SEASON 1

SEASON 2

SEASON 3

SEASON 4

SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

SEASON 6

SEASON 7

SEASON 8

SEASON 9

< PREVIOUS

Mulder takes this chance to explicate to Scully that Modell must have been unarmed and he purposefully drew Skinner's fire. Scully wants to know why, and Mulder says it was to protect someone. Scully, resigned, finishes for him, “Linda Bowman.” Mulder agrees – he took the fall for her.

Scully: “That's one hell of a plan, Mulder. A serial killer makes us believe that he's guilty, in turn diverting the suspicion away from the real estate lady. Well, he had me going.”

Mulder isn't having this. He wants to know where she is. Scully says they took her home, because it's over now. Of course Mulder does not hold the same opinion, and he turns to go. He says he wants to be the first person Modell talks to if he makes it out of surgery. Scully counters that talking to him has already caused Mulder enough trouble. I don't think Modell's ever pushed someone for quite this long, but I suppose Scully thinks Mulder was pushed and now he's convinced of his own accord. At any rate, Mulder is thoroughly annoyed and responds bitingly, “Okay, look, you do me a favor, Scully. You give me a call when you think I've come to my senses, all right?” Man, I tell you, it is painful when they don't trust each other.

At the hospital, Mulder is standing over Modell, who is strapped into a bed, with a respirator attached to his throat. A nurse comes in and says, kind of saucily, perhaps like she too thinks he's insane, “Sir? I'm going to need to change the patient's bandages?” Mulder leaves, asking her to call him if he wakes up. We see it's actually Linda Bowman with a paper reading “NURSE” pinned to her blouse, and she whispers, “Yes, sir.” Dun dun DUN!

She sits on Modell's hospital bed and takes his hand. “Bobby?” she asks, and his eyes open. “Why did you do it? I didn't ask you to come after me.”

And OH! I'm dense. It's only because I'm reading a transcript that goes into a bit of detail about it that I now understand what happens next. Modell tries to reply, but he can't because of the tracheotomy until she puts her finger over the 'exhaling port'. I totally thought she was starting to suffocate him or something. Give me some credit, though – I wasn't too far off considering what she's about to do. Anyway, Modell whispers weakly, “Don't ... don't make a mistake.”

Linda Bowman says she's not. After what they did, she won't let them get away with it. She wants to finish what he started. Modell doesn't want that, though. He gasps, “No... no, stop now.” I have to wonder – did Modell really have a change of heart or something? Otherwise, what was he trying to tell her here? I guess we'll never know, but I am curious. Anyhow, he seems to be in pain. Linda looks sad, and says, “Bobby.” Then she says, firmly but gently, “You're not in any pain. You feel wonderful. You've never felt better.” Modell's face clears and he relaxes.

And if you were like, “Aww, that's nice of her,” you might want to stop because then she goes on, “Your heart is slowing. It's tired. It's too worn out to keep beating. Let it rest.” Modell looks at her – I think he knows what she's doing, but even if he didn't want to die he couldn't stop it. The machines start beeping, and Linda silences them.

Her eyes are teary as she leans on his chest. She says, “It slows. It slows.” Modell's eyes close, and she finishes, “It stops.” Sure enough, the monitors show a flatline.

Mulder walks through the halls. However, a nurse running by catches his attention. He chases after her to Modell's room, where a doctor is declaring the time of death. She apologizes to Mulder as she heads out. Mulder, dejected at losing his potential proof, walks into the room. He sees the pin Linda was wearing, and we see him make the connection. He flips it over. It reads, “294 Channel Avenue”, the address of the commercial property from earlier.

Ah ha, we have arrived at the climax. Mulder pulls up outside the building, and goes in cautiously. His flashlight on, he walks deeper in, when he hears Scully's voice calling his name. She sounds scared. He runs toward her, turns a corner, and sees her standing there. She speaks dully. “You were right about her, Mulder.” Then she raises her gun and aims it at him. Mulder says her name, maybe trying to reason with her, but she says, “She's making me do this,” and cocks the gun.

“Where is she?” Mulder asks urgently, and Scully tells him she's here. Then she says, in a scared voice, “Mulder, make her stop. I can't help myself.”

Mulder yells, “Linda Bowman!” and Scully begs him again to make her stop. It's rather heartbreaking. He shouts, “Show yourself!” and then watches in absolute horror as Scully aims the gun at her own head. He runs toward her, shouting “NO!” at the top of his lungs – but she fires.

Desperately, gasping and open-mouthed, he puts his hands on her and feels for a sign of life. Then we hear footsteps approaching. It looks like Linda Bowman, dressed in dark clothes and carrying a gun at her side. Mulder stands up and grabs Scully's gun from the terrifyingly large pool of blood beside her body. “I'm gonna kill you,” he grits furiously.

Linda raises her own gun and says, “Don't listen to her, Mulder.”

Mulder, taken aback, says, “What?”

The woman replies, “It's me. You were right about her. Linda Bowman is pushing you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Mulder spits. I think we can cut him some slack for not getting it right away – his whole world just collapsed, after all, as far as he knows.

“Linda” insists, “I'm Scully. Linda's right behind you. She's telling you I'm her.”

But when Mulder looks down, all he sees is Scully in that huge pool of blood. He yells, “You killed her!”

The woman says, “Mulder, I'm Scully. I'm not dead. She wants you to shoot me. She knows you'll never forgive yourself.” Awww. Boy, is that the truth.

Mulder is perhaps past listening now. He screams, “Shut up!” as Scully (because of course it's her) tries to get through to him, “Listen to me! Your mother is Tina! Your sister is Samantha.” Mulder pauses, eyes wild, and she continues, “Modell warned you. Don't play her game.”

A blurry figure comes up behind Mulder, and “Linda” fires. Mulder looks down – this time, it's Linda Bowman who is on the floor, and when he looks back, Scully is there, gun raised. “Mulder?” Scully says, and the way her voice trembles, especially now that we know it's actually her, really breaks my heart.

Mulder's eyes look stunned and haunted. She comes over and touches his arm, then bends down to take Linda's pulse. Of course, Linda's not dead either. Sigh. She opens her eyes and speaks haltingly, but with menace. “You think you can hold me?”

Scully starts to stand up, gazing at Mulder with deep concern and care. Then she opens her phone and calls for an ambulance. Meanwhile, Mulder looks awful. He is pale and his eyes are wide, and he mouths soundlessly before the camera pulls away. Awwwww. Poor, poor traumatized and guilt-stricken Mulder.

We transition to a familiar-looking brain scan with a mass near the center. Skinner is examining it and they're all in his office. He says, “Linda Bowman.”

Scully exposits that Linda Bowman has an advanced temporal lobe tumor, just like Modell's, and it seems to run in the family. Skinner looks surprised, and she goes on that they were fraternal twins. Oh, give me a break. AGH. Can't twins ever just be two people who happened to be born on the same day? Please? Must they always, always have something creepy about them?? Sigh. Anyway, yeah, yadda yadda, Modell wanted to protect his sister, who only found out about his existence about six months ago because they were separated two weeks after birth and raised apart. Ugh.

Mulder hasn't spoken as Scully continues that the “fox hunt” was a kind of revenge for what she and Mulder did to her brother. Skinner pointedly asks Mulder if there's anything he wants to add. He just says that about covers it, and they both get up to leave. Skinner asks Mulder to stay a moment, though. Scully turns at the door and meets Mulder's eye, and he gives her a little nod. She leaves and Mulder turns to face Skinner.

Skinner gets up from his desk and goes to stand in front of him. “I just want to say, you did a good job.”

Mulder, more than a hint of bitterness in his voice, asks, “How's that?”

“Nobody could have figured this out but you. You knew it was Linda Bowman and not Modell. You were way ahead of me,” Skinner says.

Mulder, barely hearing that, just responds, “I almost killed my partner.”

Skinner sighs a little. “Mulder, despite that, you prevailed. You won her game.”

Mulder nods a little, and looks pained. “Then how come I feel like I lost?” Skinner doesn't have anything to say to that, and Mulder leaves. Aww, Mulder.