THE X-FILES RECAPS: 1x03 - CONDUIT
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1x03: CONDUIT

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In the LBO, Scully bicker-banters with Mulder and his considerable pompadour. "Okay, Scully, so we disagree. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last," Mulder comments. You don't say! Sources! Science! Vocabulary! Bicker-bantering! "What makes this case any more credible than…the hundred-year-old mother with the lizard baby?" Scully asks, picking up a convenient tabloid. You just know Mulder has subscriptions to all of them. "Because the lizard baby wasn't born anywhere near Lake Okobogee," Mulder counters. "Oko-what?" Scully says. "Bogee," Mulder repeats, standing up and getting way way up in her personal space. "Okobogee," he rumbles, right into her ear, and damn, y'all… my stomach flutters, from here. How did she resist him for, what, seven years? Scully has the strength of ten lesser women, because if it were my ear that man was murmuring into we would never hav e gotten to Lake Okobogee or anywhere else. And then he would have had to order me a desk a lot sooner. After we broke his. Ahem. Mulder switches off the lights. Woohoo, slide show! Lake Okobogee is a known UFO hot spot, as Mulder demonstrates with a variety of marginally unconvincing photographs of the sort he's completely smitten with. He lingers on an enhanced print taken by "a Girl Scout with an Instamatic." The Air Force said it was a weather balloon. Oh, did they. "Now read me the names of those Girl Scouts from 1967," he says, handing Scully a list. She does so and, pausing on "Darlene Morris," looks up to see Mulder underscoring the same name in the current UFO abduction article, projected on the wall. Dun dunnn!

Sioux City. Mulder and Scully pull up at the Morris residence, passing the camper parked outside and a colossal satellite dish also planted in the front yard. Classy! Scully has on her beloved white tights. Also classy. Miss Morris—as Scully consistently calls her—her burned hand still bandaged, is happy to finally be getting some attention from the authorities, although she's a little gobsmacked to be addressing the FBI. "Kevin, say hi," she says, introducing the little boy. Kevin, hunched over a drawing pad at the table, ignores everyone. Heh. Miss Morris offers up some coffee, and Scully follows her to the kitchen, stopping to look back at Mulder. He's stalled out in front of the fireplace mantel, looking over the family photos of Clan Morris in happier times: Ruby at a formal dance, mom and kids together, little-girl Ruby in a swimsuit. Sad music pulses as Mulder lingers over this photo, tracing his fingertips l ightly over the girl's image. Okay, I know that we're supposed to be making the connection to Samantha, and the bathing-suit photo in her file…but this is kind of an odd choice, I have to say. Mulder, fondling the picture of a strange little girl in her bathing suit? Not quite right, that. Scully regards him thoughtfully.

In the kitchen, Ma Morris confesses to being depressed, and that Kevin's acting strangely; she just wants her daughter back. "Miss Morris," Scully asks—why does that "Miss" grate upon me so?—"during the divorce, was there a custody battle?" Ma Morris calls bullshit on that, though; she knows what happened. Mulder plays the UFO card, and they bond up a storm: "They took her, didn't they, Mr. Mulder?" she asks urgently. Scully sort of rolls her eyes back and forth between them, looking freckly and about 16. Kevin slept through the whole thing, Ma Morris says, but Mulder wants to talk to him anyway. He leaves the room, allowing Ma Morris to pin Scully: "You know, I've told this story so many times, now…oh, to the newspapers and the police…and every time I tell it, people get this look, in their eye. Just like the look that you've got right now." Scully stares at her coffee, to tally busted.

Kevin's sitting with his notepad in front of the t.v., tuned to snow. "Hey buddy," Mulder offers, bending deeply at the waist to talk to the little guy. Cute. "Mind if I sit down?" Kevin shrugs, and Mulder thanks him, aww, and plants himself on the coffee table. "Your mom tells me you've been having nightmares….you wanna tell me about 'em?" Kevin doesn't. Mulder doesn't push, but he does look over Kevin's shoulder to see what he's writing. "What are you doing?" he asks. "You making something?" Kevin gives him the stink-eye, wordlessly. "Can I take a look at it?" Mulder persists, and Kevin glumly hands over the pad. I love that Mulder thanks him again, here. So polite, with the kindergarten set! What Kevin is doing, it turns out, is filling the pad with long strings of ones and zeroes, all 1111100000111000001111110000001010111. It's funny, because it's very obvious that some poor production assistant filled out the f irst twelve lines or so of binary notation before handing it over to the child actor, because the line that Kevin was putting down is suddenly all catty-wampus Kid Handwriting. Kevin points at the staticky television screen. "It's coming from there," he monotones. Mulder blinks. "The t.v.?" he clarifies. Duchovny does this funny little "buh?" lip-curl on this line that makes me giggle. Kevin just points and nods. Well, I think we've all seen this movie. Carol-Anne! CAROL-ANNE!

At the local sheriff's office, Mulder's faxing many pages of 00001110010111 somewhere and is simultaneously on the phone, promising the world and a couple of Redskins tickets to someone in exchange for their analysis. Could it be—? "Thanks, Danny," he finishes—yes! Danny! Right on. Is this our first encounter with the ubiquitous, unseen, multitalented Danny, the only other employee at the FBI? Whoa, whoa, hold on: I just ran it back and handily paused the DVD on the fax cover sheet, and it's addressed to one DANIEL BERNSTEIN, Cryptology Section, FBI, Wash. D.C. Oh my God, y'all: Danny has A LAST NAME. And, like, a division to work in. I am way more tickled by this discovery than I should be. Lord, I need to get out more. Like, at all.

> CONTINUE

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