Season 4: Small Potatoes (4X20)

Writer: Vince Gilligan
Director: Clifford Bole

After expectant mother Amanda Nelligan gives birth to a baby with a four inch tail in Martinsburg, West Virginia. It is the latest of five such births in a city of less than 15,000 people. Scully believes that the local environment may be the cause of the birth defects. After interviewing Amanda, who claims the baby's father if Luke Skywalker, Scully discovers that the five children born with tails, share the same father. And that the five women share the same fertility specialist, Dr. Alton Pugh.

At Dr. Pugh's office, they find several couples confronting him about the births. Mulder encounters a janitor with a scar at the base of his spine, Eddie Van Blundht, who tries to run away, but is taken into custody. Tests reveal that Eddie is the father of all five children, but the mothers claim to have slept with no one but their husbands. Scully believes Eddie used the date rape drug Rohypnol to impregnate the women leaving them with no knowledge of the events. Eddie is resentful of the implication that he would have to drug the woman to have sexual relations with them.

After Eddie escapes from custody by morphing himself in to a double of a police office, Mulder theorises that Eddie has the ability to change his form. A trait which Mulder hypothesises he used to make the four women thing he was their husband and Amanda Melligan that he was Luke Skywalker. Eddie manages to overcome Mulder and takes his place, returning with Scully to Washington. But will Scully notice the difference in time.

Notes:
This episode was named by ''TV Guide'' as one of the greatest episodes in TV history.

Darin Morgan returns to ''The X-Files'' for the final time, playing Eddie van Blundht. Morgan wrote many of the most memorable episodes during second and third seasons.

According to the DVD commentary by writer Vince Gilligan, they had originally wanted wings for the babies because they thought wings were cuter than tails. However, the wing effect was much harder than the tail effect, so they went with tails, which turned out to be funnier and still cute.

The voice of Amanda Nelligan, the mother of the "Luke Skywalker" baby, may be familiar because she is played by Christine Cavanaugh, who more usually appears as a voice artist for animated shows and features. She is probably best known for being the voice of Babe the pig in ''Babe'' and Chuckie Finster of ''Rugrats fame'' and the title character of ''Dexter's Laboratory''.

On the front page of the mock World Weekly Informer newspaper read by Mulder and Scully at the beginning of the episode, there is a headline "ETAP BIGSHOT BUSTED" beneath a mugshot. This is a reference to an earlier Season Four episode, "Unruhe", in which Etap was the brand of film sold at the drugstore. The man pictured in the mugshot is Jim Pate, an assistant prop master for the show, whose last name spelled backward is Etap.

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?

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.

Info from Mulder's driver's license:
42-2630 Hegal Place
Alexandia,
VADOB: 10-13-61

Quotes:
Mulder: Well, if you're waiting for my usual theory as to what's going on, I don't have one.
Scully: I do. On behalf of all the women in the world, I seriously doubt this is anything to do with consensual sex. I think it involved some form of Rohypnol rape.

Scully: Looking like someone else, Mulder, and being someone else are completely different things.
Mulder: Well, maybe it's not, I mean everybody else around you would treat you like you were somebody else, and ultimately maybe it's other people's reactions to us that make us who we are.

Eddie: Look, I'm not saying anything one way or another. I'm just saying hypothetically, if some women wanted to have kids, their husbands weren't... capable, and everybody was happy and no one got hurt, well hypothetically, where's the crime?

Skinner: Who wrote this report?
"Mulder": I did sir.
Skinner: You spelled Federal Bureau of Investiagtion wrong.
"Mulder": It's a typo.
Skinner: Twice.

Mulder: When you were admitted you said that the baby's father was from another planet. What did you mean by that exactly?
Amanda: You know, that he's not from this planet.
Mulder: Were you abducted?
Amanda: Huh? No, no, he dropped by my apartment one day, and one thing sort of led to another...
Mulder: But the baby's father is an alien?
Amanda: No, no, I didn't say he was an alien, I said he was from another planet. His name is Luke Skywalker. He's what's known as a Jedi Knight.
Scully: Did he have a light saber?
Amanda: No, he didn't bring it.

Mulder: I have a theory, if you want to hear it.
Scully: Van Blundht somehow physically transformed into his captor then walked out the door leaving no one the wiser?
Mulder: Scully, should we be picking out china patterns or what?!

Episode Number: 93
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday, April 20, 1997
Production Code: 4X20

Season 4: Synchrony (4X19)

Writers: Howard Gordon and David Greenwalt
Director: Jim Charleston

As Jason Nichols and Lucas Menand, two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argue in the street, an elderly man approaches them and warns Lucas that he will be knocked down by a bus at 11.46 pm. Campus security arrest the elderly man for harassing them. Moments later Lucas steps in to the road and is hit by a bus, Jason Nichols notes that the time is exactly 11.46 pm.

Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate after the Campus Security guard who arrested the elderly man is found frozen to death. They interview Jason Nichols, who tells them that he was arguing with Lucas because he was going to go public with an accusation that Jason had falsified data on his research paper. Dr Yonechi, a Japanese researcher is met by the same elderly man at the airport and is later found frozen in his hotel room. Scully finds evidence that he was injected with an unidentified chemical compound.

A compound that another MIT researcher, Lisa Ianelli recognises as a freezing agent currently being engineered by Jason Nichols but it has not been invented yet. She also admits that Jason is protecting her as she falsified the data in the research paper. They trace the elderly man to a hotel room and find a photograph of Jason, Lisa and Dr Yonechi celebrating, which Mulder believes was taken on the day that the freezing agent was invented five years in the future. It appears that the elderly man is using technology from the future to change the present and thus alter the future.

Notes:
If any of you have some notes about this episode, please let me know. Thanks!

Quotes:
Mulder: So what's your medical opinion Scully?
Scully: Well my best guess would be that he's been exposed to some kind of chemical refrigerant, like liquid nitrogen, possibly even ingested it.
Mulder: Well, you see what happens when you drink and drive?

Scully: It's a celebration, but of what?
Mulder: Of something that never happened.
Scully: What? Mulder, this is a photograph. It is a documented moment in time.
Mulder: In a future that somebody is trying like hell to prevent from happening.
Scully: What?
Mulder: Think about it, Scully. If Lucas Menand never gets hit by the bus, his complaint gets heard before the grant committee. Jason Nichols loses his funding and he never gets to collaborate on his research with Dr. Yonechi. Therefore, this photograph never gets taken because this celebration never happens.
Scully: Yeah, and if your sister is your aunt and your mother marries your uncle, you'd be your own grandpa.

Episode Number: 92
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday, April 13, 1997
Production Code: 4X19

Season 4: Max (4X18)

Writers: Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Director: Kim Manners

As the investigation in to the cause of the crash of flight 549 continues, Scully is caught in an attempted assassination of Corporal Frish which claims the life of Agent Pendrell. Mulder is taken into military custody while inspecting the second crash site at the bottom of Lake Sacandaga where he discovered the wreckage of a crashed UFO. Meanwhile in Washington, Assistant Director Skinner tells Scully that Louis Frish, a US airforce air traffic controller who was helping them with the their investigation, is to be charged with providing false evidence and suspicion of murder. The Airforce claim that Frish made an error in judgement which resulted in a military jet colliding with flight 549.

Mulder released by the military returns to Washington with the theory that the airforce dispatched a jet that shot down the UFO which intercepted flight 549 and inadvertently caused the plane to spin out of control and crash. Records reveal that Sharon Graffia is not Max Fenig's sister but a fellow patient from his mental institution. Mulder and Scully search Max's mobile home for clues and discover a video tape of Max's claiming that he had actual physical evidence that the military is using technology from recovered UFOs.

Mulder believes that Max had the physical evidence with him on the plane, that was the source of the radiation and the reason that he was abducted from the plane. Mulder traces a piece of the evidence Max was talking about to his luggage in Syracuse airport. Mulder boards a flight back to Washington with the evidence but the plane is intercepted in flight.

Notes:
Although this episode (and "Tempus Fugit") deals with a military cover-up of a downed UFO and elimination of evidence that Max was carrying, it curiously did not involve the Cigarette Smoking Man. This type of work would be right up his alley.

Quotes:
Scully: All I know is that this plane seems to be killing people as it sits there on the ground.. Mulder. Agent Pendrell is dead.
Mulder: How?
Scully: Shot. In an attempt on Sergeant Frish in Washington he saved his life Mulder and maybe mine.
Mulder: Scully... Scully...
Scully: Mulder what are these people dying for? Is it for the truth or is it for the lies?
Mulder: It's gotta be for the truth, if we owe them anything it's to make sure of that.

Scully: (To Pendrell) We've got paramedics on the way you're going to the hospital, you're going to be ok. Look, we still haven't celebrated my birthday, Pendrell. I'm not going to let you off the hook like this.

Scully: This gift that you gave me for my birthday. You never got to tell me why you gave it to me or what it means... but I think I know. I think that you appreciate that there are extraordinary men and women and... extraordinary moments when history leaps forward on the backs of these individuals... that what can be imagined can be achieved... that you must dare to dream... but that there's no substitute for perseverance and hard work... and teamwork... because no one gets there alone... and that, while we commemorate the... the greatness of these events and the individuals who achieve them, we cannot forget the sacrifice of those who make these achievements and leaps possible.
Mulder: I just thought it was a pretty cool keychain.

Mulder: Do you know where she is? (Max's girlfriend).
Scully: In a mental institution.
Mulder: I'd go with you... but I'm afraid they'd lock me up.
Scully: Me too.

Episode Number: 91
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday, March 23, 1997
Production Code: 4X18

Season 4: Tempus Fugit (4X17)

Writers: Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Director: Rob Bowman

While celebrating Scully's birthday at the Headless Woman's Pub in Washington, Scully and Mulder are approached by Sharon Graffia, the sister of Max Fenig, the UFO abductee they met in Wisconsin whilst investigating a reputed UFO crash site and subsequent military clean up operation. She explains that Max was a passenger on flight 549 that crashed two hours earlier. Max had asked her to contact Mulder and Scully if anything ever happened to him.

Mulder and Scully join the National Transportation Safety Board's Go Team investigating the cause of the crash. The Cockpit Voice Recording recovered from the plane's black box seems to indicate that the plane was intercepted. Mulder puts forward the theory that the plane was forced down, but the NTSB officials prefer to examine the evidence before making conclusions. Mulder and Scully join the NSTB team as they travel to the crash site in Albany to comb through the wreckage. Mulder confronted with an apparent time discrepancy between the official time of the crash and the time displayed on the passengers watches, suspect the involvement of a UFO.

A theory given more credit, when a survivor is found who, Scully concludes has been exposed to radiation from some unknown source. Mulder believes that Max was abducted from the plane while in flight but something went wrong causing the plane and the UFO to crash. Mulder discovers the UFO crash site at the bottom of the Great Sacandaga Lake.

Notes:
Tempus fugit is a Latin expression meaning "time flees", more commonly translated as "time flies". It is frequently used as an inscription on clocks. The expression was first used in the verse Georgica written by Roman poet Virgil: Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, which means, "But it flees in the meantime: irretrievable time flees".

Scott Bellis returns as Max Fenig. He previously appeared in the Season 1 episode "Fallen Angel".

Quotes:
Scully: Are you accusing these men of covering evidence?
Mulder: These men? No. These men are trained to identify moving parts, hydraulics, electronics. Their trained to reconstruct those parts in the past and arrive at the present but they can't do that because somebody has stolen the past from them. 9 minutes of it. 9 minutes that became a lifetime for those passengers and now for their families. Someone has got to figure out what happened in those 9 minutes. Somehow we've got to get that back.

Mulder: You wanna know what I think Scully...? I'm gonna tell you. I think Max was abducted, sucked right out of this door at 29,000 feet, the burns were seeing as a result of that abduction.
Scully: Mulder...
Mulder: And all the evidence will point to this conclusion but it will be dismissed because of its improbability, its unthinkability
Scully: Mulder...
Mulder: And the crash of flight 549 will go unsolved unless we find a way to prove it and when Max is returned he will tell us exactly the same story unless someone gets to him first.
Scully: Mulder, Max has returned, I found out a few minutes ago. They found his body a short way from the wreckage earlier today.

Mulder: Fenig.. And there may be people who want to cover up this evidence.
Mike Millar: Agent Mulder, is this an official FBI position?
Mulder: No sir.
Mike Millar: Because what your suggesting trivialises this tragedy. And Casts these fine people and the work they have to do in a light that you would be well advised to avoid.
Mulder: I think we all share the same goal here sir and that is to find out what caused that plane to crash.
Mike Millar: And any of the capable men and women in this room find Dr. Spock's phaser,or any green alien goo we will be sure to give you all the credit.

Mulder: I got you something for you.
Scully: Oh you've got to be kidding me.
Mulder: Its just something that reminded me of you.
Scully: What an alien implant?
Mulder: Two actually I made them in to earrings.

Mulder: I didn't know it was your birthday, Scully.
Scully: Mulder, you've never remembered my birthday in the four years I've known you.
Mulder: That's the way I like to celebrate. It's every four years, like dog years.
Scully: Dog years? Thank you.

Episode Number: 90
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday, March 16, 1997
Production Code: 4X17

Season 4: Unrequited (4X16)

Writers: Howard Gordon and Chris Carter
Director: Michael Lange

When Lieutenant General MacDougal is killed in the back of his limousine, his driver is suspected, especially after he is linked to a Paramilitary group called the Right Hand. But the driver maintains his innocence and is cleared of blame when lab tests results reveal he had not fired a weapon. With a number of high ranking military officials due in for a re-dedication ceremony at the Vietnam War Memorial, Assistant Director Skinner assigns Mulder and Scully to investigate the Right Hand group and it's leader Denny Markham for complicity in the Generals murder.

Markham gives the two agents a photograph of a Green Beret, Nathaniel Teager, captured by the Viet Cong in 1971, freed by Markham's group in 1995 who then disappeared after US Government commandos attempted to kidnap him. Mulder discovers that MacDougal along with another General Steffan signed Teager's death certificate. Concerned that Teager maybe targeting Steffan, Mulder arranges for two FBI agents to protect him. However Teager manages to slip by the agents and kills Steffan in his office in the Pentagon. Skinner is outraged especially when Teager's shadowy image is caught on security camera. Mulder believes that Teager has learned from his captures the ability to hide himself from a person's field of vision. When Mulder's contact Marita Covarrubias informs him that the government has sanctioned Teager to kill the Generals the race is on to stop a seemingly unstoppable assassin.

Notes:
When Nathaniel Teager confronts Mrs. Davenport in front of the Vietnam Memorial, two of the names visible on the wall behind her are Jesse R. Ellsion and Harlan L. Hahn. Harlan Ellison is a famous science fiction writer and fan of the show. Jessica Hahn is well-known for the scandal involving her and Reverend Jim Baker.

''Unrequited'' isn’t a very memorable episode despite the good storyline. It just isn’t able to grab a lot of interest and is easy to forget. Still, not a bad episode by all means.

Quotes:
Scully: A phantom POW left for dead comes back to avenge the injustices?
Mulder: Maybe the war ain't over, Scully.

Skinner: Right now I'm flying by the seat of my pants.
Mulder: You mean there's no procedure outlined for an invisible assassin?

Episode Number: 89
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday, February 23, 1997
Production Code: 4X16

Season 4: Kaddish (4X12)

Writer: Howard Gordon
Director: Kim Manners

When Jewish man, Isaac Luria is beaten to death by three youths in his market store in Brooklyn in what appears to be a hate-killing, his fiancee and her father mourn his death in traditional fashion. However following his funeral one of the young men who attacked him, Tony Oliver is found strangled hinting at a possible revenge attack in a racial tense neighbourhood, only Luria's finger prints are found on the body.

Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate whether vigilantes are to blame, or if it is the work of some higher force. They trace anti-Semitic pamphlets to Curt Brunjes, the owner of a local copy shop in the area and tell him about Oliver's death and the rumours that Luria has risen from the grave to avenge his death. Unbeknownst to them the two other youths involved in Luria's death, Tony Banks and Clinton Macguire are listening in the back room. That night they dig up Luria's body to make sure he is dead, Banks opens the coffin and finds Luria's body inside but as he turns to tell Macguire, he finds him lying dead on the ground.

Mulder and Scully visit the scene and Mulder finds a book under Luria's head which bursts in to flames. They questions a Jewish intellectual about the book, which it turns out to be a book on Jewish mysticism and should not have been buried with the body. Mulder discovers details in the book about the Jewish myth of a Golem, a living being made of earth brought to life by a righteous man. Could a Golem be responsible for the revenge attacks?

Notes:
The episode title, "Kaddish" is the name of a traditional Jewish mourning prayer that is repeated daily for thirty days for a relative or spouse, or eleven months for a parent, following the day of burial. The prayer is also repeated on the anniversary of death. A mourner recites the Kaddish and a quorum responds in unison with appropriate phrases. The quorum consists of at least ten Jewish males who have passed their Bar Mitzvah (usually age thirteen).

Issac Luria is named after the famous rabbi of the same name, who is regarded as the father of Jewish mysticism.

The mystical Jewish book that had to burst into flames refused to do it on cue. When it finally did, it burned with a sudden flame so huge that David Duchovny had to fling the specially rigged book to the ground and dash out of camera range.

In an early draft of the script the Anti-Semitists were black to mirror the actual situation in Brooklyn which involves tension between Orthodox Jews and their African-American neighbors.

Isaac Luria is presumed to have returned as a Golem, which, in Jewish folklore, is a being created for a purpose, often to defend or avenge. However, the supposition Mulder puts forth that this is Luria returned from the dead is one of several departures from the legend of the golem, which is made from clay or mud and activated by inscribing a holy word on the creature's forehead, either one of the names of God or the Hebrew word for truth (Emet). It could be stopped by erasing the word. This explains the significance of the word that appears on the corpse's and the golem’s hand (another departure from the legends). In yet one more variation, Jacob suggests that Ariel (or the power of her love alone) raised the golem, when, in fact, is an ability reserved for the wisest and holiest rabbis.

Quotes:
Scully: You haven't heard the rumours?
Shopkeeper: What rumours?
Scully: That Luria is back from the dead; that he's arisen from his grave.
Shopkeeper: What kind of Jew trick is this?
Mulder: A Jew pulled it off two thousand years ago.

Mulder: It seems pretty redundant, doesn't it? Messing up somebody you've already killed? I think they were afraid.
Scully: Afraid?
Mulder: Afraid that the man they hated enough to kill wasn't really dead.

Episode Number: 88
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday, February 16, 1997
Production Code: 4X12

Season 4: Memento Mori (4X15)

Writers: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, John Shiban and Vince Gilligan
Director: Rob Bowman

Mulder is called to the Holy Cross Memorial Hospital in Washington, Scully has been diagnosed with a cancerous tumour in her nasal cavity, which is inoperable and if it continues to grow the chance of survival is slim. Scully wants to investigate a group of female abductee's she met before in Pennsylvania who had also contracted cancer after having implants similar to Scully's removed. The two agents travel to the home of Betsy Hagopian, only to find that she died two weeks earlier.

While searching the house, they realize that someone is accessing computer files by phone. The call is traced and a man, Kurt Crawford is taken into custody. He claims to be part of the same UFO network as Betsy, and that he was copying the files before the government destroyed them. He also tells them that all but one of the abductees have died of cancer. Scully visits the last living abductee, Penny Northern in hospital, where her doctor, Dr Scanlon appears to have isolated the cause of the cancer.

Scully books into the hospital for treatment and her mother Margaret joins her for support. Mulder visits Assistant Director Skinner as he wants to get in contact with the Cigarette Smoking Man, who Mulder believes knows about Scully's condition and can help her. But Skinner tells him that the Cigarette Smoking Man only deals in lies. Mulder enlists the help of the Lone Gunman to break in to a fertility clinic where all of the abductees were treated in a hope to find a cure for Scully.

Notes:
Memento Mori is Latin and means "remember that you are mortal". In the days of the Roman Empire, a military leader achieving great victories would be given a parade through the city of Rome where he in the end was told Memento Mori, so that he wouldn't forget his place in the world.

It was for this episode that Gillian Anderson won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

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.

A scene with Gillian Anderson (Scully) and Pat Skipper (Scully's brother Bill Jr.) was cut due to time constraints. Bill Scully would make his second 'first appearance' in the season 4 finale 'Gethsemane'. This scene is significant for several reasons in that Bill Jr. voices his displeasure, or rather what he believes to be his parents displeasure, about Dana choosing to be an FBI Agent instead of a doctor and that now she has paid for that decision with her cancer. He also indirectly blames Dana for Melissa's death and, finally, he mentions their other brother Charles; the only time he is ever spoken of in the series.

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.

This episode originally had a kiss on the lips between Mulder and Scully. In the original version, Mulder kisses her forehead, then her lips, then they hug and she walks away. The aired version just has the kiss on the head.

The date on the drawer holding Scully's ova is November 29, 1994 - the date she was returned to the hospital in the season 2 episode ''One Breath''.

Quotes:
Scully: In med school i learned that cancer arrives in the body unannounced. A dark stranger that takes up residence. Turning its new home against itself, this is the evil of cancer, that it starts as an invader but soon becomes one with the invaded, Forcing you to destroy it, but only at the risk of destroying yourself. It is sciences demon possession and my treatment sciences attempt at exorcism. Mulder I hope that in these terms you might know it and know me. And except this stranger so many recognise but so many cannot completely cast out and if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this. You must never think there was the possibility of some secret intervention, something you might have done and though we have travelled far together this last distance must necessarily be travelled alone.

Scully: I need you to bring the over night bag from the trunk of the car, and I need you to call my mother and ask her to bring up some things to the hospital.
Mulder: Is there anything i should know?
Scully: Mulder what ever you found or what ever you might find i think we both know that right now truth is in me. And i need to persue it, as soon as possible.

Mulder: Byers told you about Dr Scanlan?
Scully:Yeah.
Mulder: He very well may have killed those women.
Scully: It will have to be proven, if we find him.
Mulder: When we find him, Scully something was done to you, something you're just beginning to remember, you can't quite figure out. But it can be explained and it will be explained, and no matter what you think as a scientist or a doctor there is a way and you will find it, To save yourself.
Scully: Mulder I can't kid myself, people live with cancer they carry on, and so will I. You know I’ve got things to finish to prove to myself, my family, But for my own reasons.

Scully: (Writing in her journal) I have not written to you in the past twenty four hours because the treatment has weakened my body. Mulder it’s difficult to explain to you the fear of facing an enemy which I can neither conquer nor escape. Penny Northern has taken a down turn. I now look at her with the respect that can only come from one that is about to walk the same dark path. Seeing her I can’t help seeing myself in a month or a year. I pray that I have her courage to face this journey. Mulder I feel you close, though I know you are now pursuing your own path. For that I am grateful, more than I can ever express. I need to know you’re out there if I am ever to see through this.

Scully: For the first time I feel time like a heartbeat, the seconds pumping in my breast like a reckoning; the numinous mysteries that once seemed so distant and unreal threating clarity in the presence of a truth entertained not in youth, but only in its passage. I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me. Knowing that you will read them and share my burden as I have come to trust no other. That you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you, that are you is a comfort to me now as I feel the tethers loose and the prospects darken for the continuance of a journey that began not so long ago and which began again with a faith shaken and strengthened by your convictions if not for which I might never have been so strong now as I cross to face you and look at you incomplete, hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you.

Episode Number: 87
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday, February 9, 1997
Production Code: 4X15

Season 4: Never Again (4X13)

Writers: Glen Morgan and James Wong
Director: Rob Bowman

When Philadelphia resident Ed Jerse's marriage is annulled by a judge, he drowns his sorrows in a seedy bar. Under the influence of alcohol he has a Betty Page like tattoo with the words 'never again' done on his arm. But the following day he begins to hear a woman's voice taunting him, which lands him in trouble at work and culminates in him attacking and murdering the woman who lives in the apartment below him. Meanwhile Mulder not having taken any holiday in four years is forced by the FBI to take a week off or face loosing pay, leaving Scully in charge of the X-files.

But Scully is angry at Mulder when he dumps the surveillance of a Russian man, who claims to have evidence of UFO's, in her lap. Despite telling Mulder she would not, Scully travels to Philadelphia and tails the Russian around town, soon realising that he is just an extortionist, who knows nothing about any UFO's. She follows him in to a tattoo parlour and meets Ed Jerse trying to get his tattoo removed. The pair connect and a relationship blossoms, they go out for a drink in a seedy bar and Scully has her own tattoo done as a form of rebellion. She spends the night at Ed's apartment, in the morning two detectives call and inform Scully that the woman from the apartment below has been murdered.

Scully questions Ed who confides in her about the voice he hears. Scully believes the voice is an hallucination brought on by a chemical in the tattoo ink and tries to get Ed to take control before he kills again.

Notes:
The episode name "Never Again" is possibly a reference to the fact that this would be the last time Glen Morgan & James Wong would ever work with ''The X-Files''.

Guest voice of Betty, 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.

The camera angles and long tracking shot backwards down the stairs are a conscious homage to a similar shot in Alfred Hitchcock's ''Frenzy''.

Gillian Anderson volunteered to have the ouroboros tattooed onto her back for real during filming. This could not be done due to the fact that it would take too long and would have been impractical.

Rodney Rowland (playing Ed Jerse) was at that time going out in real life with Gillian Anderson.

Quotes:
Betty: (Getting angrier) Another woman in my bed?! Burn the sheets. Burn her.. Burn HER!!!

Scully: So what makes this place a good place to go when you feeling down?
Ed: Ah it's kinda... Everyone here looks like their problems are worse than mine, makes me feel good about myself.

Mulder: I'm just at that special place and I wanted to share it with you. You know that Elvis bought all the furniture in just 30 minutes?

Mulder: All this because I . . . because I didn't get you a desk?
Scully: Not everything is about you, Mulder. This is my life.

Highlights from ''Never Again''

Episode Number: 86
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday February 2, 1997
Production Code: 4X13

Season 4: Leonard Betts (4X14)

Writers: Frank Spotnitz, John Shiban and Vince Gilligan
Director: Kim Manners

When Emergency Medical Technician Leonard Betts is decapitated in a road traffic accident involving his ambulance and a truck on the streets of Philadelphia, his headless corpse disappears from the Monongahela Medical Centre. Mulder and Scully are brought in to investigate the disappearance of his body. Scully believes that someone took the corpse to sell to an unscrupulous medical supplier. But security camera footage appears to show Leonard Betts' body with a distortion around the head walking out of the hospital.

They find Leonard Betts' head in the hospital's bio-disposal unit and Scully performs an autopsy on it, during which the eyes suddenly open. After tissue samples from the head reveal it was riddled with cancer, so much so that Leonard Betts should have been dead long before he was decapitated. Mulder begins to theorise that Leonard Betts could be mankind's next evolutionary step, some how incorporating cancer in to his body structure giving him amazing regenerative capabilities. Scully marvels at Mulder's theory that Leonard Betts has simply grown a new head.
However evidence emerges that Leonard Betts is indeed whole again and working at another hospital, further evidence seems to indicate that he is ingesting cancerous tissue, that his job gives him ready access to, in order to survive. As the agents close in on Leonard Betts, he has to find other sources of cancerous tissue, he targets Scully explaining that she has something he needs.

Notes:
Betts is assigned to ambulance #208, and Scully wakes at 2:08am with a nosebleed; both possibly a reference to episode 2X08 ''One Breath'', where Scully is returned after her abduction.

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".

The dark liquid Betts submerges himself in while regenerating his head is identified by Mulder as providone iodine, which, he tells Scully, is used by researchers to promote limb regrowth in amphibians. It is widely sold and used in hospitals as a topical disinfectant under the brand name Betadine. Although considered harmless to human skin, it was cited in a 1975 article in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences as being capable of altering DNA in living cells and having mutagenic effects which could lead to cancer, which makes it ideal for Betts' purposes.

Quotes:
Mulder: Wouldn't it make sense that evolution or natural selection would incorporate cancer – the greatest health threat to our species as part of our genetic makeup?
Scully: Why do I think that Charles Darwin is rolling in his grave right now.

Mulder: What did your examination uncover?
Scully: Well, I... I haven't exactly performed an examination yet.
Mulder: Why not?
Scully: Well. Because I, uh … I experienced an unusual degree of postmortem galvanic response.
Mulder: The head moved.
Scully: It blinked at me. I mean, I... I know exactly what it is. It's residual electrical activity stored chemically in... in the dead cells.
Mulder: Blinked or winked?

Scully: (on phone) Mulder, it's me. We've got Mrs. Tanner going into the ER, but she took a downturn en route. They defibrillated herto try and get her to try and get her heart back, but there's no chanceof getting anything cogent from her. Not tonight, anyway. Whatabout on your end?
Mulder: (on phone) We're going house-to-house, here. That's the only thing I can think to do. We got a chopper coming in, but until then I'd say Betts has got a pretty good chance of getting away.If he steals a car or gets a ride, he could get away for good.
(Scully notices dark fluid has dripped onto her head from top ofambulance.)
Mulder: (on phone) I mean, he obviously worked this thing out pretty well, Scully, so if there's anything you can get out of Mrs.Tanner tonight, anything at all, at this point we don't have much elseto go on.
Scully: (on phone) Mulder, get over here right now.
Mulder: (on phone) What?
Scully: (on phone) Get over here now.
(Scully draws her gun and climbs up ladder on side of ambulance tolook on top. Leonard Betts grabs her foot and pushes her in the vehicle.)
Scully: Ahh!
Betts: I'm sorry … but you've got something I need.

Episode Number: 85
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday January 26, 1997
Production Code: 4X14

Season 4: El Mundo Gira (4X11)

Writer: John Shiban
Director: Tucker Gates

Mulder and Scully investigate when a young Mexican woman, Maria Dorantes is found dead in a Migrant Workers Camp in the San Janqui Valley. Eyewitnesses report three loud booms, a blinding light and a sudden downpour of hot yellow rain just before Maria's body was discovered. Evidence that Mulder recognises as Fortean events, strange occurrences often linked to alien encounters. One witness an elderly woman, Flakita believes El Chupacabra, a hairless creature from Mexican folklore is responsible.

Scully is sceptical especially when it turns out that Maria was involved in a love triangle with two brothers, Eladio and Soledad Buente. Scully believes that one of the brothers killed Maria out of jealousy, until she autopsies Maria's body and finds it covered in a green fungal growth. Mulder interviews Soledad, who blames the killing on his brother Eladio, who has been missing since Maria's death. With the help of immigration agent Lozano, Mulder manages to track down Eladio, he has been taken in to custody by the Immigration service.

Eladio is segregated from the other immigrants as they are fearful of him, believing him to be El Chupacabra. On questioning Eladio denies killing Marita. Scully informs Mulder that Maria was killed by a fungal infection which seems to clear Eladio of blame. However Eladio escapes from custody and goes on the run. As Mulder tracks him, he discovers more fungus covered bodies and begins to wonder if the fungus is extra terrestrial in origin.

Notes:
'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".

This episode had some delays during production. The migrant worker's camp was built from scratch in the middle of a large waste ground, unfortunately a storm dumped several inches of snow onto the sunbaked 'San Joaquin Valley'. Crew members had to scurry ahead of each camera setup, melting down the snow with hot water and blow dryers.

The references to El Chupacabra are based on an actual urban legend, myth or true story, depending on which version of the tale you believe. First sightings were in Puerto Rico in the late 1980s and it seems to be a creature mostly confined to Latin American communities. Literally meaning 'goat sucker' it is supposed to be a creature that preys on livestock. Descriptions vary widely, from a doglike form to a lizardlike being with spines.

Quotes:
Skinner: You would think that with the resources we have, we'd be able to find these men. I'm not hearing a good explanation why this hasn't happened.Scully: Well, Sir, they have a way of being almost invisible.
Mulder: The truth is... nobody cares.

Scully: Did he tell you what happened?
Mulder: A flash of light, yellow rain, Maria! MARIA!

Scully: Mulder, I know you're not going to like this, but I think the aliens in this story are not the villians, they're the victims.

Mulder: They think he's the Chupacabra.
Lozano: That may be. But I will tell you with a tremendous degree of certainty this guy is not Erik Estrada.

Episode Number: 84
Season Number: 4
First Aired: Sunday January 12, 1997
Production Code: 4X11