The X-Files... In A Nutshell

Just in case anyone has come to the show having missed any crucial moments over the past five years, here we have a list of all critical moments, revelations, and doubletake-inducing occurrences that you might have missed, along with my own twisted observations and interpretations.

As the series opens, Section Chief Blevins assigns Special Agent Dana Scully to work with Special Agent Fox Mulder on the X-Files - a group of unsolved cases that have no rational explanations. On their first case together, weird stuff happens with Mulder's stopwatches and dead leaves start to blow in a circle around a couple of high school kids. Mulder also tells a joke during an exhumation, but the corpse doesn't laugh. Next, they stake out a top secret Air Force base, Mulder meets a new buddy in a bar, works on his surfer dude accent, and loses his recent memory because Scully pulled a gun on a newspaper reporter. Then a guy with yellow eyes starts ripping out people's guts, but at least he's a government employee, so he can get help. Then we get a threatened Poltergeist sequel when a kid's TV tells him to draw pictures using numbers in binary form. Mulder gets a more comfortable bed than his usual one for the night in an alley in Atlantic City. A deceased boss still has an unhealthy attachment to his secretary, and ends up ripping apart wallpaper and spilling people's coffee. Mulder and Scully get stuck together in an elevator - oooo baby baby. They go above the Arctic Circle, and Mulder gets beaten up by a scientist, showing not for the last time that he just can't fight worth a damn. A prison guard from The Longest Yard becomes an astronaut possessed by that nonexistent Face on Mars. Mulder dumps Scully, running off to this place where a bunch of soldiers get burned up. A couple of twin eight-year-old girls teach Mulder and Scully the word "exsanguinate," leading them to use it at every opportunity therafter. Amid a raging fire, Scully battles with a green-eyed monster. A guy on Death Row sings Bobby Darin for our listening pleasure. We learn that the Amish are responsible for crop circles. Shots are fired during a bank robbery: two men enter, one man leaves (or maybe two). A quack doctor gives a prisoner patient a hand. A narc, a geek, and a dirty old man tell Scully that she's hot. A dead preacher walks out of a morgue, and I can't blame him. Ranchers and Native Americans turn into werewolves, or Manitou, or... something, I guess - but whatever it was, they kill each other and feel guilty afterwards. Mulder and Scully take a nice little trip to the woods, and although Mulder gives away all the gas and Scully beats the hell out of the only light bulb, they still manage to survive the killer... mites? The guy with the yellow eyes returns, and Mulder can't find his dog. Then another little girl takes to riding buses late at night. A retarded man starts researching engineering formulas because his brother's head was frozen. Finally, the Crew-Cut man shoots Deep Throat, but it's understandable because Deep Throat insists on calling a package a "parcel" instead. The X-Files are shut down because Mulder can't take care of himself. Thus ends season one.

Mulder listens to some classical music and goes to Puerto Rico, where he teaches himself Spanish. A sewer worker blows chunks in the shower. A mechanic rips off a lady, so she kills him. A guy can't sleep, so Krycek kills him, showing that he just wants to be helpful. Scully gets pregnant... I mean, taken away for a little while so they can't take Duane Barry no more. A cable car operator goes against company policy, so Krycek kills him - we must have rules. Mulder gets a girlfriend, and people hate her for no other reason, but she blows up, so everything turns out okay. A guy beats up on Mulder (see - he can't fight worth a damn), so X shoots him in the head. Then some scientists get these gross silicon phlegm things that shoot out of their necks. A cult turns out to be composed of the "normal" ones - there's a moral here somewhere, methinks. Then some old people in a rest home take some pills and get some action. A woman starts digging up secret graves, but pregnant women so weird things sometimes. Then there's this guy likes to wash hookers' hair. Frogs fall from the sky, and Mulder gets off a good one, after which there's another example of how he simply can't fight, but neither can Scully, as even an inanimate object like a bookcase can get the best of her. Then this guy is in charge of a voodoo refugee Haitian camp, but he gets buried and becomes a lawyer on another show. Mulder's sister finally shows up, but she falls into the water and her face melts. Big surprise - it wasn't really Mulder's sister. Then some animals turn invisible and teach those anti-environmentalists a lesson. Mulder and Scully start growing old really fast, causing the make-up department to go far overbudget. Then the weird "de-caf" biology teacher from Fast Times at Ridgemont High has another guy growing out of his stomach, and Scully eats some bugs. Evil things happen to this kid's family, but he can blame it on his invisible twin brother. Uh-huh - that one never worked for me. That goony guy from American Graffiti becomes a prison doctor, and some of his patients have their faces explode. Then the cab driver from Wings is afraid of his own shadow. Then we learn that people in Arkansas aren't really inbred as a general rule - they're just cannibals. Finally, Scully shoots Mulder outside Mulder's apartment, Mulder's elderly neighbor shoots her husband, and somebody shoots at Scully while she's in Mulder apartment. The moral? Stay the hell away from Mulder's apartment. Exit season two.

Mulder was not quite dead, so the Navajos were able to bring him back with some ancient spiritual ritual or something. He shows up at his apartment to find Scully and Skinner holding their guns on each other. Like I said, it's a dangerous place. Scully's sister is shot at Scully's home, so her place might not be too wise a place to visit, either. The Native Americans are worried about the white buffalo. Huh? What does that have to do with anything? Mulder's cellphone burns up in his pocket. Bummer. Mulder gives off negative energy, Scully ends up in bed with a dead reluctant psychic (that's sick), and an annoying yap-dog joins the cast. Peter from Dawn of the Dead shows up as a prison guard messing around with another guy's wife. A creepy guy starts stalking women in internet chat rooms, because as we all know, the internet is an evil pit of moral decay. A quadruple-amputee makes astral projections into a swimming pool. This one girl is held underwater, but it's a different girl who drowns while sitting in the back seat of a car. That makes sense, right? Mulder can't get an alleged perpetrator's name because he's too busy "getting my ass kicked." Finally! An outright admission that he can't fight. He's uncoordinated, too, because he then drops his cellphone from the roof of a train. Season Three is rough on cellphones so far. Then the scary guy from The Hills Have Eyes shows up as, of all things, a good guy, which means he has to die. Dr. Bambi raises Mulder's consciousness toward insects while a guy dies because he strained too hard on the pot. The astrolobabes wreak havoc while Mulder helps this woman detective to solve the mystery of the horny beast. A veteran FBI agent longs to take up a career in sculpture. Investigators of a shipwreak unleash the black oil eyeball runnies on an unsuspecting world. An inept would-be assassin makes an attempt on Skinner by shooting him in a non-vital area. Very professional. Krycek whines and cries behind a locked door. Suffer, pal. Some guy picks Mulder's brain, making him take potshot at Scully. So? She's already shot him once. Killer kitty-cats go on the prowl in a museum. Chinese immigrants go into the live organ trade. So they're behind those stories about abducted kidneys. A creepy writer dude tells about how the Men in Black are made up of retired professional wrestlers and game show hosts. Skinner gets involved in the conspiracy again, but he gets lucky along the way. Then Mulder and Scully crash a boat and get scared by a family of ducks, and that annoying yap-dog leaves the scene (and there is much rejoicing). Then we learn that cable TV is bad for you, even the news, and it's Scully's turn to point her weapon at Mulder (isn't this getting old yet?). Finally, some guy who used to chase aliens on an old TV show turns up, and his brothers at this very moment are sifting through our social security information. Oh, and Cancerman works his manly charms on Mulder's mom so skillfully that she has a stroke. Thus ends Season Three.

The guy from the old TV show takes Mulder to a Canadian bee farm, but the Alien Bounty Hunter shows up and kills him (the other guy - not Mulder). The X guy walks into an ambush outside Mulder's apartment. What a dolt. I guess he wasn't paying attention to the safety rule earlier - stay the hell away from Mulder's apartment. Then Mulder meets a hot babe at the United Nations. A guy then kidnaps women to stick needles in their eyes (I guess he saw Terms of Endearment one time too many). Then a family is shown going to extraordinary lengths to keep their family going (without even leaving the house). A guy from Africa does this thing to other people with a low tech roto-rooter. A cult woman says she's been reincarnated before: in a previous life she was a space marine; she proves it a year later by being reincarnated again and working with Frank Black. A weird nurse attacks a creepy plastic surgeon, and then spits up about twenty pounds of office supplies. Then, flash back to Cancerman's past - we learn that he's responsible for everything from pet rocks to Carrot Top's success (This material will henceforth be known as "History #1"). Mulder thinks there might be a different explanation for his sister's disappearance, although that would make about twelve different variations on the story. Then a guy tries to smuggle a rock into the U.S., and Krycek meets some Siberian villagers and gives them a hand. This marks the return of the black oil eyeball runnies. A bunch of skinhead wannabes get what they deserve from a dead, hairy mudman. Scully gets lucky (or maybe not - it's open to debate) and becomes a walking advertisement for Millenium at the same time. A paramedic leaves parts of himself all over town, but it's okay - there's more where they came from. The Gunmen go on an op and prove that they'd best stick with ice skating. A subjectively invisible Judd Nelson lookalike goes after an Army general while Marita takes a shot at secret public rendezvous with Mulder. Max Fenig returns, only to die. What the hell were they thinking? Agent Pendrell is out, too, but what did he mean? You know, Scully didn't even know his first name, so there. Then some old guy from the future goes back to the past for a retroactive suicide, and a discussion of Scully's undergraduate thesis in which she analyzes Einstein's Twin Paradox is once again avoided by the writers. A guy with an extra muscle tells Mulder that he's a damn good-looking man... that didn't come out right. Skinner holds up his part of the deal with Cancerman, but then makes the guy soil himself. Oh, and there are some bees again that are mixed up in this whole thing somehow. Then Scully sees a couple of ghosts and has a good cry. Mulder is involved in yet another couple of deaths about which he has no memory, and this is something he needs like a hole in the head. Ironically, he gets one of those, too. Finally, it's Mulder's turn to have a good cry when this guy tells him that everything he's ever believed has been a lie to cover up some other stuff, and Scully identifies his body the next morning after he shoots himself in the head. That's the end of Season Four.

As it turns out, Mulder didn't kill himself after all (what a shocker). Cancerman offers Mulder a new job, and the Consortium kills him rather than having that spooky guy around. Then Byers gets a crush on a woman who's running from the feds, and Detective Munch from Homicide brings him, Langley and Frohike together as a group by insulting them. Invisible men with red eyes in the forest make a few people disappear, then Scully kills one of them, although I guess it didn't even occur to her to analyze the body. Geez. It turns out that Scully has a daughter, and her brother becomes insanely jealous of the burgeoning relationship. Then Mulder and Scully investigate a monster with two faces, and take him to see Cher in concert and dance with each other because they're so damn happy. Another guy comes back from the past to haunt Mulder, and it turns out the guy has a sister with the same powers, keeping the theme of relatives that come out of nowhere. Then some trees come to life, or something. There's this doll that can control people, although if you've been in a toy store near Christmas, you've seen this, too. Mulder takes a trip through virtual reality, and Scully Kung Fu's some porno nurse babes. Then Mulder and Scully go looking for vampires, but all that happens is that Mulder has some bad pizza while Scully feels some... stirrings... when she meets the local sheriff. A new type of alien shows up and sets a bunch of people on fire, and we have another return of the black oil eyeball runnies. Also, Scully gets hypnotized to help her remember what happened on the bridge, and I guess it really turned her on ("Oh, God! Oh, God!"). Then Mulder meets an FBI agent from the 1950's who encountered Mulder's dad during one of his investigations (and because of the conflicts with what we've already been told, I guess this will have to be an element of "History #2). After that, this blind girl starts seeing weird stuff through the eyes of a killer, although I keep wondering why, if she was seeing through a killer's eyes, why didn't she see an endless parade of golf courses... Ah, you're right. Let's not go there. Then Scully gets religion (again) when she sees this strange morphing being who happens to be going through its four-faced cycle right outside her car at that particular time - what a fortuitous coincidence! We learn that Mulder has been working undercover with a paramilitary terrorist organization whose goal is to spray some skin-melting nerve gas on people in theaters if they're watching Bruce Willis movies. Afterwards, we learn what I've always suspected - telemarketers are actually primordial bug mutant aliens out to take over our minds and bodies, and their eventual goal is to turn us into mindless corpses who'll buy whatever they say. Finally, this insufferable kid who is a world-renowned chess player is revealed as the extrasensory cheater that he is, and the cigarette dude shoots Mulder's old girlfriend because he was so disappointed by her work in Lost In Space. This is where Season Five stands at the current time, and we now have to wait for the movie to see if any of the above will start to make sense.