Mulder: … I remembered this, a documentary I saw in college about an insane asylum. It gave me nightmares.
Scully: I didn’t think anything gave you nightmares.
Mulder: Eh, I was young.

Written by: Frank Spotnitz

Directed by: Rob Bowman

Original Air Date: May 12th, 1995

Principal Setting: Dudley, Arkansas

Episode Summary: 

Note: Going into more detail and spoiling this episode due to so much going on

The episode opens up in Dudley, Arkansas as the local health inspector George Kearns chases his young fling girlfriend through the woods. He loses her and suddenly meets his demise as an axe-wielding, tribal mask wearing assassin kills him.

Mulder and Scully investigate and talk to Kearn’s wife and learn that he was about to recommend a local chicken plant, Chaco Chicken, be closed down due to multiple health violations. The Chaco Chicken floor manager is questioned and claims Kearns had a overblown vendetta against them, however plant owner Walter Chaco’s grand daughter Paula is suffering from hallucinations and pulls a knife on the floor manager and is shot by the local sheriff.

They discover after doing an autopsy on Paula that she is actually 47, although looks like she’s in her mid-20’s, and suffering from Creutzfelft-Jakob disease, a rare brain disease that causes dementia. When a local chicken truck nearly collides with the agent’s car, it crashes into a stream revealing the plant’s blood red runoff waste. Mulder orders them to dredge the stream and tons of bones are found with smooth, rounded ends, which happens when bones are boiled.

Chaco realizes the Mulder and Scully need to be dealt with order the floor manager Harold deal with them. Mulder goes after Chaco suspecting he is a cannibal, and finds numerous heads in a secret closet in the middle of the entry room (Rule #1: If your hiding severed heads, hide them in a more discreet place then in a closet that you see right when you walk into your house). Mulder calls Scully, but she gets cut off as Chaco knocks her out. She is lead to a bonfire ceremony where she is strapped down to be executed. At the last second Mulder saves her by shooting the masked man, who is revealed to be Sheriff Arens. Harold attempts to shoot Mulder, but is trampled to death by his own townsfolk.

Scully explains that Chaco’s plant has been closed down and that twenty-seven Dudley residents have died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. She reveals Chaco had spent time with a cannibalistic tribe after his transport plane was shot down in New Guinea in WWII. She also states that his remains have never been found – the final scene suggests that Chaco’s remains are being fed to chickens at his plant (Mmm who’s craving KFC now?).

Personal Commentary:

I have a few gripes on “Our Town”, mainly that there is so many plot lines introduced in a short 45 minutes that a lot of it is undeveloped. Were there really people getting ground into the chicken feed? It seems like they tease that, but the episode goes into the cannibal direction and never fully goes back to that. The town felt so small due to the lack of characters being introduced and the viewer really can’t see the scope of the brainwashing at the end. It’s a watchable episode just with too much going on.

Episode Grade: C-

Favorite Scene: 

Behind the scenes with Frank Spotnitz

Fun Facts:

• Almost every guest character in this episode is named after a real life cannibal.
• Chaco Chicken was based on Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, which is where bones consumed by the Anasazi were found.
• The phenomenon that Mulder and Scully observe where the ends of the bones are smooth is commonly referred to by archaeologists’ as “pot polish,” owing to the ends of the bones rubbing the inside of the pot as it is stirred.

Faces You May Recognize:

• The local sheriff, Gary Grubbs, has played in JFK, Ray, and numerous TV show appearances like Bones, Treme, and The O.C.

Mulder: He believes the government is out to get him.

Mr. X: It’s tax season, so do most Americans.

Written by: Vince Gilligan

Directed by: James A. Contner

Original Air Date: May 5th, 1995

Principal Setting: Richmond, Virginia

Episode Summary:

This episode feels like a page out of the Twilight Zone, so it’s only fitting we summarize it like this…

Que Twilight Zone music 

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the X-Files Zone.

Rod Serling: Meet Dr. Chester Ray Banton, recently unemployed from Polarity Magnetics, who has a fear of light. His fear manifests not from being afraid of light itself, but of his destructive shadow that vaporizes whomever touches it, sending them into a black hole of nothingness. He is in a desperate search for a cure, at the same time the government wants to take him away for testing.

Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully take on the case to find the truth behind why people are being killed with only a scorched circle left as evidence. They get more information from Dr. Christopher Davey, who worked alongside Dr. Banton, and he reveals he was doing testing on dark matter and something went wrong.

Mulder tries to reach out to Mr. X for more details on the case, but he is unwilling to take the risk to help him. The agents realize they are being left in the dark (pun intended) with all the details in this case, and Mr. X and Dr. Davey have ulterior motives to capture Dr. Banton to do testing on his killer shadow.

Dr. Banton has discovered his so called friends are enemies and Mulder and Scully can do nothing but watch the government take over and run tests on him the rest of his life. A man who was searching for peace and found himself deep in the X-Files Zone.

Personal Commentary:

This is the first episode written by the great Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, and you can really get a sense of his gift of creative storytelling and creating dynamic characters. Tony Shalhoub does a fantastic job of acting paranoid, and you genuinely sympathize with him due to the fact he isn’t killing people voluntarily.

The last scene as you see him completely zoned out with one singular tear, as Dr. Davey does testing on him, is very sad and pulls right at your heart strings. Even though seeing people getting killed by someone’s shadow seems cheesy, it is done very competently for its time with 90’s special effects.

Episode Grade: B+

Favorite Scene: 

This whole episode is good. Don’t really have a standout favorite. Here’s another X-Files Abridged for your entertainment.

Fun Facts:

• First episode written by Vince Gilligan. He would go on to direct some of the best X-Files episodes, including the hilarious “Bad Blood”.
• As Mulder and Scully are investigating the first crime scene, Scully inspects the heat register. The detective says “you don’t think anyone could have squeezed in there”, to which Mulder replies, “you never know.” Obviously a reference to their arch-nemesis Eugene Victor Tooms from season one who could change his shape to fit through air vents.
• Originally, the script called for Banton’s shadow to be able to move independently, but Chris Carter scrapped the idea.

Faces You May Recognize:

• Tony Shalhoub is famous for playing in Men in Black and Wings. Although most will recognize him as the obsessive compulsive detective in Monk.

Scully: According to the briefing, the prisoners escaped by hiding in a laundry cart.
Mulder: I don’t think the guards are watching enough prison movies.

Written by: Chris Carter & Howard Gordon

Directed by: Rob Bowman

Original Air Date: April 28th, 1995

Principal Setting: Cumberland Prison, Virginia

Episode Summary: 

The episode begins in the Costa Rican forests as Doctor Robert Torrence is doing a study on bug specimens and comes across a dead warthog that has bugs and boils all over him. He squeezes one of the boils (never squeeze a huge, pulsating boil EVER) and it sprays puss onto his face. Hours later he calls for help with a high fever and covered in boils himself. Troops arrive and find him dead covered in bugs and being consumed by vultures.

Meanwhile, an unknown package is sent to an inmate at a prison in Virginia. He throws the contents into the corner of his cell as he discovers it is a piece of meat that is infected with the virus. A dozen prisoners are infected and two lucky inmates that are ordered to clean the room up decide to escape instead. Mulder and Scully are assigned to the case by a mysterious source.

They find that the truth needs to be told to the general public, but the CSM and disease control don’t want that information to be leaked. Mulder desperately tries to locate the two escaped inmates before they spread the virus, and Scully stays at the hospital to attempt to find a cure. Scully has a revelation and finds what could be the cure, but not before many lives are lost at the prison. Mulder wants the truth of the outbreak to be known to save lives, but the Cigarette Smoking Man is set to hiding it to avoid mass hysteria.

Personal Commentary:

“F. Emasculata” is a great episode with constant action throughout. It lacks really anything paranormal to be a true X-file, but it makes up with the very real dread of a virus getting loose to the public. It reveals that the drug companies and disease control very well could resort to killing off prison inmates to just find a cure for the virus.

It’s also even scarier today with the recent outbreak of Ebola, and it makes you think how much information is hid by the government to avoid mass panic. How frustrating CSM is in hiding the disease from the public, it does make sense to try to reduce the hysteria. Although, if you’re going to do that, at least try to find a cure. Scully seems like the only one working on a cure besides the CDC trying to use a prison as a guinea pig test to find the anti-virus.

Other than that, it is a very gross episode with all the boil popping and puss flinging on faces. Unless you’re into popping zits – than you may have a weird satisfaction from it.

Episode Grade: B+

Favorite Scene:

Another rendition of The X-Files Abridged

Fun Facts:

• The exploding pustules were carefully rigged to burst on command. Makeup supervisor Toby Lindala constructed a hand-held device that connected via tube to the faux sores. When the device was pressed, the pustule would burst.
• The first episode where cellphones are used on a regular basis.

Faces You May Recognize:

• Dean Norris is famous for playing in the films Little Miss Sunshine and Terminator 2, and TV shows Under The Dome and most notably Hank Schrader from Breaking Bad.
• 
• Charles Martin Smith has played roles in The Untouchables and American Graffiti.

• John Pyper-Ferguson has played roles in Drive and Unforgiven and most recently has appeared on The Last Ship.

Mulder: See, this is a helium balloon here and the one thing I did learn in kindergarten is when you let them go the float up up and away, but see this is moving away from him. Horizontally.

Scully: Did you learn about wind in kindergarten?

Written by: Sara Charno

Directed by: Mark Vejar

Original Air Date: April 14th, 1995

Principal Setting: Arlington, Virginia

Episode Summary:

A two year old boy is mysteriously killed by getting run over by a train at a Virginia park, as a ghostly figure lures him with a balloon to his death. Mulder and Scully investigate despite the police already doing an official investigation, and find out the boy’s brother is in great danger. There seems the same evil presence that led his brother to a premature death has manifest itself inside of his brother Charlie. Now accident after tragic accident happens whenever they are around Charlie, and his Nazi cult follower grandma isn’t helping matters. The agents conclude this is more than just a devil possession, as there may be more evil being conjured up than they expected.

Personal Commentary:

This episode has some twists as you try to figure out why crap hits the fan whenever they’re around Charlie and who is really controlling him to cause these accidents. Although there was also a lot of plot not fully explained, like the messed up Nazi loving grandma’s influence and her cult chanting practices. Although you think the grandma is to blame, she actually saves Charlie as her and her religious friends exorcise the spirit out of Charlie. It’s not the most interesting episode and is very forgettable.

The only takeaway is that you should never trust children that appear in an X-Files episode. They are always evil.

Episode Grade: C-

Favorite Scene: 

Here’s the episode teaser that proves how convoluted this one is.

Fun Facts:

• The first appearance of Chuck Burks, Mulder’s go-to guy for all things related to digital imaging.
• The episode was written by ‘Sara Charno’. Before becoming a writer, Charno was a doctor of Eastern medicine.
• Joel Palmer, who plays Charlie/Michael Holvey, also played Kevin Morris in the season 1 episode “Conduit.”

Faces You May Recognize:

• Joel Palmer, who plays Charlie, has played parts in Dreamcatcher and Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog. He retired from acting in 2005.

Mulder: It’s not fair. It’s not our time. We still have work to do.
Scully: Mulder. When they found me, after the doctors and… even my family had given up, I experienced something that I never told you about. Even now it’s hard to find the words. But this one thing I’m certain of—as certain as I am of this life—we have nothing to fear when it’s over.

Written by: Howard Gordon & Alex Gansa

Directed by: Rob Bowman

Original Air Date: March 10th, 1995

Principal Setting: Norwegian Sea

Episode Summary:

After a US destroyer ship vanishes for 42 hours in the area of the Bermuda Triangle, a group of sailors are rescued but all of them look like they are 100 years old. All but one dies and the last survivor is under guard in a military hospital in critical condition. Mulder has records of other ships disappearing in the same area just off Norway. He comes to the theory that it’s part of the World War II Philadelphia experiments where the Navy tried to develop technology to make ships invisible to radar.

They travel to Norway and have a local fisherman to take them 10 miles off the coast where the ship was last sighted. They find the missing ship, the USS Ardent, in the North Sea heavily rusted and abandoned except for one crew member, the Captain. The Captain has aged considerably, although they find another man that has somehow avoided the quick aging process. The longer they are on the ship, the older Scully and Mulder get. Scully has a scientific explanation that the ship is slowly headed towards a large metallic object, possibly a meteor, which causes the ocean to act like massive batteries which increase free radicals and oxidation to increase the aging process.

After the Captain tells them they can only stay alive by drinking the clean water supply, toilet water (yuck!), Scully determines it being contaminated water that is the culprit. Mulder has aged to a wrinkly, bloated mess and both of them have accepted their fate of dying, when their coast guard friends come to the rescue.

Personal Commentary:

This episode felt a lot like a The Twilight Zone episode or bit of a copy of when Star Trek tackled the rapidly aging topic. It’s a pretty slow moving episode that finds the agents at the brink of sure death (very similar to “Darkness Falls”), and the aging make up is just terrible, making them look more bloated than wrinkly and skinny.

The episode holds some emotional weight displaying the devotion they have for one another as Scully does anything she can to keep Mulder alive. I mean she made a concoction of lemon juice, tuna water, and snow globe water to keep him hydrated for pete’s sake. Although I think I may just die if I had to drink that to survive. Overall, the aging ship created a dark atmosphere and it had some good Sculder character development, but this slow plotted episode doesn’t have the suspense that it should.

Episode Grade: B-

Favorite Scene:

This is a very touchy scene, despite the terrible aging makeup.

Fun Facts:

• Most of the Norwegian spoken in this episode is flawed, and apparently Danish language coaches were used. Two examples make this clear: the first is the word “bliver” (“becomes/stays/remains”) instead of the Norwegian “blir”. The second is when Vladimir Kudich is supposedly saying ‘Go to Hell’ in Norwegian, where he is actually using the Danish phrase, which in this case is structurally very different from the Norwegian.
• The title “Død Kalm” is probably meant to resemble Norwegian for “Dead Calm” (referring to the movie Dead Calm (1989)) but it’s gibberish. While the word “død” actually means dead, “kalm” is not a Norwegian word. The literal translation would be “Dødelig ro” (a deadly calm), whereas the proper translation (a quiet sea without waves) would be “Vindstille” or “Blikkstille”. And in any case for a Norwegian title only the first letter is capitalized (Død kalm).
• When Mulder shows Scully the map that charts all the voyages that passed through the 65th parallel, she says to him, “Another Bermuda Triangle?” to which he replies,”More like ‘A Wrinkle In Time’.” He is referencing the 1962 Science Fiction book of the same name by Madeleine L’Engle.

Faces You May Recognize:

Not really any familiar faces in this one. Not for me at least. Feel free to point them out in the comments if you recognized someone.

Scully: Did you find what you were looking for?
Mulder: No. But I found something that I thought I’d lost. Faith to keep looking.

Written by: Frank Spotnitz

Directed by: Rob Bowman

Original Air Date: February 17th, 1995

Principal Setting: Maryland and the Arctic Circle

Episode Summary:

After the so called Mulder/Alien Bounty Hunter throws Scully against the wall and is taken prisoner (Scully has seriously taken a beating this season) for information on the whereabouts of Mulder, Samantha reveals the true reason the shape-shifting bounty hunter is out to kill her and the doctors. ABH is upset they are splicing alien DNA with human and clouding the gene pool (Really, who wouldn’t be upset about that? But killing them is a bit harsh).

Mulder arranges to swap his sister in return for Scully, as a sniper awaits in the nearby woods to take out the ABH, but it fails miserably. While Scully is returned safely, ABH gets grazed by a bullet and Samantha and the alien fall into the river below. A heartbroken Mulder has to be the bearer of bad news telling his father he lost her again. His father gives Mulder an envelope Samantha had left for him which has information on a women’s health clinic in Maryland.

Once he gets there he learns information on his sister that she is also an alien clone and she gives him more information on what truly is going on. Mulder leaves for the Arctic in search of the submarine that was attacked, and it’s A.D. Skinner who goes the extra mile to literally fight Mr. X for more information on Mulder’s whereabouts. Mulder receives more suffering than real answers, and Scully gets a chance to save Mulder’s life this time.

Personal Commentary:

“End Game”, also known as the last few moves in a chess game, represents the way the Alien Bounty Hunter used Mulder as a pawn to find his sister and also how Samantha herself led him to believe she was truly his sister only to be let down by her being a clone.

The conclusion is even better than the first half for many reasons – Skinner kicking some serious butt (literally) to find out where Mulder is headed and letting Scully know it came from “unofficial channels”, Mulder walking miles in the Arctic to only find more suffering but a spark of hope, and the last interaction after Scully saves Mulder’s life and her smile from ear to ear as Mulder wakes up.

It really shows the amount of respect Skinner has for Mulder and Scully and this episode is the start of you really rooting for him. I also liked the ice and submarine effect as it came inches to decapitating Mulder.

Episode Grade: A

Favorite Scene:

The end scene when Scully saves Mulder’s life and their touching interaction is my favorite scene. Couldn’t find a clip so here’s another X-Files Abridged.

Fun Facts:

• Steven Williams (Mr. X) and Mitch Pileggi (A.D. Skinner) improvised their famous elevator fight scene on the spot. During the filming of the sequence Williams actually broke a knuckle on his right hand when he accidentally punched Pileggi. When Rob Bowman was dissatisfied with the first take of Skinner slamming X against the wall, Pileggi did it again with such force that the (fake) elevator wall broke.
• One hundred and forty tons of snow and ice were trucked into a soundstage to create the scene with the submarine toward the end, and the stage had to be refrigerated for five days.
• This was the first episode of the series written by Frank Spotnitz. He would later become one of the main collaborators on many mythology-centric episodes, and a co-writer on the two ”X-Files” feature films.
• This is the first time Scully is shown getting into Mulder’s apartment by way of a key on her own key chain. Their relationship must be close if Mulder trusted her with a key to his conspiracy bachelor pad.

Faces You May Recognize:

Same people that were in “Colony”. I’ll give Mitch Pileggi another shout out because Skinner is a real bad ass in this episode.

• Famous for being in Basic Instinct and both the show and movies of The X-Files. He is also played roles in TV shows Sons of Anarchy, Supernatural, and will also be in the new X-Files revival season!

Scully: Our friend from the CIA is about as unbelievable as his story. As is everything about this case. I mean whatever happened to “Trust no one,” Mulder?
Mulder: I changed it to “Trust everyone.” I didn’t tell you?

Written by: Chris Carter

Directed by: Nick Marck

Original Air Date: February 10th, 1995

Principal Setting: Northeastern U.S.

Episode Summary: 

Mulder and Scully get intrigued when they anonymously receive three newspaper obituaries for three men that appear to be identical triplets. Although they are not related, they all have worked in abortion clinics. Meanwhile, an alien craft has immobilized a US submarine patrolling under the Arctic ice and there is now an alien bounty hunter on the loose killing the identical doctors one by one. They receive help from a CIA agent that suspiciously knows the location of all the doctors, and the doctors recognize his true self right when they see him. Scully gets the address of the missing doctor and discovers a lab where clones are being manufactured in tanks.

During all the craziness, Mulder receives a call from his father saying there is a family emergency so he books it to Martha’s Vineyard where his parents live. When he gets there, his world is turned upside down when he sees a woman talking to his mother and his father reveals she claims to be his sister, Samantha, who was kidnapped by aliens 11 years ago. She tells Mulder that her step dad is being hunted by this bounty hunter, that can take any person’s form, and that her very life is in danger.

Mulder desperately tries to get a hold of Scully to let her know the CIA agent is not who he says he is. After an intense game of phone tag, Mulder finally gets a hold of Scully over the phone, right when Mulder walks into her hotel room. Dun Dun Duuuunnn!

Personal Commentary:

“Colony” starts with a prologue to the conclusion of this two-part episode, and you immediately think “Wait, did I accidently skip ahead?”. It pulls you right in, and it’s a fantastic start to a superb mythos episode. The alien bounty hunter makes his first appearance, acting a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator with that quiet assassin look in his eyes and the way he can shape shift.

I enjoyed the conversation Mulder and Scully have in his office when they switch roles and he believes all the things the CIA agent is telling them, but Scully is the one that doesn’t trust him and thinks he has ulterior motives. He also wants to believe in all his heart that it truly is his sister that has come back, but when she starts talking about her step father being an alien and a bounty hunter is out to kill them, he starts to lose hope.

The action never stops and with a conclusion that leaves you screaming at the screen for Scully’s sake, this episode is a must see to further develop the X-Files mythology story arch.

Episode Grade: A-

Favorite Scene: 

This whole episode is great, so here is another The X-Files Abridged clip.

Fun Facts:

• The first appearance of Mulder’s parents and the alien bounty hunter.
• To create an unique and otherworldly sound made by the weapon used by the hunter, several sound effects were considered before co-producer Paul Rabwin voiced the noise himself on a microphone.
• Scully is awaken at 11:21 for the fourth time in the series.
• Rebecca Toolan, who plays Mulder’s mother, is only one year older than David Duchovny.

Faces You Recognize:

• The Alien Bounty Hunter, Brian Thompson, is famous for playing one of the punk kids in The Terminator and Brok from DragonHeart.