X-Files Mythology Guide Season Four

Mythology Guide: Season Four

HERRENVOLK (part 2 of 2)

The Run Down:

In the Canadian countryside a Tellus Repairman arrives to fix a broken telephone pole. He gets stung by a bee, and five identical blonde haired boys walk out of the corn. They silently watch him as he quickly begins to choke and convulse. He falls off the telephone pole and dies. The boys silently walk back into the corn.
At the abandoned lumber mill Smith flees into the buildings, pursued by Mulder and The Pilot. The Pilot ignores Mulder and Scully, who try to help Smith flee. Mulder eventually ambushes The Pilot, sticking him in the neck with his Glimlet. The Pilot collaspses and his neck oozes green blood. Mulder takes The Pilot's Glimlet, leaving his in The Pilot's neck. Mulder and Smith flee together in a boat. Smith tells Mulder that "your government men" will be waiting at the hospital, and that they'll kill him no matter what the consequences for "the preservation of the larger plan. [Colonization]. Hegemony, a new Origan of Species. I can show you... I can take your to a place, show you the work in progress, where you can see your sister". Mulder reluctantly agrees.
Cancer Man and Grey-Haired Man are waiting in Teena's hospital room. First Elder arrives, and Cancer Man says Mulder knows they're waiting here as he said. First Elder suspects "a security leak. I've come in receipt of some pictures... were you aware you were being photographed?". Cancer Man asks who is it, First Elder says "I believe that can be determined by a simple planting of information, to see where that information flows. That Mrs Mulder's life is in danger, that left unprotected, she may come to an unnatural end".
Meanwhile The Pilot's neck wound closes and Scully arrives to check his body. The Pilot grabs her by the throat, asking where they went. He pulls out the Glimlet, and leaves Scully gasping for breath. Later Mulder calls Scully, and tells her he stole a car and is in Canada, and asks her to cover his tracks. The Pilot, who is holding his Glimlet to Scully and is listening in, then leaves. Scully warns him The Pilot is alive and coming after them.
Skinner calls in Scully; all 5 identical Smiths at the SSA haven't gone to work in three days. Pendrell has found that the Smiths each had a one billion entry password protected database in some kind of strange code. Scully sets the signal for X at Mulder's apartment. X eventually arrives, already knowing its Scully inside. He's being trying to reach Mulder and saw Scully enter the building. X says "I have information for him. A matter that would concern him greatly". X says Mulder's mother is in danger, she's unprotected. He asks her to relay this to Mulder, but she demands information from him about the Smith files. X says "you're going in the wrong direction". All the entries begin with SEP; X says it means "smallpox eradication program. Don't open doors you're not prepared to go through". X warns her to leave it alone and protect Mulder's mother. He leaves.
Mulder and Smith are now walking through Canada, they ran out of gas. They come across the Repairman, dead and covered with strange blisters. Smith cautions him not to touch the body; Mulder asserts he knows what killed him. They arrive; at a large farm where under large black tarps shrubs are being grown. Smith calls it "a flowering shrub. But its specific epithet can't be found in any of your taxonomic charts. [They are being grown for] pollen". Mulder sees several identical boys and girls tending the shrubs; the boys are the blonde haired ones who witnessed the Repairman's death and the girls are all Samantha, from the age she was abducted. Samantha shows no reaction to Mulder. Smith says "she has no language. She's a drone, a worker. They're stationed here. They're part of an agrarian work force. They take care of themselves. Parenting is unnecessary, a needless division of energy. [They're clones], serial ovotypes". They all live by themselves in a small town nearby, one boy and girl per house.
Mulder and Smith find gas and are ready to leave, Mulder insists on taking a Samantha. Smith says he can't take her, she's not his sister, he's wasting a chance to understand and expose something much greater. Mulder demands that he explain it all now, just as The Pilot arrives in a car. They flee; Samantha leads them into a bee apiary. Smith says the bees are what killed the Repairman, and says Mulder isn't immune to them (he and Samantha are). Mulder douses himself with gas and they hide inside. The Pilot slowly enters the apiary. They push one of the honeycomb walls on him, and a swarm of bees sting him, knocking him down in pain. They flee.
Scully and Pendrell look at the Smith files. The second column is a 20 letter group with 30 variations; a "protein acid sequence [for] cowpox virus, the virus used to innoculate humans against smallpox". So the files are of smallpox enoculations. The third column is a 15 digit alphanumeric chain, an infinite possibilities acting as "an inventory, of us". Scully and Pendrell present their findings to Skinner and the OPC Board. Scully had a biopsy of her smallpox enoculation scar taken; inside she found "a single, non random protein pattern" of "cowpox structural protein number six. It's one of the inoculants used in smallpox vaccines". She asserts this protein "is a tag, some kind of genetic marker that was applied to me when I was innoculated against smallpox as a child... quite possibly anybody who's been inoculated over the past fifty years". Pendrell had a biopsy too; his protein pattern was slightly different, which indicates the third inventory column. Skinner summarizes that they're being tagged, catalogued and inventoried, Scully says "it would have to be a government agency". She says Smith may be able to tell them the purpose. Mulder calls to arrange for safe passage from his flight to Teena's hospital room; Scully assures him that a lot of people now want to talk to Smith.
Mulder is in a phonebooth when The Pilot appears driving the Repairman's van. He slams into the phonebooth, injuring Mulder. The Pilot, his body covered in bee stings, grabs Mulder. Mulder says Smith can't die. The Pilot says "he must. He shows you pieces, but tells you nothing of the whole, because he's inconsequential, a traitor to the Project". Mulder offers his life in return for Smith's. The Pilot says "you'd trade your life for his?". Mulder says for his mother. The Pilot nods solemnly. He says "everything dies" and slams Mulder into the van, knocking him out. An injured Smith is trying to limp away. The Pilot turns to the car, where a scared Samantha sits. Soon Mulder hears her alien-like screams just before passing out.
Scully and Skinner are waiting with a large group of FBI Agents outside Teena's room. Mulder arrives, freezing and in shock. Mulder tells Scully he's seen to much not to believe, he saw his little sister, he blew his one chance to save his mother. Scully says she was warned "by a man we both know, who I believe knows the truth, who can lead us to a place to start".
At Mulder's apartment, the X signal is up. Someone is inside Mulder's apartment in the dark. X arrives at the door, and seeing it unlocked immeadiately heads back for the elevator. X is about to draw his gun when the elevator doors pop open. The Grey-Haired Man is inside; he shoots X in the gut. The man in Mulder's apartment leaves with him in the elevator as X collaspses to the ground. X pulls himself back into Mulder's apartment, and with his last breath writes out a word in his own blood: SRSG.
A month later Mulder visits the office of the Special Representative to the Secretary General at the UN Building. Marita Covarrubius introduces herself as the assistant to the SRSG. Mulder sent the SRSG some material, but the SRSG is too busy to meet with him (it's a man). Mulder says he was sent here by "a friend", he has been contacting all the Special Represenatives about the Canada farmland. They've all been dead ends. Marita says "I can tell you that farm has been abandoned. The crops you described were left to die, but they have been identified as ginseng. No evidense of beehives or bee husbandry was found". She asks why it was so important to him, he says because he's suffered some very personal losses. Marita hands him a folder, saying "not everything dies". Inside are pictures of the identical Samanthas and boys working the crops.
The Pilot meets Cancer Man at Teena's hospital room. He says "I need to know the reasons why this should be". Cancer Man says "so that the work may continue. So that The Project may proceed unabated by removing an unneccesary obstacle, Agent Mulder. If his mother were to die, he would...". The Pilot says "he what?". Cancer Man says "the fiercest enemy is the man who has nothing left to loose. And we both know how valuable Agent Mulder is to the equation". The Pilot agrees, and locks the door. He meditates for a moment, then places his hand on Teena's head. A strange pulsating sound is heard, and Teena awakens to stare at Cancer Man.

Plot Points:

In Canada, a Project farm grows a flowering extraterrestial shrub for pollen and runs a bee apiary. The farm is tended by cloned mute drones of Samantha and Kurt. They live by themselves without any 'parents' and work mindlessly. They are immune to the bee stings.
The Project involves bees, whose stings quickly cause a person to choke and convulse, then quickly die. These bees may be under the telepathic control of the cloned mute drones. The sickness can be passed to another human by touching the corpse of a victim. Cloned mute drones, Jeremiah Smith, and The Pilot are immune to the stings.
The Pilot (and Jeremiah Smith) can easily survive a three story fall.
Mulder stabs The Pilot in the neck with a Glimlet, but it only tempoarily incapacitates him.
The Project is about Colonization, the Origan of a New Species.
The 4 other Jeremiah Smiths have disapeered. The Pilot caught the renegade Smith and presumably killed him.
The Smiths each worked on a billion entry database involving the Smallpox Eradication Program. Each person innoculated from smallpox got a different cowpox protein pattern, creating a different 'tag' for each person. The Smith files inventoried each person's tag.
Mulder sees the Canada farm, and several Samatha and Kurt cloned drones.
First Elder learns of a security leak; he receives the photos of Cancer Man and Teena Mulder. He and Cancer Man spread a false rumor that Teena is in danger; X passes this on to Scully. A trap is set for X in Mulder's apartment; Grey-Haired Man shoots him. Before dying X writes SRSG in his own blood.
Mulder visits all the Special Representatives to the Secretary General of the UN; he eventually finds Martia Covarrubius, an assistant to a Special Representative, who gives him photos of the Canada farm.
Cancer Man gets The Pilot to heal Teena on the excuse that if she died Mulder would become a problem.
Mulder is very important to "the equation" of the Project.

Analysis:

Wow, what an amazing coincidense that a Repairman gets called out and killed the day before Mulder gets there!
The boys appear right after the bee stings the Repairman. Given the actions of the bees in "Zero Sum", The Movie, and what Cancer Man tells us about them in "One Son", it seems highly likely that one or all of the Kurts were telepathically controlling the bee, ordering it to sting the man. How else could the bees be trusted to sting enough people to be worthwhile?
If so, can only Kurts control the bees? Can the Samanthas? Maybe Samantha ordered the bees to attack The Pilot in the apiary!
WHY did the Kurts order the bee to sting the Repairman, but not to sting Mulder when he meets them? If the Kurts just kill every human they meet on instinct then why not Mulder? Maybe there just weren't any bees around.
Of course, if this is true then it tracks that one drone is needed for each bee (hopefully not). This would (hopefully not) mean that for each person the Syndicate wants to sting , they need a drone there. This just ain't possible, plus a bee follows Syndicate orders in The Movie when it just sits in Scully's collar before stinging her with no drones around. So it seems that the drones can control them from (great?) distances, and presumably several of them at a time.
So how did The Pilot survive a Glimlet to the neck? The most likely explanation is that Mulder missed the precise point where the stab is leathal, and only wounded The Pilot. Of course, since Mulder didn't get infected with the alien retrovirus when the blood boiled, we see once again that the blood in the neck wound is different, it doesn't carry the alien retrovirus leathal to humans.
Mulder leaves with The Pilot's Glimlet. So Mulder now has a Glimlet, yet we never see or hear of it again! This is hilarious considering how most of the last episode was about the desire to get a hold of one.
If The Pilot just full out survived the Glimlet neck stab, then it's strange because the Faceless Rebels can be killed by a Glimlet neck stab, but then again they seem to be a weaker version of The Pilots (they're morphing abilities are apparantly different).
Hegemony is a "dominant influence or authority especially of one nation's over others". What does this mean? The Black Oil infects humanity, making it into a slave race like the drones in this episode. The Black Oil would have dominance over humanity. A new Origan of Species is a reference to Charles Darwin's Origan of Species book, which discovered evolution. Of course, there is the literal meaning; the origan of a new species of alien/human Hybrids.
Smith calls the Canada farm "the work in progress". We see the farm is made essentially to produce bees who carry some kind of disease. We learn in "Zero Sum" they are carrying the smallpox disease, but in The Movie they carry the Black Oil. It is likely the bees first carry smallpox as a test run of the bee delivery system, because for some unexplained reason smallpox and Black Oil are very similar to each other. So Smith's reference to the work in progress could mean smallpox bees instead of Black Oil bees.
How in the hell did First Elder get those pictures? Recall X gave them to Mulder, and Mulder handed them to Skinner, apparantly letting Skinner keep them. So is First Elder keeping Skinner under surveillance? Isn't this Cancer Man's job since he's in charge of the FBI? Surely Skinner didn't hand them over to anyone, but why would he keep them? Perhaps Scully took them. But again, how did First Elder get a hold of them?
As in earlier episodes, First Elder seems to play the role of intelligence officer of the Syndicate Elders.
Assuming that each Smith had a billion entry database, that means they had data on five billion people, in other words the entire global population. This is preposterous! How could they possibly have given the protein tag to every single person on the planet?! Smallpox enoculations haven't been required since the mid '70s! It would make much more sense if together the 5 of them worked on a single billion entry database, but it wouldn't be very helpful for a global takeover.
What is the purpose of this cataloging system? Why would the Syndicate care about tracking all these people if they'll all going to be killed come 2013? Does it have something to do with the Black Oil bees tracking them down? Does it have something to do with the Hybrid program, collecting a medical database to work with like the medical files in "Paper Clip"?
Smith says the crop is alien, which suggests that its Black Oil. But the bees here and in "Zero Sum" carry smallpox! Maybe the crops were being grown for the Black Oil pollen but the bees currently weren't taking the pollen and getting infected with the Black Oil.
Is it a good idea to leave all those drones working by themselves at that farm? If someone (like Mulder!) comes across them, there's no security to prevent them free access. Unless, the drones and the bees act as security, and the reason the Kurts killed the Repairman was because they saw him as an intruder! Of course, since he didn't fix the telephone pole that means the company will be sending another 'intruder' soon, and when he dies surely it will result in a police investigation... but then again the farm was covered up and abandoned, because Mulder saw but maybe also because of the Repairman.
So what do these drones eat? Do they live off the land that they tend? Is food shipped to them? Do they no require food?
So all alien Hybrids (the drones, Smith, The Pilot) are immune to the smallpox bees, and we learn in "One Son" that humans injected with the Hybrid gene will then be immune to the Black Oil, so it again connects smallpox and the Black Oil.
Obviously the Smith files are connected to the Strughold mine files in "Paper Clip". The Strughold mine files had smallpox enoculation certificates and tissue samples; the Smith files catalogue the protein sequence tag in the smallpox enoculation scars. Does this mean there are Smith files on abductees, as there were Strughold mine files on abductees?
If there are only a billion entries, is this the number of people in America and friendly countries who accept US medical aid who have been given smallpox enoculations from 1955 (earliest Strughold mine file) to the mid 70s?
The Pilot says Smith is inconsequential to the Project, and he seems to be right. Smith knows about the Canada farm and the purpose of Colonization, but he doesn't have anything else to tell Mulder. So in the end he was just a Hybrid accountant keeping track of their SEP files who knew nothing.
So presumably Mulder caught his flight to get to America, yet he arrives at the hospital in shock and freezing. So he took an entire flight like this, and nobody did anything about him?
So Mulder drives home one night to find X's corpse sitting on his floor? Did he call the police? Did they take the body away? Was there a funeral? If there was, was his name revealed?
Did X intend Mulder to get to Marita or someone else? Mulder mentions that there are several SRSGs and he is checking with each one. Perhaps X's intended SRSG was one of the ones Mulder would have visited after Marita. Plus, Marita isn't even an SRSG but an "assistant" to one! She is most likely though because we later see that Marita does indeed have a secret agenda against the Syndicate ("Patient X"). Does this mean that X and Marita were partners of some sort in a secret agenda against the Syndicate?
The crop might have actually been a normal crop as Marita says; since the bees were just carrying smallpox, perhaps those drones were also making a test run, tending to normal crops and not Black Oil-producing crops.
We later see in "Zero Sum" that Mulder just keeps that file Marita gave him in his office, in an unlocked cabinet!
Obviously Cancer Man trumped up an excuse for The Pilot to heal Teena because he still cared for her. This also shows the relationship between the Syndicate and a Pilot. Cancer Man can call in a Pilot, then give him/it orders but The Pilot will only follow those orders if it seems to follow with what the Colonists want. Here Cancer Man orders him to heal Teena, and he must first the reason why.
When Cancer Man talks about the worst enemy being the man with nothing left to loose, he seems to be talking about himself. So if Teena died, he would turn against the Colonists and the Project? That's this episode's implication. Of course, in "One Son" we learn that he actually truely cares about his wife Cassandra!
So Mulder is important to the process leading to Colonization. Most likely this means his actions as a truth seeker, which the Syndicate manipulates so that he help them to make the concept of aliens (and miracles to paraphrase "Talitha Cumi") ludicrous, so that humanity never gets the time to mount a defense against the Colonists.
Cancer Man couldn't have been lying about this because The Pilot knew Mulder's importance as well. Obviously Cancer Man has formally explained the use of Mulder to the Colonists, so the Pilots sent down ("Colony", "Endgame", here) have standing orders not to kill Mulder. That's why The Pilot doesn't kill Mulder in "Endgame", in fact leaving him on the ice in the cold saves his life from the alien retrovirus he got infected with when he shot The Pilot!
Teena saw that she was healed by a Pilot at Cancer Man's orders.
Too bad we never get to see Mulder's reaction to his mother's miraculous recovery.

TELIKO

The Run Down:

Mulder goes to Marita Covarrubius for information on a case. He approaches her as she leaves the UN Building, startling her. She initially refuses to help him. Mulder says "you made an overture to me. You left an opening". Marita reluctantly helps him.

Plot Points:

Marita Covarrubius is now reluctantly Mulder's new informative.

Analysis:

Notice how scared Marita was when Mulder snuck up on her in the dark, obviously she's paranoid because of her Syndicate allifiliation.

MUSINGS OF A CIGARETTE-SMOKING MAN

The Run Down:

Cancer Man sets up an assassin's rifle in an abandoned apartment building. His lighter says "Trust No One" on it. He opens a surveillance electronics breifcase, to listen in on Mulder and Scully meeting the Lone Gunmen at their office, which is across the street. Frohike is very paranoid about something, and insists the CSM25 countermeasures are activated even through their sweeps didn't find a bug. Cancer Man easily gets past the jamming system, even though no electronic surveillance known cut through it. Frohike thinks he has found the background of "Cancer Man", "who he is and who he wants to be".
Frohike narrates: August 20, 1940; a Stalinist agent kills Trotsky in Mexico at the same time that Cancer Boy first appears in Baton Rogue Louisiana. His dad was a Russian spy, and was executed for it before Cancer Boy could walk. The mother smoked cigarettes and died of lung cancer, before Cancer Man could talk. Cancer Boy becomes a ward of the state, sent to various orphanages in the Midwest where he doesn't make friends and reads a lot. He then disapeers until a year and half after the Bay of Pigs (1962).
Flashback, Oct 30 1962, Center for Special Warfare at Fort Bragg North Carolina; Captain Cancer Guy and Bill Mulder are bunk mates. Cancer Man reads books and detests movies. Bill's one year old son just said his first word: "JFK". Cancer Guy is called to meeting with General Francis, who has Agent Man, Cuban Man, and Mob Man with him. Agent Man asks him if he ever met the 4 of them; no. Agent Man asks about his involvement in the following ops which he denies; political assassination in Congo January 1961, training of Cuban Brigade in Operation Zapata/Bay of Pigs, political assassination in Dominican Republic May 1961. Agent Man asks him about his father, Cancer Guy says he regrets he couldn't have thrown the switch. General Francis tells him "your father's actions were totally out of your control. Everyone in this room stands a life eviscerated by the actions of another". Francis offers a Morleys cigarette to him, but he doesn't smoke. Francis gives his speech: "most people seek to control life's events in order to secure a more positive, productive and free existence. Often, however, the objectives of others conflict with our objectives. Now, most people, common people, really, can barely manage to control their own self-centered, myopic existence. They command armies of lawyers, armed with paper weapons, attacking with spiteful, vengeful, cowardly litigation. Others, operate within elephantine bureaucracies. And then, Captain, there are extraordinary men, those who must identify, comprehend, and ultimately shoulder the responsibility for not only their own existence, but their country's, and the world's as well. Your father, Captain, believed his country should look to another form of government, and he took control of that belief. So, in that respect, we view him as an extraordinary man. And we believe,we know, Captain, that it runs in the family. Now, don't misunderstand. Your father should have been executed. Communism is, without a doubt, the most heinous personification of evil mankind has ever confronted, and it is, in part, the reason that you are before us here today". Agent Man says this mission is so "classified compartmentalized" that if he completes it he will no longer be in the Army and there will be no record of his service. The target is JFK, because his failure to give the Bay of Pigs operation air support which resulted in the world almost being brought to nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cancer Guy calmly asks if there's a cover story. Mob Man suggests men from outer space, which disturbs the Agent Man. Agent Man says they're setting up a patsy. Cancer Guy agrees.
Flashback, November 22 1963, Dallas Texas; Cancer Guy meets Lee Harvery Oswald, who calls him "Mister Hunt". Oswald thinks 'Hunt' is a fellow Castro operative. 'Hunt' gives him a wrapped rifle and tells him to put it in the book depository where Oswald works, in return for which he'll get credentials and money to go to Cuba. Oswald gives him a pack of cigarettes, which 'Hunt' says give you cancer. Oswald deposits the wrapped rifle at the depository. Cancer Guy is waiting in the sewers with an assassin's rifle, he is getting the President's location from an earphone. Meanwhile Oswald is buying a soda. A man with an umbrella signals the President's arrival to Cancer Guy. Cancer Guy shoots JFK twice, and the motorcade speeds away. Oswald learns JFK is dead and flees to his house, where he gets his gun determined not to be a patsy. Oswald is stopped on the street by a cop. He demands to see some credentials or he'll assume he's with 'them'. The cop doesn't and Oswald shoots him. Oswald sneaks into a movie theater where he is quickly found and arrested by police. Also in the theater is Cancer Guy, who smokes a cigarette for the first time.
Flashback, @1968; Cancer Guy types a spy story while listening to a Martin Luther King speech. His favorite line from his story: "I can kill you whenever I please, but not today". King begins to say that we must support communist revolutions, which prompts Cancer Guy to call a meeting in DC with several VIPs including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, his aide, and a Major General in the military. Cancer Guy asks Edgar why he didn't see this coming; Edgar says he was forced to stop surveillance of King. The Major General says "our behind the fence operations on Willie" show King's allies are recruiting a black army to wage war on white America. Cancer Guy is very supportive of the civil rights movement, but King has now involved it with the Cold War. Cancer Guy says "I respect King, he's an extrordinary man. But now he's talking like a Maoist, and if he convinces Negroes not to fight in Vietnam, we'll loose, and the first domino will have fallen". Edgar offers more attempts to discredit him, but Cancer Guy says his ridiculous attempts have only alerted King to their level of surveillance. Cancer Guy says "the solution is more intense, than just dirty tricks". Edgar and his aide say they have to go see the President, but Cancer Guy orders them to stay saying they have enough plausible deniability to last their entire lives. The Major General offers a "SIG force [to] execute a wet-insert operation". Cancer Guy says too many questions, a white patsy will be the most palatable. Edgar says "another patsy". His aide asks if they should "alert" the President. Cancer Guy says "I work very hard to keep any President from knowing I even exist". The aide asks him "who will you order to do it?". Cancer Guy says "I'll do it myself. I have too much respect for the man".
Flashback, April 4 1968, Memphis Tennessee; Cancer Guy stands outside a King gathering, looking at the picture of young Teena Mulder and one-year old Fox Mulder. He sets up James Earl Ray as the patsy using the name "Raul", his writing name being Raul Bloodworth. Cancer Guy does the assassination from across the street of the hotel. Later, while King's funeral is televised Cancer Guy gets a rejection letter from a publishing house he sent his story to. They called it crap, and advised him to "burn it!". Bobby Kennedy delivers a speech at the funeral, quoting a famous poem, which Cancer Guy solemnly recites with him.
Flashback, DC, December 24 1991; Cancer Man meets with several aides at the FBI Building. He is wearing a nicotine patch. Cancer Man is briefed on "domestic unrest operations"; Anita Hill, Rodney King. Cancer Man gets called by Saddam Hussein, but Cancer Man says to "call back". He is then briefed on other matters; Bosnia will soon vote for independance from Yugoslavia, Cancer Man says "America couldn't care less". His aides pick the Oscar nominations, and Cancer Man always makes sure that the Buffalo Bills never win the Super Bowl. In 1980 Cancer Man made sure America beat Russia in the Olympic hockey game by slipping the Russie goaltender some novacaine; Cancer Man says "payback's a bitch, Ivan". One last concern; "one thing internally, that "Spooky" kid who talked his way into opening the X-Files, it feels like trouble". Cancer Man says "he's mine to keep an eye on". Cancer Man gets a message; Gorbachev has just resigned. One of his aides say "there's no more enemies". The meeting is adjourned, and Cancer Man gives each of them a present. They offer him to join them on their big family get together in Virginia, but Cancer Man declines saying he has to see some family. Cancer Man leaves; the presents are all identical ties. Cancer Man passes Mulder's basement office on his way home. Cancer Man spends Christmas Eve alone at home, writing. He's gotten another rejection letter, then gets a call from Deep Throat who says "you'll never believe what we just got for Christmas".
Flashback, Dogway West Virginia; Cancer Man meets Deep Throat at a large warehouse bustling with military troops. Deep Throat says "the craft matches the dimensions of the vehicle spotted over Hanoi when I was in Vietnam with the Company that the Marines couldn't shoot down". The "occupant" is "critical". Cancer Man says "timing couldn't be worse. The Roswell story we concocted was gathering momentum. Had them all looking in the wrong direction. With luck, we'll get away with it". Deep Throat says "our Aurora spy planes confirmed the Russians tracked entry and have pinpointed touchdown. I don't care if they're in the midst of ruin. The KGB is not going to ignore an event of this magnitude, nor are the Chinese, nor the Germans, nor the British, nor anyone with the capability of discovering what happened here tonight. I'm certain each of them have operatives advancing on us right now". They enter a large chamber where the injured EBE is in a sealed medical chamber. Cancer Man says "how many historic events have only the two of us witnessed, Ronald? How often did we make or change history? And our names can never grace any pages of record. No monument will ever bear our image. And yet once again, tonight, the course of human history will set by two unknown men, standing in the shadows". Deep Throat offers a gun to Cancer Man, saying "Security Resolution Council 1013 states, 'any country capturing such an entity is responsible for its immeadiate extermination'. I'm the liar. You're the killer". Cancer Man says "a living EBE could advance Bill Mulder's Project by decades. Your lies have killed more in a day than I have in a lifetime. I've never killed anybody". Deep Throat says he's lying, but Cancer Man says he wants to live his entire life without killing anything or anyone. Deep Throat says "with all of our work in the past 30 years, all of our victories, if the world were to see this, it would destroy all we've gained in a few hours. Tonight, we have a new enemy". They flip for it; Deep Throat looses. Cancer Man says "go ahead. Make history". Deep Throat goes into the room wearing a gas mask, and shoots the EBE twice killing it as Cancer Man takes off the patch and smokes again.
Frohike says "...might have been desperate. At that point, your work in the basement was attention on the top floor. That's why you were brought in ". He refers to Scully. Stock Footage from "The Pilot" is played, where Blevins and Cancer Man interview Scully in March 6 1992, then when Scully first meets Mulder. Cancer Man uses his surveillance briefcase to listen in on their first meeting in the FBI conference room where he met his aides earlier. Cancer Man smiles proudly when Mulder says Scully was sent to spy on him.
Frohike says "Henry David Thoreau wrote 'the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation'. His life has been anything but quiet, yet I believe nothing but desperate. He's the most dangerous man alive, not so much because he believes in his actions, but because he believes his actions are all which life allows him. And yet, the only person that can never escape him, is himself".
Flashback, Near Present Day; Cancer Man finally gets his story about alien assassinations accepted by a publishing house. His story will be serialized in the Roman a Clef magazine, but he will have to relinquish some creative controls. Cancer Man is delighted. His story will first appear in the November 6th issue.
Flashback, November 6 1996; Cancer Man types up his resignation saying "Gentlemen, Please accept this... of my resignation". Cancer Man rushes out to buy the magazine. He finds his ending has been changed, and the magazine is some kind of T&A affair. Cancer Man goes back to cigarettes, his heart broken. He tears up the resignation letter.
Frohike says "So far, this is based only on a story I read in one of my weekly subscriptions that rang a bell. I'm going out to check on the private hacker source that has been working on tracking a few leads that can produce definitive proof, and then we'll have him". Frohike leaves the office and walks down the street. Cancer Man trains his rifle on him, saying "I can kill you whenever I please, but not today". Cancer Man then begins to pack up the rifle to leave.

Plot Points:

Frohike is aware of and is investigating the history of Cancer Man.
Cancer Man has surveillance techniques that the Lone Gunmen can't detect or jam.
Cancer Man's cigarette lighter says "Trust No One".
Deep Throat's first name is Ronald.

Analysis:

All four flashback sequences are fictional! The most prominent fact that discredits them is the 1953 sequence in "Apocrypha" which shows Bill Mulder and Cancer Man as young men investigating aliens. According to this story, Cancer Man was born around 1940 which would only make him 13 years old during 1953! And plus, in "Travellers" we see that in 1952 Bill Mulder was part of extremely crude alien-human Hybrid experiments. And no, the last two (which show present day Cancer Man instead of a younger Cancer Man) are fictional too, because it alledges that Cancer Man was only concerned with Russia until 1991, when he discovered aliens as a new enemy. Of course, we know from "Apocrypha" he knew about aliens in 1953 and we learn in "One Son" that in 1973 he joined with the aliens to work with them! Actually, the Cancer Man-Deep Throat scene seems to track with everything else but that's it.
And plus, everything Frohike discovers is most likely false information. If he was actually going to find something important, Cancer Man would have killed him. The fact that he doesn't shows everything Frohike found was false information, supplied by Cancer Man who at some point created a fictional past to throw off truth-seekers.
These following notes are about the ficitional information given in this episode:
Frohike says Cancer Boy first appears in 1940, he then gives information about his father and mother. Now, in order to figure out who is parents are, he would have to know Cancer Man's real name! Yet Mulder doesn't know it in "Two Fathers"! As for when he was born, Frohike just says Cancer Boy 'appears' in 1940, presumably in an orphanage. He was entered into a orphanage after his parents died, and they died before he would walk and talk. Now, a child can generally walk and talk at 2 years of age, so that would mean Cancer Man was born about 1938, which means he's 15 in 1953, when "Apocrypha" happens. It means that in 1992, "The Pilot", he is 44 years old. It means that at the time of this episode he is 48 years old. Obviously he is much older than that!
So in the 1962/3 flashback, Cancer Guy is 24/25 years old. Isn't he a little young to be such a top-secret CIA/Army operative?
The operations that Agent Man alledges Cancer Guy participated in were (according to conspiracy theories) all operations that CIA operative Howard Hunt participated in. Oswald calls him Hunt. In reality, Hunt was involved with the Watergate breakin which got Nixon thrown out of office in the mid '70s. Hunt was also alledged to have been one of the shooters in the JFK assassination, as Cancer Guy is shown to be here.
When Mob Man suggests aliens as a cover story, Agent Man gets disturbed. Does that mean that in this continuity, the CIA is aware of alien existance (that tracks with reality!) but is keeping it a secret from this group of JFK haters? It makes sense that he would have no interest in revealing this secret to the Mafia and the Cuban exiles, but what about General Francis? We do see that top military men who work with the Syndicate have no idea about aliens, like General Wegman in "Dreamland II".
Since Cancer Man was shooting JFK from the sewers, ground level, he was most likely responsible for the final and fatal head shot since that shot caused JFK's head to sweep in a backwards motion, suggesting the bullet came from below and in front of him on an upward angle.
So in 5 years, Cancer Guy goes from a secret government assassin to the secret ruler of America, powerful enough to order J. Edgar Hoover around?! Whatever happened to General Francis and his ilk? Is this a seperate group higher up than Francis'? Maybe Francis was a lower echelon member responsible for operations, and the Hoover group were the leaders.
Hoover was aware of Cancer Guy's use of a patsy and thus his involvement in the JFK assassination.
Already in 1968 Cancer Guy is operating a pool of assassins as he does today.
This episode shows that Cancer Man feels connected to Fox and Teena Mulder not because he had an affair with Teena and is Fox's biological father, but because he lives a normal family life vicariously through his best friend Bill. So he sees Teena as his pseudo-wife and Fox as his psuedo-son.
Cancer Guy's first rejection letter says "burn it!", a phrase he latter uses in "Anasazi", and which Men in Black Cancer Man wannabes use in "Dreamland".
So by 1991 Cancer Man manipulates affairs all over the world? Of course in this story, there is no Syndicate or Elders or Well-Manicured Man, in other words its a Cancer Man fantasy where he has no superiors!
Saddam Hussein calls Cancer Man. In "Dreamland II" we learn Hussein is an American actor, planted in Iraq by the US to stir up trouble when ever there's trouble back home as a distraction.
According to Deep Throat, he was with the CIA during Vietnam. While there he saw a UFO which the Marines couldn't shoot down. It was identical to the one they manage to shoot down in 1991. In "E.B.E.", Deep Throat tells Mulder that the Vietnam UFO was shot down, and he was forced to execute the EBE, which led to his coming to Mulder. If this flashback were true, then Deep Throat lied to Mulder then (not surprising!) and was refering to two difference events. One, seeing a UFO in Vietnam while he was with the CIA, and two, shooting down a UFO and executing the alien. So if this flashback is true, then Deep Throat turned against the Syndicate in 1991 when he had to execute an alien for the first time, which means he contacts Mulder only about a year and a half after killing the alien, after watching him to see if he was a suitable canidate.
Of course the big question is who's this alien? It's a Grey, but we learn in "One Son" that the Syndicate is allied with the Colonists, who appear as Greys of various sizes! The most likely general explanation is that there are non-Colonist Greys who are the enemies of the Colonists, so they have standing orders from the Colonists to execute these aliens. Of course, this would conveinently track with the SRC1013 which Deep Throat also refers to in "E.B.E.".
Deep Throat says in "E.B.E." that the SRC meeting was with Russia, China, England, both Germanies, and France. Here, he suspects the Russians, Chinese, Germans, and British of sending operatives for the alien. That tracks with Deep Throat's statements in "E.B.E.", with France being left out. We see in "Piper Maru" that the French are enemies of the Syndicate though, so that tracks too.
Cancer Man says the Roswell story has everyone looking in the wrong direction. This seems to mean it has the truth seekers looking in the West, when in fact all the Syndicate UFO recovery operations are conducted in the East, in Virginia! But then again we learn in "Apocrypha" that standard operating procedure is to store salavaged UFOs in a Nevada base, so that invalidates that part slightly.
Deep Throat mentions "our Aurora spy planes". These, we learn in "Deep Throat" and "Dreamland II", are the triangular UFOs flown by the US military, with the technology supplied to them by the Syndicate who got it from salvaged UFOs and maybe from the Colonists. But then again, Morris Fletcher seems to indicate the name Aurora is a falsehood, which invalidates this part slightly.
When Deep Throat says all these countries have operatives advancing on them, what does that mean exactly? Spys? Troops? Planes? UFOs? And plus, what do they want? To recover the UFO for themselves to reverse engineer the technology? To make sure the Syndicate kills the EBE? If its for the tech, that means that all those other countries never recovered a single UFO, or at least one that was salvagable. But in "Jose Chung" a Air Force Man speaks about an alien's UFO saying its way beyond the Russians' capabilities, suggesting that the Russians have some kind of crude UFO-tech plane, or at least a really advanced plane.
Deep Throat had to put on a gas mask to shoot the alien, so it carried the alien retrovirus. Of course, this would make it a Colonist, but then again he couldn't be a Colonist could he!
Deep Throat he's the liar and Cancer Man is the killer. This suggests their working relationship in the Syndicate; they both operate out of DC, in charge of American affairs. Deep Throat works the political angle, Cancer Man runs the assassins and coverups. Cancer Man is also in charge of the FBI, though Deep Throat can order around the FBI as well ("Fallen Angel"). This all tracks with what little we've seen. But then again, suddenly in "Two Fathers" Cancer Man is in charge of the Hybrid/abductions program! This also suggests that Deep Throat and Cancer Man were at equal positions of power, seemingly the almost-equals of most Syndicate Elders but inferior to Well-Manicured Man.
Cancer Man says a living EBE could advance Bill Mulder's project by decades. It does make sense in that Bill was involved with the pre-'73 crude Hybrid experiments, as seen in "Anasazi" and "Travellers". But it suggests that Bill was still working with the Syndicate on the Project in 1991, when everything we've seen elsewhere suggested that he quit in '73. Furthermore, this statement is definitely fictional! In 1973 the Syndicate allies with the Colonists in order to gain access to the alien genome, ie living alien tissue. Yet here these events seemed to have never happened, Cancer Man is not working with aliens and he's still working with Bill.
In fact, these flashbacks are more likely the fantasies of Cancer Man than the findings of Frohike. Each flashback is framed by Cancer Man sitting thoughtfully, plus these flashbacks are like a fantasy life. He's still working with Bill, he's not made a deal with the devil, etc. In this fantasy world, he is seeking redemption for his crimes and trying to live a normal life as a writer. That's why he claims to Deep Throat he never killed anyone, because he's trying to start over (hence the symbolism of the nicotine patch and the cigarettes).
According to Deep Throat, they've worked together on something for the past 30 years. That means this work whatever it is started around 1961, which would mean around the time Cancer Guy is recruited by General Francis and company. In fact, maybe Agent Man was supposed to be a young Deep Throat! Nah... And of course in reality they've been working since the late 40s, but in this reality Cancer Man is barely 10 years old in the late 40s!
So in his fantasy, Cancer Man was going to quit the Syndicate to become a writer. Hah!
Frohike says he based all this whatever on a story he read in one of the magazines that he regularly buys. Presumably this refers to the Roman A Clef magazine which Cancer Man's story is published in. Of course we only hear a small amount of what Frohike learns (about his parents and his childhood), but how could he possibly get all that from a friggin' story, unless Cancer Man described his childhood in the story?

TUNGUSKA (part 1 of 2)

The Run Down:

A Courier is forced to undergo a random Customs check at a Hawaii airport. He has come from Japan, and the Republic of Georgia (Russia). He is travelling under a US diplomatic visa and strongly protests the search. His suitcase holds two large tubes, which he says carries biohazardous materials. A guard opens one of the tubes and drops it. The tube holds black rock, but when it shatters on the ground small black liquidy worms form from the rock and enter the guard through the skin on his legs. The courier is scared to death as the guard convulses still standing. The worms can be seen crawling under his skin up to his face. When they enter his eyes they disperse into a black liquid, like the Black Oil in "Piper Maru"/"Apocrypha".
Mulder and Scully take part in a SWAT raid on domestic terrorists. Mulder has been getting receipts for bomb materials in the mail recently, and just got receits for this storage space and a truck. After a gunfight the militia is arrested including its leader Mayhew. Mulder and Scully chase a truck fleeing when a gun shot sounds and the truck stops. The driver was shot in the head; in the passenger seat is Krychek. Krychek says he sent the receits and handed Mulder this bust. He says he got involved with the milita when "they found me in North Dakota. They liberated me on a salvage hunt". Krychek says he wants revenge on Cancer Man. Scully asks if he wants to bring him to justice. Krychek says "you can't bring these men to justice! They're protected, the laws of this country protect them in the name of national security. They know no law. These men, they fear one thing; exposure. You expose him, you expose his crimes, you destroy the destroyer's ability to destroy... There is no truth. These men, they make it up as they go along. They're the engineers of the future. They, are the real revolutionaries. I can get them for you too". He says there may be another milita bomb.
Krychek leads Mulder and Scully to Dulles Int Airport for a man carrying a diplomatic pouch, on a international Turkish flight from Russia. When they try to talk to the Second Courier, he flees. After a lengthy chase, Second Courier escapes but Mulder gets his diplomatic pouch, which contains a single black rock. Mulder leaves Krychek with Skinner for a 'safehouse' but Krychek gets locked outside on the balcony by Skinner.
Mulder and Scully take the black rock to NASA Goddard, Exobiology Dept. Dr Sacks tells them "this rock contains what are known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons fitting the approximate description of those in fragments of meteorite found in the ice fields of Antartica. [The rock] is quite possibly from Mars. Over four billion years old". Sacks take a core sample by drilling into the rock while wearing a Level Four Hazmat suit. Oil spurts from the drilled rock, splashing onto his face plate. The oil forms into black worms, and Sacks begins to convulse. When Scully arrives she isn't sure if he's alive or dead; he is standing but does not appear to breathe.
Mulder calls around about the case; the State Department tells him nothing but he learns how US Customs officials detained a similar courier from Russia carrying a toxic soil sample. Mulder thinks it offers answers to alien existance and the conspiracy to hide it.
After leaving his apartment to go to work Skinner is approached by Cancer Man, who says the diplomatic pouch Mulder intercepted has "created a problem in foreign policy circles... I need that pouch, and I need to know who gave them the order to intercept it. Wars have broken out over far less, far far less". Skinner denies knowledge of the pouch. Meanwhile Second Courier breaks into Skinner's apartment and begins to ransack it. Krychek is able to throw the man off the balcony to his death. Skinner runs into trouble with the police, but helps Mulder sneak Krychek out of the building. Krychek says it was Second Courier, says to follow the pouch.
Mulder contacts Marita Covarrubius at her apartment for information about the pouch. She finds the pouch originated from Krasnoyarsk Russia, near Tunguska. She offers help to fly him into Russia with cover credentials, a diplomatic passport, and a visa. Mulder asks why, she says "because there are those of us who believe in you, believe in the search for the truth". Mulder reluctantly takes Krychek along with him when he begins speaking in Russian (he says "my parents were Cold War immigrants") and offers information on the second milita bomb.
Scully and Pendrell examine Sacks in Hazmat Suits. Scully says it is impossible for anything to get through a Level 4 Hazmat suit, there must have been a tear, but Pendrell is nervous. Sacks' suit is covered with oil traces and he briefly convulses while still standing. Scully asserts he's in a coma or some kind of somatic rigor.
Cancer Man visits Well-Manicured Man at his horse farm in Virginia. He is watching Dr. Charne-Sayre (a woman) horse-riding. There is no phone here, and that is why Well-Manicured Man comes here. Cancer Man tells him their courier is dead, but plausible denial is intact. He came because CIA airport intelligence tracked computer records of a man with UN credentials flying to Krasnoyarsk Russia matching the description of Mulder. Well-Manicured Man is distressed, he says "this must be collected, this must be handled". Cancer Man says "well of course it can be, you know my capabilites in a crisis". Well-Manicured Man says "I don't think you realize what's at stake here, what level this must be carried to. This will take more than just a good aim!".
Skinner receives a letter of summons from Senator Sorenson, for him, Scully, and Mulder. Skinner and Scully meet Sorenson, who asks about the man died on Skinner's balcony and gives light threats to them about obstruction of justice. He asks where Mulder is, but Scully refuses to say where only that he's investigating the case.
Tunguska, Russia; Mulder and Krychek arrive at the nearest road to their destination, driven by Truck Driver. They sneak under some barbed wire, and Krychek asks what they're doing here. Mulder speaks of June 30 1908 when a fireball was sighted above Tunguska, which exploded in the atmosphere with the largest force of anything in human history. It leveled trees in a radial pattern for 2,000 kilometers. Speculation called it a comet, an asteroid, or a peice of anti-matter, but nothing has ever been proven. Mulder asserts someone found that evidense, and its alien. They observe a mining party; starved prisoners mine a quarry observed by men on horses with whips. They are discovered and quickly captured by the horse-riding guards.
Mulder wakes in a prison cell alone. The Prisoner in the next cell tells him he's in a Gulag, where the innocent are imprisoned and made to wish they were dead. Krychek is thrown in Mulder's cell harsly; he says they're going to tourture them because they think they are American spies. Krychek told them they were stupid Americans lost in the woods. The next time a Guard comes for Krychek he demands to speak to his superior, to which the Guard agrees. The Prisoner warns Mulder that Krychek is speaking as if an equal to the guards. The Prisoner says they will all die in "an experiment" when they can work no longer. Guards come in the cell again and hold down Mulder. Russian Smoking Man comes in and injects an Amber Serum into the base of Mulder's neck. Mulder passes out, and comes to trapped on a table by chickenwire in a large chamber, where other prisoners are held the same way. He has a bandage on his left arm indicating an injection. Russian Smoking Man and others are watching through a window. The other prisoners begin screaming, and a pipe above Mulder pours the black liquid onto his face. It solidifies into black worms, which crawl into his nose and mouth. They crawl under his face, as he flails against the wire. The worms go into his eyes, turning into liquid.
Flashforward, Senate Select Subcommitte on Intelligence and Terrorism; Scully testifies before the committe led by Senators Romine and Sorenson. Skinner and Cancer Man are in the crowd. Scully states that her job is made impossible by men who operate outside law, but the senators just grill her on Mulder's whereabouts on threat of Contempt of Congress. She refuses to answer.

Plot Points:

The Syndicate is smuggling rock holding Black Cancer out of Russia through diplomatic channels.
Enter the Black Cancer: a black liquid which is found in the rock under Tunguska where something exploded in the atmosphere in 1908. The Black Cancer rock may be from Mars and is 4 billion years old. When exposed to air the liquid forms into black worms, which enter a human through the skin or body orafices. Upon infection the human becomes stiff and motionless, save occaisonal convulsions. Breathing is almost non-existant. The Black Cancer can go through a Level Four Hazmat suit, which should be impossible.
Krychek comes to Mulder to expose the Syndicate's Black Cancer smuggling ring.
Krychek speaks Russian and he is found to be allied with the Russian Syndicate.
Enter the Russian Syndicate: they run the Tunguska Gulag where prisoners mine the Black Cancer rock and are exposed to it and to their experimental Vaccine Serum. It is run by the Russian Smoking Man.
Marita Covarrubius sneaks Mulder into Russia with UN credentials. Cancer Man soon finds out about it through the CIA.
Scully and Skinner are in serious legal trouble with the Senate Subcommittee over Mulder's journey to Russia and the case.
Mulder is captured and held in the Russian Gulag, and infected with the Black Cancer after being injected with the Vaccine Serum.

Analysis:

The Black Cancer here can enter a human through the skin (the Customs guard has them crawl into his feet), and they do the same thing in The Movie. However when Mulder is infected in the Gulag, the worms go through his mouth and nose. This suggests they were intelligent enough to know that they don't have to burrow through the skin because the nose and mouth are right there.
So what happened at the Hawaii Customs office? Did the Courier get infected too? How long did it take the Syndicate to arrive and clean up the situation? Mulder gains knowledge of the Courier carrying hazardous material, but apparantly not of the guard's infection. So the Syndicate must have spread the cover story saying it was just hazardous soil.
How does Krychek know so much about the Syndicate smuggling ring? We learn in the next episode that he is and always was with the Russian Syndicate, so presumably after they liberated him from the missile silo they briefed him on the smuggling ring then sent him to hook up with the militia, thus to hook up with Mulder and lead him to expose the smuggling ring. Why use Mulder? As a former Cancer Man assassin he knows of Cancer Man's standing order to keep Mulder alive so Mulder is the ideal operative to use. But if the Russian Syndicate knew about the smuggling ring, why don't they detain the couriers?
So the Second Courier escapes, but he just happens to drop his pouch. Pretty unprofessional, but then again it advances the plot!
As we learned late last year, Skinner is married but he's been seperated from his wife for months. At the end of "Avatar" we got the impression that Skinner was reunited with his wife (at the end he puts on his wedding ring) yet here we learn that Skinner has moved into a new apartment, and when we visit Skinner his wife is nowhere to be seen!
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (which are in the Black Cancer rock) are generally speaking basic organic molecules for life.
So similar rocks are found in Antartica recently. In The Movie we learn that a large Colonist Mothership UFO is resting under Antartica. Coincidense?
So this rock came from Mars. This means that Black Cancer is on Mars! In "The Unnatural", The Pilot says that he came from Mars. The current rumor going around (during the summer before Season Seven) is that the Colonists' invasion force is waiting by Mars for Colonization time. Coincidense?
Of course the big question is what connection does this Black Cancer have with the Black Oil seen in "Piper Maru"/"Apocrypha"? In that, the Black Oil is sentient and can radiation flash people. Infected humans go under the control of the Black Oil. Yet here, infected humans just go comatose and the Black Cancer does not appear to be sentient (plus no mention of radioactivity when it was so important in the Black Oil's first appearance). Plus, the Black Oil moved as a liquid, yet the Black Cancer moves as worms. Perhaps it is simply a writing inconsistancy.
Also of note is that Krychek and the Black Cancer/Oil return at the same time, yet Mulder never mentions the similarity to the Black Oil he saw earlier, or the conincidense that they return at the same time. Even stranger, there doesn't seem to be a connection!
So Black Cancer is at least 4 billion years old. In The Movie, Well-Manicured Man says that the aliens first arrived on Earth millions of years ago, and in "Biogenesis" the narration says that life began on Earth 4 billion years ago with single celled organisms.
So the Black Cancer can somehow get through a Level Four Hazmat suit (it gets through Dr Sacks' suit), just as the Black Oil gets through a heavy diving suit in "Piper Maru", so again it must be able to slip through the microscopic cracks.
Mulder gets nothing from the State Department because it completely infiltrated by the Syndicate, in fact that's where the Group Elders came from in the 1940s!
Obviously Cancer Man spoke to Skinner to make sure he wasn't in the apartment while Second Courier searched it.
Cancer Man seems to be afraid of war with Russia over the smuggling ring. Why is he afraid of Russia, since it's currently in a state of economic collaspe and is no longer a dictatorship, besides surely the Syndicate can use some of that advanced alien technology to defend itself!
We later learn that like X, Marita is playing both sides. So when she sneaks Mulder into Russia, whose side is she helping? Since we later see her allied with Krychek in "Patient X", perhaps here she was helping Krychek use Mulder to ferret out the smuggling ring? Cancer Man doesn't seem to be happy about Mulder going to Russia, since he has to rescue him in the next episode so it can't be him.
Sacks' face plate has the same oil smudge that Gautier had in "Piper Maru" when the Black Oil left him.
Somatic rigor generally speaking means stiffness of the surface muscles in the body, a kind of living rigor mortis.
Here we first see that Well-Manicured Man is unlike the other Syndicate Elders. He enjoys getting away from it all, going to a horse farm with no communications with the outside world. This character trend pays off in The Movie.
So what DID explode over Tunguska? An alien ship carrying a big supply of Black Oil? We learn in The Movie that large pools of Black Oil are waiting hidden under the Earth. Here's my theory: in 1908 another Colonist ship arrived to deposit a large supply of sentient Black Oil. But something went wrong, and the ship exploded; perhaps the Faceless Rebels attacked the ship and destroyed it. In any case, the Black Oil fell down onto the earth. Because of the explosion the sentience of the Black Oil was killed/retarded, either that or the Black Cancer is just Black Oil without a Colonist soul in it. In The Movie Well-Manicured Man says that the Black Oil was the originial inhabitant of the Earth (which would mean 4 billion years old, as Sacks says this Black Cancer is) and he says that the Colonists first visited the Earth millions of years ago. In other words, while today the Black Oil serves as the medium in which the Colonists survive, it was orignially just sitting by itself on Earth. So maybe that's what the Black Cancer is!
We see prisoners of the Gulag picking at rock just a few feet under the surface. Surely after decades of mining, they've gotten deeper into the soil by now!
Why didn't Krychek just order around the guards who took him the first time?
The actions done to Mulder at the end are very confusing: he is injected with an amber serum (later episodes show this to be the Vaccine Serum) at the base of the neck. (Again the base of the neck is connected with Pilots and Hybrids!) He wakes up with some kind of injection on his right arm and gets infected with the Black Cancer. The next episode Mulder is not possessed or in a coma-state, but in a lot of pain. So the Vaccine Serum forced the Black Cancer out of Mulder almost immeadiately, but it hurt his body tremendously.
In the next episode, we learn if your left arm is chopped off they won't take you for the test and Mulder indicates that what is on the left arm is a smallpox scar used for identification (which Scully discovers in "Herrenvolk"). So when Mulder was out they gave him a smallpox innoculation to catalogue him, or if he already had (he likely did) they did a biopsy of it? It sounds like they are running a parallel of the Syndicate smallpox innoculation classification system seen in "Herrenvolk"! This means they need this classification and tissue database in order to work on the Vaccine. This means that the Syndicate does it for their Vaccine program too!
Wait! It makes much more sense if the amber serum injected in Mulder's neck was NOT the Vaccine but just something to knock him out. Because of Mulder's age he HAD to have a smallpox innoculation. Next episode we see an injection under the left arm bandage, so the injeciton on his left arm was the Vaccine, which was given to him just before he was infected with Black Oil. So it seems that they injected Mulder with the Vaccine through his smallpox scar! No wonder he was in pain the next day! If they did, why must it be done this way? Did they also do a biopsy of his scar in order to get the Syndicate's protein pattern tag ("Herrenvolk") for their research and genetic database to help the work for the Vaccine? In The Movie Mulder does inject Scully in the shouldar with the Vaccine!

TERMA (part 2 of 2)

The Run Down:

A convelescent home in Boca Raton Florida; an old woman undergoes suicide because she is tired of the pain. When she dies of leathal injection, Black Cancer worms crawl out of her eyes, nose, and mouth.
St. Petersburg Russia; the elderly Vassily Peskow receives an urgent message from "Comrade Arntzen in Krasnoyarsk". Peskow complains that he is retired, but Arntzen "antipipated this response. He wants you to know that the Cold War isn't over". Peskow is given a package.
Mulder awakens in the Tunguska Gulag in great pain, particularly in his left arm where he was injected with something. The Prisoner says the first time is bad, and each subsequent time is easier, until it kills you. He says "you have been exposed to the Black Cancer, the cancer that lives in the rock". The Prisoner was a well-known geologist who was there "when they brought up the first fragments. This was before the mining, before we knew what lived in Tunguska rock". Hundreds, maybe thousands, have died here, "the search for a cure goes slowly" at least he assumes so, they tell him nothing. He says Krychek is probably dining with the guards now, and Mulder says he must live long enough to kill Krychek. The Prisoner gives him a shiv he made to kill himself with. He says "it is wonderful, the persistance of life. That rock we found buried so deep in the earth- that anything could survive down there goes beyond all reason".
Scully and a doctor examine Sacks at NASA Goddard. They have only been able to give Sacks liquids. They find his blood in the carotid artery is slightly thickened, which may be from his relaxed state. They also find a nest of microscopic worm-like "black vermiform organism[s] attached to the pineal gland".
Peskow visits Well-Manicured Man's Virginia horse farm at night. In the stables he meets Dr. Charne-Sayre and kills her.
Skinner meets Scully; he's in serious trouble over his connection to the pouch and the dead courier. He bent some rules to find the the pouch was to be received by Dr. Charne-Sayre. Charne-Sayre is recognized by Scully as a well-known physician, a virologist who's treated Presidents, an authority on "variola viruses" like smallpox. She is a member of the World Health Organization. She was a vocal propenant for eliminating the last samples of smallpox held in facilities in Atlanta and Russia. Skinner tells her she just died in a horse-riding accident.
The prisoners are taken outside, where Mulder sees Krychek embracing and chatting with Russian Smoking Man. He attacks them, and makes off in Truck Driver's truck with a dazed Krychek in the back. He outruns the pursuing guards on horseback, but the brakes on the truck give out. Krychek jumps off the truck and Mulder later crashes it in a ditch. The guards search the woods, finding the abandoned truck. Krychek runs into a group of one-armed men, and claims to be an American accused of being a spy who escaped from a Gulag. They say they share a common enemy and take him with them.
Cancer Man visits Well-Manicured Man at his horse farm about his "person physician"'s death. He doesn't know who killed her but it was a professional hit, that's why Cancer Man is here. Cancer Man gloats that he needs him and his "capabilities" now, that he was out here all alone and unprotected. Cancer Man asks accuses him of sleeping with her, saying "surely you wouldn't be so foolish as to put the Project at risk for the sake of your personal pleasures". Well-Manicured Man orders him to find the killer, and Cancer Man tells him to call off the Congressional hearing. Well-Manicured Man says he can't but "Senator Sorenson is an honorable man, they are all very honorable, these honorable men". Cancer Man says "I hear Mulder was captured in Tunguska. I hear now he's escaped. Wake the Russian Bear and it may find we've stolen its honey". Well-Manicured Man nods in subserviance.
[The "Tunguska" Teaser Scene] Scully testifies to the Senate Subcommitte, while a message is passed to Senators Sorenson and Romine. After reading the message they demand Mulder's location and threaten her with Contempt of Congress. Scully gets thrown in prison for refusing to answer. She is reading up on Charne-Sayre's book about Variola Viruses when Skinner visits her. She tells him that the Senators are trying to cover up the situation by only asking about Mulder's location.
Mulder is found by the Truck Driver, who takes him home. His wife is upset that Mulder has been given "the test". She says she and Truck Driver are spared from it because he makes deliveries for them, but with his truck totaled he is afraid. She shows Mulder their son, who has had his left arm cut off, saying "no arm, no test". Mulder says "you don't understand, these tests. The smallpox scar on your arm is some kind of identification. You have to help me escape, I'll help you escape. You have to get me to St. Petersburg". Just then Truck Driver comes in with a heated knife. Meanwhile Krychek gets his left arm cut off by the one-armed band of men.
Peskow visits Sacks at NASA Goddard. He injects an amber serum into his neck and cuts off his air supply. Black Cancer worms crawl out of Sacks' face, and Peskow leaves with the Tunguska rock.
Cancer Man meets Well-Manicured Man; he has identified Peskow, "he was a KGB line-X stringer working out of Moscow center". Well-Manicured Man says "how could the Russians know we were working on our own innoculation? Six of us knew!". Cancer Man suggests Dr. Charne-Sayre, but Well-Manicured Man says she was trusted. Well-Manicured Man orders him to find Peskow, but Cancer Man says "if my intelligence sources are right, I think there's someone who might save us the trouble".
Scully again testifies to the Senate Subcommittee. They again demand Mulder's location, when Mulder shows up in the room. Scully is then able to assert that Charne-Sayre was involved knew all about the biotoxin and about the courier killed in Skinner's apartment. They hear Sacks has died under suspicious ciccumstances and the rock was stolen. Romine calls a recess. Scully asks Mulder how he got back, but he just says "it's been a long, strange trip".
Mulder and Scully go to the Boca Raton Florida home. Charne-Sayre was a board member and chief physician for a chain of elder-care convalescent hospitals across the country, and one of her patients in Boca Raton died with the biotoxin. Peskow is there first, and switches the elderly's medications. Mulder and Scully arrive to find the patients all dead, and one of them (perhaps more but not all of them) with Black Cancer worms lying dead and dying around her face. Scully orders a medical quarantine, but Peskow escapes first.
Mulder and Scully then visit milita leader Mayhew in prison. They ask about Krychek, but Mayhew tells them his name was Arntzen and they didn't find him in a missile silo he came to them with bomb materials and ideas. He wanted to build two bombs. Mulder asks if he ever mentioned Black Cancer. Mayhew says he said it was "developed by the Soviets. Saddam used it in the Gulf. Why do you think they made them servicemen take all them pills? US Government knew about the Black Cancer. They lied. Didn't have no cure, no innoculation". At further prodding he says that Krychek stole the truck with the second bomb from a storage garage in Terma North Dakota. They start searches for stolen trucks and alert the Canadian border. Mulder asserts that "this has been a huge setup from the beginning, almost perfectly executed. Someone used Krychek, then Krychek used us, someone who didn't want that rock in American hands", and they want to put the rock "back into the ground" in Canada.
Peskow gets past the Canadian border patrol with the truck with the second bomb.
Mulder and Scully arrive at a Canadian oil refinery by copter. Mulder finds the truck abandoned in a field, sitting next to an oil pipe. Inside a grating is the Tunguska rock. Peskow is at the refinery operating the valves; the oil pipe next to the truck begins to spew oil and the bomb in the truck begins to beep. Unable to reach the Tunguska rock, Mulder runs as the bomb explodes, incinerating the Tunguska rock and everything nearby in a great fireball. Peskow ambushes Scully and holds her own gun on her. He says "I would just as soon kill you, but please, don't make me. My work is done. At last!". He leaves with Scully's gun.
Scully again testifies before the Senate Subcommittee. She presents evidense on the biotoxin, and says Krychek murdered the courier in Skinner's apartment. She presents "documents and interviews in support of a wide-ranging conspiracy to control a leathal biotoxin that is, in fact, extra-terrestial in origan". When they chuckle at her Mulder gets pissed and gives a speech on how life elsewhere is being discovered everyday, that they are ignoring the truth. Mulder asks why they are here, which they cannot answer. Romine again calls a recess to evaluate the evidense.
St. Petersburg Russia; Peskow returns home to be congradulated by "Comrade Krychek", who has a plastic left arm now.
Senator Sorenson briefly looks over Scully's evidense before handing it over to Cancer Man, who takes them.

Plot Points:

The Russian Vaccine successfully forces out the Black Cancer, but the victim is in great pain afterwards. The pain lessens with each infection/expulsion until the person dies. Hundreds have died in this way at the Tunguska Gulag.
A person infected with the Black Cancer gets microscopic black worm-like vermiform organisms attached to the pineal gland, and slight coagulation of the blood.
Enter Dr. Charne-Sayre, Syndicate doctor in charge of the Vaccine Program who uses her connection to elderly homes as testing grounds. A Presidential expert on virology, she was a vocal propanent to destroy the last samples of smallpox. She was a secret lover of Well-Manicured Man, and was killed by the Russians.
Cancer Man forces Well-Manicured Man to rescue Mulder from Russia after he escapes the Gulag.
People without a left arm cannot undergo the Russian Vaccine Test, because of the absence of a smallpox innoculation scar.
Krychek gets his left arm cut off by a band of one-armed men trying to help him escape 'the test'. He now wears a plastic arm.
When a person infected with the Black Cancer dies of poisoning, the Black Cancer worms crawl out of the face before dying.
Only six people in the Syndicate aside from Well-Manicured Man, Cancer Man, and Charne-Sayre knew of the Vaccine Program.
The Syndicate conducts secret tests of their own unsuccessful Vaccine on the elderly in convelesent homes.
Krychek's real name may be Arntzen, and he is a high-ranking remember of the Russian Syndicate.
According to Krychek, the Black Cancer was given to Iraq by Russia in the Gulf War and used on US soldiers, but the US does not have a cure to the Black Cancer despite many pills they had to take.
Scully presents some Syndicate-friendly Senators with evidense proving the conspiracy, but they give it to Cancer Man.

Analysis:

How did the Russian Syndicate know to kill Charne-Sayre in retaliation? Because they found out as Skinner does that the diplomatic pouch was sent to her.
When Sacks is infected with Black Cancer out of the rock smuggled out of Russia, he goes into a comatose state. When the elderly are infected with Black Cancer (presumably smuggled out of Russia) then given the Syndicate-Vaccine, they are of free will but in terrible pain. So this means the Syndicate-Vaccine doesn't really work; it doesn't force out the Black Cancer but does subdue it somewhat.
On the other hand, the Russian Vaccine seems to force out the Black Cancer. Mulder doesn't have the Black Cancer in his eyes nor is he otherwise affected. Then again, the writers have always teased that Mulder is still affected by his experience in the Tunguska Gulag, and in a cut scene from "Biogenesis" Scully thinks that it caused him to devealop something when he was exposed to the cosmic radiation of the Artifact. However, we see Scully is able to see that Sacks is infected by finding microscopic Black Cancer worms attached the pineal gland, so surely she did a similar check on Mulder when he returned! If so, it wouldn't be surprizing because once the episode ends Mulder and Scully conveinently forget to follow up on such things. Example: in "Apocrypha" they know where the silo is where the UFO is, yet they never bother to return!
Sacks' blood was thickened. This connects the Black Cancer to the alien retrovirus that all aliens and Hybrids and Pilots carry, which causes human blood to coagulate. Also, Scully says the Black Cancer attached to Sacks' pineal gland. According to my rough medical knowledge, the pineal gland is somewhere between the center of the brain and the back of it, which COULD put it near the base of the neck, and of course that is the weak spot of aliens, Hybrids, and Pilots to kill them.
The pineal gland is a circular peice of the brain which is thought to be vestigial, like the appendix or the tail bone, for instance in reptiles it is believed to be a vestigial third eye. Perhaps this 'vestigal' organ is actually an ancient connection to the Black Oil, like the God Module in "The End" and the 'junk' DNA in "The Beginning". Since the Black Cancer goes here, perhaps that is where it is supposed to go in order to possess the body, since aliens somehow indirectly affected human evolution to make us the perfect Black Oil hosts (as hinted to in "The Beginning" and "Biogenesis").
Vermiform means worm-like in shape.
A variola virus is a set of severe viruses which result in pustular eruption, like smallpox and cowpox.
So Charne-Sayre is trying to get the world to destroy the last samples of smallpox. In reality, this will/is be/ing done because there hasn't been a smallpox outbreak in decades and the virus is believed to have been wiped off the face of the earth. Some people want them destroyed to prevent any possible outbreak, but in actuality if an outbreak did occur it would very difficult to produce enough Vaccines without the smallpox samples. It makes sense that the Syndicate wants this, because they are experimenting with smallpox outbreaks and smallpox is somehow related to the Black Oil, so by making it more difficult to make antibodies, they destroy any hope of defeating their mass infection of smallpox and/or Black Oil come Colonization time. But then, aren't they secretly trying to cure the Black Oil? Isn't this against their own secret best interests? And since they're having such difficulty making a cure, how can they expect the world to find a cure in a matter of weeks when they've had some 30 years?
Boy, security at that Tunguska Gulag was pretty horrible for Mulder to escape like that!
Cancer Man seems to illicit that Charne-Sayre was given too much access because she was Well-Manicured Man's lover, that she was the information leak leading to the Russian response against their Black Cancer smuggling ring. But, she's the world's leading authority on such things! It's necessary to bring her in on this!
So Well-Manicured Man didn't call for the Congressional investigation nor can he stop it, but he tells Cancer Man that the Senators in charge are under their thumb so he can control the investigation to reveal nothing but he can't call it off (because it would be suspicious). Again, it seems that Well-Manicured Man doesn't have direct power over America (since he lives in England as seen in The Movie perhaps he 'rules' England) but relies on Cancer Man and the other Elders for it.
So Cancer Man blackmails Well-Manicured Man: he'll catch Charne-Sayre's killer in return for Well-Manicured Man sneaking Mulder out of Russia and (hopefully) stopping the Congressional investigation. Go Cancer Man! Once again we see Cancer Man save Mulder's ass from harm! And for maybe the first time, he outright states that he uses Mulder as an unwitting scout to investigate his own problems.
Cancer Man says "wake the Russian Bear and it may find we've stolen its honey". He refers to the Russian Syndicate learning that they've been stealing their Black Cancer because of interrogating Mulder, but surely he already knows that they know since they killed Charne-Sayre!
After reading the message sent by Cancer Man, the two Senators just harp on Mulder's location. Then again, Sorenson did ask about Mulder's location before this, but he was also interested in the death of the courier then. So obviously Cancer Man ordered them to waste the investigation by harping on Mulder, thus not revealing anything. But when Mulder appears, they are forced to let Scully present conspiracy evidense. No matter, for the evidense promptly disapears into Cancer Man's briefcase.
Truck Driver's wife says she and her husband are spared "the test" because they make deliveries to the Gulag. Yet her son had to have his arm cut off! Doesn't this exception apply to their children?!
Why is it that without a left arm, the Russian Syndicate won't give you the test? Mulder seems to assert that it is because on the left arm is the smallpox innoculation with a identification tag, but that is only in America, unless the Syndicate has been flying their UFOs into Russia to abduct Russians! Or perhaps the Syndicate added this tag to every smallpox innoculation, which was then shipped all over the world to all countries. But this was during the Cold War, did America really ship smallpox innoculations to Russia? In "Talitha Cumi" we learn there are only a billion people with the identification tag, and since there are only around 200 million Americans, they definitely need to be keeping out-of-country records!
So Scully did tell Mulder about her discoveries about the smallpox innoculation tag in "Herrenvolk", always nice to see!
It's surprising that Mulder assumes a Russian would have a Syndicate tag, maybe he just assumed that with a billion people under the system it would have to be all over the world.
So in order to be elligible for "the test" you need a Syndicate tag on the smallpox innoculation? Why? Does this tag somehow make these people more likely to be able to force out the Black Cancer when given the Vaccine? Is the Syndicate doing these tags not to catalogue people but as a part of their secret campaign to find a way to defeat the Black Oil?
Mulder seems to think that with the help of Truck Driver he can get to St. Petersburg and from there he'll be safe. So maybe Mulder is able to convince Truck Driver not to cut his arm off and instead drive him to St. Petersburg. Maybe they make it to the US Embassy, and thanks to Well-Manicured Man's help they get to fly home, including Truck Driver and his family!
Why did Krychek run into the woods? Since he's so friendly with the Russian Syndicate, why didn't he just wait for the guards to arrive and take him back to the Gulag? Was he afraid of running into Mulder (who had a knife) on the open road so he hid in the woods?
Wow, it's amazing how Peskow manages to sneak in and out of NASA Goddard like that!
Peskow injects Sacks with an amber serum which forces out the Black Cancer. At first glance, it appears that he's using the Russian Vaccine which is amber colored (as we see in "Patient X"), but then again that's what appeared to happen to Mulder at the end of the last episode and it was actually just something to knock him out. So it's most likely just poison, since he poisons the elderly next and it forces out the Black Cancer just as the amber serum did. Why would the Russians risk their Vaccine falling into Syndicate hands by having it on American soil? Then again, he disconnects Sacks' air hose afterwards. Most likely this was to fudge the cause of death, but if Sacks really was given the Vaccine then Peskow immeatiately killed him afterwards. Again, why bother?
Well-Manicured Man says "six of us knew" about the Vaccine Program. This really shouldn't count himself, Cancer Man, and Charne-Sayre since in later episodes all of the Syndicate Elders (who number around six!) know about it. Plus, since this is the true purpose of the Syndicate, it seems that all the Elders would know about it!
So Scully learns that a old woman at the Boca Raton home died of guess what, but she doesn't say what that is. The woman's cause of death was leathal injection! Surely she is referring to the fact that Black Cancer worms came out after death! This leads the question of what happened to the woman and the worms inside her, sounds like another piece of crucial evidense that Mulder conveinently forgets about!
The same applies when they find more dead elderly with Black Cancer worms at the home. Surely they now have conclusive proof of extraterrestial existance through the worms now! But they are never mentioned again! Shouldn't this be a big thing, or did the Syndicate clean up crews steal the bodies or something?
So Peskow's orders were to kill the source of the smuggling ring (Charne-Sayre) then kill all peoples infected with the Black Cancer taken from Russia. How did he know about those infected? Since he presumably just following the orders given by the Russian Syndicate, they already knew all those infected, presumably by following the same investigative paths as Mulder.
Every single old person in Charne-Sayers' elderly homes are not test subjects, only a few. In the room that Mulder and Scully visit, apparantly one person had the Black Cancer in her (not counting the woman who died earlier).
So Scully orders a medical quarantine of the elderly home. Yet Peskow escapes (presumably before the law enforcement people arrive). Worst of all, Mulder and Scully immeadiately leave for New York! Shouldn't they be under quarantine?! They were just exposed to the biotoxin!
So "Comrade Arntzen" ordered Peskow's reactivation. This is while Krychek was in the Tunguska Gulag. Krychek came to the milita under the name Arntzen. Yet at the end, Peskow calls him "Comrade Krychek". This most likely means that Kryhcek is his real name and Arntzen is the real name of someone high up in the Russian Syndicate, which Krychek used as a cover name with the milita. For the sake of conveinance, Arntzen is probably Russian Smoking Man.
So Krychek wasn't rescued by the milita from the missile silo after all! Presumably his Russian comrades rescued him after he didn't contact them for a while. By the time they got there, was the Black Oil UFO still there? And if so, did they manage to steal it? Probably not since the Russians don't have UFOs or the capabilites to steal something so large from America.
So Krychek originally came to the milita in order to build two bombs. The first bomb was to buddy up with Mulder by betraying the Syndicate. Apparantly the second bomb was the continue Mulder's assisstance and also to destroy any Tunguska rocks he grabs.
For that matter, Krychek originally comes to Mulder to get revenge on Cancer Man, but immeadiately every one gets caught up with the Black Cancer rock smuggling ring!
Was what Krychek tell Mayhew about Black Cancer true? It certainly seems to make sense. However there is one big inconsistancy; we MAYBE learn in "Dreamland II" that Hussein is a US plant to make distractions whenever the US is in a sticky situation. Then again, maybe another purpose to it was to get their hands on Russian Black Cancer! In any case, we learn that during the Gulf War the Syndicate gave US soldiers lots of pills hoping that one of them would work as a Vaccine against the Black Cancer. Like the elderly seen here, it didn't force out the Black Cancer but it did subdue at the cost of great pain to the person.
When Mayhew says Krychek stole the second truck and bomb, does this mean that he stole it from the milita? This doesn't make sense! At the opening in "Tunguska" Krychek is still with the milita right up to their arrest. So if Krychek stole the second truck, why was he still with the milita? If they didn't know this yet, since Mayhew got immeadiately arrested how did he find out about it? Maybe Krychek was being held prisoner by the milita because they just discovered he stole the second bomb and truck. He in a truck with a driver, and was able to steal the driver's gun and shoot him. Maybe.
Mulder concludes that someone used Krychek, but actually Krychek masterminded this whole affair! He was apparantly successful in his goal to stop the Syndicate Black Cancer rock smuggling ring, since the publicity of it in the Senate investigation surely makes it impossible to continue!
So why was the Syndicate so desperate to get Tunguska Black Cancer? Shouldn't they be more interested in the Russian Vaccine, or is it just that they can't get it. The implication of this episode is that its the only way for the Syndicate to get their hands on Black Cancer. BUT, in The Movie they have Black Oil up the wazoo because they know of vast pools of it under Texas and elsewhere! Perhaps this Black Oil is sentient with a Colonist mind in it, thus they can't experiment on it with the Vaccine or else the Colonists will know. But no, because in The Movie they do just that. And after that, in Season Six they are doing all sorts of Black Oil experiments. Perhaps they got all this Black Oil from the events of The Movie...
So after hearing that Krychek stole a truck in Terma North Dakota, Mulder immeadiately comes to the conclusion that the Russians are going to take the Tunguska rock to a Canadian oil refinery and put it "back in the ground". How in the HELL does Mulder come to this conclusion! Even if Terma is right on the border, what are the chances of Mulder actually knowing this?! Surely there's a closer oil refinery... IN AMERICA! Isn't a border crossing an unncessary risk? (Then Peskow gets over the border easily but STILL). Wouldn't it be much easier just to go to an American oil refinery?
Even more amazing, of all the oil refineries in this region, they manage to find the right one before Peskow detonates the rock! Wow! Even it was just the closest refinery to Terma, how could Mulder come to the conclusion that he would detonate it at an oil refinery?! The Russians have a freakin' bomb already! They can destroy the rock anywhere! Then again, that line about putting it back in the ground could refer to putting it down an oil well so it falls deep into the earth, but actually the bomb blew it up!
AND, was it really necessary to pour all that oil over the rock and truck before detonating? Why can't he just put the rock in the truck with the bomb and blow it up!
Scully presents documents and interviews proving a wide-ranging conspiracy to control the biotoxin. Just where did she get this stuff?! Is it just the things that she's discovered in the past two episodes?
So all this wonderful evidense disapeears. Does Mulder make a big stink about this? Shouldn't he? Isn't this the oppurtunity for him to go public and prove the conspiracy? But wait, the episode is over so it is not to be!
So Romine calls another recess on the investigation. After that, Cancer Man takes Scully's evidense and that's all we hear about it. So was the investigation formally ended? Did it go on? Let's get some resolution here!
So Mulder now knows that Charne-Sayre was connected to elderly homes across the country, and one had a Black Cancer experiment going on. Does he take the time to check the others?! Does the Syndicate cover up the evidense in time?!
So Krychek's new plastic arm has the hand in a possition of pinching. Does he have different hand positions, different hands?

MEMENTO MORI

The Run Down:

Scully has cancer; "a nasopharyngeal mass. It's a small growth between the superior conchea and the sinoidal sinus. A tumor". It is inoperable, and its placement and type makes it extremely difficult to treat. It is a mass on the wall between the sinus and cereberum, and if pushes into the brain there is a zero chance of survival. She suffers from occaisonal nose bleeds. Scully tells Mulder and Skinner only. Scully wants to first pursue the Allentown women ("Nisei") lead with the Justice Dept before undergoing treatment.
Mulder and Scully go to see Betsy Hagopian at Allentown but she has recently died. At Betsy's house they find someone has remote accessed her computer and is copying files. They trace it to Kurt Crawford, who tries to escape them but fails. He is with Betsy's MUFON group and was following her wishes. He fears a government conspiracy to suppress the information in those files. All the Allentown women have died of brain cancer, all within the last year. Only Penny Northern is alive, and she's dying in the hospital. Eleven have died so far, and were refused government health care because they insisted they were alien abductees.
At Mulder's urging Scully visits Penny; Penny says "I held you and comforted you in the place, after the tests... They let me come to you during the procedures. I don't know why. Human compassion is not something they have". She is being treated by a Dr Scanlon who believes he can save the life of someone detected earlier than Betsy and Penny. Scully decides to undergo Scanlon's treatment at the hospital, which involves radiation and painful chemotherapy. Scully's mother arrives the next day, upset at being kept in the dark about it and about losing her last daughter.
Mulder and Crawford examine Betsy's paper files; some of the Allentown were child-less and were treated for infertility at a nearby clinic, including Betsy and Penny. When Mulder leaves, the Grey-Haired Man breaks into Betsy's house with a Glimlet in hand. When he leaves, Crawford is a decomposing green goo.
Mulder visits the government-run infertility clinic after hours but can't get past the password to the medical files. Crawford arrives, having broken in. Mulder says Betsy's paper files have disapeered and Crawford wasn't answering his phone. Crawford says he's been trying to hack into the system and needs the password. Mulder guesses the password, and they're in. Mulder downloads the files; Scully is listed even through she never went to any infertility clinic. The file is only a directory for a mainframe in the Lombard Research Facility. Mulder asks Skinner to set a meet for him with Cancer Man; Mulder knows he's behind it and wants to make a deal. Skinner refuses telling him to find another way, because then Cancer Man will own him forever.
Mulder gets the Lone Gunmen to hack into the Lombard Facility. Scully's file is just "a gene code we've seen before, detected in Scully's blood after her abduction. Normal DNA is inactive when in its helical form. When it's unwound or branched like this one, that's when it's active, when it can mutate. It's probably what made her sick". Why store it at Lombard? Someone may be trying to find a cure.
Skinner is met by Cancer Man in Mulder's office. Skinner asks what it would take to save Scully's life. Cancer Man says "modern medicine today, I hear they can preform miracles". Skinner offers whatever it takes in return, Cancer Man is surprized and says he'll have to think it over before he leaves.
The Lone Gunmen help Mulder break into the high security Lombard Facility. Mulder sees that Dr Scanlon is part of the staff inside, and sends Byers to warn Scully to stop her treatment. In the bioquarantine wing Mulder finds a large lab with 4 identical Kurt Crawford Hybrids and 12 large green tanks (with a small alien fetus-sized tank attached to each one) with adolescent Kurts ("Herrenvolk"). Mulder accuses them of using him, but they say "not at all. Your arrival was only coincident with the execution of our objective: Subvert the Project. The Project that created us". Mulder recognizes the tank boys and they say "we're among the end results". Mulder asks if they want to destroy them, but they say they want what Mulder wants. They show him a vault full of 320 small metal drawers; they contains human ova harvested from abduction women. There are files from Scully (10/29) and Betsy (11/11). Each drawer has two vials stored in liquid nitrogen. They say the ova is "harvested during her abduction, through a high amplification radiation procedure that caused super ovulation, for fertilization. They constitute one half of the neccessary raw materials". Mulder asserts "for genetic hybridization, for reproduction. These women are your birth mothers". They say "barren now, from the same procedure that caused their cancer. And now they're left to die, their conditions hastened by the men running this Project". Mulder asserts they're trying to save them, to which they say "they're our mothers". Mulder leaves with one vial of Scully's harvested ova. Mulder briefly encounters the Grey-Haired Man, who vainly shoots at him through a bullet-proof glass wall as he flees the Facility.
Byers has gotten to Scully and she stopped her procedure. Scanlon has disapeered. Penny soon dies. Scully returns to work.
Mulder calls Skinner to thank him for not allowing him to deal with Cancer Man. Unfortunately, Cancer Man is sitting with Skinner who says there is another way to cure Scully, "if you're willing to pay the price". Skinner is very distraught.

Plot Points:

Scully has cancer; it is between her nasal cavity and her brain. She is fine now but suffers from occaisonal nose bleeds. She briefly underwent a leathal radiation and chemotherapy procedure from a Syndicate doctor before he was exposed.
All the Allentown women have died of the same cancer in the past year, their conditions hastened by a Syndicate doctor.
The cancer results from the branched DNA found in the blood of abducteed women after their return.
When women are abducted, they are made to superovulate with a high amplification radiation procedure. Their ova is then harvested to be one half of the neccessary materials to make a Hybrid, leaving the women barren and which will eventually cause the cancer. They are the birth mothers to the Hybrids.
Scully has given birth to a Hybrid, and is now barren.
During Scully's abduction, her abductors let one of the Allentown women comfort her during the procedures.
The Syndicate now has at least one Glimlet for its assassins to use.
Adult cloned Kurt Crawford Hybrids are among the end results of the Project.
5 Adult cloned Kurt Krawford Hybrids are working to subvert the Project that created them. They have 12 stores of drone child Kurts in green tanks with a small alien fetus-sized tank attached to each one, and a vault of harvested ova from 320 abducted women. One of them was killed by the Syndicate with a Glimlet.
Mulder keeps a single vial of Scully's harvested ova.
Skinner makes some kind of deal with Cancer Man in return for Scully's life.

Analysis:

So Scully gets nose bleeds now because she has nasal/brain cancer. We've seen many abductees with nose bleeds (the girl in "The Pilot", Max in "Fallen Angel", the girl in "Jose Chung", etc). Does this mean that ALL of them are dying of nasal/brain cancer?! Actually, that's not so because Scully gets a nose bleed after her cancer is cured (when the Faceless Rebels activate her Implant to draw her to a Lighthouse) so it's more like an indication of the Implant in activity rather than an indication of cancer.
Kurt first fled Mulder probably because he feared it was a Syndicate assassin like the one which kills him a few hours later!
So, why would the abductors allow Penny in to comfort Scully during the procedures? The way Penny says it, it sounds like this was unheard of. Thus, it means that Scully gets special considerations. This is likely because she is Mulder's partner, and Mulder is important to the Colonization equation as we learn in "Herrenvolk". So we know right away that Scully will survive this cancer thanks to Cancer Man!
So only a few of Allentown women went to this infertility clinic, yet Scully's file is there. That means that ALL of the Allentown women were taken here during their abduction, or at least this clinic (run by the government/Syndicate!) is a information storage base on abducted women. It is connected to the Lombard Facility, which we see is Syndicate-heavy where there are green tanks with young drone Kurt Hybrids and a vault of harvested ova from abductees. So it seems like Mulder stumbled on the local Syndicate abduction program center here.
The Grey-Haired Man has a Glimlet to use in this episode in order to execute rebellious Hybrids. Yet just half a year earlier in "Talitha Cumi" Cancer Man was making a desperate search for a Glimlet to use! He tries to get one from Teena Mulder even though they haven't spoken for decades! X assults Mulder to get one! Cancer Man was afraid to have to contact the Colonists and call in a Pilot in order to get one. Yet here he has one! Perhaps after the Jeremiah Smith fiasco, the Colonists agreed to let Cancer Man keep a Glimlet so he won't have to bother them when a Hybrid goes renegade.
Notice that Grey-Haired Man stabs a Hybrid in the back of the neck with a Glimlet, without wearing a gas mask. This means that he didn't get infected with the alien retrovirus which is spread through the air if the body of a Hybrid is pierced. So the base of the neck doesn't carry the alien retrovirus!
So Grey-Haired Man stole all Betsy's paper files after executing Kurt. Now, Kurt's body left a green goo stain. Isn't this evidense of alien existance? Was it taken by Grey-Haired Man, or did it just boil away? The same argument goes for "Colony". Or maybe it boils away into nothing, leaving no evidense behind?
The infertility clinic is a less important Syndicate complex than the Lombard Facility. The Kurts work at the Lombard Facility, but they don't have access to the less important infertility clinic? Why not?
So Scully's big file in the Lombard Facility was just the gene code of her branched DNA? Wouldn't it be the same for each abductee, or are they using it catalogue abdcutees in addition to the smallpox innoculation tag?
We later learn in "Redux II" that Scully and the Allentown women got nasal cancer because they had their Implants removed. The prescense of the Implant prevents the nasal cancer from devealoping. The Allentown women die before her because they had their Implants immeadiately removed after their abduction, while Scully only had it removed over half a year after her abduction, just one and a half years ago. Scully almost dies a half year later in "Redux II", so upon removal of the Implant the person has about two years to live. So the Allentown women probably had their Implants removed around two years ago, which would be just about after their abductions! However, the Allentown women underwent Scanlon's treatment which hastened their deaths, so why did they take as long as Scully to die? Then again, Scully did briefly undergo Scanlon's treatment so maybe her time was hastened just by the day or so.
So what does Cancer Man expect to gain from Scully's cancer? Mulder's alleigence, as we see him offer in "Redux II" in return for Scully's life. He is surprized when Skinner offers his alleigence instead.
So why does Skinner offer his neck up for Scully? Because he secretly loves her!
So what's up with these Kurts? They work at a Syndicate facility along side Syndicate doctors like Scanlon. This means they must be working with the Syndicate like their supposed to, working on the ova and the Hybrid children. This suggests their job is to create and care for the Hybrid children created in the Project. Yet when Grey-Haired Man finds one at Betsy's house he kills him. Obviously this first Kurt is an ally of the other Kurts, but perhaps he was a renegade not working with the Syndicate, how else could he be with the MUFON group (unless that was a lie to Mulder which it may have be). Perhaps he was killed because Cancer Man's regular surveillance of Mulder found this Kurt went renegade. Why then are the other Kurts allowed to continue to work? In "Herrenvolk" when one Jeremiah Smith goes renegade all the rest are killed/reassigned as a precaution! Grey-Haired Man soon runs through the Kurts' lab and finds it empty when they were there a few moments ago. Does this mean they all fled after meeting Mulder, so they wouldn't be connected with him and then executed? When he walks through he isn't surprized to see Hybrids in tanks so obviously it wasn't a secret to the Syndicate that they were there working on Hybrids in tanks. So they are working with the Project, but are secretly seeking to subvert it from the inside. Could this be why Scully's Hybrid baby turns out so wierd in "Christmas Carol"/"Emily", a bit of sabotage from the Kurts who were responisble for her baby?
Perhaps in every region, the adult Hybrids that are born in that region are used to raise the children like these Kurts are.
So what is the connection between the drone boy Kurts of "Herrenvolk" and these? Do the silent drones grow up to be speaking adult Kurts? Unlikely. As the Kurts say, they are among the end results. So there's drone child Kurts, and there are adult Kurts.
Of the end results seen thus far: adult Gregors, adult Samanthas, adult Jeremiah Smiths, drone-child Samanthas, drone-child Kurts, adult Kurts, and later we'll see Emily who is a non-drone child but she seems to be a freak case.
Since the drone-child Samanthas are obviously cloned from Samantha's DNA from when she was taken, and since adult Samantas are cloned from Samantha's DNA as she is now, this must mean that somewhere in the Colonists' care is a Kurt Crawford. In "One Son" we learn Samantha was taken by the Colonists as ransom for their collaboration with the Syndicate, so maybe Kurt is another child of one of the Syndicate Elders!
So what are those green tanks for? Perhaps that's where they grow the Hybrid fetuses into boys after they are surgically removed from the birth mother. So that lab was one big 'hatchery' for Hybrids. In this episode, only drone-child Kurts are seen, though in a cut scene Mulder spots a drone-child Samantha in one of the tanks. But since it's cut, it may not be considered cannon. It makes more sense if this center only produces one type of Hybrid, and that each local center produces a different type of Hybrid.
Interestingly, there is an alien fetus-sized tank attached to each Hybrid tank. Perhaps this is where the fetus is first placed after it is removed from the abducted mother, then as it grows it is moved into the larger tank. Or perhaps in order for the growth to happen, a real alien fetus must be put in the small tank. This is supported by "Emily", where Mulder finds a living alien fetus in a Syndicate facility that is marked as Scully's (but we already see her birthed Hybrid as Emily not this fetus). Then again, in "One Son" we learn it was a big deal for the Syndicate to get ONE alien fetus to get the alien genome. Maybe the Syndicate then used this alien genome to create lots of clones of the original alien fetus, one for every Hybrid that needs to be birthed. In fact, maybe this cloned alien fetus is the other half of the neccessary raw materials to create a Hybrid, it works as alien sperm so to speak.
So Mulder arrived just as the Kurts reached their goal of subverting the Project. So how did they acheive their goal? How did they subvert the Project? They didn't save Scully's life from Scanlon Mulder did. So what did they do? Emily, Scully's wierd Hybrid baby?
How do I know there were 320 drawers in that vault? 8 drawers vertically times 20 draws horizontally times 2 for the two sides of the vault. So this must mean that for this local abduction center, they are responible for 320 abductees. Of course the big question now is how many of these abduction centers are out there?
Scully was harvested on October 29th. She was abducted around August 10th. This means she was taken for about three months, however in many later episodes (like "Emily") Mulder states that she was missing for just a month!
Is there any particular reason that Betsy was harvested almost two weeks after Scully?
So during abduction, the women are shot with some kind of advanced radiation which causes superovulation. Why is this necessary? Superovulation means that more than one egg is released, which means that there is an increased chance of pregnancy. This makes perfect sense, if the Syndicate is going to take the time to abduct a women they sure as hell want her to get pregnant, so with superovulation all or most of the abducted women get knocked up.
So these women get pregnant through artificial insemination. They get hit with radiation, superovulate, then their ovum are scraped out. In a test tube, the ovum is fertilized with the alien sperm, then the now-fertilized egg is put back in the women and she carries the baby to term. In fact, using normal medical procedures, the women could give birth to the baby while unconcious and without knowing it. So maybe the abducted women are kept under for the entire time they are pregnant, because the Allentown women and Scully have no memory of being pregnant, even though they remember other things. In "Nisei" the Allentown women say the memory wipe fades over time, yet they never remembered their pregnancies. The only problem is in "Ascension" Scully is shown to get an inflated belly the very day she is abducted. So for this means that it only takes a day or so for 'the procedure', when she is superovulated, harvested, and given the fertilized egg. This must be when Scully spent her brief time with the Allentown women.
Apparantly the purpose of these birthed Hybrids is just to act as a workforce for the Syndicate's operations, but after Colonization when humanity is wiped out, they will survive as the slave labor army of the Colonists to tend the planet.
So the human ova is one half of the necessary raw materials for a Hybrid baby; what is the second half? Alien sperm? Alien DNA? Hybrid sperm? Hybrid DNA? Probably alien sperm. If so, alien sperm from where? Is the Syndicate taking sperm collections from the Colonists? Apparantly this all came from the alien fetus seen in "The Erlenmeyer Flask" and "One Son" which was so important to the Syndicate because it was the only way they could get the alien genome.
So in this episode Mulder gets a vial of Scully's harvested ova... and a year later in "Emily" he still has it! Horay! Mulder remembered he owned a vital of peice of alien evidense, unlike the Glimlet in "Herrenvolk"! However, since the ova must stored in liquid nitrogen, where did he keep for that year? In his freezer?
Grey-Haired Man shot at Mudler. Why? Cancer Man has standing orders not to kill him, and Grey-Haired Man is Cancer Man's new right hand man as seen in "Herrenvolk" and "Zero Sum". Maybe he was just trying to scare off Mulder by shooting at the bullet-proof glass.
What did Skinner offer to Cancer Man in return for Scully's life? Find out in "Zero Sum"!

UNREQUITED

The Run Down:

An Army General is killed by a man who can become invisable at will; on his body is found a 'death card' playing card as used by the troops in Vietnam. The driver is under suspicion because of his connection to a rightist paramilitary group led by Markham but he passes a lie detector test of innocence. Skinner has been put in charge of the investigation but he is out of his field. Many top-ranking military officials are in DC for a rededication of the Vietnam War Memorial.
Mulder and Scully meet Markham, who IDs the killer as Nate Teager, a 'Nam killing machine presumed dead, liberated by the rightist group from a 'Nam POW camp in '95. In '73 the US declared there were no 'Nam POWs. The government tried to take Teager back from the group but he disapeered.
Teager visits a 'Nam widow at the Monument and tells her that her husband is a POW. She IDs Teager to the FBI; the Army claims to have Teager's remains but they actually only have a few teeth and their records are partially destroyed. The widow later has a burst capillary related to a roving blind spot.
Teager kills another Army General in the Pentagon. He escapes under Mulder's eye. Teager passes through the security camera and is recorded, but no one there notices him. Mulder asserts that Teager can hide himself from human sight, a trick he learned from his captors. In 'Nam there were many reports of Vietcong troops who could appear and disappear at will.
Mulder contacts Marita Covarrubius about Teager. She says she has no knowledge on him but says to tell her what he knows. Marita says his victims are three Generals who were behind the stranding of troops like Teager, but refuses to name the third General not yet killed. These three men were recently exposed and embarrassed the military; Mulder asserts the government is having Teager kill these men, but asks why they would assign protection to them. Marita says because they know the protection would be worthless.
Mulder concludes the third General, and his warning to Scully calls off Teager who she spots briefly. Mulder asserts that Skinner is leading the investigation in order to discredit him, Mulder, and Scully as a secondary objective to killing the three Generals. The Generals must die to continue the secret policy of denying POWs that they created.
At the Memorial rededication, Teager runs into an old warmate to whom he gives the names and tags of the remaining POWs. Teager says they waited for him to die to silence the truth about him. Teager tries to kill the last General making a speech, but Skinner, Mulder, and Scully are able to force him away. Teager waits for the General in his car, but Mulder guesses this and in a shootout Teager dies.
Teager is identified as a crazy vet who was with the rightist paramilitary group, and Markham has confirmed so.

Plot Points:

US military elements attempt to discredit Skinner, Mulder, and Scully by assigning them to protect Generals from an unstoppable invisable assassin, held in a Vietnam POW camp where he learned this ability.

Analysis:

It really is amazing that the certain conspirators could put an FBI agent in charge of a military assassination, wouldn't this be in the military's jurisdiction, like the military police or something?
One might think this a Cancer Man attempt to discredit Skinner as in "Avatar", but since Skinner is now a pawn of Cancer Man don't count on his involvement. Maybe other elements in the Syndicate (like First Elder!) are involved, but most likely this is purely a military conspiracy involved.
So this rightist group traveled to Vietnam and rescued Teager. They took him home, and the military tried to kidnap Teager but he eluded them using his invisable power. But in present day Teager appears to be following the conspirator's orders, as Mulder concludes. In other words Teager is working with other guilty parties in order to kill the three mainly responsible, who the rest of the conspiracy wants dead. But he's unstoppable! Why does he need their help or permission? Or perhaps even after being left behind by the military, he is still loyal to the chain of command but this allows him to get revenge.
Seems like Marita was distantly involved with this military conspiracy, since she refused to give Mulder information that would help him stop Teager, just enough information that he knows what's going on.
At the end we learn that Markham supported the conspirator's coverup story, thus indicating that in some way he is actually with the conspirators. A military conspirator infiltrating a rightist paramilitary group up to the top happens again in "The Pine-Bluff Variant", so perhaps this is a common practice. Of course this also means that Markham's story about rescuing Teager and the military's failed kidnap attempt is a lie. Maybe the military did rescue Teager to use him as a weapon, after he learned this invisability ability from his Vietnamese captors.

TEMPUS FUGIT (part 1 of 2)

The Run Down:

Airliner Flight 549 flies over New York. Max Fenig ("Fallen Angel") is on board, nervously clutching a bag, his face covered with radiation blisters. He nervously watches Dark Man go into the bathroom, where he assembles a plastic gun. Just then the plane shudders violently, and a bright white light appears next to the plane. The plane continues to shake violently, and the passenger door next to Max begins to vibrate, as if being forced open.
Mulder and Scully are approached by Sharon Grafia, who claims to be Max's sister. She is to contact them if something happens to Max; his plane crashed. She says "he was on his way here to deliver something that made him fear for his life, something he said the government would kill for".
Mulder and Scully attend the recovery unit's briefing, headed by Mike Millar. Scott Garett is also there. The flight went down suddenly, and the last radio contact reports "something on intercept". As far as they know there were no other aircraft nearby. Mulder tells Millar that Max, a repeated alien abductee, was on board which they scoff at. Max's name is not on the manifest, they are attributing the crash to abnormal weather conditions causing a sudden depressurization. The black box finds a complete systems malfunction.
At the crash site, Garett discovers Dark Man's body. He takes Dark Man's plastic gun and sprays an acidic solution on his face and hands. Mulder and Scully learn that the passengers' watches are nine minutes faster than the reported crash time. They Max's seatmate barely alive and covered with "deep tissue radiation burns". Max's body is discovered at the crash to Mulder's disbelief. Mulder quickly finds that all of the wristwatches of the passengers have been stolen.
Max used a favorite pseudo-name Paul Gidney for the flight, which he also used to get a job at a Colorodo "environment energy site" where they handle and store uranium and weapons-grade plutonium. Scully says only these things could cause the radiation burns on Max's seatmate. Sharon accompanies them to the crash site area along with thousands of Max's letters to her. Max's letters mainly describe his abductions, but a month ago "he started making vague references to a theft... he'd started to get the idea that he'd come onto something that was very dangerous". Scully thinks the fissile plutonium caused the crash, Max's area is highly radioactive.
Sharon is in her motel room when the clock stops and room starts to shake. A bright light appears outside and the door vibrates. When Mulder learns he asserts she was abducted like Max was. Millar sees this too.
Millar tells Mulder and Scully that the passenger door on 549 was sucked right off the plane, which should by physically impossible.
Mulder and Scully visit the nearby Air Force Reserve base, where Louis Frish, the radio operator that night, says he detected 549 on radar but saw it crash by itself. Frish's collegue Gonzales later says that he won't lie if he's asked like Frish did. Later Frish finds Gonzales dead from a gunshot to the head with the gun in his hand; just then vans arrive outside. BlackOps troops led by Garett search the building for Frish, but he is able to elude them. Frish then runs to Mulder and Scully, saying he is the man responsible for the crash. Frish tells Mulder, Scully, and Millar the truth: he was the radio operator in contact with 549 at the end. He was ordered to track 549's position when it entered his air space, and soon a second plane appeared on an intercept course. It followed 549 for a while, then there was an explosion and 549 crashed. Millar says there is no sign of an explosion on 549. Mulder asserts the intercept shot down a third invisable aircraft which inadvertently casused 549's crash, and that there is a second crash site nearby. Mulder, Scully, and Frish are quickly approached by a car at the airport while driving, and only by playing chicken with a landing plane does Mulder escape them.
Millar visits the crash site at night, where he sees a triangular UFO hovering over the wreakage, looking over the wreakage with a spotlight. Suddenly the light switches off and the UFO disapeers. It reappears directly over Millar, shining the light down on him. The light switches off again, and the UFO flies away at an impossible speed with instant acceleration. Sharon is on the ground, screaming for help and not to let them take her again.
Scully flies Frish to DC for protection. She lets him call his girlfriend at her apartment to know he's okay. Scully takes Frish to the local federal bar, where she runs into Pendrell. Garett arrives and tries to shoot Frish, but hits Pendrell in the chest instead. Scully shoots Garett in the leg, but he escapes.
Mulder determines the second crash site is in the nearby lake. Locals have seen hovering lights over the lake. Mulder dives down to the spot, where bubbles are coming. On the bottom he finds the broken wreakage of metal mesh, and a Grey alien body. Several lights approach Mulder from above.

Plot Points:

Max Fenig died in a planecrash while trying to deliver something radioactive to Mulder, which he stole from the military. His plane was assulted by a UFO, which was then shot down by a miiltary fighter. The military and BlackOps is pursuing the alien wreakage.
An alien triangular UFO tried to abduct Max Fenig. It is invisable to radar. It can grab hold of a moving plane, stop time for nine minutes, and suck the sealed door off the plane. It can be shot down by a military fighter while holding the plane. A Grey alien body was in its wreakage. It freezes time for its abductors for nine minutes.

Analysis:

So Max stole the whatever from the military a month ago, yet only now is trying to take it to Mulder. Why didn't he take it earlier? Or perhaps Max's letters referring to a theft beginning a month ago means he was planning the theft, not that he already did it.
So when 549's pilot reports something on intercept, he was probably referring to the alien UFO not the military fighter, because he briefly sees the UFO with his own eyes (its invisable to radar) and then the UFO freezes time, thus cutting the plane's transmission. So even if he did detect the fighter on radar (there was a general systems failure so the radar probably wasn't working) his time would be frozen and the signal would never get out.
Garett took Dark Man's gun and sprayed acid on his face and hands to make him unidentifiable. Taking the gun is of course a good idea, but won't the acid solution look suspicious? Besides, whenever these conspirator types are found dead, their identities have no record! Then again, it appears that Garett and company are working for a military-industrial contractor only, so they are inferior to the Syndicate proper thus don't have assassins with erased identities.
So these aliens have a triangular UFO identical to a Syndicate UFO and a Colonist UFO. But we know they aren't Colonists because the military shot it down! Surely the Colonists would frown upon their collaborators shooting down their ships! So these aliens must be the non-Colonist Greys (like the ones in "Conduit", "E.B.E.", "Little Green Men", "Fearful Symmetry") who are generally peaceful guys trying to save the existance of Earth life without direct intervention.
Maybe the Grey is a species that is peaceful, but some/most of them have been possessed by Purity (the Colonists, the Black Oil) and made into 'villians'. So why are these non-Colonist Greys abducting people like Max? Who knows!
As we learn next episode, the aliens tried to abduct Max this time because he had something they wanted. Similarly, they abducted Sharon because they thought she had something they wanted.
So the military knew Max was on that flight (as evidensed by Dark Man) and that the aliens would hijack the plane to steal back what was theirs. So they had their Air Force bases track the plane until they somehow knew when the aliens hijacked the plane, then they sent up a military fighter to destroy the alien UFO, thus preventing them from taking back what was theirs from Max.
Did Gonzales really kill himself? Not it matters, but BlackOps probably killed him, then waited for Frish to return to the tower then storm in and kill him.
There was so sign of an explosion on 549 because the explosion occured several dozen feet away where the UFO was.
So why was the second alien UFO running a searchlight over the 549 crashsite? Looking for a good place to teleport down Sharon, or searching again for what they lost? Surely they searched the wreakage before abducting Sharon!
Letting Frish call his girlfriend was a mistake; the military could have easily traced this call to Scully, then follow them to the bar. Then again, it makes sense they were following them anyway after learning which flight they took, and Garett waited till they got to a public place where he could kill Garett and slip out through the crowd.
Watching the footage of Pendrell getting shot makes it look like a glancing flesh wound in the chest, yet he dies from it!
Now, this bar is full of off-duty government law-enforcement employees. Garett shoots someone, and gets shot in the leg, severly slowing him down. And he gets away?! He manages to get through dozens of government employees standing right there?!
Hovering lights have been seen over the lake where the alien UFO crashed. Surely this wasn't the second alien UFO, or they would have recovered the wreakage and retrieved their stolen property, which we learn next episode was in the wreakage. It was a military unit, maybe even one of the Syndicate UFOs which are run by the military. This makes sense, since the BlackOps arrive right after Mulder and recover the wreakage.
That Grey body in the alien UFO wreakage looks exactly like the "Jose Chung" alien rubber suits the pilots of the Syndicate UFOs are made to wear, which is suspicious but maybe the suits are made to look identical to real Greys.
At the episodes end, a bright light approaches Mulder and we hear a strange alien whale-like sound. Yet next episode it turns out it was just some BlackOps troops swimming down! So what was that alien noise?

MAX (part 2 of 2)

The Run Down:

Mulder eludes the two BlackOps divers sent to find him, but gets quickly captured by them on the shore.
Pendrell is taken away by medics, and Skinner arrives as Scully gets a nosebleed. Skinner says Frish is being put under military arrest for lying to investigators rather than in protective custody as Scully requested. The order came from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who have also put Mulder under military arrest for intefering in their investigation. Scully tells him the military caused the crash, and Skinner says they've admitted to it. Skinner expresses concern for Scully's nosebleed. Pendrell soon dies from the wound.
Scully gets Mulder released from military custody. Mulder has small radiation burns from being near the UFO wreakage. The military has admitted that Frish gave incorrect directions to an F-15 Eagle causing it to collide with 549. But Millar says there is no indication of a collision. Millar says he found a dazed Sharon wondering the crash site after seeing some lights over the area. Sharon isn't Max's sister, but a job-less aeronautical engineer who met Max during one of her occaisonal times in a mental institution.
Mulder and Scully search Max's trailerhome, they find a videotape of Max ranting. Max has devoted his life to finding proof of aliens and that certain government agencies (the FBI and military-industrial complex) know of them, that the military has recovered some of these craft and is now using their alien technology in military applications.
At the lake, the BlackOps troops are pulling out all the UFO wreakage and six Grey alien bodies. They are led by Garett, and when one of the diver returns with horrible radiation burns he says "we've found it!".
Mulder tells Millar his 549 theory: Max got onto the flight knowing what would happen, and he was being followed for some time. This man was ready to kill Max for the object Max was carrying which was proof of alien existance. But before he could, a UFO grabbed the plane to take Max. But that plan cut short when Frish unwittingly sent an F-15 Eagle to destroy the UFO. A flashback is seen from Mulder's perspective... the door is wretched off, and the passengers fall silent in awe. The door slowly floats away. Max begins to convulse, and he is levitated up into the air. Dark Man tries to shoot him, but his gun doesn't work. Max is levitated over to the UFO, then levitated back to his seat. Then there is an explosion outside as the F-15 hits the UFO, and the UFO lights blink out. A moment later, the plane depressurizes and pluments, and Max gets thrown outside the plane. The plane plummets to the ground. The plane was caught in a UFO 'tractor beam' and when the UFO was destroyed, the beam was switched off. Miller closes the case.
Scully visits Sharon Grafia in the nuthouse. She has radiation blisters. She admits the radioactive object was something she stole from her employer when she worked as an aeronautical systems engineer at Cummins Aerospace, a military contractor. Max said it was alien technology. There were three interlocking parts, which they divided up. She had one, Max had one on the flight, and there was a third piece at the airport. They are highly radioactive.
Mulder finds Max's trailer ransacked. He searches Max's mail and finds a luggage claim for a Syracuse airport. He gets the bag, eluding several suited agents. When he begins to take it out of the bag, static builds on the phone. He examines it with an x-ray viewer; "it looks like a small superstructure with three circular pieces inside". Mulder boards a flight to DC with the object, followed by Garett.
Garett talks to Mulder on the flight. Mulder threatens to shoot him, but Garett says it will cause a depressurization and he will just escape with his parachute in his bag. Garett says "A man, if he is any man at all, knows he must be ready to sacrifice himself to that which is greater than he... Is it worth sacrificing the future, the lives of millions, to keep a few lights on?". Mulder asserts the object is "an alien energy source... cold fusion? Over-unity energy?". Mulder locks Garett in the bathroom and calls Scully to arrange for Skinner to get some FBI protection when he lands. Mulder's watch stops, and he leaves the phone off the hook while Scully calls concernedly. He orders the pilot to begin evasive maneuvers but Garett appears with a plastic gun. The plane shudders and a bright light appears outside the plane. Garett grabs the object and Mulder draws his gun. The passenger door gets sucked off. Mulder tries to shoot Garett but his gun doesn't work. A bright light comes from outside...
The plane lands, and Skinner and Scully storm the plane to find Mulder alone. Mulder's watch is nine minutes faster than Skinner's. He says Garett caught the connecting flight.
Mulder gives all of Max's tapes to a now-free Sharon Grafia. One one of Max's tapes he says that futuristic technology decades away is here today, like "over-unity energy, massless displacement current from cold fusion that we need for space travel... there are scientists in Finland right now who say that they've detected antigravity over the surface of a spinning superconducting disc". Max says "I've seen military aircraft using it hovering right over my trailer... I intend to expose these facts to the people. I mean, I'm just one man...".

Plot Points:

Pendrell dies after being shot by a military conspirator.
The alien UFO had a crew of six Grey aliens.
Military-industrial contractor Cummins Aerospace had an highly radioactive alien power source (cold fusion or over-unity energy) which was stolen by Max Fenig. It is made of three interconnecting parts. Two of the parts have been taken back by the aliens.
This alien technology involving cold fusion or over-unity energy and anti-gravity using a spinning superconducting disc are used in the Syndicate UFOs.

Analysis:

Scully getting a nose bleed is an indication of her contiuing struggle with cancer first seen in "Memento Mori".
So Mulder is arrested by the military for interfering with their investigation. This sounds serious, but Scully is able to sign him out and we never hear of this again!
So whatever happened to Frish? Was he killed? Imprisoned?
Funny that Millar calls seeing a UFO which spotlighted him "some lights".
So Sharon Grafia has been in and out of mental institutions. How in the hell did she get a job as an aeronautical engineer at a military-industrial contractor if she'd been in a nuthouse earlier, least of all one where'd she have access to alien technology?!
We learn in this episode that the military was behind all this. This means that BlackOps is military, unless the military contracted them in to the situation.
So at the lake, the BlackOps recovers the object piece that Max carried on his flight. It was in the alien UFO because as we see in Mulder's interpretation, the aliens grabbed Max, brought him in the UFO, grabbed his object, then returned him. So BlackOps finds the object in the UFO wreakage, and retrieves it. We never hear from this piece again, so presumably the military kept it. If the aliens are so insistant to recover the other two pieces, why didn't they go after this one? The most likely reason is because the military keeps these things in a high-security complex inaccessible to the aliens. That's why the aliens never tried to take it before Sharon stole them, and they were outside of the complex.
So the second piece was recovered by the aliens when they abducted Sharon from her hotel room last episode. But she is not immeadiately returned, and gets returned not from where she was taken but at the crashsite. Yet Max was immeadiately returned to where he was taken. Why the difference? Maybe because unlike Max, Sharon didn't have the object on her so the aliens had to come back and search Sharon's room or maybe even elsewhere, so they just returned her at the crashsite for no peticular reason.
And the third piece was sitting at the Syracuse airport, and it was taken from the flight Mulder and Garett was on. Since Garett was holding the bag, we may assume that he was grabbed by the aliens and levitated out to the UFO, where they grabbed the object off his person. But what happened to Garett? It's likely the aliens somehow knew he was their enemy so they let him drop. There's another possibility though; Garett had that parachute with him. Maybe he jumped out the plane with the object before the aliens could grab him, using his parachute. But even if he did, the aliens probably just grabbed him with their tractor beam then let him drop.
In any case, these aliens are pissed that the military shot down one of their UFOs and took their technology, so they came back for revenge to recover the objects once they were taken out of the security complex.
So if Max knew what would happen if he got on a plane, as Mulder asserts, why DID he get on? Perhaps he knew he would never make it to Mulder in DC, so he figured its better to give it back to the aliens than to give it back to the military.
It's amazing that a F-15 Eagle could take out an alien UFO, even if its sitting still holding the plane. Surely the UFO has some kind of defensive system to shoot down the missile, or protective shields?
Mulder's gun didn't work around the alien in "Little Green Men" too, again connecting those types of aliens to these types.
So how in the hell did Sharon manage to sneak out the alien power source? Wouldn't there be lots and lots of security precautions against this?
The fact that the alien power source is so highly radioactive may suggest that aliens have a much higher resistance against radiation.
Good thing the military people never thought to check Max's mail!
So how did the military people know to be at the Syracuse airport? Most likely they're just following Mulder.
The way Garett talks about sacrificing a few to save many sounds like he knows a bit about the Colonists and the Syndicate, and he does appear to be a leader of the BlackOps. Maybe Mulder's assertion that he's just a military contractor person is wrong.
Mulder's watch stops but Scully can continue to be heard over the phone. It seems that time stops for the abduction area because the UFO generates some kind of time stasis field, which means those in the field (the UFO and its victim) exist outside of time for that moment while the rest of the world continues existing as normal. Hence, abductees MISS nine minutes because for those nine minutes they existed outside of time. So once Mulder's watch stops then he is existing outside of time, and Scully is still existing inside time. In other words, Mulder is now frozen and Scully is still moving forward. Then why oh why do continue to hear Scully's voice on the phone? It should be impossible! Mulder is now frozen in time while Scully is moving, so he shouldn't be able to hear what she says because for him she hasn't said them yet!
So how did Sharon Grafia get out of the nuthouse? When Scully visits her she's in one, but at the end of the episode she's free! Did Mulder and Scully somehow get her sprung out? If she was in a nuthouse before, doesn't that mean she's insane? So why are Mulder and Scully sprining an insane person out of a nuthouse?! Or maybe she was thrown in a nuthouse for talking about aliens, but really if she can be why not Mulder? No wonder he's afraid to visit the nuthouse!
So Max has seen a Syndicate UFO hovering over his trailer... It makes sense that they'd want to observe the people being abducted by these non-Colonist Greys to make sure they're not up to something sinister.

ZERO SUM

The Run Down:

At a Virginia post office, an employee is assulted by a large swarm of bees which comes out of the bathroom sink.
Skinner deletes the files on the case from Mulder's computer. He then cleans up all the evidense at the post office bathroom. He then steals the victim's body and burns it in the furnace of an industrial plant. He then switches the blood samples of the victim posing as Mulder. While leaving he runs into the detective who sent the files to Mulder. He gives him the brushoff saying the case doesn't warrant his involvement, observed by Grey-Haired Man.
Mulder meets Skinner; he got the same files from the detective's partner; the detective was shot execution style. Scully is in the hospital taking tests; her oncologist fears her cancer may be metastasizing. Skinner soon encounters Cancer Man in the parking garage, driven by Grey-Haired Man. Skinner is angry at the detective's murder, but Cancer Man says he didn't handle the detective properly. Skinner threatens to quit their deal, but Cancer Man threatens that that would be dangerous.
Mulder tracks all of Skinner's previous actions; Skinner finds his gun has been stolen and used to kill the detective. Skinner angrily calls Cancer Man, but Cancer Man reminds him that going to the authorities would only show Skinner has been conducting illegal actions. Skinner demands he cure Scully now, but Cancer Man only says "I'm fully aware of Agent Scully's progress". Skinner says if anything happens to Scully he will turn state's evidense against Cancer Man.
Skinner returns to the post office bathroom, and finds a honeycomb in the wall. He takes some to a bee specialist; there are larvae in the honeycomb which he will hatch to learn the species. He says any bee can be leathal if they attack in swarms. The same specialist was contacted by Mulder six months ago about killer bees and is curious if there's a connection. Later that night, the bees have hatched into a huge swarm and have gotten through a metal mesh. They attack the specialist when he walks in the room.
Skinner finds Mulder's bee farm file given to him by Marita in his office files and copies her phone number. Skinner calls Marita about Mulder asking her about "a Canadian agricultural project involving bees and bee husbandry", but she says she couldn't help him because there was no evidense of that. Skinner says he will soon have access to these bees.
Mulder shows Skinner the specialist's body; like the postal employee it has "pocks and blisters" of smallpox, the first reported case in over 7 years, "according to the coroner, an especially virulent strain caused by a mutated variola virus". The bees were carrying this smallpox strain and gave it to the specialist through the stings. Mulder asserts that "somebody is trying to engineer a meathod of delivery, for a disease that has killed more people throughout history than any other contagion known to humankind.
Skinner talks to another postal employee; some men came for a package then threatened her job if she talked. It was a damaged package, all damaged packages are sent to this postal office, and it was stored in a room next to the bathroom.
Cancer Man meets the Syndicate Elders minus Well-Manicured Man. He shows them a bee saying "this is the last remaining specimem. The bees from the scientist's house; it's been contained and destroyed". The body has also been "sanatzied". First Elder asks how this happened. Cancer Man says "it's been taken care of. The details are unimportant". First Elder says "details are everything. Much more important than you vague assurances". Cancer Man says "you'll have to trust my assurance that any other breaches have been handled". First Elder asks by whom, Cancer Man says "I have a man in place. A man with no other choice but to succeed". First Elder says "what assurance can you give us that he can be trusted?". Second Elder says "we can't risk even the slightest exposure". Cancer Man says "he has nothing to expose, except his own duplicity". First Elder says "should we assume that the trial run is proceeding as planned?". Cancer Man says "it's already begun".
At a South Carolina elementry school, a swarm of bees attacks a playground full of children. Several children get stung, but a teacher gets attacked by a whole swarm of bees. Skinner goes there and tells the doctor they need to be treated for smallpox but the doctor is skeptical. Smallpox has an 8 day incubation period, but these children got sick within hours. Marita meets Skinner there with information. 7 packages were sent from Canada to a PO Box in the town. She demands what he knows, saying "my office has to answer to the Secretary General of the United Nations". Skinner asserts it was an experiment using bees as carriers. Marita asks if he's involved in this, which Skinner denies. She says he must come forward about this, no one else can.
Mulder got a grainy surveillance camera of Skinner talking to the detective, but it will take a while to make it legible. Mulder recognizes Skinner. Skinner returns home to find his gun returned and Mulder waiting for him armed. Skinner says he was framed for the detective's murder, and admits he made a deal with Cancer Man in return for Scully's life. Mulder has Skinner's gun tested; it is the murder weapon, and Mulder covers for Skinner saying it was found near the crime scene. They later find out that the gun's serial number had been filed off, so unless there was a print on the gun it's virtually untraceable.
Cancer Man comes home to find Skinner waiting for him armed. Skinner says the deal is off because he hasn't done a thing to help Scully. Cancer Man says he's not afraid to die, but if he gets killed Scully will die. He says he saved her life once before when he had her returned to Mulder, "I may save her again". Cancer Man's phone rings. Skinner fires three shots around Cancer Man and leaves. Cancer Man answers his phone, saying yes Skinner was just here, he threatened to kill him. He says "I'm sure Mulder will be contacting you. He'll want to know if Skinner's seen all there is to see". Marita is on the other phone, with a dark-haired dark-suited man standing behind her. Marita says "I'll tell him what you want me to tell him". Cancer Man says "tell him what he wants to hear!".

Plot Points:

As part of his deal, Skinner worked as a cleanup crew for Cancer Man for a smallpox bee experiment foul-up. After almost being framed for murder by Cancer Man, Skinner breaks the deal.
The Syndicate conducts a test outbreak of smallpox bees, who attack people in swarms and infect them with an especially virulent strain of smallpox which is caused by a mutated variola virus. The virus devealops in hours instead of the 8 day incubation period normal for smallpox. The bees can chew their way out of a metal mesh. The bees are being made as carriers to deliver a virus.
Skinner contacted Marita about the smallpox bees, and told her they were being used to carry the smallpox virus.
Marita appears to be following Cancer Man's orders when she gives Mulder information.

Analysis:

In "Herrenvolk" we get a sneak peak of these bees before their big test run in this episode. There, it only takes one bee sting for a man to get infected with the super-smallpox. Yet here, the bees attack in great swarms. This doesn't make sense, especially because it means the Syndicate will have to produce billions of infected bees if they work this way. The bees are going to be used to infect all or most of humanity with the Black Oil come Colonization time.
Here's my theory: the bees can be controlled by Hybrids, as seen in "Herrenvolk". In The Movie a bee waits in Scully's collar for several hours before stinging her. Perhaps a Hybrid was controlling it! So: in this episode, the test-run involved uncontrolled bees to see what they would do. Uncontrolled, they attack the nearest person in great swarms. Very inefficient, so now the Syndicate knows they'll have to control the bees during the outbreak using the Hybrids. This means lots and lots of Hybrids!
Second Elder stresses that they can't afford the slightest exposure in this affair, because the bee outbreak is one of those big secrets that can never be exposed because then humanity will try to fight Colonization and the Syndicate will be destroyed. Yet Cancer Man cleans up a mistake with Skinner! This is a horrible idea, he seems confident that Skinner is forced to keep secret because he'll only expose himself and doom Scully, but as we see at the end Skinner is willing to sacrifice himself to expose the Syndicate.
So: a bunch of larvae-ridden honeycombs are packed into 7 packages in one of the Syndicate's Canada Project farms. These 7 packages are mailed to South Carolina, where they will be retrieved by a Syndicate employee and released at an elementry school. But there is a problem; one of the packages gets damaged, so it is rerouted to another post office where it sits. Meanwhile the bees hatch and escape the box (they chew through metal mesh so why not cardboard!), where they set up a new hive in the wall adjecent to the bathroom. This means that before the elementry school outbreak, the bees had already hatched from their packages. So somewhere in South Carolina some Syndicate employees hatched these bees, bottled them up, then released them at the elementry school.
Grey-Haired Man appears to be Cancer Man's right hand man here, as he does in "Herrenvolk". In "Herrevolk" he takes out X, and in "Memento Mori" he takes out a renegade Hybrid with a Glimlet. Obviously he's Cancer Man's favorite assassin right now, yet after this episode we never see him again!
Cancer Man is very clever with Skinner's gun; he uses it as the murder weapon, thus if Skinner goes public he is accused of murdering a detective. Then again, the serial number is filed off! Obviously Skinner wouldn't know this without an analysis, so he thinks he would be screwed when in fact he woudn't!
So after "Herrenvolk" Mulder contacted this bee specialist about the bees he saw at the Canada Project farm! Always nice to see these rare examples of thinking things through with Mulder!
Yes, those bees had to have chewed through that metal mesh! How else could they get through it? This must mean they have super-powerful jaws or something, which means these bees are not normal bees. These bees have been genetically altered by the Syndicate, making them stronger. This must be necessary in order for them to be a host to the smallpox and Black Oil, ie they carry it but do not get infected by it. Since only Hybrids are immune to the Black Oil (that's whole point!), this must mean these bees have been given Hybrid genes or something like that! Thus it makes sense that they're only coming out with the bees now in 1997, since they've only made real advances in Hybrids in the last decade or so!
So, Mulder keeps this top-secret illegal file that Marita gave him, which implicates her as a traitor to the Syndicate, in his unlocked office! He also keeps Marita's phone number in his phone directory! No wonder his informants have a tendancy to get killed!
So the super-smallpox is more virulent (and causes symptoms much much faster) than normal smallpox because of a "mutated variola virus". From "Terma" we know a variola virus is a type of virus which causes blisters, like smallpox. We know there is some kind of connection between smallpox and Black Oil, like maybe smallpox is historical descendant of Black Oil (Black Oil was the first form of life on Earth). So it makes sense that this 'mutated variola virus' is the Black Oil! So: smallpox + Black Oil = super-smallpox!
Mulder says smallpox has killed more people than any other disease in history. What about the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Plague? It kills off 3/4 of the European population in medevil times!
If this test-run of the bees is so vitally important to the Syndicate, why the hell isn't Well-Manicured Man at this meeting?!
Once again we see First Elder is very adversarial to Cancer Man, and doesn't trust him at all. Of course by now he has good reason, assuming Well-Manicured Man told the rest of the Elders how Cancer Man lied about destroying the DAT Tape in "Paper Clip".
First Elder calls this outbreak a "trial run". This hints that the trial run is testing the bees as a delivery system, in other words their true purpose is not to carry the super-smallpox but something else. The super-smallpox is a dry run to test the bee's effectiveness. So the bees' true purpose is to carry Black Oil, and this super-smallpox is a kind of simulated Black Oil; as far as the bee's bodies are concerned they are the same but of course since this test run will be partly revealed to the public, they can't use Black Oil.
So do all those children and that teacher die of the super-smallpox or what? We never learn! Considering the doctor didn't even believe Skinner when he said it was smallpox, did they get the necessary treatment in time?
And what about the bees? Where did they all go? If a single one was kept, wouldn't it reveal that the bee was genetically altered to carry a virus? Then again, Cancer Man is able to clean up the specialist's death even though Mulder is aware of it, so it must all be planned that they will be taken care of.
Marita is very interested in what Skinner knows about the bees as a delivery system and she wants him to go public about it. Sounds like she is acting here as a traitor to the Syndicate not a loyal member.
In "Talitha Cumi" Skinner tells Mulder he no longer knows where Cancer Man lives, so that must have changed as part of their deal.
Just as "Memento Mori" left the distinct impression that Scully had been cured by Cancer Man because of Skinner's deal, the ending of this episode leaves the impression that Cancer Man wouldn't let Skinner off the deal just because he shot around him. Guess not!
Cancer Man threatens Skinner with being charged with conspiracy and blocking investigation and so on if he quits their deal. Yet Skinner does quit the deal, and apparantly Cancer Man does nothing to him! Why the hell not?! Was it because he was afraid that revealing Skinner's actions would reveal the truth behind the bee test-run?
So Cancer Man has Marita blab to Mulder so that he only learns what Cancer Man wants him to learn, thus distracting him from the ultimate truth of collaboration with the Colonists.
So who was that person standing behind Marita at the end? It was someone with dark hair, so it could have been Mulder, but if that's true then her conversation would have sounded suspicious. He would hear her say "I'll tell him what you want me to tell him", which would sound very suspicious to Mulder since she's supposed to be his secret informant!
A likely possibility is Krychek; we see in Marita's next appearance, "Patient X", that they are lovers and allies, and he would better fit that blurred image here than Mulder, plus it would make more sense.

DEMONS

The Run Down:

Mulder undergoes a mental regression therapy to remember the details of Samantaha's abduction. It leads him to have seizures and violent tendacies. What he sees could just be a hallucination.
At one point Mulder visits his mother. He says she kept secrets from him. He says "you told me that when they took Samantha it was because you had to make a choice, but that's not how it happened. It wasn't your choice to make". He accuses her of having "some kind of relationship with him... the man who worked with my father, the man who came to you that night when I was 12, and forced you to choose Samantha... you betrayed my father, your husband. How far back did it go?". Teena angrily slaps him, but Mulder asks "who is my father?". She refuses to answer him and leaves, flustered.
Here's what he remembered in 1973: Fox and Samantha are hiding in the loft while their parents argue. Teena is crying, Bill is angry. Teena screams "no! My baby!". Another time: Teena says "how can you do this to our family?!". Bill says "I'm not doing it! It's not just me. These orders are coming down from...". Cancer Man is there and sees Fox spying on his parents, and says "you're a little spy". Another time: Bill and Cancer Man are arguing. Teena pounds on Cancer Man's chest saying "not Samantha! No! My baby!". In random images he sees Cancer Man hugging Samantha and Teena.

Plot Points:

Bill Mulder was the not only one forced to choose which child would be abducted, and he was ordered to do so by a superior. The choice was Samantha, apparantly at Cancer Man's urging, which greatly upset Teena Mulder.
Mulder undergoes a regression treatment and learns this, and thinks that Teena had an affair with Cancer Man. He accuses her of this.

Analysis:

So here Mulder accuses his mother of having an affair with Cancer Man, and accuses that Cancer Man is his biological father and that's why Cancer Man forced Bill to choose Samantha to be abducted. Teena slaps him and storms off. And she hasn't been seen in the next two seasons! Boy, she must be really pissed off at him for that accusation. Mulder seems to have ruined his relationship with his mother, just as it was with his father. Then again, Teena never seemed to be very fond of Fox, the only time she shows any concern for him was in "The Blessing Way" when she was told he was dead. In these flashbacks Teena seems only concerned with Samantha. Another fact supporting this: in "One Son" when Mulder learns that humanity is about to be wiped out and he can bring a few people with him and save their life, he doesn't call his mother! He condemns her to die! He calls in Skinner but not her!
Obviously this episode implies that Cancer Man had an affair with Teena, and Mulder is the biological son of Cancer Man, and that's why Cancer Man forced them to abduct Samantha and that's why today Cancer Man protects Mulder and is so fond of him. Surprizingly enough, this plotline comes to screaming halt in this episode and never gets referenced to again! In part, this is because Cancer Man was in hiding for all of Season Five, but by Season Six the plotline was still dead.
There's another possibility: Samantha is Cancer Man's biological offspring, and Cancer Man wanted her abducted because he knew it would mean that she would survive Colonization as a Hybrid. Of course, this doesn't have any supporting facts.
So it appears that the truth, as hinted to in "Musings of Cancer Man", is that Cancer Man views Teena and Fox as his pseudo-family even though they aren't, and that he lived vicariously through his friend Bill, in a way pretending to have a family. So Cancer Man wanted Fox to live on because he was his pseudo-son. Then again, in The Movie Well-Manicured Man tells Mulder that it was Bill's decision, so maybe all these memories are false after all, just what Mulder suspects so his subconsious makes it so.
Bill says he's not the only one in the situation, and that the orders to do it were handed down from someone above him. In this little hint here, we learn the real truth revealed in "One Son"! That all the Syndicate Elders had to give up a child as part of the deal with the Colonists in order to get the alien fetus.
One thing stands out; Bill says the order was handed down, in other words in the proto-Syndicate someone outranked him and ordered him to do this. Actually, in what little we see Bill appears to be a lower-ranking Syndicate Elder like in "Travellers". He does appear to be about the equal of Cancer Man at the time though (of course this is hilarious because in "One Son" Cancer Man suddenly becomes in charge of every single Syndicate operation!).
Cancer Man sounds very rude to Fox when he calls him a spy. Yet Cancer Man in "Talitha Cumi" has warm memories of spending weekends at the Mulder home! Again this appears to be an exaggerated memory on the part of Mulder's paranoid subconscious.

GETHSEMANE (part 1 of 3)

The Run Down:

November 20 1973: there is a televised NASA symposium on the possibility of extraterrestial life.
Arlinsky and Babcock visit the site in the Canadian mountains. Inside a moutain cave, encased in ice, is what appears to be a Grey alien.
Mulder calls Scully in from a dinner party with her brother Bill in the Navy and Father McCue who wants her to turn back to faith in face of her cancer. He takes her to meet Dr Arlinsky of the Smithsoniam, a forensic anthropathologist he's been in contact with for 4 years. A few years back he was involved in a UFO hoax in which he professes his innocence. Ice core samples put the ice's age at 200 years. Babcock and a survey team found the body. Arlinsky asks Mulder to help him smuggle the body out so it can be authenticated by people other than the conspirators.
Scully has the ice core sample analysed. There's a tight matrix of crystals in the center (suggesting the quick freeze theory), which has some chimera / hybrid cells in it, a combination between plant and animal. The ice core is proven to be 'old' ice. The scientist goes to have the chimera cells further analyzed with an electron microscope. When Scully later returns, she finds Kritschgau there instead, who steals the ice core sample and escapes after a chase with Scully.
Brother Bill berates Scully for continuing to work when she is dying and asks where Mulder is during all this.
Babcock oversees the alien body being cut out of the ice with a gun. The men find a strange hole in the ice on the other end, ressembling a pour-hole to pour in liquid from the top or side but the angle is wrong. That night Ostelbott executes the team in the cave with a shotgun. Mulder and Arlinsky later arrive to find everyone (6) dead except for a wounded Babcock. Babcock says that before 'they' came he hid the alien body, buried in snow under his tent.
Fingerprints identify Kritschgau as a DC federal employee, formerly of the Army, now working at the Pentagon Research division in Virginia. After a lengthy chase Scully arrests Krtitschgau on his way to work at the DoD Research Facility in Sethberg Virginia. He says if she arrests him, they will kill him, the same people who gave her her cancer. As Scully tells the FBI panel, Kritschgau tells her the way in which Mulder and her were duped, the way her sister was killed and she was given cancer as part of it.
Mulder helps Arlinsky smuggle the body into a DC warehouse, where Arlinsky thaws the body to do an autopsy. Mulder says only a carbon dating test will conclusively prove its age. Babcock films the autopsy. It is 147cm long and weighs 24 kilograms after thawed out. The skin is grey and hairless with an elephantine texture. There are no identifying marks or scars. Head circumference is 64cm. There are 4 digits on each hand, 3 on each foot. Sex is underterminable. The eyes are black covered with a thin membrane; the tissue underneath is semi-gelatinous with a fine network of nerves throughout. There is a cardio-pulmonary system, heart, lungs, all identifiable. Further in the chest is a mass of white string-like tissue that doesn't appear to correspond to human physiology.
When Mulder leaves the warehouse to meet Scully, Ostelbott arrives and executes Arlinsky with his shotgun. Babcock is a fellow conspirator, he was shot as part of the dupe. Ostelbott asks if he's the only one who knows the truth now.
Kritschgau talks to Mulder about the lie of alien existance which he has been duped to believe in, which he is used to perpetuate. He learned this working with the DoD, "watching a military-industrial complex that operated unbridled and unchecked during the Cold War, create a diversion of attention from itself and its continued misdeeds" by creating false evidense of alien existance. He says he was just like Mulder, disbelieving all except what he should, "I ran the DoD's agitprop arm for a decade. I can show you records of disinformation dating back to the Korean War". He comes to Mulder now because his son is very sick after serving in the Gulf War. "The lies are so deep the only way to cover them is to create something even more incredible. They invented you. Your regression hypnosis, the story of your sister's abduction, the lies they fed your father. You wanted to believe so badly". The thousands of UFO sightings are "above top secret military aircraft, concept designed to feed hysteria", the evidense of alien biology is "unclassified but naturally occuring biological anomalies science will eventually explain". The body found in the cave was "constructed out of biomaterials created through the hybridization of differentiated cells, what are called chimeras. Frozen into place over the course of a year using sentiment and materials that would bear out its age, poured through a small channel drilled in the rock above". The body will never be carbon tested, it has already disapeered. "You were only meant to see it, to make you believe the lie, so that you might finally commit and go public with the news". He told Scully earlier that 'they' gave her cancer just to make Mulder believe the lie.
Mulder and Scully return to the warehouse; the body and Ostelbott are gone, and Babcock is dead. Mulder goes home and watches a tape of the '73 NASA Symposium, and cries.
Scully identifies a body in Mulder's apartment. She then testifies before a FBI panel led by Section Chief Scott Blevins that after her 4 year assignment to debunk Mulder's work, she now calls it illegitimate because over the years he became "a victim of his own false hopes and of his beliefs in the biggest of lies". She says Mulder was duped by Arlinsky and by a scientific slight of hand faking proof of aliens. She tells them her cancer has metastasized; it will spread to the rest of her body and kill her. She narrates to them to events of this episode, ending by saying that Mulder died last night from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

Plot Points:

A faux-Grey alien body is found encased in ice in a Canadian mountain cave. In the encasing ice are hybrized cells, a strange combination of plant and animal. Mulder observes an autopsy of it; among other facts it has an extra white string-like organ in the chest and eyes with a black membrane. The body is quickly stolen back by the conspirators.
Scully's cancer has metastasized; it will quickly spread into the rest of her body and kill her.
Enter Bill Scully: Scully's big brother in the Navy who is very disdainful towards Mulder and blames him for Scully's cancer.
Enter Kritschgau: a high-ranking DoD employee who tells Mulder his belief that aliens are a hoax created by the military to hide their sins, and Mulder was 'created' by them to perpetuate this lie. The UFOs are secret military planes and the faux body is created by the creationf of chimera cells. He comes to Mulder because his son is dying after fighting in the Gulf War.
Scully testifies before Section Chief Blevins and an FBI panel that Mulder's beliefs are a lie, that Mulder comitted suicide by shooting himself in the head (she identified a body found in Mulder's apartment shot in the face).

Analysis:

This NASA Symposium was broadcast exactly one week before Samantha's abduction on November 27th ("Little Green Men"). Is this a coincidense, or did the Syndicate have this thing occur just at this time on purpose. In "One Son" we learn that all the Syndicate Elders except Bill had their children abducted by the Colonists earlier on October 13th. It took Bill a while to agree to it. Perhaps the Syndicate had this little thing televised then to convince Bill he must give up his daughter!
ONCE again on screen the characters say that Mulder and Scully began working together in the year of the first season (1993-94), thus the number of seasons is the number of years they've been together. They keep on forgetting that "The Pilot" is when Mulder and Scully first began working together, which takes place in 1992! So it's not 4 years its 5 years!
This begs the question, when Mulder says he's known Arlinsky for 4 years, does he mean 4 years or does he mean since "The Pilot"?
The fact that Arlinsky was involved in a UFO hoax makes him suspicious, but that fact that he gets killed by Ostelbott suggests he really was a good guy manipulated just like Mulder.
These chimera / hybrid cells which combine plant and animal characteristics sound like alien/human Hybrid cells, since in "The Erlenmeyer Flask" we see the alien genes have plant-like characteristics. Of course, we learn in "Redux" that these faux-bodies appear to be birthed out of abducted women just like the Hybrids in "Memento Mori", so it makes sense!
So Babcock, a conspirator, 'found' the faux-body.
The Syndicate can fake 'old' ice, and succesfully fake an centuries old object in centuries old ice.
Babcock tells Arlinsky and Mulder that he hid the body in the snow under his tent. Doesn't this sound like a big problem! That big chunk of ice must weigh a ton, how are they going to cut the hole in the ground then lower it down in there? Obviously Babcock had his crew do this before they were killed.
So following the conspirator's orders, Kritschgau stole the ice core sample. We later learn that Kritschgau was a very high ranking DoD official! In normal situations, the Syndicate would send one of their assassins who have no identity on record, but here because a DoD guy was used Scully was able to track him by his fingerprints. This smells of set-up! Sounds like the Syndicate became aware that Kritschgau was becoming 'disenchanted' (because his son apparantly has Gulf War Syndrome) so they set up this whole affair to force him into revealing to Mulder these silly conspiracy theories he has to Mulder, thus further leading Mulder away from the truth of collaboration with the Colonists but making him continue to discredit the truth-seekers. Then again, if he no longer believes in aliens then it would hurt the discrediting of the truth-seekers.
Again, how is Kritschgau going to just happen to learn all about Mulder and Scully, about Mulder's father being a Syndicate Elder, about Samantha, etc just by happenstance. It seems like he's an unwitting Syndicate pawn!
In "Redux II" Cancer Man offers Mulder to join him. Perhaps this whole affair was designed to make Mulder desperate enough to do so, because Cancer Man wants his pseudo-son to work with him, including making Kritschgau into an unwitting pawn of disinformation. Then again, isn't saving Scully's life enough to do so?
The faux-body having an elephantine textured skin means tough leathery skin.
Just how close is this faux-alien to the real thing? It is visably identical to other real Greys we've seen ("Tempus Fugit" for example) so perhaps it is realistic. In fact, maybe the Syndicate has some batches of abducted women give birth to dead alien bodies in order to use them for the occaisonal hoax.
If so, then Greys are asexual and their eyes are very sensitive to light.
The fact that the faux-body has similar organs to Earthkind (and real Greys if it close enough) makes sense since we learn in "Biogenesis" that the Colonists are likely responsible for the creation of life on Earth.
So Ostelbott killed Babcock, thus no one alive (not a direct conspirator) would know for sure the body is a fake.
What is an "agitprop" arm in the DoD? Is "prop" short for propaganda?
Kritschgau says the disinformation dates back to the Korean War. The Korean War was fought from 1949 to 1953 (as I recall) so this makes sense: we saw that in 1953 Bill Mulder and Cancer Man were already investigating aliens.
In "Terma" we learned that Gulf War Syndrome is the US troops in Iraq being exposed to the Black Cancer, given to Iraq but the Russians. The Syndicate gave the soliders lots of pills, their uneffective would-be Vaccine, but they got sick none the less. Kritschgau's son got sick in the Gulf War, so it seems likely he was infected with Black Cancer!
Kritschgau tells Mulder that he comes to him now because of his son's sickness. But in reality, isn't it because Scully has him under arrest after she caught him stealing evidense?! Mulder doesn't make note of this!
However, Kritschgau is partially correct when he says they created Mulder. Cancer Man says "I created Mulder" in "Redux" and its somewhat true, Mulder has been manipulated as a Syndicate pawn and investigator during the series.
Maybe Kritschgau got a hold of some records, then 'interpreted' them according to his own conspiratorial theories. Maybe the Syndicate let him see some facts in order to make him go to Mulder.
In "Jose Chung" we do learn the Syndicate can create false memories in people, so maybe it is possible that the Syndicate created a false abduction memory in Mulder, but really it makes perfect sense in terms of other facts.
Kritschgau alledges Bill Mulder was a pawn who was lied to. This is obviously wrong! In "Apocrypha" we see him a partner of Cancer Man in 1953, in "Travellers" we see him a Syndicate man in 1952, and so on!
Kritschgau is right that (most!) UFO sightings are military aircraft, so he must know about the Aurora spy planes aka Syndicate UFOs.
Funnily enough, Mulder never mentions the female abductions as something for Kritschgau to explain away.
What Kritschgau was most right about was the faux-body (most likely); it was created through the creation of chimera cells, of course what he doesn't know is that they come from abducted women. In "Redux" we see this is the security level above Kritschgau's at the DoD facility where he works.
Okay, let's generalize about the Kritschgau version of the world. It is impossible! We have seen SO much evidense of real aliens it's ridiculous, and for Mulder to even briefly consider it as true is even more ridiculous. He'd have to be thinking that the Syndicate has given him false memories for dozens of situations! Let's see: in "The Erlenmeyer Flask" he sees a bunch of people who can breathe underwater and when he shoots one man he get infected with an alien retrovirus. in "Little Green Men" he encounters an alien who causes a man to die of fright, who causes a gun not to work, etc. In "Colony"/"Endgame" me meets a morphing Pilot with super-strength and when he shoots him the Pilot is unaffected but he gets infected with an alien retrovirus! in "Talitha Cumi" he meets a man who can heal wounds with the palm of his hand. in "Herrenvolk" me meets two men who easily survive a three story plummet. in "Tempus Fugit"/"Max" he sees first-hand an alien UFO grab a plane in midflight.
Furthermore, the notion that Mulder would commit suicide over this is laughably absurd, but then again as we learn in "Redux" that was a lie, but even so it was a ridiculous thing for the writers to tease us with. Even the fact that Mulder cries is ridiculous, because it means that he's considering Kritschgau's crazy story which he offers with ZERO evidense to support it!
This is the first time we've seen Blevins since "Conduit" in the early first season. Why exactly does he now return?
Just check out "Redux" for the truth about Scully's testimony to the FBI panel.

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