Veiled Vesta

A certain FBI agent is late for her Professional Review meeting with AD Cassidy and the others FBI suits on the pane. Skinner is out in the hallway waiting for her and Scully finally arrives, quickly fixing herself up in the mirror and wearing what I think is the same suit she had on from the cornfields. Skinner tells the rest of the panel that Scully just arrived and he opens the door for her. Scully apologizes for the wait but says she has new evidence and pulls out the fossilized bones from Dallas. AD Cassidy is surprised Scully went back to Dallas and while her meeting goes on, we cut to Mulder at the bar known as Casey's Bar. He's looking for his informant, Kurtzweil, and spots him at a booth. He tells him he found the tanker trucks and some kind of virus which is very surprising news to Kurtzweil. Back to Scully's meeting, she tells the panel that SAC Michaud may have been involved somehow in the bombing and AD Cassidy admonishes her for her serious allegations. Back with Mulder in the bar, Kurtzweil is pumping him for more information which Mulder gives gladly: the bees, the corn, the helicopters. He's still surprised by all this. You'd think a man with all his info would've known about those experiments. Once again we're back with Scully who is explaining that she's in the process of gathering completely conclusive evidence to all her charges. Scully should've changed her suit because it turns out a lone, evil bee has been hiding under her coat collar ready to piss of a million shippers in about four and a half minutes. AD Cassidy wants to know who's working with her to help collect the evidence. Oh right. Scully almost forgot that they have a grudge against Mulder. She must admit that her partner has been working with her and Mulder is none the wiser as he asks Kurtzweil about the bee/corn project in the bar. Kurtzweil doesn't seem to know, asking what Mulder thinks about it and Mulder guesses the corn crops are engineered to carry the alien virus. So what would be the carriers, hmm? I think you all know. Kurtzweil says that would be his guess before getting up and leaving a surprised Mulder. Looks like his informant isn't as in the know as he thought. Mulder thinks he's been lying about his knowledge, about knowing his late father, all to use him and get information for his books. I guess gynecology doesn't pay like it used to. Kurtzweil tells Mulder to keep it down then goes to "their alley" with Mulder on his heels. Kurtzweil says the 'S' 'H' word now as he declares he led Mulder to find those answers and he's putting his ass on the line for him. Mulder responds that Kurtzweil wasn't the one chased down in Texas by the helicopters. Not to mention the bees. He'll never wear tacky yellow and black ties again. Kurtzweil says that those men aren't the type to make mistakes so while Mulder may have been let go on purpose, Kurtzweil is expendable and more fearful for his life. He leaves Mulder in the alley and Mulder hears footsteps. He looks up at the fire escape and sees a suspicious old man who may be one of those Old White Men With Waaaay Too Much Free Time On Their Hands. The man leaves and after a while so does Mulder. He needs to do some thinking in his apartment.

It's the scene which leads up to one of the best scenes in the whole movie! So Mulder checks a desk drawer in his apartment and finds a family photo with a young Kurtzweil and Bill Mulder. It looks like he was telling the truth about being friends with his father. Mulder is too stunned to say much and here comes more bad news. Scully knocks on his door before letting herself in. She looks miserable and she tells him about the transfer. Mulder turns away and looks like he can't handle anymore shocking revelations. Oh by the way, did she fail to mention she is carrying Krycek's love child? Heh. Scully says she's quitting and Mulder says she can't do that to him. She says she can and she has and he's lucky she managed to muster enough courage to tell him the news in person. She should've mustered the courage to tell him something else. He turns to her and exclaims they're on the verge of something huge but Scully corrects him, saying he's on the verge. Mulder walks over and wants to know how she can just walk away after all she's seen, then tells her he needs her. She doesn't think he does, saying all she's ever done is hold him back, then she says her goodbye and leaves his apartment. Oh the raw emotion of it all! Mulder is hurt and upset but not enough to just let her walk away. He follows her out into The Shippy Hallway. He tells her she's wrong and she stops to face him, reminding him that she was originally sent to debunk his work and shut him down but, damn it Scully, you saved him! Mulder tells her exactly that: her strict rationalism and science have saved him many times and she's kept him honest. He says he owes her everything and she owes him nothing. Oh God, Mulder... my heart is swelling at this declaration and five years of intermittent jackassery is all forgiven! Scully is tearing up at his words, unable to keep up her pro facade. Mulder is all soft words as he says that he doesn't think he can do it all alone. He needs her, and if he quits, "they" win. She wraps her arms around him and he wraps his arms around her. Tears fall as she takes his forehead and lays a soft kiss on it... Oh my goodness, shippy overload!
Okay, I'm good, I'm good. The music as they draw closer is perfect and They ALMOST TOUCH LIPS but then the evil bee of ship-ruining moments stings her and she turns away in pain! Could that bee have picked a worst possible time to strike!?! (Alright, if I gave this some "serious" thought I suppose if it struck when they were doing the Bump n' Probe... Yeah, I guess that would be a slightly worst time to sting her but I'm still shipper-angry). Where's my bug spray!? Where's my torch!? Where's the S.O.B who decided to release the bees in the dome!?! I'm going to get you, Strughold!!! So after Mulder carefully lays Scully down on The Shippy Hallway floor, he rushes to his room to call 911. Some paramedics arrive to haul Scully out on a gurney, asking if she can breath and checking her vitals. Mulder follows them as they get her in the ambulance, explaining what happened and mentioning her possible virus exposure before asking where she's being taken. They don't answer so he goes to the ambulance driver and asks. The ambulance driver gives him a cool, blank look then pulls out a gun and shoots Mulder point blank! Thank goodness there's another ambulance, likely the real ambulance, pulling up to his place. We see that the fake ambulance attendants drive to a waiting plane and haul a glass encased stretcher/container with Scully inside to the plane. CSM is inside smoking all evilly before everything fades to black.

We hear some familiar voices. If you're an X-Phile, you'd recognize them as the Lone Gunmen! Our favorite geeky paranoid trio and friends to Mulder. I'm just glad they had a cameo in the movie, even if it was brief. Frohike and Langly argue about Mulder's chart and sensible Byers says that Mulder appears to be regaining consciousness as we get a groggy Mulder POV of the three concerned Gunmen. Mulder looks no more beat up than usual. How does one survive a bullet at point blank range? He identifies them as the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow and... Toto. Hah. Poor short Frohike, seen as more of a little dog than a Tin Man. When Mulder tries to sit up he winces since he's in pain. He asks where he is and the Lone Gunmen explain that bullet just barely grazed his head and he's been unconscious since he was brought into the hospital. Ah, Mulder luck at work. Mulder sits up quickly and asks where Scully is. Byers thinks his 911 call got intercepted by the Consortium Syndicate who sent the fake ambulance. Frohike managed to save the bee that stung Scully in a vial. Flush that sucker down to bee hell! Mulder needs to find Scully despite his glaring head wound and probably being pumped with enough sedatives to bring down a moose. Skinner enters just in time to see Mulder staggering around trying to get out and save Scully. He tells him he's not going anywhere, and suggests Mulder tell him where Scully is so Skinner can find her. No way, man. Mulder's the only one who's going to get to Scully and he knows how to get information on her whereabouts. Skinner says he's being guarded so the hospital won't let him leave. Well Mulder is getting out of there by any means necessary – no critical head wound or armed guard is going to stop him from finding his woman! First, they'll need to strip Byers naked. Nice! Of the three Gunmen, he'd be my first choice to see naked... if I actually had the courage to look for more than a second before turning red and covering my eyes like a little pansy. Mulder plans to sneak out of the hospital dressed as Byers. He actually succeeds and the guard looks in the room to see Byers facing away from him wearing Mulder's head bandage while Skinner paces in front of him to make it more believable. So we get some cursing in this movie but no shirtless Byers? Well that's no fun for other Byers fangirls (I'm sure it's not just me!) Mulder calls someone on his cell phone as Frohike and Langly open and close a side exit door for him and that's about it for the Lone Gunmen cameo. Very nice cameo.

Now Mulder is running down the street, his head undoubtedly better since he's too busy thinking about Scully to worry about it. He takes off Byers' jacket and tosses it aside, making some bum's day. I hope that jacket wasn't too expensive. In a familiar alley, where Kurtzweil is walking around looking on edge. He opens the bar door and sees Sir Prissy Pants! And here I thought he was too uptight to visit a little hole-in-the-wall bar like that one. Kurtzweil backs away when Prissy ID's him but he doesn't get far because a black car drives over to block him in. He's trapped in the alley. Mulder manages to get to Casey's Bar and looks for Kurtzweil. When he goes out to the alley he sees Sir Prissy Pants and his driver slamming down the trunk of the black car. Mulder asks where Kurtzweil is. Why don't you take a wild guess, Mulder? Sir Prissy Pants is actually willing to tell Mulder where Scully is located but first they must take a little ride. You know what they say to little kids about getting into a stranger's van? We should extend that advice to desperate FBI agents and include fancy black cars. Well, if he listened to me he would've never gotten the means to save Scully but still, he should be more careful. The car with Sir Prissy Pants and Mulder takes off and Sir Prissy Pants gives Mulder a pouch containing the vaccine necessary for Scully plus coordinates to her location. She must take it within 96 hours or she won't be cured of the alien virus. I'd say Mulder needs to hustle. Sir Prissy Pants goes on to explain in detail what we pretty much already know: there's an alien virus dormant in the earth which will be used by the aliens who are planning to colonize our planet if they don't find a way to stop it or at least protect themselves from the ever-mutating virus. They didn't realize until the Dallas thing that the Consortium Syndicate was being two-timed and the virus plans to use humans as their hosts. Prissy is telling Mulder all of this because he expects our hero to do something about it and protect the world for Prissy man's children and grandchildren. That's actually quite noble. Mulder wants to stop the car but Prissy won't let him until he informs Mulder that he was ordered to kill him along with Kurtzweil. He only did the job half way and he takes out his gun to shoot... his driver. Blood splatters onto the backseat and hits Mulder. He is shocked. Sir Prissy Pants tells Mulder to "Trust no one". Oh, no fair using my favorite informant's catch phrase to garner my sympathy! He also mentions the title of the movie when he tells Mulder his father had hopes in him; hopes that his Spooky son would rise up and "Fight the future". That's a double whammy on being quotable. Now Mulder and Prissy get out of the car, with Prissy urging Mulder to go find Scully and test the vaccine on her and find all the answers to his questions. Well, maybe just save Scully. Sir Prissy Pants, knowing that he's dead meat after betraying the Consortium Syndicate, gets into his fancy black car which explodes in a huge fiery blast of awesomeness. Aww, Prissy. Nice knowing you. If you're really dead that is... He may pull a CSM and escape or something! No wait, my research (see: Wikipedia) tells me that he dies in the movie. Sucks to be him. Mulder, who was knocked down by the force of the blast, watches the flames in shock before getting up and checking on the vaccine. It's not broken. Time to rescue his skeptical sweetie! Run Mulder! Pump those long paranoid legs!

The X-Files text on the bottom left hand corner tells us we're in Antarctica and it's been 48 hours since our British friend made the ultimate sacrifice. It's as white and snowy as Texas was in 35,000 B.C. You think they may have used the same snowy set? Mulder is driving a sort of snow plow/tractor thing through the pretty winter wonderland and he looks around, possibly wondering if he's lost. It all looks the same, so I hope your "always right when it comes to driving" instincts kick in. He's running low on gas and he checks an electronic device that tells him his coordinates. And now his gas is all gone but Mulder luck has it so he's pretty much right where the British man said he needed to go. Mulder gets out and climbs a snowy hill, any lingering pain he may be feeling from the gunshot should be numbed by the cold icy wind. When he reaches the top, he sees an igloo base in the distance. He whips out some binoculars and sees some more snow vehicles like his parked nearby the building area, one of them taking a little joy ride around the snow. Wheeee! Mulder puts his binoculars away and strides forward, a man on a mission, going faster as he gets closer. His determination to save Scully will not stop him... from falling through some thin ice. Mulder luck is funny like that. He falls through several layers of snowy ice, making several grunting noises on the way down. He's going to have quite the headache in the morning. When he finally stops, he huffs in pain, silently thanks a few deities, and gets on his feet. It doesn't look like he can climb back up easily but he doesn't need to because he sees a hole which leads to a long snowy tunnel with steam coming out of it from the oher side. Mulder wants to know where it leads. The tunnel is at an angle which is like the world's most uncomfortably cold slide. Mulder crawls down and when he reaches the end, which looks like a big pipe, he jumps down onto a weird hallway with ominously lighted ice structures. He walks down, flashlight in hand and stops at one of the ice structures to wipe snow off of it. He discovers a human body inside with something alien inside the body. These ice structures are large icy container pods! Somewhere above the snow, CSM discovers Mulder's snow rig and puffs his cigarette in silent seething. Walking down the hallway Mulder finds himself at a sort of... okay, how the hell do I describe this? This whole scene is going to be hell to describe and this is when a co-recapper would've been awesome to bribe into recapping this part. Let's see... it looks like a he's at a cross juncture which now leads him to this huge, dark, futuristic machinery room. There's thousands, maybe even millions of the icy container pods everywhere and pipes and tubes and technology like you wouldn't believe. He looks down to see some icy container pods on this hanging conveyor belt thing and then sees something down there that makes him want to take a second look. He pulls out his binoculars and sees, I think, the container that was carrying Scully. It's not an icy container pod because those have a sort of different shape and color to them. He needs to get down there and he starts to climb down a makeshift ladder carefully but not carefully enough because he loses his footing and dangles for a few seconds on the ladder that's on another slide tilt. If ever there where an appropriate time to shout a curse word being on the verge of plummeting several yards (maybe miles) down to your death would be as appropriate as you can get. Mulder half falls, half slides down the ladder which leads to a small ledge that he barely grabs onto. He looks down to see his binoculars fall down to certain doom then uses superior upper arm strength and his feet to get to this other ledge where there's more stable ground. He is relieved to have cheated death on the big screen (like twice already, right?) and he walks a bit across this walkway bridge before hopping off a round cylinder entry way that the walkway was on. He falls one or two feet down, sort of ungracefully then makes his way to Scully's glass encased stretcher/container! We know it's Scully's because her clothes, and more importantly her gold cross necklace, is still inside. He grabs the necklace and his determination to find her grows. Knowing that she's naked somewhere in there may be making other parts of him grow as well. Sure there are hundreds upon thousands of icy container pods and precious little time to find her but he's got Scully radar and Mulder luck on his side. Walking down a long hallway of iced over container pods, we see carefully obscured (but implied to be) naked bodies with wide eyes and gaping mouths. They're suspended in liquid inside each icy container pod and the fifth icy container pod Mulder checks out encases the only wide eyed and gaping mouthed test subject he cares about. That's Mulder luck at it's best, people! Mulder bangs on the container pod but gets no where fast so he uses his flashlight which will prove to be equally useless. Above with the snow vehicles, we see what's inside the man made igloos at the base. CSM and some soldiers are running around while CSM orders them to get down below, armed to the nines because they have a breach. Down below, Mulder yanks a metal oxygen tank from the glass encased stretcher/container and uses it to try and break open Scully's icy container pod. And he's actually making headway. CSM is yelling at his soldiers to get down the ladders but Mulder's progress breaks a hole large enough for a ton of liquid, that I don't think is water, to come rushing out. Mulder uses his gloved hands to yank out more pieces of ice and that's when we clearly see this weird tube in her mouth. Her expression remains frozen and Mulder takes out the vaccine and the needle. Having no medical experience with needles but knowing his trust and faith will guide his hand (plus he must've seen Scully do it a hundred times), he injects Scully. The tube in her mouth starts to shrivel and weird dark goop travels out of her body via the tube. I can only assume that was the gestating alien inside her. Eww. He says her name and reaches for the tube in her mouth but falls back when there's some shaking in the large mechanical pod room area. Above in the evil igloos, all the different monitoring equipment seem to be reading one thing: Danger. A man tells CSM that there's a contaminate in the system and CSM realizes Mulder has the vaccine. That's one hell of a vaccine. And the British guy said it was weak? Geez, I'd hate to see what a strong vaccine would do! Steam shoots out of vents in the hallway with our two agents, and Mulder focuses on poor gasping Scully who's showing signs of life. He grabs the tube in her mouth and gives a good pull, taking out a long umbilical cord-esque tube like a clown would pull out a bunch of colorful scarves from someone's ear. I don't know how else to explain it. Just know that the tube is pretty long but he pulls it all out and begs Scully to breathe. She starts to cough up some of the liquid and gasps, trying to breathe. She just barely manages to say she's cold. Being naked in an icy container tends to leave a body chilly. Mulder assures her he's going to get her out of there and grabs his trusty oxygen tank to bust out some more ice. The room above ground is experiencing technical difficulties of the worse kind (sparks shooting everywhere, flashing lights, and a siren blaring) CSM realizes it's time to abandon ship. One of the men ask what happened and CSM merely says it's all gone to hell. That's quite an understatement. When they wonder about the Mulder situation, CSM says he'll never make it out alive. Hah! Foolish CSM underestimating Mulder. Right now, Mulder has finally broken off enough of the container pod to lift a naked Scully out of there. Aww, such a gentleman, that one. But then he may store this image for future use in his photographic memory. Why is it that these two only see each other naked when they're in mortal danger or really sick? He lays her down on the floor to wrap her in his winter jacket and this bit of implied female nudity is all we're gonna see of Scully because now she's wearing some more of Mulder's winter clothes, including some socks I'll assume he kept in his pocket or something. He's carrying her in his arms as he tries for the heroic escape. The two see a long metal wall with an opening at the top and find the makeshift ladder. CSM and his soldiers have abandoned their posts, all of them running and panicking except for Mr. Cool Smoking Man. They drive away in their snow vehicles and CSM looks vaguely surprised and concerned but probably more annoyed than anything. Mulder and Scully are dragging themselves up the metal ladder while the icy container pods are defrosting or something and there's water everywhere. Last time I checked water and machinery don't mix very well. Oh, and something is moving in the container pods. When they finally reach the top of the ladder, Scully's cough has returned and Mulder urges her to keep moving but she can't. Mulder insists he can but decides to take it into his hands, or rather take her into his arms. He has her flung over his shoulders and walks past some more melting icy container pods. They reach the metal pipe where he first slid down from. Mulder tells her to reach up and grab the vent. Oh, so it's a vent and not a pipe slide? No wonder it wasn't so much fun. There's some movement in the container pods and Mulder sees an angry alien creature in the container pod right in front of him. Oh crap, the aliens gestating in their human hosts are hatching! When Mulder repeats for Scully to grab the vent, he gets no response. He checks over and sees she's unconscious. Mulder lays her down and checks her pulse. The aliens inside the container pods are making quite a racket as they try to bust out. See, this is the scene that doesn't seem to get as much discussion as The Shippy Hallway scene. Long before I saw the movie, all I heard when I checked fanfic and fanvids was the cursed bee and the almost kiss in the hallway but I never knew that about this scene where Mulder leans down to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Scully. That kind of counts as a kiss; it's the kiss of life! And it works because Scully is roused from her sleep like a bizarre X-Files version of Sleeping Beauty. Mulder's CPR technique and constant pleading for her to breathe pays off. (Though I subscribe to Aine's theory that Scully was just pretending to be unconscious so they can engage in an all out a tongue war!) Scully coughs alot then starts to say something we can't hear. Mulder puts his ear close to her mouth to listen and we hear Scully weakly say "I had you big time" while giving him a small smile. He smiles back and even manages a tiny laugh – forgetting that she totally won the argument at the most inappropriate time – just glad that she's alive. We need more of this adorable teasing in season 6, people. Mulder helps her stand up and lifts her up the vent, commanding her to pull herself up. The container pods are cracking all around them and they're really cutting it close on their escape. Scully pulls herself into the vent with Mulder close behind. Not close enough however, because one of his legs still dangles down for an escaping alien to grab! Scully stops and calls his name but he just tells her to keep moving forward and kicks himself free. What do you expect from a man with legs strong enough to run, swim and kick doors open on the first try? The two climb up the vent tunnel with Mulder looking behind every so often to check if there are any alien creatures after them. They're closer and closer to the surface; Mulder tells Scully to keep going and she does. They get to the area where Mulder first landed when he fell through the snowy ice layers. An alien tries to make a grab for them but a blast of steam sucks it down or something and it falls back.

They manage to climb out and get up onto the surface, Scully lying down thoroughly exhausted. Too bad the ice beneath them starts to crack. Oh damn. Now our intrepid heroes have to outrun the gaping hole that's ever widening a few feet away from them. Mulder picks up Scully and flings her arm around his shoulder they take a few steps before Mulder stops because curiosity killed the fox and he has to know what's happening. The igloo base behind him is falling into the cracking ice and you two are next, that's what's happening! Run, run, run, as fast as you can, it can't catch him, he's the believer man. Or maybe it can catch him. The ice and snow that's been cracking and caving in catches up to them and our heroes fall! But then something lifts them up and they slide down onto the snow a few feet in front of them. Now *that's* a fun looking slide. Well, until they reach the end and drop the rest of the couple of feet but they land in snow so it's all good. No broken bones, just hypothermia. How did they survive? Have all those years on the X-Files given them some kind of amazing supernatural powers? No, they actually got lifted by... an alien space ship!? Is that what that huge mechanical room was? Wow! The two are near the hole's edge and Mulder sees that huge alien mother ship hovering over his head. His eyes grow wide and he's the most shocked expression I've ever seen on him considering all the shocks he's gone through over the past five seasons. It's a UFO miracle. He has his arms around Scully who's facing the snow in exhaustion but Mulder needs her to look up and see it. The ship is almost gone - Dear God Scully just lift your head about three inches and make him the happiest man on earth, in the non-romantic way! The UFO disappears but Mulder's most adorable grin ever does not. He looks over at his partner, the one who's been through hell and back with him, the one whom he cannot live without and Scully mutters something I can't quite decipher. After re-watching it three times it almost sounds like she said "I saw it". If Mulder thinks the same thing, he can now die a happy man knowing that they saw proof of extraterrestrials, had a kick-ass adventure, and best of all they shared a lip lock. Wait, Mulder, why are you closing your eyes? I don't mean you should die right now! His exhaustion has caught up to him and Scully manages to muster some strength in that weak little body of hers to take Mulder into her arms, hold him close, and bury her head in his hair. You know Scully, I once heard the best way to regenerate body heat was to crawl naked into a sleeping bag with somebody else who’s already naked. And don't give me that sleeping bag rhetoric because I think Mulder's abandoned snow vehicle a few yards away would do nicely. We are left to wonder how they not only survived the freezing cold, but managed to escape and get back to Washington. Perhaps they do have amazing supernatural powers... what else would you call their intense luck and the ability to dodge death at every turn?

Scully is back in front of the DC review panel, still looking a bit bruised and worn from her Antarctic adventure. What a trooper. AD Cassidy is in the middle of a speech that's intercut with conspiracy covering activity. She says her report is incomplete in light of the new evidence she's gotten, the fossil bones in Dallas being the evidence she could be referring to, which is currently being stolen by a mystery man. AD Cassidy says that Scully's version of the events sound too incredible and just plain implausible to report. When Scully asks for her to elaborate, the female AD is happy to do so, mentioning the implausible connection between Texas and Antarctica. Meanwhile, there are new tanker trucks being painted with the sign "Nature's Best Corn Oil". Yeah right. She continues talking about how bees and corn crops don't fall under their terrorism purview, then thinks Scully's ordeal may have affected her in some way while we see soldiers set corn fields ablaze. In short, Scully's testimony is so out there, the AD has no choice but to leave them all out in their final report and basically sweep it under the rug until she gets some actual evidence. Scully gets up and hands her the vial with the cursed evil bee of ship-ruining moments inside. How's that for evidence? Scully makes a vaguely insulting comment towards the panel then exits dramatically. That's why I love her. And some of the FBI suits all turn to look at Skinner to share a look. Yes, he has to deal with her everyday. What of it?

Mulder is sitting by a bench near the Capital's reflecting pool. He's reading the newspaper, specifically the article about the "Hanta virus outbreak" being contained in Texas. I must say, they're very fast in their cover ups. Though what do you expect from a Bunch of Old White Men With Waaaay Too Much Free Time On Their Hands? Scully walks over to him and he hands her the paper, snarking on the "interesting work of fiction" and how they're burying the truth. Scully says she told the FBI panel everything she knew and when Mulder walks off, Scully follows him. He says she's wasting her time but she thinks maybe they can tell their information to some higher ups. Oh Scully. So optimistic. He stops and turns towards her, lamenting how familiar it's been for them. They've been in this helpless position any times before, close to the truth only to end up back where they started with nothing to show for it expect for some bruises and lingering semi-awkward memories. Scully insists it's different this time. Yeah, they're going through it all on the big screen. That's different. Mulder disagrees and thinks Scully was right to leave him and become a doctor. He's raring for a mega guilt trip and says he doesn't want to see her die because of him and his cause. She will have none of that. The tables are turned as she refuses to leave him with the same conviction he refused to let her go in The Shippy Hallway. She wants to continue working by his side and as a doctor, she thinks they're the only ones who can save lives of many people. Ah yes, Mulder had the vaccine but he used it on Scully and doomed all those thousands of people on the alien ship just to save her... totally worth it. She grabs his hands and echoes his words that if she quits, "they" win. He has the barest hint of a smile and the two walk off holding hands which would be a perfect way to end the movie (in my opinion) but we must have the one final scene of ominous evil to let us know it ain't over.

Last scene is in the arid deserts of Tunisia. A familiar black helicopter is flying overhead and an equally familiar Consortium Syndicate member is walking by the cornfield planted there. CSM meets up with Strughold to discuss something very important involving Mulder. Well, that goes without saying - if it's important, it must involve Mulder somehow. CSM says that Mulder has seen way too much but Strughold says he's only seen pieces of their puzzle. We're never going to get straight answers from this series, are we? CSM insists that Mulder is more determined than ever but Strughold says that one man cannot "fight the future" (second use of the movie title). CSM reveals what he got in the mail. The new issue of 'Old Matrons In Their Skivvies' monthly? I think I just made myself gag a little. No, he got a telegram that informs him the X-Files have been re-opened. Way to tie up a few lose ends, Carter. The X-Files are back and our two favorite agents are ready to continue their search for the truth. CSM walks away and we see how huge this new cornfield is in the arid desert. Genetically modified alien virus corn really grows well in those kinds of areas.

~
And that's it. Roll credits, listen to the cool sci-fi action music followed by the sweet shippy music and praise the deity of your choice that there was no unpleasantness from the season 5 finale in this movie. I'd like to reiterate my apology to my lovely co-recapper, Aine and I want to thank those who read this super long recap. I hope your eyes aren't ready to roll back from all the reading. Here's hoping the rest of the series is as good... or perhaps being more realistic, here's hoping the second movie is as good as this one!