“Release” is episode seventeen of season nine of The X-Files.
The episode is divided into four parts, starting with ‘The Tip.’ Doggett arrives at a rundown building and checks the address He heads inside to find a specific apartment. As he opens the door, someone knocks him down and runs off. Inside the apartment, Doggett hears a scuttling sound. He discovers a wall is covered in fresh plaster. When he starts to remove it, blood trickles out.
Scully has the body Doggett found, a Jane Doe. She explains how Doggett found it to her class. The woman has three stab wounds and dirt and clay was found under her nails. Lacerations on the body came from rats; Doggett was led to the body by their feeding. Scully asks the class how they ID the body, how they find the killer. One of the cadets says it’s obvious. Chipped nailed polish and drug store hairdo; single woman, unemployed. Which is why no-one ID’d her. He asks about blood alcohol and says that she hooked up with the wrong person in a bar. The man has killed before; the bruise shows the killer intended a single blow, thrust up into the heart., She struggled, he missed and got mad. As he said, obvious.
Scully calls for Doggett and Reyes. They have an ID, Ellen Persich. Reyes asks how she was ID’s so fast. Scully explains that at a bar half a mile away, another woman was murdered two weeks ago and dumped in a bitch, apparently by the same killer. Doggett says the MO and location are different. That’s why Scully didn’t make the connection either, but the lab has just confirmed it was the same knife. She explains how one of her students helped. Amazingly astute. Doggett wonders why someone tipped him off to a case that is definitely not an X-file. Scully tells them to run with it.
Doggett and Reyes find the cadet, Hayes, in a field of body parts. He has a severed arm which he sniffs. The arm smells of creosote but the skin is soft. The man worked in a hardware store before he was broadsided in a car accident. He gets this from just one arm? Hayes sees things. They tell him they have a profile thanks to him. He says their profile is wrong. They need a criminal involved in organised crime. He’s killed many and will keep on killing. Reyes comments that Hayes is annoying after he leaves.
Hayes heads to his apartment and places a photo of Ellen Persich on the wall. The walls are nearly covered with crime scene photos and images of the dead.
Doggett and Reyes enter a bar and identify someone, Nicholas Regali. They say he’s violating the terms of his parole; Regali says his PO knows he’s here. He’s asked about the two murdered women. Regali tells them they don’t know what they’re dealing with. They don’t want to play this game, not with him.
Hayes heads to bed. Some of the photos on the wall are Doggett. With what looks to be his murdered son.
‘Ashes’ starts with Doggett unable to sleep. He gets out his son’s ashes.
Doggett is in the office when he notices Hayes standing there watching him. It’s kind of creepy. Doggett asked Hayes to come; he wants another profile. He explains the case, ending by explaining that it’s his son. Hayes says that the case he helped Doggett with yesterday is his son’s.
Hayes takes Doggett to his apartment. He explains that he started collecting before he came to the FBI. If he sits with the photos long enough very quietly, they tell him things. Doggett has found Luke’s photos. Hayes says he’s been following it for a long time. It talks to him. Doggett says there’s a really good chance Hayes is nuts. Doggett asks Hayes if he recognises a man, the closest thing they had to a suspect. Yes, he died last year in a car crash. He took Luke. But he didn’t kill him. Doggett asks if he’s saying the man who killed the women killed his son.
Doggett heads to see Follmer, who worked with the organised crime task force in New York. Had he heard of Nick Regali? Yes, a low-level thug. Doggett says Regali never came up in the investigation into his son. Follmer asks Doggett if he thinks Regali was involved. There’s no evidence, but someone says he was mixed up with the suspect. Follmer never heard that and he’s sure he would. Would Doggett like him to pull some files? He would.
Doggett continues digging into Regali and Luke’s death. The other two parts are ‘A Message’ and ‘Release.’ Hayes doesn’t seem quite right. He just seems a little off in some ways.