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More Season 9 Spoilers

Hellbound

Episode: 9X04
Airdate: 01/27/02
Written by: David Amann
Directed by: Kim Manners
Starring: Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, Robert Patrick as John Doggett, and Annabeth Gish as Monica Reyes


IMAGES FROM "HELLBOUND"

TEASER
FIRST CALVARY CHURCH
NOVI, VIRGINIA
An anger management group of ex-convicts sit in a circle.

The first man that speaks bears a tattoo that says "Hellbound." He says that he always has said that there are three kinds of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. He tells the group that he made things happen-wrong things, and he caused people pain. He used to wear his tattoo as a badge of honor, but because of the group he is now a better man.

One man in the group, Ed, does not believe what he hears. He thinks that it all is crap. He says that lives go one way and you can't change them, just as you can't change the crimes that you've committed.

The first man tells Ed that he feels sorry for him. Ed tells him not to, because he will be going to hell just like him.

The leader of the group asks Ed why he is there, and he tells her that he just drove Victor to the group. Ed tells her that Victor knows that he is right. She tells him that Victor has been doing well.

He tells her to look at him.

Victor lights up a cigarette.

She asks Victor if he wants to tell them about it. He tells them that he has been having horrible nightmares, about people being skinned alive.

The leader looks to the first man. The man tells Victor that he is traveling a hard road, and that the change is a shock to the system. He says that they all have fear that plays on them all the time, even in their dreams.

After the meeting, Ed goes on about how everything was crap. He asks Victor if the session helped to stop his nightmares.

Victor, with a sudden look of terror on his face, said that they didn't.

The camera pans to show what Victor sees: Ed-without his skin.

ACT ONE
FBI TRAINING ACADEMY
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
1:47 AM
Reyes is looking at a file on Victor Potts when Doggett comes in.

She shows him the file and tells him that Potts was murdered five days ago. Doggett asks her what he's missing, and she tell him that it is the way that he was killed that matters.

Reyes takes him to Scully, who has the body laid before her on the slab.

Reyes tells Scully to show him the body. She lifts up the sheet to reveal that the man has been skinned.

Doggett tells them that he has seen similar before when dealing with Pan Asian gangs. Reyes tells him that the different is that Potts had a premonition of his death. Doggett doesn't get why that is important. She tells him that what she is saying, is that the man was skinned alive, just hours after describing it in detail.

Doggett tells her that maybe he could describe it because someone threatened him. Reyes tells him that he said that he saw it in a dream or a vision, according to the person who last spoke to him, Dr. Lisa Holland, a therapist who runs an anger management group for ex-cons.

Doggett tells her that a lifelong criminal is bound to have enemies who are capable of doing such a thing, unless he's missing something.

Scully tells them that Victor's skin was removed rather skillfully with some kind of hunting knife. The arteries and veins were left in tact in order to prolong suffering.

Reyes is acting kind of strange. Scully asks her if there is anything else, or anything special that brought the case to her attention. She tells them that there isn't, and that she just needs to solve it, and needs their help.

NOVI, VIRGINIA
9:35 AM
Doggett and Reyes meet with Detective Van Allen.

Reyes tells him that she appreciates his help on the case. He just asks sarcastically, "What help is that?" She tells him that she means help with the investigation. He tells her that there isn't much to investigate-Victor Potts wasn't one of the FBI's ten most wanted. Doggett tells him that she means insight into the way that he died. He just says that he doesn't have any, and that he's sure that they'd rather talk to someone who gives a damn.

After Van Allen walks away, Doggett tells Reyes that he hates to say it, but that's probably how most people feel about Potts.

Doggett and Reyes next go to see Holland.

She tells them that no one cares about the ex-convicts in life or death.

Reyes ask her about how Victor told them about his dream that came true. She just says simply that sometimes the past that they want to escape won't let them.

She tells them that there was a man that drove Victor there, that was all over his case the previous night. Doggett asks her if she thinks that he killed Victor. She tells him that she tries to help the men, some of whom are still violent. It's not her place to judge. Doggett tells her that there is justice to be served and she can't forget that. She tells him that she is sure that Reyes won't let her forget it.

When Reyes walks out, Van Allen stops her. He tells her that she looks really familiar, and asks if she has ever been to Novi before. She tells him that she hasn't.

MANERI MEAT PACKING
NOVI, VIRGINIA
The camera shows something being skinned. On a closer look, we see that it is a pig. Ed is the one doing the skinning.

The man from the meeting is also there, and is heading towards Ed.

Ed is not happy to see the man and is rude. He asks Ed if he knows how it happened. Ed holds up his knife and tells him to back off. The man tells him that the FBI wants to talk to him because of the way that Victor died, and that they're going to want to talk to him too. He tells him that he has nothing to tell anybody. The man says that he was messing with Victor's head. Ed tells him that he better watch what he says. The man asks him if he doesn't if he is going to kill him too.

Ed gets ready to leave and starts to walk away. The man tells him that he can't run from what he is. Ed just tells him that he will see him in hell.

As Ed walks away, the man sees him skinned. He runs outside as Ed pulls away.

FBI TRAINING ACADEMY
A man gives Scully some case files, telling her that it is everything she ever wanted to know about skinning people, but was afraid to ask. They are every case of the removal of human dermis that he could find over the last dozen years.

Scully looks over them. Most of them are postmortem skinnings. That is all he could find, and most of them are Asian gang related.

Scully stops on a file from 1960. He tells her that he probably shouldn't have included the file because it is so old.

In the file is a picture of a skilled person that looks similar to what Victor's body looked like. She tells him that the way that the skin has been stripped off is identical. He asks her how that could be, since the date of death was March 3, 1960.

PARADISE RETIREMENT COMMUNITY
COLUMBIA, MARYLAND
Scully goes to see Dr. Bertram Mueller, the man who did the autopsy of the skinned man in 1960. She tells him that she wants to ask him about an autopsy he did on a John Doe in 1960. He questions that she thinks that he will recall a case from "way back when." She tells him the details and he immediately remembers.

As he looks at the two autopsy photographs, he tells her that in all of his days he has never seen anything as inhuman as this.

Scully tells him that she hasn't been able to locate any records from the police investigation. That is because there was no investigation. The victim was a John Doe-a nobody. The sheriff figured he was a drifter, and said that he didn't want to stir up the community. Scully questions that no one called him on that. He tells her that he tried, but he guesses that he had other things on his mind at the time. Scully asks what he means, and he tells her that not long after that, he put a bullet through his head.

He asks her if she thinks it's a copycat murder, some forty years later. She tells him that if it is, it is the most perfect copy that she has ever seen. She questions though why someone would copy such an obscure murder that nobody's ever even heard of. He tells her that it was a string of murders-John Doe was only the first.

The man from before is washing pig blood down the drain when the lights go out. He tries the lights but they won't work. He looks around and pulls out his butcher knife. He calls out, asking if it is Ed. He gets no answer.

The man continues to walk around cautiously, until he sees someone. He yells to them, but there is no answer and the person moves away. The man bends down so he can see under the hanging pigs to see where the other man's feet are.

Suddenly, someone comes up behind him and knocks him out.

The man is hung upside down by his feet, identical to the pigs around him. He starts to wake up and sees what is about to be done to him as the person comes closer with a knife. He screams for them to let him go. His screams of panic turn to those of pain as his skin is stripped off and blood flows down him.

ACT TWO
Reyes walks into the church, calling for Holland. She sees a man skinned alive, but then wakes up from the nightmare.

Doggett is standing in the doorway. He was on the phone when he heard her yell out. Holland just called to tell them that there is another victim.

Doggett and Reyes arrive at the crime scene. Upon seeing the body she gets sick and runs outside. There she meets Scully, who tells her about the cases from 1960.

Inside, upon inspecting the body, Doggett realizes that the man is still alive. Doggett yells for help, and then asks the man if he knows who did it to him. He makes a noise that sounds like "Ed."

Ed is packing a suitcase, into which he also puts his knifes. He yells at his girlfriend to get out.

Upset, she walks out. She is grabbed and her mouth is covered. The camera pans back and shows that it is Doggett. She goes over with the other policemen.

Doggett goes in, but Ed runs. He yells after him and chases him. Doggett catches up with him, knocks him down, and then handcuffs him.

DOGGETT: What part of "stop right there" did you not understand?

NOVI POLICE STATION
Reyes and Doggett talk to Holland again. She doesn't think that Ed would do it. Doggett asks why he would run if he wasn't guilty.

Reyes suddenly tells Doggett that she doesn't think that they are going to find the murder weapon on him. She thinks that he is running from something else. She wants to talk to him.

Reyes talks to Ed. She tells him that she knows what he must be thinking-that she is the good cop. He tells her that there is no such thing.

She tells him that she doesn't think that he did it. She says that Victor had seen things and guesses that he has been seeing them now too.

As a few tears fall down his face, he asks her how she could know. She tells him that maybe she sees them too. She looks like she is about to cry as well.

Doggett calls her out into the other room. Van Allen tells them that Ed is not the killer-his girlfriend vouched for him, and the bartender confirmed it.

On Ed's way out, he is stopped by Holland. She tells him that he's always welcome at the group. He sees her skinned.

Scully calls Reyes and asks her to meet her at Quantico.

Scully has had two of the bodies from 1960 exhumed. She tells her that the cuts in the bones of the bodies from 1960 and those from the present case are the same. They were made with the same knife-which left a signature pattern of grooves.

Reyes asks her if she is saying that they were killed by the same man. Scully tells her that it is weirder than that. Scully tells her that the two victims from 1960 were killed on the same day that the two present victims were born.

Doggett is watching Ed's house when Reyes calls. She tells Doggett that she needs to know Ed's date of birth.

Doggett goes up to the front door and knocks, but no one answers. He looks through the window and a look of shock crosses his face. He breaks into the house and rushes across the room. Ed's skinned body lies on the table.

ACT THREE
Doggett yells at Van Allen, because Ed's house was supposed to be under twenty-four hour watch. He tells Doggett that the patrolman said that he was only gone for five minutes. Doggett tells him that that couldn't happen in five minutes. He tells Doggett that he doesn't know how long it takes, but Doggett just told him to watch him so he didn't run.

Reyes tells Doggett about the birthdays. Doggett just thinks that the killer is one "sick puppy," choosing his victims because of their birthdays. Reyes doesn't think that's what's happening. He tells her that choosing victims based on their birthdays is the very definition of a serial killer.

Reyes starts to walk over towards the table where Ed's body lies.

She tells Doggett that Ed knew he was going to die. He had a premonition of his death-just like the first victim did. He asks how she figures that. She tells him that she is involved in it some way-she has some kind of memory of it. It has all happened before and is now happening again.

Doggett asks if she means that it is a copycat and she has some kind of recall.

REYES (now in understanding): These men were born to die this way. The same way they died before.
DOGGETT: The same way they died before?
REYES: Not the men, but their souls. Their souls are murdered over and over again from one lifetime to the next, by someone who won't let them rest.

Doggett asks her how their souls are coming back, and asks if she is talking about reincarnation. She questions that he doesn't think it is strange that the victims were born on the other people's deaths. He tells her that it strikes him that the killer is clever.

Reyes looks over at the body and suddenly says, that a rag is stuffed in his mouth, dirty and black with soot.

Reyes walks over and lifts the sheet from Ed's body. She was right.

She tells him that it is coal dust from the coalmine.

Amazed, he asks her how she knew that. She tells him that she doesn't know.

Reyes and Doggett arrive at the mine. Reyes tells him that if the old records are correct, there is going to be a fourth victim.

They look into a boarded up house. Doggett decides to look in there while Reyes investigates the mine.

Reyes comes to a gate with an old lock that she easily pulls off. She enters the mine. Inside she finds a newspaper clipping about an unidentified skinned body, and one on Sheriff Hobalt's suicide.

Meanwhile, Doggett finds a skeleton.

Reyes finds more newspaper articles, one saying that a fourth skinned body was found, with no suspect, the other from 1909 stating that a lawman disappeared after trying to catch the killer. In the picture he is wearing a sheriffs badge.

Doggett inspects the skeleton closer and sees a sheriff's badge on its vest. He turns it. There is a bullet hole in the skull. Doggett also finds a gun lying beside the body.

Reyes finds another article. The heading reads: "Prospector Slain in Mining Claim Dispute." It also says that the murderers were acquitted, and justice was not served.

Reyes then sees a picture near it from a paper. It is of four men. In front of them on the ground lies a dead body, which appears to have been skinned.

Reyes looks around some more until she comes upon bloody skins of the bodies from the men that were flayed.

Suddenly Reyes hears a voice. It tells her that she shouldn't have come there.

She pulls out her gun and tells the voice that she is armed.

Suddenly the man jumps out and grabs her, covering her mouth with his hand. He tells her that she can't stop it-she never does. She always fails.

ACT FOUR
Doggett enters the mine and calls for Reyes. He finds her. She is all right. She tells him that Van Allen was there. He is the one who is killing the men. He was skinned himself in 1868 by four men in a mining dispute. His killers were never punished. Now, he's born to keep avenging that injustice again and again. Doggett reminds her that Van Allen is the cop there. She tells him that that is why the cases never get solved. Every time, there are four murders, and every time four bodies. Then he takes his own life so he can just start again. She tells him that there is still a fourth victim, and she thinks that she knows who it is.

Reyes calls Holland. She warns her that it is Van Allen and that she is the fourth victim.

Holland sees someone coming. She runs and Van Allen chases her. He tells her that she can run, but it always ends the same.

However, when they run out of the room, Reyes and Doggett are there. Van Allen stops for a second but decides to run forwards anyway. Reyes shoots him and he falls.

As he coughs up blood, he repeats to Reyes that she always fails. She yells at him not to die until he tells her what he means.

Van Allen lies in a hospital bed hooked up to machines.

Reyes stands watching. Doggett walks up behind her. He wants her to go home. There is nothing that she can learn now. She questions that he still won't believe her connection to the man. He tells her that however she did it, however she knew what she knows, what matters is that she saved Holland's life.

Doggett walks away and Scully walks up.

As they watch Van Allen through the window, Scully tells her that Doggett is trying-they all are. It's just that it's a long way to go from this (indicating the picture of the four men from the old newspaper) to this (indicating Van Allen).

REYES: Do you believe in second chances Dana? A chance to correct the mistakes we make in our lives?
SCULLY: You mean in a future life?
REYES: That's what these people were trying to do. All the victims, trying to atone for their sins and what happened in that photo. Only this man wouldn't let them.

Scully asks about Lisa Holland. Reyes tells her that she was one of the men in the picture.

SCULLY: And you?
REYES: Whoever I was, I failed-in 1868, in 1909, in 1960, I failed. I was always there but I couldn't stop the killings, and he knew that. Just like he knows I'm here right now-he feels me, the way I felt him when I saw that picture of the first victim. Somehow he knows my deepest fear-that I'll fail.
SCULLY: Well, maybe in this life you'll succeed.
REYES (now almost crying): Maybe.

Suddenly Van Allen's heart monitor rings. They try to save him as he flat lines.

The camera zooms in on his eye and out through the eye of a newborn baby. The camera pans farther away to show other newborns in the room.

IMAGES FROM "HELLBOUND"


Overall Rating : 9
*Shippy Rating: 0
*Note: OK a new note. Ratings will be completely different now because of the absence of Mulder, and therefore most likely of most of the shippiness. The ratings for this season are not equally comparable to that of previous seasons, so they will more or less be rated on their own scale, with me (trying to) disregard the fact that DD is not in it as a component in the rating. Shippiness still (if any) will ALWAYS be based on MULDER and SCULLY (unless I decide to do MR/JD or something later). The shippy scale is still based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, All Things being an 11.5, and Millennium being a 12, and Requiem a 12.5 all above the scale])*


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