SEASON 1

SEASON 2

SEASON 3

SEASON 4

SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

SEASON 6

SEASON 7

SEASON 8

SEASON 9

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Back at the base, now bathed in lovely early-morning Idaho sunbeams. There's Mulder on the stretcher, mask in place, looking severely groggy. He and his giant workboots are wheeled past a large open area blocked off by plastic sheeting; behind which he can see the outline of our old friend the triangle. He gets excited for a second, then conks out. Stupid secret-operative jerks. He just wants to see a spaceship. The man loves spaceships. Is that too much to friggin' ask?

Beach Grove. Scully is stomping back to her room, looking sulky. Only her door's ajar. Uh-oh. And someone's coming out of her room. Oh, good -- it's just that friendly reporter who hangs out in Col. Kissel's driveway. "Hi! I was just looking for you," he says cheerily. Scully returns his smile, while surreptitiously feeling for her gun holster. Which is sitting on a table in her motel room, with her gun in it. Or, was. Nice one, Scully. "I was in the lobby trying to make a call," she says, trying for casual. "Phones down again?" he asks. See, he's just a friendly reporter. He suffers from phone trouble too. Friendly Reporters: They're Just Like Us! Except, this friendly reporter's walkie-talkie suddenly comes to life inside his car: "Base to Redbird. Can you give us your position? Over." Well, shit! It's not a friendly reporter at all, it's Roger Redbird, from outside the diner! I wonder if he still has that 20.

Scully and Redbird share an awkward, tense smile, and then Scully bolts for it, diving into the car and locking the doors. And...uh. Now what? "What are you doing?" Redbird asks mildly, tapping on the passenger-side window with his Clark Kent glasses. Awkward! Scully tries the ignition -- no keys. Damn, he's good! "Excuse me..." says Redbird. Nothing behind the visor. But what's this -- a gun in the glove compartment, along with an Airbase Security badge. Gotcha! She holds them right up to her face for an unrealistically long amount of time so the camera can get a good shot. The director's all, "Uh, Gillian, you don't have to hold them quite that close."

As befits a Level 2 Airbase Security operative, the 'Bird wastes no time, bashing in the window with a nearby fire extinguisher. (I was going to make fun of them for having Redbird magically pull a fire extinguisher out of his ass, but sure enough, there's one right behind him in the scene just before this. In fact, it's even there when Scully runs out to yell at Mulder in the parking lot as he's ditching her. Well done, you guys!) Fight time! Scully loses the gun, and it falls into an artfully scattered second-unit pile of broken glass on the car floor. She reaches for it, but Redbird's grabbed her through the window. She gets in a good thumb-to-eye jab. Redbird marches around to the driver's side, but -- TOO LATE! Scully and her baby hands have the gun pointed right at his face. "AGAINST THE CAR! HANDS ON THE CAR! DO IT!!" she hollers. "Put the gun down, and we'll talk about it," Redbird good-cops her. "I SAID HANDS AGAINST THE CAR!" yells Scully, and she shoves him against the window. AW YEAH!! Aside: I think Scully's wearing WORKBOOTS. Tiny workboots that are like Mulder's only tinier. That's pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Coincidentally enough, who should come mopeding stonily along at this moment but Seth Green and Possible Future Mrs. Seth Green! Scully doesn't miss a beat, turning to them and demanding where Mulder is, gun still shoved into Redbird's back. "We took him to the base!" Seth says earnestly. "We waited for him," his lady pipes up. Scully makes an aggravated face and decides to make the most of the tools currently at her disposal. "I want you to get on that walkie-talkie and find out where Mulder is," she snaps to Redbird. Somehow it always makes me giggle how Gillian enunciates "walkie-talkie" there, with just the slightest hint of British -- "walkie-talkie" is such a silly word anyway and she just like, pauses to PRONOUNCE the shit out of it, hee. If he doesn't do it, she's going to leak the secret aircraft experiments to the MSM! Which, back then, is still just the M, since there's no non-mainstream media other than, oh, the Gunmen's Xeroxed newsletter and so on. No blogs! How could we have lived? For some reason, instead of laughing his ass off at this non-threat, Redbird decides he'd better do what the lady says. Seth and Mrs. Seth watch, agape. Who ever would have thought that sneaking onto a heavily guarded secret military base plastered with dire warnings about not trespassing would have such bummer consequences?