X-Files Mythology Guide Season Eight

Mythology Guide: Season Eight

WITHIN (part 2 of 3)

The Run Down:

Scully has a dream of Mulder being taken out of a liquid storage and having a throat cord removed.
FBI agents ransack Mulder's office as part of the manhunt for him. The newly promoted Deputy Director Kersh has ordered the search and put Agent John Doggett in charge. Scully and Skinner are under suspicion for his absence, and Kersh warns them not to say anything involving aliens. Scully convinces Skinner to lie about witnessing a UFO abduct Mulder. Doggett questions Scully about Mulder while lying about his identity, suggesting that Mulder was having inter-office affairs and didn't trust her. Scully researches Doggett; he was a Marine, an NYPD cop, and is now in Special Agent Criminal Investigations.
Scully calls her mother, she wants to meet and tell her about something important. Her line is tapped; she calls Doggett and accuses him of it but he's oblivious. Scully spots a man outside her door, who her landlord identifies as Mulder. He escapes and she returns to find her computer has been stolen. That night she has a dream of Mulder being held with spikes driven into him while the roof of his mouth is drilled into.
Skinner meets The Lone Gunmen, who hacked the JPL satellite imagery. Imagery since Mulder's abduction doesn't show anything, but before that there were markers that corresponded with reported alien abductions. Skinner hopes to find the next place the UFO stops in order to find Mulder.
Doggett asks Kersh if there are others involved in the investigation which Kersh denies, and promises future advancement.
Files are stolen from the FBI office in the night, using Mulder's pass card. Agt Crane (Doggett's 2nd in command) suspects Mulder retaliating against the FBI for threatening the X-Files. Doggett learns that Mulder made weekly trips in May to an undefined location, which credit card debits show to be Raleigh NC where his mother is buried. They unveil a tombstone with the four Mulders written on it. Doggett finds that Mulder had been dying the past year after his "Sixth Extinction" temporal lobe disorder. He had been going to doctors, and Doggett suspects he now did something desperate to make a difference and staged his abduction to create doubt. Skinner accidentally reveals to Doggett that he witnessed the abduction; Doggett agrees not to report it.
Scully and Skinner visit the Lone Gunmen. Micro burst activity shows the UFO is now operating in the Southwest, in the Arizona desert now. The Lone Gunmen suggest they find the next abductee. Scully has a break through. She realizes that people don't believe because the aliens have been collecting all evidence, and in Arizona exists concrete proof of them; Gibson Praise.
Doggett anonymously receives the X-File on Gibson and he orders the manhunt after Gibson. It is believed that the Gibson X-File is what was stolen from the office.
Scully has another Mulder dream, this time a saw cuts into his chest.
Scully and Skinner follow the UFO appearances in Arizona while Doggett locates Gibson in a school for the deaf. They arrive at the same time but find Gibson has fled. Gibson is grabbed by Pilot-as-Mulder. Doggett catches up to them and holds 'Mulder' at gunpoint.

Plot Points:

Scully is having psychic dreams of Mulder being taken out of cryo storage and tortured.
Kersh is promoted to Deputy Director and puts Agt John Doggett in charge of the manhunt for Mulder.
Mulder had been dying the past year from his temporal lobe disorder ("Sixth Extinction").
Scully asserts alien existence has always been disproven because the aliens have been collecting all the evidence, and that Gibson is concrete proof so is the most important thing to hide.
The Pilot poses as Mulder to collect evidence from Scully's home and Mulder's office. However Doggett later receives the Gibson file.
The UFO has been collecting abductees in the Pacific Northwest and is now collecting in the Southwest. Its next destination is Gibson Praise, who Scully, Skinner, and the FBI race for. The Pilot as Mulder grabs Gibson but Doggett finds him and holds him at gunpoint.

Analysis:

Looks like Scully finally gets to demonstrate her oft-forgotten psychic abilities again to see Mulder being tortured.
The organic cord taken out of Mulder's throat is identical to the one Scully had in The Movie when she was abducted and placed in cryo storage aboard the Colonist Mothership. So presumably all the collected abductees have been placed in cold storage like that, but Mulder was taken out early for some reason. The drill into the roof of his mouth might have been to insert the nasal implant, but what possible purpose is there to slicing his chest open? Are they just torturing him for interfering with their operation or what?
Isn't it funny that all that advanced alien technology uses things like metal saws and hooks against Mulder...
How did Kersh get a promotion? Is it happenstance or he still working with some Syndicate members?
Okay so Doggett lied about his identity to Scully to get her honest opinion about Mulder... but what was the point of that story about him screwing secretaries? Was it just to piss her off and make her accidentally say the truth?
Margaret Scully makes her first appearance in THREE YEARS! She last appeared in Season Five's "Emily".
Sounds like Scully is going to tell her mom about the pregnancy when next they meet.
So who tapped Scully's phone? It wasn't Doggett. Was it Kersh and his benefactors? Was it The Pilot? Where would The Pilot get a phone tap? He isn't working with any humans anymore remember.
Obviously it is not Mulder but The Pilot masquerading as Mulder. He steals Scully's computer. He breaks into the FBI building and steals a bunch of X-Files, presumably one of them being the Gibson Praise file. Then he masquerades as Mulder again to grab Gibson.
It may seem ridiculous that The Lone Gunmen can track a UFO using satellite imagery, but remember in "Requiem" they came up with an indirect way to track it. Presumably the government doesn't know about it (the elements not in league with the Syndicate that is).
It seems that only one UFO is making rounds in America. Surely they would send more considering how many thousands of abductees there are! Or are they just not looking for the other ones?
Presumably The Pilot stole Gibson's file, but then someone gives it to Doggett. Now the most likely person to do this is The Pilot, but why would he want the FBI to know about Gibson? Maybe his plan to appear as Mulder before the FBI when he abducts Gibson, thus cementing the cover story that Mulder went nuts and kidnapped Gibson. Makes sense.
If it isn't The Pilot then it would be some anonymous FBI conspiracy member like Kersh. In fact there's a dim possibility that Kersh's mysterious benefactor IS The Pilot, but I doubt it.
In fact, it is Doggett's aide Agt Crane who suggests the crazy Mulder theory. Maybe he is The Pilot or another Pilot working on the aforementioned cover story! He is the one who locates Gibson at the deaf school after all!
So all through Season Seven Mulder was dying and was visiting doctors?! How ret-con of them! This is a ridiculous thing to spring on us now, but it does possibly explain Mulder's actions at the end of "Requiem". He tells Scully there has to be an end, he leaves her in DC, then he seems to purposefully jump in the stealth field to get abducted. Maybe he was hoping to a) die learning the truth first hand or b) get the aliens to heal him with their advanced technology.
Doggett only mentions four weekly visits in May (presumably then Mulder was abducted after May), using visits to his mother's grave as a cover to see the doctors. But surely he was seeing doctors before that? Did Doggett not bother to check that?
I'm not I'm following it right but Doggett seemed to be suggesting that Mulder had already paid to have his name put on the Mulder family tombstone. Maybe The Pilot did this, maybe Mulder did expecting to either die or never come back after the abduction. But still what is the freakin' point of bringing the tombstone all the way to D.C. and opening it up right in front of Scully! Jeez!
We haven't seen Gibson in TWO YEARS. And it turns out he just at a deaf school all this time?! He was a freakin' telepath!!! Did his teachers just never catch on?! Did he never once use the power?! What about his family! And what is he doing in a deaf school anyway he can talk just fine. It's great that they're remembering him but it's much too late. He was made out to be extremely important to Mulder in "The End" and was the reason the X-Files were closed then; was Mulder really so idiotic to never do a follow up check for him?! Some savior of humanity...
It's nice of Scully to realize alien existence isn't believed because the evidence is stolen, but she seems to think it's the aliens that have been doing it. Apparently she's conveniently forgotten the Syndicate which covered up alien evidence from the 1940s to 1999! Or are the writers just trying to pretend the Syndicate never happened now because it might confuse the new viewers?
Can't wait for Doggett to shoot The Pilot, get infected with the alien retrovirus, then get an ice bath for a cure!

WITHOUT (part 3 of 3) The Run Down:

"Mulder" releases Gibson who flees and leaps over a cliff in front of Doggett. They later find "Mulder" got up from the fall and ran away. Scully tells Doggett it was an shape-shifting Alien Bounty Hunter after Gibson because he's a human anomaly.
Scully follows a Thea deaf girl to a small hidden tunnel in the desert where Gibson is hiding. Gibson is hiding from The Pilot and fears she'll expose him. He has only told Thea about his powers.
Kersh chews out Doggett for loosing Mulder. Skinner asserts to Doggett that he was put in charge of the manhunt in order to discredit him when he starts finding unexplainable things. Kersh hopes to ruin his career.
The FBI team encounters Pilot-as-Scully with Scully in front of Doggett. "Scully" crushes the throat of an agent and flees from the team then camouflages herself as Agt Crane to escape. Doggett briefly witnessed the faux-Scully.
Scully and Skinner hold guns on each other fearing that the other one is The Pilot.
Gibson is having psychic flashes of Mulder's torturing as well. He tells Scully and Skinner Mulder is out in the desert. Skinner takes Gibson to a hospital for his broken leg while Scully searches the desert. Doggett interrupts her while she is in view of the invisible UFO and tells her the FBI team is guarding Skinner and Gibson at the hospital.
Pilot-as-Thea finds Skinner and Gibson at the hospital. Scully and Doggett arrive at the hospital. Doggett finds Skinner infected with the alien retrovirus. Pilot-as-Skinner tries to lure in Scully but Gibson manages to warn her. The Pilot throws Scully across the room into a glass wall, but Gibson manages to distract The Pilot so Scully can shoot him through the back of the neck. Green blood flows from the exit wound in his throat, and the corpse quickly dissolves into a green goo. Doggett, Scully, and Gibson are all in the room; Doggett walks through the green goo and gets it all over his shoes.
Doggett reports to Kersh. The hazardous chemicals were found to be unidentifiable. Kersh sticks him on the X-Files. Skinner and Scully will recover, and Gibson is made a ward of the state under special protection.
Mulder in the torture chamber is visited by six identical Pilots.

Plot Points:

Doggett is told by Scully about shape-shifting Alien Bounty Hunters.
The FBI team encounters The Pilot-as-Scully but both Scullys are never clearly seen together.
Doggett was assigned to the manhunt by Kersh to discredit him; Doggett is placed on the X-Files with Scully.
Scully manages to kill a Pilot by shooting him through the back of the neck.
Mulder is never found but they do save Gibson from The Pilot.

Analysis:

So if Kersh is trying to discredit Doggett then that probably makes Kersh the one to have stolen the Gibson X-File from the FBI Building then anonymously give it to Doggett, in order to help him in the manhunt so that he might be discredited further. This might possibly mean that Kersh knows a lot more than he's letting on about aliens.... or that he's just being a bull headed fool again.
It's gonna pretty hard to deny an entire team of FBI agents witnessing a second Scully using super strength to crush the throat of another agent! While noone clearly saw the two Scullys together, they did have several agents hear one agent reporting to have Scully on the radio while the real Scully stood in front of them! While that could be written off as mistaken identity, the super strength throat crushing is much harder to explain. But presumably the whole thing will just be covered up and ignored.
Scully and Skinner holding guns on each other is nicely reminiscent of the cliffhanger for "The Blessing Way".
So Scully was just a few feet away from the cloaked UFO when Doggett and his helicopter showed up... the helicopter searchlight should have run into the cloak field at some point and just stop in midair damnit! That's what happened in "Requiem"!
So Skinner got infected with the alien retrovirus. He probably shot at The Pilot or The Pilot bled himself to take Skinner out. As we learned in "Endgame", after being infected with the alien retrovirus you can be cured by being put in ice water and having your blood slowly filtered out.
Scully being able to kill The Pilot by shooting the back of his neck is absolutely ridiculous!!! In "Talitha Cumi" X clearly said to Mulder that a gunshot will not kill an alien! In "Herrenvolk" Mulder actually used a Glimlet (alien killing blade) right in The Pilot's neck, and he survived it! Plus in "Endgame" a sniper shot The Pilot in the neck and it didn't kill him! Guess this retrocontinuity at work again... either that or just the need for closure in these open-ended plots.
Now we've seen that the blood in the neck organ does not carry the alien retrovirus before, so that piercing the back of the neck will not release the retrovirus. However Scully's bullet opened up the front of the neck as well, as his normal retrovirus-laiden blood came out there. That means that Doggett, Scully, and Gibson should all have been infected with the retrovirus!! Yet they are not. Well it's possible that Scully was from her reaction to her eyes, but Doggett was obviously fine- then again he came in after The Pilot as already a pile of goo so it might disburse quickly. And Gibson might be immune to the retrovius due to his anomalous condition. So maybe I should just tell myself that Scully got infected and it just happened off camera...
Here's another lovely inconsistency: in "Colony" when Scully steps in a pile of alien goo it eats her shoe off, yet here Doggett steps through a fresh pile, he's his shoots COVERED with it, and nothing happens. Sigh. He should have had his feet eaten off! The only possible excuse I can think of is that a Hybrid goo is acidic but a Pilot goo isn't...
So the FBI now has medical records of the alien goo from a Pilot corpse, but it's just unidentifiable. That's something surely to be forgotten after this episode! I would think there would evidence of the alien chemistry anyway...
Sounds like Doggett is only on the X-Files until he finds Mulder again. Presumably the big man hunt has now been called off and it's just down to him and Scully.
So if Gibson is so terribly important to the Colonists, why don't they send some more Pilots after him?! They had at least six just on the UFO with Mulder! Is this just a case of enforced closure on the episode again?
Once again, Gibson is walking proof of alien existence and telepathy, and once again he's put back in a normal school with no tests done on him. How stupid are these people?!!!

PER MANUM The Run Down:

In the past... Scully tells Mulder she is barren because of her abduction. Mulder reveals her ova were stolen by the government and he recovered them, but the doctor said the ova weren't viable. Scully takes the ova to Parenti who thinks it can work, and gets Mulder to be her sperm donor, but the procedure didn't work.
Haskell is present when a woman gives birth to an alien baby. The procedure is done by C-Section and the baby resembles a Grey with large black eyes and an umbilical cord. It makes a strange mewling sound.
Haskell sees Scully and Doggett. He contacted Mulder eight years ago because his wife was an alien abductee, and now she's dead after giving birth to an alien. Her abductions gave her cancer then later cured her. This year they implanted her with an alien embryo. He produces ultrasounds showing the baby. She was supposed to be barren, and he says all the doctors are in on it. Scully doesn't believe the story, and Doggett is surprised since it mimics her story.
Scully visits the Maryland clinic and finds a room full of deformed fetuses. Mrs Hendershot is about to give birth and worried her baby will be the same "as the others". Scully's doctor Parenti is also in on it. Parenti tells Scully the ultrasounds of her and Haskell's are normal, and that she'll be showing soon.
Doggett learns Haskell is president of the Ohio MUFON and he wrote threatening letters to Mulder. He also threatened Dr. Lev the delivering doctor of his 'wife', and there is no proof that they were married. Lev is a leader in birth defects. Haskell is working under Lev's orders and worries about loosing Hendershot. Lev and Parenti autopsied the dead alien fetus.
Hendershot goes to Scully to ask for help, and knows she is pregnant. Scully takes a leave of absence, which Doggett is suspicious of. Scully checks herself and Hendershot into an Army Research Hospital. The doctors are going to deliver Hendershot's baby. Hendershot was not impregnated by sex. Scully's exam shows her baby to be normal until she finds they played a false recording.
Doggett learns Haskell officially died in 1970 with a Marine honor guard ceremony. He meets a political contact Knowle Rohrer who says Haskell is probably CIA. Doggett asks about "a conspiracy to hide the truth" but Rohrer says there is no conspiracy. Doggett tells Skinner that Haskell was a trick to get to Scully.
Scully flees the hospital with Hendershot. Rohrer shows up with commandos and drives them away. They flee from unexpected military patrols. Hendershot gives birth to her baby. Rohrer sedates Scully who can dimly see the mewling alien baby.
Doggett learns Scully is pregnant. Hendershot was given a normal baby. Doggett called in Rohrer.

Plot Points:

In the past, Scully told Mulder she was barren and he revealed her stolen ova. Mulder was the sperm donor for an unsuccessful procedure with the ova to get Scully pregnant.
Abducted women have been impregnated with alien fetuses. There is a military/medical conspiracy of doctors who are stealing the fetuses for autopsies and sometimes killing the mothers, other times replacing the alien with a normal baby.
A conspiracy plot put Scully in a military hospital, during which she was left unconscious for awhile.
Doggett learns Scully is pregnant. Scully will be showing soon and will have to tell the FBI.

Analysis:

Unfortunately there's no indication as to when these Mulder/Scully flashbacks occur. It's probably sometime in Season Seven though, perhaps just before "All Things" when Mulder and Scully apparently had sex for the first time. It should be noted in Season Five's "Emily" Mulder first told Scully that the government stole her ova, which directly contradicts this episode (there's a shocker). In fact "Emily" told us that Scully's stolen embryo were used to make Emily Simm (aside from the two vials Mulder got in "Memento Mori" of course). We first learned about being barren in "Memento Mori" though.
While Mulder didn't directly come out and say it in "Emily", it left the distinct impression that he did in fact tell her about the two vials of recovered ova. And his "Per Manum" excuse of not wanting to tell her when she was dying is bull since during "Emily" Scully was already cured of her cancer!
Why would the Syndicate have kept abductee ova if they weren't viable? The more likely explanation is all the doctors were lying about the ova being useless, and Parenti (who in this ep we see is in the conspiracy) faked the transplant and kept the ova. However it wouldn't make sense that those same ova were used by the Colonists to get Scully pregnant since the Colonists are no longer working with human collaborators and haven't been since "One Son" (and those flashbacks almost definitely took place after that).
So Haskell was a CIA/conspiracy man who came up in the Marines. He was put in undercover as a MUFON person to gather intelligence on the abductee situation. While there were no records that he was married to the woman she certainly treated him like it was so in the teaser. Unless he was just there as a close friend. Either that or as part of his assignment he romanced the woman (by why only her since there's so many more abducted women out there). Just a coincidence?
Of course the big question is why are the Colonists having abducted women give birth to alien babies. If it weren't for the conspiracy stealing all these babies the alien existence would go public, and since as we saw in "Within" the Colonists are working to keep their presence secret, it doesn't make sense. And obviously this conspiracy isn't working with the Colonists since they're killing and autopsying the babies.
Perhaps these alien babies will quickly mature into adulthood and be used as a ground army?
Once again the show forgets that Mulder and Scully were partnered a full year before Season One. So when Haskell says eight years, that means Scully WAS around but it gets once again forgotten.
The room full of deformed fetuses at the clinic seemed to have nothing to do with the alien babies. They were just the normal kind of thing the clinic officially works on.
So in summary this was all a conspiracy plot to get Scully into a military hospital. Haskell and Lev considered Hendershot important but ultimately expendable, the real target was Scully. What is it about Scully's baby that makes her so special?
Scully demonstrates perhaps her greatest feat of incompetence yet when she checks herself into a MILITARY HOSPITAL while fleeing from a conspiracy involving doctors. Obviously she's conveniently forgotten about the heavy military involvement in every conspiracy most especially the Syndicate throughout her seven and a half years on the X-Files!
Rohrer was obviously in on the conspiracy. The original plan was Scully and Hendershot go to the Army Hospital, Scully finds the fake tape, Scully and Hendershot run into Rohrer's arms who claims to be a friend, Rohrer and his men steal both their babies. Their plan was interrupted when Doggett found out about the conspiracy plot and called the base security on them (obviously the entire military is not in on the conspiracy). That's why Rohrer was avoiding the military patrols. Of course Doggett unwittingly played right into the conspiracy plot since he called Rohrer.
The alternative is that Rohrer was never in the conspiracy, that he saved Scully and Hendershot from having the conspiracy steal their babies and possibly kill them. That the military patrols were the ones who were going to nab Scully and Hendershot. Of course that wouldn't explain why Hendershot had a mewling (off screen but therefore alien) baby and then a human one!
Seems like Rohrer and his men might have even had the time to remove Scully's alien fetus and replace it with a human one. Why else would her ultrasounds read as normal unless she's once again with conspiracy doctors? Even if this procedure seems impossible, remember that the conspiracy/military has had access to advanced alien technology for several decades now.

THIS IS NOT HAPPENING (part 1 of 2) The Run Down:

Montana: Ritchie ("Requiem" UFO hunter) chases a UFO in his car taking pictures. The UFO lands in a field and cloaks. Ritchie chases off Jeremiah Smith and discovers the near-dead body of Teresa ("Pilot", "Requiem"). She has damage to the soft palate in the mouth, linear pattern tissue damage in her cheeks, her chest was cut into, and organ tissue in her abdomen was scraped away, but there are no signs of Implants. Several UFO sightings have happened in Montana the last two weeks. "Requiem" happened "last spring".
Doggett introduces Scully and Skinner to FBI Agent Monica Reyes, expert in ritualistic crime. She thinks Mulder and the abductees were in a UFO cult, but she is open to the possibility of extraterrestials. She says Implants are sometimes made of bone and cartilage to escape detection. Reyes worked on the case of Doggett's abducted son who was later found dead.
Jeremiah Smith morphs to steal Teresa from the hospital. He heals her wounds with his powers in front of Absalom the group leader.
Reyes is driving when her car fails and a UFO passes by overhead. She follows it to the field where she finds Jeremiah and Absalom stealing a body. She discovers the body of Gary (Richie's friend, "Requiem"). Scully autopsies Gary and finds cuts from ligature/ binding with "distal and proximal bruising radiating in a symmetrical pattern around the ankles, the wrist, and the face".
Reyes identifies Absalom, who led a doomsday cult promising alien invasion at the millenium who fled when it didn't happen and went on to credit card scam. The FBI occupies Absalom's compound but Jeremiah hides. Absalom says the abductees are returned in bad condition and he helps him, the alien invasion did begin at the millenium. He denies seeing Mulder.
Scully finds Jeremiah morphing on the compound security cameras. Skinner asks who Jeremiah is. Scully meets Jeremiah who reveals his appearance to her when she looks away. He says "you're going to expose me. You're putting people in danger- abductees all over the country. I save them. I'm the only one". He was trying to help Mulder too, she must protect him.
The FBI finds Mulder body near the compound. A UFO appears over the compound with terrified FBI agents and abductees inside. Scully finds Jeremiah has disappeared.

Plot Points:

The Colonists are returning abductees in a near-dead condition. Jeremiah Smith was secretly healing them until the FBI exposed him and he was captured by the Colonists. Mulder is found dead before Jeremiah could heal him.
Introducing FBI Agent Monica Reyes, open to the possibility of aliens and specializing in ritualistic crime. She sees a UFO.
Doggett's son was abducted and killed. Reyes worked on the case.

Analysis:

First, a timeline inconsistancy. According to this episode, "Requiem" happened "last spring". In "The Gift" Doggett said that Mulder disappeared in May. That assumes that this episode takes place around it's airdate in Febuary 2001, but it can't! Scully became pregnant at the end of "Requiem", which means she will give birth around March-April 2001. And in this episode she is obviously not visibly pregnant. That means that "Happening" takes place around four months after "Requiem" (before Scully would start to be visibly pregnant), around September 2000. Therefore, "Requiem" could not have been "last spring" since it's the same year!
How can Ritchie and Reyes chase a UFO in a car if they cause power failture? Is it just a matter of not passing directly underneath the UFO or staying a certain distance away to avoid the field of power drain?
So did Ritchie's pictures come out to reveal a UFO or just a flash of light? Or was the film exposed by the radiation?
Was the UFO dropping off all the abductees to one field? How did Jeremiah and Absalom find this field?
So the "Requiem" abductees showed no visible cases of alien technology. This of course leads to the question what was the point of all that mutilation? Were they perhaps cruelly inserting some kind of invisible biological or nano-technology things?
According to Reyes some Implants are made of bone and cartilidge but that's the first we've ever heard of it! Makes sense though.
In "Requiem" the abductees were taken in this order: the deputy, Det. Miles, Gary, Teresa, Billy Miles, then Mulder. In this episode we see Teresa then Gary then Mulder returned. That's out of order, unless Gary was returned earlier and Jeremiah and Absalom somehow missed him, leaving him to die in the field. But what about Billy Miles?
Gary and Mulder were in the field at the same time. Does that mean the abductees are getting returned in pairs? Or was this a special case, since Teresa came back alone? Or was Mulder just then returned and Gary had been rotting out in the field?
Obviously Gary was dead since Scully autopsied him, but what about Teresa? Did she survive or not?
Distal and proximate bruising means going away and next to the point of origin. Make of that what you will!
It's curious that Absalom said the alien invasion did begin at the millenium since "Requiem" happened around May 2000 and this episode takes place about four months after that in September 2000!
Another hilarious continuity screw-up! Skinner asks Scully who Jeremiah Smith is, after meeing him in "Talitha Cumi"! Why couldn't they just give this exposition line to Doggett for gods sakes!
Jeremiah says there's abductees all over the country, so that presumably means the UFOs are dropping off near-dead abductees in more than one Montana field. But if Jeremiah is really the only one gone renegade to heal them, then the vast majority of the returned abductees are dying out in empty fields across America.
Is this the same Jeremiah Smith from "Talitha Cumi"/"Herrenvolk"? After all there were dozens of them working in the government, but only one went renegade and contacted Mulder. If it's the same one, what has he been doing the last four years and why didn't he ever try to contact Mulder again?
It's also possible this is a Colonist-loyal Jeremiah Smith who is healing the abductees as part of their plan and is just using Absalom to their own ends. That would explain how he knew where the abductees were being dropped off. And it would also explain why they're all being dropped off at the same field too. But isn't this exposing the Colonists' Big Plans? Or do they specifically want Mulder returned for some reason? Because there's something in him that lets them control him?
It's safe to assume the Colonist UFO teleported Jeremiah Smith up and now he's dead or captured.

DEADALIVE (part 2 of 2) The Run Down:

North Carolina, Mulder's Funeral. Scully, Skinner, Doggett, Kersh, The Lone Gunmen, Margret Scully attend.
Three Months Later: Kersh offers Doggett a promotion out of the X-Files, which he is reluctant to take since Scully leaves in six weeks and then the X-Files would be closed. Scully tells him to take it. Kersh has been Deputy Director for six months he says.
Off North Carolina Billy Miles' bloated body is found in the ocean, but he is barely but inexplicably alive despite "extensive tissue necrosis". Skinner and Doggett exhume Mulder's corpse where it is taken to a D.C. Naval Hospital. He's clinically alive and kept on respirators despite tissue decomposition. Scully observes Billy have a grand mal seizure that shows two heartbeats.
Krychek attacks Skinner with the nanobots ("S.R. 819") in the FBI Building to get his attention. Krychek says he wants to give him a chance to save Mulder's life, "I have a viral that contains a vaccine, Mulder knows of it, his father developed it to fight the alien virus. You found him, and you don't even know what you got". Krychek's deal is to "make sure Scully never comes to term. She can't have that baby". Skinner refuses.
Billy Miles comes awake, sheds off his bloated skin, and is now perfectly healthy. Billy tells Scully he only remembers water and being on the ship. "They took so many this time, but now I understand, they're here to save us". Scully suspects he's no longer Billy. She asserts Mulder is infected with "a virus that keeps the body just alive enough to take it through a transformation" into an alien.
Doggett visits Absalom in prison to get help on healing Mulder. Absalom says if he hadn't healed the abductees "they would've been ressurected as aliens. It was all part of some big alien takeover of the world".
Scully asks Skinner to get the vaccine from Krychek to cure Mulder from becoming an alien. Skinner instead takes Mulder off the life support. Doggett finds out and gets into a fight with Krychek. Krychek taunts him with the vaccine and breaks it on the floor.
Keeping Mulder on life support was incubating the virus and helping it. When Skinner took him off, Mulder's temperature dropped without it affecting his vitals. They stablize him and give him courses of antivirals. Mulder has no memory of what happened.

Plot Points:

The Colonists returned the abductees with a virus that keeps their bodies barely alive to faciliate their metamorphasize into alien thralls as part of an alien invasion. The thralls claim they are doing this to save the planet.
Three months after Mulder's funeral Billy Miles is found who ressurects from near-death as an alien thrall. Mulder is exhumed and ressurected as normal by taking him off life support and using antivirals to clear his system of the virus. Mulder has no memory of the abduction experience.
Krychek used the nanobots on Skinner to make sure Scully's baby doesn't come to term in return for giving the vaccine for Mulder. Skinner refused the deal. Doggett encountered and fought Krychek briefly.

Analysis:

This is Marget Scully's first on-screen appearance since Season Five's "Emily" three and a half years ago.
Timeline. "Requiem"/"Within"/"Without" happened in late May 2000. "This Is Not Happening" took place around late September 2000. "DeadAlive" is three months later, that's about January 2001. Scully should be giving birth around Febuary or March 2001. Scully is leaving for maternity leave in six weeks; that's around mid Febuary. Kersh says here he's been Deputy Director for six months, which happened in "Within" late May 2000, which would confirm "DeadAlive" as around December or January (he could have been rounding off generally after all).
So Billy was returned during the "Happening" cycle, only he got dropped off in the West Atlantic Ocean instead of Montana like the rest of the "Requiem" abductees were. Why? Just a random mix up? Or is Billy special?
And is it really just an amazing coincidense that Billy showed up in the same state that Mulder was buried in? Mulder's body was found in Montana after all! Hopefully this means the Colonists specifically had Billy found there to faciliate Mulder's ressurection. Of course the big question would be why would the Colonists want Mulder ressurected? Or were they hoping he would be ressurected as an alien thrall, and him being cured of that was a thwarting of their plans?
So was Mulder's decompsition after three months in a grave normal or not? Apparently it wasn't.
Once again Skinner and Scully display an inexplicable trust of the military. They put Mulder in a *Naval* Hospital, despite Scully's just recent trouble with the military medical community in "Per Manum"!!! How conveinent for them they didn't try anything. Or does this mean the military-medical conspiracy wanted Mulder ressurected?
Why did Billy have a double heartbeat? And why did he have that seizure? Was that episode just the alien programming taking over the body now that it was safely recovered? So was Billy 'himself' for those three 'dead' months floating in the water? Does a double heartbeat mean there was more than a virus in his body, but in fact some alien organ like a heart?
What the hell has Krychek been doing these six months? Is he with the military-medical conspiracy or what?
Krychek talks about a Black Oil Vaccine that William Mulder invented, but this never happened! Bill Mulder certainly *worked* on a Vaccine for many decades but he was never successful! It was the Russian Syndicate that made a successful Black Oil Vaccine in "Tunguska"/"Terma", that was stolen by Krychek in "Patient X"/"The Red and the Black" and used in THE MOVIE on Scully. Most likely just another writers' inconsistancy with the past storyline.
Krychek seems to be saying that the alien virus in Mulder is *the* Black Oil. Scully talks about an alien virus, but she called The Black Oil an alien virus too never by its proper name (or it's actual name Purity). So are the abductees infected with a modified Black Oil virus, or is this some other kind of virus specifically made for this purpose? Remember the Black Oil would infect people and then use their bodies to gestate Mutated Greys, but this virus just takes over their bodies as is for infiltration as thralls. Or maybe the Colonists decided to change the Black Oil (or the writers for that matter). If so it'd be pretty funny since according to Cassandra Spender in "Two Fathers" the Colonists are infecting the *universe* so why would they change it just for little old us?
Why does Krychek want to make sure Scully's baby doesn't get born? Obviously it's a threat, a special one, one different from the normal abductee babies like in "Per Manum". Why does Scully get to be the special one? She's had lots of weird crap happen to her... Remember her fetus looked human in "Per Manum" while the other ones looked alien, so it wasn't a switched fetus after all, so part of what makes it special is that it's alien without looking alien. The secret to mass alien infiltration of the planet?
So Billy Miles is now an alien thrall. So his line about the Colonists being here to save the planet is most likely just their propaganda, and they really are just here to colonize the planet.
So last we saw Billy he was in a military hospital presumably under guard and whatnot, and Scully knew he was an alien thrall. But then we dont' see what happened to him. Is he still a prisoner? Or did he escape offscreen or something? Surely he wasn't just released!
Why does Billy remember his abduction but Mulder doesn't? Was he lying? Or does being a thrall give access to those memories?
So how did Absalom know about this abductee-thrall-infiltration plan of Colonization? Did Jeremiah Smith tell him or something? And why does this episode act like Absalom was the one who was healing the abductees and never mention Jeremiah Smith?
Was Krychek lying about the Vaccine curing Mulder or what? Actually he shouldn't even be able to get any of the Vaccine unless he somehow made friendly with his Russian Syndicate family again, because it was implied in "Red and Black" that Krychek delivered only a very small amount and it could not be reproduced, so all it was used up on Marita in "Red and Black" then on Scully in THE MOVIE. The more likely explanation is that Krychek was lying, he didn't have the Vaccine, he lied about it's origins after all, and the color didn't look the same as it did in the old days, and the Vaccine wouldn't do anything anyway.
It's strange that life support was helping the virus in Mulder, since the normal Colonist plan is to drop the abductees off in the middle of nowhere where they'll be found and presumed dead. They should never be on life support, they should be left alone, so you would think life support would hurt the virus.
Dropping the temperature and courses of antivirals to clear the blood was a technique that Scully developed to cure people of infection by the alien genome from exposed Pilot blood all the way back in Season Two's "Endgame", though it was never proven as a cure to the Black Oil of course, which again suggests this wasn't actually Black Oil just some other alien virus.

THREE WORDS The Run Down:

DC: Howard Salt storms the White House, to tell the President about aliens taking over the United States. Secret Service agents grab him, and shoot him with his own weapon claiming it was an accident. He has a CD labeled "Fight The Future". Salt was a US Census worker.
Mulder is quickly recovering. No signs remain of his neurological disorder. Transfusions and antivirals have rid his body of the virus. The abduction scars are quickly repairing themselves. Skinner applies Kersh to have Mulder reinstated on the X-Files, which he refuses. Doggett has had a higher success rate since he doesn't deal with alien cases.
West Virginia: In prison Absalom is slipped an article on Salt's death. Absalom breaks free of a field work group and kidnaps Doggett from his apartment at gunpoint. He checks the back of his neck first. Absalom knows he'll be killed next, so he's going to use Doggett to spread the word that "the invasion has begun. They're already here".
Mulder finds Salt was at Absalom's abductee camp, and was a multiple abductee. His computer had an encrypted ten gigabyte file on it.
Absalom uses Doggett to breach a Federal Statistics Center at gunpoint. The new US Census data has proof of alien infiltration, in a locked computer lab. BlackOps troops storm the complex. Despite Absalom holding a gun at Doggett's head they shoot him dead. Mulder meets Doggett the first time when he angrily confronts him over getting Absalom killed.
The Lone Gunmen are reunited with Mulder after six months to decrypt Salt's files: a series of file directories downloaded the day he died from the Federal Statistics Center. Once Salt was killed, the Center databanks were firewalled. They need to physically access the data at the Center with a password. The information is the "names of people with a certain genetic profile" the Census is tracking.
Doggett contacts Knowle for information on Absalom and the BlackOps troops. He will only say this is a different level from the information he gives him, that the access password is the "three words" on Salt's CD- Fight the Future.
The Lone Gunmen hack the Federal Statistic Center security for Mulder to break in. Mulder reaches the computer lab and accesses the files with the passwords. Doggett slips in and tells Mulder to flee, the BlackOps troops are coming to kill him. Mulder says the government has some people "targeted because of their genetic profile for abduction and replacement by alien facsimiles". BlackOps troops arrive, and the Gunmen can't break the firewall to let Mulder email out the files. Mulder and Doggett escape.
Doggett confronts Knowle. He used him to set up Mulder, and Doggett threatens to expose him to the FBI. Knowle says Doggett needs him more than he knows. The BlackOps troops are protecting the truth. "It's all in the X-Files. I'm just one man trying to point you in the right direction". Doggett has alien lumps in the back of his neck.

Plot Points:

Mulder recovers quickly, his abduction scars are healing and his neurological disorder has disappeared. The virus has been cleaned from his system with transfusions and antivirals. Kersh refuses to let Mulder rejoin the X-Files because of Doggett's success rate.
The US Census has been used to track people with a certain genetic profile for abduction and replacement with alien Thralls. The data password is "Fight the Future". This information is being protected by BlackOps troops willing to kill Mulder. They kill Absalom in front of Doggett when he attempts to uncover the data.
Knowle uses Doggett to get Mulder in the Census center to be killed by the BlackOps troops. Mulder sees the data but can't escape with it. He tells Doggett he is trying to help him uncover the truth. Knowle has alien lumps in the back of his neck.

Analysis:

Salt couldn't have been that smart or sane to begin with thinking he could just jump the fence and storm the White House to give the President the evidence! Did he actually think he'd reach the President before being stopped by Secret Service?!
Events are a bit hazy, but it seems that the Secret Service troops are the ones who pulled the trigger on Salt's gun to kill him once they found out what he was there for. So the Secret Service, or elements of it, are part of the military-medical conspiracy.
How exactly did Absalom manage to escape the prison work group and get all the way into Doggett's apartment?!
How did Salt recognize the data as relating to alien abductions? He was a multiple abductee, but how would he recognize some genetic profile as being alien related? Because he has the same profile? So all abductees share some odd little genetic trait that makes them capable of being made into a Thrall? Did Mulder have this trait? Or did Salt just track the names with abduction reports?
Obviously Absalom didn't think the security troops would kill him if he was holding Doggett hostage, so he didn't know the specifics about this military-medical conspiracy.
The Lone Gunmen again confirm it's been six months since "Requiem".
It seems now that this military-medical conspiracy is acting against the Colonist infiltration, but the Colonists have infiltrated the conspiracy with Thralls, thus dooming them to failure. The MMC is using the Census to quietly track abductees in order to keep track of Thralls attempting to infiltrate the government/military/whatever. But they're not succeeding as well as they hoped, since Knowle is a high standing member in the MMC has been made into a Thrall.
If the MMC knows that a certain genetic profile makes one capable of being made into a Thrall, then surely they would know Knowle has this trait and would test him. And hell, those huge bumps on the back of the neck are hilariously obvious, they're practically worthless for infiltration! Unless the entire command level of the MMC has been made into Thralls, this infiltration threat can't be that serious.
Of course, maybe those little bumps can go away if needed, in which case the threat is very serious! This would also mean Knowle would appear totally normal, though if the MMC had any brains at all they would regularly give their members medical tests, surely there is some kind of medical test to prove if one is a Thrall or not!
Does Billy Miles have those bumps? He is a fellow Thrall after all.
Knowle gave Doggett the necessary information in order to get Mulder in the Census center, to be killed by the BlackOps troops. This means the Colonists want Mulder dead, he's a direct threat to them. This presumably has changed since he was rescued from becoming a Thrall in "Deadalive". Of course it also means the MMC is willing to kill Mulder if he gets in their way. In the past, the only real protection Mulder had from the Syndicate was Cancer Man, and with him dead and gone that protection is now gone. Of course, it's also possible that the BlackOps troops involved here were also Thralls, but it's unlikely.
Why would Knowle, a Thrall, a Colonist, want Doggett to expose the truth of alien infiltration? It's more likely he was lying to keep Doggett at his side, because he knows Doggett the skeptic would never really expose any alien truth.

VIENEN The Run Down:

Gulf Mexico Oil Rig: Simon kills the radio worker, and Black Cancer worms rise to his face. He is caught by Bo, who rad-flashes him, causing burns "not inconsistant to exposure to high levels of radiation". Doggett knows it's the same radiation from the "Piper Maru" Black Oil case, that the Black Oil is out to colonize the planet. Mulder brought the FBI on to the case, a large new oil reserve has been discovered beneath the Gulf, and this Rig just started pumping it. Mulder goes to the rig with Doggett in violation of orders.
Scully finds dead Black Oil in the pineal gland of Simon's brain and orders an evacuation of the Rig. A new radio worker attempts to fix the radio but finds "high frequency interference... a signal that's coming in and filtering in across a large range of channels". When he decides to turn off the radio Bo infects him with Black Oil. The Rig is quarantined. Diego, a Mestizo like Simon, is missing. Mulder realizes the new oil reserve is Black Oil, and Diego is the only worker not infected. Diego attempts to destroy the radio and captures Doggett. He cuts Doggett to make sure his blood is red, "they're coming! the ships! the flying ships!". Scully finds Simon's blood had a genetic immunity to infection through a high T-Cell count, being a Huecha Indian with an undiluated gene pool.
Bo grabs Doggett to infect him, but Mulder saves him. Mulder and Doggett lock themselves in the radio room while the infected workers try to break in. Once Mulder breaks the radio, like Simon and Diego tried to do, the workers stop their attack, to prevent contact with the mothership. Diego was irradiated by the workers. The workers destroy the Rig but Mulder and Doggett escape.
The oil company looses the right to drill the oil reserve. Mulder takes the blame for the fiasco and is fired from the FBI by Kersh.

Plot Points:

A large Black Oil reserve is discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. The Oil attempts to communicate with its controllers, but Mulder prevents them and makes sure the oil field isn't drilled.
Huecha Mexican-Indians have a natural immunity to infection by the Black Oil because of a high T-Cell count and undiluted gene pool.
Mulder is fired from the FBI by Kersh for breaking orders.

Analysis:

This Black Oil does indeed act in the same mannor as the one in "Piper Maru"/"Apocrypha". It uses the rad-flash, which hasn't been since then. Why haven't the other ones used it? The Black Cancer in "Tunguska"/"Terma" and "Patient X"/"The Red and the Black", the Black Oil in The Movie and "The Beginning". Come to think of it, we haven't seen the Black Oil since "The Beginning", almost two years ago! This is yet another underground reserve of Black Oil from prehistoric times, like the ones in "Tunguska" and The Movie.
So when a Black Oil reserve is opened, it will attempt contact with its controllers, the Colonists. Apparently there was a high frequency signal across a range of channels that the Oil was attempting to contact. Obviously this signal is not always present, so perhaps the Colonists became aware of the exposed field and were attempting to contact it. Or perhaps the signal was interference generated by the Oil in the workers.
Finding a natural immunity to the Oil seems like a major find, but it's pretty much glossed over. It seems pretty lame that in the Syndicate's fifty years of looking for a cure to the Oil, they never found out that Huecha Mexican-Indians have a natural immunity to it! Isn't this the key to resisting the Colonists?
How did Diego know that the Oil was calling UFOs? Seems like quite an assumption that they're aliens...
So once the radio is destroyed, the Oil knows it can never contact the Colonists, so it just decides to commit suicide? Or to make sure it can't be drilled up again? Why? Because it's still waiting for the invasion signal from the Colonists? If it doesn't recieve the attack order, it will just wait even if it gets exposed?

ESSENCE (part 1 of 2) The Run Down:

Plot Points:

Analysis:

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