“Christmas Carol” is episode six of season five of The X-Files.
The episode opens at the U.S. Naval Station in San Diego. Scully and her mother are visiting her brother, Bill, and his pregnant wife, Tara, for Christmas. Scully realises that Bill’s house is the same one they lived in when they were children living on the base. Everyone else heads upstairs, leaving Scully the only person downstairs when the phone rings. A woman at the other end calls Scully by name and tells Scully that someone, ‘she’, needs help, and Scully should go to her. When the line goes dead, Scully calls the San Diego field office of the FBI and gets the number traced.
Bill and Scully arrive at a house with an ambulance outside along with police. Inside, Scully asks what’s going on, and introduces herself. She says she got a phone call from this house, a woman’s voice saying someone needed help. 20 minutes ago. The detective, Kresge, says he’s been there 30 minutes and no-one called out to Scully or anyone else. The phone is of the hook. A woman is in the bath with slit wrists. Mrs Roberta Sim, a suicide, dead for at least three hours. Did Scully get a call from the great beyond? Outside, Bill says they are saying that Scully got a call from a dead woman. Scully thought it was from another dead woman. Melissa.
Scully sees a little girl in the house, then Kresge tells her that it’s been confirmed that an incoming call was received at Bill’s house from the Sims’, but no outgoing call was made and the phone has been off the hook for 3 hours. They’re calling it a software glitch and, apart from that, it looks like a suicide.
That night, Scully calls Mulder but doesn’t say anything. Later, she admits to her mother, given how she was reacting to the pregnancy, that several months ago Scully discovered she couldn’t have kids. As Scully sleeps, she dreams of being in the house when she was younger. She hid a rabbit from her brother, in a box. That didn’t work out so well for the rabbit. The girl from the Sims watches her and Scully wakes to another call, saying she needs help. The call came from the Sims again, but Marshall Sim tells her no-one called and to stop coming round and upsetting them.
Scully heads to see Kresge; she wants to see everything on the Roberta Sim case. There is no case; it’s a suicide. Whatever Kresge wishes to call it, she’d appreciate seeing everything. Kresge complies. The police were called to a domestic at the Sims’ two weeks ago. Tox screen turned up a new migraine medication in Roberta. There were empty packets in the rubbish and full ones in her handbag. Scully also sees a photo of the girl, Emily, and borrows it. At Bill’s, she compares it to one of Melissa at the same age. They look very similar. The next day, Scully discovers Emily is adopted. She also asks for everything related to Melissa’s case be sent.
Scully heads back to Kresge and wants an autopsy on Roberta. There’s a possibility she was murdered, and Scully thinks the husband could be responsible. He has an alibi, though; at the doctors with his daughter. Scully says there are no hesitation cuts on the wrists, and suicides seldom make a fatal cut on their first try. Kresge points out that ‘seldom’ means ‘sometimes.’ Is there anything else? Yes; why was the phone off the hook? Kresge assumes that Roberta didn’t want to be disturbed. The husband called the police, didn’t he? He did. If the phone was off the hook, how did he call? Did he carefully take it off the hook again? At this point Kresge realises that Scully does have a point.
An autopsy is done but Scully can’t find any trace of the pills in Roberta’s stomach. The pathologist says they could have dissolved. Not this close to time of death. But the drugs were in Roberta Sim’s system; how did they get in? Scully and the pathologist report to Kresge; there was a tiny needle puncture in Roberta’s foot; easy to overlook. Murder is looking more likely.
Scully becomes convinced that Emily is Melissa’s daughter, even though neither Bill nor their mother are, and delves deeper. Which has surprising results. The story continues in the next episode, “Emily”.