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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Scully breaks out of Hodge's grasp and tries the CB Radio again, but all she gets is static. Yea, blizzards tend to do that. Hodge and Da Silva resume their places at the microscopes. They're both bleary eyed and clearly at the end of their respective ropes. Hodge asks Da Silva to put the uninfected blood on the infected blood, because a) she's clearly become his lab assistant, all of a sudden or b) he's killing time, hoping to go back into that locked storage locker to find Mulder dead on the floor, having conveniently killed himself to save them the trouble. I suspect b, but could go either way. Anyway, because Da Silva is tired and Hodge is a dick, she accidentally puts the infected blood onto more infected blood. Hodge freaks out, Da Silva whines like a twelve year old who's upset that her father won't let her leave the house in that outfit, young lady, and as long as you live under this roof you have to live by my rules. She stomps petulantly out of frame as Hodge complains, "You've wasted hours of work!" In the midst of this argument, Scully's curiosity is piqued. She slides over to the microscope and looks inside.

Those little skeletal fish things are fighting each other. Oh, look. Now they've killed each other. So, the only way to cure someone is to put another worm in them? Oh, fun. I can't even stand someone else putting Q-tips in my ears. Gak. Scully calls Hodge over, who's apparently calmed down enough to listen to her. "The larvae from two different worms killed each other," Scully tells him. In the freezer, she puts the two worms next to each other in their clear canisters, and even though the CGI work in this shot looks like a student film by today's standards, the worms freak out. Like if you put Japanese Fighting Fish in the same tank. That never ends well. "An individual worm will not tolerate another invading its host." So, yea, two=zero. I need to go find some earplugs.

So, they put one of the worms into the dog's ear. The CGI worm crawls into the ear canal of the dog and I don't know what happened right after that because my eyes were closed. Ew! There's whimpering and… it sounds like some twitching and… okay, it's stopped. Yay! The dog is okay! All right. One worm left. Who killed Charger Fan?

Scully feeds the now healthy dog as Hodge explains that the dead worms were passed in the dog's stool. Yay! So they didn't break the first rule of filmmaking: You can kill as many people as you like, but you never, ever, kill the dog. Scully tells Hodge and Da Silva that she's going to go in to talk to Mulder, "Try and make this voluntary." I know I'd volunteer to have a worm forced down my ear. Because you all know how much that appeals to me. Da Silva doesn't like the idea of her going in alone, but Scully seems to trust him enough to know that he would only trust her if she went in alone. This is good, this trust building. I wonder if they've built any towers of furniture yet.

Scully enters the room and turns on the light. Mulder squints back at her, his bangs curling boyishly as he listens to her explain that no one has died since they locked him up. Which is a pretty sorry reason for him to be in there. Um, maybe it's because they've all been so cliquey since then, so there hasn't been an opportunity to pick someone off? She tells him about the whole worm-kills-worm thing, and about how they're going to put it in his ear. He's all, "Hell, no! I don't have the first worm!" She gets all up in his grill, "If that's true, why didn't you let us inspect you?" He leans down to her until their faces are inches apart, in what is an alarmingly sexually charged scene for two characters who look so exhausted, "I would have, but you pulled a gun on me. Now I don't trust them. I want to trust you." She agrees, and he turns around, baring his neck to her. What is it about 1013 and the back of the neck? First worms, then chips, then bees, then… weird spiny Super Soldier giveaway things. Someone has issues. Anyway, Scully pulls Mulder's shirt down, nearly choking him (but he's a manly man, so he doesn't complain) and examines his neck and shoulders and… sort of… massages him. Way to cop a feel, Agent Scully. Moments later, when she's finally satisfied, he turns dramatically and I think Gillian breaks character for just a second because of the nostril-flaring intensity on his face because she giggles in a very un-Scully-like manner. She turns to unlock the door when he grabs her by the back of her neck. She gasps. Once she figures out what he's doing, he lets her return the favor. More massaging.