Season 7, Episode 8: The Amazing Maleeni

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Season 6, Episode 16: Alpha

Synopsis

A vicious creature escapes its crate and kills two crewmen on a Chinese freighter before it docks in California. A man named Dr. Ian Detweiler is angry that he hasn't been notified of the creature's arrival, and also the fact that it's gone. The wolf-like beast goes on to slaughter a customs agent and his dog. Mulder and Scully find that Detweiler is a cryptozoolgist, and that he thinks the creature has been stolen. Mulder suspects the dog has human-like intelligence, and goes to a dog expert named Karin Berquist who he's become acquainted with through the Internet. Berquist even has her own "I Want To Believe" poster, and Scully quickly thinks that she's more interested in Mulder than the case.

Berquist is dismissive of the idea that the beast is an extinct dog called a Wanshang Dhole. A Fish and Game officer observes a human figure change into the wolf beast before it attacks him. Berquist becomes more interested in the case, and also says she distrusts Detweiler. A vet manages to escape the beast and trap it in a room, but responding officers end up shooting a St. Bernard by mistake. After patching the dog up, the vet is killed and the dog transforms into the beast and runs off.

Berquist says that if the Wanshang Dhole survived it was because it was more cunning than man, and doesn't think Detweiler would have been able to catch it. Mulder begins to suspect Detweiler of something after finding that he stopped by the dead vet's clinic to pick up tranquilizers. He accuses Detweiler of getting caught by the Wanshang Dhole himself, and now becomes a shapeshifter upon nightfall and unsuccessfully sought to fight it with the tranks. Berquist confirms that Detweiler is the beast, and that he needs to be killed. She also tells Mulder that he'll try to kill a Fish and Game officer he wounded but didn't kill.

Detweiler doesn't show up at the hospital, and Mulder realizes that Berquist lied to him. Berquist waits in her home for the Detweiler-beast with a tranquilizer gun, but ends up letting him attack her. As a result, she gets pummeled through a second-story window. Detweiler is killed after being impaled on a fence, but Berquist also dies. She's also sent Mulder her poster, and he puts it up to replace the one destroyed in the fire.

Andrew Robinson, as Detweiler, also played Garak on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Melinda Culea, who plays Karin Berquist, was in several episodes of The A-Team as Amy Allen.

Episode Body Count

Fong and Woo: thanks for everything, signed, Detweiler/Alpha's teeth.

JoJo: who the hell is evil enough to kill a golden retriever? Oh right, Detweiler/Alpha.

Jake Conroy: a customs agent killed by Detweiler/Alpha.

Frank Fiedler: a Fish and Game officer killed by Detweiler/Alpha.

Dr. James Riley: a veterinarian who has his throat torn out by Betweiler/Alpha.

Dr. Ian Detweiler/Alpha: impales himself on a fence after attacking Berquist and flying through a window. I'll count it as a creature death, since he was in dog form when he died.

Karin Berquist: dies after being attacked by Detwiler/Alpha.

Humans: 6
Creatures: 2
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (133/202 episodes, 1/2 movies)

Humans: 1,534

Creatures: 104
Aliens: 62

Grand Total: 1,700