“Travelers” is episode fifteen of season five of The X-Files.
The episode opens in Caledonia, Wisconsin, in 1990, and the sheriff is accompanying a landlord to evict someone. The place looks deserted, but someone inside is watching them. The sheriff says he doesn’t much like evicting old folks and the landlord replies that this one, Edward Skur, will change his mind. There’s no answer to the knock and the landlord unlocks the door. The place smells and is crawling with bugs. The landlord sees something in the bath and rushes out, throwing up. The sheriff looks and sees human remains. Then someone garbs him. He shoots twice and the attacker falls down the stairs. At the bottom, something that doesn’t look like blood comes from his mouth and he tries to say something. ‘Mulder.’
Shortly afterwards, Mulder arrives at an apartment in DC. He introduces himself to the occupant, Arthur Dales, as a profiler with the BSU. Dales is a former special agent with the Bureau. Mulder wants to ask questions about Edward Skur as Dales opened the file in 1952. Mulder has an x-file. Dales asks if Mulder knows what an x-file is. It’s an unsolved case. No, it’s a case designated as unsolved. Most of the report is censored and Skur disappeared 38 years ago before he could be arrested for a series of stranger killings, where the victims’ internal organs were removed. He was found last week, and a man in his bathroom had all the internal organs and soft tissues removed. Mulder finally mentions his name. Dales knows it, as did Skur. Dales mentions the Communist hunts which found practically nothing. Because nothing was what they wanted to find. Mulder doesn’t understand. That’s the point.
Later, Mulder is watching a video of the McCarthy hearings and reading the file when he notices someone on the video. His father. He heads back to Dales; he can always get a subpoena to get him to help. Skur worked at the State Department, like Mulder’s father. Was Mulder’s father involved in the killing? Mulder mentions the killing; Dales knows how they were done, but not the why.
In 1952, Dales and his partner, Michel, were sent to bring in Skur, who was believed to be a Communist. They arrest him in front of his family and Michel finds a Communist Party membership card, which Skur claims Michel planted. That night, Dales is drinking in a bar when Michel calls him. Skur is dead; hung himself. Dales heads to tell Skur’s wife and sat in his car drinking for an hour trying to work up the courage. Then saw Skur turn up. Distinctly not dad. Dales pursues him, but Skur knocks him down. Then something starts coming out of Skur’s mouth, but Skur flees when someone asks what’s happening.
The next day, Michel speaks to Dales. He has photos of a dead Skur and suggests that Dales changes the description of his suspect. Too late; he’s already filed a report. Dales gets summoned to the Justice Department, where he sees a Roy Cohn. Who says they are at war and that there are secrets and truths kept from the public for the greater good. Dales asked if he’s supposed to alter his report. He doesn’t understand. He’s not supposed to; he’s supposed to follow orders.
The next day, Dales is looking at a heavily redacted file when Michel arrives. They have been called out to Maryland. Dales never expected to hear the name Skur again, but Skur had already killed. They were called to a homicide scene by Chevy Chase PD. There are no police on the scene. Inside, the owner appears to be German. He’s also dead. Very dead. All his organs and soft tissue removed. Then the police show up and there’s some confusion, because they never asked for FBI involvement. The dead man’s nurse – he was a doctor – called when he didn’t show up to surgery.
Skur has had something horrific done to him – if the insectile thing in his mouth wasn’t a clue – by the German doctor. He now wants revenge on those that were involved, or those he thinks were. Mulder’s father passes information onto Dales. No Scully in this episode, as the modern part of it is before Mulder started investigating the X-Files and the vast majority of it happens in 1952, told by Dales.