“The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati” is episode two of season seven of The X-Files.
Mulder is on a beach, watching a family. However, his doctor is telling his mother that they have exhausted everything. There is so much activity in Mulder’s temporal love that it’s destroying his brain. His mother asks Mulder if he can hear her. He responds, but can neither move nor speak.
That night, CSM is in Mulder’s room. Thinking. He leans close and thinks that he knows Mulder can hear him. CSM injects Mulder with something. Killing him would be better than him living like a zombie. Mulder can now speak. CSM is giving Mulder a choice. Life or death. Rise out of bed and come with him. He’s played the hero, suffered enough. Rise. And Mulder does. CSM will show him how to take the road not taken. Mulder can no longer read his mind. CSM tells Mulder he is his father.
The opening text is ‘AMOR FAT’ – ‘Love of fate.’
Scully is asleep in Mulder’s office when Kritschgau comes in and wakes her. She is the only one with access to Mulder and he needs her to use it. Scully accuses him of nearly killing Mulder in the previous episode, “The Sixth Extinction”; he says he did that at Mulder’s request. Two years ago, Mulder was infected with an alien virus. It’s been reactivated, by a source of energy that is also alien. Mulder is living proof of the existence of extra-terrestrial life. Kritschgau will destroy Scully if she destroys this.
The phone is ringing as Kritschgau leaves. Skinner tells Scully that Mulder has disappeared from the hospital. She heads there and is told that Mulder’s mother apparently checked him out. Skinner hasn’t spoken to her; he’s leaving that to Scully. It’s better he isn’t involved in the case. And he’s helping Mulder by doing so. Skinner says he’s been compromised, referring to the events of “S.R. 819”, and the less he knows about Mulder’s or Scully’s whereabouts the better.
Mulder is seeing the beach again but he’s actually handcuffed and in a car with CSM. The latter says his doctors worked on Mulder whilst Mulder was unconscious. If the Syndicate didn’t kill Mulder, the FBI would. If the FBI didn’t, Mulder’s own misguided heroism would kill him. The only way to cheat death is to disappear. Mulder says that people can’t disappear. CSM says entire cultures can disappear. Mulder is like him, living life without a name. If Mulder tells Scully, he will put her life in danger. Mulder is entering a kind of witness protection programme.
Scully arrives home to find Albert Hosteen there. It’s a surprise to find him standing there, given his condition last time she saw him. Albert was hoping to see Mulder. Scully must save him, find him before something happens. For his sake. For the sake of them all.
Mulder and CSM have now arrived outside a house. Mulder’s new life. CSM gives him a key, and gets out of the car. Mulder can drive away now; CSM wouldn’t be surprised if he did. But he thinks Mulder should look around.
Scully is looking through the information on Mulder’s release. An agent tells her everything checks out. Until you look at the surveillance footage. Because someone blacked out the cameras. There’s a fragment of an image of Mrs Mulder talking to someone. All that can be seen of them is their cigarette-holding hand. Scully knows who that is.
Mulder is looking around the house and finds sunflower seeds in the fridge. Then someone speaks. Deep Throat. Mulder thought he was dead; Scully saw him killed in “The Erlenmeyer Flask”. Deep Throat shows him a scar; it was a way of starting a new chapter in his life. Mulder should let go of his guilt. He isn’t the centre of the universe and the cause of everything; just a puppet in a masterplan. Deep Throat lives down the street with his wife and daughters. That night, Diana Foley comes to Mulder with keys to his handcuffs, dressed in nightwear. Everything seems perfect in this new life of Mulder’s, and it only gets more so. Which is suspicious.
Scully receives a book, Native American Beliefs and Practices, through interdepartmental correspondence. Some of the symbols match the alien ship and there’s a section on the Anasazi. An entire culture that disappeared without a trace. Skinner didn’t send it and doesn’t want Scully to talk to him. It looks like someone is with Skinner, and it’s probably Krycek. Scully is going to try to find Mulder on her own.