SEASON 1

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SEASON 3

SEASON 4

SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

SEASON 6

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SEASON 8

SEASON 9

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Mulder and Janus enter the office, where Duane is hiding in the shadows and is quite jumpy. He tells Mulder to put his hands in the air, and Mulder, using those soothing, dulcet tones of his, tries to tell Duane that they only want to help the injured. Duane pats them both down, knows they're FBI, and simply asks if they have a gun in the med kit or are wearing wires. Boy, he's a dumb crazy guy. Kazdin is talking in Mulder's ear, telling him he's doing a good job of calming Duane. I think if Mulder is allowed to keep talking, he'd cause Duane to lapse into catatonia. Mulder begins bargaining with Duane, telling him that he should let the women go. For some reason David Duchovny chooses this point to stick his tongue out to lick his bottom lip, and while I'm not complaining, I must wonder what kind of acting choice that is. Then Mulder begins to jump into Duane's delusion full force by asking him if the bright light was "Them," because they lost time. Then we get a flashback into what Duane experiences, complete with nausea- and seizure-inducing strobe light! Seriously, close your eyes at this point if you're watching in a darkened room, because you might just fall over. We see Duane screaming (maybe because he's sensitive to strobe lights?) and see Grays outside his plastic-covered bedroom.

When we return from that little flashback, Duane is [gasping, panting], and while the [panting continues], Mulder tells Duane that he believes his story, and Kazdin ain't having that, telling Mulder that he's feeding into his psychosis. My psychosis likes chocolate cake, incidentally. But Mulder keeps going on, identifying with Duane, telling him that he knows people that went through the same things. Janus tells Mulder that Baldy is going to die unless they get him to the hospital, and when Mulder goes to help, Duane says that Baldy can go (he really does say it, ha, except the closed captioning labels him "Baldie," which I think is wrong) but that Mulder has to stay. Duane decides that trading the bald man for Mulder is a good deal, and I'd have to agree. Ooh, Kazdin is pissed at this development.

Then Janus *walks* poor Baldy, who's been shot in the chest mind you, out of the office. He probably has internal bleeding and at least a collapsed lung, because that was the area of the chest in which he was shot, and they didn't think to bring in a stretcher?

Mulder gets tied to a chair (hee, bondage!) and Duane decides he'd like to see how good a liar Mulder is. Duane Barry wants to know how Mulder could know what Duane Barry has been through, and then Mulder tells him it happened to Samantha. Duane doesn't believe him, and tells Mulder this -- loudly -- right in his face. Interesting that DD doesn't seem to be able to meet Mr. Railsback's eyes during this confrontation. He keeps glancing down, nervous. Heh. And as Duane walks back to the Doc, who's still tied up in the chair, you can hear the ADR masters go to work over Mr. Railsback's utterance of "bullshit" instead of "B.S." Mulder starts asking Duane how They come to him, in bed, in his car, is he paralyzed, blah blah, feeding that psychosis is right. Kazdin mutters that Mulder is going to push Duane right over the edge, and I think I agree with her. Because CCH Pounder is awesome. She tells Mulder he's choosing a dangerous course, and then we see Duane go into flashback again. Man, Mulder just keeps going on and on. More strobe lights!! Ew, those Gray costumes are really creepy. Even after all these years I hate looking at those things. Blargh. Poor Duane is being lifted from his bed, then white out!

Duane is sitting on the floor now, telling Mulder his abduction experiences. The command team is listening as Duane talks about the Grays speaking without moving their mouths, and then the immortal line, "They drilled holes in my damn teeth!!!" Whoo! Oh thank you, now we get to see this happening. Duane is strapped on a table with all sorts of weird designs on it, with these metal...pincher thingys holding his mouth open. There's this metal cage around his head, too. Then the device lowers toward his mouth, and we see the Red Beam of Teeth-Drilling come on. In one of the interviews done for the cable channel FX when they began to rerun episodes of XF, Steve Railsback says that that beam was actually pressurized water, and he had to try and scream while the water was running into the back of his throat.

And then, bam, juxtaposition time, as we see one of the command center dudes drilling a hole into a wall to slide a mini camera through. Okay, here's something I never noticed before! As Agent Rich answers the phone in the foreground and he then asks who can talk to Agent Scully, we see Alex in the background bringing another agent one of those cardboard carrier thingys with two cups of coffee in it! He actually went to get the coffee! Oh man, I never realized that before! He probably had to call the CSM and be like, "Dude, they're making me get coffee. When do I get to be the misunderstood, sexy double agent and wear leather?"

Scully gets on the phone with the hard-working Alex, and wants to know where Mulder is. Poor Alex has to be the one to tell her that dopey Mulder did something stupid again and traded himself for one of the hostages. Well, I don't know if it's stupid or brave, so let's just leave it at that. Scully is adamant that they get Mulder out of there, because Duane Barry isn't who Mulder thinks he is! She glances over at Duane's FBI medical file that's up on her computer. Dun dun dunnn!