“Closure” is episode eleven of season seven of The X-Files.
The previous episode, “Sein und Zeit”, ended with Mulder and Scully capturing Ed Truelove in a field filled with what looked to be disturbingly small graves. This episode with this proven to be true, as the graves are being dug up by people clearly upset at what they’re having to do and the bodies removed as Mulder narrates. At night, transparent children climb out of the graves and gather in a circle, staring at the stars.
The opening line for this episode is ‘Believe to Understand’.
Scully enters the technical services department of the Sacramento police station, where several detectives are watching a film and Mulder is examining one with a magnifying glass. Ed Truelove was 19 when he committed his first murder whilst a janitor at an elementary school and never got over the feeling. He’s admitted to all 24, but refuses to take the blame for Amber-Lynn LaPierre. Nor is her body found in the graves. Scully knows Mulder wanted to find his sister. As hard as it is, Mulder agrees; he wanted to find her, for it to be over.
An officer opens the door and tells Mulder and Scully a Harold Piller is there to see them. Piller hopes he can help; he is a police psychic. He’s been getting strong hits from this case. They are looking for a little girl not amongst the dead and the suspect says he didn’t kill her. Because he didn’t. Scully has been reading his references and mentions a case. Piller says that children’s body at an accident were transported away from it by spiritual intervention, what is known as walk-ins.
Scully starts to leave. Mulder does not, as Kathy Lee Tencate mentioned the same term. Piller says children’s bodies were never found or accounted for; they were transported from the various sites through starlight. Scully pulls Mulder away, telling him he’s vulnerable. Mulder explains what Kathy Lee said. Scully thinks it’s fool proof; nobody can disprove it with no body. She’s going back to Washington.
Mulder takes Piller to the burial field. Piller says that his son disappeared in strange circumstances and one day he started to see things. In almost every case, parents have a precognitive image of their child, dead. Violent fates that weren’t meant to be and the spirits intervene, transforming matter into energy. That’s not what happened here. They all died suffering, but Amber-Lyn wasn’t here and never was. Piller senses a connection. To Mulder. Saying Mulder lost his sister.
In Washington, Scully and another agent are watching a video of Mulder being hypnotised and remembering what happened to his sister. The other says that it seems to be a legitimate hypnotic state, but Mulder is having a compensatory abduction fantasy. Preventing him from remembering the truth of what happened. Mulder’s sister definitely went missing in 1973. Imagery collected in Mulder’s head, and then he found the X-Files. In 1973, the FBI was pretty unsophisticated when it came to violent predatory crime. But a lot of effort was put into finding Samantha. His advice is to let it be; some wounds are too painful to reopen. Scully says it never closed.
Piller arrives at Mulder’s motel room at 3AM. He says he’s picking up someone, they want to speak. Get a paper and a pen. He tells Mulder it’s his mother; she wants to talk about Samantha. Piller is unable to find out anything and Mulder thinks he’s full of it. But Mulder, unknowingly, has written ‘April Base’ down.
Scully enters Mulder’s mother’s house and finds a fragment of paper in a bin, where everything was being burned. She calls Mulder and mentions the Treasury investigation. She’s found a fragment of the original of a document in the Treasury file. The document effectively calls off the search. It’s signed with the initials ‘CGBS’. C.G.B. Spender, the Cigarette Smoking Man. He was involved. Mulder points out that CSM was a friend of his father. Scully reminds him that CSM probably killed Mulder’s father and has tried to stop his work. Mulder thinks that’s a dead end; he’s going to do this his own way.
April Air Force Base is closed and decommissioned. Yet it still has security that warns them away. Scully gets a visit from the CSM, who says he’s been allowing Mulder hope.