Gunmen always wondered why they split up.

Mulder and Diana talk. She says Gibson is the real thing. Too bad Mulder doesn't have a partner who is more supportive -- Scully doesn't seem to have a very open mind. Scully sees them talking and holding hands, and is upset. Rather than walking up to them in person she goes to her car and calls on the cell phone. She has important news about Gibson. As she drives off, Agent Spender arrives and is accosted in the parking garage by CSM. Spender is bewildered and has no idea who CSM is. Mulder sees them and becomes suspicious of Spender. With everyone gathered together in Skinner's office, Scully explains -- Gibson has an unusual level of development in one brain lobe that science doesn't understand well. Mulder thinks the boy may be the key to understanding human potential and to everything in the X-Files. He presses for immunity for the shooter. Later, Mulder goes back to the shooter and says the Attorney General is considering immunity but needs more information. The shooter says the boy is a missing link and Mulder jumps to the conclusion that Gibson has alien genes and is proof of ancient astronauts.

Diana is watching Gibson in a motel safe house. Gibson senses there's a man outside with a gun. Diana is shot through the window. Later, as Diana is loaded into an ambulance, Mulder arrives. She is barely alive. The shooter has been found dead in his cell, with a pack of Morleys in the cell. CSM has Gibson and turns him over to the Consortium. Mulder accosts Spender in public and accuses him of working for CSM. Spender, in turn, presses charges against Mulder. Skinner informs Scully that there is talk in the Justice Department of reassigning Mulder and Scully and closing the X-Files. Mulder thinks it was all a plan against him, and this time they may have won.

CSM is in the X-Files office. He takes the Samantha Mulder file and leaves, meeting Spender in the hall. "I can give you access," he tells Spender. "Who are you?" "I'm your father." Before more can be said, a fire alarm goes off. The X-Files filing cabniets are on fire, and the fire soon spreads to the rest of the office. When Mulder and Scully arrive the office has been destroyed. All the files are gone. Scully gives Mulder a long hug, and the fifth season of the X-Files ends.

The public premier of The X-Files Movie. The events of the movie are presumably set during the summer of 1998. The telegram in the final scenes has the date "September 6" on it. This Timeline makes the assumption that most of the events in the movie happen in August, with some of the concluding scenes in September. It has been pointed out, however, that the action in Antarctica is sunlit, and the sun only shines in Antarctica during Southern Hemisphere's Summer, or from about September 21 to March 21.

In the Falls at Arcadia, a planned community near San Diego, the Klines are killed by a Talpus, a Tibetan folk monster, conjured up by the homeowner's association to help keep the community looking neat.(Arcadia)

In Blackwood, Texas, a boy named Stevie falls through ground near his home into an underground cave. Black Oil flows out of the ground and enters his body. Three friends call for help, and the Black Oil also enters four firemen who enter the cave to rescue Stevie. A mysterious bio-containment team arrives, hauls off some of the infected people and sets up biocontainment tents over the cave opening.

A week later, with the X-Files closed, Mulder and Scully (still partners) are in Dallas to assist with the search for a bomb. A threat has been received to blow up the Dallas Federal building. Without permission, Mulder has gone to a nearby building, checking it for explosives, because none have been found in the Federal building. Scully came along. Taking a break from the search, Mulder enters a room with vending machines and discovers the bomb inside a vending machine, with a timer counting down to zero, but he is locked in the room. Using cell phones, he informs Scully who mobilizes authorities to evacuate the building. A cutting torch is used to open the door to the vending room. The agent in charge, Darius Michaud, orders everyone else out of the building, indicating that he will disarm the bomb alone. Mulder hesitates, because it is against FBI policy to leave an agent alone in such circumstances, but Mulder allows himself to be rushed outside. Michaud takes no steps to disarm the bomb, waiting calmly for death, and a massive explosion rocks the building, as the final evacuation vehicles race away from the scene.

Back in Washington, Scully testifies before an investigation committee of the Office of Professional Responsibility that, in effect, is looking to place the blame for not preventing the explosion. Scully and Mulder learn that a boy and three firemen have been reported killed in the explosion, along with Michaud. Scully is informed that she and Mulder will be split up, and she considers resigning from the FBI. She says being stationed at a field office, such as Omaha, would not hold the interest for her. Later, Mulder goes to a bar to drown his sorrows and meets Dr. Kurtzweil, who says he was an associate of Mulder's father, but who left the Project. Kurtzweil claims that the fatalities in the explosion were already dead before the explosion, in a Federal Emergency Management Agency office in the building, and that the explosion was to cover their deaths. He says Michaud sacrificed himself for the Conspiracy.

We see a scene at the bio-containment facility set up at the cave. Another human body is there with its skin turning transparent. Inside a creature can be seen, growing and feeding on the body as scientists study it. As the Cigarette Smoking Man inspects the site, Black Oil is being pumped through pipes at the biocontainment site, possibly into unmarked tanker trucks outside.

Mulder rousts Scully out of bed and they go to the Bethesda Naval Hospital morgue where the bodies of some of the fatalities have been sent. She finds that they were not killed by the explosion but have some sort of virus in them that is dissolving their internal organs. Mulder returns to the bar and talks with Kurtzweil who claims the FEMA story about an outbreak of the Hanta virus is a lie. Meanwhile, Scully is almost caught by security personnel as she studies the body in the morgue.

At the biocontainment site, the alien unexpectedly exits the body, before the vaccine can be tested and attacks one of the scientists. He is sealed in the ground to contain the escaped alien.

The Elders meet in London and are alarmed that the virus has mutated. Instead of just occupying the human body, it is growing a new alien organism inside. It becomes clear that the original intent of the Consortium, 50 years ago, was to cooperate with the Colonists as a way of buying time to develop a vaccine. They decide they must prove to the Colonists that they know about the mutated virus by showing them a human body in which an organism is growing. The Consortium has been working for years to help the Colonists spread the virus, under the impression that at worst the human race might be enslaved. Now they are concerned that they may have been misled and that the alien Colonists will commit genocide against the human race. The Well Manicured Man is upset that decisions have been made before he arrived. During this meeting we meet Strugholdt, who is the apparent leader of the Consortium. He lives in Tunis and flew in especially for this crisis meeting.

The agents fly to Texas and find evidence of the same virus in archeological bone fragments recovered from the explosion -- apparently the remains of one of the hunters 37,000 years ago. The local officials tell Mulder and Scully where the bones were collected and they go there, to the site where Stevie fell into the cave. (This site may be several hours drive from Dallas, because the agents arrive near sundown.) Stevie's friends tell the agents that the trucks just left an hour earlier, and the agents pursue. They eventually find a field of irrigated corn in the middle of the Texas brush, near the US border. At night they enter one of two illuminated domes in the field. As they are exploring, louvers open releasing swarms of bees. Mulder and Scully escape the dome without being stung, then are chased through the corn by helicopters.

Back in Washington, Scully presents her additional evidence to the investigation committee, but they are unconvinced. Meanwhile Mulder and Kurtzweil talk, and conclude that the corn is genetically modified to carry the virus, which is picked up by bees. At Mulder's apartment later, Scully tells Mulder that she has been transferred to Salt Lake City, but that she has resigned. Mulder entreats her to continue to help him pursue the truth. In a tender moment they almost kiss, but Scully is stung by a bee that has apparently been inside her clothing all the way back from Texas. She immediately goes into shock. Mulder calls for help and an ambulance quickly arrives. At the last minute as they depart with Scully, the ambulance driver shoots Mulder, grazing his temple. As the first ambulance (carrying agents of the Consortium) leave, the real ambulance arrives. Mulder wakes up in a hospital, under guard. This incident represents at least the eighth time in her FBI career that Scully has been kidnapped, abducted or taken hostage.

The Lone Gunmen and Skinner help him leave secretly (wearing Byer's clothes with Byers in Mulder's bed, talking with Skinner), and Mulder seeks out Dr. Kurtzweil at the bar. Instead he meets the Well Manicured Man. Kurtzweil is apparently dead but the WMM (who opposes surrendering to the Colonists) invites Mulder into his car. He explains the alien virus, saying that it was the original inhabitant of the planet, millions of years ago. He says many aliens await underground for the Colonists arrival. He says the Consortium cooperated initially because they thought the human race would just be "occupied" by the virus. There is concern, however, that the Colonists plan to use humans to gestate a new race of aliens, which is a violation of their agreement. There is an implication, not completely clear, that the bees distribute the alien virus that is picked up from genetically engineered corn pollen. WMM and Mulder discuss Mulder's father, William. He allowed Samantha to be taken into the cloning program, so she could survive as a genetic hybrid, immune to the virus. WMM gives Mulder a vaccine and geographic coordinates where Scully can be found. They may be WMM's way of insuring that the vaccine would be entered into the Colonist's environment, because he knows Mulder will do anything to save Scully. WMM dies in an explosion of his car just after Mulder leaves, because he betrayed the Consortium.

Mulder makes his way to Wilkes Land Antarctica (which is south of Australia) 48 hours later, and driving a Snowcat he discovers an installation where WMM said it would be. He runs out of gas and as he approaches on foot, he falls into a hole in the snow, sliding several dozen feet or more down a pipe in the snow. He finds himself inside a huge alien spacecraft. He eventually finds Scully, naked and sealed in a fluid canister that is apparently used to incubate the virus inside her. He breaks the canister open and injects her with the vaccine.

There is a quick response that also affects the hundreds or thousands of other canisters, also containing incubating humans. Mulder wraps Scully in his parka and puts his outer snow pants on her (a scene not shown on screen) and they begin to make their way out of the spaceship. Scully is semi-conscious, at best. At one point he has to perform CPR on her as aliens in nearby canisters come to life and try to break out, but Scully coughs and revives. Soon after, the agents are pursued by these highly aggressive aliens, saved only by an earthquake caused by the ship beginning to move, that knocks the aliens back down into a hole in the ice. As Mulder and Scully run away from the buried ship, the ice and snow collapses behind them, forming a giant crater that expands behind them as they run. They barely escape as the giant ship lifts off and departs. Scully is groggy and does not clearly see the ship depart. Some fans claim to hear her murmur "I saw it." Others claim she says no such thing. (Movie)

Again returning to Washington, Scully presents her final evidence to the Office of Professional Responsibility committee. Her conclusion is that the FBI does not currently have an investigation unit competent to study the evidence.

Outdoors, Mulder tells Scully that she was right to quit, but she says now that she cannot, because the virus has a cure and they can save many lives by continuing the search for the truth. (Movie)

In the Tunesian desert, we see another field of irrigated corn, and domes housing bees. The Cigarette Smoking Man pays a call on Strughold to say that Mulder has been reinvigorated by his experiences. Strughold dismisses Mulder as an annoyance who has seen only pieces and does not understand the greater whole of The Project. Strughold adds "One man alone cannot Fight the Future." CSM shows Strughold a telegram that arrived the day before saying "X-Files reopened, please advise." (Movie)

The Beginning. In Phoenix, AZ, an employee of Roush Technologies, Sandy, is sick when a corporate carpool van leaves him off at home. In the morning, he doesn't come out to the van so another Roush employee enters the house looking for him. Sandy is on a sofa with his chest exploded outward. The other man is attacked and killed by an alien before he can leave the building.

In Washington, Mulder is using high tech equipment to salvage information from the burned X-Files. The investigating committee has trouble believing the story of the alien ship in the antarctic. After the meeting, Scully tells Mulder that she still must rely on science. Skinner tells Mulder that his reassignment to the X-Files has been denied, but Skinner directs Mulder to a file folder in the X-Files office. In the folder, Mulder finds information on Sandy's death. Agent Spender walks in and we learn that Spender and agent Diana Foley have been assigned to the X-Files. Meanwhile the Cigarette Smoking Man informs the Consortium that the alien is alive and is being sought. He enters a surgery facility and tells the doctors that Gibson Praise must be prepared to travel. Gibson's ability to read minds may help locate the alien. Mulder and Scully visit Sandy's house, violating FBI rules, and find a piece of claw left in a gouged wall.

At the Rolling Hills Nuclear plant, 60 miles from Phoenix, a nuclear engineer named Homer investigates an unusual gauge reading and is killed by the alien, which is hiding in the hot chambers near the reactor. By the time Mulder and Scully learn of the incident and arrive there are dozens of FBI and emergency response people at the plant. Spender and Foley deny Mulder and Scully access to the scene and as Mulder and Scully leave, they find Gibson hiding in their car. They take him to the Camelback View Motel. Gibson's skull has been cut open and stitched back shut. He has a fever and is not well. Scully argues that Gibson could be their last best chance to prove Mulder's beliefs. As they leave to take Gibson to a hospital, Foley arrives and tells Mulder that she accepted the X-Files assignment to protect Mulder's interests. The creature is in the reactor #4 building. Mulder goes with her to find it while Scully takes Gibson to the hospital. Gibson is soon kidnapped by an operative of the Cigarette Smoking Man and also taken to the nuclear plant.

Mulder and Foley find what appears to be a shed skin of the alien. They see the operative and Gibson, and follow to the reactor chamber, which has control rods extending down into a pool of water. The FBI agents are locked out of the room but watch the alien kill the operative. Gibson, apparently communicates with the alien, and both disappear to somewhere Mulder cannot see them.

The investigating committee reprimands Mulder and Scully and orders no involvement with the X-Files. Scully tells Mulder that the claw found in Sandy's house contains a DNA match with the virus, which also matches DNA in Gibson. In fact, the DNA matches inactive DNA in all humans, but it is active in Gibson. The Cigarette Smoking Man visits agent Spender to congratulate him on how the affair was handled. At the nuclear plant, we see Gibson hiding as under water in the reactor vessel, we see the alien again shed its skin. Rather than the reptilian creature we saw in the X-Files Movie, it now looks like a "regular" grey alien.

Agua Mala. In Goodland, Florida, Tropical Storm Leroy has been upgraded to Hurricane status and an ocean-side home is buffeted by rain and wind. Inside a woman hammers planks against the door, shouting in distress to her son. In the laundry, seawater bubbles up through the floor drain and the mother franticly urges her son to help her dump out the water in the washing machine, but the machine is too heavy. As they work, white tentacles strike up through the floor and pull the boy down. Moments later they grab the mother and pull her down too.

In the nearby Tierra Nueva Trailer Park, retired FBI agent Arthur Dales is monitoring the progress on the storm on a variety of radios. He has called his acquaintance Fox Mulder because a neighbor telephoned a distress call, claiming a sea monster was attacking her home. Mulder and Scully arrive at the door, having flown in on one of the last flights. The rain is torrential and the hurricane is 20 miles off shore. He reports that Sarah Shipley said something in the bathroom grabber her husband. Tentacles were choking him. They are marine biologists and both are now missing. Local law enforcement is overwhelmed by the storm and cannot help. Dales says he has a bad hip so could not go to investigate himself. Dales rumbles that the bottom of the sea is as dark is the imagination, and the storm could have brought up anything from the depths.

At the Shipley residence, the FBI agents force open a nailed-shut door. Nobody is there, but if the doors were nailed shut from the inside, how did they leave? Mulder finds slime around the laundry room drain and the top of the washing machine begins popping up. Cautiously opening it with a broom, a cat jumps out, wet and unhappy. The bathroom door is also mailed shut. As Mulder and Scully begin to open that door, a local sheriff's deputy enters and holds the agents at gunpoint, believing them to be looters. When the cat distracts the deputy, Mulder grabs the gun and the agents prove that they are FBI. With the deputy helping, Mulder finds nothing in the bathroom, except more slime and lots of water, as if the bathroom faucets were left on when the door was nailed shut.

The deputy leaves and makes another stop at the Breakers Condominium. Viewers see that the cat has hidden in the deputy's vehicle. Checking for people who have not been evacuated, he finds the manager's apartment unlocked. Inside, he finds the manager sitting on the toilet, completely encased in a while substance. A tentacle strikes out at the deputy, grabbing him by the neck, and he struggles. Back in the car, Mulder and Scully argue over what they should do, settling on returning to Dale's mobile home. A roadblock at a washed out road stops them, however, and they end up at the Breakers Condominium. Finding the deputy's vehicle, they enter the building and find the deputy on the floor, unconscious and wounded. The toilet is empty but filled with encrusted slime. Scully performs a tracheotomy and concludes that whatever got into the deputy was in the water. She uses the deputy's radio to call for help, but none can be sent due to the weather.

Checking the rest of the building, Mulder finds a looter removing a TV from an apartment. Down the hall is a man who says he has a pregnant wife, although she denies that they are married. They also direct Mulder to George Vincent, who will not open the door to his apartment and threatens Mulder with a gun. Back in the manager's apartment, Scully says a foreign organism is in the deputy's system. His temperature it very high. Ordering the bathtub filled with water and whatever ice is available, Scully removes what is under the deputy's skin - a wriggling worm a couple of inches long. She finds a container to put the worm in and the deputy is places in the cool bath to reduce his temperature. A container of Epsom salts is knocked into the tub. From George's apartment, gunshots are fired. George bursts into the hall, saying something came into his apartment from water pipes in the ceiling. Mulder speculates that whatever it was got driven into the water system by the hurricane.

The pregnant woman has to use the bathroom and while she is in there, she sees a tentacle in the tub with the deputy. She runs out of the bathroom in terror, but when Mulder investigates, the deputy's clothes are in the tub, empty. Mulder speculates that something in the water takes shape only at certain times, and that the water in the human body is somehow used for gestation. Maybe the worm Scully extracted from the deputy's neck cannot revert to water until gestation is complete. It is discovered that the looter has run off. Following him, Mulder discovers tentacles in a florescent light fixture in the hallway ceiling. He breaks the fixture and tentacles erupt from it. Scully calls to Mulder and he comes toward her, but he cannot speak. George locks him out in the hall and as Scully argues with George, the pregnant woman's water breaks. Scully is forced to make the decision to help the woman rather than help Mulder. As she works, water fills a light fixture in the ceiling.

Lying in the hallway, Mulder sees the drenched cat, obviously not harmed by the sea monster. In the manager's apartment, as the baby is born, Scully realizes "it's the water." The light fixture breaks and George is grabbed by the neck by a tentacle. Scully cannot act, but she tells the child's to grab George's gun and shoot the fire sprinkler system. He does and fresh water sprays the room.

The scene changes to Arthur Dale's mobile home as Dale, Mulder and Scully discuss the case. The baby is fine. Dale is sure that Scully saved Mulder's life although Mulder disputes it. Mulder, his neck bandages, says he saw the cat and realized that it was saved when it got wet. He says if he had had a partner as savvy as Scully all those years ago, he might not have retired. He concludes that a toast is needed, but he rummages and cannot find any alcohol. He asks "anyone for water?" Mulder and Scully both chorus "No."

(Note: This episode did not explain this case very fully. Apparently salt water was flushed into the water pipes, and the monster could not survive in fresh water.)

(Also Note: Hurricane season is generally considered to be June 1 through November 30. This episode, broadcast in February 1999, was apparently way out of synch.)

The Rain King. Mulder and Scully arrive at Kroner, Kansas, in a single engine plane on a dirt landing strip. The mayor of the community has asked them to come because of the drought. Daryl Moots is charging people to make it rain, but the mayor thinks Daryl is causing the drought. Six months earlier, on Valentine's Day, Daryl had an argument with his fiance, Sheila. He left and lost a leg in a highway accident -- his car crashed in a hail storm.

Mulder and Scully go to Daryl's office. The secretary doesn't understand why they are investigating him because he is helping people. They go to the local television station and talk with the weather man, Holman Hardt. Kroner is a fascinating place to work for a meteorologist, because of all of the unusual weather that has happened there over the years. He says there is no reason to believe that Daryl is causing the drought, but he does seem to have the ability to make it rain. Daryl's ex-fiance, Sheila, works at the TV station. The agents go to a field where Daryl is expected. He arrives, sits in a chair under a tent that has been put up for him, then sips a beer. He tells the agents that he cannot explain his ability, but when he begins to dance, it soon rains, drenching Mulder and Scully.

That night, at the motel, it is very windy. Looking out a window, Mulder sees a cow in a nearby field lifted into the air. It crashes down into Mulder's room. In the morning, as crews are cleaning up the mess, Sheila arrives and claims to be responsible for the weather. At her senior prom, the high school was destroyed by a tornado. On her wedding day, the outdoor wedding experienced snow. Mulder tells her that he is convinced she is not the cause. We learn that Holman is secretly in love with Sheila. They are also best friends. She, however, asks him what he thinks of Mulder, and it storms. Mulder visits Holman and tells him he realizes Holman is the cause of the weather. Mulder sends Holman to Sheila to confess his love, but she tells him she loves Mulder. Meanwhile, Daryl has lost the ability to make it rain. He decides to seek out Sheila, because he needs money. He arrives at the TV station and accosts Sheila. Mulder walks up and they scuffle, with Mulder handcuffing Daryl. Sheila kisses Mulder for rescuing her, just as Scully and Holman walk up. Holman is upset and the radar shows a massive storm approaching.

Sheila, Holman and Daryl were all school mates, and they have a 20 year reunion dance. Mulder and Scully are also there, because there has been seven inches of rain in the last six hours and flash flood warnings are posted. They are looking for Holman. They maneuver Holman and Sheila into dancing, and he repeats his confession of love. This time Sheila realizes what he means, is flustered and heads for the lady's room. Scully follows and counsels Sheila that her close friendship with Holman is a good basis for a more intimate relationship. Scully also tells Sheila about Holman's apparent ability to control the weather. Sheila thinks Scully loves Mulder and is trying to divert Sheila from Mulder.

Daryl arrives at the dance, without his artificial leg and scuffles with Mulder. His secretary who is also his girl friend took the leg, because he left her to chase Sheila. The lights and power are out because Holman is so upset. Sheila goes back to talk to Holman. Is he really the cause of the weather? Yes, because of his love for Sheila. "That's the most romantic thing I ever heard." They kiss and the power comes back on. Daryl's girl friend arrives, carrying his artificial leg. They kiss and make up also. Mulder asks Holman "how did it go?" Holman replies, "You should try it some time." (Dating this episode is very difficult. Statements that most of the action is placed "about six months" after Valentine's Day would seem to suggest mid-August, but that timeframe is preempted by the X-Files Movie. There have even been suggestions that it occurs in a different year completely. The mid-September date used here is a guess, since the agents seem to have more flexibility than A.D. Kersh gives them later in the fall, but late enough in the year for the weather map giving a temperature of 45 degrees to be reasonable for northern Kansas.)

Elizabeth Pollidori and Shaineh Berkowitz appear on the Jerry Springer Show with their deformed children and proclaim "what's not to love?" (The Post-Modern Prometheus -- if this episode "really" happened and is not just the dramatization of a comic book. If this event did happen, it was seen in the form of a "flash forward.")

Hollywood A.D. (Flashback Sections) At a staff meeting at the FBI, Mulder, Scully and Skinner are talking about a case - a bomb exploded in a crypt below the church of Cardinal O'Fallon, a man considered to be a candidate to be the first American pope. A filmmaker is observing the meeting and making notes into recorder. Wayne Fetterman is an old friend of Skinner and is writing a movie about the FBI - he just wants a taste of the procedural flavor. He describes his idea as "Silence of the Lambs meets Greatest Story Ever Told." He goes along with Mulder to talk with the Cardinal while Scully remains behind to do some paperwork for Skinner. O'Fallon says the bomb went off in a crypt under the church where spiritual items and relics are stored. Mulder thinks it's a simple terrorist act. While the three of them are in the crypt, a cell phone goes off, but is none of their phones. Mulder finds it under some rocks with a body. The cell phone ID says it is Micah Hoffman - a 1960s counter culture movement activist. Scully joins them and they visit Hoffman's apartment where they find a bomb-making workshop. He was a master potter as well as a master calligrapher. Apparently he was writing documents and artificially aging them. They find what appears to be a lost gospel and an account of Christ's life on Earth after the resurrection. What might O'Fallon be doing with Hoffman's forgeries? Mulder and Fetterman return to the crypt. They find what appears to be another copy of the same gospel. Maybe the one at the apartment was a draft? Fetterman gets a call and wanders off. He sees bones and skeleton parts moving on their own, almost as if in a dance.

Later, at a coffee shop, Scully tells Fetterman it was dark and his eyes were playing tricks on him. He is ready to leave, however, because he has his procedural flavor and is ready to write his movie. He tells them that Mulder is crazy for believing what he believes and Scully is crazy for not believing what Mulder believes. Scully says his story reminds her of the Lazarus Bowl a story told by a nun she knew when she was young. The nun, known as "Sister Spooky" said that when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, an old woman nearby was making a pottery bowl and Christ's words were recorded in the clay and that the words still have the power to raise the dead. Scully takes a clay bowl found in Hoffman's apartment to Chuck Burkes. He has a device that can detect vibrations in the clay and it produces a remarkable sound. Mulder talks with O'Fallon who reads some of the Greek text on the scroll about Jesus. O'Fallon thought they were real when he bought them from Hoffman. He bought them to hide the radical information they contained. Mulder concludes that Hoffman was blackmailing O'Fallon, who is his suspect in Hoffman's murder. He sends Scully to Hoffman's autopsy because he thinks Hoffman might have already been dead when placed in the crypt. Fetterman calls Mulder from California to ask Mulder who he wants to play him in the movie. Fetterman suggests Gary Shandling and Tea Leoni to play Mulder and Scully. Skinner has been feeding information to him and he is writing about the Lazarus Bowl. Meanwhile, Scully is doing the autopsy and Hoffman wakes up - but she looks away for a moment and he is back on the autopsy table. Did it really happen?

Mulder arrives at the morgue. Scully reports that there was wine and poison in Hoffman's stomach. O'Fallon may have poisoned him. They go to the church and while they wait for a service to end, Scully has a vision of Hoffman on the cross. As they begin to arrest O'Fallon, Hoffman walks in, completely alive and healthy. Later, Skinner blows up at them for misidentifying the body. O'Fallon and the church could bring a huge lawsuit. They are put on administrative leave and are off the case. Chuck, however, has found something in the pottery - an Aramaic voice, apparently of one man commanding another to rise from the dead. They go to talk to Hoffman. He had the choice to fight the system by going law school or to be more subversive. He ended up fighting the system by forging historical documents. He targeted O'Fallon for his worldview. Hoffman studied the life of Christ in detail but something weird came over him - he experienced conversion. He was no longer impersonating Christ - he had become him. He blew up the crypt because the forgeries were blasphemous. How did his cell phone get left there? "God works in mysterious ways," he answers.

Scully comes to Mulder's apartment. He is watching a bad movie and thinking about the case. Scully asks if it possible that Hoffman really is Christ. No, Mulder says, but crazy people can be persuasive. As zombies walk on the screen, Scully wonders of true faith is a kind if insanity. They decide to accept Fetterman's offer to go to Hollywood to watch the movie being filmed during their suspension. They arrive at Stage 8, 20th Century Fox. They find the graveyard set that we saw in the opening of the episode being prepared. They are introduced to Tea and Gary. "How do you run in these things?" Tea asks Scully. Shandling asks, "Do you dress to the left or the right?" Mulder isn't sure what he means, or at least pretends that he doesn't understand. They watch takes. Later, they are each in bathtubs in their respective rooms talking by phone about zombies and their case. Skinner calls Mulder and apologizes - he's in the same hotel in his own tub - Fetterman got him Assistant producer credit. Scully tells Mulder that Tea has a crush on Mulder. Shandling likes him too, she adds.

(Note: This entry is based on an episode broadcast in the spring of 2000. The bulk of the episode was contained in an "eighteen months earlier" flashback. See Spring 2000 entry for the rest of the episode description.)

Mulder and Scully are returned to duty after their administrative leave. (Inferred from Hollywood A.D.)

Drive. A TV news special report tells of law officers, chasing a stolen blue car near Elko, Nevada. From a camera in a helicopter, viewers watch as the car is stopped at a roadblock. The driver, Patrick Crump, is pulled from the car, struggling. An apparent hostage, his wife, is helped into the back seat of a highway patrol car, but a few seconds later the inside of the car is splattered with blood.

Mulder and Scully are in Idaho, on a "domestic terrorism" assignment, checking on large orders of fertilizer that could be used to make bombs. They see a TV news report about Crump, and decide to go to Nevada, against orders from their new boss, Assistant Director Kersh. Scully inspects Vickie Crump's body at the morgue. It appears that her ear exploded. Another body has been found in a similar condition, and Scully concludes that the condition may be communicable. She orders full quarantine. Meanwhile, Crump has fallen ill in his jail cell with intense pain in his head. He is put in an ambulance; Mulder follows in his rented car. As the ambulance speeds up, Crump's pain eases. He takes a gun from an officer, stops the ambulance and takes Mulder hostage, ordering him to drive as fast as possible.

When Mulder slows his car for a traffic light, Crump goes into agony. Mulder begins to understand Crump's condition, and avoids an anticipated roadblock. Out of gas, Mulder tries to do a rapid fueling at a gas station, but the pump is turned off, so he and Crump steal another vehicle. He leaves a note behind in the car to tell Scully that the car must not be stopped. Crump thinks he and his wife are victims of a government experiment. In containment suits, Scully and other authorities visit the Crump residence -- a rural mobile home. The Crump's dog, outside on a leash, is agitated and as a blood sample is taken from the dog, its ear explodes. Other dead animals are found, but a neighbor lady who is deaf is unharmed. Scully discovers that there is some kind of government equipment near the Crump's property.

Entering California, a highway patrol officer on motorcycle hands Mulder a cell phone. Scully tells Mulder that she has learned that the Navy has part of an underground transmitting array for an ultra low frequency radio system (used to communicate with submarines) running under the Crump property. They had a power surge that morning that disrupted television in four states. Scully theorizes that the surge created a condition in the inner ear that is somehow eased by speed along magnetic lines of force, or some such reason. She will fly ahead of Mulder and meet the car where the highway ends, inserting a needle into Crump's ear to relieve the pressure. Crump agrees, as his only way to survive. But when the car actually arrives, Crump's ear has already exploded and he is dead.

Mulder and Scully are in trouble with Kersh. Even though they may have saved lives by causing the Navy to shut down its low frequency array, they disobeyed FBI orders. Kersh informs them that they no longer investigate X-Files, and they'd better accept it. They go back to investigating "big piles of manure" in their domestic terrorism assignment. (Dates given on Crump's photograph.)

Triangle. In the Sargasso Sea, east of Bermuda, Fox Mulder is floating face down in the water in the wreckage of a boat. Then he is pulled on board a cruise ship by seamen speaking with British accents, calling him "dirty jerry." They rough him up and take him to the Captain who asks his allegiance. Mulder says he came looking for the Queen Anne and that the ship has been stuck in the Devil's Triangle but the Captain counters that it is September 3, 1939, the Germans have invaded Poland and Germans have boarded the ship.

Mulder is confined in a cabin and on a radio hears the British declaration of war against Germany. A German officer enters the cabin, Mulder hides then knocks the German out. The German looks like Agent Spender. Mulder takes his uniform and eludes German troops who are searching room by room. Mulder eventually enters the ballroom. There he sees a woman who looks like Scully, but she does not recognize him. Germans capture Mulder and take him to the bridge where the Captain is executed for refusing to surrender the wheel. Present are German officers who look like the Cigarette Smoking Man and Walter Skinner.

At FBI headquarters in Washington, the Lone Gunmen tell Scully that Mulder is in trouble. Satellite imaging showed the appearance of the Queen Anne and Mulder rushed off to find it. The Gunmen tracked his boat by satellite until they lost it due to a storm. Scully charges all over FBI headquarters, looking for someone who can get her the exact location of the Queen Anne. Skinner first tells her that he is allowed no contact with her, but he secretly gets the information and slips it to her. She jumps into the Gunmen's VW minivan and they head out to rescue Mulder.

Mulder is locked in the engine room with the ship's crew. The Germans keep mentioning the term Thor's Hammer. Mulder recognizes this as a code word for a scientist who has expertise in the nuclear bomb. Germans return and take Mulder to the ballroom where, believing him to be an American agent, they order him to identify the scientist, killing two passengers to induce him to speak. The 1939 Scully look-alike attempts to intervene, saying this man knows nothing, but the Germans then threaten to kill her. The actual scientist steps forward, saying the woman is an OSS agent traveling with him. As Mulder and the OSS agent are about to be executed, the ship's engines stop and the engine crew charges into the ballroom to attack the Germans. British passengers join in the fight. Mulder and the OSS agent duck out, further eluding Germans. Mulder tells her that she must convince the engine crew to steer the ship back the way it came, toward 1939, or the Germans may win the war. He gives her a big kiss goodbye but she smacks his face. Mulder jumps overboard and she throws a life preserver after him.

Meanwhile, Scully and the Gunmen are in their own boat and locate the Queen Anne. They board it and find it to be abandoned. Locating Mulder in the water, they take him to a hospital. Mulder tries to explain. "You were on that ship, Scully, you saved the world and you believed me." "In your dreams, Mulder." Scully says it was a ghost ship, apparently meaning a derelict. Mulder tells Scully he loves her, but she does not believe him. (The 1998 date of this episode is given by Mulder in the Captain's office, one week before the actual air date of the episode. Note: the lounge singer is Elmira Gultch, named after the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz.)

Dreamland Part I. In rural Nevada Mulder and Scully drive down a highway at night. Mulder has been contacted by a source who claims to work at Area 51 at Groom Lake, a top secret facility. Mulder believes the source may know the truth about UFOs and alien life. As they approach the base, they are surrounded by government vehicles and soldiers order Mulder and Scully out of their car. A civilian official, Fletcher Morris, tells them that they must leave, and that there are no flying saucers. But a UFO flies over and Mulder and Morris change bodies. Scully, not realizing this, pulls "Mulder" (really Fletcher) on the arm and they leave.

Mulder, who everyone else thinks is Fletcher, plays it by ear and goes back to Area 51. His name tag has the organizational name "Majestic" on it. A video display at the security desk makes it clear to him that he looks like Fletcher. Mulder finds Fletcher's office by the name plate on the wall and sees photographs of Fletcher with presidents and other VIPs. He tries to phone Scully, but she is out of the vehicle getting gasoline. A woman calls who is obviously Fletcher's wife. She is unhappy he is at work so late and complains. Another agent comes in and says phone records confirm that an informant did call the FBI. The agent gives "Fletcher" a ride home. Mulder does not get into bed with Fletcher's wife, spending the night in a recliner chair, watching a porno channel on the TV. In the countryside, authorities are at a crash site. The co-pilot is physically embedded in a boulder but still alive. The pilot is speaking an unintelligible language.

At FBI HQ the next morning, Assistant Director Kersh reprimands the agents. Fletcher, posing as Mulder, promises to never investigate an X-File again. He flirts with Kersh's secretary and Scully tells him he is acting unusual. Meanwhile, Fletcher's wife, Joanne, wakes Mulder. Mulder cannot handle the Fletcher family homelife, which includes two teenagers. He locates Fletcher's car keys and his partner calls to tell him that something big is going on. At Area 51, Mulder learns that the pilot of the test craft is speaking Hopi, and claiming to be an elderly Hopi woman. The woman has been located, and she appears to have the memories of the pilot. Later, from a pay phone, Mulder reaches Scully in Washington. She does not believe his story but orders a trace on the call. As Mulder drives his car he sees the white government vehicles rushing the other direction. One slows to tell "Fletcher" to follow. The gas station where Mulder placed the call has been wrecked. Inside, the attendant is embedded in the floor and someone says "it happened again." A soldier kills the attendant and the gas station is burned.

Scully visits Mulder's apartment. Kersh's secretary, giggling, is just leaving. Scully tells "Mulder" that the call was traced to near Groom Lake but he says they would get in trouble if they attempt to follow up. Meanwhile, Mulder is in a meeting at Area 51. There has been a tear in the space-time continuum, apparently caused by the antigravity propulsion system of the craft. General Wegman, commander of the installation, mentions "we've been flying them since 1953." There is no way to know if they can undo the effects of the tear.

Scully is back in Nevada. She finds the destroyed gas station, and finds two coins fused together. In the morning, Scully shows up at Fletcher's house. Joanne accuses her husband of infidelity. Mulder tries to convince Scully of who he really is, even describing what she eats for lunch -- mixing bee pollen in with her yogurt. She still does not believe and drives off. Kersh calls her cell phone and threatens that she must do exactly as he says. Fletcher, posing as Mulder, is also in Nevada and has called Area 51 to report a security leak. Mulder steals the flight recorder from the crashed craft and meets Scully, but it is a setup and Mulder is arrested. As Mulder is hauled off, he shouts repeatedly to Scully, "he's not me, he's not me." To be continued next week.

Dreamland Part II. (The episode opens with narration by Morris Fletcher over home movies showing young Fox and Samantha Mulder. Fox is dressed as Spock from Star Trek and his fake ears keep coming off. Fletcher says Mulder has ruined a brilliant career but "now all that's gonna change.")

As Mulder is taken away by the authorities, Scully begins to wonder. Mulder is put in a holding cell beside the UFO pilot in the Navaho woman's body. Scully is reprimanded by Kersh and given a two-week suspension. Morris invites her to Mulder's apartment for a "home cooked meal." Mulder is questioned by the commander of the installation, Wegman. Security has learned that the flight recorder he gave to the FBI was not the recorder from the crash. Not knowing the reason for the switched recorders, Mulder claims he did it as part of a plan to identify the informant. No longer in trouble, Mulder goes to the Fletcher home and tries to explain to Joanna that he is not her husband, but she does not believe him.

Morris arrives home at Mulder's with bags of groceries. He searches the apartment and finds the bedroom, filled with boxes and junk. (Mulder always sleeps on his futon in the living room.) Later, Scully arrives and Morris gives her the tour of a redecorated apartment, including the bedroom with a canopied waterbed. He attempts to seduce Scully and she pulls out her handcuffs, saying "do you know what I'd really like to do?" Morris is tricked into cuffing himself to the bed, but Scully pulls out her gun and accuses him of being Morris Fletcher, not Mulder. He admits it, saying that he couldn't stand his life and that he has no idea how to reverse the body switch. As they talk the informant calls on the phone and arranges a personal meeting in Rachel, Nevada.

Back in Nevada, Scully and Morris go to a bar to meet the informant. Morris is obeying Scully and goes in while Scully waits in the car. Morris discovers that the informant is General Wegman, who gives Morris the actual flight recorder. But Mulder and Joanna are also in the bar, because Mulder wants to be somewhere public. Seeing Morris there, Mulder goes outside and talks with Scully, who admits that she believes his story. Area 51 security agents enter the bar, and Mulder, Morris, Scully and Wegman all have to duck around to avoid being seen. Mulder, Morris and Wegman all end up in the men's room and hatch a plot. Wegman boldly walks out and orders the Area 51 agents outside, where they find Mulder carrying a paper bag. Inside is not the flight recorder but a six-pack of beer. Morris, meanwhile, slips out and drives off with Scully.

The Lone Gunmen are eating dinner when Scully and Morris arrive. It takes them a while to be convinced that Morris is not Mulder. Morris claims that most of what the Gunmen print in their publications is invented to hide the truth -- much of it made up by Morris himself. He claims that Saddam Hussein is his creation -- an actor who causes trouble whenever a distraction is needed. The Gunmen decrypt the flight recorder and find that in addition to the regular data items it tracks, it records things like Tachyon Flux and Gravitational Displacement. Scully and Morris go back to Nevada yet again and meet with Mulder. The Gunmen have concluded that what happened was such a fluke that there is no way to recreate the body switch safely. Morris has been tasked to return the flight recorded to Area 51. Scully is suspended. she has to leave Mulder without hope.

The next day, Mulder talks with Wegman. Why was he the informant? Wegman sabotaged the aircraft to disable the Stealth Module so Mulder would see it. Looking back on his career, Wegman regrets that he has been involved in misleading the American people. "We just fly these birds. They engineer them up in Utah." Wegman says he doesn't know the truth and asks Mulder if aliens really exist, to which Mulder has no answer.

Three young people, on a lark, are hiking up a mountain to where they might see UFOs. Some kind of visual wave approaches and passes them and a boy and girl who had been kissing are fused together. The other boy runs for help, flagging down a car on the highway that carrys one of the Area 51 security agents. When they reach the other two, however, they are no longer fused and have no memory of the events. Scully and Morris drive past the gas station that was destroyed a few days earlier and it is undamaged. The owner is alive and well and has no memory of trouble. They rush to the Fletcher home where Mulder is packing to leave. As Scully tells Mulder that the time warp appears to be reversing itself, Morris talks with Joanna. He describes their wedding and other memories and she believes that he is her husband, although in Mulder's body.

Area 51 authorities show up and take Mulder, Morris and Scully into custody. They take them back to the highway where Mulder and Morris exchanged bodies. The bodies of Morris and Mulder flicker and they are back in their own bodies, but time has reversed and they are at the moment when they first exchanged bodies, with no memory of the events. Back in Washington, Mulder and Scully's (only) trip to Nevada has not been noticed by Kersh. Scully finds the fused coins on her desk and is bewildered as to where they came from. Mulder returns home and enters his apartment, but it is still decorated the way Morris left it. He has to open his door again to see if it is really apartment 42.

Terms of Endearment. A doctor talks with a woman about a sonogram -- the woman is pregnant and the sonogram has revealed an abnormality in the baby's skull and neck. Back home that evening, the couple, Wayne and Laura Wineside, prepare for bed. Wayne gives his wife a glass of warm milk and a herbal pill to help her sleep. Laura dreams that a demon, surrounded by flames, approaches the bed and takes the baby from inside her. She wakes and Wayne finds blood -- the baby really is gone.

Deputy Stevens, from the Hollins, Virginia, sheriff's office tells agent Spender about the case. Laura is his sister. After Stevens leaves, Spender shreds the case report, but Mulder shows up in Hollins with the case report taped back together. After interviewing Laura and Wayne, Mulder telephones Scully who is doing background checks on candidates for federal jobs. He thinks it is a classic case of demon baby harvest that was often reported during the middle ages and asks Scully to review Laura's medical records. Wayne overhears the cell-phone conversation on the baby monitor radio in the nursery. That night, Laura sees Wayne outside burning something. He tells her it is leaves, but we see him remove a bundle from the ground and burn it.

In the morning, Scully reports to Mulder that Laura has mandrake in her system, sometimes used to induce abortion, and thinks that may be the real reason behind the disappearance of the baby. Wayne drives up to a different house and talks with Betsy. It is clear that they are married and Betsy is pregnant. Wayne says he is just returning from a business trip. Meanwhile, police are at Laura's home, based on Scully's suspicions. Wayne arrives and gives them permission to search the premises, and they find the bones of a baby in the fire ashes outside. Wayne privately tells Laura that he found her in a trance last night, holding the baby and chanting that it was evil. Laura is arrested but Mulder tells Wayne "I know what you are." Mulder begins following Wayne, who has to fake a business appointment -- he takes blood for medical tests for an insurance company. He comments to the women he is testing that she doesn't know how lucky she is to have three normal children.

Wayne visits Laura in jail. She doesn't think his story makes sense. As they hug, Wayne opens his mouth and life force flows out of her mouth into his. He claims she collapsed in his arms and paramedics are quickly called. They manage to restart her heart and take her to the hospital. Wayne goes to Betsy's. He has missed her sonogram. The doctor found an abnormal growth on the baby's skull and neck. Getting ready for bed, Wayne gives Betsy a glass of warm milk. As she falls asleep she sees a demon, surrounded by flames, at the foot of her bed, but she grabs for it and it is Wayne. Meanwhile, Scully arrives in Roanoke and tells Mulder there is no medical reason for Laura to fall into a coma as she did. Mulder has been in the county records and has found that Wayne has twice been tried for murder and has several identities. He is a Czech national who came to this country. Mulder finds another address for Wayne and as he and Scully go there, they meet Betsy driving Wayne's car. She is bloody and repeating "he took my baby." Arriving at Betsy's with police backup, they find Wayne in the back yard, digging. He says "a normal life and family is all I ever wanted." He begins to say "Betsy isn't like Laura, Betsy is..." but Deputy Stevens shoots Wayne.

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas. Late at night on Christmas Eve, somewhere in Maryland, Mulder is parked outside a dark, gothic mansion. Scully drives up and asks why Mulder wanted her to meet him there. It is a stake-out of the former owners -- on Christmas 1917, two young lovers killed themselves in a murder suicide pact, promising to always spend Christmas Eve together. They were demoralized by the war and the flu epidemic that was killing thousands of people. Scully wants to leave but she cannot find her carkeys so she follows Mulder into the house. The door slams shut and they can't get out.

They go upstairs because Mulder hears a sound. Mulder says there have been three murder-suicides in the house in 80 years, always on Christmas Eve. Scully rationalizes at length about how ghosts aren't real but a hallway door opens by itself. They enter the room and it is a brightly-lit library, although when they were outside there were no lights on in the house. The floorboards creak and Mulder believes there is a hiding space below the floor. They pry up the boards and find two bodies, long dead of gunshot wounds. The bodies are wearing clothes just like Mulder and Scully. The agents beat a hasty retreat, but when they exit the doorway, they reenter the library from another door, as if space is warped. They repeat this several times, always reentering the library as they cross through the doorway. They split up, thinking they will meet each other, but each enters a library that does not have the other in it.

Mulder finds that all the doors to the library are now locked. He uses his gun to shoot a lock, but the doorway behind the door is bricked up. All of a sudden, a man (who we later learn is named Maurice) is in the library with Mulder saying "this is my house." Mulder accuses him of being a ghost, but Maurice responds saying he is a mental health specialist. He accuses Mulder of being prone to a breakdown and says Mulder is a lonely man chasing illusions. Maurice leads Mulder into the next room, but as Mulder crosses the doorway it is suddenly filled with bricks again. Meanwhile, Scully discovers that Lyla is in the room with her and both scream. Lyla says she saw Mulder and Scully and thought THEY were ghosts. Lyla tells Scully that she must have a small life, being willing to spend Christmas Eve with Mulder and suggests that Scully's only joy in life is proving Mulder wrong. Maurice walks in and Scully holds them both at gunpoint. When they raise their hands, Scully sees a hole in Lyla's stomach -- a gunshot wound. She lifts Maurice's hat and finds a hole through his head, after which Scully faints. Maurice and Lyla talk with each other. when was the last time we had a good haunting? This pop culture approach doesn't work. If we don't do better they'll take us off the tourist lists. We'll show these two how lonely Christmas Eve can be.

Lyla enters the library and talks to Mulder who realizes that Lyla and Maurice are the young couple who killed themselves in 1917. She pulls out the book "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" by R. Grimes and shows a picture of herself and Maurice when they were young. She indicates to Mulder that he and Scully are there for their own murder-suicide. Mulder says no, but she says maybe it's a secret suicide pact and they don't realize it. She hands Mulder his gun and disappears. Meanwhile, Scully wakes up and Maurice talks with her. The library doors are still locked for her protection from Mulder. Maurice says Mulder is disturbed and capable of anything but Scully makes him open the door. Mulder enters and fires his gun several times. The last shot strikes Scully in the stomach but as Scully collapses we see that it is Lyla posing as Mulder.

The real Mulder enters through a doorway and finds Scully on the floor, bleeding. She shoots him, but we see that it is Lyla on the floor, posing as Scully. Mulder and Scully each crawl toward the front door of the house and meet each other. They each deny that they shot the other, and Mulder realizes it is all in their heads. They stand up and the pain and blood disappears. Mulder and Scully run out the door to their cars and race off. Maurice and Lyla sit in chairs before the fireplace. We almost had those two such lonely souls. I wonder what they were really looking for. We know the real meaning of Christmas. As the clock strikes midnight, beginning Christmas Day, they disappear.

Mulder is at home, watching a black and white version of A Christmas Carol on TV when Scully knocks at his door. She couldn't sleep. None of that really happened, did it? It was all in their minds? The pop psychoanalysis of the ghosts has affected both of the agents. Mulder says "I know we agreed to not get each other gifts," but pulls out a present for Scully. She has one for him, too, and they sit down to open the presents, all of a sudden happy to be with each other as the snow falls outside.