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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Back to Roche. "Tell us the name of that girl," Scully says, firing words like tiny terse bullets. Roche proceeds to wax rhapsodic about his experience abducting this particular child. He reminisces fondly about the mint that grew beneath her bedroom window: "I stood outside her window atop sprigs of mint. It smelled wonderful." That detail, and Roche's obvious pleasure, is magnificently horrific. Scully, taking her little notes, visibly swallows back her revulsion. "What year," she grits, getting through this interview on sheer force of will. July 1974, Roche says, and then grouses for a bit about his failed sales pitch to the girl's mother. Scully glares a couple smoking black holes in Roche's forehead…or so you'd think, considering her expression. Mulder passes over the final heart, and Roche attests that it's Samantha's. He gets quickly to the taunting:

"You want to know a lot more than [where], don't you? You want to know everything, right? The big mystery revealed?...I can't just tell you. I mean, I know you don't believe me yet. You need me to show you, you need me to lead you through it because…after all these years, anything less than that's not going to satisfy you, right?" Mulder knows that Roche just wants to get out of the joint. He's not wrong. "You're damn right I do! If only for a day or two; I'm realistic," Roche says. "And more than that, I…I can't wait to see your face."

"Oh GOD," hisses Scully, shoving her chair back unseen. She's on her feet, up in Roche's grill. "You're gonna see the inside of your cell instead. You're gonna rot there," she tells him, her tone glazing the earth under a six-inch crust of ice. Great work by Gillian Anderson here; she nearly smotes me dead with her gaze. She stomps to the door and holds it open pointedly, while Roche has the gall to look a tiny bit delighted at her abject loathing. Hey Roche, too bad you didn't get the gas chamber; I know just the girl to push the button.

In the hall, Scully checks in with a dazed-seeming Mulder as they both try to pull themselves together. She struggles to console and counsel him not to play Roche's game, that there has to be a better way to find out the truth. Through the interrogation-room window, Roche sits with his head in his hands a moment, feigning defeat. Then he gets up and…grinnnns, through the chicken-wired glass at Mulder before getting buzzed back out of the room. Oh GOD is right, dude. Holy hell.

Quick shot of Mulder on his couch, contemplating. Oh, no. He picks up the phone, and we hear his voiceover requesting a federal prisoner move order as the action cuts to Roche and Mulder on a plane, en route to Boston. For you compulsive types, Mulder's badge number here is JTT-0471-01111. Is that last bit binary code?

Roche asks to use the restroom. Mulder drapes something, a jacket or a blanket, over Roche's cuffed wrists to conceal them, in that way that we've all learned from t.v. Perps! Gotta leave them a measure of dignity! In the aisle, Roche promptly scampers past the approaching drink cart and immediately zeros in on the little girl prattling happily a few rows back. "First flight?" he asks her mother, twinkling a smile while Mulder, blocked, does the Hokey Pokey with two beverage-dispensing flight attendants. Mom has not read The Gift of Fear, and cheerfully engages Roche. "What's your name?" he beams at the little girl. "Caitlin," Caitlin squeaks back, and ohJesusMulderhurryalreadygoddamn. AT LAST Mulder clears the cart and hustles Roche off to the can. Will R oche even fit, in an airplane bathroom? He's a damn giant. He's going to have to sit down to pee.