“Shadows” is episode six of season one of The X-Files.
The episode opens with the sound of a woman sobbing as the contents of an office belonging to a Howard Graves are shown. This is at HTG Industrial Technologies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the crying woman is packing away the office’s contents. Another woman enters and speaks to the first, Lauren, and says it’s been a couple of weeks now, although she does sound sympathetic. Lauren says she hasn’t known a lot of people who’ve died and never met anyone who’s killed themselves. The second woman leaves and, as Lauren turns to the door, an ornament on the desk with a saying from Ben Franklin on it moves. Lauren hears the noise, turns and takes the ornament with her, seemingly not realising it’s moved. That night, Lauren is depositing the paycheque the second woman brought in an ATM when two men grab her and bundle her into an alley. Two hours later, a young man and a woman enter the alley and the man says they can crash in the building by using the fire escape and climbing through a window. On tugging at the fire escape, a dead man falls and hits the dumpster and another dangles from the fire escape.
Mulder and Scully are being escorted in Bethesda Naval Hospital. They are taken to a morgue where there are two bodies. A man regrets any inconvenience he may have caused due to the hour, but they need their expertise with extraordinary phenomenon. Mulder doesn’t believe the man speaking is FBI. A woman hands a clipboard over and Scully takes a look at the bodies. Which are still moving. Abnormal post-mortem reflex due to high levels of electrostatic charge. The bodies are still warm, yet the time of death was six hours ago. The body temperatures are yet to drop. The man is not being very forthcoming, as Mulder points out, but eventually admits that the bodies were transported 60 minutes by air. Both men had their throats crushed but with no sign of tissue damage. Mulder says that he has never seen anything like it.
On the way out, Scully accuses Mulder of lying, he has seen it before. Mulder doesn’t lie; he wilfully participates in a campaign of misinformation. He has seen cases with similar components, but not everything in the same case. He suggests psychokinetic manipulation. Or how Carrie got even at the prom, according to Scully. She doesn’t see how they can investigate, though. However, Mulder has a print from each of the dead men on his glasses.
At HTG the next morning, Lauren seems fine, although she does check the paper and finds nothing. She wants to speak to Mr Dorlund; his secretary says he will have a space tomorrow at three. Lauren says it’s really important, then the secretary’s coffee spills and Dorlund comes out of his office. Lauren tells Dorlund she wants to give her two weeks’ notice. Dorlund says that Graves considered the company his family and Lauren like a daughter. He wants Lauren to stay. Then creepily tells her, whilst holding her face, that he won’t let her leave. And his bracelet tightens painfully on his arm. Now he’s willing to let Lauren quit.
The two dead men are identified as members of an extremist group operating on Philadelphia. Which is 60 minutes away by air. That also suggests Lauren wasn’t simply being mugged or assaulted. Mulder and Scully head to the city and speak to the officer who found the bodies. Mulder hears the ATM around the corner and get the CCTV. Lauren is seen being grabbed on the footage. There’s also a blurry third individual.
Lauren is packing when Mulder and Scully arrive. She claims she has never seen the dead men before. Scully tells her she has and shows her the photo from the ATM camera. Lauren claims she got away and ran. Lauren also says she has never seen the blurry figure before. Neither Mulder or Scully believe her but leave. They get int eh car, which then starts operating itself and crashes them into another vehicle.
The car is brand new and the mechanic found no evidence of tampering. The lights are on – yet they are actually switched off. The filaments are glowing because of electrostatic charge. Mulder thinks if Lauren isn’t the one doing it, perhaps without her own knowledge, they may be dealing with a poltergeist. Scully thinks they are dealing with an accomplice.
They start surveilling Lauren and see her getting upset about a space being repainted, and check on Howard Graves. Lauren was his secretary and Graves slit his wrists in his bathtub. Lauren is also seen laying flowers on Graves’ grave; she seems to have been rather fond of her boss. There’s another grave next to Graves’ and the groundskeeper says it was his daughter. She drowned after Graves left the pool latch open. Graves’ wife left him a year later. The daughter was three years old, and Lauren is the same age as the daughter would have been. Mulder develops the photos they took and, in one, is a figure. Using magical enhancement, this is revealed to be Howard Graves in Lauren’s house. Scully thinks Graves faked his own death. Mulder says she could be right. All Scully has to do is prove that Graves is still alive. He is not.
It looks like Lauren is being protected by the spirit of her dead boss. It also looks like Graves may not have killed himself either. The people from earlier were conducting a completely different type of investigation, but one that is connected.