“Two Fathers” is episode eleven of season six of The X-Files.
Men wearing too much protection are doing surgery inside what appears like a train car. Green liquid comes from the stomach of their patient when it’s cut, giving the reason for the protection. The cut heals. Outside, in Potomac Yard in Arlington, it’s shown to be a train car. A man arrives outside and is greeted as Dr Openshaw. The doctors from inside the train car come out and tell him his work is completed. Openshaw and another doctor head inside; the doctor says after 25 years it must seem like an old friend. They are going out to celebrate; would Openshaw like to come? No; he will stay a bit. The doctor leaves and is set on fire by one of the rebel aliens, as are the others inside their vehicle. One of the rebels enters the car and sets fire to Openshaw too. The person they were operating on is Cassandra Spender, who disappeared in “The Red and the Black”.
The Cigarette Smoking Man is saying that this is the end. You put your life into something, build and protect it, until its end is as unimaginable as your own death or the death of your children. They had the perfect conspiracy. An alien race was coming to destroy all human life. Their job was to prepare the way, create a slave race of alien-human hybrids. They had good plans. Right plans. A secret kept since the crash at Roswell. It would have worked, except a rebel alien race came to destroy their plans and his own son chose betrayal.
Spender is in his office when Skinner arrives. He claims to be doing a progress report for the X-Files. Skinner wasn’t aware he had made any. He tells Skinner he knows that Spender’s job is not to make progress and that he has no interest in the X-Files, beyond a personal case involving his mother’s abduction. Alleged abduction, according to Spender. That’s what Skinner is here about.
They arrive at the train yard. Skinner fills Spender in; there’s one man on life support and Spender’s mother is alive. Spender goes to find her. She needs to talk to someone. Not him; Agent Mulder. That’s got to be a kick in the teeth. Spender tells Skinner he doesn’t want Mulder talking to his mother. Is he afraid of the truth? If Spender wants to know who did this and why, he should use every tool.
CSM continues with his narration. His son refused to believe the truth, despite the evidence Mulder had assembled, and when he did believe it, when the facts became too blaring to ignore, Spender didn’t turn to his father but the man he had ruined.
Mulder is playing basketball when Scully arrives. She guesses he isn’t coming into work again. Someone has been trying to reach Mulder. They want him back at the FBI. It’s about an X-File. Mulder finds Spender at his desk writing a note when he gets in. Spender just wants to know the truth. Mulder tells him it’s out there; maybe Spender will find it for himself.
The sole survivor other than Cassandra is Openshaw, who is in a hyperbaric chamber, and CSM goes to see him. Openshaw expected him sooner. CSM states the mess at the train yard needed tidying up. Openshaw states that Cassandra was a success. The CSM seems shaken. Openshaw says that Cassandra must be terminated; tests on her will expose everything. And they will come and question Openshaw. CSM apologies, as he turns off the oxygen. Openshaw seemed to accept, and expect, this.
The CSM calls one of the members of the Syndicate in Silver Springs, Maryland, filling him in. There’s an emergency meeting called. After the call, the man answers the door. Openshaw is there. Neither dead nor burnt. The man rips of Openshaw’s face, exposing a rebel, and is then set on fire.
Mulder is alone at the office, looking at the photos from the train yard, when Scully comes in. She thought Spender offered him an X-File. Not exactly. Isn’t this the opportunity he’s been waiting for? Mulder thinks it’s a setup. Scully looks at the photos; they’ve seen this before. She wants to speak to Cassandra; Cassandra may be able to expose who did this to Scully as well. Spender doesn’t have to know.
Scully arrives at Cassandra’s hospital room. If they get a wheelchair, they can grab some fresh air. Cassandra no longer needs a wheelchair. They leave the room; Cassandra will only tell somebody what happened that they can trust to do something about it. She was hoping to see Mulder. Mulder is in another room. Cassandra says she was cured by doctors working with the aliens and she originally said the aliens were here to do good. They are not. They are here to wipe humans from the planet. They infect other life forms with a black substance they call Purity. Their lifeforce. Another race of aliens is working against them.
Cassandra also tells them that her son is in danger. From her ex-husband. Spender’s father. This leads to Mulder and Scully finally getting a name for the CSM. Spender himself finds out some of the truth. The CSM is narrating all this, and about how rebels were infiltrating their group. He isn’t narrating this to no-one though; someone is being told this and this is revealed at the end.
The story continues in the next episode, “One Son”.