Sorry hockey fans, this episode -- entitled "The Red and the Black" -- is not a documentary on the New Jersey Devils. You can always go back and watch "The Jersey Devil" episode from Season 1, Episode 5, even though that has nothing to do with the hockey team either. We pick up where "Patient X" left off but the voice-over contrivance has been replaced with a visual one, an unknown author in a foreign land typing a letter meant for someone at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But that’s not important now. 
Investigators have (finally) arrived at the bridge in Pennsylvania where dozens of people burned to death. Mulder and Assistant Director Skinner arrive looking for Scully, who somehow managed not to have all of her skin and muscle seared off like the others. (I’m telling you, those yearly contracts are life savers!) Jeffrey Spender arrives looking for his mama. I’m fairly certain the Syndicate’s silent lackey kept her safe from the assassins. Marita Covarrubias gets recovered by the Syndicate, but her prognosis is grim. The Well-Manicured Man sees the black oil in her eyes while the rest of the Syndicate observe from above. At least WMM is brave enough to be within harm while checking on her. The rest of them are just chicken. Or maybe they drew straws and WMM got the short one. Dana wakes up the next morning with superficial injuries but no memory of the previous night’s events. She learns about the incident from the closed captioning on the hospital television, but it doesn’t jog her memory. Agent Spender brings news that only Cassandra’s chair was found. He’s pissed at Sculder, but that doesn’t help him get answers either.
WMM checks on Alex Krycek, who he left handcuffed on the ship. WMM claims Dmitri died on the bridge, but WMM and Krycek remain at a stalemate. An unidentified flying object crash lands at Wiekamp Air Force base in West Virginia. Soldiers quickly arrive and approach the survivor -- a faceless alien assassin, just like the one burning the abductees to death. The next morning Scully is trying to jog her memory and she is surprised to learn Cassandra was with her. Fox mentions how the other victims also had neck implants and were directed to the site. Mulder is convinced all of the answers to his questions are in Dana's chip. (So technically, the truth is “in” there?) The Syndicate discusses the alien rebel at Wiekamp. WMM claims the group has the vaccine is in their possession. The Elder suggests siding with the rebels if it doesn’t work. Marita will be the guinea pig. 
Fox takes Scully to see Dr. Werber for a hypnotic regression therapy session. Surprisingly, she falls under pretty easily and relives being on the bridge looking up at the bright light in the sky as the triangular ship flies above them. Cassandra is with her and her escort (the Syndicate’s silent lackey) goes after the faceless assassins with a gun when the burning starts. (I’ll bet the shippers spent lots of time overanalyzing Dana's subconscious reach for support from Mulder and his conscious reaction.) Another ship arrives and attacks the assassins. Then the second ship’s spotlight focuses on Cassandra and she is beamed aboard while the remaining abductees slowly raise their hands like grade-school children who desperately want to be picked next. Skinner reviews the session recording. Fox initially sounds like he believes Scully’s account, then likens it to his “false” memory of his sister’s abduction. Since Dana doesn’t have independent recall, Walter may be stuck with Mulder’s theory that the bridge incident was staged, even though he’s more inclined to side with Fox now than he was five years ago.Back to the lab rat. So far, Marita is not showing any signs of improvement. The Elder makes the decision for the Syndicate to turn over the rebel. (Don’t you wonder how their conversations with the aliens go? Phone call, face to face, smoke signals. How do they communicate?) Jeffrey Spender confronts Scully in Mulder’s office. He shows Dana a video of his hypnotic regression therapy session from when he was 11 years old. He claims his account of alien abduction was fake, manipulated by Cassandra because she was insane and he was just a kid who heard her stories way too much. Spender thinks Scully is prone to the same influence with Fox's ongoing account of Samantha’s abduction.
In Mulder’s apartment, Krycek gets the jump on Fox and tells him about the aliens’ planned invasion of Earth. Mulder doesn’t believe him, but Alex claims the mass incinerations occurred to prevent the colonization, maybe because they can only colonize people with the implants. He also mentions that one of the rebels is being held hostage then surrenders his gun and leaves. And at the Air Force base, a familiar alien bounty hunter has arrived. Sculder head to Wiekamp Air Force Base, thanks to Krycek’s tip. There’s a large truck exiting the base at the same time and Scully recognizes the driver. (It’s the Syndicate’s silent lackey.) Fox jumps on the back of the truck while Dana gets detained at the gate. The driver’s face changes and now he’s the alien bounty hunter again. He stops the truck and prepares to stab the rebel with a ice pick-like weapon, you know, like the one from Colony (S2E16). (I just love how I can plagiarize myself.) There’s a bright light from above, the ship calling forth the rebel. Mulder screams and shoots. Now alone in the truck, Fox is taken into custody by the military. Scully asks what happened but, of course, Mulder doesn’t remember. Dana takes his hand as a show of support. And it looks like the vaccine has finally work on our resident lab rat, Marita.
The next morning, Assistant Director Skinner tells Agent Spender his mother’s case is officially an X-File. And that letter from the pre-credits scene (you know, the one you forgot about) has finally arrived. It’s for Spender and it originated from Quebec, Canada. Spender does one likable thing: He sends the letter back to the source as undeliverable. And the source? Cancer Man himself. Wonder whether the young boy playing postmaster for him also delivers his endless supply of cigarettes. Bonus points for saving William B. Davis’ credit until after the final scene. Bet that was a nice surprise for the first-time watchers. By the way, the envelope is red and the print is black. Is that really what the title is about? Or should we delve deeper and argue how red is blood and black is alien oil?
Sestra Professional:
I'm not sure any original-run watchers didn't expect that letter to be coming from the supposedly dead Cigarette Smoking Man. I know I definitely did. It would have been painfully obvious if he had been in the opening credits, instead it was just sorta obvious.
But let's talk a little about the contents of that missive. It talks of reconciling differences between a father and a son. At this point, X-Philes thought it was addressed to Mulder, after all, it was going to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A little bait-and-switch there, eh, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz? But we probably should have picked up on that before, since Jeffrey Spender's portrayer Chris Owens did play the younger version of CSM in "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" (S4E7) and "Demons" (S4E23).Now back to our heroes. It's very helpful that Sculder can't remember what's happened to them, usually in the confines of the same episodes. It helps the show return to its factory settings. Mulder and Scully's scene in the hospital is nicely played, but nevertheless a bit of a stilted set piece in which we again recap what's been going on for the past five years (the show looooves to do that during mythology episodes, and Skinner does it later too). That moment leads to an even better one, though -- Dana's hypnosis.
Gillian Anderson totally rocks this scene, recounting the startling events of the night on the bridge with alien ships and two breeds of aliens. Cassandra's ascent to the ship was striking, certainly not a vision I'd seen before. (Or at least remember having seen, I could have been rinsed out.) I'm not a shipper, but even I appreciated the moment when Scully reaches out and Mulder takes her hand. That's the real magic of the relationship, folks. They are there for each other no matter what they're going through. It's bigger than a "they're in love" label. David Duchovny is mighty fine here as well. He's playing Fox believing Dana's experiencing an implanted vision, but with total support for her nevertheless. At this point, Mulder's so off his game that he's siding with counterpoints that he's probably heard for years. He does believe Scully witnessed something powerful, namely Cassandra being abducted by the military, but that it came with all the bells and whistles of a religious rapture. Jeffrey's childhood hypnosis scene sort of backs that up. He heard abduction stories so many times that he believed them, rather than thinking that his father's abrupt departure drove his mom insane. Spender thinks Dana's gone down the same path after she heard Samantha's abduction story and others like it from Fox a kajillion times.
There is one law -- fight or die -- and one rule -- resist or serve: But Scully's hypnosis isn't even my favorite scene from the episode. In truth, "The Red and the Black" boasts my single favorite conspiracy bit from the run of the show. It starts with salty jokes between Krycek and Mulder. But Alex ratchets up the stakes by saying he'd just as soon shoot Fox if it wasn't in his own best interests. "There is a war raging. And unless you pull your head out of the sand, you and I and about five billion other people are going to go the way of the dinosaur," he says pointedly while detailing the planned colonization and the resistance. That's right, Krycek gave Mulder back his groove. And it's capped off by a moment slash-fiction writers salivated over as much as shippers did the hypnosis scene. Alex kisses Fox on the cheek, relinquishes a gun and wishes him luck in Russian on his way out the door. (Well, the slash writers wouldn't have had Krycek walk out the door so soon.) It's a brilliant couple of minutes between Duchovny and Nicholas Lea that get Fox back on track.But when Marita was getting interesting -- screwing Krycek (hee hee) and the Syndicate -- she turns into some kind of black-oil test subject. And the annoying factor that used to accompany her character seems to have been transferred to Jeffrey Spender a lot like the way black oil jumped between bodies in "Tunguska" and "Terma" (S4E8-9). (I'm following your lead, Sestra, with callbacks.) Anyway, Spender's blaming Mulder for all kinds of things when Fox hasn't even been actively involved in the Cassandra investigation. You're not winning at brownie points by accusing Mulder of things he hasn't done, kid.
The Well-Manicured Man has been coming on strong this season. The absence of the Cigarette-Smoking Man brought him into clearer focus. WMM is hard-nosed when he needs to be, and he realizes giving the vaccine to someone who betrayed him can work out in his favor. It's good to see The Syndicate the least bit concerned about being betrayed by the aliens and coming up with a Plan B in case it doesn't work out. But again, WMM understands turning over the alien rebel makes that harder to do. By the way, I too have often wondered how communications go between that group and the aliens. "You have e-mail?" Would it be "U-mail?" Maybe they just learned the Kodaly method from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.Meta mortals: I think both Sestra Am's points about the title, "The Red and the Black" are valid. Add to the mix that the first track on Blue Oyster Cult's 1973 album Tyranny and Mutation had that title, and that the classic rock band had a proclivity for songs about aliens and government conspiracy. ... Rob Bowman was slated to direct this episode, but was prepping for Fight the Future reshoots, so Carter took over with some assistance from Kim Manners. "He was so mad at me," Bowman recalled in The Complete X-Files about Carter's reaction to that bit of news. ... The list of Skyland Mountain victims on the television is composed of names of staff members on the show. ... CSM's messenger boy was played by Jack Finn, son of X-Files producer J.P. Finn.
Guest star of the week: Veronica Cartwright again. She doesn't have a lot of screen time (or dialogue) in this one, but she's the centerpiece nonetheless. I certainly believe Cassandra and the unique way in which we're shown a victim who doesn't just buy into her abduction scenario, she relishes it. I had the pleasure of meeting Cartwright at a local pop-culture convention a few years ago and she gave me detailed descriptions of filming the two-parter in much the same way she delivered the goods on the show, with feeling and enthusiasm. Check out the details here.
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