Things start to get very emotional when we start this episode with hard evidence that Scully’s not well… She has a tumour in her head. A rather bleak voice over confirms that Mulder may need to go it alone and find the truth without him… but what we do know is that all those women that Scully once met happened to recently die of the same Cancer she has… weird huh?

From here, things get rather complicated and the X-Files plot really does become confusing. First off, Mulder knows that smoking man probably knows what’s going on – and asks Skinner to arrange a meeting and see if he can help. Skinner warns Mulder about dealing with the devil, but in true Skinner style, meets with Smoking man to find out what the price would be to save Scully.

Meanwhile, Mulder finds evidence linking the doctor that is treating Scully to the 11 women who went missing, and that he’s working at a research facility which seems to harvest a lot of replica people. Mulder instantly recognises this and gets confirmation that they are indeed human\alien hybrids, and that the men who did this have taken DNA samples from Scully while she was abducted – and used to create the replicas. They needed mothers! Make sense? Well not really, but it’s also the first episode that see’s The Lone Gunmen on their first ‘away’ mission with Mulder, and breaking into the research facility.

The episode ends with a rather close moment between Mulder and Scully once she realises that she may not live long, but is determined to get back to work and fight her illness. Mulder softly kisses her on the head and they hug… looking into each others eyes often.

Skinner also now knows what it will take to save Scully… though he doesn’t pass this information on to anyone… including us!