Redux

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Scully helps Mulder to fake his own death in an effort to discover which members of the FBI they can trust before the agents individually search for an answer to Scully's cancer.

[edit] Summary

A distraught Fox Mulder sits in his apartment. He receives a phone call from Michael Kritschgau, who tells him that 'they' may be listening. Mulder, spotting a small hole in his ceiling rushes upstairs and bursts into the apartment above his. Inside he finds Ostelhoff burning phone records. When Ostlehoff reaches for his gun Mulder shoots him. Mulder meets Dana Scully (played by Gillian Anderson) at her apartment, telling her that Ostlehoff was a Department of Defense employee spying on him for at least two months and he now lays dead in his apartment. He also reveals that the phone records he was burning show numerous calls made to the FBI.

The next day Scully heads to Mulder's apartment and identifies Ostlehoff's body as being Mulder's. Assistant Director Walter Skinner meets Scully in the hallway, telling her that Section Chief Scott Belvins is requesting she meet with him on the matter. Later, Scully meets with Blevins, Skinner and another Senior Agent. Scully denies that she came to believe in aliens as Mulder does, but admits to her meeting with Kritchgau and what he told her and Mulder. Meanwhile Mulder heads to the Department of Defense Headquarters, getting inside with Ostlehoff's card. Kritchgau intercepts him soon after and tells him that the card gives him higher clearance and potentially the ability to find the cure for Scully's cancer.

The Cigarette Smoking Man heads to Mulder's apartment and is surprised to realize the apartment was being monitored. Scully does some research into the phone numbers that Ostlehoff was calling and finds that they were made to the executive level of the FBI and potentially could have been to Skinner. Scully meets with the climatolgist whom she gave the ice core samples to, who says he found a chimera, a new lifeform within them. Scully believes that she can prove the conspiracy if she finds evidence of this organism in her own body and works with him to find whatever evidence she can. She finds Skinner there, who has forensics data on the body in Mulder's apartment and demands she stop lying for him. Mulder meanwhile continues through the Department of Defense Headquarters finding more fake alien bodies inside. He heads through a tunnel to the Pentagon, where he finds an elaborate filing system and warehouse of evidence, ultimately tracking down a small metal vial that he believes may contain Scully's cure.

Scully completes her research, finding evidence that the material from the ice core samples is within her body as well. She meets with an FBI panel led by Blevins that is looking into Mulder's death. Scully explains that Mulder was a victim of an elaborate conspiracy and that she was given a fatal disease by someone in the room. As she's about to present her evidence her nose bleeds and she collapses.

Mulder brings the vial he found to the Lone Gunmen, who tell him its not a cure, but only deionized water.

[edit] Background Information

A quote in this episode, "Let the truth be known, though the heavens fall," comes from District Attorney/Judge Jim Garrison, who said this to a reporter while investigating and prosecuting the only criminal case directly linked to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. There are also a few allusions to the Oliver Stone film JFK, such as the extensive use of archival footage in the meeting with Kritschgau, which vaguely mirrors Garrison meeting Mr. X, and the meetings between Cigarette Smoking Man and The Elder at the horse track may be an allusion to Garrison meeting a witness at a horse track in the film.

This episode features two sections of archive footage from TXF: "Pilot" and another from "Paper Clip". The first clip from the pilot episode shows Scully entering Scott Blevins' office and the second features her, for the first time, seeing Mulder and, simultaneously, entering his basement office. The footage from "Paper Clip" shows Mulder hurriedly finding a file on his sister, Samantha, while accompanied by Scully in the Strughold Mining Company.
The tagline to this episode is "All Lies Lead To The Truth."

[edit] Links and References

[edit] References

SEMICOLON-SEPARATED LIST OF ITEMS/LOCATIONS REFERENCED IN EPISODE (BUT NOT LINKED TO IF ALREADY LINKED IN SUMMARY OR GUEST STARS SECTIONS)

Previous episode:
Gethsemane

The X-Files
Season 5

Next episode:
Redux II

Series:	The X-Files
Original Airdate:	November 2, 1997
Production Number:	5X02
Date(s):	October 1997
Written by:	Chris Carter
Directed by:	Kim Manners