Well, I think we’ve reached the biggest milestone in the X-Files history. The title of this episode says it all really when Mulder finally learns the truth about Samantha.

We start with the tag line ‘BELIEVE TO UNDERSTAND’, and begin where we left off. The graves contain neither Samantha or Amber-Lynn, despite how much Mulder wanted it to. It’s a bit unclear why this Santa Claus man is included now we know he’s nothing to do with it, but still. Next, a man called Harold comes to see Mulder and Scully, asking to offer some help. He’s a police physic, and knows a lot about what’s already happened. Scully doesn’t give him the time of day, but Mulder takes him to the site where the kids were found. He doesn’t sense a connection to Amber-Lynn, but to Samantha.

Scully also finds out the extent of Samantha’s original investigation went right up to the Department Of The Treasury. Mulder’s taking a break when Harold wakes him up to tell Mulder that his mother is trying to get through to him. After an unsuccessful attempt to find out what she’s saying, they find the words ‘April Airbase’ written on a piece of paper Mulder was holding, which neither of them admit to writing. Scully heads to mummy Mulder’s house to look for clues, finding a burnt corner of a document calling off the search for Samantha… signed CGBS – C.G.B. Spender (Smoking man, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention!).

Mulder and Harold head to the airbase only to get told to sod off, while Scully gets a visit from smoking man, who informs her that Samantha is dead, and this hasn’t been revealed to Mulder since it keeps him going, giving him hope. Mulder however just wants it all to end and spends the rest of the episode looking rather pissed off and tired. Mulder and Harold wait till the cover of darkness to head to the airbase only to find Samantha’s hand prints in concrete… right above Jeffrey’s! Mulder puts the parts together, knowing Smoking man must have taken her and kept her on the base along with his son Jeffrey Spender. They return to the base with Scully (after finding out that Harold’s son also is centre of an investigation into his son’s disappearance).

They perform a séance to call the spirits of the previous owners of the house (much to Scully’s objections), and Mulder sees a little boy which leads him down the hall to a room, where he finds a diary.. Samantha’s Diary. It details tests they have been performing on her right up to 1979, when she was 14. It goes on to explain as a result she has no memories, and thinks she had a brother, that she wishes could read this one day and see again. Mulder gets a little upset and comes to the end, where she writes about running away forever, and the diary stops. Mulder sleeps with mummy Mulder watching over him in spirit form, whispering something in his ear, when Scully turns up with a police report of an officer detailing the discovery of a 14 year old girl not far from the base.

She’s taken to a hospital and they read details of tests that had been performed, but they don’t know what exactly. Mulder’s now convinced she’s alive, and they find a name for the nurse who signed Samantha in, which they promptly go and see. Mulder stops and gets a strange sense that he’s reached the end of the road, and that if he goes in the house he’ll get all the answers. He asks Scully to go for him. Scully asks the nurse about Samantha – which she recalls very well due to the strangeness.

She claims that she saw a vision of Samantha dead, then some men came to collect her, one of which gave her a chill when asked to put out his cigarette. They were meat to have taken her, but she was gone, disappeared from a locked room. Just vanished.

Finally, we see Mulder take a walk into the woods – being escorted by the same boy he saw in the house, he leads him to an area filled with strange, moonlight. Children are playing, happy and contempt in their existence. He passes Amber-Lynn LaPierre, and from the trees runs another girl, who Fox immediately recognises, it’s Samantha aged 14. They hug, Mulder smiles and he finally realises.

After returning Scully asks where he went Mulder replies ‘End Of The Road’. He tells Harold his son is OK, and that they are all dead, but in a better place. Harold refuses to let go and storms off.

Mulder – still contempt in the knowledge that they are all no longer of this world, looks up at the stars, and tells Scully ‘I’m fine, I’m free’.