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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We find Mulder checking out various properties. He sensibly tries to call ahead – or is he calling to check in with Scully? – but he has no service. “Welcome to the boondocks,” Duchovny possibly improvises. Mulder seems to have hit paydirt when he drives up to a compound, fenced off as Black had predicted, and finds a 50-lb bag of kosher salt in the garbage. Showing once again that he is always unafraid to stick his hands in gross, possibly dangerous places without gloves, he grabs a handful of salt and puts it in his pocket. I would have loved it if he had also thrown some over his shoulder for good measure. He scales the fence in a manly style, while we see Mr. Important driving home, singing a little song to himself in his truck. Apparently when not raising the dead he enjoys a little contemporary country and old jazz standards. Mulder checks out Mr. Important’s house, seeing Sprinkles and a stuffed wolf, and also sees a door that’s bolted with a heavy wooden bar. Always a bad sign. Undaunted, Mulder pulls out his trusty flashlight and heads downstairs into the basement. Flashes of so many other X-Files episodes: will he find a deadly boa constrictor? A father buried in the basement by the roots of a vengeful orchard? No, it’s much more obvious, but apparently not to Mulder, who is cornered by three horrific zombies!!! That deserves some exclamation points in my book. Mr. Important arrives home at just this moment and stands at the top of the stairs in stairs in classic horror-movie fashion. Mulder starts running up the stairs, but, just as we thought, gets the door slammed in his face. Like so many nights at the motel with Scully. Only this time he’s really scared. He pounds on the door, screaming to be let out, and we hear several gunshots. With each one, Mr. Important winces.

9:17 pm. Scully’s hanging out with Mr. Black back at the ranch-slash-mental-hospital. She’s asking for help on where Mulder could possibly be, since he went searching for the necromancer’s house and hasn’t been heard from since. She’s got task force agents canvassing the northwestern Maryland area, but it’s a large area, and… “we’re running out of time.” Shit. Unfortunately for us, this scene starts taking a downward turn when things are most urgent. When asked explicitly for help in finding Mulder, Black replies, “Now, you respected my reasons in the past, Agent Scully. Please respect them now.” But… you helped them before, Black! Unwillingly, but you did. Scully gets pissed: “I'm not sure that I really understand your reasons, sir, and I'm starting to wonder what this is all about and how much you know about it.” Unnecessary drama. She seemed to understand his reasons before, and she doesn’t go anywhere with this veiled reference to how much Black might know about the necromancy. She tells him that she was attacked this morning in the morgue by one of “the four Millennium members who ‘liveth and were dead.’” No, actually, Sculls, you were attacked by a victim of one of the four Millennium members – the police officer wasn’t one of them. Argh. Well, she’s just been attacked by a zombie, I’ll cut her some slack for a second. She worriedly asks Black if he thinks that the Millennium group members are actually capable of bringing about the endtime. Black responds that he’s been studying the group for years, but that doesn’t mean that he believes in what they do. Apparently, Scully thinks now is a good time to ask a man she doesn’t know, who’s in a psychiatric institution, “But what if it were true? Good and evil -- which would prevail?” Interesting question, Scully – but your partner is in mortal peril! FOCUS, girlfriend! Black, perhaps also disgusted by how weirdly written this scene is, just shakes his head and says, “I’m sorry.” Ooh, so ambiguous. Sorry that evil would win, or sorry that he just can’t say, because if he responds to this inane question, they’ll somehow take away his daughter? Scully looks at him, disappointed, and then leaves. Black tells Octavia, the extravagantly named orderly, that he’d like to check himself out – and he “won’t be coming back.” He’s putting it all on the line for this case. Awesome! But… um… wasn’t Agent Scully just asking you to help her partner, and didn’t she just walk out the door? Don’t you want to call her back and go with her to help out?

While Scully and Black muse over good and evil, Mulder is clutching a bloody arm and standing in a small circle of salt in the Basement O’ Deadies. That handful of salt he picked up from the trash apparently came in really handy. This is the episode from which I learned how important it is to search the trash for usable items to fend off demons and the undead. Mr. Important is crouching outside, near the basement window, when Black shows up at his house. He’s so happy he could cry. In fact, this entire episode, Mr. Important has had this slight film of tears in his eyes. Is that natural, or is he just an incredibly good actor who wants to show us that he can cry on command – ALL the time, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with his character? But hey, maybe he just has watery eyes. Give the man a break! Jesus.