74. Herrenvolk (part 2)
Writer Chris Carter
Director R W Goodwinguests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) Roy Thinnes (Jeremiah Smith) Brian Thompson (Bounty Hunter) Steven Williams (X) Laurie Holden (Marita Covarrubias)
Jeremiah Smith and Mulder are on the run from the alien bounty hunter and Smith takes Mulder to a small farm tended to by identical sets of children and all the girls are clones of his sister when she was still a child. Mulder prepares to take Jeremiah and one of the clones to see his mother in hospital but the bounty hunter catches up with them and kills Jeremiah.
Meanwhile, the Syndicate suspects that they have a traitor in their midst and plan a trap which results in X being executed by the CSM.
NOTE: Mulder's third source Marita Covarrubias, a Special Representative to the Secretary General, is introduced in this episode after X is killed.
'Herrenvolk' is German for "Master Race", which was Hitler's plan during WWII to create a race of perfect blond, blue-eyed people.
From 1966 to 1968, Roy Thinnes - as David Vincent - tried to warn the world about the arrival of hostile aliens in 43 episodes of "The Invaders". Of course no one believed him, except some good guys lead by Kent Smith´s Edgar Scoville in the second season. The Quinn Martin-produced show ended with the mass invasion imminent. Pity.
The season's premiere begins with yet another altered tagline: 'Everything Dies', spoken by the Bounty Hunter and then followed up by Marita Covarrubias who informs Mulder that "Not Everything Dies".
William B. Davis is now billed under the "Also Starring" heading along with Mitch Pileggi.
75. Home
Writer Glen Morgan, James Wong
Director Kim Manners
guests: Tucker Smallwood (Sheriff Andy Taylor) Sebastian Spence (Deputy Barney Paster) Chris Norris (Edmund Peacock) John Trottier (George Peacock) Karin Konoval (Mrs. Peacock) Adrian Hughes (Sherman Peacock)
A baby is found buried alive in shallow ground and appears to have birth defects resulting from generations of inbreeding, leading Mulder and Scully to a reclusive family who have a history of inbred children.
NOTE: Because of the sensitive and still largely taboo subject matter, this episode was banned from Fox TV after it first aired.
Having spent a year away from The X-Files to create their own show Space: Above and Beyond, writers Morgan and Wong return here for the first time since season 2's 'Die Hand die Verletzt'/. The title of their first episode back may also have a double meaning; aside from being the name of the town featured, it could be their way of saying that they are back "home".
Tucker Smallwood is better known for his role in Space Above and Beyond as Commodore Glen Van Ross. This episode marks the first time Samantha Mulder was mentioned in a context other than abduction - at one point, Fox talks about the games he and his sister used to play.
Music "Wonderful Wonderful"76. Teliko
Writer Howard Gordon
Director Jim Charleston
guests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) Carl Lumbly (Marcus Duff) Willie Amakye (Samuel Aboah) Laurie Holden (Marita Covarrubias) Brendan Beiser (Agent Pendrell) Zakes Mokae (Minister Diabria)
After several African-American men are killed and the colour is drained from their skin, Mulder learns about the Teliko, an African folktale about a creature who must suck the pigmentation from a persons body in order to survive.
NOTE: The next altered tagline is 'Decieve Inveigle Obfuscate', spoken by Scully which means "To obscure the truth not only from others, but from ourselves".
Carl Lumbly
maybe better known to many as Det. Mark Petrie of Cagney & Lacey fame. 77. Unruhe
Writer Vince Gilligan
Director Rob Bowman
guests: Pruitt Taylor Vince (Gerry Schnauz) Sharon Alexander (Mary Lefante)
Several kidnappings of young women linked by distorted photographs lead Mulder and Scully to a man who can imprint his darkest fantasies onto undeveloped film and is trying to save the women from the 'Howlers'.
NOTE: We get an early indication of Scully's cancer here, when Schnauz says he can see Scully's unrest, and points to the bridge of her nose. (Scully develops a nasopharyngeal carcinoma).
Although the word Unruhe is indeed German for "unrest", Writer Vince Gilligan's inspiration came from an article on mass murderer Howard Unruh and found it eerily poetic that the killers last name also meant unrest.
The brand of film, ETAP, is the last name of assistant prop master Jim Pate spelled backwards. 78. The Field Where I Died
Writer Glen Morgan, James Wong
Director Rob Bowman
guests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) Kristen Cloke (Melissa Riedal-Ephesian) Michael Massee (Vernon Ephesian)
After an FBI raid on a doomsday cult called the 'Temple of the Seven Stars', Mulder meets Melissa, a cultist who claims to have known him in a previous life during the American Civil War. Scully believes the woman is a delusional schitzophrenic but Mulder allows himself to be drawn into her fantasies.
NOTE: Mulder's speech in the teaser is part of a long poem by Robert Browning titled "Paracelsus".
Mulder and Melissa's Civil War personas Sullivan Biddle and Sarah Kavanaugh were taken from real life Civil War soldier Sullivan Ballou who wrote a now-famous (and very moving) letter to his wife, Sarah, in which he assured her that his love for her was 'deathless' and that even though he might be killed in the war, he would always be with her, he would wait for her, and that 'we shall meet again'. One week after writing the letter, Sullivan Ballou was killed in the First Battle of Bull Run. Although his references probably refer to being together in heaven, they can also be interpreted as meeting in another life, much like the X-Files episode. Kristen Cloke played Capt. Shane Vansen in Space: Above and Beyond and later went on to play Lara Means in Millennium.79. Sanguinarium
Writer Vivian Mayhew, Valerie Mayhew
Director Kim Manners
guests: O-Lan Jones (Nurse Rebecca Waite) Richard Beymer (Dr Jack Franklin) Arlene Mazerolle (Dr Theresa Shannon) Gregory Thirloway (Dr Mitchell Kaplan) John Juliani (Dr Harrison Lloyd)
A link to the four witches Sabbaths is found after a doctor loses control and kills a patient on the operating table and Mulder suspects a nurse may be practicing witchcraft.
NOTE: 'Sanguinarium' is Latin for "Place of Blood". 'Sanguinary' means carnage, bloodthirsty or consisting of blood. Finally, 'Sanguinaria' means "Bloodroot".
80. Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man
Writer Glen Morgan
Director James Wong
guests: William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) Morgan Weisser (Lee Harvey Oswald) Chris Owens (Young Cigarette Smoking Man) Donnelly Rhodes (General Francis) Tom Braidwood (Frohike) Bruce Harwood (Byers) Jerry Hardin (Deep Throat)
Frohike pieces together and recites to Mulder and Scully what could be the possible life story of the Cigarette Smoking Man; from a young captain in the US Army recruited to assassinate President Kennedy, to becoming the mysterious man in the shadows at the height of a global conspiracy.
What measures will the CSM take to ensure that he remains a mystery forever?
NOTE: Lee Harvey Oswald calls young Cancerman "Mr. Hunt". In reality, E. Howard Hunt wrote a number of espionage thrillers under a pseudonym at the same time that he worked for the CIA and was supposedly in Dallas when JFK was assassinated. His name has been batted around by JFK conspiracy theorists for many years.
Morgan Weisser (Lee Harvey Oswald) played Lt. Nathan West in Morgan and Wong's Space: Above and Beyond. In season 4, the main cast of S:A&B appeared on the X-Files; Kristen Cloke in 'The Field Where I Died' and Rod Rowland in 'Never Again'. Morgan and Wong said that "they were showing their actors off".
The title of the magazine that CSM finally gets published in, 'Roman À Clef', means a novel in which actual persons or places are fictionally depicted.
Chris Owens, who plays the young CSM in this episode will return in season 5 to play Jeffrey Spender, the son of CSM.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson do not appear in this episode. Only their voices are heard and Gillian is seen only in footage from the pilot episode.
Cancerman's aliases when meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray are based on supposedly real people. According to some conspiracy theorists, Oswald kept a correspondance with a "Mr. Hunt" before the assassination, and numerous people have named a co-conspirator in the slaying of Martin Luther King Jr. as "Raoul", which Ray calls Cancerman in this episode.
81. Tunguska (part 1)
Writer Frank Spotnitz, Chris Carter
Director Rob Bowman
guests: Campbell Lane (Committee Chairman) Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) Nicholas Lea (Alex Krycek) Laurie Holden (Marita Covarrubias) John Neville (Well-Manicured Man) Brendan Beiser (Agent Pendrell) Fritz Weaver (Senator Sorenson)
A rock sample taken from Mars is intercepted at an airport and infects a security officer with the Black Cancer, while Mulder is given a tip about potentially dangerous paramilitary operations but is doubtful when the informant turns out to be Alex Krycek.
Reluctantly, Mulder accepts Krycek's help and tracks the rock to Russia where he discovers an elaborate test being performed by Russian scientists.
NOTE: Krycek tells Mulder that "When you go underground you gotta learn to live with the rats", a possible reference to Nick Lea's nickname, 'Ratboy'.
The character of Dr. Sacks (the scientist who is infected by the Black Cancer in the rock) is possibly named after the famed neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose book "An Anthropologist On Mars" was a major influence on the episode "Demons".
82. Terma (part 2)
Writer Frank Spotnitz, Chris Carter
Director Rob Bowman
Campbell Lane (Committee Chairman) Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) Nicholas Lea (Alex Krycek) John Neville (Well-Manicured Man) Stefan Arngrim (Prisoner) Jan Rubeš (Vassily Peskow) Fritz Weaver (Senator Sorenson)
While imprisoned in Russia and infected with the Black Cancer, Mulder learns that Krycek is working with the men responsible and everything has been a setup from the start, while Scully and Skinner are called to a suspicious Senate hearing where the only question is the whereabouts of Agent Mulder.
NOTE: This episode's tagline changes to 'E Pur Si Muove', Italian for "But It Does Move". Supposedly, this is the phrase Galileo said under his breath after the Church forced him to admit that his theory on the Earth rotating around the sun was incorrect - meaning that no matter what someone makes you say, it doesn't change what you know to be true.
Krycek's Russian alias (or perhaps his real name), 'Comrade Arntzen' is named for Val Arntzen, a member of the Set Decorating Department.
'Terma' is Russian for prison or jail, and is also a Latin conjunction of 'death'. It has also been suggested that the title refers to the Tibetan Buddhist term "Tyurma", meaning hidden or buried truth.
Of course, in the episode, it was the name of a town in North Dakota.
83. Paper Hearts
Writer Vince Gilligan
Director Rob Bowman
guests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) Tom Noonan (John Lee Roche) Rebecca Toolan (Mrs Mulder)
Mulder's dreams help him in finding the body of a little girl which reopens one of his old cases in the Violent Crimes Unit and leads him to believe the killer he captured had more victims and may have taken his sister many years before.
NOTE: Roche's El Camino was sold to a man living in Hollyville, Delaware; named for writer Vince Gilligan's girlfriend, Holly Rice.
84. El Mundo Gira
Writer John Shiban
Director Tucker Gates
guests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) Rubén Blades (Conrad Lozano) Raymond Cruz (Eladio Buente) Jose Yenque (Soledad Buente) Simi (Gabrielle Buente) Lillian Hurst (Flakita)
A strange yellow rain kills a migrant girl and her family believe that a mythical creature was the cause and that it has manifested itself inside the brother of her fiancee who has since disappeared.
NOTE: 'El Mundo Gira' is Spanish for "The World Rotates" -- possibly a play on the soap opera title "As the World Turns", since Scully described this case as a "Mexican soap opera".
85. Leonard Betts
Writer Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban
Director Kim Manners
guests: Paul McCrane (Leonard Betts) Jennifer Clement (Michelle Wilkes) Marjorie Lovett (Elaine Tanner)
After the body of a decapitated EMT disappears from the morgue and an identical man starts work at the same hospital, Mulder believes that the man has the ability to regrow parts of his body, including his head.
The agents soon discover that Betts' body is riddled with cancer and he is able to live in that condition but needs to feed on cancerous tumours to keep up his strength.
NOTE: The first indication of Scully's cancer arises in this episode when Betts says to her "I'm sorry, but you've got something I need".
Betts is assigned to ambulance #208, and Scully wakes at 2:08am with a nosebleed; both possibly a reference to episode 2:08 'One Breath', where Scully is returned after her abduction.
The name 'John Gillnitz' appears here again, as the name of the man in the bar. It is a combination of the names of the writers John Shiban, Vince Gilligan & Frank Spotnitz.
This episode aired after SUPER BOWL XXXI. Paul McCrane is better known as Dr. Robert Romano in E.R. 86. Never Again
Writer Glen Morgan, James Wong
Director Rob Bowman
guests: Rodney Rowland (Ed Jerse) Jodie Foster (Voice of 'Betty')
While Mulder is forced to take a vacation he leaves Scully with an assignment to keep her busy until he returns. She however, decides to start living and goes on a date with a man who believes that his tattoo talks to him and is telling him to stay away from other women.
NOTE: Guest voice Jodie Foster played Agent Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs, the character (and Foster's portrayal of her) being Chris Carter's original basis for the character of Dana Scully.
Scully's tattoo is the Ouroboros, being a mythical snake eating its own tail, a symbol of the neverending cycle of destruction and re-creation in the universe.
It is also used as the symbol of Chris Carter's show Millennium
87. Memento Mori
Writer Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz
Director Rob Bowman
guests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) Sheila Larken (Margaret Scully) David Lovgren (Kurt Crawford) Gillian Barber (Penny Northern) Tom Braidwood (Frohike) Dean Haglund (Langly) Bruce Harwood (Byers)
Scully's recent failing health is revealed to be inoperable brain cancer which is common among abductees. She meets with other abductees with the same condition and forms a special bond with a dying woman, while Mulder tries to save her from a doctor who may be connected with the abductions.
NOTE: 'Memento Mori' is Latin for "A Reminder of Death".
Mulder realises that the clones of the young boy he saw with his sister's clones in the season's premiere 'Herrenvolk', are younger versions of Kurt Crawford.
According to media reports, Kurt Crawford is actually the name of Chris Carter's contact at the FBI whom he goes to to check facts for accuracy.
It was for this episode that Gillian Anderson won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
88. Kaddish
Writer Howard Gordon
Director Kim Manners
guests: Justine Miceli (Ariel Luria) David Groh (Jacob Weiss) David Wohl (Kenneth Ungar) Channon Roe (Derek Banks)
Issac Luria, a Jewish man is killed by a group of teenagers working for a racist shopowner, but one of them is soon strangled to death and the fingerprints on his neck are of Issac.
Despite other factors, Mulder becomes convinced that the man has returned from the dead to exact revenge.
NOTE: Issac Luria is named after the famous rabbi of the same name, who is regarded as the father of Jewish mysticism.
89. Unrequited
Writer Howard Gordon, Chris Carter
Director Michael Lange
guests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) Peter LaCroix (Nathaniel Teager) Scott Hylands (General Benjamin Bloch) Laurie Holden (Marita Covarrubias) William Taylor (General Leitch) William Nunn (General Jon Steffan)
When a US military general is unexplainably murdered in the back of his limousine, a paramilitary group is suspected and they believe it was a soldier whom they liberated from a Vietnam POW camp and is plotting to kill certain corrupt military figures.
90. Tempus Fugit (part 1)
Writer Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Director Rob Bowman
guests: Joe Spano (Mike Millar) Tom O'Brien (Corporal Frish) Scott Bellis (Max Fenig) Chilton Crane (Sharon Graffia) Brendan Beiser (Agent Pendrell)
While celebrating Scully's 33rd birthday, a strange woman informs Mulder that NICAP member Max Fenig (see Fallen Angel) has recently died in a plane crash. After a visit to the crash site and finding Max's body with radiation burns on it, Mulder suggests that the plane was intercepted by a UFO and is rapidly being covered up by the military.
NOTE: 'Tempus Fugit' is Latin for "Time Flies", something which happens frequently in this two-parter.
91. Max (part 2)
Writer Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Director Kim Manners
guests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) Joe Spano (Mike Millar) Tom O'Brien (Corporal Frish) Scott Bellis (Max Fenig) Chilton Crane (Sharon Graffia) Brendan Beiser (Agent Pendrell)
Mulder is arrested for investigating the plane crash and interfering with a military operation, while Scully is caught in an attempted assassination of Corporal Frish which claims the life of Agent Pendrell.
Scully bails Mulder out of prison and they go to Max Fenig's trailer to find out why he was on the plane. Mulder finds evidence of alien technology and boards a plane with it but the plane is intercepted mid-flight and it disappears. Mulder is again left with nothing.
NOTE: The song that plays when Scully turns on Max's stereo is 'Unmarked Helicopters' by Soul Coughing, featured on the X-Files album Songs in the Key of X.
92. Synchrony
Writer Howard Gordon, David Greenwalt
Director Jim Charleston
guests: Joseph Fuqua (Jason Nichols) Susan Lee Hoffman (Lisa Ianelli) Michael Fairman (old Jason Nichols)
A case involving a strange old man warning two scientists of events in the immediate future which come to pass; and the use of their experimental flash-freezing compound that does not exist yet, has Mulder believing that one of the scientists has come from the future to stop his own scientific breakthrough from becoming reality.
NOTE: Guest Writer David Greenwalt and Howard Gordon will work together again when Gordon joins the crew of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a Consulting Producer and as a Staff Writer on the spinoff series Angel. Interestingly, Greenwalt was originally offered a job as a Writer for The X-Files but turned it down to work on Buffy.
93. Small Potatoes
Writer Vince Gilligan
Director Clifford Bole
guests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) Darin Morgan (Eddie Van Blundht) Christine Cavanaugh (Amanda Nelligan) Lee De Broux (Eddie Van Blundht Snr.)
Five babies in the same town are all born with tails and the local OB-GYN is blamed for tampering with fertilised eggs. However, Mulder discovers the culprit to be a simple man with a genetic deformity who may have the ability to alter his appearance.
NOTE: The silent H in Eddie's surname is a joke about David Duchovny's surname often being pronounced with the H included, whereas in his name also, the H is silent.
Also, the H falling off the name on Eddie's front door could be a reference to the fact that David's father and brother have changed their surname to Ducovny, without the H.
Eddie-as-Mulder's comment in his apartment, "Where the hell do I sleep", is a rib to the many X-Philes who have asked that very same question. Where the hell does Mulder sleep?
94. Zero Sum
Writer Howard Gordon, Frank Spotnitz
Director Kim Manners
guests: Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) Laurie Holden (Marita Covarrubias)
Skinner destroys evidence to cover up a woman's death and poses as Agent Mulder to complete the task. Mulder finds out about Skinner's deception and confronts him and Skinner reveals that he is working for the Cigarette Smoking Man in order to obtain a possible cure for Scully's cancer.
NOTE: Dedication: In Loving Memory of Vito J. Pileggi.
Gillian Anderson does not appear in this episode.
95. Elegy
Writer John Shiban
Director Jim Charleston
guests: Stephen M. Porter (Harold Spuller) Alex Bruhanski (Angleo Pintero) Sydney Lassick (Chuck Forsch) Nancy Fish (Nurse Innes) Daniel Kamin (Detective Hudak)
After a man sees a woman trapped inside a bowling alley pin setter, he goes for help and finds police standing next to to body of the same woman. Mulder and Scully join the investigation and follow up this lead which the police won't bother with and they are led to a retarded man who works at the bowling alley.
NOTE: Although there are many actors who have played several different parts on the show within it's 9 seasons, Christine Willes is one of the few to have a small recurring role as the same character. She returns in this episode playing FBI counsellor Karen Kossoff, who previously appeared in season 2's 'Irresistible' and 'The Calusari'.
An elegy is a poem expressing grief for someone who is dead.
This episodes name changed from 'Tulpa' to 'Revenant' before becoming 'Elegy'. A 'Tulpa' is a ghostly manifestation of a thought-form produced by the mind. 'Revenant' is one that comes back following an absence or one who returns after death.
96. Demons
Writer R.W. Goodwin
Director Kim Manners
guests: Jay Acovone (Detective Joe Curtis) Mike Nussbaum (Dr Charles Goldstein) Chris Owens (young Cigarette Smoking Man) Rebecca Toolan (Mrs Mulder)
Mulder undergoes an experimental form of hypnotherapy to recover his memories about his sister's abduction but the treatment has side effects including psychotic behaviour and Mulder wakes up one morning in a motel room with someone else's blood all over him.
97. Gethsemane (part 1)
Writer Chris Carter
Director R.W. Goodwin
guests: John Finn (Michael Kritschgau) Matthew Walker (Arlinsky) James Sutorius (Babcock) Sheila Larken (Margaret Scully) Pat Skipper (Bill Scully Jr) John Oliver (Rolston) Charles Cioffi (Section Chief Scott Blevins)
While investigating the discovery of a preserved alien body found in the mountains of Canada, Mulder is contacted by Michael Kritschgau who tells him about a government conspiracy not to keep alien activity a secret, but to make people believe in them without question and Mulder has been the prime target. With the idea that everything he believes is a lie, Mulder appears to take his own life.
NOTE: 'Gethsemane' is the place where Jesus was betrayed by Judas - probably a reference to Scully's (apparent) betrayal of Mulder.
The finale's tagline is changed to 'Believe The Lie', which is what Kritschgau was trying to get Mulder to do. Mulder repeats the line in 'Redux'.
SCULLY: In a mental institution.
MULDER: I'd, I'd go with you, but I'm, I'm afraid they'd lock me up.
SCULLY: Me too.
