Series:	The X-Files
Original Airdate:	2-9-1997
Production Number:	4x15
Date(s):	FICTIONAL YEAR OR DATE(S) OF EVENTS IN EPISODE
Written by:	Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz
Directed by:	Rob Bowman

Scully begins to come to terms with the fact that she has cancer, but her friends and allies begin fighting to save her life, even if it means making a deal with the devil...

Contents 1 Summary 1.1 Teaser 1.2 Act One 1.3 Act Two 2 Background Information 3 Notes 4 Goofs 5 Links and References 5.1 Guest Stars 5.2 References

SummaryEdit

TeaserEdit

"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 threatening 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."

— Dana Scully's diary

Scully stands in a hospital gown next to a bare lighted wall, studying a cranial x-ray that she holds. The x-ray shows an irregularly-shaped transparent mass, between the eyes and behind the nasal cavity.

Act OneEdit

HOLY CROSS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
WASHINGTON, D.C.

Agent Mulder visits Scully in the hospital where she is staying, bringing flowers to her. When he asks about her x-ray, Scully reveals it shows a cancerous tumor, also mentioning that Mulder is the only person she has called about it. She describes her cancer as not operable and extremely difficult to treat but Mulder refuses to accept this. Eventually, Scully confirms Mulder's suspicion that there are some people who have received treatment for her particular form of cancer.

Assistant Director Skinner meets with the agents in his own office, sympathetically learning of Scully's plight and agreeing - on her request - to keep the matter confidential. Scully relates to Skinner that she is eager to start investigating her cancer and Mulder informs him that, in the previous year, the agents encountered a group of female purported-abductees who reported symptoms similar to Scully, after having implants removed from the base of their own necks. According to Mulder, one of these women, Betsy Hagopian, had been undergoing treatment but has recently been uncontactable.

ALLENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

Mulder and Scully arrive at Betsy Hagopian's former property, only to find it is soon to go on sale. A female realtor opens the door to the agents, jumping to conclusions about their identities, and reveals that Betsy Hagopian recently passed away. After Mulder shows his FBI badge to her, the realtor reveals she is ignorant of Betsy's activities as a MUFON member. On Mulder's request, the agents are allowed inside, where Scully begins to recall having met the women. The agents discover that someone is remotely accessing a computer in the building's basement and Scully starts to call for a trace to be run.

She and Mulder arrive, at night, outside the apartment building where the hacker, Curt Crawford, lives. The duo attempt to enter the building, Mulder heading up a fire escape at the property's rear. Curt Crawford makes an escape attempt but is caught by the agents. Mulder notices blood running from Scully's nose but she insists that she is fine.

In Curt Crawford's apartment, Scully cleans her nosebleed but exits to find that Mulder has released Crawford from handcuffs. Scully learns that Crawford is allegedly an innocent MUFON member who was downloading files for safekeeping, as he believes a dangerous government conspiracy is trying to cover up the files and were involved in the fates of the women. According to Crawford, virtually all the other members of the MUFON group that Scully met died from cancer in the last year, with the exception of Penny Northern, who is now hospitalized in critical condition. Mulder privately advises a reluctant Scully to not only admit that her condition was due to her own abduction but to also interview Penny Northern, as an investigator if a personal visit will be too difficult for Scully.

ALLENTOWN-BETHLEHEM MEDICAL CENTER

Scully visits the bed-bound Penny Northern, who startles Scully by immediately recognizing her. Penny tries to remind Scully of having met each other during Scully's abduction but Scully apologetically explains that she has no memory of that experience. When Scully declares that she came to ask Penny some questions, Penny presumes that Scully's queries were to be about Doctor Scanlon, who treated Betsy Hagopian and is now treating Penny. According to her, Dr. Scanlon is close to finding the cause of the cancers.

Receiving a call from Scully, Mulder tells her he has found evidence, in the MUFON files, that some of the group members had been treated at a nearby fertility clinic. Scully lengthily asks Mulder to help her be readmitted into hospital, so Mulder helpfully agrees. He irritably departs from Crawford's apartment, however. A mysterious man, armed with a gimlet weapon, subsequently enters the apartment, scaring Crawford. As the man exits, Crawford lies dead, his remains becoming a puddle of green ooze on the apartment floor.

Act TwoEdit

Lying in bed, Scully slowly awakens and initially thinks she sees a silhouetted, alien-like being at her bedside, but it is actually Dr. Scanlon. He reminds her - referring to her medical training - that the treatments of the chemotherapy and radiation will be very traumatic for her. Scully's mother arrives so the doctor leaves. Although Agent Scully tries to assure her mother that she doesn't feel ill, Mrs. Scully is outraged that her daughter didn't immediately tell her about the cancer. Agent Scully professes that she had been waiting for answers and claims she has found some clarity in the hospital, as well as a possible way to fight back. An upset Mrs. Scully urges her daughter not to keep information from her and reminds Agent Scully that she is now her mother's only daughter.

Background InformationEdit

• A storage drawer holding Scully's harvested eggs was labelled with a card dated 10/29/94. This date should correspond to the time period of her abduction by the aliens.

• The title of this episode means "remember that you are mortal" in Latin. In Latin, it can also mean "Remember you will die". The phrase 'Memento Mori' also refers to a type of Victorian photography in which a recently deceased person is photographed post-mortem, often with family members, dressed and posed as though in a deep sleep rather than dead. 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.
• 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.
• 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.

NotesEdit

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 October 29, 1994 - a few days before she was returned to the hospital in the season 2 episode 'One Breath'.

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.

GoofsEdit

Just before Mulder goes into the lab with the Kurt Crawford clones, Byers sees the police getting out of their car at the front of the lab complex. Mulder spends several minutes in the lab with the clones; the scene then cuts to Byers at the front again and the police are just a few feet from their vehicle, although quite a few minutes have passed.

Links and ReferencesEdit

Guest StarsEdit

• Mitch Pileggi as A.D. Walter Skinner
• William B. Davis as the Cigarette-Smoking Man
• Tom Braidwood as Frohike
• Dean Haglund as Langly
• Bruce Harwood as Byers
• Sean Allan as Dr. Kevin Scanlon
• Gillian Barber as Penny Northern
• Julie Bond as a Woman
• Sheila Larken as Mrs. Scully
• David Lovgren as Kurt Crawford
• Vanessa Morley as Young Samantha
• Casey F. Murphy as Young Kurt Crawford
• Marilyn Norry as a Nurse
• Morris Panych as a Grey-Haired Man

ReferencesEdit

Hagopian, Betsy; clipper chip; clone; DNA, human ova; Lombard Research Facility; MUFON; nasopharyngeal cancer; Vegreville

Previous episode: Never Again

The X-Files Season 4

Next episode: Kaddish