X-Files S2E25: Nothing vanishes without a trace

Sestra Amateur: 

April 9: On a Navajo reservation in New Mexico, aliens arrive and answer every question the X-Files have ever posed. Well, not exactly. It’s more like an earthquake. Native American Albert Hosteen knows something is up. His grandson, Eric Hosteen, sees a white patch in a canyon. He wipes away the dirt, finds what appears to be an alien skeleton and takes it to Albert, who tells Eric to return it to where he found it.

April 10: In Dover, Delaware, a conspiracy theorist hacks into the Department of Defense’s computer and finds something he really, really likes. No good can come of this. Word quickly gets around the United Nations. Cancer Man gets a call about the compromised file which supports the existence of extraterrestrial life. Someone raids the conspiracy theorist’s apartment to retrieve the file, but he is already gone.

April 11: Mulder has a headache and pops some aspirin. The Lone Gunmen arrive unannounced and tell Fox that “Black Ops” are looking for Kenneth Soona – our conspiracy theorist, aka “The Thinker.” They hear a shot and learn one of Fox’s neighbors shot her husband. Police arrive really quickly and take over. The Thinker meets with Mulder and claims he has Department of Defense UFO intelligence files. He wants the government to answer for its actions. 

April 12: Fox tries to access the digital evidence through his work computer. It’s indecipherable to him, but Dana thinks it’s just encrypted in Navajo. Her partner's still acting a little off-kilter and Doctor Scully picks up on it. While she tries to find a translator, he meets with Skinner. Mulder has his “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” moment and clocks Skinner! Walter quickly gets the upper hand, and Fox gets the rest of the day off.

April 13: Mulder goes back to Skinner’s office to try and account for his behavior. Then Scully is confronted by four FBI supervisors and also leaves pretty perturbed. Meanwhile, CSM goes to William Mulder’s house. Bill is not happy to see him, but Cancer Man says Fox has files which apparently mention his father. CSM says he's trying to protect the son with plausible deniability. Back in Mulder’s apartment, Dana wants Fox to reassure her that putting everything on the line for these files is the right way to go. Mulder can’t explain why he attacked Skinner. Dana arranges to meet with a code talker and Fox’s dad to ask him to visit. Mulder, who is sweating profusely, puts his Mr. X calling card in the window and leaves. Scully arrives at his apartment and someone takes a shot at her – probably meaning to hit Fox. The bullet grazes her forehead but she’s OK. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: She really needs to wear a helmet during her investigations. 

Back in Martha’s Vineyard, Bill Mulder starts to admit his past actions. He pulls the typical “I’ll be right back” moment to take some medication. Krycek appears (stop cheering, Sestra Pro) and shoots Bill, whose last words are “forgive me.” Of course, they are. Fox calls Dana to tell her the horrible news. She's worried he is being set up for his own father’s murder and tells him someone may also be trying to kill him. Still feverish and pretty out of it, Mulder goes to Scully’s apartment.

April 14: When Fox wakes up, he realizes Dana took his gun for ballistics analysis. More paranoid than usual, Mulder thinks his partner is out to prove him guilty. Scully digs the bullet out of his wall and sees a suspicious van parked outside the apartment complex. It looks like a soft-water tank delivery vehicle, but Dana inspects the tanks in the basement. Smart gal. Fox returns home and finds Krycek. He really lets him have it. Then Scully arrives on the scene and shoots Mulder in the shoulder. It really was for his own good; it’s harder to frame him when the physical evidence isn’t there to be compromised. Fox, of course, sees it differently because Krycek gets away. 

April 15: I guess Sculder took the day off to file their tax returns before midnight.

April 16: Actually, Mulder was getting some much-needed sleep. He wakes up in a room with Scully and Albert in New Mexico. Dana finally convinces her partner she’s still on his side. She also proves he was being drugged through the water in his apartment, explaining his off-the-hook behavior. This may be the best argument ever for bottled water. It also clears up why his neighbor acted out of character when she shot her husband. Hope she has a good attorney who puts Scully on the stand in her defense. Dana tells Fox that Hosteen served as a Navajo code talker during World War II. Turns out he also knew Fox was coming. Scully really wants him to find out why she and Duane Barry are mentioned in the mysterious files.

Mulder and Albert head to the reservation. He tells Fox about Anasazi – “the ancient aliens” – an Indian tribe that disappeared 600 years ago. Hosteen believes they were abducted by “visitors who come here still” -- tourists? Mulder and Eric ride to the location where the alien remains were originally found. CSM calls Fox and denies giving the order to kill Bill. Not surprisingly, Mulder is not convinced and he hangs up. But Fox doesn’t know his nemesis is actually in the area. 

Mulder unearths a train refrigeration car in the quarry. He jumps inside and finds bodies stacked in there. Scully says the documents refer to testing on humans who were also known as “merchandise.” Fox thinks they’re aliens until he sees a smallpox vaccination scar on one of them. You know, it’s not too far-fetched to think an alien race also had to find a cure for smallpox. Eric hears a helicopter and shuts Mulder inside the train car. The military enter, but can’t find him. CSM orders the soldiers to burn it. He takes Eric with him as a bomb explodes inside the train car. Is Mulder alive? Did David Duchovny renew his contract? Is Mr. X wondering why the hell Fox would summon him and not be there to answer? Stay tuned for Season 3.


Sestra Professional:

It's gonna be hard to top this cliffhanger. In a series is chock full of catch phrases such as "Trust No One" and the "The Truth Is Out There," my favorite remains "Burn it!" 

That Albert Hosteen sure knows a lot. There really wouldn't be a show if he was around all the time. He could say something mysterious like "the earth has a secret it needs to tell" that kind of explains something but kinda doesn't and then get his grandson to solve mysteries and maybe pick up some loot. Call it The Rock Quarry Files?

I agree that those cops got there really quickly on that domestic. The credits hadn't even finished rolling yet. I suppose the conspiracy might have had a squad car assigned to watch that building. Strangely enough, though, no one apparently did an investigation following a shot through an FBI agent's window since Scully was able to dig the slug out of the wall the next day. 

God made heaven and earth but didn't bother to tell anyone about his side projects: Having Mulder go off the rails is quite a task, because his volume is already naturally tuned to about 11. So I guess that's why Skinner got decked. What can't be as easily explained is show creator/executive producer Chris Carter as one of the FBI supervisors interrogating Scully. Bill Mulder's corpse was less stiff than that performance. But don't think I wasn't entertained all the same by him delivering the standard Scully "debunking" exposition.

David Duchovny and Chris Carter worked up the story together, and they conjured up a lot of great set pieces, starting with the conversation between Cigarette Smoking Man and Bill Mulder. That gives way to the strangely startling bathroom mirror image. Now you don't see Krycek in the mirror, now you do! Just for the record, I didn't see him shoot nobody. 

With Fox off the rails, Dana's got to be the voice of reason even more than usual. And they enable her to do so without being totally subservient. "I need some kind of assurance that they're not going to let us hang ourselves with this thing," she tells Fox.

On to this codebreaking thing. A woman who can't decipher many of the words in the document can pick out "goods," "merchandise" and "vaccination"? The excuse is that they're modern words, but I'm thinking that she would probably should have been able to discern more of the easier ones first.

I think Sestra Am provides the only vote I've ever heard in favor of Scully shooting Mulder instead of Krycek. (Well, except from the Ratboy legion, of course.) That was a startling twist that's explained pretty well -- how could he prove he didn't kill his father if he wasted Alex with the gun used on Bill? -- but still feels so strange when it goes down.

It wasn't an exercise in subtlety: Dana's other efforts in the investigation feel much more organic. She figures out there was LSD or amphetamines in the apartment complex's water supply. And, of course, she discovers the future star of The Rock Quarry Files. Here's another gem for that show's teaser: "In the desert, things find a way to survive. Secrets are like this too."

As someone who watched every moment of every extra on the videocassette when the episodes were originally released, I find it tough to look at the desert without thinking about how Carter & Company hand-painted every one of those Vancouver rocks red. It's like an implanted vision at this point. (Oh, and you, missed a spot! See picture above.) But once they get in that boxcar, it's a roller-coaster ride to the end credits.

Bravo to the art department for their dynamic work on aliens. The bodies really were stacked floor to ceiling. And it felt all-too-claustrophobic when Mulder was locked in the car and it was set ablaze with that tell-tale phrase. But while we once waited months for a resolution, Sibling Cinema readers will only have to hang on a mere week.

Guest star of the week: Chris Carter. No, it's not Carter. Burn! (It!) Gotta go with Peter Donat here. Bringing in a power hitter to juice this story along and give it somewhere to go. He was such a great get for the series, someone who could hold his own against William B. Davis with the understanding that his character would never be as strong-minded. Bill's obviously been in on the conspiracy, but we do nothing but sympathize for him here.