Season 10, Episode 3: Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-monster

Synopsis

During a full moon, a couple of burnouts in Oregon witness a three-eyed monster attacking an animal control officer and find that another person has been killed. Mulder has grown more skeptical about the unexplained phenomena in the X-Files, considering that they can be explained away as pranks and unreliable sightings. Scully lets him know about the Oregon case, where local police have found three more bodies.

A prostitute near the crime scene is attacked by a creature, but says it only has two eyes. Mulder and the animal control officer are also ambushed by a creature, and Mulder gets some footage of it on his smartphone. The agents pursue the creature into a portable toilet and find a dapper gentleman; unbeknownst to them, the man seems to be in the final stages of transitioning back into a human.

Based on the phone footage, Mulder thinks the creature has shot blood from his eyes like the horned lizard. At the motel, Mulder hears the owner screaming about monsters and discovers that the establishment has a secret hallway for peeping on guests. The owner confesses that he saw a guest transform into a two-eyed monster who looks similar to the man they saw in the portable toilet. Mulder quickly reverts to his numerous paranormal theories, much to Scully's delight.

Mulder visits with a psychiatrist who prescribed the lizard man, also known as Guy Mann, some anti-psychotic medication. Scully finds Mann working in a cell phone store, but he flees as soon as she tries to ask him some questions. After Mulder tracks him down in a cemetery, Mann says he was bitten by a man and changed from his natural form into a human, after which he felt helplessly compelled to dress himself in human clothes, get a job, eat a hamburger, and watch porn. He says he's been transforming into a human each morning and plagued by various midlife crises.

Mann says that he saw the person who infected him and witnessed him kill another creature. He also recalls how the prostitute attacked him and some weirdo took a picture of him in the toilet. And that Scully seduced him in a cheesy pornographic setup, at which point Mulder begins to doubt his story. Mann begs Mulder to put him out of his misery, but gets offended when realizes that Mulder is an FBI agent.

Scully is attacked by the animal control officer, who turns out to be a serial killer. Mulder finds Mann just as he is stripping naked to go into hibernation, which he says will last for 10,000 years. Mulder apologizes for considering him as a suspect, but still doubts Mann's story. However, he is pleasantly surprised when Mann says he is glad to have met someone like Mulder, then transforms back into lizard form and disappears into the woods.

Alex Diakun, who plays the motel manager, previously appeared in the X-Files episodes "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space,'" "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," and "Humbug" as well as The X-Files: I Want to Believe. If the stoners look familiar, it's because they've been getting high and encountering strange things since the episodes "The War of the Coprophages" and "Quagmire." This episode also features a notable Easter egg in that the gravestones in the cemetery include ones for Kim Manners, who directed 52 episodes of the show and died in 2009, and Jack Hardy, the assistant director who helped direct several Chris Carter series as well as the second X-Files movie; he too has since passed away.

Episode Body Count

Four victims: discovered by the Oregon authorities after an attack on an animal control officer

Another victim: found by Mulder and Scully soon after they arrive in Oregon

Dear Friend George: Mann says his buddy was gored by a jackalope. Mulder points out that jackalopes aren't real, but Mann is rather insistent about it.

Humans: 6
Creatures: 0
Aliens: 0

Cumulative Body Count (202/202 episodes, 2/2 movies, 3/16 reboot episodes)

Humans: 2,327
Creatures: 132
Aliens: 66


Grand Total: 2,525