Veiled Vesta

So apparently, the trailer for the new movie is up... I think. I'm not sure. I should check that out. (What I already checked out was Tanith's fic recommendation which was, like, a thread or two ago, but I didn't read it because it was NC-17. Those who did read it, how was it? Was it amazing? I'm sure it was! ) I probably won't be able to get to tons of other M/S news that's been posted the past thread or two because today is mother's day
BTW: to all the mothers on this board and tell your own mothers to have a wonderful day as well!

My first recap is not from an episode on the viewing party list but I hope you all enjoy it anyway. (The rest of the recaps will be posted throughout the day... hopefully it won't take me too long in between posts but if it does, it'll likely be because of my mother's day celebrations today with my own mom.)

Little Green Men

(**Super special season premier note!**: Yes I'm doing a recap for an episode that's not on our viewing party list. I'm going to recap the first and last episode of every season, regardless of whether they're on the list because they're pretty important and usually have a little MSR nugget or two; consider these extra recaps, pro bono! I might drop an episode to do it, especially if it's an episode that doesn't get my attention. I'm not recapping The Calusari because... umm... alright, because it reminds me of calamari, and that gets me hungry for some seafood but I don't have any at the moment and I wouldn't suggest eating heavy foods during most of these episodes anyway. Yeah... that's why I'm dropping that episode. Sorry victoriafrances! )

Is this the first time we hear a Mulder voice over during the opening scene? I do believe it is. This will set the stage for future dramatic mytharc episodes to have their own narration by either Mulder, Scully or a Native American wise man but it's okay because he rocks enough to be counted among that honor. So we start out in space, with Mulder narrating that "We wanted to believe. We wanted to call out." I'm pretty sure Scully *did not* want to believe and you *already* believe. Mulder goes on to talk about the 2 Voyager space ships that were launched into outer space in 1977, with messages from earth: music, pictures, voice recordings. All wanting peace from our alien brothers. Mulder goes on to narrate that we started using radio telescopes to pick up any possible transmissions from extraterrestrials but a year later they were shut down and that's a metaphor for his current life: the X-Files was shut down, they can't search for the truth, etc, etc. So an observatory in Puerto Rico is now closed and Mulder has stopped his narration only for us to get a look at the recording instruments inside the Puerto Rico Observatory, which after presumably a long time of inactivity, suddenly springs to life and starts printing out information and playing back our message from one of the Voyagers. Curious. Have we made contact? This is The X-Files, my dears, what do you think!

Not-on-the-viewing-party-list Opening Credits! There's something almost forbidden about these credits, because I'm the only one who's rewatching this. Or maybe it's foreboding, because it's the first episode back since our duo were split up and since this is mytharc, I'm following Tanith's "The Ten Stages of Fox Mulder in Pretty Much Every Mytharc Episode" so I *know* Mulder's going to face some big things. It's both forbidden and foreboding! Hooray for similar sounding words that apply!

Looks like Mulder isn't up for any more narration. He's on wiretap duty listening to some idiots talking about strippers while he's leaving a sunflower seed mess for the hotel staff to clean. Is it possible to look bored, annoyed and mildly aroused at the same time? Well, apparently so, as Mulder is spitting out sunflower seeds, tapping his pen, and wondering if he should watch some free HBO to get his juices going or just bash his head in with the remote that is surely tied down to the desk because that seedy hotel can't afford to get anything stolen.
Scully is having a considerably less boring day, if not less messy. And yes I realize she's doing an autopsy but compare a sterile lab to Mulder's motel room. I rest my case. She's doing a pretty cool lecture for the young doctors-in-training and veers away from the course lesson to wax poetic about the dead man's dreams and fears all locked into the little mass they call his brain. A student says she sounds "Spooky" and alarms may as well sound because that's the magic word. Methinks Scully misses her paranoid partner. You can't separate a Ying from her Yang!

Mulder's walking down the FBI hallway and I sense a meeting afoot! And here it comes: Scully rounds a corner and she actually smiles and bids him a good afternoon. I cannot say enough how much of a pro she is. Mulder is not because he just brushes her off with nary a glance. You Spooky bastard! A simple "hey" wouldn't have killed ya'! When he gets to his desk he sees the framed photo of his sister face down on his desk. There's a post it note on it. Mysterious!

The Watergate Hotel? Oh very clever. Scully is waiting there and soon someone steps in to join her... oh this seems familiar. Wait, it's Mulder! He makes a crack about parking prices. Only four dollars? Lucky 90s prices... *grumble* So who's the one who called our two agents out? Scully notes that his mysterious entrance was reminiscent of their old informant, Deep Throat (that's what I thought too!), but Mulder just says that the man is dead, and he saw the funeral himself. Bitter much? It turns out that Scully was the one who called him for the meeting because she was worried about him, and when he says they shouldn't meet out in the open and they're possibly being watched, Scully assures him that she covered her tracks when picking out the location and is sure no one followed her. I feel like agreeing with that med student earlier – our Skeptic is *thisclose* to being called Spooky Scully – she has really let Mulder rub off on her. Heh. So Scully reminds him about his promise last season and Mulder talks about the San Diego observatory, and how for a while it was the biggest telescope made. The origins of the telescope had to do with a man named George Hale who was apparently visited by an elf who encouraged Hale to build it. Scully ties the story to his current situation: "And you’re worried that all your life, you’ve been seeing elves?" Mulder responds, "In my case... little green men." He needs some solid evidence, something he learned from Scully, and he admits he's unsure if his memories of his sister's abductions are accurate. Scully tells him not to give up and promises next time they met, it'll be out in the open. Awww.

It's flashback/dream sequence time! The first Samantha flashback of this series! A young Fox and Samantha Mulder are playing Stratego while watching Nixon on TV. Very clever. Samantha wants to change the channel, but Fox wants to watch the Magician at 9. (Man, I feel weird calling him Fox. I don't know if Mulder is appropriate though and his sister keeps calling him Fox so...) Samantha presents her argument "Mom and Dad said I could watch the movie, buttmunch." Hah. I didn't know that insult was used in the mid-80s! Mulder counters with the whole "I'm in charge" spiel while standing up to prove it and damn Fox Mulder is tall! Geez, did he chug milk and Flintstones vitamins 24/7 or what? The lights go out suddenly and we can all guess what's about to happen. An abduction is going to go down up in this place! Samantha calls out for her big bro and he watches as lights flash, a white glow envelopes the room and this crazy figure stands by the now open door. Samantha starts floating away and her big bro finally takes some action, breaking open a box on a shelf that contained a gun. He aims it at the weird intruder but he freezes up as Samantha is taken anyway and he's left all alone.

Mulder wakes up from the dream looking appropriately dazed and goes to shut his window blinds. Then some stranger just opens his door and tells him they're going to "the hill". Are they going to fetch a pail of water with Jack and Jill? Oh, and Mulder how about you lock your freakin' doors! What kind of paranoid believer are you?
So the hill that the mysterious guy was referring to was apparently Capitol Hill. I wonder if they passed a sad little scrap of paper singing about wanting to become a law. I'd pay to see Mulder's reaction to that. It looks like Mulder's meeting with one of his Congress connection buddies. This one is named Senator Matheson and he sure loves his Bach. The song he's currently playing turns out to be the first song that was sent into outer space on one of the Voyager space crafts. Mulder realizes that he let Senator Matheson down and explains that he was pretty close before the X-Files was shut down. Close to... I don‘t know, he doesn't say. Matheson however takes it all well as he hands Mulder a paper saying that "They may be listening". So the two men must blast some 'Brandenburg Concerto #2' as they discuss Mulder's next assignment. Mulder must get to the Puerto Rico Observatory from the opening scene. He might just find some answers there.

We get a taped conversation of Skinner and Scully. Looks like Mulder's gone and the AD is questioning her about him. Even when she's not paired up with him she's still expected to do baby-sitting duties. (Oh! Finally got me a baby sitting joke about a season too late! Mulder would so tell Scully "Baby, I'll let you sit on my lap.") Anyway, she doesn't know where he is but would be happy to help in a search for him. Skinner shuts off the tape and tells the eavesdropping Cigarette Smoking Man that he believes Scully doesn't know because if she knew where Mulder was she wouldn't have sounded so worried. CSM knows that Scully will find him.

Hey, Mulder's in Puerto Rico already! He looks very hot (both in the figurative sense and in the literal sense ). Hiking up a hill he finds that there's a chain fence around the area of the observatory. Why can't he just jump the fence? I can't see any barbed wire from my end. Or he could could push it down. It looks kinda flimsy and old. There's a lock on it and he decides there's gotta be an end to the fence so walks through the wilderness to find some way around it. That doesn't exactly make sense. Wouldn't the fence close in the observatory? Well, apparently not because he manages to get to the control room of the observatory with a chained up door. He records his findings in a little tape recorder before taking a bolt cutter out of his bag and cuts away the chains. Wait a sec, why didn't he use that thing to cut through the freakin' chain link fence?! This whole fence thing is really stupid, and it's from both sides, those who put up the fence are stupid for not enclosing the Observation area and Mulder is stupid for not simply cutting a hole in the fence big enough for him to get through. Alrighty then, stupidity on both parties aside, the control room is dark and machinery inside is covered in plastic. He continues his observations into the tape recorder, saying the power has been shut off, when suddenly a machine starts up.

Back at Mulder's apartment, Scully does some snooping and listens to one of his messages from some random spurned woman who calls him a pig. Heh. Take comfort in the fact that he doesn't just ditch you, Scully. She checks out his computer and notices she needs a password. This is where knowledge of alien-themed porno titles would come in handy. Or rather it would have if Mulder was that clever. At least his password wasn't something obvious like 'spooky' or 'Samantha' or 'Dana Mulder' (darn!) but it *is* the fairly well-known 'Trustno1'. Deep Throat said those words to Scully, did he really think replacing a word with a number would throw her off? The files she uncovers are coordinates or something. She prints the file just as footsteps approach. The paper prints out and falls onto the floor just as two men step inside Mulder's apartment. They ask her what she's doing there, and she could ask them the same question. They say they're keeping Mulder's apartment under surveillance, probably orders from the FBI, and she replies with ease that when Mulder's away she feeds his fish. I'm sure she's as grateful he has pets as they are for the food and attention they're finally getting (you have to imagine with all the running around he and Scully do, the fish barely get noticed). One of the men spot the printed out paper but they don't understand the gibberish so the throw it away. Scully "accidentally" spills some fish food and takes the paper from the trash can to clean it up. One of the men suggest she just dump the food in the tank. Scully says it would be bad for the fish and tiny voices underwater go unheard as they thank the red headed bringer of food. She leaves with her printed paper.

Back in the Puerto Rico Observatory, Mulder is listening to the machinery that's been playing the stuff from the Voyager. He looks around the place and stumbles upon a scared man huddled in the bathroom. This is where my knowledge of Spanish pays off. The guy is named Jorge and he's scared he'll be hurt again. Mulder asks him who he is and what he's doing in the bathroom. Jorge says (in Spanish) that he's afraid. Mulder notices he's freaking out and tries to calm the man down, then asks if he speaks English (he asks this poorly in Spanish). Jorge does not. Despite the language barrier, Mulder tries to find out what caused the man's fear and Jorge tells him about colorful lights in the sky, thinking it was an airplane but it wasn't. Some "men" grabbed him and put him into the bathroom, and they're still somewhere in the woods. Mulder doesn't understand him because he's talking in Spanish. If he did understand Mulder would be freaking out as much as Jorge, but probably in excited glee. Jorge uses Mulder's pen to draw a composite sketch of the "men" he saw. Or a picture of 2 almonds in a gourd. I'm not sure.

Scully is getting her print-out examined. She finds out that it's a "wow signal", named by the expert's buddy when he was doing radio telescopic searching for possible signs of life outside space, and when he got a transmission that looked like Scully's print-out he wrote "wow" in the margins. The signal was like Morse code and is basically the best evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. The expert wonders where Scully got it. She was hoping he could tell her. The expert tells her about a few observatories that can get that kind of reading, one of them being in Puerto Rico. Scully must do some investigating. Using her awesome FBI credentials she checks out Airline passenger lists, presumably looking at every plane that's left from Washington to one of those areas with an observatory. As luck would have it, she stumbles upon a name on a flight from Washington to San Juan: George Hale aka Creator of the largest telescope aka Believer in elves and Mulder's alias. Okay, that was fairly clever. I didn't catch that the first time around but realized the meaning of the name the upon the second viewing.

Back in the tropics of Puerto Rico, with the sun and the sand and the yummy mohito... Mulder is looking at more signals coming from the covered up machines. He sure knows how to live it up in foreign lands. Can't he at least venture out and find himself a coconut to indulge a little? He's still got the tape recorder and is recording the origin of the signal and all that stuff. Jorge looks about as bored by Mulder as I would be, and he starts fiddling with a button like I would. Mulder quickly tells him "No-ho on the rojo" which just strikes me as way funnier than it should be. Is it the "ho", or the adorably bad Spanish accent? Either way, I'm really enjoying hearing Mulder speak Spanish. It's as hot as his shades. The print-out is forgotten as soon as some music starts up. Guess who's not a fan of Bach? That's right, our Spanish pal Jorge. In fact he mistakes the music for the weird "men" come back to get him. There's also the "greetings from earth" message playing and that's insidious enough to get the nervous man – who seems to have no idea what a tape recorder or music is – running for the door. The lightning storm doesn't slow him down and Mulder goes after him. Flashlight in hand, he doesn't get very far before finding Jorge dead against a tree. Died of fright, you say? In a word: yes.

Scully is in the airport ready for her flight to Puerto Rico. If only it wasn't to bail Mulder's butt out of trouble, and yes he'll be in trouble by the time she gets there. It's one of the constants of a mytharc episode. Scully touches up her make-up in her compact mirror while waiting but we all know she's gorgeous and is in fact using the mirror to look at the people around her, a hint of suspicion in her actions. She gets up to stretch her legs, I suppose, and a couple is watching her every move. When she turns to see them follow her, they turn away in the most blatantly suspicious way. As the Donald would say: "You're fired!" Not only does she have these two wannabe spies on her tail, when she calls Mulder's place, there's an FBI guy there listening in. Scully just gives some simple coordinates that the guy writes down. She notices the couple again and makes another phone call to hear the lovely operator give us the time. She easily gives the spies-posing-as-a-couple the slip and they think she's heading to the Caribbean on an air flight number that matches the number Scully left on the answering machine. Scully's learned so much from Mulder *sniff*. I'm so proud!

So once again we're at Mulder's crappy Puerto Rico vacation, which has gotten even crappier with the addition of dead Jorge perched on a table. Mulder is a bit out of breath because hauling a corpse through an electrical storm with the nagging fear that some unknown beings are lurking in the woods tends to take it out of a guy. He's still got that tape recorder and since he can't do an autopsy (that's Scully's area of expertise) he'll just describe the body and the marks it may or may not have. All you need to know is that he's addressing Scully when he makes his observation. So all his recordings are for her? Can I just say "awwwww!" Too late, I already said it. He goes on to report on the print-outs that keep coming non stop. These extraterrestrials sure are chatty. He's not sure if the signals are from EBEs or from the Voyager or maybe just some elaborate hoax to mess with ole' Spooky's head. If it's the third one, I hope they got cameras in that place to record his reaction; that's the best part of the joke! Mulder talks about how Deep Throat said to "Trust no one" which he finds hard to do because if your regular, run-of-the-mill paranoia was bad, imagine what super crazy "they're all out to get me" paranoia is like! He says, and I quote: "Before, I could only trust myself. Now, I can only trust you." Aawww, the cuteness! That quote is the reason why I'm doing this recap. Mulder is upset because they've taken her away from him, a far cry from exactly one season ago where he suspected her of being a spy and tried to chase her away. Ahh, memories. Mulder can't help but wonder how he'd react if he actually saw the thing that Jorge saw. Suddenly everything starts rumbling and shaking. Either Puerto Rico, is having an earthquake, a volcano is erupting, or Almonds on Gourd is coming for Mulder and dead Jorge! There's flashing lights and more crazy printing and annoying sounds galore, then the door flies open with a reddish pink light shining through. Mulder quickly rushes to close it, lock it, and shove a machine in front of it for good measure. After a while the shaking and erratic lights stop, lulling him into a false sense of security and when he looks out the door window, that's when they get him with the ole' light in the eye trick. The light seems to have the power to unlock the door and move the machine barricade. When the door slowly opens, Mulder, and the viewers at home, have a sense of deja vu as he points his gun at the intruder (same shadow he saw when Samantha was taken). He tries to shoot but nothing happens. And then the light shines everywhere blanking out the screen for a second.

The big bright light is gone, replaced by a smaller more familiar light shining on an unconscious Mulder. Scully somehow found him (I wonder how she got past the fence. Knowing her and her awesome ingenuity, she used a hair pin to pick the lock.) She takes her flashlight off him and asks him if he knows where he is, telling him that it's Scully. Mulder quickly gets on his feet and grabs her shoulders as he tells her that "they" were here, Samantha's abductors. Scully gently wonders if he imagined it all in his crazed stupor. This time however, he has proof. The machinery has been recording all, plus he's got the long print-out sheets as proof of contact. Then he eagerly shows her the dead Jorge saying an autopsy will provide even more proof. Maybe after they check him out, they can play 'Weekend at Bernie's' with him. New rumbling starts but this time it isn't other worldly. Looks like the secret covert military is coming to clean up the mess. Mulder spots them with his binoculars and quickly rushes inside to grab the body, asking Scully for help. She explains that not only will they not be able to get the body out of the country, they may end up like him if they don't get the hell out of there. He tries to get the paper print-outs but there's an awful lot of them so he settles for a reel of tape from a machine. He couldn't have taken at least one sheet? What a shmuck. Mulder and Scully get into a mini truck just as the covert military men reach the area. They start shooting at our fleeing agents but Mulder's dead set on not dying now that he's got evidence (there's some shielding of Scully, as his hand keeps her head down while the soldiers are shooting at the truck. Very nice of him.) The men stop firing and head off to intercept them at the bottom of the hill. Mulder and Scully look awesome as they speed through the lush woods/jungles of Puerto Rico, making sharp turns, swerving all over the place, at one point they were airborne and made a complete 360 as they jumped over the grand canyon of San Juan. In the end they manage to escape. "Wow signal" meet "Wow car chase".

Time for some chewing out from Skinner. He's not pleased that Mulder went off without notifying them. He left his dirty, boring post to enjoy a sweaty, horrible vacation in Puerto Rico. He threatens him with transfer, suspension, probation etc. Mulder says that he had enough to arrest the stripper loving guys on his wiretap duty after day three. Yeah, he's just that good an agent. Or maybe the guys bragged non-stop for three days on all their bank fraud adventures. You never know. Either way Mulder accuses Skinner of spying on him, an accusation Skinner suspects should be more directed at CSM. Skinner's had enough and tells him to get the hell out... and CSM is surprised that he was talking to him, not Mulder. CSM leaves, fuming on the way out. Heh. In the end, Skinner doesn't punish Mulder and by that I mean he totally punishes Mulder by keeping him on wiretap duty, covering the same case. But you know, at least Mulder doesn't get suspended or anything. Then again, I suspect he would've preferred the suspension.

Mulder and Scully sit down to listen to the singular piece of evidence Mulder salvaged from the Puerto Rico Observatory. He plays the reel but there is nothing. Of course there isn't. Scully suspects the electrical somehow erased the tape. Mulder suspects that somebody up there enjoys pissing him off. Okay, I admit it, I enjoy seeing him pissed off. Scully tells him that he still has nothing (no evidence). Mulder replies that he still has his work... and he still has Scully. See, there's another little nugget right there. He says it so casually, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She gives him a look as if to say, "well this is a huge change from the shunning you were about a day or so ago". And that's why it's fun to toy with Mulder and piss him off; it gives him a sense of perspective and reminds him who his true friend is. Mulder starts up his wiretap and the guys are talking about strippers again. Geez, you'd think all the money they steal from their bank fraud goes to support these strippers. Scully puts a hand on his arm in sympathy and leaves. She stops and turns for a moment, Mulder looks up, wondering how much more interesting the wiretapping would be if Scully were there with him. They could play their hot baby-sitting games! No, maybe for another night. Scully leaves Mulder to listen to Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumbnuts as they continue on about lap dances. Mulder decides listening to that blank tape is better than listening to them. That's something we can all agree on.