Season 5: Redux II (5X03)

Writer: Chris Carter
Director: Kim Manners

Mulder rushes to the hospital and finds Scully unconscious and on a ventilator. Assistant Director Skinner tells him that Scully is close to death. Mulder refuses to co-operate with Skinner or the FBI inquiry team. The Cigarette Smoking Man has his own troubles, other members of the shadowy syndicate he is part of are angry with him for allowing Mulder to escape from the DARPA facility, but he argues that Mulder is far more valuable alive.

Scully regains consciousness and informs Mulder of her suspicions about Skinner, but Mulder is skeptical. The Cigarette Smoking Man contacts Mulder and explains that the vial he gave to the Lone Gunman contains a microchip implant that will cure Scully's cancer. Scully agrees to give it a try despite objects from her mother Margaret and brother Bill. The Cigarette Smoking Man arranges for Mulder to meet who he claims is Mulder's sister Samantha, she explains that some time after her abduction she was told that the Cigarette Smoking Man was her father.

Mulder is unsure whether to believe she is his sister or not. Later the Cigarette Smoking Man asks Mulder to quit the FBI and work for him instead, but Mulder refuses. Brought before the inquiry panel, Mulder informs them that Section Chief Blevins is the mole within the FBI, shortly thereafter both Blevins and the Cigarette Smoking Man are gunned down, although his body is not found. Mulder informs Skinner that Scully's cancer has gone into remission.

Notes:
There are no notes for this episode. If you have one, please let me know. Thank you.

Quotes:
Scully: Mulder, if I can save you, let me.

Mulder: Please tell me you're here with severe chest pains.
CSM: You should be glad for why I'm here, pay you some respect.
Mulder: Go to hell.
CSM: For your cleverness, and your resource, what you managed to do for Scully.
Mulder: What are you talking about?
CSM: Well, breaching the security at the Defense Department Facility. Finding the cure for her disease.
Mulder: What I found was useless.
CSM: On the contrary, it's essential to her survival. If you like, we could step outside and I might explain myself? I'm here tonight as a friend, Agent Mulder.

Scully: So why'd you come here if you already made up your mind?
Mulder: Because I knew you'd talk me out of it if I was making a mistake.

Highlights from ''Redux II''

Episode Number: 99
Season Number: 5
First Aired: Sunday, November 9, 1997
Production Code: 5X03

Season 5: Redux (5X02)

Writer: Chris Carter
Director: Kim Manners

Twenty-four hours before Scully identified Mulder's body in his apartment, Mulder receives a tip from Kritschgau that he is being watched. After discovering a pinhole in his ceiling he encounters Scott Ostelhoff spying on him from the apartment above, after a short scuffle a shot rings out. Mulder tells Scully that he killed Ostelhoff while he has trying to destroy a record of phone calls he made to the Bureau.

They conclude that their own agency is behind a cover up and that they are unwitting pawns in the conspiracy. Mulder persuades Scully to help him fake his own death in an attempt to uncover the truth. After Scully goes to Mulder's apartment to identify 'his' body, she traces the number that Ostelhoff was calling to the same exchange that Assistant Director Skinner is on. Test results on the ice core sample taken from the mountain reveal a new life form. When Scully compares this new organism with her own DNA, they match, she concludes that her cancer is a result of being exposed to the organism.

The Cigarette Smoking Man tells his fellow conspirators that he does not believe Agent Mulder it dead. Meanwhile Mulder uses Ostelhoff's ID card to break in to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency facility and finds a metallic vial that may contain a cure for Scully, only to have the Lone Gunman discover it is just de-ionized water. However it appears all Mulder's effort was in vain when Scully collapses while presenting evidence to an FBI inquiry panel.

Notes:
For the first time in the series a brief synopsis of previous events is given at the very beginning of the episode, as in "Previously, on the X-Files..."

''The X-Files'' upgrades to Widescreen from this Season.

The premiere also features an altered tagline, this one being 'All Lies Lead To The Truth', symbolic of Mulder's journey of following the path of lies to find Scully's cure.

The vault that Mulder accesses at the DOD is the same seen in the ''Pilot'' and "Erlemeyer Flask'' of Season 1, where Cigarette Smoking Man stores the implant and the alien foetus.

The card Mulder finds in the file cabinet lists Scully's birthdate as 2/23/64.

Quotes:
Michael Kritschgau: Hey! How'd you get in here? (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency)
Mulder: Through the front door.
Michael Kritschgau: You can't bypass security.
Mulder: You can when you have the card.
(He holds up Scott Ostelhoff's security card)

Scully: Mulder? What are you doing? Why are you sitting in my bedroom in the dark?
Mulder: It was too crowded in my apartment, I couldn't sleep.
Scully: I'm not kidding, Mulder.
Mulder: Good, 'cause neither am I. There's a dead man on the floor of my apartment and it's only a matter of time before he starts to stink the place up.

Scully: If science leads me to these ends, it is not lost on me that the tool with which I've come to depend on absolutely cannot save or protect me, but only bring into focus the darkness that lies ahead.

Mulder: In four years I have shared my partner's passionate search for the truth and if my part has been a deception, I have never seen her integrity waver or her honor compromised. But now I ask her to lie to the people lying to us, a dangerous lie to find the truth, to find the men who would be revealed at its enemy, as our enemy, as the enemy within.

Scully: Mulder, how long has this been going on?
Mulder: Maybe since the beginning, since you joined me on the X-Files.
Scully: That would mean that for 4 years we've been nothing more than pawns in a game, that it was a lie from the beginning. Mulder, these men... You give them your faith and you're supposed to trust them with your life.
Mulder: There are those who can be trusted. What I need to know is who among them is not. I will not allow this treason to prosper, not if they've done this to you.
Scully: Mulder, we can't go to the Bureau making these accusations.
Mulder: No, but as they lie to us, we can lie to them. A lie to find the truth.

CSM: You've been watching Mulder. You had a man on him. No one bothered to inform me of this.
Elder: I know nothing of this man.
CSM: I will not be cut out like this. You need my expertise. Is this being run from the DOD?
Elder: If it is, I am unaware of it.
CSM: I've always kept Mulder in check. I put this whole thing together. I created Mulder.
Elder: Agent Mulder is dead. Our FBI source confirmed it this morning. Mulder killed himself. Mulder was an asset. Without his partner, you may have underestimated his fragility.
CSM: I've never underestimated Mulder. I still don't.

Clip from ''Redux''

Episode Number: 98
Season Number: 5
First Aired: Sunday, November 2, 1997
Production Code: 5X02

Season 4: Gasthesmane (4X24)

Writer: Chris Carter
Director: R. W. Goodwin

When two anthropologists, Arlinsky and Babcock find an alien preserved in ice at the summit of a mountain in Canada, they ask for Mulder and Scully's help in verifying the alien's remains. As Mulder goes with Arlinksy to collect the alien, Scully examines the ice core taken from the same location. Shortly thereafter Scully is assaulted and thrown down a flight of stairs. Finger prints from the stairwell are matched to a Pentagon researcher Michael Kritschgau, who Scully identifies as the person who attacked her.

She confronts him in an underground garage and arrests him, but Kritschgau warns Scully that if he goes to jail, the same people who gave her cancer will kill him. Mulder and Arlinsky take the alien body to a warehouse to perform an autopsy, Scully contacts Mulder there and arranges for him to meet Kritschgau. He tells Mulder that the alien is a fake, that he was only meant to see the body to believe the lie. That it is all an elaborate hoax by the government to divert attention away from itself.

Mulder accused Kritschgau of lying. But Scully explains to Mulder, that the people behind the hoax, gave her cancer to make him believe their lies. This realization stuns Mulder....Later Scully is called to Mulder's apartment, where she identifies a body. The next day Scully appears in front of a group of FBI officials lead by Section Chief Blevins, she informs them that Mulder was found dead in his apartment, the apparent victim of a self inflicted gun shot wound to the head.

Notes:
'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'.

The first cut of this episode ran 12 minutes too long. A lot of scenes in the mountains were cut.

The flashbacks during Scully's testimony are to "Pilot" and "Paperclip''.

Charles Cioffi, playing Sector Chief Blevins, returns the to ''The X-Files''. He first appeared in the pilot episode.

Michael Kritschgau is named for a former drama teacher of Gillian Anderson's.

This episode marks the first on-screen appearance of Scully's brother, Bill Jr. after his scene in ''Memento Mori'' were cut.

Quotes:
Scully: Four years ago, Section Chief Blevins assigned me to a project you all know as the X Files. As I am a medical doctor with a background in hard science, my job was to provide an analytical prospective on the work of Special Agent Fox Mulder, who's investigations into the paranormal were fueled by a personal belief that his sister had been abducted by aliens when he was 12. I come here today, four years later, to report on the illegitimacy of Agent Mulder's work. That it is my scientific opinion that he became over the course of these years a victim. A victim of his own false hopes and of his belief in the biggest of lies.

Scully: Mulder, the only lie here is the one you continue to believe.
Mulder: After all I've seen and experienced, I refuse to believe that it's not true!
Scully: Because it's easier to believe the lie. Isn't it?
Mulder: (hurt) What the hell did that guy say to you, that you believe his story!?
Scully: He said that the men behind this hoax... behind these lies... gave me this disease to make you believe.
(Mulder turns and walks away)

Mulder: You think it's foolish?
Scully: I have no opinion, actually.
Mulder: You have no opinion?
Scully: This is your holy grail, Mulder, not mine.
Mulder: What's that supposed to mean?
Scully: It just means that proving to the world the existence of alien life is not my last dying wish.
Mulder: How about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny?

Episode Number: 97
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday, May 18, 1997
Production Code: 4X24