IMAGES FROM "SEIN UND ZEIT" COMING SOON!


TEASER
Mr. LaPierre sits in his living room watching Harsh Realm! In their bedroom, Mrs. LaPierre rips paper from a garment bag and writes a kidnapping note (but not asking for ransom) about her daughter. At the end it says, "No one shoots at Santa Claus."

Mr. LaPierre goes in to see his daughter, and at first sees her lying there dead. It's just his imagination (at least at this point I think so), she is lying there okay. He walks back out.

When he goes back to her door it's shut and he sees blood coming from the room. He opens it and screams for his wife, their daughter is gone.

ACT ONE
At the bureau, Skinner and some agents talk about the ransom note when Mulder comes in.

Once alone, Mulder convinces Skinner to let him have the case for a few hours.

SKINNER: Why are you here, Agent Mulder?
MULDER: I want this case.
SKINNER: I'm fairly certain I got more than enough competent agents in here.
MULDER: (mildly sarcastic) Ooo, I can see that.
SKINNER: This is a kidnapping, Agent Mulder. A little girl snatched from her bedroom. Basic missionary style FBI work--it's not an X-File.
MULDER: I'm aware of the facts.
SKINNER: We’re trying to rule out all possibilities before we start making any statements.
MULDER: That's what I'm talking about, ruling out other possibilities.
SKINNER: I can't just give you the case. I have to follow protocol. Behavioral gets first crack, then the people down at NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children).
MULDER: Two, three, four hours, this case is gonna be a circus. Every star-struck attorney in America is gonna wanna to represent these people for free. If somebody doesn't ask the right questions right now, they may never get asked.
SKINNER: You've got ‘til noon. Mulder--the agents in my office---they have a pool going.
MULDER (walking away): They think she’s dead. Don't bet on it.

Mulder goes to the LaPierre home to talk to the family, but they really aren’t much help.

MULDER: Mr. and Mrs. LaPierre, my name is Fox Mulder, I'm a special agent with the FBI, and I have a lot of experience with crimes like the one that took place here. Now, I know you’ve made a statement to the police, but I’d like to ask you some questions about that and I’d like you to answer in as much detail as both you and your lawyer are comfortable with. I want to ask you about the note that you found. Where did you find it?
MR. LAPIERRE: In my daughter's bedroom.
MULDER: When?
MR. LAPIERRE: When I went to check on her.
MULDER: And, do you know what time that was?
MR. LAPIERRE: It was 9:30, I think. Right about then. I was watching TV in here.
MULDER: What were you watching?
MR. LAPIERRE: I never heard of it before...It was good.
MULDER: What about you, Mrs. LaPierre?
MRS. LAPIERRE: I was in bed already.
MULDER: Were you asleep?
MRS. LAPIERRE: Half.
MULDER: Is that Amber Lynn's bedroom that I saw down the hallway there?
MRS. LAPIERRE (crying): Yes.
MULDER: Do you always lock your door at night even if you're home?
MRS. LAPIERRE: Yes.
MULDER: You know most of your neighbors I bet, up and down the street. You’re on good terms with them?
MR. LAPIERRE: Most of them, yes.
MULDER: Can you think of anyone that might have wanted to hurt Amber Lynn?
MRS. LAPIERRE cries harder and harder
LAWYER: That's enough questions. They've been very helpful, but I think you can see that these folks have nothing whatsoever to hide.
MULDER: Mr. and Mrs. LaPierre, I want you to understand something, because it's gonna get very confusing from here on in. But whatever else the FBI says or does, they are going to try their damndest to find your daughter.
MULDER gets up and starts to walk away.
MULDER: Thank you.
MRS. LAPIERRE: Agent Mulder? Do you think they will -- find her?
MULDER: I hope so. Yeah. I really do.

Scully pulls up outside at Mulder’s hotel room and goes to the door:

SCULLY knocks
MULDER is inside lying on the bed
MULDER: It’s open.
SCULLY: Mulder?
MULDER: Come on in.
SCULLY steps in
SCULLY: What are you doing?
MULDER: Thinking.
SCULLY: About?
MULDER: Amber Lynn LaPierre.
SCULLY shuts the door.
SCULLY: Mind if I turn on a light?
MULDER: Yeah, I do.
SCULLY: Skinner is royally pissed.
MULDER only shakes his head yes slightly
SCULLY: At you.
MULDER: I'm sure he is.
SCULLY: He expected a report at noon. He waited. Now, he sent me to find you, to get it.
MULDER: I don't have a report.
SCULLY: They had to move on the case. The media got wind of the police findings and they’re gonna broadcast them. The parents are being held for further questioning.
MULDER: They're not guilty, Scully.
SCULLY: The facts would say otherwise. There’s no sign of a break-in, both the parents were at home at the time that the girl disappeared.
MULDER: They lied about where they found the note.
SCULLY: Why?
MULDER: That’s what I've been thinkin’ about.
SCULLY turns to the TV. On it, it shows Jon-Benet Ramsey???? and then the girl that is missing
SCULLY: Is it the media, our just our own morbid fascination with the killing of an innocent?
MULDER: She’s not dead, Scully.

Mulder’s cell phone rings and he answers it. It’s his mother, Tena Mulder.

MULDER: Mulder.
TENA: Fox, it’s me.
MULDER: Mom? Hi.
TENA: I'm watching the news. That little girl in California. You're out there, aren't you?
MULDER: Yes, I am. Are you okay, Mom?
TENA: When are you coming back here?
MULDER: Well, I’m not sure, I, you know, I, I, I don’t know.
TENA: Call when you get back, Fox.
MULDER: Okay I will. Um, you take care, Mom.

Mulder’s mother hangs up and then looks down at a familiar photograph of Samantha and Mulder when they were young.

At the Bureau, Skinner tells the agents what they can determine from the letter. It threatens physical violence but does not ask for any ransom or money. The paper it was written on suggests haste or no planning.

Mulder and Scully walk in.

Skinner continues that Mrs. LaPierre’s prints were found on the note. They think that it is her handwriting but it cannot be proven.

Mulder tells them that Mr. LaPierre said that he found his daughter when he went to bed, but that when the police arrived, the TV was still on. Her parents were the only ones there when she disappeared, with no sign of a break-in. They no all their neighbors, but no one saw a stranger at fairly early hour on a Friday enter the locked and lighted home and remove the girl undetected. The one agent thinks that the husband is lying for his wife, but Mulder disagrees because it doesn’t explain what happened to the little girl. Mulder and Scully leave.

At the office, Mulder is pulling files while Scully tries to take him off of the case, knowing that he is personalizing with it.

SCULLY: What are you doing, Mulder?
MULDER: There’s something in that abduction note that I’ve seen before.
SCULLY: That's not what I mean. You're personalizing this case. You’re identifying with your sister.
MULDER (smiling): My sister was taken by aliens. Did I say anything about aliens, Scully?
SCULLY: There are a lot of good agents up there in Skinner's Office who do not have the patience for this.
MULDER: What did I do? I provided a logical counterpoint.
SCULLY: You told them that they were wrong, Mulder.
MULDER pulls out a file.
MULDER: And they are.
MULDER opens the file
MULDER: Pocatello, Idaho, 1897.
In the folder is a note from a previous case, and at the bottom it says, “Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.”
MULDER: Look familiar?

Outside somewhere, a man is filming some kids playing from inside his car. He has a little Santa Claus hanging from his rearview mirror.

ACT TWO
The mother of the missing boy from the case, Kathy Lee Tencate, is in jail, so they go visit her.

The woman had been sent to jail for the murder of her missing son. She confessed to the murder while she was in jail years later. They determined that she wrote the note.

They ask her about the note, and she tells them that “No one shoots at Santa Clause” means "that when someone promises you something...a gift...like Santa Claus, that no one would do anything for fear of not getting the gift."

Mulder tells her about the recent disappearance and shows her the note. He says that she told the police where she buried the body, but there was no body to be found. He wants her to explain it, but she says that she can’t. He says that she can’t because she didn’t do anything.

MULDER: You're not guilty of anything other than a lie--just like these people--the only reason you changed your story was to get out of here. Because you knew the parole board might buy the story of a psychotic break and of your terrible remorse. But they would never, never let a woman out of jail who claimed her son just disappeared out of thin air. These people--they need someone to tell them it's okay. Someone to corroborate their story.
KATHY LEE: I'm not that person.
MULDER: They need your help.

Mulder and Scully leave the cell.

SCULLY: That was utterly irresponsible, Mulder. It was out of line and it was without any basis in reality.
MULDER: You think that woman could have killed her son?
SCULLY: She was convicted in a court of law.
MULDER: So how do you explain those two notes, written ten years apart, could contain the same obscure phrase?
SCULLY: I can’t explain it, Mulder, but you're doing exactly what I said, you’re personalizing this case.
MULDER: No. I’m gonna solve this case. I am gonna solve it.
SCULLY: How?
MULDER: I'm gonna find those kids.
SCULLY: What if they're dead, Mulder?
MULDER ignores the question.
SCULLY: Don't go looking for something you don't want to find.

Back in Kathy Lee’s cell, she is crying when she sees a vision of her son, but it disappears. She calls the guard to get Mulder and Scully back.

In Mulder’s apartment, his answering machine goes on. Flash to Tena’s home while the message plays.

There are picture frames scattered about. Some are empty, and the rest are of pictures of her two children when they were young.

“Fox, it’s your mother. I hoped you’d call upon your return, but I haven’t heard from you. I’m sure you’re busy. There are some emotions in me; I wouldn’t know where to start. So much that I’ve left unsaid for reasons I hope one day you’ll understand.”

During this, Mrs. Mulder takes a familiar picture of Samantha and Fox when they were young and throws it into the burning garbage.

Mulder has the LaPierre’s come to see him because there is something he wants them to see. He turns on a videotape from the jail. Kathy Lee tells them that the same thing happened to her and that it's okay. She says that she can’t explain all of what happened, but that it was like someone was writing the note for her. She tells them that the children are safe and in a better place.

There is a news report about the LaPierre’s on a television. Several other televisions are around, each showing footage of children playing. One is of Mr. and Mrs. LaPierre’s daughter. The camera pans back to show that the man watching them has a big stomach (this is important later).

On another television is Mulder being interviewed by the press. He says:

"…Federal investigation of the case will continue but will no longer focus on the LaPierres as primary suspects. We, uh, we will intensify our search for Amber Lynn and we remain hopeful of her eventual safe return."

This time as the camera pans away, we see that in Skinner’s office, he and Mulder are watching it as well.

SKINNER: "Intensify our search" where? The twilight zone?
MULDER: I have a corroborating witness.
SKINNER: In state prison!
MULDER: There's a material connection between these two women.
SKINNER: The only connection, Agent Mulder, is you! I've got people busting their butts on this thing Agent Mulder, putting together hard evidence, real evidence, while you're out gathering Grimms' fairy tales from convicted murderers!
MULDER: It doesn’t make sense; it’s incomprehensible in any kind of a real world way!
SKINNER: I DEAL in the real world, Agent Mulder.
SCULLY enters
SKINNER: You begged onto this case as part of the solution. All you've done is hand our only suspects the "Twinkie" defense.
SCULLY: Sir?
SKINNER: What? What is it, Agent Scully?
SCULLY: I need to have a word with Agent Mulder.
SKINNER: It can wait!
SCULLY: No. It can't, sir.
MULDER: What is it, Scully?
SCULLY: Mulder, you're mom's dead.

ACT THREE
Mulder and Scully go to his mother's house where they find what looks to be a suicide.

SCULLY: Mulder?
MULDER (holding a bottle): I'm in here.
SCULLY: What is it?
MULDER: Diazepam. She used them to sleep.
SCULLY: Is there a note?
MULDER: No...She called while I was in California, she wanted to talk, but, uh, I never called her back...
SCULLY: Mulder...
MULDER: I didn’t…Why would she do this? It just doesn’t make any sense.
SCULLY: We never truly know why…
MULDER (now walking around looking): No! She wouldn’t kill herself. Why are these pictures gone? There were photos here. There were photos of my sister and I (Mulder sits on the bed), this is all that she had left of us, and they’re missing. Why?--
MULDER sighs and looks up confused. SCULLY sits down on the bed as well.
MULDER: She saw me on the news. She wanted to talk about the missing girl, Amber Lynn. She wanted to tell me something about her maybe. She…couldn’t tell me over the phone ‘cause she was afraid that they would do something like this to her!
SCULLY: Who?
MULDER: Whoever took my sister. Look at this place, I mean, this, it’s like, it’s, it’s all staged. The pills, the oven, the tape -- it’s like a bad movie script. They would, they would’ve come here and they would’ve threatened her. She would be upset; they would have to sedate her. I would look for a, uh, a needle puncture mark, or, or something else in her system besides these pills.
SCULLY (standing): No, Mulder. Please don't ask me to do this.
MULDER: Scully, who else can I ask?
SCULLY: An autopsy, Mulder? I mean, it’s, it's one thing on a stranger, but you're my friend and she’s your mother.
MULDER: I know, but if you don't do it, I might never know the truth.

Mulder talks to Kathy Lee again, this time about her son's disappearance, and his sister's.

MULDER: You've seen things. I need to understand them.
KATHY LEE: Something's happened to you.
MULDER: My mother is dead. You know why.
KATHY LEE shakes her head
MULDER: Look, I can help you. I can talk to the parole board for you. But right now I need you to help me.
KATHY LEE: I don't understand what you want.
MULDER: I'm not here by accident. My sister was taken away from me, when she was eight years old, like your son was taken away from you
KATHY LEE: Where’s your sister now?
MULDER: I don’t know.
KATHY LEE: You’re mother knew, didn’t she?
MULDER: Why do you ask that?
KATHY LEE: She was trying to tell you.
MULDER: Tell me what?
KATHY LEE: She’d seen them?
MULDER: Who?
KATHY LEE: The walk-ins. Old souls looking for new homes. Your sister’s among them.
MULDER: You can see them?
KATHY LEE: Yes. But sometimes it’s very difficult because they live in the starlight.
MULDER stops. He may or may not believe her now.
MULDER: Is my sister dead?
KATHY LEE: They took her. To protect her soul from the great harm she would have suffered in her life. Just like they did my little boy.
MULDER: Where do they take them? Your boy, this little girl Amber Lynn LaPierre?
KATHY LEE: I don't know. But they’re okay. I’m sure your sister's there too.

At “Santa’s North Pole Village,” where it’s "Christmas all year round" some children pull up in a van. A man gets out. He has a big stomach and we are to assume he is the same man from before. Among the children is LaPierre's daughter.

A man comes over and tells the other man that they (the kids) want to see Santa. He tells them that he’s “just flying in.” He proceeds to go into the building, most likely to change.

Inside there are racks of videos shown, as well at the televisions from before that had shown the children playing.

Sure enough, the man gets out a Santa suit and starts changing.

At Mulder’s apartment, Mulder finds the message from his mother, and keeps replaying the part about “the things she’s left unsaid,” and listens closely.

Scully comes in.

MULDER: Glad you’re here. My mother was trying to tell me something. I think I figured it out.
MULDER sits down and replays the part of the message for Scully
MULDER: Something about my sister…that she was never able to tell me.

The message plays

MULDER: She knew what I’d find with this case out in California.
SCULLY: How could she know that, Mulder?
MULDER: A child disappearing without a trace...without evidence in defiance of all logical explanation. She knew because of what's driven me. What I’ve always believed.
SCULLY: Mulder...
SCULLY walks over to him
MULDER: Scully, these, these parents who have lost, who have lost their children, they've had visions of their sons and daughters. In scenarios that never happened, (Scully sits down) but which they describe in notes that came through as automatic writing, and words that came through them psychically -- from old souls protecting the children. My mother must have written a note like that herself...describing the scenario of my sister's disappearance, of her abduction by aliens. Don't you see, Scully, it never happened. All these visions that I've had have just been, they’ve been to help me cope, to help me deal with the loss, but I've been looking for my sister in the wrong place. That's what my mother was trying to tell me. That’s what she was trying to warn me about. *That's* why they killed her.
SCULLY: Your mother killed herself, Mulder. I conducted the autopsy. She was dying of an incurable disease…an untreatable and horribly disfiguring disease called Padgett’s Carcinoma. She knew it. There were doctor's records. She didn't want to live.
MULDER gets up and violently shakes his desk
SCULLY stands and tries to stop him. MULDER points in her face.
MULDER: She was trying to tell me something (Mulder collapses in a chair)! She was…
MULDER breaks down and starts to cry
SCULLY touches him on back and in his hair while standing over him
SCULLY: She was trying to tell you to stop. To stop looking for your sister. She was just trying to take away your pain.

Scully is about to cry now too because of Mulder. She pulls him by the arm moves to her shoulder and she hugs him.

At the LaPierre house, Mrs. LaPierre has a vision of her daughter.

ACT FOUR
In the morning Skinner comes to Mulder's house and Scully answers the door.

SKINNER: Hi
SCULLY: Hi
SKINNER: How's he doing?
SCULLY: It’s been a hard night for him.
SKINNER: Billie LaPierre (the mother) is asking for him. She's got something to say and she'll only talk to Mulder.
SCULLY: It's not a good time.
MULDER: (walking up from behind) What is it?
SKINNER: This case is heating up. I've booked two flights for us.
MULDER turns and leaves to get ready
SCULLY: Well, then, you'd better book three.

At LaPierre's home, the mother tells Mulder and Scully that she saw a vision of her daughter saying something to her, and that it sounded like she said 74.

Outside Mulder’s ready to leave.

MULDER: Let's go home.
SCULLY: Mulder, we just got here.
MULDER: We're not gonna find these people's daughter alive.
SCULLY: How do you know that?
MULDER: What we're hearing? It's the delusional talk of people that don't want to accept the truth.
SKINNER: You think they know what happened to their child?
MULDER: Maybe. Maybe not, but you can’t see a ghost and still hope to find her alive. Both things can't be true And if this little girl's spirit really appeared to her mother then there's probably only one explanation.
SKINNER: You think their daughter's dead.
SCULLY: Well, what about the handwritten note?
MULDER: I don't know what that means. I don't know what is the truth and what isn't anymore. I'm way too close to this case to make any kind of sound judgment. In fact, I would like to ask you to take me off this case, please, and I'd like to take some time off.

Mulder, Scully, and Skinner are on the way back when Scully sees a sign Highway 74 road marker. She looks at the map and sees a place, “Santa’s North Pole Village,” and makes Skinner go there.

In the Santa's Village, Mulder and Scully go inside while Skinner looks around elsewhere. Inside they find videotapes upon videotapes, dating back to the 1960's. Scully pops in a recent one, and on it is the girl, a few days before she disappeared.

The man (Santa) comes back and finds them and locks them in the room.

It doesn’t take them long to bust the door and get out.

Skinner sees the man run out and he runs after him. Finally he gets him to stop.

After a second they notice the yard. Around them everywhere are newly filled graves.

IMAGES FROM "SEIN UND ZEIT" COMING SOON!

Overall Rating : 9
*Shippy Rating: 9.0
*Based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, and Millennium being a 12, above the scale])*


If you have any more information, spoilers, or questions for me, feel free to email me. If you give me a tip, I don't have to reveal my source, unless you want me too.