Good Cop, Insane Cop: The Adventures of Moose & Squirrel

Writers: Frank Spotnitz and John Gilligan

Director: Thomas J. Wright

Recapper: M.C. Exalt

December 21, 1999, Tallahassee, Florida: We start with a nice funeral home, with candles and white flowers adorning a coffin. People are consoling a middle-aged woman, Betty Crouch. A man with grey hair, who exudes the air of One Who Will Be Important in This Episode, tells Betty that he’s sorry for her loss; he worked with her husband for a short time. As everyone files out, Betty “tells” Raymond, ostensibly her dead husband, that it sure is going to be a “nice Christmas,” and then lets us know that his death must have been a suicide, because he “didn’t even leave a note.” Ooh, that’s cold, Raymond. The funeral director closes up shop, and then we find out that the Man Who Will Be Important is still in the room, lurking. Sneaky, that standing-in-a-corner strategy. He slinks over to the coffin and pulls up the lid. It comes open, making a sound similar to a refrigerator opening. Ew. And, are coffins really as easy to open as they always are on this show? Inside is Mr. Crouch, gray and lifeless, with the signs that he’s been autopsied. Then, Man Who Will Be Important starts undressing. To our surprise. It’s also a bit surprising that he’s not wearing an undershirt under his white dress shirt (not a good look, guys.), but the much creepier point is that he then starts taking the clothes off of Mr. Crouch. I thought that necrophilia was a bit out there even for the X-Files, but I guess they really have to push the envelope in Season 7. He even takes off Mr. Crouch’s tiepin, which shows a federal government insignia. Oh, but wait, he’s not going to have a liaison with Mr. Crouch – he just wants to give him a phone. He places a cell phone (turned on), with a number ready to be dialed, in the dead man’s crusty old rigored hand, then pulls out the antenna for good measure. Do you think Mr. Important works for a cell phone company and wants to sell Mr. Crouch a new plan? Those people will hound you to the grave.

Oh, and Mr. Important is repeating the same phrase over and over again in a low voice: “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Sounds Biblical to me. Is it already the time for a Scully-’N-Christianity episode this season? When Mr. Important is satisfied – he’s shirtless, and the dead man has just an undershirt on – he closes the coffin again, taking the tiepin with him. By the way, Mr. Important was extremely good at saying, with perfect enunciation, his little Biblical catchphrase with a tie tack in his mouth. Try it: it’s a lot harder than you might think. You can use another small object, similar in size to a tie tack, if one isn’t at hand.

Timestamp on a rainy cemetery: It’s December 29, eight days later. Mr. Important is sitting in a car, watching the graves. The seconds tick by in tense Teaser anticipation, until his cell phone starts ringing. It says “Incoming Call on Line 1.” Gotta love the silly things that tv cell phones say. Who has ever had a cell phone with more than one line on it? Instead of picking it up, he grabs a shovel and heads out into the rain. Was he waiting there for the phone to ring for eight whole days?

Credits. Have to say that was a bit of a snoozer of a teaser.

It’s December 30, and Scully steps out of her black Taurus to a bright day. She’s wearing her favorite all-black festive post-Christmas suit, and her first conversation as she enters the crime scene at the cemetery does not impress her: The funeral parlor director is perturbed, and she doesn’t know who he is, or why he’s agitated. “I know he was one of your own,” he says, “but these rumors I’m hearing that I put a living human being into the ground…you people better get your facts straight real fast.” Scully starts things off well, with our first raised eyebrow, and nods at him. Then she does a patented licking-of-the-lips and looking-towards-the-side which, if you saw it, you’d completely understand her thought: My flighty partner is up to no good, and I’m going to get his facts straight real fast.

We are next looking up from the bottom of a dug gravesite, and Scully’s red head pokes over it. “Mulder?” she calls in a teasing way. “Have you been starting rumors?” Ooh, Scully, feeling sprightly today, are we? Mulder deadpans right back at her, “Why, you hear any good ones lately?” Scully gets tired of the game (too quickly, in my opinion). “Not particularly.” She asks about the grave, but Mulder’s not quite finished with his few minutes of banter and small talk before they dig into their last case of the calendar year. “Merry Christmas, by the way, Scully,” he says, still looking down into the grave. “Thank you,” Scully says in an adorably surprised and pleased voice. “Merry Christmas to you too.” With that, Banter Time is almost over – but I have to say, I’m a little sad that they haven’t talked since Christmas. Five days? I guess Scully was busy with her family, but I like to think that they talk every few days, maybe even every day. Boo to them not calling each other on Christmas (even if Mulder might not celebrate it) and saying hello. What? These are fictional characters, you’re telling me? And being sad that they haven’t talked in five days when they never actually talked in real life is weird? Well, look who’s feeling judgmental and bitchy today. You’re the one reading a recap online.

Over in a more relevant place, in the episode, they start going over the facts of the case: The body, that of Raymond Crouch, has disappeared from the grave, with the lining of the coffin all ripped up. There are fingerprints on the outside of the coffin and “a big juicy handprint” on the back of the headstone that matches Mr. Crouch, which has gotten some of the local PD jazzed up, thinking that the dead man sprang himself. Scully asks who did the digging, and Mulder replies that he guesses it was one man with a shovel, but last night’s rain has washed away most evidence. Then Mulder looks at his partner. “Well go ahead, Scully, naysay me. The body of an FBI agent gets disinterred only to climb out on its own and disappear into the Yuletide night.” He’s begging her to take part in their little banterdance. Scully even faintly smirks at this and says, “See, you had me up until there.” Mulder is more than a little surprised (as am I): “Really?” I think he’s just as tickled as we are that she just said that he ‘had’ her. Hee.

Scully thinks that it was just a grave robbery with a twist: that someone rigged the evidence to make it look like Mr. Crouch escaped alive. Mulder wants to know why, but Scully can only guess: “Publicity, fear, rumors – I mean, I don’t know what specific effect, but nonetheless it’s …” But Mulder is distracted by a series of bloody footprints leading away from the grave that apparently no one has noticed thus far. Good police work.

Perhaps concurrently, we see Mr. Important driving his pickup down a road in Georgia. He’s still saying his little catchphrase: “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” He doesn’t look very surprised when he sees a dead-looking man’s hand peep up behind him in the bed of the pickup; he just keeps on saying the phrase, a little bit louder now…. a little bit louder now…

Scully’s reporting to Skinner and a group of other agents, going over Mr. Crouch’s record. She notes that he retired after a “sterling 21-year career with the Bureau.” I note that she’s wearing very small pearl earrings. So matronly! She also reports that he apparently killed himself with his service weapon in his garage earlier in the month. We’re treated to a picture of this, where we can’t help but note that the poor man died in just his boxer shorts. The other agents at the table present measured, reasonable information (that he had no known enemies, no outstanding debt), which makes us know that soon, Mr. Mulder will be treating us to his special brand of Crazy with his theory on what happened. Sure enough, when Skinner asks Mulder what his take is on this case is, he informs the group that what he believes occurred was necromancy.

The agents shift uncomfortably (though they are probably thinking, “at least it’s not a goat-sucker”), and he explains that necromancy is “a form of magic dating back to primitive Shamanism with a long tradition in the Christian church. Through it, the dead are brought back to life for the purposes of divulging arcane knowledge or performing ritual tasks.” He also shows them a picture of an almost-totally-washed-away circle of goat’s blood around the dug-up grave, pointing out that in necromancy, “the blood attracts the spirits of the undead while the circle focuses the necromancer’s power while protecting him from the spirits that he’s conjuring.” Um, whatever, most of us are still wondering where Mr. Important got goat blood. He notes that necromancers sometimes like to bond with their undead by wearing their clothes. He makes a dry cleaning joke that falls flat. The other agents just want to get to work on the case and get away from the creepy, hot Agent Mulder. Skinner dismisses them but keeps Mulder and Scully back for a minute. “Necromancy aside,” he says – he’s clearly gotten good at just ignoring Mulder’s theories until more evidence has been uncovered — “this magic circle you mentioned — what if it looked something like this?”

Here’s where I get really excited, then really pissed. That’s a common chain of emotions for me while I’m watching the X-Files, especially when something from the past turns up in an episode that could, if brought up again, make the show so much richer and more developed… but then it doesn’t. In this case, Skinner shows them a drawing of an oroborous, a snake eating its own tail. We might remember that Scully HAS THIS EXACT SYMBOL TATTOOED on her lower back. You might remember this if you were a casual viewer of the show… or you might remember this if you were a WRITER or CREATOR of the show. One might even argue that it’s your job to remember things like permanent body art. But alas, I complain in vain and drink up my glass of whine. And hey, I think, maybe it’s just that Scully doesn’t want to cry out in a professional work meeting, “Like, oh my god! I’ve got one of those near my ass!” Maybe it will come up later in the episode. And maybe Chris Carter’s tan is natural.

Mulder says that the oroborous is a mystical sign symbolizing all of existence. Skinner introduces us to the idea of the Millennium Group. Scully, bland-faced, apparently not thinking about the orgasmic and drunken night she spent getting a tattoo with the well-muscled and dangerous man she picked up in Philly, tells us that the Group consisted of “former FBI agents who offered consulting services to law enforcement. Somehow, they fell into disrepute.” The oroborous was their symbol. “They operated in extreme secrecy. Rumors abounded that they had their own agenda which was less than altruistic, if not improper or illegal,” Skinner says. And damn, that’s the fifth or sixth time the word ‘rumors’ has been mentioned. Is that going to be the theme of tonight’s episode or what? Mulder tells us that the rumors were that the Millennium Group “was, in fact, a cult based upon Judeo-Christian ‘End Time’ prophecies concerning the coming millennium.” Skinner provides us with our last bit of exposition: there have been three other similar grave desecrations in the last three months. All three were recent suicides of FBI agents, in far-flung states. This is quite sensitive, he reminds our agents, because the dead were FBI men. Oh, and he also mentions that the Millennium Group “apparently” “dissolved” several months ago. Since those of us who saw the commercials before this episode know that it’s a crossover with the failed Chris Carter series “Millennium” (or if you’re watching years later and know this from whatever XF lore you’ve picked up), we have a feeling that the Millennium Group didn’t disband… it just somehow mooched off the X-Files for a guest show so that it could wrap up some of its story lines. Mulder thinks he knows where to start this investigation. On Scully’s lower back, perhaps?

Hmphf. Apparently Mulder would rather start his investigation in a mental asylum, where the lead character of Millennium, Frank Black (unfortunately not of Tenacious D fame), played by the able Lance Henriksen, has checked himself in for a 30-day observation. Mulder gives us a very rapidly spoken summation of Black’s history: he used to consult for the Millennium Group, but then fought to bring them down “at the expense of his own career and reputation”. Black left ViCAP (the FBI Violent Crimes unit that Mulder worked on before discovering the X-Files – yay for continuity, folks!) before Mulder’s time, but he was supposed to be “the greatest criminal profiler that Quantico ever produced.” Scully’s all like, Hey, isn’t my pretty boy supposed to be the best?” Actually, she says in her dry understatement: “Single-minded. Sounds like someone I know.” Huh. Maybe this episode will end in Scully committing Mulder to the asylum.

Frank Black is watching a college football game on a wall-mounted TV. We wonder for a second if he’s going to be ga-ga. I’m sure only the few of us who watched Millennium care. It turns out that he’s lucid, but doesn’t want to help Moose and Squirrel with this case. He’s trying to put his life back together again, Humpty-Dumpty-style. That could be a whole new aesthetic, by the way. “I’m just chilling here on this wall, H-D style,” or “I just fell flat on my face and broke my yoke, yo. Humpty-Dumpty-style.”

Black gives them a few curt nods to show them that he acknowledges their presence and knows the four FBI grave-desecration victims, but gives them nothing more. Scully lays out photographs of the previous victims and says, “They were members of the Millennium Group. Is that correct?” Black nods. I thought that Skinner was having a hard time even figuring out whether or not Crouch was part of the Millennium Group. Perhaps Scully is using her investigatory wiles to get information out of Black. Next, Scully tries the sympathy tactic: “Sir, we’ve been having a really difficult time gleaning any information whatsoever about the group … about its membership, its practices … I believe you can help us.” Still no go. Mulder reminds him that two days from now, it will be January 1, 2000, which is “the significant date for these people. That doesn’t leave us much time.” Still no budging from the surly Mr. Black. Mulder gives him a disgusted look that almost screams, “You’re a disgrace. You’re going to let some millenarian cult kill people because you want to get your life in order? My life hasn’t been in order since 1983.” “Mr Black. You are not what I was expecting,” he says as he gets their papers together and gets ready to leave. Mr. Black only tells him that it’s first and eighteen. Which we already know is total crap because you can’t start a first down with 18 yards unless there was some sort of penalty that pushed them back that far, and even then, eight yards is an odd number for a referee to choose. Duh. Mulder realizes that Black’s full of it, too, because he notes in an appalled manner that the football screen clearly shows that it’s third and ten. Which, by the way, totally makes more sense

We get back on the road with Mr. Important. He’s unfortunately had a flat tire (so annoying when you’re just trying to raise the dead and celebrate the coming of the new millennium!), and an ill-fated cop has stopped to help him out. Repulsed by the nasty smell in the air, the cop checks out the covered pickup. Mr. Important wisely takes some white granular stuff out of his pocket and, of course, starts creating a circle around himself, as any of us would do in a similar moment, while the cop finds the “dead” body in the truck. On cue, Mr. Important starts muttering his catchphrase to himself. While the cop miserably shouts at him to “speak up!” (is him speaking any louder going to help you, dude?), the “dead” body comes out and grabs him. The killing goes on offscreen, while Mr. Important looks on sadly. So if he’s creating circles out of alchemical substances to protect himself from the “dead” man, what does he do while he’s driving? A circle of goat blood around his drivers’ seat might cake and get kind of itchy and irritating.

Commercials. When we get back, Mulder is at the crime scene of the policeman who was killed. Scully comes up with a “hey,” wearing a rather ungainly long grey-green blazer-jacket, and together they study the circle of salt that Mr. Important poured around himself. Mulder is convinced this is more evidence of necromancy. Scully tries to poke holes in his theory, but Mulder argues that this time, Mr. Important was just trying to save himself, while whatever was raised from the dead killed the police officer. The police find the body a short way away. He’s been buried vertically in the soil, with just his head sticking out (a rather labor-intensive way of burying someone, if you ask me), and there is more salt on his mouth, as well as a little note, rolled up like a joint. Mulder reads out the Biblical verse that’s written on it: “I am he that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” A policeman who has spent a good deal of time at his local church tells them that it’s from the Book of Revelations, Book One, verse 18. Mulder makes an obscure football comment (“Go Fighting Irish”). Can you figure out what Mulder figured out? (Starbucket: Does it have something to do with a hunchback?)

We go back to the psychiatric facility, where Mulder tells Frank Black that he must have purposely dropped the “hint” of Revelations Book one, verse 18 when he said “It’s first and 18” to them the last time; so why doesn’t he help them more directly? Scully sidles up and fills in the blanks for us: Black is scared he’s going to lose his daughter Jordan, whose maternal grandparents are fighting Black for custody (apparently his wife has passed away, which you would know if you just supported Chris Carter and had been watching “Millennium,” dammit!). Scully has talked to Black’s doctor – since thankfully for the X-Files, doctor-patient confidentiality means very, very little – and has found out that that’s why he’s in the institution: he’s trying to prove that he’s a fit father now, that he’s no longer obsessed with conspiracies. Black emphasizes that he’ll do anything to show that he’s ‘normal’ now – and he refuses to mention the Millennium Group any longer. Mulder puts on his best Pouty/Sexy face and tells Black that no one needs to know about their chatting.

Because no one can resist that face, Black agrees and goes through the X-File that they have apparently prepared for him in an empty room. He explains that the Book of Revelations tells of the end of the world – Armageddon – and that the four dead FBI agents were break-off members of the Millennium Group who decided that they must play an active role in bringing about Armageddon – by dying and then being brought back to life. Mulder chips in that they must believe that they’re the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, bringing war, pestilence, famine, and death with them, along with all the rest of the dead. Sounds like “the shitstorm of all time,” to quote our Mulder from an earlier moment. And it must all be done at the dawn of the new millennium, according to these fine folks (Starbucket: which, wait. Isn’t that next year?). They sought out the necromancer to help them out, Black tells them, and then he starts profiling the man, telling them details about him that will help them find him. As we hear the details, we start seeing Mr. Important in his rural compound. He’s apparently a taxidermist, and he’s gluing a glass eye onto an alarmingly vicious-looking dog. A hound of hell perhaps? That, or this guy is giving some family a pretty twisted version of their poor little Sprinkles.

Black narrates that the reason that Mr. Important must have spent so much care and time burying the police officer (and even stapling his mouth shut) is that he believes that “if disturbed,” the cop will rise from the dead. When he hears of the body being found (which we see him doing, in his living room, on the television), he’ll want to act, because it’s not yet time for the dead to rise (except for the 4 hotshots, I guess). Black guesses that Mulder and Scully will catch Mr. Important at the morgue where the police officer is being kept. Mulder’s thinking, ‘well then why did you tell us all about him and his criminal profile if we’re just going to be able to march into the morgue and catch him there?” Instead, he says that what they really need to do is find the Four Undead men. Black gets a phone call from his daughter and takes their leave.

Scully, as they walk out of the institution, is baffled – why should they go after 4 dead guys? Mulder points out that it’s only fourteen hours until the new millennium, when these 4 men think Armageddon is going to start poppin’. Scully rebuts that these men “mangled biblical prophecy to the extent that it’s unrecognizable. The year 2000 is just their artificial deadline and besides, 2001 is actually the start of the new millennium.” (Starbucket: Yes! At least someone knows what she’s talking about.) To which Mulder smirks and sasses, “No one likes a math geek, Scully.” HEE! Oh, but really? Scully gives him no reaction at all. I guess she’s fairly certain that everyone likes a math geek when said geek is ScullySmartypants.

She says that they should get down to the morgue and get their man. Mulder says yes, she should go ahead and do that – but he’s not their killer, and the four dead men aren’t really dead, so he needs to find them. He’s going to follow Black’s profile and try to find Mr. Important’s place of residence to see if he can find the “bodies.” And he asks a favor of Scully – that she make sure that no one removes the staples from the dead police officer’s mouth. Scully agrees, wondering if this counts as a ditch. But he said to her, “Please? Just humor me,” which, she must admit, is quite a bit more sweet than he usually is as he rushes off to get into some dangerous situation that she’ll have to save him from.

Shit. We find that some poor shmuck of a coroner is removing the staples from the dead man’s mouth – which by the by, there are only two of. Is that really sufficient to keep someone from coming back from the dead? Buffy fans?

Ms. Coroner open up the mouth of Mr. Sheriff’s Deputy, and finds an outpouring of salt. Wouldn’t we have seen some of that spill out when Mulder removed the note from his mouth earlier? She starts removing it, speaking into her autopsy recorder, while in the background we can hear the phone ringing to an answering machine, and Scully in her most businesslike of voices instructing the coroner NOT to autopsy the murder victim. She ignores it until she’s removed all the salt from the mouth, then goes into the office next door to check the message, hearing what Scully said. Unfortunately, we see the police man’s menacing shadow creep up from inside the autopsy bay, then enter the office. Ms. Coroner screams, dropping the phone. Does she usually pick up the phone while listening to an answering machine that clearly has speakers of its own?

Scully enters the morgue, and, seeing nobody around, unsheathes her gun. She finds signs of foul play in the office and follows a sick bloody trail down a little hallway until she finds Ms. Coroner in a gory messy state – but still alive. A few sounds behind her startle Scully, and she whips around to find Mr. Important, walking slowly toward her with a blank look on his face. Also joining the party is naked, grey, dead Mr. Sheriff’s Deputy, who’s also walking toward her with a blank, but decidedly more frightening, look on his face. Scully starts shooting at him immediately. The bullets just glance off him and he keeps coming. He jumps at Scully, and we see her gun skitter away onto the floor at Mr. Important’s feet. He looks passively on. Aipe! I have to admit, I’m a little scared.

Commercials. Skinner arrives on the scene at the morgue. Guess he popped up to Maryland at a pretty good time. Ms. Coroner is wheeled out on a gurney, and Skinner asks someone, “Where is she?” He gets some kind of answer and goes forward to lean down over a dead body in a white sheet. Is it…. Why am I afraid? No viewer with half a brain would be. Anyways, it’s Mr. Sheriff’s Deputy, with a gunshot wound in his head. Scully is behind him, and he stands up and tenderly brushes her hair away from her face for a second so that he can caress her … or, if you so prefer, he professionally and carefully lifts the hair from her face so that he can take a look at her nasty-looking bruises and cuts on her neck. She looks a bit shaken, and explains that the policeman was dead… “and then, somehow, he wasn’t.” Hee. That about sums it up. Three rounds in his chest had no effect. The way he was “killed” was that the necromancer showed up and shot him in the head with Scully’s gun. Scully has no idea why he saved her. “Look, sir,” she says, and I can’t help but exclaim to myself that Mitch Pileggi and Gillian Anderson act so well together – it’s so poignant. “I can’t even begin to offer an explanation for what happened but I have to say it is exactly what Mulder feared.” Skinner says he agrees, but why isn’t Mulder answering his phone? A snake of fear starts coiling in Scully’s stomach. Maybe it migrated there from her lower back.

We find Mulder checking out various properties. He sensibly tries to call ahead – or is he calling to check in with Scully? – but he has no service. “Welcome to the boondocks,” Duchovny possibly improvises. Mulder seems to have hit paydirt when he drives up to a compound, fenced off as Black had predicted, and finds a 50-lb bag of kosher salt in the garbage. Showing once again that he is always unafraid to stick his hands in gross, possibly dangerous places without gloves, he grabs a handful of salt and puts it in his pocket. I would have loved it if he had also thrown some over his shoulder for good measure. He scales the fence in a manly style, while we see Mr. Important driving home, singing a little song to himself in his truck. Apparently when not raising the dead he enjoys a little contemporary country and old jazz standards. Mulder checks out Mr. Important’s house, seeing Sprinkles and a stuffed wolf, and also sees a door that’s bolted with a heavy wooden bar. Always a bad sign. Undaunted, Mulder pulls out his trusty flashlight and heads downstairs into the basement. Flashes of so many other X-Files episodes: will he find a deadly boa constrictor? A father buried in the basement by the roots of a vengeful orchard? No, it’s much more obvious, but apparently not to Mulder, who is cornered by three horrific zombies!!! That deserves some exclamation points in my book. Mr. Important arrives home at just this moment and stands at the top of the stairs in stairs in classic horror-movie fashion. Mulder starts running up the stairs, but, just as we thought, gets the door slammed in his face. Like so many nights at the motel with Scully. Only this time he’s really scared. He pounds on the door, screaming to be let out, and we hear several gunshots. With each one, Mr. Important winces.

9:17 pm. Scully’s hanging out with Mr. Black back at the ranch-slash-mental-hospital. She’s asking for help on where Mulder could possibly be, since he went searching for the necromancer’s house and hasn’t been heard from since. She’s got task force agents canvassing the northwestern Maryland area, but it’s a large area, and… “we’re running out of time.” Shit. Unfortunately for us, this scene starts taking a downward turn when things are most urgent. When asked explicitly for help in finding Mulder, Black replies, “Now, you respected my reasons in the past, Agent Scully. Please respect them now.” But… you helped them before, Black! Unwillingly, but you did. Scully gets pissed: “I’m not sure that I really understand your reasons, sir, and I’m starting to wonder what this is all about and how much you know about it.” Unnecessary drama. She seemed to understand his reasons before, and she doesn’t go anywhere with this veiled reference to how much Black might know about the necromancy. She tells him that she was attacked this morning in the morgue by one of “the four Millennium members who ‘liveth and were dead.’” No, actually, Sculls, you were attacked by a victim of one of the four Millennium members – the police officer wasn’t one of them. Argh. Well, she’s just been attacked by a zombie, I’ll cut her some slack for a second. She worriedly asks Black if he thinks that the Millennium group members are actually capable of bringing about the endtime. Black responds that he’s been studying the group for years, but that doesn’t mean that he believes in what they do. Apparently, Scully thinks now is a good time to ask a man she doesn’t know, who’s in a psychiatric institution, “But what if it were true? Good and evil — which would prevail?” Interesting question, Scully – but your partner is in mortal peril! FOCUS, girlfriend! Black, perhaps also disgusted by how weirdly written this scene is, just shakes his head and says, “I’m sorry.” Ooh, so ambiguous. Sorry that evil would win, or sorry that he just can’t say, because if he responds to this inane question, they’ll somehow take away his daughter? Scully looks at him, disappointed, and then leaves. Black tells Octavia, the extravagantly named orderly, that he’d like to check himself out – and he “won’t be coming back.” He’s putting it all on the line for this case. Awesome! But… um… wasn’t Agent Scully just asking you to help her partner, and didn’t she just walk out the door? Don’t you want to call her back and go with her to help out?

While Scully and Black muse over good and evil, Mulder is clutching a bloody arm and standing in a small circle of salt in the Basement O’ Deadies. That handful of salt he picked up from the trash apparently came in really handy. This is the episode from which I learned how important it is to search the trash for usable items to fend off demons and the undead. Mr. Important is crouching outside, near the basement window, when Black shows up at his house. He’s so happy he could cry. In fact, this entire episode, Mr. Important has had this slight film of tears in his eyes. Is that natural, or is he just an incredibly good actor who wants to show us that he can cry on command – ALL the time, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with his character? But hey, maybe he just has watery eyes. Give the man a break! Jesus.

Anyways, Mr. Important is psyched to see Black, and Black gives him the impression that he’s come to join the Millennium Group baddies who are about to bring about Armageddon. Okay, seriously? Are we as viewers supposed to believe that this will be the big twist – that Black didn’t help Mulder and Scully more because he was with the Millennium Group this whole time, and now he’s going to join them? Too little too late Spotzy and Gilinitz… plus we don’t really care. It’s getting late in the episode and there’s only ONE thing we care about now… the countdown to the…. Well, I won’t spoil it quite yet, though I know you all know what I’m talking about…

Shock! Black isn’t really helping Mr. Important do his necromancy black magic – they only fooled us for a whopping 45 seconds. After a few lines of not-gut-wrenching dialogue, he points Mr. Important’s own gun at him, and we know he’s going to help Mulder get out of that basement. Meanwhile, Scully’s getting closer to finding the compound, too, getting details from Skinner on the phone while she drives around in the dark looking pretty.

The final battle scene is frantic, gory, and atmospheric: Black and Mulder have a shootout with the Deadies. The Deadies put up a good fight, and the last one seems to have them cornered when Mulder runs out of bullets (from a magic gun, which they show us to have six bullets but Mulder somehow gets 7 rounds shot from it), but Scully saves the day by picking the lock on the fence outside and blazing into the basement, unloading some characteristically well-aimed shots to the deadie’s head. Mulder & Scully both looked dazed. We, the viewers, start frothing at the mouth, knowing what must be coming next.

We arrive at the psychiatric institution once again: this is such a natural and comfy home for the X-Files. Maybe they should have asked for an office here after the LBO burned down. Dick Clark is playing on the TV, telling us in his avuncular, creepy way that the revelers in Times Square are really packed in tight, and “the body heat alone is keeping them warm…all the way up past 52nd street. That is that X-shaped thing I was talking about before. This is Times Square — the crossroads of the world…” What, body heat? Warmth? X-shaped crossroads in life? My heart beats quicker.

If you care about Frank Black’s storyline at this moment, you are a better, more mature viewer than I. Don’t worry, everything’s fine with him. He’s alone watching Dick Clark, but then Scully comes in and tells him that “Mark Johnson” (That’s Mr. Important’s name? I say lame, you say name.) has been taken for psychiatric evaluation and put on suicide watch. And she has an adorable, wriggling little girl with her – Black’s beloved daughter Jordan! They hug, and are so pleased to spend New Year’s together. Excellent. Now get the hell out of here, people. Black starts to excuse himself when Mulder comes in from some side door, with a sling on his arm. My, but he’s looking fetching tonight. He’s put on his best grey t-shirt and his best spiky hair for the big event. Oh wait, what big event? The ball dropping, of course! Mulder gives Black a genuine, wide smile as they say goodbye. Scully asks Black if he wants to stay and watch the ball drop, but Black says he just wants to get out of there. Yeah, I’d have to say that a psychiatric hospital isn’t the hottest place to ring in the (fake-)millennium… although there could be some cool partying, actually, you never know. And some awesome psychotropic drugs… but I digress.

I virtually kick Black and Jordan out of the hallway-room with my virtual foot, and then let Mulder and Scully walk over to see the TV a little better. We faintly hear Dick Clark saying “Hug your friends and loved ones tight. What the heck, whoever that person is next to you. No time like the present.” And then the 10-second countdown occurs, and there’s loud playing of “Auld Lang Syne,” and there are some 80s-looking couples kissing (somehow Dick Clark makes everyone look like they’re stuck 2 decades in the past).

And then Mulder glances over at Scully. Well, he doesn’t just glance. He looks over at her inquisitively, wonderingly. He looks at her lips. We see her looking up at the screen, smiling, perhaps a little tired, a little wistful, maybe just innocently watching TV, as we are wont to do. And Mulder does a small double take at her, gets something in his head, and decides to just go for it. The TV version of Auld Lang Syne turns into a slow, beautiful Snow version. He leans down the three feet to her face. She turns at the right moment, and just watches him coming in close. And he kisses her. Their lips come together in a sweet, caring, 7-second kiss that holds all of our hopes and dreams in its chaste little hands. There is a moment when Scully’s eyes, already closed, close just a little bit more, like she’s just relaxed. The whole thing is gorgeous. I almost tumble off of my bed in delight and excitement every time I see it. I definitely do a little bit of cheering and perhaps a jumping jack or two to let a little of my energy out.

Scully opens her eyes as their lips part – which I do have to comment on: they just part lips. There doesn’t seem to be any closure to the kiss, like a closing of the lips that would say, “this was a kiss, not just a colliding of cartilage.” But whatever. The way they are looking at each other, it was definitely a kiss. Scully is looking happy. She smiles and turns her head a little, in a moment of “Really, Mulder? That was sweet. You are so sweet.” Mulder is looking very tender, and a little curious. He’s smiling too. Like, “did that just happen? And you really didn’t kick me in the balls?” And maybe a little like, “You really are an incredible person. I’m glad I did that.” And he says, gently, smiling, “The world didn’t end.” It sounds like it has a little question at the end of it.

But wait, really? It didn’t? Because my world did!!!! There are fireworks in the air and dancing in the street! Okay, calm yourself. Really. Deep breaths. Focus on the scene.

Scully says, “No. It didn’t.” But she gets a funny look on her face when she says it. Some might read it as dreamy, or wistful, or even regretful. I think she’s just coming back to the moment, to reality, to the world where they can’t be in the relationship (or so she believes, in her professional, goody-goody little heart), and her “the world didn’t end” kind of takes the air out of the balloon a bit. I think she’s saying, “No, the world didn’t end, so we still work together, and we can’t escape off into some romantic fantasy, Mulder.” And she sighs a little and looks away. And, as usual, they seem to communicate with very few words, because Mulder seems to have gotten some kind of message, whatever you might interpret it to be. He says in a more serious voice, with the smile kind of gone from his face, “Happy New Year, Scully.” She wishes it back at him, and she’s looking down. Pensive. That Scully brain is definitely working. I’m not exactly sure what she’s thinking, but that’s for each of us to wonder about.

Then he puts his good arm around her (and there are fireworks and dancing in the street again) and they walk out of the hallway-room, into the night, into whatever you think might occur after this episode. And there is much, much rejoicing all across the land.