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The X-Files Season 4 Episodes
Season 4 Episode Guide
24 Episodes 1996 - 1997
Episode 1
Herrenvolk
Fri, Oct 4, 199644 mins
Mulder is intent on saving Jeremiah Smith from the alien bounty hunter if for no other reason than he hopes Smith could save his mother who has suffered a severe stroke. Smith takes him to rural Alberta where he reveals another aspect of the conspiracy: fields where bees can pollinate that are tended by children, several of whom are identical to his sister when she was abducted at age 8. Scully meanwhile believes she has found a connection between smallpox vaccinations and the encrypted files she located.
Episode 2
Home
Fri, Oct 11, 199644 mins
Scully and Mulder investigate the death of a newborn child found in a shallow grave on the outskirts of a small town. Mulder loves the locale and thinks it's small-town America at its best. It even has a sheriff by the name of Andy Taylor. Sheriff Taylor is highly reluctant to investigate the family nearest where the baby was found however. He tells the agents that the three brothers who live there are all simple, the product of generations of inbreeding in the Peacock family. When the Sheriff is killed, all evidence points to the Peacocks and the FBI agents are shocked at what they find in the house.
Episode 3
Teliko
Fri, Oct 18, 199644 mins
Scully is asked by Assistant Director Skinner to assist officials from the Center for Disease Control in determining the cause of a recent number of deaths in the Philadelphia area. All of the victims were African American and had lost their pigmentation, with their corpses looking albino-like. She finds the basic reason for the loss of pigmentation - their pituitary glands were necrotic - but not the actual cause. Mulder for his part thinks there is something far more sinister at work and contacts Marita Covarrubias at the U.N. who tells him of a similar incident on flight from West Africa some months before.
Episode 4
Unruhe
Sun, Oct 27, 199645 mins
An intended passport photo for a missing woman develops warped and twisted, showing her terrified and surrounded by beings. With a little investigation, Mulder develops a theory that the kidnapper of this woman has the power to psychically display his thoughts on film.
Episode 5
The Field Where I Died
Sun, Nov 3, 199645 mins
When authorities receive a telephone tip from someone named Sydney, the FBI and ATF stage a raid at Temple of the Seven Stars, a religious cult the anonymous caller says is abusing children and has a cache of firearms. Mulder feels that he's been there before and has a powerful sense of deja vu. They arrest the cult leader Vernon Ephesian and several of his followers including one of his wives, Melissa Rydell Ephesian. They don't find the arms cache however and Assistant Director Skinner thinks they have less than a day to get some hard evidence or they will all be released. Melissa seems to be suffering from multiple personality disorder and has a personality known as Sydney, the person who made the call. In fact she has several personalities including a Southern belle who tells Mulder they were there for a Civil War battle. Mulder thinks she's recounting a past life.
Episode 6
Sanguinarium
Sun, Nov 10, 199644 mins
Scully and Mulder investigate a particularly gruesome murder at a hospital where a cosmetic surgery patient is butchered by the attending physician. The doctor who performed the operation has no idea why he did it and felt like he was possessed. While Scully looks for a scientific explanation Mulder feels witchcraft may have played a role. He finds five circles burned into the floor of the operating room which, when joined together, form a pentagram. As the uncontrolled killings continue, Mulder discovers a link between the victims' dates of birth and key dates on the witchcraft calendar.
Episode 7
Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man
Sun, Nov 17, 199645 mins
While the Cigarette Smoking Man listens in on a conversation Scully and Mulder are having with Frohike, he recalls his own past and how he got to be where he is today. As a young army officer, working alongside Mulder's father, he was recruited by a general and an intelligence operative. His past was effectively erased and from that point working only in the shadow world. He was implicated in the assassination of presidents and civil rights leaders. He was also a frustrated mystery writer but his bizarre tales of assassinations and alien conspiracies are seen as too outlandish by the publishers he approached.
Episode 8
Tunguska
Sun, Nov 24, 199645 mins
Scully and Mulder participate in a raid on a group of right-wing extremists who are obviously planning an attack of some kind. Mulder has been receiving anonymous notes from someone who knows of the plan. When they stop the terrorists, one of the men turns out to be Mulder's old nemesis Alex Krycek, who claims to be the person who was feeding him information. Meanwhile, a diplomatic courier is caught smuggling a mineral-like object into the United States. Mulder contacts Marita Covarrubias of the UN to learn more about its origin. He and Krycek are soon on their way to Russia.
Episode 9
Terma
Sun, Dec 1, 199645 mins
Mulder and Krycek are taken prisoner in Russia and subjected to bizarre experiments that includes the black oil and vaccinations. They manage to escape but are separated and find different ways out. Back in the U.S., Scully is subpoenaed to appear before a Senate sub-committee and is threatened with jail for contempt when she refuses to tell them where Mulder is. Meanwhile, some of the conspirators, including the Cigarette Smoking Man and the Well-Manicured Man are worried their secret is getting out.
Episode 10
Paper Hearts
Sun, Dec 15, 199645 mins
A particularly vivid dream leads Mulder to the burial site of a young girl who had been kidnapped and murdered years before. Mulder knows exactly who the murderer is, John Lee Roche whom Mulder and another FBI agent had arrested based in part on the psychological profile Mulder had prepared on him. Roche was convicted of 13 murders in all and Mulder always wondered if there might be more. The girl found as a result of his dream is number 14 and when they locate Roche's 'trophies' - hearts cuts out of the victims' clothing - they realize there are still two victims unaccounted for. The case takes an unexpected turn when Mulder's dreams suggests that Roche may have been involved in his sister Samantha's disappearance.
Episode 11
El Mundo Gira
Sun, Jan 12, 199744 mins
Scully and Mulder investigate the death of Maria Dorantes, a migrant farm worker who was found in a field near the shanty town in which she lived. There were reports of a very bright flash of light followed by a yellow rain just as she was killed. Scully's examination of the body reveals that she died as a result of a massive fungal infection. The locals however are certain that the culprit is El Chupacabra, a mythical beast from Mexican folklore. They're also sure the beast is to be found in Eladio Buente, Maria's brother-in-law who was with her when she died. While Scully looks for a scientific explanation, Mulder believes the fungus may be alien in origin. Regardless, they must find Eladio before the fungus spreads.
Episode 12
Leonard Betts
Sun, Jan 26, 199744 mins
After an ambulance accident leaves Pittsburgh, PA's EMT of the Year Leonard Betts without a head, and what's left of his body seems to walk right out of the morgue, Mulder and Scully investigate. They find what may be evidence of evolution from man to something... cancerous.
Episode 13
Never Again
Sun, Feb 2, 199744 mins
With Mulder off on a week's mandatory leave, Scully is on her own and feeling put upon. While in Philadelphia she meets Edward Jerse who asks her out to dinner. Ed had recently gone through a nasty divorce. Despondent and more than a little drunk, he got a tattoo. Soon after, he began hearing voices and lashing out at work. He lost his job and disposed of a neighbor who he thought was tormenting him. After drinks, Scully gets a tattoo of her own, but the next day two Philadelphia police detectives show up at Jerse's apartment investigating his neighbor's disappearance. Scully may have found a medical reason for Ed's hallucinations.
Episode 14
Memento Mori
Sun, Feb 9, 199744 mins
The horrible truth behind Scully's illness is revealed: she has cancer and may die. Such has been the fate of a dozen other women who, last year, introduced themselves as abductees and made claims of being with Dana on an alien space ship. Mulder must find a cure, and fast.
Episode 15
Kaddish
Sun, Feb 16, 199744 mins
Scully and Mulder investigate a series of murders that began with the beating and shooting of a young Orthodox Jew named Isaac Luria by a gang of young men. One of those men, 16-year-old Tony Oliver, has since been strangled by someone - or something - with Isaac Luria's fingerprints. With rumors that Luria has risen from the dead to seek revenge, the two remaining killers dig up his grave and find his body in the casket. One of them is killed, however. They suspect that Luria's father-in-law, Jacob Weiss, might somehow be involved in the revenge killings but Mulder thinks the solution lies elsewhere - in the legend of the Golem.
Episode 16
Unrequited
Sun, Feb 23, 199742 mins
Scully and Mulder investigate the murders of several Army generals who were killed when they were ostensibly alone. Mulder begins to wonder if the killer isn't a Vietnam veteran who has returned from the dead to take revenge against those who left American POWs behind. Closed circuit television footage shows just such a marine, believed killed, who enters the Pentagon undetected. With his ability to disappear not in doubt, it becomes imperative that the FBI stop the killer before he reaches his next target, Major General Benjamin Bloch.
Episode 17
Tempus Fugit
Sun, Mar 16, 199744 mins
Mulder and Scully get involved in the investigation of a commercial airliner crash that had among its passengers a well-known alien abductee, Max Fenig. One survivor is found at the crash site and Scully is quick to notice that he is suffering from radiation burns. Mulder also notices there is a nine minute gap between the time the authorities say the plane crashed and the time found on the watches of several of the dead passengers. The government official in charge of the crash investigation, Mike Millar, scoffs at Mulder's other-worldly explanation of the crash and that it involved an encounter with a UFO. He begins to change his view when he can't explain some of the physical evidence.
Episode 18
Max
Sun, Mar 23, 199744 mins
With Scully having taken Sgt. Louis Frisch to Washington, Mulder goes for a swim in the lake near the crash site and finds what he believes is a crashed UFO. What he finds confirms his belief that Flight 549 was shot down by a USAF fighter that was intercepting a UFO. The cover-up attempt continues and an attempt on Sgt. Frisch's life leads to the death of an FBI Agent. Carter learns what it is that Max Fenig and his friend Sharon stole from a secret government lab. One piece of evidence is still available but transporting it to Washington proves to be something of a challenge.
Episode 19
Synchrony
Sun, Apr 13, 199744 mins
Mulder and Scully investigate an accident that was predicted by an old man who accosted the victim a few minutes beforehand to warn him he would be run over by a bus, which is exactly what happens. The man, a university professor, was with one of his colleagues, Jason Nichols, when the accident happened. The old man was taken into custody by the campus police, but the arresting officer is found frozen to death and mysteriously, is still getting colder. The old man escapes and a visiting Japanese scientist is also found frozen to death. The obvious suspect is Nichols but Mulder begins to suspect that something far more complex is happening.
Episode 20
Small Potatoes
Sun, Apr 20, 199745 mins
Scully and Mulder travel to a small town when there are reports that five babies were recently born with vestigial tails. Four of the five women were artificially inseminated at the same clinic but the fifth claims to have had sex with Luke Skywalker. Scully thinks it's all nonsense but their focus soon falls on Eddie Van Blundht, a janitor at the fertility clinic. His father had been a circus performer but Eddie seems to have another power: to take the appearance of anyone around him. Things get interesting when he decides to pretend he's Mulder.
Episode 21
Zero Sum
Sun, Apr 27, 199745 mins
Mulder is contacted by a local police detective who thinks he has an x-files type case for him to look into. A U.S. postal worker who had sneaked into the washroom for a cigarette was killed by numerous bee stings, though there were no bees to be found. Before Mulder can even begin to look into the case, someone is going around erasing the evidence in the washroom and even some of the blood samples taken from the victim. The person doing the erasing however is Assistant Director Skinner who seems to have made a pact with the Cigarette Smoking Man.
Episode 22
Elegy
Sun, May 4, 199745 mins
Mulder and Scully investigate a series of deaths after reports that people are seeing the victims' ghosts just before they die. All of the victims were young women and in the most recent case, a bowling alley owner saw the victim's spirit floating above the pin setting machine at the end of one of the lanes. When they examine the bowling lane, they find the message 'she is me' etched into the wood. Harold Spuller works at the bowling alley and is slightly autistic. He lives in an institutional setting and to the local police, he is the prime suspect. Mulder begins to believe there is a psychic connection between the victims and the people seeing their ghosts. It bodes ill for Scully who is still having nose bleeds and then sees a victim's spirit with the 'she is me' message in a bathroom mirror.
Episode 23
Demons
Sun, May 11, 199745 mins
Mulder awakens on a Sunday in a cheap motel in Providence, Rhode Island. He has no idea how he got there and has no memory of what may have occurred in the last two days. His clothes are also covered in blood. He has been having vivid dreams however. In one, he recalls his parents having an argument with the Cigarette Smoking Man about Samantha. Mulder was only 12 years-old at the time. He also has images of a white house. Scully soon joins him and they locate the white house with two bodies inside. As far as the local police are concerned, Mulder is their main suspect. Scully however doesn't believe he killed anyone and tries to find the common denominator between her partner and the victims.
Episode 24
Gethsemane
Sun, May 18, 199745 mins
Agent Scully appears before a committee chaired by section chief Blevins to account for her and Mulder's recent activities. A Canadian geodetic survey team has apparently found an alien frozen in the ice in the Yukon. A friend of Mulder's at the Smithsonian lets him know of the find and they set off to join the team and see it firsthand. They're not prepared for what they find. Scully meanwhile arrests Michael Kritschgau, a one-time Department of Defense employee, who has an amazing story to tell her - one that will rock the very foundations of Mulder's beliefs in the existence of extraterrestrials. With her cancer worsening, Scully begins to reexamine her faith.
