Field Trip





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Field Trip


Episode: 6X21
Airdate: 05/09/99
Teleplay by:
Vince Gilligan and John Shiban
Story by:
Frank Spotnitz
Directed by:
Kim Manners
Also Starring: Mitch Pileggi
Guest Cast:
Robyn Lively as Angela Shift, David Denman as Wallace Shift, Jim Beaver, Tom Braidwood as Frohike, Dean Haglund as Langly, and Bruce Harwood as Byers


IMAGES FROM "FIELD TRIP"


Wow! That was really weird. I still had a little bit of a weird feeling left after I watched the episode (which of course is a good thing!)! I cried when Gillian did. I swear those two are the most believable criers! Anyway, definitely "Spooky" and shippy!

TEASER
A man and his wife, Wallace and Angela, get back from a hike in brown mountains. His wife starts having headaches and decides to take a shower. She sees yellow slime on the wall instead of water. She is upset and not sure what to think, so she goes to bed and her husband holds her. Time elapses and the room fades away. Two skeletons are left on the grass, still in the same position.

ACT ONE
FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, DC

Wallace and Angela's bodies were found on Brown Mountain. Mulder tells Scully that UFOs have been reported flying over that area. Scully tries to give Mulder a rational explanation, but he will have none of that. He says:

MULDER: It sounds like crap when you say it.

She says that she thinks it was some kind of death ritual. He asks her how many times he has been right. He says that she always shoots down his theories, but he always ends up right. (This is kind of shippy - at least it started out that way.)

ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA
Mulder and Scully go to the morgue to look at the bodies. Scully asks the coroner if somehow they got the wrong bodies, because the couple had only been missing for three days. It is however them.

Scully finds some of the yellow slime on the skeletons. The coroner tells her that they were found in a swampy area, so it’s probably bog sludge. She wants a sample analyzed.

Mulder decides that he is going to check out Brown Mountain. Scully stays with the coroner.

While out at the scene, Mulder sees Wallace (who they found the body of!) and calls to him, but he runs away. Mulder follows him to a small cave.

At the morgue, the coroner tells Scully the results of the analysis of the slimy substance. It is made of water, hydrochloric acid, electrolytes, pepsins, and tripsins. It’s a digestive secretion, almost like stomach juices, except it contains a substance, chytonase, which is a digestive enzyme, but only in plants.

Mulder walks into the cave and starts to look around.

At the morgue, the coroner shows her a file of another couple that had died in the same manner, but that he hadn't thought anything of it until now. Scully realizes that this couple was found close to where the recent couple was found. Scully realizes what this could mean, and calls Mulder. No one answers. She asks the coroner to have everything sent to Quantico in D.C. to be better analyzed, and to borrow his truck.

When Mulder reaches Wallace, he looks very scared and paranoid. He tells Mulder that he and his wife were abducted by aliens. The bodies were only decoys so that no one would look for them. He says that they returned him, but that they still had his wife.

Scully starts searching for Mulder. In the process, she steps on some mushrooms.

Mulder tells Wallace that they have to get out of there when they find a way. Wallace is confused, the exit of the cave is right behind Mulder. Mulder wants to know what is going on - the exit was a solid rock wall just a few minutes ago. Wallace tells him that "it" is affecting his head, and maybe his too.

A bright light engulfs the cave, and Wallace tells Mulder to hide or the aliens will get him. Mulder yells after him, but he runs away, so he follows him.

Scully walks over to the cave looking in, and then starts calling to Mulder. When she looks down she sees shoeprints leading into the cave. After calling to him some more, she walks away from the cave.

ACT TWO
After the light passes, Mulder and Wallace walk over to the exit and find Angela. She says that she was taken by aliens and that they did tests on her. She has an implant in the back of her neck, but Wallace does not.

A bright light comes again and Wallace and Angela hide, but Mulder does not. He walks out into the light, which fades from white back to the door of his apartment.

Scully arrives at Mulder's apartment and Wallace and Angela are there. Scully's confused, but Mulder tells (kind of whispers) her that it all makes sense. What he's about to tell her will change their lives and everyone else's. He tells her that he's found what he's been looking for:

MULDER: It’s out there, and I found it.
SCULLY: What?
MULDER: The truth.

Mulder takes Scully into a bedroom (no, not that way, but 'Shippers like me can wish;), however this is a different bedroom! There is no waterbed, just a plain ordinary one.) to show her something. He's got his arms on her shoulders.:) He tells her that it's afraid of the light.

From behind a stand, a hand reaches out, followed by the face of a grey.

MULDER: I abducted him.

Mulder tells her that it told him everything - they can speak telepathically. Scully says that she can hear it! Mulder and Scully go back out to the living room.

Out in the living room, Scully is in shock, not sure what to say. She tells Mulder that she was wrong, and that he's been right all along - about the greys and everything. Mulder asks her about the skeletons and the digestive juice, and she tells him that the skeletons where decoys, and that the slim is just bog sludge. Mulder thinks it's very strange that she is accepting it so easily and not disputing it. She tells him that it has to be true; Angela was abducted like her. Mulder still thinks it's really strange. She never agrees like that.

Suddenly he gets a really bad headache and goes into the bathroom. He washes off his face and sees yellow slime coming out of the spigot. It changes back into water again. Mulder just rubs his eyes and goes back out.

Mulder says that it’s not making sense. Suddenly, the walls start to kind of cave in, in a cool special effect. Wallace and Angela "melt" into yellow slime, as finally does Scully.

The scene switches to Mulder - he's in the cave covered with the yellow slime, up against the wall. (Note: This slime looks like the same stuff from "The X-Files: Fight the Future"!)

ACT THREE
Scully is at the mouth of the cave with the coroner looking in with a flashlight. There is now footprints going out of the cave as well. The coroner assumes that whoever was in there left.

The coroner walks off and finds something. The coroner shows Scully what it is. It's a skeleton lying in the grass.

At the morgue Scully is comparing dental records. One is from the skeleton and one is from Mulder's medical information. They match.

The coroner tells Scully that he's sorry, as she looks on ready to cry.

Scully is saying that something happened to him. Maybe the gastric juice somehow decomposed him. The coroner tells her that there was none found on his body. He tells her that it was just a ritualistic murder. He talks about every detail Scully had previously said to Mulder. She doesn't know what to do.

In his office, Skinner tells Scully that he's pleased with her report and the findings. Scully's really confused. She only mentioned that the ritualistic killing was a possible scenario, and the least likely. Skinner tells her that most likely that is what happened. He asks if she thinks it was something different than a murder, and she tells him that that is what Mulder would have thought, and thinks that he would have been right. He tells her that she should take some time off from work. At this point Scully has tears running down her face that she wipes away. (This is so shippy! I was crying at this point!) Skinner tells Scully that they will find who killed Mulder and make them pay. Scully doesn't think he was murdered that way.

Scully arrives at Mulder's apartment door and knocks. (I think, I gotta check) Frohike answers the door. It's filled with people. It's Mulder's funeral.

The Lone Gunmen tell Scully that they've opened their own investigation into Mulder's death (how I don't know). Scully's relieved that finally someone isn't just sitting around thinking Mulder was murdered. That is until Frohike says that they'll find who killed Mulder. Byers tells her that he agreed with her report about the ritualistic murder. Scully tells them that that's not what she wrote in her report, and that they of all people should be suspicious. Her voice continues to rise.

Scully starts seeing the yellow slime and starts screaming about Mulder. Skinner tells her that she should go home and get some rest. She's got to except that he's gone. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door. Scully goes to answer it, and it's Mulder.

The room changes and only Scully and Mulder are in the room. She looks on totally confused.

ACT FOUR
You can still see the relief in her eyes, even though she doesn't know what went on. She asks Mulder what happened.

Mulder tells her about Angela and Wallace. She tells him that they are dead. She found their bodies, and his. Mulder doesn't know what to tell her, other than that he is alive. He then tells her that he was abducted by the aliens.

Scully thinks she knows what's going on. She remembers the mushroom and thinks that they were taken and that they were taken to be eaten by the plant. (Scully says later that it underlies the ground for acres.) She tells him that mushrooms have been known to have hallucinogenic properties, and that they could be imagining everything and are still inside the cave. Mulder realizes that it may have lured them there. Neither remember how they got to Mulder's apartment.

Mulder wakes up and pushes his hand up through the ground and slowly crawls out. Next he pulls out Scully.

At Skinner's office, Skinner is reading their report, incidentally, that both of them signed and agree with. He asks about the inconclusive evidence, but they tell him that it has yet to be explained. The gastric juices contained a substance like LSD, which is what caused the hallucinations. He asks them how they got out. They tell him that once they realized what was going on, they were free.

Mulder thinks of something. If it was a drug, why would it all of a sudden wear off? They were underground for hours, maybe days, with the acidic stuff on them, but yet they have no burns.

Mulder tells Scully that they are still underground, but she disagrees with him. He tells her that he'll prove it to her.

Scully yells as Mulder takes out his gun and shoots Skinner in the chest. Instead of blood, the yellow slime comes out of the bullet holes.

Mulder and Scully are shown underground. Mulder once again (for real this time) pushes his hand through the topsoil. Skinner comes rushing over after seeing Mulder's hand. He and the others who came with him all have gas masks over their faces.

Skinner and some men pull Mulder out, saying he's alive. Next comes Scully. The camera pans to show them both lying on the ground alive, but covered in mud.

Mulder and Scully are taken into an ambulance on stretchers. Once alone and the door is closed, Mulder looks at Scully. He reaches out with his hand, and she turns over and takes it. They hold hands across the ambulance as it starts to move, and the screen fades to black.


IMAGES FROM "FIELD TRIP"


Overall Rating :
9
*Shippy Rating: 9
*Based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, above the scale])*



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