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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Now we’re in a penal colony in Forj Sidi Toui, Tunisia. I smell conspirators! There seems to be some sort of prison riot in progress as we see sweaty, smelly men shouting and trying to reach through the bars as a woman (wearing pantyhose for goodness’ sake) walks calmly down the corridor between the cells. It’s the Queen of the Beehive, Marita Covarrubias. She’s looking a little less put together than usual, and tells someone in a nasal voice, “Your release has been arranged.” Cool, it’s everyone’s favourite one-armed quadruple agent, Alex Krycek. Instead of falling to his knees and moaning thankyou, thankyou, thankyou, he says: “Last time I saw you I left you for dead.” I wouldn’t be reminding her of that right now, if I were you, Ratboy. At least wait until you’re outside.

Chuggachuggachugga back to the FBI. Auditor Guy says, “I see the money bleed out, but it doesn’t seem to make the results of your work any better.” Harsh. Scully’s now getting a good hard auditing and she doesn’t appear to be enjoying it one bit. She sounds like she’s trying to keep herself awake and is mostly losing the battle, then she busts out some metaphysical shit about opening doors which lead to other doors. Scully, Scully, Scully, Mulder is beginning to rub off on you. If only Chris Carter had filmed that. For a bit of a change, Scully is on the receiving side of hard-core scepticism and she looks a bit rattled. She then starts to get annoyed, and tells Auditor Guy that she was abducted and subjected to tests that gave her cancer and left her barren. She says every word like it is a knife being inserted between his ribs. Auditor Guy says, “But you don’t believe in aliens,” and Scully answers, “I’ve seen things that I cannot deny.” But Scully, you do deny them – what about that giant spaceship in Antarctica? You denied that. What haven’t you denied?

Showertime in Tunisia. Ratboy is enjoying that shower a lot – it’s probably just as well we can’t see his bottom half. He’s showering in front of Marita and asks her who sent her. She tells him it was The Smoking Man and he’s dying (the Smoking Man, I mean).

Back to the FBI. Mulder enters the office to find Auditor Guy still there. Mulder thought Auditor Guy was finished, but AG tells Mulder that he handed in his report and was asked to go over a few things again. I hate when that happens, no wonder Auditor Guy seems snippy. He and Mulder get snippy with each other, AG boiling down Mulder’s work to recording bizarre facts about bizarre cases and he tells Mulder he could do that on the Internet without leaving the office. Mulder has to make a visible effort to stay polite and professional, and tells AG he couldn’t do his job from an office. AG counters with the fact that outer space exploration is now done from an office, as it’s too expensive to send men into space. Where’s the nice, non-gender-specific term? Would it perhaps be cheaper to send women, or (God forbid) people? Gah. Mulder say’s he’s not looking in outer space. That’s only because he’s been unable to commandeer the Space Shuttle and put it on his expense account. AG then says to Mulder that he should narrow his search for aliens to ‘wherever they are’. Oh, that was easy. Run out and do that, Mulder. Apparently, it’s just a matter of reducing your vision. Ooh, does that mean Mulder will say goodbye to the contacts and start wearing the Season One glasses again? Be still, my beating heart! Look out, Mulder’s giving AG the look he normally reserves for Tom Colton – here be dragons!

Oregon Forest, boo-boop-be-doo. A little blue hatchback pulls up between two police cars and two young guys get out. They ask Det. Miles if he’s all right, and he tells them it was a small accident and asks them what they are doing out there. They tell him they heard that a UFO had collided with a jet plane and it’s clear they’ve come out for a gawk. Det. Miles asserts that the military found their plane three miles away and there’s no evidence of any other crash. The short dork says that they heard that there was a fire burning at the 20-mile mark, Det. Miles denies it. All I know is, his pants must be on fire because there was a HUGE CONFLAGRATION in the first scene. He tells the boys to go home as he heads back to his car.

Lush Basement Office. Scully is staring at the I Want to Believe poster and we hear Mulder saying, “I think I’m in big trouble.” Scully looks around all – so what’s new? With a double Eyebrow, no less. Scully asks how many times before they’ve tried to shut down the X-Files, but Mulder admits he assaulted the auditor. Why didn’t we see that? I enjoy Mulder’s bursts of police brutality, which probably says more than it should about my character. Scully asks if he hurt the auditor, and Mulder replies, “I reduced his vision a little bit,” while putting a hand up to his forehead. Is he implying he head-butted him? Ouch. Just as the conversation is getting interesting, the phone rings and it’s Billy Miles, Mr Comatose from the Pilot episode. Continuity, you are that much more precious for your scarcity. Mulder has Billy on speakerphone so he can talk to the both of them at once. Right there, is a huge change for Mulder. In the earlier seasons he’d have taken that phone call secretly, and Scully would have had to figure out where he was from a trail of breadcrumbs and cryptic clues, arriving just in time to save his life. Instead, she’s in on the phone call right from the start. Billy tells them that the abductions are happening again, but not to him this time. Det. Miles walks in the door, and Billy puts the phone down without saying goodbye. Scully’s all Mmmm and Mulder says, “More alien abductions Scully.” Scully walks around him and says, “I don’t know how we can possibly justify the expense,” very sarcastically, and Mulder says, “We’ll probably turn up nothing,” to which Scully replies, “Let’s go waste some money,” which makes him smile. He loves it when she teases and they are SO DOING IT! Also, Scully’s no longer just enabling Mulder – I think that counts as encouragement.