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SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

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Thomas is led into a room while Mulder sarcastically compliments him on his video library, especially the ones of "the little boys". Thomas admits he's sick and admits to kidnapping the recent kids in the woods but denies killing Rick. Thomas says he wrote those words on the kids because of what they'd become – "monsters". He says they've become that way because of Dr. Larson's tests. Meanwhile, Scully clearly remembers crewcut man as the killer of Deep Throat and excuses herself. Mulder asks Thomas more about the tests and finds out that Dr. Larson was paying him to inject the cattle with an unknown substance. According to Thomas, Larson told him he was trying to inoculate the cattle, and the kids, with it. Scully soon reenters with some answers, taking Mulder out in the hallway for some sexy close-talking. Turns out the substance was "Purity Control", the same possibly alien DNA they found in the season one finale. Mulder deduces the doctor's been injecting the kids with this alien DNA to see what would happen and being paid to do so and that Thomas is just the perverted sap who unwittingly blew his cover. Scully tells Mulder about crewcut man and who he is – Mulder thinks he's now going after all the kids (they always have to destroy all the evidence, you know – it's Conspiracy 101, after all) and he specifically says he wants this guy taken alive. Of course, we all know what that means.

Mulder and the sheriff round up the affected kids and take them to the Odin's cult for safekeeping. Mulder then heads to the meatpacking plant and finds gasoline poured around. He walks through row and row of hanging meat, eventually finding crewcut man using the gasoline to prime the place for torching – talk about BBQ! Crewcut man then knocks Mulder over and almost lights the place ablaze, only to be shot by a distraught Sheriff. I really wanted the sheriff to then scream to the heavens, "I did it, Ricky! I avenged your death, my son!" but he doesn't. But he does say it with his eyes. Then Mulder walks in to see the dead body of crewcut man and we feel his pain, too. Get used to it, Mulder; you've got several seasons of such shenanigans to go. Repeat after me, "I've never been so close to the truth before, Scully!"

RED MUSEUM is wrapped up with a voiceover from Scully, telling us the identity of the man shot by the sheriff is unknown, as is the material in the vials. She goes on to say that the children given the serum soon developed a severe and undiagnosed flu-like ailment but that none of the Red Museum cult got sick, leading her to think they were being used as a control group. The meat plant and the BBQ restaurant are all shut down as investigation into the tainted beef and milk continues. The case remains open and unsolved.

RED MUSEUM was originally planned to be a crossover episode with the offbeat CBS series "Picket Fences" but that plan went by the wayside. I have to wonder if the episode started as a MOTW and then, when the "Picket Fences" idea went south, they turned it into a mythology episode about halfway in – that's what it feels like. As a confirmed mytharc-addict, I have to say I do love all the stuff about walk-ins and impending alien colonization dates and purity control. And when it came time to wrap up the Samantha plotline I think 1013 did purposefully go back to many of the concepts and ideas first brought up here (the reuse of the actor who played Odin is a nice shout-out, too). It seems they decided to have the walk-ins take it one step further and literally rescue not just Samantha's soul, but her body, too. Either that or Samantha's body is still walking around somewhere with a new "enlightened" soul in it. After all, they had to leave a way to reopen Samantha if they wanted to, right? God forbid something really be over on this show.

To continue the mytharc connections, in addition to the stuff about Samantha, I think we can see the genesis of the virus-delivery system here and that 1013 considered using meat/milk before they settled on using bees as transport. A wise choice – I mean, how the hell is a cow going to crawl out from under Scully's collar and sting her right before she kisses Mulder?! That's just silly.