"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.

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.