The K Files agents investigate the invisible world of religion alongside Mulder and Scully on a case involving the murders of (false) stigmatics. They meet Kevin, seemingly the real deal, and must protect him from the dark force intent on obliterating what he represents.

This episode marks a milestone for the series, exploring Scully's faith in Catholic mythology for the first time, an accent to Mulder's belief in the invisible world of UFO's and conspiracies. With Scully, the spirit is always the truth and indeed, she is the one tuned in to the right frequency on this case, not Mulder.

Scully's faith throughout the series serves a delicious slice of duality, as it contrasts with her typical skepticism (toward the paranormal anyway). Revelations has a lot to offer in story and action (plus a solid performance from the very young Kevin Zegers of Air Bud fame) but is most fun for the role reversal from our intrepid agents: Scully gets to play the believer and Mulder the skeptic, which is refreshing for everyone, including (clearly) the actors.

The K Files investigates the conclusion to Nisei: 731. Mulder does his usual move of jumping on a train carrying a human-alien hybrid and gets embroiled in a tense sequence with an NSA Agent. Meanwhile, Scully gets closer to uncovering the truth about her abduction.

731 is a stunt heavy episode (especially for Duchovny) not mention a massive practical explosion of a retired railway car. The episode snagged series director of photography, John Bartley, an American Society of Cinematographers award nomination, and also propelled Bowman toward directing the series' subsequent film adaptation, The X-Files.

Mulder and Scully get embroiled in a conspiracy thriller mini movie two parter, starting with Nisei. Filed under Fight the Future-esque episodes (EBE), alien autopsies Mulder believe are real (Jose Chung's), and is cross-referenced with previous two parter Paper Clip and The Blessing Way under E for experimentation on humans.

The K Files returns with an investigation into third season "Lightning Boy" episode, DPO, featuring exciting performances from then baby-faced, now old and famous Giovanni Ribisi and Jack Black, and a dynamic writing/directing team-up between Kim Manners and Howard Gordon. Historically, the story goes that the original concept for this ep came from a card with the words "Lightning Boy" on it, that was on the wall of Chris Carter's office since the first season.

Agents confront one of the oldest evils in NEW investigation into second season spooky story, The Calusari. Evil twins, Eastern rituals an exorcisms, violent deaths, resurrected chickens, and the first appearance of recurring “King of Digital Imaging” (and one of Mulder's only friends), Chuck Burke, contribute to an impactful early season monster of the week.

Humbug | The K Files | The X Files Podcast | Case 316

The K Files returns with an investigation into second season darkly comedic story, Humbug. Humbug marks a new type of episode – it was the first explicitly comedic episode on the show. Darin Morgan later wrote three more scripts for the series that are all similarly toned, including miniseries entry Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster.

Open the case file below via podcast and video for our full investigation:

It’s one of the finest efforts on behalf of series-long director Kim Manners, featuring some avant-garde choices like in the sequence with the museum owner and the reveal of his deformed face. Special effects for the Leonard apparatus also gets top marks, though even in those early days the XF SFX team was head and shoulders above some shows that are out now.

Guest stars included real-life sideshow performers Jim Rose and The Enigma, as well as actors Michael J. Anderson and Vincent Schiavelli.

Plot (Spoilers):

In the town of Gibsonton, Florida one night, two brothers are playing in their home outdoor swimming pool. A mysterious figure approaches them from the woods surrounding their home and jumps into the pool without them noticing. As the brothers play, they notice something is wrong and before they leave the pool, the figure emerges from the water. It’s revealed to be the boys’ father, “Alligator Man”, who scares his sons for fun. After some laughs in the pool, the “Alligator Man” tells his children to go back into the house as it is late and time for them to go to bed. The boys leave the pool and their father stays behind to swim. An unknown mysterious figure approaches the pool from the woods. It attacks and kills “Alligator Man” in his pool.

Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) travel to Gibsonton to investigate a 28-year series of attacks by an unknown assailant in a community of former circus sideshow performers. They attend the funeral of the “Alligator Man” (who suffered from Ichthyosis). Among the people they meet afterwards are “self-made freaks” human blockhead Dr. Blockhead (Jim Rose) (who interrupted the funeral by hammering a railroad spike into his own chest) and his “geek” sidekick The Conundrum (The Enigma), who will eat anything, but says nothing. The agents also meet former performer Jim Jim, the Dogface Boy, who later became the local sheriff after his face went through hair loss.

Mulder and Scully stay at the Gulf Breeze trailer court, whose name is a reference to the 1987 Gulf Breeze UFO incident,

More burnt men abound in early second season Bradley Whitford guest starrer, Firewalker. Mulder and Scully, fresh off the trauma of Scully's abduction by Duane Barry, travel to a remote research base to investigate a murder and instead find Josh and a new silicon-based fungus that threatens to spread to the outside world.

Written by Howard Gordon, directed by David Nutter, and featuring a wild performance from the above mentioned, well loved West Wing star, Firewalker suggests that only the worthy should seek to find that which lies deep in the Earth's layers. Only the worthy can receive the truest truths.

The burnt man is burned for a reason. In the opening scenes of Miracle Man, a younger version of the episode's "monster," Samuel, commands a badly burned corpse to "rise up and heal." The body rises but never heals.

Ten years later, the now-grown Samuel, working as an evangelical faith healer for a ministry run by his adoptive father, supposedly left a follower dead after "healing" her. Mulder and Scully come down to Tennessee to investigate and encounter the burnt man, Leonard Vance, now working closely with Samuel and his father.

When M and S find Samuel, Mulder begins seeing visions of his sister, Samantha, as a little girl dressed in an eye-catching red dress (nice touch from director Michael Lange). Interestingly enough, this is the one of the only supernatural things that the agents actually witness on this case. Most everything we see is revealed to be a trick: the locusts in the courtroom, the proof that cyanide killed the woman in the wheelchair, etc.

Samantha is always the symbol of Mulder's lost childhood - when his sister was abducted, everything went to crap for him, his parents got even more distant and then eventually divorced, etc. The little boy, happy go lucky version of Fox died when Samantha disappeared. That she's specifically wearing red in this scene suggests the ultimate coming of age we see in the Christ-like story of Samuel. Even though the child dies, that which comes after for Samuel and Mulder both will be improved.

Speaking of dying - despite Samuel's innocence, the local sheriff allows two of his men to beat Samuel to death in a jail cell. In another bold directing move, Michael Lange shoots this sequence in near silhouette, with Samuel adopting a cruciform position, mirroring Christ's penchant for taking the blame.

Samuel has to die because he comes to understand he's been laboring under a delusion. His father(s) lied to him, lead him astray, bought expensive jewelry with the money from poor, desperate people. Samuel is meant to remember that money is nothing compared to the sublime and he needs to be humbled.

He comes through the fire and is alive, and now must confront his bad fathers. Vance the burnt man blames his bitterness at having been resurrected into a scarred body. This is misguided because the life you receive, whatever form it takes, is always enough. It has to be.

The life Samuel received a second time seems to be real enough - as M and S get ready to leave Tennessee, they receive word that Samuel's body is missing from the morgue and witnesses have seen him walking around. Meanwhile, Sheriff Pontius Pilate is arrested in connection with Samuel's death. As Mulder and Scully leave, Mulder sees one last vision of his sister in red - a reminder that death is not an end, but a means to undergo transformation. Mulder should seek to heal the pain of his sister, die to his sadness for her, so that he can be reborn, harder better faster stronger.

Also of note, Miracle Man was the first episode of The X-Files written by Howard Gordon without his long-term collaborator Alex Gansa. Chris Carter helped Gordon flesh out the details of the episode.

The K Files continues our investigation into first season with one of the most action-packed episodes in the whole series: EBE. We meet the Lone Gunmen, forward the show's mythology via the Syndicate's well-shrouded plans, Deep Throat is in the mix as both a liar and truth teller, M and S break into secret facilities and get shot at by MP's... Replace the truck with a train and change out Deep Throat for The Well-Manicured Man and Bob's your uncle, it's a mini Fight the Future.

This week, we peer into Scully's romantic past in LAZARUS, in which Scully's ex plays host to a lovesick prison guard turned Clyde (as in Bonnie and). It's a love that was a lie - even though the prison guard overcame death for his love, death claimed him in the end, no matter what.