Season 6, Episode 2: Drive

Synopsis

A high-speed chase in Nevada ends when a woman riding in the car dies of a popped head. Mulder and Scully have been demoted to routine check-ups on large purchases of fertilizer, but Mulder persuades Scully into a side trip after seeing a news report about the incident. Patrick Crump, the car's driver, begins to panic after suffering a nosebleed and ringing ears in his cell. Mulder notes how Crump and his wife were heading east after stealing a car, then made a U-turn and went west until they were stopped.

Crump escapes an ambulance while he is being transported to a hospital and takes Mulder hostage, forcing him to drive. Scully thinks some sort of disease is at large after another body is found with the same symptoms near Crump's hometown. Mulder realizes that Crump needs to keep moving west or he'll suffer the same fate as his wife. An analysis of the bodies finds there isn't any sort of infection.

Scully and a CDC team check out the Crump residence, where a panicked dog also dies after he stops moving. Crump says the police chase was a result of similar conclusions when he tried to bring his sick wife to the hospital, and thinks it's part of a government plot. Scully finds that the Crump's neighbor, who is deaf, is unaffected even if her birds aren't. Running low on gas, Mulder ends up stealing another car at a gas station to keep Crump moving.

Scully finds several dead birds outside the Crump residence, and a metal plate that denotes federal property. She finds that the Navy has electrical equipment stationed in the Crump's hometown, and that it experienced a brief power surge; they say its effect on organisms is classified. Scully tells Mulder that she thinks the hum from the Navy system may have found resonancy with the human skull, and movement is the only way to prevent a pressure blowout inside the ear.

The unpleasant remedy Scully proposes involves jamming a large needle into Crump's ear to relieve the pressure. She manages to arrive on the California coast ahead of Mulder and Crump, but Crump has died by the time they get there. Kersh is more concerned with the travel expenses and the agents pursuing what looks like an X-File, but Scully says the Navy has shut down the electrical array and so their work with the case has saved lives. Of course, the Navy says the shutdown was just coincidental.

Bryan Cranston, who plays Patrick Crump, is best known for his roles as Hal on Malcolm in the Middle and Walter White on Breaking Bad. Mindy Seeger, who plays a coroner, played a character named Chris on several episodes of The West Wing while Michael O'Neill (a patrol captain) played Secret Service Agent Ron Butterfield on the same show. Frank Buckley, who plays reporter Benjamin Buckley, is an actual news reporter for KTLA in Los Angeles.

Episode Body Count

Vicky Crump: dies of a pressure overload after she stops moving west.

Meter reader: Scully fears a communicable disease after another body is found with the same symptoms.

Crump dog: also dies in the same manner.

Two parakeets: found in the Crump's neighbor's trailer.

At least eight dead birds: found outside the Crump trailer.

Patrick Crump: dies of a pressure overload before Scully can try a remedy.

Humans: 3
Creatures: 11
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (119/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,439

Creatures: 99
Aliens: 61

Grand Total: 1,599

Season 6, Episode 1: The Beginning

Synopsis

In Arizona, a worker with Roush Technologies is killed after an alien gestates inside his body and escapes. In DC, Mulder says he'll be able to restore a good portion of the X-Files, though an FBI panel is skeptical that it's the best use of his time. Mulder has apparently regained his faith in the existence of alien life after the Antarctic adventure, but the panel is skeptical of his claims of bee-spread virus and alien colonists. Scully is also still fairly skeptical, and says she's determined that the virus is terrestrial.

The Syndicate realizes the Roush worker probably accidentally infected himself while working with black oil, and frets over the missing alien. Skinner tips Mulder off to the incident after the panel declines reassignment of the X-Files to Mulder and Scully, instead giving it to Spender and Fowley. Mulder and Scully travel to Arizona, while Cancer Man takes Praise from the middle of brain surgery to find the alien. At a nearby nuclear power plant, a workman is killed by the alien. Spender and Fowley investigate its possible connection to the two previous deaths and refuse to let Mulder and Scully onto the case.

Mulder and Scully find Praise, who has escaped his captors. Mulder also wants his assistance in finding the alien, though Scully convinces him that he still needs protection as a key to everything in the X-Files. Fowley comes to Mulder to let him know about the case, and he wonders if the aliens seek heat as a way of speeding gestation. They sneak into the nuclear plant and find a mucus-like organic substance where the workman was killed. Scully takes Praise to a hospital, and finds that he has signs of the same virus she was exposed to in his system.

Praise is once again taken by a Syndicate member, and they head to the nuclear plant as well. Praise's kidnapper is killed by the alien in the plant's core. The FBI panel orders Mulder and Scully to cease all association with the X-Files, and reassigns them to Assistant Director Alvin Kersh. Spender meets with Cancer Man, who thanks Spender for his work towards breaking Mulder's spirit. Mulder continues working to restore the X-Files, and Scully tells him that the alien virus is part of every human's inactive "junk DNA," only the DNA is switched on in Praise's case. At the nuclear plant, Praise hangs out with the alien, which turns out to be a traditional grey-skinned extraterrestrial after shedding its skin.

First appearance of Assistant Director Alvin Kersh, played by James Pickens Jr., who now plays Dr. Richard Webber in Grey's Anatomy. Wendie Malick, who plays A.D. Maslin, is probably best known for her role as Nina Van Horn on Just Shoot Me. Benito Martinez plays an orderly in this episode, and also played David Aceveda in The Shield. Rick Millikan, who plays Sandy, was a casting director for The X-Files and currently works in the same capacity on Bones. Arthur Taxier, playing A.D. Bart, played Lt. Carl Zymak on the late 1980s show Midnight Caller.

Episode Body Count

Sandy: dies after an alien finishes growing inside him.

Carpool guy: killed by the alien after he finds Sandy's body.

Homer: killed by the alien at the nuclear power plant.

Black-Haired Man: attacked and killed by the alien in the plant's core.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (118/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,436

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 61

Grand Total: 1,585

The X-Files: Fight the Future

Synopsis

In 35,000 BC, two cavemen pursue an alien into an ice cave in the north Texas area and kill it, whereupon one is quickly infected by black oil that bleeds from the creature. In present day north Texas, a boy is infected with the oil after falling into a cavern and finding the cavemen bones. After an initial emergency response fails, a black helicopter arrives with people in biohazard suits to secure the area.

One week later, Mulder and Scully, having been reassigned but still part of the same team following the closure of the X-Files, are investigating a bomb threat to a federal building in Dallas. On a hunch, Mulder searches the building across the street and finds a bomb hidden in a vending machine. The building is successfully evacuated, but the bomb technician allows the device to explode, leveling a good portion of the structure. Mulder is surprised to hear that despite the building apparently being cleared, a young boy and three firefighters were found dead in the debris.

Mulder is also depressed when Scully tells him she is considering reassignment, and goes to a bar to drown his sorrows. There, he meets Dr. Alvin Kurtzweil, who says he used to work with Mulder's father and also that the Dallas building had a FEMA quarantine center that was destroyed to cover something. Back in Texas, Cancer Man arrives at some sort of well-guarded facility that has been set up at the cavern and is shown a parasitic alien that is growing inside a surviving firefighter. Cancer Man orders that he be kept alive so a vaccine can be tested.

The agents find that one of the Dallas bodies, being kept in the Bethesda Naval Hospital, is more disease-jellied than blown up. Someone pegs a child pornography charge on Kurtzweil, and he is driven into hiding. He tells Mulder how a plague is being manufactured to allow FEMA to come to power as a secret government. Yes, this movie was made well before Katrina.

The alien burrows out of the surviving firefighter and attacks a Syndicate doctor, who is left for dead. The Syndicate meets in London, and it is revealed that a virus has mutated into a new biological entity. The Well-Manicured Man is displeased, thinking it means their work towards colonization has been a lie. Mulder and Scully return to Texas to find that the operation has been completely removed, but are tipped off to the direction some unmarked tanker trucks went by the local kids. They happen upon an enormous cornfield and a couple of giant domes that release a swarm of bees, and narrowly escape pursuit by a pair of black helicopters.

Back in DC, Scully gets an order to transfer to Salt Lake City. The agents share a tender moment, which is rudely interrupted when a bee stings Scully and infects her with the alien virus. Mulder is shot and nearly killed by the fake paramedics who pick her up, and Scully is spirited away on a plane. The Syndicate does away with Kurtzweil, who has written a few books on the coming Armageddon. Mulder leaves the hospital unnoticed with help from The Lone Gunmen, and the Well-Manicured Man gives Mulder a weak vaccine against the virus and the coordinates for the Antarctic location where Scully is being held. He says the aliens placed the virus on the planet to infect its inhabitants at a later point, that the Syndicate has been trying to find a cure as a way of helping themselves, and that without a vaccination only alien-human hybrids will survive. He also says that Mulder's father gave up Samantha in the hopes that Mulder would uncover the project.

Mulder goes to Antarctica. The Well-Manicured Man, who has apparently killed himself with a car bomb after revealing the secrets to Mulder, has also hinted that the scope of the Syndicate's project is pretty big. Sure enough, Mulder finds thousands of cryogenic pods at a facility beneath the base. He finds Scully and administers the vaccine, which infects the whole system and starts to break it down. The Syndicate evacuates, and Mulder manages to escape with Scully as an enormous spacecraft exits the ice and flies off.

Of course, no one believes the agents. The tanker trucks are sent off with fresh labels, the corn fields are burned down, and only the bee that stung Scully is left as any sort of evidence. The Texas ordeal is covered up as a Hanta virus outbreak. Mulder urges Scully to go off and do her own thing so she doesn't have to be caught up in his crusade (and imprisoned in Antarctica and all that), but she vows to stay with him. In Tunisia, Cancer Man visits another corn-bee operation run by a Syndicate member and produces a telegram advising that the X-Files have been reopened.

Martin Landau, who plays Kurtzweil, is a fairly well-known actor, namely from his role as Rollin Hand in Mission Impossible. Ted King, who plays an FBI agent on the roof, also played Lorenzo Alcazar on General Hospital. And I'm a big Lost fan, so I guess I'll mention that Terry O'Quinn of John Locke fame briefly appears to get blown to smithereens.

Movie Body Count

Caveman-sicle: found encased in a glacier.

Two cavemen: one is killed by an alien, another is infected by the black oil. Even if he didn't die then, it was tens of thousands of years ago and he's not coming back.

35,000 BC alien: stabbed to death by a caveman.

Agent Darius Michaud: killed after he allows the vending machine bomb to go off.

Stevie and three firefighters: possibly killed by the black oil or other means; their bodies are found in the Dallas building after the explosion.

At least five Bethesda Naval Hospital bodies: nine bodies are visible in the morgue, and since one of them is one of the firefighters found in Dallas it's possible that three other bodies could be from the same site.

Another firefighter: left dead after an alien burrows out of his torso.

Dr. Ben Bronschweig: killed by said alien.

Dr. Alvin Kurtzweil: apparently killed by the Syndicate.

Well-Manicured Man's driver: shot by the Well-Manicured Man.

Well-Manicured Man: killed by a car bomb, apparently a suicide, after revealing a good deal of the Syndicate's work to Mulder.

Humans: 18
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 1

Cumulative Body Count (117/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,432

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 61

Grand Total: 1,581

Site Update: Expect Slowdowns

This site is getting steady if very low traffic, and three followers have showed up so far. Can't really expect too much in the way of followers on a site dedicated to a TV show that started 16 years ago and has been off the air for a little more than seven years. I thought I'd give a little bit of an update on the future of the site for those who are following, though.

First off, I did an interview some time back for XFN, or X-Files News (link is available at right). This is pretty much the premier site for information on what's going on with the actors associated with the show and upcoming events and such, and it seems to be a main congregating point for X-Philes who still care enough about the show to seek out sites about it. The interview hasn't run yet, but the person who did it wrote me to let me know that it should be coming up at some point. I'll post a link whenever that happens.

Also...

"This is a great show..."

The payments I make toward my TV access actually have meaning again! Fall is here, and the shows I currently watch have either started or will be doing so soon. That's going to take up 10 hours per week, more or less, which is going to be combined with a full-time job, socializing with friends, sleep, reading, work on other blogs, etc. I'll probably still be able to check out a few episodes per week, though.

In the meantime, my Netflix subscription is very nearly running out, but the first X-Files movie is set to arrive tomorrow. I'll check it out and do a post then, and start going to town on the last four seasons after that.

Season 5, Episode 20: The End

Synopsis

At a surprisingly well-attended chess match in Canada, a 12-year-old prodigy named Gibson Praise senses a sniper in the rafters and manages to dodge a bullet by quickly winning the game and pushing back his chair. Krycek goes to Canada to bring Cancer Man back from his cabin. The sniper turns out to be former NSA, and Spender has been given the case by an out-of-bureau order. Mulder sees Praise's dodge on a video of the shooting and thinks Praise was the target. Another agent, Diana Fowley, agrees and suggests that Praise sensed the shot by precognition.

The Syndicate tells Cancer Man that Praise is a problem for them. Mulder, Scully, and Fowley meet Praise in a psychiatric hospital, and Mulder suggests to Praise that he has the ability to read people's minds. Mulder and Spender spar a little over how to run the case, with Mulder suggesting that Spender is hiding something. Scully goes to the Lone Gunmen with the results of Praise's brain scans, and finds from them that Fowley is Mulder's ex and has a background in the paranormal. Cancer Man goes to Spender in the FBI parking garage and says he gave him the case, then warns him not to become part of someone else's crusade but only pursue his own interests.

Scully tells Skinner that the tests on Praise shows extreme development in the "God nodule" of the brain, and Mulder suggests that he could be key to all of the paranormal things in the X-Files. Mulder wants the Attorney General to grant immunity for the sniper to help explain Praise and the interest in him. Fowley warns that he's risking the X-Files in doing so, but Mulder says he's willing to do that. The sniper hints that Praise is genetic proof of alien existence.

The sniper is killed in his cell, and Cancer Man kidnaps Praise from protective custody and delivers him to the Syndicate. Mulder realizes Cancer Man is still alive, and accuses Spender of working with him. The Attorney General and Spender are both pissed, and force the closure of the X-Files. Mulder realizes that everything has been carefully planned out. Cancer Man takes Samantha's case from the X-Files and torches the rest. He reveals to Spender on the way out that he's his father.

Martin Ferrero, who plays the sniper, also played Izzy Moreno on Miami Vice.

Episode Body Count

Russian chess opponent: shot by a sniper during a chess match against Praise.

Thug: shotgunned through a door by Cancer Man.

Sniper: shot by a prison guard.

U.S. Marshal: Skinner says one was killed during the kidnapping of Praise.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Season Body Count

Humans: 206
Creatures: 8
Aliens: 5

Decreases all around. A fairly non-deadly season.

Cumulative Body Count (117/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,414

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 60

Grand Total: 1,562

Season 5, Episode 19: Folie A Deux

Synopsis

A Chicago area telemarketer named Gary Lambert thinks he sees a giant insect-like creature in the office of the vinyl siding company where he works. Skinner sends the agents to investigate after someone releases an audio tape warning of a monster hiding in the light at the company; even Mulder thinks it's a little much. After Lambert thinks he sees a co-worker get zombified, he takes the office hostage, Mulder included.

Scully arrives in Chicago after discovering a similar case in Florida in 1992. Lambert says his boss, Mark Pincus, is using turning employees into mindless drones and controlling them via telepathy, and wants to get on TV to expose him. Shortly before a SWAT team storms the building, Mulder also sees Pincus as an insect-like creature. Mulder begins to connect reports of "hiding in the light" in the X-Files, as well as the Pincus' connection with them. He wonders if Pincus is using visual hallucinations that some people can see through.

Mulder returns to Chicago, and finds that Lambert was also doing an investigation of his own; Pincus and a zombified employee shadow the agents. An autopsy of a man Lambert shot in the hostage incident appears to have been dead for longer than he actually has been. Mulder tracks Pincus to another employee's house and breaks in to try to save her, leading her to file a complaint and Mulder having a seemingly psychotic episode where he tries to save Skinner from Insect Pincus.

Mulder is secured in a hospital, and tells Scully that Pincus bites or injects his victims on the neck, and begs her to believe him. Scully looks at the body again, and finds that it has some strange marks on the neck and has been injected with some sort of toxin. At the hospital, Mulder sees Insect Pincus at the window, and a nurse is convinced to open his window. Scully arrives, sees the nurse in zombie form, and chases Insect Pincus out of the room with some gunshots. Scully reports to Skinner that Mulder is not insane, and that Pincus and several key witnesses described by Mulder as zombies have disappeared. In Missouri, another telemarketer at the company sees an insect creature at his workplace.

Cynthia Preston, who plays Nancy Aaronson, also played Faith Roscoe on General Hospital.

Episode Body Count

Gerald Resnick: a Florida church deacon who Scully says commits suicide after believing there was an evil presence among the parishioners and wounding several of them.

Mark Backus: a VinylRight employee shot by Lambert after he tries to attack him.

Gary Lambert: shot by SWAT team members when they raid VinylRight.

Humans: 3
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (116/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,410

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 60

Grand Total: 1,558

Season 5, Episode 18: The Pine Bluff Variant

Synopsis

Jacob Steven Haley, a leader in a domestic terrorist group, escapes an FBI sting after a man meeting with him gets exposed to a flesh-eating toxin. Scully suspects that Mulder may have helped Haley get away. The FBI is also seeking out August Bremer, the group's top commander. Bremer releases toxin at an Ohio movie theater, and Scully confirms that Mulder is in contact with Haley. She tries to pursue, but then gets stopped by other FBI agents, who let her know that Mulder is in deep cover, having been recruited by the group thanks to his public accusations about government conspiracy.

Haley suspects Mulder of setting him up in the park sting, and has a goon break one his fingers; he also lets him live, however, believing that Mulder is telling the truth about being on their side. Investigating the movie theater deaths, Scully figures that the toxin is not airborne, and may have been transmitted through the ticket stubs. Mulder finds that the group is looking to hit a bank and provides Federal Reserve schedules to them. Analysis of the toxin reveals that it's highly virulent bacteria, and its origin is a mystery.

Scully suggests to Skinner that the toxin may be part of a secret continuation of a U.S. bioweapons program, and that someone might be sending Mulder on a suicide mission. The group forces Mulder to join them in an armed robbery of a bank in Pennsylvania. When Bremer burns the money they steal, Mulder realizes that the goal of the heist was to spray the unstolen money with the toxin.

Scully has deduced this, and warns Skinner. Unfortunately, they apparently don't know where Mulder is due to a high number of bank robberies on the East Coast. Bremer, who had previously managed to bug the FBI and find that Mulder is a double agent, kicks Haley out of the group and has the goon prepare to execute Mulder. Instead, Bremer reveals that he's also a double agent by killing the goon and letting Mulder go. Scully has already locked down the bank, having recognized Mulder on a surveillance thanks to his broken finger. Mulder and Scully think the toxin may have come from government labs, but by the end of the episode everything has been sanitized.

Daniel von Bargen, who plays Jacob Steven Haley, played the not-quite-as-evil Commandant Edwin Spangler on Malcolm in the Middle, plus Chief Grady in Super Troopers and Sheriff Cooley in O Brother Where Art Thou? Sam Anderson, playing Leamus, currently plays Bernard Nadler on Lost and played Dr. Jack Kayson in ER.

Episode Body Count

Cadre: an arms dealer who dies after exposure to the flesh-eating toxin.

14 theater-goers and employees: perish at an airing of Die Hard With a Vengeance after toxin exposure.

Bank teller: shot and subsequently executed during the bank robbery.

Goatee Man: shot and killed by Bremer.

Jacob Steven Haley: dies after exposure to the toxin.

Humans: 18
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (115/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,407

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 60

Grand Total: 1,555

Season 5, Episode 17: All Souls

Synopsis

A wheelchair-bound girl named Dara Kernoff stumbles out into the rain on the evening of her baptism. She dies and has her eyes burned out after being hit by a flash of bright light from an approaching figure while praying. Scully goes to confession and says an innocent girl is dead because of her, and that she could have saved her but let her die. One week earlier, Scully's priest approaches her in regards to Kernoff's death and asked that she talk to them given her background. Her cause of death suggests lightning, but the medical examiner can't be sure.

Another girl, named Paula Koklos, dies in the same manner in a psychiatric hospital, and the agents find that she and Kernoff were part of a set of quadruplets; Mulder sees an inverted cross in the room and suspects a religious whacko. They visit a priest named Father Gregory, who was trying to adopt Koklos and has founded a church with an inverted cross as its symbol. He tells them that the girls' mother died in childbirth. Meanwhile, Scully's thoughts keep drifting back to her deceased daughter, Emily, including a vision of her during Koklos' autopsy.

Mulder gets a lead on a third sister, and arrests Father Gregory after he shows up at the girl's (identical) death. He claims he's trying to help the girls, and tells Scully that the last one is unprotected as long as he's in custody. Scully believes him, but doesn't tell Mulder. Father Gregory dies after refusing to give up the fourth girl's location to a social worker assigned to Koklos, and is burned to death.

Mulder finds that the fourth girl was taken from her foster father by Father Gregory, and Scully witnesses a man emitting a very bright light. Scully describes him as having four non-human faces, akin to a religious creature known as a seraphim: a figure who brings the offspring of angels into Heaven so the Devil can't get them. The devilish social worker meets Scully and takes her Father Gregory's church, saying the fourth girl is there. Suspecting him, Scully tries to rescue her, but instead lets her go toward the bright light of the seraphim after seeing another vision of Emily. Unfortunately, this results in the girl's death. Scully tells the priest that she is unable to reconcile her complicity in the girl's death with her belief that she was going on to Heaven, but also considers that faith is the ability to handle such a loss.

Emily Perkins, who plays Dara Kernof and her sisters, also played Sue Lewis on Da Vinci's Inquest.

Episode Body Count

Dara Kernoff: dies in a praying position with her eyes burned out after leaving her wheelchair and being approached by a mysterious figure.

Paula Koklos: dies in an identical manner in a psychiatric hospital.

The girls' mother: Father Gregory says she died in childbirth.

Third sister: dies an identical manner in an abandoned building.

Father Gregory: burned to death by Aaron Starkey in a police interrogation room.

Roberta Dyer: dies in Father Gregory's church after Scully lets her approach the seraphim.

Humans: 6
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (114/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,389

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 60

Grand Total: 1,537

Season 5, Episode 16: Mind's Eye

Synopsis

In Delaware, a blind woman named Marty Glenn is found at the murder scene of a heroin dealer, and the unusual circumstances bring in the X-Files team. Mulder isn't sure about her guilt, despite Glenn's criminal record and confrontational attitude. During a polygraph test, Marty fails a question by saying she didn't see the murder. From jail, Glenn calls a man in a bar and tells him not to go after a woman, warning, "I'm watching you."

Scully finds a glove concealed in a wall, which seems to fit Glenn's hand and have her fingerprints on it. Scully wonders if Glenn is not actually blind. Glenn's pupils dilate during a vision test, and she sees something during that period. Glenn is released due to the lack of a murder weapon. After another murderous vision, Glenn careens off to a nearby street and finds a body in a Dumpster. She confesses to that killing, as well as the dealer's.

Mulder believes that Glenn is witnessing the actual murderer, and wants her help in finding him. However, the local police are inclined to believe her confession, especially after she says her motive was drugs and tells the police where to find them. Mulder discovers that Glenn's mother died in a similar way to the past two victims, and thinks that she developed a connection with the killer and the ability to see through his eyes. Glenn is cleared of charges after forensic evidence determines that the killer is actually her father.

Glenn agrees to help the police find her father, but then ends up knocking out the local detective and taking his gun. Seeing through her father's eyes as he enters, she shoots him dead as he enters an apartment. The police are easily able to pin that murder on her, and she is sent to prison.

Lili Taylor, who plays Marty Glenn, also played Lisa Kimmel Fisher on Six Feet Under.

Episode Body Count

Paco Ordonez: a "two-time loser" heroin dealer who dies of blood loss after getting stabbed in the right kidney.

Susan Forrester: a waitress found dead in a Dumpster of a stab wound to the right kidney.

Glenn's mother: died in 1970 of a stab wound to the right kidney.

Charles Wesley Gotts: Glenn's father, shot dead by Glenn.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (113/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,383

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 60

Grand Total: 1,531

Season 5, Episode 15: Travelers

Synopsis

In 1990, a decomposed body is found in the bathtub of a Wisconsin man named Edward Skur. After he is shot, Skur repeats "Mulder" over and over again to the sheriff. Mulder, a greener pre-X-Files agent, is interested in the case and Skur's repetition of the family name. It turns out Skur disappeared 38 years prior and was wanted for a series of killings in which the victims' soft tissue was removed. Mulder starts to converse with Arthur Dales, the special agent who worked on the case.

Thinking back on the case, Dales remembers arresting Skur with his partner on suspicion of being a Communist. He heard that he hanged himself, then saw him walking on the street and was attacked by him, seeing tentacles beginning to emerge from Skur's mouth before he was scared off. Dales was warned off the matter, but pursued it anyway. He was tipped off to visit a German doctor, who was found dead and decomposed in his home.

Dales met with his informant, Mulder's father, who told him that Skur and two other State Department men (smeared as Communists) were turned into something, and the two others committed suicide. Bill Mulder told Dales that Skur was seeking revenge for the men who did the experiment on him, and thought Dales and his partner were part of it. Skur killed Dales' partner by destroying his internal organs with his tentacles.

Dales' assistant said she saw one of the three men's names in an unsolved case, which are filed under "X," and it led him to one of the dead men. An autopsy discovered something crablike in the body, and Dales told Skur's wife that the three men may have been involved in xenotransplantation experiments: the grafting of one species onto another, and something the Nazis were toying with. Skur, who was hiding in the bomb shelter, killed his wife after losing control of his other species.

J. Edgar Hoover told Dales that the U.S. must use the tools of the enemy if they are to defeat them, and gave Dales a chance to clear his name for disobeying orders by meeting Skur while wearing a wire. Skur told Dales that he's part of the government test now, and the other G-men won't come for him. He attacked Dales, but Dales managed to escape after handcuffing Skur to a bar rail. In the present-ish day, Mulder is disappointed that his father would let the government dictate his conscience. However, we see that Bill Mulder actually let Skur escape, apparently in hopes that the government's crimes would one day be exposed.

Garret Dillahunt, who plays Edward Skur, was also Cromartie/John Henry on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Francis Wolcott on Deadwood. Frederic Lehne, who plays the younger Arthur Dales, also appeared on Lost as U.S. Marshal Edward Mars and Eddie Cronin on Dallas.

Episode Body Count

Bathtub victim: found in Edward Skur's bathtub in Wisconsin.

Edward Skur: shot and killed after attacking a sheriff serving his eviction notice.

Decomposed German doctor: found by Dales and his partner.

Gissing and Oberman: commit suicide after they are subject to an experiment.

Agent Hayes Michel: tentacled to death by Skur.

Dr. Stohman: another German doctor who dies at the Veterans Administration.

Mrs. Skur: killed by her husband.

Humans: 8
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (112/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,379

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 60

Grand Total: 1,527

Season 5, Episode 14: The Red and the Black

Synopsis

The episode opens with an unseen man writing a letter to his son in a remote Canadian cabin in the snowy woods. He gives it to a young boy to deliver to the FBI. The title screen reads "Resist or Serve."

Emergency responders arrive at the Ruskin Dam in Pennsylvania, the site of the latest carnage. Scully has survived along with about 50 other people, though she's suffered from minor burns and abnormally depleted fluids. Marita's also not doing so well following her infection by the black oil. Cassandra is not found among the victims, and Spender is a little pissed at the agents. Mulder assures him she'll be found. Krycek has been captured by the Well-Manicured Man aboard the freighter, and he figures Krycek infected the boy as a safeguard and that the Russians have managed to develop a vaccine.

A UFO carrying a couple of faceless men crashes on an Air Force base, and one is captured alive. Mulder thinks Scully's implant has been a way for the government to monitor her reaction to experimental biological weapons, and that they have no qualms about killing the "experiments." The Syndicate reveal that the faceless men are alien rebels struggling against alien colonists, and that they have sealed off their orifices to prevent black oil infection. The Well-Manicured Man has retrieved the vaccine from Krycek, and the Syndicate test it out on Marita. They also debate whether or not to turn over the captured rebel to the colonists.

Scully undergoes hypnosis to recover memories from the dam, and remembers seeing a UFO and the alien rebels torching everyone. She says a second UFO vaporized the two attackers before abducting Cassandra. Mulder thinks it's a false memory along the lines of the disappearance of Samantha, though Skinner considers alien interference more plausible than a government conspiracy. Spender shows Scully a video of a hypnotherapy session he did when he was 11, and says he was only recounting a story his mother told him; he suspects Scully may have been influenced by Mulder.

Krycek confronts Mulder and tells him that the latest incidents are strikes by an alien rebellion to try to inhibit alien colonization of Earth. He warns him that the rebellion will dissolve if the captured rebel dies. Mulder and Scully check out the Air Force base, and Mulder boards a truck carrying the rebel and driven by the Alien Bounty Hunter. A UFO appears, along with another rebel alien; Mulder ends up firing a shot, but we don't see who he hits, if anyone. He loses his memory, and the rebel is gone. The vaccine works on Marita. Mulder opens an X-File on Cassandra's disappearance, and Spender gets a letter that was sent in the beginning of the episode. He returns it to the sender: Cancer Man.

Episode Body Count

At least 51 Ruskin Dam bodies: incinerated in another mass death incident. A TV broadcast, describing it as a cult suicide, says over 50 bodies have been found. They apparently include Dmitri and "Quiet Willy" the Syndicate assassin.

At least one alien rebel: killed when his ship crashes at Wiekamp Air Force Base.

Two more alien rebels: Scully recalls that they were destroyed on the dam after being bombarded by a second UFO.

Humans: 51
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 3

UNDEAD'D

Cancer Man: managed to survive an assassination attempt and relocate to a cabin in Quebec.

Humans: 1
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (111/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,371

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 60

Grand Total: 1,519

Season 5, Episode 13: Patient X

Synopsis

Two boys in Kazakhstan see a light descend to earth, and follow it to find several burning vehicles. One boy is taken by a faceless man. The next day, Krycek and his cohorts take away the surviving boy, Dmitri, as a UN peacekeeping force led by Marita arrives. Krycek tells her to tell the Syndicate that "it's all going to hell." Meanwhile, at MIT, Mulder takes part in a panel discussion on alien abductions. Mulder is skeptical of some footage shown of an abductee named Cassandra Spender, and is advancing the theory suggested by Kritschgau of a government conspiracy rather than extraterrestrial life.

At his hypnotherapist's suggestion, Mulder visits Cassandra. She tells him that there is unrest among the alien races, but he isn't willing to believe it. Dmitri is taken to the Tunguska gulag, infected with the black oil, and taken away by Krycek aboard a Russian freighter. An FBI agent named Jeffrey Spender, Cassandra's son, asks Scully for help in keeping his mother low-profile. Marita tells the Syndicate that some bodies included neck implants, and they wonder if was a staging for a mass abduction prior to something on the alien timetable. Krycek calls to question the progress of a vaccine for the black oil, and says Dmitri has knowledge in their interest if they can give him something in exchange.

Scully feels a connection with Cassandra, since she was also abducted at Skyland Mountain.

Meanwhile, dozens of abductees are immolated at the mountain by a faceless man. Marita and Krycek have apparently been colluding to gain power behind the Syndicate's back, and Dmitri disappears. Mulder notes the implants in some of the corpses, and figures they may have been herded to their deaths for some reason. Scully urges him to take Cassandra's theories into consideration.

Marita, who has taken Dmitri, calls Mulder to let him know about the incident in Kazakhstan. She is approached soon after by Dmitri, who is oozing black oil. Scully accompanies Cassandra and another group of abductees, along with Dmitri and an assassin in the employ of the Syndicate, to a dam somewhere. They witness an approaching bright light, and are frightened when two faceless men approach after torching someone with the same weapon one used at Skyland. To be continued...

Veronica Cartwright, who plays Cassandra Spender, also played Lambert on Alien.

Episode Body Count

41 abductees: burned to death by some sort of biochemical reaction in Khazakhstan.

Doctor: found hung in the Tunguska gulag.

At least 20 Skyland Mountain victims: burned to death by the faceless men. Tough to see how many body bags there are, but 20 names scroll on the TV news as a partial list.

Humans: 62
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (110/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,321

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 57

Grand Total: 1,466

Season 5, Episode 12: Bad Blood

Synopsis

Welcome to one of the funniest episodes of The X-Files, and apparently Gillian Anderson's favorite one. A teen named Ronnie Strickland is pursued through the Texas wilderness by Mulder, who stakes him through the heart. Mulder points to some vampire-like fangs in Strickland's mouth to explain his action, though Scully removes them to reveal they are fake. "Oh, shi-" Mulder starts before getting cut off by the credits.

Back in DC, the agents are a little nervous about the possibility of prison and a $440 million lawsuit against the FBI and go over their stories. Scully recalls that Mulder wanted them to go to Texas to investigate the deaths of several cows and a tourist by exsanguination. She also recalls a handsome sheriff joining the investigation and flirting with him, and Mulder ditching her with an autopsy.

Scully finds that the tourist had a knockout drug in his system and pizza for his last meal. She also recalls Mulder coming into the motel dirty and sending her to autopsy another dead body, and Strickland delivering a pizza as she headed out. She says she deduced that Strickland could be the culprit after discovering pizza in the new victim, and found Strickland in the motel room and Mulder drugged (and singing the theme to Shaft). She says she tried to catch him, but Mulder got to him first.

Mulder disputes her version, and tells his own. He recalls that Scully was petulant and unenthusiastic about the case, and that the town mortician had a lot of caskets for a small town. Also that the sheriff was a buck-toothed hick. Mulder says he and the sheriff staked out the local cemetery, then had to go to the local RV park (where Strickland lived) to stop a runaway motor home. Which is both how Mulder got so muddy and found the new dead tourist. He remembers getting drugged, almost getting attacked by Strickland, then witnessing him get shot twice by Scully without effect and taking a superhuman flying leap to escape.

Skinner surprises the agents by sending them back to Texas, since Strickland has attacked the coroner (though only gnawed on him without killing him) and left the morgue. Mulder and Scully check out the cemetery again; the sheriff shows up, and it turns out that he speaks quite Southernly but doesn't have buck teeth. Mulder leaves Scully with the sheriff while he goes to check out the RV park where Strickland was living. The sheriff drugs Scully and reveals that he's a vampire, and says they're really not bad people. At the park, Mulder finds Strickland sleeping in a coffin, then gets swarmed by other vampires while trying to arrest him. The agents are left alive, but the entire RV park has picked up and moved on.

Luke Wilson, known for roles in several movies including Old School and Idiocracy, plays Sheriff Hartwell in this episode. Brent Butt, who plays the coroner, played Brent LeRoy on Corner Gas and also wrote and produced the show. Patrick Renna, who plays Ronnie Strickland, might be recognizable to some of you as Hamilton Porter from The Sandlot.

Episode Body Count

Ronnie Strickland: staked through the heart by Mulder, which apparently renders him dead until a coroner removes it to undead him.

Six dead cows: die by exsanguination via a couple of fangs.

Dwight Funt: a New Jersey vacationer, also killed by exsanguination.

Paul Lombardo: a Florida tourist killed by exsanguination.

Humans: 2
Creatures: 6
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (109/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,259

Creatures: 88
Aliens: 57

Grand Total: 1,404

Season 5, Episode 11: Kill Switch

Synopsis

A man manages to hack into some sort of system at an all night diner in DC. An anonymous caller sends several drug dealers with grudges to the diner. As the hacker is about to do something with a CD-ROM, two U.S. Marshals enter and a massive shootout erupts. Mulder thinks the target was the hacker, a Silicon Valley genius named Donald Gelman who disappeared in 1979. Mulder also takes the CD in the laptop, which plays music and causes the car's lights to flash.

The Lone Gunmen take a crack at Gelman's laptop, and find an e-mail pointing to a shipping container. The container turns out to be the living/hacking space of a hacker named Invisigoth. Soon after, she warns them that a defense satellite is locking onto the container, and the three flee as the container is blown up by a laser from space. Invisigoth tells Mulder and Scully that Gelman released an interlocking series of viruses onto the Internet to evolve into an artificial intelligence. She also says the system will target her if it recognizes where she is by voice or other cues, since it's become malevolent, and that Gelman was working on a kill switch (the CD) to destroy the program.

Invisigoth says the kill switch has to be fed directly into the source. Invisigoth takes Scully, under gunpoint, to find a third hacker associated with the kill switch named David, only to find that his house has been destroyed. Mulder, looking for a safehouse the AI is believed to have created, discovers a tech-filled trailer in the middle of a Virginia field. He finds David dead inside, then gets captured by a virtual reality machine that depicts him in a strange hospital where vindictive doctors amputate limbs. Invisigoth tries to remotely cut off the AI's Internet access, but is unsuccessful after another space laser destroys her laptop.

Scully and Invisigoth find the trailer and head in. The AI starts to target itself, and Invisigoth briefly puts it on hold with the kill switch to allow Scully to escape with Mulder. She puts herself through some kind of upload with the virtual reality machine before the trailer is destroyed, and Mulder wonders if she somehow managed to live on in a virtual way. The Lone Gunmen get a "Bite Me" message on their computer, and in Nebraska another AI trailer remains in an RV park.

Peter Williams, who plays Jackson, was also on Da Vinci's Inquest as Morris Winston and Stargate SG-1 as Apophis. Kristen Lehman, playing Invisigoth, was also Kristin Adams on the series Poltergeist: The Legacy and Dr. Lily Reddicker on Judging Amy.

Episode Body Count

Eleven Metro Diner victims: two U.S. Marshals, Donald Gelman, and eight cocaine dealers all apparently die in a shootout.

David Markham: found dead in the AI trailer.

Invisigoth (aka Esther Nairn): is killed by the virtual reality machine, or else by the defense satellite that destroyed the trailer. Mulder suggests that she might be alive in some way on the Internet, but hey, her body is toast.

Humans: 13
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Clinches Deadliest of Season for now.

Cumulative Body Count (108/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,257

Creatures: 82
Aliens: 57

Grand Total: 1,396

Season 5, Episode 10: Chinga

Synopsis

Somewhere in Maine, a nervous woman named Melissa takes her daughter shopping and sees an image of a dead butcher. Shortly after the girl's creepy doll opens its eyes and declares that it wants to have fun, everyone in the store starts clawing at their eyes. The butcher gets the worst of it, stabbing himself in the head after trying to confront the doll. Scully is on vacation there, and happens to run across the bloodshed at the market. She joins the case, and sees how Melissa and her daughter are the only people unaffected.

Scully finds that Melissa's daughter is autistic, and managed to knock out a her teacher after the teacher slapped her during a tantrum. A police officer named Buddy Riggs lets her know what's going on and urges her to get out of town with him, while Melissa warns him to not get involved. Melissa's daughter and/or her doll scalp an ice cream parlor worker who slighted her. Scully tries to leave the case after meeting with the teacher, a latter-day Puritan firebrand who thinks Melissa and her daughter are witches, but is once again recruited after the teacher turns up dead. Mulder, meanwhile, continues to chime in via phone to offer advice.

Melissa continues to see images of people who are about to die, while her daughter continues to run a dollocracy in the house. Riggs suspects Melissa of involvement in the murders, tries to take her in, and ends up clubbing himself to death. The fishing partner of Melissa's dead husband tells Scully that the man died after a grappling hook was somehow punched through his skull a few days after pulling up the doll in a lobster trap. Much to Mulder's delight, Scully begins to suspect the doll.

Melissa, after seeing an image of herself with a hammer in her head, tries to torch the house with her daughter and the doll inside. The doll puts a stop to these efforts, and Scully and a police officer manage to break in. As Melissa starts to hit herself with the hammer, Scully convinces her daughter to give her the doll and proceeds to nuke it in the microwave, ending the curse. Scully returns to Washington, a little more curious about Mulder's "I Want To Believe" poster. Back in Maine, another fisherman dredges up the doll, burned but still functional.

The episode was written by noted horror author and Maine resident Stephen King.

Episode Body Count

Dave the Butcher: dies after he is forced to stab himself in the eye. Ouch.

Melissa Turner's husband: a fisherman, dies after getting a grappling hook through his skull prior to the episode. Also ouch.

Jane Froelich: Polly Turner's former teacher, dies after she is forced to slice open an artery with a broken record.

Buddy Riggs: dies after he is forced to beat himself to death with his nightstick.

Humans: 4
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (107/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,244

Creatures: 82
Aliens: 57

Grand Total: 1,383

Season 5, Episode 9: Schizogeny

Synopsis

A man in Michigan dies after getting sucked into the mud while chasing his stepson through his hazelnut orchard. His stepson, Bobby Rich, wasn't on very good terms with him, but claims he was trying to help his stepfather. His stepfather says Bobby came from an abusive household, suggesting Bobby may have had reason to commit murder, but Mulder thinks he's innocent. Bobby, meanwhile, encourages a friend named Lisa to stand up for herself. Lisa's father dies soon after, apparently pushed out of a window.

Looking at the evidence at Lisa's home, Mulder thinks that Lisa's father was actually pulled out of the window. Mulder finds that a splinter of wood in Lisa's father's neck came from a living greenwood tree. A mysterious man appears to let the agents know that something weird happens with the trees every 20 years. The agents find that the therapist's father also died an orchard-related death, but fail to deduce that the therapist has kidnapped Lisa and is holding her hostage. Linda's aunt is killed by a tree after she sees that Linda is being imprisoned in the therapist's basement.

Mulder suspects that it's all related to the orchards that form the livelihood of the area's people, while Scully thinks the only connection is that the children they've come across are abused. In another interview, Bobby says the therapist made him stand up to his stepfather. Realizing that the therapist is both the victim and the killer, the agents chase after her as she starts to take Bobby into the mud. The mysterious orchard man decapitates the therapist. The death remains unexplained, though Mulder notes how she was abused herself and wonders if her inability to face her past ultimately consumed her.

Episode Body Count

Phil Rich: dies after drowning in the mud of his orchard.

Eugene Baiocchi: dies after being shoved out of the window by a tree branch.

Karin Matthews' father: also died in the orchard, 20 years prior.

Linda Baiocchi: tree'd to death upon discovering that Lisa has been kidnapped.

Karin Matthews: decapitated by the mysterious orchard man.

Humans: 5
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (106/202 episodes, 0/2 movies)

Humans: 1,240

Creatures: 82
Aliens: 57

Grand Total: 1,379