The X-Files Body Count

The Final Tally

2010-01-02T11:05:00.000-08:00

GRAND TOTAL: 2,509

(Give or take several thousand)

Humans: 2,314
Creatures: 131
Aliens: 64

Ugh. It seemed like there were some inconsistencies, and so I went through the entire count. It turns out a few things were under-counted or miscounted, so the total now includes two more humans than was originally shown.

While the tally takes into account every confirmed death as well as estimates of the occasional pile of corpses that shows up, it's probably a little low. I didn't estimate on vague statements, such as the assertion that Luther Lee Boggs killed every animal in his housing project when he was a child. Or the almost certainly under-counted fatalities aboard the USS Allegiance and USS Ardent (not to mention the disappearance of the crews of nine other ships in the Bermuda Triangle of Aging). And though I counted small tallies in wartime situations, I made a Gimpy Rule excluding mass counts, which nullified Mr. X's claim that over 4,000 people were killed in Vietnam by a sleepless Marine unit. Given Michael Kritschgau's assertion that aliens are a giant hoax, as well as the fact that he turns out to be wrong, it is unclear whether the treasure trove of alien bodies Mulder comes across at the Department of Defense should increase the alien count quite a bit. And thanks to Cancer Man's historical killing spree, I also counted a few mentions of dead celebrities. Except Elvis, of course. And finally, a couple of humans could conceivably be transferred to the alien tally, assuming the super-soldiers are not quite human.

By the Season

Season 1: 181 humans, 10 creatures, 9 aliens
Season 2: 323 humans, 19 creatures, 35 aliens
Season 3: 388 humans, 28 creatures, 3 aliens
Season 4: 316 humans, 23 creatures, 8 aliens
Season 5: 206 humans, 8 creatures, 5 aliens
The X-Files: Fight the Future: 18 humans, 1 alien
Season 6: 122 humans, 16 creatures, 1 alien
Season 7: 173 humans, 10 creatures, 0 aliens
Season 8: 376 humans, 15 creatures, 2 aliens
Season 9: 196 humans, 2 creatures, 0 aliens
The X-Files: I Want to Believe: 15 humans

Top 10 Deadliest

In increasing order:

10. The Red and the Black (50 humans net and 3 aliens)

Over 50 humans are incinerated by alien rebels at the Ruskin Dam. A couple of the rebels are killed by the alien colonists, and at least one more is killed when his spacecraft crashes on an Air Force base. The reason it's a net count is that Cancer Man was confirmed to be alive, after being presumed dead for a run of episodes.

9. Humbug (53 humans and 2 creatures)

Mulder and Scully join the case to investigate the latest in a string of murders that has claimed 48 lives over the course of 28 years. It turns out to be from a circus employee's internal twin, who kills a few more people before finding a new home. This also marks the first time I counted historical deaths, and mention of a dead faux-mermaid created from a monkey and fish sewed together counted as two creature deaths.

8. Patient X (62 humans)

Prior to the Ruskin Dam deaths, alien rebels torched at least 61 people between Kazakhstan and Skyland Mountain, and a doctor in Tunguska ends up dead as well.

7. Per Manum (67 humans and an alien)

A room full of fetuses dead of horrific birth defects takes up most of this tally, along with the human mother of an alien, the alien infant, and a man who died in 1970.

6. Closure (77 humans)

The episode opened with the unpleasant discovery of 24 kids who had been murdered by a child molester. It grew to include a number of ghosts and children taken by "walk-ins," including Samantha Mulder.

5. Release (85 humans)

This might be a conservative estimate. Most of the toll comes from the Wall of Death kept by Stuart Mimms. Though it includes hundreds of photos of victims of violent murders, many seem to be duplicates, with five of Luke Doggett alone. Based on that, I guessed there were at least 77 individuals. The count was further increased by a couple of recent victims, some cadavers at an FBI training facility, and the deaths of Luke's murderer and the person whose identity Mimms takes.

4. Our Town (91 humans)

Life-lengthening ritual sacrifices in a chicken plant community end up claiming the lives of dozens of people within a 200-mile radius of the town over the years. The participants begin to turn on themselves shortly before the agents investigate and put a stop to the practice.

3. Badlaa (125 humans)

A chemical plant disaster in India claims 118 lives, with a beggar's son dying later as a result. The beggar's vengeful killing spree and Doggett's recollection of seeing his first body as a Marine increases the count by six. The ending is quite confusing, as the beggar is seen in India after being shot dead by Scully. I say she got him and he has a twin, or something like that.

2. Tempus Fugit (135 humans and an alien)

A commercial jetliner crashes after the military shoots down a UFO conducting a mid-flight abduction, and all 134 people on board (including Max Fenig) perish. The suicide of a military air traffic controller and an alien Mulder finds in the UFO wreckage bump the count up even more.

1. Piper Maru (139 humans)

Only seven sailors in the 144-strong crew of a World War II submarine survive a black oil infection and subsequent radiation poisoning. Trigger-happy French agents and a Gulf War training death add a couple more to this deadliest single episode.

All told, these 10 episodes (about five percent of the total episodes and movies) account for about 35.5 percent of the total fatalities.

Most Mourned

The Lone Gunmen: this lovable trio of geeks never let Mulder and Scully down, and were popular enough to get their own short-lived spinoff. They were symbolic of the Three Wise Men after William's birth, for crying out loud. At least they went out in style, sacrificing their own lives to stop a viral outbreak that would have killed thousands.

Agent Pendrell: another likable geek, Pendrell was an FBI lab tech who was infatuated with Scully. Pendrell also goes out somewhat heroically, if unintentionally so, when a bullet meant for a witness Scully is protecting ends up in his lung instead. He was popular enough that at least one memorial site dedicated to him survives from the earlier days of the Internet.

Max Fenig: the show liked introducing and killing off geeks that fans liked, apparently. The multiple abductee trailer gypsy with a keen insight into government conspiracies and a liking for Soul Coughing was killed in a plane crash (or rather sucked out of the plane when the Air Force shot down a UFO that was returning him to his seat) while trying to get an alien artifact to Mulder. He only made two appearances, but overall he left a pretty lasting impression on the show, also earning a memorial from the ancient days of the Internet.

Queequeg: Scully's pet dog, given to her by Clyde Bruckman after his owner (and Bruckman's neighbor) passed away. The little Pomeranian was gobbled up by a Georgia crocodile, or perhaps the not-quite-mythical Big Blue monster. He also has at least one old memorial site, and his untimely death was subtly referenced in the British comedy Spaced.

Clyde Bruckman: a curmudgeonly psychic and reluctant helper to Mulder and Scully, he commits suicide after leaving a note bequeathing Queequeg to Scully. Bruckman appears to have made a big impression on the fans; quite a few visitors to the site came looking for something related to him, and his name is dropped in the second movie. Seeing Peter Boyle in the role is also a little more poignant since the actor's death in 2006.

Mulder's entire family: Mulder's work has some pretty dire consequences for his immediate family. His father (sort of) is killed by Alex Krycek, his mother commits suicide, and he finally comes to accept that his sister is dead. Mulder himself spends three months under a tombstone before he is exhumed and treated for an effort to turn him into a super-soldier.

William and Melissa Scully: Scully also lost a few family members. She was most affected by the loss of her sister, who was fatally shot in a botched assassination attempt on Scully herself.

Deep Throat: a kindly old Syndicate informant and friend of Mulder's (sort of) father, he was killed when the Syndicate realized what he was up to. He had his dark history, but was a good help to Mulder, who kept him alive in his memory.

Mr. X: a much more abrasive informant who came into play after Deep Throat's death, X nevertheless proved to be a terrific character...even if he wasn't above murdering people and leading Mulder on. Like Deep Throat, the Syndicate takes him out once they realize he's involved with Mulder, but he goes out like the badass he is, writing a clue in his own blood to lead Mulder to Marita Covarrubias.

Alex Krycek: well, not so much mourned as established as a character deeply imbued with the X-Files identity. A conniving free agent who played the X-Files team, and the Syndicate, and the Russian gulag, and the FBI conspirators all to his own ends. He also used bloodborne nanobots to perpetually blackmail Skinner; the Assistant Director didn't much care for that, and Kycek met his end when Skinner put a bullet between his eyes in the FBI parking garage.

Cancer Man (C.G.B. Spender): OK, so maybe Mulder and Scully weren't too upset to see him go, and Doggett and Reyes never got to drop into the pueblo to say hello, but it was a little sad when he was finally killed. From the cool, collected way he belittled Mulder's efforts to uncover the truth to the sinister way he hung out in the background to the fact that he may have committed the two most notorious assassinations of the 1960s, Cancer Man stands as one of the best villains to grace the small screen. After not one but two brushes with death, he is finally blown up by a pair of black helicopters while hiding out in New Mexico.

Signing Off

What a long, paranormal trip it's been. I hope those of you who have been checking this out have enjoyed it. I'll wander back when the third movie comes around!

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

2010-01-01T14:31:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

An FBI agent named Monica Bannan is kidnapped from her home in West Virginia by two men, though she manages to get in a few shots with a rake to one of them. Using the help of a supposed psychic, Father Joseph Crissman, an FBI team discovers the injured kidnapper's severed arm in a field. Scully has returned to the medical field, and a heavily bearded Mulder is romantically involved with her but still hiding out from the bogus charges resulting from the Knowle Rohrer case. Agent Mosley Drummy offers to drop them if Mulder helps in the search for Bannan. Mulder reluctantly takes the offer and he and Scully are introduced to Dakota Whitney, the lead agent on the case.

Crissman, a convicted sex offender, claims to have seen a vision of Bannan's kidnapping in which he heard dogs barking. He is taken to Bannan's home, where he fails to impress the agents with any real intuition of her whereabouts before he starts to bleed from his eyes. Scully, meanwhile, has a crisis of faith because a young patient with Sandhoff disease isn't going to live. Another woman, Cheryl Cunningham, is abducted after a creepy Russian man (one of the people who nabbed Bannan) runs her off the road. Since Crissman mentioned barking dogs in one of his visions, Mulder gives him a little more credence when Scully says animal tranquilizer was found in the severed arm. Scully thinks that Mulder's new obsession with the case has to do with finding his sister, even though Mulder now believes that she's dead.

Crissman leads the FBI to the same field where the arm was found and this time discovers a body, part of a larger stash of corpses that also have traces of animal tranquilizers. While there, he tells Scully not to give up. The Russian, Jane Dacyshyn, takes his latest abductee to a place that looks to operate as both a dog kennel and shady operating room; it includes the injured kidnapper, Franz Tomczeszyn, who is also bleeding from his eyes. Scully riles up the administration at the Catholic hospital by suggesting stem cell treatment for her patient. The FBI looks into Cunningham's disappearance and discover that both she and Bannan have the same rare blood type and swam at the same pool, leading to the conclusion that a black market organ harvesting operation is going on. Scully wants to declare this the end of her criminal investigative career, and breaks up with Mulder when it becomes clear that he'll never be able to leave that line of work.

The boy's parents ask to stop the treatment and let God take over, and Scully recalls how Crissman told her not to give up and urges further treatment. She visits Crissman, demanding to know why he said that; he says he doesn't know and, after quoting a Scripture passage, starts seizing. Dacyshyn is questioned by the District Attorney's office for possible organ trafficking but released; that leads the FBI to find the name of Tomczeszyn, Dacyshyn's employer. Mulder is convinced that Crissman identified Dacyshyn in one of his visions, but Drummy says the only connection there is that Tomczeszyn was one of several choir boys molested by Crissman. The FBI raids their offices, but Dacyshyn manages to escape, killing Whitney and leaving Bannan's head behind.

Mulder and Scully visit Crissman, now hospitalized with terminal lung cancer, and decide that he's probably a fraud since he still thinks Bannan is alive; he also claims to have some sort of connection with Tomczeszyn. At the facility, we see that Tomczeszyn's head has been grafted onto Bannan's body. Mulder vows to find Cunningham, thinking she's still alive. He manages to track down Dacyshyn after seeing him purchasing animal tranquilizer, but Dacyshyn realizes Mulder is following him and pushes his car down a hill with his snowplow. Scully's stem cell research happens upon grafting experiments on dogs that are being done in Russia, and she calls Mulder to say that she thinks the kidnappers are doing the same thing only on humans...meaning Bannan, or at least part of her, might still be alive as Crissman predicted.

Mulder pulls himself from the wrecked car and heads toward the facility, picking up a weapon along the way. Bannan's body apparently isn't turning out to be a good match, as Dacyshyn and the other doctors at the facility prepare to transplant Tomczeszyn's head to Cunningham's body. Scully calls in the big guns to help find Mulder: Skinner! Mulder sneaks into the facility, where he demands a stop to the operation; however, one surgeon manages to inject him with tranquilizer after he is distracted by seeing Tomczeszyn's removed head open its eyes from a bucket of ice. After finding a letter addressed to a doctor in a mailbox with Crissman's Scripture number and hearing the sound of barking dogs, Scully and Skinner arrive at the facility. Scully saves Mulder from decapitation, and Skinner stops the surgical procedure while Cunningham still has her head on.

Mulder and Scully apparently get back together. Crissman dies, and Mulder is miffed that a newspaper article on the crimes neglects to mention his psychic role. He thinks that Crissman was connected to Tomczeszyn, and suspects that he died as soon as the blood flow to Tomczeszyn's head was cut off. Scully is upset because she's put her patient through rigorous surgery as a result of Crissman's "don't give up" advice when he actually meant that she shouldn't give up on finding Mulder. He thinks it may have had a larger meaning and urges her to continue with the surgery, which she does.

Amanda Peet, who might be best-known for her roles on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Jack and Jill, plays Special Agent Dakota Whitney here. Billy Connolly, who plays Father Joseph Crissman, also played Il Duce in the two Boondock Saints movies. Alvin "Xzibit" Joiner, who plays Agent Mosley Drummy, is a rapper who formerly hosted Pimp My Ride. Donavon Stinson, who plays the "Suited Man," also plays Ted in Reaper. Chris Carter makes a cameo as a man sitting in a hospital hallway. Dedicated to the memory of Randy Stone, who did casting for the movie and several episodes and died in 2007.

Episode Body Count

Corpsicle: a woman's severed head is found in a block of ice in a field in West Virginia.

Ten other bodies: Mulder says 11 discrete human limbs have been found in the field; he tells Whitney that she has a chance to solve a dozen murders, but he's probably just rounding up.

Monica Bannan: her head is found in an organ donor transport bag by Drummy.

Special Agent Dakota Whitney: impaled on a steel bar after Dacyshyn pushes her from high atop a construction site.

Father Joseph Crissman: dies of lung cancer.

Franz Tomczeszyn: it seems that he's being kept alive through various body transplants, but Mulder mentions how Scully removed the tubes supplying him with blood, suggesting that he died at the same time as Crissman.

Scully's discovery of the Russian research includes a photo of a severed dog's head, but considering that it appears to have been successfully transplanted to another body I guess I'll let that one go.

Humans: 15
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (202/202 episodes, 2/2 movies)

Humans: 2,314

Creatures: 131
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,509

And there it is! I'll return for one last post to do a bit of a statistical analysis.

The Body Count in the News!

2009-12-30T14:56:00.000-08:00

This summer, while searching for websites to link this site to, I came across X-Files News. It seems like the show went off the air before the Internet became the massive powerhouse it is today, so fan sites are few and far between now. This one is quite impressive, keeping tabs on the actors and directors and various references to the show.

When I asked to be linked on their site, I was pleasantly surprised when editor-in-chief Avi Quijada asked if I would do an interview. She's been understandably busy with work and moving between countries and whatnot, so between the interview and now I've advanced from the first introduction of the black oil (and the deadliest episode of the series) to the end of the episodes. But the interview has appeared, and is available here.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe is ready to go, but right now I'm planning to check it out on Friday, since I intend to check out Sherlock Holmes with a friend tonight and ring in 2010 on Thursday. Stick around after that post for a final wrap-up!

Season 9, Episode 20: The Truth, Part 2

2009-12-29T16:40:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Against Mulder's wishes, Praise comes to offer his testimony. After saying he helped hide Mulder and confirming his mind-reading abilities, he accuses one of the judges of being something other than human. Doggett testifies about how he's seen super-soldiers and their stubborn refusal to die by means other than magnetite. Reyes testifies about William's birth and the presence of super-soldiers there, saying she believes they're aliens who have replaced humans. She says Scully was one of numerous women selected for biological experimentation, though the evidence for that was blown up aboard a ship in Baltimore. Reyes also says that she witnessed William's superhuman powers, but since he was given up for adoption there's no evidence.

Doggett manages to get ahold of the body the military is claiming is Rohrer and has it sent to Quantico. Scully examines the body and determines that it does match Rohrer's medical records, but Kersh still denies Skinner's motion to dismiss despite the exonerating evidence. Mulder is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Rohrer arrives at the base looking good and not dead, evidently eager to finish off Mulder. Skinner and Doggett and, surprisingly, Kersh help Mulder escape the base. Reyes relays him to Scully, and Kersh advises them to escape from Canada. Instead, Mulder takes them south.

Doggett, Reyes, and Praise return to DC to find that the X-Files office has been scrapped. Praise warns that the non-human judge knows where Mulder and Scully are going. So do the spirits of The Lone Gunmen, who beg Mulder not to go on. He forges on anyway to an Anasazi Indian site in New Mexico, telling Scully that he was sent the keycard to the Virginia military facility from the site. It turns out to be Cancer Man, alive if not very well, hiding in a magnetite-rich region. Doggett and Reyes arrive at the site, shortly before Rohrer shows up as well. Cancer Man confirms Mulder's suspicion about the shadow government and invasion date, and Rohrer is killed after venturing too close to the magnetite.

The agents escape as a pair of black helicopters arrives, obliterating the pueblo (and Cancer Man) in a shower of missiles. In a motel in Roswell, Mulder considers how he's convinced Scully about the his theories but failed in every other respect, including coming up with any way to stop the conspirators and colonization. Scully tells him that he'll only fail if he gives up. She asks him what he wants to believe in, and he says he hopes that the dead can speak to them and give them the power to save themselves. Scully says they believe in the same thing. "Maybe there's hope," Mulder concludes.

Episode Body Count

Not Knowle Rohrer: a crispy corpse that the military claims belongs to Rohrer, but that Scully finds belongs to a man who broke his neck and was burned post-mortem.

Knowle Rohrer: destroyed by magnetite while pursuing Doggett and Reyes.

Indian woman: presumed killed when the black helicopters destroy the pueblo.

UNDEAD'D (sort of)

Cancer Man: it turns out he was alive, hiding out in New Mexico, but that doesn't last too long as he is obliterated by missiles fired from a pair of black helicopters. So he just won't count this time around.

Humans: 3
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Season Body Count

Humans: 196
Creatures: 2
Aliens: 0

Though I suppose the super-soldiers might be considered aliens if Reyes' theory is right...

Cumulative Body Count (202/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,299

Creatures: 131
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,494

Woo. OK. I'm pretty sure the library has a copy of the second movie, and I'll try to pick it up to watch this weekend.

Season 9, Episode 19: The Truth, Part 1

2009-12-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Hey, remember that Mulder guy? Turns out he's sneaking into a military base inside a Virginia mountain, the site where he thinks the shadow government is set up. He discovers that the alien colonization is set to begin on December 22, 2012 (presumably when everyone is hung over from celebrating the Mayan prophecy turning out to be false the previous day). After seeing a vision of Kyrcek, Mulder scuffles with Knowle Rohrer and dozens of people witness him tossing Rohrer to his apparent death on an electrical grid. Mulder is arrested by the military, and Skinner and Scully arrive after Kersh is somehow informed.

A Marine general tells Kersh that Mulder's trial can be held before FBI personnel in a Marine court, but also hints that a guilty verdict should be the only outcome and that there are government forces in place that shouldn't be fooled with. Mulder asks Skinner to represent him, and Mulder and Scully have a tearful reunion where he says he's been looking for the truth in Mexico. Kersh leads a judicial panel at Mulder's trial; the prosecution considers it an open-and-shut case and calls no witnesses. Skinner decides to try to prove the government conspiracy as a way of justifying Mulder's action, even though his star witness (Marita) is unavailable.

Skinner calls Scully to the stand, where she says she believes that the alien black oil virus came to Earth via meteor in prehistoric times and lay dormant for thousands of years. She says the government learned of the virus and colonization efforts through the UFO crash in Roswell in 1947, keeping it secret to avoid panic. She also testifies about her own abduction by the government as part of an attempt to make a slave race of alien-human hybrids. The prosecutor simply lets the panel know about Mulder and Scully's romantic relationship and their love-child.

Next witness: Spender. He describes the government conspiracy, saying the human collaborators were forced to give up loved ones as part of their deal with the aliens, including Samantha. He says he grew up with Samantha, but she was subjected to horrible tests before her death; that his father (Cancer Man) had Mulder's father killed when Mulder started to get close to the truth; and that Cancer Man shot him when he confronted him about the conspiracy and performed the same tests when he didn't die. The prosecutor points out how Spender and Mulder didn't exactly get along before he found out about the conspiracy.

Gibson Praise senses that Mulder needs his help, and sends a friend to let Doggett and Reyes know that he wants to testify. Mulder gets another vision, this time from Mr. X, who somehow conveys Marita's address to him. Marita shows up at the trial, saying that the Syndicate was trying to develop a vaccine for the alien virus using innocent test subjects. She says she became a test subject herself as punishment after coming to hate the Syndicate and helping Mulder. The vaccine was simply a way to save themselves, she claims, but the group was wiped out by a group of alien rebels. Skinner suggests that the conspiracy continues and that's why she was reluctant to testify about how Mulder was taking on a super-soldier involved in the new plan. After Vision Krycek tells Mulder that the conspirators will kill Marita if Skinner persists, he asks that she be dismissed, despite Skinner's protest that she's the last best witness they have. To be continued...

William Devane, who plays General Mark Suveg, also played Janeway in Marathon Man, JFK in the TV movie The Missiles of October, and Gregory Sumner on Knot's Landing.

Episode Body Count

Knowle Rohrer can handle a little electrocution.

Humans: 0
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (201/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,296

Creatures: 131
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,491

Season 9, Episode 18: Sunshine Days

2009-12-28T13:55:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A pizza deliveryman in California swears to his friend that the house where he made his last delivery is the same place where The Brady Bunch was shot. They enter, though the friend is creeped out to find the interior setup matches the show exactly. After following some Bobby and Cindy lookalikes into a room, the deliveryman is somehow launched onto the roof of his friend's car. The friend wants homeowner Oliver Martin arrested and tells Doggett and Reyes about the Brady setup. Martin is reluctant to let the agents into the house, but when the friend barges in the interior is completely different. However, Doggett sees that the roof has been recently patched, with matching tiles found in the car and the house's Dumpster.

Scully's autopsy seems to support Doggett's theory that the deliveryman was ejected through the roof, and she also notes a residual electricity in the corpse. The friend stakes out the house again and sees the Brady Bunch inside, but they are gone when he enters again. Martin urges him to leave, but the friend ends up getting lifted through the roof to his death as well. A doctor tells the agents that Martin, who had a different name back then, displayed telekinetic abilities for a time as a child, and Reyes discovers that his alias is a reference to the Brady Bunch character "Cousin Oliver." Visiting the house with the doctor, Doggett is tossed through the ceiling, but ends up walking on the underside of the roof rather than being fully tossed out.

With some help from the doctor, Martin is able to control his ability and brings Doggett back to earth. Reyes and Scully also appear in the now Brady-themed house, and he says he has the ability to create settings by thinking about them. Oliver agrees to go to DC with the agents; Scully thinks he can do a lot of good with his power, while Doggett cautions that he could do a lot of harm as well. Shortly after demonstrating his telekinetic power on Skinner, Martin has a seizure and is hospitalized. Scully realizes that his health is declining as a result of the use of his power. Doggett posits that Martin's power goes away when he's happy, which was why he lost it after the enjoyable sessions with the doctor, and that happiness (like that he feels with the Bradys) is the only way he'll survive. The doctor visits Martin, forbidding him from using his power but promising to stay with him as a companion.

Michael Emerson, due to wrap up his role as Benjamin Linus in the final season of Lost, plays Oliver Martin here. David Faustino, who plays Michael Daley, formerly played Bud Bundy on Married with Children. John Aylward, who plays Dr. John Rietz, also played Dr. Donald Anspaugh on ER.

Episode Body Count

Blake McCormick: dies after he is blasted through the roof of Martin's home and lands on the roof of Michael Daley's car.

Michael Daley: somehow lifted through the roof of Martin's house, he falls to his death on the lawn.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (200/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,296

Creatures: 131
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,491

Season 9, Episode 17: Release

2009-12-27T13:59:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Doggett finds a young woman plastered behind the wall of an abandoned tenement on an anonymous tip. A cadet in Scully's class named Rudolph Hayes makes a surprisingly astute analysis of her death and says the woman is not the killer's first victim. After Hayes gives Doggett and Reyes a profile of the murderer, they identify a possible suspect named Nicholas Regali. Hayes' apartment has hundreds of photos of the victims of violent crime on his wall, including Doggett's son Luke. Doggett asks Hayes to look into Luke's murder, and Hayes lets him in on his wall of photos, saying they're unsolved murders that sometimes tell him things.

Hayes tells Doggett that while Bob Harvey took Luke, he did not murder him; he suggests that Regali was the killer. Doggett has his ex-wife take a look at Regali on the off-chance that she may have seen him hanging around the neighborhood, but Regali is released after she doesn't recognize him. Noticing that Regali has escaped serious charges despite his suspicion in several cases, Doggett figures he's bribing someone. Reyes confronts Follmer, saying she saw him take a bribe from a mobster in New York. He says he was actually paying a confidential informant, and further reveals that he's discovered Hayes' true identity: a former psychiatric patient named Stuart Mimms who was in New York at the time of Luke's death. A SWAT team storms Mimms' apartment, now devoid of the photos, and arrests him.

It turns out that Follmer actually was taking bribes from Regali, and he meets up with him to ask about Luke. Regali denies any involvement in the murder, and threatens to give a videotape of the bribe exchange to the Washington Post if Follmer tries to break off their relationship prematurely. Mimms admits to lying to get into FBI training and making the anonymous tip to Doggett, but only to help Doggett find Regali. Doggett confronts Regali in a bar, who says he "hypothetically" may have known Harvey in the course of his mob business, Harvey may have kidnapped Luke and sexually abused him, and Regali may have killed Luke after he accidentally walked in on them and Luke saw his face. Doggett seems like he's going to kill Regali, but Follmer does the job for him as Regali exits the bar. With closure finally at hand, Doggett and his ex-wife spread Luke's ashes into the ocean.

Barbara Patrick, who plays Doggett's ex-wife (also Barbara), is Robert Patrick's wife.

Episode Body Count

Ellen Persich: stabbed to death, Doggett finds her body in the wall of an abandoned tenement.

Rita Shaw: also stabbed to death about two weeks before Persich's body is found.

At least four cadavers: laid out in a field at the FBI's forensic training facility.

Approximately 77 bodies: seen in photos on the walls of Mimms' apartment. There are something like 400 photos on the wall, but it seems like there are about five photos for each victim. Some, namely Luke and the two recent murders, have already been counted.

Rudolph Hayes: Follmer mentions how he died in 1978 in a car accident, with Mimms apparently taking his name.

Nicholas Regali: shot by Follmer as he leaves a bar.

Humans: 85
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (199/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,294

Creatures: 131
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,489

Season 9, Episode 16: William

2009-12-24T20:20:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In the introduction, William has been given up for adoption to a Wyoming couple. One week earlier, a heavy-breathing man observes Scully coming home with William and later sneaks into the X-Files office, trying unsuccessfully to knock Doggett out. Captured, the man identifies himself as David Miller; he says his body has been heavily scarred after he was given an injection as part of the alien conspiracy, and that he was given a keycard by Mulder to access the building. Doggett finds that the Miller identity doesn't stack up, and proposes that he's actually Mulder...something Scully is reluctant to acept. Not Miller admits that he lied for his own protection, since there are people at the FBI who would kill him if they knew he was there.

Not Miller says he was disfigured as part of a failed attempt to turn him into a super-soldier, and that he was seeking files related to similar cases but they were missing. It turns out that Mulder and Scully agreed to remove the same cases from the X-Files before he went on the run, and she decides to let him see them (and also William, who Not Miller says is part alien). Scully seems to be considering that Not Miller might be Mulder, but is still unwilling to believe it even after the DNA matches.

After unsuccessfully trying to escape the agents, Not Miller fakes sleep and gives William an injection. William is taken to a hospital, where it is found that he's OK. Scully realizes that Not Miller is actually Jeffrey Spender, who says that the DNA test is a result of he and Mulder both being fathered by Cancer Man. Spender also says he injected William with a form of magnetite, apparently removing the alien part of his biology, as revenge on Cancer Man, but warns that William will still be in danger of those seeking to use him for the alien colonization. Reluctantly, Scully gives him up for adoption to protect him.

Directed by David Duchovny, who also had a part in the story.

Episode Body Count

UNDEAD'D

Jeffrey Spender: not killed by his father after all, but rather subjected to a horribly botched attempt to turn him into a super-soldier.

Humans: 1
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (198/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,209

Creatures: 131
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,404

Merry X-Mas!

Season 9, Episode 15: Jump the Shark

2009-12-23T19:30:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

This episode serves as the wrap-up to the short-lived spinoff The Lone Gunmen where, among other things, our favorite geeky trio stopped 9/11 about six months before it actually happened, picked up the companionship of a good-hearted if somewhat dim-witted fourth member named Jimmy Bond as well as a mysterious woman alias Yves Adele Harlow, and a cliffhanger series finale involving a team-up with Morris Fletcher that uncovers a secret government organization known as Romeo-61.

We catch up with Fletcher in the Bahamas, where his boat is blown up as he tries to seduce a woman. He requests Doggett and Reyes to come see him, asking for protection because of what he knows. He says Harlow is a super-soldier, and the agents and Fletcher go to The Lone Gunmen with this tidbit. They deny it, and are still angry at Fletcher for helping them track down Harlow a year before and then abducting her. Harlow kills a New Jersey college professor, removes an organ from his body, and incinerates it. The agents find that he was involved in medical research involving sharks, bled phosphorescence, and had a cartilage shell grafted into his body; the shell has had something taken from it.

Fletcher lets the Gunmen know that Harlow's real name is Lois Runce, and Bond returns from a worldwide search for her. An associate geek (the twin of the one murdered in Las Vegas) tells the agents that the Gunmen have gone broke and given up publishing their paper in a similar effort to find her. The Gunmen finally track her down as she's about to assassinate another man, who flees when they interrupt her. They find that Fletcher has had a tracking device on him the entire time, and is running a scam to track down Runce for his employer, a billionaire arms dealer who is also Runce's father. She says that her father was sponsoring the creation of a deadly virus capable of killing thousands, to be delivered by the decay of a cartilage shell that will release it that night...Fletcher is a little unnerved to learn that he's sponsored terrorism.

The man Runce was trying to kill is captured, but doesn't have any sort of delivery system in him. The Gunmen team and Fletcher realize that he was a decoy, while the real second vessel is inside a friend of the professor's. The Gunmen, Bond, and Runce find him at a conference and pursue him into the basement. The Gunmen find the perp, but are too late to safely remove the shell. Instead, they activate a fire alarm to seal him and the virus in the basement hallway, though they have to expose themselves to the virus in order to do so. Skinner pulls a few strings to get the Gunmen buried at Arlington National Cemetery for their heroism.

Zuleikha Robinson, who plays Yves Adele Harlow/Lois Runce, now plays Ilana on Lost. Marcus Giamatti, who plays John Gillnitz, also played Peter Gray on Judging Amy.

Episode Body Count

Professor Douglas Houghton: shot with a poisoned pellet by Harlow/Runce.

Joey Ramone: another stretch, but eh. Fletcher refers to Ramone as a "dead teenybopper," showing that he at least knows enough about him to have heard that Ramone died in 2001.

Professor John Gillnitz: dies after exposure to the virus he's carrying inside his body in a cartilage shell.

The Lone Gunmen: or to recap my original reaction, WHAT? John Fitzgerald Byers, Melvin Frohike, and Richard "Ringo" Byers die in the basement of a convention center after sealing themselves in with Gillnitz to prevent the spread of the virus.

Humans: 6
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (197/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,210

Creatures: 131
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,405

Season 9, Episode 14: Scary Monsters

2009-12-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A young boy in Pennsylvania named Tommy Conlon thinks some monsters have made their home under his bed, and his father reassures him that he's imagining things. A routine scene, except for the fact that Tommy's father makes sure he holds the door shut when the boy tries to escape the renewed monster noises. Leyla Harrison thinks there's something about Tommy and his family, since his mother stabbed herself to death and his cat also died, with Tommy saying monsters were to blame in both cases. She tells Scully about the case and convinces Reyes and Doggett to investigate; she's also resourceful enough to get Tommy's dead cat to Scully, making her reconsider her opinion that there's nothing to the case after seeing that the cat chewed a hole in his own stomach.

Doggett and Reyes think something fishy is going on after observing Tommy's father's behavior, and they're marooned at the house after their car's engine spits out blood. The agents see Tommy being held at bay by a couple of insect-like creatures, one of which regenerates into two new creatures after Doggett shoots it. At Scully's request, the sheriff visits the Conlon home...except it's not him, just some sort of blood-filled automaton. Scully figures the cat was trying to get rid of something inside of it that was causing severe pain, and decides to make the trip to Pennsylvania.

Tommy's father explains to the agents that he was trying to keep Tommy in with the creatures because they wouldn't hurt him, whereas anyone else they will. Tommy shows Reyes a picture of her with the creatures in her belly, and she finds herself with a painful infestation soon after; not surprisingly, the agents realize that Tommy is behind everything. Tommy also tricks Doggett into a void full of the creatures and makes Harrison's eyes bleed. Doggett is unhurt, since he's realized that it's all imaginary and can't hurt him. Escorting everyone outside, Doggett tells Tommy he needs to stop him, douses the living room in gasoline, and ignites it. Except that he just used water to trick Tommy, making him pass out in fear. Harrison gives Doggett a backhanded compliment, saying his lack of imagination saved them all, and Tommy undergoes psychiatric treatment to stifle his imagination: deadening his mind with a ton of TV programs.

Brian Roth, who plays Gabe Rotter, also played Tyler Jenson on CSI: Miami.

Episode Body Count

Mrs. Conlon: dies of 16 self-inflicted stab wounds in an attempt to remove a monster conjured up by Tommy.

Spanky: Tommy's cat, he claims a monster killed it as well.

I won't count the not-sheriff, since he's just a bag of blood conjured up by Tommy's imagination and that body disappears somewhere anyway.

Humans: 1
Creatures: 1
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (196/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,204

Creatures: 131
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,399

Season 9, Episode 13: Improbable

2009-12-22T19:40:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

At a casino, a friendly man credited only as Mr. Burt strikes up a conversation with a sketchy-looking fellow named Wayne moments before he kills a woman in the restroom. Mr. Burt seems to know it's going to happen, but does nothing to stop it. Opening screen: Dio Ti Ama. Reyes thinks the murderer is committed this and other crimes based on numerology; Scully is less certain, but agrees that the victims have consistent bruising, possibly from a single ring. Wayne is annoyed to see that Mr. Burt has set up a three card monty table not far from his apartment, and threatens to kill him if he doesn't leave him alone.

Reyes goes to a skeptical numerologist for help, and returns to the FBI to rousing applause, since two new cases have been found and it seems that a killer is choosing his victims in threes in 1999 and 2002. Wayne kills the numerologist, just as she's calling Reyes to disclose some interesting news about their number charts. Scully discovers that the victims' markings seem to come from the worn-away markings of a 666 insignia, and Doggett notices that the pattern of the killings seems to form a number six along the eastern seaboard. Scully and Reyes run across Wayne by chance at the numerologist's building and Scully recognizes his ring, but he gets away, leaving the agents trapped in the parking garage.

Scully and Reyes find Mr. Burt in his car. He says he's meeting a friend for a game of checkers, and reveals a board and hundreds of music CDs in his trunk. With nothing else to do, they play a few games and listen to some cha-cha until Reyes realizes that Wayne apparently kills by hair color and they may be the next targets. Scully is fed up with Reyes theory that everything, including the serial murders, can be reduced to numbers, but ultimately agrees that Wayne may not have left the garage. Searching for him, they are saved when Doggett enters and shoots him. He says he realized that Wayne's pattern actually indicated nine victims, and Scully and Reyes may have been next. Mr. Burt disappears without a trace

Wouldn't you know it, Mr. Burt is played by Burt Reynolds, whose movies include Smokey and the Bandit, Deliverance, and Cannonball Run. Ellen Greene, who plays Vicki Louise Burdick, now plays Vivian Charles on Pushing Daisies.

Episode Body Count

Amy Sheridan Aufsbergher: killed by Wayne in a casino restroom.

Three other women: Reyes thinks Aufsbergher's murder is linked via numerology to the murders of three women that occurred within the past couple of years.

Two other women: murders linked to the same string of killings.

Vicki Louise Burdick: also killed by Wayne.

Mad Wayne: shot by Doggett.

Humans: 8
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (195/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,203

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,397

Season 9, Episode 12: Underneath

2009-12-21T20:08:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In 1989 in Brooklyn, a cable man named Bob Fassl reluctantly goes into a house on orders from a bearded man in his van. Though he doesn't seem to kill the family inside, they somehow wind up dead in front of him and it doesn't look good when an NYPD force led by Doggett arrives on scene and finds him there. Thirteen years later, Doggett is enraged that Fassl is going to be released following exoneration by DNA evidence, since he considers that Fassl can't possibly be innocent. Fassl sees a vision of the bearded man as soon as he is freed, and not long after sees a message in blood urging him to kill his lawyer after she lets him stay at her home. After seeing the bearded man again, Fassl begs him not to kill the attorney; he responds by slapping Fassl and sauntering off with an icepick.

Scully finds that even if the DNA evidence found at the old crime scenes didn't belong to Fassl, it was similar enough that it would have had to have come from a blood relative of his, even though Fassl is supposedly an only child. Reyes visits the prison warden, and he shares an image of the bearded man captured by a security camera shortly after Fassl's cellmate was murdered. At his attorney's home, Fassl is forced to clean up after the murders of a housekeeper and an assistant district attorney, both at the hands of the bearded man. Doggett discovers that another officer on the case planted phony evidence to help convict Fassl.

Noting Fassl's devout Catholicism, Reyes proposes that he may be able to manifest a second personality to commit the crimes due to an incapability to admit that he has a sinful side. Staking out the attorney's house, Doggett and Reyes see the bearded man flee and they pursue him into a cable access tunnel, where Reyes finds a cache of corpses. The bearded man holds Doggett hostage, and Reyes addresses him with Fassl's name. She ends up shooting him, and Doggett turns him over to reveal Fassl.

Arthur J. Nascarella, who played Carlo Gervasi on The Sopranos, plays Duke Tomasick here. W. Earl Brown, who plays Bob Fassl, also played Don Dority on Deadwood. Lisa Darr, who plays Attorney Jana Fain, also played Jane McPherson on Popular.

Episode Body Count

Seven people: Doggett believes Fassl is responsible for the deaths of three members of a family, and apparently four other people as well.

Mrs. Dowdy: killed by Fassl in bearded man form.

Spud Jennings: the warden at Sing Sing Correctional Facility says Fassl's cellmate was killed, and a surveillance camera catches an image of the bearded man.

Assistant District Attorney Damon Kailer: also stabbed to death by Fassl in bearded man form.

At least four bodies: found in the cable access tunnel by Reyes.

Bob Fassl: shot by Reyes.

Humans: 15
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (194/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,195

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,389

Season 9, Episode 11: Audrey Pauley

2009-12-20T19:54:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Reyes and Doggett come back from a friendly outing and completely blow the chemistry between them. Soon after, Reyes is involved in a bad car accident and awakens in a sort of limbo, seeing herself in a deserted hospital floating in the sky. She comes across two other patients in this netherworld, one who was admitted with chest pains and one who fell at a construction site. In the tangible world, Scully tells Doggett that Reyes has been rendered brain-dead. A doctor tells them that Reyes has a living will about such a circumstance and is an organ donor, but Doggett is reluctant to consider letting anyone pull the plug.

Reyes sees a woman in the netherworld hospital, who we later see in the tangible world's counterpart. The construction worker disappears in a sort of electrical meltdown as he dies in the tangible world. Doggett is perplexed about why Reyes suddenly went comatose when she shouldn't have been too badly injured. The woman, a patient aide named Audrey Pauley who has a model of the hospital stashed away, visits Reyes and the other patient again; Reyes gives her a message to deliver to Doggett based on their last conversation. A nurse lets the doctor know that he forgot to log an injection he gave Reyes, and the doctor ends up killing her.

Doggett is even more suspicious about Reyes condition following the nurse's death, and Reyes companion also dies, leaving her alone. Pauley gives Doggett the message and lets her know about the people she's started to see through interaction with her model, and he suspects that the doctor is poisoning his patients (altering their readouts so he can pull the plug on them) after finding that he attended to the other two patients Pauley saw. Doggett begs Pauley to help save Reyes, and she pays another visit to let her know that Reyes has to give a sign that she's still alive. Reyes realizes that the netherworld hospital exists in Pauley's mind, and so Pauley can help her escape. Instead, Pauley leaves her behind and is faced by the homicidal doctor and his syringe. Pauley returns and urges Reyes to step off the edge of the floating hospital. She does, and comes out of her coma. Doggett stops the doctor, but is too late to save Pauley.

Vernee Watson-Johnson, who plays Nurse Whitney Edwards, also played Viola Smith on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Lucille Banks on the 1970s show Carter Country.

Episode Body Count

Val Barreiro: dies of his injuries after he falls at a construction site.

Nurse Whitney Edwards: dies after Dr. Jack Preijers injects her with something.

Stephen Murdoch: dies after he is admitted to the hospital with chest pains.

Audrey Pauley: dies after being injected by Dr. Preijers.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (193/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,180

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,374

Down to single digits in terms of episodes now...I'll probably have this wrapped up in a few weeks.

Season 9, Episode 10: Providence

2009-12-19T20:24:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In a bit of back story, it is shown that one of the cult members (who have now completely uncovered the spacecraft in Canada) formerly served in the Persian Gulf War; he observed four super-soldiers take out an enemy position and considered them angels. In present day, Doggett is in a coma, Comer is in critical condition, William has been kidnapped, and Scully is angry at Skinner and thinks Kersh and Follmer are complicit in all of it. To that end, The Lone Gunmen agree not to identify the kidnapper to the FBI and instead help Scully to find William's location based on a cell phone Byers was able to tuck into his car seat. Scully and Reyes find the cult woman's car and the car seat in Pennsylvania, but she and William are both gone.

In Canada, parts of the spacecraft start moving and it ends up sealing two men inside of it. Follmer shows Reyes how Comer has written "jacket" on a piece of paper, and Scully recognizes that it's a reference to the alien artifact. Bringing the artifact to the hospital, Scully and Reyes revive Comer and he tells them that the cult believes that the spacecraft is a temple for the physical manifestation of God, and also that William is a miracle child who will fight the aliens' return unless his father is killed; Comer says the cult killed Mulder to fulfill the prophecy, and that the death of William will save mankind (apparently because he'll be in league with the aliens otherwise). The spacecraft reopens when William is brought to it, revealing that the two cult members have been burned to death.

Comer also dies, and the artifact goes missing. Doggett awakens and immediately tells Scully that "they're going to come for you, but you can't trust them" as a result of a dream or vision. Soon after, Scully is contacted by the cult leader. In meeting him, he says he thinks William is destined to lead the alien race and Mulder is the only thing preventing that; it seems Mulder is still alive, as he wants Scully to bring him confirmation of his death. The agents track the leader to the excavation site, where William has managed to activate the spacecraft. The cult members are killed as it blasts off, but William is left unscathed. Follmer is a little uncertain about the circumstances of Comer's death, while Kersh apparently helps the "Toothpick Man," who was seen just before Comer died, to cover up the matter. We also see that the Toothpick Man is a super-soldier.

Episode Body Count

At least seven soldiers: killed in a mortar blast during the Persian Gulf War. I've counted wartime deaths unless they're mass casualty counts, so I'll allow this.

Two cult members: found dead inside the spacecraft some time after they are sealed inside.

Agent Robert Comer: dies in a hospital, by murder according to Reyes.

At least 15 cult members: burnt to death when the spacecraft in Canada blasts off.

Humans: 25
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (192/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,176

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,370

Season 9, Episode 9: Provenance

2009-12-18T21:27:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

The Border Patrol pursues a dirt biker who is trying to enter the United States from Canada. After the biker wipes out, he is found to be carrying rubbings of alien symbols that Scully previously found on the spacecraft in Africa. Scully is promptly questioned about them by Kersh and his cronies, but refuses to give any answers; instead, she warns Doggett and Reyes about the power of the symbols and their possible misuse by the FBI. Doggett travels to the crossing site in North Dakota, where he is told that the biker's body has not been found. In fact, he's still alive, carrying an alien rune artifact that heals his wounds.

Reyes has been reviewing Scully's previous work with the symbols, and Scully tells her that she's come to think that they may contain answers about William. We see that the rubbings came from another buried spacecraft in Canada, which is being excavated. After confronting Skinner about his willingness to keep secrets, Doggett raids his office for the rubbings and also finds that the missing biker was an FBI agent named Robert Comer who was infiltrating a UFO cult that moved into Canada. Reyes realizes that there's a second spacecraft that the cult has found after finding that the new set of rubbings doesn't match the set from Africa.

Comer breaks into Scully's apartment, but she guns him down as he tries to smother William. Before he is carted off to the hospital, Comer tells Scully that William has to die but doesn't say why. Scully finds the alien artifact in his jacket, and the cult archaeologists discover that Comer is an FBI agent. At another meeting with the Kersh Krew, Skinner says the case wasn't assigned to the X-Files because he didn't think Scully could handle it...namely because Comer was sent to infiltrate the cult due to threats on Mulder's life, and that Comer had told them that Mulder was already dead.

Scully and Reyes witness the artifact fly toward William, who placidly makes it hover above his head. Reyes tells Doggett that William has some sort of connection with the aliens, and that Comer and the cult are both willing to kill the child due to this belief. Doggett is struck by a cult member driving a car as he goes to investigate her, and Scully and Reyes give William to The Lone Gunmen for safekeeping. Unfortunately, the cult member is soon able to track down their van, disable it with a few gunshots, and point a gun at Byers as he tries to protect William. To be continued...

Before he was Charles Widmore on Lost, Alan Dale was the "Toothpick Man" in this episode; and before that, he played Jim Robinson on over 250 episodes of Neighbours. Neal McDonough, who plays Robert Comer, also played David McNorris on Boomtown and Dave Williams on Desperate Housewives, along with a role as Officer Fletcher on Minority Report.

Episode Body Count

Rumors of Mulder's death have always been greatly exaggerated.

Humans: 0
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (191/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,151

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,345

Season 9, Episode 8: Hellbound

2009-12-18T20:23:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

An ex-con in Virginia is skinned to death, not long after telling an anger management group that he was having dreams of just such a thing. Reyes seems particularly affected by the case. One of the group members, Terrance Pruit, thinks another one, Ed Kelso, is involved. Like the dead man, he also sees Kelso without his skin. Scully finds another skinned victim from 1960, and in interviewing the doctor from that case finds that he was part of a string of murders. Pruit is killed via skinning at the slaughterhouse where he works. Reyes also has a dream about the killing and is horrified to see that it has actually happened.

Pruit has managed to survive his skinning, and points the agents to Kelso; they arrest him as he tries to leave town. Reyes thinks he was trying to flee something else and trys to make a connection with him, but Kelso is freed after his alibi checks out. Scully finds that the two current victims were born on the same days that two people in the 1960 murders were killed. Kelso also turns up dead, and Reyes tells Doggett that she is somehow connected to the case, given her recollection and premonition of details. She also thinks that the men are being murdered by someone who doesn't want their souls to rest, and so the cycle is repeated every 41 years.

Since a rag with coal dust on it has been stuffed in Kelso's mouth, Doggett and Reyes investigate a nearby coal mine on a hunch. There, they find newspaper clippings from a set of murders in 1960 and 1909, as well as the skins of the dead men. Reyes is held at knifepoint by a local detective who tells her she can't stop him, and never does. Reyes realizes that detective has the persona of a man who was killed in an 1868 mining dispute, whose murderers were never punished; she says he kills the four men each time and then commits suicide so he can start the cycle again. Reyes warns the final victim, the leader of the anger management group, before can be skinned and also shoots the detective. At the hospital, Reyes says the men were trying to atone for their sins but not allowed to do so, and also ponders her own role in the cycle. The detective dies, and his soul is apparently transferred to an infant in the nursery.

Episode Body Count

Victor Dale Potts: dies after his skin is removed.

John Doe: Scully discovers a case from 1960 where the victim's skin has been removed in the same way as Potts'.

Sheriff Carl Hobart: Dr. Mueller says the sheriff committed suicide not long after the discovery of the John Doe's body.

Terrance Pruit: he survives a skinning, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that probably didn't last too long.

Three 1960 bodies: Reyes says that four people are killed in every cycle, meaning three other people were skinned in 1960. Scully has two of the corpses exhumed for examination.

Ed Kelso: found skinned in his home.

1868 Van Allen: skinned after a mining dispute.

Five 1909 bodies: Reyes says she also failed to stop a 1909 set of killings. The body of a sheriff is also found in the mine.

Detective Van Allen: dies in a hospital after he is shot by Reyes.

Hoo boy. These circumstances make it a little difficult, but since this is a body count and an immortal soul count would be no fun, I thought I should add each of the fleshy remains that are left behind in this 150-odd-year-old sparring match. It's unclear whether Van Allen's killers are also murdered in 1868.

Humans: 15
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Currently tied for Deadliest of Season, so I'll let Daemonicus hold onto it for now.

Cumulative Body Count (190/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,151

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,345

Season 9, Episode 7: John Doe

2009-12-17T11:00:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Doggett wakes up in a small town in Mexico, and after confronting a man who steals one of his shoes he realizes that he can't remember his name or anything else about his life or circumstances. After spending a week in jail, a human smuggler named Domingo Salmeron bails him out and demands that he do a job for him. Doggett refuses, tracks down the thief, and discovers that he also had a small silver charm of a skull on him. He later decides to start working for Salmeron, although he refuses to break the law.

The FBI has been searching for Doggett, and Kersh calls it off due to increased national security demands even though a border crossing surveillance camera has caught Doggett on film. Doggett has flashbacks of a happier time with his son, and calls a Marine office for information after seeing that he has a Marine tattoo. His description leads Scully and Reyes to realize that Doggett may be south of the border. Meanwhile, a friend of Salmeron's tries to kill Doggett after meeting with a mysterious old man who wears a necklace of the skull charms with one missing. Doggett survives and confronts Salmeron at gunpoint; Salmeron says that the Cartel makes those who cause trouble for them disappear.

After Doggett has another flashback, Salmeron disarms him and visits the old man. He denies telling Doggett anything at gunpoint, but the old man doesn't believe him and gets into his head by touching his temples, leaving the same marks that Doggett has on his head. Reyes travels to Mexico and tracks down Doggett at Salmeron's garage. The Cartel-owned cops try to smoke them out, but the agents are rescued when American and Mexican federal officers arrive. Doggett recovers his memory (which, unfortunately, means having to relive getting the news of his son's death) and leads the agents to the Cartel memory eraser; he thinks he's done Doggett a favor by cutting him off from his painful memories, but Doggett says he's fine as long as he can remember the good times as well.

Episode Body Count

Two murder victims: Salmeron says Doggett matches the description of Henry Bruck, who is wanted by the FBI for a double homicide.

Nestor: killed by Doggett after he tries to shoot him.

American man: Reyes search for Doggett first leads her to a man who was beaten to death.

Doggett's tattoo refers to the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon, which killed 299 people, but I'll have to chalk that up to a mass wartime count.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (189/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,136

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,330

Season 9, Episode 6: Trust No 1

2009-12-17T09:59:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Scully gets an e-mail from Mulder, who expresses his wish to come home to her. When Doggett tells her that someone is willing to leak the names of the super-soldiers to Mulder, however, she says she doesn't know how to contact him. Doggett doesn't believe her, and says the information will allow Mulder to come home, but she thinks it will compromise his safety. Doggett and Reyes manage to track the source to his building, which we see includes a big surveillance operation. Scully takes in a woman named Patti, who appears to be having marital difficulties, but is actually in league with the source. The agents expose them as the source, an NSA man, tries to break into Scully's apartment.

The NSA man and Patti say their daughter has also shown signs of supernatural powers like William, and they feel that Mulder is the only one who can connect all the dots about that and the super-soldiers. Scully gets a call from a shadowy guy who works with the NSA man; using a distorted voice, the Shadow Man directs her to an isolated location to meet. He says he knows everything about Scully's life, and that he needs to reach Mulder for the good of humanity. Doggett is second-guessing the meeting, but by the time he sees Scully again she's already called Mulder back via train.

Scully and Reyes wait for him at the train station, as the NSA man arrives and spray-paints over the surveillance cameras. The train arrives, the Shadow Man shows up and kills the NSA man, and Doggett shoots the Shadow Man, who falls onto the tracks. Due to the melee, the station manager orders the train to keep moving, despite Scully's protests. The Shadow Man isn't found, and that coupled with an FBI analysis of some clothing he gave Scully makes Doggett realize that the Shadow Man is a super-soldier who managed to board the train. Both Mulder and the Shadow Man jump off the train farther down the tracks, and the agents go to investigate. The Shadow Man confronts Scully, saying either Mulder or her son must die. Then he gets sucked into a band of an iron compound at the quarry, destroying him. Scully sends Mulder another e-mail, vowing to see him again and carry on the fight.

Mrs. Landingham as an FBI agent? Yep, Kathryn Joosten, who played the President's assistant on The West Wing and currently plays Karen McCluskey on Desperate Housewives, plays Agent Edie Boal here. And my Lost addiction requires me to mention Terry O'Quinn appears in this episode as well as the Shadow Man.

Episode Body Count

Cadaver: Scully uses a dead body in one of her classes; it seems like there may have been a separate one for an earlier class, but that's not certain.

Man on the Street: on the left there. An NSA guy, dies after being shot by the Shadow Man at the train station.

Shadow Man: destroyed after exposure to some sort of iron compound at a quarry.

Humans: 3
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (188/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,132

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,326

Season 9, Episode 5: Lord of the Flies

2009-12-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A New Jersey teen dies while filming stunts for a Jackass-like program called "The Dumb Ass Show," and his skull is found to be partially caved in and full of flies. Scully concludes that the flies somehow got in there and ate so fast that his head collapsed from the inside. Doggett suspects the kid's best friend of involvement, but he and Doggett are surprised to see a rash spelling "Dumb Ass" break out on his back due to a lice attack. The principal's son, Dylan Lokensgard, has a crush on the dead kid's girlfriend, Natalie Gordon, but seems to have more of a way with insects. His mother also wants him to have nothing to do with her.

Reyes and Doggett question Lokensgard, since he showed up at the stunts and had a run in with the dead kid's friend; during the questioning, he is swarmed by flies but unharmed. Reyes thinks Lokensgard is, as Doggett calls it, "a horse whisperer for bugs," and the theory seems sound when he is found to be secreting insect pheremones. Lokensgard is quite surprised when Gordon visits him and says she's attracted to him, but she is freaked out when he somehow cuts her mouth as they kiss. The "Dumb Ass" kids confront Lokensgard about the bugs and take him on a ride, but Lokensgard causes the car to crash after disgorging insect-like mandibles from his mouth and spraying them all with webbing.

Lokensgard escapes, and Reyes visits Gordon to get her help in stopping him. He shows up, admitting that he killed her boyfriend so she wouldn't be hurt in the last "Dumb Ass" stunt, and takes Gordon away after webbing Reyes. Scully checks out Lokensgard's house with an entomologist, who gets webbed by Lokensgard's mother. Lokensgard's mother tells her son that she knows about his mutation, which is why she didn't want him going hormone-crazy over Gordon, and takes him away. The entomologist survives, but four other bodies are found in the Lokensgards' attic; as they drive off, Dylan uses his ability to write "I Love You" in fireflies outside Gordon's window.

Aaron Paul, who plays David Winkle ("Sky Commander Winky") now plays Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad and Scott Quitman on Big Love. Jane Lynch, who plays Anne Lokensgard, now plays Sue Sylvester on Glee. Samaire Armstrong, who plays Natalie Gordon, also plays Juliet Darling on Dirty Sexy Money and formerly played Anna Stern on The O.C.

Episode Body Count

Bill, aka "Captain Dare": dies after the inside of his head is eaten out by flies.

Four attic bodies: found in the Lokensgards' attic, apparently killed by Anne Lokensgard.

Humans: 5
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (187/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,129

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,323

Season 9, Episode 4: 4-D

2009-12-16T12:32:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Doggett and Reyes are involved in a sting operation attempting to bring in a sicko named Erwin Lukesh known for cutting out woman's tongues and disappearing before he can be caught. Lukesh manages to kill Reyes, vanish in a moment's time as Doggett confronts him in an alley, and shoot Doggett with Reyes' gun after reappearing behind him. So it's kind of odd when Doggett visits Reyes in her new apartment, right before Skinner calls her to let her know that Doggett has been found shot and seriously injured. Reyes can't understand why how Doggett could have visited her right before the call, and Scully suggests it might be something along the lines of the visitation from her dead father.

Reyes becomes a suspect in the shooting after the ballistics are matched to her weapon. Follmer also says someone witnessed her shoot her partner: Lukesh. Reyes is flabbergasted and enraged, but Doggett regains enough in the way of motor skills to tap out "Lukesh" in Morse code with his fingers. It turns out that Lukesh is feeding the women's tongues to his bedridden mother. Skinner finds that Lukesh is a former mental patient living near the crime scene, and using a new communications method Doggett reveals that he's surprised that Reyes is alive.

Reyes wonders if Lukesh can travel between parallel universes and vegetable Doggett ended up following him into one, forcing out apartment-visiting Doggett. She also directly accuses Lukesh of using this power to live out his sick fantasies. Lukesh's mother has also grown suspicious of him and demands to know why he has a gun and is sneaking around; Lukesh ends up killing her. Doggett tells Reyes that if she's right, the Doggett that got forced out should come back if she pulls the plug. Expecting that Lukesh will try to kill Reyes in her apartment, the FBI does a sting and manages to kill him. Reyes tearfully pulls the plug on Dogget and finds herself back in her apartment, both agents still alive.

Dedicated to the memory of Ricky Loyd Arreguin, a 26-year-old man who died in 2001. I'm not sure how he was related to the show.

Episode Body Count

Lukesh's mother: stabbed to death by Lukesh after she says she'll talk to the FBI about him.

Erwin Timothy Lukesh: shot by Follmer as he holds Reyes hostage with a razor.

And then there's Bizzarro Doggett and Reyes, plus all the women Lukesh kills in other universes, but considering how I haven't been counting alternate universes I won't add them. It seems like the actions may well have put everyone into yet another parallel universe, meaning none should count, but the theme seemed to be that the events of the episode put everything right in the main universe.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (186/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,124

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,318

Season 9, Episode 3: Dæmonicus

2009-12-15T15:55:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A kindly West Virginia couple is confronted in their home by a couple of men with demonic faces; they are discovered dead at their Scrabble board with Daemonicus, the Latin word for Satan, spelled out in the tiles. A couple of non-venomous snakes are also found sewn into the bodies, and Reyes gets a profound sense of evil at the place. The agents find signs that two men were involved in the murders, and a nearby mental institution lets the FBI know that a committed doctor named Kenneth Richmond and a guard named Paul Gerlach have gone missing. We see that the two men are wearing demonic masks; Gerlach lets Richmond shoot him in the middle of the woods.

The agents find Gerlach's body with some help from another mental patient named Josef Kobald. Doggett is a little skeptical of Kobald's supposed connection to the men and thinks he may have even planned the killings, especially since he committed several murders himself while a professor, but Reyes is less skeptical. After Kobald reveals a few details of Doggett's life, he goes into a seizure and says the Latin word for doctor. The police arrive at Richmond's physician's house just as Richmond leaves and find her dead. Doggett discovers that Kobald was an expert on satanic history and continues to suspect him of setting up the murders; Kobald suggests that Doggett may have the hots for Reyes or Scully, then vomits all over the place.

Kobald tells a guard they can find Richmond at a place called Happy Landing and Scully recognizes it as a marina she passed on her way back to DC. She gets there first and is immediately attacked by Richmond, who holds her at gunpoint. The full complement of the fuzz and Kobald arrive, at which point Richmond kills himself. Doggett realizes it's all an elaborate escape plan and shoots Kobald as he tries to run off. It is found that Kobald was manipulating the agents after finding out about them via the Internet. Doggett also discovers that the victims were chosen because their names could spell out Daemonicus, and that the man shot was actually a guard assigned to Kobald.

James Remar, currently playing Harry Morgan on Dexter, plays Josef Kobald here. Lou Richards, who plays Officer Custer, voiced Leader-One on the 1980s show Challenge of the Go-Bots and played Deputy Dennis Putnam on another 1980s show, She's the Sheriff.

Episode Body Count

Evelyn Mountjoy: shot by her husband, who mistakes her for a home invader.

Darren Mountjoy: shot by Richmond and/or Gerlach.

Happy: the Mountjoy's dog; Doggett says he was found outside with a broken neck.

Three patients: a doctor at the Chessman State Mental Hospital says Richmond killed three patients by sewing strychnine tablets into their stomach lining.

Paul Gerlach: shot by Richmond.

Six co-eds: Doggett says Kobald has been institutionalized after grinding up several students and using their remains for fertilizer in his garden.

Dr. Monique Sampson: dies after she is stuck with 11 syringes containing the anti-psychotic medication droperidol.

Dr. Kenneth Richmond: commits suicide at the Happy Landing marina.

Officer Custer: mistaken by Doggett for Kobald and shot as he tries to escape.

Humans: 15
Creatures: 1
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (185/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,122

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,316

Season 9, Episode 2: Nothing Important Happened Today II

2009-12-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In the opening scene, a biological science team is doing secret work on board a merchant ship. Follmer warns Reyes to cut the shenanigans, but she thinks he's just trying to get Doggett fired. Meanwhile, he's revived by McMahon, who says she was just keeping him hidden from Follmer's agents; she also says that she's a biologically engineered super-soldier devoid of such weaknesses as the need to sleep and the inability to breathe underwater. She tells Doggett that the two men she killed were "preparing the water supply." The ship makes port in Baltimore, and the captain tries to call the dead EPA administrator; he returns to find that Rohrer has taken over as second-in-command (in a rather deadly fashion, as we see later).

Doggett and Reyes invite Scully over to hear what McMahon has to say: the chloramine additive will lead to the mutation of human offspring into super-soldiers like her. The Lone Gunmen discover how calls are being made to the EPA administrator, and Frohike impersonates him as the captain calls begging to have the horrors on board the ship exposed. Reyes finds that the two men McMahon killed were whistleblowers on this latest conspiracy, meaning she's lying about her motives. The captain takes a hostage to try to get the scientists' data to expose, but ends up getting killed by Rohrer.

Doggett, Scully, and Reyes show up at the ship. Rohrer presents a bit of a problem before McMahon shows up and their struggle takes them underwater. Investigating the ship, Doggett finds a bomb on a timer and Reyes and Scully find the lab. Scully realizes that they're manipulating ova for transplantation and wants to see if she's among them, but is forced to flee with her comrades before the ship explodes. Doggett tells Kersh he hasn't found anything concrete on him, but figures his hands are dirty. He turns in his badge and his gun, but takes them back after Kersh hints that he's actually on his side (and was the one who leaked the administrator's obituary to Doggett); Follmer is less certain, thinking Kersh has Doggett just where he wants him.

The episode is dedicated to the memory of Chad Keller, a friend of Chris Carter's who was killed on Flight 77 during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks about two months before the episode aired.

Episode Body Count

Petty Officer Bramford: apparently killed by Rohrer, his body is found near the Valor Victor.

Captain: beheaded by Rohrer.

Both McMahon and Rohrer presumably survive their fight.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (184/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,107

Creatures: 129
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,300

Season 9, Episode 1: Nothing Important Happened Today

2009-12-13T15:29:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In Baltimore, a deputy administrator for the EPA picks up a woman named Shannon McMahon in a bar; as he takes her home, she forces him to drive into a river and prevents him from swimming to safety. Kersh, accused of having secret meetings with Rohrer and Crane, is the subject of an internal investigation by Doggett. Assistant Director Brad Follmer, an old flame of Reyes', lets her know that the security video of the chase in the parking garage has been falsified. McMahon shows up at a Maryland water reclamation plant and drowns a worker there. Mulder disappears and Skinner asks Doggett to drop the Kersh investigation in the interest of the safety of Scully's child, leaving only Reyes to back his story about what happened.

Reyes tells Follmer that if the investigation is dropped, she'll get bumped off the X-Files and returned to the New Orleans field office. Doggett calls his old military buddies to try to get some information on Rohrer; they include McMahon. William apparently has telekinesis, as he makes his mobile turn without touching it. Scully changes her mind about wanting the Kersh investigation dropped, and someone tips off Reyes about the EPA administrator's death. Scully's autopsy finds evidence of McMahon's grip.

Follmer rats on the unauthorized autopsy to Kersh. McMahon tries to see Scully at her apartment and makes a couple of visits to the FBI building, once as Scully and Reyes are finishing up the autopsy; the administrator's body goes missing right after this visit as Follmer tries to catch Doggett in the act. Follmer denies tipping off Reyes about the death. Skinner and Doggett investigate the reclamation plant after The Lone Gunmen discover that the administrator was receiving encrypted files from the drowned plant worker. Follmer and his agents show up as Doggett and Skinner try to escape with files from the worker related to something called chloramine (a substance the administrator had mentioned as a government additive and expressed suspicion about). Doggett is hiding out in a water tank when McMahon begins to pull him into the depths. To be continued...

Lucy Lawless, best known for playing the title character in Xena: Warrior Princess as well as D'Anna Biers in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, plays Shannon McMahon here. Cary Elwes, who plays A.D. Brad Follmer, has had a number of movie roles including Westley in The Princess Bride and Major Cabot Forbes in Glory.

Episode Body Count

Carl Wormus: a deputy administrator with the EPA, drowns after McMahon forces him to drive his convertible off a bridge into a river and holds him down as he tries to swim to the surface.

Roland McFarland: drowned by McMahon in a tank at a water reclamation plant in Maryland.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (183/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,105

Creatures: 129
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,298

Season 8, Episode 21: Existence

2009-12-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

The remains of Billy Miles are brought to a morgue; not long after, Miles walks out again after a single metallic vertebra begins replicating to reconstruct him. Reyes takes Scully to Democrat Hot Springs, an abandoned resort in Georgia where Doggett was born, and the two make preparations to have her baby. Rohrer, who works in the intelligence community, tells Doggett that Miles is the result of a military experiment to create a super-soldier, and Scully's abduction and subsequent pregnancy are a result of an effort to create an organic version of one. Rohrer also says the military/intelligence/whatever conspirators intend to put Miles down. Skinner is nearly killed when Miles returns to the FBI building, allowing Krycek to escape his custody.

Mulder and Doggett watch Krycek arrive at the FBI parking garage, a passenger in a car driven by Rohrer. Miles shows up at Democrat Hot Springs and attacks Reyes, then is shot and apparently killed by a game warden who has agreed to help the agents. Doggett follows Rohrer into the building and sees him meet up with Crane. Mulder realizes that they've discovered where Scully is and gets Doggett to tell him her location. Krycek confronts Mulder and says he's been trying to stop the colonization and Mulder's just been getting in the way. He seems about ready to kill Mulder when he is shot by Skinner. Krycek tries to get Skinner to kill Mulder, but Skinner executes him instead.

Scully starts to go into labor, and Reyes sees that the game warden is a super-soldier. Reyes attacks the warden with boiling water, but can only watch as Miles revives and other super-soldiers arrive. Crane and Rohrer go after Skinner and Doggett, but both are apparently killed in an ensuing car chase in the parking garage. The super-soldiers don't interfere as Scully gives birth to a healthy baby boy, and Mulder arrives in a helicopter as they leave. Kersh is angry with Doggett and Reyes for the whole incident, but neither one backs down; they also note how the bodies of Crane and Rohrer were never found. Mulder and Scully wonder why the super-soldiers didn't take the child (whom Scully has named William, after Mulder's father). Mulder suggests that he didn't turn out to be what they expected, but that he's still a miracle. And then Mulder and Scully kiss.

Dale Dickey, who plays a game warden, also played Patty the Daytime Hooker on My Name is Earl.

Episode Body Count

Alex Krycek: shot by Skinner in the parking garage of the FBI building.

Reyes says that Agent Gene Crane and Knowle Rohrer were both presumed dead but went missing, so you can add vehicular trauma to the list of things that doesn't kill a super-soldier.

Humans: 1
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

UNDEAD'D

Billy Miles: reconstructed from a metallic vertebra found in the remains of his body. Sort-of killed again when a game warden shoots him with a shotgun, but he recovers from that as well.

Humans: 1
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Season Body Count

Humans: 376
Creatures: 15
Aliens: 2

Everything increases, especially humans.

Cumulative Body Count (182/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,103

Creatures: 129
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,296

Season 8, Episode 20: Essence

2009-12-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Mulder's opening soliloquy ponders whether the miracle of life has been cheapened by scientific advances like cloning. At Scully's baby shower, a baby nurse named Lizzy Gill secretly replaces one of Scully's medications with different pills. Billy Miles, confirming that the work at Zeus Genetics has been "fruitful" by observing an alien baby, kills a doctor with a mighty punch and burns the place down. Mulder discovers that Scully's former obstetrician, Dr. James Parenti, was the co-founder of the company. He and Doggett find a fetus display at Parenti's office similar to the one at Zeus Genetics.

Gill turns out to be in league with Duffy Haskell, the Zeus Genetics wag. Miles kills Parenti in his office. Investigating the location again, Miles easily beats up Mulder and takes a few bullets from Doggett without any ill effect. He bleeds red blood and also shows the neck ridges that were seen on Knowle Rohrer. Gill worries that the agents are sniffing her out, and Haskell reassures her via phone...right before Miles decapitates him with a backhand. The FBI finds the body in an illegal human cloning facility and determines that Haskell was working with the two murdered doctors. Skinner, worrying that someone is tampering with Scully's baby, has Mulder contact Scully; she catches Gill tampering with her pills.

At the hospital, it is found that the replacement pills were harmless vitamin supplements. Gill confesses that the government has been experimenting with alien babies born to human mothers, trying to get stem cells for other experiments she knows nothing about. She also says Scully is carrying "the perfect human child with no human frailties," and that the doctors were trying to protect her. Mulder gets Scully out of her apartment just before Miles arrives there; after their blocked in car fails to facilitate a speedy escape, Krycek unexpectedly shows up to save them.

At the FBI building, Krycek tells the agents that Miles and others like him are super-strong modified human replacements designed to knock out resistance to the alien colonization. He also says they're afraid that Scully's baby could be greater than they are. Reyes arrives to take Scully to safety, but Miles is right on her heels. Krycek helps get Scully to Reyes' car and they take off. Miles ends up pursuing Skinner to the top of the building. With the help of Mulder and an FBI agent named Gene Crane, Miles is shoved into a garbage truck and compacted. Crane, however, shows a rather suspicious neck bump. To be continued...

Episode Body Count

Dr. Lev: killed by an exceptionally strong punch by Billy Miles.

Alien baby: presumably killed when Miles torches Zeus Genetics.

At least 48 fetuses: found in a display at Dr. Parenti's office which is identical to one at Zeus Genetics. Parenti says they're children with non-survivable birth defects, while Mulder suspects they're used for alien hybrid experiments.

Dr. James Parenti: killed by Billy Miles; Doggett finds his head in a jar at his office.

Duffy Haskell: decapitated by a Billy Miles backhand in his illegal cloning facility.

Billy Miles: ground up in a garbage truck after he is pushed from the top of the FBI building.

Humans: 52
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 1

Cumulative Body Count (181/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,103

Creatures: 129
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,296

Season 8, Episode 19: Alone

2009-12-10T13:16:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In upstate New York, a man has apparently botched a lock-checking duty given to him by his elderly father, the caretaker of an estate; a salamander-like creature attacks both of them. Scully goes on maternity leave, giving Doggett her Apollo 11 medallion gift and thanking him for all his help. Doggett gets a greenhorn new partner named Leyla Harrison, who claims to know all about the X-Files after her work processing Mulder and Scully's travel expenses, and they go to work on the New York case. Though the missing son is suspected in the caretaker's death, Doggett and Harrison soon find traces of some sort of slime at the house. After Doggett realizes something is in the house and tries to capture it with Harrison's help, but she is dragged off instead.

Doggett falls through a trap door in the nearby woods while looking for Harrison, and Skinner and an FBI team begin looking for the missing agents. Scully comes into work despite her pregnancy to try to help locate them, and tells Mulder how the old man died of heart failure but was also blinded by a sort of venom. In a series of subterranean tunnels beneath the estate, the creature partially blinds Doggett and Harrison; Doggett figures the trap that got him was set up to provide meals for the creature. Mulder goes to New York and becomes suspicious of Herman Stites, a biologist and the estate's owner, after finding the medallion in the woods.

A lab assistant tells Scully that the venom breaks down organic material so the creature can easily digest other animals. Mulder spots the creature and tracks it to the house, where we see it transform into Stites. After this trick, Mulder finds the agents, who have discovered the tunnel leading to the house. Harrison realizes that Stites is the creature, and with a little help from Mulder the now fully blinded Doggett shoots him. After the agents are treated at the hospital, Mulder returns the medallion to Doggett, but he says that Harrison deserves it more...even if she's had her fill of the X-Files for now.

Episode Body Count

Arlen Sacks: killed by the salamander creature and found in the woods at the estate.

Dog: or wolf, or other doglike animal. Doggett finds a heavily degraded skull in the estate's tunnels.

Gary Sacks: partially devoured by the creature after it sprays him with venom.

Herman Stites (aka the Salamander Creature): shot by Doggett.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 2
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (180/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,051

Creatures: 129
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,244

Season 8, Episode 18: Vienen

2009-12-09T19:32:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

On an oil rig off the coast of Texas, a worker named Simon de la Cruz kills a communications officer (who bleeds black oil) and smashes up some equipment. Another worker, Bo Taylor, blasts this upstart with a lethal dose of radiation, something we've seen before. The company that owns the rig is concerned that the death could be used by the Mexican government to force the United States to abandon its claim to a recently discovered oil deposit. Mulder and Doggett spar a little over ownership of the X-Files, but Kersh ultimately sends Doggett out to the rig; Mulder makes his way out there anyway.

Scully finds that the burn victim is infected by the black oil, also also that it's inexplicably dead; still, she worries that Doggett and the others on the rig are in danger if the black oil is loose, while Skinner wonders why there's only been one infection. Taylor infects the new communications specialist as he tries to restore the gear. Scully lets Mulder know about the dead virus, and the rig is quarantined. Mulder and Doggett look to track down a man named Diego Garza, who is missing. Mulder suspects that the black oil is hiding out in the petroleum deposit, ready to cause a worldwide infection, and Garza might be the only person on the rig not infected.

Kersh says he's lifting Skinner's quarantine order, but luckily that order can't go through because Garza has torched the rig's radio room. Garza tells Doggett that de la Cruz was killed for what he knew and is worried that UFOs are coming for him. Scully determines that de la Cruz had an immunity to the virus, but was killed anyway by radiation. Taylor confronts Doggett, but Mulder saves him from infection. The other workers try to attack them, then decide to destroy the rig instead. Garza is killed by a radiation blast, but Doggett and Mulder manage to escape as the whole structure explodes. The oil company loses the drilling rights, so the black oil remains safely sealed under the Gulf of Mexico. Mulder takes the blame for the whole thing and is canned, confident that Doggett will faithfully run the X-Files now that he's seen the black oil.

Miguel Sandoval, perhaps best known as D.A. Manuel Devalos on Medium, plays Martin Ortega here. M.C. Gainey, the not-so-lovable Tom Friendly of Lost, is also not so lovable here as Bo Taylor. Casey Biggs, who plays Saksa, also played Damar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Gregory Cruz, who plays Diego Garza, also plays Detective Bobby Stillwater on Saving Grace.

Episode Body Count

Communications engineer: stabbed by Simon de la Cruz.

Simon de la Cruz: blasted by radioactivity from Bo Taylor; his body is later found on the shore of Texas.

Diego Varza: killed by a radiation blast from the infected oil workers.

Seventeen infected oil workers: presumably killed when the rig explodes.

Humans: 20
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (179/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,049

Creatures: 127
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,240

Season 8, Episode 17: Empedocles

2009-12-09T19:30:00.001-08:00

Synopsis

A fired corporate worker in New Orleans named Jeb Dukes witnesses the fiery end to a police chase shortly after he's laid off. After appearing to be possessed by a burning man, Dukes returns to the office and murders his boss and boss's secretary. Reyes is called to the scene on the mistaken presumption that Dukes was involved in satanic activities and sees a brief vision of one of the corpses completely burnt. Reyes tells Mulder that she last had such a vision after seeing the body of Doggett's murdered son. The person killed in the crash turns out to be a former suspect in that case, and Reyes thinks there may be a chance to put case to rest.

Doggett is angered by their investigation, but later asks Scully how she became more accepting of paranormal explanations after she's hospitalized with abdominal pains. Dukes has visions of himself surrounded by flames or other red-hot phenomena, and ends up killing another woman in South Carolina. Reyes suggests that a thread of evil is at work, and passed on to Dukes from the suspect. Dukes ends up at his sister's house in Maryland, appearing normal as he says he didn't commit the murders.

Dukes' sister lets Reyes know that he's come back, and Doggett warms up to the idea that he may know something about his son's murder. Reyes shoots Dukes after he takes his niece hostage. Doggett flashes back to a vision he had of his son's body charred to ashes after the body was found. Mulder tells Doggett that when he was working on violent crimes, he came to think of evil as a sort of disease, with vulnerable people open to infection. Dukes dies, and the evil passes on to his sister. She attacks Reyes, but Doggett saves her and tells her its over; Reyes replies that it's never over.

Denise Crosby, who plays Dr. Mary Speake in this and one other episode, also played Lt. Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Cheryl Francis Harrington, who plays an ER nurse, also voiced Ms. Mambo Garcelle on The PJs.

Episode Body Count

Bob Harvey and station wagon driver: Harvey, a suspect in Luke Doggett's murder, is killed in a car accident while fleeing from police. Considering the entire station wagon explodes after Harvey crashes into it, I'm not holding out much hope for the driver visible inside.

Gary Garber: shot by Jeb Dukes in his New Orleans office.

Roberta Toews: also shot by Jeb Dukes in New Orleans.

Luke John Doggett: murdered while Doggett was working with the NYPD.

Flat tire woman: shot by Jeb Dukes in South Carolina.

Jeb Dukes: dies in the hospital after he is shot by Reyes in his sister's Maryland home.

Humans: 7
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (178/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,029

Creatures: 127
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,220

Season 8, Episode 16: Three Words

2009-12-06T15:11:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A census worker runs onto the White House grounds in an attempt to warn the President that aliens are taking over the United States. He ends up getting shot, and passes on a disk labeled "Fight the Future" to one of the guards. Mulder has gotten better, the virus gone and his abduction-related injuries healing. In prison, an inmate smuggles an article about the census man's death to Absalom inside a book entitled "The Coming Apocalypse." Mulder applies for reinstatement to the X-Files, but Kersh says he intends to keep them open with Doggett at the helm.

Absalom escapes from a work site and goes to see Doggett, with a gun. After checking the back of Doggett's neck "to make sure you're still you," Absalom tells him that the invasion has already begun and Doggett is going to help expose it. Mulder tells Scully and Skinner that he believes the census worker was killed for something he knew; he also notes how the man knew Absalom and was a multiple abductee. Mulder also finds that the census worker's laptop is full of numerical data and takes its hard drive. Secretly holding Doggett at gunpoint, Absalom tries to access census data at the Federal Statistics Center that he believes will prove the conspiracy but is getting shot before he can do so.

Mulder and Doggett's first meeting isn't very amicable, as Mulder accuses Doggett of involvement in Absalom's death and attempts to bury the truth. The Lone Gunmen find that the census worker downloaded a number of file directories from the FSC on the day he was shot, but that short of breaking into the facility there's no way to access them. Rohrer leaks the password ("Fight the Future") that was on the census worker's diskette to Doggett, and he in turn leaks it to Scully. After Doggett finds out that Scully's worried about how Mulder will use it, Doggett takes off for the FSC.

There, the Gunmen are helping Mulder sneak into the facility. He manages to get to a work station and access the data. Doggett also makes it inside and warns Mulder that his life is in danger if he doesn't knock it off. Mulder says people have been targeted because of their "genetic profiles for abduction and replacement by alien facsimiles." As heavily armed men arrive, Scully tells the Gunmen that the group appears to have been set up. Doggett convinces Mulder to trust him, and they escape through the dropped ceiling without the data. Doggett confronts Rohrer, who says the truth is all in the X-Files. As Doggett heads off, we see that Rohrer has a couple of strange protrusions under the skin of his neck.

Episode Body Count

Howard Salt: a census employee, shot on the lawn of the White House with his own weapon.

Fish: Mulder notes how one of his fish is missing, and Scully says it wasn't as lucky as he was.

Absalom: shot and killed by security guards at the Federal Statistics Center in Virginia.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 1
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (177/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,022

Creatures: 127
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,213

Season 8, Episode 15: Deadalive

2009-12-06T09:20:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Mulder's funeral is held at the family grave in North Carolina. Three months later, Kersh tells Doggett that he's recommending him for advancement due to his efforts in finding Mulder. Doggett suspects that Kersh wants to shut down the X-Files once he's transferred and Scully goes on maternity leave, but Scully urges him to take the promotion anyway. The bloated body of Billy Miles is found off the coast of North Carolina, and it turns out that he's alive. Thinking the same might be true for Mulder, Skinner has his coffin exhumed. It turns out that Mulder is clinically alive, despite the fact that some of his systems are decomposing; Kersh warns Doggett to leave the matter alone so the FBI doesn't look bad.

Miles sheds his dying skin, regaining his normal appearance, and says the aliens are actually there to save mankind. Scully suspects that he may have transformed into something else. Doggett visits Abasalom in a West Virginia prison to try to get some insight on the healing process, but that remains unexplored for the rest of the episode. Krycek, who has returned with his nanobot blackmail device, makes Skinner an offer: he'll give up the anti-alien vaccine needed to keep Mulder alive, providing Scully's baby doesn't live. Skinner refuses the deal, though Scully tells Doggett that she had asked Skinner to get the vaccine; she thinks Miles was infected with a virus that started the transformation, and believes the vaccine can stop the same thing from happening to Mulder.

Doggett finds Skinner trying to pull the plug on Mulder; he tells Doggett he can't trust Krycek and certainly can't betray Scully. Doggett chases Kryeck, but he escapes and taunts Doggett by destroying the vaccine. Meanwhile, Skinner's action has shown that the virus is being incubated by life support, and Scully says Mulder might be able to recover on antivirals alone. Kersh lets Doggett know that his promotion is no longer on the table. Much to Scully's joy, Mulder wakes up unaffected by the virus.

Episode Body Count

No new deaths. However...

UNDEAD'D

Agent Fox Mulder: of course they're not going to kill Mulder! He is found to be not quite dead yet three months after his funeral.

Humans: 1
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

And so this episode ties for Least Deadliest of Show with Dreamland II.

Cumulative Body Count (176/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,020

Creatures: 126
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,210

Season 8, Episode 14: This is Not Happening

2009-12-05T17:01:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Richie Szalay, a UFO chaser who previously met Mulder and Scully in Oregon sees a flying object that appears to make a stop in Montana; Szalay witnesses a man running from a scene and finds a woman who was abducted just before Mulder. She is found clinging to life, having been subjected to harsh experiments. Doggett suspects Szalay, who is trying to track down his abducted friend, but that fizzles out pretty quickly. Scully dreams of Mulder looking pretty bad, and she worries that he'll turn up dead. Jeremiah Smith shows up at the hospital and takes the appearance of a doctor so he can take her away for treatment at a remote cabin; also there is a man named Absalom. Doggett pairs Scully up with Monica Reyes, an agent who specializes in ritualistic crime; not surprisingly, she thinks Mulder has joined some sort of Heaven's Gate-like group.

Reyes spots another UFO pit stop, and interrupts Smith and Absalom as they retrieve another abductee. They leave behind another body: Szalay's friend, deceased. The FBI tracks down Absalom, believed to be a religious zealot, and raid his camp. They find the abducted woman looking perfectly fine. Scully asks Absalom if he recognizes a photo of Mulder, and he says he doesn't. Scully recognizes Smith from surveillance footage at the camp, which also reveals Smith taking Doggett's appearance. The agents return to the camp, where Smith warns Scully in a one-on-one meeting that he's the only one who can help the returning abductees. Mulder is returned, dead, and Scully watches helplessly as the UFO takes off with Smith. To be continued...

First appearance of Annabeth Gish as Agent Monica Reyes; she has also showed up in roles in The West Wing and Brotherhood. Judson Earney Scott, who plays Absalom in this and three other episodes, also played Joachim Weiss in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and Lt. James on the original V miniseries.

Episode Body Count

Thirty-nine Heaven's Gate cult members: Reyes makes reference to the suicide of the people in Heaven's Gate, who thought the action would allow them to board a spacecraft trailing Comet Hale-Bopp.

Gary Edward Cory: found dead after he is dropped in a Montana field by a UFO.

Agent Fox Mulder: again? Returned, deceased, after his unpleasant tour aboard the UFO.

Humans: 41
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (175/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 2,021

Creatures: 126
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,211

Poor humans...their tally surpasses 2,000.

Season 8, Episode 13: Per Manum

2009-12-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A former alien abductee, Kath McCready, winds up dead after giving birth to an alien baby, which the doctors don't seem too surprised about. Her husband, Duffy Haskell, takes the case to the X-Files; Scully is skeptical, but Doggett says it sounds like her own story, except for the pregnancy (considering he doesn't know about Scully's passenger). Scully flashes back to Mulder telling her how she was rendered barren after her ova were stolen during abduction, and that that a specialist determined that the eggs he recovered from a government lab were also not viable. Following up on an ultrasound of the dead woman, Scully goes to Zeus Genetics and discovers a room full of mutant fetuses in jars. It is also revealed that Scully's doctor is involved with this company.

Haskell is confronted by the FBI as leading the Ohio Mutual UFO Network and making threats to the Zeus Genetics doctors, but he turns out to be a mole on behalf of the company. Further flashbacks show that Scully was trying to get pregnant through artificial insemination, and that Mulder had agreed to be a donor. Another pregnant woman from Zeus Genetics, a Mrs. Hendershot, goes to Scully for help since she thinks both of their babies are in danger. Another agent tells Doggett that Haskell has apparently been dead since 1970, though the person claiming to be him has the same prints; Doggett goes to an old buddy, Knowle Rohrer, to try to unravel that mystery.

Scully takes Hendershot to an Army medical research facility to get help for both of their babies. Scully's ultrasound turns out fine, until she realizes that it's just a videotape and tries to escape with Hendershot. Doggett, realizing Scully is in danger, asks that she be rescued. Rohrer picks up the two women, but restrains and drugs Scully as Hendershot gives birth to an alien baby. Scully wakes up in a hospital, and Doggett tells her that Hendershot has had a baby boy. Scully figures that it's yet another cover-up, and unfortunately there's no way to prove anything. In another flashback, Scully tells Mulder that the procedure didn't work; he tells her to never give up on a miracle.

First appearance of Adam Baldwin as Knowle Rohrer; Baldwin's other roles include Animal Mother in Full Metal Jacket, Jayne Cobb on Firefly, and John Casey on Chuck.

Episode Body Count

Kath McCready: her husband, Duffy Haskell, says the doctors who delivered her baby killed her.

At least 65 mutant fetuses: it's tough to get an exact count, but Scully finds quite a few babies preserved in jars at Zeus Genetics; some have multiple heads, so I guess I'll do a torso count. They look more human than alien.

Alien baby: McCready's alien infant is under examination by Dr. Parenti in the room of mutant corpses.

David Haskell: another FBI agent tells Doggett that the man claiming to be Duffy Haskell has the same prints as a David Haskell who was buried in 1970.

Humans: 67
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 1

Cumulative Body Count (174/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,980

Creatures: 126
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,170

Season 8, Episode 12: Medusa

2009-12-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

An undercover police officer is killed on a Boston subway, seemingly by a thug, though a good portion of his body has been eaten away by something. The transit cops are anxious to get the closed tunnel re-opened by day's end, though Scully wants it to remain shut down until they can find what killed him. Doggett and a police/CDC team head into the tunnel, and one is burned by some sort of toxic substance. Scully does a remote analysis of a nearby puddle sample and finds that it's only contains seawater.

The thug runs into Doggett as the team enters a decommissioned tunnel, and dies soon after. He and three other bodies in the tunnel all show the same signs of disintegrated flesh. Scully worries that some sort of contagion is at play, but revises her theory to a biochemical weapon when the burned cop is suddenly hit with a more electrical sort of attack on his arm. Doggett and a jumpy cop continue to pursue a shadowy person who has made a few appearances, and Doggett notices a luminescent material on the other man's face.

A marine biologist is called in and tells Scully that the sample contained a creature similar to one called a medusa. Doggett finds that he has also been infected with the luminescence, and Scully warns him that something unknown triggers it to the more unknown reaction. Meanwhile, both agents are annoyed that the transit chief is keeping with a deadline and allowing the evening trains to run. Doggett discovers that the mysterious person is a young, uninfected boy.

Scully thinks that the reaction might be triggered by sweat, and the boy is unaffected because his sweat glands aren't fully developed. He leads them through a leak which has brought the organism in and flooded the main lines. The trains start up again, and Doggett apparently manages to destroy the organism with an electrical charge transmitted from the third rail through a gun. Unfortunately, that leaves no evidence for Doggett's hope to punish the transit chief for recklessly endangering people.

Ken Jenkins, who is best known for his role as Dr. Bob Kelso on Scrubs, plays Deputy Chief Karras here. Penny Johnson, who plays Dr. Hellura Lyle, also played Sherry Palmer on 24 and Beverly Barnes on The Larry Sanders Show.

Episode Body Count

Officer Philbrick: killed by a reaction to the contaminated seawater.

Thug: also killed by the infected seawater.

Three squatters: found hidden in a decommissioned tunnel with the same lack of flesh.

Humans: 5
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (173/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,913

Creatures: 126
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 2,102

Season 8, Episode 11: The Gift

2009-12-02T14:36:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In Pennsylvania, a man enters a home with a strange symbol on it and shoots some sort of creature dead over the protests of the two inhabitants. He drives off, and we see that it's...Mulder? Doggett goes to the same town to look into a missing person case that Mulder investigated a week before his disappearance. The two inhabitants, Paul and Marie Hangemuhl, maintain the story that Marie only went to her sister's after they got into a fight, but Mulder thought she was afraid of something coming to the house. Paul says that Mulder twisted Marie's fear of a Native American legend of a forest creature into a theory that someone was coming to get her.

Doggett finds evidence that Mulder shot someone or something and falsified his report, and that Scully assisted in the falsification; he takes the matter to Skinner so Scully won't get in trouble. The sheriff and a mob capture another creature being kept at a forest cabin; later, he tells Doggett and Skinner that a transient was found dead in the town soon after Mulder's visit. The body is missing, having apparently tunneled out of its grave. The creature is brought to see Marie, who is seriously ill with a kidney disease, and apparently devours her; soon after, however, it is seen vomiting up a substance into a human-shaped depression in the ground.

Doggett considers whether Mulder may have shot someone/something to protect Marie. Skinner finds the symbol on the door, and The Lone Gunmen inform them that it can be used to summon a "soul eater" shaman that devours sickness. Doggett visits the cabin and finds Marie alive, if a little sticky, and it is determined that her illness is gone. Doggett is still mystified about the shooting and who Mulder was attacking. Visiting the rustic woman who has overseen the creature, Doggett realizes that Mulder was trying to heal his own brain disease but saw that the creature suffered immensely to help people and shot it out of mercy.

The woman says the creature can't be killed and will keep suffering as long as the townspeople know it's alive. Doggett tries to take the creature away, but is blocked by the sheriff and his gang, who want to use it to heal the town's sick people. When Doggett refuses to relinquish the creature, they kill and bury him. The creature escapes, and ends up resurrecting Doggett, taking his death for himself and freeing himself from his suffering in the process. Doggett wonders how the hell he's going to write a report on the case, and Skinner suggests that he just give it a pass.

Caroline Lagerfelt, who plays the Rustic Woman, also played Inger Dominguez on Nash Bridges.

Episode Body Count

Creature: not exactly killed after being shot by Mulder. Later takes Doggett's death away from him, thus dying himself.

Chicken: the blood of the bird is used to paint a symbol on the Hangemuhls' door.

Agent John Doggett: killed when the sheriff hits him with a shotgun blast, but brought back to life by the creature.

Humans: 1
Creatures: 2
Aliens: 0

UNDEAD'D

Humans: 1
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (172/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,908

Creatures: 126
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 2,097

Season 8, Episode 10: Badlaa

2009-11-29T14:35:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A legless beggar who pulls himself along on a cart attacks a rude American businessman in Mumbai, India; the businessman apparently survives, but quickly bleeds to death without trying to save himself in a DC hotel room. Doggett wonders if drug smuggling was involved after they find a great deal of damage to the businessman's intestines; Scully is more intrigued by the fact that the decay suggests the businessman died in India. Meanwhile, the beggar lands a janitorial job at a school after projecting a different image of himself.

Doggett finds that another businessman died under similar circumstances in India three weeks before. When Scully sees that there was a weight discrepancy soon after the body was weighed, she wonders if a living stowaway is the cause. The beggar kills the father of a boy named Quinton, after the boy sees the beggar in his room. Since it's unlike the other two deaths, Scully wonders if there are stages involved in whatever's going on. The corpse has a distended belly, and the beggar burrows his way out after Scully makes an incision. At the school, a bully sees the beggar's janitor image waver a little. A professor who has helped the X-Files on several occasions says there is a group of Indian mystics believed to have the ability to disguise themselves.

Scully wonders if someone is out for revenge in relation to an American chemical plant disaster that killed dozens of people outside Mumbai. The bully tells Scully that he was followed by the beggar after his mother shows up dead. The beggar's janitor form is detained, and doesn't show up on a video camera...meaning the beggar is still at large. Quinton and the bully unsuccessfully try to take down the beggar at the school. The beggar disguises himself as the bully as Scully arrives, but at Quinton's urging, Scully shoots and kills him...though she's a little freaked out about opening fire on someone who looked like a kid. Two weeks later, however, the beggar is somehow still seeking out new victims in India.

Michael Welch, who plays Trevor, also played Luke Girardi in Joan of Arcadia and now plays Mike Newton in the Twilight movies.

Episode Body Count

Hugh Potoki: a Minneapolis businessman, killed in Mumbai by the beggar.

Albert Brecht: a Spokane businessman who died a similar death in New Delhi three weeks before Potoki.

Quinton's father: killed in his home by the beggar.

Doggett's first corpse: Doggett says he first saw a dead body when he was 19 and a Marine.

One hundred and eighteen Indian villagers: Scully says most of the native population of the village of Vishi was killed when an American plant accidentally released methyl isocyanate gas.

Beggar's son: another newspaper article says the disaster has claimed another victim, the 11-year-old son of a beggar.

Trevor's mother: drowns after the beggar disguises himself to make it seem like her son is drowning in their pool.

Beggar: belatedly added. Even though he shows up in India, it might be the original beggar or some such thing...Scully shot something, after all.

Humans: 125
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (171/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,907

Creatures: 124
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 2,094

The Vishi disaster bumps the count past 2,000, with 31 episodes still to go.

Season 8, Episode 9: Salvage

2009-11-27T21:25:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In Indiana, a woman mourns the death of her husband, Ray Pearce, due to Gulf War Syndrome. However, Pearce shows up soon after when a friend comforting her wraps his car around him. Pearce isn't injured, and kills the friend. A guy who looks exactly like Pearce clips some metallic whiskers at a halfway house, but Pearce's wife insists that he's dead. When Pearce shows up at the salvage yard where he used to work, the man who runs it blasts him with a shotgun but Pearce survives and kills him.

Doggett notices that the operator was shredding documents related to Chamber Technologies. Pearce has become increasingly metallic (with a couple of nods to the Terminator series, natch). Doggett visits Chamber Technologies and finds that they're working on molecular memory alloys that can repair themselves from damage, but that the researchers consider it a pipe dream. Scully determines that the blood from the salvage yard matches Pearce, but has enough metal to be considered lethal. Pearce sneaks into Chamber Technologies and is trapped, but smashes his way out. Pearce's wife tracks him down at the halfway house, and he says that some people have to pay for what they've done.

At the salvage yard, Doggett finds a Chamber Technologies drum containing the body of a metallic man and former doctor at the company. Another researcher says that the man was trying to protect the company after some fatal work with the metal alloys, and Scully surmises that he infected Pearce when the drum was transferred to the salvage yard. The agents realize that Pearce's wife knows who he's after, and eventually find out who it is. Pearce attacks the man, who authorized the shipment of hazardous materials to the salvage yard, but stops himself after seeing that the man has a young son. Scully figures that Pearce may have become more machine than man, but retained a flicker of humanity. The episode ends with Pearce crushing himself in a car compactor.

Wade Williams, who plays Ray Pearce, also played Brad Bellick on Prison Break. Arye Gross, who plays Dr. Tom Puvogel, formerly played Adam Green on Ellen. Tamara Clatterbuck, who plays Larina Jackson, also had roles on The Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless. Randy Walker, a Hollywood police adviser, plays a SWAT cop here; he formerly faced off against Robert Patrick in the same role in Terminator 2.

Episode Body Count

Curtis Delario: dies after crashing into Pearce and getting finger stabbed through the forehead.

Harry Odell: has his head crushed by Pearce.

Dr. David Clifton: found in a Chamber Technologies drum at Southside Salvage by Doggett.

Larina Jackson: killed by Pearce.

Ray Pearce: commits suicide in a compactor at the salvage yard.

Humans: 5
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (170/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,782

Creatures: 124
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 1,969

Season 8, Episode 8: Surekill

2009-11-25T19:23:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Afraid that someone is trying to kill him, a real estate agent in Massachusetts flees to a police station and is thrown in the drunk tank...where he is gunned down anyway. The police find a bullet hole in the air vent, but Doggett and Scully discover that the shot was fired all the way from the station roof. Randall Cooper, a seemingly slow man who works at his brother Dwight's extermination business, turns out to be the assassin and tells Dwight that he committed the murder after seeing the realtor stealing from him. Dwight confronts a group of drug dealers in a warehouse and steals their cash after Randall shoots them all from behind a wall.

Scully posits that since visible light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum, the shooter might be able to see other wavelengths (ie, have X-ray vision). Meanwhile, Randall seems to have a thing for Dwight's girlfriend, Tammi Peyton. Doggett and Scully question Dwight after finding that the realtor was in contact with the extermination business and that there were traces of insecticide on a towel used as a silencer. The agents find that the brothers are twins, and Dwight is legally blind.

Searching the business, the agents find that the Coopers and the realtor were in some sort of profitable venture. Scully figures they've been exploiting Randall's vision to kill drug dealers and steal their money. Doggett is confused as to why the realtor was killed, since he helped sell the stolen drugs for additional cash, and they figure it has something to do with jealousy over Peyton. Meanwhile, Peyton plans to escape the whole business and get Randall out as well. Dwight finds her and realizes that she's been skimming money for months, and she says that the realtor was blackmailing her after also finding out. Dwight tries to get Randall to kill her, saying she was just using him, but Randall ends up shooting Dwight instead. Tammi escapes but remains wanted for questioning, as Randall is imprisoned.

Michael Bowen, who plays Dwight Cooper, also played Buck in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Danny Pickett on Lost. The episode is dedicated to the memory of Gregory Nathan Boniface, who played one of the drug dealers and died in 2000.

Episode Body Count

Carlton Chase: shot in a police drunk tank by Randall Cooper.

About eight rats: seen in the dumpster outside AAA-1 Surekill Exterminators.

Three gangbangers: shot in a warehouse by Randall Cooper.

Dwight Cooper: shot outside his extermination business by Randall Cooper.

Humans: 5
Creatures: 8
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (169/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,777

Creatures: 124
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 1,964

Season 8, Episode 7: Via Negativa

2009-11-24T19:55:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Two FBI agents staking out a religious cult in Pittsburgh find the cult members dead of axe blows to the head. The cult leader, Anthony Tipet, kills both agents as well and escapes. Doggett and Skinner work the case as Scully deals with her pregnancy. Skinner says Tipet believed that he could reach a higher spiritual plane using hallucinogens from the bark of an African tree; when the victims are all found in places with the doors locked from the inside, Skinner wonders if he succeeded in separating his body from his consciousness. A homeless man who previously saw Tipet is axed after imagining himself being encased in the sidewalk and seeing Tipet with a third eye.

Skinner and Doggett track down a former drug dealer, who admits to having made hallucinogens for Tipet, and take him in for questioning. Doggett has a trippy dream involving Tipet meditating in mid-air and a decapitated Scully. That and Skinner's discovery that the dealer was making a strong amphetamine for himself makes Doggett realize that he's trying to avoid sleeping. The dealer is mauled by rats apparently summoned by Tipet. Doggett meets the Lone Gunmen, who have shown up in the X-Files office; noting the third eye imagery of Tipet's cult, Doggett wonders if he is trying to destroy the third eye of others after discovering his own. The Gunmen also make note of a rumored CIA mind control experiment involving LSD.

Skinner and Doggett find Tipet in the dealer' lab, where he gashes his forehead with a saw blade while rambling that he has to stop it. Tipet goes into a coma, and Doggett discovers that Scully has recently checked in at the same hospital with acute abdominal pain. Kersh accepts Doggett's conclusion that Tipet mutilated himself out of the belief that he was invading the subconscious of the victims and making them live their nightmares, but Doggett doesn't consider the case closed. After seeing some strange things himself, Doggett wonders if he's having a waking nightmare. He has another vision of Tipet, who assigns him the task of killing Scully. He is woken by Scully before he can do so and informed that Tipet has died. Doggett is willing to believe that some outside influence was at work; Scully tells him it was just a bad dream.

Episode Body Count

Twenty cult members: all killed with a single blow from an axe while sleeping.

Agent James Leed: also axed by Tipet while asleep on a stakeout.

Agent Angus Stedman: gets the axe from Tipet while sleeping in his Pittsburgh condo.

Tipet's wife: Skinner says Tipet served 12 years in prison for bludgeoning his wife to death.

Homeless man: axed by Tipet after imagining himself trapped in the sidewalk.

Andre Bormanis: killed after he is swarmed by rats in a dream.

Anthony Tipet: dies while in a coma following a self-inflicted wound to the head with a table saw.

Humans: 26
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (168/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,772

Creatures: 116
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 1,951

Season 8, Episode 6: Redrum

2009-11-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A prosecutor named Martin Wells, who is familiar with Doggett, is confused when he wakes up in a Baltimore jail cell with a gash on his face. As he is transported out with Doggett and Scully assisting, Wells' father-in-law shoots him. Time begins to run in reverse as he dies. On Thursday, one day before, Wells wakes up alive and discovers that he has been charged with his wife's murder, which occurred on Monday. He is denied bail but the judge allows him to be transferred, much to Wells' horror since he thinks he may have had a premonition of his own death. He also firmly denies having committed the murder, but is dismayed to see himself show up on a "nanny cam" that he asks to be retrieved from his home.

Wells finds himself another day back in time, minus the gash, and realizes that he's going backwards. He gets harassed in prison and a man with a spider's web tattoo slashes his face. Doggett and Scully meet with Wells, but Doggett isn't buying his theory and Scully is skeptical that they'll be able to help at all. Wells keeps having flashbacks of the murder and finally realizes who committed it when he glimpses the spider's web tattoo. Wells wakes up Tuesday at Doggett's place and gives him a description of the perp, but no one matching it is in prison. Wells figures he shows up there later, and shows Doggett the nanny cam.

Doggett realizes that the timing is off and the tape of the murder must have been stolen. He and Wells visit the nanny's house and arrest the killer, Cesar Ocampo, after finding him there. Ocampo accuses Wells of illegally suppressing evidence in convicting his brother in a third-strike drug case, and refuses to make a deal because his brother has committed suicide in prison. Wells is arrested, but wakes up in a DC hotel on Monday before the murder is set to occur. He goes to Doggett for help, and finds the police at his apartment and his wife missing after the time the murder was supposed to happen. His wife returns and is attacked by Ocampo, but the would-be killer is shot dead when Doggett and Scully arrive. Wells is overjoyed as his wife is saved and time resumes its normal course, but three months later is serving a sentence for his other crime.

Joe Morton, who plays Martin Wells, also played Miles Dyson in Terminator 2 and plays Henry Deacon on Eureka. Anne-Marie Johnson, who is uncredited as Vicky Wells, played Althea Tibbs on the late 1980s show In the Heat of the Night.

Episode Body Count

Hector Ocampo: his brother, Cesar Ocampo, says he hung himself in a jail cell a couple of weeks before the episode's events.

Cesar Ocampo: shot by Doggett as he tries to kill Wells' wife.

Another alternate universe scenario, so Wells' own death, as well as that of his wife and a traffic fatality mentioned on the alternate Friday, won't be counted.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (167/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,746

Creatures: 116
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 1,925

Season 8, Episode 5: Invocation

2009-11-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A young boy in Oklahoma named Billy Underwood goes missing from a school fair in 1990; as his pregnant mother desperately searches for him, a suspicious-looking teen drops Billy's backpack and walks away. Ten years later, the mother has raised another son named Josh when Billy suddenly reappears, the same age and mute. Billy is taken home, where the dog acts uncharacteristically vicious toward him and Josh also seems a little creeped out by him. Scully finds that Billy's medical stats are identical to ones that were taken shortly before he disappeared, an apparent medical impossibility she's only seen in alien abduction cases.

Doggett finds Ronald Purnell, the teen from 1990 who was questioned and dismissed as a suspect in Billy's disappearance, but Purnell refuses to visit Billy. Doggett looks wistfully at a photo of a young boy in his wallet after this meeting, but nothing more comes of that this episode. Meanwhile, Billy has snuck into Josh's room and jammed a knife into his bed, leaving a bloodstain but no injury on Josh. The blood matches Billy, and a symbol on the knife matches one that Billy had been drawing after his reappearance. A redneck named Cal Jeppy comes to see Purnell's mother and gives Purnell a hard time; Purnell wanders out into the woods and uncovers a child's skull, apparently knowing exactly where to dig to find it.

After further unsettling his family, the Underwoods bring in a shrink, who says a force is drawing Billy to Josh and that Doggett is playing a part in the whole thing as well; the shrink then has a seizure and the symbol appears on her forehead. Purnell shows up at the Underwoods, and is surprised when Billy appears in his passenger seat; after a brief chase, the agents find that Billy is gone. Elsewhere, Josh checks out a pony in a horse cart and is abducted...apparently by Jeppy, who runs a ride-along attraction with a symbol matching the one that's been showing up.

Under interrogation, Purnell says that he knew about Billy's kidnapping but was trying to make it so he wasn't scared. Purnell gives up Jeppy's name and the feds storm his place, rescuing Josh; Jeppy denies having any other child there. Doggett sees Billy again, but he disappears. When Doggett runs over to check it out, he finds the skull that was previously uncovered. The rest of the body is also there and is a complete match for Billy. Doggett is baffled and unwilling to accept a "justice from beyond the grave" explanation, but Scully says that he succeeded no matter what since Josh is still alive.

Episode Body Count

Billy Underwood: found buried near Cal Jeppy's residence.

Humans: 1
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (166/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,744

Creatures: 116
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 1,923

Season 8, Episode 4: Roadrunners

2009-11-22T19:36:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A hitchhiker in Utah desert is picked up by a bus full of people, then watches in horror as the bus stops and a disabled man is stoned to death by the other riders. Scully heads to to investigate, as his spine was found in an advanced state of deterioration. She is curious when the same bus passes her on the road, but ends up stranded in a remote community when a gas station attendant gives her watery fuel. When the phones don't work either, she suspects that the residents are trying to keep her from leaving.

Scully stays overnight, and is called to help the hitchhiker, who is also in the community and suffering a seizure. She finds a bloody hole in his back and wants to get him to a hospital, but finds that no one has a car. Doggett gets concerned when he finds that Scully hasn't checked in with the sheriff's office and begins to track her down. Worried that she's in a cult compound, Scully tries to help the hitchhiker as best she can; she also retrieves a tail-like thing from his back after seeing something moving under the skin. Figuring that a parasitic organism has taken up residence on the hitchhiker's spine, she plots to get him out of the community. She also gives him her gun, which is unfortunate since he's apparently joined the cult's side.

As Scully discovers the bus, the cult members converge on her; the hitchhiker, now disabled, allows himself to be murdered as the cult removes a giant worm-like creature and plants it in Scully. Doggett finds Scully imprisoned and begins to hotwire the bus to get her out. As the parasite worms its way toward her brain, Scully begs Doggett to cut it out of her neck. He does so and shoots it dead, much to the dismay of the cult members. A week later, Scully has recovered and the cult members are being brought up on charges and claiming religious persecution based on their desire to worship a horrible parasite as the Second Coming. Scully apologizes for leaving Doggett off the case and promises not to do it again.

Lawrence Pressman, who plays Mr. Milsap, also played Dr. Benjamin Canfield on Doogie Howser, M.D.

Episode Body Count

Disabled man: beaten to death by cult members, Scully says he is also found to have "the spine of a 90-year-old woman."

John Doe: Scully asks Doggett to look into a case where a strange mucus was found on a body in 1991.

Three other cases: Doggett finds that there were three other unsolved cases in recent years where victims were found in the desert with their brains missing.

Hank Gulatarski: stoned by a cult member after deciding to transfer the parasite to Scully.

The Holy Parasite: shot by Doggett after he pulls it away from Scully's spine.

Humans: 6
Creatures: 1
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (165/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,743

Creatures: 116
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 1,922

Season 8, Episode 3: Patience

2009-11-21T19:51:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

An undertaker and his wife in Idaho are killed by a bat-like creature. Scully and Doggett head out to investigate, and Scully notes some strange four-toed prints at the house laid every 25 feet. Doggett thinks a deformed killer may just be on the loose. They find a pair of fingers that were bitten off the undertaker in the attic, along with some claw marks on a rafter. Scully finds that the undertaker has anticoagulants in his system that are only found in bats. Doggett finds a newspaper article from 1956 about a Bat Thing that was presumed killed by hunters but disappeared after killing several people. The Bat Thing kills an old woman, and Scully learns that the new slayings started after the burned body of the woman's daughter was found in a river a week before.

The agents find that something has already tried to dig up the daughter's coffin, and the Bat Thing kills the local detective. Scully finds that Myron Stefaniuk, the brother of one of the hunters who brought in the Bat Thing in 1956, found the daughter's body. Scully and Doggett soon discover that the hunter, Ernie Stefaniuk, has been living on a remote island to hide from the creature, which is presumably seeking revenge on the hunters. Scully says the Bat Thing is attacking anything with the daughter's scent on it, as she turned out to be Ernie's wife.

Doggett is attacked by the Bat Thing as he goes to warn Myron that he might be in danger. The Bat Thing shows up on the roof of Ernie's house, and Scully opens fire from inside. As Scully checks outside, the creature attacks Ernie. Scully manages to hit it with a few shots, and is assisted by a seriously wounded Doggett before the Bat Thing flies away. Later, the agents get a fax from Myron, who is going into hiding. Scully, having accepted Doggett as a fellow X-Filer, promises him a desk and keeps Mulder's nameplate in a drawer.

Brent Sexton, who plays a gravedigger here, currently plays Robert Stark in Life.

Episode Body Count

Tall George: torn apart by the Bat Thing.

Tall George's wife: also killed by the Bat Thing.

Zeke MacPherson: a stretch, I'll admit, but a body nonetheless; Tall George is an undertaker and declares that the smell of embalming fluid didn't wake MacPherson, "God rest his soul."

Mrs. McKesson: killed by the Bat Thing.

County coroner and three other men: Doggett says five men were killed by the Bat Thing or disappeared. One man, Ernie Stefaniuk, turns out to be in hiding.

Ariel McKesson: dies of congestive heart failure, her body is found burned in a river a week before the new Bat Thing killings begin.

Bat: tacked to the door of Ernie Stefaniuk.

Detective Abbott: torn up by the Bat Thing.

It's unclear whether the Bat Thing kills Ernie Stefaniuk or not. The Bat Thing is also declared killed in the 1956 article, but apparently it's the same thing that attacks again 44 years later.

Humans: 10
Creatures: 1
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (164/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,737

Creatures: 115
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 1,915

Season 8, Episode 2: Without

2009-11-19T13:35:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Held at gunpoint by Doggett, Mulder lets Praise go; without saying a word, Mulder then walks over the edge of a cliff. However, he survives and disappears. Scully is convinced it was actually the Alien Bounty Hunter out for Praise. She's right! Scully and Skinner notice one of the students leave as Doggett's FBI team searches Praise's school for him, and Scully follows the girl to a hidden bunker in the desert where Praise is hiding, the girl being the only person he's told about his history. Scully finds that Praise has broken his leg and promises to get him to safety.

Skinner is suspicious about how Doggett found out about Praise, and thinks that Kersh is trying to ruin him. Doggett is perplexed when Scully is reported to be in the school at the same time she is returning from the desert. The faux Scully manages to escape and disguise himself as another FBI agent, though Skinner and Scully don't realize it and that leads to a bit of paranoia. Scully and Skinner drive out to Praise's hideout and find him outside, saying Mulder is somewhere out in the desert. Skinner takes him to a hospital, where they're visited by Praise's friend; she certainly doesn't look like herself.

Scully walks into the desert looking for Mulder, and though she sees a bright light descending from the sky it turns out to just be Doggett, arriving in a helicopter. They face off over the situation, and Doggett reveals to Scully's horror that his men followed Skinner to the hospital. As they leave, we see that Scully was a stone's throw away from the cloaked spacecraft carrying Mulder.

Scully and Doggett arrive to find Praise's hospital room empty, Skinner and Praise having apparently escaped through a dropped ceiling. Doggett finds Skinner unconscious above the ceiling just as Scully also finds Skinner, realizing he's an Alien Bounty Hunter after seeing Praise shaking his head. Scully manages to kill the Alien Bounty Hunter, and Doggett arrives in time to see the green goo that remains of him. Kersh isn't pleased with the report, but Doggett sticks with it. He also updates Scully on the case while she's in the hospital, including how Praise has become a ward of state. Doggett tells her he's been assigned to the X-Files, and vows to find Mulder. In the ship, Mulder is surrounded by several Alien Bounty Hunters as he lies on an examination table.

Episode Body Count

Alien Bounty Hunter: shot through the neck by Scully while he's in Skinner form.

Humans: 0
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 1

Cumulative Body Count (163/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,727

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 63

Grand Total: 1,904

Season 8, Episode 1: Within

2009-11-18T18:38:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Scully dreams that Mulder is trapped in an unpleasant alien vessel, and annoyed to find Mulder's office being broken down to help in a search for him. Kersh, now a deputy director, has appointed a special agent named John Doggett to head the search but threatens to fire Scully and Skinner if anything gets out about alien abductions. Scully's first encounter with Doggett is unpleasant, as he suggests that Mulder never truly trusted her and she suspects him of tapping her phone. Scully's landlord tells her Mulder was in the building, and both Mulder and Scully's computers go missing.

The Lone Gunmen have been tracking UFO appearances in the Pacific Northwest, and Skinner thinks they can use the data to find the ship that took Mulder. Doggett confronts Scully with the question of whether aliens took Mulder, and she retorts that she's seen plenty of unexplainable things during her work on the X-Files. Some files at the FBI go missing after someone using Mulder's pass card accesses the building. Doggett also finds that Mulder's credit card was used to take a trip to where his mother is buried and buy a family tombstone that includes his year of death as 2000.

Doggett digs up Mulder's medical records, and Scully sees that they show that he was apparently dying of his brain condition. Doggett thinks that Mulder might be trying one last dying push to prove his theories or cover them up, but Skinner stands by his UFO sighting. The Lone Gunmen have determined that Mulder's ship is in Arizona, and Scully posits that proof of alien existence is being taken before it becomes proof, and that the aliens are in Arizona seeking out the only good hard proof of alien existence there is: Gibson Praise. Someone slips Praise's file to Doggett, and he sends his task force searching for them as well.

The vicious tests on Mulder continue. Skinner and Scully travel to Arizona to find Praise, as do Doggett and the task force. They both discover that he's at a school for the deaf. Doggett arrives just before Skinner and Scully, and Praise escapes through the principal's office window. Praise is taken by someone and led off into the desert, against his will. Doggett pursues and tells the man to let him go. Turns out it's Mulder. To be continued...

First appearance of Robert Patrick as Special Agent John Doggett; Patrick is best-known for playing the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day as well as Colonel Tom Ryan on The Unit. The episode is dedicated to the memory of Jim Engh, a production crew member electrocuted while working on the episode.

Episode Body Count

Big deal. Scully had a tombstone, too.

Humans: 0
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (162/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,727

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,903

Season 7, Episode 22: Requiem

2009-11-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In Oregon, specifically the same place as the first episode, a couple of police officers have a run-in with malfunctioning electronics and a fire in the woods. Mulder and Scully are getting chewed out for the expenses they've incurred during their work, and Marita has Krycek released from a Tunisian prison. Billy Miles calls the agents, saying things are happening again, and they head out to Oregon. Krycek and Marita visit Cancer Man at the Watergate apartments and find him deathly ill; Cancer Man tells them they have a unique opportunity to rebuild the project because a UFO has crashed in Oregon after colliding with a Navy jet. A teen investigating the crash site with a friend is abducted.

Miles, now a deputy, tells the agents about the crash, and his father says the Navy jet has been recovered but not any other craft. Mulder and Scully visit the wife of a deputy missing after the initial encounter, and she gives them medical records that he kept secret. Scully little depressed and chilly after briefly babysitting the woman's baby, and she and Mulder cuddle a bit. Krycek shadows the agents, and the deputy's wife is abducted. The teen's friend tells the agents about his encounter, and Scully has a similar experience but is not abducted. Mulder realizes that the former abductees are being taken again, and they need to warn Billy. They arrive too late, finding him missing following a confrontation with his father (who reveals himself as the Alien Bounty Hunter).

Two days later, Skinner brings Krycek and Marita to see Mulder. They warn him about Cancer Man's plans. The Lone Gunmen tell the agents that the craft appears only as a variety of transmission errors and such. Scully realizes that the abductees suffered from the same brain trauma Mulder previously experienced, and that the aliens are after him and not her. Using lasers to find the ship's location, Mulder walks into a strange force field and is spirited away with the other abductees as Skinner looks on. Krycek throws Cancer Man down a flight of stairs, presumably killing him. Skinner tells Scully about how he saw the UFO, and Scully tells him that even though it shouldn't be possible, she's pregnant.

Eddie Kay Thomas, who has the unassuming role of 1st Young Man, now voices Barry on American Dad!

Episode Body Count

Detective Miles: seen stuffed in the trunk of his own car, presumably dead, after a run-in with the Alien Bounty Hunter.

Cancer Man: presumed dead after being hurled down a flight of stairs by Krycek.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Season Body Count

Humans: 173
Creatures: 10
Aliens: 0

Humans go back up from last season, creatures decrease, and aliens get off easy.

Cumulative Body Count (161/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,727

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,903

Season 7, Episode 21: Je Souhaite

2009-11-15T14:02:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A lazy and insubordinate employee at a Missouri self-storage business named Anson Stokes is ordered to clean out one of the units that hasn't been paid for. Anson discovers a mysterious woman rolled up in a carpet. When his boss finds that he's disappeared, he starts calling after him, only to have his mouth disappear. The boss goes to Mulder and Scully, having gotten a ragged new mouth carved into his face, and blames Anson for his condition because he told him to shut up right before it happened.

The agents visit Anson's residence at a trailer park, where he lives with his paraplegic brother Leslie; they notice a huge luxury yacht there, as well as the woman. They also check out the storage unit, where the unaged woman appears in a 1970s picture of an overweight man with a couple of babes at his side. Back at the trailer park, it turns out that woman is a genie, and that the the boss's mouth and boat are a result of Anson's first two wishes. The genie, who is very big on specifics, grants his last wish to turn invisible at will and disappears. Anson is run down by a truck soon after while trying to cross a road.

The body is eventually found, and Scully is fascinated by his invisibility (using a dusting powder to bring Anson to sight). Mulder discovers that the man in the photo became an overnight millionaire but died a rather unusual and unpleasant death. He also finds that the woman appears in videos with Benito Mussolini and Richard Nixon. Leslie unrolls the genie and wishes for Anson to return from the dead (embarrassing Scully, who has told some a Harvard medical team about the Amazing Invisible Man who is no longer there).

Leslie then specifies that the zombie-like Anson should be able to talk; Anson gives off a long scream, then relates the unpleasantness of his deathlike characteristics. Leslie wishes for legs, right before a chilly Anson blows up the trailer while trying to light the stove. Mulder unrolls the genie and finds that she's been around for 500 years, becoming a genie herself after wishing for great power and long life. Going off her complaint that everyone is always selfish with their wishes, Mulder asks for peace on Earth. She responds by removing the entire planet's population, and Mulder's second wish undoes it. Scully convinces Mulder that trying again for worldwide peace is too risky and could take away the entire human experience, so for his third wish, Mulder grants the genie's own desire to live a normal life.

Will Sasso, who plays Leslie Stokes, is a regular on MADtv. Kevin Weisman, who plays Anson Stokes, also played Marshall Flinkman on Alias.

Episode Body Count

Anson Stokes: hit by a truck while invisible; later brought back to life on a wish from his brother, but killed when his trailer blows up due to a gas leak.

Henry Flanken: a former genie recipient who died of chronic morbid tumescence and extreme priapic condition, ie an overly massive erection.

Leslie Stokes: killed in the trailer explosion.

Humans: 3
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (160/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,725

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,901

Season 7, Episode 20: Fight Club

2009-11-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A pair of missionaries in Kansas get into a brutal fight after visiting two women who look identical and live fairly close to each other: Betty Templeton and Lulu Pfeiffer. An FBI duo and Mulder and Scully lookalike also get into a brawl while investigating after one of the women drives past the other's home. Both women apply to work at different locations of the same copy chain, and both also turn out to have traveled frequently taking up the same professions in the same states over the past 17 years.

Mulder suspects some sort of paranormal activity involving doubles at play, and he and Scully find that a local wrestler named Bert Zupanic is acquainted with at least one of the women. A bookie tells Zupanic that he needs to make good on a debt or an upcoming fight won't happen. Zupanic is in a relationship with Pfeiffer, who he considers a good luck charm, but mistakenly gets involved with Templeton as well.

Templeton tells Mulder that Pfeiffer has been following her around trying to ruin her life, and that she's going to make her stand in Kansas; Pfeiffer makes the same claim to Scully, except she says Templeton is to blame. Both Mulder and Scully think there's some sort of psychic connection between the two that is aggravated when they get too close to each other. Zupanic ends up appealing to both women for help in getting the money for his fight, and they both run off copies of bills to help him out.

Scully discovers that the women are non-fraternal sister of a very irate sperm donor, and Mulder notes how they're both staying in Kansas because they're both in love with Zupanic. Templeton delivers the money to the bookie first, and Zupanic's wrestling match begins. Mulder tries to get her out of the arena before any harm happens, but a riot starts to break out when Pfeiffer arrives. Scully brings in an inmate identical to Zupanic, thinking it might solve the issue, but instead Zupanic and his doppleganger start fighting as well and the riot continues. Scully concludes that Zupanic also had a non-fraternal sibling, and while the cause of the violence is unknown it's probably just best to avoid such chance encounters at all costs.

Kathy Griffin, who plays both Betty Templeton and Lulu Pfeiffer, also played Vicki Groener on Suddenly Susan and herself on Life on the D List. Jack McGee, who plays Bob Damfuse, formerly played Chief Jerry Reilly on Rescue Me. Christopher Michael, who plays Trusty, also played Captain Michaels on 7th Heaven.

Episode Body Count

A lot of violence occurs and some shots are fired at one point, but it doesn't seem like anyone is killed.

Humans: 0
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (159/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,722

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,898

Season 7, Episode 19: Hollywood A.D.

2009-11-14T11:48:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Garry Shandling and Tea Leoni star in a terrible movie based on Mulder and Scully's work, in which they try to protect a "Lazarus Bowl" from sniper zombies and a cigarette-puffing pontiff before making out in a coffin. Attending the film's opening, Mulder and Scully are mortified. Eighteen months earlier, Skinner allows a Hollywood writer and old college buddy named Wayne Federman to accompany Mulder on an investigation of a pipe bomb explosion at a DC church crypt. Mulder finds the body of a former Weatherman in the rubble, and also discover that he was forging religious documents.

Federman sees several human bones do a dance trying to reconstruct a bowl in the crypt, then leaves to start writing his movie. Scully says it reminds her of the story of the Lazarus Bowl, which has Christ's words inscribed in clay like a record with the ability to raise the dead. The cardinal admits that he bought the forged heretical documents from the Weatherman, thinking they were real, and wanted to hide them. Mulder wonders if the cardinal may have retaliated for the blackmail.

The agents arrest the cardinal for the Weatherman's murder, but the Weatherman shows up alive. Skinner is furious and puts Mulder and Scully on a four-week leave. A lab tech lets them know that the bowl grooves contain Aramaic language containing both Beatles lyrics and a command to raise someone from the dead. The agents visit the Weatherman, who says he had a religious conversion (going from impersonating Jesus Christ to becoming him) and planted the bomb to destroy the blasphemous documents.

With four weeks to kill, Mulder and Scully decide to go to Hollywood to take in Federman's work on the movie. They each enjoy bubble baths and chat by phone about zombies; Skinner also calls from a bubble bath in the same hotel, having gotten an associate producer's credit on the movie, to apologize for chewing them out. Sixteen months later at the premiere, Mulder storms out of the theater after Leoni's Scully delivers a line about being in love with Skinner. Scully tells Mulder that she's gotten word that the cardinal has murdered the Weatherman and hanged himself. They go out to hit the town, and the episode closes with the prop Lazarus bowl appearing to raise some zombies for a dance session.

Written and directed by David Duchovny. Several people appear as themselves, including Garry Shandling, Tea Leoni (Duchovny's wife), Minnie Driver, Chris Carter, David Alan Grier, and Wayne Federman. Bill Millar, who plays the director, usually does visual effects work on TV shows, including several episodes of The X-Files.

Episode Body Count

Not Micah Hoffman: dies of poisoning, found in the rubble of Christ's Church after a pipe bombing. Though Hoffman later shows up alive, it's mentioned that the body is still around somewhere.

At least two crypt bodies: one is curiously animated, but it's still a skeleton.

Micah Hoffman: Scully says she's gotten a page from DC saying that he was murdered in his home by Cardinal O'Fallon.

Cardinal O'Fallon: hangs himself after killing Hoffman.

Humans: 5
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (158/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,722

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,898

Season 7, Episode 18: Brand X

2009-11-13T16:04:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A biochemist at a North Carolina tobacco company dies the night before he is scheduled to testify against his employer at a grand jury, despite FBI protection that includes Skinner. The flesh on the man's face has been stripped away; Mulder notes a tobacco beetle in a water glass that the biochemist was using. After a follow-up visit from the FBI, a man named Dr. Weaver hits up a colleague of the biochemist's named Dr. Peter Voss and intimidates him a little bit in the process. Scully finds that the biochemist died of hypoxemia, the inability of the body to transfer oxygen to the blood, and also finds no sign of beetles of explanation for the facial trauma.

Weaver's neighbor yells at Weaver about his smoking in the building, and soon after dies of the same cause, his body swarmed by beetles. Mulder is pleased to see that there are plenty of beetles left at the scene, and thinks they're involved somehow. Mulder talks with Weaver, who denies knowing anything about the death; he also visits Voss, who refuses to talk as well. Voss is contacted soon after by the company's security chief, who wants to take care of the Weaver problem.

An entomologist tells the agents that the beetles are different from normal ones, possibly as a result of feeding on genetically altered tobacco plants. Examining the latest body, Scully finds beetle larvae and determines that the bugs pupate in the lungs and exit through en masse, explaining the damage to the face. Mulder coughs up some blood and winds up having several larvae sucked out of his lungs. Scully warns Skinner that more eggs have yet to hatch, and thinks they may have gotten there as a result of the superbug eggs getting processed into cigarettes, with Mulder inhaling smoke from one of them. Voss confesses that the company made the superbugs, and that Weaver was the survivor of a test group using them (the biochemist being a chance death due to his monitoring the group).

Mulder's condition worsens, and Skinner looks to track down Weaver. He finds Voss at his workplace, with Weaver having taken the test cigarettes by force. Weaver also says Skinner won't shoot him because they need him to save Mulder. Skinner compromises and shoots Weaver in the shoulder. At the hospital, Scully notices Weaver's nicotine-stained hands and thinks a nicotine injection will save Mulder. Turns out she's right, having deduced that Weaver was the heaviest smoker of the test group and that nicotine is a good insecticide. Though it may have had the effect of turning Mulder on to cancer sticks...

Tobin Bell, who plays Darryl Weaver, also plays Jigsaw in the Saw movies.

Episode Body Count

Dr. Jim Scobie: dies of a super tobacco beetle infestation of his lungs after monitoring a test cigarette group.

Thomas Gastall: also dies of lung beetle infestation after Weaver puffs away next door to him.

Three test smokers: Dr. Voss says Weaver is the sole survivor of a group of test smokers that used the superbug tobacco.

David Brimley: the Morley Tobacco security chief, dies after being infected by superbug smoke.

Humans: 6
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (157/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,717

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,893

Season 7, Episode 17: all things

2009-11-12T18:57:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

The episode opens with Scully pondering choices and how they affect one's life, as she gets dressed and Mulder slumbers in bed. Hmm. Sometime before this, Mulder hops a flight to England, anticipating that a geometric crop circle will appear there within two days; Scully refuses to join him and stays behind to work on an autopsy. She ends up getting an X-ray in the autopsy folder by mistake that leads her to discover that Dr. Daniel Waterston, her former medical instructor, is hospitalized with a heart condition. Waterston's daughter isn't too pleased when Waterston asks her to visit him.

Scully is nearly T-boned by an 18-wheeler at an intersection after a blonde woman crosses her path. She visits a crop circle researcher who she's previously had a chance encounter with at the hospital; the researcher tells Scully how everyone needs to keep their mind open to the accidents or near accidents in life and the lessons they give, right before Scully spies a "heart chakra" pattern in a crop circle photo. Waterston and Scully apparently had a thing going some time ago, and Waterston was saddened to see her leave. Scully also wonders if she chose the wrong path, right before Waterston flatlines.

Scully and the doctors manage to revive Waterston. Scully revisits the researcher and tells her that she has the feeling that Waterston is suffering from a more serious condition. The researcher shares that she used to be a physicist, suffered from cancer, and only got better when she stopped following a self-destructive path. Scully goes to visit Waterston and finds that he's in a coma and his daughter is blaming her for it. Scully again sees the blond woman and pursues her, ending up in a Buddhist temple where she sees a vision of Waterston and his heart.

Scully brings in a religious healer, but he says that Waterston is ready to move on save for something that's holding him back. The next day, however, Waterston awakens; Scully tells him he needs to take responsibility for the hurt he's caused his family. Waterston says he's been living to be with Scully, but she says the reason he's alive might be to make things up to his daughter. Scully again sees the blonde woman, but when she chases her down she finds Mulder, back from England. Scully lets him in on her transcendental experience over tea at Mulder's place, and they mull over the concept of fate together. Scully passes out on the couch...and I guess Mulder takes the bed.

Gillian Anderson wrote and directed this episode. Stacy Haiduk, who plays Maggie Waterston, has also starred in the shows Superboy, SeaQuest DSV, All My Children, and The Young and the Restless. Nicholas Surovy, playing Dr. Daniel Waterston, was also on All My Children as well as Ryan's Hope. Carol Banker, who plays Carol in her only acting role, was a script supervisor for about a quarter of the X-Files episodes.

Episode Body Count

J. Szczesny: Scully mentions how her autopsy reveals that she did not drown in ectoplasm (Mulder's theory) but in margarita vomit as she and her friends try to reenact The Blair Witch Project.

Humans: 1
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (156/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,711

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,887

Season 7, Episode 16: Chimera

2009-11-11T16:29:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A girl at a pleasant Easter Sunday party in Vermont is attacked by a raven and hears one inside the house the same night her mother, Martha Crittenden, disappears. A woman named Jenny Uphouse is on poor terms with Crittenden and the other well-to-do WASPs in town. Skinner pulls Mulder off a DC stakeout to investigate due to the potential supernatural connection with the raven. Mulder is intrigued by a broken mirror in the house, though Crittenden's husband thinks she was having an affair and ran off. It isn't long before Crittenden is discovered buried in the garden, however.

The mother's best friend, Ellen Adderly, tells Mulder that she saw a strange creature in the window of a car that shattered immediately afterward. Mulder tells her how some consider mirrors gateway to the spirit world, and that an creature may have been summoned by an enemy. Mulder and the local sheriff (Adderly's husband) question Uphouse, but she denies being involved. The creature attacks Adderly in her home, right after finding a key that matches one the Crittenden's husband found in his house after that disappearance.

The sheriff turns out to be having an affair with Uphouse in a motel accessed by the keys. Mulder deduces what's going on after mentioning to the sheriff that Crittenden was pregnant despite being on birth control. Uphouse is killed by the creature but manages to stab it with a shard of broken mirror. The sheriff admits to Mulder that he was sleeping with both the mother and Uphouse, and is suspected of the murders. Adderly realizes she's involved after finding a gash on her shoulder, though she's horrified by the fact. Mulder also figures it out, and though Adderly tries to drown him she gives up after seeing her reflection in the water. Adderly is sent to the psych ward, where she notices a raven outside the window.

Wendy Schaal, who plays Martha Crittenden, voices Francine Smith on American Dad!

Episode Body Count

Martha Crittenden: killed by Adderly in creature form.

Crittenden fetus: Mulder says Martha was four months pregnant when she was murdered. This might be the first human fetus I've had to deal with, but considering I counted an alien one way back when, I'll obviously count this one.

Jenny Uphouse: killed by Adderly in creature form.

Humans: 3
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (155/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,710

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,886

Season 7, Episode 15: En Ami

2009-11-08T15:20:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A Virginia family is making the controversial decision to let God treat their 11-year-old son for his cancer, but the uproar ends when the boy is miraculously cured following a visit by a bright light and some Men in Black. Scully sees that he has apparently been given a neck implant. Cancer Man visits her and says that he's responsible for curing McPeck and was the one who tipped off the agents. He also says that he wants to give the cure to mankind, since he's now suffering from a terminal illness and wants to do something good for the world; he says the deal's off if Sully tells Mulder about the offer.

Scully hides a recording device on her bra and accompanies Cancer Man on a trip to obtain the cure, making an excuse to Mulder that there's a family emergency; they're tailed by a Syndicate assassin. Mulder checks with Scully's landlord and finds that she left with Cancer Man. Scully and Cancer Man make a brief stop at a 118-year-old woman who he's apparently been helping to survive. Scully mails a recording to Mulder, but it is intercepted by the assassin. The Lone Gunmen fail to find where Scully is, but they do discover that she's had e-mail conversations with someone code-named "Cobra," a defense employee working on a shadow project. They also find that someone hacked into the computer to pose as Scully in the conversations to win Cobra's trust.

Cancer Man takes Scully to Pennsylvania and sets up a meeting between her and Cobra. He also lets Scully know that the cure isn't just for cancer, but all human disease...and also that it's "largely extraterrestrial." Cancer Man meets briefly with the assassin, and Cobra sends a note directing Scully to go to a cove the next morning. He delivers a diskette to her, but is confused when he realizes that Scully is not the person he's been conversing with by e-mail. The assassin kills Cobra, but is stopped from killing Scully by Cancer Man. The diskette turns out to be empty, switched out by Cancer Man. Mulder thinks Scully's been conned, and she's shocked, telling Mulder that she saw some sincerity in him for once; back in Pennsylvania, Cancer Man tosses the actual diskette into a lake.

Episode Body Count

Cobra: shot by the Black-Haired Man.

The Black-Haired Man: shot by Cancer Man. A little confusing in that a "Black Haired Man" was also apparently killed in "The Beginning," but this one is played by a different actor and so is presumably a different person.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (154/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,707

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,883

Season 7, Episode 14: Theef

2009-11-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

The father-in-law of a successful California doctor named Robert Wieder finds a figure of man drawn in dirt on a guest bed; soon after, he writes "Theef" on a wall with his own blood and hangs himself. Mulder recognizes the remains of the dirt symbol as an indication of hexcraft (ie, a curse). The culprit seems to be Orel Peattie, a creepy man who also appeared behind the father-in-law right before his death. Scully determines that the father-in-law had a strange brain disease and that his wounds were self-inflicted, but Mulder feels he may have been compelled to kill himself.

After Peattie creates a "poppet" doll and leaves another dirt figure in Wieder's bed, Wieder's wife is stricken with another rare disease. Mulder feels that Wieder can't win a battle against hexcraft, but Wieder is confident that his wife can be cured. After Wieder finds that his wife's brain scans all include the word "theef," Peattie confronts him and mentions the name Lynette Peattie. Wieder doesn't recognize the name, but then discovers that she was a Jane Doe he treated who didn't make it.

After realizing the wonders of the microwave and "poppin' corn," Peattie nukes a poppet representing Wieder's wife to kill her. When "theef" shows up branded on her body, Wieder tells the agents that Lynette Peattie was the victim of a bus accident and that he took about 20 minutes off her life by giving her an overdose of morphine to end her pain. Mulder thinks the girl's father is killing off Wieder's family as revenge. Scully takes Wieder and his daughter into protective custody.

Peattie's landlady discovers the Lynette's body in his room, and contracts a rare disease after Peattie finds her. Seeing a newscast on it, Mulder warns Scully that Peattie is after them. Peattie breaks into Scully's car and uses one of her hairs to make a poppet doll and blind her. Peattie confronts Wieder, saying he would have been able to save his daughter. He starts to torture Wieder using another poppet doll, but Scully manages to shoot him, possibly after Mulder arrives and removes her impediment. As Peattie recovers in the hospital, Scully tells Mulder she would have done what Wieder did if someone was beyond saving and in terrible pain, but also seems to be considering whether Peattie's magic may have worked on his daughter.

James Morrison, who plays Dr. Robert Wieder, also plays Bill Buchanan on 24.

Episode Body Count

Dr. Irving Thalbro: hangs himself after seeing a hexcraft symbol in a guest bed.

Lynette Peattie: died of a morphine overdose that Wieder gives her after she suffers extreme injuries in a bus accident.

Nan Wieder: exposed to extreme radiation after Orel Peattie puts a poppet doll in a microwave.

Humans: 3
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (153/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,705

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,881

Season 7, Episode 13: First Person Shooter

2009-11-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

A group of geeks test out a virtual reality first person shooter simulator in California, which includes phony weapons and "stun suits" to simulate wounds. One gets a visit from a sexy woman named Maitreya and actually dies after she shoots him. The Lone Gunmen have been consulting for the game, which is run by a duo named Ivan and Phoebe, and are hoping Mulder and Scully can figure out the death before the simulators go live. After finding an image of Maitreya on the game recorders, Mulder instructs the local police to try to find her. A video game guru is brought in to hunt down Maitreya, but she ends up offing him effortlessly.

Scully fails to find any forensic evidence on the first geek's body, and also can't understand why Mulder and The Lone Gunmen think the simulator is so awesome. The police pick up a stripper matching Maitreya's description, and she says the video game image came from a body imaging scan she did. Langly and Phoebe run a software patch to try to fix the issue, but the program takes over and ends up sending the Lone Gunmen into the game. Mulder suits up and heads in to help them; they escape, but Mulder stays behind to take on Maitreya. He also fails to return to reality when The Lone Gunmen do.

Ivan's ecstatic that the investors are back on board after seeing that the FBI doesn't know what caused the geek's death. Phoebe admits that she created Maitreya as part of a secret side project, and the character must have jumped programs into the game. In game, Mulder manages to get Maitreya's sword and advances to the second level, a Wild West setting; the rest of the team gets the game image back online but are unsure how to rescue Mulder.

Scully enters the game to back Mulder up, only to have Maitreya return with increasing copies and heavier guns. Phoebe reveals that there's a kill command that will erase the entire game, though both she and Ivan are a little reluctant to do so. Phoebe finally cracks and gives it to The Lone Gunmen, and Mulder and Scully are returned to the simulator intact. Ivan bemoans the loss of his project, but is surprised when the program appears to acquire a new image: Scully in Maitreya's vixen outfit.

Krista Allen, who plays Maitreya and Jade Blue Afterglow, starred in several Emmanuelle in Space movies and also played Billie Reed on Days of Our Lives. Michael Bower, who plays Lo-Fat, might be best known for his role as Eddie "Donkeylips" Gelfen on Salute Your Shorts. Billy Ray Gallion, who plays Retro, also plays Hurley's dickish boss Randy Nations on Lost.

Episode Body Count

Retro: killed by Maitreya with a flintlock pistol.

Darryl Musashi: killed by Maitreya with a medieval broadsword.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (152/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,702

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,878

Season 7, Episode 12: X-Cops

2009-11-03T12:29:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

Well, we could use a good laugh after an episode full of dead children. A documentary crew with the TV show Cops is riding along with a Los Angeles deputy and follows him on an investigation of a report of a "monster" roaming a neighborhood during a full moon. After checking out claw marks on a door and some noise in the alley, the terrified cop runs with the crew back to the cruiser, which is knocked on its roof. Mulder and Scully, at first mistaken for suspects, are in the area investigating the same monster sightings, which all happen during full moons.

Mulder, of course, thinks it's a werewolf. Scully's not thrilled about Mulder's theories being recorded for national TV, but Mulder thinks it's a chance to capture proof of the paranormal. A woman who witnessed the monster describes Freddy Krueger instead of a werewolf, and a "bite" on the deputy's hand turns out to be insect stings. The sketch artist is killed nearby, and a nail left at the scene leads the agents to a prostitute who says her boyfriend is to blame for the death. She's terrified that he'll kill her by twisting her head around like a chicken.

The agents and the police raid the boyfriend's crack house and find him dead. Outside, the stung deputy opens fire on something and the prostitute is found dead of a corkscrewed neck. The deputy confesses that on both the first attack and the later one he saw the "Wasp Man," a creature in a scary story his brother used to tell him. Mulder wonders if the attacks are from a single creature that can manifest itself as one's worst nightmare and targets victims by one person's fear becoming the next. When a coroner's assistant afraid of the Hanta virus apparently dies of it within seconds as Scully performs an autopsy, Mulder thinks the creature preys only on mortal fear.

The deputy and crew are attacked by something while doing another investigation of the crack house. Mulder and Scully return to the house, where they find the crew hiding in a closet and the deputy screaming in terror for help from another room. Mulder tells him not to be afraid and manages to break in to find the deputy wounded but alive as the sun comes up. Scully says they haven't gotten any definite proof of Mulder's theory, but he says it all depends on how the Cops guys edit the footage.

Judson Mills, who plays Deputy Keith Weitzel, also played Francis Gage on Walker, Texas Ranger.

Episode Body Count

Hyman Escalara: dies in the hospital about a month before the episode after being attacked by the fear creature in wolf form.

Ricky: a sketch artist slashed by the creature, apparently when it's in Freddy Kreuger form.

Chuco Munoz: apparently dies of a drug overdose.

Chantara Gomez: dies after the creature twists her head the wrong way, apparently while in Chuco form.

Coroner's assistant: apparently killed by the creature in Hanta virus form.

Humans: 5
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (151/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,700

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,876

Season 7, Episode 11: Closure

2009-11-02T17:29:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In an opening voice-over, Mulder ruminates on what might await us after death; the opening tag is "Believe to Understand." Ed Truelove has confessed to 24 murders, but not that of Amber Lynn LaPierre. Her body isn't found in the grove, and neither Samantha's, though Mulder had longed for that to be the case so his search could end. A police psychic named Harold Pillar attributes LaPierre's disappearance to a phenomenon of people being spiritually removed from harm by walk-ins and transformed into the pure energy of starlight. Mulder notes how it's identical to Tencate's theory, but Scully thinks Pillar just gives a comforting explanation for unexplained disappearances.

Pillar senses that there is a connection between LaPierre and Samantha. He later attempts to convey a message from Mulder's mother's spirit, and though Mulder thinks he's full of it when he says he's lost the spirit, it turns out he's written "April Base" on a piece of paper during Pillar's trance. Scully finds a fragment of a document showing that Cancer Man called off a special Treasury Department investigation into Samantha's disappearance, but Mulder doesn't think it's important. Cancer Man visits Scully and says he believes Samantha is dead, and that he's let Mulder continue thinking she was alive to give him hope.

Mulder and Pillar sneak into a deserted Air Force base and find a sidewalk with handprints and signatures from Samantha and Jeffrey. Mulder thinks it's a sign that she was raised by Cancer Man, along with Jeffrey Spender, and refuses to accept that she's dead after Scully says Cancer Man told her so. The agents find that Pillar is schizophrenic and subject of a murder investigation into his son's disappearance, but he insists he's genuine. He takes Mulder and Scully back to the base, where he manages to summon spirits at Samantha's old house, including one that leads Mulder to Samantha's diary.

The diary was written when Samantha was 14, and describes how unpleasant tests are being performed on her before petering out with entries about running away. Scully finds a report of a 14-year-old Jane Doe runaway being picked up around the same time, and Mulder thinks it's a sign that Samantha is alive. The agents visit the ER nurse who attended to the girl, and she recalls how she disappeared under similar circumstances to LaPierre when Cancer Man and other people came to retrieve her.

The same spirit boy from the base leads Mulder to a nearby forest, where he sees the spirits of several children...including LaPierre and Samantha, who hugs him. Mulder returns to Scully and Pillar, saying that the missing children, including Samantha and Pillar's son, are all dead but in a better place. Pillar refuses to believe his theory that he can't see his son because he won't let him go, and insists that he'll find him; Mulder, by contrast, has found closure.

Anthony Heald, who plays Harold Pillar, also played Scott Guber on Boston Public. The Donnie Darko cast has been showing up quite a bit now; Patience Cleveland, who played Grandma Death (or Roberta Sparrow) in the movie plays Arbutus Ray in this episode.

Episode Body Count

Twenty-four children: murdered by Ed Truelove over the course of several years.

Seven other children: Pillar says they went missing after a train wreck in Asia, presumably taken away by spiritual intervention.

Pillar's son: Harold Pillar is the subject of a murder investigation regarding his son; he claims his son was taken from him, possibly by walk-ins.

Fifteen April Air Force Base spirits: appear when Pillar holds a sort of seance.

Amber Lynn LaPierre: seen as a spirit.

At least 28 children: seen in spirit form by Mulder. A little difficult to count, since they're all running around and playing, but arguably I'd have to count the stars visible in this episode, so hopefully this will suffice.

Samantha Mulder: seen in spirit form by Mulder, who accepts that she and the other missing children are dead.

Humans: 77
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (150/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,695

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,871

Season 7, Episode 10: Sein und Zeit

2009-11-01T16:48:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

The mother of a girl named Amber Lynn LaPierre in California goes into something a trance and writes a threatening note referring to her daughter being kidnapped, signing it "Nobody shoots at Santa Claus." LaPierre's father sees her dead, then apparently OK, before the bedroom door slams shut and LaPierre vanishes. Mulder wants the case before it turns into a media circus, and Skinner gives him a brief window of opportunity. After interviewing the parents, Mulder thinks they're not guilty but did lie about where they found the note.

The FBI has found that the handwriting in the note is similar to that of LaPierre's mother, but Mulder has found another "No one shoots at Santa Claus" note from a 1987 file. In that case, the boy's mother, Kathy Lee Tencate, has been convicted of murder even though her son's body was never found. Tencate has changed her story to admit to committing the murder during a psychotic episode, but Mulder thinks she's innocent and changed her story to earn time off. He wants her help in the case, while Scully begins to think that Mulder is personalizing the case due to Samantha's disappearance.

Tencate, via video, tells LaPierre's parents that while she doesn't remember writing her own note, she's sure that her son and their daughter are in a better place. The LaPierres are not charged for lack of evidence, while somewhere a corpulent man has made quite a few videos of children. Mulder's mother apparently commits suicide after burning photos of Mulder and Samantha, but Mulder thinks it's been staged since she had called him seeking to tell him something. Mulder tells Tencate about Samantha, and she says his mother would have seen the "walk-ins," old souls looking for new homes, who "live in the starlight."

The pedophile turns out to be the operator of Santa's North Pole Village. Mulder thinks his mother was warning him that he was looking for Samantha in the wrong place and was killed for it, but Scully says she determined by autopsy that his mother committed suicide after all after finding that she was suffering from Paget's carcinoma; she says may have been trying to tell him to stop looking for Samantha so he would stop suffering.

LaPierre's mother sees a vision of her daughter mouthing "seventy-four," and the agents and Skinner fly back to California. The number doesn't have any significance to either parent and Mulder thinks it's just delusion; he also says he's too close to the case and asks to be removed. Scully sees a sign for Highway 74, and they head to Santa's North Pole Village after discovering that it's located on that road. Mulder and Scully find the cache of videotapes, including one of LaPierre at the village from two days before her disappearance. The pedophile flees the scene, but is pursued by Skinner. He fires a warning shot and gets the man, Ed Truelove, to stop in a grove dotted with what look like graves. To be continued...

Episode Body Count

JonBenet Ramsey: a Colorado girl murdered in 1996, appears briefly on a newscast in comparison to LaPierre's kidnapping.

Teena Mulder: commits suicide by taking an overdose of diazepam and running the gas.

And then there's the end of the episode, but I'll hold off until those are confirmed as bodies.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (149/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,618

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,794

Season 7, Episode 9: Signs and Wonders

2009-11-01T15:56:00.000-08:00

Synopsis

In Tennessee, a man is swarmed and killed by poisonous snakes, but no evidence of the snakes is found by the body. Mulder thinks it's a case of murder, and the agents find that the man and his girlfriend, Gracie, had recently abandoned an extremist snake handling religion. They visit the church's leader, Enoch O'Connor, who says the man was being tested when he died. Though O'Connor seems to be a likely suspect, it turns out he was out of the state at the time of the death.

A snake handling ceremony and more tame Bible study at Gracie's new church happen at the same time, and a parishioner at the latter church is killed after she is also beset by snakes, including one that comes to being out of a staple remover. Gracie doesn't think O'Connor is guilty, and it also turns out that she's his daughter and was kicked out of his home after getting pregnant. The agents search O'Connor's church again, and he is detained after he tries to force Scully to repent by shoving her face up against a snake cage.

Several snakes show up at O'Connor's jail cell, and he is hospitalized after receiving several bites. Scully says Gracie is trying to withhold treatment so that God can decide whether he lives or dies, so she's started to suspect her of something. Mulder finds that the dead man couldn't have been the father of Gracie's child, and the reverend at her new church says that O'Connor was actually the one who impregnated her. O'Connor makes a rapid recovery and takes Gracie to his church, where she appears to give birth to a clutch of snakes.

Mulder's pretty quick to deduce what may have happened, and a member of the church tells him that the Devil has been cast out of Gracie. O'Connor confronts Gracie's new minister at his church and is shot by Mulder after threatening the minister with a knife. Gracie, on her way to the hospital, tells Scully that O'Connor saved her. Mulder realizes that the minister is actually the father of Gracie's child and is apparently trying to destroy O'Connor's church. The minister reveals that he also has the ability to conjure snakes, or the illusion of them. Mulder is bitten a few times, but saved by Scully as a large snake slithers off; the minister reappears in Connecticut, where a snake emerges from his mouth to snack on a mouse.

Beth Grant, perhaps best known for her roles as Kitty Farmer in Donnie Darko and Gracie Leigh on Jericho, appears here as Iris Finster. Eric Nenninger, who plays Jared Chirp, also played Cadet Eric Hansen on several episodes of Malcolm in the Middle.

Episode Body Count

Jared Chirp: dies after getting bitten 116 times by poisonous snakes.

Iris Finster: killed after being swarmed by poisonous snakes at the Blessing Community Church.

Alice O'Connor: dies after getting bitten several times by snakes during a church service in 1994, at least according to her husband.

Mouse: eaten by a snake that emerges from Reverend Mackey's mouth.

Humans: 3
Creatures: 1
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (148/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,616

Creatures: 114
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,792

Season 7, Episode 8: The Amazing Maleeni

2009-10-31T14:35:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

A magician, The Amazing Maleeni, performs a trick at a Los Angeles amusement park where he turns his head 360 degrees around. He is found dead soon after, his head having fallen off. Scully thinks it's a case of murder, but Mulder says there are no signs of that and thinks it's a dangerous trick gone wrong. They track down a heckler who was at Maleeni's performance and captured on video, and find that he's a rival magician named Billy Labonge. He tells the agents that Maleeni had significant gambling debts.

Scully finds that Maleeni's head was sawed off and being held on by spirit gum, and the body is over a month old. The agents visit a man named Albert Pinchbeck, a bank employee who is the brother of Maleeni (aka Herman Pinchbeck) and a former magician himself. Mulder thinks Herman died a month before and Albert performed his last trick so he could go out in style, but it turns out Albert lost his legs in a car accident.

A gambling debtor tells Albert he's going to make good on Herman's debts. Labonge, impersonating the debtor, shows up in the back of an armored car but disappears even after getting shot at. Mulder starts to wonder if there's misdirection at play, and Labonge is arrested after a confrontation where the debtor accuses Labonge of trying to frame him. Mulder reveals that Albert actually has legs, and he says he's actually Herman and faked his death after finding his twin brother dead of a heart attack.

The agents detain Herman, and Mulder suspects that he may have had plans to steal from the bank. He is jailed with Labonge, which seems to be part of the plan the two have. A bunch of money goes missing from the bank vault anyway, with no clue as to who did it. The debtor is arrested after showing up on the security tape to visit Herman and recognized by the armored truck courier, and the cash shows up at his hangout.

Herman and Labonge are set to be released from jail, but Mulder thinks they were actually cooperating to frame the debtor since Labonge wanted revenge on him for giving him a rough time in prison. However, Mulder has also nabbed Pinchbeck's wallet from the evidence room, saying it contains what the two needed to pull off their real scheme: a massive theft through electronic funds transfers using a fingerprint and badge number discreetly obtained from Mulder in earlier interactions.

Ricky Jay, who plays Maleeni and the two Pinchbecks, is a professional magician whose feats include holding the world record for fastest throw of a playing card (190 miles per hour). Jonathan Levit, who plays Labonge, is also a professional magician.

Episode Body Count

Three botched head re-attachments: Maleeni says three attempts have been made in the West to imitate an Egyptian trick of reattaching a severed head to a body with no harm done and all have ended in tragedy.

Albert Pinchbeck: dies of advanced coronary disease; his brother sets up his body to make it appears like a rotating head trick has killed him.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (147/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,613

Creatures: 113
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,788

Season 7, Episode 7: Orison

2009-10-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

Donnie Pfaster escapes from an Illinois prison, where he has found religion, by simply walking out after another inmate seems to cut his fingers off in a machine tool and time slows down. It turns out he's the third such prisoner in the area to escape at 6:06 a.m. in the past year, the same time Scully wakes up to see her alarm clock reading "666." Mulder wonders if someone was using group hypnosis to orchestrate the escape; Scully hasn't forgotten Pfaster, and says he's pure evil.

Pfaster goes to a diner, where he starts to pick up a hooker before the prison chaplain, Robert Orison, scolds him for squandering God's gift. Orison hypnotizes a group of marshals to help Pfaster escape, and Pfaster thanks him by taking the hooker anyway and running down Orison with his own car. Orison says that God is working through him to some end, but Mulder thinks he's a fraud after learning that he was convicted of murder and served 22 years before becoming a chaplain. Scully isn't so sure, noting the weirdness with her clock and also how she's recently been hearing a lot more of a song she heard when she first realized there was true evil in the world.

Orison leaves the hospital after hypnotizing a guard, taking his gun and leaving a message telling the agents not to look any farther (echoing the song lyrics). Pfaster takes up shop in Orison's apartment, becoming enraged when a call girl turns out not to be a real redhead. Orison soon captures him at gunpoint. He digs a grave for Pfaster and orders him to beg forgiveness for his sins. Pfaster appears to morph into a demon, and Orison turns up dead. Mulder considers that Orison was helping the prisoners escape to execute them, and declares case closed.

Pfaster recaptures Scully in DC, having become obsessed with her as "the one that got away." Mulder's X-File sense tingles when he hears the song on the radio, and he goes into Scully's apartment. He draws his gun on Pfaster, but Scully has managed to escape and kills him with her own gun. She maintains that he is evil, but worries as to whether it was good or evil that made her pull the trigger.

Episode Body Count

Four Pfaster victims: a marshal tells the agents that Pfaster was convicted of five murders. I came up with five corpses or murders that Pfaster was involved with in "Irresistible," but presumably the corpse desecrations are separate from the murders, of which there was only one in the episode.

Orison's victim: Mulder says the reverend served 22 years in prison for first degree murder.

Scully's Sunday school teacher: Scully says she was murdered on his front lawn when she was a child.

Blueberry: presumed dead after Pfaster runs off with her and the next time we see him he's handling severed fingers.

Reverend Robert Orison: apparently killed by Pfaster.

Two other inmates: presumed killed by Orison after they escape and disappear under similar circumstances to Pfaster.

Donnie Pfaster: shot by Scully.

Humans: 11
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (146/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,609

Creatures: 113
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,784

Season 7, Episode 6: The Goldberg Variation

2009-10-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

In Chicago, a building superintendent named Henry Weems wins over $100,000 in a poker game with some mobster types and tries to leave. The mobsters respond by throwing him off the roof of the building, but he survives the 30-story drop unharmed after landing in a laundry bin. Mulder and Scully track down Weems after finding his glass eye nearby. The agents try to persuade Weems to testify against the mob kingpin, Joe Cutrona, who the FBI has been investigating, but Weems refuses. Scully thinks Weems was just lucky, and Mulder agrees that he might be supernaturally fortunate after a henchman winds up dead after trying to kill Weems.

The agents find that a boy in Weems' building named Richie Lupone is suffering from hepatitis, and that Weems has been off the radar since 1989, when he was the sole survivor of a plane crash in 1989. Weems wins $100,000 on a lottery ticket, but throws it away after saying that the payout will take too long. A customer who retrieves it ignores Weems' warning that something bad will happen related to the ticket, and the customers is hit by a truck soon after digging it out of the trash. Another henchman shoots Weems, but is nearly killed himself when the bullet richochets off a tool in Weems' pocket.

Weems admits to being very lucky, but thinks bad things happen to other people as a sort of balance, which is why he keeps a low profile. He also says that he's trying to get the money to put Lupone into a treatment program, since Lupone has a rare blood type and is unlikely to find a donor. Scully wants Weems in protective custody, saying all lucky streaks end. Sure enough, Weems is hit by the same truck that hit the store customer after trying to escape a mobster.

Weems is hospitalized and says he'll testify against Cutrona; Lupone's condition worsens and he is also hospitalized. Weems worries that Lupone's mother has been kidnapped so he won't testify, and Mulder wonders if his luck hasn't changed but everything is happening for a reason. Mulder decides to try his own luck out in tracking down Lupone's mother, and randomly chooses a linen service to look for her. Weems goes to see Cutrona, who has taken Lupone's mother to the linen place, but Cutrona's attempt to kill Weems ends up killing both him and a thug. Mulder and the police enter the place and find that Cutrona has the exact same blood type as Lupone, making a transfer possible.

Shia LaBeouf, who has since appeared in several movies including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the new Transformers franchise, plays Richie Lupone. Tony Longo, who plays Dominic, also played Private Investigator Ray in The Young and the Restless.

Episode Body Count

At least one murder: Scully says the FBI is investigating Cutrona on a number of charges, including murder.

Angelo Bellini: dies of a heart attack after trying to shoot Weems and getting hung up by a ceiling fan.

Twenty Flight 7 crash victims: killed when the plane crashes into Lake Michigan in 1989; Weems is the only survivor.

Dominic: on the left; apparently electrocuted to death during a series of events at the linen service.

Joe Cutrona: killed when a large hook breaks loose and hits him in the face.

Humans: 24
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (145/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,598

Creatures: 113
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,773

Season 7, Episode 5: Rush

2009-10-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

A high school student in Virginia named Tony Reed meets up with a bad influence named Max Harden and his girlfriend, Chastity Raines, on some private property to visit some sort of secret place. Reed's friends ditch him when a deputy shows up, but the cop is killed with his own flashlight and Reed becomes a suspect after handling the bloody weapon. Mulder thinks he's been wrongfully accused, since Reed is a model student and the extent of the deputy's injuries suggest that something else is going on.

Reed maintains his innocence, but also refuses to admit that anyone else was at the scene. Mulder wonders if a poltergeist is the culprit, but Scully suggests talking with Reed's friends instead. Harden, the son of the sheriff, shows up for a midterm with a minute of class left and aces it. The flashlight disappears from an evidence locker, so Reed is released. Mulder notices a motion blur on the security footage, and also finds what seems to be a melted strip of rubber on the floor. Harden takes Reed on a joyride in a stolen car, disappears at 120 miles an hour, and somehow gets Reed safely out before the car hits a tree.

Further analysis of the videotape shows that the blur likely has the same colors as the high school team ones. Harden's teacher thinks he cheated and flunks him; in the cafeteria, Harden blurs repeatedly as the teacher is killed, slammed into the wall and hit by a flying chair. Mulder now suspects psychokinesis. Harden and Raines start to become more tired, and though Reed is growing more wary of the friendship he decides to follow Raines into a mysterious cave and gains the ability the two people have.

Harden is hospitalized with fatigue and withdrawal, and also is found to have microfractures, ligament tears, and other uncharacteristic injuries. When Mulder finds that Harden's shoes are melted, he realizes that he's gained the ability to move extremely fast. Raines gets Harden out of the hospital and he gets another speed fix. His father finds several melted shoes and the dead deputy's flashlight in his room, and Harden attacks him. Reed comes to the sheriff's rescue.

Raines tells Reed that he shouldn't have intervened, and that they need to get back to the cave before Harden does. They don't succeed, and Reed follows Raines into the cave to find her unconscious and Harden pissed off. Harden threatens to mess up Reed, but is shot by Raines; telling Reed that she can't go back, she steps in front of the bullet and is also killed. An analysis of the cave finds no explanation for the effect, and the cave is sealed off. Reed is hospitalized, OK but seeing the world move a good deal more slowly.

Tom Bower, who plays Sheriff Harden, also played Dr. Curtis Willard. Michael Beardsley, uncredited as a high school student, played Humphries on Freaks and Geeks.

Episode Body Count

Deputy Ron Foster: has his skull caved in when Harden hits him at super-speed with Foster's flashlight.

Mr. Babbitt: killed when Harden flings cafeteria furniture at him at super-speed.

Max Harden and Chastity Raines: both killed by a bullet that Raines fires.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (144/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,574

Creatures: 113
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,749

Season 7, Episode 4: Millennium

2009-10-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

This episode serves as the conclusion for the X-Files companion series Millennium. Ten days before New Year's Eve for the year 2000, a man in Florida gives a cell phone to a dead FBI agent in a funeral home; he starts digging up the body eight days later when his own phone starts ringing. Mulder and Scully are brought in when the body goes missing but his fingerprints suggest he left his own grave. Mulder says there are signs of necromancy, in which the dead are brought back to life to impart arcane knowledge. Skinner lets the agents know about the Millennium Group, a cult-like band of former FBI agents focusing on millennial end times prophecies. He also says the bodies of three former FBI agents have been exhumed across the country.

The agents visit Frank Black, a former consultant to the Millennium Group who is now in a psychiatric hospital, but he's not eager to help. The man transports the Florida body, now reanimated, north along the East Coast. On New Year's Eve, after a Maryland deputy is found murdered with signs suggesting that Black gave the agents a subtle clue, Black tells Mulder and Scully that the men committed suicide in order to be brought back as the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. He also tells them what traits the necromancer is likely to have, and says he'll likely return to the deputy's body to see that it isn't disturbed.

The deputy comes back to life and attacks Scully, but the necromancer saves her by putting him down. Mulder tracks down the necromancer's home and finds four zombies in the basement as the necromancer returns and barricades him in. Black checks himself out of the hospital and goes to the house, where Mulder has killed one of the zombies. The necromancer says Black can fill in as the fourth person, and urges him to commit suicide.

Instead, Black duct tapes the necromancer to a chair and goes to help Mulder, who has managed to protect himself with a circle of salt. Black, Mulder, and Scully put down the remaining zombies with headshots. Black's daughter comes to see him, adding a bit of happiness to his life. Mulder and Scully watch the ball drop on the year 2000 and share a kiss.

The episode features Lance Henriksen as Frank Black and Britanny Tiplady as Jordan Black, two roles they also played on Millenium. Holmes Osborne, who plays Mark Johnson the necromancer, also played Eddie Darko in Donnie Darko. Dick Clark, TV personality and longtime Rockin' New Year's Eve host, appears as himself.

Episode Body Count

Raymond Crouch: found dead of an apparent suicide prior to the episode, but is brought back to life. Later shot and killed by Mulder or Black or Scully.

Three other Millennium Group members: also disinterred soon after committing suicide and resurrected, but shot dead by Mulder and Black and Scully.

Deputy: killed in Maryland by Zombie Crouch, but reanimates. And then dies again after the necromancer puts a round through his head.

At least eight animal bodies: seen in the necromancer's taxidermy parlor. I really hope I haven't missed a bunch of deer heads up to this point, but I thought these were worth counting.

Three bodies: visible in the Rice County Morgue when Scully arrives.

Humans: 8
Creatures: 8
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (143/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,570

Creatures: 113
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,745

Season 7, Episode 3: Hungry

2009-10-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

A late-night customer at a fast food restaurant in California is killed at the drive-through, and his brain is removed. Mulder and Scully investigate the restaurant when a button from the place is found with the discarded body. A mild-mannered employee named Rob Roberts seems to be the culprit, though suspicion focuses on a rude worker named Derwood Spinks. Mulder thinks the man's brain may have been eaten.

Spinks, who has a conviction for attempted murder, is fired from his job but blackmails Roberts after seeing a bloodstain on his bottle of diet pills and realizing he's the killer. Of course, Spinks doesn't really last that long; Roberts kills him after reavealing that he has quite a few facial prosthetics covering up a monstrous appearance. Roberts is trying to control his brain addiction with the pills, and tells a therapist that he has an eating disorder. Mulder's theory about a genetic mutant with a compulsion to eat is pretty spot on.

Roberts attends an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, where he finds that his landlord is a member; however, he regretfully kills her after his hunger returns. He quits his job, complains to the therapist that he has a biological imperative to eat, and says he's tired of pretending he's someone he's not. The therapist has figured out that Roberts has committed murder, and she asks him to turn himself in. Roberts reveals his true appearance to her, and she surprises him by showing pity instead of fear. Roberts tries to attack the agents as they arrive and is shot, saying as he dies that he can't be something he's not.

Mark Pellegrino, who plays Derwood Spinks, also played Paul Bennett on Dexter and Jacob on the fifth season finale of Lost.

Episode Body Count

Donald Edward Pankow: killed by Roberts at the drive-through. His brain is eaten and his body and car and dumped in a reservoir.

Steve Kiziak: a private investigator, killed by Roberts as he monitors the building.

Derwood Spinks: killed when Roberts devours his brain.

Sylvia Jassy: Roberts' landlord, killed by Roberts and thrown out with the trash.

Rob Roberts: shot by Mulder.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 1
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (142/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,562

Creatures: 105
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,729

Season 7, Episode 2: Amor Fati/The Sixth Extinction II

2009-10-24T11:51:00.001-07:00

Synopsis

Cancer Man has a telepathic conversation with Mulder, then gives him an injection that takes away the ESP effect and allows him to accompany Cancer Man out of the hospital. Oh, and he says he's Mulder's father. Skinner says it's best if he doesn't know the whereabouts of Scully or the now missing Mulder. Cancer Man tells Mulder that he's entering a sort of witness protection program and becoming a man without an identity. The codetalker, doing much better now, visits Scully and tells her to find Mulder.

Cancer Man takes Mulder to a nice suburban house and gives him the option of staying there or driving himself back to work on the X-Files. Scully realizes that Mulder's mother checked him out of the hospital, but apparently did so after talking with Cancer Man. Much to Mulder's surprise, Deep Throat pays him a visit at the house and says he survived the shooting and lives down the street. Scully gets a book on the sixth extinction that has Native American writing identical to that found on the African craft; she tells Skinner that she thinks Mulder's illness is a protection against the coming apocalypse, and he's assaulted soon after (probably by Krycek) and has something taken from him. Fowley also comes to see Mulder, and they spend the night together; like Deep Throat, she tries to get him to abandon his commitment to the X-Files.

Scully finds that Kritschgau has hacked into her files and had the alien artifacts analyzed by the National Institutes of Health; he says they prove that Mulder has become biologically alien. Mulder and Fowley visit Cancer Man, who says Samantha has been staying with her. We see that Cancer Man actually has Mulder in a secret location and he is merely dreaming. Cancer Man says he's immune to the coming apocalypse, and therefore the savior the Syndicate has been looking for, but might not survive a coming procedure.

In his mind, Mulder flashes through an alternate life and becomes an old man. An unaged Cancer Man says he knows Mulder has been having visions of a boy on the beach, and Mulder has another one: in which the boy has made a sand UFO identical to the one in Africa but destroys it because Mulder was supposed to help him build it. In another vision, unaged Cancer Man tells Old Mulder that his friends and family have all died; he then goes to a window and watches the world outside, which is burning after the alien colonization.

Both Cancer Man and Mulder undergo surgery. Krycek murders Kritschgau, steals his laptop, and torches a bunch of documents. Scully gets a keycard to the Department of Defense from an unknown person. She also appears to Old Mulder in his dream and denounces him as a turncoat, telling him he can't believe this vision and must fight. And then she rescues him from the operating room, the procedure now completed. One week later, Mulder reveals to her that the codetalker was dead when Scully saw him; Scully says Fowley has been murdered, apparently after sending her the book to help her out. The two agents say they're basically the constants in each others lives. In a final dream, Mulder helps the boy build a new spacecraft on the beach.

This episode was written by David Duchovny. Brian George, who plays a project doctor, might be best known for his role as Babu Bhatt on Seinfeld. David Brisbin, who plays the second doctor, also played Benjamin Ernst on Hey Dude. Brothers Andrew and Steven Cavarno, playing "Dream Boy," also played Owen Salinger in quite a few episodes of Party of Five when they were toddlers.

Episode Body Count

Michael Kristchgau: murdered by Krycek.

Albert Hosteen: a World War II Navajo codetalker, dies of cancer.

Diana Fowley: found murdered a week after the surgical procedure.

Humans: 3
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (141/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,558

Creatures: 104
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,724

Season 7, Episode 1: The Sixth Extinction

2009-10-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

Scully is still in Africa, studying the craft's markings in search of a cure for Mulder, when she catches a glimpse of a primitive man and is swarmed by locusts. A doctor warns Skinner that Mulder is prone to violent episodes and his brain will eventually die in its present condition. A professor visits Scully and says she shouldn't mention the vanishing man; outside, a man is burned while working near the craft. Barnes shows up in Africa and offers to help translate the craft's markings, right before the ocean appears to turn to blood around the craft.

At Mulder's request, Skinner brings Michael Kritschgau to the hospital. Kritschgau says Mulder is showing signs of ESP, and recommends an injection to make Mulder more lucid. Mulder says he knows Krycek is blackmailing Skinner, and that he needs Kristchgau's help. Scully says that while she can't explain the biblical events surrounding the craft, the markings that have been translated cover both mystical and scientific topics. Barnes goes a little mad, calls the craft the ultimate power, and imprisons Scully and the professor in their tent.

Though Mulder flunks an initial ESP test, he aces another one and even shows the ability to anticipate what's coming. Scully and the professor escape after Barnes sees a bag of dead fish come back to life, and Scully sees another vision of the primitive man. Skinner and Kritschgau try to get Mulder out of the hospital, but are interrupted by Fowley just before Mulder starts seizing from another injection of the new drug.

Scully returns to DC, determined to see Mulder despite the fact that he's now comatose. Barnes slaughters his driver but he comes back to life after a time...and returns the favor to Barnes. Scully begs Mulder to hang on and says she's found the key to the mysteries of life. In Africa, the professor and a group of military police find Barnes' body, and the craft has disappeared. To be continued...

Abdoulaye NGom, who plays a driver, also played Nescobar-A-Lop-Lop on My Name Is Earl.

Episode Body Count

Barnes' driver: hit with a machete by Barnes, but comes back to life soon after.

Dr. Barnes: cut down by his resurrected driver.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

UNDEAD'D

Humans: 1
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (140/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,555

Creatures: 104
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,721

Season 6, Episode 22: Biogenesis

2009-10-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

Scully gives a voice-over about how Earth has seen five great extinctions, and humans might be due to make the sixth. In Côte d'Ivoire, a couple of pieces of metallic debris with strange writing are found on the beach, and have a mind of their own when put together. An African scientist brings them to a colleague, Dr. Steven Sandoz in DC, but realizes that the person he's meeting with is not who he says he is. And then he's murdered. Mulder and Scully are put on the case, since the scientist and Sandoz both subscribed to the view that life on Earth originated on another planet.

Mulder sees a rubbing of the markings on the artifact, and starts hearing noises in his head. The man who murdered the scientist turns out to be a professor named Dr. Barnes. A friend of the agents says the artifact is a fraud and the writing is Native American, but the effect on Mulder remains. The agents find that Sandoz has met with a World War II codetalker they've previously had dealings with, and also find the scientist's body at his apartment. Mulder thinks Sandoz is on the run because of what he knows, and wants to find the artifacts. Skinner secretly records a conversation with the agents on the matter and gives the tape to Krycek.

Scully goes to New Mexico to see the codetalker, who is dying of cancer. Mulder suspects Barnes and tries to follow him, but collapses from the pain of his head noises; Krycek meets with Barnes. Scully finds Sandoz, who has another fragment (which also starts spinning) and says it has a passage on it from the Book of Genesis. Mulder, now being tended to by Fowley, thinks that's a sign that human life originated from aliens. Fowley keeps in touch with Cancer Man, and Mulder is hospitalized in a psychiatric ward with abnormal brain activity.

Skinner assures Scully and Fowley that the case is being resolved, although Scully hasn't submitted a report. Scully suspects that they're both up to something and that Mulder's office has been bugged (it has). Sandoz calls Scully and says that the letters translated by the codetalker are coordinates for the human genome, then is killed by Krycek. Scully travels to Côte d'Ivoire, where it turns out that the artifacts are from a large spacecraft partially buried in the sand. To be continued...

Episode Body Count

Dr. Solomon Merkmallen: murdered by Dr. Barnes.

Dr. Steven Sandoz: shot by Krycek.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Season Body Count

Humans: 122
Creatures: 16
Aliens: 1

Excludes the movie. More creatures this time around, but the rest decrease.

Cumulative Body Count (139/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,554

Creatures: 104
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,720

Season 6, Episode 21: Field Trip

2009-10-22T14:46:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

On a hiking trip in North Carolina, a young woman has a vision of being trapped in a cave of yellow goo. The couple's skeletons are found oddly preserved in a field, and Mulder notes how it's near a UFO hotspot; Scully thinks it's a double murder with ritualistic themes involving the stripping of flesh from the body. Scully finds some yellow goo on the bodies, which tests positive for a digestive secretion with plantlike characteristics. She has a sample forwarded to the FBI. Mulder goes to the place the bodies were found and sees one of the missing hikers alive; he pursues him into a cave, where the hiker tells him their deaths were faked by aliens and his wife is still abducted. Scully visits the field, but doesn't find Mulder. A bright light floods the cave and the hiker's wife is returned; she also says they were abducted.

Mulder thinks the incident is one of textbook alien abduction, though he can't explain the skeletons. The light returns, and Mulder goes toward it. Cut to Mulder's apartment, where Mulder has apparently gone after leaving Scully in North Carolina. She arrives, surprised to find the married couple there, as well as an alien that Mulder has himself abducted. Scully is flabbergasted, but surprised when Mulder is skeptical of her reaction and still questioning the idea that the skeletons are decoys. He also sees visions of the yellow goo, and turns out to be in a cave full of it.

Scully and the coroner find the goo in the field, as well as a new skeleton whose dental records match Mulder. The coroner's theory on what killed him is the same as Scully's original one...word for word. She's now skeptical of that explanation. A wake is held at Mulder's apartment, where The Lone Gunmen promise to launch their own investigation but say they concur with the ritualistic murder theory. Scully thinks something else is going on, and starts to have yellow goo visions of her own. Mulder arrives at the apartment, and suddenly everything is back to normal.

Mulder gives his abduction story, and Scully assures him the hikers are dead and points out a few more gaps in his story. Scully thinks they're in a hallucination of some sort, with its origin in the field, and recalls the wild mushrooms there that gave off spores. She now thinks the couple was dissolved by a giant carnivorous hallucinogenic fungus, and the realization is enough for them to escape the cave. At least until they give their final report, and Mulder realizes they shouldn't have been able to will themselves out of the hallucination. He shoots Skinner to prove to Scully that they're not yet in real life, and Skinner bleeds yellow goo. Luckily, non-goo Skinner is leading a team of agents on a rescue mission, and Mulder and Scully are finally pulled to safety.

David Denman, who plays Wallace Schiff, also played Roy Anderson on the American version of The Office. Jim Beaver, as a coroner, played Whitney Ellsworth on Deadwood.

Episode Body Count

Angela and Wallace Schiff: their skeletons are found embracing in a field three days after they go missing, digested by the giant fungus.

Two past cases: the coroner remembers two prior cases of skeletal remains found in the same area.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (138/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,552

Creatures: 104
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,718

Season 6, Episode 20: Three Of A Kind

2009-10-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

The episode opens with Byers saying he has a recurring dream of having a happy life with Susanne Modeski in a peaceful and clean country, but that it always ends with him losing everything. The Lone Gunmen go to a defense contractor convention in Las Vegas to try to learn a few trade secrets, but are kicked out of a high stakes poker game when their identities are blown. Frohike knows that Byers is trying to track down Modeski at the conventions, but says it's been 10 years and she's most likely dead. However, Byers soon finds her in a casino.

The Lone Gunmen trick Scully into coming to Vegas with a Mulder voice synthesizer to help them. Byers sees a man from the poker game meet with Modeski at her hotel room, and Frohike and Langly find that he is named Grant Ellis and works at the same New Mexico defense base where Modeski worked. A rival geek uses a vent to spy on a conference, where he sees Modeski, but is captured by an undercover geek and given an injection that causes him to jump in front of a bus.

Scully arrives, and Byers confronts Modeski about possibly being brainwashed; she denies it and says that Ellis is her fiance and everything's gotten better. Scully finds an injection mark while doing the autopsy, but is then given one herself by the undercover geek. She starts acting a little drunk and flirty (including toward Morris Fletcher). Modeski says Ellis was also helping her stall projects, and they were trying to escape at the conference. Langly is also given an injection. Frohike brings Scully back to the room, and Modeski recognizes that Scully has been injected with a gas she was working on that inhibits brain functions, making someone more susceptible to suggestion.

On the undercover geek's orders, Langly goes into a conference and shoots Modeski three times. Frohike and Byers cart her off, disguised as paramedics, since Modeski has realized that Langly was injected, given him an antidote, and set up the whole scene. Modeski realizes that Ellis has betrayed her to save his own life. The undercover geek kills Ellis and nearly kills Modeski and the Gunmen, but is given the injection by Byers; the Gunmen make him confess to the murders of Ellis and Modeski and give her a new identity. Byers urges her to have a normal life and leave the exposing of government corruption to them; she gives him a ring meant for Ellis and promises to find him again someday.

John Billingsley, who plays Timmy the Geek, also played Dr. Phlox on Star Trek: Enterprise.

Episode Body Count

James "Jimmy the Greek" Belmont: run over after he is given an injection that makes him run in front of a bus.

Grant Ellis: shot and killed by the undercover geek, Timmy.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (137/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,548

Creatures: 104
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,714

Season 6, Episode 19: The Unnatural

2009-10-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

In Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, a black baseball player named Josh Exley is the star of a minor league team and content to stay there despite offers from national recruiters. The game is interrupted by the Ku Klux Klan, who have come for Exley. The players chase off the Klansmen, and one of the coaches removes the hood of one to find that it's an alien. Title screen: "In the Big Inning."

In present day DC, Mulder and Scully are looking through New Mexico obituaries from that time period, and Mulder happens upon a baseball article with a photo of Exley, Arthur Dales, and the Alien Bounty Hunter. Mulder finds that the Arthur Dales in the photo is the brother of the Arthur Dales that Mulder knows, and this Dales is happy to talk about baseball and Exley, with a bit of the alien conspiracy mixed in.

Back in 1947, Dales is assigned to protect Exley after a poster offering a reward for Exley's murder is put up. Dales sees Exley reflected as an alien in a bus window, and Exley bleeds some green blood after getting hit by a pitch. Dales finds that Exley is using an assumed name, and is deliberately trying to keep out of the major leagues. He also walks in on Exley while he's in alien form, and Exley demonstrates how he can change appearances. He explains to Dales how he fell in love with baseball, and is keeping on the down-low by assuming the appearance of a black man and staying in the minors.

A lab tech tells Dales that the blood on the glove is unlike anything he's seen, and that he's contacted the feds. The Alien Bounty Hunter takes Exley's form and kills the tech, so Dales urges him to get out of town to avoid a murder charge. Dales refuses to tell the feds anything, and realizes that Exley is at the Roswell game seen at the beginning. The alien is the Alien Bounty Hunter, angry at Exley for jeopardizing the colonization project for a game.

The Alien Bounty Hunter neck-stabs Exley and gets away. Exley warns Dales not to get near him due to the acidic nature of the blood, but it turns out that he has apparently become human somehow, as he has red blood. The wound is still fatal, though. The story inspires Mulder to give Scully a very early or very late birthday gift of a batting lesson, and she finds herself enjoying the sport.

David Duchovny wrote and directed this episode, and his brother has a role as Piney. Jesse L. Martin, last seen a long time ago in "Irresistable," is worth noting again for his role as Detective Ed Green on Law and Order, which he was starting around the same time as this episode. Paul Willson, who plays Ted, also played Paul Krapence on Cheers.

Episode Body Count

Ted: a lab technician, killed after being thrown through a glass door by the Alien Bounty Hunter.

Josh Exley: stabbed by the Alien Bounty Hunter. Has apparently become a human by that point, so that's what I'll count him as.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (136/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,546

Creatures: 104
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,712

Season 6, Episode 18: Milagro

2009-10-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

A writer named Philip Padgett , suffering from writer's block, appears to yank his heart and later sees the organ in the flames of the building's incinerator. Turns out Padgett is Mulder's new neighbor, and is smitten with Scully as she goes to see Mulder about a murderer who is removing people's hearts. Padgett eavesdrops on the conversation, a third victim shows up as he writes about the murders and investigation for a novel. Part of the story also involves Scully growing attracted to the killer after he sends her a charm of a burning heart.

Scully runs into Padgett at a church, where he shows an intimate knowledge of both Scully and a painting involving a removed heart. He also admits to sending the charm and being attracted to Scully, so she decides that the charm is insignificant. Mulder's not so sure, and becomes more suspicious of Padgett. Despite being weirded out by the encounter at the church, Scully also finds herself becoming attracted to Padgett. She ends up visiting him while returning the charm, and is surprised when Mulder busts in to arrest Padgett based on his writing.

Padgett's book has a Brazilian psychic surgeon as the murderer, but Scully finds that the named person has been dead for two years. However, the man committing the murders certainly looks like the surgeon, and another body shows up after Padgett writes another chapter while imprisoned. Padgett is released, and shocked when the surgeon character shows up at his apartment and tells him that the book can only end with Scully's death.

The agents have Padgett's place under surveillance from Mulder's apartment, but don't see the surgeon. Mulder follows Padgett to the incinerator, and the surgeon attacks Scully; she opens fire on him with no effect. Padgett burns the manuscript, and Scully survives. Padgett lies dead and de-hearted in the basement, and in a final voice-over says the novel only reflected his own emptiness and that his final act was "to give what he could not receive."

John Hawkes, as Philip Padgett, also played Sol Star on Deadwood. Jillian Bach, who plays Maggie, also had a recurring role on Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place as Irene.

Episode Body Count

Two victims: Scully goes to see Mulder about two cases in which people's hearts were removed.

Kevin: dies after his heart is torn out.

Dr. Ken Naciamento: Scully says he's been dead for two years.

Maggie: murdered while visiting Kevin's grave.

Philip Padgett: dies of a broken (or removed) heart.

Humans: 6
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (135/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,544

Creatures: 104
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,710

Season 6, Episode 17: Trevor

2009-10-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

Synopsis

An inmate named Pinker Rawls is locked in a hot box at the Mississippi prison farm after nailing another prisoner's hand to a wall during preparations for an approaching tornado. Rawls and the box both disappear in the storm, and the farm's superintendent shows up dead and in two pieces. He's a little charbroiled at the ends, so Scully is even willing to give the idea of spontaneous human combustion a go. The agents find the wall to the warden's locked office extremely brittle, and also discover that the $90,000 Rawls stole from a wire office was never recovered.

Rawls easily escapes a security guard's attempt to handcuff him to a pole, as well as an old acquaintance's attempt to shoot him. Mulder and Scully find the thug's body, and Mulder theorizes that Rawls has gained the ability to walk through solid objects and change their composition, which would include turning flesh into carbon. The agents also realize that Rawls is trying to track down his old sweetheart, June Gurwitch. They go to Gurwitch's sister's house, where Rawls has just showed up, and Rawls hides in their trunk to find out where Gurwitch lives.

Gurwitch tells the agents that she has used the $90,000 to settle into a happier life with her fiance. Mulder finds out about Rawls' hitchhiking after seeing damage to the trunk lid. From a message burned on the wall of the house, Mulder also discovers that Rawls can't pass through glass or other electrical insulators. Scully finds that Rawls is trying to find his son, who was born after he was imprisoned. Rawls kidnaps Gurwitch from protective custody. Mulder and Scully realize that the son is likely staying with Gurwitch's sister.

Gurwitch takes Rawls to see his son at the sister's house, and Rawls tries to take him away. The agents arrive, armed with rubber bullets. Scully protects Rawls' son in a glass phone booth, and though Rawls smashes a hole in the booth he walks away when he realizes how scared his son is. Gurwitch runs him down with a car, the windshield killing him.

Catherine Dent, who plays June Gurwitch, played Officer Dani Sofer on The Shield. John Diehl, who plays Pinker Rawls, also played Detective Larry Vito on Miami Vice.

Episode Body Count

Raybert Fellowes: the superintendent at the prison farm, halved by Rawls during his escape.

Bo Merkle: dies after Rawls burns away the majority of his head.

Trooper Collins: killed by Rawls.

Wilson Pinker Rawls: cut in half by the windshield of Gurwtich's car.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (134/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,538

Creatures: 104
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,704