So I get home tonight a half hour after X-Files ended, all ready to watch it because I had set my VCR. I open the door to my room and hear the VCR heads spinning. About .75 seconds later, it hits me that I forgot to set my VCR clock ahead. Pit language edited out here
So I wait for my roommate to get home, hoping that he might have taped it, but no - he was waiting for my tape as well.
So someone please come to the rescue and tell me what happened?! Thanks in advance.
It was rather bizzare (gee, what a surprise, well, it was more bizzare than usual.)
First, the Deputy Director offers Dogget a new job outside The X Files. Dogget refuses.
Then, some fisherman find a dead body floating in the water. The coast guard brings the body back to the coroner. The coroner discovers that the body is still alive, but barely.
Somehow (I missed this part) Skinner gets the idea to exhume Mulder’s grave. (This is three months after he died.) Mulder is in the same condition. We suspect this has something to do with his abduction.
The dude found in the ocean gets up and sheds his skin like a snake. Ewwwww. He’s conscious now, and says, of the aliens, “they’re tring to save us.”
Krycek shows up in the FBI building and tells Skinner that he has a vaccine that can help Mulder. Krycek demands that Skinner kill Scully’s unborn child in exchange for the vaccine. Skinner refuses. (Then I missed a few more minutes.)
Dogget is sent chasing after Krycek. Krycek takes the vile of “vaccine” and drops it, breaking it, before speeding away. Dogget tells Skinner that he was right, Krycek can’t be trusted.
Show ends with Scully by Mulder’s hospital bed.
By, “like a snake,” he means in the shower amidst an outpouring of blood and chunks of skin. Very ewww.
She and Mulder have a short but sweet conversation as well. The preview for next week’s episode showed Mulder running around as per usual.
I think the main point is that Mulder is back. He woke up and cracked a joke with Scully, “Who are you?” Funny stuff, considering the poor bastard ahs been abducted by aliens who did God knows what to him and been replaced by the evil Terminator from T2…
The few minutes that friedo missed were just Doggett stopping Skinner from unplugging Mulder, after Krycek makes his demand for Scully’s unborn child’s life.
Oh yeah, and Krycek has some kind of PalmPilot-type-doohickey that activates “xenoprobes” in Skinner and cause him to suffer what appear to be heart attacks… Dammit, I wish my Palm V did that… “What? I don’t get a raise? F**K You! I’ll make you drop dead of a heart attack!”
BWAHAHA! I posted an almost identical thread in FFF’s “Oh, the Humanities” tonight! Mine was titled: “X Files (spoiler request)”
OK, I’m with you so far…
So how did Mulder get back to life? Did he do it on his own, a la the snake guy? Or was the vaccine involved? If it was, how did they get ahold of it, if the vial broke? If he came back on his own, what is the vaccine supposed to do?
It’s not clear, but I suspect Mulder was given something during his abduction that let him stay in the coffin in a death-like state for a long time, like the ocean-guy, who was also apparently abducted.
I also think Krycek was bullshitting about the vaccine. He just wants Scully’s baby killed, and figured this would be a good way to get someone to do it.
It should be noted that the guy that the fishermen found bobbing around in the ocean is Billy Miles from the very first episode. It was implied that after shedding, the “new” Billy Miles is actually a bad alien, the preliminary start of the takeover of earth.
Mulder is evidently not an alien because they were able to cure him before he shed. Skinner inadvertently found out how to cure him by trying to disconnect his life support (I guess the virus likes the life support).
When Scully was looking in on Billy Miles, his heart monitor showed two heartbeats while he had a grand mal seizure. Hypothesis offered was the suspended animation allowed the alien “growing” inside time to take over, a la internal pod people, and the life support sped this up. Skinner figured this and took Mulder off life-support, whereby his temp plummeted, but vitals stayed good.
All you have ever wanted to know…
Is…
Wait for iiiittt…
It was cutsie, and corny, all at once.
E.
Actually, Skinner didn’t figure out that by pulling Mulder off life support he would be save. It was dumb luck. When Krycek told Skinner that the only way to get the vaccine was to kill Scully’s baby, Skinner wouldn’t do it. he figured the only way, then, to keep Mulder from turning into a bad alien was to kill him. THAT’S what he was trying to do.
Dogget almost messed that up, too, by busting in and yelling at Skinner alot.
Oh, and that Pal Pilot thing that Krycek has was actually first show in the episode S.R. 819 in the middle of the sixth season. Skinner has this nanotech stuff, little mechanical stuff, lying domant in his blood. But Krycek has the device that can wake the little critters up, thus causing poor Skinner a great deal of pain and possible death. He really does have Skinner’s life in his hands.
Speaking of life, I think I need to get one…
I’ve been sorta over the Xfiles for a while but I was home last night and watched… I haven’t been all that impressed with Dogget until now. he was excellent and thwt little garage chase with him and Krycek was awesome. Musch more bloody and intense than it would have been in the hands of M or S. I think he has the potential to add that sort of leathery pit bull wuality ot the show. Its never been exactly a Tough show, but in the last few years, (specifically since the african UFO season opener) its gotten downright new agey and sappy.
I’d love to see Dogget and Mulder go a few rounds. Dogget could probably kill him, but it probably wouldn’t come to that.
CJ
Good thing they didn’t embalm him, like they usually do to dead folks before burial…
As far as I’m concerned, this is the episode where the X-Files “jumped the shark”. It just made no sense. Let’s see – the aliens want to plant these ringers on Earth, so they return the dead bodies with viruses in them that keep them just barely alive until the dopplegangers can incubate.
And, oh yeah, so that people will bury the bodies so that the doppelgangers will wake up under six feet of dirt. Sheesh. That makes sense. Why not incubate the doppelgangers on their spaceship and then drop them off?
Answer: It’s just a goofy excuse to have Mulder die and then come back from the dead.
As the doctor said while looking at Mulder, there’s been significant decomposition of the tissues and nervous system. You don’t come back from that with no cognitive deficits, even if you’re chock full of alien viruses.
Hi, Opal! (I’ve always wanted to say that, but I’ve never had more than one thing to say at a time…)
Thanks, everyone. Between this thread and the last few minutes of the show that my VCR did catch, I think I’ve wrapped my head around it, though I’m still pissed at myself.
I presume they didn’t bother with anything so pedantic as an explanation for Krycheck’s return? Also, did they introduce or reintroduce any new characters that will confuse me next week?
Smeg, I have to do this… (one of my pet peeves)
NO H!!! It’s Krycek. 
I for one like that the writers seem to be getting back into the leave-you-wondering plotline that made the show so great to begin with.
The questions I am left wondering about most are:
Why does Krycek not want Scully’s baby to be born? (If it’s Mulders baby, perhaps something to do with the alien hybrids?)
If he wants her baby dead so badly, why can’t he do the deed himself?
Why doesn’t Skinner just get a blood transfusion to get rid of the nano-thingies?
We know Duchovney is leaving the show (don’t we?), why are they bringing Mulder back just to have to kill him off again?
Why didn’t Krycek kill Doggett when he had the chance? Doggett was unarmed and we know Krycek packs heat and has no qualms about committing cold blooded murder. How does Krycek fit Doggett into whatever plan he has going?
And another question I have:
I missed the last season for the most part, was CG Spender killed or otherwise removed from the show? Haven’t seen him yet this season and I can’t imagine that if he were alive and about, he wouldn’t have his hands in whatever Krycek is involved in.
As it was never really explained how Scully got pregnant, perhaps Krycek wants her baby dead because it’s proof of some sort of alien experimentation? (Upon preview, I just saw your post, soulmurk.)
In next week’s episode, Mulder gives Doggett a hard shove. That might be as close to a fight as you’ll get.
On a slightly related note, every time I see Doggett near a car or running after a car, he’s T-1000 all over again.
Don’t think so. Next week’s epi is about the (rather inevitable) Mulder-Doggett clash.
As for Krycek popping up without warning… well, that’s not really unusual, is it? Last night’s sudden appearance was pretty typical ol’ Ratboy.
Hey Falcon, was it you who was a fan of Krycek? Or am I misremembering?
Having/making someone else do your dirtywork is more fun.
IIRC from ‘S.R. 819’, he can’t. It wouldn’t be possible, or it wouldn’t work.
They can’t do a whole season without him, IMO. Mulder is too much of the X Files to have much of a show without him. Also, if they’re preparing to end the series, they can’t end it without him (for pretty much the same reason). I also heard a long time ago that they were going to end the season without a real television finale, but have the whole thing end with another movie. And again, you can’t have much of an XF movie without Mulder. Either way you cut it, Mulder has to come back.
Next week’s epi teaser implies that Doggett might not be a good guy. Of course, nothing keeps non-good guys from killing each other anyway (as bad guys tend to dislike each other), but it’s worth considering.
Finally, yes, CG Spender is dead. His father killed him.
Oh, a question of my own: In last night’s epi, Sheila Larkin (Scully’s mother) was named in the opening credits. But I didn’t see her in the show. Was that a mistake? Or did I miss her?
Yes Audrey, I’m the Krycek fan. Started loving him in “Paper Hearts,” and ever since. I’m PROUD to be a Ratchick, dammit! (Only reason I watched the ep last night, to be honest…)
Also, I heard that the series will continue next year without Mulder. IIRC, Gillian Anderson has one more year left on her contract. That doesn’t rule out a movie to explain Mulder leaving, tho. And DAMMIT, Krycek better be in the next movie!!! glares
I suppose a blood transfusion would be too simple a way out for ole AD Skinner. Never heard any theories about how to rid himself of the control Krycek has over him, but I did miss a large portion of last season.
Something I noticed last night, the agents all call each other after their last names. Fox is Mulder, Dana is Scully, etc., yet they always refer to Skinner as AD Skinner.
As for Scully’s baby, as it was explained to me, she had tried several times to be artificially inseminated with Mulder’s sperm, but it never took. He comforted her and they ended up sleeping together, which resulted in the babies conception.