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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In the next scene, a forensics team swarms over the grave site. Mulder hovers nearby, a little zoned out, but mumbles that he's fine when Scully asks. Oh, you two and your "fine;" spare me. It's a male Caucasian in the grave, the late lamented Greg Randall. "Ruby's boyfriend," Scully notes. "Ruby had a LOT of boyfriends," Sheriff Moral High Horse intones. Mulder asks to look over Greg's wallet, pulling on gloves to do so; however, while he's doing this, the Sheriff absently rubs Dead Greg's wallet against his bare chin, which ewwww! That's been under a decomposing guy's ass for three weeks! Gaah! Aside from a couple bucks, there's only one other obvious thing in the wallet: a scrap of paper that reads "Dr. Jack Fowler, Aug. 7—2:30." Back at the station, Mulder and Scully compare this scrap with the note from Bad Girl; the handwriting matches. "Dr. Fowler's a buddy of mine," notes Sheriff Asshat. "Delivered both my k ids." So, Dr. Fowler is a pregnant-lady doctor…or, you know, a knocked-up slutty-teen doctor. The sheriff can find out who made that appointment.

And here she is: a pair of cops march a sullen Bad Girl and her short slutty skirt into the police station and deposit her in an interrogation room (labeled INTERROGATION ROOM right on the bubble-glass door, ha ha) with Mulder and Scully. "Have a seat, Tessa," Scully says. Scully sits in the light, Good Cop, and serenely exposits what they now know: that Bad Girl lied to them, and that she's the one that's preggo. Mulder slouches in the shadows, Insane Cop. Tessa sneers and rolls her eyes while Scully goes on to say that they can prove Greg's the father, and that "this is very serious. Do you understand how serious this is?" Bad Girl could be charged with perjury, that's how serious. Um, how about murder? Anyway, I too have a bit of trouble taking 16-year-old cherubic Scully seriously, truth be told. Grudgingly, Bad Girl admits that Greg promised her they'd be in L.A. by Christmas, for whatever that's worth. "I'd ne ver seen the ocean," she clichés. So, were Greg and Ruby together or what, Scully wants to know. "Lookit, I was nowhere near the lake that night, okay?"

"Sure you were, Tessa," Mulder interrupts, looming up out of his dark corner. "You knew they were meeting, so you sat there and waited for them. You were angry, and you were jealous!" Tessa protests, but Mulder steamrollers on, all "you sat there and you waited and when they showed you killed him first, isn't that how it went?" He mimes Tessa shooting Greg in the back, banging on the table for emphasis. "And then you killed Ruby. BAM!" Tessa claims innocence, and she and Mulder yell at each other until she finally blurts that Ruby "wad'n even there that night!" Mulder crouches next to her to murmur: "Well, how would you know that, Tessa, if you weren't there yourself?" This scene cracks me up, it's so "Interrogation 101: Trapping Your Perp in Their Own Web of Lies!"…though the actors go for it with aplomb. Scully looks uneasy.

In the hallway, Scully worries that Mulder's not seeing the whole picture, namely that Ruby is still probably dead. "Is that your conclusion, or the conclusion of the Sioux City Sheriff's Department?" Mulder asks. Scully enumerates the search efforts underway for Ruby's body, and points out that Tessa is, after all, a big fat pregnant liar; why wouldn't she lie to them about killing Ruby, too? Mulder's having none of it, still convinced that there was Something Out There in those woods. Scully begins to lose her temper, here, snapping at him: "We have a suspect in custody. We have a confession to one murder, and we have a statement which speaks to the intent to commit another. It's over, Mulder. It's time to go home, and turn this over to local law enforcement!" Nope…Mulder don't play that. He stalks away from her and out of the building; Scully tails him down the block, belaboring her end of the argument. He wants to talk to Kevin again, though Scully reminds him that Ma Morris wanted them both to get lost. "Mulder, stop!" she finally shouts, halting in the middle of the sidewalk. "Stop running after your sister!" Ooohh. Mulder freezes, and turns to openly glower at Scully. "This won't bring her back," Scully continues pleadingly, approaching him. Mulder scowls. "Come with me or don't come with me. But until I find a body, I'm not giving up on that girl," he says bitterly, and stomps away. Oh, kids, don't fight!

Chez Morris, the camera lingers again on that honking huge satellite dish. You'd think that with that thing, Kevin would prefer watching something other than The Static Channel. Nobody answers Mulder's knock, so he strolls on in, calling for "Mrs." Morris. The t.v. is on in the living room, fuzzing away; on the floor, page after page of 111001000111011 are laid out side-by-side. Scully wanders into the kitchen and takes the screaming teakettle off the stove; it seems the remaining Morrises left in a hurry. She goes back to find Mulder in the living room, contemplating Kevin's papers. "What does it mean?" she asks. "I don't know," Mulder admits, perched again on the coffee table, I think. Scully elects to go check upstairs, but on the landing stops to do a big double-take over the banister. "Oh, my God," she blurts. Mulder moves to join her, and together they look down on all the 000010101111 pages, which from a heig ht resolve into a huge pixilated portrait of Ruby herself. Did anybody else ever do exercises like that in typing class, where you'd bang out a series of Xs and Os that would resolve into, like, a picture of Snoopy on his doghouse? I'm dating myself, aren't I?

It's dusk, and Mulder and Scully are careening back into Lake Okobogee State Park. Scully reminds him that this is a long shot; the missing Morrises could be anywhere. Mulder chooses to respond with a little story: "Y'know, when I was a kid, I had this ritual," he says. He'd enter his room with his eyes shut, hoping that one day, he'd open them to find Samantha there, as if nothing had happened. "You know, I'm still walking into that room," he finishes, shaking his head. "Every day of my life." Awww. Poor Mulder. It's a very sad, tender little non-apology, for their earlier dust-up. I like it. Also, gosh, how will you two ever bond if you refuse to open up to Scully, huh, Mulder? Anyway, the sweet moment falls away when Mulder spots the Morris camper, dead ahead. No one's inside, but suddenly Ma Morris calls out from the woods; Mulder and Scully dash down the trail, flashlights swinging, to find her slumped in the d irt. "It's here. I saw it," she pants. "Where's Kevin?" Mulder demands; she couldn't keep up with him. Scully stays with Ma while Mulder lights out after Kevin. It must be humid; Gillian's hair is frizztastic in the moonlight.

Mulder reaches what seems to be an open field, and spots little Kevin wandering through the mist, silhouetted against a gathering creepy glow on the horizon. "Kevin!" he shouts. Kevin spares him a glance, but keeps walking as the sky brightens. An ominous rumble grows. Mulder sprints pell-mell after the kid as bright lights sweep up around them; Kevin claps his folded arms over his face against the glare and Mulder tackles him to the ground, protectively covering the little boy's head as the source of the light and racket is revealed: the motorcycle gang, hooting and hollering as they zoom past. Aliens, schmaliens! "You okay?" Mulder asks, sitting Kevin up as the taillights fade past them. "She's back!" Kevin insists brightly. "Kevin, I'm sorry, but I don't…" Mulder tries, but Kevin is undeterred. "She's here, I know it!" he perks. Mulder demurs unhappily…and then, far in the distance, Scully hollers at the top of h er lungs. "MUUULLLDEERRRRR!" Mulder scrambles to his feet, yanking Kevin along. "SCULLLLAAAAAYY!" he shouts back, and oh, I am all a-tingle, because isn't this another first? The first time that, over great distances, they bellow their heads off for each other? It is utterly endearing and I love it so! Be still, my heart. Mulder and Kevin plunge through the woods to find Ma Morris and Scully crouched over a very pale and unconscious but still alive Ruby, performing CPR. "I'll get help," Mulder says, and sort of…wanders out of frame. No cell phones yet, right? Meanwhile, Scully here is administering perhaps the least convincing chest compressions I've ever seen. I mean, I know that you don't want to bring the actual rib-cracking intensity you'd apply to a real patient, because Acting! But Gillian's so tentative, I'm not completely certain she's even touching the girl. Hee hee. Ruby, your recovery is even more miraculous!

Mulder and Scully stroll down a hospital corridor. He has on a tie patterned with…postage stamps? Easter Seals? while Scully sports an overlarge dark-red suit. Petites department, wardrobe people, I'm telling you. Ruby's been awake for almost an hour; her test results are basically clean, except for a high white blood cell count and, as Mulder blithely anticipates, "an attendant reduction in the lymphocyte population or release of gluco-corticoids." If you say so, dude. Scully is dumsquizzled, but Mulder points out that both instances of gobbledygook are symptoms of prolonged weightlessness, common to space-shuttle astronauts for example. Scully gapes.

Kevin lets them into Ruby's hospital room; Ruby lies in bed looking bruised up and blank. She is reluctant to talk about her experience, until Kevin assures her: "It's okay, Ruby. He knows," he says significantly, of Mulder. "I'm not supposed to tell. They told me not to say," Ruby chokes out. "Who told you?" Mulder demands. The truth! So close! Whereupon Ma Morris busts in and reassures Ruby that she doesn't have to say anything. She calls Mulder and Scully out into the hall and states that she wants to put Ruby's whole ordeal behind them. Mulder begs. "She should be encouraged to tell her story, not to keep it inside. It's important that you let her," he insists. "Important to who?" Ma Morris objects. I'm struck, now, by the undercurrent of an alien abduction/violation of women theme that, it would seem, has been unfurling through the X-Files from the very beginning. Ma Morris is unmoved. She's been ridiculed for her story her whole life, she asserts. "The truth has caused me nothing but heartache," she says. She doesn't want the same fate for Ruby. Scully looks on, wide-eyed. Oh, Scully…run. I love you, but you should run like hell. Already too late, I know. "As far as I'm concerned, [Ruby] spent the last month on the back of a Harley-Davidson," Ma Morris concludes. She goes back into Ruby's room; Mulder moves to follow her, and Scully holds him back. Kevin stares at them from the threshold until Ma pulls him inside and shuts the door. Mulder wheels and strides off down the hallway, and Scully lingers behind, wearily closing her eyes.

Somewhere…else. Her apartment? Her office? Scully pages through Samantha's file, and listens to a tape of Mulder's hypnotic regression therapy. (That worked out just great, as we know; thanks a bunch, Dr. WhatshisWerber!) Mulder sounds bewildered, describing how he's unable to move, how Samantha calls out for him. The wheels in the cassette player turn, as do the wheels in Scully's head. Cut to a close-up on another photograph, little Samantha and little Fox, chummy on the beach. Mulder's holding the photograph and looking completely wrecked, sitting in a dim church pew somewhere. His hypnotized voiceover spools on despairingly, Samantha crying out for help but he can't help her. (He mentions that he just lies there in bed, paralyzed, which is not the version of events we get later…but I'm spoiling the mood. Sorry, sorry! Shutting up now.) "Are you scared?" the doctor asks him. "I know I should be, but I'm not," Mul der confesses. "Do you know why?" Because of the voice in his head, Mulder explains. "What's it telling you?" the doctor presses on. "Not to be afraid," Mulder croaks. "It's telling me that no harm will come to her, and that one day she'll return." The camera pulls up and away through the church, as poor grown Mulder folds over, slumps onto the kneeler, and weeps. "Do you believe the voice?" the doctor asks, as we go to a black screen. "I…want to believe," Mulder manages. Ohh, sweetie. A surprisingly sad punch-in-the-gut of an ending, there, to an otherwise cheerfully corny S1 classic. Quite a lot of groundwork and backstory on the table, as it turns out. Not that anyone at 1013 is necessarily writing any of it down somewhere, but what can you do? Executive Producer Chris Carter…and we're out.