"E PUR SI MUOVE"
An urgent message arrives at
the house of Vassily Peskow. The communique is from a
Comrade Arntzen in Krasnoyarsk.
He tells Mulder that the
first time is the worst..."It becomes easier each time until
it kills you." He tells Mulder that the experiment exposes
the prisoners to the Black Cancer which lived in the rocks
they mine.
As Dr. Charne-Sayre (the
woman that WMM was watching fondly as she rode the horse in
the paddock) enters the stables she is surprised by Peskow.
She tells him he must leave but before she can exit, he
grabs her by the throat with one hand and strangles
her.
Mulder breaks from the line
and rushes Krycek, knocking him into the back of a truck and
pummeling him unconscious. He then waves around the knife to
keep the guards back before jumping into the cab of the
truck and racing off the grounds with Ratboy in the
back.
CSM: Your personal physician
suffered a riding accident. WMM: Dr. Charne-Sayre was
murdered. CSM: By whom? WMM: If I knew do you think I'd be
standing here talking to you? CSM: So, you need ME now. A
man of my capabilities.
CSM: Call off the
congressional investigation. WMM: I can't. But Senator
Sorenson is an honorable man. They are all honorable, these
honorable men.
She goes back to her
prepared speech and says that there is a "culture of
lawlessness that prevents me from doing my job." She speaks
of men whose secret policies are behind the crimes they are
investigating. She is cited for contempt of congress for not
answering the question regarding Mulder's whereabouts. We
see Scully being escorted to her own private cell to
contemplate her actions.
Krycek is sleeping
peacefully in the forest next to a fire with his new
friends. They want to help him and protect him so, while
he's asleep, they jump him and hold him down while one of
them cuts his arm off with a red hot knife. Friends helping
friends.
She tells Skinner that it is
her nature to believe that those congressmen are acting in
the best interests of the truth but she's not inclined to
follow her own judgment in this case. "So you're going to
follow Agent Mulder's, is that it?" Skinner responds.
[Peskow] injects a liquid
substance through the biosuit and into the neck of Sacks and
we can see the oily worms exit the dying body behind the
face-shield. On his way out, Peskow steals the rock for good
measure.
WMM wants to know how the
Russians knew they were working on their own
inoculation...only six of them supposedly knew.
Once again, Scully is
brought back in front of the committee. They are giving her
another opportunity to answer their "pressing question".
Scully says she can't answer that question but would be
happy to discuss the pouch, the biohazardous rock, the
deaths of the various individuals, etc. They cut her off
with a stern, "Answer the question, Ms. Scully." At this
point Mulder walks into the hearing room and boldly puts
forth, "What IS the question?"
Scully explains to Mulder
that Dr. C-S was affiliated with a chain of convalescent
hospitals and Scully has made the connection between the
toxin and the mysterious death we saw in the teaser.
Scully theorizes that the
patients were test subjects of Dr. C-S's. Peskow changed the
meds to poison them and force the oilien creatures out to
destroy any proof or evidence.
When they ask about Krycek,
the name is not familiar to the militia guy. He says they
knew him as Arntzen. He tells Mulder and Scully that the
silo story wasn't true and, in fact, Arntzen had come to
them.
Mulder says this thing has
been one big set-up. Someone used Krycek, then Krycek used
them. And that someone didn't want the rock in American
hands. "Where would you put this rock if you didn't want it
to be found?" Mulder queries. Scully replies, "Back in the
ground."
Mulder tries to pull the
rock out of the pipe but it's too far down to reach. He
hears a timer about to go off and realizes the bomb will
detonate so he high-tails it out of there. He barely clears
the area when the bomb goes off, exploding the truck and
setting the jets of oil on fire. The fire draws all
available oxygen and in the process, sucks the rock into the
ventilation pipe, successfully burying it in the earth once
again.
Then what evidence does she
have, they inquire. She says she has documents and
interviews in support of a wide-ranging conspiracy to
control a lethal biotoxin that is in fact extraterrestrial.
What a step! Scully not only admits the extraterrestrial
angle out loud, but in front of a senate
subcommittee.
We see Krycek dipping a tea
ball in a cup of steaming water with his new prosthetic
arm/hand. Back in Senator Sorenson's office, we see the
senator passing a file with the hearing's evidence to
CSM.
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Terma (part 2 of 2)
Boca Raton, Florida...convalescent hospital. A woman sneaks
her mother out of a convalescent hospital to a van waiting
in the parking lot. She has brought a doctor to perform an
assisted suicide to relieve her mother's suffering. As the
drugs enter her mother's system and take effect, the
daughter is horrified to see black, worm-like creatures ooze
out of the nose, mouth and eyes of her dead mother.
St. Petersburg, Russia. An urgent message arrives at the
house of Vassily Peskow. The communique is from a Comrade
Arntzen in Krasnoyarsk. Peskow tells the messenger that he
is "retired from all that now". The messenger replies,
"Comrade Arntzen anticipated this response. He wants you to
know the Cold War is not over."
Back in his dank cell in the gulag, Mulder wakes up on
the floor in a bit of pain. His cell neighbor was talking to
him through the crack in the wall and feared that Mulder was
dead. He tells Mulder that the first time is the worst..."It
becomes easier each time until it kills you." He tells
Mulder that the experiment exposes the prisoners to the
Black Cancer which lived in the rocks they mine. Hundreds of
prisoners, possibly more, have died in their slow search for
a cure. At least he assumes that's what the experimental
goal is. Mulder asks where Krycek is and his neighbor says
he's probably dining with the men responsible for their
torture. He tells Mulder he heard Ratboy laughing when they
left the cell. Mulder is determined to live long enough to
dispatch Krycek from this life. His new friend gives him a
homemade knife that he lost interest in using on himself.
Scully, with the assistance of another doctor/scientist,
examines Dr. Sacks in an isolation suite. He is still
comatose, has had only fluids since the incident, and there
is no improvement. He has decreased heart rate and blood
pressure. During the examination, they find a black,
vermiform organism attached to his pineal gland. Meanwhile,
we see Peskow board a bus to Charlottesville, the location
of WMM's stables. As Dr. Charne-Sayre (the woman that WMM
was watching fondly as she rode the horse in the paddock)
enters the stables she is surprised by Peskow. She tells him
he must leave but before she can exit, he grabs her by the
throat with one hand and strangles her. Strong old guy.
Skinner catches Scully at her apartment and demands some
answers. He wants to know what she and Mulder are
investigating and what they know before he has to face the
senate subcommittee. Scully explains the rock and the
biohazardous organism that was contained in the pouch.
Skinner has done some investigating of his own through
unofficial channels. He tells Scully that the recipient of
the intercepted pouch was to be a Dr. Charne-Sayre. Scully
recognizes the name, saying Dr. C-S is a well-known
physician and virologist specializing in small pox. She was
a proponent of eliminating the last stores of the virus,
held in only two locations...Atlanta and the Soviet Union.
Skinner informs Scully that Dr. C-S was killed that evening
when a horse stepped on her throat in a riding accident.
Back at the gulag, Mulder is dragged from his cell for
mining duty. As he walks across the grounds with the other
prisoners, he spots a well-groomed and clothed Krycek
laughing and chumming around with the head badguy...the one
in charge when Mulder was injected in the neck. Mulder's new
friend asks, "Is that your friend? You have but one chance."
Mulder breaks from the line and rushes Krycek, knocking him
into the back of a truck and pummeling him unconscious. He
then waves around the knife to keep the guards back before
jumping into the cab of the truck and racing off the grounds
with Ratboy in the back. As he speeds down the uneven roads,
he finds that the truck's brakes have given out. Krycek
comes around, realizes they're out of control, and bails
out. Mulder tries to slow the truck by plowing through some
trees but ends up steering off an incline and crashing the
truck.
Charlottesville. CSM goes to see WMM. It's evening when
he arrives at the country house and we find WMM, smoking
silently on the porch...very reminiscent of Bill Mulder in
"Colony".
CSM: Your personal physician suffered a riding accident.
WMM: Dr. Charne-Sayre was murdered. CSM: By whom? WMM: If I
knew do you think I'd be standing here talking to you? CSM:
So, you need ME now. A man of my capabilities. WMM: This was
a professional hit. CSM: Were you sleeping with her? Surely
you wouldn't be so foolish as to put the project at risk for
the sake of your personal pleasures. WMM: Find her killer.
CSM: Call off the congressional investigation. WMM: I can't.
But Senator Sorenson is an honorable man. They are all
honorable, these honorable men. CSM: I heard Mulder was
captured in Tunguska. I hear now he's escaped. Wake the
Russian bear and it may find we've stolen its honey.
Guards find the overturned truck with blood on the
interior but no Mulder or Krycek. We see Krycek hurt and on
the run. He finds himself followed and then surrounded by a
group of Russian men...all one-armed. As he looks around, he
notices that all of them are missing their left arm. He
tells them he escaped from the prison camp but after giving
him the once over they don't believe him. He tells them he's
not a liar, that he's an American falsely accused of being a
spy. "Then your enemy is mine. We can protect you," he is
told. The guards are still searching for the escapees into
the night and pass just beside Mulder who has concealed
himself under a pile of leaves.
At this point in part 2, we have caught up with the
teaser from part 1. We see Scully taking the oath in front
of the senate subcommittee. She reads her prepared statement
but isn't allowed to continue on her "soapbox". She tells
the committee there are powerful men in the government who
have no respect for the law and who flout it with impunity.
They interrupt her to ask where Mulder is. Scully
respectfully refuses to answer since she feels answering may
endanger Mulder's life. She goes back to her prepared speech
and says that there is a "culture of lawlessness that
prevents me from doing my job." She speaks of men whose
secret policies are behind the crimes they are
investigating. She is cited for contempt of congress for not
answering the question regarding Mulder's whereabouts. We
see Scully being escorted to her own private cell to
contemplate her actions.
The owner of the truck that Mulder stole and crashed,
finds Mulder under his pile of leaves and drags him back to
his house. He's pretty mad because the truck is what keeps
him on the good side of the prison guards and keeps his
family from becoming test subjects. No truck, no special
treatment. Mulder looks pretty bruised and battered and the
truck owner's wife takes pity on him and tries to clean him
up. She sees the scar on his arm and tells him there is a
way to avoid being part of the experiments. She calls her
son in who is like the men that Krycek bumped into. He is
missing his left arm. Mulder doesn't seem too keen on this
solution and tells her if she helps him, he'll help them
escape as well. He just needs help getting to St.
Petersburg. At this point the husband re-enters the house
carrying a very large knife and it seems he has some plans
for Mulder. Meanwhile, Krycek is sleeping peacefully in the
forest next to a fire with his new friends. They want to
help him and protect him so, while he's asleep, they jump
him and hold him down while one of them cuts his arm off
with a red hot knife. Friends helping friends.
Skinner visits Scully in lock-up. He seems a bit confused
with Scully's course of action. He says, "I can understand
you protecting Agent Mulder, but..." Scully cuts him off and
explains to him that it's not just Mulder she's protecting.
She brings up all the particulars of the case and points out
all the questions that an interested committee SHOULD be
asking her. What happened to the courier that died? The
pouch's recipient who is dead? The NASA exobiologist that is
dead? What was in the rock found in the pouch? And how are
all these things connected? But all they want to do is ask
her about Mulder's whereabouts. She feels they are asking
the wrong questions because they don't want the right
answers. She tells Skinner that it is her nature to believe
that those congressmen are acting in the best interests of
the truth but she's not inclined to follow her own judgment
in this case. "So you're going to follow Agent Mulder's, is
that it?" Skinner responds.
We next see Peskow somehow bypassing security at NASA
Goddard and entering the containment area where Dr. Sacks
still lies comatose. He injects a liquid substance through
the biosuit and into the neck of Sacks and we can see the
oily worms exit the dying body behind the face-shield. On
his way out, Peskow steals the rock for good measure. CSM
and WMM know that Peskow is involved. They say he's former
KGB. WMM wants to know how the Russians knew they were
working on their own inoculation...only six of them
supposedly knew. CSM wonders aloud if possibly Dr.
Charne-Sayre was the leak but WMM adamantly defends his
trust in her. They need to find Peskow but CSM says if his
intelligence sources are correct, there may be someone who
might save them the trouble.
Once again, Scully is brought back in front of the
committee. They are giving her another opportunity to answer
their "pressing question". Scully says she can't answer that
question but would be happy to discuss the pouch, the
biohazardous rock, the deaths of the various individuals,
etc. They cut her off with a stern, "Answer the question,
Ms. Scully." (She seems to have lost her doctor and agent
status somewhere along the line.) At this point Mulder walks
into the hearing room and boldly puts forth, "What IS the
question?" All hail the conquering hero, arriving to the
strains of French horns with both arms intact and no
explanation of how he got out of Russia let alone with such
speed. Skinner arrives with the news of Dr. Sacks' death and
the theft of the rock. With this new information, the
committee decides to recess until the matter can be
explained.
Those in favor are treated to a warm Scully/Mulder hug.
Mulder says, "It's good to put my arms around you. Both of
them." Skinner breaks them up and Scully takes the
opportunity to request two tickets to Boca Raton to
investigate the link between the toxin and Dr. C-S. Skinner
tells them to go but that they better be back first thing in
the morning when the committee reconvenes. "Make it back for
the session...or I can't help you." Scully explains to
Mulder that Dr. C-S was affiliated with a chain of
convalescent hospitals and Scully has made the connection
between the toxin and the mysterious death we saw in the
teaser.
But before our daring duo arrive, Peskow strolls
unhindered through the halls of the convalescent hospital,
even right past a nurse. He enters the area where the
medications are stored and swaps a bottle with one he
carried in. An hour later, Mulder and Scully arrive only to
find the patients have died in their sleep. Mulder notes the
black, worm-like entities around the noses and mouths of the
residents. Scully theorizes that the patients were test
subjects of Dr. C-S's. Peskow changed the meds to poison
them and force the oilien creatures out to destroy any proof
or evidence.
Federal Correctional Facility, New York. Mulder thinks
everything can be traced back to Krycek. Scully notes that
he's still in Russia; possibly dead. But Mulder figures he
was not working alone so they are going to question one of
the militia guys they arrested when they first stumbled upon
Ratboy. When they ask about Krycek, the name is not familiar
to the militia guy. He says they knew him as Arntzen. He
tells Mulder and Scully that the silo story wasn't true and,
in fact, Arntzen had come to them. He said Krycek had
materials and plans to build two devices. He talked of the
Black Cancer to his new compatriots, telling them it had
been developed by the Soviets and used for biowarfare. As
they prepare to leave, Mulder forces the guy to divulge the
location of the second "device"...read bomb. After some
threats and strong-arming from Mulder (to protests from
Scully and right in front of the prison guard), the man
tells them that Krycek stole the bomb materials and the
truck. He mentions a storage garage in Terma, North Dakota.
Mulder tells Scully to get on the phone and get the
license numbers for all the possible rental trucks and
inform the border authorities. "Tell them they're looking
for a bomb." Mulder says this thing has been one big set-up.
Someone used Krycek, then Krycek used them. And that someone
didn't want the rock in American hands. "Where would you put
this rock if you didn't want it to be found?" Mulder
queries. Scully replies, "Back in the ground."
We see Peskow with the truck at a border crossing in
Alberta, Canada. He's telling the authorities that the
fertilizer is for his hothouse tomatoes. What a sweet,
charming old man. Of course, he makes it across without
question. Mulder and Scully must have tracked the truck
since they arrive at a refinery by way of helicopter and
Mulder jumps out by the abandoned rental truck and sends
Scully back to the main refinery to look for Peskow. Sure
enough, Mulder finds the rock stuck down a ventilation pipe
next to an oil well. The truck (read: bomb) is parked right
next to this capped well. Back in the refinery, Peskow is
monkeying around with some valves and seems to know just
which knobs to turn. He sends a huge gusher of oil shooting
out of the well Mulder is standing next to, covering Mulder
in the slimy oil. Mulder tries to pull the rock out of the
pipe but it's too far down to reach. He hears a timer about
to go off and realizes the bomb will detonate so he
high-tails it out of there. He barely clears the area when
the bomb goes off, exploding the truck and setting the jets
of oil on fire. The fire draws all available oxygen and in
the process, sucks the rock into the ventilation pipe,
successfully burying it in the earth once again.
While Scully is distracted by the explosion and the
thought of her partner getting blown sky-high, Peskow grabs
her in a chokehold from behind and removes her gun. "I would
just as soon kill you but please, don't make me. My work is
done." With that Peskow walks away and Scully takes the
opportunity to run down to the immobile figure of her
partner. As she arrives at his side, Mulder is conscious and
Scully helps him to his feet as they limp away.
A final appearance before the senate subcommittee begins
with Scully still up at bat. "You have evidence to present?"
they ask her. Scully: Evidence linking a number of deaths to
a bio-toxin that was transported to US soil by a courier who
was also killed. Senator Sorenson: This was the man that was
pushed from the Assistant Director's apartment? (Skinner
looks really uncomfortable) Who pushed him? Scully tells
them that Krycek pushed the man but that he's missing and
possibly dead. When asked if she is in possession of the
pouch or its contents, she can only reply, "No, sir." Then
what evidence does she have, they inquire. She says she has
documents and interviews in support of a wide-ranging
conspiracy to control a lethal biotoxin that is in fact
extraterrestrial. What a step! Scully not only admits the
extraterrestrial angle out loud, but in front of a senate
subcommittee.
At this point Mulder walks up next to Scully, presumably
to hand her some files or documents. But when the senator
makes light of her statement, saying, "Are we talking about
little green men here?", Mulder seizes the opportunity to
interrupt Scully and steal the floor to make a
self-promoting, self-righteous speech. I'm sorry to throw my
opinion into this summary but I found the scene gag-inducing
and can't relate it in it's entirety. It's just that Scully
was, and had been, doing just fine but Mulder had to cut her
off to hog the spotlight and I found it infuriating. I don't
know why they write scenes like this for Mulder. He stands
up with his head-wagging, cocky, pious attitude and
basically questions the panel's right to ignore evidence
that even newspapers and scientific journals are
acknowledging. If respected scientists think that the
possibility of life on Mars is worth pursuing in research
projects, why should the committee scoff. He then suggests
that if the committee can't get past this they should hold
themselves in contempt for ignoring evidence that cannot be
refuted. And through all of this the committee member sit
speechless, looking chastened and awestruck by Mulder's
eloquence and insight. Never once do they stop him to tell
him he's out of order. Very believable. So, once again the
committee decides to recess until the evidence can be
properly evaluated. They all leave with their tails between
their legs following the tongue-lashing from Mulder. At
least CSM, who was sitting in the back of the hearing room,
goes out with his head up and a cigarette in his hand.
In the final scenes, we see Vassily Peskow returning back
to his mother Russia. As he enters his sparse apartment, he
is surprised to find Krycek sitting in the room. Calling him
Comrade Krycek, Peskow tells Krycek that he's truly done
with this kind of thing. That he's retired. But Krycek just
wanted to congratulate Peskow on a job well-done....and
share a cup of tea. We see Krycek dipping a tea ball in a
cup of steaming water with his new prosthetic arm/hand. Back
in Senator Sorenson's office, we see the senator passing a
file with the hearing's evidence to CSM. CSM peruses the
documents as he lets ashes from his cigarette fall on them.
He then tosses the entire file into the trash can.
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