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: 88Aliens: 57
Grand Total: 1,404
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