Season 9, Episode 9: Provenance

Synopsis

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

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

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

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

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

Episode Body Count

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

Humans: 0
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

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

Humans: 2,151

Creatures: 130
Aliens: 64

Grand Total: 2,345