The X Files: I Want to Believe - The Movie

Written by: Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
Directed by: Chris Carter

Six years after the events of The X-Files series finale, former FBI agent Doctor Dana Scully is now a staff physician at Our Lady of Sorrows, a Catholic hospital, and treating a boy named Christian who has Sandhoff disease terminal brain condition. FBI agent Drummy arrives to ask Scully's help in locating Fox Mulder, the fugitive, former head of the X-Files division, and says they will call off its manhunt for him if he will help investigate the disappearances of several women, including young FBI agent Monica Banan. Scully agrees and convinces Mulder — who is living in a nearby small home, bearded and clipping newspaper articles about the paranormal — to help, despite Mulder's initial misgivings that this is an FBI trick to capture him.

The duo is taken to Washington D.C., where Agent Dakota Whitney wants Mulder's expertise with the paranormal as they have been led to a clue by Father Joseph (Joe) Fitzgerald Crissman, a priest defrocked for pedophilia, who claims God is sending him visions of the crimes. Mulder wants to believe the man, but Scully is disgusted by Father Joe's past and disregards his "visions".

Whitney and Drummy take Father Joe and Mulder to the kidnapped Banan's home, where the former priest overcomes the others' skepticism when, in anguish and on his knees in pain, he begins bleeding from the eyes. A second woman, driving home after swimming in a natatorium, is run off the road by Janke Dacyshyn, a snowplow driver who then smashes the window of her wrecked car and abducts her. The following morning, Scully and Mulder, in bed together and briefly mentioning "our son" (the otherwise unmentioned William, birthed by Scully in the television series, Season 9, 9X17), discuss both the FBI case and that of Scully's patient. Scully mentions that the severed arm found by the FBI contains traces of an animal tranquilizer called Acepromazine. This new clue energizes Mulder into pursuing the FBI case further. He shaves his beard and leaves to visit Whitney. Father Joe is recruited for help with the second abducted woman. After a grueling nighttime search in the snow, he leads the FBI to what turns out to be a frozen burial ground of people and body parts. Scully is frustrated by Mulder's seeming obsession with finding these women, telling him that his sister is dead no matter what he does. Mulder pushes on, trying to ignore her. Father Joe then tells Scully, "don't give up."

Analysis of the remains eventually leads them to Dacyshyn, an organ transporter in Richmond, Virginia, and his husband Franz Tomczeszyn — who was among the youths Father Joe sexually abused. During an FBI raid on the organ-donor facility where Dacyshyn works, Dacyshyn escapes, leaving behind Banan's severed head. Mulder, who accompanied Whitney on the raid, chases Dacyshyn to a building construction site. Whitney follows, and is killed when Dacyshyn pushes her down a shaft several stories high. He then escapes again.

Scully, at the hospital, wants permission from Christian's parents to do a radical and painful experimental stem-cell procedure that may be their boy's last hope. Father Ybarra, head of the hospital, wants Christian removed to a palliative-care facility to live his remaining days, but Scully angrily insists she is the boy's physician and the choice is up to the parents. Torn between her faith in God and the unfairness of a young boy dying, Scully goes to Father Joe's apartment to confront him about his religious visions. She asks him what he meant by "don't give up." He tells her that he doesn't know what he meant. To her despair, he says he knows nothing more about these visions than what he has told the FBI, and collapses (Father Joe suffers a seizure, and we are shown that Tomczeszyn is suffering a seizure at the same moment). Scully calls for an ambulance, and later learns that Father Joe, who is admitted to Our Lady of Sorrows, suffers from advanced lung cancer. Scully, seeking resolution, asks him if Banan is still alive. Father Joe says yes.

With Mulder's handling of Father Joe having helped break the case, Scully says Mulder — with whom she says she fell in love at some unspecified time — should end his involvement, and that she cannot be with him if he continues exploring "the darkness." Mulder, regardless, takes Scully's car to go investigate further. At Nutter's Feed Store in a small town near the abductions, he learns Dacyshyn has purchased animal tranquilizer. When Dacyshyn coincidentally arrives moments later, Mulder slips out and then follows Dacyshyn's snowplow. On an isolated road, Dacyshyn crashes the car and pushes it off an embankment. Dacyshyn soon afterward abandons his snowplow when it stops running. Mulder crawls from the wreckage, starts down the road, and stops at a small compound where many dogs are barking — a major detail of Father Joe's visions. Mulder enters, and the commotion caused by a two-headed guard dog's attack brings Dacyshyn out from one of the building's — where a makeshift Eastern European medical team is attempting whole-head transplants in order to place Tomczeszyn's head on the body of the second abducted woman. Mulder tries to save her, but a doctor comes from behind and injects him with Acepromazine. Mulder is now helpless, and is taken outside to be murdered by Dacyshyn.

When Scully cannot reach Mulder on his cell phone, she calls her old FBI superior, Walter Skinner, for help. They triangulate the phone's location and find Scully's wrecked car. Scully and Skinner find a rural mailbox whose address corresponds to a Biblical chapter and verse Father Joe had told Scully. They race to the address, where Skinner breaks up the medical procedure before the young woman is beheaded, and Scully rescues Mulder from being axed to death by Dacyshyn. Later, Mulder is back at home, where Scully tells him that Father Joe has died. Mulder points out that Father Joe died at the same moment that Tomczeszyn's severed head died due to lack of blood flow to the brain. Somehow, he surmises, the two men's fates were linked by more than just visions. Scully is still troubled by Father Joe's advice to her, "don't give up." Mulder comforts her by telling her to ask herself what Father Joe could have meant by such a statement. Scully says that she is having doubts about Christian's surgery, saying that she is "putting that boy through hell" due to the words of a pedophile priest. Mulder tells Scully that if she goes into that surgery with any doubts, then she should call it off. Scully walks to the operating room, past Father Ybarra and Christian's parents. With everyone looking over her shoulder, a nurse asks Scully if she is ready to begin. Scully thinks for a moment, looks at Christian, and simply replies "yes."

In a post-credits scene, Mulder and Scully are seen together in swimsuits on a boat in a tropical ocean, casually rowing towards an island. The scene is shot from a helicopter whose shadow is visible to the audience.

Notes:
The film has drawn claims of heterosexist overtones due to the relationship between Billy Connolly's character and the homosexual couple involved in the kidnappings. Co-writer/producer Frank Spotnitz stated on his weblog that this was not his intention.

The film grossed $4 million on its opening day in the United States. It opened fourth on the U.S. weekend box office chart, with a gross of $10.2 million. As of September 15, 2008, it had grossed $20,909,448 domestically and an additional $42,600,000 internationally.

The film's stars both claimed that the timing of the movie's release against ''The Dark Knight'' negatively affected its box-office return. Duchovny referred to "mitigating circumstances''. ''We happened to open on the worst day in the history of cinema — the second week of ''Batman - The Dark Knight". The only thing worse would be to open with Batman and nobody would've done that." Anderson believed that "people in the States are so used to lots of , action and sex, and we don't really offer a lot of that in this film."

Producer Frank Spotnitz said the film's DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases would be accompanied by new special-edition DVD & Blu-ray Disc releases of the first movie: ''Fight the Future''. They will both be released on December 2nd, 2008.

Source: Wikipedia

The X Files: Revelations

Before going to see ''The X Files: I Want To Believe'' movie, you should for certain check out the following episodes of the X Files series. Those are the perfect grounding for the movie.

Season 1: ''Pilot'' and ''Beyond the Sea''.
Season 2: ''The Host''.
Season 3: ''Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose''.
Season 4: ''Memento Mori''.
Season 5: ''Post-Modern Prometheus'' and ''Bad Blood''.
Season 6: ''Milagro''.

Enjoy!

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

You can rate this episode here:

Season 9: The Truth (1) (9X19)

Written by: Chris Carter
Directed by: Kim Manners

At the Mount Weather complex in Bluemont, Virginia, Mulder makes his way to a room containing a computer terminal. He punches in an access code, but before he's able to proceed very far, super-soldier Knowle Rohrer appears and a fight ensues. Tossed through a glass screen by the superhuman Rohrer, Mulder picks himself up and heads for an exit, encountering Alex Krycek, who was thought to be dead. He helps Mulder escape.

Encountering Rohrer again, Mulder gains the advantage and tosses him over a railing into electrical wires. Moments later, military officers take Mulder into custody, where he is brutally interrogated by a guard.

Scully and Skinner meet with Mulder, who appears to have been beaten into submission. On Scully's behalf, Kersh asks General Suveg that Mulder be treated fairly. Suveg allows the FBI to conduct its own hearing within the confines of a military court.

Returning to Mulder's cell, Scully and Skinner realise that he had been putting on an act during the first visit. Mulder asks Skinner to act as his defence attorney, as he knows about the government conspiracy and alien invasion. Reyes and Doggett arrive, and tell them that the government has Rohrer's body. Mulder refuses to tell Scully why he was inside the secret facility at Mount Weather.

At Mulder's trial the prosecution is headed by Special Agent Kallenbrunner. He offers the sworn testimony of thirty witnesses who saw Mulder kill Rohrer. Skinner then calls Scully, who describes how a meteor crashed to earth in prehistoric times, bringing with it an alien virus that lay dormant for thousands of years. The US government learned of the existence of this virus in 1947 when a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico.

The virus, which thrived in oil deposits, communicated with the UFOs. When the government studied the alien technology in the crashed UFO, they learned of an alien plan to colonise Earth. The government then set about creating a breed of human/alien hybrids that the aliens would use as a slave race.

Skinner then calls Mulder's half-brother, Jeffrey Spender, who explains that the aliens distrusted their human collaborators and kept family members of the collaborators as human collateral, including Mulder's sister, Samantha. Mulder spent many years attempting to track her down, but she was experimented upon and died in 1987.

Meanwhile, in the New Mexico desert, a young boy warns Gibson Praise that Mulder is in serious trouble.

Marita Covarrubias testifies that she conspired with members of The Syndicate to develop an alien virus vaccine, but grew to hate her employees when she was turned into a test subject. She says that a group of renegade, faceless aliens destroyed the vaccine and killed off members of The Syndicate.

Despite protests from Mulder, Skinner introduces Gibson Praise as a witness, explaining that he can read people's minds due to DNA believed to be of alien origin. Gibson turns his attention to a panel judge (Toothpick Man), and tells everyone in attendance that the man is not human. Guards pull Mulder from the courtroom.

Next, Skinner calls self-described skeptic Doggett to the witness stand. Doggett believes in the existence of a secret military project that developed super-soldiers, a group of seemingly indestructible men that included Knowle Rohrer. Doggett also believes that Rohrer cannot be dead, as a super-solider can only be killed using a form of magnetite brought to Earth by a falling meteor.

Reyes takes the stand and describes how she protected a pregnant Scully by driving her to a remote location in Georgia. Reyes later learnt that Scully was one of a number of women who had been abducted by the government in order to secretly manipulate their biology to producing a slave race of aliens. Scully later gave up her baby for adoption in hopes of protecting it from the aliens.

Notes:
David Duchovny's name returns to the opening titles in this episode.

The time when Knowle Rohrer (who Mulder was convicted of killing) pulls up to the USMC Base Brig to 'retrieve' Agent Mulder is 11:21 pm. Chris Carter's wife was born on 11/21.

Even though they died in "Jump the Shark" The Lone Gunman's ghosts talk to Mulder for a short time.

David Duchovny (Mulder), Gillian Anderson (Scully) and William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) are the only actors to appear in both the first and last episodes of the series.

December 22, 2012 is the day the ancient Mayans predicted that the world will end.

Quotes:
Scully: Mulder.
Mulder: Dana. (They embrace)
Scully: Oh, my god.
Mulder: You okay?
Scully: Am I okay? Mulder, I haven't seen you in such a long time. I was so worried.
Mulder: Well, it's okay, I'm all right. They're treating me really well in here.
Scully: What's happened to you?
Mulder: Nothing. I'm squared away. Oh, hey, Walter. It's good to see you, man.
Skinner: Have they told you what the charges are, Mulder? What you're doing here?
Mulder: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're clear on that.
Scully: You're clear on what?
Mulder: My crimes.
Scully: Mulder —
Mulder: — I murdered a man, Dana. I went looking for something that didn't exist, and I... I made a terrible mistake. I should be punished severely.
Skinner: Whatever you were doing, you have the right to a lawyer... to an inquiry and process of law.
Mulder: I don't think you heard me.
Guard: All right — time's up.
Scully: We're going to get you out of here.
Mulder: And why is that? I'm a guilty man.
Guard: Time's up. Let's go.
Mulder: Uh... excuse me. (He turns his back on Scully, she leaves with Skinner) I don't understand. Why are you helping me?
Krycek: Because you can't do this alone.

General Suveg: Come in. Deputy Director Kersh. I've just been going over my notes on this whole business. Please, have a seat.

Deputy Director Kersh: Thank you.
General Suveg: We both got a problem with this man of yours, Agent Mulder.
Deputy Director Kersh: Mulder's been a running problem for the FBI. But nothing this serious.
General Suveg: I would think...
Deputy Director Kersh: I've been asked by a female agent... Mulder's closest associate to beg mercy of the military court to give Mulder every consideration based on his good character.
General Suveg: You've reviewed the charges, yes?
Deputy Director Kersh: Yes. There's a charge of murder.
General Suveg: This would look bad for the Marines, if it didn't look worse for the FBI. What does Mulder intend to plead? You wanted a chance to clear up this mess, Mr Kersh, and I'm going to give it to you. Give it to the FBI.
Deputy Director Kersh: How?
General Suveg: A fair hearing for your agent by his own agency. Your prosecutor, your judges. Held in my court.
Deputy Director Kersh: That can't be legal. Why do this?
General Suveg: I want a verdict. A guilty verdict. This man Mulder has made a lot of enemies. He's a crusader. And a lot of people do not like the crusade.
Deputy Director Kersh: I can't do that.
General Suveg: Oh, you'll do it, Deputy Director. You and I both know; there are forces inside the government now... that a man would be foolish to disobey.

Scully: Mulder. Mulder!

Mulder: I smelled you coming, Clarice.
Scully: Oh... Damn it, Mulder. It's not funny to see you putting on that act.
Mulder: No, that is funny. What's not funny is what they do to you in here if you don't put on that act. (They embrace, Skinner averts his eyes allowing them a little privacy) Come here, you big, bald, beautiful man.
Skinner: The only thing you're going to be kissing, Mulder, is your sweet ass good-bye, with the trouble your in.
Mulder: Uh-huh, I kind of gathered that, right around the 50th brainwashing session.
Scully: Mulder, why are they doing this to you?
Mulder: They think they're preparing me for my trial. For my testimony.
Skinner: Your testimony's not going to matter. Not with the case they're building.
Mulder: Not building. Rigging.
Skinner: Yeah, I don't think you understand the seriousness of the charges. This isn't some routine wrist slapping. You're on trial for your life.
Mulder: My trial's a forgone conclusion. What they really want is for me to admit my guilt and help them out. What's really on trial here is the truth.
Scully: Mulder, they're saying you killed a man.
Mulder: Have they produced a body? You can't produce a body, because you can't kill a man who won't die.
Skinner: Well, body or not, they've got 30 witnesses from that government facility ready to testify against you.
Scully: Mulder, we'll get you the best lawyer.
Mulder: Would you defend a man who believes in aliens against the FBI and the military? It's never going to happen. Skinner can defend me.
Skinner: I can't represent you.
Mulder: You know all the facts, the details, the whole government conspiracy. More than that, I trust you.
Scully: Mulder...
Mulder: They can't try me without exposing themselves. I know what I'm doing.

Skinner: Please state your name for the court.

Scully: My name is Dana Katherine Scully. I was assigned nine years ago to the X-Files to spy on Agent Mulder, whose methods the FBI distrusted.
Skinner: Assigned not just as an agent, but as a medical doctor. A scientist. And as a serious scientist you came to believe in Agent Mulder's theories.
Scully: I came to believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life and in a conspiracy inside the government to keep their existence a secret.
Skinner: The proof was overwhelming. It was even scientifically undeniable.
Scully: I believe as do many respected scientists that life came to earth millions of years ago from a meteor or a rock from Mars.
Skinner: So, what you're saying is, life — human life — is extraterrestrial by definition.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Objection. What does this nonsense have to do with Mulder murdering a man in cold blood?
Skinner: Agent Scully will prove that a government conspiracy exists to deny the existence of extra-terrestrials.
Deputy Director Kersh: You are not here proving government conspiracies, Mr Skinner. You are here to defend Fox Mulder.
Skinner: And I'm trying to do that.
Deputy Director Kersh: It's your case, Mr Skinner.
Skinner: So, a meteor crashed to earth, but along with the biological building blocks on it there was something else — an alien virus.
Scully: I believe there was a virus which thrived here prehistorically. I believe that virus infected early man and transformed his physiology.
Skinner: Changed him into something else.
Scully: Into an alien life-form himself.

Skinner: And what happened to these aliens?

Scully: They died, in the last ice age, 35,000 years ago.
Skinner: And the virus?
Scully: It lay dormant, underground, until it surfaced once again during our current geologic period.
Skinner: And the government knows of this?
Scully: The government learned of this virus in 1947, when a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico.
Skinner: A UFO crash revealed a virus?
Scully: The virus thrived underground in petroleum deposits. In black oil. It has sentience. It can think. It has the ability to communicate and it communicated with the UFOs.
Skinner: And the government knows this, too.
Scully: In Roswell, they captured aliens from the spacecraft wreckage. They salvaged various alien technology from them and from their data banks they learned of the alien plan to 're-colonise' the earth.
Deputy Director Kersh: Is this all leading anywhere?
Mulder: Yeah. The destruction of mankind.
Deputy Director Kersh: I'll warn you once, Agent Mulder.
Skinner: And what did the government do with this... information of an alien take-over?
Scully: They kept it a dark secret. If it had gotten out there would have been wild panic.
Deputy Director Kersh: Mr Skinner, are we finished?
Skinner: No. There's the matter of Agent Scully's own abduction in 1994.
Deputy Director Kersh: Abduction by whom?
Scully: By the military working with the government conspirators to develop a breed of human-alien hybrids that the aliens would use as a slave race.
Skinner: Thank you, Agent Scully. Your witness, Mr Kallenbrunner.
Agent Kallenbrunner: All these ETs running around... it's hard to keep these aliens straight without a scorecard. I myself have never seen an alien. Could we call one as a witness?
Scully: You're being facetious.
Agent Kallenbrunner: No, I'm not. I'd like to see some proof.
Scully: There are the mars rocks...
Agent Kallenbrunner: No. I need something good. Something amazing. Something really cool.
Scully: I don't know what you mean.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Well, what I mean is, you have no proof to back up one word you just told us. Agent Scully, isn't it true that you and Mulder were lovers, and you got pregnant and had his love child?
Skinner: Objection!
Agent Kallenbrunner: Thank you. Next witness.

Skinner: Can you state your full name?

Jeffrey Spender: Jeffrey Frank Spender.
Skinner: Mr Spender, I know you didn't hear Mr Kallenbrunner, but he'd like to make a mockery of the X-Files. You worked on the X-Files yourself.
Jeffrey Spender: Yes, until three years ago.
Skinner: When you were shot, in the X-Files office. Shot by your father. Can I ask you to please tell the court exactly who your father was?
Jeffrey Spender: He led the government conspiracy to exploit the existence of aliens.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Objection. There's no government conspiracy that I've seen established here.
Deputy Director Kersh: I agree with Mr Kallenbrunner. I don't see where this is going.
Skinner: If I can prove this conspiracy, it will justify Mulder's actions and you will have no choice but to acquit.
Deputy Director Kersh: I hope this isn't the entire basis of your defence, Mr Skinner.
Skinner: You have a relationship to Agent Mulder, don't you, Mr Spender?
Jeffrey Spender: He's my half brother. His mother had an affair with my father.
Skinner: But he never knew that. Not until he met you at the FBI.
Jeffrey Spender: He didn't know both his father and mine were in the alien conspiracy. His father was a reluctant member. When Agent Mulder began to know the truth about this connection, my father had his father killed by an assassin named Alex Krycek.
Skinner: He killed him to silence him?
Jeffrey Spender: Mulder's father lived his life in shame. Not for the conspiracy, but for a terrible decision he made.
Skinner: Involving Agent Mulder's sister.
Jeffrey Spender: The aliens distrusted their human collaborators. Members of the conspiracy were made to surrender family members as human collateral.
Skinner: So, Mulder's father gave up Mulder's sister. His own eight-year-old daughter.
Jeffrey Spender: Mulder witnessed his sister being abducted by aliens. It haunted him to no end. It's why he pursued the X-Files.
Skinner: What became of her? Samantha?
Jeffrey Spender: She was returned. She was sent to California where we were raised together. She was taken many more times and suffered horrible tests.
Skinner: Mulder spent years looking for her... several times thinking that he'd found her, but he was tricked.
Jeffrey Spender: Samantha was... part of the cloning experiment done by the conspiracy. She herself died in 1987.
Skinner: By your own father's hand essentially.
Jeffrey Spender: When I went to work for the FBI, I didn't know of my father's crimes. When I stood up to him, he shot me. When I didn't die, he subjected me to the same horrible tests.

Mr X: Get up.

Mulder: Who's that? Who's there? What are you doing here?
Mr X: That's what I'm here to ask you.
Mulder: I'm putting the truth on trial.
Mr X: What truth? Who's truth? You think these men will even hear it?
Mulder: They're afraid to hear it.
Mr X: They're not afraid. They have too much power to be afraid. You're going to learn that, just like I did. You'll die learning it.
Mulder: I'm not afraid of that.
Mr X: There's a truth even you're afraid to speak now, because you know it's futile.
Mulder: No. Because I refuse to accept it.
Mr X: Then you're going to need help.
Mulder: How can you possibly help me?
(Mr X hands him a piece of paper:

Marita Covarrubias
756 N Maple
Annapolis, Maryland

When he looks up, Mr X is gone)

Skinner: State your full name for the court.

Marita Covarrubias: Marita Covarrubias.
Skinner: And your former government title?
Marita Covarrubias: Special Representative to the Secretary General of the UN.
Skinner: The United Nations. A position giving you... unrestricted access to countries and leaders around the world. Isn't that right?
Marita Covarrubias: Yes.
Skinner: How did you use this power?
Marita Covarrubias: Basically, to further the interests of a secretive group of men who called themselves the Syndicate.
Skinner: What were their interests?
Marita Covarrubias: Developing an alien virus vaccine, before the Russians developed one.
Skinner: And how'd they go about that?
Marita Covarrubias: By testing innocent civilians all over the world. Test subjects were tracked through DNA identifiers in their small pox vaccination scars.
Skinner: Without subjects knowledge?
Marita Covarrubias: Mostly. Some developed suspicions. I saw Russians who cut off their arms to prevent being tracked.
Skinner: As they did to an American man that you worked quite intimately with.
Marita Covarrubias: Yes. Alex Krycek.
Skinner: Did you believe in the Syndicate? In their international conspiracy?
Marita Covarrubias: No. I was paid for my access.
Skinner: In fact, you came to hate them.
Marita Covarrubias: Yes. It's why I helped Agent Mulder when he approached me.
Skinner: But you were found out. And the Syndicate punished you for this.
Marita Covarrubias: They turned me into a... a test subject.
Skinner: Testing what?
Marita Covarrubias: They were pretending to work with the aliens, to infect the entire population with an alien virus, but the conspirators were trying to save themselves, by secretly and selfishly developing a vaccine. The conspirators believed all life in the universe had been infected with the virus, including a race of shape-shifting alien bounty hunters who policed the conspiracy for the aliens. But they were wrong and it led to the destruction of the conspiracy.
Skinner: And who destroyed it?
Marita Covarrubias: A group of renegade aliens who had avoided infection with the virus through self-disfigurement.
Skinner: And the conspirators themselves — what happened to them?
Marita Covarrubias: They're all dead now. Killed by these same faceless aliens.
Skinner: Then what are you afraid of now? Why resist testifying here today? Because the conspiracy continues, just in another form, by other men.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Objection. Mr Skinner can't ask questions and give the answers.
Deputy Director Kersh: Sustained.
Skinner: Fox Mulder's on trial for murder here. The man he's accused of killing is one of these new conspirators. An alien replacement for a human being. What they are calling a super soldier. You can prove this, can't you? You know who these men are, don't you? Ms Covarrubias?
(A hand rests on Mulder's shoulder)
Krycek: (to Mulder) They'll kill her.
Skinner: Ms Covarrubias, I asked you a question. I need an answer.
Mulder: No. It's okay. Let her go.
Skinner: What the hell are you doing, Mulder? She's the last best witness that we have.
Mulder: Doesn't matter.
Skinner: Thank you, Ms Covarrubias. I got nothing else.

Gibson Praise: Gibson Andrew Praise.

Skinner: Do you know this man?
Gibson Praise: Yes. He's my friend. I hid him in the desert for the last year.
Skinner: Mulder met you as a chess protégé. You're life was endangered because of your highly unusual brain activity.
Deputy Director Kersh: Cut to the chase, Mr Skinner.
Skinner: Gibson Praise can read people's minds. Mulder and Scully proved this scientifically. There's a certain 'junk DNA' which all humans share, but has no apparent function. Gibson's 'junk DNA' is functional. DNA which is believed to be alien.
Agent Kallenbrunner: You're trying to tell us this boy can read minds?
Gibson Praise: Yes.
Mulder: He's reading your mind right now.
Agent Kallenbrunner: And the minds of the judges, too?
Gibson Praise: Yes. (He looks at each member of the jury panel) Even his. (He points to the last member, the Toothpick man)
Agent Kallenbrunner: And what makes him so special?
He's not human.
Mulder: He's one of them. One of them! I want that man examined!"
Deputy Director Kersh: Mr Skinner control him!
Skinner: Mulder!
Mulder: You're afraid! (Guards escort Mulder out of the court room) You're afraid of what I know! You're afraid of the truth!

Skinner: Agent Doggett... you've been on the X-Files for two years. And with all that you've seen, how do you feel about this term 'paranormal'?

Doggett: Well, the way I look at it, calling something paranormal is just a way of avoiding a real explanation.
Skinner: You're a sceptic. But I see here in your own case reports some very detailed descriptions of things that a sceptic would never believe in... these so called 'super soldiers'.
Doggett: Well, that's a whole different deal.
Skinner: In what way?
Doggett: 'Cause I've seen it with my own eyes; shot... drowned... even ground up in a garbage truck. And they just come right back to life.
Skinner: What are they?
Doggett: Well, the best I can figure they're some kind of secret military project — ordinary men made invincible.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Objection. What does this science fiction have to do with anything?
Skinner: Agent Doggett is going to tell you that the man that Mulder is accused of killing is a super soldier. A man that Agent Doggett served with in the marines. Name of Knowle Rohrer.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Objection. Agent Doggett was not present at the murder nor has he seen or examined the victim.
Doggett: That's because I've been getting the bum's rush from the government.
Deputy Director Kersh: Objection sustained.
Skinner: Well, then, let me ask you, Agent Doggett if a super soldier is invincible, how could Mulder have killed this man?
Doggett: He couldn't. The way I understand it, the only way to kill a super soldier is with some rare metal. Agent Scully says it's a form of magnetite from some meteor that fell to earth.
Skinner: And Mulder's not accused of doing that, is he?
Doggett: No, Sir.

Reyes: My name is Monica Reyes. I've been with the FBI since 1990.

Skinner: Before coming onto the X-Files, Agent Reyes, you worked in the New Orleans field office investigating cases of satanic ritual abuse.
Reyes: I did.
Skinner: Did you ever prosecute any of these satanic cases?
Reyes: No.
Agent Kallenbrunner: For god's sake, Mr Skinner, we're trying a man for murder not taking a trip down memory lane.
Skinner: I'm showing the court that Agent Reyes is level-headed and objective on strange and extraordinary cases. That her belief in aliens comes from firsthand experience. And she can offer you hard proof that there is an alien conspiracy!
Reyes: I was called on last year, to protect Agent Scully, who was pregnant and whose life was in danger because of her pregnancy.
Agent Kallenbrunner: What does this have to do with aliens?
Reyes: I drove Agent Scully to a secluded location in Georgia where it was believed she could deliver safely. But we soon discovered we weren't alone. I was attacked and had to defend myself against an assailant, who was shot at point-blank range. Who should have died, but didn't. This assailant was then joined by others like him, who surrounded Agent Scully and me, and witnessed her as she gave birth to her son.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Witnessed her? What do you mean?
Reyes: We were confused as well. But we came to understand that her son was a kind of miracle child. His birth was all important to these people; these so-called super soldiers, who I believe are humans replaced by aliens.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Why would Scully's child be important to aliens, Agent Reyes?
Reyes: We came to learn that Scully was one of a number of random women who had miraculous childbirths, and these women all had been abducted as part of a government program to secretly manipulate their biology, operating offshore on a navy ship, using these women as surrogates.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Surrogates?
Reyes: For alien babies.
Agent Kallenbrunner: To create a slave race.
Reyes: Yes.
Agent Kallenbrunner: A program conducted by the Navy, on a ship which is where?
Reyes: The ship housing this program was exploded on the Baltimore dock.
Agent Kallenbrunner: So, in other words, we have no true evidence past your good word. You claim Scully gave birth to one of these alien babies. How can you be sure of this, Agent Reyes?
Reyes: I saw her child do things that could be explained no other way. I saw him display amazing powers. He'd move objects with his mind.
Agent Kallenbrunner: Really? Do you think we could arrange a demonstration for the court? That we could see that ourselves?
Reyes: No. The child was given up for adoption to an anonymous family.
Agent Kallenbrunner: She gave up the miracle child? The proof of everything that she and Mulder claim that they've risked their lives for over the last nine years — she just sent it off to some strangers?
Reyes: Yes, to protect him!
Agent Kallenbrunner: Thank you, Agent Reyes. That's all.
Reyes: You don't care about that child or what Scully had to sacrifice. You're only too happy she had to give it up so there's no proof.
Deputy Director Kersh: Agent Reyes.
Reyes: You don't care what these people have sacrificed over the last nine years — what's been lost to their cause. You make a mockery of it, gladdened it proves your point.
Deputy Director Kersh: Agent Reyes, that's enough!
Reyes: What is the point of all of this? To destroy a man who seeks the truth or to destroy the truth so no man can seek it? Either way, you lose.

Episode Number: 201
Season Number: 9
First Aired: Sunday, May 19, 2002
Production Code: 9X19

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