Apocrypha

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The assassin who killed Scully's sister is finally captured after shooting Skinner while Mulder and Scully search for Alex Krycek, who has been infested with the black oil virus. (Part 2 of 2)

[edit] Summary

A radiated and dying sailor from the Zeus Faber is debriefed in 1953.

He recounts a series of incidents aboard the submarine, where a contingent of the crew are dying from radiation burns and the rest contemplate mutiny against the apparently insane Captain. After a struggle, the Captain is locked in the vessel's sickbay. As he turns around from beating at the door, the men look in horror as his eyes glaze over with black oil. One of the sailors attacks the Captain with a spanner, knocking him unconscious. The oil abandons its host, escaping through a drain in the floor.

The sailor insists to the government interrogators – who are revealed to be a young Bill Mulder and Cigarette Smoking Man – that they remedy the problem. When the sailor asks whether he can trust Mulder, CSM steps forward and says "you can trust all of us."

[edit] Act One

Scully visits Skinner at the hospital and he passes her some information about the man who shot him.

Having arrived in the United States, Krycek and Mulder exchange the digital tape in the front seat of a car, with the possessed Krycek remaining quiet and emotionless. As they take to the road, they realize that they are being followed. The trailing car starts to be driven aggressively and knocks them down an embankment, the crash rendering Mulder unconscious. One of the other car's occupants pulls an unharmed Krycek from his car and takes him to an underpass, intending to interrogate him. The other occupant of the car suddenly sees a blinding light from where they had gone as he moves in on Mulder.

The Cigarette Smoking Man receives the prognosis of a very radiated man and orders the medical staff to destroy the body, despite the fact that the man is still alive.

[edit] Act Two

Mulder wakes up in a hospital and explains to Scully that he ran into Krycek in Hong Kong and that they were on their way back to the States to get the tape. The man who shot Skinner has the identical genetic signature as the man who shot Scully's sister Melissa. Skinner is not surprised.

The Syndicate meet to deliberate on the situation with the tape, which they believed had been destroyed earlier in the year. The Well-Manicured Man makes clear his disdain for the work done by the CSM's assassins and scorns his dependence on violence and murder to achieve his goals.

Mulder has had the diving suit shipped to his office. The oil on it matches that found on Mrs. Gauthier, whose body was found unconscious in the men's room in Hong Kong.

The Lone Gunmen go ice-skating as a ruse to pick up an envelope that reportedly contains the tape and has been left in a locker inside the ice rink. The Gunmen immediately give the envelope to Mulder, who has been waiting in a car outside the rink, but they find that the tape is gone.

At an apartment used by the CSM, Krycek enters, flanked by Luis Cardinal. The CSM, who had already destroyed the tape personally, tells Krycek that he has something that the newcomer wants but does not go into further detail about this. The CSM is completely unsurprised when Krycek's eyes glaze over with the black oil.

[edit] Act Three

The Well-Manicured Man meets with Mulder.

The CSM collectively meets with the other members of the Syndicate, who are highly unhappy with his performances regarding the digital tape, the salvaged submarine and the attempted murder of Skinner. Although a calm CSM assures them that the tape has now been destroyed and that he will take care of Skinner for good, this neither convinces nor appeases the Well-Manicured Man, who once again irritably vocalizes his disapproval.

As Mulder and the Lone Gunmen attempt to obtain some clues from the empty envelope, Byers talks about high-tech government apparatus which can track down the origin of any item. As he is speaking, Mulder uses a pencil to shade in a part of the envelope and reveal the indent of a New York City phone number. He calls it, managing to contact the headquarters of the Syndicate. Mulder speaks to the Well-Manicured Man, who agrees to a meeting in Central Park.

Scully learns from her background checks that the man they are looking for is Luis Cardinal, a Nicaraguan mercenary and assassin who worked with the CIA in Central America.

The Well-Manicured Man and Mulder meet that night. The Syndicate elder answers Mulder's inquiries as to the nature of the submarine, which had been deployed to locate and recover a crashed UFO. After a long conversation, Mulder goes to leave and is surprised when the Well-Manicured Man asks where the tape is. Mulder tells him that Krycek has it but realizes that, like himself, the Well-Manicured Man is not aware of Krycek's location.

Scully finds out that Skinner is being transferred to another hospital. She catches up with the ambulance as it begins to depart and joins Skinner in the back of the vehicle. At a traffic light, Scully hears suspicious noises and becomes convinced that someone is about to attack them. She abruptly opens the door on Cardinal, who fires wildly and misses her before fleeing. After a brief chase, Scully catches up with him and holds him at gunpoint. She repeatedly demands to know whether he killed her sister although he ultimately begs her to believe that Krycek is to blame. Cardinal also claims that he will tell her everything she wants to know. Scully chooses not to shoot him and, upon the arrival of alerted police, Scully shows them her badge before handing Cardinal over to them.

[edit] Act Four

Krycek trapped behind Door 1013

After learning that the UFO is being stored at an abandoned missile silo in North Dakota, Scully and Mulder travel there and break into the complex. They enter one of many bunkers in the area and journey underground to a series of tunnels, in which they find a heap of radiated soldiers and are then both chased and detained by men dressed similarly to the deceased soldiers. As the agents are led outside, the CSM arrives via helicopter and denies Mulder's angry accusations. Behind a door (marked with the numbers 1013) that Scully and Mulder had almost reached, Krycek painfully regurgitates the black oil, with pours into the immobile UFO beneath him.

Scully and Mulder meet at Melissa's grave, where Scully reveals that Luis Cardinal was hung in his cell. She contemplates that the men they are dealing with will face no justice.

Meanwhile, a disheveled Krycek hammers on a small window built into door 1013, begging to be released. The silo, however, has been abandoned once again, leaving Krycek trapped underground.

[edit] Background Information

The door that Krycek is trapped behind in this episode is marked with the birth-month and date of series creator Chris Carter. Ten Thirteen is also the name of the company that produced the television series of The X-Files, Millennium and The Lone Gunmen.
For the scene in which Krycek expels the Black Oil into the UFO, Krycek actor Nicholas Lea wore a mask that fitted over his face, with many tubes that ran through his hair and down his back. Fake oil was then pumped out of the tubes, from off-camera. The prosthetics took over an hour to be applied to Lea and, while wearing the appliance, he found it too difficult to see and had to breath through a straw. Just as the crew finished applying the prosthetics, everyone took a lunch interval, annoying Lea even more.
The term "Apocrypha" means writings that are not considered genuine, such as Biblical or related texts that consequently do not form part of the accepted canon of scripture.
Bruce Harwood, the actor who portrays John Fitzgerald Byers, had no problem with the scene in which the Lone Gunmen visit the ice rink because he had trained as a figure skater in his early life.
This episode contains the second appearance of Agent Brian Fuller, who had previously appeared in the Season 1 episode "Squeeze".

[edit] Links and References

[edit] References

Black oil; Northeast Georgetown Medical Center; Washington, D.C.; Dulles International Airport; County Road 512; Maryland; Lariat Rent-a-car; Case 621517; Rockville; Central Park; 46th Street; New York City; New York; Foo Fighter; Black Crow; North Dakota; Silo 1013

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Piper Maru

The X-Files
Season 3

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Pusher


Series:	The X-Files
Original Airdate:	02-16-96
Production Number:	3x16
Date(s):	November 1995
Written by:	Frank Spotnitz, Chris Carter
Directed by:	Kim Manners