The X-Files S08E23

Oh, they mean Scully. Well, that makes sense, too. Our plucky heroine stands in the middle of North Texas, looking around with her hands on her hips. She and Mulder see no evidence of a dig site on that land, although it's where Nameless Agent told them the bone fragments were allegedly found. There's a great long shot of the two of them standing there to the housing project, with a brand-spanking-new green patch of grass in the foreground, where the E.T. Compound used to be. Mulder asks Scully whether she's sure the bones carried evidence of the same kind of infection the fireman had. "No, Mulder, I'm not. In fact, I've just started inventing things specifically to screw with you," she retorts. Actually, she just nods. And she's never seen that virus before? No, she has not. Finally, Mulder notices the green, green grass and the new, new playground and the two of them quickly figure out that the green grass and new playground are covering something up. While they're deducing, the three friends o' Stevie speed over on shiny brand-new bikes. Mulder asks whether they've recently seen anyone digging around the green area. They're not supposed to talk about that, they say. "Who told you that?" Scully asks. "Nobody," one of the kids twangs. "Nobody?" Mulder says, sharply. "The same 'nobody' who built that new playground and bought you those new bikes?" The kids look at each other. "I think you better tell us," Scully says. "We don't even know you," one of the kids says adenoidally. "We're FBI agents," Scully tells them. "You're not FBI agents," Adenoids says. "How do you know?" Mulder asks. "Because y'all look like door-to-door salesmen," Adenoids cute-kids. Yeah, door-to-door salesmen in Armani suits, you little twit. "Want to buy a badge?" Mulder asks, flashing his badge. "They all left an hour ago," the littlest kid says. "Going that way." All three kids point toward the right. The Drums of the Thrill of the Chase go wild as Mulder and Scully jump in the car and speed down a deserted stretch of highway.

Driving. Driving. "Unmarked tanker trucks," Mulder muses. "What were archeologists transporting in tanker trucks?" Scully has no idea. She's blankly looking at a map when they come to a fork in the road. Mulder bites his lower lip. He thinks they went left. Scully doesn't know why, but she thinks they went right. The two of them look right and then left and then Mulder hits the gas and drives straight ahead, off the pavement and onto a dirt road. "Five years together, Scully, how many time I been wrong?" he asks, as they bump along. Scully just looks at him. "Never!" Mulder crows. "Not driving, anyway." The theme song burbles along, big-budget style.

They keep driving. It gets dark. Eventually, Mulder and Scully come to the end of the dirt road. They've found nothing. Scully gives Mulder a very dirty look and gets out of the car. The Big-Budget-Style Theme Song finishes with a flourish, and then Scully really lets loose, reading Mulder the riot act about driving her all the way out there on a total wild-goose chase, when she has a meeting in Washington in eleven hours, the outcome of which might affect the biggest decision of her life. Mulder struggles to fold the map and doesn't apologize, but also, nicely, doesn't point out that she's the one who showed up that morning at the field office all of her own accord. Scully yells that people don't haul viruses in tanker trucks. Mulder tells her that someone might be hauling a virus in this particular tanker truck. Meaningful Stare, and then Scully demands to know what, exactly, Mulder is neglecting to tell her. He hems and haws and finally admits that the virus they're chasing might be extra-terrestrial. Scully makes the world's most exasperated face, although I can't believe that, at this point, she's surprised. "Mulder, I don't --" she begins. Mulder looks up from the map. Scully looks behind her. A train shuttles past them, two white tankers bringing up the rear. They exchange looks, and hop in the car to follow the train.

Inside the car, Scully shoots Mulder an excited look. He drives up onto the train tracks, biting his lower lip the whole time. As the train goes into a tunnel, he drives over the tracks and up the hill above the tunnel.

Mulder parks the car at the top of the hill. He and Scully scamper over to the edge of the embankment and peer down into the valley below. "What do you think they are?" Scully asks. "I have no idea," Mulder says. The two of them crawl down the hill toward two huge breast-shaped domes, lit from within, in the middle of what looks like a cornfield.

Mulder and Scully tumble off the hillside and start making their way through the corn toward the breast-domes. "This is weird, Mulder," Scully calls from behind a cornstalk. "Very weird," Mulder amiably agrees. "Any thoughts as to why someone would be growing corn in the middle of the desert?" she wonders. Mulder pushes through the last of the corn. "Well, those could be giant Jiffy Pop poppers," he snarks. Scully emerges from the corn. She and Mulder look at one breast-dome, then the other, and then at each other. Mulder approaches the closer breast-dome and finds the door conveniently unlocked. He pulls it open and a gust of wind whooshes out, ruffling both of their coifs.

Just inside the dome, the agents are assaulted with a blast of compressed air. They both jump. Mulder's tie has been blown over his shoulder. They enter the dome proper; it's all metal and white and vent-y inside. "It's cool in here," Scully says. It is totally cool, all modern and metal and shit. Oh, she means that the temperature is being regulated. I'm sorry about that pun right there, but recapping a movie? Way harder than just doing the show every week. First of all: twice as long. Second: no commercials. My brain hurts. Mulder and Scully suspect that they're on top of a larger structure: a venting system of some sort, perhaps? Mulder hears something and leans down and rests his ear on one of the many vent-like grids in the floor of the dome. "High voltage, maybe?" Scully wonders. Mulder makes his thinking face. "Maybe," he says. "Maybe not." He looks up at her. The venting system in the ceiling above them abruptly snaps open. "Scully?" Mulder says. "Yeah?" He stands up. "Run!" As he barks this at her, the vents in the floor swing open and thousands of bees come pouring out. Gillian Anderson's look of surprise and terror is really brilliant right here. Mulder pulls his suit jacket over his head and books for the door. He's almost there before he realizes that Scully is pretty far behind him (the perils of having a stylish jacket that both buttons and ties), still struggling to find her way out. Mulder calls back to her. She yells that she can't see. Mulder turns around and runs back for her, grabbing her by the wrist and leading her toward the door. Scully stamps her feet as the blast of air at the exit blows the bees off them.

Scully and Mulder stumble outside. "You get stung?" Mulder asks. Scully says that she didn't. They both stand there for a moment, looking stunned and breathing hard, until a pulsating blue light appears over the cornfields. The light comes attached to two black helicopters, which swoop down low over the field, heading right for them. Mulder and Scully stare at each other for a moment and then dive into the cornfield, and run and run and run and run, as the choppers cast their searchlights into the rows of corn. Eventually, they get separated when, at one point, Scully has to kneel down to avoid detection. Mulder's on the ground, too, far from her. He bites his lip. What's with all the lip-biting David Duchovny's doing in this movie? On one hand, it's a new little quirk in his acting, which I think he's over-using. On the other hand, it's sort of hot. When he peels himself off his knees, Mulder notices that Scully is gone. He frantically looks around the cornstalks. "Talk to me, Scully!" he hollers. "SCUUUULLLLLLLLLEEEEE!" Nothing. "Damn it! Scully!" Mulder frantically searches for his partner. Over on the other side of the cornfield, she's calling for him, too, but he can't hear her over the sound of the helicopters. Eventually the choppers fly away, and the agents are reunited at the edge of the field. Mulder allows himself a small smile of relief when Scully finally stumbles from the corn. They book for the car as the theme song wails piteously in the background. I feel like I haven't mentioned Mark Snow in pages and pages.

The morning. Scully's made it to her meeting with OPR, but just barely. She bustles in late, and wearing the clothes she wore the night before. Blythe Danner and Skinner are way pissed. Scully wearily apologizes for her lateness, but pulls out the bone fragments from five pages ago as an excuse. Blythe: you've been back to Dallas? Scully: Well....By the way, I really wish they'd given Blythe Danner a role on the show proper; first, it would be cool to have a woman in a position of authority on this show, not to mention one who doesn't sing whale songs or try to seduce Mulder. Second, I think her WASP-y coolness would provide a refreshing change of pace from Kersh's continual scenery-chewing and constant inappropriate stressing of words.

Bar. Mulder. Kurtzweil. Grey Shirt of Hot-tasticness. Mulder tells Kurtzweil about his little jaunt to Dallas. He thinks, he says, he found an alien virus.

Scully tells the bigwigs that she believes Especial Agent Michaud was involved in the bombing in Dallas. Blythe Danner looks calmly taken aback.

Mulder tells Kurtzweil that he and Scully spent a large portion of their time in Texas crawling through cornfields. Kurtzweil listens.

Scully stammers to OPR that she doesn't yet have completely conclusive evidence, of anything. What she does have, though, is a bee, crawling around on the back of her collar. "We're working toward that," she says. "Working with whom?" Blythe Danner asks. Scully makes a "busted!" face. "With Agent Mulder," she admits.

Agent Mulder is in full-on hypothesis mode, telling Kurtzweil that he thinks the corn is some kind of transportation system, the pollen genetically altered to carry a virus. "That would be my guess," Kurtzweil says. For some reason, the fact that all Kurtzweil has is a guess infuriates Mulder. He then jumps to the conclusion that Kurtzweil's been using him, and that he never even knew Bill Mulder. Kurtzweil is all, dial it down a notch, yo. Mulder self-righteously hustles out of the bar and into the alley, Kurtzweil in hot pursuit. "You'd be shit out of luck if it weren't for me," Kurtzweil barks. He points out that Mulder and Scully never would have seen what they did in Texas if it hadn't been for his pointing them in the right direction. "My ass is on the line, here," Kurtzweil points out. "Your ass!" Mulder yells. "Who do you think got chased through Texas by two helicopters?" The men stare at each other, and then Kurtzweil reminds Mulder that he and Scully escaped those helicopters for a reason. "These people don't make mistakes," he says. Mulder sort of makes a "hey, good point" face, as Kurtzweil walks off. Mulder hears footsteps above him and looks up to see some old white guy standing on the fire escape above him.

House of Mulder. I wonder how many of those gray, form-fitting t-shirts Mulder owns. They sure are pec-tastic. The theme song, yet again, burbles mournfully in the background as Mulder flops into his desk chair and rifles though a photo album. Sure enough, there's an old picture of Martin Landau at a picnic with a bunch of other yahoos, pasted in there among the dog-earred photos of Samantha and the surreptitious surveillance photos of Scully. He's staring at it mournfully when Scully quietly walks in. She looks somewhat undone, because her shirt is untucked and her jacket is untied again, but mostly because of the expression on her face, which is grim and sad and a little lost. Mulder looks up. "What's wrong?" he immediately asks. Scully looks at him. "Salt Lake City, Utah," she says quietly. "Transfer effective immediately." Mulder makes a horrified face. Scully tells him that she's already given Skinner her letter of resignation. "You can't quit now, Scully," Mulder says, not looking at her. Scully informs him that she can, but he interrupts to tell her that they're close to something. "We're on the verge!" he says. "You're on the verge," she tells him quietly. "Please, don't do this to me." She sets her jaw and looks down. He gets out of the chair and walks over and stands all close to her. He can't believe she can walk away after all she's seen, he throatily says. She reiterates that she already has. "I need you on this, Scully," he says. Scully sighs. "You don't need me," she tells him. "You never have. I've just held you back." Mulder just stares at her. "I've got to go," Scully tells him and sighs and walks out into....

...The Hallway. Mulder runs after her. "You want to tell yourself that so you can quit with a clear conscience, you can," he says urgently. "But you're wrong." They're standing very, very close to each other in the hallway. She reminds him for the millionth time that she was originally brought in as his partner to debunk him, to rein him in, to shut him down. "But you saved me!" Mulder insists. Scully flinches a little bit, because half of her knows he's right and the other half just wants him to toss her against the wall and kiss her already, dammit. "As difficult and as frustrating as it's been sometimes," Mulder continues forcefully, "your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me, a thousand times over." Scully furrows her brow. "You kept me honest," Mulder says. "You made me a whole person." Sniff. That line gets me every time, dammit, in every single movie I've ever heard it in. They stare at each other, Scully's eyes beginning to fill with tears. "I owe you everything, Scully, and you owe me nothing," Mulder finishes. Stare. Stare. "I don't know if I want to do this alone," he admits. Teary stare. Pleading gaze. "I don't even know if I can. And if I quit now, they win," he says. Pursed lips. Pursed lips. Sad face. Scully gathers Mulder into her arms and kisses his fevered brow. She looks at his face for a moment, then touches her forehead to his, in the Time-Honored Forehead Touch of Co-Working Soulmates. Meaningful Stare. Scully reaches out and grasps Mulder by the neck. She tilts her head, tearfully, and gazes at him. Stare. And then Mulder holds her face and they gaze at each other and he makes these puppy-dog eyes, and her eyes search his face and then slowly, slowly, slowly Mulder goes in for the kiss, and they're about a sixteenth of an inch away from kissing when that damn bee stings her and she cries out and grips her neck. David Duchovny makes a very funny "goddammit!" expression and Mulder sort of rubs Scully's back and asks her whether she's all right. Holding the bee between her fingernails, Scully sort of breathes that she got stung. Mulder's about to go back to what they were doing, when Scully looks at him, scared, and cottonmouths that something is wrong. She basically collapses in his arms. As Mulder lays her on the ground in the hallway, Scully manages to give him her bullet; it's something very like anaphlactic shock, although, she says, she has no allergy. Mulder races frantically into his apartments and calls 911, barking to the operator on the other line that he has an agent down.

The EMS guys come and load a semi-conscious Scully onto a gurney and take her away. Mulder follows them out to the street and watches as they hoist her into the rig. "What hospital?" he asks. The paramedic shuts the back doors in his face. Mulder goes around to the front of the rig and repeats the question to the driver. Who shoots him in the head! Dude. This is the part where I get (more) confused. Because we know this is the part where the Consortium takes away that without which Mulder cannot live without which without which with, but how could the Consortium possibly know Mulder and Scully would find the breast-domes, and, more importantly, how could they possibly know she would be stung? Did they decide to tap Mulder's phone and just wait around for something rotten to happen to her? Or did they have some other plan, and Mulder's phone is tapped as a matter of course, and they just saw this opportunity and took it? As if Mulder wouldn't be checking his phone for bugs, like, every single time he used it. Anyway, another ambulance comes wailing up the street, just in time to help Mulder and the bullet in his noggin.

An airport somewhere. Scully rests like some latter-day Snow White in one of those temperature-controlled hyperbaric chamber things, which is shortly thereafter loaded onto a plane. CSM watches. The Violins of Taking Away That Without Which Mulder Cannot Live (The Good Grammar Remix) swell. CSM takes a drag from his cigarette and gets on the plane with Sleeping Beauty Scully.

Hospital. Mulder cracks open his eyes to see the Lone Gunmen staring down at him. He makes a Wizard of Oz crack, and the Gunmen chuckle weakly before expositing that the bullet just grazed his skull. Mulder starts to sit up, asking about Scully, but his head hurts and he lies back down. The Gunmen have got it all figured out: Mulder's call to 911 must have been intercepted. Scully had a reaction, Frohike says, to the Africanized honey bee they found in Mulder's hallway. They don't know where she is. "I've got to get to her," Mulder says, as Skinner comes into his hospital room. Skinner stares at Mulder, and gruffs that Mulder is staying in the hospital. Skinner will go find Scully. Skinner points out that there's no way Mulder will be able to get out of the hospital alive. He gestures toward the guard outside Mulder's door. "What can we do?" Langly asks. "You can strip Byers naked," Mulder says, getting stiffly out of bed. "What?" Byers asks. "I need your clothes," Mulder wearily explains. I love Byers; if I had to choose one of the Gunmen to date, it'd be him. I'm a sucker for clean-cut morally upstanding men in suits. ["That leaves more Langly for Alex Richmond, and more Frohike for everyone else." -- Wing Chun]