Season 9: The Truth (2) (9X20)

Written by: Chris Carter
Directed by: Kim Manners

Scully performs an examination of Roher's badly-burned corpse, later presenting her finding that the corpse is not Rohrer to the military court. Kersh rules that Scully did not have authorisation to perform an autopsy, and orders her removed from the courtroom.

Mulder is then found guilty of murder and sentenced to die by lethal injection. Skinner and Doggett gain access to Mulder's cell and help him escape, but Rohrer discovers the plan and orders the building sealed off. Kersh aids Mulder to escape the building and tells him to head to Canada. Instead, Mulder and Scully drive south.

Doggett and Reyes discover that the X-Files office has been emptied. Skinner concludes that the government is punishing them for taking Mulder's side during the trial, or is aware that they helped Mulder escape. Gibson Praise tells the agents that the aliens within the government know that Mulder is not headed to Canada, and when they finds Mulder and Scully, they will be killed.

With some help from The Lone Gunmen, Mulder and Scully drive to the Texas-New Mexico border and head for some ruins. Mulder explains that he had been sent a message and a key to the government facility at Mount Weather by an Indian who said it came from a wise man who lived in the ruins - the keeper of the truth.

An old woman leads the agents to a room where the Cigarette Smoking Man sits. He explains that aliens fear the ruins because they contain high levels of the metal that brought down the original UFO in Roswell decades earlier. He explains that the date of the final alien invasion will be December 22, 2012, the date that Mayan calendars stopped some ten centuries earlier.

Doggett and Reyes arrive at the site and see Knowle Rohrer step out of a van nearby. Doggett shoots Rohrer repeatedly, but the bullets are ineffective. Suddenly, though, Rohrer begins to vibrate and is hurled into a stone wall. Military helicopters appear on the horizon as Mulder and Scully jump into Rohrer's van and drive off. Doggett and Reyes also make their escape as the helicopters blast the village with rockets, killing the Cigarette Smoking Man.

Inside a motel room in Roswell, Mulder and Scully discuss their situation. Mulder says that although he showed Scully the truth, and changed her from skeptic to believer, he's failed at everything else he set out to do. He wants to believe that the dead speak to the living, and he believes that if he and Scully can listen to what's being said, it can give them the power to save themselves. Scully tells Mulder that they believe the same thing. Mulder holds Scully's cross in his hand, then lays down next to her. Scully says that she'd do the last 9 years all over again. Then, they crawl into bed together and hold each other. He tells her that maybe there's reason to have hope, after all.

Notes:
"The Truth" featured the largest number of cast members in the opening credits than any other episode: David Duchovny (Fox Mulder), Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully), Robert Patrick (John Doggett), Annabeth Gish (Monica Reyes), and Mitch Pileggi (Walter Skinner), bringing the total to 5.

The day in which the aliens will come and take over the world is set on December 22, 2012, the day in which the ancient Mayan calendar ends (the end of the world) is December 23, 2012.

The last scene mirrors a scene in the pilot where Mulder first opens up to Scully.

In this episode, we finally know for sure that Mulder is the father of William. When the guards are questioning him, he says he's thinking about his son and his mother.

Quotes:
Scully: Assistant Director... (to Mulder) I found it.
Mulder: What?
Scully: What's going to get you off.
Skinner: I want to move to dismiss again based on new evidence I just received that there is no victim. That the body of Knowle Rohrer is not Knowle Rohrer, but that of a man who died of a broken neck and whose body was burned post-mortem.
Deputy Director Kersh: Motion denied.
Scully: You can't deny it.
Deputy Director Kersh: You're out of order and in contempt of court, Agent Scully.
Scully: You're in contempt. I have evidence proving that Agent Mulder is innocent.
Deputy Director Kersh: You have no authorisation to examine the body, Agent Scully. Have her removed from the courtroom.
Mulder: If she's got evidence, you got to listen.
Deputy Director Kersh: Order! Remove the defendant from the courtroom. This trial is adjourned.

Deputy Director Kersh: Gentlemen... we have a verdict. If you'd rise. Acting fairly and impartially, this panel finds the defendant... guilty of first degree murder under aggravated circumstances. Is there anything you'd like to say on your behalf, Mr Mulder... before we decide your sentence?

Mulder: Yes. I'd like to congratulate you, on succeeding where so many before you have failed. A bullet between the eyes would have been preferable to this charade. But I've learned to pretend over the past nine years — to pretend that my victories mattered only to realise that no one was keeping score. To realise that liars do not fear the truth if there are enough liars. That the devil is just one man with a plan, but evil, true evil, is a collaboration of men, which is what we have here today. If I am a guilty man, my crime is in daring to believe; that the truth will out and that no one lie can live forever. I believe it still. Much as you try to bury it, the truth is out there. Greater than your lies, the truth wants to be known. You will know it. It'll come to you, as it's come to me, faster than the speed of light. You may believe yourselves rid of your headache now, and maybe you are... but you've only done it by cutting off your own heads.

Deputy Director Kersh: You're never going to make it this way. Come on. (He leads them in another direction, where they meet Reyes who is standing by a hole in the wire fence and has a vehicle waiting. They then drive to a meeting with Scully and Gibson Praise, who have another vehicle waiting)

Scully: Mulder?
Deputy Director Kersh: You've got to move out.
Scully: What's he doing?
Deputy Director Kersh: What I should have done from the start. You want to go north, to Canada. Get to an airport. If you're not off the continent in 24 hours you may never get out, you understand?
Mulder: None of you will be safe now.
Doggett: You let us worry about that.
Reyes: Good luck.

(Mulder is relieving himself by the side of the road)

Frohike: Hey, hot shot! You might have the common courtesy of doing your business there downwind.
Mulder: Oh, boy.
Langly: Why don't you just finish draining the little lizard and then we'll talk?
Byers: We're very worried about you.
Frohike: It's craziness, man. Turn around.
Langly: Just hang a big U-ie and never look back.
Mulder: I can't.
Byers: Why risk perfect happiness, Mulder? Why risk your lives?
Mulder: Because I need to know the truth.
Byers: You already know the truth.
Mulder: I need to know if I can change it.
Langly: Change it?
Frohike: For crying out loud. All you're going to do is get yourself killed.
Scully: Mulder! What are you doing?
Mulder: I'll be right with you, Scully.

Smoking Man: What's the matter, Agent Mulder? You come to see the wise man, but you look as if you've seen a ghost.

Mulder: You're no wise man. You're a dead man. Just like Krycek and X.
Smoking Man: You see a dead man, Agent Scully?
Scully: I hoped and prayed you were dead, you chain-smoking, son of a bitch.
Smoking Man: You waste your time. Ask Mulder. He knows the futility of hopes and prayers. He knows the truth now. You have told her the truth, haven't you, Fox? I helped you find it.
Mulder: You didn't help me. You sent me to that government facility knowing exactly what I'd find.
Smoking Man: And now you refuse to speak it. Not to Scully, not to anyone. You've even refused to testify what you learned... even though it would have saved your life. You damned me for my secrets... but you're afraid to speak the truth.
Mulder: You call me afraid? Look at you sitting here alone in the dark like a fossil.
Smoking Man: It's the final refuge. The last place to hide from those who are insidiously taking power now.
Scully: Who?
Smoking Man: The aliens. They fear this place... its geology. Magnetite. Like that which brought down the original UFO in Roswell. Indian wise men realised this over 2,000 years ago. They hid here and watched their own culture die. The original shadow government.

Smoking Man: It leaves me to tell you what Mulder's afraid to, Agent Scully.

Mulder: Come on, let's go.
Smoking Man: It's a scary story. You want to come sit on my lap?
Scully: You don't scare me.
Smoking Man: My story's scared every president since Truman in '47.
Mulder: You don't have to hear this.
Scully: No, I want to hear it, Mulder.
Smoking Man: Ten centuries ago the Mayans were so afraid that their calendar stopped on the exact date that my story begins. December 22, the year 2012. The date of the final alien invasion. Mulder can confirm the date. He saw it at Mount Weather... where our own 'Secret Government' will be hiding when it all comes down.
Mulder: Yeah, you smile... feeling drunk with power. The power to do nothing.
Smoking Man: My power comes from telling you. Seeing your powerlessness hearing it. They wanted to kill you, Fox. I protected you all these years... waiting for this moment... to see you broken. Afraid. Now you can die.

Doggett: Run, Monica. Get out of here.

Reyes: No.
Doggett: Knowle Rohrer. That's far enough.
Knowle Rohrer: Shoot me, Agent Doggett, if you think it'll make a difference this time.
(Doggett fires, the bullet hits Knowle Rohrer in the chest, but he continues to advance on Doggett and Reyes. They are forced back, when Knowle Rohrer stops advancing and struggles to move forward. He starts to spasm and metallic oxidation appears on his skin. The oxidisation covers him, then he is sucked into the rocks at high speed)
Mulder: Agent Doggett!
Doggett: Mulder, get out of there!
Reyes: They know where you are!

Scully: What are you thinking? Mulder?

Mulder: I'm thinking... I'm a guilty man. I've failed in every respect. I deserve the harshest punishment for my crimes.
Scully: You don't believe that.
Mulder: I believe... that I sat in a motel room like this with you when we first met... and I tried to convince you of the truth. And in that respect, I succeeded, but... in every other way... I've failed.
Scully: You don't believe that, either.
Mulder: Mm. I've been chasing after monsters with a butterfly net. You heard the man — the date's set. I can't change that.
Scully: You wouldn't tell me. Not because you were afraid or broken... but because you didn't want to accept defeat.
Mulder: Well, I was afraid of what knowing would do to you. I was afraid that it would crush... your spirit.
Scully: Why would I accept defeat? Why would I accept it, if you won't? Mulder, you say that you've failed, but you only fail if you give up. And I know you — you can't give up. It's what I saw in you when we first met. It's what made me follow you... why I'd do it all over again.
Mulder: And look what it's gotten you.
Scully: And what has it gotten you? Not your sister. Nothing that you've set out for. But you won't give up, even now. You've always said that you want to believe. But believe in what Mulder? If this is the truth that you've been looking for, then what is left to believe in?
Mulder: I want to believe that... the dead are not lost to us. That they speak to us... as part of something greater than us — greater than any alien force. And if you and I are powerless now, I want to believe that if we listen, to what's speaking, it can give us the power to save ourselves.
Scully: Then we believe the same thing.
Mulder: Maybe there's hope.

Episode Number: 202
Season Number: 9
First Aired: Sunday, May 19, 2002
Production Code: 9X20

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