Writer: Chris Carter
Director: RW Goodwin
Original Broadcast: AU: 23.07.1997 US: 18.05.1997
Episode Availability: DVD: AU CA UK US
Cast:
Special Agent Dana Scully · Gillian Anderson
Special Agent Fox Mulder · David Duchovny
Guest Cast:
Saw Operator · Craig Brunanski
Section Chief Scott Blevins · Charles Cioffi
Michael Kritschgau · John Finn
Detective Rempulski · Rob Freeman
Agent Hedin · Nancy Kerr
Margaret Scully · Sheila Larken
Dr Vitagliano · Barry W Levy
Scott Ostelhoff · Steve Makaj
Rolston · John Oliver
William Scully Jr · Pat Skipper
Babcock · James Sutorius
Arlinsky · Matthew Walker
Father McCue · Arnie Walters
Agent Mulder discovers the ultimate proof of extraterrestrial life while Scully is forced to confront her own mortality.
Part one of three
Scully: "Four years ago Section Chief Blevins assigned me to a project you all know as the X-Files. As I am a medical doctor, with a background in hard science, my job was to provide an analytical perspective on the work of Special Agent Fox Mulder, whose investigations into the paranormal were fuelled by a personal belief that his sister had been abducted by aliens when he was twelve. I come here today, four years later, to report on the illegitimacy of Agent Mulder's work. That it is my scientific opinion... that he became, over the course of these years, a victim. A victim of his own false hopes, and of his belief in the biggest of lies."
Bill Scully Jr: "I'm sorry I'm late. My ship got stuck in traffic. You get my birthday card?"
Scully: "Yes, I did. Thanks for remembering this year."
Bill Scully Jr: "Well, once a decade."
Father McCue: "I feel awkward sitting here. I'm sure you do too."
Scully: "No. I'm sorry."
Father McCue: "I've known your family for so many years. Your mother asked me to come, that I might have a word with you. I know its been some time since we've spoken ourselves, since you drifted from the church —"
Scully: "Father McCue."
Father McCue: "— In this time of personal crisis, a threat to your health, turning back to your faith is important and essential."
Scully: "Father McCue. I appreciate my mother's concern, and yours, but I'm being treated for my cancer and I'm taking every precaution —"
Father McCue: "Faith can make you stronger."
Scully: "I haven't felt a need. I have strength... and I'm not going to come running back now, that's just not who I am. I'd be lying to myself and to you."
Mulder: "Who else knows about this?"
Arlinsky: "No one. I know what your first thought was. But the St Elias range? That's a long way to go for a hoax."
Mulder: "Well, if you're going to go, why not go all the way?"
Mulder: "You think its foolish?"
Scully: "I have no opinion actually."
Mulder: "You have no opinion?"
Scully: "This is your holy grail, Mulder. Not mine."
Mulder: "What is that supposed to mean?"
Scully: "It just means proving to the world the existence of alien life is not my last dying wish."
Mulder: "How about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny?"
Mulder: "Then you accept the possibility that belief in god is a lie?"
Scully: "I don't think about it actually, and I don't think that it can be proven."
Mulder: "But what if it could be? Wouldn't that knowledge be worth seeking? Or is it just easier to go on believing the lie?"
Dr Vitagliano: "There's some cellular material within the matrix."
Scully: "Plant or animal?"
Dr Vitagliano: "I don't know. It's what I'd have to classify, a chimera — a hybrid cell."
Scully: "From what?"
Dr Vitagliano: "As I said, I don't know."
Scully: "Is it capable of cell division?"
Dr Vitagliano: "I don't know that either. I just now found them. I'd like to get them under our electron microscope, if that's okay?"
Scully: "Yes. Please."
[Mulder and Arlinsky see a body lying in a snow bank]
Mulder: "Funny place to take a nap."
Michael Kritschgau: "Please don't shoot. I didn't mean to hurt you. I had no choice."
Scully: "PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE CAR!"
Michael Kritschgau: "If you arrest me, they'll kill me."
Scully: "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT."
Michael Kritschgau: "The same people who are trying to kill you. The people who gave you your cancer."
Scott Ostelhoff: "Where did Mulder go?"
Babcock: "He got a call."
Scott Ostelhoff: "Is he a believer?"
Babcock: "Oh yeah."
Scott Ostelhoff: "Then we're then only ones who know."
Babcock: "Right."
Mulder: "They would have known that the body would be carbon dated, that it would be proven a fake."
Michael Kritschgau: "The body will never be tested, Agent Mulder."
Mulder: "What do you mean?"
Michael Kritschgau: "You were only meant to see it, to make you believe the lie, so that you might finally commit and go public with the news."
Mulder: [to Scully] "This man is a liar."
Michael Kritschgau: "You can see for yourself, Agent Mulder. The body is all ready long gone."
Mulder: "After all I've seen and experienced, I refuse to believe that it's not true?"
Scully: "Because it's easier to believe the lie, isn't it?"
Mulder: "What the hell did that guy say to you that you'd believe his story?"
Scully: "He said that the men behind this hoax, behind these lies, gave me this disease to make you believe."
Scully: "Early this morning I got a call from the police asking me to come to Agent Mulder's apartment. The detective asked me, he needed me to identify a body..."
Section Chief Blevins: "Agent Scully..."
Scully: "Agent Mulder died late last night from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head."