THE X-FILES Archive. Everything there is to know about the groundbreaking science fiction series
…eat his own desk” if the The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. co-star Bruce Campbell will not become a television star of the first magnitude. It was not stated whether consumption took place, but it was The X-Files, not The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., that turned out to be the biggest hit in the history of the studio.
Season 2
 |
1. LITTLE GREEN MEN
Mythological episode – click to read
2. THE HOST
A Russian sailor is sucked into the ship’s sewage system. Inside his body, Scully finds a large flatworm. Soon after, an employee of the city’s cleaning services becomes the target of the attack. A survey of a sewage treatment plant leads to the capture of a creature that looks like a large humanoid leech/fluke/liver fluke. During transport, the monster escapes. Mulder wants to get the creature before it makes its way through the sewers to the sea. Eventually, they manage to stop them. Scully suggests that this mutant creature was born in radioactive sewage – the tanker the first victim served on was disposing of Chernobyl waste. The last scenes suggest that the monster, although dismembered, managed to survive. Darin Morgan, who played the role of Leechman, later became a writer for The X-Files – and a very, very talented one at that. He wrote the screenplays for Humbug and Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, among others. He also returned in the tenth season with the best of six episodes: Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster.
3. BLOOD
Decent citizens go on a killing spree when the screens of seemingly innocent electrical devices start flashing bloody “kill them all” messages. Mulder suspects that the insecticides used in the area to dust the crops may have side effects: all perpetrators are found to have an unusual overproduction of adrenaline; and they all suffered from obsessive fears and phobias, which the messages on the screens uncontrollably reinforced. Is someone trying to cover up more experiments on unsuspecting citizens, or is it just a regrettable accident?
4. SLEEPLESS
While Agent Scully is away, Mulder is assigned a new partner: Alex Krycek. He seems to be fascinated by Mulder and eager to both learn and explore the “truth”. Fox is not happy with the company and shuns Krycek as much as he can, but to no avail. Together, they investigate the mysterious deaths of veterans of the Vietnam War. They all fell victim to something that was only happening in their imagination or was strongly suggested to them, defying all the rules of logic, leaving physical effects despite the absence of a physical event. Mulder discovers that the victim, who died of burns from a non-existent fire, was responsible for the project to create the “perfect soldier” – by cutting the right connections in the brain, the participants of the experiment were completely deprived of the need for sleep. Has anyone decided to settle accounts after years? Only one name stands out from the list of surviving soldiers. Has “Preacher” – “Preacher” – decided to prove to his colleagues and superiors that they will not be spared the judgment for their sins? Unfortunately, Krycek turns out to be a plug in the “shadow people”. At the end of the episode, he gives the Stoker the investigation report he stole from Mulder. All the witnesses are dead, the evidence is gone – another case has been covered up…
5. DUANE BARRY
Mythological episode – click to read
6. ASCENSION
Tagline: Deny Everything
Mythological episode – click to read
7.3
In the absence of the abducted Scully, Mulder investigates six murders whose victims have been drained of blood. One of the suspects named John is captured. Thinking that, convinced that he is a vampire, the prisoner afraid of the sun will start talking, Mulder puts him in an open cell. However, the first rays of the sun cause John to suffer fatal burns. Inspired by a tattoo on a suspect’s arm, Mulder ends up in an eccentric club where he meets an attractive girl named Kristen. Are we dealing with a blood cult cult, or are we talking about real cases of vampirism? In episode 3, there are a lot of references to both Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Francis Ford Coppola’s film based on it.
8. ONE BREATH
Mythological episode – click to read
9. FIREWALKER
A group of volcanologists conducting research using a robot called Firewalker sends a distress signal. One of their crew members was murdered. When Scully and Mulder arrive, they notice a great deal of nervousness among the crew. Everyone is afraid of Daniel Trepkos, the head of the expedition, who, as they say, has gone mad. Trepkos’ notes suggest that he discovered an unknown silicon-based life form by analyzing samples that Firewalker extracted from the volcano.
10. RED MUSEUM
In Delta Glen, Wisconsin, a teenager disappears and is found dead with “He is One” written on his back. The local police focus their suspicions on members of the Red Museum sect. But from an old man on a nearby farm, Mulder and Scully learn that the genetically engineered growth hormone injected into cows is not as innocent as the government claims. Eating the meat of these cows is supposed to increase bad instincts in people. Further investigation reveals that all abductees were administered vitamin injections with alien DNA. Someone is trying to cover up the traces of the experiment being conducted.
11. EXCELSIUS DEI
A nurse at the Excelsius Dei Nursing Home for the Elderly is attacked and raped by a disembodied entity. Of course, no one wants to believe her stories, especially since she blames one of the more elderly and infirm patients of the facility. She claims to have recognized his smell and touch. During the investigation, it turns out that the patients treated at the center, suffering from Alzheimer’s, show remarkable progress. Is it the result of conventional therapy, or is it the merit of a Malaysian paramedic who gives patients mysterious pills based on dried mushrooms? The paramedic admits to unofficial methods, but adds something else: the deceased patients who suffered in this hospital during their lifetime do not want to leave it … and seek revenge. Eventually, the Asian is deported, the disembodied beings disappear, and the patients, subjected to conventional treatment, succumb to the disease again.
12. AUBREY
The theme of the episode is genetic memory. Aubrey’s local homicide cop, B.J., has an affair with her married boss and becomes pregnant by him. They arrange to meet at the hotel, but arriving at B.J. she falls into a strange trance and has a vision that leads her to the location of the corpse, buried there forty years earlier. The corpse belongs to a police officer who once investigated a serial killer who carved the word “sister” into his victims’ chests. Someone has taken up the work of a killer from years ago: more murders are committed in the same way. Is it possible that the decrepit old man, who is now a former murderer, can start his work anew? Or is the key to the only person who survived his attack – an aged lady who for years hid the truth about the birth of a child – the fruit of rape? Can murderous tendencies manifest themselves in the genes and reveal themselves in the next generation?
13. IRRESISTIBLE
Morgue worker Donnie Pfaster is surprised by his boss as he cuts a dead woman’s hair. Mulder and Scully are called in to inspect a desecrated grave. Mulder speculates that the perpetrator’s fetishism for the hair and nails of the dead will eventually drive him to murder. A prostitute is soon murdered. A suspect emerges and the police arrest him, but Mulder has doubts about the right man. However, he does not know that the wanted murderer is in a cell opposite the wrongly arrested. Detained for soliciting a friend from the course, Pfaster is soon released, but he already knows Scully’s name and, obsessed with the agent’s beautiful red hair, sets a trap for her.
14. DIE HAND DIE VERLETZ
“Die Hand Die Verletz” loosely translates to “his is the hand that hurts”. This is the phrase spoken in the episode’s prologue by the teachers during an occult ceremony. Mulder and Scully investigate the death of a teenager found in the woods near what is believed to be a satanic altar in the city. The boy’s eyes and heart had been ripped out. Our agents aren’t too keen on the concept of ritual murder, though. The testimony of a girl who accompanied the victim that night with two other teenagers only complicates the matter. Was she really a victim of her stepfather’s satanic practices, or was she subjected to homemade hypnosis? And how did the strange teacher in town come to replace the sick biology teacher? Is this really the incarnation of the Evil One who decided to punish his followers for nonchalance? The inscription on the board at the end of the episode (“goodbye – it was nice working with you”), a perverse message for Mulder and Scully, is also a symbolic farewell to the screenwriters – Glen Morgan and James Wong – from the X-Files team. After this episode, they temporarily took up another project Fox studios. The idea for Die Hand Die Verletz began with a vision of a snake devouring a man.
15. FRESH BONES
In a Haitian refugee camp, mysterious deaths occur among the soldiers serving there. One of them crashed with the car against a tree. Although the command maintains that it was a suicide, Mulder shares the belief of the dead soldier’s wife, who suspects a voodoo curse. Was someone turning these soldiers into the living dead?
16. COLONS
Mythological episode – click to read
17. END GAME
Mythological episode – click to read
18. FEARFUL SYMMETRIES
Animals disappear from a zoo in Fairfield, Idaho, only to reappear in a completely different place. As it turns out, all the females are pregnant, although they have not been mated before. Based on what the sign-language gorilla Sophie, who is “afraid of the light”, signals, Mulder constructs a theory. He believes that animals are abducted by aliens who artificially inseminate them and then take the fetus. Does an extraterrestrial civilization relieve us of a duty that we are unable to meet – to protect animals from extinction and extinction? The title Fearful Symmetry is taken from William Blake’s poem The Tiger.
19. ADD KALM
The crew of a US Navy destroyer leaves the ship and is found in a lifeboat eighteen hours later. The soldiers, although metrically in their twenties, look several times older. Mulder suggests that there may be a so-called “time ripple” at this point on the globe. The ship is so corroded as if it had been rusting for many years. It soon becomes apparent that our agents are far from immune to rapid aging.
20. HUMBUG
One of the truly pearly episodes in the history of the series. In a circus town, a retired artist dies in an unusual way. Footprints resembling monkey footprints were found near the body. Mulder’s first association is with the legendary Fijian Mermaid. There are a lot of original types around, among which stand out Conudrum – the Omnivorous Freak, Nutt, the midget agent, and Lanny, from whose side grows a twin brother. Even the sheriff used to perform in the circus as Jim Dogface. Suspicion falls on Dr. Blockhead when a nail belonging to his professional equipment is found in the hand of one of the victims. But is he really the murderer?
21. THE CAUSARI
The term Calusari is used to describe the elders in Romanian communities, experts in tradition and traditional rituals. The episode begins with a family staying at an amusement park. Father, mother and two children, younger only two years old. The two-year-old drops the balloon from his hand, which annoys the slightly older one, claiming ownership of the balloon. A moment later, a tragedy occurs: little Tommy not only freed himself from the protective harness, but also followed the balloon moving against all the rules of physics and went onto the tracks, where he died under the wheels of the train. In the photo of the accident, you can see a concentration of energy near the boy. Was it an accident or a sophisticated murder? Scully suspects that the children in this family may be victims of the practices of a person suffering from Munchhausen’s syndrome. The boys’ grandmother, a superstitious Romanian woman, seems especially suspicious to her, repeating strange sentences about being possessed by the devil and consulting Calusari behind the back of the lady of the house. However, Mulder claims that the older boy, Charlie, is at the center of everything. What force is causing misery in this family, and could Charlie’s twin brother, who died at birth, have something to do with it?
Fox censors had a big problem with this episode, due to the death of a small child shown in the prologue and the generally gloomy atmosphere. Chris Carter eventually had to make some compromises, including the scene where Charlie’s father died, forgoing a close-up of his face. The Calusari was inspired by The Omen and The Exorcist. The phrase spoken by Michael over his dying grandmother means “too late – you can’t stop us now”.
22. F. EMASCULATA
Extremely disgusting episode. A disease spreading at the speed of a plague causes the deaths of ten prisoners in Virginia. On the body of the infected, rapidly swelling ulcers appear, which, bursting, gush out a pus-like substance. Anyone who comes in contact with it becomes infected. Meanwhile, two prisoners escape, threatening to spread the epidemic outside. Scully discovers that someone may have deliberately started a plague in Cumberland.
23. SOFT LIGHT
Nuclear physicist Dr. Banton was conducting experiments with dark matter and during one of them he was trapped in a particle accelerator. From now on, he can only stay in diffuse light, as his shadow has become something like a black hole and is a deadly threat to anyone who gets close to Banton. In the role of Banton – Tony Shalhoub.
24. OUR TOWN
Federal Inspector George Kearns investigates alleged hygiene deficiencies at the Chaco Chicken facility in Arkansas. It soon disappears without a trace. The wife suspects that her fidelity-prone husband is going crazy somewhere with the latest pick-up. Soon, however, one of the plant’s employees and the granddaughter of Chaco Chickens owner, Paula, has a strange attack on the assembly line. He threatens the headmaster with a knife and takes him hostage. The sheriff fires a shot at her, which turns out to be fatal. The woman’s autopsy brings surprising results. Not only did she look incredibly young for her age, but she also suffered from Kreutzfeuldt-Jacob Syndrome, an extremely rare condition that Kearns also happened to have. Mulder suspects that ritual cannibalism is practiced in the town.
25. ANASAZI
Tagline: éí ‘aaníígÓÓ ‘áhoot’é (The Truth is Far from Here)
Mythological episode – click to read
| |
Karolina Chymkowska