The X-Files Season Nine-Ritterson's Episode Guides

The X-Files Episode Guide

Season Nine

(2001/2002)

#183 “NOTHING IMPORTANT HAPPENED TODAY”
Original Air Date: 11/11/01
Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Kim Manners
Also Starring: Cary Elwes as A.D. Brad Follmer, James Pickens, Jr. as Deputy Director Kersh, Lucy Lawless as Shannon McMahon, Nicholas Walker as Carl Wormus, Sheila Larken as Mrs. Scully, Bruce Harwood as Byers, Tom Braidwood as Frohike, Dean Haglund as Langly, John Casino as Roland McFarland, Jane Yamamoto as News Anchor, Travis Riker as Baby William, James Riker as Baby William, Ashley Knutson as Baby William, Rikki Held as Baby William, Rowdy Held as Baby William

Carl Wormus drinks alone at a bar in Baltimore, MD. He notices a dark-haired woman in a low-cut dress walk in, and he approaches her. They get into a discussion about the ice in his drink. As a water expert, he knows that the government-added Chloramine in the water is actually not as healthy as has been reported. Intrigued, the woman entices him into leaving, and they drive off in his convertible. He slows down at an opening drawbridge, but the woman clamps down on his right leg, forcing his foot on the accelerator. The car flies off the open bridge and plunges into the Potomac River. Deep underwater, Wormus wiggles out of his seatbelt and begins to swim to the surface. The woman is lifeless next to him. Suddenly, the woman opens her eyes, grabs his ankle and pulls him deeper under the water.

Two days later, Scully calms the crying William. She looks uneasily at Mulder's packed bags in her apartment, and shuts the bathroom door so that he does not hear the baby. Doggett, meanwhile, prepares for work as the television news reports the death of Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Carl Wormus. The man was found dead and alone in his car under the water. At the FBI, Doggett shares an elevator with Kersh. The Deputy Director smugly asks if he has found any incriminating evidence against him.

A ringing phone awakens Reyes in her Washington hotel. FBI Assistant Director Brad Follmer greets her warmly and asks her to stop by his office. When she arrives, he plants a firm kiss on her mouth. Reyes pulls away. Although they have not seen each other in years, they had previously been involved in a romantic relationship while working at the Bureau's New York office. He gives her videotape from the security camera in the Hoover Building garage. Although the date stamp is the same night Scully gave birth, the garage is empty. Doggett and Skinner are not seen defending their lives against Knowle Rohrer, nor is Rohrer's exploding car in the garage. Reyes tells Doggett that no scrap of evidence even remains at the crime scene, which means that they no longer have a case. Doggett goes to seek the advice of Mulder, but his apartment has been cleaned out. Scully tells him that Mulder is gone. Back at the FBI, Skinner and Reyes find no traces of Mulder, and Doggett suspects that perhaps someone got to him. With no credible evidence, Skinner asks Doggett to drop the case against Kersh and the FBI. Doggett accuses the A.D. of backing down under pressure, but Skinner only fears for the safety of Mulder, Scully and their baby. Doggett and Reyes must continue their investigation alone, without Skinner's help.

At the Greater Maryland Water Reclamation Facility, worker Roland McFarland places a call to a naval ship after reading about Wormus' death. The dark-haired woman from the bar inexplicably swims up in one of the tanks. Before McFarland can speak into the phone, he notices the woman walk through the plant naked and he follows her tracks. She surprises him from behind, pulls him into a tank and drowns him.

Reyes meets with A.D. Follmer at the bar in Maryland. She informs him that Doggett's investigation has been dropped. Showing feelings for her, Follmer is interested in keeping Reyes assigned to the X-files in Washington. Doggett, meanwhile, tries to appeal to Scully. He is unsure why she won't trust him, but she does not reveal anything about Mulder. Doggett returns to his apartment and tries to contact some of his old Marine buddies that were in his squadron with Rohrer. No one has information on Rohrer's activities after the military. One of them, Shannon McMahon, is the mysterious dark-haired woman. Reyes sees McMahon in the FBI hallway. She senses something, but ignores her intuition. In the X-files office, Reyes hears someone creeping outside the door. The person disappears into the elevator, but leaves behind a folder with Wormus' obituary inside.

Scully puts William down for a nap, and the mobile over his bassinet eerily moves on its own. Scared, she phones Doggett and asks him not to drop his investigation. He and Reyes summon her to Quantico to perform an autopsy on Wormus' body. Scully finds fingerprints on Wormus' ankle, as if someone had been holding him down. Doggett has the Lone Gunmen hack into Wormus' files, but all they recover are reports on water. Follmer briefs Kersh on Doggett's investigation, and he asks the Deputy Director for swift punishment. Kersh, however, puts the burden on Follmer to reprimand Doggett.

While Mrs. Scully watches William, Shannon McMahon comes looking for Scully. Mrs. Scully refrains from opening the door, and McMahon vanishes without leaving her name. As Scully and Reyes leave the morgue at Quantico late that night, they see McMahon. Reyes is suspicious, but McMahon disappears. The two agents are surprised by the arrival of Follmer, who swarms the Quantico morgue with a team of agents. He tells Reyes that he is trying to uphold her reputation in the face of Doggett's career-ending investigation. However, when they enter the autopsy bay, Wormus' body is gone. Reyes pretends that there never was a body, and she accuses Follmer of sending her the obituary to throw them on a wild goose chase. Reyes goes to Doggett's apartment, and the Lone Gunmen show her Wormus' encrypted emails from Roland McFarland.

That same night, Doggett and Skinner go to the Maryland water plant and rifle through McFarland's desk. They find a number of files labeled "Chloramine." Follmer and his crew approach, so Doggett grabs the files, and he and Skinner run out. Follmer chases them, catching Skinner. Doggett hides underwater in one of the tanks, holding his breath. Suddenly, McMahon swims up from below and grabs Doggett's ankle. She pulls him farther down into the tank.

TO BE CONTINUED

#184 “NOTHING IMPORTANT HAPPENED TODAY II””
Original Air Date: 11/18/01
Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Tony Wharmby
Also Starring: Cary Elwes as A.D. Brad Follmer, James Pickens, Jr. as Deputy Director Kersh, Lucy Lawless as Shannon McMahon, Adam Baldwin as Knowle Rohrer, Bruce Harwood as Byers, Tom Braidwood as Frohike, Dean Haglund as Langly, Ryan Cutrona as The Captain, Ben Reed as Young Officer, Jeff Austin as Dr. Nordlinger, Victoria Gallegos as Follmer’s Secretary, Kevin E. West as Navy Seal, Travis Riker as Baby William, James Riker as Baby William, Wyatt Smith as Baby William

PART 2 OF 2

A naval captain on a vintage World War II Merchant marine vessel passes through a sequence of tight security checkpoints. He approaches a door that hides a science lab where cells are being manipulated. Dr. Nordlinger opens the door to receive the Captain’s communiqué, but he is somewhat unsettled by the note’s request. The Captain returns to his bridge and orders Petty Office Bamford to bring the ship to shore.

At the Greater Maryland Water Reclamation Plant, Follmer does not see Doggett, getting pulled further into the water tank by a naked Shannon McMahon. When Follmer is out of view, McMahon places her mouth over Doggett’s to blow air into his lungs. The next morning, Reyes and Skinner are summoned to Follmer’s office. They are being reined in on the X-file case they are pursuing. Follmer warns Reyes to distance herself from Doggett to save her career, but she accuses Follmer of having his own agenda against her partner. Doggett, meanwhile, wakes up in his bed, alive. McMahon is in his apartment. She tells him that she and Knowle Rohrer were both transformed into “Super Soldiers” who can’t be killed. Although they were the original experiments, the program has since expanded to produce many more of their kind. She, however, hates what she has become, and she asks Doggett for help in exposing the men who are altering the water supply.

Skinner asks Scully why she is getting herself mixed up in Doggett’s investigation when she was the one who specifically requested that Skinner let it lie. She admits that something unexplainable happened with her baby. She is afraid to tell Mulder, because he will want to come back, and that will place him in danger. Doggett and Reyes call Scully to Doggett’s apartment. McMahon explains to her that a chemical called chloramine has been added to public water supplies. Although the substance is usually harmless, the molecular structure of this chloramine has been altered to promote the mutation of offspring. This mutation will breed a generation of Super Soldiers. Scully is at first hesitant to accept the woman’s claims, but then she sees the familiar reptilian ridge at the top of McMahon’s spine. However, a medical examination shows that McMahon is, by all accounts, a normal human being.

After waiting at the Baltimore port with no word from his superiors, the Captain unsuccessfully tries to contact Carl Wormus at the Environmental Protection Agency. He then finds that Officer Bamford has been replaced -- by the presumed deceased Knowle Rohrer. Bamford’s body is found floating nearby. Meanwhile, Follmer suspends Doggett from the FBI, and Doggett lashes out at both Follmer and Deputy Director Kersh over a turf war for the X-files. The Lone Gunmen show Reyes that they have tapped into the EPA’s phone system and found calls to Carl Wormus. The calls were made after the man drowned. As they flip open their laptop, another call comes in, and Frohike answers as Wormus. It is the Captain, instructing Wormus to notify the FBI about the lab on board his ship. As the Captain asks for Wormus’ help in exposing the inhumanity, Rohrer uses his extrasensory hearing to listen to the conversation from far away.

After finding that McMahon works for the Justice Department, Reyes pleads with Follmer to obtain the woman’s files. She then reports to Doggett and Scully that McMahon is not to be trusted. The two men she killed were actually trying to expose the water contamination program. McMahon is using Doggett to get to the third whistleblower -- the Captain. The three agents go down to the Baltimore docks to meet the Captain, but they find Knowle Rohrer instead. Scully and Reyes run off while Doggett tries to defend himself against the Super Soldier. Rohrer is about to kill Doggett, when McMahon appears and slices off Rohrer’s head. Suddenly, Rohrer’s bloodied hand rips through her torso, and she and Rohrer’s headless body both fall off the pier into the water. Doggett goes onto the ship with Scully and Reyes in search of the Captain. They see the Captain’s decapitated head on the ground, but the ship is otherwise empty. Doggett stumbles upon an already detonated bomb, and he hurriedly gathers up Reyes and Scully in the ship’s lab. Scully is reluctant to leave when she sees that whoever was on the boat was manipulating ova for transplantation. Doggett forcibly pulls her out before the ship explodes.

Two days later, Kersh reads Doggett’s report on the case. Although he accounts for Super Soldiers, a naval ship and a conspiracy in the government, he does not mention Kersh in the investigation. Doggett admits that he could not find any wrongdoing on the Deputy Director’s part, but he knows that his hands are indeed dirty. Kersh tells Doggett that he warned Mulder to leave to protect his life. Knowing that Mulder wouldn’t leave only on Kersh’s recommendation, Doggett realizes that Scully was the one who pushed Mulder to go.

Under the dark water, Shannon McMahon’s body lies at the bottom the ocean. Although she appears to be lifeless, her eyes pop open.

Scully is woken by William’s cries, and she soothes him back to sleep. When she turns out the light to go back to bed, the mobile over his crib slowly turns on its own.

#185 “DÆMONICUS “

Original Air Date: 12/02/01
Written and Directed by Frank Spotnitz
Also Starring: James Remar as Josef Kobold, Andi Chapman as Dr. Monique Sackheim, Sarah Benoit as Evelyn Mountjoy, Tim Halligan as Darren Mountjoy, James Rekart as Demon #2/Paul Gerlach, Troy Mittleider as Dr. Kenneth Richman, Lou Richards as Officer Custer, Robert Beckwith as FBI Cadet, Rueben Grundy as Forensic Tech, Shane Nickerson as Police Photographer, Elijha Mahar as Guard

A pickup truck parks unnoticed outside Evelyn and Darren Mountjoy’s house, while the couple plays Scrabble inside. When the Mountjoy’s dog barks at the front door, Evelyn lets it out to run into the woods. They hear the dog’s yelping outside, and the lights mysteriously go out. Darren orders his wife to hide in the basement while he loads his revolver. From the stairs, he sees the intruder approaching, and he fires. However, Darren soon realizes that the person he shot is his wife. Her hands and mouth are bound with duct tape. Suddenly, strange sounds rise behind him. They are voices, whispering backwards. Darren turns to see two men with demonic-looking faces coming towards him.

The next morning, Agents Reyes and Doggett look over the crime scene at the Mountjoy home in Weston, West Virginia. The couple’s bodies are sitting upright at the kitchen table, and Evelyn has a gun posed in her hand. The Scrabble board is laid out in front of them, blank, except for “DAEMONICUS” spelled out in the center. The word means “Satan” or “demon possession.” Doggett tries to fend the case off as merely some kind of Satanic ritual, but Reyes has other ideas beyond those based in reality. Her theories are confounded when three blood-slicked snakes squirm out of the bullet holes in Evelyn’s chest.

Although Scully is on leave and serving as an instructor at Quantico, the agents ask her to perform the autopsies. Evidence proves that Darren was most likely tricked into shooting his wife, and that he was held down and shot in a chair. The snakes were sewn into the body post-mortem. The facts show that the murders were man-made, but Reyes still believes that she felt the presence of evil in the house. With a lead about an escapee from a nearby mental institution, Reyes and Doggett question Dr. Monique Sampson about her patient, Kenneth Richman. Richman was a doctor who brutally murdered his own patients, but he had no prior knowledge of Satanic ritual. Dr. Sampson tips them off to a possible accomplice -- Paul Gerlach, a hospital guard who has recently gone missing.

Reyes and Doggett question Josef Kobold, a former professor who is now an inmate in the cell next to Richman’s. Kobold’s cryptic answers lead the agents to believe that he knows more than he is letting on. Meanwhile, the two demonic-appearing men from the Mountjoy attacks get out of their pickup truck in the woods. One shoots the other with a gun, then wipes the blood from his hands. The backwards whispers echo once more, but seem to be coming instead from Kobold. Dr. Sampson summons the agents back to the institution when Kobold asks for Doggett. The professor was also repeating the phrase, “Prince of the Apostles.” Kobold tells them that “He” is speaking and has killed again. He leads the agents to the woods, where Paul Gerlach’s body is found hanging upside down from a tree. He is wearing the demon mask and is staged in a mock-crucifixion pose, presumably put into such post-mortem. The “Prince of the Apostles” phrase refers to St. Peter, who was crucified upside down. This is known as the symbol marking the power of the anti-Christ.

Although Doggett believes Kobold is a master manipulator toying with them, Reyes is convinced that Kobold can somehow help them find the real perpetrator -- Richman. They turn to Kobold again, and he requests a larger cell with windows. Doggett is frustrated that Reyes wants to give in to the psychopath’s every whim, but Kobold is moved to another room, and Officer Custer is assigned to guard him. Kobold confronts Doggett with personal intimations about his own life that no one else would know. Doggett is uncomfortable, but before he can leave the cell room, Kobold’s eyes roll back and a strange sound emanates from his mouth -- voices, whispering backwards. Doggett calls for Reyes, who translates the word as “medicus,” or physician. The agents rush to the home of Dr. Sampson, who unbeknownst to anyone, has been followed home by the looming pickup truck. However, they are too late to save her, finding her body with a dozen hypodermic needles jammed into her face.

Scully reports that the needles contained the same medication that Dr. Sampson had treated Richman with, and he is determined to still be a suspect. Doggett furiously looks over at Kobold, held in restraints, knowing that he is really the one responsible for the crimes. Kobold watches as Scully tries to calm Doggett. The backwards whispers swell once more. Back at the mental institution, Doggett attempts to interrogate Kobold about his past knowledge of Satanism. Kobold lobs back insinuations that Doggett is competing with the long-lost Agent Mulder for Scully’s affection. Angrily, Doggett grabs hold of Kobold, but a thick orange goo violently spews from Kobold’s mouth. It keeps gushing uncontrollably as Doggett calls for a medic.

After an examination, Scully concludes that Kobold is completely normal. Reyes suspects that the orange bile is spiritual ectoplasm, but Doggett won’t be swayed by any more unexplainable theories. He is convinced that Kobold is a liar who is playing games with them. As Officer Custer guards Kobold’s room, a lightning storm competes with the ever-present whispers. Custer is drawn to the source of those whispers, and looks in Kobold’s room. Kobold’s face suddenly changes into the demonic mask.

Doggett calls Scully in her car. Kobold has identified something called “Happy Landing” as the place to find Richman. Scully recognizes it as an old marina she passes on her commute to Quantico, and she heads there alone. At the marina, Scully is attacked by a demon mask-wearing man. When Doggett and Reyes arrive with a pack of troopers, Scully is nowhere to be found. Kobold is held in shackles in a police car, and Doggett threatens him to tell where she is being hidden. All the professor can say is “Game’s over, Mr. Doggett. You’ve lost.” A gunshot rings out over the marina, and the agents find Scully unharmed, in an abandoned warehouse. Richman, having held her at gunpoint until Doggett arrived, shot himself. Reyes can’t figure out why he would do that, but Doggett quickly understands, and he runs after Kobold, who is escaping from the police car. Doggett shoots at the fleeing prisoner, and Kobold, hit, falls into the water.

Back at Quantico, Reyes and Doggett tell Scully that their case is not completely solved. It is understood that Kobold designed the crimes so that they would be on the case, and then researched all of their backgrounds on the internet. However, Kobold’s body has not been found, even though they saw him get shot. The body in the water is actually Officer Custer, the guard assigned to his cell. Kobold had selected his victims so that parts of their names spelled out the word “Dæmonicus.” He wanted the agents to see how brilliantly he could beat them at his game. By the time they realized it, Kobold would be too far away to get caught. Reyes is still unsettled. She did feel the presence of evil and believes that Doggett had the same premonition as well.

#186 “4-D“

Original Air Date: 12/09/01
Written by Steven Maeda
Directed by Tony Wharmby
Also Starring: Cary Elwes as A.D. Brad Follmer, Dylan Haggerty as Erwin Timothy Lukesh, Angela Paton as Mrs. Lukesh, Gil Colon as Agent Rice, Ming Lo as Dr. Kim

Erwin Lukesh enters his apartment building foyer, while Reyes fiddles with the derailleur of a bicycle in the hallway. This is a stakeout being recorded by a hidden camera, as Doggett and Follmer watch from a surveillance van nearby. Lukesh is a wanted killer who removes women’s tongues. This makes Doggett nervous for Reyes’ safety. In order to positively ID Lukesh, the agents wait for him to open the mailbox for Apartment 4-D. Doggett, however, is eager to nab him sooner. Lukesh senses that something is not right, and he moves away from the mailboxes. Reyes takes out her gun and begins to follow him, talking to the agents in the van as she heads into a stairwell. Suddenly, Lukesh appears and slashes a straight razor at her. Doggett and Follmer bolt out of the van when they hear Reyes’ screams. They find her throat cut, and Doggett goes to apprehend Lukesh. Follmer warns him that the killer has Reyes’ gun. Doggett goes outside into a dead-end alley and corners Lukesh, who calmly raises his bloody hands in surrender. Police cars approach from behind, and Doggett turns slightly to let them know his location. When he turns back, Lukesh has disappeared. Doggett walks forward into the dead-end alley. The police cars have vanished, and Lukesh is now behind him. He holds Reyes’ gun pointed at Doggett’s head. When Doggett swerves around, Lukesh fires.

Reyes, unharmed, unpacks boxes as she moves into her new apartment. Doggett pays her a visit. He is also unharmed, and he has brought her a housewarming gift -- polish sausage sandwiches from a nearby stand. Reyes goes into the kitchen to get plates, and her phone rings. It is Skinner, with news that Doggett has been shot in an alley. Reyes is confused when she sees that Doggett is no longer in her apartment.

Follmer and Scully meet Reyes at the hospital. She is convinced they are mistaken about Doggett, since she knows he was just at her apartment. However, she sees for herself that Doggett lies paralyzed in a coma. Reyes tries to make sense of this impossible situation, and Scully recounts her own story of her father’s visitation to her after his death. Reyes is certain that this is not what happened to her. Skinner learns from ballistics that the bullets came from Reyes’ weapon, and he has Scully bring Reyes to the police station. Follmer questions Reyes. As he brings up the evidence against her, she stands by her story. From the observation room, an eyewitness to the crime identifies Reyes as the shooter. The eyewitness is Lukesh.

At the hospital, Scully and Skinner explain to Reyes that the case against her has some weaknesses. When Skinner called earlier, Reyes was at home, putting her fourteen miles from the crime scene. However, while her gun was never fired, the bullets do match her weapon. Doggett awakes from his coma, tapping on the bed rail. Skinner recognizes the tapping as Morse code. Doggett spells out “Lukesh.” Reyes, however, has no idea what the word means. Back at his home, Lukesh tends to his bed-ridden mother. When she’s not looking, he fingers the Sig Sauer pistol he grabbed from Reyes. Mrs. Lukesh asks for her favorite sandwich, and Lukesh pulls the secret ingredient from the refrigerator -- a human tongue. Later that night, Lukesh slips out of the house, but his mother hears him leave. He walks into the alley with a straight razor in his hand. He mysteriously vanishes into thin air.

At Reyes’ apartment, Skinner shows her a file on Erwin Lukesh. Lukesh claims to have seen Reyes exit the alley after Doggett was shot. She believes that Lukesh might somehow be involved. Follmer has Skinner bring Reyes to the hospital, because she is the only one Doggett will speak to. As Doggett maneuvers a joystick attached to a communicator, he asks how Reyes is actually alive when he saw her throat cut. Doggett tells Reyes and Follmer that Lukesh not only tried to kill him, but Lukesh also murdered Reyes. The next day, Reyes asks Doggett if he knows of a food stand near her new apartment. He immediately recognizes it as the best polish sausages in the city. With renewed hope in his answer, she proposes a theory to him. Perhaps Lukesh can move freely between parallel universes, and somehow Doggett followed him through that door. In this other world, Reyes was killed while investigating Lukesh. Yet here, she doesn’t even know the man’s name.

Follmer and Skinner interrogate Lukesh, informing him that Doggett named him as the shooter. They ask to speak to Lukesh’s mother in order to corroborate his alibi. Lukesh refuses the request, which alerts Skinner and Follmer that he is hiding something. As Lukesh walks out, he passes Reyes in the police station hallway. She boldly asks how he moves between worlds to act out his fantasies. He inches close to her face, calmly saying, “God, I enjoyed you. You bled just like a pig.” Lukesh returns home to find that Reyes’ gun is missing from a drawer. His mother confronts him about the gun, as well as his sneaking out of the house. She tells him that the FBI has left messages for her, and that she intends to speak to them. Lukesh begins crying, and pulls out his razor. He approaches his mother’s bed and strikes her.

At the hospital, Doggett types out the message “2 Doggetts cant be in 1 world – U can fix.” He begs Reyes to pull his life support plug, believing in her theory about the parallel universes. If one of him is removed, the other Doggett will enter this world. Their conversation is interrupted by Skinner, calling to tell her that Lukesh killed his mother and then disappeared. Reyes returns to her apartment with a radio wired to Scully, Follmer, and Skinner in a surveillance van outside. They are watching everything in her apartment over video monitors. Suddenly, Lukesh appears from nowhere and grabs Reyes from behind. He pulls the earwig radio from her ear and holds his razor to her throat, fully aware that a van is outside. When the agents lose Reyes on the video, Scully is sure that Lukesh is inside the apartment. Lukesh blames Reyes for making him kill his mother. He is about to slit her throat, when Follmer storms in and shoots him, saving Reyes.

Late that night, Reyes goes to the hospital with her decision made. She turns off Doggett’s respirator, and he takes his last breath. Crying, she closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she is no longer in the hospital. She is in her unpacked apartment, as she was before, and Doggett tells her to forget the plates for the polish sausages. She is stunned and overwhelmed at the sight of him. He wonders what is wrong with her, as she tearfully hugs him. “I’m good,” she happily cries.

#187 “LORD OF THE FLIES “
Original Air Date: 12/16/01

Written by Thomas Schnauz
Directed by Kim Manners

Also Starring: Hank Harris as Dylan Lokensgard, Samaire Armstrong as Natalie Gordon, Michael Wiseman as Dr. Rocky Bronzino, Jane Lynch as Mrs. Anne T. Lokensgard, Aaron Paul as Sky Commander Winky, Branden Williams as Cap’n Dare, Erick Avari as Dr. Herb Fountain, Aeryk Egan as Camera Dude

With a gaggle of onlookers, teenagers “Sky Commander Winky” and “Cap’n Dare” are videotaping their latest stunts for the cable access “Dumb Ass” show. Cap’n Dare (otherwise known as Bill) slips on a helmet, as Winky (David Winkle) pelts him with balls from a pitching machine. Cap’n Dare’s girlfriend, Natalie Gordon, watches unhappily. So does another boy, Dylan Lokensgard. The boys move on to their next feat, and Cap’n Dare sits inside a portable toilet that is pulled by a car across a parking lot at a high speed. The car skids to a stop, and Cap’n Dare and the toilet roll down an embankment. Cap’n Dare emerges unharmed, and the crowd laughs. Natalie is again, not amused. They move onto their third stunt, where Cap’n Dare will roll down a hill in a shopping cart, onto a ramp that will sail him over Natalie, who waits on the ground. When the stunt goes awry, Cap’n Dare is thrown to the ground. Natalie and Winky are horrified to see that Cap’n Dare’s head has collapsed inside his undamaged helmet.

Doggett and Reyes arrive at the Medical Examiner’s Office in Ocean County, New Jersey. Dr. Fountain has requested help because he is unable to explain Bill’s cause of death. Suddenly, the corpse’s eyelid flutters. Reyes gently opens the eye with forceps, revealing a hollow socket from which a swarm of flies emerge. They immediately call Scully in to make an assessment, and she concludes that the flies fed at such a furious rate that it caused the boy’s head to collapse from within. The helmet actually protected his head in the crash. Yet Scully pronounces that no fly would act so aggressively. Dr. Rocky Bronzino, an entomologist who appears in the doorway, quickly refutes her conclusion. He informs the agents that the Australian bush fly and the New Zealand screwworm fly are both aggressive insects. However, these varieties are not the flies that apparently killed Bill. Reyes says that they are not investigating a murder by an insect, but a human.

At Garfield High School in nearby Manahawkin, New Jersey, Natalie sits in the cafeteria, saddened by her boyfriend’s death. Dylan watches her from afar, as Winky approaches Natalie with a camera. He wants her to speak on the “Cap’n Dare Memorial Video,” but she refuses, blaming him for making Bill do the stunts. Winky notices that Dylan has stood up to defend Natalie. He threatens Dylan, and spreads food on his head. Dylan’s mother, an Administrator at the school, sees this and summons Winky to her office. Waiting for him are Reyes and Doggett, who believe that Winky may have killed his friend in order to sell the video to television networks. Winky denies the claim, and jumps out of his chair while violently scratching his back. Reyes and Doggett see that on his back is written DUMB ASS in red, bloody welts.

Dylan returns home, ignoring his mother to retreat to his bedroom. He lies on his bed, listening to Syd Barrett and looking longingly at a picture of Natalie. Mrs. Lokensgard knocks on his locked door, which makes him only raise his music louder. As he shuts his eyes to cry, bugs swarm over his window and begin to fill up his room.

The next morning, Dr. Bronzino informs the agents that the flies that ate Bill’s brain and skull happened to all be female. This suggests that something chemical or hormonal might have triggered the attack. Yet since lice had also caused Winky’s wounds, they wonder whether someone was somehow directing the bugs to act. They decide to question Dylan Lokensgard, who was present for every stunt and had a run-in with Winky just before the lice injured his back.

Dylan sees Natalie leave his front door. He rushes out the window, but his mother intercepts him and warns Dylan to stay away from Natalie. She tries to talk to him about the changes his body is going through, but Dylan brushes her off and heads for school. Meanwhile, Dr. Bronzino and Scully revisit the scene of Cap’n Dare’s death, tracking the atmosphere with an electroantennogram device. While not-so-subtly hitting on Scully, Bronzino surmises that the bugs are somehow being driven crazy with desire. Suddenly, the device’s signal loudly blares. They don’t see Dylan, the cause of the device’s alarm, peddling past them on his bike. Dylan finds Natalie at school, and she apologizes for Winky’s behavior in the cafeteria the day before. They reminisce about their childhood. Feeling uncomfortable, Natalie leaves abruptly. Reyes and Doggett accost Dylan, and question him in his mother’s office. They show him the “Dumb Ass” video, and he nervously begins to perspire. Doggett hands him a tissue to wipe his sweat. Mrs. Lokensgard enters, refusing to let their interrogation continue, when flies begin to gather on the office ceiling. Dylan’s entire body is suddenly and mysteriously covered in flies.

A Vector Control team evacuates the school, but all the bugs have disappeared. The paramedics examine Dylan, who is unharmed with no bites on him. Reyes believes that Dylan staged the attack to make himself look like a victim instead of a perpetrator. Mrs. Lokensgard drags Dylan to the car, while Winky eyes him suspiciously. Dr. Bronzino examines the tissue that Dylan used to wipe his sweat, finding that the boy is actually secreting bug pheromones. Although that notion is preposterous, Reyes theorizes that Dylan is using the bugs to act out against anyone who might harm Natalie. Later that night, Dylan is surprised to see Natalie climb up to his bedroom window. She hasn’t been there since they were in the fourth grade. She apologizes for not being a friend to him over the years, realizing only now how important he really is to her. He is ecstatic that his dream girl has opened her heart to him. They kiss, but she pulls away when Dylan’s tongue causes her mouth to bleed. Natalie cries and quickly leaves, as Dylan tries to explain. He runs after her into the street, when another car stops behind him. It is Winky with a group of friends, who capture Dylan. They ask how he killed Cap’n Dare. Dylan responds angrily, “I just have to open my mouth.” And when he does, a set of bug mandibles appears between his lips, spraying an opaque mist. The car loses control, turning upside down before it rolls to a stop.

Doggett and Reyes come upon the car wreck, where Winky and his friends are stuck under a thick spider web. He tells them that Dylan is the one responsible, and that he chewed his way out the back window. Reyes finds Natalie at home, curled up on her bed and crying. Reyes asks Natalie to talk to Dylan and convince him not to hurt anyone else. Yet Dylan is already standing in Natalie’s bedroom. At the Lokensgard home, Scully and Dr. Bronzino arrive to question Dylan, but the house is empty and dark. They enter through the open front door, and Bronzino finds high readings of pheromone levels. After Scully leaves to join Doggett at the crime scene, Bronzino continues to scan the Lokensgard home with his electroantennogram. Mrs. Lokensgard surprises him, and she shoots a stream of webbing at Bronzino from the insect mandibles in her mouth. Dylan returns to his house with Natalie, and Mrs. Lokensgard confronts her son. He is upset when she tells him that he is not like the other kids and never will be.

Doggett arrives at Natalie’s to find Reyes completely wrapped in layers of webbing, barely able to breathe. She tells Doggett that Dylan took Natalie to his house, which is where Scully is headed when she lost contact with Dr. Bronzino. Scully creeps in the Lokensgard home and sees Natalie sobbing. Scully cautiously goes into the attic with her weapon ready. Her flashlight beam locates a cocoon, from which comes the voice of Dr. Bronzino. Scully frees him. Paramedics arrive soon after, followed by Doggett and Reyes.

The agents discover that the other cocoon in the attic was a crude coffin for four bodies, one of whom was Dylan’s father, long reported missing. Mrs. Lokensgard had killed her husband for not being what she and Dylan were -- neither human nor insect, but an anomaly in between. Although Dylan had tried to fit in with his peers and was in love with Natalie, he could not hide from his true nature. Mrs. Lokensgard escapes with her saddened son.

Natalie lies awake in her bed, when her attention is drawn to a light in the night sky. She goes to her window and sees a swarm of fireflies, their lights twinkling and forming a message that reads, “I Love You.”

#188 “TRUST NO 1“
Original Air Date: 01/06/02
Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Tony Wharmby
Also Starring: Terrance Quinn as Shadow Man, Allison Smith as Patti, Steven Flynn as Man on the Street, Kathryn Joosten as Agent Edie Boal, Fitz Houston as Station Manager, Brianne Prather as Young Woman, James Riker as Baby William, Travis Riker as Baby William

In a montage of surveillance images, Mulder and Scully are seen throughout the years. They are not only captured on investigations, but during private moments in their homes. More recent surveillance footage shows Scully on the platform of a train station, crying over a slain man’s body.

Scully enters an internet café with William and logs onto a private mail box. Waiting for her is a message from Mulder, who expresses his desire to return home to her and to William. As Scully begins her reply, a woman who has entered the café with a baby leaves to argue with a man outside. Scully goes to the unattended baby, and the woman comes back to reclaim her child. Later, at Quantico, Doggett and Reyes tell Scully that a source has been trying to contact Mulder with information about the Super Soldiers. Unfortunately, the man will talk to no one but Mulder. Scully says that she doesn’t know how to contact him, and Doggett questions why she still refuses to trust him or anybody else.

Later that night, Scully returns home and sees the woman from the internet café on her street. The woman is again fighting with the same Man on the Street, but this time he takes her baby and drives off. Scully approaches the woman, who introduces herself as Patti. Feeling sorry for her, Scully offers to Patti to stay the night. Meanwhile, Doggett and Reyes watch a nondescript building that has been traced to the source that had sought out Mulder. A car pulls up, and the driver heads into the building. It is the Man on the Street who had been fighting with Patti. Inside the building is a room full of surveillance monitors. A Shadow Man at an adjacent monitor asks the Man on the Street about his wife and child. As he exchanges pleasantries, the Shadow Man calmly watches on his monitor as Doggett and Reyes break into the Man on the Street’s car outside.

At 5:41 a.m., the Man on the Street finally leaves the building, and Doggett and Reyes follow him. At Scully’s apartment, Patti rises, turns off the baby monitor and picks up William. Scully’s cell phone vibrates, waking her up. It is Doggett, telling her that he and Reyes have followed a strange man to her building. Suddenly alarmed, Scully pulls her gun on Patti, and orders the woman to put down William. Doggett accosts the Man on the Street before he is about to break into Scully’s apartment. The Man will not reveal anything, only muttering, “They’re watching.” Scully suspects that both the Man and Patti had conned her to get to her son. Scully closes her blinds, and the Man finally divulges that he works for the National Security Agency. He can not be traced. Patti confesses that her daughter, like William, is somehow different. The Man knows that William affected movement of the mobile over his crib. He admits that he has not only been watching Scully, but Doggett and Reyes as well. The Man had told his supervisor about the oddities surrounding both his daughter and William. The supervisor believes that they are related to the Super Soldiers, and the Man had hoped that Mulder could somehow make the connection to find out what their children really are. Suddenly, the Shadow Man from the nondescript building phones Scully. He says that he has been listening to the conversation. As he watches their every movement, he does not tell her that he has cameras inside her apartment. The Shadow Man knows that Scully had sent Mulder an email the previous day. She refuses to give him any information on Mulder unless she can see him personally. He instructs her to come alone to the internet café. Although Doggett protests, Scully leaves William with them to meet her secret contact.

As she waits outside the café, Scully is called by the Shadow Man. He directs her to a green car while he watches her from a camera on the street. She is told to start the car and drive into an alley. Then she gets out, and enters another waiting car. As the Shadow Man watches from a camera inside the second car, she drives onto the highway. At nightfall, the Shadow Man has her stop in the middle of a desolate field. He orders her to leave the car running and open the trunk. She is told to change into the clothes inside the trunk. Suddenly, the Shadow Man appears. He has her put her gun and her old clothes inside the car, which he explodes by remote control. He inspects her watch for microphones. Believing her to be free of bugs, the Shadow Man admits that he knows everything about her -- her blood type, childhood fears, pet peeves, etc. -- and has risked his life to talk to her in order to get to Mulder. He warns her that she must contact Mulder. Then he hands her a set of keys to another waiting car.

At Quantico the next day, Doggett expresses his worries that both Scully and Mulder are in danger. He fears that these men are using her to lure Mulder out in order to kill him. Scully reveals that Mulder is already travelling on a prearranged train, arriving at midnight. She can’t call him off.

At 10:48 p.m., Scully waits on the train platform, as Reyes backs her up from a distance. The Shadow Man is also watching her through a security camera. The Man on the Street walks onto the train platform and sprays black paint on a security camera above. Doggett, meanwhile, brings Scully’s clothes from the car to an FBI lab. He asks the technician to quickly look for any traces of a man’s DNA on the clothes.

Just before the midnight train approaches, the Man on the Street sees Scully. Reyes catches sight of the Man on the Street pulling out a gun. Reyes calls out for Scully’s attention, but the Man is not pointing at Scully. Scully notices the Shadow Man come toward her with a gun from the other side. Although the Man on the Street is aiming at the Shadow Man, the Shadow Man fires first and hits the Man on the Street. Reyes pulls Scully to the ground, and the Shadow Man points his gun at them. Suddenly, Doggett arrives on the platform and shoots the Shadow Man repeatedly, sending his body onto the tracks of the incoming train. Seeing the gunfire, the station manager orders the train to keep moving. Scully begs for it to be stopped, calling out for Mulder as the train quickly passes. The Man on the Street dies at Scully’s feet. She is grief-stricken and unsure she will ever see Mulder again.

Police later scan the tracks, but the Shadow Man’s body has vanished. Patti arrives at the station, asking Scully for forgiveness. They had only sought answers, and her husband was trying to protect Scully from the man he worked for. Scully comforts Patti over the death of her husband. Doggett tells Scully and Reyes that the fabric on the clothes from the car show that the Shadow Man has a DNA that is complexed with iron and can not be tested. This seems to prove that the Shadow Man is a Super Soldier who is unstoppable. Scully fears for Mulder’s life, believing that the Shadow Man jumped on the train after him. The station manager is alerted that a man jumped off the train into a rock quarry. The agents drive to where the jump took place, and Doggett and Reyes walk down into the quarry. They see a man running away, and Doggett, believing it is Mulder, calls out to him. Although Doggett identifies himself, the man runs off. Scully drives deeper into the quarry, and calls out for Mulder. Suddenly, the Shadow Man comes out from the fog and chases her. She runs into the quarry, becoming trapped. With nowhere else to turn, she pulls her gun on the Shadow Man, asking him why he intends to kill them. The Shadow Man says that either Mulder or William must die. Suddenly, the Shadow Man struggles as a force wracks his body. His face becomes contorted, and he is magnetically pulled to the quarry wall, flying past Scully and knocking her down. As his body impacts the red quarry wall, it disintegrates into a cloud of dust. Scully gets up and runs off.

The next day, Scully emails Mulder with hopes that he is still alive and will someday see her again.

#189 “JOHN DOE”

Original Air Date: 01/13/02

Written by Vince Gilligan
Directed by Michelle MacLaren

Also Starring: James Pickens, Jr. as Deputy Director Kersh, Frank Roman as Domingo Salmeron, Ramon Franco as Nestor, Zitto Kazann as Caballero, Rene Rivera as First Cop, Eduardo Antonio Garcia as Mr. Mariano Molina, F.J. Rio as Second Cop, Barbara Patrick as Mrs. Doggett, Zachary Handy as Luke Doggett, Jacob Handy as Luke Doggett, Bo Kane as Marine Sergeant McCormick, Luis Robledo as Crackhead, Alfred De Contreras as Bartender, Charlie Hartsock as Lawyer, Lucy Rodriguez as Operator

DAY ONE
Doggett wakes up on the floor of an abandoned building to find a Crackhead stealing a sneaker from his foot. He chases the guy out onto the street, and realizes he is on the main drag of a dilapidated town. All the signs are in Spanish. He accosts the Crackhead for the shoe, but the man calls in Spanish for the police. Doggett tries to explain to the Spanish-speaking policeman that it was his shoe that was taken. Hearing an American accent, the cop requests Doggett's passport. Doggett is empty-handed. The cop then asks Doggett his name. Doggett, however, does not know the answer.

DAY TWO
Doggett sits in a grimy but packed jail cell. He still only has one sneaker. A big man in the cell laughs at Doggett's predicament, informing him that he is in Sangradura, Mexico. Although Doggett does not remember his own name, he is sure that he will somehow get out of jail. The big man tells him that Americans come to this town to hide because they are on the run. For all he knows, a call to the American Embassy might just put him in an American jail. Later, Doggett has a vision of himself sleeping next to a woman. A little boy jumps on the bed, calling Doggett, "Daddy." Doggett jerks awake, finding himself still in the Mexican prison.

DAY EIGHT
The big man, named Domingo Salmeron, is released from prison by his cohort, Nestor. Domingo offers to pay for Doggett's release with a job proposal. However, out on the street in complete freedom, Doggett turns Domingo down and starts to walk away. Nestor pulls a revolver on him, but Doggett disarms him and tosses the gun away. He walks off alone.Doggett goes back to the abandoned building and asks the Crackhead if he also took his wallet or papers. The Crackhead produces a silver skull that looks like it was pulled from a piece of jewelry, and mutters the word "Desaparecido." Desperate, Doggett then goes to a cantina to inquire about Domingo's job. Domingo tells him that they smuggle immigrants over the American border and then gives Doggett money to rent a room over the bar. Doggett pulls out the skull charm, but Domingo claims he doesn't know what it means. After Doggett leaves, Domingo tells Nestor that Doggett only wants to remember, "same as all the rest."In the dingy room, Doggett finds a crescent scar at each temple of his hairline. He does not know where they came from. He also sees a Marine Corps tattoo on his left arm, realizing he was once a Marine. Outside the boarding house, an old caballero watches Doggett through the window. The man is wearing a bracelet with the familiar silver skulls dangling off it. One of these skulls is missing.

DAY TWELVE
At the FBI, Scully and Skinner apprise Kersh that, after two weeks of looking in Texas, Doggett was seen crossing the Mexican border. Reyes, who was raised in Mexico, is already in Texas investigating his disappearance. Against Scully and Skinner's wishes, Kersh decides to dismantle the search party and leave it to the Mexican officials. In San Antonio, Reyes interrogates a shady tractor dealer who may have been questioned by Doggett when he was investigating the disappearance of Hollis Rice, a bank vice president. Although the man feigns innocence, Reyes is convinced that he is part of a drug smuggling operation for which Rice laundered money. There may be some connection to Doggett's disappearance.Doggett, meanwhile, has another memory flash of his son jumping on his bed. Doggett is snapped back into reality, finding himself in a Larga Distencia office where locals make long distance calls. He contacts a Staff Sgt. of the Marine Corps Public Affairs, pretending to be a Detective Ladatel who is trying to identify a victim. Doggett describes the tattoo, and the Staff Sgt. recognizes the regiment, promising to try to pin down the Marine's name. Suddenly, two Federales come into the building. Before the Staff Sgt. can say another word, Doggett bolts out of the phone office.At a rusty garage on the outskirts of town, Doggett fixes an old bus for Domingo. Nestor eyes him warily. Domingo gives Doggett a Mexican APB flyer describing an American named Henry Bruck accused of murder. The description matches Doggett, and Domingo warns him to stay away from the Federales. Later, Nestor approaches the caballero who wears the silver skull bracelet at the cantina. They both work for the Cartel. Nestor senses that Doggett, whom he refers to as one of the "Disappeared Ones," is different. The caballero informs Nestor that Doggett is an FBI agent. Although he was not ordered to kill him, the caballero would look the other way if something were to happen to Doggett.Scully eludes Kersh and goes to Reyes in San Antonio. They learn that someone in Mexico has been trying to track down a former Marine with amnesia who matches Doggett's description. When Reyes recognizes the name Ladatel as the Mexican telephone calling card, they run a trace on the call.Later that night, Nestor comes to the garage where Doggett is working alone, underneath the bus that is suspended by a lever jack. Nestor looks at him and says, "See you in hell, FBI." Doggett reacts to this, but Nestor pulls a revolver out. Doggett quickly flips the lever and rolls out from under the bus. The bus falls on Nestor's foot, and he screams in pain. He manages to pull his bloodied foot out and looks under the bus for Doggett, who is gone. Doggett jumps out from the roof of the bus, and Nestor is shot in the resulting struggle. Domingo arrives at the garage an hour later and finds Nestor's body. Doggett asks if Domingo had sent Nestor to kill him. After Doggett pulls the revolver on him, Domingo reveals that Doggett is a "Desaparecido," one of the Cartel's disappeared ones. Doggett realizes that they took away his memory, and Domingo tells him that it can never be retrieved. Suddenly, Doggett experiences another memory flash of his son jumping on his bed. This vision, however, is speeded up. It ends abruptly, and Doggett winces in pain. Domingo notices this and grabs the gun from Doggett's hand, putting it aside. He then begins to mercilessly beat up Doggett.On Ciudad Street in Mexico, Reyes bribes a police officer for information on Doggett. He leads her to a funeral parlor, but the body there is not Doggett's. Reyes sees the same crescent scars that Doggett has on this dead man's head.

DAY THIRTEEN
At the cantina, Domingo reports Nestor's death to the caballero, knowing that this man most likely gave Nestor the permission to kill Doggett. The caballero does not believe that Domingo said nothing to Doggett. Suddenly, the caballero's eyes glow reflectively like a cat's in the dark. He sinks his long thumbnails into Domingo's temples, in the same spot as Doggett's crescent scars.A beaten Doggett wakes up on the floor of the garage and sees Nestor's dead body next to him. A rental sedan pulls up, and Reyes comes in. Doggett, who doesn't recognize her, grabs her gun arm in a lock and spins her face first into the bus. She identifies him, and herself as his partner, but he is still unsure of her. A group of Mexican police cars pull up. The local officers draw their weapons on the garage, ordering the agents to exit the building. One of them is the policeman that Reyes had bribed. As they wait, Doggett asks Reyes what his son's name is. He can see the boy's face, but can't place his name. From the look on Reyes' face, Doggett remembers that Luke was kidnapped and killed. He breaks down just as the police begin to fire. Reyes tries to hold them off, but she must revive Doggett from his emotional breakdown. He tells her to get in the bus, which he backs out and smashes into the police cars. The bus topples over, and the policemen descend upon them. Suddenly, the Federales arrive with Skinner and arrest the Mexican police. Doggett and Reyes are saved.Doggett returns to the cantina and questions the caballero. He knows that the man works for the Cartel and somehow stole his memory. Doggett pieces together his still-hazy memories, explaining that he tracked banker Hollis Rice there. Doggett knows that the caballero did the same thing to Rice as he did to Doggett, but the caballero does not understand why Doggett would want to remember his pain. Defiantly, Doggett says, "Because it's mine." He walks out. Out on the street, Doggett remembers Luke waking him up to show that he could ride his bike. Reyes comforts her partner about having to relive his son's history. Doggett tells her that it was Luke's memory that saved him, and he will take the bad memories as long as he can also have the good ones.

#190 “HELLBOUND”
Original Air Date: 01/27/02

Written by David Amann
Directed by Kim Manners

Also Starring: Don Swayze as Terry Pruit, James McDonnell as Deputy Van Allen, Cyril O’Reilly as Ed Kelso, Katy Boyer as Dr. Lisa Holland, George D. Wallace as Bertram Mueller, Kari Whitman as Roxanne, David Figlioli as Victor Dale Potts, Robert Beckwith as FBI Cadet

Terry Pruit talks to a group of assembled ex-convicts at an anger management meeting inside a church in Novi, Virginia. One of the ex-cons, Ed Kelso, shakes his head in disgust at the topics of conversation. Afterwards, Kelso gives his buddy, Victor Dale Potts, a hard time about the group. Potts, who had been having bad dreams, suddenly has a strange vision of Kelso -- his skin is stripped from his body.Five days later, Reyes briefs Doggett and Scully about the murder of Victor Dale Potts. He was skinned alive, but had a premonition of his death in a dream. He told his dream to Dr. Lisa Holland, the therapist who runs the anger management group. Although the case itself is odd, neither Scully nor Doggett understand why it is an X-file. Reyes is also unsure, but she knows that she must solve the crime.Doggett and Reyes are led by Detective Van Allen to speak with Dr. Holland at the Virginia church. She tells them that Potts had been to the meeting with a friend named Ed who felt negatively toward what the group was trying to accomplish. As they are leaving the church, Detective Van Allen tells Reyes that she looks familiar, but Reyes has never been to the town before. Meanwhile, at a meat packing plant where they both work, Terry Pruit confronts Ed Kelso about Potts’ death. Although Pruit says that the FBI will probably want to question him as well, Kelso pulls out his carving knife and threatens Pruit. As Kelso walks away, Pruit is shocked when he sees a skinless Kelso. Outside the plant, however, Kelso looks completely normal.At Quantico, Scully pulls old files on other skinning cases. One body found in 1960 matches the manner in which Victor Potts was killed. Scully visits Dr. Mueller, the coroner who autopsied the body in 1960. Although the man is now retired, he remembers the case vividly. Since the victim was not identified and no suspect was ever arrested, the case was dropped. The sheriff then committed suicide. However, Dr. Mueller reveals that the victim was the first in a string of skinning murders. Terry Pruit is working alone at night in the meat packing plant when the lights shut off. He suspects that Kelso has come to start trouble, but he sees no one among the rows of hanging pig carcasses. Suddenly, someone wearing a butcher’s apron hits him over the head and straps him upside down on a meat hook. The unseen person pulls out a knife and begins to carve into the screaming Pruit. Meanwhile, Reyes has a dream in which she goes to the church looking for Dr. Holland and finds a skinless man there. She is startled awake by Doggett, who heard her cries through the wall of the hotel room. Dr. Holland called him with news that Terry Pruit’s skinned body was found. The sight of the body at the plant unsettles Reyes, but she listens intently when Scully shows her similar case files dating back to 1960. Kelso is quickly packing up clothes and knives when Doggett and Detective Van Allen storm in and take him into custody. At the police station, Reyes gets the sense that Kelso is not really responsible for the murders. She tells him that she sees the same bad things that he is now seeing in his dreams. Doggett is unsure of her line of questioning, but she doesn’t let on to what she is hiding. Detective Van Allen informs them that Kelso’s girlfriend vouches for his whereabouts at the time of the murder. As Kelso leaves the police station, he sees that Dr. Holland is now skinned. The vision terrifies Kelso. Scully calls Reyes to Quantico, where she had two bodies dug up with the same forensic details as the current murders. The men who had died in 1960 had both been ex-cons. Oddly, the dates of their deaths match the birthdates of Potts and Pruit. Since Scully has four old case files, Reyes fears that there may be two more victims. She calls Doggett, who is running surveillance outside Ed Kelso’s house, and asks him to find out the man’s birthday. When Doggett goes up to the front window, he is shocked to see Kelso’s body completely stripped of its skin.Reyes meets Doggett at the crime scene at Kelso’s house. Since the birthdates do match the 1960 murders, Doggett believes that it is merely a serial killer. Yet Reyes is convinced that she is somehow involved in these connecting cases. She is certain that these men’s souls are murdered over and over, from one lifetime to the next. She even knows that there was a rag stuck in Kelso’s mouth that was covered in coal dust. Doggett and Reyes go to an abandoned mining camp to look for clues on the possible fourth victim. As Doggett discovers the remains of a sheriff in the office, Reyes comes upon old newspaper clippings inside the mine that detail unsolved skinnings. The oldest article is about four men who got away with the murder of a prospector in a mining claim dispute. In the photo, the body of the prospector is skinned. Also in the mine are the hides of a number of humans. Suddenly, Reyes hears footsteps. She draws her gun, but someone grabs her from behind and holds a knife at her throat. It is Detective Van Allen. Doggett comes into the mine, but Reyes is alone and unhurt. She explains that Van Allen is the reincarnation of a man killed in a mining dispute. His four killers were never punished. He continues to avenge that injustice. After skinning four people, he commits suicide so that he can be reborn to start it up again. The cases never get solved because he returns as the cop who investigates the skinnings. Reyes notifies Dr. Holland that she is the next victim, and warns her about Detective Van Allen. The doctor runs when Van Allen comes for her with his carving knife. He chants, “It always ends the same.” Doggett and Reyes arrive in the nick of time and shoot Van Allen. As Van Allen lies in a hospital bed, Reyes still can’t figure out why she knew the things she did. She wonders if perhaps she was someone involved in the past cases who had let justice slip by. Her biggest fear was of failing, but Scully suggests that maybe in this life she actually succeeded. Van Allen goes into cardiac arrest, and he dies with look of vengeance still in his eyes. At the same time, a baby is born whose eyes are the same as Van Allen’s.

#191 “PROVENANCE”
Part I of II

Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Kim Manners

Also Staring: Mitch Pileggi- Assistant Director Skinner, Cary Elwes - Assistant Director Brad Follmer, James Pickens Jr. - Deputy Director Kersh, Sheila Larken - Mrs. Scully, Bruce Harwood – Byers, Tom Braidwood – Frohike, Dean Haglund – Langly

When rubbings from the spaceship resurface, the FBI hides its investigation from the X-files and the one person who is familiar with the symbol’s significance – Scully. What starts as a routing chase by the border patrol in Northern Idaho, uncovers rubbings similar to the ones Mulder had from the spaceship Scully examined in Africa. The X-files team is brought in to the investigation after some unusual interest it taken in Scully's son William.

#192 “PROVIDENCE”
Part II of II

Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Chris Carter

After learning that Mulder might be dead, Scully’s fears are heightened when William is kidnapped by the alien cult. Scully enlists the help of the Lone Gunman to assist her in recovering her son William, after she becomes frustrated with the progress of the FBI investigation in to his kidnapping. As they try to discover why the captors are interested in William and what it has to do if anything with the spaceship in Africa.

#193 “AUDREY PAULEY”
Written by Steven Maeda

Directed by Kim Manners

Doggett and Scully look for answers that will save Reyes’ live after she is injured in a horrible car accident. Yet Reyes is also fighting to stay alive in the netherworld between life and death. When Reyes is run down by a car and left in a coma, her living will dictates that she would not want to live in a comatose state. But Doggett feels guilty about his actions and feels as though there are things left undone. Because of the support that she gave to Doggett just after his son died, that helped him through that tough time, Doggett feels he cannot give up on her.

#194 “UNDERNEATH”
Scully, Dogget and Reyes investigate an old case that Doggett worked on as a cop in Brooklyn, dubbed the Screwdriver killer. They try to determine whether the man who was convicted and has just been released from prison was actually the man responsible for the murders.

#195 “SCARY MONSTERS”

Writer: Tom Schnauz

Director: Dwight Little

Also Starring Jolie Jenkins - Agent Harrison

Unknown - Tommy Conlon

Agent Leyla Harrison requests the help of Doggett and Reyes on the investigation in to the claims of eight year old Tommy Conlon, that monsters hurt his mum. Tommy's grandmother is concerned that Tommy also shows signs of abuse. Leyla Harrison is confident that the case is an X-file.

#196 “IMPROBABLE”

Written by Chris Carter

Also Starring Burt Reynolds - Mr. Burt, Ray McKinnon - Mad Wayne - John Kapelos - Agent Fordyce

Doggett and Reyes investigate the case of a serial killer who has killed three victims. Reyes makes the break in the case when she realized the pattern of the killings make the shape 9. Believing that numbers are part of this killer ritual, she approaches a numerologist in an effort to predict the next victim and stop the killer before he can kill again.

#197 “JUMP THE SHARK”

Writer: Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz

Director: Cliff Bole

Also Starring Bruce Harwood – Byers, Tom Braidwood – Frohike, Dean Haglund – Langly, Michael McKean - Morris Fletcher, Zuleikha Robinson - Yves Harlow, Stephen Snedden - Jimmy Bond, Marcus Giamatti - John Gillnitz, Unknown- Professor Houghton

Doggett and Reyes are called in to investigate when a prominent immunologist, Professor Houghton is attacked. His research in to using shark cartilage to combat cancer and other diseases hardly seems that controversial. However the plot thickens when their investigation leads them to the Lone Gunman.

#198 “WILLIAM”

Writer: Chris Carter

Story by: Chris Carter, David Duchovny, Frank Spotnitz, Director:- David Duchovny

When Scully's son William is injected with a syringe by a strange man. Scully is distraught as they rush him to hospital. Meanwhile a angry Doggett roughly interrogates the assailant. The doctors reassure Scully that William is fine, the tox screen shows only a slightly elevated amount of iron. Scully feels it is imperative they find out the man's interest in her son.

#199 “RELEASE”
When an FBI cadet with amazing profiling skills approaches Doggett, Reyes and Scully with a lead on a suspect in a series of recent murders, he claims the same killer is responsible for Doggett's sons death. They find themselves wondering if his good knowledge of the deaths is because of his obsession with the cases he has studied on Quantico or if he is in some way involved in the murders.

#200 “SUNSHINE DAYS”

#201 “THE TRUTH”

Starring David Duchovny

Series finale

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Ritterson's Episode Guides 1998-2005 by Captain Bill.