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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The first thing we see is a Cerulean Blue Uniform-clad dead guy lying on the street with a gushing head wound. Lovely. Then, as we pull back, we realize it's one of Mulder's awesome slideshows! Yay! But, wait. That's not Mulder's sandpaper over honey voice I hear, but Burst's. Damn, you, Burst! He tells Mulder and Scully that he was knocked unconscious and Pusher escaped because the deputy, in his last dying breath, unlocked Pusher's cuffs and let him out of the car. Dude. Burst does not look good. < /SPAN>He's all bruised and battered looking. Nice job, makeup department. And Scully's wearing red. Bad job, costume department. Don't you know that redheads should never wear red? Believe me. When I went red, I had to rethink my entire wardrobe. Burst tells them that Pusher cold-called him about a month ago, confessing to a bunch of deaths that the police had ruled as suicides. But Pusher knew stuff about the case that no one else did, and that's why Mulder immediately jumps to psychic transmission. Just kidding. He's actually uncharacteri stically silent for this scene as Scully takes the lead. Ooh, she must have bitchslapped him in bed last night for him to be this quiet. Heh. Anyway, Burst continues, telling them about the Cerulean Blue truck and how Pusher went on and on about it until Mulder finally speaks. "So, you think Pusher somehow talked him into doing this? He willed him into doing that?" Did someone not study their lines closely enough this morning, David? Because that would be pretty shoddy writing, in my opinion. And I don't blame writer Vince Gilligan, because as far as I can see, the man can do no wrong (see every other script he's written, except maybe Roadrunners, for examples). Anyway, Scully and Burst are all, "Willed him? How?" Mulder doesn't have a chance to answer before Burst switches slides to one of the words "NIN OR" written in blood on the side of the patrol car. Maybe the guy's a Nine Inch Nails fan. OR not. Burst can't figure it out, but Mulder takes one look at it and heads over to the slide machine to flip the image around. It's still kinda backwards, but we can see more clearly that it spells the word "Ronin". So, apparently, he's a fan of Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno movies. We seem to have more in common than ever. I just wish I could push people into doing things. I'd never have to do laundry again. Mulder immediately recognizes the word, and defines it as "A Samurai without a master." Because he's smart and well-read? Of course not, silly. He gets his knowledge from movies, just like everyone else. In this case, it's from Yojimbo. "But what does it mean?" Scully asks, even though he totally just told her what it meant. But he gets what she's trying to say: "It means I know 10 to 1 what this guy's got stacked on the back of his toilet." To which I ask, do people really stack magazines on the back of their toilet? Because, if so, I never want to borrow them. Ever. Mulder, seemingly just seconds later, slaps down an issue of American Ronin, which appears to be a magazine geared towards knife and gun nuts alike. Great. The guy's a Republican. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Although I guess we're not as alike as I thought.

Oh, wait. It's later. Burst is gone, and Mulder and Scully are thumbing through issues of a magazine that exists only because middle aged white men like to fantasize about being Japanese or in the Army or something. Holly, a doe-eyed, pixie stick of an FBI, um, assistant? brings them more issues of the magazine. Mulder digs into the stack, characteristically oblivious (otherwise lovingly known as "focused") as Scully notices that little Holly (named after Vince's girlfriend, natch) has a shiner. Holly explains that she was mugged in Georgetown, which is kinda sad because when I did a semester in DC in college, Georgetown was, like, the coolest and most laid back place ever. Scully's all, "Aww," and kicks Mulder under the table. Mulder's all, "Huh?" then asks if they caught the guy. Holly's all, "Uh, no. Do they ever?" then, because she works for the FBI and isn't a total idiot, adds, "No offense." She walks away as Scully begins to tell Mulder about that time when she was mugged in New York and then Mulder shares a story about… just kidding. You know these crazy kids never get personal! Until, y'know, all the sex starts.

They go right back to the case without giving Holly and her poor black eye another thought. Scully asks what they're looking for and Mulder's not sure but "let's waste taxpayers' money, anyway, because I'm in the market for a used AK-47." When she asks him what he thinks is going on (dangerous question, Scully), he tells her that suggestion is very powerful and that "the science of hypnosis is predicated on it, as are most TV commercials." And most video games, as you'd know if you ever played the original PC X-Files game that had subliminal messages that popped up every few minutes to exact fear and panic from the player. Which, lemme tell ya, is exactly what I want to be feeling when I play a video game. Anyway, Scully argues, kind of smugly, that "inducing someone to buy hair color is a little different than inducing them to drive in front of a speeding truck." I don't know. Those stupid "You're Worth It" L'Oreal commercials make me want to drive in front of a speeding truck sometimes. Mulder smugly replies that the mechanism is basically the same, even if it's stronger in this case. I mean – well, he means – the guy calls himself "Pusher." "Can't we take that to mean that he pushes his will onto other people?" Then Scully counters, asking why Pusher would crash a car he was in, and Mulder counters her counter with the possibility that he really didn't want to go to jail. As they argue – eh-hem, I mean discuss – they get closer and closer and when he's done talking, they stare at each other, breathing heavy, until Scully finally breaks the tension and launches at Mulder's mouth with her own. Oh, wait. That's every other show on television. But not this one. What really happens is that Mulder finds an ad in one of those magazines and the sexual tension is dissipated. Whew. Or, damn, depending on your shipper/noromo status.

The ad reads, "I solve problems. Osu." Scully guesses Ohio State University, which I would have guessed, too, because I had a friend in high school who ended up graduating from there. But Mulder notices that the area code on the phone number is Virginia, not Ohio, so that can't be it. He also mentions that he's seen the ad in every magazine since April, 1994, which would have been good to know two hours ago, so they needn't've wasted all this time! Anyway, he gets his handy dandy Japanese-English dictionary down off the shelf and looks "Osu" up. What a coink-i-dink! It means "to push." I think we've found our smoking gun.

That night, Mulder and Scully are parked on the Beltway Commuter Lot in Falls Church, VA, which is a stone's throw from where I was living in Arlington, but oddly doesn't look familiar at all. They're there because they ran a trace on the phone number in the ad and it came from a phone booth in this parking lot. Oh, how quaint. Phone booths. I remember them. The disposable cell phone of the 90s. Good times. But back to the parking lot. Inside their FBI-requisitioned car, Mulder calls the phone booth on his cell while Scully snoozes in the passenger seat. No luck so far. With the calling, I mean. I'm sure he's gotten plenty lucky with her by now. He hangs up the phone and caresses her cheek with his pinky to wake her up. Aw. She gasps. He tells her she drooled on him. She apologizes before realizing that he was joking, then, once she does, looks kind of embarrassed. It's a very cute moment. Mulder launches right in, telling her there's no luck here or at any of the other pay phones that Burst has staked out. Just as they're about to call it a night, the pay phone ring s. And Mulder isn't calling it! Gasp! They hop out of the car and full sprint to catch the phone. I wonder how many times they had to shoot that. If it was more than three, then they probably didn't need to hit the gym that day.