The X-Files – Alone

“Alone” is episode nineteen of season eight of The X-Files.

Ellicott, New York, at night, and a man arrives at a house. Inside, an elderly man in a wheelchair with various monitors asks the other if he did what he asked. It’s important. Promise he did it. The other, Gary, tells his father that the latter is sick and needs to be in a hospital. He doesn’t owe Stites anything. His father disagrees. When Gary leaves to make dinner, stuff falls in the chimney and the elderly man notices there’s a window open. He seems worried. He looks up and says that Gary didn’t do it. Something drops. Gary hears a thump and his father’s heart monitor stop. The wheelchair is overturned and empty. There’s something behind Gary, something with a tail. He looks around and something leaps at him.

Scully is packing up her desk, including the fused coins from “Dreamland” and Queequeg’s tag from “Quagmire”. Doggett arrives and Scully says she isn’t staying. The doctor told her to start her maternity leave. Insisted on it, in fact. Scully gives something to Doggett; a medallion commemorating the Apollo 11 spaceflight. Doggett asks why. Mulder gave it to Scully in “Max” and it symbolises teamwork. No-one gets there alone. After the past year, Scully wouldn’t be there if not for Doggett. Doggett asks if Scully is coming back eventually. She just smiles and leaves.

Doggett hears footsteps approaching the office but it’s not Scully. It’s a Leyla Harrison. She has a case, an X-file she thinks, that the local PD can’t explain. A murder in upstate New York. She’s booked a flight and has the crime report. Doggett asks who she is. His new partner.

They arrive in Ellicott. The old man’s body was found in the wood beyond the house. Doggett wants them to start inside. The dead man is Arlen Sacks, 72, caretaker for the estate on which the house is situated. No signs of physical trauma. The police suspect homicide given the dumping of the body. For the last few months Arlen was confined to a wheelchair and his son, Gary, is the chief suspect as he’s missing. Doggett doesn’t think it’s Gary. He’s found slime on the window and more on the floor. Harrison is excited that it might be a something, not a someone.

Outside the house, Doggett asks if this is Harrison’s first time in the field. It is. Doggett says Kersh is using her. Harrison begged for the assignment. She was in accounting and processed Mulder and Scully’s travel expenses. She knows the X-files inside out and is excited. At the site where Arlen’s body was dumped there’s more slime. Harrison suggests bile from a liver-eating mutant – Tooms – or an alien that shed its skin. Doggett gives her a look. Harrison will take the slime to a lab. Doggett hears a noise when she’s gone; the thing with a tail is in a tree.

Mulder arrives at Scully’s; it sounds like he’s going to a prenatal class with her. He’s been watching a lot of Oprah, now that he’s unemployed; in the previous episode, “Vienen”, Mulder took the blame for everything and was sacked. Scully isn’t sure leaving work is the best thing. She’s concerned about Doggett; Scully always had someone with her. Mulder is sure that Doggett can take care of himself.

Doggett enters the main house on the estate and has a poke around, finding a computer and a book, The Sixth Extinction, addressed to Herman Stites. Doggett senses something watching him and slowly takes out his gun. He bumps into Harrison, and warns her to be quiet. It’s here. Is she armed? Doggett wants Harrison to go outside and stand by the front door and Doggett will flush it out. Take the safety off.

Outside, Harrison is waiting when something attacks from above. Doggett hears shots and goes outside. Drag marks lead in away from the lawn. He follows them off the grass. And a trapdoor opens beneath him, shutting after he falls.

Scully calls Skinner, who’s leading a search party for Doggett and Harrison. Scully says she will head to the bureau. Skinner doesn’t want her to; she’s on maternity leave. Scully heads in anyway, and Mulder, who had got into the building with a tour, finds her doing an autopsy. Scully asks who’s qualified to lead the search for Doggett. Mulder knows someone. Himself.

Harrison really wanted to work on the X-files. She may have got far more than she bargained for.

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